Apple releases Safari 4
Jun 9th
During the much awaited WWDC 09, Apple announced that it has made the final changes to its browser Safari 4 and released its web browser. The web browser is available as a free download for both Macintosh and Windows users. Safari 4 was released way back in February as a Beta version. The browser contains a few interface enhancements such as Cover Flow and Full History search.
The thing which is new in Safari 4 is that it had added the support for HTML 5 and advanced CSS effects. The browser also provides you with the ability to do a Full Page Zoom. The zooming process takes place and enables the user to take a closer and deeper look at the webpage without degrading the quality of the site’s text as well as the associated layout.
Apple claims that the Safari is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test. This test is targeted to evaluating and examining how well and how cleanly a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG standards. Phillip Schiller, senior Vice President of worldwide product marketing said during Apple’s WorldWide Developer’s Conference held in San Fransisco:
The successful beta release helped us fine tune Safari 4 into an even better, faster version that customers are going to love.
Speaking about speed, Safari 4 contains a speed feature known as a “Nitro” engine. The Nitro engine is said to execute JavaScript upto 4.5 times faster than Safari 3. Apple is claiming that Safari 4 executes JavaScript 8 times faster than IE8 and 4 times faster than Firefox 3. On a similar note Apple loads HTML web pages 3 times faster than Firefox 3 and IE8.
Currently around 70 millions users located globally use Safari. Safari 4 for Mac OS X poses the requirement of a Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7 or Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.11 and Security Update 2009-002. The minimum space required is 256 MB.
WWDC 2009 goes live. Watch it now..
Jun 8th
WWDC is live now, you can watch the live coverage at different sites which are stated below, if you people are looking for the best live-blogs for following today’s Apple announcement? Keynote is here.
There are certain questions arising in my mind, and of course you will be thinking them as well.
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Will we see next generation iPhone handware?
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Will Apple release iPhone 3.0 or just more features for iPhone 3.0?
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Will MobileMe 2.0 be good to go?
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Will we have to sit through 8 excruciatingly long app previews like the last 3 iPhone keynotes?
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Will Scott Forstall say “blow us away”?
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Will Steve Jobs show up in some way, shape, or Mobile iChat form to give that perfect “Boom!” or “One more–” accent to the show?
Here are the ones that we’ll be tracking. Come back to Fast Company during and after the event for more news and analysis.
Gizmodo: The sharpest photos, auto-update, and the most dependable crew in the gadget business. http://live.gizmodo.com/
GdGt: Written by pros, with instant analysis. http://live.gdgt.com/2009/06/08/live-wwdc-2009-keynote-coverage/
Macrumors: Good photos and insta-punditry. http://www.macrumorslive.com/
TheAppleBlog: http://theappleblog.com/live/
TheiPhoneBlog: http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/06/04/wwdc-2009-tipb-live-metablog-monday-1pm-edt10am-pdt/
Engadget: Relaying a near-transcription of the announcements, with photos. http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/phil-schiller-keynote-live-from-wwdc-2009/
Firefox 3.5 RC 1 is around the corner
Jun 8th
Two builds of Firefox 3.5 RC1 were posted in the nightly section of Mozilla’s public ftp server yesterday, suggesting an official release of RC1 this week.
The first Release Candidate of Firefox 3.5, codenamed Shiretoko, is just around the corner. The RC development milestone means that Mozilla is extremely close to wrapping up the successor of Firefox 3.0.
The Windows version of the almost complete build, the name of the build is Firefox 3.5 “Beta 99″ almost a size of 7.6 MB as a self-extracting archive for Windows 2000 through Windows 7.
There were no immediately noticeable changes to the browser interface since beta 4, which is no surprise, given that release candidates are usually stability and bug-fix updates meant for mainstream testing before an imminent product release.
As I reported in review of beta 4, Firefox 3.5 features a new, faster, Javascript engine and private browsing mode, as well as improved video integration.
According to Mozilla, final quality assurance testing will address everything from last minute bugs to the flawless functionality of extensions, plugins, accessibility, the automatic update feature and the top 500 websites.
Given the small number and low severity of remaining bugs on Bugzilla, the release candidate will likely mark the last test version of the browser before the final release, and is therefore on-track for release by the end of June. Or maybe before that.
China requires a porn censorship software
Jun 8th
According to a report, Government of China has plans of enforcing a constraint that requires all PCs sold in the country starting from July be shipped with a software that blocks access to certain websites. This news was collected from a report in The Wall Street Journal. This move is expected to give government a unique control (I say unique because this is the first instance of such nature) and would enable them to control how their people access the Internet.
