Google has decided to step up the safety of Gmail by adding some small new features available to every user. The footer of your session will now contain information such as your last log in, activity, and IP address that the session was accessed from.

In addition to above, users will also be able to see if they are logged in on another computer, and check recent activity to ensure their account is not being accessed by anyone else. Should a user forget to sign out, they are now able to safely remotely sign out from any location.

The Gmail service is one of the most popular web mail services, but Google is keen to make it safer.
"Your email account can contain a lot of personal information, from bank alerts to love letters. Email that, I'm sure, you don't always want other people to see," Gmail Engineer Erwin D'Souza.

The features are currently in the process of being tested and rolled out to the public. Some may have access to these features while others may not. They will be fully accessible to everyone in a short period of time.

View: TechRadar
View: Gmail Blog Official Post

Europeans suspected of putting movies and music on file-sharing networks could be thrown off the web under proposals before Brussels.

The powers are in a raft of laws that aim to harmonise the regulations governing Europe's telecom markets.

Other amendments added to the packet of laws allow governments to decide which software can be used on the web.

Campaigners say the laws trample on personal privacy and turn net suppliers into copyright enforcers.

MEPs are due to vote on the so-called Telecom Packet on 7 July. The core proposals in the packet were drawn up to help European telecoms firms cope with the rapid pace of change in the industry.

Technological and industry changes that did not respect borders had highlighted the limitations of Europe's current approach which sees national governments oversee their telecoms markets.

"The current fragmentation hinders investment and is detrimental to consumers and operators," says the EU document laying out the proposals.

View: BBC News

The new Apple iPhone has sold out in the UK on the first day of customers being able to place orders.

The day hasn’t been without controversy however. Existing iPhone customers who registered their interest for the 3G iPhone weeks ago received text messages this morning telling them they could complete their upgrade request online only to be faced with a website that at best allowed them to complete the first stage (of about 5) of the order.

As the day progressed it became increasingly apparent that O2 were prioritising new customers (makes business sense I suppose) and by mid-afternoon there were no more orders been taken with only a handful of existing customers managing to submit an upgrade request.

It is unclear whether or not existing customers with an iPhone can upgrade in-store on Friday with O2 customer services saying that people can - and store managers saying they can't!

View: Angry O2 customers

Today, we have the exclusive look at a full fledged X58 system. The new chipset will be the foundation for Nehalem and Intel already indicated to us that the new platform will deliver a large boost in performance across all applications compared to currently available products.

Intel will launch the X58 chipset with the same ICH-10 family of southbridges currently used on its P45 platform. ICH-10 supplies up to four PCI Express x16 paths, of which two, are PCI Express 2.0 paths. Other possible combinations are: one x16 path, two x16 paths, four x8 paths, and one 16 path and two x8 paths. Because of QuickPath however, we’re able to realize far better performance with wide bandwidth and very low latency. According to Intel, Nehalem will initially come with a 20-bit wide 25.6 GB/sec. QuickPath link, which gives a theoretical 2x performance increase in bandwidth over the 1600MHz FSB currently available on the X48 platform.

View: Full Story at Tom's Hardware

After a month of pressure from privacy groups, search engine Google has finally agreed to add a link on its homepage to the company's privacy policy. Google had resisted the addition of a privacy link, saying it did not want to clutter its homepage. "We're making a homepage change by adding a link to our privacy overview and policies," Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products & User Experience, said in a July 3 Google Blog post. "Google values our users' privacy first and foremost. Trust is the basis of everything we do, so we want you to be familiar and comfortable with the integrity and care we give your personal data."

Google's privacy policy came under fire in early June when EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the World Privacy Forum, Consumer Action, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), the ACLU of Northern California, and the Consumer Federation of California sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt complaining that under California law, a commercial Web site must "conspicuously post its privacy policy on its Web site."

View: Full Story at eWeek

Pioneer has developed a 16-layer read-only optical disc which it claims can store 400GB of data. The per-layer capacity is 25GB, the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc, and the multilayer technology will also be applicable to multilayer recordable discs. Multi-layered discs have been difficult to develop because 'crosstalk' from adjacent layers and transmission loss mean that getting a stable signal from the disc is often nearly impossible.

View: The full story @ vnunet

Google's Street View cars, which grab real photographs of streets and the people in them for the search giant's Maps service, have come under fire from privacy campaigners. The spycar has been spotted in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. A Reg reader was kind enough to send us a snap of the snapper-car in London. The pictures the car takes subsequently get loaded into Google Maps.

Privacy International has complained to the Information Commissioner's Office. A spokeswoman for the ICO told the Reg: "Yes, we have received a complaint about this and we are looking into it. We are contacting Google to get more details of the scheme."

