Yahoo is making a number of changes to its default search experience tonight to add more structured data to results. Yelp, Yahoo Local and LinkedIn SearchMonkey widgets are being added to search results automatically, eliminating the need for users to go into the search gallery and add them manually.

SearchMonkey is a key part of Yahoo’s attempts to embrace the semantic web and open standards in general.

With SearchMonkey, site owners create “applications” for Yahoo search that can be installed by users in the same sense that Facebook applications can be installed. Each application modifies results for a certain URL specification (for example, all reference pages on Wikipedia or product pages on Amazon). Modifications include both changes to the basic elements of a search result (the title and description) and additions such as an image, deep links, and key/value pairs.

Users can also add additional widgets via the Yahoo Search Gallery.

Here’s the Yelp search result example we used in our first post about SearchMonkey:

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Jason at TC writes about NetShare, a tethering app that has been pulled from the App store this evening. Looks like someone didn’t like the idea using up lots of mobile bandwidth on an all-you-can eat machine. More as we get it.

Macrumors reports that Apple’s App Store was selling a tethering app compatible with the iPhone (both 3G and EDGE) for a brief period earlier this evening. The $10 application, called NetShare, was developed by Nullriver software, and would be a godsend for many iPhone owners. After going up around 8PM EST to the elation of a lucky few, the application was pulled down around 20 minutes later.

Phone tethering allows users to access the internet from their laptop computers wherever they get service on their cellphone carrier’s data network. The feature is common on many phones with high speed (namely 3G) data access, and has been noticeably absent from iPhones. While 3G is typically slower than most Wi-Fi access points, having internet connectivity on the go is a huge plus for many people - enough so that many carrier charge on the order of $30 a month to enable it.

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Filed under: Ask Engadget, Digital Cameras, Displays, Misc. Gadgets

Frightening though it may be, the fall semester is just around the corner. You know what that means? You'll actually have to get up at -- wait for it -- an appointed time. Carissa, being the proactive student she is, posed this question:

"Going to school in the fall, I'm looking for the ideal alarm clock to beat the late nights and what not and noticed a few digital photo frames / alarm clocks. I want a decent alarm clock that has battery backup and good resolution on the screen for viewing photos. An auxiliary audio jack would be a major plus. Which one do you guys recommend that falls under the 200 dollar mark? Thanks a million!"

Look at that -- you all even received a thank you in advance! For those who've mastered the art of waking up on time and pretending to be a real live adult, which alarm clock / digiframe hybrid have you found to be supreme? Oh, and you know that question you've been hitting the snooze on? Yeah, send it on over to ask at engadget dawt com.

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Macrumors reports that Apple’s App Store was selling a tethering app compatible with the iPhone (both 3G and EDGE) for a brief period earlier this evening. The $10 application, called NetShare, was developed by Nullriver software, and would be a godsend for many iPhone owners. After going up around 8PM EST to the elation of a lucky few, the application was pulled down around 20 minutes later.

Phone tethering allows users to access the internet from their laptop computers wherever they get service on their cellphone carrier’s data network. The feature is common on many phones with high speed (namely 3G) data access, and has been noticeably absent from iPhones. While 3G is typically slower than most Wi-Fi access points, having internet connectivity on the go is a huge plus for many people - enough so that many carriers charge on the order of $30 a month to enable it.

Users with jailbroken (hacked) iPhones have been able to enable tethering to their phones through a complicated process for some time, but such tethering is prohibited by AT&T’s terms of service. The release of NetShare seemed to indicate (albeit briefly) that AT&T had changed its mind on the matter.

Now, users who try to download the application are told that it is no longer available in their country. So what happened? The app may have snuck past Apple’s approval process - but with reported wait times of weeks (or months) it seems unlikely that anything appears there accidentally. Then again, Apple has been dealing with a massive influx of new applications - they may simply be overwhelmed and are getting sloppy.

It is also possible that the app was supposed to be limited to a few select countries, and was accidentally posted on the US store. Finally, AT&T may have really changed its mind, but it seems unlikely that they’d pass up the chance to tack one more fee on our data plans.

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I'm very pleased to announce that Marshall Kirkpatrick has joined ReadWriteWeb in a full-time capacity, as our new Vice President of Content Development. The grand title reflects Marshall's senior position within ReadWriteWeb, where he will be responsible for driving a lot of our upcoming content developments. These include premium content, publishing system enhancements, and more magic things. Marshall will also continue to be ReadWriteWeb's Lead Writer, so don't worry his writing isn't taking a backseat at all. He will be starting full-time at RWW sometime over the next couple of weeks.

Since starting with us as Lead Writer back in September '07, Marshall has helped ReadWriteWeb become the 9th most linked to blog in the world (according to Technorati). With Marshall on board full-time, I'm excited about RWW continuing its strong growth and rocking the tech news world even more!

Back in April, we noted that some NY state politicians were trying to put in place a rather sneaky legal change that effectively would force Amazon to collect sales tax in New York, despite not having a physical presence there. The "trick" was to claim that if you had any affiliates in the state, you had a local presence. Affiliates, of course, can be nothing more than an advertiser. So, based on this change of law, effectively anyone who has an advertiser in NY is considered to have a local presence there and must collect sales tax. Both Amazon.com and Overstock have sued over this law, and Overstock has even gone so far as to cut off all NY affiliates in response (showing how the law probably hurts NYers a lot more than it helps them).

