The new version of Google Chrome looks at stability issues with some of the plugins (Flash most notably) but also addresses the major carpet-bombing security flaw. Other things affected in this release appear to be the speed, as reported by various websites, giving a small boost over the previous version (which was quicker than anything else anyway!)

If you already have Google Chrome installed, it should update automatically and silently in the background - however if you want to speed things up, go to the spanner icon in Chrome and select About Google Chrome where Chrome will do a quick check and prompt you to upgrade if necessary. Of course, if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you can get your copy from here.

Personally, I’m getting impatient for major updates to the platform. The reason is that I want to use it full-time, instead of Firefox, just because it’s so quick and clean looking. However, until there are real updates so that users can install add-ons, perhaps with the ability to block ads (conflict of interests?) then Chrome will always be a test browser as far as I’m concerned.

After the bad press Sony have got over the last couple of years for battery recalls (and most recently the recall of over 400,000 of their own laptops), you would think they would have sorted their issues out, or examined exactly what was going on in manufacturing that is producing this shoddy technology. But on the surface, it doesn’t appear they’ve done anything.

News appears today, that the battery in your Toshiba, HP, Dell, Acer or Lenovo could be potentially dangerous. The affected batch from Sony - produced between October 2004 and June 2005, is prone to overheating and could even catch fire. And it’s not just a few either, there are an estimated 100,000 batteries produced during this period that might have the same fundamental flaws.

Laptops that are currently on the affected list are: HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000 and zd8000 - Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400, and HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230, nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120, nx9600; Toshiba Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X and M50/M55 - Tecra A3, A5 and S2; Dell Latitude 110L, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610 - Inspiron 500M, 510M, 600M, 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150, and 5160 and Precision M20.

Use the links here to check to see if your battery is up for recall, for various makes of laptops: HP - Toshiba - Dell

If you own a different model of laptop by one of the listed manufacturers, I would check anyway, just to be sure. And if there isn’t a link for your laptop, check with the retailer that sold it to you, or contact the company directly. The batteries have the potential to catch fire, so double check with family members too that may not have access to this article.

Today sees the realise of the Mirror’s Edge demo on the PSN, with a 360 demo tomorrow and a PC version to follow at a later date.

DICE, who I hold as one of the best developers out there at the moment, are going all guns blazing over the next few days. As well as the demos, Battlefield: Bad Company has also received updates today (PSN) and tomorrow (360) with 4 new maps - 2 of which won a community vote. This last week I’ve been huffing and puffing because I could not make my mind up what to play on the 360, and with Fallout 3 out tomorrow as well, it’s going to be a very enjoyable weekend.

A job everyone can relate to - especially me as it’s something I do during the working week! System Administrators are the key to any IT systems in a business. They’re the people that keep things running on a day to day basis. They’re the ones who keep everything secure and well-oiled. So it comes as a surprise when somebody who works in such a high position of responsibility goes bad. Thankfully it’s not something you hear about every day, although fairly recently I wrote an article about the sysadmin in San Francisco who failed to hand over the passwords to the mainframe! Anyhow, on to the story:

Priyavrat H Patel, a sysadmin who worked for a screwdriver company, was convicted in the US for Computer Intrusion. He will spend 6 months behind bars, pay $120,000 in restitution, and be under house arrest for a further 6 months after release, and still be answerable to the courts for another 2 and a half years to make sure he stays an upstanding citizen. Apparently, the fuel that caused Mr. Patel to remotely access the servers and bring down their email and network systems? The demon drink of course! Read the full Register article for the rest of the details.

Of course it begs the question, why weren’t the passwords changed when the guy left?

Bloodhound SSC, a rocket/jet combination car, is aiming to smash the current land speed record. Set 11 years ago by Thrust SSC, at 763mph, Bloodhound is going to attempt to raise the bar even higher, to an astonishing 1,000mph!

Lead by Richard Noble OBE, and the same team that built Thrust SSC & Thrust 2, the vehicle is to be designed and built in Britain - ready for an appearance on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, in 2011.

Bloodhound SSC will have 2 forms of propulsion. Firstly there will be a rocket mounted to the top, and secondly the main body will contain a Eurofighter Typhoon engine, capable, in total, of 45,000 lbs of Thrust - the equivalent of 2.5 times that of a fighter jet at full throttle.

The job of driving the beast will go to previous Thrust SSC driver, and fighter pilot, Wing Commander Andy Green. Although safety is paramount for the attempt, I’m wondering exactly what you can do if the worst happens at 1,000mph anyway. Keep posted here and the official website, for any news regarding the development and testing of the vehicle.

News today has been inundated with companies announcing lay offs amid worries about the credit crunch, and a growth slow-down.

Firstly today, Imeem (a social music site) announce that they have made 25% of it’s workforce redundant. The reasons apparently due to not a lot money floating around in the market at the moment.

Then on the back of this, Jason Calacanis broke the news that Mahalo culled just under 10% of it’s staff too - saying that although there is plenty of money in the pot, due to potentially bad revenue from advertising over the next couple of years, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

No sooner had I drawn breath from the news, but it then appeared that Sandisk are in the throws of reducing it’s workforce too. Now I didn’t expect this industry to be hit by the global slowdown - after all, solid state memory is essential to so many gadgets - as long as those gadgets are continuing to be sold, of course.

Then there is the whole issue with Yahoo! moving 10% of it’s staff on, amid their yearly stock low of $13 a share. I think Microsoft are thanking their lucky stars now that they didn’t acquire the search company.

And what with the other news of Tesla, Pandora and others also cutting back, it’s fair to say that the economic crisis is starting to hit the tech industry. I say starting, because the big guns, like Apple, Google and Microsoft are doing very well at the moment. This can’t last forever of course - of those big three I see Apple being the most at risk of slow down, as they are essentially an iPod seller now (luxury?) followed by Google due to advertising revenues inevitably dropping, with Microsoft not seeing much of a change, being an essential part of most of our lives now.. That’s what I see, but then that’s only my opinion, and we all know what that counts for in the real world, right?

Situated in Japan, the Canal City shopping centre has an amazing 2D waterfall, that has precision nozzles controller by computer - meaning they can create text, objects, or anything else in the water. Originally found on Gizmodo.

Steve Ballmer has publicly said that a Microsoft and Yahoo! deal would be good for both sets of shareholders - still, after all this time.

I guess with the world’s markets the way they are, it would make sense to combine forces - even though technically both companies are worth a lot less on the stock exchanges. Roughly the same time that Steve Ballmer made the comment, Microsoft officially announced that the software giant was not in talks with Yahoo’s board… Hey haven’t we heard that before?

The new phone, although not the prettiest mobile, marks another avenue for Google.

The G1 will be available the day before Haloween from T-Mobile, free with a £40 per month contract, in the UK.

Google, already making headway into the browser market, although Chrome desperately needs some updates to keep interest high, is making it’s presence known in the mobile OS field with Android. Is Android a small stepping stone away from a fully featured OS? I think only Google can answer that, but it would make sense. Everything they do is in the cloud - so why not provide a thin client, for virtually nothing - if not completely free. It could serve up Google documents, mail, chat, video and all of the other services that we’re finding our online lives more and more dependant, directly from their servers, fully integrated into the desktop.

A quick post - I just found myself at what is possibly one of the best font sites I’ve seen for a long time. A huge collection of fonts, in every style you can imagine. If you’re into Photoshop, fancy letterheads or DTP, dafont.com is going to be like gold to you.