It will be silence on First Avenue next week, as Yahoo shuts down for the holidays.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Yahoo is closing down everything excluding for certain “essential functions” throughout the week between Friday, December 25, and Friday, January 1.

A Yahoo spokesperson established the Journal report Tuesday–however, according to the spokesperson, Yahoo employees were well-versed about this arrangement in April, a detail missing from some reports about the shutdown.

Yahoo has definitely looked to slash costs this year, its first with CEO Carol Bartz and CFO Tim Morse. Layoffs, a search-outsourcing deal with Microsoft, and a reconsideration of business priorities were high on the company’s to-do list in 2009.

The shutdown, which needs staff to take voluntary leave or holiday days, would be the first ever in Yahoo’s history, although other tech companies, particularly Hewlett-Packard and Adobe Systems, too shut down for the holidays.

Yahoo will have customer support people functioning over the break, and it apparently devices to keep its Web site up and running, the spokesperson said. Outside the United States, employees will either have paid time off or unpaid time, depending on local laws.

According to comScore’s November statistics (via eWeek), Google and Bing are basically having a feeding whirl on Yahoo’s vanished market share. Yahoo’s share fell by 0.5 percent previous month to 17.5 percent. Bing grabbed most of those searches, increasing from 9.9 percent in October to 10.3 percent last month.

Google took the break, bringing its entire market share from 65.4 percent to 65.6 percent in November. It is, however, a slower gain than the previous month, when Google gained a half percentage point.

Strangely enough, comScore’s numbers show an unusual development than those from Hitwise, released a week ago. Hitwise claims that Bing in fact lost market share in November, staying well below the double digits at 9.3 percent.

Google and Bing have occupied a bit of a search arms race recently. Both search engines have incorporated Twitter results, with Bing’s Twitter search and Google’s real time feeds of Tweets. Last week, Google introduced “Google Goggles,” which lets Android phone users carry out Web searches based on camera photos. Bing has a diverse type of visual search that shows results as graphics. Microsoft is in addition building out its Map features with Bing Maps Beta, and just released an iPhone app akin to Google’s Mobile app.

Meanwhile, Yahoo is flailing, its market share down 2.9 percent since November 2008. The company lost toolbar deals with Acer and HP, the two biggest computer manufacturers in the world, and simply isn’t innovating on search anymore.

Microsoft is functioning with the European Environmental Agency (EEA) to utilize its Bing Maps, Silverlight multimedia technology and Azure cloud platform to demonstrate how climate change is disturbing certain regions in Europe.

The Web site, called the Environmental Atlas of Europe, will notify people about climate-change stories and appealing projects, such as wine farmers in the Tuscany region of Italy who run a carbon-negative farm to a city in Denmark that uses 100 percent renewable energy, said Bert Jansen, technology lead for the EEA.

“It’s weird that not everyone is conscious of these kinds of initiatives,” Jansen said. “I think it’s important that good initiatives get the attention that they deserve.”

Microsoft and the EEA in addition launched another Web site called Bend the Trend, where people can pick from up to 45 pledges for how they can decrease their impact on the environment. Pledges, which are marked on an interactive Bing map, include eating less meat, turning down thermostats and recycling all paper.

Both Web sites are fundamentally data visualization tools focused on environmental information, said Ludo De Bock, senior director for European Union and NATO relations for Microsoft. Jansen said that the EEA has a lot of data, for example noise pollution data, that could be overlaid onto the Web sites.

Google is in addition lending its cloud-computing power to assist scientists keep closer tabs on deforestation. Over the next year or so, Google expects to make public an online version of a tool that analyzes raw satellite imagery to evaluate deforestation over time. The tool will facilitate the creation of deforestation maps much faster than before.

The application is fundamentally an online version of those built by forest researchers Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Carlos Souza of Imazon, an Amazon rain forest research institute. Their applications are used across Latin America, but examination had been hindered by a lack of access to satellite images and slow computational resources, according to a Google blog post.

Google said a model of the platform is obtainable now to a limited number of partners, but it should be rolled out to the public over the next year.

The deal, first reached in July, still wants to be accepted by the US government prior to it becoming official. However the companies said in October that they wanted additional time to complete the deal owing to the “multifaceted nature of this transaction”, and Friday’s announcement is probable to be the consequence of hundreds of hours of thorough evaluation from expensive lawyers.

