Another bug fix release for Google Chrome
Apr 9th
By now, you would probably be familiar with the content of the post just by reading the title of the post. Google Chrome team is upto it again. This time around they have updated the dev channel to 2.0.173.1. Primarily it is bug fix crash/release.
Changes made this time include:
- Fixed a plugin crash related to FoxIt reader. (Issue: 9539)
- V8 proxy resolver support is now enabled by default, and is no longer behind a flag. (Issues: 2764, 74)
- Added a localizable font family and font size for rendered web content. This allows Chrome to display larger characters for certain international font families (e.g. Malayalam and Bengali). (Issue: 7319)
- Fixed a crash which occured when canceling a save page operation. (Issue: 9738)
The issues known to the team were
- Mouse wheel scrolling was not working for windows that were not focused.
- Calendar Widget by Google not updating in the proper manner.
Last week known issue “Inability to drag bookmarks on the new tabb page ” was also fixed.
Screenshot of Windows 7 Build 7077 leaked
Apr 9th
As you can see, screenshots of Windows 7 build 7077 have started to appear around the Web. There are also reports that the 32-bit version has been leaked and is readily available on various websites. Nevertheless, a good source has told me there are no noticeable differences between build 7068 and any of the 707x builds. This is much more important than the information leak of build 7070, though it’s not immediately apparently. In the “About Windows” dialog box, there isn’t an actual build string as we’ve seen in previous interim builds. It simply says “Version 6.1 (Build 7077).” The only other build we’ve seen this for is in the beta build released to the public (which also was leaked before Microsoft gave the download to testers): “Version 6.1 (Build 7000).”
Facebook hits the 200 million users milestone
Apr 8th
Zuckerberg, who created Facebook with two Harvard University roommates five years ago, has announced the milestone in a post on the official Facebook blog.
He said:
“We will welcome our 200 millionth user to Facebook some time today,”
Zuckerberg further said:
“We are working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, whether they are a person, a company, a president or an organization working for change,”
He further said that Facebook want to build and provide the best service for the world whether day-to-day or world-changing.
As technology has made it easier and faster for people across the world to share more and more — from the daily activities of their lives to events that impact their communities.
So in order to celebrate the 200 millionth user, Zuckerberg said Facebook had created a page, “Facebook for Good,” for users to “share their stories about how Facebook has helped them give back to their communities, effect change or connect with a distant relative.”
He further added that the Facebook is growing so rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start. This is why Facebook team is working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, for a person, a company, a president or an organization working for change.
Gmail Mobile improved for iPhone and Android phones
Apr 8th
Yesterday, Google Mobile team announced that they have made significant and impressive changes to the Gmail version used with Android and iPhone devices. These significant changes were made possible using aggressive caching, making use of latest browser technologies namely HTML5 and Gears.The full impact and benefit of these technologies is not completely visible at the current phase, but will enable the Google Mobile team to improve performance and come with more features.
The noteable changes include:
- Improved Speed when opening an email, performing navigation and searching tasks.
- Ability to read, compose email messages in offline mode.
- Improved Look and feel for messages.
- Search menu made more accessible by placing it in the top header.
- Easy to read labels and their look is similar to the one you are used to with the desktop version of Gmail.
- A floaty bar which scrolls with you as you move up and down to making it more convenient for you to archive, delete your messages and other similar tasks.
Few points to keep in mind which include:
- The latest Gmail edition for mobile only provides support to iPhone/iPodTouch OS 2.2.1. or above. If you have anything below this firmware, you will get the previous version of Gmail mobile.
- Supports all android based devices.
- The latest edition is available in English only.
Microsoft allows Windows 7 users to downgrade to XP
Apr 7th
Many Windows 7 users wished for Microsoft to provide an option to downgrade from Windows 7 to XP. Well that wish has come true.
After many requests from various users and various IT departments, to enable downgrading from Windows 7 not only to Vista but to XP as well. Microsoft has come out with a positive response and has said that Windows 7 can be downgraded to Vista and XP as per the desire of the users and companies.
Besides allowing downgrade to XP and Vista, it can be said that you can downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 2000 or even Windows 95 for that matter.
A spokesperson from Microsoft, regarding the much hyped April 30,2010 cutoff date has said the date is not the official cut-off date and is yet to be finalized. The exact statement was
No dates have been announced for the end of Windows 7 downgrade right facilitation to Windows XP.
