Microsoft has set up a Click 4 The Cause, a search engine based on their live.com site. Microsoft will donate a portion of the proceeds it generates from the search engine to NineMillion.org, a non-profit group that aids refugee children around with world.

Microsoft will donate a minimum of $100,000 to the organization, and hope to bring further awareness to the charity, while at the same time promoting their own search engine in hopes of getting out of Google’s shadow. The specially made search engine will be active until March 31st.

The end of the year has arrived and so has Google’s yearly round up of what we’ve been searching for: Google Zeitgeist 2006

Let’s see here… Most of the stuff in the top ten searches seems pretty normal. Wikipedia still going strong. MySpace is still attracting attention whoring teens and others looking to hook up. Video is still hot. And of course, Bebo tops them all.

Wait… what in the hell is Bebo?

Ah, apparently it’s some kind of social networking MySpace-alike. Well, damn, I feel so out of the loop. I’ve never heard of this place. And it’s based out of San Fran, so I can’t claim ignorance due to it being from out of the country. Maybe I had heard about it and somehow blocked it out of my mind for having such a dumbass name as Bebo.

The latest full version of Firefox, the sexy open source browser from the fine folks at Mozilla, has been released.

I’ve discussed some of the changes to the search bar in this version in the past, but there’s a lot more new stuff to play with.

Here is a list of all the new features.

• I really like that spell checking is integrated in the browser now. In previous versions I used an extension to handle that, but it always felt kludgey and not very stable.
• The new theme struck me as a bit too “pretty” at first, but I got used to it quickly. The way the Go button is tethered to the address bar is nice.
• The built-in phishing protection will be nice for protection less savvy users from scams. It’s based on the Google Safe Browsing extension for previous versions of Firefox.
• The tabbed browsing changes seem useful for some, but I’m a huge control freak about that kind of thing and I use the Tab Mix Plus extension. Although it hasn’t been updated officially for 2.0, their development build is working perfectly for me.

Here are the full release notes for those of you that like all the details.

Don’t forget to go to Firefox Add-ons to check if there are new versions of your extensions.

Google has extended its Google Transit experiment to include five other cities besides the initial city of Portland, OR.

Now you can now also plan your public transportation treks in:

• Eugene, Oregon
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Seattle, Washington
• Tampa, Florida

I was quite pleased to see that Tampa, my town, was added. A shame that I pretty much swore never to use public transportation again after the horrible experiences I used to have in Miami, FL. On those rare occasions that I do need to take the bus somewhere, though, it’s nice to have a handy helper like this.

And to make it easier for other cities to add their own transit data to Google Transit, they have developed and released the Google Transit Feed Specification.

If you’ve been feeling left out of Google Talk because of the requirement that you have a Gmail account, then worry no more. Google has opened Google Talk up for everyone.

There are certain draw backs to using Google Talk without a Gmail account. Features like saving your logs to email and voicemail messages will not be available.

I’m actually a Trillian man, foremost, but I do keep Google Talk around for certain things. It’s a nice client, but it just doesn’t give you enough control. I’m eager to see what future updates bring.

News reports coming out of Germany say that this massive insect escaped its underground lair sometime in the last couple of days and has been terrorizing rural areas. Witnesses claim the creature is at least 50 meters in length and can snap a person in two with its powerful jaws.

All attempts to contain the beast have proven fruitless and the German government has sent out an international plea for military aid. Large cans of Raid^® are also being accepted.

It seems Google is interested in making their services even more user friendly and is willing to pay you for your help. The article at ZDNet goes a bit into Google’s usability history and also quotes large portions of their User Experience Research FAQ but never actually links to the study’s sign-up form.

Being amazinly picky, I would love to try this out. I have a definite knack for finding annoyances and inefficiencies in apps and sites I use frequently. Considering how many people must have signed up after this was Dugg, though, I wonder if it’s still worth trying to get into the study.

All the news outlets are buzzing about this. Is Mark Zuckerberg about to become the next obscenely rich internet entrepreneur?

Will this affect Facebook users other than maybe having to deal with more ads?

Will Facebook’s recent privacy issues have an effect on this deal?

Tune in tomorrow¹ and find out.

¹My imaginary lawyers insist that I clarify that tomorrow, in this context, does not necessarily mean tomorrow in the classical sense of the word.

It appears that Google has not received the ruling they were hoping for in their copyright case against the Belgian media. Not only have they been forced to cease indexing French and German-language news stories through Google Nieuws België, but they have finally posted the entire court ruling on their Belgian front page which they had been fighting.

Here is a screenshot of the page in question for those of you who may read this after the five day court mandated period has passed.

Google plugs phishing hole via ZDNet Technology News

Google News to appeal Belgian copyright decision via The Register

Yahoo! spooks investors with talk of an advertising slowdown via Guardian Unlimited

Google regains ground in U.S. search market via News.com

A Google Trial Ties Ad Position to User Behavior via ClickZ Network