Today, both Mac and Windows users can scarf up a beta copy of Safari 4, with many new and desirable features. Here’s a download link for those who are ready to go.

The new browser features:

• Cover Flow — You can browse through your site history or bookmarks the same way you browse album covers in iTunes
• Top Sites — look at renderings of your favorite sites, and open any one of them with a single click
• Full History Search — A clever way to visit sites you have been to in the past. You can type a word or phrase into the history search field and you’ll get a cover flow view of sites that match your criteria
• Nitro Engine — Apple claims JavaScript now executes 30 times faster than IE7 and 3 times faster than Firefox
• Tabs on Top — Allows Safari to have multiple pages open at the same time in a single browser window, and to switch back and forth with a click. The new Safari beta gives you more room at the top of the sceen when in tabbed mode.
• Windows Native Look and Feel — The Windows Safari 4 beta more closely matches the look of other Windows applications and gives access to standard Windows fonts; Apple claims the same performance boost on Windows as in the Mac version

Other features include Full Page Zoom, a ’smart’ address field, a ’smart’ search field, and more robust phishing and malware protection.

Safari 4 beta also includes some improved developer tools. Details on those options can be found here.

(via)

Apple and Microsoft.. How similar and how different they are? The new Microsoft Store (as we say Apple Store) has a logo that is very similar to all Apple products’ logos with two gray shades (picture).

Just be patient! The new Windows 7 are coming with ‘new and innovative’ ideas! (maybe they will include Spotlight, Time machine, Dock and many other NEW features!)

Google continued to increase its U.S. search share dominance in October, widening its lead over Yahoo and Microsoft. In October, Google’s share of Web searches by people in the U.S. rose to 71.7 percent, up from 71.2 percent in September and 64.5 percent in October of 2007, according to market research company Hitwise.

At the same time, Yahoo’s share slipped to 17.7 percent, from 18.1 percent a month earlier and 21.7 percent a year ago. Microsoft’s share rose slightly in October to 5.4 percent from 5.36 percent in September, but the down from 7.4 percent in October of last year. Internet searches at Ask.com fell to 3.5 percent from 3.6 percent a month ago, and from 4.8 percent last year.

Hitwise bases its data on a sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users over four week rolling periods. The Microsoft figures include Live.com and MSN Search but does not include Club.Live.com.

The remaining 43 search engines Hitwise tracks accounted for 1.6 percent of U.S. searches in October.

Source: Macworld

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New York Times compared Google and Microsoft:

Google?s age: 10
Microsoft?s age: 33

Google?s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft?s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion

Microsoft?s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today?s dollars)

Google?s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft?s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million

Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft?s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion

Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st: 89,809

Google?s revenue per employee: $1 million
Microsoft revenue per employee: $672,000

Market value of Google: $142 billion
Market value of Microsoft: $241 billion

Number of tech companies with a market value larger than Google?s: 3 (Microsoft, I.B.M. and Apple, in that order)

Worldwide searches on Google in July: 48.7 billion
Worldwide searches on Microsoft in July: 2.3 billion

Worldwide searches per hour on Google in July: 65 million
Worldwide searches per hour on Microsoft in July: 3.1 million

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Marketers are excited when they speak about Brand Names and their economic value. According to the latest research, these are the most expensive brand names!

First is Google that costs $86.06 billions, second is General Electric that costs $71.38 billions, then Microsoft with $70.89, billions, Coca-Cola with $58.21 billions,  IBM with $55.34 billions, and Apple with $55.21 billions!