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Yahoo has given their webmail app and their toolbar each a facelift, incorporating many new features into the apps which today must compete with the integration-rich Gmail. Yahoo's tactics are, of course, to include more integration, and the new version provides that with built-in support for things like Yahoo Music, Yahoo TV and more.

On the mailbox side, Yahoo is offering what it calls a “smarter inbox”, a welcome page combined with a prioritization system. It also includes integration with multiple Yahoo services, as well as the ability to provide instant access to third-party services as well. The latter is probably the most important part, and where Yahoo expects to see the most feature-richness come from. They want to see users accessing things like Flickr accounts, blogs and more through their mail account. They're also including Yahoo Updates along with the new mail package.

On the toolbar side they've provided new email features, personalized searching and other functionality. The company, ailing as they are, has a massive user base with which to help them recover.

Earlier today an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal claiming it had obtained some paperwork proving that Google approached major phone and cable companies “with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content.” This initiated a wave of heated comments criticizing the search giant for supposedly backing off its net neutrality stance and seeking preferential treatment for its traffic – Google, of course, has strongly denied the charge.

At the heart of the discussion is “edge caching,” which is the practice of putting frequently accessed data on servers located near end users so that content is loaded faster when others in a network have presumably already accessed it. This is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content providers such as Akamai to improve bandwidth usage and minimize bottlenecks on ISPs’ pipelines.

Thus a number of websites have found WSJ’s report a bit misguiding, some even calling it an attempt to stir up controversy and attract attention, particularly because while the alleged deal would indeed make Google’s services faster and more responsive, it won’t do so at the expense of other non-Google services.

Google for its part reaffirmed its commitment with net neutrality and emphasized that these deals won't be exclusive, saying any content provider could get the same sort of deals if they are willing to pay the price – as it has always been. In turn, this opens up a whole new debate on whether such deals are congruent to the entire net neutrality concept, given that smaller companies probably won’t have the cash to spring for Google-style co localization schemes.

A few weeks back, Google began rolling out a Gmail Labs feature that enabled people to send text messages to cell phones within the US, but had to pull it back when a showstopper bug related to message transmission was found. Google hopes the second time will be a charm, though, and has finally brought back the SMS feature for their web-based email service.

To use it, one must first enable it through Gmail Labs and then simply input the contact’s 10 digit US cell phone number into the chat box on the left. Those who receive SMS messages from the service will get a unique return phone number from the 406 area code to which they can respond. According to Google, messages from the same person will always come from the same number, so you can even bookmark it in your phone and be sure messages will be delivered to the right person.

Of course, many cell phone users in the US get charged on a per-message-received basis, so if you want to avoid hefty bills just reply “block” or “stop” to either block a specific contact from texting you or stop the service altogether.

Google has announced that it is teaming up with a slew of publishers to bring old magazines back to life, by making them available online. The move is yet another step towards their goal of organizing the world’s information and comes two years after the tech search giant embarked on a scheme to scan and index millions of books.

The magazines have been scanned and digitized, and are presented alongside Book Search results using a similar interface to the one Google recently developed for archived newspapers. The new offering allows users to browse magazine covers and look into individual issues, which will be available exactly the same way as they first appeared in print, including all the ads. Among the more notable publications are Popular Science, Men's Health, Maximum PC, and New York Magazine. Also, as part of the deal, magazine publishers are getting links leading users back to the publication's site.

It's no secret that Google wants Gmail to be a lot more than just your email client, and today the company has taken yet another step in that direction with the introduction of a lightweight to-do list called Tasks for the popular webmail service. To activate it, you will have to go to Settings/Labs in your Gmail account and right at the top you will find the Tasks module.

It's a relatively simple feature, but could prove really useful for those who want way to get organized without leaving Gmail. You can add tasks and reorder them, and of course, cross out the completed ones. You can also convert emails into tasks, in a similar way to Apple’s Mail app on Mac OSX or Outlook on Windows machines.

