Pac-Man game on the Google homepage

This year Pac-Man is 30 years old. And this says a lot.We are talking of a time where people were rushing through the cinema halls to watch the premiere of Star Wars 5.

The game is in DHTML. Nothing fancy. But it’s quite a nice to have a go at it before hitting a search.

To sensitize people on this matter, in a very unorthodox way, Forthehack has created Please Rob Me. Please Rob Me basically tracks and lists down information that people post on social networking sites about their leave from home.

Though Please Rob Me’s practice is quite unethical, at the bottom of it all, it serves to make people realise the trouble they are putting themselves into by unveiling their privacy on the web.

The Haloscan hardware and software is physically failing and we have no choice but to discontinue the service.

Haloscan users now have the choice to either switch to Echo, another JS-Kit project or export their comments freely from Haloscan to their original blog host’s commenting system.

For several years Haloscan has been a good alternative to bloggers (especially those using Google’s Blogger) looking for a better and more rapid solution to their blog’s original commenting system. Now that Blogger has implemented some changes to its commenting system and that JS-Kit has developed Echo, a better performing system, that amongst others, integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo accounts, Haloscan has become quite obsolete.

Sony just announced the new E Series VAIO. Big surprise concerning the laptop, its physical appearance and its price tag. Indeed, the new E Series will come in a series of flashy colors to choose from. Sony states “Caribbean Green, Iridescent Blue, Hibiscus Pink and Lava Black”.  Moreover, flashy keyboard skins and mouse covers are available too.

The best thing yet is the price. The laptops start at a little less than $800. This is bargain price if you ask me. The keyboard skins and mouse covers are at around $20 and $5 respectively.

And if you are still not persuaded, don’t forget that this laptop comes with the latest processor from Intel, the Core i5.

Right now, the laptop is available on pre-order only. And if you have a Sony Financial Services card, you will enjoy 12 months of free interest. Now isn’t that a deal?

So now, just some hours ago, Google has announced that it will no longer support IE6. Their message is clear, IE6 is preventing them from moving on and adding new features to their products. They state:

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

This is a real hit towards IE6. Personally, I really like the way things are going. It’s about time some giant organisation attacked IE6.

What are your views about this? Do you think Google is going too far?

Wikileaks is thus asking for donations from visitors and users for it to be able to break even and continue operating.

The website which has contents that generally take the form of leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, has promised the release of important documents once it has gathered enough fund to resume operation.

No date has yet been given as to when Wikileaks will resume operation but it seems that funds are not flowing that much. It has also had issues with its Paypal donation account several times which have now been solved.

Since its beginning in late 2006, Wikileaks has given rise to much a buzz around itself, featuring on many newspapers and inspiring much political reforms. Though the website has been much criticised, it remains an important asset on the web, one that could deserve being saved.

When Did You Join Twitter is pretty simple to use. You only have to correctly type you Twitter username and the age of your account is given to you. You will get to find the date on which you created your Twitter account and it will also specify the age of your account in terms of days! You can also tweet the result directly from the page.

When Did You Join Twitter is a project by Neville Ridley-Smith, an Australian coder who is the creator of yet another Twitter-related webpage, How Often Do You Tweet which gives you the frequency of your tweets in terms of time lapse and average number.

When Did You Join Twitter and How Often Do You Tweet are arguably two not very essential services but they sure provide some answers to the inquisitive “twitter”.

Images: screenshots of Whendidyoujointwitter.com and Howoftendoyoutweet.com

Previously, users were only notified by mail about new comments on their content or on other people’s contents they have commented on. Replying to comments meant logging in to Facebook and posting the comment. This was not always possible due to companies banning the site from work offices or users being on the go, receiving notifications on their mobile phone.

Reply to a comment by email

Email-reply successfully posted on Facebook.

As from yesterday, Facebook users can simply click “Reply” on their notification mail and type the comment they want to send back without having to log in to Facebook.

This new feature would predictably make the site even more active.

To know more about it, head over to the announcement post on Facebook’s blog.

Google Gravity

Google Gravity is a project by Hi-Res!, a London-based company consisting of a team of developers. It is perhaps a tribute to Isaac Newton, the guy behind the discovery of gravity, who was born on the 4th of January 1643 and to whom Google recently dedicated a doodle.

Google's Isaac Newton Doodle

Google Gravity is fun to use as you can see all your search results floating right in front of you. A slight downside of it is that it works with Google Chrome only, nothing unusual though, since it’s one of Chrome Experiments projects.

Floating search results on Google Gravity

The purpose of the awards would be to honour “outstanding web projects by individuals or groups who have shown courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression, making us aware of diverse political viewpoints and standing up to those who censor information.”

More information and candidates for the award can be nominated on Breaking Borders’ official page.The closing date for submissions is the 15th of February 2010.