Facebook recently announced that it will stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 on its chat function with its next upgrade, planned for Sept. 15. With this move Facebook joins the German government and all the major security systems vendors in urging consumers and businesses to upgrade to IE 8 or to an alternative Web browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari. So what is wrong with IE6? First it is just old and outdated. Microsoft moved on years ago, and IE6 lacks many great features that are now standard. Users of more modern systems look on IE6 as a dinosaur in terms of functionality. Facebook's stated reason for dropping IE6 is that it lacks advanced features of all modern Web browsers that are required for some of the new function

We’re hard at work, but we thought we’d take a minute to show you some of the goings on from the show floor.  Stay tuned to SiliconAngle.TV for continuing wall-to-wall coverage of VMworld 2010!

The deadline for the 3Par bid is nearing, and speculation is bubbling around whether or not Dell will make a last raise on its bid to acquire the company. HP had started a bidding war for 3Par, when it topped Dell’s initial bid of $18 per share earlier this month. Early predictions have put HP in the lead. The bidding war has been the running tech soap opera drama to play out over the past few weeks, with 3Par seeming to sit quite comfortably in the middle of it all. 3Par’s terms of agreement Dell, the computer manufacturer was allotted three days, beginning Monday, to determine what it’s next move would be. With HP’s latest offer of $2 billion ($30 per share), Dell will have to devote a hefty sum to acquire 3Par. Interesti

Peak 10, the managed services company and data center host, has entered into a transaction with Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, in which Peak 10’s executive management and Welsh Carson will be acquiring a majority shareholder interest in the company. Those selling their shares include majority owner Seaport Capital and McCarthy Capital, a Nebraska-based private equity fund. Peak 10’s existing management team, led by co-founder, CEO and President David Jones, will remain in position to operate the business. Jones says “our partnership with Welsh Carson enables Peak 10 to continue increasing the scale of our business to meet the high demand for data center infrastructure and related managed services. Our strategic focus remain

Loren Feldman is the New York City based publisher of 1938Media.com, a fascinating, irreverent and funny critic of the West Coast tech scene. Loren used to be an insider, a close friend of the princes of the Web 2.0 world: Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Loic LeMeur, and others. But Loren has managed to upset all those people, and more; and so have I simply by retweeting some of his comic puppetry. (I've been blocked and called names because of my re-tweets of Loren's material but that won't stop me. It's a guy with a sock (puppet) on his hand -- people need to lighten up.) Loren's puppets are hilarious. He has puppets representing Robert Scoble, Loic LeMeur, Shel Israel, Peter Cashmore, Dave Winer, Mark Zuckerberg, Gary Vee, La

Target stores announced that they would be the first retailers to sell Facebook credits as gift cards. These cards would be available starting September 5th, in $15, $25 and $50 increments.  The gift cards can be redeemed  in Target's brick and mortar locations, as well as its online store. Facebook credits can buy you access to interesting applications and games as well. Looks like the perfect gift for your Facebook addict gamer friend has just arrived, just in time for back-to-school, and the onset of the holiday shopping season. Cnet sees this as a wonderful step forward for Facebook games. Facebook Credits is quickly gaining ground as an alternative payment option on the social network. It's currently supported by wildly popu

Novell’s made a joint announcement with VMware at the VMworld 2010 conference today in San Francisco,  delivering SUSE Linux Enterprise Server features to its wide array of clients.  Novell stopped by TheCUBE to make the announcement, which was streamed live at SiliconANGLE.tv.  This marks the first of several steps the companies will be taking in their expanded partnerships, first announced in June. With the new server solutions, Novell and VMware strive to reduce IT complexity, accelerating customer’s journey towards a fully-virtualized datacenter.  To do so, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware focuses on its broad application support, boasting nearly 6,000 application certifications.  The partnership will bring the op

Broadcasting live video from your Android phone is now available with Justin.tv.  The live, video-streaming service has launched an Android app, bringing the service to Google's mobile platform.  Broadcasting live videos has never been so easy with this innovation for mobile phones.  Though Justin.tv might not be the first to market (Qik, etc.), it has some advantages in the form of hardware video encoding which enables it to drain less battery power and bitrate adjustment of videos uploaded to strengthen wireless connections. You can start broadcasting by downloading it on your Android and registering for a Justin.tv account. You will never have to go to a website. It’s easy to use with only three buttons:  record, share and chat.

Big news coming from Apple’s highly anticipated press event in San Francisco this morning; Steve Jobs unveiled the all new Apple TV, iTunes 10 with a Ping social network, and completely redesigned iPods across all its models. This raises the bar for competitors like Amazon, which made an announcement regarding its own streaming initiatives this week as well.  Apple has predictably landed several large broadcast and large brand partnerships for its new streaming content offerings, with sprinkles of commercial marketing opportunities layered into its iTunes Ping social music discovery tools (i.e. concert recommendations lead to more ticket sales). There's also the question of how open Ping's social network will become--what type o

Virtualization leader VMware has purchased Integrien, a monitoring company based in Irvine California.  From the company’s website: “Thru advanced analytics Integrien stands alone in it’s ability to leverage existing monitoring infrastructures to solve performance problems. Listed below is only a short list of the benefits our customers enjoy after deploying Alive. Make sure to review the specific details associated with each solution.” All of Integrien’s employees, (80) have accepted jobs at VMware. The the two companies had already been working together, as Integrien announced the  launch of its AliveVM monitoring product for VMware administrators on August 31.