It turns out that at least two people who instant message each other are distanced by 6.6 degrees of separation, or linked by a string of seven people or less.

Thanks to Microsoft’s new survey focused on the popular concept that inspired games like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, it contains all of the instant messaging network traffic from MSN/Windows Live in June 2006, or roughly half of the world’s IM traffic at that time.

So, for example, I could be speaking to a person who is friends with James, but has links with Stewart and has met Kenny. That is an awkward scenario, but it could happen. Tell us your own six/seven degrees of separation, it would be kind of fun to see if this is actually true.

Jerry Yang and the rest of the board have survived a Yahoo shareholder meeting, after all were at risk of losing their seats; until they made a settlement with Carl Icahn, who launched a proxy battle after the Microhoo deal was formally rejected by the company in May.

While roughly 85 percent of the shareholders supported Jerry Yang, 79 percent supported Roy Bostock - both instrumental in the company’s rejection of the $44.6 billion takeover bid made by Microsoft. Director Robert Kotick, however, left the board of directors; though he was backed by 92.5 percent of those voted - this is because he would resign, with Icahn taking his place.

Meanwhile, Time Warner has said that former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller cannot join the Yahoo board until March 2009 as part of a non-compete clause in his contract. A source has told Reuters that Miller had believed that Time Warner would oppose his joining, claiming that the top execs at Time Warner had "greenlit" it.

Could this see a merger between AOL and Yahoo? We will have to wait and see.

TechCrunch is reporting that search giant Google is close to acquiring social news aggregator Digg for around $200 million, with the companies are in "final negotiations" according to their sources.

It would most likely to be under its Google News property, but it could still fall through or another party would step in, like Microsoft - whom they have an advertising deal with and will be terminated if a sale to Google is a likely outcome.

It is one of the best known sites, competiting with Reddit and Slashdot, and has a loyal community. It launched in November 2004 by Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson. Rose also hosts "Diggnation", a show based around news on Digg.

Yahoo has now reached a settlement with investor Carl Icahn, who wanted to replace the current board after the company refused to sell all or a part of the company to Microsoft, with Microsoft saying it could not work with the current board.

The settlement will see Icahn, who owns 68.7 million shares (or 4.98% of Yahoo’s common stock), joining the Yahoo board and withdraw his proxy battle. This will also see another board member Robert Kotick not seeking re-election.

Another eight members are facing re-election at the next board members, and the board will expand to 11 members, adding Icahn and two other nominees from Icahn’s proposal.

The ABC has launched its rental and download service called ABC Shop Downloads, after an eight-month development period. However, there are just a few things wrong with it - and it has nothing to do with the content, which consists of current hits like the Chaser to vintage, archived programming like Aunty Jack.

For most programs, you can rent programs for unlimited viewing during a seven day period for $2.95. However, it will offer several programs as free downloads for testing purposes. You will, however, still need to register your credit card for the free downloads, but they say it won’t result in charges.

The service was developed by Hyro and uses Windows Media technologies and Microsoft’s Flash competitor Silverlight. And since it uses Windows Media and its DRM, you will not be able to play anything on a Mac or Linux computers except previews.

But, they are planning to move once Silverlight 2 is out for the Mac, and will be using PlayReady later in the year.

Yes, and it sucks - and I would not bother to try it; unless you want to see Chaser recaps and vintage ABC programs. This is not a review - I have not reviewed it, but based it with information made available from many sources.

MySpace is a popular social networking site which allows you to customize everything - but that is not our tutorial for today. This tutorial is basically for the comments, where you can add images and change colours to text, among other things.

But many, like new users, do not know what <b> means. So, TECHGEEK is pleased to bring out the basics of HTML.

This tutorial is to be used with MYSPACE ONLY! Many new social networks use XHTML, which is a variation of HTML and there are things under this lesson which are not supported. You can comment on the TECHGEEK blog, however, do not use this tutorial - a follow up will be up soon (like next week.)

Like this Tutorial? Need your questions answered? Suggesting a new tutorial? Comment below!

Read More >

Nintendo has said that it has won the crown of the top selling video game console, thanks to a survey done by the NPD Group. The crown was previously fought by Sony and Microsoft, makers of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 respectably.

Read More over GamesArena >

Netflix, a US movie rental service, is set to stream its movies and TV Shows on the Xbox 360 in the fall, meaning that many subscribers of the service will now be able to watch the 10,000 movies and TV shows in their collection.

This comes to its new Live Party feature, coming to the Xbox 360 soon. This means you can watch the same movie as eight other people, or watch a movie from one of your friends - meaning that you can basically watch the same crap your friends are watching.

But, we should also note that Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings sits on the board of directors over at Microsoft. Though he claims it is not related.

A Windows patch released by Microsoft last week has left call centres at Telstra and a local security software distributor flooded with enquiries after they lost their internet access after installing the update, which was to plug a security hole.

Customers using ZoneAlarm found that they had lost their connection altogether, forcing the company to say that it was "incompatible" with ZoneAlarm and the maker, Checkpoint, had released a patch for the problem.

Microsoft’s spokewoman has said to Australian IT that they had published instructions for addressing the problem, but did not reveal if the company will withdraw the patch from Windows Update temporarily.

Microsoft has announced that a brand new version of the Xbox 360 console will be out in August, selling for $349. That price was also the original price of the 20GB Xbox 360 Pro until it received a price cut, bringing it to $299.

The new console will come with a 60GB hard drive and will feature a "Upscaling DVD Player", meaning that if the Xbox 360 is connected with a HDMI cable, it will upscale the DVD to a near HD standard. It will also come with a wireless controller, headset and a one-month subscription to Xbox LIVE Gold.

It is unknown if it will reach Australia, but the new console will be out in the United States and Canada. It joins the Arcade pack, which sells for $279 and comes with 256MB of memory and five Xbox LIVE arcade games; and the Elite console, which comes with a 120GB hard drive and sells for $449.