Google announced on Thursday the discontinuation of Chrome Frame, an Internet Explorer plug-in that tends to bring modern web technologies to legacy versions of the browser. The controversial plug-in was released to serve as a modern engine to old versions of Internet Explorer, to enable complete new browsing experience.

Chrome Frame allowed developers to scale the huddles of building different versions of app to suit the varied user agents, while ensuring better experience even for those still using old versions of the browser.

However, given the proliferation of modern browsers and more capable rendering engines, the challenge of users who were unable to move to a more capable browser is far lesser. And the usage of legacy browsers according to latest statistics is declining significantly.

What that means is that the leading edge browser experience have become mainstream, hence the need to retire Chrome Frame. Google will cease support and updates to the program in January 2014.

And developers who have hitherto employed the browser plug-in are required to instead prompt users to upgrade to a modern browser. While enterprise users who depend on old technology to run certain apps, are recommended to try Google Apps for Business, which allow employees to switch seamlessly between Chrome and another browser.

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Smart devices such as Android based mobile phones and tablets are here to stay in enterprise world, which before now, were once most prohibited by IT. Android is currently the most common mobile operating system and there is no sign that its popularity will wane anytime soon, despite its huge security threats.

The BYOD (Bring Your Own device) syndrome in modern enterprise setting means greater security challenge for IT administrators.

While traditional approaches which typically involves perimeter-based security controls like firewalls and smart screen filters are still employed, modern enterprise security processes have gone beyond the conventional security methods.

The "extended enterprise"setting now makes it rather impossible for perimeter defense system to adequately cover your data security, as proliferation of smart devices used by hundreds of millions of employees world wide, to transmit and store corporate information, introduces more complexities for IT security.

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Yahoo launched a revamped email interface on Monday with a couple of other changes in the service's privacy agreement. The new policy have generated outrage from users especially concerning the line on scanning of private email by Yahoo to improve its ads targeting campaigns.

Privacy have continued to be the bane of internet advertising, given the enormous appeal advertisers have for users personal information. Whereas such users deem it necessary that their privacy should be respected.

Yahoo Mail current additional "Terms of Service" is yet another twist in the privacy saga, although they are not the only service provider who have come open with such policy on tracking users, as well as scanning their private messages for advert purposes. As Google also have implemented the policy on Gmail service.

Microsoft had in 2012 announced same policy changes in its Cloud Services, which was also met with resistance from users. Albeit, the company had opposed email scanning for advertising purposes.

However, if you have upgraded to the new interface, Yahoo have afforded users the option to opt-out of letting the service scan their private messages for advert purposes.

Apart form the policy changes, other notable addition to the revamped Yahoo Mail includes integration of Dropbox cloud storage service which allows users to add attachment to their messages and equally save received attachments direct to the service.

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Google announced would-be hard knock news on forking WebKit early April, signalling the beginning of work on its own rendering engine for Chrome, Blink. WebKit emerged in 2001 out of KHTML as an open-source rendering engine, whose flexibility and performance have endeared it to many web technology vendors including Google.

WebKit has kept pace with the growing capabilities of the web platform, thanks to the great open-source community who have been contributing in its development.

Why would Google want to discontinue using WebKit rendering engine? Despite the fact that WebKit has thrived in supporting the emerging web technologies, it has slowed down the pace of innovations owing to its complexity, hence the need to introduce a more streamline version, Blink.

Blink is based on WebKit with internal architectural improvements and simplification of the code-base, leading to more stability and fewer bugs. And which will be easier to make proposed specifications work in both WebKit and Blink. However, there is the fear that the common code-base could lead to some problems in recommending new standards.

But, the increased competition would lead to more focus on standards, meaning better browsing experience, which is a win win for the web and individual users.

Blink is expected to be turned on by default in Chrome 28, though it's already available as part of the Canary build for developers and early adopters who want to give it a spin.

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Twitter could be cooking-up an ad exchange program, according to a report credited to AdAge. The report has it that the Twitter Ad Exchange program is aimed to bolster the company revenue system and as a challenge to Facebook owned Ad Exchange, FBX.

The Ad re-targeting exchange will employ user tracking mechanisms to determine previous pages visited by a user and then re-target them with display ads on the network. It uses cookies to track users and re-targets them when a partner bids to target such user on the social network.

Twitter is already rallying for support from several FBX partners who are experienced in brand re-targeting to make the program a success. The talks, however are still in hush-hush, as Twitter has not briefed partners on actual launch date.

The micro-blogging platform has been saddled with revenue issues and would want to explore any possible means to end the crunch race. Albeit, the company did not respond to request for further information on the purported ad exchange program, close sources have validated the claims.

Perhaps, it won't be long before we start seeing the early track on the ads program. And Twitter is also expected to pursue an IPO next year, the new revenue system is seen as a means to avoid pre-IPO push back.

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There's nothing quite as nice as curling up on the sofa and watching your favorite film. If, like many people, you consider yourself to be a film fanatic, it's likely that you have built up quite a large collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays over the years. However, most of us, if we're being honest, only re-watch a small percentage of the films that we have in our collection. The others are usually left on our shelves, collecting dust. Moreover, as we get older, our taste in films tends to change. You might, for example, have adored action-packed blockbusters a few years ago, but now prefer foreign or indie productions.

If this is the case for you, it might be time to do a clear out of your Blu-Rays and DVDs and decide what you should do with them. If you have a number of films that are in good condition, but which you know you are unlikely to ever watch again, you may want to sell them. This way, you can make a little extra cash and declutter your house. On top of this, your old DVDs will end up going to a good home and may end up becoming someone else favorite films.

Auction Sites

The first option, if you want to try selling films online, is to use an auction site. On this type of site, you can list your item at either a fixed price or a starting price. They're relatively easy to use and you should be able to make a sale quite quickly. However, do bear in mind that you will probably incur seller's fees and so if you're selling your DVDs and Blu-Rays for a relatively small amount of money, it may not be worth your while. In addition, if you want to draw attention to your listing, you will have to spend some time taking clear photos of your items and writing up an accurate description for each one. This can be time consuming and so may not be the best option if you want a hassle free way of getting rid of your goods.

Trade In

Another option is to trade in your DVDs and Blu-Rays for cash on specialist sites; there are several of them on the web. These sites make the process of getting rid of your old movies easy. You can normally just type in the title of your old film into the site search box and you'll be given a value for it instantly. Some sites also allow you to scan the Blu-Ray or DVD's barcode using an app on your phone or by using your webcam. Then, it's simply a case of sending off your items and getting paid. The process is quick and uncomplicated and perfect if you want to clear out your shelves without any bother.

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Google has released Chrome 27 to the stable channel according to the official Chrome Releases blog on Wednesday, with slew of improvements which includes the ability to engage in a conversation with the iconic search engine, Google on desktop computers.

Google had earlier made its voice search feature available for mobile, Google Now, on Android and iOS devices, which has greatly improved general search experience on smartphones and tablet devices.

Now, Google voice search can be experienced right on your desktop computer once you've got Chrome 27 installed. The feature allows you to engage in a direct conversation with Google instead of typing search queries, simply speak your search terms and Google will respond with the answer.

The new search innovation rides on its Knowledge Graph technology to arrive at a more accurate answers to your search queries. Unlike conventional search pattern that relies on keywords, the Knowledge Graph brings semantic understanding to search experience, an intelligent model that relates to real-world events and entities.

The feature adds to already growing voice technologies coming to the web, and also recently, the Web Speech API was demonstrated with stunning results signaling the beginning of more intelligent voice applications coming to the web soon.

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