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Opinion: Let's imagine for a moment that we're in a strange parallel universe. Many things appear the same, but there are subtle differences. Today, for example, Microsoft launched the new version of its web browser, Internet Explorer 8…

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While the EU fulminates over the evils of Microsoft and its unfair competition, we were surprised to find that the company everyone loves to hate actually turns out to be a damned sight more helpful than its rivals when it comes to giving users choice.

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Analyst Opinion - I live in the Great White North, which typically means I can buy new technology six months after it is first released in the U.S. I’ll also pay more for the privilege thanks to a weak Canadian dollar. But since I’m Canadian, I’ll still be polite about it. For once in my life, however, being Canadian may work to my advantage. If the Web rumor mill can be believed, Canada may end up being the first country on the planet where iPhones are sold through more than one carrier.

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Analyst Opinion - I’m traveling this week and noted that the guy traveling next to me, who owns his own company, is using an Acer netbook. It is his primary travel computer.  He purchased a 12-cell aftermarket battery for it and gets 10 to 12 hours of battery life and, according to him, this is all he needs. Most of the analysts I travel with have noted that the distinction between netbooks and notebooks has largely vanished. 

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Microsoft is still investigating how to deliver web functionality to European users of its upcoming Windows 7 OS.

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About two weeks ago, following the release of Safari 4.0, we had a close look at the performance delivered by today’s browsers. At the time, our benchmark runs were based on the first release candidate build of Firefox 3.5, which was well behind the WebKit engine-based Chrome and Safari browsers. Now that we have the final version, we wondered: Did Firefox gain more speed?

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Just when it seemed that Twitter users couldn't become any sadder, news reaches us that an Australian outfit is offering to sell followers to pathetic imbeciles who have no real friends.

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AMD has released the mysterious Phenom II X4 42 Black Edition TWKR processor, which is, according to the company, the most capable processor desktop CPU offered by the company. In fact, the CPU is so special and rare that you can’t buy it. If you are a famous overclocker you are almost certain to get a free sample and you may have a chance to get your hands on it if you say ‘please, please’ and promise to spend all your time on overclocking it. Otherwise, your best bet may be Ebay – and it will be expensive as there are less than 100 chips available.

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The amount of frozen carbon stored in the arctic and northern areas of the world is more than twice that previously estimated, increasing fears over climate change.

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The state of Maine has reportedly ordered more than 64,000 shiny MacBooks for high school students. An additional 7,000 laptops are expected to be purchased within the next few weeks.

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The Playstation 3 slim rumor is one of those rumors that just won’t go away. New pictures and information provided by usual “industry sources” that a new PS3 form factor may be on track for a release this month, along with a long expected price cut. Both rumors seem very credible, especially since Sony has to cut the PS3’s price and since it can shrink the size of the PS3 box due to a much less power-hungry Cell BE processor.

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By the end of August 100,000 people a day will succumb to the swine flu virus in the UK, the government said today.

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An ant colony rivalling the scale of human civilisation is right under our noses, according to Japanese and Spanish researchers.

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A young man who made threats against a Verizon security officer and tried to hack the US Attorney's voice mail system in Dallas was sentenced to 135 months in court last week.

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A veteran industry analyst has predicted that Nintendo will continue to dominate the global console market. According to Michael Pachter, the Wii's low price point, "innovative" controller and compatibility with standard definition television sets are likely to provide it with a "competitive advantage" over the next two years.

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A team led by Yale researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, a major step in the quest to build a quantum computer.

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Mozilla met its initial target of releasing a new generation of its Firefox web browser in Q2. Version 3.5 was released earlier today, replacing Version 3.0, which was introduced in June 2008. The new Firefox brings massive speed improvements and enough new features that could have justified a 4.0 version number.