Firefox 4 Is Certainly Zippy, But Is That Enough To Switch Back From Chrome?

If you,ve already downloaded the new Firefox 4 today, the first you probably noticed is how much zippier it is. I pretty much had stopped using Firefox altogether because of the creekiness of its previous versions compared to Chrome, Safari, and IE9. But the new Firefox 4, which Mozilla claims is 6 times as fast as before, puts it back in the same pack at least as the rest. It's been downloaded nearly 2 million times as of this writing (check the counter for more up-to-the-second numbers).

I,m sure there are plenty of benchmark tests that show one browser is faster than the other, and vice versa, but my initial reactions after playing around with Firefox 4 today and comparing it side by side with Chrome is that it is just as fast if not faster. It depends on which website I visit. TechCrunch, for instance, loads a second or two faster by my stopwatch. Without the stopwatch, I can't tell the difference. And that's a good thing for Firefox, because speed is my No. 1 requirement for a Web browser. Nothing else is nearly as important. Sluggishness pushes users away. So that,s fixed.

Firefox also supports all sorts of HTML5 and other modern Web apps. If you want to check some out, go to its Web O' Wonder page where you can test 360-degree videos, animations, in-browser games and other highly graphic apps. You can se emost of them on Chrome as well, but these are tuned especially for Firefox 4. The360-degree video, for instance, looks much better in Firefox and the panning around is much smoother. But there are plenty of HTML5 apps that, so don't let canned demos sway you.

The new Firefox also has some new security features like a Do Not Track option for online ads, lets you sync tabs and browsers across to mobile browsers, and makes it easier to group tabs and see all open tabs in a thumbnail view. I don,t know if the speed and other features are enough to make me want to come back. I've got everything set up on Chrome so nicely and I am a creature of habit. But if Chrome starts acting up or crashing my browsers, it's nice to know I,ve got plenty of other options—and Firefox is once again on that list.

Reddit, Social News Frontrunner, Is Down To One Developer

Two out of the three remaining Reddit programmers quietly left the social news community last week, Mike Schiraldi going to Google and David King going to Hipmunk where he joins Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. This means that the over one billion page view a month site is currently running with only one developer (Neil Williams, hired in November) and two sysadmins until it can hire new engineering staff.

Reddit, which experiences about 75 million monthly visits and is one of the top 100 most visited sites on the Internet, had six hours worth of downtime yesterday which it chalked up to an Amazon Web Services failure.

This fact that this all rests on poor Neil Williams, shoulders right now might seem shocking, as Reddit is doing better than ever traffic-wise  hitting 14 million unique visits a month according to Google Analytics. To put this into perspective, competitor Digg (which has 42 employees and has raised over $40M in funding) now has around 9 million unique visitors down from about 16 million in August, according to Quantcast.

In a sense Reddit is the unlikely winner of a the voting-on-news race, a competition that has been somewhat forgotten in the wake of Twitter. But the company is absolutely not shutting down, despite it currently operating on a skeleton staff of six people, in addition to a part time designer and a part time customer service person.

Sysadmin jedberg holds that company is doing extremely well despite recent departures in a Reddit thread:

"In fact, we just had a meeting with the President of Conde Nast, who told us that they are extremely pleased with reddit and the community, and want to give us more resources and more funding. They just approved us to hire even more people than we had originally planned. To further reinforce the point above, our financials are looking quite good for the year.
Raldi will be sorely missed. He was the face of our company, and our most prolific blogger. Hopefully some of the new folks that come on after this round of hiring will want to write blog posts, or perhaps I,ll pick up that job again.
The one silver lining to this is that raldi,s departure really opened up Conde's eyes to what our needs are as a site that is different from all the other properties at Conde Nast. I'm just sad that he couldn,t stick around to benefit from these changes. :("

Community manager Erik Martin also tells me that the company plans on hiring four more engineers as fast as it can, but doesn't know where it is in the hiring process. He wants to get the new staff on board as soon as possible, obviously, "Traffic keeps growing. We're having infrastructure growing pains, but traffic is still growing."; And then, "It,s a crazy lean skeleton crew, but we'll get through it.";

Btw. Reddit is hiring.

iPad 2 Now Available in Apple Online Store

iPad 2 is now available in Apple’s online store.

Everything is just as announced: the 16 GB, Wi-Fi-only iPad 2 starts at $499, and the price climbs to $829 if you want the 64 GB, 3G+Wi-Fi version. The device is available in two colors (black and white), and customers can choose to have a sign engraved on it for free.

