0 IE9 vs. Chrome 9.0 vs. Firefox 4.0

By Unknown | At 21.33 | Label : browser , softpedia | 0 Comments

IE9 vs. Chrome 9.0 vs. Firefox 4.0.

Today�s users have more choices than ever when it comes down to what browser to run, and as soon as Microsoft wraps up Internet Explorer 9, which should be anytime now, they�ll have a new one.

Always beneficial, choice fueled by the race between competitive browser makers means that users now have a veritable pick of the litter.

Some resources provided by Microsoft recently are designed to highlight why Internet Explorer 9 is a better option for customers.

I have already told you about a comparison chart that the software giant put together illustrating the advantages of IE9 over IE8 and IE7.

But in the company�s perspective, IE9 is also better than rivals Chrome 9.0 and Firefox 4.0. The way I see it, browser superiority is, for the most part, in the eye of the beholder.

While I doubt there will be any voices criticizing Microsoft�s claims that IE9 leaves IE8 and IE7 in the dust, I find it harder to believe that the company�s comparison of Firefox 4.0 and Chrome 9.0 to IE9, in which both rivals are found lacking, will not generate some negative reactions.

According to the comparison chart included with this article, the software giant notes that IE9 has bested Firefox 4.0 and Chrome 9.0 in several key aspects, including performance, ease of use, security, reliability, compatibility and web standards support, and developer tools.

Like I have already said in the past, I do believe that IE9 is superior to all of its predecessors to a point where releases such as IE7 and IE8 have almost nothing in common with the next generation of IE.

IE comparison chart
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And I already also said that IE9 is a valid alternative to rival browsers from Mozilla and Google, with IE8 simply not measuring up to the challenge.

Having used IE9 since September 2010, the feeling is that the IE team has truly reinvented Internet Explorer, and not even giving Internet Explorer 9 a try means missing out on IE�s amazing reboot.

Among some of the IE9 advantages that Microsoft boasts over Firefox 4.0 and Chrome 9.0 are multiple rendering engines, H.264 support for HTML5 video, Compatibility Mode View, protection against socially engineered malware, Jump Lists and accelerators, full hardware acceleration and better management of slow add-ons that impact performance.

I am more than sure that had Google or Mozilla made their own browser comparison charts, they would look quite different from Microsoft�s. What do you think?

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Source article: http://news.softpedia.com/news/IE9-vs-Chrome-9-0-vs-Firefox-4-0-188342.shtml

0 You Can Tweet Your Hotpot Reviews from Android Devices Now

By Unknown | At 02.28 | Label : Android , Apple , iphone , News , softpedia | 0 Comments

You Can Tweet Your Hotpot Reviews from Android Devices Now

Google is yet again expanding Hotpot and integrating it into more of its products. The recommendations service has made it into Google Maps, Google Search and is already available in the Google Places app for iPhone.

Android users have the simple rating widget, which makes it very easy to rate places with only a couple of actions, and now they can share their opinion with their Twitter followers just as easy.

"You can share valuable recommendations with your Hotpot friends and across Google�s products � in search results, on google.com/hotpot, and on Place pages," Adam Connors, from the Google Maps for mobile team, writes.

"But we wanted you to be able to share your recommendations even more broadly. So today, you can start sharing your ratings and reviews with your followers on Twitter directly from your Android-powered device," he announced.

With the rating widget, you can easily assign the number of 'starts' the place you're visiting deserves, rate individual aspects like food and service - a feature introduced recently - and also post a short review.

You're probably not going to say much from your mobile devices, but this works out perfectly for tweeting your reviews as well.

By default, the new "Post review to Twitter" option is enabled and it does exactly what you'd expect.

"When rating on the go using our rating widget, just choose to Post review to Twitter and connect your Twitter account. You�ll get a preview of your tweet and will be able to post your ratings and reviews moving forward," Connors explained.

