Internet Explorer 6 is the browser that just doesn't want to die, even though it has now been superseded by two generations of Internet Explorer, and Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera offer great alternatives. Slowly, however, we are seeing that web developers are phasing out support for IE6, and the latest service to join this movement is Google's YouTube.

Despite the early fanfare and limited inventory at launch, Sprint doesn't seem to be hitting it out of the park with the new Palm Pre. Earlier this month we reported on some channel checks by JNK Securities analyst Mike Ehrlich, who called 50 Sprint stores and found out that sales were lackluster. Yesterday, he issued a new report based on channel checks from last Thursday and Friday, Week 5 after the Pre's launch. Of the stores willing to discuss sales volumes, here is the breakdown of demand on a per-store basis:

Sun Microsystems preannounced bad earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30. That's likely to lead to more worries among Sun employees who may lose their jobs after Oracle closes its acquisition of the computer server maker.

I've heard from Sun employees that they expect to hear about their fates in the next two weeks to a month. The timing is tied to the closing of the deal. The preannounced results are so poor that Sun offered an early warning on its earnings, expected to be reported no later than Aug. 31.

Apple today added new "D45s" to the Music section in the iTunes Store [iTunes link]. This package includes two songs, just like many of the old 45 RPM records back in the day. Their prices range from $1.49 - $1.99, with over 20 different artists to choose from. There are some old favorites, along with recently released content. Many of the D45s include some uncommon songs not previously released on the iTunes Store. This follows in the tradition of some B-side music, where tracks were thrown on the back of the 45 for "added value." Check it out, there should be something for everyone to enjoy.

Instant-on Linux platform vendors Phoenix and DeviceVM have responded to the revelation that Google will soon be releasing its own lightweight Linux platform. They view Google's entry into the market as a validation of their products and they both have strategies for competing with the search giant.

BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies announced plans on Monday to launch a new version of its Linux-based HyperSpace environment that will use some components of Intel's Moblin platform. The move reflects Moblin's growing traction among vendors, but it is also Phoenix's response to the recent revelation that Google is building its own Linux operating system.

We reported last month that CBS was likely to take part in the Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) On Demand Online trial and now it's official. CBS (NYSE: CBS) is the first broadcast network to sign on and will test a mix of current and library content in the national trial slated to start later this month.

Unlike recent trial additions Starz and HBO, both premium networks, CBS is already ubiquitous online, with much of its content accessible through Comcast video portal Fancast.

We've suggested switching to Yahoo Search to break Google's monopoly on your data in the past, but now that Bing continues to gain ground in the search market, your various search alternatives seem brighter than ever.

That's not to say that the majority of us aren't still using Google (in fact, I'd suspect that, for all our early adopting ways, Lifehacker readers are probably even more loyal to Google search than most), but as your options grow and we see more viable alternatives to Google (like Bing), we're curious:

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) would not comment last week in the aftermath of Google's announcement that it would launch a PC operating system by mid-2010-but CEO Steve Ballmer was more than happy to talk about it at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans Tuesday. "First of all, I will be respectful," he said. "Who knows what this thing is. To me, it's highly interesting that it won't happen for a year and a half."

Apple's App Store is a year old today. The company has issued a tidy press release whose focus is that "customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year." That sounds like a lot, until you divide it by 365 to get the daily download average of 4 million.

Four million app downloads is around twice the daily paid circulation of USA Today. So it's probably safe to say that among smartphone owners, downloading apps has replaced reading as a pastime.

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed pricing and more details about how it will sell its Windows Azure cloud-computing infrastructure, making it free for anyone to use now before the company begins charging for it in November.

Microsoft will offer three pricing models for Azure when it starts charging for it at its Microsoft Professional Developers Conference later this year: consumption-based pricing, in which people will only pay for what they use; subscription-based pricing; and volume licensing, so enterprise customers can integrate Azure into existing enterprise agreements with Microsoft, said Microsoft General Manager Doug Hauger.

Google (GOOG) engineering director Mark Lucovsky will quit the company and join VMware, TechCrunch reports.

The news is a bit ironic because when Google hired Mark from Microsoft (MSFT) in 2004, it angered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer so much that he threw a chair and called Google CEO Eric Schmidt "a fucking pussy."

We know this because Mark gave testimony about it in 2005.

This post is a collaboration between Mashable's Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell's "10 Ways" series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs.

Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues.

We here at BGR have always had something of a fetish for pics of smartphones taken by the guys and gals at the FCC, so we thought we'd share a few pics of the Nokia E55 that we stumbled upon late last night. The photos - which we have to admit aren't even that bad considering that they were taken by lab rats - do a good job in showing off the diminutive figure of of this ridiculously sexy S60 smartphone, which comes in at 9.9mm thick.

Google, in its continuing push to lure more enterprise customers to its Apps suite of products, rolled out three new Apps features today: it's incorporated Tasks as a standard Gmail feature, added Labs to Calendar and enabled a seamless migration to Apps from Lotus Notes. The rollout comes on the heels of other strategic moves Google has made aimed at allaying businesses' concerns about switching to Apps, including rolling Apps out of beta and, with an eye to Microsoft, the ability sync Apps with Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced how much it will charge companies that want to use its Windows Azure cloud computing service when it is released in final form this fall.

The software maker announced a variety of plans, including one that charges purely on consumption and another that offers discounted rates for those that agree to a six-month commitment.

With the launch of Azure, Microsoft finds itself in a new type of business, where it competes with the likes of Amazon.com's Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com's Force.com.

Windows only: Tiny, portable utility MonitorES not only turns off the monitor when you lock your PC, it also pauses almost any media player and even sets your Google and Yahoo IM status to away.

We've written about this utility before, but since then it has updated with support for nearly any media player, added support for Yahoo Messenger, and you can now use it to simply pause your media with the Pause key. As before, you simply need to launch the utility, set the options, and the next time you lock your workstation your monitor will turn off, and your media will pause.

Just because Google recently (and finally) moved applications like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar out of beta testing doesn't mean the company has lost its love for experimental new features. In fact, it's taking the Labs concept, which it popularized in Gmail (and uses elsewhere too) into Google Calendar.

Google Calendar Labs is starting out with six features that users can add: Next Meeting, which shows how much time is left before your next meeting; Free or Busy to see show who is currently in meetings; World Clock for tracking different timezones; Background Image; Attach a Google Doc; and Jump to Date.

Casual and social gaming company Outspark has picked up $8.3 million in a third round of funding. New investor Syncom Venture Partners led the round, with participation from previous backers SBI Investment and Mille Plateaux. The S.F.-based startup has raised close to $20 million in financing since it launched in 2007, including an $11 million round led by Chinese internet portal Tencent last year.

A few weeks ago, Google announced a new plug-in that will sync Google Apps—the enterprise versions of Gmail, contacts, and calendar—with Microsoft’s Outlook, letting customers use Outlook on their desktops if that is what they are comfortable with, and Google Apps will run on the backend. Of course, the plug-in ended up running into a few problems.

WhitePages, which has quietly grown into the largest database for contact information for Americans, has revamped its web site, and cleaned it up - most notably to avoid what we earlier criticized as scam-like tactics.

The move is significant because WhitePages is emerging as a significant player - an easy place to go to if you want to find information about 200 million Americans, from address, to phone number, and increasingly email and cell phone numbers.