Daily News Brief: Facebook Learns New Language

¡Me Llamo Facebook!

¿Hablas Español? Facebook does! No longer an English-only site, Facebook.com can now boast fluency in Spanish. The Spanish version is the first of several languages planned for the social networking site, with German and French versions expected within weeks. Sixty percent of Facebook users reside outside the U.S., with more than 2.8 million active users living in Latin America or Spain. Members wanting to view the Spanish version need only change their account settings.

RIAA Discusses Content Filters

During the State of the Net Conference, RIAA president Cary Sherman talked about content filtering, which he says isn't perfect, but works and has lots of advantages. And where does he see envision these piracy filters? Perhaps your cable or DSL modem, or as DSLReports interprets Sherman's comments, in your anti-virus software. Referring to placing filters on home computers, Sherman admits that users "likely wouldn't want to do that", but would do it anyway if "it benefits them such as for viruses and so on and so forth" See the edited video here.

Sex or TV?

Would you give up sex for six months in exchange for a 50-inch plasma television? Electrical retailer Comet posed that question to 2,000 men living in the UK, and nearly half of them answered 'yes.' Also putting women on the spot, only a third agreed it was a favorable trade.

Phase Change Memory

It's not too often we see major innovations in the memory industry, so it's with cautious interest we're watching Intel and STMicroelectronics move out of the conceptual phase and into prototypes. In a press release issued today, Intel announced they've begun shipping memory technology, codenamed "Alverstone," using prototype samples of Phase Change Memory. Intel claims PCM uses less power than conventional flash, and shares bit alterability characteristics with RAM. Non-volatile DRAM, anyone? We'll see...

Is Dell Pulling AMD Offline?

According to The Inquirer, Dell looks like they're phasing out AMD systems from their online catalog, and instead relegating the parts to retail stores only. The Inq performed a search on Dell's website with keyword AMD and were greeted with a message that read: "Shop for Dell computers with AMD processors in retails stores[...]Computers with AMD processors are not available online." It appears Dell has since removed the disclaimer, leaving this one a mystery for the time being.

Yahoo Board to Discuss Microsoft Offer

Citing un-named sources, TechCrunch claims Yahoo's board of directors plan to meet tomorrow to discuss Microsoft's $44.6 billion buyout offer. Competing acquisition offers have not materialized, which would make a timely decision seem imminent. Yahoo might also discuss outsourcing to Google, but such a move would likely draw the ire of U.S. regulatory authorities. Of course, the big question is, does anyone care what's to become of Yahoo?

Firefox Update

If you didn't get an automatic notification, be sure and manually update Firefox to version 2.0.0.12. According to the release notes, 2.0.0.12 addresses a handful of security and stability issues, and tackles both stored password corruption and crashes due to memory corruption.