Google is very determined to get Hotpot right. The social, local recommendations and reviews service, embodies the three main areas in which Google is very interested in, local and location services, the social web and mobile. While it may not be getting much of a marketing push, the sheer number of Hotpot related updates makes Google involvement clear.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/You-Can-Tweet-Your-Hotpot-Reviews-from-Android-Devices-Now-187529.shtml

0 Mozilla Debuts its Web App Store and Platform for Firefox and Chrome

By Unknown | At 02.12 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

Mozilla Debuts its Web App Store and Platform for Firefox and Chrome

Mozilla has made good on its promise of building an open web app infrastructure. The first release of the Web Apps technology - the APIs for the apps and app stores as well as management tools for browsers - is now available to all. What's more, there are even a handful of apps to see how the whole system is going to work.

"We are excited to announce the availability of the first milestone release of Mozilla�s Web Application project. Web Apps are applications that run on any device, and can be distributed through any store or directly by the developer," Mozilla's Ragavan Srinivasan writes.

"This release contains stable APIs, developer utilities and documentation to help you get a jumpstart on building Web Apps and stores," he adds.

This first iteration targets all audiences, though it offers more for some than others. Regular users can get an idea of what the Web Apps project aims to achieve, how apps will look and actlike as well as why they're important in the first place.

Developers on the other hand can get straight to work as the APIs for both web apps and the web stores to keep them are considered stable and ready for use.

Since web apps are exactly that, applications built with standard web technologies, creating them should be no big deal for anyone with at least some experience with HTML5 and its sister technologies.

After that, it's just a matter of packaging them and extending their functionality for better integration with the browser.

The great thing about web apps, as Mozilla envisions them, is that they're designed to run in any modern browser, though only Firefox and Chrome are supported now, but also on mobile operating systems.

The best part of the release is that adventurous users are able to start installing web apps in both Firefox and Chrome right now. Mozilla has created add-ons for both browsers to manage installed apps. What's more, there are a number of apps available from Mozilla's dedicated site.

Online Video Mozilla Debuts its Web App Store and Platform for Firefox and Chrome :

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mozilla-Debuts-its-Web-App-Store-and-Platform-for-Firefox-and-Chrome-187726.shtml

0 Picasa Makes It Official, All Small Photos and Videos are Stored for Free

By Unknown | At 02.01 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

Picasa Makes It Official, All Small Photos and Videos are Stored for Free

Google has made it official and announced that small photos and relatively short videos in Picasa no longer count towards the free storage quota and can essentially be stored for free. This means that you'll be able to make the most out of the rather paltry 1GB of free space you get with Picasa Web Albums, depending on what you're using it for.

"With Picasa Web Albums, you automatically get one gigabyte of free storage. As some of you may have noticed, we recently changed the way storage works so you can continue to share and store images even after you fill up that free gig.In the past, each image and video you uploaded counted toward your free 1GB," Matt Steiner, Engineering Lead-Photos Team, wrote.

"Now, uploaded images that are 800 pixels or smaller and videos that are 15 minutes or less in length no longer count against your free storage limit. This means you can upload and store unlimited photos and videos at the above sizes -- for free!," he announced.

The change has been active for more than a week now, even though people first though it was an error in the way Picasa counted the size of the files. Google confirmed the change in the Picasa help pages, but only now made it official.

If you're using Picasa for your blog or just to display images on the web, 800 pixels should be plenty for most cases. So the 1 GB storage limit is moot, you'll never run out of space if you use small images.

As for video, it's even better, any video under 15 minutes in length, even HD ones, can be stored for free. This brings Picasa on par with YouTube, but it does create an interesting disparity.

A photo larger than 800 pixes, which may only be a few hundreds of kilobytes is counted while HD videos which may weigh hundreds of megabytes won't.