LinkedIn launched new social news

LinkedIn has launched LinkedIn Today, a new social news product for business professionals.

LinkedIn Today is a professional news product that aggregates and delivers a personalized news experience to each user. Product manager Liz Walker says that it chooses stories based on what stories a user's network is sharing.

It's similar to apps like Paper.li in terms of design and functionality. Today provides different lenses for checking out top news in not just a user's network, but in entire industries. For example, users can check out the hot stories in marketing and advertising, private equity or politics. The company says it's a quick way for busy business users to get the top stories of the day.

LinkedIn also released a mobile version of LinkedIn Today that gives users the ability to check top stories within their network on the fly.

Cameroon Bans Twitter

the government of the West African state of Cameroon has banned mobile Twitter.

The opposition had planned protests against the country's longtime president, Paul Biya, last month. But those were put down by security forces. Clearly, President Biya believes he can cut off future protests by eliminating one of the tools those protesters might use.

simple text editor for iPad

Essay is simple text editor that has the ability to sync documents with Dropbox.

Writers can tweak the appearance to adjust the font size or make words stand out; bold, underline, and strike-through. It additionally brings users a way to format the essay by breaking up the article by sections with subtitles and paragraph formatting. As we'd mentioned, Essay keeps it simple: it focuses on writing and isn't weighed down with a myriad of features.

Another handy tool is a word and character counts that is conveniently displayed at the top of the document, changing as you type. By default, the option is disabled and needs to be activated within the iPad's settings. Aside from word counts, Essay's settings additionally offer keyboard shortcuts and a customizable footer that follows the documents you share.

While typing, the user interface can be viewed in full screen mode but it also can splits the screen display to both the active document and an overall of past articles. The design is clean and emphasizes on your writing, not an overly busy interface.

Exporting and Sharing

There are multiple ways to save and share within Essay. When an article is finished, using the email option, the app will export the document while keeping the formatting and subsections intact.

We liked the fact that Essay uses HTML formatting in emails. This means the folks that receive the document you share aren't required to open an attachment. Importing documents is possible as well, however it does require the document to be converted to HTML in order to view in Essay.

Documents can also be printed using Airplay or saved within your Dropbox folders. By providing Essay with the Dropbox account credentials, documents can be linked to any Dropbox folder as it enables you to specify the destination.

The only challenge with using the app is the iPad's native keyboard, obviously the issue is no fault of Essay. Ideally, this app would be best served from using an external keyboard or fitting the iPad into a laptop-case. Assuming you do have a similar setup it seriously improves the experience. Overall, Essay is a solid choice for publishing and sharing articles. It's available in the app store for $3.99.

Watch Cricket World cup Live Online for Free

Watch Cricket World cup Live Online for Free

Apple Launches MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt

Apple the new MacBook Pros end it has included Quad Core CPUs into their notebooks. The 15" and 17" models offer Quad Core CPUs using the Intel 2.2GHz Quad Core 2720QM and While many applications may not take advantage of all 4 cores, these new Sandy Bridge processors include Intel's Turbo Boost 2.0 which should increase the speed of the remaining cores when the others are underutilized.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if it's operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.The maximum Turbo clock speeds for the 2720QM and 2630QM are 3.2GHz and 2.9GHz respectively.

Apple has also introduced a hybrid Thunderbolt/mini Display port on the new MacBook Pros. This represents Intel's Light Peak technology which is said to offer high speed connections and is expected to replace the need for USB 3.0.

The new models are at the Apple Store:



-17" 1920x1200 Display. 2.2Ghz Quad i7. 4GB RAM. 750GB HD. AMD 6750M 1GB. $2499


-15" 1440x900 (1680 option) Display. 2.2GHz Quad i7. 750GB HD. AMD 6750M 1GB. $2199.

-15" 1440x900 (1680 option) Display. 2.0GHz Quad i7. 4GB RAM. 500GB HD. AMD 6490M 256MB. $1799

-13" 1280x800 Display. 2.7GHz Dual i7. 4GB RAM. 500GB HD. Intel HD Graphics. $1499

-13" 1280x800 Display. 2.3GHz Dual i5. 4GB RAM. 320GB HD. Intel HD Graphics. $1199



Source: Full specs available here

Google releases final Honeycomb SDK

Google released the software development kit for Android 3.0 yesterday, offering several new features that developers can incorporate into their mobile apps with the goal of publishing them directly to Google's Android Market.

Honeycomb is the first Android OS designed specifically to take advantage of
tablets and their larger-than-smartphone displays. As such, much of the functionality offered in the SDK can help developers tap into the new user interface.

