Surf's up for 100,000 more people. Google is entering the next phase of testing for the Google Wave platform by inviting developers who have been active with the Google Wave program, users who signed up to participate in beta testing, and a select group of Google Docs customers.

A Seattle-based startup is launching a free beta version of its application which enables users to cash in on the popularity of Facebook apps and quizzes-even if they have no programming or coding skills. AppBank provides the data, statistics, and training to help users target apps for profit, and the platform to enable them to create new apps, then shares the revenue with the user.

Fred Hsu launched the 6-person startup in April. Having cashed in on a previous venture, Oversee.net, Hsu is funding AppBank with his own money. The small band of full-time employees and low overhead of developing the AppBank platform have enabled the company to be profitable since its inception.

Gmail was out this morning...again. The outage affected only a small percentage of Gmail users, but in the wake of Tuesday's Google News outage the lack of reliability from Google isn't helping justify the business case for embracing the cloud.

The FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) unanimously approved an accounting rule change which will benefit companies that currently report tech gadget sales on a subscription basis. Apple in particular will ‘profit' from the new fuzzy math.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini unveiled some interesting tidbits in his keynote address this week at the 2009 Intel Developers Forum. He revealed a next-generation 22nm chip for 2011 and addressed recent developments in the EU antitrust case against Intel, among other things. The thing that caught my attention though was Otellini announcing that Intel is rolling out an app store.

Google rolled out an upgrade to Google Sync which now provides the ability for Gmail messages to be pushed to mobile devices rather than pulled. That means that e-mail messages sent to Gmail accounts will be received immediately on mobile devices rather than having to be summoned at 15 or 30 minute intervals by the device.

The gloves are off. Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the FCC, announced new guidelines to formalize the concept of net neutrality. Within hours, opponents of net neutrality published statements and op ed articles expressing objections, and a handful of elected U.S. representatives filed an amendment intended to prevent the FCC from taking action.

The speed of the political response is stunning. Granted, it had been leaked at least a few days earlier that Genachowski would address net neutrality in his speech to the Brookings Institute on Monday. And, Genachowski's views on Net Neutrality are not a secret. So, opponents had a couple days to prepare.

Dell has announced that it is acquiring IT services provider Perot Systems for $3.9 billion. The purchase gives Dell a larger footprint in the services arena, but doesn't put it in the same league as dominant IT services entities like HP and IBM. It does provide Dell a means of potentially increasing hardware sales and boosting profits overall though and that is what matters to Dell.

The parallel with HP is hard to ignore. HP, Dell's rival in both hardware sales and IT services, recently bought EDS, Ross Perot's original IT (and much larger) IT services company. The purchase of ‘mini-EDS' sort of makes Dell a ‘mini-HP'.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a 32-page brief with the court arguing that the Google Books settlement should be rejected based on violations of class action, antitrust, and copyright law. The DOJ is just the latest to voice concern, but it may be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to announce a plan on Monday to formalize the idea of net neutrality. The move, which supports a campaign promise made by President Barack Obama, will prevent the information superhighway from becoming a toll road giving preferential treatment to those who pay for it.

Microsoft has opened up a sneak peek at the Technical Preview of the upcoming Office Web Apps, and you can take it for a spin. Using the cloud-based SkyDrive storage as a backbone, Microsoft Office Web Apps enables to access and work with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files using any (compatible) Web browser from any Internet-connected device in the world.

The Office Web Apps components do not have the same comprehensive feature sets of their Microsoft Office desktop suite peers, but they provide a platform for creating and editing basic files via the Web. Microsoft has developed Office Web Apps to ensure that Office documents render accurately in browsers-even mobile device browsers-without data loss or formatting issues.

Microsoft has kicked off the Technical Preview of Office Web Apps, and I've been testing out the tools to see what Microsoft has come up with. One of the primary advantages of working with Microsoft Office applications in the cloud is the ability to access and work with documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and notebooks from any Web-enabled PC, from anywhere in the world. As long as you store your files on SkyDrive, you can travel without a laptop and still have access to your data.

