eu

Eu. It's the sound you make when someone forces their fist into your imperfectly-conditioned gut. It's the sound that some might describe as a large, dissatisfied grunt.

Which is what its mayor seems to be emitting every time she looks at Google search results for her beloved French town.

When you google 'Eu', you get plenty of results for that bastion of energy, the European Union. You get some that refer to the past participle of the French verb 'to have.' But you have to work very, very hard to find reference to this lovely market town in … Read more

Google wants to help the European Commission prove antitrust charges against Microsoft related to the software giant's dominance of the Web browser market.

The Web search giant, which recently released its Chrome Web browser, announced Tuesday that it is applying to be a "third party" in the European proceedings, which will entitle it to receive access to confidential documents in the case and the ability to voice objections. Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president for product management, explained the company's reasoning in a company blog:

Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which … Read more

The EU-Browser is supposed to be a portal to European Union sites, but its poor design and lack of any common browser features got nowhere with us.

EU-Browser takes over your entire screen. There are no command buttons, URL fields, or any other browser-related features. We kept clicking the Enter button until we reached a page that contained several menu items on the left side of the window, but they were cut off from view and unreadable. A list of various European Union resource links appeared in the middle of the page, and we were able to pull up their … Read more

An investigation into the possibility of tapping Internet telephony conversations has been launched by the European Union's Judicial Cooperation Unit, also known as Eurojust.

Italy is leading the Europe-wide feasibility study, announced on Friday. The Italian government has cited concerns that organized criminals and arms and drug traffickers are using VoIP services such as Skype to avoid traditional, more easily tapped phone networks.

"The possibility of intercepting Internet telephony will be an essential tool in the fight against international organized crime within Europe and beyond," said Carmen Manfredda, Eurojust's acting national member for Italy, in a … Read more

In this episode we find out that Hulu might be getting stomped, the government is spying on you through DTV boxes, and Natali prefers wrestling to cuddling. Seriously. She just doesn't like the word cuddling. But when a wrestling match offers to advertise Buzz Out Loud she's all for it.

Hulu being removed from Boxee http://blog.hulu.com/2009/2/19/doing-hard-things http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10167152-93.html

Judge throws out lawsuit against Google Street View http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/judge-throws-out-lawsuit-against-google-street-view.ars

Pirate Bay floats safe … Read more

While European regulators are showing a continued interest in regulating Microsoft, the Obama administration may have its sights set elsewhere.

In a speech in June, the woman nominated to be the new administration's antitrust chief said that Google, not Microsoft, is the big competitive worry.

"For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem," Christine Varney said at a June 19 panel, according to Bloomberg News, which unearthed the comments this week. In the same speech, Varney said that Google poses a threat because it already "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online … Read more

That and other important questions are answered in today's show, where we're joined by John C. Dvorak in dissecting the new Facebook Terms of Service, the New Zealand blackout over copyright law, and the last-minute saving of SiriusXM. Also, give your boys the violent video games. They need them.

Day one of U.S. TV transition only 114 more to go http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

Facebook’s new terms of service: “we can do anything we want with your content. Forever.” http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever

Facebook … Read more

While I got a little steamed at the Author's Guild, and Natali essentially admitted she's a runaway bride, the big event in this show is the possessed computer. It appears some 404 friends of guest Jeff Bakalar monkeyed with Nat's computer during the show. Unprofessional, I say! We will get to the bottom of this.

New CNET widgets http://www.cnet.com/widgets/

Report: Sirius XM preparing to file for bankruptcy http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/report-sirius-xm-preparing-to-file-for-bankruptcy/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10161185-93.html

Authors Guild upset with … Read more

Updated at 3:45 p.m. PST with Intel comments.

On Tuesday, an EU court rejected Intel's bid to delay a deadline for the chipmaker to address antitrust concerns.

In October, Intel filed a petition with the Court of First Instance, Europe's second-highest court, asking for a delay in the investigation by the European Commission so the company could gain access to additional documents to bolster its defense.

The world's largest chipmaker is accused by the European Commission of giving rebates to a large retailer with the aim of discouraging the retailer from using chips from rival … Read more