Jamelle Agbuis

In the wake of Japan's near nuclear meltdown following the March earthquake and tsunami which hit the regions, the German government has decided that the closures of seven of the country's oldest nuclear reactors will be permanent, and they intend to eventually close all of Germany's power plants.

These days, an increasing number of browsers, including Chrome and Firefox 4, make it easy to access the latest version of your bookmarks from any computer you own thanks to built-in sync. The problem is that these proprietary sync technologies will only work with the browser they're designed for.

Just how fast does your hard drive appear to be filling up these days? It doesn't matter if you purchase the latest terabyte monster or are running a more humble 80GB drive, it's amazing how quickly all that space can quickly disappear.

Microsoft's volume-licensing upgrade plan locks Microsoft in as much as it does customers. Businesses choosing Software Assurance commit to paying for upgrade rights typically in three-year contracts.

There are hundreds of thousands of Windows PC viruses and just the one for the Mac. I disagree. This Trojan is the first Mac virus to widely spread in the wild. That makes it news.

After initially spiking 30 basis points upon opening yesterday the Australian Dollar was dragged lower during intraday trade bottoming out at a rate of 1.0674 against its US Counterpart.

European stocks finished flat to lower Monday, with volumes thinned by the absence of U.S. and U.K. markets and with German utility shares lower on a report that the country has set a final date for shuttering its nuclear reactors. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.1% to 278.82.

According to a report by Reuters, EU officials are drafting a second bailout package for Greece in an attempt to prevent the country defaulting on debt next month.

The US dollar became the story last week, falling as the euro defied gravity and the doubts about Greece and the eurozone's financial health to end higher, sending some commodities lower on the day.

The continuing Fukushima nuclear crisis is proving to be a greater threat to the health of the Japanese economy than the impact of the March 11 quake and tsunami.

Fact can indeed be stranger than fiction.

If you thought three builds of Firefox was hard enough to keep up with, you might want to sit down.

Any hope for a steady recovery of the U.S. economy is heavily dependent upon U.S. consumers to support future growth, given that consumer expenditures account for more than 60% of GDP.

Registration for QuakeCon 2011, the annual PC gaming convention and LAN party is now open, and seats are filling up quickly.

Evidence is mounting that a Russian payment processing firm may be behind the Mac Defender malware scam that has suddenly brought the issue of Mac viruses into the limelight.

One year ago, Microsoft announced it had signed a licensing deal with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC where Microsoft would receive royalties for every Android phone HTC made.

I've been amused reading reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will only eat meat he kills.

Foxit Software has released version 5 of its popular, lightweight PDF viewer, Foxit Reader.

With software developer's updating their applications on a daily basis, it's easy to miss an important update or a minor, but essential, hotfix. We've rounded up some of the key new releases from the last 7 days.

In the decade since Microsoft announced Software Assurance, many customers have found it cheaper to skip upgrades rather than pay up front for the rights to them. Essentially, the licensing program does the opposite of its design.

That sure is hell what I want to know after looking at poll results for a question about Internet Explorer 10. In April, I asked Betanews readers if you cared that Internet Explorer 10 beta runs only on Windows 7.

In Australia, the week will be dominated by the run up to the first quarter GDP figures on Wednesday, along with data for retail sales, building approvals and the trade for April.

Thanks to the stronger US dollar, commodities enjoyed a generally firmer day on Friday.

Forget the US markets and wonder about China's and the very nasty 5%-plus fall in the Shanghai Composite last week, a fall that seems to have gone unnoticed outside the country.

Texas Street is one of the steepest and longest driving inclines in San Diego, Calif. Cement dividers separate the cars, which also must contend with exhausted riders pushing, rather than peddling, their two wheelers up the narrow and close-to-traffic bike lanes.

A report released by the ABS yesterday confirmed that Private Capital Expenditure expanded in the three months to March 31 by an overall figure of 3.4%.

The Australian stock market recovered from early softness on Friday to end the week higher, as bargain hunters moved in to recover value in a heavily sold-down bourse.

US personal income rose by 0.4pct in April, in line with consensus. Personal spending was also up 0.4pct, slightly below the expected 0.5pct increase. The final reading for consumer sentiment in May was 74.3, up from 72.4 in April. But pending home sales slumped by 11.6pct, well short of forecasts of a 1.4pct fall.

After rallying almost US1cent following yesterday’s strong CAPEX figures, the AUD had a fairly quiet session overnight, currently trading just above USD1.0600.