The More option allows you to choose Copy, Rename, or Share.An even greater benefit of working through the cloud is that you can share files and collaborate with anyone else in the world. After all, the Web is the cloud, and the Web is a platform for sharing information--generally in the form of Web pages.

Microsoft has kicked off the Technical Preview of Office Web Apps. I looked at the Office Web Apps version of Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software to see how it stacks up to its more robust Microsoft Office desktop cousin.

Select 'Microsoft PowerPoint presentation' from the menu to start the program.After logging in to my SkyDrive account and accessing My Documents, I started the Office Web Apps PowerPoint application by clicking New and selecting Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

This morning, Microsoft opened the tech preview of its long-anticipated Office Web Apps. Here's a first look at what the online version of Excel has in store.

From the online SkyDrive folders, you can access Office Web Apps via a drop-down menu.It's clear from a glance at the Excel Web App interface that Microsoft has worked hard to deliver "fidelity"--the term the company uses for the consistency of experience between the desktop version of the application and what you encounter in the Office Web Apps version. Let's walk through the process of creating an Excel spreadsheet in Office Web Apps to see how well it turned out.

We've been waiting for years to see what Microsoft's answer to Google Docs would be, and now we're getting a look. The Technical Preview of Microsoft Office Web Apps is here. Microsoft had originally planned to roll out the Technical Preview by August, but that timeframe slipped by. You never get a second chance at a first impression though, so better to delay the introduction than to get off on the wrong foot if there were serious issues with the software.

Office Web Apps merges key elements of the Microsoft Office productivity suite into the cloud. The menu of applications available in Office Web Apps mirrors the applications found in the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You won't find applications like Access or Outlook here.

Google’s Android mobile operating system has established itself as a solid platform for mobile devices and is gaining acceptance by both users and mobile service providers. The latest SDK, codenamed ‘Donut’ (did they codename it based on what they were eating at the time?) delivers a variety of enhancements including one that expands the potential market for Android exponentially.

The ‘Donut’ SDK, version 1.6 of the Linux-based Android operating system, introduces a number of features that will enable Android-based devices to provide the functionality that users want. The improved search feature, multi-lingual text-to-speech function (dubbed Pico), and zippier camera speeds will be welcome.

Amid reports of sagging Q3 revenue and profit, Adobe announced that it is purchasing Omniture, known for developing Web analytics and metrics measurement tools, for $1.8 billion. Adobe is banking on the Omniture investment paying dividends that will allow it to reverse the tide and boost revenue.

Omniture did not come cheaply. That $1.8 billion price tag is based on Adobe buying all outstanding shares of Omniture common stock at $21.50 a share. That share price is 24 percent higher than Omniture's Tuesday closing price, and a 45 percent premium over the average value of Omniture stock for the past 30 days.

Google Labs unveiled an innovative new tool called Fast Flip. At first glance it appears similar to Bing Visual Search which was also unleashed yesterday. However, snazzy interface aside, Fast Flip isn't about eye candy or changing the way users search. Fast Flip is about helping print media adapt to the Internet age (and making a few dollars in the process).

Google has teamed up with 36 publishers for the initial rollout. Users who visit the Fast Flip site are greeted with large thumbnail images of various articles sorted by their source, topic, or current popularity. That initial page seems at least a little like Bing Visual Search, but the similarities end there.

Intuit has announced that it is purchasing online personal finance rival Mint for $170 million. That is no small change for the free personal finance service named one of The 100 Best Products of 2008 by PC World.

Intuit has long dominated the world of personal finance software with Quicken in all of its flavors. Microsoft Money was its primary competitor, but Microsoft bailed out of the personal finance software market earlier this year.

Facebook has just introduced the latest feature in its ongoing evolution to blur the lines between social networking and search engine- tags. The new ‘@' tags allow users to tag other users in posts and integrates a whole new realm of search capabilities.

Facebook already allowed users to tag photos to identify other Facebook contacts. Photos is using the term loosely. The reality is that you can tag any image just by pointing to a spot on in the image and then identifying which contact that spot should be linked to. This type of image tagging has led to all kinds of fun (as well as possible malware compromise).

