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Buzz Out Loud 833: Adobe, the mad wizards of Orthanc

Anything that nerdy had to come from Tom. And it did. Rafe Needleman joins the cast today to discuss waiting for Windows 7 (Steve Ballmer says it's OK), the fury over FireWire being omitted from the MacBooks reaches a fever pitch--so much so that Steve Jobs himself sends an e-mail in response. His response? A fairly typical, "Sorry, suckers. Upgrade."

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 833

Ballmer: It’s OK to wait for Windows 7 http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10067641-92.html

Microsoft Considers “Instant On” Windows http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/16/1710207… Read more

Google shares rise post-earnings and analysts applause

Google shares jumped nearly 9 percent in intraday trading Friday, as analysts chimed in with favorable reports following the company's strong third quarter performance.

Google climbed as high as $384 a share during the day, after reporting a stronger than expected third quarter on Thursday after the markets close. Google's rally marks its second consecutive day of gains, in which its shares have risen as much as 11.7 percent.

Analysts overwhelmingly gave Google a thumbs up in its ability to control costs in the quarter, aiding the company's ability to exceed analysts earnings estimates.

UBS Securities … Read more

Report: Google calls on advertisers to tout Yahoo ad deal

Updated at 8:15 a.m. PDT with Google comment. Updated at 8:36 a.m. with comments from Silver Financial's Darren Nix.

With a deadline looming next week for federal antitrust regulators to approve or challenge Yahoo and Google's controversial search advertising partnership, the search giant has apparently been busy trying to drum up large advertisers to provide public testimonials in support of the deal, according to a report in TechCrunch.

Such efforts could offset concerns expressed by Department of Justice antitrust regulators over a potential price increase to advertisers as well as reduced competition should Yahoo … Read more

Google hedges against foreign currency swings

In recent months, financial analysts have expressed concern that Google's financial results could be hurt by foreign-exchange rate changes. But Google said Thursday that it has taken measures to insulate itself from the potential problem.

Specifically, Google has invested about $80 million in hedging programs that counteract currency swings, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette said on a conference call to discuss Google's third-quarter financial results. The foreign-exchange issue that currently afflicts Google is that the dollar is growing stronger relative to other currencies right now, which effectively devalues revenue from other countries.

The hedging programs "should be … Read more

How about user-generated commercials on YouTube?

YouTube has spent years trying to figure out how to monetize its mostly amateur-quality, user-created content.

The company has turned to pre-roll and post-roll ads, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledges that the "perfect ad product for YouTube has not been invented yet."

Perhaps Google is looking to the wrong inventors.

Traditional "Madison Avenue" advertising has failed YouTube. I agree with the sentiment expressed recently on the Marcom Professional blog:

In my opinion, one of the reasons that videos spread is the homemade quality....People are advertised to thousands of times a day. We see countless … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 76

It's all about Macs today! Plus a look at the new T-Mobile G1, aka Google phone. And, of course, our second round of video questions. Thanks to Ross and Brad! Keep 'em coming to cnetlive@cnet.com. (No attachments, please.)

Watch the show on CNET TV.

E-mail answer Here's Ed's e-mail answering our caller from last week who couldn't get XP to install on his Windows Vista drives.

On your CNET Live from October 9, you had a caller trying to install XP on a Vista PC but it wouldn't recognize any of his hard … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: First impressions of the first Android phone

With its new Flash Player 10, Adobe Systems addresses a security flaw that could lead to so-called clickjacking attacks. Steve Ballmer says he's not worried about people skipping Vista, so long as they come back for Windows 7. Yahoo shares jump on Ballmer's assertion that an acquisition by Microsoft would still make sense for shareholders of both companies. And CNET's Bonnie Cha and Kara Tsuboi go over the pros and cons of the T-Mobile G1, the first phone based on Google's open-source mobile operating system, Android. Get a rundown of those stories and more in today'… Read more

Google hurdles over profit estimate

Updated at 3:22 p.m. PDT with further details.

Google easily cleared analysts' profit expectations for the third quarter of the year, patting itself on the back for the results but offering a cautious qualifier about current economic conditions.

The company reported net income of $4.92 per share, excluding various items such as stock-based compensation, compared to expectations of $4.75 from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue was $4.04 billion, excluding commissions called traffic acquisition costs that are paid to advertising partners, compared to an expected $4.053 billion.

"We had a good third quarter … Read more

Gmail down for some for a day

Updated 2:45 p.m. PST with Google comment and corrects that company said on Wednesday that it would resolve the problem on Thursday.

Google says it is restoring service for a "small number" of Gmail users who have been unable to access their e-mail for the past day.

Everyone affected by the outage should have service back up on Thursday, the company said in a posting Thursday afternoon on the Google Apps discussion group.

"We know how important Gmail is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously, and we apologize for the … Read more