In a break from tradition, a recent Microsoft updated removed, or deprecated, code in older Windows platforms that had to do with the Indeo Video Codec. Microsoft chose to disable the utilization of this codec instead of patching it to fix some recently discovered security vulnerabilities.
Last year, Microsoft took a similar measure regarding a flaw that was discovered in its Windows 2000 Server’s implementation of TCP/IP, but in that case, Microsoft simply chose to do nothing, which leaves these systems vulnerable.

The Gartner research group reported that worldwide sales of PCs have increased this year. Most analysts had been projecting PC sales to trend downward due to the recession, but buoyed by strong sales in the 3rd quarter, the PC market will show a 2.8% increase over 2008. This trend is expected to continue into 2010 shich should show a 12.6% increase.

However, even with the stronger than expected showing in unit sales, overall market value fell based on unprecedented decline in average PC selling price. Even though the report doesn’t quite say it, this decline in market value is due to the strong showing of the new netbooks or “mini-notebooks”. Since the sales of desktop PCs fell 9% from last year, the laptop segment, augmented by the popularity of the netbooks, has driven the sales increases.

If you are reading this, then there is a really good chance that you are indeed a slave to technology, or at least deeply immersed. Surrounded by lifestyle-altering, digital gadgets, you are embracing technology.

Slave may be too strong a word, but we may be so reliant on our digital devices that our basic behaviors has been permanently changed. We text, we tweet, we chat incessantly on our cellphones in grocery store check-out lines, our kids use calculators for basic math, we eschew libraries for Google, and finally, when was the last time you “looked that up in your Funk and Wagnalls?”

The desire to perform tasks faster, better and more efficiently is pretty basic, and has resulted in some pretty amazing technologies. It’s all good, right?