Internetnews.com writes that “

[t]he efforts of government agencies to make their services and information accessible on the Web have not always been a resounding success, but at least they’re getting a little better, according to a survey research firm ForeSee Results plans to release today.  In its quarterly survey, the group found that federal government sites saw their scores improve on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for the first time in a year.  ‘E-government has stopped the bleeding for now, in terms of citizen satisfaction,’ ForeSee President and CEO Larry Freed said of the modest 0.7 percent uptick.  ‘But it remains to be seen if this is a blip or the beginning of a positive trend.’”

PCWorld.com reports that “India is developing a laptop to be sold at US$10 that will target higher education applications, a minister of the federal government said Tuesday in Delhi.  Research on the new low-cost laptop is being carried out at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, said D. Purandeswari, Minister of State for Higher Education, at a conference in Delhi. This measure will help raise the quality of higher education in India, she added.  The Minister did not however give the specifications of the $10 laptop, nor is it clear if the rock-bottom price will be achieved with the help of a government subsidy.”

CNetNews.com reveals that “[a]fter a few days with a teaser site, Microsoft has gone live with dozens of videos from its [Mojave] project, in which Vista skeptics were shown a new Microsoft operating system, code-named Mojave. After giving their take (almost all positive), the participants were told that it was actually Vista they were being shown.  […]  The software maker did put up some aggregate statistics, saying that of 140 participants, 94 percent rated Vista higher after seeing it, with none actually reducing their score. The participants’ average pre-Mojave rating for Vista was 4.4, with the average rating after seeing Vista as Mojave was 8.5.  Microsoft has put up dozens of the videos, including, to their credit, at least one of a person who remained skeptical. For what it’s worth, the Microsoft people I spoke with said they were actually looking for more negative stuff and just didn’t have the footage.”

BusinessWeek has an article on Cuil, the new search engine that was debuted by a team led by ex-Googler Anna Paterson on Monday, which states that while “[l]ots of people are not very impressed so far, […] it’s reassuring that startups like Cuil are continuing to push the envelope. More than ever, Google needs credible competition, and Yahoo and Microsoft aren’t yet providing it, if they ever will. Any company with 65%-plus market share, still growing, can grow complacent no matter how hard its founders and management team try to avoid it. Competition is the best antidote to that.”

According to the Mercury News, new research shows that “[t]he bad guys on the Internet are narrowing the time frame they need to unleash computer attacks that take advantage of publicly disclosed security holes.  More and more of these attacks are coming within 24 hours after a vulnerability is disclosed. That means security flaws are being exploited in Web browsers, computer operating systems and other programs before many people even have had time to learn there’s a problem.”