According to this CNET article, 78 percent of enterprises use Internet Explorer as their default Web browser.  60 percent still use IE 6, which was released all the way back in 2001.

 ”The problem: Information workers live in browsers all day. And companies are giving them the equivalent of a Yugo.

 ”Why? Companies are worried about custom apps that may fail on new browsers and security and compliance. In addition, companies limit the ability to upgrade. Seventy percent of companies restrict browser choice and Web content. Forrester Research notes that ‘IT control trumps technology populism.’”

Newsweek’s Joshua Alston 1, Adoraburglar zero.

One day, while Alston was showering, a man broke into his house and stole, among other things, Alston’s laptop.  Normally, that means game over.  But Alston was using a program called LogMeIn that allowed him to remotely log on to his computer and, after having a little fun with the thief, he gathered enough evidence to lead police to an arrest.

Take a look.  It’s a good read.

“Microsoft said the RC will be available for download by program developers and IT professionals subscribing to the MSDN and TechNet networks on April 30 and available more broadly on May 5.

“The company has still not said when the finished version would begin to be installed on PCs or available to buy in shops, but the company’s chief financial officer said on Thursday it could be as early as July.”

“Swine virus has become a computer virus that takes advantage of fear, confusion and the interest for information available on the Web regarding the epidemic to spread mischievous codes, junk e-mails and infect computer equipments,” said [Trend Micro's] director for Latin America, Juan Pablo Castro.

If you’re one of the more than 2 million people who have seen this video, you wondered whether birds would or even could dance to music.  You probably also wondered why they picked a Backstreet Boys song, but that’s irrelevant.

It turns out that Snowball probably was dancing – scientists say that certain animals, including birds and elephants – are hard-wired for dancing just like people:

“In lab studies of two parrots and close review of the YouTube videos, scientists looked for signs that animals were actually feeling the beat of music they heard. The verdict: Some parrots did, and maybe an occasional elephant… Why? The truly boppin’ animals shared with people some ability to mimic sounds they hear, the researchers say. (Even elephants can do that). The brain circuitry for that ability lets people learn to talk, and evidently also to dance or tap their toes to music…”

Unfortunately, the study found that cats and dogs do not have the same brain hardware, so trying to get them to dance is likely a losing battle (especially with each other).  That means that, for now, we’ll just have to live with teaching them to skateboard or giving them beer.

Viewpoint One, from Jeff Bertolucci:

 It’s information overload, and the information is just stuff the ‘Twitter quitters’ don’t care about:

“Celebrity tweets? I’ve learned the movie director Kevin Smith had sex with his wife last weekend, that Kim Kardashian (why is she famous again?) has launched a lookalike contest, and that Jack Dorsey, the guy who invented Twitter, travels a lot. I’m really jealous about that last one.

“But after browsing these hourly updates from the rich and famous, I’ve found that I really don’t care what they’re doing. Even if I enjoy their work (e.g. Kevin Smith), I neither want nor need to know the minutiae of their daily lives.

“Friends? A similar story. One female friend of mine posted a series of updates about her menstrual cycles. ‘Aunt Flow has arrived,’ one read. The others were more graphic.

“If there’s such a thing as sharing too much information, that was it.”

Viewpoint Two, from Robert Strohmeyer

They’re just doing it wrong.

“In my opinion, the most commonly heard complaints about Twitter stem from a misunderstanding of it. Chief among these complaints is the utterly bunk assertion that it’s just a whole bunch of people heralding the trivial events of their daily lives into the void. (i.e., ‘I’m going to the bathroom now!’ or ‘Eating a yummy ham sandwich!’) Frankly, if that’s how you’re using Twitter, you’re doing it wrong, and you should stop without subjecting your friends to a full week of that rubbish, let alone a full month.“

Well, they can’t make you invisible but, according to this BBC article, scientists have developed a cloak that can bend infrared light, bringing them closer to being able to bend visible light, thus making whatever the cloak — well, cloaks — invisible:

“Essentially, we are transforming a straight line of light into a curved line around the cloak, so you don’t perceive any change in its pathway,” said Xiang Zhang, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

It’s not exactly “Harry Potter” quality yet, but perhaps soon we’ll have a crude, “Predator” style cloaking device.

Despite all the hard work by fad impresario Ashton Kutcher, the man responsible for the brief popularity of trucker hats, Twitter may be in trouble.

According to a study released by Nielsen, Twitter has seen low retention rates despite its explosion in popularity, and that could spell trouble for its long-term prospects.

“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty,” said Nielsen vice president of primary research David Martin in a blog post.

Less than half of new Twitter users in the U.S. return to the service the following month; more than 60 percent basically abandon their accounts after the first 30 days. And, although Twitter’s exponential growth is similar to other social media hits like Facebook and MySpace, Twitter’s retention rate does not stack up well.

Twitter doesn't stack up to Facebook or MySpace

“Even when Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high,” said Martin. “When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today”

The Nielsen study tells us that people are leaving Twitter, but it can’t tell us why. Perhaps, suggests Evgeny Morozov of Foreign Policy magazine, it is a question of context. In a recent blog post, Morozov uses the Twitter community’s reaction to the swine flue outbreak to illustrate its power to misinform.

“The ‘swine flu’ Twitter-scare has once again proved the importance of context — and how badly most Twitter conversations are hurt by the lack of it,” said Morozov. “The problem with Twitter is that there is very little context you can fit into 140 characters, even less so if all you are doing is watching a stream of messages that mention ‘swine flu.’”

In his post, Morozov posted a handful of tweets that ranged from simple alarmism (“could it be germ warfare?”) to woefully misguided warnings about not eating pork. (Note: Swine flu is not a food borne illness.)

Twitter’s usefulness has also been distorted. For example, Twitter’s role in organizing a Moldovan student protest in Romania was greatly exaggerated. The real organizer was decidedly old school: the secret police did it.

I asked a reporter friend recently how he felt about Twitter, which his organization has “strongly urged” its employees to use, particularly beat reporters.  I promised not to identify the friend by name; I doubt his company wants him publicly commenting about their policies.

“The idea is that we’ll be able to follow our beats better by keeping tabs on the Twitter feeds of people in our coverage area. One of my co-workers has already been using Twitter for months,” he said. “In general, though, he’s found it of limited utility for developing stories on his beat.”

“My other co-workers are skeptical of its value as a news-gathering tool. We haven’t seen any stories broken on our level with the help of Twitter, although we’re curious to learn about its utility as a search tool. None of us have so far followed our colleague’s lead in getting a Twitter account.”

Some big names – Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey – have proclaimed their fondness for Twitter, but time will tell whether they stick with it.  In the meantime, count San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson among those who are done with it.

“This Twitter crap, I’ve obviously got to stop because people are taking it too serious,” Wilson told the Mercury News.

He also said this: ” I’m not doing things like going toe-to-toe with a ninja. Find me a ninja, for one.”

I’m sure that’s the kind of thing that would make sense with a little more context.

Somebody apparently has had some fun with the ESPN home page.

ESPN has since taken it down, but for at least a little while, punching in the Konami Code on your keyboard would bring up a page of ponies and unicorns.  (You can try for yourself in a Google cache of the page here.)

The Konami Code, by the way, is the code found in 80′s Nintendo games like Gradius and Contra that will get you a ton of extra lives in the game.  It’s up, up, down, down, left, right, B, A, start.  To do it on the computer, use the arrow keys for the directions and the “enter” button for start.