I'm writing to let you know about a hybrid service that we've just launched.

Following a months-long spat of constant attacks against 4chan that included spam, malicious links and disgusting child pornography, 4chan founder "Moot" unofficially called for a response against file sharing host Sharecash. 4chan users, infamous for their DDoS attacks against other prominent and powerful targets, took up the call by bringing down Sharecash's server for several hours.

Google is on the defensive in recent months, facing threats of antitrust action from the Obama administration, a concerted public smear campaign by Microsoft, and growing concern from its users over its panoptic and ubiquitous services. In an attempt to allay these concerns and convince Washington it isn't evil, Google has created Dashboard, a tool that brings many of a user's privacy settings and content from Google products onto one page. But while Google markets it as a powerful tool to manage one's privacy, the seemingly extensive Dashboard actually presents users with a limited set of the total personal data Google collects.

BOSTON - From personalized genomics to measurements of sea-level rise, from al Qaeda websites to citizen technology-assessment panels, from brain-based education to labor-saving inventions for use in developing countries, social and scientific changes are intertwined. "Science in a Changing World," a new graduate track at UMass Boston prepares students to participate in questioning and shaping the direction of scientific and social changes, as well as to teach and engage others to participate in this important endeavor.

Hulu is a great, legal source for watching tons of network television and even movies. Too bad it's polluted with loud, offensive commercials just like the TV box. Fortunately for those who find the wailing jock rock guitar of Speed Stick commercials repugnant, the most recent version of popular Firefox plugin Adblock Plus successfully eliminates all Hulu commercials while leaving the video content intact. Follow our walkthrough to set it up yourself.

Google last week announced the existence of a project that will bring its own operating system to netbook computers in the second half of 2010. The Google Chrome OS, which appropriately shares a name with the company's infant web browser, will be optimized for cloud computing (running applications online, rather than from locally installed software). But while the Chrome OS itself will be open sourced later this year, web applications like Google Docs and Facebook sometimes don't even allow users ownership of their data, let alone the source code. Like Microsoft before it, Google has the strength to force industry-wide changes, and if it pushes users towards closed network services, we might all lose.

"You were right, dude! I am a repressed homosexual. How cool is that?" If you received a message like this one from an unknown AOL Instant Messenger screen name, your decision to reply was probably comprised of equal parts reluctance, curiosity and confusion. But you probably did reply. And you're definitely not alone.

Touted by Big Music as "the future of digital music consumption," Spotify lets users search for music on major and indie labels alike, and listen to full albums for free. All without the threat of the RIAA knocking on the door. How does it stack up against services like iTunes and Pandora? Read on to find out.

Do you remember when you first fell in love with Firefox? How you got over your initial skepticism of an Internet Explorer alternative and quickly realized how much sweeter the HTML tasted, rendered by an open source browser? How you gawked at the thousands of add-ons you never knew you were missing? Prepare to fall in love again with Songbird, an open source media player that's set to revolutionize media and the web.

This past week has seen two major service announcements in IP voice and video communication that challenge the telcos. Internet big boy Google rolled out voice and video chat integrated with its Gmail webmail service, and FreeRinger announced PC-to-phone calls in partnership with GTalk2VoIP and Talkster. Both services are free, ad supported and share no revenue with telcos like AT&T, Verizon or Comcast.