Initially the twitter team was not clear about the problem as it posted on the twitter status blog:

Site is down, we are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly.

Upon further investigation, it was finally declared that the server went down because of a denial-of-service attack as posted on the twitter blog:

On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack.

Denial of Service attack is an attempt of paralyzing a server by increasing the work load of a server through external communication methods. This results in the consumption of the server's resources, which bars the actual users from using the 'victim' machine.

According to reports twitter is under a massive hack attack this time. Pertinent to know that twitter had been into the headlines in the past for its security loop-holes. We saw a number of twitter accounts being hacked be some hacker, leaking secret information.

The Twitter team is working on the problem as said by the Twitter blog:

We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.

Though Twitter is back but users are experiencing unusual delays and time-outs. Highlighting the matter, the twitter status blog says:

As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness. This includes timeouts to API clients. We’re working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can.

Others sites which experienced a similar DDoS attack were Facebook, LiveJournal and YouTube. The attack was generated from some parts of Russia and Germany.

According to a report on an Australian news website, K2 will run on the Android platform. The gadget will have a 3.5 inch touch screen, a built-in browser, wifi, bluetooth, accelerometer and a possible digital TV tuner. K2 is still in its initial phase therefore it is not yet clear that whether the touch screen would fully compat with the human touch or a stylus would be used. The memory capacity of the PMP has also not been revealed.

Though the Portable media player will surely not have the luxury of Apple's app store or the iTunes sync feature but still it would be a great challenge to Apple's iPod touch. Being an android based gadget, K2 will most probably have the access to the android based open source third party software.

The gadget is still a rumor and it is not yet confirmed whether it gets the approval by the company or not. If green-signaled the gadget would bring some sort of competition with Apple which would eventually result in further improvement in the newer version of Apple's iPod Touch.

The Austrailian site also reported that iRiver is also working on an ebook reader and an internet tablet.

All you need to do is to register here and you can be one of the lucky 100,000 users to use Google Wave, registration process is simple and quick. You are only required to enter your email ID. There are a couple of questions as well which you can answer if you want to but it is strongly recommended that you answer those questions.

Don't forget to write a short message for the Google wave team, it only makes your application more strong. Google has not yet explained the selection procedure but if selected you will be able to test the tool before its public launch.

Widely considered to be the email killer, Google Wave is a personal communication and collaboration tool announced by Google in this year's Google IO conference. A combination of Email, instant messaging and social networking makes Google wave a fascinating tool to use. Google wave comes with a set of very strong APIs and it is open source which means the users can make extensions to Google wave.

In initial phase the tool will be made available to the selected 100,000 users on September 30 this year while the rest of the world will be able to 'wave' a month or two later.

Soapbox is part of the MSN Video service and allows the users to upload and share their videos online.

In an email, the MSN video team informed the Soapbox users of closing of the service. Here is an abstract from that email:

MSN will no longer offer Soapbox, the user generated video service within MSN Video, as of August 31, 2009. Beginning on July 29, you will no longer be able to upload videos to Soapbox. People who have uploaded videos to Soapbox will have until August 31, 2009 to download them.

The Soapbox users will be able to download their videos on and after July 29. The videos can be downloaded by logging into the profile and rolling the mouse pointer over the video thumbnail and clicking on the download link which automatically appears on the video as stated by the MSN video team here.

MSN Video, however, will continue working with some additional features. Bloggers and citizen jounalists will be allowed to upload and share videos with MSN users while the video content offering may be reduced to News, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle and Finance.

The former Apple executive will be working as Microsoft's consultant to it's retail stores venture which the company plans to launch this fall. His exclusive experience in the field could help Microsoft as the company aims to showcase its products more effectively in its very own retail stores. The stores are expected to be opened in the proximity of Apple stores as the company's COO Kevin Turner said:

We're going to have some retail stores opened up right next door to Apple stores this fall.

The idea of exclusive retail stores chain took fire when Microsoft failed to promote its Zune HD and Xbox more effectively as compared to the rival brands. Even though Microsoft spent millions of dollars on the promotion campaign but still the company couldn't attain the desired results through third party retail stores.

George is believed to be the man behind the success of Apple retail stores as he was instrumental in selecting the ideal location. His idea of opening the store in high-traffic area and the central shopping neighborhood has proved to be successful for the company.