The software giant held the light-hearted celebration as it revealed that the program was used by less than 1% of US internet surfers.

It is keen to kill off the old version of the browser and persuade users to move to IE8 or 9.

Meanwhile rival Google has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown on the promotion of its Chrome browser.

Chrome climbdown
It has downgraded Chrome in its search listings after the discovery that a marketing campaign paid bloggers to promote a video about it.

The search giant has distanced itself from the campaign, blaming third-party marketing firm Essence Digital.

The issue was discovered by Aaron Wall, who wrote in his SEO Book blog, how he found that a search for “This post is sponsored by Google” threw up more than 400 pages written as part of a marketing campaign.

Search expert Danny Sullivan said the revelation was “jaw-dropping”.

“Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and ‘thin’ content seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser. File this under ‘what were they thinking?’” he wrote on his SearchEngine blog.

Google told the BBC that it had never commissioned Essence Digital to approach bloggers and place sponsored links.

In its own statement, Essence Digital said: “Google never approved a sponsored-post campaign. They only agreed to buy online video ads. Google have consistently avoided paid postings to promote their products, because in their view these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users.

“We apologise to Google who clearly didn’t authorise this.”

Celebration
Over at Microsoft headquarters, the mood was more upbeat.

“Time to pop open the champagne because based on the latest data from Net Applications, IE6 usages in the US has now officially dropped below 1%,” blogged Roger Capriotti, Microsoft’s director of Internet Explorer marketing.

“We hope this means more developers and IT pros can consider IE6 a ‘low priority’ at this point and stop spending their time having to support such an outdated browser,” he added.

In dropping below 1% of usage, the United States joins Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, which have already seen usage fall to very low levels.

In the UK, IE6 usage remains at about 1.4%, although some countries have far higher usage levels. In China, for example, it remains at about 25%.

Richard Edwards, a principal analyst at research firm Ovum, is unsurprised Microsoft is glad to see the back of IE6.

“I think it was rated one of the worst software products of all time by one tech magazine at the time of its release,” he said.

The browser was plagued by security issues which has its own knock-on effect, he thinks.

“In many ways, corporate computer networks have been locked down since partly because of the vulnerabilities found in IE6,” said Mr Edwards.

Mobile battleground
Industry watchers have predicted that despite Google’s current marketing woes, Chrome could overtake IE as the leading global browser in 2012.

Many had previously said that Mozilla’s Firefox would be the most likely candidate to end Microsoft’s dominance.

According to data from measurement firm StatCounter, Chrome increased its market share from 15.6% in January 2011 to 27% by the end of the year. At the same time, Microsoft dropped from 46% to 38.6%. Firefox also fell, from 30.6% at the beginning of 2011 to 25.7% by December.

Mr Edwards is more cautious.

“As long as Windows dominates, IE9 will remain the number one browser,” he said.

He added that the browser wars were moving to mobile.

“That will be the next battleground. That’s where Microsoft has to focus because that is its Achilles heel. Its mobile browser is some way off those for Android and iOS devices,” he said

Seventy-seven per cent of British shoppers prefer to buy goods like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online – compared with 65% globally.

But when it comes to mobile banking, consumers in the UK are more reluctant than those in other parts of the world.

KPMG surveyed 9,600 consumers aged between 16 and 65, across 31 countries.

When buying goods or services, the majority of customers (both in the UK and globally) now said that they look at social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and online review sites.

Downloading Apps

“From buying goods on their mobile phones to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers are increasingly reliant on a range of technologies that perform important – yet often overlapping – tasks,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s European head of technology.

“This new ‘converged lifestyle’ will have huge implication for retailers.”

Eighty-eight per cent of respondents in the UK and worldwide reported downloading an app to their mobile.

In the UK, 74% of consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and holidays online and six in 10 used some form of online grocery shopping.

In the US, by contrast, the same amount would book flights but only 21% said they were more likely to buy groceries online.

But when it comes to mobile banking, only 27% in the UK said they had used some form of mobile banking in the past six months.

