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Google Gears Up For The Holidays

It's getting to be that time of year during which people grow much nicer and more family-oriented.  Or much more rude and antisocial.  Whatever.  Either way, Google's making a special effort to ensure that it isn't put out of mind over the next couple of months.

Beware the Emails of Halloween

Symantec's MessageLabs released its Intelligence Report for the month of October, and it reveals the that the spammers behind the biggest botnets – Cutwail, Rustock and Donbot – are using the upcoming major holidays and world events as the themes for their the latest spam runs. This is not particularly surprising news, but it is news that people should be aware of nevertheless.

Amazon and Walmart Engage in Price War Over Holiday Book Shoppers

Amazon and Walmart have been engaged in an online price war over holiday sales of bargain books. The whole thing began when Walmart announced that it would let customers preorder 10 of the most highly anticipated upcoming books for as little as $10 each. In a matter of hours, Amazon matched the price for all of the same books. Walmart then dropped the price to $9. Then Amazon did the same.

More People Plan To Shop Online During The Holidays

 More people plan to shop online during the holiday season this year (55%) compared to last year (49%), according to a new survey by MarketLive and the E-Tailing Group. More than a quarter (26%) of shoppers plan to buy more gifts online, up from 21 percent last year. Eighty-five percent of consumers report the main reason for shopping online is still time savings, but 40 and 38 percent of shoppers respectively also rate wish lists and reviews as increasingly important.

Amazon Launches Same-Day Delivery Option

Amazon, one of the biggest names in online retail, is preparing for a big holiday season. The company announced today that it is adding a new shipping option for customers, called "Local Express Delivery." What this equates to is same-day delivery.

Majority Of Consumers Will Shop Online During The Holidays

More than half (62.8%) of consumers plans to spend the same or cut back on their holiday purchases compared to 2008, according to a new survey by Burst Media. Although consumers plan to be thrifty with their spending this holiday season, the majority (85.3%) will shop online. With the current economic concerns, the survey found only 14.6 percent of respondents plan to spend more this holiday season than they did in 2008, while one third (32.7%) expect to spend less and 30.1 percent plan to spend about the same as they did last year.

Good Chunk of Holiday Spending Will Be Online

Nielsen has shared some findings from research involving how American consumers intend to spend their money during the upcoming holiday season. About 42% expect to spend less.

Phishing Down, But Probably Only Temporarily

Spam is rising as we get closer to the Christmas holiday season according to Symantec, although they do say that phishing is down. The company has shared some findings from its September State of Phishing report. According to the report, there was a 45% reduction in phishing attacks between July and August. Symantec says this will likely be a short-term lull, however, reflecting the end of a particular toolkit attack on social networking sites.

Google's CADIE Takes the Company Over

If you use Google at all, you've probably noticed a link on the home page introducing CADIE. CADIE is "the world's first 'artificial intelligence' tasked-array system." Learn more about it here.

Microsoft Celebrates St. Patrick's Day

Microsoft has been in the St. Patrick's Day spirit this month. On the Live Search Blog, they recently reported that the number of people searching for green beer increased by 940% when March started. Microsoft has also taken the opportunity to map out the routes for St. Patrick's Day parades and highlight items like Irish pubs in Live Search Maps.