View: The full story @ The Reg

In a statement Monday, Microsoft confirmed that it would be interested in resuming talks with Yahoo with a new board of directors, both to buy the search business or the entire company.Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has been pushing for a deal with Microsoft and has proposed a new slate of Yahoo directors, also issued a letter Monday, confirming that he has discussed the scenario "frequently" during the past week with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and other executives.

Yahoo officials were not immediately available for comment. In its statement, Microsoft said that, after Yahoo's shareholder meeting this quarter, it would be "interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo!, such as either a transaction to purchase the "Search" function with large financial guarantees or, in the alternative, purchasing the whole company."

View: The full story @ PCWorld

Security company AVG is upgrading a component of its antivirus software so as not to place an undue traffic load on the Web sites it scans. The company has already released a patch for LinkScanner, part of its Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0, and will release a patch for the paid versions of the software on Tuesday, said Lloyd Borrett, marketing manager for AVG in Australia and New Zealand.

The behavior of AVG's LinkScanner caused much animosity toward the Czech-based company, including a Web site dedicated to the issue, despite the popularity of its free security software. Web site owners complained LinkScanner was hitting their sites repeatedly, using up the bandwidth they paid for and causing their Web analytics programs to suddenly record high numbers of visitors. AVG acquired LinkScanner's maker, Exploit Prevention Labs, in December 2007.

View: The full story @ InfoWorld

Search engine Ask.com, a unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has announced that it has closed an all-cash deal to acquire Lexico Publishing Group LLC, the owner of popular reference sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. The company said the deal expands its monthly audience by around 15 million users to 145 million, an increase of 11%, making Ask.com the ninth-largest Web property globally. The move comes as IAC announced plans to spin off four of its largest businesses and focus on Web media and advertising in coming months. Terms of the merger were not disclosed.

View: Full Story at Reuters

An infrastructure update has been planned for Windows Update client. The gradual roll-out of this update will begin in late July. This update will occur automatically to any system configured to either receive updates “automatically” or “notify” customers that new updates are available for download.

For enterprise customers who use Windows Server Update Services or Systems Management Server, all updating, including the WU client, is controlled by the network administrators, who have authority over the download and install experience. Windows Vista customers who select “never check for updates” in their WU settings will not receive this update until they manually install updates from Windows Update.
In this particular update, there will not make any changes to the way WU looks or feels, instead the following have been improved:
- The length of time it takes Windows Update to scan for updates
- The speed in which signature updates will be delivered

Detailed information on this is posted on the Microsoft Update blog.

Adobe has expressed interest in making the movement of digital document files more open, and having their format (PDF), being the popular standard. PDF's will soon become the international standard for electronic documents after Adobe handed over the copyright to ISO.

"By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness", says Kevin Lynch, CTO at Adobe.

Most businesses use PDFs as the main way of transitioning from paper to electronic documentation, and now a slew of new readers, writers and development tools for the format will likely be unveiled in the near future thanks to the move.

The new PDF standard is called ISO 32000-1.

View: TechRadar
View: ISO Press Release

Nvidia Corp., the world’s largest supplier of graphics processing units, has issued a warning regarding lower sales during the ongoing quarter. The company blamed issues with its chipsets as well as low prices of graphics processing units for its fiscal results.

According to Nvidia, second quarter revenue and gross margin are expected to be lower than guidance provided during its first quarter financial conference call and be from $875 million to $950 million. The company said that the estimated decrease in revenue and gross margin is due to several reasons, including the delayed ramp of a next generation core-logic set, price adjustments of the graphics processors to respond to competitive products as well as “end-market weakness around the world”.

This is the first time in years when Nvidia admitted that it has to lower pricing of its graphics processing units to respond to a relatively successful product launch of its main rival, ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices.

View: The full story @ Xbit-Labs

President Bush’s economic stimulus plan, which involved sending out checks of up to $1,200 to every taxpayer, has provided a boom to the online porn industry, according to market research. Research by the Adult Internet Market Research Company (AIMRCo) has found that since the checks were sent out there has been an uncharacteristic increase in spending for online pornography sites.

According to Kirk Mishkin, head research consultant for AIMRCo, "Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30 per cent growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market." The checks were suppose to be used to provide a stimulus to the flagging US consumer sector but the research found many people were using them for a different kind of stimulation.

View: The full story @ vnunet

Apple's MacBook Air - still the world's slimmest laptop; VoodooPC's Envy isn't shipping yet - just got cheaper. Well, sort of. Apple's knocked £300/$500 off the price of the solid-state drive model.

Launched at £2028/$3098, the Air with the 64GB SSD now costs £1719/$2598, undoubtedly thanks to tumbling Flash memory prices. The sub-notebook's other specs remain the same.

View: The full story @ The Reg