Using the SDK, developers can create widgets that appear on the home screen and take advantage of Honeycomb's holographic look. The SDK offers several types of widgets, including search boxes, a calendar, a pop-up menu, a date/time picker, and even a 3D stack which people can flip through for different content.

Developers can also now create "richer" types of notifications that include a title, large and small icons, and other properties to send updates to users, Google said. They can also tap into a new systemwide clipboard that will let people copy and paste content from one app to another. Another feature allows developers to add drag-and-drop functionality to help people better manage their files.

And with Google eyeing the enterprise market, the final SDK can help those who develop device administrator apps incorporate stronger policies for data encryption and passwords.

Google also has enhanced its SDK Tools and ADT Plugin for Eclipse, which developers can also use to create apps.

Designed to work with the SDK, the SDK Tools help developers build and debug their apps. Updates to the latest ADT Plugin include a new palette with access to different categories, better ways to zoom in and out of the screen, and more accurate rendering so developers can more easily see how their apps will look and fit on the screen space available.

Amazon.com video-streaming services

Amazon.com has officially jumped into the fray of subscription video-streaming services, charging into competition with Netflix and Hulu Plus, among others.

However, the Seattle-based retail giant is taking a different route than Netflix and Hulu. Whereas both of those services charge a monthly fee of $7.99, Amazon has added its streaming video to its Amazon Prime membership.

Amazon has added its streaming video to its Amazon Prime membership. Now, U.S. Amazon Prime members can download about 5,000 movies and TV shows at no added cost. Amazon Prime's instant video can be watched via the Web browsers on computers, smart phones and tablets, as well as certain Blu-ray players and some set-top boxes such as the Roku.

Amazon has signed up two major studios, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.-to provide older movies from their libraries-along with 13 independent providers including the BBC, PBS, Magnolia Pictures, IFC and National Geographic.

Amazon, however, is in talks with every Hollywood studio and is said by people familiar with the matter to be seeking to grow its content selection with more and newer content.

Amazon has been planning its entry into the subscription-based streaming video market since last summer, Fritz said, noting that Netflix has more than 20 million subscribers with about two-thirds of them using the company's streaming option.

AuraSound Sound Station

The new AuraSound Sound Station is being introduced as the world’s first universal media player. It has the features that can unleash the full potential of digital media in a compact device. The AuraSound Sound Station is designed to provide excellent audio quality by using advanced amplifier and driver technology. It is touted as a universal media layer in that it can support a number of multiple media devices as well as offer a wide range of features.
The AuraSound Sound Station features a powerful sound system with a 7 inch color touch screen display. It also works as an iPod/iPhone dock, a digital picture frame, Internet Radio, alarm clock and video player. The AuraSound Sound Station already provides a complete integrated solution is just a single device. It has recently been introduced in the market although no date has yet been provided for its release. Its pricing details have not yet been given as well.
Image Source: AuraSound

Rolls-Royce to Unveil Electric Car

Luxury car manufacturer Rolls-Royce announced that it will show the “world’s first battery-electric vehicle for the ultra-luxury segment” in the upcoming Geneva Motor Show on March 1. The Rolls-Royce 102EX is said to be a fully-electric version of the RR Phantom.
Not much features and specs were revealed, but given the heavy weight associated with most Rolls-Royces, expect a hundred more pounds would be added for batteries. In this case, the car would not travel too far and too fast on a single electric charge.
After in Geneva, the 102EX concept electric car will be shown in major cities around the world to gauge customer interest, even letting customers get behind the wheel. Rolls-Royce, however, has no plans to develop a production model just yet.
Source: USA Today

MobiWire S Phone

The MobiWire S Phone was developed in partnership with secure communications firm ERCOM to provide business professionals with a smartphone able to provide a more secure voice and data communication. The new security smartphone features a Cryptosmart embedded security engine developed by ERCOM using MobiWire’s Core UX User Interface software. Internal security for this secure smartphone can make it quite difficult for data stored on the smartphone to be tampered with.
The MobiWire S Phone also comes with a Cryptosmart microSD Card, a Cryptosmart CardManager for PC and a Cryptosmart Gateway hosted behind a corporate firewall. This highly secure smartphone is targeted for business professionals who take data security quite seriously in and out of the office. Since the S Phone has just been introduced recently, there’s no word yet from MobiWire when it will be available or how much it will cost to own this tamper proof secure smartphone.

How to disable Facebook Photo Theater mode

Facebook has rolled out Theater mode for Photos for most of its users, which includes an ad at the right. The new album layout, when rolled out completely, will be ON by default and according to Facebook, it cannot be turned off or toggled on/off as desired.

