Kobe Bryant signed a three-year extension to stay under contract through 2013-14 with the Lakers

Kobe Bryant signed a three-year extension to stay under contract through 2013-14 with the Lakers, the only team he has ever known in his NBA career. Bryant was already under contract this season and next season for a total of $47.8 million before the extension would kick into gear. Financial details of the extension were not immediately available.

Bryant, 31, will be eight weeks shy of his 36th birthday when his new extension reaches its end.”We are extremely pleased that we were able to reach an agreement and come to terms on the extension at this time,” Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak said in a statement. “Kobe has been a cornerstone of the Lakers for well over a decade, helping to lead us to four NBA championships and in the process developing into one of the greatest players in basketball history.”

The 12-time All-Star and the Lakers had casually been negotiating the extension, though there had been some thought that Bryant would not sign because he hoped to keep his options open, among them the unlikely possibility that a new collective-bargaining agreement would be more favorable to high-salaried players if it got renegotiated in 2011.Bryant won his first regular-season MVP award in 2008 and his first NBA Finals MVP in 2009.

The Lakers signed forward-center Pau Gasol to a three-year, $57-million extension last December, a move that also kept him with the team through 2013-14.”Two of our main goals heading into this season were to sign Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol to contract extensions,” Kupchak said. “With the signing of Pau earlier this season and the signing of Kobe today, we were able to accomplish those goals, helping to keep the core of this team intact for the foreseeable future and in turn help to ensure the franchise’s continued success over the years to come.”

Microsoft will soon launch a new generation of Internet Explorer (IE), IE9 next month

WASHINGTON Microsoft will soon launch a new generation of Internet Explorer (IE), IE9 next month. According to schedule, will be introduced at the IE9 annual conference Micorosoft MIX 10, which will dihelat at 15 to March 17, 2010 in Las Vegas. At the conference, which became the focus of Microsoft’s mobile platforms IE9 and the latest generation of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7. Unfortunately Microsoft still reluctant to mention a more detailed specification of IE9. In his blog, Microsoft promised to announce more details when IE9 conference in Las Vegas next month. Softpedia launched, Wednesday (17/2/2010), as General Manager, Dean Hachamovitch responsible for the development and release of IE. So no wonder, he was appointed as one of the speakers at the MIX10 event, especially for IE9 present.

“Dean will discuss the changes and development that has made Microsoft the PDC IE9 since 2009 some time ago. There will be many surprises at the launch later,” wrote one of the team MIX 10 in his blog. Microsoft IE9 demonstrate for the first time on the PDC 2009, November 2009. At that time, Microsoft is showing the early development of these browsers and announced the main objectives IE9 release. Dean never mentions, IE9 intended to provide better support for modern web standards, improve performance especially when used for JavaScript, as well as supporting hardware speeds. At PDC 2009, the developers only shown IE9 demo. At MIX 10 conference later, Microsoft promised a free download IE9, so the browser can immediately taste.