Can Chrome Shake Up the Browser Market?

Google’s hoping its newly released Chrome 3.0 browser can help bring big changes to the evolving browser market. The program, unveiled Tuesday, promises improved performance and a host of new features. But is it all enough to actually win over new users? Read the full story

Crop circles, Google Earth, and the logo mystery

On Google’s homepage today, the search giant swapped out its normal logo for a UFO-themed Google doodle. The illustrated flying saucer carved out “Goog e” in the corn field, and a little green tractor finishes off the “l.” Read the full story

Google Fast Flip: The platypus of news readers

Google on Monday released an experimental new content browser called Fast Flip that makes it possible to see a curated set of content sites using a physical “turn the pages” metaphor. Fast Flip pages are cached by Google and load very quickly, which is cool. Read the full story

A rumor circulating among Facebook users claims the popular third-party application Fan Check should be avoided because it allegedly downloads a virus to your computer. Here’s an example:

We've received tips about a Facebook application called Fan Check; reports say this application is actually a virus, and should be avoided at all costs.

The first thing you need to know is that this has NOT been confirmed as true. According to the developer of the software, Fan Check is a safe, legitimate Facebook app that doesn’t require the downloading of anything other than Adobe Flash. No evidence to the contrary has surface so far, according to antivirus software vendor Sophos. Read the full story

By Douglas MacMillan

After failing to acquire Twitter last fall, Facebook went shopping for what may be the next best thing.

On Aug. 10, Facebook said it had acquired FriendFeed, the Mountain View (Calif.) social aggregation service founded by Google (GOOG) alumni Bret Taylor and Jim Norris in 2008. The deal, which The Wall Street Journal reported to be valued at nearly $50 million in cash and stock, gives Facebook top talent and advanced technology in an area many see as the next great frontier on the Web: real-time search. Read the full story

The distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that knocked out Twitter for hours and affected other sites like Facebook, Google’s Blogger, and LiveJournal on Thursday continued all day Friday and may persist throughout the weekend.

In its latest update, posted to a discussion forum of its third-party developers at 11 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Friday, Twitter reports it’s still fighting the attacks. Read the full story

This seems a little fishy given the importance August 7th, 2008 has for Georgian/Russian history….

Web attack ‘aimed at one blogger’

A “massively co-ordinated” attack on websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter was directed at one individual, it has been confirmed.
Facebook told BBC News that the strike was aimed at a pro-Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu.

The attack caused a blackout of Twitter for around two hours, while Facebook said its service had been “degraded”.

Google said it had defended its sites and was now working with the other companies to investigate the attack.

“[The] attack appears to be directed at an individual who has a presence on a number of sites, rather than the sites themselves,” a Facebook spokesman told BBC News.

“Specifically, the person is an activist blogger and a botnet was directed to request his pages at such a rate that it impacted service for other users.”

Botnets are networks of computers under the control of hackers.

The machines were used to mount a so-called denial-of-service (DOS) attack on Thursday.

The BBC reported that the blogger was “pro-Georgian”

Today is an important day in Georgia’s history…..

Georgia marks anniversary of war

Ceremonies are under way in Georgia to mark one year since the war between Russia and Georgia over the South Ossetia region.

Midnight bonfires were lit in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and other towns. A minute’s silence was held and church bells rung to remember the dead.

A march and candlelight ceremony in South Ossetia are also planned.

Russia’s president said the decision to go to war “was probably the hardest thing, but eventually we did it right”.

Some 30,000 people remain displaced because of the conflict, according to Amnesty International.

Among the day of events in Georgia, several hundred people formed the Georgian flag in the grounds of Gori’s medieval fortress, at a ceremony attended by President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The town was hit by Russian airstrikes and then occupied by Russian forces last year.

The Georgian national anthem was played as the flag was formed.

Mr Saakashvili also visited a war cemetery in Tbilisi to lay a wreath, and is due to address the nation later on Friday.

Speaking to the BBC during the day of events, Mr Saakashvili also said it had been a hard decision to mobilise troops a year ago, but that if he had not acted then “we would have had much worse atrocities than had been committed”.

He said that now, diplomacy was the only way to “expel Russians” and shift the balance of power in the region.

In an interview to be broadcast later on Russian TV, his Russian counterpart spoke of the decisions he made on 7 August, 2008.

A little Eminem line that just popped into my head when reading the following article…

(Click the link to read the full article)

Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone

Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.

On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC’s way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet.

Today there are two different sets of rules for applications and devices on the Internet. On the wired Internet, we can connect any type of PC or other computing device and use any applications we want on those devices. On the wireless Internet controlled by cellular carriers like AT&T, we can only use the phones they allow on their networks and can only use the applications they approve. This was fine when the wireless networks were used mostly just for voice calls. But now that they are increasingly becoming our mobile connections to the Internet and mobile phones are becoming full-fledged mobile computers, an argument has been growing that the same rules of open access that rule the wired Internet should apply to the wireless Internet.