After ages of discussions and rumors, Mozilla has at long last launched the first mobile version of the Firefox Web browser for mobile phones.
Mozilla has announced that the first version of Firfox for mobile phones is ready to launch. So far the browser is only available for Nokia phones running the Maemo platform, specifically the N900, but more phones are planned for this year. (don’t get your hopes up for iPhones folks, because there is no way it’s going to happen.)
One of the most interesting aspects of this version is that even on a browser screen of this size, Mozilla found a way to retain tabbed browsing. The tabs are kept on a slide-out screen on the side, so they are hidden when not in use, and you only bring them out when you ned to see them.
Firefox is well0known for its multitude of extensions that allow it to do a multitude of things it isn’t built to do originally. How many you can install depends on the amount of memory of your phone, and how well they will run on limited memory remains to be seen.
At long last, a true use for Mozilla Weave has been included. Save a browsing session on your computer, and thanks to Weave you can reopen it on your cell phone. Looked up information on a theater you want to go to? Now you can bring that information with you easily.
Here is a video explaining some of the features in more detail.
In what is turning into a seemingly never ending war between Web sites and the Internet Explorer 6 Web browser, Google has just struck a major blow that may help hasten its death.
Google has announced that as of March 1, 2010, portions of the Google empire such as Google Docs will no longer be supported for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). As this comes from the Google Enterprise Blog, this is squarely directed at all of those IT departments that have simply refused to upgrade their companies browsing options out of laziness. Yes, they will tell you it’s all about security, but honestly, that’s total malarkey.
The minimum required versions of browsers that Google will now support include:
If you are unfamiliar with the problems with IE6, it was released in 2001 and uses old Web standards. The Internet has now been held hostage for nine years by this browser due its proliferation amongst corporations. Sites have to be designed in such a way that they remain compatible with this antiquated piece of software.
Last July, popular social media site Digg even asked its users why they continued to use the browser. While there were some who said they preferred the browser (while no proof was ever given, we do believe those people were visiting from an insane asylum), the majority said they can’t upgrade or were told they couldn’t. The IE6 No More movement has also formed around sites that are pledging to no longer support the browser.
Web browsers are free, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t change from IE6 if you have the option. And if you are in a corporation where the IT department says it can’t be done, go above their heads and complain. This browser must die if the Internet is to thrive.
If you see anyone posting pictures of their “ex-girlfriend” on Facebook, don’t click the link … unless you want to be embarrass yourself.
All Facebook is reporting that a new worm is spreading around Facebook. An image is posted of a woman in her underwear along with a note saying it is a picture of the person’s ex-girlfriend. If you should happen to click on it you will end up posting it to your account as there is code embedded in the post that will activate your share feature.
It appears that the worm does no damage, nor steals any information, but it does end up embarrassing the heck out of you as your friends think you have suddenly lost your mind and decided to be low-class by posting pictures of your ex.
Just be careful of what you click on. Sample photo below from All Facebook.
Do you remember MySpace? Think back a year or so … yep, there it is in your memory.
MySpace was the king of the social networks for a while, but due to it being overrun by teenagers, fake accounts and horribly ugly profile pages, it lost a lot of its cache with people once Facebook launched to the general public. While the site still exists, and is popular with some folks still, admitting you still have a MySpace account is akin to committing social media suicide.
I fully admit I still have my account … but I have no clue when I last logged into it.
This is the idea behind the latest cartoon from SuperNews! … poor little MySpace guy …
The speculation can finally end, the Apple Tablet shall now be known as the iPad.
Steve Jobs took to the stage today at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco to announce Apple’s long-rumored tablet, the iPad. Measuring 9.7-inches, the device first strikes you as just a giant iPod Touch, but it appears to be a whole lot more than that.
With the benefit of a much larger screen, the iPad will be able to run nearly all of the current 140,000 iPhone/iPod Touch applications, but development is already underway for iPad specific apps that will take full advantage of its 1GHz Apple A4 chip and 1024 x 768 screen. Gaming seems to be the major focus from the comments made today at the event, and considering the success that category has already seen on the smaller devices, isn’t terribly surprising.
While the iPod Touch has been all about entertainment, the iPad will be able to run a specialized version of iWork. (presumably sold separately, but not stated at the event) This will allow you to work on spreadsheets, word processing and presentations from the device, with syncing presumably happening via the iTunes connection.
If you’re going to be working on documents, do you really want to do all of this on a virtual keyboard? Probably not, so luckily Apple will be releasing a physical keyboard dock that will place the iPad in a vertical orientation and essentially turn it into a laptop. Sure it isn’t going to have all the programs of a laptop, but with the number of apps available, it will be darn close. No price for this peripheral has been announced as of yet.
None of this is to say that the iPad is going to be all about work, it is going to play videos, music, movies and will also introduce the new iBook application. What iTunes has done for music, the iBook store could do for books as Apple has made deals with Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group.
The actual specs of the device are fairly nice, and show it to be much more than just an over-sized iPod Touch.
Memory capacities of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB
802.11n Wi-Fi
1GHz Apple A4 chip
.5-inches thick
1.5 lbs
9.7-inch screen
Bluetooth 2.1
Speaker & microphone
Accelerometer & compass
10 hour battery life, one month standby
3G connectivity for $30 a month via AT&T without contract.
