Greenpeace accuses PC makers

According to Greenpeace, PC makers HP, Lenovo and Dell have abandoned plans to eliminate vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants from their products by the end of 2009, because of the recession, reports Computing.co.uk.

HP and Dell have yet to set a new timeline for completely eliminating these substances from all their products, and Lenovo has delayed its deadline to the end of 2010.

Apple is the only supplier to offer a product line completely free of the chemicals, apart from the power cords.

Little more than a year after its debut, Jimmy Wales has announced the death of Wikia Search, the for-profit operation he once billed as an antidote to the "unhealthy" search practices of Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, says The Register.

"While I personally believe in the opportunity for free software to make serious inroads into the search space, our project, Wikia Search, has not been enjoying the kind of success that we had hoped," Wales wrote on his personal blog.

"In a different economy, we would continue to fund Wikia Search indefinitely. It's something I care about deeply. I will return again and again in my career to search, either as an investor, a contributor, a donor, or a cheerleader."

Security experts are downplaying the potential impact of a virus which some believe is set to strike today, reports the BBC.

Conficker has infected up to 15 million computers to date and is set to change the way it works from today.

There have been some reports the worm could trigger poisoned machines to access personal files, send spam, clog networks or crash sites.