Technology

Append selected text to the URL of your favourite site enabling you to submit a query to any website. For example — highlight a placename/postcode and open using Google maps… — via Add-ons for Firefox

The popular blog publishing tool WordPress has joined the growing cadre of sites dropping support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 web browser. The recently upgraded WordPress.com brings a handful of new features and a revamped, cleaner design in the admin pages, but perhaps the biggest news in the release is that the admin pages no longer support IE 6 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Twitter is poised to acquire London-based startup TweetDeck in a $40m (£25m) deal that will make 36-year-old founder Iain Dodsworth a multimillionaire — via redwolf.newsvine.com

An add-on that improves the tabbed browsing. Naturally, we want all related tabs grouped together. So when you are a opening a new tab, you might want to open it right next to the current tab. This is a small, light weight extension that does the same.

Usage: When you right click on a link, you will get an option to open the link next to current tab in the context menu. Click on it and the tab will be opened right next to the current tab — via Add-ons for Firefox

Google is expected to disclose details about how consumers will be able to make store purchases, redeem coupons, and get loyalty points by waving smartphones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter, said people familiar with the matter — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Telstra will chop connection speeds on customers’ mobile phones once they reach their monthly data allowance in order to curb bill shock — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Today a game that’s been in development for 15 years is finally completed. 2K Games sent over word via a press release that Duke Nukem Forever, the long awaited sequel to 1996’s Duke Nukem 3D, has finally gone gold, meaning that the game’s main development has been completed and is now being replicated onto disks for its release for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms — via redwolf.newsvine.com

You enter the 8,000-square foot elliptical Grand Reading Room of the Joe and Rika Mansueto library, admiring the arched dome of glass panels overhead. You walk past the circulation desk, gaze at the stylish furniture and think: Where the heck are all the books?

The answer to your question–the books are tightly packed in bins stacked five stories high beneath your feet–is the reason University of Chicago’s new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library is being referred to as the library of the future. An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) involving huge, computer-activated robotic cranes find the book you want, deliver it to the circulation desk, and eventually return it back underground — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Cray has released the details of its GPU-equipped supercomputer: the XK6. The machine is a derivative of the XE6, an AMD Opteron-based machine that the company announced a year ago. Although Cray is calling this week’s announcement the XK6 launch, systems will not be available until the second half of the year — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Researchers with the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity want to build a repository of metaphors. You read that right. Not just American/English metaphors mind you but those of Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers.

Why metaphors? Metaphors have been known since Aristotle as poetic or rhetorical devices that are unique, creative instances of language artistry (for example: The world is a stage; Time is money). Over the last 30 years, metaphors have been shown to be pervasive in everyday language and to reveal how people in a culture define and understand the world around them, IARPA says — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Access bi-directionally to Google contacts via address books. This extension detects Gmail accounts which have already set up and creates address books for each of them. Cards in the address books are synchronized with Google contacts; they represent the current Google contacts contents and Google contacts will be modified when you modify the cards. Thunderbird’s mailing lists and Google’s contacts groups are synchronised in the same manner — via Add-ons for Thunderbird

Yahoo is rolling out the newest version of its e-mail service and inviting all of its 284 million users to upgrade.

The company unveiled a test version of the new service in October last year. It was designed to help encourage people to spend more time on Yahoo properties.

The redesigned service integrates a number of social media offerings including Facebook and Twitter into Yahoo’s e-mail service. For instance, people will be able to post messages to Facebook from within e-mail. They can view and share notifications and updates from Twitter, Facebook and Zynga from a new Updates tab.

Users can chat with Facebook, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger contacts within Yahoo Mail — via redwolf.newsvine.com

New elevator systems and technology are making the pitch harder than ever — and upending the delicate rules of elevator etiquette.

Elevators now route employees, sometimes according to rank. They can help corporations keep track of who is in the office and who isn’t. They can be programmed so that a germophobe can simply wave an ID card in front of a reader and be shuttled to the proper floor without actually touching a button. They can redirect an unsuspecting employee to a different floor at the request of the boss — via redwolf.newsvine.com