That compares with 52% globally – a massive jump from just under 20% in 2008, according to the audit firm.

Consumers in the UK are also more reluctant to embrace the cloud – storing their data online rather than on their own computers – with 53% of respondents saying they do some compared with 65% globally.

“The report also shows that consumers’ concerns over privacy and data security have increased over the last few years and companies across all sectors need to take this concern seriously,” Mr Aw said.

In a statement apparently issued by the customs department of the Syrian finance ministry and seen by Lebanese and German media, the authorities “warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria”.

The order also apparently prohibits the import of iPhones.

The UN believes 4,000 people have been killed in Syria since March.

Most international media have been banned from Syria since the uprising began, so footage of the violent crackdown has primarily come from activists filming material themselves and posting it on the internet.

If the document posted on the Lebanese news website el-Nashra is genuine, the authorities threaten confiscation and prosecution for anyone found with an iPhone.

Syrian opposition sources in Beirut confirmed the ban to the German Press Agency (DPA).

Other types of smartphones are apparently not affected by the ban.

Outside of the world of reality TV, it is algorithms that are the real stars – powering a range of services from the financial markets to the websites we use every day.

And there are plenty of people willing to pay good money to make them work more efficiently.

Movie rental site Netflix recognised the importance of good code back in 2009 when it offered a $1m (£645,000) prize to anyone who could improve the algorithm that offered film recommendations based on previous rentals. The competition was a huge success and the improved algorithms are responsible for 60% of movies rented from the site.

Now Heritage Provider Network, a US healthcare provider, is offering $3m to a developer who can create code that accurately predicts and prevents unnecessary hospitalisations.

The competition runs until spring 2013 and organisers hope that the winning equation can cut spending, freeing up more money for vital disease prevention research.

“A winning solution will change healthcare delivery as we know it from an emphasis on caring for the individual after they get sick to a true health care system,” the organisers said.

Worth billions

These contests helped inspire Kaggle, one of a growing number of websites set up to offer a place for coding wizards to show off their talents.

Founder Anthony Goldbloom spotted a gap in the market while he was working as an intern at the Economist newspaper.

He said that the business was providing a vital link between firms wanting their data crunched and the scientists able to do it.

“Machine learning is becoming huge but the answers it gives depends on what questions we ask it. There is a limited group of people able to do this. They are massively valued and have have amazing skills but they tend to be hidden away in Cambridge University or in a hedge fund,” he said.

Competitions featured on the site range from the fun – working out who might win the next Eurovision song contest – through to the socially useful – finding better ways to treat HIV – to the highly complex – mapping dark matter.

Each contest runs for an average of three months and the public competitions typically offer cash prices of around $10,000.

The website also hosts private contests where data is hidden from all but those selected to take part and prize money can be much higher.

Because of the sensitive nature of much of the data, each competitor must sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Extremely valuable

Wall Street is now full of data scientists, mathematicians and physicists because algorithms are increasingly important to the financial markets.

One of the competitions aims to map dark matter

One of Kaggle’s current competitions is looking for an algorithm designed to predict how the money markets will react to different trades.

So-called algo-trading has not been without controversy.

The Flash Crash on May 6 2010, which caused the Dow Jones index to drop by 10%, illustrated what could happen when the code behind the numbers ran out of control.

One super-fast trading algorithm sold 75,000 stocks with a value of £2.6bn in just 20 minutes, causing others to follow suit. Although the problem was sorted within minutes, no-one has ever got to the bottom of why the code started misbehaving.

But software that does what it is supposed to can be extremely valuable to companies.

Another of Kaggle’s current competitions is looking at ways of predicting which models of cars are more likely to result in the owner making a claim for bodily injuries.

Such predictive algorithms are “worth hundreds of million of dollars to the insurance industry,” said Mr Goldbloom.

Coffee house

Jason Tigg is an avid coder and has so far has taken part in four competitions.

“I wanted to see how well I would do against other people and it became addictive,” he said.

“For me it’s a hobby. Some people like Sudoku or chess, and some people like solving these problems.”

