Chrome update fixes bugs

Google has released a developer-oriented update to its Chrome Web browser that fixes some crashes and video playback issues, reports CNET News.

Chrome is still in beta testing, and for those who have an even higher tolerance for rough-around-the-edges software, Google also offers developer versions. Chrome 0.3.154.3 is the latter.

"Release 154.0 (the most recent publicly released Chrome developer build) had a few browser crashes, including a crash on start-up on tablet PCs running Windows Vista. We fixed the new crashes, and 154.3 should be much more stable," Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, said in a mailing list posting.

The British government is considering setting up a database of all phone and e-mail traffic in the country as part of a hi-tech strategy to fight terrorism and crime, its senior law enforcement official said yesterday, reports The New York Times.

The official, home secretary Jacqui Smith, said Britain's police and security services needed new ways to collect and store records of phone calls, e-mail messages and Internet traffic.

Technological changes have created an online world that is complex and fragmented, Smith said, and important information like telephone billing data is not always retained.

Apple thinks the market for high-definition video, defined by Sony's Blu-ray, is "just a bag of hurt" where the licensing of the technology is too complex - and its CEO Steve Jobs said the company is "waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace".

According to The Guardian, the remarks came after Apple refreshed its notebook computers on Tuesday night, introducing a "pro" version which includes two separate graphics cards and a new version of its consumer-focused MacBook line, which uses an aluminium casing.

But while the notebooks were unexceptional, the launch showed the company is unafraid of the economic downturn in the US - the only concession to price was a lowering of the cheapest MacBook to $999 - nor in the UK, where the price of the cheapest MacBook actually rose from £699 to £719.

As carpenters put the finishing touches to displays at the Frankfurt Book Fair yesterday, the spectre of the digital future worried many executives attending the world's biggest annual book-publishing gathering.

Whether it is school textbooks or philosophical tracts, moves are afoot everywhere to convert books from bulky paper into ever-so-tiny computer memory.

Only gift books, lofty literature and children's picture books seem immune to the trend. When the fair opens for business today, many publishers may stop for a moment to marvel, or to shudder, at the stands displaying the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.