For people who are looking for a new way to handle investments online in the UK, Google has finally launched their Google Finance platform there. Google Finance is a simple way to gather the information you need for your investments. It works by pulling together information on companies, stocks, markets and more.
From their announcement, UK users will have access to the same features other location specific Google Finance users do.

Internet Explorer has never complied with W3C web standards, making it the least liked browser of web designers (and often of internet users as well). Internet Explorer 8 will be released soon, and although it claims to be fully W3C compatible, internet pundits fear it will fail the Acid test.

Telstra has started a person to person campaign seeking converts to their new Next G technology. They plan to go door to door to people currently on the older CDMA network and try to talk to them about the virtues of switching to Next G.

In a speech given by Bill Gates at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, he bites the hand that fed him: capitalism. In an ironic twist, one of the richest men in the world calls for a “kinder, gentler” version of capitalism, the very form of free enterprise that allows him the luxury of both charitable giving and a ultra comfortable lifestyle.

Australia’s Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd is going private with Lachlan Murdoch, and they are doing it without News Corp. Lachlan Murdoch is the son of media tycoon and News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch. Lachlan left his father’s company in a sudden 2005 departure walking away from a chance to succeed the media throne one day.

In the news is a story on the large number of older PCs “in the wild” that could be recycled. It seems of the 7 million out there in a recyclable condition, only 500,000 will be recycled. Apparently the rest go to landfills or rust away in storage.

Australian Federal Police cybercrime fighting efforts are being hampered by the number of officers that are deployed over seas right now. This is bad news in the ongoing fight to stop child pornography, hackers, identity theft, phishing and other online crimes. With the officers manpower and attention diverted, they lose what footholds they had gained in the world of ones and zeros.

The UK went to chip and PIN based bank cards a while back, and since the switch banks have been using the chips and PINs in the cards as a means to turn down people filing fraud complaints. The banks have claimed that the cards could not be duplicated or compromised in a way that would induce fraud. Recently that claim has been proven false, with one group claiming only “Martians” could avoid problems with fraud in the cards.

In the news this week, British schools have taken a clear stand against Microsoft’s new invasive software models, advising educators not to upgrade to Microsoft Vista or the newest Microsoft Office, Office 2007. The announcement came down this week from the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

In a move toward innovation, Cisco, another telecommunications giant, partnering with Intel, has invested over $9.5 Million USD into a company called Soonr. Soonr offers a way to access your desktop from your mobile phone. Soonr lets you access, restore, edit and back up files fro your mobile phone, and from several other mobile devices like PDAs.

Telstra is a telecommunications giant in Australia that is already involved in a number of legal battles over its services. The Australian government seems to be gearing up to be added to the list of people waging legal war against the telecommunications firm. Recently, the government put out an ad seeking legal counsel for all things related to the Telstra network roll out and any related fields, including construction of the telecom lines and more.

In recent world news, a MySpace profile has been determined to be a security risk. How is this possible? It pretends to be a Microsoft software update, trying to get unsuspecting users to click the activation button.

There’s little wonder that most people are now opting to buy a notebook rather than a desktop PC: they offer high performance capabilities comparable to most desktop PCs but they can be used anywhere. But with thousands of models and configurations available, how do you choose the ideal model? We show you how to buy the perfect notebook PC.

Offering proof that nothing is truly free, FON free wifi attempts to bring wifi connections to the masses, for a bit of a fee, of course. Currently, the only wifi offering that is (attempting) to be truly free is Google’s new Meraki service in San Francisco. Meraki uses special routers, creating a mesh network that allows the wifi network to expand over the city. FON tackles the problem through a series of routers, but does not employ a mesh network.

The airwaves of Australia have been abuzz with the Telstra CDMA network closure. Telstra has been planning the closure of its CDMA network and the opening of a new Next G network to replace it for some time. The CDMA network has provided Telstra customers with a certain level of performance they have come to expect. While Telstra claims the new Next G network has the same level of efficiency and service, a key report on the matter has been delayed.

Netgear announced a recall this week of 82,000 ethernet adapters. The popular XE103 Powerline Ethernet Adapter was recalled once it was found to have issues with over heating leading to breakage and malfunctioning.

In the news this week we hear that NameSecure has recently been busted front running domains. What does that mean, exactly? It means that if you go onto the NameSecure site to hunt for a domain’s availability and decide not to purchase the domain immediately, NameSecure snaps it up.

Giving new meaning to the term “the Royal Wii“, it seems the Queen of England has developed a fondness for Prince William’s new Nintendo Wii system. It makes me happy that England’s monarchy is revealing an unexpected technological savvy. Every country needs leaders and role models who promote technology and science as well as the arts, and what better way to do so than to show technology can be both fun and useful?

The UK made noise across the Internet this week when it moved to outlaw tools used by hackers. The fear in the software community world wide is that sales of their legitimate software in the UK will suffer if the blocks have tangential effects.

A few days ago, the Internet was abuzz with the news that trusted financial software made by Intuit had a big that was causing it to delete user data. Intuit released a patch to fix the problem, and for a while, all was right in the world of finance.