With 80,000 computers in the military using it, the French government thought it imperative to adapt it to their needs—which Mozilla evidently liked, as they included some of their code in Thunderbird 3, which launched this week.

David Ascher, Chief Executive of Mozilla Messaging, explained:

"The primary changes (the military) have made allow them to know for sure when messages have been read, which is critical in a command-and-control organisation"

As well as using the open source Thunderbird, the French government is also adopting Linux as its primary OS, and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. [Sydney Morning Herald]

Image credit: Isafmedia

It's not an official Google product, with Californian film producer Charlie Mason behind the Mac and Windows-friendly peripheral, which can also be used for non-Gmail shortcuts too.

Rack up the $19.99 charge on your card, plug into into your USB port, turn on Gmail's keyboard shortcuts option, and start saving time. [Gboard via CNET]

You might someday send resumes or other important documents over Facebook and Twitter, but Email is never going to be "dead". In fact, with push email on your phone, it's basically as instant as any of the other networks.

Google Wave might also be pretty interesting when the people pimping it out call it what email would look like if it were invented today. It's too early to tell. But for it to be truly ubiquitous—and it has to be in order to replace email—it can't be hosted by just one company.

Think of it this way: if people are still using Fax machines—fucking FAX MACHINES—on a daily basis, there's no way that Email will be excised from our collective productivity streams. Not when it's this much more usable by the average person than faxes.

Lastly, how did they come up with the number of social network subscriptions being higher than email, when all social networks require you to sign up with an email account? [WSJ]

Russia and Brazil were found to be the most infected.

Other interesting findings by Microsoft's cyber security team include that, at the moment, 97% of all emails are spam. In other words, for every 3 emails you want to see, you get 97 that resemble Gizmodo's mainpage on April 1st. (And you thought we were annoying...which we were.)

More interesting stuff over at the BBC. [BBC]

To set the scene, December is the season where all the PR companies are throwing out 50x the normal amount of emails in order to gear up interest for their clients for January's CES (the largest consumer electronics show in US of the year). This means massive distribution lists, massive list blasts and everyone having to wade through piles of pitches that may or may not be right for their publication.

This particular event all started with a blogger (not us) asking politely to be removed from an email distribution list because they don't cover the products the firm was pitching. Then, this happened:

CES publishes a list of press. You are one of a few thousand.

Everyone has access to that list for all kinds of reasons.

It is publicly published.

As a PR agency we use that list so we can solicit press for booth appts

I hope you can appreciate that.

If you don't, let me introduce you to the "delete" button

Or in the future do not sign up as a press person for CES.

Furthermore, do not make any threats to my company.

I don't need you to tell me what is right or what is wrong.

I have been in the CE business for 42 years

I have seen nasty people like you melt away faster than a snowball going
up hill in the rain

I am waiting for an apology

Maybe we can meet at CES for a hug or a slug

P.S. I just visited your web site. I would hardly call your blog a
publication,

However, you do have very interesting content and we have lots of client
you would like to know more about to help you in your endeavors.

Call me

[redacted]
President/Owner

Yeah, the president and owner of the firm sent that email. Wow.

C'mon folks, if we can't get along, let's just be civil. Thanks for passing on the email dudes.

Update: The emailer added his original email here.

Please remove me from your list. My publication does not cover these types of products.

I did NOT sign up to receive info in this category, nor anything close. By CES guidelines, I should not have received this, making it dangerously close to spam. That reflects poorly on your company.

Thank you.