Tech & society

Volvo and a team of European researchers are working on automotive technology that will allow line of cars on a highway to autonomously follow a lead car.

'Get the dislike button!' 'OMG this girl KILLED herself after her dad posted on her wall!' What do these comments have in common? They are two of the scams we see making the rounds on Facebook in an attempt to get you to click on and install a bad application. The Facebook con popping up everywhere this week is the 'total profile views' ruse. It's another version of the 'See who viewed your profile' trick that makes its way around the social network and plays to the user's ego and desire for information about who is checking out their Facebook page.

Traditional helpers in disaster relief, such as the U.N. and world governments, provided aid after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010, leveled Port-au-Prince, claimed 230,000 lives and caused US$14 billion in damages.

The Australian IT community has banded together, pledging to help schools and small to medium businesses (SMBs) affected by flooding in Queensland through the donation of IT supplies.

Dan Bricklin first came up with the idea of an electronic spreadsheet while he was at Harvard Business School in 1978. He later joined forces with Bob Frankston and Dan Fylstra to publish the now-legendary VisiCalc in 1979. Bricklin, currently president of software developer Software Garden Inc., recently spoke with Computerworld about the intent of VisiCalc and how the spreadsheet has evolved.