Facebook and other Web sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Google are creating technology platforms that let third-party developers build applications to run on those sites. The concept has opened the door to innovation, but also prompted worries over how those applications could be used for spam or to steal personal data.
The police have embarrassingly lost control of the National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) website. It appears the police have let the domain registration lapse, and it has now been picked up by an opportunistic German owner, Uwe Matt.
They’re back! Just when you thought the “browser wars” were over, with the two camps – Microsoft and Mozilla.org – settling in for a kind of intransigent détente, along comes Google to stir things up all over again. Clearly, Google is unhappy with the current state of browser geopolitics and feels it needs to roll its own.
In a sense, Chrome is not a browser, it’s an anti-browser. It’s mission is to destroy the concept of the browser, and become a frame for other applications – or, more pointedly, a kind of “chrome” window. In other words, Chrome is the long-awaited Google OS, a way of running Web-based applications like Gmail, Google Docs and the rest. That Chrome’s default function is as a browser is almost a historical accident.
The public trial of the Google browser will be available in 43 languages in 100 countries, Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management said at a news conference at the company’s Mountain View, California headquarters. Google Chrome relies on Apple’s WebKit software for rendering web pages, he said. It also has taken advantage of features of community-developed browser Firefox from Mozilla.
After the bids are lodged in November the Rudd Government’s seven member expert panel will consider the tender documents and make a recommendation to the Government around February. Following this Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, with the assistance of the Communications Department, will finalise a recommendation for Cabinet which will then make the final decision.
In many ways, how the country will react to the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is more a sociological question than a political one. It will test again what voters deem private, at a time when the Internet has pulled down so many curtains, and what in these times is considered a normal family life.
The free browser, called “Chrome,” is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Google said it’s still working on versions compatible with Apple’s Mac computer and the Linux operating system.
This week, Microsoft’s promise to “use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default” was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default.
The InPrivate Browsing feature in Microsoft’s latest browser is designed to delete a user’s browsing history and other personal data that is gathered and stored during regular browsing sessions. The feature is commonly referred to as ‘porn mode’ for its ability to hide which websites have been visited from nosy spouses or employers.