The price was the factor holding people back, and while rumors had pegged this at around $1000, Mr. Jobs used that as a point to announce the pricing we would see in 60 days when this launches, and 90 days for the 3G versions.
In a move that is sure to leave Apple less than happy, Google has brought Google Voice back to the iPhone, it just isn’t as an application this time.
What can only be described as a schoolyard smack down has been happening between Google and Apple since last September when it was announced that Apple would not allow the Google Voice application to stay on the iPhone. What followed was a he said/she said fight between Google, Apple and AT&T over who said what and when, but in the end it did look like it was Apple’s call as the two companies are now finding all sorts of ways to annoy the other one.
Well, in what is sure to annoy the living heck out of Apple now is that Google has brought the Google Voice service back to the iPhone in a way that Apple can do nothing about realistically: they put it on the Web.
If you go to m.google.com/voice with your iPhone (and even an iPod Touch for texts) or web OS based devices you will have access to your Google Voice contacts, saved voice mails and have the ability to place calls & texts all through the browser. It isn’t clear how this will impact your minutes on your phone plan, but the texts do appear to be completely free. You can watch the video below for more details, or visit the Google Voice blog.
At long last, Chrome now supports extensions! For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, extensions enable your browser to do extra little jobs like the Google Voice extension we described the other day. Currently Google is offering over 1,500 extensions in its extension gallery, but we do highly recommend you limit how many you install because the more you add, the slower your browser may run. That being said, there are some really useful ones out there, so you should at least give them a look and see if any of them will ease your online life.
Bookmark Synching
Chrome now comes with a built-in ability to synchronize your bookmarks across all of your computers running Chrome. So if you have a laptop and a desktop in your life, set up the sync and your bookmarks will be the same on both machines. It can be done on as many machines as you have, so the headaches this will relieve for people with multiple computers in their lives will truly be welcome.
Here is a video explaining more of the features
If you’ve resisted trying out Google Chrome, now would be the time, we think you’ll be pleased.
While not exactly tech news, it is something that impacts every American tax payer.
According to The New York Times, both houses of the U.S. Congress have decided to make monetary donations to earthquake relief in Haiti tax deductible from your 2009 returns. This is unusual in the fact that donations usually have to be made in the calendar year that you want to take them off your taxes.
If you make a monetary donation to a recognized charity inside the United States between Jan. 11th and March 1st, you have the option of applying it either your 2009 return, or saving it for your 2010 return. You will need a receipt of your donation of course, and, again, it must meet the other criteria. You can read all about it in this CCH briefing (PDF link).
Of course this shouldn’t be your only motivation for donating to help with relief from this devastating natural disaster, but every little bit helps.
If you need assistance in determining what legitimate charities you can donate to, make sure to check the resources we put in our Haitian Earthquake Relief post.
Google has updated its Google Voice extension for Chrome, and it sure brought with it some highly usable new features.
Users of Google Chrome and Google Voice have already been able to use them in conjunction with one another, but with the release of version 2.0 of the Google Voice extension yesterday, it just got even more exciting. The extension now:
Adds a button to the toolbar, which displays the number of unread messages in your Google Voice inbox.
Gives you quick access to your most recent messages with transcripts.
Lets you initiate calls and send free text messages by just typing any number or contact name.
Makes phone numbers on websites callable via Google Voice by just clicking on them.
The system is a lot more integrated now, and should make it even easier to save on cell phone minutes, and even contemplating getting rid of your landline once and for all.
If you haven’t signed up for Google Voice yet, it’s well worth it … especially since it is free.
In yet another example of password stupidity, a recently released list of hacked passwords showed that “123456″ was still popular.
Last year RockYou was hacked and millions of passwords stolen. The list made its way on to the Web, and beyond hackers downloading the list were security experts who wanted to study it. From that list they came up with the 32 most popular passwords on the site, which you can see to the right.
According to The New York Times, it wasn’t just these 32 that bothered security experts, but the fact that around 20% of the passwords came from a pool of only 5,000 passwords.
There was another similar story recently about how Twitter has a list of 370 passwords you can’t use, and that seems like something every site should be doing as evidenced by this list. If a password is easy for you to remember, that also means it is easy to hack. The fact that some people have used a password of “0″ is just mind boggling to me.
Two sites now have revealed their passwords, and both sites have shocked us with the stupidity of the passwords people choose. Does no one care about identity theft? Does no one care about protecting their data?
Take the time, educate yourself on how to create a stronger password and start using them today!
After ages of discussions and rumors, Mozilla has at long last launched the first mobile version of the Firefox Web browser for mobile phones.
In what is turning into a seemingly never ending war between Web sites and the Internet Explorer 6 Web browser, Google has just struck a major blow that may help hasten its death.
If you see anyone posting pictures of their “ex-girlfriend” on Facebook, don’t click the link … unless you want to be embarrass yourself.
Do you remember MySpace? Think back a year or so … yep, there it is in your memory.
The speculation can finally end, the Apple Tablet shall now be known as the iPad.
In a move that is sure to leave Apple less than happy, Google has brought Google Voice back to the iPhone, it just isn’t as an application this time.
The stable release of Google Chrome 4.0 has been released, and it has brought with it several major enhancements.
While not exactly tech news, it is something that impacts every American tax payer.
Google has updated its Google Voice extension for Chrome, and it sure brought with it some highly usable new features.
In yet another example of password stupidity, a recently released list of hacked passwords showed that “123456″ was still popular.
