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Just two years after acquiring social network Bebo for $850 million, the newly-independent AOL has decided to abandon its social networking investment, either by selling it or simply shutting it down. According to PaidContent, AOL sent a message to employees earlier today stating that it “is not in a position” to support Bebo: “The strategy we set in May 2009 leverages our core strengths and scale in quality content, premium advertising and consumer applications, positioning us for the next phase of growth of the Internet. As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking.” AOL is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo and the company’s current expectation is to complete our strategic evaluation by the end of May 2010.” ...

Chrome’s share of the browser market is growing at a breakneck pace, according to data from Net Applications. Between February and March, Google’s browser rose to capture a full 6.1% share of the market, maintaining its lead over browsers such as Safari and Opera and closing the gap between Firefox, which currently holds a 24.5% share. While most browsers rose a fraction of a percent, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to decline, losing almost a whole percent over the past month alone. ...

A year-long international investigation concluded in the last few weeks with 700 police in Romania launching raids and taking into custody 70 people from three gangs. Those arrested were part of a four-year long wave of Internet auction fraud that victimized 800 people and netted over $1 million (US). Yesterday Romanian Police released information on the raids which were organized by prosecutors at the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism. The police served 101 warrants in 12 Romanian cities. ...

I could talk about how The Matrix was a pretty big deal for me back in the day, or how The Matrix Online is (to date) the only MMORPG I ever liked enough to pay a monthly subscription for, or how I think people doing Kung Fu in bullet time is still the best thing ever. Mostly, I’ll just show you this: And this: Is there a glitch in the Matrix? You bet. Unfortunately it seems the website of one of the actors from Reloaded / Revolutions (Harry Lennix, who played Commander Lock) has been hacked and is now, bizarrely, the scene of some Cyber Kung-Fu gone wrong as two warring factions go to, er, war. ...

In March, the Windows team announced the upcoming release of Service Pack 1 for Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2, but did not set a date of availability. At the time, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc said, “For Windows 7, SP1 includes only minor updates, among which are previous updates that are already delivered through Windows Update. SP1 for Windows 7 will, however, deliver an updated Remote Desktop client that takes advantage of RemoteFX introduced in the server-side with SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.” ...

This just in from the “Strange Bedfellows” department: apparently Nintendo has enlisted the help of Google to create a Wii game where players compete to guess the most popular search terms. The game, entitled Ando Kensaku, will be out in Japan on April 29 and won’t likely see much of a release elsewhere given its quirkiness. The screenshot above gives you an idea of the cutesy avatar style of the title, featuring 14 mini-games where several players can choose from a multiple choice search term spread. ...

If you like downloading or installing programs on your PC related to XBox gaming, you might want to take heed of this writeup. There’s a fake application kit in circulation that allows an attacker to create a website claiming to be an XBox Live application that takes the form of a Java install. Upon visiting a site related to this scam, the end-user will see a blank webpage with nothing other than a Java notice and a fake Softpedia award at the bottom of the screen: ...

Taken from Official Google: Let’s say that you have x different stocks, and the plots of their prices over time. You want to print them in newspaper, printing multiple plots on the same chart to save space. But here’s the catch: no two plots on the same chart can overlap, lest the readers be confused. Look at the plots and figure out the smallest number of charts required. Looking for a challenge like the riddle above? And I mean an exciting brain-twisting and turning kind of challenge. I mean competing with fellow coders from around the world for top bragging rights kind of challenge. ...

Google has released a new video aimed at teens about making Google Buzz a safer experience. The video was released in conjunction with the new Buzz privacy reset issued yesterday. This new focus on privacy and privacy options comes amidst class-action lawsuits and a request for FTC investigation regarding the service’s launch and explanation to consumers. Although aimed at teens, the tips are good for anyone using Buzz to keep in mind. ...

As expected, Microsoft has pushed out a mandatory update to the Xbox 360 today, which adds support for USB storage devices, expanding the memory capacity of the five-year old video game console. The update will ostensibly allow any FAT32-formatted USB storage device between 1GB-16GB in size to be used to save profiles, game saves, and downloadable content. There are, however, a number of caveats, which mean users can’t just plug anything in and have it work. ...