The National Science Foundation is planning an effort to fundamentally re-engineer the Internet and overcome its shortcomings, creating a network more suited to the computerized world of the next decade. The new project, the Global Environment for Networking Investigations, was described for the first time by researchers and foundation officials at a technical meeting held in Philadelphia last week.

Yahoo's problems with its ad system after an update last weekend are still refusing to go away, and the system has been malfunctioning for a week now, according to various advertisers and observers. Apparently, the problems were precipitated by the Yahoo Search billing system, which after the update began ignoring budget limits and was subsequently shut down. Other issues, including malfunctions within the bid system, compounded the problem.

Ending Spam, by Jonathan Zdziarski, may not live up to its name, but it is an excellent overview and introduction to the various methods and techniques used to detect and filter unwanted email messages. It may not be possible to ever eliminate 100% of spam, because what may be spam to you could be a legitimate email message to someone else. Achieving higher than 99% effectiveness is a worthy goal though and the information contained in this book can help you get there.

If a television commercial appears first on the Web, are people more likely to watch it? In a new twist for Web advertising, cosmetics maker Coty Inc. is betting just that, launching the commercial for its new fragrance "Lovely" with actress Sarah Jessica Parker online.

With over 8 billion Web pages on file, Google is the most comprehensive index of the Internet. Too bad.

Kyle Lewis, 25, missed going to church one Sunday last month. But he did not miss the sermon. Lewis, who regularly attends services of the National Community Church in Alexandria, Virginia, listened to the sermon while he was at the gym, through a recording he had downloaded to his iPod. Instead of listening to the rock music his gym usually plays, he heard his pastor's voice.

Rich media vendors, once firmly rooted in technology, are morphing themselves into creative services organizations. The trend is driven by the standardization of rich media formats and an eagerness on the part of agencies to outsource production of ever more intricate online display campaigns. As rich media campaigns grow in size and complexity, the likes of Viewpoint, PointRoll, EyeWonder, Klipmart, Eyeblaster and United Virtualities all report they're handling ever more creative production for agencies and clients who lack the resources to handle the work themselves.

Google is taking a page from Microsoft's well-worn playbook for tech industry domination: Rather than just rolling out new products and features, the search giant is trying to win the hearts and minds of Web developers.

With more and more advertising dollars chasing the Internet, sellers of online ad space are suddenly confronting soaring prices and growing competition for premium inventory. A number of companies - so-called ad networks - make money by selling ad space across multiple Web sites. The field is dominated by Google and Yahoo!, but there are small, niche players as well.

Its lips are sealed, but its moves rattle everyone from Microsoft to eBay.