If Firefox 3.5 is getting a bit stale for you, October 13th is your day to relish *hopefully*. It is this fine October day in which Mozilla will formally take the wraps off the next iteration of Firefox version number 3.6 — with a beta tag attached of course. While the Firefox team is pushing hard to meet that October 13th goal, if they happen to go over a few days to weeks, “there’s no shame”.
Now before you go wild in the streets and start trying to guess all of the new goods, you’ll need to know that 3.6 will not be a major upgrade. Instead, those of you looking for the feature buffet will have to wait until October….of 2010 and Firefox 4 for your fix. Long wait? Most certainly. But 3.6 is the current lust, so, why not continue on. Shall we?
The list of upgrades for 3.6 is more geared towards under the hood improvements, sort of a “Snow Leopard/refinement” build of sorts. The list of inner tweaks include:
- Improved org TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
- More optimised session restore
- Increased page-rendering speed
- A few new upgrades to the CSS
- Introduction of “lite-themes”
While I love tons of new features just like the next geek, it is necessary for a thorough cleaning every none and then. Let’s just hope Firefox doesn’t fall too far behind it’s rivals. Looking forward to October 13th?
The Register
- September 25, 2009 5:50 am
Whenever someone takes your work that you spent many months developing and nurturing like a small baby child and then goes and rips the guts out and calls it home is rather disturbing and maddening. Such are the feelings Microsoft is feeling after the Google Chrome IE plugin we recently talked about. The plugin essesentiall allows Google Chrome to run inside of a frame within IE. All in all it makes using IE much less painful and actually worthwhile. Microsoft however sees it differently and as usual, tries to spin it in such a way that makes the Chrome plugin appear as if it’s on the brink of sending your entire hard drive’s worth of content out onto the interwebs. From the horse:
Given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take
They wouldn’t recommend it huh? I wouldn’t recommend using IE at all. But such things in life can’t be avoided with various corporations still refusing to budge from their IE backgrounds. In all reality, the way the Chrome/IE tango goes, most if not all of IE’s security settings are left untampered with meaning you’re fine. The only difference is the dramatically faster browsing and web pages actually displaying as the web developer intended. *Gasp*. Give it a try IE users. It’s the best thing you could do.
Mashable
- September 23, 2009 5:44 am
In a sign that at least someone in this current age of digital walls, “protection schemes”, and a weird displays of some anti-internet mentality, a report based on a survey conducted by Canadian Telco, Telus, reveals that three-fourths of Canadian children are “internet savvy” by age 7. Out of the 4,466 participants, a full 69% believed that an early grasp of technology is a must in todays world. A notable admission to make! The report goes on saying that repetitious percentages aside, Canadians see the internet as more than just an entertainment medium. To them, the internet is a crucial part of daily life and how they communicate with friends and family. The internet, as the report claims, “has the ability to strengthen relationships and bring people closer together”. Also of interest from the survey, only 18% of respondents admitted to face-to-face contact with voice/phone communication taking a whopping 60%. Of course, with the spread of mobile phones these days, such a claim isn’t hard to imagine.
One particular thing that interests me is the fact that this survey was conducted online only, which will obviously as one could assume, present a larger, unrealistic view of “internet savviness” potentially skewing the results. What would the report reveal if the survey were conducted through not only an internet based model, but also print, phone, and possibly even TV? Such questions batter my brain. Am I alone?
**Survey conducted by Ipsos Reed
Cellular-News
Image Source
- September 3, 2009 9:30 am
Android junkies have no doubt been following the HTC Hero — one of the most anticipated Android devices of 2009. While we, the electronically informed knew of it’s coming long ago, HTC and Sprint have officially come forward to give us all some set in stone confirmation. Starting October 11th for a rather affordable $179.99 after your typical hodge podge of various discounts, the HTC can be your one true love. As you can see from the image to the left, the Sprint version of the Hero got a rather substantial face lift which rounded and reduced the boxy chin of the original. I like it. I like it a lot. It’s very Magic-esque which by the way isn’t a bad looking phone either. The new silverish hue is also an eye please.
