…wheel nuts. Ok, the title is a little bit misleading but it caught your eye. The American car manufacturer has announced the rollout of a range of new features that allow parents to control aspects of their cars. They’ll be able to set speed limits, control the maximum volume of the stereo and send continuous audible alerts if a seatbelt is undone.

The speed limit set on the US version of the system will be 80 miles per hour - this takes differences in state regulated speed limits into consideration. Additionally, audible chimes can be set if the car exceeds 45, 55 or 65 Mph. The technology, called MyKey, will initially launch on a range of cars and trucks in the US but we’ve no doubt it will quickly make the leap across the pond.

Fords market research shows that around 75% of parents like the idea but their kids aren’t so happy - “I wouldn’t want my parents to have that much control over how I’m driving,” said 16-year-old Danisha Williams. “If your parents are holding your hand, you’re never going to learn.” A valid point from the youth of the US but the system isn’t aimed at sensible drivers but rather the reckless idiots who think it fun to drive at outrageous speeds and kill and maim. Because of the few fools, many will suffer!

Popularity: 26% [?]

Remember those little stickers on the front of your lovely new computer that said “Vista Capable”? I’m a fan of Ubuntu but I really wanted to see if Vista was all that the MS hype machine said it was. So, I’d decided to install Vista Ultimate on my “Vista Capable” laptop. Now here’s where things started to get more interesting. That little badge didn’t actually mean you could happily run the rather obese full version of Vista. It was in fact referring to the machines ability to run the stripped out version - Vista Basic! I won’t repeat any of the phrases that were uttered as I think some of them may actually be illegal.

I work in the tech industry. I have many friends in the tech industry. A large number of them had “Vista Capable” stickers on their computers…can you see where this is going?

Here we have the well oiled MS media machine churning out infomation that suggested my two month old (at the time) laptop could juggle Vista like a first class circus act. Actually, it more like a very poor comedy routine - “Oh yes he did”, “Oh no he didn’t” ad infinitum! So, heads are rolling at the top. Actually, no they aren’t.

It seems that Steve Ballmer has already exonerated himself:

I was not involved in any of the operational decisions about the Windows Vista Capable program. I was not involved in establishing the requirements computers must satisfy to qualify for the Windows Vista Capable program. I was not involved in formulating any market strategy or any public messaging surrounding the Windows Vista Capable program.

To the best of my recollection, I do not have any unique knowledge of nor did I have any unique involvement in any decisions regarding the Windows Vista Capable program. All of my knowledge about those decisions came through other people at Microsoft, notably Jim Allchin, Microsoft’s then-co-President, Platforms Products & Services, and Will Poole, Microsoft’s then Senior Vice President, Windows Client Business.

There you have. The decision was nothing to do with the management. Apparently, it was all the fault of Jim Allchin and Will Poole who have since left Microsoft.

Ballmer was called to testify in an ongoing case brought by users who feel that they may have been ‘a little mislead’ by the “Vista Capable” stickers. The Plaintiffs in the case allege that Microsoft artificially inflated demand in the run-up to Christmas 2006, by falsely advertising that PCs would be capable of running the full version of the firm’s delayed Vista operating system.

I absolutely refuse to believe that any company would attempt such underhand tactics in order to maintain an astronomically lucractive lead in a market sector!

Popularity: 52% [?]

Ask.com has been in the search game for a long time and has a history of novel ideas and innovations which have been copied by their larger search cousins. Unfortunately for Ask.com, this approach hasn’t helped grow their market share (Ask.com is currently in fourth place with about 6% of the market).

But “Try, try, try again” seems to be the mantra for Ask.com. Today sees the rollout of an updated version of its search engine - results are returned from the Web and “structured” sources of data in certain categories like entertainment, health and jobs.

Also included is an index of Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers. Ask.com Chief Executive Jim Safka said, “Some of the best content is coming from individuals, not necessarily from professional publishers,”.

Other changes include a return to two panel layout that was dropped last year in favour of three columns. If you liked the three column feel you can always select this option on the search results page. Apparently, the shiney, new Ask.com is faster and returns more relevant results for common queries than the last incarnation.

To be honest, as a search engine user I don’t care if the results come back 1.3 or 1.4 seconds. For me relevancy wins hands down. It’s good to see that Ask.com is still in the game but I don’t think these changes alone will be enough to see a significant rise in their market share.

Popularity: 51% [?]

Now does that really comes as a surprise to anyone? The monitoring system was uncovered by a group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers. Basically, the surveillance involves the tracking of internet text communications that feature banned words and phrases.

The primary target of this surveillance is the users of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay , owners of Skype.

The human rights activists discovered the system about a month ago. Apparently, they found message logging server in China which contained more than a million censored messages. By analysing the messages they were able to put together a list of banned words that had triggered the system.  If you’re wondering how human rights activists managed to ‘just access’ servers in China it’s because the machine were, apparently, misconfigured. This allowed the team to simply download the logs.

Of slightly more concern is the report that the Chinese authorities also monitored conversations between Tom-Skype users and Skype users around the world (including user id’s).

Don’t forget that China isn’t the only nation watching its citizens. Intelligence networks around the world routinely collect internet based communications, albeit for reasons other than censorship i.e. counter terrorism.

Two final points for you - banned words found on the list included;  Falun Gong, Taiwan independence and the Chinese Communist Party, democracy, earthquake and milk powder. (Chinese officials are being slammed over their handling of earthquake relief and chemical laced milk powder.)

During the recent Olympic Games, China had an estimated that 30,000 or more “Internet police” monitoring online traffic, Web sites and blogs for political and other offending content!

Popularity: 51% [?]

It’s throwback time for the internet pioneer. No, we’re not talking retro apps, look and feel but a return rather an attempt to “…bring you the best of the web so you can find it…” Err, yes. There’s not a lot I can say to that!

To be fair to Yahoo, this actually looks like a serious attempt to recapture ground they’ve lost over the past few years AND to give users what they want. According to Toby Coppel, Yahoo’s European MD, the new look site will feature a reduction on its own content, web mail that brings Facebook-like friend updates and web apps and a range of new mobile search programs.

Reading into the statements it’s look like Yahoo is keen to focus on allowing their users to customise the front page with a mix of Yahoo and third party apps. If Yahoo can get this right it should see huge gains from them - good luck.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Things haven’t been looking good for StumbleUpon just recently. First, traffic levels have been flat for some time now. Second, eBay announced the are looking to sell their acquistion after only 18 months. Although these signs don’t look promising the actual number of users registering has been steadily growing. StumbleUpon is hoping that a new web toolbar will cure the current traffic malaise (note - apparently, users are signing up but not coming back to the home page which, in turn, returns low traffic figures for the site).

The key aspect of this new toolbar is that it doesn’t require installation. No more browser plugins to slow down Firefox - I’m up for that. The toolbar works like this - it runs algorithm based on your, and other users, preferences to direct you to websites that you’ll find interesting.

To use the toolbar, simply go to StumbleUpon’s updated home page and click on one of the ‘Recommended Sites’ links and you’ll see the toolbar, complete with Stumble icon, on top of the page. Nice and easy. The one flaw with this toolbar is that many new users will unaware of what it does. In other words, it’s time to get out there and beat the StumbleUpon drum!

Popularity: 50% [?]