July 8 - 9:05pm EDT   DEVONtechnologies has released two freeware updates, launching XMenu 1.9 and EasyFind 4.5 with new features and bug fixes. XMenu has new menu icons for easier recognition and also adds a snippets menu in a cascading structure that supports the user's inserting plain and rich text snippets, clippings, and Internet location files as single menu choices. From that point large numbers of rich text can be quickly accessed for retrieval and use. Meanwhile, EasyFind 4.5 adds Quick Look support and adds extended Boolean operators found in DEVONtechnologies' lead applications. [full story]

July 3 - 12:50am EDT   Microsoft is attempting to convince Australian users to use its Live search engine by offering products from industry competitor Apple as bait through a local venture with the Nine Network, Ninemsn. The Brisbane Times reveals that the software giant is offering the iPod nano, Shuffle, and Touch to users who perform searches through Ninemsn. Ninemsn head Alex Parsons said that it would have run the contest using the Zune, but the Microsoft-made player does not currently sell in Australia. [full story]

June 29 - 11:00pm EDT   Helped by the hype of iPhone 2.0 platform and a buzz over the pending iPhone 3G announcement, the iPhone generated huge traffic for internet search engines in April. ComScore, which provides market research for advertisers, says 1.3 million Americans conducted 6.9 million iPhone-related searches in April. The word “iPhone” was the most popular term, with nearly 1.5 million searches, followed by “iPhone 2.0” and “iPhone 3G.” The vast majority of those seaches -- 88.4 percent -- went to Google, Yahoo got about 7 percent, with MSN getting less than 3 percent. [full story]

June 23 - 2:00am EDT   Geneva-based CTM Development has released FoxTrot Professional Search aimed at legal, news media and mobile users who need to find “needle in a haystack” content in large collections of data. CTM says the product is aimed at users with collections of documents saved for future reference, including PDF, HTML, word processing, e-mail and rich media metadata files. FoxTrot Professional Search is the third commercial application based on CTM’s FoxTrot Search Engine, which include CTM PowerMail 5.6.5 and FoxTrot Personal 2.0. [full story]

April 21 - 5:15pm EDT   Yenco.com has updated two of its flagship products, Agenda and Magic Dice. Agenda is a calendaring and event/take management tool. The new release, version 4.0, features multiple calendar view, repeating events, task management, a reminder application, journal editor, built-in iEvents to create calendar or journal websites, quick searching, monthly scenes, multiple window sizes, iCal import and export, and more. For a limited time users who purchase Agenda 4 will get a free Magic Dice registration code. The tool is priced at $40. Registered Agenda 3 and iEvents 2 users can also enter their existing code into the registration window for a discount. [full story]

April 15 - 2:10pm EDT   Nisus Software has announced the upcoming release of Nisus Writer Pro 1.1 Preview, the latest version of the company's alternative word processor. This release adds several new features including Comments, Mail Merge, Go to Page, and more. Also added is a Large Caret option, as well as several additions and enhancements to the Nisus Macro Language. Nisus Writer Pro 1.1 will be available later this Spring for only $80. A CD version is available for an additional $10. A three license Family Pack is available for $100. Nisus Writer Pro uses the same core as Nisus Writer Express, but sports several additional or expanded features including a Table of Contents generator, ... [full story]

April 2 - 6:55pm EDT   Baidu.com, the leading Chinese search engine, has hired Apple Inc's head of China operations for the role of chief operating officer. Reuters reports that Peng Ye, who oversaw all business operations in China for Apple as the U.S. firm's country general manager, is joining Baidu, right after ex-General Motors executive Jennifer Li accepted the post of chief financial officer. Ye will officially joing the company on April 25. Baidu is bigger than Google in China, the number 2 Internet market in the world behind the United States. [full story]

March 3 - 12:40pm EST   RAGE Software today released RAGE SEKeyword 1.1, a free application for website owners designed to discover niche keywords among Web searches. The software uses Yahoo! Search technology to find the most relevant keywords for a particular website, according to RAGE, and suggests the most popular searched keywords based on site content. RAGE SEKeyword 1.1 informs users about what search engine keywords competitors are targeting by reading the meta keywords of competing sites. The software is available for free, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. [full story]

January 30 - 8:10pm EST  In brief: Apple jumps to number 10 in search activity, a new book on backing up in Leopard debuts, a user has compiled a list of closed-captioned movies on iTuns, Encore and PlayFirst are teaming up for Mac games, and Rocket Raid cards are now certified for Matrox ... The unveiling of the MacBook Air has caused a surge in search activity for Apple, which ranks #10 on the Lycos 50 top 10 search terms for the Week Ending Jan. 26, 2008. Apple jumped from the number 17 spot on last week's list. In other news, former President Bill Clinton sees more search interest this week than his wife, presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton. Search activity for Mr. Clinton is up 1,400 percent. [full story]

January 8 - 3:35pm EST   Yahoo recently introduced Yahoo Go 3.0 at CES 2008, an update to its suite of internet utilities for mobile devices. Revisions to Yahoo Go were based on customer feedback, such as an updated user interface with many new features, a personalized start page, and support for third-party “widget” plugins. The new interface is designed to be both aesthetically pleasing, while maintaining a high level of functionality, optimizing the small screen on most cell phones. Users can view available components in either the traditional icon view, or the new carousel layout. [full story]

January 5 - 12:55pm EST   Efiko Software recently unveiled iClueless for iPhone and iPod touch users, a web-based software suite that enables users to find near anything on the internet. iClueless can find both the standard and mobile versions of a web page, enabling it to customize the browsing experience for either WiFi or the 2G network. The application can search Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, ESPN, Amazon, and many other service listings. iClueless is available free of charge, and works through the embedded Safari browser on either device. [full story]

December 14 - 10:50am EST   Search terms involving the iPhone have placed extremely high in Google's 2007 rankings, the company has announced. As a part of its Zeitgeist 2007 report, it notes that "iphone" was the fastest-rising search term of the year, in the US and worldwide, beating out "badoo," "facebook" and numerous other competitors. The term also did reasonably well as one of the most popular news searches of the year, coming in at number six; "american idol," "youtube" and "britney spears" represented the top three. [full story]