Berlin  - World of Warcraft (WOW) is not the only online game available and game developers have finally realized that they have to offer special treats and niches to lure players away from it.

Ever since WOWarcraft hit the markets in 2004, it has been the unrivalled champion of online fantasy worlds. Fantasy fans used to have to content themselves with reading about Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings saga. WOW allowed them to experience those battles themselves - or at least virtually - in the realm of Azeroth.

Although WOW is becoming increasingly popular and now has 11 million subscribers, the developer, Blizzard, said in a statement, its recent expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, has also caused a stir.

Washington  - Most of us have a box or book of old photographs somewhere - precious memories of times and people we hold dear.

Thanks to the paper on which those photos are printed - and the ease with which paper can be handed down - those memories are intact.

But what about future generations? If we copy our digital photographs, video, or sound clips onto CDs or DVDs, will our heirs even have the equipment necessary to read them?

It's a question that deserves careful consideration, especially since many of us today are spending countless hours amassing irreplaceable memories and, for the first time, entrusting those memories to various forms of media that are not only fragile but can also quickly become obsolete.

Washington  - Microsoft must hate keyboards.

With each new version of its Windows operating system, the software behemoth has created an interface that relies more heavily on the mouse and less on the keyboard.

Almost everything - from the clickable orb called the Start menu to the gadget-laden sidebar - cries out to be clicked rather than accessed by some key combination.

While there's certainly nothing wrong with the mouse as an input device, overusing it poses two problems: it reduces your productivity, and it increases your likelihood of getting some sort of repetitive stress injury.

Washington  - For years, the biggest bottleneck in personal computers has not been processor speed, memory, or video cards. It's been the hard drive. Thanks to the emergence of solid state disks (SSD), that's about to change.

Instead of spinning platters that can never spin quite fast enough to keep up, SSDs store data on memory chips - flash memory, to be precise. Early models have been both prohibitively expensive

Hamburg  - Even though modern mobile phones can take good photos, they are no match for a good digital camera, according to a test by Germany's Computer Bild magazine.

The test compared six mobile phone cameras ranging in price from 170 to 500 euros (229 dollars to 675 dollars) and Sony's DSC-H3 camera, which costs just under 280 euros.

The best camera scored a good grade of 2.3. Nonetheless, the best mobile phone, the Nokia 6220 Classic, scored a satisfactory grade of 3.4.

Redmond, Washington  - Microsoft has announced an overhaul of its internet-based Windows Live communications platform. Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail in particular have been equipped with a new user interface and added functionality, Microsoft reports.