A new search engine has come to our attention this week. Not that there is not enough search engines on the web these days, but this one is a little special.

Hackers are used to crawl the web for potential security leaks, but now it seems that someone think that it should be more common to the public to find the same information.

Starting this week SHODAN make there search engine available to the public, i.e. with a few key strokes and common knowledge about internet security your first hacker attempt could be possible.

Example: To find a Linksys router in Denmark that is configured with default username and password takes less then 1 minute.

What the information is going to be used for we can only imagine, but my best guess is that quite a few people would feel tempted to go "all the way"

Is it so hard to do something positive with such a tool? Why not warn the owners of the web sites about the security risk they have - not only to have there own servers and intranets hacked BUT also the security risk they oppose to the complete internet community by allowing botnets and other evil stuff to work from there sites.

At TechnologyCrawler we will try to take the positive approach!
Do any of our readers have good ideas how to approach the problem ?- please leave a comment

What you get in this release:

• Sync Google Chrome bookmarks across multiple computers in seconds
• 30% increase in speed!

Dear Technology Crawler reader,
I would like to share 10 Google Wave invites to the readers with the best reasons for obtaining one.

Leave your comment incl. your e-mail
PS: If you do not have the time to write a reasonable explanation about your expectations from the invite I will probably disregard your request

Good luck

Interview: Danish Lars Rasmussen is in the process of shaping the development of the Internet with Google Wave. Version2 met him in Vienna and heard what the future plans for Google's new tool would be.

Interview made by JESPER KILDEBOGAARD from Version 2

More easily find relevant blogs, reviews and other public content from your social circle. 


Select to participate in the Google Experimental Labs function for Google Social Search

Sign in to Google and do a search. If there's relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called "Results from people in your social circle."

To see even more social content you can click the "Show options" link at the top of the results page and then click on the "Social" link.

What is your social circle? It's a combination of your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you're publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed). Learn more about social search.


As to few people is making use of the possibility to add there profile on Google the experiment will at the moment have limited results...but lets give the guys a chance

Normally we do not report about Hardware news in Technology Crawler, but the next generation CUDA GPU 
from NVIDA also add new possibilities from a software point of view as C++ is supported. If you like to have 
supercomputer capacity "under the hood" this would be our choice

With this video you can see how Salesforce.com imagine the use of Google Wave. The background story for the video can be found here

SAP has also seen the possibilities in Google Wave and made a prototype on collaborative business Process Modelling. See the rationale for embracing Google wave and a stunning demo Video of the Wave in action.

So, beside of the 30.000 developers trying to be in the forefront in the development of Google Wave and potential getting a stake in the new technology, it is great to see that some of the big vendors also see a potential in collaboration.

From a management perspective it is a real case study of modern global software development to see the 2 danish brothers, Lars and Jens Rasmussen, manage such a huge resource-pool prototyping there way through analysis, architecture, design, implementation in iterations and at the same time keeping the business and media circus happy, e.g. During the last week Microsoft helplessly had to watch the flagship, Internet explorer, being high jacked with the Google Chrome Frame. Thereby Google potentially gained access to further 70 % of the browser marked enabling the company to introduce Google Wave in a scale nobody thought possible 

On Wednesday Google is sending 100.000 invitations to preview the new Google Wave.

The invitations go to Developers, the first who signed up and offered feedback, and selected customers of Google Apps.

If you are one of the lucky 100k, you are more then welcome to write an article about your impression on Technology Crawler

Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Essential in Beta today.

As Microsoft is not accepting more participants in the Beta program, you either have to wait for a final release...or, get a free download here ;-) If you choose the later alternative you will get the possibility to upgrade to version 1.0.1500.0 after the first Quick Scan. As Microsoft can can stop this hole in the sign-up process, you better be fast.

The installation is quite hazel free, though Microsoft recommends to remove other antivirus programs before the installation - performance issues I presume - but how wise is it?

The first "Quick" scan is announced to 'take several minutes' - a small understatement as it takes almost 1 hour , and better be prepared to use a similar amount of time to upgrade.

