One of the most interesting feature that didn’t quite make it into the final release of Firefox 3 is “Private Browsing”, a.k.a. porn mode. The only other browser with this feature built-in today is Safari (another reason to try it in case you haven’t), however, Microsoft may also be building a similar feature into Internet Explorer 8 if two trademark filings are any indications.

On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks for:

CLEARTRACKS
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer programs for accessing and using the Internet and the world wide web; and computer programs for deleting search history after accessing websites

INPRIVATE
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer programs for accessing and using the Internet and the world wide web; computer programs for disabling the history and file caching features of a web browser; and computer software for notifying a user of a web browser when others are tracking web use and for controlling the information others can access about such use

Although “private browsing” can be easily associated with viewing particular genres of media content, the Mozilla foundation argues “while viewing pornography

Ever since Samsung had announced their new 120GB 1.8-inch hard drive in April 2007, Zune fansites has been buzzing with anticipation of a new Zune fitted with the higher capacity drives. Now the wait is nearly over as the FCC publishes a test report (and I assume approves) of the new 120GB Zunes.

The 120GB Zune pictured above looks identical to the 80GB Zune and that’s expected since the hard drive is of identical size too. The firmware used is nothing special too - version 2.5 (1614).

Even though I’m nowhere close to filling my 80GB Zune and can’t imagine ever filling it up, there’s a lot of audiophiles out there and this new capacity Zune fills a small gap in the marketplace left by Apple with their 80GB and 160GB iPod Classic with a cost difference of $100. Since the current 80GB Zune retails for the same as the 80GB iPod Classic ($249), it’s probably fair to guess the new 120GB Zune will retail for $299.

Oh and in case you were wondering about the radiation emissions test results, the Zune passed with flying colors so it won’t fry your body

Remember the dip in the graph? Well the generous Microsoft Imagine Cup organizers have filled it up with an extra $10,000 bringing the first-place prize money back to $25,000. Can’t complain about that and I’m sincerely grateful for their extra generosity which I must stress was not in any bit compelled.

If you think you’ve seen what’s possible with Photosynth, then you’ve seen nothing yet. The collaborative research team from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research who only two years ago in 2006 published their paper “Photo Tourism” and their technology demonstration “Photosynth” have again pushed the boundaries of what can be achieved by intuitively processing the abundance of digital images shared on the web.

This week at SIGGRAPH 2008 they’re sharing with the world some even better technology they’ve been working on which they call “Finding Paths through the World’s Photos“. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s damn cool. If you’re not much of a reading person like me, take a look at this video demonstration. (Watch it till the end)

This technology is much better than Photosynth simply because instead of just presenting individual photographs in a cool 3D environment, it actually manipulates the photo to give you a seamless and more lifelike experience. It’s one thing to click around different photos taken at a particular museum, it’s a whole other story to “walk through” the museum.

Now if you want to know exactly how

It’s probably safe to bet that all of Microsoft’s online operations doesn’t run off a single server in the basement of Gates’ house (on the other hand Apple’s MobileMe might actually be running in Jobs’ basement), so how many servers do Microsoft actually have? Microsoft never says and no one seems to know for sure except the few numbers thrown around including a notable “10,000 new servers a month“, however, a recent promotional video produced by Microsoft’s Environmental Sustainability group may have accidentally spilled the beans.

The following screencaps are from taken from the video Q&A with Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, at 2min 29sec to 2min 35sec for those of you playing at home.

Some quick stats gathered from the above clippings: 15 datacenters hosting 148,357 servers sitting on 17,406 racks consuming 72,500KW of utility power as of the end of January 2008 (as indicated by the bar chart). If you’re a bit of a imperial measurement person, that’s 97,000 horsepower. So the next time you visit Live Search, think of the horses.

On the same page there’s also an interesting graph showing the distribution

One of the first requests I received after launching the Windows UX Taskforce was “when can you make one for Mac OS X”. This came at a surprise to me because I didn’t know OS X had user experience flaws, but apparently it did and still do. Having said that today I’m proud to launch Aqua Taskforce, a taskforce site for Apple users to submit, vote and comment on OS X user experience quirks.

Windows UX Taskforce has also been renamed to Aero Taskforce for consistency. One login will work on both sites.

On the front-end you’ll probably notice that the site is visually different with a distinct Apple styling - which looks amazing I should add. Special credits to my friend Oscar for the hard work and more ahead of him. Don’t worry Windows users, Aero Taskforce is next in line to receive a visual makeover.

However what I’m more proud of is the changes on the back-end which some might have noticed via the different URLs. The new back-end has been re-engineered to support multiple (taskforce) sites with one codebase and a shared login system. Now I can deploy multiple Taskforces in