Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection

Microsoft this morning detailed changes to Internet Explorer 9's security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions.

The feature, which is set to arrive in the first release candidate of IE9 early next year, uses a list to tell the browser which third-party page elements sites can and cannot be blocked from tracking. This includes elements ranging from advertisements to more mundane things like embedded widgets from particular providers.

On Microsoft's IE blog, Dean Hachamovitch, head of Internet Explorer development, explained how it works:

A Tracking Protection List (TPL) contains Web addresses (like msdn.com) that the browser will visit (or "call") only if the consumer visits them directly by clicking on a link or typing their address. By limiting the calls to these Web sites and resources from other Web pages, the TPL limits the information these other sites can collect.

You can look at this as a translation of the "Do Not Call" list from the telephone to the browser and web. It complements many of the other approaches being discussed for browser controls of Do Not Track.

In a Webcast announcing the feature, Hachamovitch said most users have "little awareness of who can track their activity," and that the feature stemmed from that. Hachamovitch also attributed the creation of the feature to the company's more open approach to developing features for IE9.

Microsoft's tracking protection tool gives users control over
 which site elements can track your activity during a browsing session.
Green ones in this shot can, while the red cannot.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Microsoft is letting users and third-parties alike author protection lists and
 host them on their sites. Users can then download them to their browser.
Microsoft has also created lists to resemble what Hachamovitch likened to
 an RSS feed, so that if additional sites are added or removed, it can be
updated without the user having to seek out, or manually update.

Hachamovitch said tracking protection will not replace InPrivate filtering, a feature Microsoft added to IE in version 8. Instead, Hachamovitch referred to it as complementary, given that InPrivate filtering uses algorithms to control tracking, along with not persisting from session to session. Tracking protection, on the other hand, will remain on once a user turns it on.

Microsoft says tracking protection will not be on by default when it arrives next year. Users will need to opt-in to enable it, as well as seek out lists of sites, which will not ship with the browser once it's released.

So far, Microsoft's IE9 beta has been downloaded in excess of 15 million times since its release back in September.

Google shows Chrome notebook, Web Store

SAN FRANCISCO--The Chrome OS hardware Google promised in July of last year is still not ready for prime time. But if you're a developer or an eager early adopter, you're in luck.

At an event today here in the city's Dogpatch neighborhood Google showed us the not-yet-finished hardware that will run Chrome OS. It's called Cr-48, and it's not much to look at: a plain, black, unbranded notebook that companies and individual users who are accepted into Google's pilot program can use.

Google unveils a prototype Chrome OS notebook called the Cr-48.

(Credit: CNET )

The actual Chrome OS notebooks that normal people can buy, from Samsung and Acer, are delayed until mid-2011. When Google initially pitched the idea last year, it said we'd be seeing them right about now.

But we did learn about a lot of features we'll eventually see in the hardware when it does arrive:

• Every Chrome notebook will work with Verizon 3G service. Each user gets 100MB of free data per month for two years. You can also buy different plans, the first starting at a day pass for $9.99. There are no overage charges or cancellation or setup fees.
• There are options to have different user IDs on the same machine as well as a guest mode with completely private ("Incognito") browsing.
• Your experience with setting up and using Chrome will be the same no matter what machine you're using. Everything is synced through the browser.
• They worked hard on tying the browser directly to the hardware for security purposes. There is auto updating, sandboxing at the OS level, and all user data is encrypted by default.
• There's also something called Verified Boot. Verified Boot makes sure that the OS is in the read-only firmware of the computer, so no software can modify it. When you boot Chrome OS, it checks to make sure nothing has been modified. Google is calling it "the most secure consumer operating system that's ever been shipped."

In the department of products that are actually ready for public consumption, today we are getting the Chrome Web Store. It had been previewed before, but it's finally ready to go. The New York Times, Electronic Arts, Amazon, and Citrix demonstrated their apps for an audience of journalists and Googlers here today.

The store is integrated with the Google Checkout payment system so you can just click to buy and download apps. Some subscription apps have free trial mode, and some, like the New York Times app, work offline.

The Web Store will be ready for anyone to use "later today," according to the event host, Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai. It's made to work with the Chrome browser, but it does work with other "modern browsers," according to Google.

We also got an update on Chrome browser features:

• Automatic updates
• Browser sandboxing. If a bad piece of code gets in your browser it won't be able to get to the rest of your computer's data.
• Plug-in sandboxing. They're starting to do the same thing with browser plug-ins like Flash and PDF.

CEO Eric Schmidt stopped by for a few minutes near the end of the presentation to talk up Chrome, specifically noting that he was against it when co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said they wanted to be in the browser business. Schmidt said he tried to block the project but the co-founders went ahead and hired a team of browser experts that had worked on Firefox.

Apple Renames iPhone OS 4 to iOS 4!

Steve Jobs used the new iPhone 4 announcement to announce a tweak to the iPhone ecosystem - from iPhone OS to iOS.

The new move means the likes of the Apple iPhone 4, iPad, iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch will all be using the new platform, rather than the iPhone leading the pack.

The new operating system brings a number of updates as we've already detailed, but Jobs used the keynote to show how they worked within the new iPhone 4.

Everyone has iAds!

iAds was shown fully working, with a cool Nissan electric car application wowing the audience (well, as much as a new advert for a car you plug in can) and Jobs said that advertisers have committed $60 million to the iAds platform.

Folders were also demonstrated, with the ability to rename groups of applications as you see fit, and the iBooks application was also shown off with a few tiny upgrades like being able to read PDF files.

DAIRY MILK.............

Cadbury Dairy Milk is a brand of chocolate bar made by the Cadbury plc unit of Kraft Foods (except for the United States where the product is marketed by The Hershey Company) and sold in several countries around the world. It first went on sale in the United Kingdom in 1905.

History

In June 1905, Cadbury launched its first Dairy Milk bar, with a higher proportion of milk than previous chocolate bars, and it becomes the company's best selling product by 1913. George Cadbury Jnr, responsible for the development of the bar, has said "All sorts of names were suggested: Highland Milk, Jersey and Dairy Maid. But when a customer’s daughter suggested Dairy Milk, the name stuck.". Fruit and Nut was introduced as part of the Dairy Milk line in 1928, soon followed by Whole Nut in 1933. In 1933 dairy milk when out of production briefly then came back in 1934. By this point, Cadbury's was the brand leader in the United Kingdom. In 1928, Cadbury's introduced the "glass and a half" slogan to accompany the Dairy Milk bar.