As one of first physicists on Wall Street, he can testify to how important code is becoming to the financial markets.

“When I started working on Wall Street it was barrow-boy like with not many mathematicians. Now Wall Street is dominated by them,” he said.

Algorithms make automated high-frequency trades possible that do not rely on floor brokers

He acknowledges that the complex code that they have created could have played a part in the current global financial crisis.

“Maybe they [the mathematicians] are at fault for making things so complicated and that’s why we are in the mess we are now in,” he said, only half-jokingly.

But he believes the potential benefits offered by good code outweigh the risks.

“I look forward to the day when cars drive themselves and the traffic is less congested,” he said.

Topcoder offers a similar service to Kaggle and boasts a community of over 300,000 “digital professionals”.

Making sense of data is just one of many services it claims to provide.

“Whether you’re building an entire digital strategy, creating a web site, mobile app, internal application, or trying to make sense of your data — tapping into the Topcoder community will open up opportunities that simply weren’t possible before,” it boasts on its website.

It compares itself to the 18th Century coffee houses that allowed intellectuals to get together to spread ideas.

“Today, caffeine is still rampant and obviously more accessible than ever, but it’s the other, the access to challenges, the ability to collaborate and iterate with thousands of participants via virtual communities that has of course been the phenomenal game-changer,” it said in its blog.

Full-time job

Chris Adlard is marketing director for Coverity, a firm which fixes software bugs in complex code such as that used by the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. Such websites are a fascinating new phenomenon, he thinks.

“It is a very interesting idea – using web 2.0 and social collaboration to solve complex business and academic challenges through algorithmic analyses,” he said.

“The business world today would simply not function without software. Software algorithms are now at the heart of business processes and products across every sector – in the cars we drive, the medical devices in our hospitals, the financial trading applications used across our markets, the stock systems in our supermarkets,” he added.

As algorithms increase in importance it seems so will the number of similar competitions available to coding wizards.

Kaggle now has some 20,000 data scientists on its books and aims eventually to allow them to make their living from such competitions.

“We are looking to pay people. It could become a full-time income for people like Jason,” Mr Goldbloom said.

While the X Factor contestants sing for their supper, the mathematicians will be busy coding for theirs.

The substance is made out of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice – a criss-crossing diagonal pattern with small open spaces between the tubes.

The researchers say the material is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and has “extraordinarily high energy absorption” properties.

Potential uses include next-generation batteries and shock absorbers.

The research was carried out at the University of California, Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology and is published in the latest edition of Science.

“The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” said lead author Dr Tobias Schaedler.

Low-density

The resulting material has a density of 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre.

By comparison the density of silica aerogels – the world’s lightest solid materials – is only as low as 1.0mg per cubic cm.

The metallic micro-lattices have the edge because they consist of 99.99% air and of 0.01% solids.

The engineers say the material’s strength derives from the ordered nature of its lattice design.

By contrast, other ultralight substances, including aerogels and metallic foams, have random cellular structures. This means they are less stiff, strong, energy absorptive or conductive than the bulk of the raw materials that they are made out of.

William Carter, manager of architected materials at HRL, compared the new material to larger low-density structures.

“Modern buildings, exemplified by the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge are incredibly light and weight-efficient by virtue of their architecture,” he said.

“We are revolutionising lightweight materials by bringing this concept to the nano and micro scales.”

Robust

To study the strength of the metallic micro-lattices the team compressed them until they were half as thick.

After removing the load the substance recovered 98% of its original height and resumed its original shape.

The first time the stress test was carried out and repeated the material became less stiff and strong, but the team says that further compressions made very little difference.

“Materials actually get stronger as the dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale,” said team member Lorenzo Valdevit.

“Combine this with the possibility of tailoring the architecture of the micro-lattice and you have a unique cellular material.”

The engineers suggest practical uses for the substance include thermal insulation, battery electrodes and products that need to dampen sound, vibration and shock energy.

Industrial secrets and information about contract negotiations had been stolen, said Norway’s National Security Agency (NSM).

