The Facebook duo is no more. One of Facebook's two cofounders is leaving the popular social-networking site.

Dustin Moskovitz is leaving and forming a new duo by taking engineer Justin Rosenstein with him. Together, the two will launch another company, Rosenstein said on his Facebook page.

Rosenstein, who was recruited from Google by Moskovitz in the early stages of launching the company, said the two have had similar visions on software and what Facebook needs to do to evolve as a company.

New laptops from Apple, maker of such advanced products as the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac, could be made from bricks. An aluminum brick, that is.

According to reports on the Web, the computer and consumer-products innovator is about to unveil a new kind of manufacturing that carves a solid-aluminum chassis for MacBooks out of an aluminum brick. With new MacBooks scheduled to be released next week, speculation has grown that it might include models made with the brick process.

'Totally Revolutionary'

The rise in fuel costs has far-reaching implications, even in the contact center industry. While this phenomenon has been attributed to the rise in home-based agents, it is also causing a rise in contact center interactions as a result of an increase in Internet use among rural residents.
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Apple's filing to dismiss with prejudice Psystar's countersuit revealed the tenants of Apples' strategy to win. The basis of Apple's argument is that Mac OS X and Macs do not, in themselves, create a legally plausible market, antitrust does not apply, and Apple has no obligation to share its sources of advantage.

An attorney who has been following the case, and wishes to remain anonymous, explained Apple's argument to [The Mac Observer] on Thursday:

It took computer safety expert Linda Criddle only nine minutes to snag the phone number of a teenage girl in Nebraska who had posted just a little information about herself on a social networking Web site.

Criddle is a former Microsoft employee who specialized in online safety and is the author of a consumer-safety book, "Look Both Ways: Help Protect Your Family on the Internet."

She spoke at the Economic Crime Conference sponsored by the Utah Attorney General's Office on Thursday -- with a message that would send shivers down any parent's spine.

Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, said Thursday that it had added EMI and smaller record labels to its "free" music package to challenge Apple's dominance in the digital music market.

Nokia said Carphone Warehouse, the exclusive retailer in Britain for the first mobile phone to include the "Comes with Music" package, will sell it for pound(s)129.99, or $230, starting Oct. 16.

Google hopes to do for the power grid what it did for the Web.

Having conquered the market for Web search by first simplifying how it is done and then making sales of related advertising more efficient, Google is now funding green technology and using its brand power to lobby for policy change.

Google introduced a plan Wednesday to wean the United States off the burning of coal and oil for power by 2030 and to cut oil use for cars by 40 percent. Such initiatives could cost trillions of dollars, but Google believes they should ultimately save money.

Microsoft said Thursday that it would set up research centers in France, Germany and Britain to improve its Internet search technology, describing the move as a vote of confidence in the European economy and in the company's ability to close the gap with Google.

Steven Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, said at a news conference here that the three "centers of excellence," to be based near Paris, in London and in Munich, would employ several hundred people all together.

Ever since the credit crunch first gripped the financial world, Silicon Valley has watched from the sidelines, secure in the faith that it was insulated from the coming storm.

With the stock market in turmoil, a U.S. bailout up in the air and recession seemingly inevitable, that faith is now being seriously undermined. High-tech entrepreneurs, investors and executives now believe the question is when, not if, the financial chaos will have an impact on the cradle of innovation in the United States.