Google Talk on iPhone: nice idea, but constantly resets itself

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Google Talk has been made available as a web application for the iPhone, which sounds great if you want an instant messenger client, but in reality doesn’t work particularly well because of the iPhone’s current limitations.

Because it runs in the Safari web browser rather than being a standalone application (they come next week), whenever the user switches to another application, such as Mail or Weather, Google Talk sets the user’s status to “Unavailable” and the session is reset the next time it’s accessed…

Microsoft Equipt: subscription-based Office and OneCare software

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Microsoft has announced that it will sell a subscription-based bundled version of its Office and OneCare software in the States later this month.

The $70 per year offering will enable users to gain access to the latest versions of the software without having to buy them outright. Whenever Microsoft updates the software (say, from Office 2007 to “Office 14” expected in 2009) users will automatically get the upgrade…

OPINION: Embrace the spam

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So after yesterday’s rubbish McAfee scare-mongering attempt to get us all to sign up for one of its products, us lot here at Tech Digest thought it might be good to take a look at a sample of genuine spam.

You never know, one of those lottery emails just might be the real deal. And what if, one fortunate evening, you find yourself in the company of a willing lady and could actually really do with some herbal Viagra and a winky that’s five times its original size?

Spam could be a life saver. And if nothing else, it’s always very entertaining…

Google working on improved image searching for a trillion online pictures

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According to Google, almost one trillion images now exist online, thanks to the explosion in popularity of digital cameras and camera phones. and the company is looking at ways to improve how users can search for the pictures they want.

Currently, Google’s image search relies on textual information stored in and around images on web pages. This is fine to a point, but not only does it have the potential to be abused by people trying to make their web pages more popular, but it relies on a human to correctly categorise a picture and what it contains…

"Unsafe surfing" leads to 70 spam emails a day. After just a month

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Security firm McAfee, which has a vested interest in spreading panic and fear among internet users but we’ll pretend not to notice, has been experimenting with internet spam.

McAfee sent 50 people from across the world out on the internet while “unprotected” and found they were soon spammed to death within a month. The terms of the experiment were not revealed, so we’re unsure…

Create MP3 files from Internet radio stations with MP3videoraptor 3.0

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I’m not sure what relationship RapidSolution’s MP3videoraptor 3.0 has to a bird of prey or a dinosaur, but this intriguingly-named software allows you to download audio from Internet radio stations and save it in MP3 format, for playing at any time on your computer or portable music player.

MP3videoraptor 3.0 works by scouring the Internet for songs and music videos based on search criteria you enter. It utilises several web sites which already exist solely to create customised playlists — in this way, users don’t have to wait until a song is played live…

Bill Gates – "using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated"

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This fantastic email comes from the archives of Microsoft, and was originally turned over to the authorities during the nasty anti-trust investigation.

In it, Bill releases his epic frustration at the process of trying to download Windows Movie Maker. It’s nice to know that Bill counts the seconds Microsoft web pages take to load and also reboots his PC “every night.” Here are a few quotes – the full email’s after…