The Chinese government has informed global PC makers of the requirement but it is yet to make this requirement public. According to the Chinese government, the move is taken with the intentions of protecting young generation from harmful content. According to the main developer of the software, the main target is the pornography. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment.
The Chinese name for the software is Green Dam-Youth Escort. The word Green is used in Chinese to describe Web surfing free from pornography and other inappropriate content. The software is intended to link PCs with a database of banned sites and block the access to these addresses. The database is updated on a regular basis.
The software is developed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, while taking input from Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co. Bryan Zhang, founder of Jinhui informed that his company collects, compiles and maintains the list containing the addresses of the blocked sites. The list is only focussed on pornography sites. He added the fact that software will permit blocking other type of content as well. The software can be turned off or uninstalled.
The company will be using an Internet update system to transmit the updated addresses of banned sites to PCs. According to a spokesperson from Hewlett Packard:
The company is working with the government authorities and evaluating the best way to approach this. Obviously we will focus on delivering the best customer experience while ensuring that we meet necessary regulatory requirements.
This requirement has placed PC makers on a hot seat. They have to decide whether to reject a government regulation in a major market or accept the censorship requirement.
WordPress is coming to Blackberry
Jun 8th
According to different sources it has been revealed that an official WordPress BlackBerry application has been confirmed by WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg.
Now then BlackBerry users can keep track of their blogs and make posts in so little time. It is thought that it will be similar to the WordPress iPhone application and although there has been no announcement of an official launch date, Mullenweg has said that it will be there soon.
Mobiletor noted:
The iPhone WordPress application has apparently received [a] considerable amount of popularity, thus the chances of success on the BlackBerry increases.
Businesses which have adopted blogging as a form of communication with potential customers and as a way to expand their brand will definitely benefit from the BlackBerry WordPress application.
Dianna Dilworth, of DM News, recently said:
Professionals in marketing need to view mobile and email marketing as one entity
Consumers are increasingly using their mobile screens to access information – which could include a company WordPress blog – and so marketing campaigns should be formatted to be read on such a device.
Hopefully, the application will be nothing like the iPhone app which is virtually useless. The iPhone version has no picture placement settings, html code manipulation, or video embedding.
Microsoft blocks porn search for Islamic countries
Jun 8th
As we reported during the last week about Bing’s video feature providing easy access to porn content and the concern it was causing for parents and employeers, well Microsoft has made a move in relation to that issue.
Microsoft apparently has blocked access to pornography sites and material in Islamic countries mostly. The predicted list of Islamic countries where porn search is blocked includes:
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Indonesia
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Malaysia
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Turkey
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Arabian Countries
Besides the Islamic countries the list also include countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Thailand. Even India is part of that list, which has created quite a buzz on the local Indian blogs. Microsoft spokesman informed an Indian site:
We determined the list of countries for which sexually explicit results are restricted based on analysis of where such are restricted by local law, but we did not take these actions in response to specific government demands or regulations.
The video feature is working for English speaking Americans, Canadians and Australians. The scenario is quite different when it comes to rest of the world. Users of most countries get to see raunchy images but not videos. Then there happens to be a dozen or more countries where searching for sex or porn reveals nothing even weblinks.
Surprisingly Germany is in the banned list as well for reasons yet to be clear. The British, French, Japanese, and Russians do have the access to the adult videos, but the search results are displayed in such a manner that nasty stuff is pushed down the page with safer clips appearing at the top of the resutls page.
Latin America, Newzealand, outh Africa and Rest of Europe do get access to hardcore images but they have no access to Video content whatsoever. Same is the case with Spanish speaking Americans and French speaking canadians.
As happens in these cases, there is always someone who succeeds in finding out a workaround limitations of these sorts. This time Indians have found that changing your residence to Australia, Canada(English) or United States (English) will provide them access to the full Bing with no restrictions on the adult content.
Yahoo gets Binged
Jun 7th
As ComputerWorld reports, Microsoft‘s latest search engine sensation Bing just took a few days(less than a week) to overtake Yahoo’s second search engine spot in the US and on a global platform.
StatCounter Global Stats, which performs the task of analyzing Web site traffic released a report just a couple of days ago. According to this report, Bing has made tremendous ground and has managed to grab some market share from long time rivals Google.
StatCounter conducted an activity of analyzing search engine use on Thursday and found some interesting results. As always Google continues to dominate the US search engine market with a 71.47% share, Bing managed to grab 16.28% of the market whereas Yahoo was able to acquire only 10.22% thus getting the 3rd spot. Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter raised a question that whether it is just the initial success or will Bing build on it. He said:
It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner. Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years. Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo at a cost of $40 billion, it looks as if he may have just achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated.
