GOOGLE DOODLE LETS YOU PLAY AND RECORD A GUITAR RIFF

Have you been to Google's home page recently? Do it, you've got less than 24 hours to check out its guitar-inspired doodle celebrating the birthday of Les Paul. The "Google" script is highly interactive thanks to a combination of JavaScript, HMTL5, CSS, and even Flash (providing the audio). Click the compose button at the base of the second "g" and begin recording your own 30 second tribute to one of music's most innovative pioneers using your keyboard to play specific notes or mouse for virtual strumming. Unfortunately, the recording and sharing aspect appears limited to US Googlers. Impressive stuff from a typically impressive company.

RIM ANNOUNCES BLACKBERRY OS 7

The BB OS 6.1 update that grew too big for its name has just been made official by RIM as BlackBerry OS 7. Its ambassador into the wide world of smartphones will be the newly minted BlackBerry Bold Touch, which is expected to arrive "this summer."

The user experience is promised to be both easier and faster, voice-activated searches are available for content both on your phone and the web, and the browser has been "significantly enhanced" with new features like a JIT (just-in-time) JavaScript compiler and HTML5 Video support. BlackBerry Balance is also part of the new OS, allowing you to compartmentalize your personal and professional lives into neat and separate piles of content.

RIM RESPONDS TO BLACKBERRY HACKING AT PWN2OWN

It's not just desktop web browsers getting hacked at this year's Pwn2Own challenge -- mobile browsers have also been targeted for vulnerabilities, and a fairly big one has now been found in RIM's browser for BlackBerry OS 6.

Apparently, there's a JavaScript-related bug that could let a "maliciously designed" website gain access to data stored on both the phone's media card and built-in storage, but not data stored in the storage portion for applications (such as email or contact information). For its part, RIM says that it hasn't actually seen any evidence of anyone exploiting the vulnerability, but it's nonetheless urging folks to disable JavaScript on affected devices, and it's now busy providing IT departments everywhere with guidelines on how to do so. If that proves to be complicated, it's suggesting that you simply disable the BlackBerry Browser altogether until it can be patched.

GOOGLE CHROME 10 NOW AVAILABLE WITH SPEED BOOST

It was just a month ago that Google released version 9 of its hot browser Chrome. They have now released version 10. The new version has speed increases as well as a new Options layout and sandboxing of integrated Flash, which provides better security from malware. Chrome 10 scored a 66% increase in Javascript performance. Users can now sync passwords across multiple computers as well. Google has some handy videos showing the improvements which you can view here.

GOOGLE RELEASES CHILDREN'S BOOK ON BROWSERS AND THE WEB FOR FREE

Wondering how to explain the brave new world of Web 2.0 and HTML5 to your children… or simply want to correct your own childlike understanding of how the internet works? Search giant Google has just the picture book for you… and best of all, it’s both free and charming.

The book is called 20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web

Sure, we all use the internet every day, and most of us are pretty astute with it… but it’s surprising how little many know about the inner workings of the web behinds its various sites and interfaces.

As such, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web is a breath of fresh air, offering eminently understandable primers about HTML, Javascript and Ajax. It’s also a future-looking book, spelling out many of the developments we can expect next from both browsers and web apps. Even security, privacy, open source and design are touched upon.

The book reads like a picture book written as a Christmas present from the Google Chrome team to its children, and in fact it is: the collective Chrome team is the book’s author, and we — the users — are their children. [Geek]

17 YEAR OLD AUSTRALIAN CAUSE OF TWITTER PROBLEMS

A 17 year old Australian boy was the root cause of yesterday's twitter bug.  The Melbourne based high school student decided to test the onMouseOver Javascript security flaw that a Japanese man had reported to Twitter a month earlier.  The problems began when his followers decided to propagate the script.  This ultimately led to the worm that hit Twitter. [Gizmodo]