The long sought after Google Analytics Data Export API beta has finally been made available to the public. The API will allow developers to access the read-only data from Google Analytics in their own applications.

Any data that’s available through the standard Analytics web interface is available through the API. The Analytics API is a Google Data API. This is the same API protocol used for Google Calendar, Finance and Webmaster Tools.  If you’ve used any of these APIs, the Google Analytics Data Export API will look very familiar to you.

Client libraries for the JavaScript and Java programming languages have been provided. Support for more programming languages is in the works. For any programming language you want to use you can make requests directly to the API over HTTP and access the data in XML.

To get started, you firstly need to get the documentation from Google Code. Here you’ll find example code, a developer guide, FAQ, and the complete API reference.

You can then sign up for the Google Analytics API Notify email group so you get the key announcements on feature updates, code changes and other service related news that relate to the API.

It will be interesting to see some of the inventive ways developers present the data from Analytics.

Microsoft have officially confirmed that May 5 is the official public release date for the Windows 7 Release Candidate.

“I’m pleased to share that the RC is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th,” wrote Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc in a corporate blog.

This follows news of a possible Windows XP virtualisation mode which allows Windows 7 to run older software that doesn’t work on Vista or Windows 7 natively. The “WinXP mode” has not been confirmed yet by Microsoft, so consider it a rumour at this stage.

For those of you who are gamers and currently don’t own a copy of the Orange Box from Valve Software, this could be the time for you to buy it. Valve are now offering the Orange Box for only $9.99 on Steam.

Orange Box comes with Half-Life 2, HL2 Episode 1, HL2 Episode 2, HL2 The Lost Coast, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.  6 games for $10…not a bad deal at all considering the normal price for all the games separately is $79.95 . I think I will grab myself a copy for that price.

For more information: Orange Box on Steam

Firefox 3.0.9 is now out with quite a few security fixes and improvements. To update, go to Help -> Check for Updates or grab it from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

Here is the list of changes:

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Many users experienced an issue where a corrupt local database caused Firefox to “lose” its stored cookies.
• Fixed an issue where, starting with Firefox 3.0.7, inline image attachments on popular webmail services (like AOL and AIM) would not display.
• Large forms would sometimes take a long time to submit.
• In certain cases, new windows would not have proper focus.

It seems after years of denying any support for Blu-ray, Microsoft may be finally softening their stance. Check out this Microsoft TV commercial (the interesting part is at 0:43):

Interesting stuff. We may even see a Blu-ray addon for the XBOX 360 in the coming months.

You can read more at CNET.