"In a nice break from Google‘s slick-but-cute explanatory videos and ads, someone at Microsoft has unleashed a rather vicious attack video targeting Gmail. The video shows Gmail Man, a delivery guy who has the creepy habit of scanning your mail for keywords and then showing you a related ad. You may be fine with that when you’re online, but when dramatized in real life, it might make you question the practice. If nothing else, the attack video makes a compelling case for going with Office 365 instead."

"The SETI institute has hibernated its Allen Telescope Array, which scans the sky for clues on extraterrestrial life, due to lack of funding. The telescope array, which consists of 42 20-foot-wide telescopes spread across a field 300 miles north of San Francisco, was originally funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated $25 million to the project. However, state budget cuts have all but halted the project, which will for the time being be unavailable for normal use and run by a significantly reduced staff."

"Tuesday, Google announced a few changes to Chrome, its engineered-for-speed web browser. The super-fast beta version that was announced a few weeks ago has already been updated to a stable version. For the Googlers working on Chrome, speed entails not only faster code (the latest version of Chrome boasts a 66% improvement in JavaScript performance) but also easier-to-navigate interfaces."