Company executives did not have to chalk up the frequent-flier miles to finalize this year; they signed it virtually, with Microsoft’s Qi Lu and Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz representing their individual companies on the licensing agreement, and Ballmer and Bartz inking the definitive agreement, according to sources recognizable with the deal.

Under the conditions of the deal, Microsoft will offer search technology to Yahoo for up to 10 years, also gaining access to Yahoo’s search technology assets and some hundred employees. It will then compensate Yahoo a major portion of the ad revenue generated next to those searches.

At least company executives didn’t have to frame up the frequent-flier miles to decide this year; they signed it virtually, with Microsoft’s Qi Lu and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on behalf of their individual companies on the licensing agreement and Ballmer and Bartz inking the ultimate contract, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Under the terms of the contract Microsoft will offer search technology to Yahoo for up to 10 years, also gaining access to Yahoo’s search technology assets and numerous hundred employees. It will then compensate Yahoo a noteworthy segment of the ad revenue generated along those searches.

A Yahoo representative declined to remark on the particulars of what held up the ultimate agreement of the deal. Both parties said they still anticipate the deal to be converted into final in early 2010, even though the government is certain to take a long hard look.

The company announced the amalgamation of Facebook Connect across numerous key Yahoo Web sites including Mail, News, Sports, and Finance. The plan is to compel even further more added readers to Yahoo’s network of sites–the second largest in the U.S.–by making it easier for them to share things they are fond of with their Facebook friends, some of whom might not have seen the Yahoo item otherwise.

Yahoo by now offers only some hooks into Facebook, but this joint venture strengthens the affiliation among the two sites. The integration will take some time, nevertheless; Yahoo said not to look forward to the procedure to commence until the first half of next year.

It foreshadowed the Facebook Connect amalgamation at an event in August, when Yahoo announced social-networking features in properties such as Mail and Messenger. Those updates were limited to friends within the Yahoo network, yet. Facebook and Twitter are where the social-networking junkies come together.

Drop.io will store all your files on their cloud, so recipients can see what files you’ve sent. The recipients will then view the e-mail’s contents on a Dropio page. This enable you to view, re-attach, collaborate further (via phone conference), or delete the set altogether.

The app was developed on top of the drop.io API. This is available directly in the “applications” menu inside of Yahoo Mail.

The feature allows searchers to view videos directly on the search results page instead of taking them to the site where the video is hosted.

Some videos on the results page will display a “Play Now” link, which opens a large overlay window and plays the video on the results page.

Google Video has already had this facility. Microsoft Bing Video Search also allows the user to preview a video just by hovering the cursor on it.

They have signed on a coalition, called Open Book Alliance that will oppose to Google’s digital book ambitions, which will also persuade a US federal judge to think whether Google is in breach of competition laws.
The settlement would allow Google to continue to digitize millions of out-of-print books, with the help of several of the nation’s largest libraries.
The settlement provides $125m to Publishers that Google has agreed to pay to cover copyright infringements. The settlement would also give 70% of the sale of those digital books to writers and publishers, while Google would keep the remaining 37%.
Google had already scanned at least 7m books, using cameras able to convert up to 1,000 pages an hour.
The class-action settlement that would expand Google’s digital library is scheduled to be reviewed by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in an Oct. 7 court hearing in New York.

The focus of the deal is on sharing revenue between the two companies. Under the 10-year deal, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine will power Yahoo’s searches, while Yahoo will handle the advertising sales, using Microsoft technology. Microsoft and Yahoo will share revenue on traffic generated on Yahoo’s network.

The deal will allow Microsoft to “create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive, in a statement.

Google’s search engine dominates the marketplace with 65 percent of U.S. Internet searches. Last month, Microsoft had only 8.4 percent of the market and Yahoo 19.6 percent.

The deal will boost Yahoo’s annual operating income by about $500 million and yield capital expenditure savings of $200 million, the companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

Shares of Yahoo traded at $17.39 in after-hours trading after closing at $17.22, while shares of Microsoft rose to $23.51 in after-hours trading from their close of $23.47.

The two companies have talked for months about cooperating in the online advertising market, dominated by Google. Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo last year but its $47.5 billion bid was rebuffed and Yahoo’s attempt to seal a search advertising deal with Google Inc fell apart under regulatory scrutiny.