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The Facebook duo is no more. One of Facebook's two cofounders is leaving the popular social-networking site.

Dustin Moskovitz is leaving and forming a new duo by taking engineer Justin Rosenstein with him. Together, the two will launch another company, Rosenstein said on his Facebook page.

Rosenstein, who was recruited from Google by Moskovitz in the early stages of launching the company, said the two have had similar visions on software and what Facebook needs to do to evolve as a company.

"Leaving Facebook makes me sad, but I feel I have to follow my passion on this," Rosenstein said. "I can't say enough about Facebook and the friends I've made here, and I am enormously excited for the company's future success, a destiny I'm confident it will reach regardless of my participation."

Complementary Venture

The two will leave Facebook in about a month, Rosenstein said, and build an "extensible enterprise productivity suite" and a "high-level open-source software development toolkit." The new software will use Facebook Connect as a default option for identity and authentication, according to Rosenstein.

He said the new venture is complementary to Facebook and he hopes the new company's products will be as integral to users' professional work lives as Facebook has become in their social lives.

The decision to leave was a tough one, according to Rosenstein. "As our visions for how productivity software could work came into alignment, we thought about building it inside of Facebook," he said. "It was an attractive option in many ways, and neither of us was eager to exit a company that was in such an exciting phase of its development."

The fog soon lifted and Rosenstein said it became clear that doing so would not be good for Facebook or the duo.

"Facebook needs to continue its mission of making the world more open through...

New laptops from Apple, maker of such advanced products as the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac, could be made from bricks. An aluminum brick, that is.

According to reports on the Web, the computer and consumer-products innovator is about to unveil a new kind of manufacturing that carves a solid-aluminum chassis for MacBooks out of an aluminum brick. With new MacBooks scheduled to be released next week, speculation has grown that it might include models made with the brick process.

'Totally Revolutionary'

According to the reports, the manufacturing process uses lasers and water-jet cutting tools to carve the aluminum block. Some observers have suggested that, rather than making the laptop heavier, it could lead to stronger and lighter laptops.

The reason is that a solid chassis could mean no seams, bends, screws or other fastenings, saving a bit of weight and increasing strength. And, as with all Apple products, it could result in a visually pleasing device.

According to the Mac enthusiast site 9to5mac.com, the new manufacturing process is "totally revolutionary, a game changer," adding that it was the "biggest Apple innovation in a decade."

The site also reported that Apple has spent several years perfecting the process, and that it can now become more self-reliant in controlling the manufacture of its products, rather than farming them out to Chinese or Taiwanese factories. They point out that Apple CEO Steve Jobs built a totally automated plant in 1990 for his NeXT computers, an accomplishment that he said made him as proud as the computers from that company.

There are several advantages to making a chassis out of a solid metal block, the site said. In addition to seamless smoothness and no need for fasteners, the site said the chassis can be very inexpensive and creative in its shape.

'Another Stroke of Innovation'

Mark Margevicius, a research director...

The rise in fuel costs has far-reaching implications, even in the contact center industry. While this phenomenon has been attributed to the rise in home-based agents, it is also causing a rise in contact center interactions as a result of an increase in Internet use among rural residents.

di According to New Zealand rural broadband provider, Farmside, there was a 97 percent increase in inquiries through its contact centers in April, with a similar pattern emerging through May. The company contributes this increase to a surge in rural residents opting to use the Internet for routine tasks in an effort to offset rising fuel costs.

"They realize they can save money by using the Internet for errands that have traditionally required a personal trip, like banking, shopping, vehicle registration, study or even doing tax returns," Farmside sales and marketing director Nick Carter said, in a company statement.

A Ministry of Transport Ongoing Household Travel Survey has found that the average driver in rural New Zealand spends 300 hours driving nearly 15,000km each year. Nearly 30 percent of this travel is due to shopping or carrying out other personal business.

Carter noted that with the increase in online services offered by the retail, business and government sectors, rural people are becoming more aware of how using the Internet could save on travel costs.

The challenge in this increase is that contact centers may not be adequately prepared for such increases. Workforce management software solutions can go long way in helping the contact center to prepare for spikes in call volume. Such programs, however, examine known variables, such as campaigns, seasons, and past performance, to name a few.

While it is true that rising fuel costs are impacting economies throughout the world, contact centers may not be fully prepared for the increase in volume. This is where it...