Another day another banned iPhone App. This time it was a fairly route one app that simply displays pictures of women. The app was briefly tolerated by the App Store big wigs, leading to rumours that the store was relaxing its strict no adult content policy, until the developer started uploading topless pictures to it, at which point they shut it down… With extreme prejudice. (more…)

Facebook has begun testing a new update entitled publisher, amongst other things it gives users more control over the security of their accounts, allowing them to control access to their profiles in a granular fashion. The update comes in response to complaints from users that they had no control over who out of their friends saw their status updates and wall posts etc. (more…)

Tomorrow the world will finally see a beta of Microsoft’s long awaited ‘Security Essentials,’ the programme that, if it works, could make life very hard for traditional anti-virus makers like Norton and Symantec. The programme works just like its competitors, in that it analyses changes to a computer’s file system to track actions like copies, installs, etc. If a known virus is discovered, it alerts the user before it can do any damage. (more…)

We see practically every day on the news that high street behaviour has been hugely affected by the recession. But how has the world of online commerce changed? Well, according to research carried out by IMRG Capgemini e-Retail sales, perhaps surprisingly, online sales have not gone down – in fact, they have risen by 14 percent over the last year. This proves that consumers have not stopped buying altogether, in many cases they are merely adapting how they shop. (more…)

Recent press reports – notably the New York Post’s ‘Fear Grips Google’ story – have suggested that the powers that be at castle Google are a little worried about Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. But can it really be true? Are the most powerful company the internet has ever seen really worried? (more…)

After the Palm Pre finally went on sale last Saturday, the question on the SmartPhone industry’s collective lips this week has been, was the launch a success? The answer… Too early to say. In total, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 phones were sold. This sounds impressive and represents the single best weekend of sales ever for Sprint Nextel (the phone’s exclusive mobile carrier), though is it all smoke and mirrors? (more…)

As of the first of next month, the Chinese Government will be requiring all new PCs to be loaded with state issued software, blocking certain websites considered inappropriate. The government is claiming that the move is aimed at protecting children and young people from some of the more harmful content available online, though many have suggested it might be more about controlling access to subversive sites not considered to be ‘in the public interest.’ (more…)

Most industry analysts expect Microsoft to go public with Windows 7 prices at some point next week. This begs the question, how much does the software giant think it can get away with charging for the new system? (more…)

If you’ve been paying attention to the tech blogs over the past few days you’ll most probably have heard mention of the brand new application ‘Wave,’ that’s currently in development at Google. What you may still be a little fuzzy on however, is what Wave actually is. If this is the case then don’t worry you’re not alone, many people have the same issue, even Google. (more…)