VeriSign Identity Protection

VeriSign Inc. (verisign.com/dm/vip), a provider of intelligent infrastructure services for Internet and telecommunications networks, today announced the launch of VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP), a solution that will help provide identity protection for consumers who conduct business online.

VIP is supported by online companies such as PayPal, eBay and Yahoo!. Additionally, technology partner SanDisk has announced plans to support VIP by manufacturing and distributing OATH compliant USB mass-storage and trusted flash devices, while Motorola plans to lend its support in enabling this technology on consumer mobile devices.

VIP is a modern approach to combating digital identity theft targeted for both consumers and online services that demand identity protection. The solution will allow consumers to use a single security device to authenticate themselves across any future VIP-enabled Web site of network members, such as PayPal, eBay or Yahoo!, claims the company. It includes shared authentication network, multi-factor authentication, fraud detection and fraud intelligence network.

Launch Dates for .mobi Domain Announced

Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD) (mtld.mobi) the registry for .mobi (dotmobi) domain, today announced the rollout plan for the new .mobi mobile-friendly domain name.

The rollout will commence with the 'Sunrise Registration Period' for trademark holders in June 2006, followed by the 'General Registration' in September.

According to the company, the Sunrise Period will be unique in this case as mTLD plans to offer the mobile industry in the end of May a week of advance period to register their trade and service marks. This period is referred as the 'Limited Industry Sunrise'.

After the Limited Industry Sunrise, all companies will be able to register their trade and service mark names as a second level dotmobi domain name from June to August 2006. Dotmobi will then be available for registration by the general public in September 2006.

Google Desktop 3 Beta

Google Inc., yesterday announced that it is launching Google Desktop 3 Beta, the latest version of its flagship desktop application.

The new features in Google Desktop 3 make finding and sharing information even easier for our users, says the company. With this version, company has added new ways for users to customize the Sidebar, share information with friends, and search for content no matter where it resides. Google Desktop is a free downloadable application and runs on Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+. The new version is currently available in English but will be offered in 15 international languages by the end of the quarter.

With Desktop 3, users can now customize and view any combination of personalized information (photos, weather, news, maps, stock quotes, and more) - anywhere on their desktop that's relevant to them, search the text of their documents and viewed web pages across all their computers andeasily share content from their Sidebar with a friend, including news, websites, games and more.

Other new features include: advanced search forms for helping users build advanced queries, spelling suggestions for users' queries, the ability to disable indexing, the addition of zip file indexing, and an improved preferences page.


On February 8, 2006, Google also announced the launch of Gmail Chat, the first integration of email and instant messaging in the browser that offers users a seamless communications experience. Gmail Chat enables Gmail users to quickly and easily reach their contacts from directly within their existing Gmail account.