Ahead of its long-awaited spin-off from Time Warner, America Online — aka AOL — has rebranded as ‘Aol.’.

Yes, the same three letters, just not all in caps, and with a full-stop, that wasn’t a typo.

Somehow, I don’t think this miracle of marketing is going to make up for the fact that AOL — I mean, Aol. — is a bit old-school when it comes to the always fast-evolving web.

Maybe their new logo will help.

Click here to check it out, it’s designed by the same folks who created the controversial mess that is the London 2012 logo, so you know it’ll be good… for a laugh, at least.

Over the weekend, anonymous blogger Belle de Jour outed herself. But after many years, books, and even a Billie Piper mini series, one has to wonder why Bristol researcher Dr Brooke Magnanti decided to come clean about her days as a call girl.

In interviews, the no-longer-mysterious blogger suggested an ex-boyfriend with a big mouth was threatening to speak out, but there’s another reason, it would seem — one to do with Googlewhacks, IP addresses and analytic software.

Fellow blogger Darren Shrubsole — hey, apparently you can run a successful blog without being overly mysterious — who runs linkmachinego.com apparently guessed her identity, five years ago.

He notes on his blog:

I then spent the first three months of 2004 “internet stalking” Brooke Magnanti, collecting together a whole bunch circumstantial evidence that Brooke was indeed Belle. I also slowly became aware of the heightened stakes, as Belle became increasingly famous and obviously wanted to maintain her pseudonymity.

For a while I believed that Brooke would get outed immediately – but it turns out the British press could not investigate anything not handed to them on a plate, and were never looking in the right place – the small clique of people who starting blogging in the UK in 2000/2001. Belle de Jour remained pseudonymous and the mystery remained intact even after two TV series based on her books.

While he may not be particularity flattering to the British press, Darren’s apparently the chivalrous sort.

Not only did he not spill the beans, but he went out of his way to protect the good doctor from being outed by setting up a Googlewhack on his own site.

Essentially, he brought together the two terms — Belle de Hour and Dr Magnanti — on his site. In the context of the text, they appear unrelated. But it was the only place in the Google universe where the terms appeared together, so Darren could keep watch if anyone else had guessed and was googling for confirmation.

For five years, that didn’t happen.

Then, two weeks ago, an IP address from Associated Newspapers — the publishers of the Daily Mail — started showing up. So he dropped Dr Magnanti a line — over Twitter, no less — to warn her.

Last weekend, she confirmed to Darren that she herself had been warned that her ex was in talks with the Daily Mail, with Darren’s analytics confirming it, so she decided to tell her own story to the Times first.

And after all that, he wished the doctor good luck, and (for some reason) offered to buy her a bottle of whiskey. This guy might be the nicest guy on the internet.

Pixmania has come up with a list of what they see as the most endangered tech for 2010…

According to the retail site, we should be writing obituaries for:

1. DVD players

2. Fax machine

3. Analogue TV

4. The landline phone

5. Mobile phone charger

6. Wii-mote

7. Sat Navs

8. Dongle

9. The computer mouse

10. Chip and pin credit cards

While fax machines I would actively help obliterate from the face of the planet — they never work for me, you don’t know if the fax has arrived, and there’s this thing called email now — and analogue TVs aren’t even being sold anymore, I’m not too sure about the rest.

Mobile phone chargers aren’t going anywhere. Sure there’s that powermat thing, but the more interesting change with chargers is that they’ll be going universal, so we’ll be able to use the same charger across multiple phones. I don’t mind plugging things in, if I only have the right plug to do it.

DVD players are definitely past their peak, but I’m not sure they’ll be obsolete as of next year. Sat Navs face a big challenge from the iPhone with new features on Google maps, but I think they’re pretty stupid devices to start with anyway.

Wii-motes might fall by the wayside as new gaming tech comes out, but I have to admit, I don’t know or care. I’m still impressed by the N64, so my opinion on gaming is fairly meaningless.

I can see landline phones on the way out — my parents got rid of their landline this year, and they’re not usually at the forefront of tech trends.

Dongles were a massive trend last year, but integrated systems seem to be knocking them back a bit. That said, there have been times I wished I had one, when easy access to wireless wasn’t around…

While touchscreen is on the horizon, I sadly think my computer mouse will be giving me RSI for years to come. And wasn’t Chip and Pin just introduced on credit cards? I’d love for security boffins to come up with a better way… I can never remember my PIN, anyway. How’s that for security?

What do you think? What tech looks set to die off — and what would you happily kill off?

Working from home is for some reason being pushed by many as the new world order for business — this time, at a Citrix event I’m attending today.

Apparently, knowledge workers no longer need to go to the office — they can access their desktops anywhere, so they may as well stay home.

And on one hand, it’s easy to see why. With near-ubiquitous broadband, we can technically do it. And it means we can all have nice work-life balances, getting our kids ready for school rather than spending 40 minutes commuting.

But then what? Then we sit in our kitchens with our laptops, on the phone all day, sending emails and fiddling with video conferencing and dialling into conference calls. Whee?
Sure, I can do my laundry during the day, but that benefit gets old fast.

Really, the benefit goes to CFOs. If you can shift workers out of the office, it saves cash off the bottom line. You need less office space, fewer desks – hell, think of the annual savings from on toilet paper alone.

And, if people are working from home, they’re possibly even using their own broadband, their own PCs, and doing their own maintenance and troubleshooting. Think of the savings…

Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to be able to work from home to wait for a delivery, to see your kids, to avoid a nasty commute, to have a change of scene.

Working from home should be an option – it already is for many. I can already work from home. It’s not some crazy future system, like flying cars. It’s already here and it doesn’t require any shiny new tech. We’ve all been working in a mobile way for years, haven’t we?

But I like my office, even with the florescent lights and noisy open plan crowded seating. There’s stable, quick internet. There’s IT staff if I need help. There’s a constant supply of tea. There’re co-workers I can chat to, bounce ideas off of, have fun with. There’s a pub across the street, and people to go there with. I can easily get to events and meetings.

And yeah, meetings. Meetings are better in person — all that team work, communicating better with people, having fun getting to know people. There’s a reason offices evolved: bringing people together to work together has benefits.

And if you don’t believe me, just keep in mind that despite having their very own conferencing system, Citrix flew me to Budapest to meet with me…