It said 10 firms, and perhaps many more, had been targeted in the biggest wave of attacks to hit the country.

Norway is the latest in a growing list of nations that have lost secrets and intellectual property to cyber thieves.

The attackers won access to corporate networks using customised emails with viruses attached which did not trigger anti-malware detection systems.

Targeted attacks

The NSM said the email messages had been sent to specific named individuals in the target firms and had been carefully crafted to look like they had come from legitimate sources.

Many of the virus-laden emails were sent while the companies were in the middle of negotiations over big contracts.

It said user names, passwords, industrial drawings, contracts and documents had been stolen and taken out of the country.

The NSM believes the attacks are the work of one group, based on its analysis of the methods used to target individuals, code inside the viruses and how the data was extracted.

The agency said it was publishing information about the attacks to serve as a warning and to encourage other targeted firms to come forward.

“This is the first time Norway has revealed extensive and wide computer espionage attacks,” the NSM said in a statement.

Singled out

It said it found out about the attacks when “vigilant users” told internal IT security staff, who then informed the agency.

However, the NSM said, it was likely that many of the companies that had been hit did not know that hackers had penetrated their systems and stolen documents.

Security firms report that many other nations and industrial sectors have been targeted by data thieves in recent months.

The chemical industry, hi-tech firms and utilities appear to have been singled out.

EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and 23 independent labels are providing content to create a library of 13 million songs.

However, Warner Music Group has opted not to take part at this point.

The service poses a challenge to Apple’s dominance of the sector. It launched its iTunes store in 2003.

The popularity of the iPod maker’s mobile devices helped drive sales.

However, a new study by the research firm Gartner suggests that more than half of all smartphones sold between July and September ran Android. That accounts for more than 60 million devices.

By comparison Apple’s iOS handsets accounted for 15% of the market over the same period, according to the study.

Social network

Google is also integrating its new service with its Google+ social network.

Users will be able to share songs with their Circles contacts who can listen to the full length of the tracks one time without making a purchase.

Songs range in price from 69 cents (44p) to $1.29 and come without DRM copy-protection. The search giant is also offering a different track free for download every day.

The firm announced it has secured exclusive content.

The rapper Busta Rhymes – who was at the launch event – is debuting his new studio album on the Android store. The Rolling Stones and Coldplay are offering previously unreleased live performances.

Google is also hoping to link with smaller artists through its new Artist Hub. Musicians can add their own page for a $25 fee and set their own prices. Google will take a 30% share of each sale.

Google is adding music to its app, video and book sales on the Android Market

The firm did not discuss any plans to offer Google Music outside the US.

Competition

Google is not the only tech company trying to make a splash in the music industry.

Blackberry launched its BBM Music service in the UK on Tuesday. The firm offers users 50 DRM-protected tracks of their choice for £4.99 a month.

Members can also listen to their friends’ selections. The service is also live in the US, Canada and Australia.

Nokia is pursuing a different model, offering owners of its new Lumia 800 Windows Phone use of its Mix Radio app.

The software scans the users’ music collections and builds a customised radio station from the firm’s 15 million strong library.

Internet radio

Amazon already runs a cloud based music service.

The firm launched its new Kindle Fire tablet earlier this week which may drive further sales from the site.

Streaming subscription service Spotify is also expanding after launching in the US in July. It offers apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

The other big player in the US is the internet radio service, Pandora, which tries to tailor its selection to each user’s taste.

Despite all the competition, analysts say Google Music still has room to manoeuvre.

“It’s not exactly innovative, but the reality is that Google will get success in the same way it has in other markets – by making the most of its strengths in search and Android, and it will keep chipping away,” said Colin Gillis, technology analyst at BGC Partners.

The chief executive of the UK-based 7digital MP3 store added that others may benefit from the search giant’s move.

“Google’s long overdue entry in the market is welcome as the company has a special market role, in helping combat piracy through the power to control search listings, Adwords advertising and dodgy MP3 apps on the Android market, and also in showing consumers there is choice beyond iTunes,” said Ben Drury.