Today, January 28th, is variously recognized as the Feast Day of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Julian’s Day.  It’s Data Privacy Day, too (or Data Protection Day in Europe), and to celebrate this last occasion, Google has published its Privacy Principles.

As we discussed before, Internet-ready vehicles were one of the more interesting themes throughout the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. One vehicle in particular that WebProNews got an up-close look at was the 2011 Ford Super Duty, which the company refers to as a "contractor’s dream."

Twitter claims not to be taking an active role in the dispute, but it’s definitely applauding developers who try to make Twitter.com available in China and Iran.  Ev Williams endorsed workarounds and rejected compromises while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

RDFa, which stands for Resource Description Framework in attributes, is a W3C recommendation, which adds a set of attribute level extensions to XHTML for embedding rich metadata within web documents. While not everyone believes that W3C standards are incredibly necessary to operate a successful site, some see a great deal of potential for search engine optimization in RDFa.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today his office is investigating 22 online businesses that deceptively link consumers to fee-based membership programs that charge unauthorized fees for discount offers.

Two years ago, Google’s Chrome browser didn’t exist.  Now, it might be the best browser available.  New test results claim that it beats all competitors by a significant amount, at least in terms of speed.

Update: Google is now showing suggestions for "Islam is". They can be seen in the screenshot below.

Thanks to a new deal, Bing’s results for local businesses should soon get much better.  A report’s indicated that Localeze, which specializes in local search, is going to provide something like 14 million business listings for Bing Local and Bing 411 to use.

People with perfect memories and/or senses of direction are excused from reading this article.  Everybody else may be pleased to know that Google’s introduced a version of personalized suggestions on Google Maps.

Can’t remember exactly what street your father’s favorite cigar shop is on?  Forget the last couple digits of a casual acquaintance’s address?  It’s in scenarios like these that Google’s now got you covered (so long as you agree to be helped).

Steve Jobs took the stage in San Francisco today to announce what he referred to as a "magical, truly revolutionary product."

After talking up Apple’s history and how many iPods they’ve sold and apps they have in the app store, Jobs began talking about the need for a product between the laptop and the smartphone – something that would be better at things like browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and eBooks. He took a shot at netbooks saying they weren’t better than anything (knocking their speed, displays, and software), and then unveiled the iPad.

Internet use by both business and leisure guests at hotels increased more than 50 percent in 2009, according to a new report by iBAHN, an Internet service provider for 2,200 hotels globally.

Hotel guests spent 60 percent more time online and downloaded 50 percent more data, based on tracked packet and session length information. This confirms the predictions from an iBAHN- commissioned, 2009 study of business travelers conducted by Ypartnership.

Rick Spencer of Canonical, which distributes the Ubuntu version of Linux, revealed that Canonical has formed a revenue-sharing deal with Yahoo, which will see Yahoo become the default search engine in the Mozilla Firefox browser in the upcoming 10.04 version (aka "Lucid Lynx") of the operating system.

Yahoo said today it is holding its second annual Key Scientific Challenges Program, which is open globally to any graduate student enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited institution.

The Key Scientific Challenges Program focuses on a number of issues, from developing algorithms that make information more personally relevant, to finding insights about online advertising and experimenting with new sociological models for how people engage with the web.

Most estimates agree that there are almost 7 billion human beings on this planet, and even the biggest misanthropes must admit that a few of them are smart and capable.  Yahoo apparently wasn’t able to encounter any keepers, however, as it’s stopped searching for someone to lead the company’s international division.

Since the widely publicized turbulence between Google and the Chinese government erupted, there has been a lot of speculation about whether or not Google would continue to do business in China in any capacity whatsoever. The company stopped censoring search results in its Chinese search engine, and threatened to pull out of China before it would again do so. Talks between Google and China are expected in the near future.

For a week or so, some Twitter users have been seeing a new feature called Local Trends. This feature shows users things that are being heavily talked about at the city and state levels. Twitter has now announced that the feature is live for all users.

Last summer Google announced a new project called "Caffeine", which was described as a re-write of Google’s web search architecture. Around that time, Matt Cutts discussed Caffeine with WebProNews, comparing it to the "Big Daddy Update" of 2005, which consisted of changes to the way Google crawls and indexes websites.

There has been a lot of discussion about the fate of the online news industry lately, particularly since the New York Times announced that it will be going the paid content route next year. Another New York-based publication, Newsday, already charges for its online content. After three months of doing so, it has reportedly only managed to attract 35 subscribers.

Newsday.com is free for those who subscribe to Newsday (print) or ISP Optimum Online. Otherwise, you have to pay $5 a week ($260 a year).

Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings report has been released, and it seems that people who were preparing for some sort of drastic response – whether it would’ve involved either pitchforks or confetti – will have to wait for another day.  Although the confetti folks might win out, as Yahoo did all right, more or less in line with estimates.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Google has launched a new feature for Google TV Ads, which lets advertisers automatically receive cost-per-call data through the service for TV campaigns that utilize Google supplied toll-free phone numbers. Google says the feature is designed to give TV advertisers access to richer performance data, which allows more effective optimization based on real-time call data.