Rumours of a deal between search giant Google and internet service provider EarthLink have been around for some time, but the two companies have only just confirmed that a deal has been finalised. The agreement will "enable EarthLink to build a citywide wireless network and allow Google to provide free internet access" in San Francisco. It is estimated that one million people should benefit from this deal which ought to start rolling out in the near future, with Google hoping "to see the service go live as soon as possible." EarthLink is also planning a fee-based service, although not all the details are available about this yet. So this should be good news for most people in San Francisco, however it isn't clear if there are any downsides to this deal. If it proves to be successful, Google could well spread its wireless service to other parts of the globe.

According to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science, Washington State University, and the University of Leuven, a new dye has been developed which could potentially see much faster internet connections. Their work shows that the dye interacts more strongly with light than any other known material, possibly even 50% better. This would mean that if it was integrated into optical based networks or internet connections it could wield much faster transfer rates, as well as giving the optical tubes a more colorful appearance. So far, no predictions have been made about when this technology can be expected to become available to consumers, but it's likely to be a few years away yet.

More people are continuing to move away from Internet Explorer as their primary browser, opting for other alternatives such as Firefox. IE started the year with 85.31% of the market, falling to 79.64% during the year. Apple's Safari managed to grow from 3% to 4.24%, but Mozilla was the biggest winner with Firefox usage growing from 9.5% to 14%. Admittedly Firefox is the only cross-platform browser, which could account for some of its success, with IE being Windows-only and Safari being Mac-only. Internet Explorer is clearly still the dominant browser, but this shows a continuing downwards trend that first became apparent during 2005.

If you were using a fully updated version of Microsoft Internet Explorer last year, with every one of the patches installed, you could still have been vulnerable to attack from known flaws for 284 last year. For at least 98 of those days, Microsoft knew about bugs which were being actively exploited by criminals without a patch available. This means that there were only 81 days during which Internet Explorer was completely safe against known problems, compared to all but nine days for Mozilla Firefox. Apparently at least ten of the critical problems had resolutions published online before Microsoft released a fix, so perhaps Internet Explorer 7 will wield more security for users. Admittedly this research does not account for unknown bugs, so both browsers are likely to truly be vulnerable at any time.

The Recording Industry Association of America has announced that it is set to sue Russian music firm Mediaservices for $1.6 trillion. Mediaservices also owns AllofMP3.com and allTunes.com and is accused of selling music illegally. Apparently the RIAA want $150,000 for each of the 11 million pirated songs. A spokesperson for AllofMP3.com claimed that the suit is unjustified because the company doesn't operate in New York and obeys Russian Copyright laws - it even pays some of its profit to the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, the Russian Organisation for Multimedia, which the RIAA argues has no right to exist. It has been no secret that the RIAA has been unhappy with Mediaservices, but this is the first real action they've taken.

Companies that are low enough to resort to sending out spam e-mails as advertising have recently really been working hard. Thanks to images in spam messages, a surge in botnets (computers that are hijacked by viruses to send out spam emails), a high availability of domains for spammers and underdeveloped spam filters, spammers have managed to increase their spam volume by 35%. This exceeds the expectations of internet analysts, and means that spammed advertisements now represent 90% of all e-mails on the internet.

In a small city near the Nile River where cars compete with cattle and modern conveniences are scarce, Intel Corporation is using computers and wireless technology to help Oseem's 200,000 residents tap into vast "knowledge resources" on the Internet in hopes of bettering their lives.

"Technology has expanded what is possible for the people of Oseem," said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett. "Intel is committed to support Egypt's leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills."

If you receive and email with the subject "Happy New Year" be very cautious, it could be a new email worm which is spreading from 160 email domains. The malicious email has an attachment named 'postcard.exe' which, if opened, will infect your computer with a number of dangerous codes including Tibs, Nwar, Banwarum and Glowa. Once the worm has done its work on your PC it will then mass mail from the infected computer - according to VeriSign one network is sending out five emails per second with the worm. It's recommended that users always check with the sender whenever they receive an unexpected attachment, especially if it is an executable.

With Nintendo opting to use Opera for web browsing on the Wii, Samsung has now taken a similar path. Opera Software today announced that it is working with Samsung Electronics to make the mobile version of the Opera browser available on Samsung mobile phones. Opera Mobile uses Opera's small-screen rendering technology to improve the appearance of websites on mobile screens. It has not yet been announced which phones this browser will work with.

Sony will offer a video download service in the first quarter of 2007 for its PlayStation Portable (PSP) game device, the Financial Times reported in its online edition. The scheme involves downloading video content to a PC for one-time transfer to a PSP. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment developed the service to work with Sony's memory stick storage platform, the report said. A 4Gb Sony memory stick has the capacity to store 10 feature films. Sony is also negotiating with vendors like Amazon.com, Movielink and CinemaNow to provide the new service.

Internet Explorer 7 was designed with security in mind. While there have been several flaws reported in the browser, Microsoft has so far been very good with patching them. When they discovered that Internet Explorer 7's phishing shield can get bogged down very quickly when viewing multiple web pages at once (or just a web page with a lot of content), Microsoft worked hard to find a fix. The problem lied in the way the phishing filter checks for bad sites. Instead of checking whether a site is on a pre-downloaded "naughty list" like Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7 asks Microsoft whether or not a site is good before loading it. A quick optimization patch was not included in the most recent "Patch Tuesday", but you can still get it here.

Google Inc. has released a customized version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) browser in which Google, not Windows Live Search, is the default search engine. In addition to using Google as the default search engine, Google's customized version of IE 7 also provides users with the Google Toolbar and a Google homepage they can personalize. Google's customized version of IE 7 can be downloaded from here.

Opera Software announces its Opera Mini Web browser is shipping in most markets with selected Nokia 6300s. With the Nokia 6300 weighing in at a mere 91 grams, Opera Mini complements the phone's sleek, compact architecture by enabling fast Web browsing on all sites with little requirements needed of the device.

Back in July, we reported a bill was passed that would fine webmasters for hosting porn and mislabeling it as "GI Joe" or "Barbie". Senator John McCain wants to take that law one step further, and make all multimedia violating sex offender laws deleted, and then either reported or fined. The Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act would require reports sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of any and all illegitimate images. If a webmaster deletes and reports posted illegal content, they would be free from any and all persecution, assuming they kept records of the incident for at least six months. However, if a webmaster intentionally holds back reports and does not delete illegitimate content, they would be fine-able for $300,000 per image. The new law would require all sites that allow users to post content to submit reports. This includes social networking sites such as MySpace, message boards such as the TechPowerUp! Forums, and sites that allow for user profiles, such as Amazon.

Reigning world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik was beaten today by computer Deep Fritz in a 6 game chess match. Kramnik lost 4-2 against the machine which he had previously beaten in 2002. Apparently programmers might now move onto creating computers to play poker at a high level - after all, there can't be that much more for the chess computers to conquer.

Sony has started offering old Playstation games for download to Playstation 3 owners. These games are meant for the PSP, so you need to own both to take advantage of this offer. Games cost $5.99 and can be downloaded from the PlayStation Store accessed through the Playstation 3. The current games offered are: Cool Boarders, Crash Bandicoot, Hot Shots Golf 2, Syphon Filter and Tekken 2. Sony will release another wave of games later this month.