Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a cyber attack on the search engine. The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work "properly" with the browser. It recommended individuals and firms upgrade "as soon as possible".

A brand new way to look at your Mac desktop, BumpTop is a full 3D experience with smooth, realistic physics, making your Mac’s desktop act more like the real desktop it’s sitting on

The Rumpus: Do you save everything ever entered into Facebook at any time, whether or not it’s been deleted, untagged, and so forth?
Facebook Employee: That is essentially correct at this moment.
Rumpus: When you say “click on somebody’s profile,” you mean you save our viewing history?
Employee: That’s right.

For the tech industry, The Noughties were very nice indeed. Except when they weren't.

During the first decade of the millennium, it goes without saying that computing has changed in a big way, becoming cheaper, easier to use, more mobile, and – in the words of the Mountain View Chocolate Factory – more "webby." But it should also go without saying that the decade included its fair share of spectacular snafus.

The makers of the eerily lifelike robotic mule have a new creation: a machine that walks around like a real human being. Boston Dynamics is building the “Petman” prototype for the U.S. Army, to test out protective clothing.

“Petman will balance itself and move freely; walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents,” the company promises. “Petman will also simulate human physiology within the protective suit by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating when necessary, all to provide realistic test conditions. ”

"Microsoft has acknowledged that they slipped the .NET Framework Assistant plugin into Firefox via Windows Update this past February, and that it has poked a "critical" hole in the browser's security (effectively bringing Firefox down to IE's level).

Microsoft has deemed the hole to be a "critical" security threat, as it gives webmasters the ability to quietly install software on your PC. Last May, Microsoft released an update that made it possible to uninstall the .NET framework . They also released a patch earlier this week that supposedly fixes the problem . The vulnerability can also be exploited on users running any version of Internet Explorer . Needless to say, Firefox and IE users should employ one of those solutions ASAP."

Recent analysis by the media research firm Nielsen asserts that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next. Thus far, Twitter has been considerably better at signing up users than keeping them.

To watch web videos without the comments and crap, just drag the button below to your browser's bookmarks bar. On any of the supported video pages, click the bookmark button to watch in peace.

The Times published an article explaining that the Orwell books were unauthorized editions that Amazon removed from its Kindle store. However, Amazon said it would not automatically remove purchased copies of Kindle books if a similar situation arose in the future.

1. Create a poll, 2. Forward the link to the poll to the participants, 3. Follow online what the participants vote for. Free. No registration required.

It seems to have passed without huge fanfare, but on April 20th 2006, the Alexa rankings for tech sites around the globe suddenly doubled, literally overnight.

The CCP has hired thousands of freelance Internet propagandists whose job is to infiltrate chat rooms, message boards and comment areas on the Internet posing as ordinary users to voice support for the agenda and interest of the CCP. They praise China’s one-party system and condemn anyone who criticizes China’s policy on Tibet. They comment aggressively on news reports about China’s food-safety problems, relations with Taiwan, suppression of bird-flu and AIDS information, Internet censorship, jailing of dissidents, support of Sudan’s military in Darfur and other sensitive topics. Comments applaud the Chinese government and slam its critics, all using scripts and lines approved by the party.

Some estimates claim that the 50 Cent Army includes a whopping 300,000 people. If that’s accurate, China's freelance propagandists exceed in number the total populations of 47 countries.

Google is tight-lipped about its computing operations, but the company for the first time on Wednesday revealed the hardware at the core of its Internet might at a conference here about the increasingly prominent issue of data center efficiency. Most companies buy servers from the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, or Sun Microsystems. But Google, which has hundreds of thousands of servers and considers running them part of its core expertise, designs and builds its own. Ben Jai, who designed many of Google's servers, unveiled a modern Google server before the hungry eyes of a technically sophisticated audience. Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers–each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.

An old interview of Rob Janoff, who create the rainbow Apple logo : "The fruit of his labor: a simple 2-D monochromatic apple, with a healthy bite taken from the right side. Jobs loved the conceit-only he suggested it be more colorful. Janoff’s boss disagreed, insisting the logo be made all black to save on printing costs. But Jobs was resolute, arguing that color was the key to humanizing the company.”

Immersive Media’s key product is the Dodeca 2360, a camera named after the geodesic geometry of the Dodecahedron, on which the patent is based. The twelve-sided camera has eleven lenses which simultaneously record video. The twelfth side is the base of the camera. There is a base unit recording system which inputs the data and records video and other information onto hard drives. The imagery can be paired with metadata, such as time and GPS coordinates. Immersive Media also has a camera called the IM Surrounder, used for security applications, and a mobile digital video recorder (MDVR), used for mobile surveillance. All of the immersive imagery is processed on Immersive Media’s own software.