There are still some important features missing. For instance, you can’t share tasks with others and the service lacks integration with Google Calendar. Still, it’s simple, it’s free, it’s portable and it works. As a side note, if Gmail Tasks is too lightweight for your needs, then you might want to check out Remember the Milk which also works within Gmail and supports offline usage through Google Gears.

Is satellite getting ready to become a much more attractive option for Internet? A California-based company is getting ready to launch a satellite into orbit within the next 3 years that promises to be the fastest satellite in the world in terms of how much data throughput it can sustain. The ViaSat-1 is expected to be launched sometime in 2011 and have a transfer capacity of 100 Gigabits per second, offering enough bandwidth to deliver 2Mbps service to 2 million people.

The biggest impact this would have for satellite services is a massive cost reduction in satellite traffic. Currently, most satellite providers impose low download limits, including both daily and monthly transfer limits. This can be a hindrance on the modern web, where streaming video is becoming a daily affair. According to some early estimations, the ViaSat-1 will be able to provide satellite bandwidth at only a tenth of the cost. Furthermore, the new satellite will offer more capacity than all current North American satellites combined.

Satellite service will hardly be able to compete with land-based connections for low-latency applications, such as games, but is often the only option left for people who live in areas where DSL, Cable, Cellular and Wireless Internet are not available. In large countries like the U.S. and Canada, that's still a considerable portion of the population – satellite remains as their last option, and unfortunately it tends to be a very expensive one. Perhaps with 100 Gigabits in the sky, it'll become a more affordable experience for those who want it.

If you've been using Netflix streaming through a standalone solution like the the self-branded Roku device or the Xbox 360 client, you may have been troubled recently by a lack of picture quality. Compared to a PC streaming on the same connection, users were often unable to get full quality videos, despite of having plenty of bandwidth available.

Though Netflix never mentioned how widespread the problem was, they at least admitted it was a problem on their end and said they were working on a fix. All necessary changes and fixes have now been made, according to the company. Netflix won't elaborate on what caused the issue, but they certainly didn't try to shirk away from it and have already dealt with it, so kudos to them.

Following the widescreen format adoption for all of its videos last week, YouTube has finally added the long overdue option to watch videos in high definition, without the need for any URL hacks that is. Although there's been no official statement from the company yet, it appears that on any uploaded videos with a suitably high-resolution users will see a new option to “watch in HD.”

The difference is quite noticeable – you can get a taste of YouTube in HD by watching this MSI Wind review. The move will inevitably translate into higher bandwidth costs for Google, but it also paves the way for more professional content on the site, where advertisers will ultimately put their brands and money next to. Unfortunately there's currently no easy way to see all the HD videos available on YouTube, nor are there options to embed HD videos on external sites or to automatically have the HD version play in your browser.

Google has introduced another tool today, this one aimed at people who host web pages and want to be a little more connected to their users. Dubbed Friend Connect, the new Google tool (in beta, naturally) is designed to be plugged into any website to offer a communications medium of sorts for people that visit the site. Only slightly similar to the “Guestbooks” of the past, the attraction of Friend Connect is that your same username can follow you to any website that adopts the service, using an existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID.

They're offering a video tour of the tool. It was initially demonstrated earlier in this year, and this is the first time it's been made publically available. Will it take off? We'll see.

It was a long time coming, but Google is finally ready to bring Gmail to the desktop. The search giant has unveiled a new and much anticipated gadget that allows Google Desktop users to check their Gmail accounts without running a full-blown email client or even having to fire up the browser.

The new gadget will allow users to read, star, search and send Gmail messages while in Google Desktop, according to the company, while supporting other useful features like keyboard shortcuts and multiple accounts. The app is currently Windows-only and requires Google Desktop version 5 or higher, leaving Mac and Linux users out in the cold for now.

