Browsers grow up so fast, don't they? Just a short while ago, Google Chrome was nothing more than an idea, and now it's a spunky two-year-old browser with a 7.52 percent share of the market, trailing only Internet Explorer (60.40 percent) and Firefox (22.93 percent). To celebrate the occasion, Google has gone and released a new version of its open source browser, Chrome 6.

"Today, we're releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and more streamlined," Google wrote in a blog post. "Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance. We've also been working on simplifying the 'chrome' of Chrome. As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use."

Chrome's two menus are now combined into one, and Google slightly "adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes." Not yet part of the package is hardware acceleration, though Google says it's in the pipeline.

You can get the update by clicking on the wrench icon and selecting 'About Google Chrome,' or grab the download from here.

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If you've somehow managed to avoid the avalanche of controversy pouring down on Medal of Honor, here's the gist: you can play as Taliban in the game's multiplayer. Not “the insurgents.” Not “the guys who look suspiciously like Taliban but totally aren't, no really.” Nope. This time around, Medal of Honor's ripping its inspiration straight from the headlines. That, however, didn't fly with GameStop's stores in military bases.

According to a memo received by Kotaku, the decision to pull the game was made “out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.”

“As such, GameStop agreed to have all marketing material pulled by noon today and to stop taking reservations. Customers who enter our AAFES stores and wish to reserve Medal of Honor can and should be directed to the nearest GameStop location off base,” it read.

“GameStop fully supports AAFES in this endeavor and is sensitive to the fact that in multiplayer mode one side will assume the role of Taliban fighter.”

Usually, this is where we make some kind of opinionated and – we like to think – well-informed comment. However, seeing as we haven't served, we'd like to ask the following question: Men and women in the military, what are your thoughts on this? Is it as touchy of a subject as GameStop makes it out to be? Or is this just another example of political correctness gone too far?

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Twitter sent out an email on Wednesday announcing a couple of upcoming updates, one of which includes automatic t.co link wrapping. In the coming weeks, Twitter's link wrapping service will intercept all URLs posted on the microblogging service and convert them into shorter, easier to read URLs. So what exactly has privacy mavens up in arms? This little tidbit:

"When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we will then forward you on to the destination URL ... When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time," the microblogging site said.

Before you reach for the pitchforks and lighter fluid, keep in mind Twitter isn't the only one harvesting your click activity. As CNET points out, Yahoo tracks user searches, Bing and Facebook both appear to use JavaScript to keep track of where users click through to, and even Google sometimes uses redirects. And don't forget that everything you tweet ends up at the Library of Congress.

Even so, this will come as little consolation to privacy advocates who view this move as a "disgusting data landgrab."

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Valve's track record with “surprises” is a bit dodgy – for every one Alien Swarm, there's a Portal 2 on PS3 – but it's still hard not to get a little giddy when Valve's Gabe Newell starts throwing around the S-word.

"I can guarantee you people are going to be surprised at stuff we do. That isn't going to stop any time soon. I'm just laughing because... people will be shocked again," Valve boss Gabe Newell told PC Gamer.

"We have three pretty big surprises in the next 12 months at least."

Shocked, sure, but will we also be awed, or will we roll our eyes and let out an exasperated “awww”? Knowing Valve, we're expecting the former. We've also got our fingers crossed for the most shocking Half-Life 2: Episode 3-related surprise announcement possible: “It's coming out eventually.”

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