Microsoft launched an extension for Safari Wednesday called Bing Highlights. The tool recognizes "entities," interesting information, by highlighting text on a Web page, and then serves up additional choices and information the person might want to see or read.

Four out of five (79%) U.S. adults enjoy cooking, although nearly half of them (49%) say they enjoy it "when they have the time" -- and just 30% report that they actually "love" cooking, according to a new Harris Poll. However, a mere 11% report that they rarely or never prepare meals at home. In fact, two in five (41%) report preparing meals at home five or more times a week, 29% report doing so three to four times a week, and 19% report doing so one to two times per week.

The second stage of "PepsiCo10," a program to identify and incubate up to 10 promising start-ups in technology, media and communications, is underway this week. Twenty entrepreneurial finalists, chosen from among nearly 500 online submissions, are presenting their concepts to PepsiCo brand and marketing teams during a two-day summit at the company's Purchase, NY headquarters. Five submissions in each of four areas – social media, mobile marketing, place-based/retail experiential marketing and digital video/gaming -- are being evaluated based on their ability to impact brands and/or advance PepsiCo's "Performance with a Purpose" priorities, which include environmental sustainability and talent …

After six years running ABC primetime programming, Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment has resigned. In a statement, McPherson said: "I want to thank the wonderful team of individuals who have worked with me throughout my time here and wish them nothing but the best.” No replacement was named. The company said one will be announced shortly. But multiple reports suggested that Paul Lee, president of ABC Family was set to take over. ABC had mostly improving years at the network, pushing it up from last place among all network in the key adults 18-49 viewers -- …

Not only will consumers finally be spending more on back-to-school shopping this year, they'll be doing it in decidedly different ways. A new back-to-school survey from Deloitte reports that 28% of consumers plan to spend more this year than they did last year, and only 17% plan to spend less. "The overall tone was a little surprising, and very upbeat," Alison Paul, Deloitte's vice chairman and retail sector leader in the U.S., tells Marketing Daily, "with eight out of 10 expecting to spend the same or more. Consumers told us they would buy some more expensive items, including PCs …

Papa Murphy's Take-'N'-Bake Pizza chain seems to be offering the right formula at the right time: convenient yet fresh and reasonably priced meal solutions. And from the marketing perspective, a local, community-oriented franchise-owner approach facilitated by corporate has been no small factor in driving awareness and uptake of an already of-its-time concept, a chain executive told Marketing Daily.

Drury Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites, Omni Hotels and The Ritz-Carlton rank highest in customer satisfaction in their respective segments, according to the newly released J.D. Power and Associates 2010 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study. As the hotel industry begins to recover from the economic downturn, overall satisfaction among hotel guests has improved considerably from 2009, according to analysts. Many hotel chains were able to sustain relatively high satisfaction levels during the previous 12 months, despite contending with revenue declines and cost pressures caused by the economic downturn. "As …

Yahoo Japan said Tuesday it will implement Google as its backend algorithmic search engine and paid search infrastructure, rather than Bing. This decision does not impact the global rollout and implementation of the Yahoo search alliance with Microsoft in the United States and other parts of the world, except in the Japanese market, according to the company. Don't think Yahoo has sold out to Google. Yahoo Japan isn't actually owed by Yahoo. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company only holds a 35% stake. SoftBank, the Japan-based Internet service provider and cell phone provider, holds the remaining stake in Yahoo Japan.

Yahoo released a statement Tuesday that comScore made an error in its June 2010 search engine ranking report, underreporting Yahoo's U.S. page views by more than one billion and its duration metrics by more than 850 million minutes. Based on the corrected numbers, on a month-over-month basis, Yahoo's U.S. page views were down 4.7% versus the reported 7.4%, and U.S. duration was down 4.3% versus the reported 6.4%. comScore will issue the correct numbers in the company's next data release.

The message of “affordable quality” is an increasing familiar one in the vodka market these days. Imperial Brands got the ball rolling in 2007 when it introduced America to Sobieski, Poland’s #1 premium vodka, with its award-winning “Truth in Vodka” campaign.  The thrust:  You don’t have to pay inflated prices to get a great vodka (Sobieski’s suggested 750 ml retail is $10.99, versus Grey Goose’s average price of about $35). As it happened, the Sobieski launch and the “Truth” campaign were perfectly timed to benefit from the recession. Last year, Sobieski’s 580,000 cases sold broke a sales record, …