If you really want to get rid of FB theater mode for photos, you can do so by following the simple trick given below. But note that, it is not a permanent solution, and just a work-around.

How to disable Facebook Photo Theater mode?

Solution 1: When you click on a photo/album, it will open the photo in the theater mode, now in the address bar, look for "&theater" and delete it. Then, it will open the photo in the old format and you can start browsing the album as you used to do before.

Solution 2: A faster alternative for Option 1, is to refresh the browser. When reloaded, the photo will open in the old format and you can continue browsing as before.

You can also Install for Firefox here and Chrome here to permanently disable Facebook photo theater view!

Facebook Places launched In India

Facebook Places has launched in India, allowing Facebook users to start checking-in to businesses and locations added to the social network.

Today it seems India is the next country to receive the location-based service, coming shortly after Irish users reported the service was available in their country.

To take advantage of the service, Indian Android, BlackBerry and iPhone smartphone owners can access the Places icon within the smartphone application. Utilising its location-based technology, the app will list local businesses and locations added to the app, allowing users to check-in.

TechPP reports that iPhone users should be able to use their devices to check-in but Android users are aren't experiencing full functionality just yet, suggesting that Facebook could be implementing a gradual roll-out.

In the future the service will grow to include Places Deals, which are currently only available in the U.S, the UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy and now Canada.

Google Weddings

Google is launching a full fledged planning portal for brides and grooms to be. Google Weddings is a destination that houses wedding-specific templates in Google Sites, Google Docs and Picnik for save-the-dates, wedding websites, planning materials, invitations and more.

Google has also partnered with wedding planner Michelle Rago to provide tips and guidance on which designs to use. This isn't Google's first move in the wedding planning world, the search giant also began offering customized wedding templates in Google Docs a year ago that let users access pre-made documents to track your wedding budget, collect addresses for invitations, compare vendors and much more.

Twitter Translation Center

Twitter launched its Twitter Translation Center on Monday in an effort to turn its users into translating volunteers who will help convert the social media company's products into new languages.
The Translation Center opens up Twitter.com; Twitter's mobile, business and help websites; and Twitter's mobile apps for Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems to translation that is crowd sourced by those who use the popular platform to send out messages in 140 characters or less.
Twitter is looking to add Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish to the list of languages in which it is currently offered. The service is already available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish and those languages will also be available to volunteers in the Translation Center in an attempt to improve already translated sites and apps.
Translators who take part in the Translation Center will be translating Twitter's products, not the messages sent out on Twitter.

Yahoo Opens a Digital Newsstand

Yahoo announced the debut of Livestand, a publishing platform that aims to deliver personalized content to mobile devices.
 The platform, a digital newsstand, will offer a continuous stream of programming based on users’ interests. Yahoo plans to push the platform across multiple formats, including tablets, smartphones, and Web browsers .
The platform, which will be available on the iPad and on Android tablets in the first half of this year, will also take into account a user’s location and the time of day. Initially, Livestand will draw from Yahoo’s content library, a vast portfolio that includes Yahoo News and Flickr, but eventually, it will be available to third-party publishers.

Adobe Launches E-form Service

Adobe has launched a service for conducting online surveys that the company says should ease the process of setting them up and analyzing their results.

The hosted service, called Adobe FormsCentral, allows organizations to develop a customized survey form that would be accessible from the Internet.

With FormsCentral, the user creates a form online at the Adobe site, either using a set of templates or by designing a form from scratch. The forms will be based on HTML, making them accessible from any Web browser on any platform. Forms can be customized for each participant, with personalized name and message. Adobe provides a Web address for the finished form, which then can be mailed to possible participants.
The service will also compile the results into an online spreadsheet, which can be analyzed or embedded in another Web page. A dashboard shows a summary of the results. The administrator tools are accessed by a Web browser, using Adobe Flash.

The service will initially be offered only in English, though the company plans to offer additional languages in the near future. 

LG Optimus 3D HANDS ON

The Optimus 3D looks like a regular Android 2.2 smartphone, with a huge 4.3-inch screen with the standard four Android menu buttons at the bottom. What makes it different is its glasses-free 3D technology and the dual cameras on the back which let you take 3D photos and videos yourself.

For the 3D effect (which can be turned on and off at will) to work you need to position the phone just right; once you do it, though, the effect is quite convincing, especially in gaming. LG has included several 3D-enabled games with the device, including a first person shooter called Nova and a game of golf, both of which are quite fun to play on the 3D screen.