Intel announced the ‘Jasper Forest' line of processors earlier this year. The new processors, named for a petrified forest in Arizona, have gone from concept to prototype and Intel is giving customers a peak now at what the 45-nanometer Jasper Forest CPUs have to offer.

Jasper Forest is based on Intel's robust Nehalem chip architecture. However, the Jasper Forest processors deliver unique functionality to benefit dense server environments such as storage and communications environments and it does so while reducing power consumption by 27 watts.

One of the hottest buzzwords in technology is the ‘Cloud'. Vendors across all types of computer applications and services are looking for ways to leverage the power of cloud computing. Microsoft takes that a step further by making it easier to move a different kind of resource to the cloud: people.

Actually, that egg may have come before the chicken. Laptop sales have steadily crept up on desktop sales, surpassing desktops in late 2008. That is a domino-effect from another chicken-and-egg conundrum in that the work force has become increasingly remote and mobile.

Motorola's Cliq has a number of innovative and cool features, but ultimately lacks the chemistry to capture any significant portion of the smartphone market or return lost industry relevance to Motorola.

Motorola has had a rough year with sluggish sales and plummeting revenue. The announcement of the Google Android-based Cliq, and Motorola's MotoBlur interface have generated some buzz, but the Cliq appeals to the wrong market.

Twitter founder Biz Stone discussed some of the key points of the new Twitter terms of service (TOS) on his blog yesterday. Tweet ownership is getting a lot of attention, but it's the explicit statement leaving the door open for advertising that I find intriguing.

The new TOS has a number of tweaks. Twitter established unequivocally that tweets belong to the tweeter and that Twitter does not own them. The TOS also fine tunes the language about spam and acceptable use, and expands on the use of API's by third party developers to access Twitter services. Oh! And Twitter reserves the right to distribute advertising.

The Department of Justice has requested more information and details of the proposed arrangement between Microsoft and Yahoo. The scrutiny could spell disaster for Yahoo if the DOJ ultimately rejects the partnership.

In the ongoing battle to capture mobile service customers, Sprint has just thrown down the gauntlet with a potentially game-changing feature: unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling...regardless of mobile carrier.

You read that right. The concept of unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling is not new. I have unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling and unlimited night and weekend calling in addition to the minutes in my AT&T Family Talk plan. But, my mobile-to-mobile only includes calling other AT&T mobile numbers. Sprint is opening the floodgate and allowing customers to make unlimited mobile-to-mobile calls domestically even if the recipient is using AT&T, or Verizon, or T-Mobile, or any other domestic carrier.

Motorola announced its first mobile device based on the Google Android operating system. The device, dubbed the Cliq, will be available later this year exclusively from T-Mobile and is also the first device to feature Motorola's innovative new MotoBlur feature.

Motorola hopes the move to the Google Android operating system will help boost sales and increase revenue. Because the operating system is open source, Motorola is not whittling away at the profit margin with licensing fees. At the same time, Google Android allows Motorola to develop a robust interface with powerful tools comparable to the iPhone, Palm Pre, or Windows Mobile platforms.

Security experts are concerned about the potential impact of a new security hole affecting the Windows operating system. The potential exists to create a worm that would allow an attacker to take complete control of vulnerable systems without any user interaction--a jackpot for malware developers.

This past Tuesday was Microsoft's big patch release day for the month of September. Microsoft released a total of five new Security Bulletins, all of them rated Critical. Microsoft quickly followed the regularly scheduled patch release with a Security Advisory warning of the new unpatched flaw.

Symantec has unveiled a new tool that gathers some basic information about you and the links between your financial information and the Internet, then calculates what the value of your identity would be on the black market. The value it comes up with is sobering at best.

Data compromise and identity theft are both on the rise. Incidents like the Heartland Systems data breach put your personal information at risk even if you just use your credit card to get gas. Exploiting application and network weaknesses, a handful of individuals were able to steal data on over 130 million credit and debit card accounts.

Ten companies have pledged support for the open identity initiative to provide greater access to government sites and resources. Streamlining access will make it easier for the general public to access government resources and help to fulfill the vision President Obama laid out on his first full day in office with the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

Americans in general are increasingly using the Internet as a primary source of information. Sites like Facebook and Twitter that didn't even exist a few years ago are almost indispensible now. Twitter has become such an influential resource that maintenance was postponed during the chaos following the Iranian election to ensure the service remained available.

