Here's some snippets I found whilst reading the tech press recently.

It would appear that Microsoft has been flexing it's financial muscle again and bought Multimap.com. This is in a bid to strengthen itself against the competition from the Google map service. Both Multimap and Google offer street level maps (although as I already pointed out to Mltimap some time ago the street names around my home are incorrect).

Not only is Google into maps but there is to be another new service to be trialed by Google. Knol, an online learning tool will be in direct competition to Wikipedia. It is the intention to allow user editing in much the same way as Wikipedia currently does. It is currently being tested by invited users.

Watch out for the release of new Microsoft Service Packs for Vista and XP. They are currently in RC (Release Candidate) version, a pre-release version for users who don't mind things not being complete. The final versions should be released in the next weeks, or even days.

 
And finally Netscape Navigator has been killed off. Netscape Navigator was once the most popular web browser with over 90% of users using the browser. The original Mosaic Navigator browser was launched in the mid 1990s, with Mosaic changing it's name to Netscape. The original mass market browser has declined in use with preference going to Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. AOL, which acquired Netscape in 1999, will stop delivering patches on 1st Febrary.