Physical media such as CD and DVD is very slowly but surely being replaced by digital formats. Whether it’s streaming or downloads, physical is the past, digital is the present and future. As if to prove that, Linn Products is ceasing manufacture of all CD players, instead concentrating on its hard drive-based streaming players. Surely the first of many companies to take this decision.

City-wide Wi-Fi networks which offer wireless Internet connectivity for free to all residents who want it have pretty much failed to succeed across the United States so far. However, Swindon, a large town in England, is about to get a mesh Wi-Fi network built, and the plans and technology could be rolled out to other towns and cities across the U.K.

Email is currently one of the key elements of the Internet. And sending and receiving email is usually one of the first things we learn to do when going online for the first time. But its life could be coming to an end with new research predicting the demise of email within a decade. Its killers? Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and instant messaging apps such as Skype and MSN Live Messenger.

Microsoft announced today that it has officially begun work on Internet Explorer 9.

In a completely unsurprising announcement, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live division, today announced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC), that development began three weeks ago on Internet Explorer 9.

Twitter is a massively popular social networking and micro-blogging site that has gained an inordinate amount of headlines and copy over the past year or so. But what is the nature of Twitter? Is it for people to converse and share ideas, or is it for companies to try and connect with their customers and ultimately sell stuff? Stephen Fry, unsurprisingly, has an opinion on the matter.

At least one of the newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has begun to outline how it expects readers to begin paying for the news.

Bullying has been around for generations and will likely remain a problem for generations to come. The problem is it evolves over time, with playground bullying first moving to mobile phones and email before seizing its chance to be inflicted via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But there are ways to prevent it and to stop yourself becoming a victim of abuse.

While Rupert Murdoch is sure the future of online news is to put all content behind subscription walls, he may find not that many Americans are keen on the idea.

Sony and Netflix recently announced that Netflix’s streaming Watch Instantly service would be coming to the PS3. The service is now here as Netflix is sending out discs to those interested in accessing the company’s instant streaming service. The service can be accessed for free on the PS3 with the Netflix disc and plan.

An enraged wife entrapped her pedophile husband online by posing as an underage girl. She ended up reporting her husband to the authorities after she collected evidence against him. The wife conducted a Dateline-like entrapment scheme using a chat room online.

Here we go again. Another week, another country threatening to take legal action against Google for its Street View service. Although it’s pretty clear by now that Street View is legal and doesn’t inhibit the right to privacy, Google continues to get it in the neck from each new country it adds to the line-up of countries on show. The latest to throw its toy out the pram is Switzerland.

The noose continues to tighten around Google Book Search as legal actions from all quarters restrict the source material that can be digitized and the uses that Google can make of them.

Google first announced its Chrome OS operating system in July. Many people were very interested to see what Google could do to enter the already crowded OS market. Those people may now not have to wait much longer as there are rumors that Google Chrome OS is to “launch within a week.”

Far from being the overweight nerds living in their parents’ basement, it turns out that tech geeks, including bloggers and social network users, are valuable members of society. No, really.

Facebook has often played a part in getting people into trouble. But this is the first time that it’s been used to get someone out of trouble. It seems Facebook status updates are admissible as alibis.

News Corporation supremo Rupert Murdoch says he may block Google from indexing any content from his Web sites, accusing the search engine of “stealing” content. Google appears unconcerned by the threat and noted that Murdoch could simply request that it no longer link to his sites.

Five years ago today, on November 9, 2004, Mozilla launched Firefox 1.0 and the Web browser has never looked back. In that five years Firefox has grown from an open source product for nerds and geeks to a mainstream product with 330 million users worldwide and a 20-25 percent market share. So, what does the future hold for Firefox?