Now all you up and coming Sprint Hero owners need to do is pick up that leaked ROM that was floating around that dramatically improved the Sense UI’s performance. Of course, Sprint could have already gone ahead and done the dirty work for us. Anyone care to enlighten us? You know, while I haven’t really ever been a fan of Sprint, their lineup is starting to pick up. First the Pre (come on…it’s not that bad…and actually pretty cool) and now the HTC Hero seems to signal an up tick in Sprints future no?
Source: Engadget
- September 3, 2009 7:29 am
**Image taken from Mashable**
Look back in time to the year 2008 (so long ago…I know) and try to remember when a little browser called Chrome was released into the spotlight. At first, there was a ton of fanfare and downloads as geeks and even non-geeks alike rushed to download this new hyped up browser. After the hype faded, it seemed that only geeks and internet junkies kept using Chrome. Through the trials and tribulations this past year, Google’s wonder browser has accomplished some mighty impressive feats. On this historic first birthday for Google’s internet baby, they shared the following:
Since September 2, 2008, there have been:
– 51 developer releases, 21 beta releases or updates, and 15 stable releases or updates
– Over 20,600 bugs filed (4367 of them were duplicates, 3505 have been fixed, which leaves a whole lot left to go!)
– 11 external committers and bug editors, 46 external code contributors
– 50 Chrome Experiments
– 26 posts on the Google Chrome blog
– 12 Chrome Shorts, a collection of short films about Google Chrome
– A sequel to the comic in Japanese
More importantly, we’ve improved by over 150% on Javascript performance since our initial beta.
Definitely some pretty darn good progress, though, in a years time, Chrome has managed to grab a paltry 2.84% of the browser market. If you have trouble with numbers and graphs, I’ll give you a hint — It’s not that good. Still, Google charges on. And charge on they should. Google brought with it dramatically faster performance as well as a new style that while not everyone’s cup of tea, has many other browser developers rethinking their own styling, the latest examples being Safari 4′s failed attempt at tab-on-top design as well as rumors of Firefox 4 getting a dramatic overhaul.
After one whole year, 365 days, 8766 hours, 525,600 minutes, or 31 556 926 minutes (depending on how you look at it), Google Chrome has achieved quite a bit in it’s infancy. Again however, it has quite a ways to go before it can claim fame like bigger contenders such as IE and Firefox. Even more exciting builds inside of me as I await more information and the eventual release of Google’s next project: Chrome OS, a web based OS of sorts. With the start of a great browser, a web based OS can only help if executed properly. So here we wait.
I for one am hopeful. Hopeful that Chrome doesn’t just become another tech flop. A hope that Chrome can grow, innovate not only itself but continue to cause other browsers to innovate as well. For as we all know. Competition benefits all.
Source: Mashable,
- September 3, 2009 7:10 am
If you love slaving through FCC documents and website html looking for places that site admins and FCC employees slip up, you may find this next tidbit right up your little alley. Looking at the picture above, we can all deduce that an Android phone by Samsung codenamed the T939 will *hopefully* very soon make it’s way to the public spot light on TMO USA. Now, we all know TMO USA is looking to get the Samsung Bigfoot into our hands before ’09 wraps up. We also already know that the Samsung Bigfoot was listed as having specs such as a 3.2″ AMOLED touchscreen display along with speedy wifi included. Supported frequency bands (a good indicator of which carrier will be picking this up) are still a no show. It is a stretch at this point to try and match this T939 mystery device to any of the known up and coming devices. Still…
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this phone could be the Samsung Bigfoot that many of us have been waiting for. Android power house device with touchscreen and a keyboard. Of course, it could also be the Samsung Galaxy as an actual slide-out keyboard isn’t mentioned in this particular document. Heck, it could even be the replacement to the Behold, cleverly named the Behold 2. Even more of a stretch, could the Behold 2 morph into or replace the inside code name of Bigfoot or Galaxy?
Still, I’m going to place my apples in the Bigfoot basket because frankly…that’s all I want! While this is all pure speculation for now, with certain specs starting to match up, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are watching the early stages of the Bigfoot being publicly born. Excited?
Source: Cellphone-Signal, Bluetooth.org