Saul Hansell, over at the NY Times, picked up on an odd fact, however. Just weeks after this passed, a separate bill was introduced to repeal it. Yet, that bill appeared to have no sponsor, but the state Senate actually voted and approved it. After some digging, Hansell got an explanation: saying that the original bill was part of a larger bill that was approved, but many felt that they wanted to address just this specific issue. Of course, it appears that the state senators' interest is not matched by the corresponding state assembly (who would also need to pass such a bill). Over there, they'd just as soon leave the matter as is, and let the courts (and taxpayers) sort it out.

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Filed under: Cellphones

We're not sure how this one got past Apple's App Store censors, but the clever kids at Nullriver have released what appears to be the first tethering solution for the iPhone. The $10 NetShare app is just a SOCKS proxy that links an ad-hoc WiFi network to the iPhone's 3G or EDGE connection -- and if we could get it to work, we'd probably think it was a fine, if hacky, solution to a major limitation of Steve's baby. As it stands, though, the instructions are pretty sparse, and while we can get the app to recognize a connection, we're not able to actually load anything. We're not sure how long this one's going to last -- anyone else willing to give it a shot before it gets yanked?

[Thanks, Zoli; Warning, link opens iTunes]

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LG15 has been around for what, a couple of years now? And it’s finally coming to an end tomorrow. For real this time. Thanks to YouTube, a “webcam,” and some great lighting, LG15 quickly grew in popularity and formed quite a cult-like following. And I’m serious about the cult part. As the LG15 series progressed and we all learned to love the hokiness of it all, the production team behind LG15 also found that an online web series could easily lend itself to an interactive relationship with its cult-like followers, with last year’s season finale ending in a bit of a wild goose chase where some fans were chosen to become part of the show.

From the looks of it, the series finale of LG15 won’t be quite so melodramatic this time around, but it will be quite epic, with 12 hour-long episodes that will begin airing tomorrow at 8 am PST. An episode will be released every hour for 12 hours, so this will be an all day affair, just like KateModern’s finale. Get ready. If you are indeed saddened by the end of LG15’s run, you may be comforted in knowing that EQAL, the production team behind LG15 and KateModern, have a few things up their sleeves for a new online series, which will premiere in September.

EQAL hasn’t released any further details, but the system used for both LG15 and KateModern seemed to work well, as they appealed to a pretty large demographic and found mutually beneficial ways in which to integrate with social networks and media-sharing sites. The beauty of EQAL’s execution was its ability to leverage social media for what it is, both embracing and pushing forward the way in which online media is created, distributed, and consumed.

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Ray Beckerman, as you may already know, is a lawyer in New York who not only has defended numerous people against RIAA lawsuits, but also runs the Recording Industry vs. The People blog, where he chronicles what's going on in these cases. While I believe he sometimes pushes the envelope too far in his claims about what the RIAA is doing, there's no denying that he's been a tremendous force in shining some much needed light on some of the RIAA's more questionable activities, while also helping those who are severely outgunned in various lawsuits.

As numerous folks have sent in, Beckerman has now also written up something of a primer for judges in The Judge's Journal, a publication of the American Bar Association targeted at judges. It basically explains the many problems with the way the RIAA conducts its lawsuits, noting how it often uses questionable means, weak evidence and general bullying tactics in filing its cases. It also relies on the fact that it comes off as more credible than an individual (often defending themselves -- sometimes in jurisdictions far from home). Beckerman highlights all of the problems with the way the RIAA runs its cases, and makes a series of quite reasonable suggestions for judges in how to handle such cases should they show up in court. It's a good guide, that also highlights many of the underhanded tactics that the RIAA uses in filing its cases. It's well worth a read if you haven't seen it elsewhere.

If I have one complaint, it's the same one I leveled against John Duffy recently. While the article does mention Beckerman's website, it does not mention that he represents many clients against the RIAA (including in ongoing trials). That would appear to be something of a conflict of interest, in that he's making a bunch of suggestions for how judges should basically side with his arguments in those cases. I guess I'm learning that such "disclosures" are generally not considered necessary in the legal community.

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Tapulous, the company behind Tap Tap Revenge, has announced that the popular iPhone app will hit 1 million installs some time this weekend. The app is the second we’ve heard from to hit the milestone (Facebook reached it last week), and is another testament to the extremely rapid growth some applications have seen on Apple’s newly launched App Store.

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem says that the application has been downloaded about 900 thousand times since its launch, and expects to hit the 1 million user milestone over the weekend. Tapulous’s iPhone Twitter client Twinkle is significantly less popular, with around 80,000 installs, but it was released after Tap Tap Revenge. Decrem notes that there is a total install base of about 5-6 million iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 firmware (which is compatible with the App Store). With about 1 million downloads, this puts Tapulous applications on around 20% of all devices - a very impressive feat.

One of best features in the original version of the game (which was only available on hacked iPhones) was that users could create tab sheets and play the game with any song in their iPhone’s library. Unfortunately, Apple prohibits any developer from accessing the iPhone’s library with a native application, so Tapulous has been forced to come up with a different way to introduce new content to the game. For the time being they’re offering free downloads of new songs directly through the app, but these songs have all been submitted to the company by indie artists (impressively, 2.5 million songs have been downloaded so far).

As it turns out, a number of record labels have taken notice of Tap Tap Revenge’s quickly growing install base, and are eager to use it as a means of exposing users to new music. Decrem says that the company is in talks with both indie and more well known artists to create a premium package of songs, which will likely be released in the App Store as a separate game for a small fee. Subsequent packages will also likely be released as their own independent games, as Apple does not currently offer a way for developers to sell new content from within an application.

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