The Microsoft Windows 8 operating system will have a feature built in called picture password. The picture password feature lets you make touch-screen gestures on a photo in the login screen. RSA SecurID Kenneth Weiss does not take Microsoft’s idea very seriously. “I think it’s cute, I don’t think it’s serious security. It’s more like a Fisher-Price toy than a serious choice for secure computer access.” Weiss said that people can easily record someone’s motion from afar. I agree with Weiss in the sense that making photo passwords a security feature does not make sense. People are used to passwords and they have gotten used to it. Why change now? [NetworkWorld]

YouTube has been able to capitalize on music videos that have been uploaded to the website in a couple of ways. Advertising is the primary source of revenue and the other way was by providing affiliate links to AmazonMP3 and iTunes. Today when I was watching this music video was the first time I noticed a link to the Android Market music store. In the design, it looks like AmazonMP3 and iTunes have been placed in on the next line using a
tag. Google launched Google Music last month with EMI, Sony, and Universal on-board.

Samsung has just announced some bad news for the people that own the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Tab tablet. These devices will not be getting Android 4.0. Although the numbers sold of the Galaxy Tab are unknown, we know that the Galaxy S has sold about 10 million units. The Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab are not getting Android 4.0 because it does not have enough RAM and ROM to run alongside TouchWiz. Many people bought the devices with the expectation that they came equipped with powerful enough hardware to receive some of the latest Android updates including Ice Cream Sandwich. This news is relevant to an article I wrote earlier about the Google Android Update Alliance with telecommunication companies starting to fizzle.

A weak economy and the falling prices of rival smartphones are hurting the sales of the Apple iPhone across Europe according to data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Even though the Apple iPhone 4S boosted their market share in Britain and the United States, the new phone has not gained much attention in Europe. However Google Android is growing in Europe at a rapid pace.

Facebook was the most searched term of 2011 according to Experian Hitwise. This is the third year in a row that Facebook has been on the top of the list. Facebook has been 3.1% of all searches in 2011, which is a 46% jump over the last year. The searches include: Facebook, Facebook.com, Facebook Login, and www.facebook.com. Here are the top 10 searches of 2011:

Earlier this morning, a post was submitted to Reddit.com that gained a lot of traction. The post was submitted that claims to be an IT director for a major American company. The company urged other people on Reddit to make December 29th the day to transfer domain names away from GoDaddy to protest the company’s support of SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act). The IT director said that he had already transferred 51 personal domain names and 300 personal ones in his capacity. GoDaddy currently hosts over 50 million domain names.

Apple has filed patents for a battery that could last for weeks instead of hours on a single charge. The patent it field is for fuel cell-powered MacBooks. The patents are called “Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device” and “Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device.” The fuel cell will be environmental friendly and will run on hydrogen. Even though these patents have been filed, it does not necessarily mean that we will see this kind of battery for MacBooks within a year. It may take years for this type of battery to be released. [BusinessInsider]

Google and Mozilla have struck a search deal for another three years. Google will be paying a little bit under $300 million to renew the deal. This is a huge jump from a previous arrangement that Google had with Mozilla. Google had to outbid other companies like Microsoft and Yahoo! for the search deal. The $900 million agreement is the minimum revenue guarantee for delivering search queries that will be garnered by consumers using Firefox.