A Facebook application is polling users on the new site layout and so far 94 percent said they don’t like it.

Some of the comments left by disappointed users include: “Missing so many features I used to adore. I am saddened,” “Please change it back to the way it was,” and “I hate it and if it doesn’t change I will only check it once in awhile.”

The developers behind the application have also put a new restriction that prevents users from inviting more than two of their friends to join the app, which severely hinders its ability to go viral. The following notice appears above the app:

  Dear Facebook, we created this neutral and democratic vote because we love Facebook. Please stop trying to suppress the vote and muffle the voice of your users who desperately want to be heard. Let us know you are listening; let us exercise our right to vote and to invite our friends too.

Let's wait and see what Facebook does in response to all this negative feedback.

Happy Birthday Twitter! The micro-blogging site that has experienced rapid growth is three today at 1:02 PM California time.

Visits to Twitter have increased 1,382 percent since last year - from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, according to Nielsen.

Founding CEO Jack Dorsey Twittered earlier today linking back to one of the first Twitter messages, which read “inviting coworkers.”

If you want to wish Twitter a happy birthday, why not use your 140 character limit to tweeet: Happy Birthday Twitter!

Have you ever sent an email and then immediately regretted it afterwards?

Google has come up with something for just that type of thing. There is now a new feature available for all Gmail users called Undo Send.

The feature will catch any messages before they are delivered to the recipient within moments of sending it. 

Undo Send can be activated from the Settings/Labs tab in Gmail.

Once the feature is enabled, an Undo option appears after you've sent a message. You have five seconds to click it. Hit it in enough time and the email will be stopped in its tracks.

The U.S. video game industry continued to sail smoothly above the economic downturn in February, with sales up 10% from a year ago to $1.47 billion, led, once again, by strong sales of Nintendo's Wii and DS systems, according to a report from market research firm NPD Group.

"The U.S. video games industry continues to post strong year-over-year comps despite the tough economy. Unit sales increased even more than dollar sales did, reflecting a slightly lower average retail price for all categories as compared to last year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Nintendo's sold 753,000 Wii units which helped push game hardware sales up 11% in February, to $481.4 million. Meanwhile, the company's DS handheld also sold 588,000 units.

Nintendo's "Wii Fit" sold 644,000 units last month; the company had a total of five of the ten top-selling titles.

"They're (Nintendo) finally getting product into the market," ABI Research analyst Jason Blackwell told the E-Commerce Times.

"There was a significant shortage of Wiis in the stores, but now you go to Costco or Wal-Mart and you see Wiis on the shelves, so now there's actual inventory."

Meanwhile, Microsoft sold 391,000 Xbox 360 consoles last month, while Sony's PlayStation 3 sold 276,000 units.

The top-selling game in February was Capcom's "Street Fighter IV," which sold 446,000 units for the Xbox 360 and 403,000 for the PlayStation 3.

"A long-established video game franchise, the Street Fighter property continues to generate impressive sales results. The great performance of the new title, Street Fighter IV, on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, is a testament to the power of carefully cultivating evergreen properties," added Frazier.

Total game software sales were up 9% in February, to $673.3 million.

Spiral Frog Home page

Spiral Frog, one of the early entrees in the ad-supported music area, failed to make its debt payments and has gone under.

 The company's Web site went dark yesterday evening at around 7 p.m. EST and had its assets forked over to creditors, according to CNET.

During its fleeting three years in business, the company endured many problems, including unwilling labels, management in-fighting, and DRM problems.

The music industry was keen on preventing consumers from downloading songs for free on file-sharing sites, and the Spiral Frog model offered a model that seemed to satisfy both parties:  the site would reach out to advertisers to underwrite the download fees - and that revenue would be passed on to the music industry.

The site had ad-supported music from Universal Music Group and EMI, Spiral Frog struggled to pick up additionally studio partners.

However, the real trouble began when Spiral Frog accumulated a $10 million debt that it just couldn't keep up with, details of which were reported by Digital Music News last month.

