Social networks abuzz with Jackson memorial

Much of the world stopped what it was doing yesterday to watch the Michael Jackson memorial event in downtown Los Angeles on live television, reports eWeek.

Another huge number of fans also viewed the event on the Web and commented on it to their friends, using such services as Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and other social networking sites.

Facebook played a central role in interactive Web communications during the event, reporting impressive traffic-related statistics shortly after the two-hour-long event ended.

Microsoft is reportedly in talks with EU regulators over two separate anti-trust cases, attempting to resolve the issues before the EU commissioner for competition steps down at the end of 2009, states eWeek.

The first case deals with Internet Explorer, while the second centres on certain features of Microsoft Word and Excel.

Microsoft had previously planned to release a separate edition of Windows 7 in Europe that excluded Internet Explorer 8 in order to avoid anti-trust complaints.

No longer must Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk carry the beta tag of shame; they are all now full-fledged members of the Google family of products, reports cnet.

Google has been hinting this was coming over the past few months, but is finally ready to make the official announcement along with the news that Fairchild Semiconductor has decided to embrace Google's suite of Web-based office productivity applications.

It's hard to tell exactly what technical advancements may have prompted the decision to lift the products out of beta.

Regulators with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have approved Nokia Siemens' bid to buy two business units from Nortel for $650 million, says eWeek.

Nortel has been under bankruptcy protection since early 2009, and is looking to sell off various businesses.

At the same time, Nortel continues to build out its unified communications capabilities, including the latest release of its Communication Server 1000.

Opening a new tab in a browser is a moment ripe with opportunity, and Google has begun testing a version of Chrome that can present new options when users do so, reports cnet.

Chrome's current new-tab interface, which also shows by default when the browser is first launched, displays a three-by-three array of thumbnails of the most commonly visited Web sites.

It also sports a history search box, a list of recent bookmarks, and a list of recently closed tabs.