Welcome to this week’s edition of “The Roundup”!

Take a look at what I selected this week, after the jump!

I have 3.5 stories for you this week, lets get started.

1:  From : Gizmodo
Apple Safari 4 Beta Available Now: Top Sites, Cover Flow and Nitro
Tuesday, February 24 2009

Apple has released a new beta version of Safari 4 for both PC and Mac. It has a new JavaScript engine, called Nitro, which is supposed to be over four times faster than Safari 3. It also takes a lot of influences from Google’s chrome, with it’s tabs on top of the window and it’s “Top Site” start page. Of course it just has a lot more “shine” in how its presented. It also has a cover flow enabled book marks so you can see previews of your favorite sites, and also your history.It’s available for download now from apple.com/safari . Even I have to say, it looks good. Though cover flow is usually overrated.

2:  From : The Official Google Blog
Current Gmail outage and Update on Gmail
AKA: Gmail went down for 2.5 hours!
Tuesday, February 24 2009

Gmail suffered a outage on Tuesday, starting at 9:30 AM GMT (4:30 AM EST, 1:30AM PST). It lasted for about two and a half hours. So, while most of us in the USA were sleeping (unless you have insomnia, that is) The rest of the world who uses Gmail, including Gmail apps for your domain, and Google’s worldwide offices were freaking out. Although, according to Venture Beat, people were still able to send and receive mail via IMAP, just not the web interface. The problem was attributed to a failed maintenance update.

2.5:  From : NYTimes Bits Blog
Fast-Spreading Phishing Scam Hits Gmail Users
Tuesday, February 24 2009

Google really isn’t having a good week. Right after the Gmail failure, Gtalk became a conduit for a new phishing scam. Gtalk users were sent messages appearing to be form friends, with a tinyurl link that took them to a site called ViddyHo, where it asks form your Google Account login info, and hijacks your account, where it then proceeds to send out Gtalk messages with the link to friends. In response, Google has blocked the addresses being used to send the messages, and users of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome will receive a phishing warning if they try to go to ViddyHo (just another reason not to use IE…)

3:  From : TechCrunch and Last.fm – The Blog
Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA? and “Techcrunch are full of shit”
Friday, February 20 2009 and Monday, February 23 2009

This week, TechCrunch got a scoop from a “friend who works at CBS [the owners of last.fm]“  handed over data to the RIAA that would help enable the RIAA to identify listeners / downloaders of the leaked U2 album. Fortunately for last.fm users, no data was ever turned over. even the RIAA ended up denying that any data was turned over, and they hardly even bother to release a statement about this kind of stuff. They admit that artists and labels an sign into last.fm’a music manager and get extra info and update information, but its only graphs and other general statistics or “aggregate data of listeners and number of plays”.  So, if you even thought about deleting your last.fm account because of the information sharing, don’t worry nothing happened. And, last.fm has put a hold on the permanent deletion of accounts for a bit, so if you delete your account, you can email last.fm support to get it reinstated. Good job last.fm!

That’s it for this week! See you next time!

–Keith Hobin