My first scan did not reveal any viruses or spyware, and now I am waiting for the new installation to finish, but  I decided to reveal the "alternative" to my readers before it is to late.

Good luck

This morning Danish national television, TV2, had a news article about the most expensive (0.5 bn US$) privately owned luxury yacht in the world.

'Eclipse' is owned by the Russian millionaire Roman Abramovich and according to the article it contains Laser shields, armor and defense against missile attack.

With the help from Technology Crawler, and marinetraffic.com, the article was immediately updated with a near real-time track-map of the route 'Eclipse' is taking. The ship is in Danish waters in order to complete an adjustment below the water line.

    

According to the MS Office Web Apps Team a technical preview of the Web Apps was granted a selected group of Windows Live users today.

The Windows Live Web services is scheduled for release in Q2, 2010 and will consist of Excel, Word, Powerpoint and OneNote capability in your browser

"If you weren’t one of the folks that received an invitation today, sign up for early notification about Office 2010 Beta and we will let you know when you can try it out too " - says the Office Web Apps team

Some techniques never get outdated no matter if you are using Lean/agile methodologies in software R&D environments or use more rigid methodologies in e.g. production environments.

One of these techniques are Peer Review - nothing "new under the sun", but the tool you choose to accommodate a bulletproof peer review can be of high importance to your success - and a fast ROI.

Callis - a Danish start-up, provides a state of the art MS Word plug-in, Callis Reviewer, that will make it work in your company from day 1. Using the latest Web2.0 technologies you get all the support to conduct collaborative peer reviews and benefit from the - always visible - status of a review.

Beside of the easy integration to your existing environment the package also include training material and functionality that will satisfy the most agile co-workers as well as the PM and QA managers.

Don't waste money, introduce Peer Reviews in your organisation now.

Not more then a week ago I called Google a "factory". The reason why I did that is the fact that Google have so much manpower that it enables the company to produce new services and features almost in the pace the users expect the company to. Last week I listed an incomplete (60+) number of Google services. This week a new Lab-service is introduced called Google Fast Flip.

"Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches."


I do not think that my 'Technology Crawler' blog will be immediately redundant by this new introduction, but in time it can be a good alternative to get fast information about a subject from well-established news-papers/magazines compared to using RSS readers, e-mail agents, etc.


You almost get the look and feel having a paper in your hands, and by a stunning fast page flip you actually only miss the smell of a recently printed paper.


At the moment the only drawback is a limited number (39) of publishers willing to be part of the service, but if one of the papers/magazines are among your favorites, I can only recommend to give it a try.

100.000 people (non-developers) can't wait getting there invite to join the community of Google Wave users the 30. September 2009. Well, probably and statistically some of us have to wait a little longer before a Google Wave beta is rolled-out.

But what is all the fuss about? is it just a great PR stunt?....I do not think so!
Take 10 min. to see the Google presentation video, and you will get an idea of what it is all about. In short it is an attempt to make a collaborative communication media using well known technologies as e-mail, chat, blog, document, social network, and less known/used 'web 2' technologies.

The 2 Danish brothers, Jens & Lars Eilstrup Rasmussen is heading the Google Wave project, as they did with Google Map, so from a technical point of view I am confident that they will make it a success, but..

The 'Wave' communication form can turn out to be to big a challenge for ordinary users to get used to, whereas the young generation of internet users probably will "surf on the Wave" because they are used to online, real time collaboration already. On the other hand, nobody thought that the older generation would "jump" on Facebook as first-time internet users!

For sure I can't wait to get hands-on experience with Google Wave, what about you?

Marine Traffic is an AIS mapping system using Google Maps to visualize global marine traffic. Get online, near real time, info about a vessel in your choice of area, including position, direction, speed, name, picture, etc. It is even possible to show the route the vessel has taken.

If you are looking for an alternative to you expensive licensed diagramming tool, e.g. MS Visio, you should take a look at the offer from Creately and take advantage of having this web-based service working for you in the cloud.