Still it's an welcomed change. And if you really need more space, Google can sell it to you at very affordable rates. Paying for online storage may seem strange, especially since it's coming from Google, but with $5 you can get 20 GB, you really can't complain.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Picasa-Makes-It-Official-All-Small-Photos-and-Videos-are-Stored-for-Free-187802.shtml

0 Turkey Has Blocked Google's Blogger Over a Few Football Video Streams

By Unknown | At 01.56 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

Turkey Has Blocked Google's Blogger Over a Few Football Video Streams

Google is having problems in Turkey again, Blogger has been blocked entirely in the country by a local court. The issue, this time, is with copyrighted content, streams of football matches showing up on various Blogger blogs. The solution, a local media company believed, was to block millions of blogs and millions of users, with the help of the court.

As Google notes, it does have a copyright infringement complaint process in pace, an overly aggressive one at that, so Digiturk, the company in question could have easily requested Blogger to take down the pirated content or even the entire blogs.

But that would have been way too much trouble for the company, a much easier solution was to sue Google and have a court block all access to Blogger.

There are 600,000 Turkish Blogger users alone and many millions of blogs in total. Now, all of them are inaccessible because a TV company didn't like that its football matches were being streamed online.

What's more, the actual streams can be viewed in countless other locations, so the block won't affect the ones looking for the pirate matches. But the vast majority of content on Blogger is not available anywhere else.

It's hardly a surprising move in Turkey though, a country which wants to joint the EU, where YouTube has been blocked for years over a few videos. The videos mocked the country's founder, Kemal Atat�rk, which is prohibited by law in Turkey.

Since YouTube refused to remove the videos around the world and not just in Turkey like it had done, a court decided to block the entire site. YouTube was unblocked late last year, though there may be more issues yet.

Google is not pleased with the move, understandably, and is fighting it, but considering its past plights, it may take a while before service is restored.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Turkey-Has-Blocked-Blogger-Over-a-Few-Football-Video-Streams-187820.shtml

0 Angry Birds Is Coming to Facebook

By Unknown | At 01.51 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

Angry Birds Is Coming to Facebook

Considering that Angry Birds is now available on any platform imaginable, it's surprising that it's not on Facebook, the site that's done at least as much for gaming as Apple's iPhone. But it's only a matter of time, Angry Birds is coming to Facebook and soon.

The popular game has exploded on mobile platforms. It became a huge hit on the iPhone, currently one of the best ways of getting a game in front of a huge audience.

Later it expanded to other platforms, it has over 30 million downloads on Android alone. Of course, the game found a great home on the iPad as well. The larger screen along with the intuitive interface made Angry Birds a favorite with the kids on the device.

At this point, Angry Birds is available for PCs, on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and Windows Phone 7. It's also going to be available on the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii.

But Rovio, the game's developer, is looking at alternative channels as well. There are real life Angry Birds toys available and there may even be a movie at some point.

So the fact that it's not available on Facebook, where companies such as Zynga are making a fortune from games, is surprising.

But Rovio says that it wanted the Facebook version to make the most of the platform's advantages. It could have done a simple port of the game and called it a day. And plenty of people would have played it.

However, the upcoming Facebook version will actually have a social element and encourage collaboration. It's unclear how Rovio plans to do this, but it's a good thing that it recognized that Facebook needs to be treated differently than other platforms.

The games that have done well on the site, Farmville and company, have done so precisely because they used the social aspects as much as possible.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Angry-Birds-Is-Coming-to-Facebook-187840.shtml

0 Google Chrome to Get Multi-Tab Selection and Colored Tabs

By Unknown | At 01.48 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

While updates come at a steady pace for Chrome users and are usually, not inconsequential, but quite small, the team is working on bigger features as well. One area that is getting some attention is the tabstrip which is about to undergo a revamp.

The new tab architecture is still in the planning and early development stages for the most part, but some big functionality improvements are planned, notably, the possibility to select multiple tabs for dragging and detaching.

Other planned improvements include an overflow UI, which would enable users to manage a big number of tabs opened in the same window. Currently, Chrome just shrinks the tabs indefinitely.

Another update would implement colored tabs for better management of groups and selections.