Microsoft IE 8

After launching the new Internet Explorer 8 on Thursday, Microsoft Corp. has already received a small boost in web browser market share, according to Web measurement company Net Applications Inc.

IE8's market share averaged 1.63% for the day Thursday from noon Eastern time onward -- when Microsoft posted the new browser for download -- a 21% increase over March's daily average of 1.35% through Wednesday.

Net Applications posted hourly market share numbers for IE8 on its Web site.

The browser's share climbed again today, to an hourly average of 1.75% through 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, bringing IE8's total increase to 30% over the month's daily average.

"I was a little surprised that there wasn't any advanced warning," said Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing about Microsoft's low-key launch.

The Pirate Bay has launched a cool new feature for all torrent downloading fans that allows users to bookmark torrents and download them remotely, by  simple adding their personal RSS feed URL to their BitTorrent client.

So instead of pressing "download", getting the torrent and opening it in your torrent client, you can now push "add to personal RSS".

And how does this work?

On your settings page you see the URL for your own personal RSS feed. Add that to your torrent clients RSS-feed and make it download without a filter from that list. Then just leave the torrent client open and it will start to download what you chose - no matter where you are in the world, as long as you're logged in.

“We hope that it’s a small nice addition for people to remember to download stuff that you find on your cellphone, at your friends place or whatever, without the need to update your torrent client,” says the mysterious KingKong at Pirate Bay in a blog.

The new RSS feature is still in beta, and users first have to add torrents to their personal RSS feed before it’s created.

(Flickr user Jimmy Joe)

It appears the line between privacy and the use of technology to spy is becoming more and more blurred as gadgets become more advanced and cheaper.

Surveillance technology is no longer just being used for monitoring the security of properties, but also monitoring the lives of others.

A woman, who did not divulge her real identity, told ABC news that she used a $1,500 GPS tracking system to find out if her husband was having an affair.

"Spying could seem extreme [but] once you get to that point, you already know. It's more of a closure thing," she said. "I was blaming myself. I was turning into a state of depression. ... I know now that he's the jerk."

Stores that sell surveillance cameras say that in spite of tough economic times, their sales are still rising.

"Greed, lust and fear are the three high-growth industries and this covers all three," said  SpyAssociates.com owner Jeffrey Jurist, adding that his clients include law enforcement, individuals, private investigators and corporations. "Everybody's watching everybody. It's just a matter of whether you're aware of it."

"There's a fine line depending on how [it's being used] and who is using. It's up to the end user," he said, emphasizing that the law differs from state to state.

Privacy groups are urging the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into cloud computing services and in particular, those owned by Google.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has petitioned the FTC to investigate privacy concerns over Google's swarm of online services. FTC had already scheduled meetings to discuss if the advantages of cloud computing justify the risks.

In the petition, EPIC asked that services like Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, and Google's other cloud computing services be investigated to determine "the adequacy of the privacy and security safeguards."

"Recent reports indicate that Google does not adequately safeguard the confidential information that it obtains," wrote EPIC.

 The privacy organization cited a recent problem Google Docs had which made certain documents—that were previously marked as private by their owners—public and available everyone, despite repeated claims from Google that the data is safe and secure.

EPIC also highlighted a number of reports from security experts about vulnerabilities in Google's services between 2005 and now.

AT&T is planning to offer the Apple iPhone 3G contract-free starting next week, but this offer doesn't come cheap.

AT&T will sell the 8-GB iPhone 3G for $599 and the 16-GB iPhone 3G for $699 without requiring buyers to commit to a two-year contract.

Contract-free iPhones are expected to be available March 26, according to a presented on Boy Genius' website.

The "no-commit" price is only available to existing AT&T customers.

"Customers purchasing the iPhone 3G at the no-commit price are not required to sign a two-year service agreement," the presentation said. "Device activation is not required at point-of-sale."

When the iPhone 3G launched last year, AT&T said it would offer such an option, but it never went through with it.

Currently, AT&T and Apple only offer the iPhone with a two-year contract. The subsidized prices come in at $199 for the 8 GB model and $299 for a 16 GB iPhone.