Last week, a study by German antivirus testing company AV-Test claimed that Microsoft’s Bing delivered “five times as many websites containing malware as Google.” Unsurprisingly, Microsoft does not agree with these findings and today, the company released a full rebuttal of AV-Test’s study. The researchers, Bing argues, used its API to execute queries instead of performing its searches directly on Bing.com. This methodology, however, Microsoft claims, bypassed Bing’s malware warning system. Bing, Microsoft’s senior program manager for Bing David Felstead not... Read similar

Last week, Google finally released the developer guides and other necessary documents that will allow developers to write apps for Glass. In some respects, the so-called Mirror API may have been a disappointment to developers who were expecting to run full-blown augmented-reality apps, but even in its current form, it will allow developers to create new experiences for their new and existing apps that just weren’t possible before. One thing many developers may not have realized before Google published these documents is that the API is essentially an old-school RESTful service. The only ... Read similar

WordPress.com now offers hotel, inn and bed and breakfast owners and managers the ability to showcase their properties with the help of a new responsive theme just for hotels. In addition, the service also today launched a special site dedicated to showing hotel owners how they can use the service to promote their properties. For WordPress.com, adding this hotel vertical is part of a now-familiar pattern. Over the last few months, WordPress.com has been making a concerted effort to launch special verticals for businesses like restaurants and use cases like sites for schools and personal portfo... Read similar

Just in time for Earth Day, Google just launched version 7.1 of Google Earth Pro, the professional version of Google’s desktop-based mapping tool. The new version adds a number of map-making and advanced printing tools that will make it easier for businesses to create legends and scales for their maps and to add titles to them. The new Viewshed tool now also allows users to identify and calculate viewpoints and sightlines from any placemark you set in Google Earth. As Google notes, the Viewshed tool allows users to, for example, see the visual impact of a building project on surrounding ... Read similar

Google+ is finding its way into every Google product, and AdWords is no exception. Starting today, AdWords advertisers can easily highlight their Google+ follower counts in their enhanced campaigns. On average, Google says, ads with these follower counts have “a 5-10% higher click-through rate” than regular ads. The company, it seems, tested these new ads with the help of a number of major brands, including Red Bull, National Geographic and H&M. Here is what these ads look like: To be eligible to show these annotations, businesses need to have a Google+ page with a verified URL... Read similar

Gengo, an increasingly popular online translation service that uses a network of more than 7,500 pre-screened and rated translators to provide high-quality translations in 33 languages, announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round. The round was led by Intel Capital, with participation from Iris Capital, Infocomm, NTT-IP and Saudi Telecom Ventures, as well as returning investor Atomico. The service previously raised a total of $6.8 million, including a $5.25 million series A round led by Atomico and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups. McClure is also a Gengo board member. The fact t... Read similar

Exadel’s Tiggzi online mobile app development service for iOS, Android and Windows Phone launched almost exactly a year ago and today, the company is officially rebranding it as Appery.io. The reason for this change, the company told me, is to “reflect the evolution of Appery.io as well as to support where [the] platform is headed. ” The service always stood out from its competition because it focused strongly on connecting apps to existing RESTful APIs, making it more flexible than most similar visual drag-and-drop app building tools on the market. In addition, Appery.io als... Read similar

Earlier this week, Google launched its new Google+-powered commenting system for Blogger, but it’s not clear when the company plans to release it for the rest of the web. Now, however, intrepid developer Brandon Holtsclaw has managed to bring the Google+ commenting system to any WordPress blog. While Google’s code for the new commenting system isn’t optimized for WordPress or other sites yet, it’s actually quite portable and seems to work without problems. Looking at Holtsclaw’s code, it looks like packaging Google+ comments into a WordPress plugin is actually pre... Read similar

Akamai published its quarterly “State of the Internet” report for the last quarter of 2012 today. The report, as usual, looks at global Internet speeds, as well as the state of Internet security, the number if IPv4 numbers in use and other similar metrics. Internet speeds, of course, are the most interesting numbers for users in this report. South Korea has long been in the lead in this category, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Interestingly, though, the average Internet speed in South Korea has slowed down a bit lately. At an average speed of 14 Mbps, South Kor... Read similar

Telefonica’s TokBox announced a huge upgrade to its OpenTok on WebRTC service today. TokBox’s new cloud-based Mantis media distribution framework is designed to overcome some of WebRTC’s limits with regard to video distribution. By default, WebRTC is a peer-to-peer platform, but that makes it hard to scale video chats beyond two participants. With Mantis, TokBox essentially puts its own cloud infrastructure in the middle of these calls and is then able to route and manage calls that include multiple participants without using a prohibitive amount of bandwidth and using a comp... Read similar