The French government have joined their German counterparts in recommending that citizens don’t use Internet Explorer. The government issued a statement today, two days after Germany, warning French people to avoid all versions of the browser, both statements appear to have been prompted by the online posting of the malicious code implicated in the recent attacks on Google, to which IE6 is thought to be particularly vulnerable. (more…)

Good news everybody, the tech recession is over. That’s according to industry analysts, Forrester who predict that technology spending in the US will grow by 6.6% this year taking it up to $568 billion. If this proves to be the case the upturn is predicted to have a knock-on effect across the world, particularly in the UK, the country whose economy matches the US system most closely.
Forrester are predicting 11.2% growth in Western and Central Europe whilst Pacific Asia and Latin America are also expected to do nicely with 7.8 and 7.8% growth respectively expected. (more…)

Okay, deep breath everyone, here comes another Apple rumour. Usual provisos apply, your own discretion is required – this thing is full of anonymous sources and a very healthy dose of conjecture and may very well be the work of an Apple PR engaging in the dark art of leaking, or just plain made up. I don’t know, but it seems plausible enough to be worth talking about nevertheless. (more…)

Despite recently going public about his belief that privacy is no longer a ‘social norm,’ Mark Zuckerburg has made a move to placate the sizeable wing of Facebook users that are less than pleased with his website’s privacy and security arrangements. Virus protection company, McAfee have launched a partnership with Facebook in order to provide users with six months of McAfee protection absolutely free and a discount subscription after that. (more…)

Mark Zuckerburg has poured petrol on the fires of the Facebook privacy debate by stating privacy is no longer a ‘social norm’. The comments came at the crunchie awards, a San Francisco ceremony that recognises technological achievement. (more…)

Almost since the launch of the BBC’s industry leading iPlayer portal, technology insiders have been predicting that the system would eventually be installed in TVs. Though few thought that it would happen quite this soon. Samsung have announced that the BBC iPlayer will be one of the first apps to be installed on their new range of televisions, with the first ones being rolled out as early as this year. (more…)

The Google Suggest function, that generates a list of search queries you might be looking for as you type in a search, has generated some controversy this week, after Google were accused of programming it to favour Islam over other religions. (more…)

In November last year BBC Director General, Mark Thompson confirmed the BBC.co.uk will not be safe from cost cutting measures to be rolled out across the corporation in the coming years, earmarking 2012 for the start of the roll-back across the corporations online services. Now however, it seems that the cuts could be brought forward, with the BBC’s online activities expected to be a major part of the BBC strategic review – a report that is set to be published before the next general election. (more…)

Google has (for a change) lost a court case that it filed against a small Canadian search engine called Groovle.com. The search engine giant had claimed that the name resembled theirs closely enough to confuse people. Google had asked that 207 media, the company in question, hand over the domain to them, however this claim was refused by the arbitration panel appointed by the National Arbitration Forum. (more…)

One of Google China’s former executives has set the Apple Tablet PC rumour mill into overdrive by claiming on his blog that Apple expects to sell 10 million tablet PCs this year. Bloomberg.com is reporting that Lee Kai-fu, who is currently the head of the Foxconn Technology Group, which owns the company that supplies the iPhone to retailers, made the claims on his blog. (more…)