'Speed matters,' says Google exec on second birthday of company's browser

Google today celebrated Chrome's second birthday by launching the sixth version of its browser for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Chrome 6, which Google released into its "stable" channel -- the upgrade mechanism for the production-quality version -- also included patches for 16 vulnerabilities and another crack at fixing a Windows kernel bug that affected the browser.

"The last couple of years we've been focused on speed," said Brian Rakowski, Chrome's director of product management. "A lot of things have changed in t...

Microsoft on Thursday started featuring a small advertisement on its Bing home page for Internet Explorer 8 in an apparent effort to encourage more people to migrate to the latest version of its browser.

With the launch of Bing, Microsoft came up with the unique concept of displaying a new photograph on the home page each day, but it also generally followed Google's precedent of an otherwise sparse page. The Bing site features the search bar and a few links along the outer edges of the page.

Now, it also features a small link in the right corner of the photo that says: "Fast. Easy. Get...

Chrome is back up, Firefox stays flat in August

The browser battle returned to what passes for normalcy in August as Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which had a two-month run of usage share gains, lost ground to the usual suspect: Google's Chrome.

"August was a normal month, more like before the IE gains," said Vince Vizzaccaro, vice president at Web metrics company Net Applications. "IE lost, Chrome and Safari gained, even Firefox gained a little."

IE fell by three-tenths of one percentage point to end August with a 60.4% share of the global browser pie, Net Applications' data sh...

Dell on Thursday said it would not increase its most recent proposal to acquire virtualized storage vendor 3Par, paving the path for rival Hewlett-Packard to acquire the company.

In an escalating bidding war, HP on Thursday raised its offer for 3Par to $33 per share, or roughly $2.4 billion, from its previous bid of $30 per share. The move topped Dell's latest offer of $32 per share, according to 3Par.

HP's bid constituted a "superior offer," and Dell's final offer to acquire 3Par was not accepted by 3Par's board of directors, Dell said in a statement.

"We took a measured approach th...

Google on Monday said that a recent report claiming it failed to patch one-third of the serious bugs in its software had the facts wrong.

IBM's X-Force security unit, which released the report last week, acknowledged the error and issued a revised chart that shows Google patched all the vulnerabilities rated "critical" or "high" in its online services.

"We questioned a number of surprising findings concerning Google's vulnerability rate and response record, and after discussions with IBM, we discovered a number of errors that had important implications for the report's conclusions," said...

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a new wireless Xbox 360 controller, which features a new D-pad that transforms from a plus to a disc.


The new controller will only be available bundled with the Play and Charge Kit starting Nov. 9 for $64.99. It will replace the existing controller available in the kit.


Other new features include: A,B, X, and Y buttons that are gray instead of the standard red, green, yellow, and blue; a concave design on the analog sticks; and a matte silver color.


The new D-pad was developed amidst user complaints.


"We've heard from the community that you're not big fans o...

Microsoft is increasing subscription rates for its Xbox Live online gaming service by as much as 25% in some cases.

Effective Nov. 1, the price for a one-month Gold subscription in the U.S. increases from $7.99 to $9.99, a three-month Gold subscription will rise from $19.99 to $24.99, and a one-year Gold membership will jump from $49.99 to $59.99.

Microsoft offers basic Xbox Live access for free, but players need a Gold membership to access advanced services like multiplayer support and Netflix streaming videos. Microsoft officials said the rate increases are justified by the growing amo...

A list of countries considering BlackBerry bans over security concerns with data routed abroad:

India - The country of almost 1.2 billion people had threatened to block corporate e-mail and messaging services unless BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. makes data more easily available to its intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The deadline had been Tuesday, but the government is giving RIM a 60-day reprieve as it studies the feasibility of routing BlackBerry services through a server in India. The government also may ask Google Inc. and Skype SA for greater access to encrypted in...