On September 27, Nik Cubrilovic posted a follow-up to his terrific analysis (which we posted two days ago) looking at how Facebook uses cookies to track users even when they have signed out of the service. That post's popularity got Facebook to respond to his questions about cookie tracking, something that it hadn't done despite more than a year of requests. We asked and he granted permission to repost this follow-up, but we're a day late because of the time difference between Australia and the United States. This version differs in two subtle ways from the original: Slight editing for house style and different headline.

I wrote a post two days ago about privacy issues with the Facebook logout procedure which could lead to your subsequent web requests to third-party sites that integrate Facebook widgets being identifiable and linked back to your real account. Over the course of the past 48 hours since that post was published we have researched the issue further and have been in constant contact with Facebook on working out solutions and clarifying behavior on the site.

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Some Registry values are easy to understand. Find a file path, say, and you’ll often be able to figure out its purpose at a glance.

Dates and times, though? That’s often a very different matter.

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Skype’s iPhone app proved to be incredibly popular, and the recently released iPad version soon picked up a healthy following as well. Both versions of the app have been updated to include support for Bluetooth devices while the iPhone version has a new anti-shake feature designed to eliminate wobbly footage when conducting a video call.

Bluetooth support has been enabled for iPhone 3GS and 4 users as well as for the iPad 2 and fourth generation iPods. This opens up the opportunity to use headsets to make and receive hands-free calls.

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What's that saying about my enemy being my ally?

Samsung has finally agreed to pay licensing fees to Microsoft for patents allegedly infringed by Android. I say, allegedly, since Microsoft accomplished this feat without firing one legal shot. It's a diplomatic agreement, of sorts, although the threat of patent warfare was always there. Perhaps Samsung has had enough fighting Apple patent and other intellectual property violation claims and didn't want to open yet another front on the battlefield. Or perhaps Samsung saw how many other phone manufacturers were cutting similar deals with Microsoft. Bottom line: Samsung will now essentially pay a licensing fee for Android, not to Google, but to Microsoft.

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Online retailer Amazon on Wednesday officially launched its first Android tablet, the 7" Kindle Fire.

Taking its name from the company's already successful line of e-readers, the Kindle Fire introduces a handful of new features to the Android tablet business.

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Amazon on Wednesday unveiled the fifth generation of its dedicated Kindle e-readers: the $79 Kindle, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $149 Kindle Touch 3G. All three go up for pre-order today and will begin shipping on November 21.

The three models each offer the latest high-contrast 6" E Ink Pearl display and an even smaller profile than previous versions, but they're not all the same. The low-end Kindle offers a much smaller chassis, and weighs only 5.95 ounces, while two flagship models, Kindle Touch, and Touch 3G, have infrared touchscreen interfaces like the Nook Simple Touch and Sony Reader and slightly larger bodies.

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Mozilla has updated its popular email tool, Thunderbird, to version 7. Thunderbird 7.0 Final follows Firefox 7 out of the door, while Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.4, its all-in-one suite, comprising functionality from Firefox and Thunderbird, has also been released, incorporating the improvements in Firefox 7 into its own build.

Unlike its better-known sibling, Thunderbird 7 features few noticeable changes over previous releases, with highlights including the fact it’s based on the Mozilla Gecko 7 engine, various user interface tweaks, fixes to attachment handling and unspecified platform improvements to the Address Book. Version 7 also promises improved security, speed, performance and stability through various security and platform fixes.

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Here's a quick mobile Linux primer: Intel had Moblin, Nokia had Maemo, they joined forces and formed MeeGo. After a year, Nokia dropped out because development was too slow and it allied with Microsoft.

Now, Intel is dropping MeeGo and allying with the Linux Foundation and LiMo Foundation in support of a newer mobile Linux OS called Tizen.

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I'm not one of the lucky people who owns a Windows Phone handset, so I'm calling on those of you who do to help me out and your fellow Betanews readers. Today, Microsoft started rolling out Windows Phone 7.5 to most people using a WP smartphone. If that's you, "Mango" is coming soon, as an over-the-air update, if you don't already have it.

If you've got it, please share your first impressions about the software in comments. Or, better, contact me about writing a review. We love reader submissions. Last week, reader Joseph LoRe wrote a first-impressions review of the Epic 4G Touch, Sprint's variant of the Samsung Galaxy S II. Please email me if you're interested in reviewing Windows Phone 7.5: joe at betanews dot com.

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Website traffic analysis firm Experian Hitwise said Tuesday that traffic to Google+ grew some 1,269 percent from the week ending September 17 to the week ending September 24. This was good enough to catapult the site from the 54th most visited site in the Social Networking and Forums category to 8th in just one week.

Research director Heather Dougherty said Hitwise's analysis indicated Google+ had nearly 15 million total US visits in the last week alone, its first since opening up to the public. She also said the company's analysis indicates that a large portion of the services users still remain early adopters.

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Nokia officially launched the N9 today, the Finnish mobile phone maker's first (and potentially only) smartphone to be powered by mobile Linux distribution MeeGo.

The slick N9 impressed us quite a bit when it was announced back in July: 3.9" (854 x 480) AMOLED display with convex Gorilla Glass, a 1 GHz TI OMAP3630 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 64GB of storage, an 8 Megapixel flash camera, and front-facing chat cam, and global wireless support. It will be available in 20 countries for €480 (16GB) or €560 (64GB).

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Paragon Software’s Backup & Recovery has always been one of the most feature-packed backup tools around, and the latest release, Backup & Recovery 11 Home, does its best to carry on this proud tradition.

At a first glance down the “new features” list, though, the strategy doesn’t appear to be entirely successful. The program is more about evolution, than revolution: there’s no game-changer here, it’s really just building on what’s come before.

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Patient (or impatient) iPhone aficionados will not have to wait much longer for that highly anticipated iPhone 5: Apple on Tuesday began mailing out invitations to journalists for an iPhone event on October 4, to be held at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Apple often drops hints in the graphic elements accompanying the invites about what's coming. The not-so-cryptic message: One iPhone will be coming, contradicting weeks of rumors about two -- the other being the so-called 4S.

It's not clear why Apple chose to have its event on-campus this time versus its typical launch venue, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The YBCA is showing no events for that day. In any case, Apple may be leaning towards a more intimate setting, hoping to maximize press coverage for the device by only inviting the most highly-read news outlets to the event itself.

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PCs are certainly the most common target for virus attacks, but this does not mean that other platforms are immune. The increased use of mobile devices means that platforms such as Android devices are prone to virus infection and antivirus software is now available to help counter this. AVG is most famous for its desktop virus protection software, but Anti-Virus Free is also available for Android and its aim is to protect your mobile in a number of ways.

As you might expect, the app provide virus protection on a real-time basis as well as enabling you to scan on a schedule or manually. Surfing the web is the source of many threats, and to this end the app includes phishing and malware protection. But Anti-Virus Free also goes far beyond this, and includes a number of handy extra tools and utilities.

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Apple has made big brouhaha about its multi-touch user interface on iOS products like iPhone, and has for almost four years been attempting to trademark the term here in the United States. That effort is now for naught as a filing made public on Friday shows that the company's application was denied.

Apple originally applied for the trademark back on January 9, 2007, the same day the first iPhone was introduced at that year's Macworld Expo. Its application was initially denied by a US Patent and Trademark Office attorney on the basis that it was "merely descriptive of the applicants goods," but Apple pressed on.

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