Recently BitTorrent has toyed with the idea of switching to a UDP-based transmission method as opposed to the current TCP-based method. The new protocol was designed to combat network congestion, but it almost immediately came under fire with reports claiming it would destroy network traffic. Claims were made that the UDP-based protocol would make P2P traffic more unmanageable than ever, bringing services like VoIP to their knees and rendering networks dead in the water or slowed to a fraction of their normal speed.

In response to these, BitTorrent who created the new protocol has said that such claims are absolute falsehoods. They add that the report is inaccurate in how it describes or interprets their new protocol. To the contrary, BitTorrent says the new protocol will actually make torrent traffic more neutral and fairer, becoming more sensitive to high latency.

In this instance I'm inclined to agree with BitTorrent developers. The report made many generalizations regarding torrent traffic, and makes some pretty bold claims as to what this new protocol will do. I certainly don't foresee VoIP traffic being “destroyed” by torrents.

Cloud computing is becoming a big topic, and as more companies offer such services, there’s more demand for an operating system that can integrate with them. Even the latest desktop Linux distros, Mac OS X and Vista are still not designed with cloud computing in mind, though, and it'll take a radical change to make an OS that truly “integrates” with the cloud.

Good OS seeks to do just that, with the announcement of “Cloud,” a Linux-based operating system intended to be used solely with Internet-based services. The OS “uniquely” integrates a browser into the system, designed to boot extremely fast and give someone instant access to cloud computing services. The OS is apparently intended to be coupled side-by-side with a standard desktop OS, such as Windows, which can then later be booted on demand. The quick-booting software is due in the beginning of January, where it will be demoed at CES.

Cloud computing represents a forward movement of Internet-based services, but at the same time resembles a time in the past when computer terminals were nothing more than an interface to a more powerful machine behind the scenes. Cloud computing is virtually the same concept, on a much more massive scale. It's too early to tell if “cloud” computing is really where mainstream computing is going, though it certainly seems the industry is moving in that direction. You can read more about Cloud OS in the press release after the jump.

ComScore released numbers for online spending during Black Friday in the U.S. For non-economists, figures look encouraging with a total estimated spending of $534 million. However, this represents a mere 1 percent increase over last year, which comes despite of the general recession climate affecting this market. In previous years, online sales growth during Black Friday have surpassed 20 percent.

There are a few other interesting tidbits in the report issued during the weekend. Unlike the average shopper that wakes up early on Black Friday to get the best deals from retail stores, the study shows that the bulk of sales took place after 8 AM, with the most active shopping period between 12 and 4 PM.

For the whole holiday season so far, comScore reports that a staggering $10.41 billion has been spent online, still a 4 percent decline from last year. As most of you are aware, however, today is Cyber Monday which represents the kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the U.S., so watch out for further discounts and offers from online stores.

Earlier this month it was discovered that a significant number of movies by Columbia Pictures, a subsidiary of Sony, were mysteriously pulled from the Netflix service offered on Xbox Live – but remained available on other Netflix compatible devices. This of course led many to believe that Sony had carefully timed the downtime of the films as a blow to rival Microsoft on the eve of the NXE launch.

The excuse given by Netflix at the time was that there was a problem with licensing the films for XBLA, claiming they would be back “shortly.” Whatever the problem was, it appears that the companies have finally solved it, and now most of the films have been quietly put back up again. Interestingly, Netflix noted that certain Sony titles are still missing and “not necessarily” due to a licensing issue, though no solid explanation was given.

Sling Media is best known for its Slingbox TV place-shifting device, but the company is now hoping to grab a slice of the increasingly crowded online streaming market, with a newly launched video destination of its own at Sling.com. The selection of media is pretty comprehensive, offering pretty much the same content as Hulu along with CBS programs and other clips from popular video websites such as College Humor and Break.com. The site has a fairly clean look and is rather easy to navigate, but it doesn’t really bring much new to the table… unless you happen to own a Slingbox.