The media and blogosphere are all in a tizzy over leaked screenshots allegedly showing that Microsoft is providing Best Buy with ‘anti-Linux' training materials. You say ‘anti-Linux', I say ‘pro-Windows'. You say ‘Linux bashing', I say ‘marketing'.

What is the big deal? News flash: Microsoft sells Windows. Microsoft is not interested in promoting rival operating systems and it has a vested interest in providing training and marketing collateral to any retailer that will listen if it will help boost sales of its operating systems and software products.

Say hello to T-Orange. That is not the official name of the joint venture between T-Mobile UK and Orange UK...at least not yet. The alliance seems to create a formidable entity in the battle for mobile provider supremacy in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, T-Mobile in the United States is languishing in fourth place with little hope of reaching a similar deal.

The United Kingdom partnership gives the new entity over 28 million combined customers and a 37 percent stake in the U.K. mobile market. In the United Kingdom, that puts ‘T-Orange' ahead of Vodafone UK, making it the leading mobile service provider in the United Kingdom.

Intel has officially unveiled its new line of Lynnfield processors which were unofficially unveiled a few weeks ago thanks to a leak somewhere. The Lynnfield chips have a number of changes and innovations from previous Intel processors, but how does that matter to you?

The Lynnfield processors have a lot of the characteristics of the more robust Nehalem processors from Intel, and steal the headlines back from the AMD ‘Istanbul' chips released a couple weeks ago. But, the battle between processors is like the battle for the tallest building or the difference between first and second place in the Indy 500. Yeah, one is taller or faster than another, but the bragging rights matter mainly to the bragger.

Nokia has announced pricing for its upcoming Booklet 3G netbook. At a hefty list price of $820, the Booklet 3G is sure to cause sticker shock among netbook shoppers. Apparently Nokia did not get the memo that the point of a netbook is to provide a smaller AND lower-cost alternative to the laptop.

Netbook sales have grown contrary to economic trends or any news of recession. In fact, it could be argued that the economic woes have contributed to the success of the netbook market, forcing users to scale down and look for more affordable options to meet their computing needs.

Windows 7, in all of its various flavors, won't be available in stores until October 22. But, Microsoft announced the availability of a 90-day free trial of Windows 7 Enterprise. That gives you an almost 2 month jumpstart to either start taking advantage of new features of Windows 7, or to test out Windows 7 to decide if you want to make the switch when it becomes available.

Here are a few of the top new features that I think make it worth your time to take advantage of the Windows 7 90-day trial.

Microsoft announced the availability of a 90-day free trial of the final RTM (release to manufacturing) version of Windows 7 Enterprise edition. Whether you are anxiously awaiting the new operating system, or skeptical of the hype around Windows 7, here are five reasons you should jump on the free trial.

1. Judge for yourself. Some have said that Windows 7 is little more than Windows Vista SP3. Even those who feel Windows 7 is Microsoft's apology to the world for Windows Vista seem to admit that Windows 7 is a pretty good apology.

eBay's purchase of Skype in 2005 was perceived as one of the tech industry's biggest failures. eBay never figured out how to integrate Skype with its core business and has failed to find a way to monetize the potential of the Internet VoIP (voice over IP) service. The deal announced today, in which eBay has sold Skype for $1.9 billion while retaining a 35 percent stake in the company, is a win for both eBay and Skype.

eBay gets to unload an entity that has just not meshed with what eBay does. The original vision apparently involved leveraging Skype VoIP functionality for some sort of click-to-talk feature on the eBay auction site. That vision was never realized and Skype, while it did account for about $550 million in revenue last year, has not been able to reach its potential under eBay's direction.

Microsoft has announced that the next incarnation of Windows Mobile, version 6.5, will hit the streets on October 6. Obviously, Microsoft would like it to be a huge success and reclaim some of the lost smart phone market share, but the real prize lies in Microsoft embracing other mobile operating system platforms.