July 5th Update

After a long holiday weekend it's back to work. What a brilliant concept it is for taking off Monday before a holiday. Working retail in years past and for a medium sized company the last few years I've never known the concept. Taking days off just because there's a holiday near? Odd, but I'll indulge!

In the news:

Germany has announced it is worried about the reign of power search engines, Google in particular, have in their market. The Big 3 hold 90% of all searches in Germany, Google shows it displays 70% of results. German government is being sited as the rightful regulator, however thus far search engines have voluntarily censored neo-Nazi and x-rated sites.

Marcel Machill, a journalism professor at the Leipzig and Dortmund universities, stated:

In the classic media sector this kind of concentration would be unthinkable. It is important not to let this power develop unobserved.

For more on this story read here.

Microsoft has announced it's delaying the release of Office 2007 until after the new year. Originally set to release prior to the holiday season Microsoft has opted to wait until the beginning of 2007. For a full line of features and an inside look at Office 2007 click here. I, for one, cannot wait to get my hands on this.

Oh, and in case you're not following the World Cup like the rest of the world, Italy beat Germany Tuesday to lead Italy to the Finals. This was Germany's first defeat in that stadium, but not surprising because Germany has never beaten Italy in the World Cup. It was an incredible game lasting 120+ minutes with no score until the 2nd overtime. I just wish Americans would get into the game like the rest of the world. What's our holdup guys?

Yet another Google lawsuit. This time KinderCare is crying over it's lost ranks in Google search results. Filing a lawsuit based on the lost results is no new feat. Hopefully this will pass. If all of us could file suits based on results we didn't like Google would be tied up forever and they wouldn't have time to do the important things, like better their search engine results so we can all climb happily to the top once again. Not exactly what I would illicit as a "top story" but CBS5.com believes it is newsworthy enough.

And in other news:

Clearwater fireworks were beautiful last night, as were Dunedin's and the rest of the Bay area displays visible from the Dunedin Causeway. Perhaps my favorite was sitting on the roll bar of my Jeep, with top down listening to the firework accompaniment provided courtesy of our neighboring viewers while they set off a display that must have taken weeks to create and hundreds if not thousands of dollars to pull off. Thanks guys. Watching the fireworks burst over Tampa Bay was amazing enough, but prior to the fireworks show we actually witnessed a water tunnel forming in the near distance. That probably took the cake, but it was an amazing night of festivities. I hope everyone else had a great celebration. I know my dogs are happy it's over though, not big fans of exploding vessels or tubes warning of flaming balls.