Right now, Slingbox owners need to use the company's proprietary software to access their television, but Sling.com will allow them to watch their live TV streams and saved content in a standard web browser via a special plug-in – which unfortunately for Linux and Mac users runs only on Windows-based PC's at the moment. Of course, you also need a decent high-speed Internet connection at home to enjoy watching your Slingbox streams through the site.

All in all, Sling.com still has a ways to go if it wants to unseat Hulu as the top choice for online video streaming, but hopefully it will continue to introduce new content and perhaps even the ability to stream such content to a Slingbox set-top box.

As expected, spam levels are heading back up after dropping dramatically following the shutdown of McColo. According to MessageLabs, now part of Symantec, spam levels decreased by about 80% when the spammer’s hosting firm was disconnected recently, but the remaining 20% has almost doubled to 37% since last week.

Computers that are part of the Srizbi botnet – which by some estimates send nearly half of the world's spam – are apparently becoming active again, with the lag between the initial decline and the subsequent rise being attributed to the time it took for the spammers to find a new ISP and bandwidth provider.

The resurgence of spam is not at all surprising but it is disappointing to hear that, two weeks after the McColo shutdown, no federal agency has been able to seize the servers used to control these operations, which of course conceal a potential treasure trove of evidence against the cybercriminals.

BlockBuster may be best known for its brick-and-mortal video rental outlets, but the company is now getting ready to make a serious play in the digital video market, with the introduction of a new set-top box player that will let customers download movies over broadband connections and watch them on their TV sets.

For a limited time the recently introduced MediaPoint box will be available "for free" with the advance rental of 25 on-demand movies for $99 – movies will then be available starting at $1.99 each. The company is emphasizing its a la carte pricing model, in contrast with Netflix's fixed-rate fees, and promises “hot new releases available within weeks of leaving theaters” with the new service. While the player supports HD video content, Blockbuster did not specify whether it will offer any high-definition titles initially.

YouTube received a major overhaul today with the introduction of widescreen videos. The hugely-popular video-sharing website has had its page width increased to 960 pixels in order to “better reflect the quality of the videos [users] create and the screens [they] use to watch them,” according to a blog announcement explaining the change.

The long-awaited transition to the 16:9 aspect ratio finally brings the service up to the standards of other video sharing sites such as Vimeo and Hulu. Obviously, the move is also motivated by the company’s long term goal of featuring full length movies on the site, with MGM being the first major studio to provide its content. Moreover, users who wish to continue uploading 4:3 videos can continue to do so, and YouTube's player will display an unaltered image with black bars either side.

Facebook has been a hot acquisition target for years but the massively popular social networking site is now looking to pick up some of its own big name web properties. Apparently, the company tried to acquire Twitter for $500 million worth of stock five weeks ago but senior executives at both companies gave up on the idea at the beginning of this month.

The sticking point was of course price, with Twitter executives claiming that the $15 billion valuation of Facebook is inflated and taking the all stock offer would have would have actually given the deal a 150 million dollar price tag according to their calculations. Moreover, it seems there was a feeling among Twitter investors that the start-up should keep growing on its own and take a shot at figuring out its own revenue model.

Facebook has been awarded $873 million in damages against a Canadian man accused of sending spam messages to its members, marking the largest award yet for a suit filed under the CAN-SPAM Act. The suit charged Adam Guerbuez, Atlantis Blue Capital and 25 other unnamed people for falsely obtaining login information for Facebook users and then sending spam to those users' friends.

The amount awarded in this case tops the $234 million judgment won by MySpace in May to be paid by so-called Spam King Sanford Wallace, and the lesser $177,500 fine that two men were ordered to pay in October 2007 for their porn spam operation. Like previous cases, this is probably just a symbolic victory unlikely to yield Facebook much money, but hopefully it will represent a powerful deterrent to anyone seeking to abuse this and other sites for sending spam.