Google Chrome Browse Share Up 6%. IE Falls To 53.7% Overall.

Yay! Browser market share numbers. This rather unexciting topic is oddly enough one of our favorite topics. On that note, Zdnet has released a new chart (above) that shows browser market share over the last year. Specifically, Chrome is up 6% along with Safari’s ~2.25%. Meanwhile Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s IE browsers continue to bleed users with the latter now falling to 53.7% overall. While IE still holds over half of the world’s browser share, we’ve seen it tank in the last couple of years thanks to faster updates from the likes of Chrome, Firefox and Opera as well as a continuing sub-par support of modern and upcoming web technologies. With that said, IE 9 has actually been rather relevant concerning new web technologies. Though Microsoft has always been extremely slow at updating IE, and unless things change, we’ll see competitors update their own browsers many times over before Microsoft can push out another worthwhile update.

Anyone care to share their browser of choice?

Review: 13″ MacBook Air (2011)

Since it’s release in 2008, the MacBook Air has been a trendsetting, market leading device. While current field of ultra-portable laptops has grown quite crowded, Apple’s now 3-year old MacBook Air is still a force to be reckoned with.

For 2011 Apple ups the ante and proves that they can still pack performance into the smallest of spaces. Hop on past the break for Gadgetsteria’s full review of the 2011 13″ MacBook Air…

Chinese Authorities Close Two Of Five Known Fake Apple Stores. More To Follow.

It’s a bad week to be the owner of one of certainly many fake Apple stores in China. After last week’s story surfaced of an elaborately faked Apple Store, Apple has apparently been scrambling to close the offending locations. So far there are five known stores in China. Apple’s Chinese arm has been working with law enforcement to already close two of the five stores, with the rest facing the same fate.

What’s most amusing is that one owner of the fake Apple Stores, Yu Cheng, says his 3 fake stores are actually doing Apple a favor. (At this time it is being reported Cheng’s three fake Apple stores are not being ordered to shut down.) The only problem — they’re not. The biggest issue we see is that of warranty and tech support. Yeah, you could be an official warranty package via Apple’s website through the fake store in question, but once you start going through unofficial channels, everything comes into question. Nonetheless, Yu Cheng says he is completely within the law to “invest in any company he wants”.

It goes without saying Chinese IP and trademark laws are pathetically inept at providing much of any protection in these situations. Look for Yu’s completely legal illegal stores to follow the fate of the others shortly. As for the claimed fake Apple stores now cropping up in other corners of the world, it seems Apple’s lawyers have some new job security to look forward to.

RIM Laying Off 2,000 Employees. Co-CEO’s To Continue Doing What They Do…

In a sign that times aren’t quite as rosy as RIM may claim, RIM announced today via press release that they will be showing 2,000 employees — ~10.5% of their workforce — the door as part of a “Cost Optimization Program”. Outside of “normal” employees, RIM says that several executive/management level positions are being re-organized and shuffled around. At this time, however, nothing has been said concerning position changes to co-CEO and co-Chairmens Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

While RIM’s BlackBerrys smartphones were some of the most competitive devices just a few short years ago, recent advancements made by iOS and Android have all but relegated RIM to BOGO sales and mid-range offerings.

In the last several weeks we’ve seen several signs of troubles within RIM including the “open employee letters” as well as a couple high-level management members defect to competing companies.

Press release after the break…

Facebook For iPad Unofficially Released. Hidden Within iPhone App’s Source Code.

Facebook has long maintained that the iPad platform “isn’t mobile enough” for an official Facebook app. An odd statement no less considering tablets in general are mobile devices. But hey, who’s counting? Millions of people. That’s who! Thankfully Facebook was just blowing smoke as at a recent Facebook conference founder Mark Zuckerburg announced that a full-fledged iPad Facebook app was in fact in the works and “coming soon”. Would you believe this app has already been released?

The latest iPhone Facebook app update actually has the entire iPad app buried within its source code and is easily accessible to every boy and girl — you’ll just need to be jailbroken to get to it. Canadian “iOS enthusiast” @AeroEchelon found the hack which involves changing your UIDevice Number to “2″, while TechCrunch has gone ahead and posted a truckload of images over here. And according to TechCrunch’s sources, this is the final shipping iPad app that will (hopefully) hit the App Store very soon.

The BlackBerry PlayBook may have been the “first” tablet to have a dedicated FaceBook app, but the iPad’s is easily the best. Hands down. If you’re of the adventurous type and do the 1/0 tango for the app above, let us know what you think.

Want A Mac But Pinching Pennies? Best Buy, Apple Now Selling Discounted Refurbished Units.

We’re not going to lie. We’re still going through the honeymoon with our new 11.6″ and 13.3″ MacBook Airs. And even though we look forward to new Apple hardware releases to see what the company intends to keep us customers for another year, more frugal shoppers looking to save a few dollars can walk away with quite a deal. But for those who are looking to spend a little less for that Apple fix — the previous generation 11.6″ MacBook Air powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor can be had for as low as $834.99 via Best Buy and $749 from Apple’s own online store. Moving up to the 13.3″ Core 2 Duo-powered MacBook Air raises the cost a bit to $999. Still, that’s considerably cheaper than what these units went for just a few short days ago.

While we can certainly understand the draw an OS X powered machine for a shockingly low $749 may possess, we see the new Core i5 and i7 processors, backlit keyboards, and Thunderbolt port as reasons that far outweigh the $100-$250 savings. Sometimes it’s just worth spending that little extra bit…

Wading Through Sea Of Apple Fanboys Makes Traveling Oh So Much Harder.

The entire idea of Apple planting one of it’s retail locations in the World Famous Grand Central Station in New York just got a little more real. Apple has reportedly signed a decade long contract which will cost them $800,000/year, and will bump up over 1 million per year after. The new Apple location will be a massive 23,000 square feet — which for the record, is more than 3 thousand sq feet larger than their biggest location to date — and will span across the North and Northwest balconies.

Apple will be pillaging the current Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant which stands in the current location and pay for all renovations of said location. The deal is set for financial approval with the MTA on Monday – giving it a desired ‘OK’ date of Wednesday. There isn’t a huge amount of shopping in the location – nothing near the amount that Apple will bring. The MTA had this to say about the deal:

…the Apple Store has the potential to bring a great new shopping destination to iconic Grand Central Terminal and significantly increase revenues for the MTA’s transportation system.