In the global market, Statcounter reports that Bing is making some progress. In the global market, Google is still the leader and has 87.62% of market share. However good news is that Bing gains the second spot by having 5.62% of the market share. With this market share, Bing managed to go past Yahoo which has 5.13% market share.
There is one thing however that is bothering me a little bit. Isn’t it a bit early to call Bing gaining the second spot and claiming that based on the statistics collected by just one source. What do you think?
Microsoft officially confirms Windows 7 boxart
Jun 7th
About a month ago I wrote about the leaked Box shots of Windows 7. Now I just read that Microsoft officially confirms the Windows 7 Boxart.
It was not entirely clear at the time whether the leaked images were concepts in iteration or the final design. Now, to end the speculation once and for all, the boxart has been officially confirmed by no other than the Microsoft Store listing for Windows 7.
It appears the final physical design, color schemes and imagery are also identical to the leaked images. If you haven’t seen already, CentrumXP.pl has high-resolution copies of these images providing a closer look at the finer details decorating the Windows flag, including but not limited to a butterfly and lens flares (not necessarily bad, just, rare).
Now that the full version boxart has been confirmed, there is a high probability the leaked upgrade edition boxart is also real deal, which would actually surprise me due to its unorthodox approach.
Digg introduces voting system for advertisements
Jun 7th
Digg has decided to try and implement a new way to monetize its content and to gain financial benefits. Digg has come up with an approach that involves introduction of a platform which would enable the users and the readers to Digg advertisements or bury them. This is similar to users digging content and news items.
As we gather from the company’s blog, these votes have a value and impact associated to the ads. They will reflect the ads value and relevance. The more votes an advertisement gets implies less the charges advertisers would have to pay. On a similar note, less the votes recorded for an advertisement, more the charges to be paid by the advertiser.
Ads will also be removed from the system if needed. The need for removal will arise if the ads prove unpopular with the users and have a poor vote count related to it. The advertisers might agree with the fact that this approach is a risky one. But Digg, believes that this scheme might serve as the motivating and encouraging factor to optimize and improve their campaigns, thus making their advertisements relevant to the Digg user community. The ads will be represented as sponsored content. But that is the only thing that is different from the normal and traditional Digg content,all the other aspects of ads will have the same look and feel.
The approach adopted by Digg happens to be similar to the one that Facebook implemented a while ago. However, Digg users are quite familiar and engaged with the voting mechanism for content. Electronic Arts and Intel will be among the first advertisers to use this product. This approach will be in beta for the upcoming few months.
It remains to be seen how advertisers respond to this voting system. Only time will tell the success percentage of this approach. Let us hope for the best.
Some interesting things in WordPress 2.8
Jun 7th
WordPress 2.8 is the latest installment of the WordPress platform, scheduled to be released on Wednesday, June 10. Many of the sites use WorPress in order to blog, even me use WordPress.
So there should be some changes from previous versions. Yesterday I wrote about the release date of WordPress 2.8 I also mentioned about the new features you can check it out here..
Today I came across another post titled “10 things you want know about WordPress 2.8”.
There are a number of massive improvements which will make WordPress even easier to use than before, however most of the new features are under the hood. Let us see all of the things one by one, so here are they:
Faster Load Times
The first, of smaller features, but very important features, is the ability to compress both external CSS files and embedded CSS, and the same with Javascript, both embedding and external files. It decreases both load time for the user and saves bandwidth because of compression.
Now Easier to use Widgets
Now you can drag and drop, and auto-save, on any of the registered sidebars for your theme. It’s a lot more useful and much easier to use now.
Plugin Search
Another great addition to the WordPress codebase in 2.8 is enhanced plugin search. For a long time, and still, plugin search is not that great. 2.8 will help fix a lot of those issues and give users a greater opportunity to find what they are looking for.
New Admin Schemas
The blue color scheme received some love and has some updated features. The grey color scheme’s icons were also updated. Overall, the admin style has stayed the same though, since Automattic conducted the user experience testing back in October 2008 to draw up a new administration theme.
Search for Themes
Not only was the plugins browsing area upgraded, but you can also now view and search for themes.
Plugin Search
Another great addition to the WordPress codebase in 2.8 is enhanced plugin search. For a long time, and still, plugin search is not that great. 2.8 will help fix a lot of those issues and give users a greater opportunity to find what they are looking for.