These changes and improvements are detailed in a design document on the Chromium website. A number of planned features are listed though it's unclear how old the document is. Some of the features are already being implemented, as detailed by a recent bug entry.

The ability to select multiple tabs for management would be a huge boon for those handling many tabs spread across multiple windows.

Currently, users have to drag tabs one by one. For rearranging tabs, maybe to form 'clusters' or groups for a more intuitive ordering, this works but can be tiresome.

It's worse if you want to detach several tabs to move to another window. You have to detach them one by one and then attach them to the same window, again, one by one. Even for two or three tabs, it's a lot more work than it should be.

Multiple tab selection solves this with an elegant solution. Using standard practices, for example by pressing Ctrl or Shift when clicking on a tab, you will be able to select multiple tabs to reorder or close.

This is where the tab coloring comes in, there needs to be a way to know which tabs are selected and not. Coloring also makes it easier to distinguish between tab groups. The Colourful Tabs extension for Firefox has been doing this for years and IE 8 has a similar feature built in.

There are several other enhancements and new features planned for the "third generation" Chrome tabstrip.

� live tab contents during dragging
� full size dragged representations
� frame fade transition during detach/attach
� dragged representation places tab at relevant position in tabstrip
� ability to resume drag in tabstrip after attach
� ability to resume drag in tabstrip after move from overflow UI
� overflow UI capability
� multiselect for drag and close
� independent continuous animations
� generic TabStrip baseclass that does not deal with TabContentses
� BrowserTabStrip subclass that interacts with TabStripModel
� testing for Layout
� general testable interface - View-Controller separation
� tests for drag and drop using testable interface
� windows 7 integration for drag and drop targets at screen edges in lieu of the current Dock system that we use on Vista and below. [via Chromestory]

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Chrome-to-Get-Multi-Tab-Selection-and-Colored-Tabs-187194.shtml

0 Fossilized Alien Life Found in Meteorites

By Unknown | At 01.43 | Label : news Maret 2011 , softpedia | 0 Comments

Fossilized Alien Life Found in Meteorites

 The remains of microorganisms similar to a class of bacteria that live on Earth have been discovered in meteorite samples analyzed by experts at NASA. The team was led by award-winning astrobiologist and scientist Richard B. Hoover.

He holds an appointment as the leader of the Astrobiology Group at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), in Huntsville, Alabama. He explains that the tiny fossils of alien life were discovered inside three of the nine CI1 carbonaceous chondrite meteorites ever discovered on Earth.

His announcement understandably caused a shock wave through the astrobiology community. Many scientists say they are very excited about this prospect, though some are skeptical.

In excess of 100 scientists are currently working on verifying the discovery, which has been published online in the latest issue of the Journal of Cosmology (full paper available).

Hoover and his team used an imaging technique known as field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) to investigate the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites.

The main conclusion of the investigation was that the fossilized microorganisms detected inside these space rocks are very similar to trichomic cyanobacteria found here on Earth, as well as to other trichomic prokaryotes, including filamentous sulfur bacteria.

The NASA group took a very close look at the remnants, and determined that the organisms which were preserved within did not originate on our planet. Hoover called them �indigenous fossils,� and proposes that they prove life permeates the Universe, and is not only limited to our planet.

�The presence of microfossils of filamentous cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites has direct implications to possible life on comets and icy moons [in the solar system],� the expert write in the journal paper.

�It is concluded that the complex filaments found embedded in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites represent the remains of indigenous microfossils of cyanobacteria and other prokaryotes associated with modern and fossil prokaryotic mats,� the team adds.

�The absence of nitrogen in the cyanobacterial filaments detected in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites indicates that the filaments represent the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present,� Hoover and colleagues write.

�This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the Cosmos and the possibility of microbial life in liquid water regimes of cometary nuclei as they travel within the orbit of Mars and in icy moons with liquid water oceans such as Europa and Enceladus,� the study adds.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) expert Rudy Schild, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cosmology, has already issued calls for experts in several fields to peer-review the findings.

�Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5,000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis,� he says.

If the conclusions are confirmed, then this would be the first time that life is discovered as originating outside Earth. It would also demonstrate that the theory holding that comets brought life here may be correct after all.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fossilized-Alien-Life-Found-in-Meteorites-187875.shtml

0 Wimbledon Tennis Championships Going 3D, Courtesy of Sony

By Unknown | At 01.32 | Label : News , softpedia | 0 Comments

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships are, without a doubt, one of the world's best-known and most famous tennis-related events, and from this year, everything will apparently be taken to a whole new level, with some serious help from Sony.

So, it seems that, for this year's tournament, that's still around three months or so away, Japanese company Sony and the tournament's organizers have prepared a very interesting surprise, meant to provide a much higher level of realism for those people not fortunate enough to actually attend the show live.

So, following the deal between Sony and The All England Lawn Tennis Club, the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships will be recorded in 3D and their aired throughout 3D theaters from all over the world, with the help of SuperVision Media, Sony's theatrical distribution partners.

Moreover, Sony also plans to make this 3D content available for all interested 3D channels out there, a deal that will actually further broaden the event's coverage, not to mention the level of popularity enjoyed by this particular type of broadcast.

In fact, Fujio Nishida, President of Sony Europe commented on the matter, saying that �watching tennis in High Definition 3D is a stunning experience, bringing the speed of the action and the emotions of the occasion to life; it is as close to the atmosphere and excitement of Centre Court as actually being there.�

The recording will be carried out via Sony's dedicated 3D recording cameras, that will be installed at the site of the tournament.

However, it seems that we're only talking about the top levels of the tournament, Sony pointing out that they'll be producing the men�s semi-finals, finals and women�s finals in High Definition 3D.

As some of you might remember, this is not the first time a Japanese company with a serious expertise in the field of 3D becomes the official media partners of a major tennis tournament, Panasonic doing exactly the same back in 2010, but at the Roland Garros championships.


Source article: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wimbledon-Tennis-Championships-Going-3D-Courtesy-of-Sony-187887.shtml

0 CeBIT Sees Gelid Demonstrating the GX-7 CPU Cooler

By Unknown | At 01.29 | Label : News , softpedia | 0 Comments

CeBIT Sees Gelid Demonstrating the GX-7 CPU Cooler. 

The whole point of CeBIT was so that companies from around the world could come together and show each other off, or try to do so, with their hardware, and Gelid had some things of its own to display, a cooler being just one of them.

Although not as packed with new releases as previous editions, the 2011 CeBIT expo was not bereft of activity either.

In fact, IT players from various countries around the globe revealed many storage devices, particularly SSDs, as well as displays, tablets and many other things.

A fair chunk of those products have yet to actually become available, but their makers were, at the very least, able to grab end-user attention.

Gelid is one of the IT companies that saw to the cooling market, as well as the segment of PC cases.

The folks over at ExtraHardware are the ones got close enough to its high-end air cooler to snag a few photos of it and learn of its specs.

Apparently, it has a very high degree of compatibility, being usable on both Intel and AMD central processing units.

To be more specific, Intel LGA 1156, LGA 1155, LGA 1366 and LGA 775 CPUs are supported, as are AM2, AM2+ and AM3 chips from Advanced Micro Devices.

Dubbed GX-7, it boasts a tower design, with a copper base that draws heat out of the chip itself and sends it into the 46 aluminum fins through seven copper heatpipes.

A single Wing 12 fan, with a diameter of 120mm, actually disperses that heat, the air flow quite strong thanks to the rotary speed of 1,500 RPM (rotations per minute).

Regrettably, the GX-7 is not yet ready to ship. A time frame should become known during the second quarter of the ongoing year, 2011. The price isn't known either.


Source article: http://news.softpedia.com/news/CeBIT-Sees-Gelid-Demonstrating-the-GX-7-CPU-Cooler-187891.shtml