A lot of other features on the phone also revolve around 3D, such as videos, photos, and there’s even a 3D-enabled version of the UI for the device. In other words, 3D isn’t included just to make LG look good, it’s actually weaved into several different aspects of the phone.

While we don’t think the 3D features are a necessity for most users, they’re definitely fun to use and we wouldn’t mind having them, if only for the “wow” factor when you show the phone to someone.

Unfortunately, the phone is somewhat prone to crashing, especially when you delve deeper into its 3D features (the fact that most of the devices were running out of battery juice didn’t help). With a bit of polishing, though, LG might have a winner on its hands, at least until the other smartphone makers catch up with the 3D features

Pros and Cons Apple iPhone 4 (Verizon CDMA, 16GB/32GB)

Pros: A solid re-release of the most impressive iPhone yet, combining museum-quality design with industry-leading display and camera hardware, video calling software, and third-party applications that are rarely matched by rival devices. Developed primarily for Verizon Wireless, including the iPhone family’s first Wi-Fi-based Personal Hotspot data-sharing feature for computers and iPads, and benefitting from enhanced call reliability in some parts of the United States. Battery performance is roughly equivalent to original iPhone 4’s, which offered a major jump relative to the prior-generation iPhone 3GS. Still reasonably priced given all of the technology inside.

Cons: Designed for Verizon’s large but slow CDMA wireless network, resulting in markedly reduced data speeds in some areas, and always preventing cellular data services from being used while calls are incoming or in progress. Lack of SIM card slot and GSM support preclude this model from being used on majority of international cellular networks. Despite opportunities to fix previously acknowledged enclosure issues, glass and metal body remains unusually susceptible to damage and antenna attenuation unless a case is purchased and used. Other issues from AT&T iPhone 4 persist, including limited space for high-resolution video, photos, and apps in the lowest capacity 16GB version. Released eight months into iPhone 4’s life cycle, only slightly ahead of anticipated successor model.

Tihar Prison goes social with Facebook, Twitter

Tihar Prisons in Delhi, the largest correctional institution in South East Asia, jumps the social network bandwagon as it plans to engage the public using Facebook and Twitter in order to invite public opinion and improve transparency in its day-to-day functioning.

Its main objective is to convert its inmates into productive members of the society by providing them with useful skills, education and rules, meant to improve their self-esteem and strengthen their desire to advance in life. Items manufactured by the inmates bear the brand Tihar, which is very popular among people in Delhi.

ZTE Goes Full Throttle with iMarket App Store

Chinese handset and telecom equipment maker ZTE today announced that it plans to launch a web-based application store that network operators can use to provide their customers with content. The store, named iMarket, is a white-label approach, and it will let network operators pick and choose the content they feel worth offering their customers under their own brand name. iMarket apps can be used online or off, and will support not only phones, but also PCs and tablets. As part of iMarket, ZTE is also offering network operators deployment help, consultation, and support.

HP TouchPad Tablet Unveiled

Hewlett-Packard introduced its seriousness in making the most out of its US$1.2 billion investment in Palm, which was acquired last year, with an introduction of a bevy of hardware such as its take on tablet computers.

The TouchPad tablet is the first in a planned line of tablets of various forms. This pilot model weighs more than one and a half pounds, measures 13.7 mm thick, and has a 9.7-inch display with 1024 x 768 resolution.

Its features include a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2GHz processor and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. HP displays TouchPad’s speedy performance as it demonstrated videoconferencing and 3D action gaming during its unveiling event.

The tablet also comes with loads of support for Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, Microsoft Word and Excel, wireless printing, and even Amazon Kindle.

It also features HP’s Synergy technology, which flawlessly syncs data among apps between WebOS-powered devices, as well as support for HP’s Touchstone charging and syncing device. Note that TouchPad’s Touchstone appears more like an easel instead of a round stone used in WebOS smartphones.

The HP TouchPad will be available in 16GB and 32GB versions. Release date has yet to be announced.

Source: Information Week

Fujitsu and Oracle to develop next-generation Unix

The Nikkei Japanese business daily had earlier said Japan's largest IT vendor, Fujitsu, will update its SPARC64 processor and combine it with Oracle's operating system to create Unix servers that are about six times faster than current versions.

The processing power of the Unix servers, used in banks and other businesses, will be raised to 15 times that of today's models by around 2014, the paper reported.

The new servers are expected to go on sale worldwide in the second half of 2012, the newspaper said, adding that aside from the Unix business, Fujitsu has also obtained global sales rights to Oracle's database and other applications -(Reuters)