Tech giants respond to Japan quake

Google, Twitter and other technology companies are finding ways to help following last week's earthquake in Japan, reports the Associated Press.

Google has an online “person finder” for people seeking information about a missing person. Microsoft is offering free technical support and temporary software licences to companies affected by the earthquake. It has also pledged $250 000 in cash.

Twitter is trying to help organise the flood of information flowing through its system. It suggests people use certain tags for general earthquake information, requests for rescue and other related topics. Amazon and Yahoo have links on their home pages encouraging people to donate to the relief efforts.

Microsoft rolled out the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, IE9, in Austin, Texas, yesterday, states PC World.

The browser's main interface is far simpler than that of previous IE versions. IE9 supports HTML5 and utilises graphics card acceleration for graphics-heavy animated images.

Microsoft's main selling point behind IE9 is the browser's ability to tell the graphics card in the PC to speed up to render graphics and motion more quickly.

Soon the only way to get at Twitter might be through “official” software produced by the company, according to the BBC.

The firm has angered many software developers by telling them to stop making “clients” that let users write, read and respond to Tweets.

The move is widely seen as an attempt by Twitter to take control of the service to boost ad revenues and improve commercialisation. Developers responded quickly, with one calling the announcement "appalling".

Broadcasting company Sky has opened up 100 new technology jobs for its expanding Customer Business Systems team in Livingston, Scotland, writes Computing.co.uk.

The new staff will be responsible for managing the tech systems that support Sky's customer operations, products and services.

The roles being advertised include senior technical test analysts, Agile Java developers and project managers.