At the current stage, Microsoft only allows downgrades on Vista Business and Ultimate SKUs, which suggests that not every SKU will be available for a downgrade on Windows 7 as well.
I, personally have no clear idea of why Microsoft would make such a decision, specially after the much popularity and world wide acceptability of Windows 7 when it is only in its Beta version. My guess is that they want to provide this option so that users and organizations may have the chance to downgrade in case compatility issues start occuring.
YouTube in video talks with Sony Pictures
Apr 6th
YouTube users may soon be able to watch full length cinematically-released films, if rumours of a deal with Sony Pictures pan out. As YouTube is reportedly in talks to acquire licensing rights to full-length feature content from Sony Pictures.
Home of such films as "The International" and "Spider-Man," sources familiar with the negotiations told CNET News. Details about what a final agreement could look like are insufficient, but any partnership between the two giants would likely benefit both.
If the deal goes through, it may be the first major YouTube step into premium content (dabbling with content from CBS, MGM, and recently Disney is nice, but none of it brought large amounts of full length features to YouTube).
Such a deal would herald a significant step in YouTube’s evolution as a premium content provider across multiple digital channels; licensed content from major media companies or not. It’s not only about the content; as we’ve written before, having inked deals with major media companies also means easier ad sales.
The deal, however, still hasn’t been confirmed, and Sony Pictures is not exactly known for licensing its entire catalogue to third party sites. If this proves to be the case, this will be just another YouTube deal that looks good on paper, but doesn’t bring its viewers what they really want: large amounts of free, fresh premium content.
Debian gets FreeBSD Kernel Support
Apr 6th
A couple of months ago I wrote about Debian 5.0, which can be viewed by following the link below:
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 released
Debian gets one more step closer to really becoming ‘the universal operating system’ by adding two architectures based on the FreeBSD kernel to the unstable archive. This does not mean that the Debian project is ditching the Linux kernel.
Debian just added two new architectures to the Debian archive.
kfreebsd-i386 AKA GNU/kFreeBSD i386
kfreebsd-amd64 AKA GNU/kFreeBSD amd64
Now Debian users will be able to choose which kernel they want to install (at least on on the i386 and amd64 architectures) and get more or less the same Debian operating system they are used to. This makes Debian the first distribution, and probably the first large OS, to support two completely different kernels at the same time.
Joerg Jaspert wrote:
The two new architectures (well, better named OS i think, as they use a
different kernel) are available in unstable and experimental. We do
start out empty, importing only what is needed to get a buildd
running. For this reason you will not be able to directly use it
immediately. Please wait until they catched up, which I expect to happen
soon.
T-mobile gave tentative release dates for many phones
Apr 6th
Many people are waiting for the goodies that are coming from T-Mobile. T-Mobile has reported some serious information regarding phone release dates through summer. These dates are tentative and subject to change. These fates can change for any number of reasons, but T-Mobile claimed that as of now these dates are correct. Following is the list of the known phones with codenames.
- “Blade” (Sidekick 2009) – May 13
- HTC “Maple”/”Snap” – July 1st (contrary to earlier speculation, this seems to confirm a T-Mobile variant)
- HTC “Rhodium”/Wing II – July 22nd (also known as the Touch Pro 2)
- Sony Ericsson “CS8″ – June 24th (8mp camera)
- Nokia 1661 (prepaid) – April 29th
- Samsung T349 (prepaid) – May 6th
- Samsung T239 (prepaid) – May 13th
- Samsung T559 – July 15th
- Samsung T469 – July 15th (just a simple two-tone gray, apparently)
- Samsung T749 – July 22nd (2 colors for this one: red/orange and two-tone gray)
- Samsung T659 – August 19th
These dates will surely give excitements, disappointments to the T-Mobile lovers.
Nokia E75 now shipped
Apr 6th
The Nokia E75 has arrived in market, Nokia is considering it the best efficiency and productivity solution to the market. It is the first device to ship with the new email user interface, it is also offering full desktop email functionality, and loaded with the complete integration of Nokia’s email and messaging services.
The Nokia E75 has a slide out QWERTY keyboard and efficient three-step email setup. E75 is integrated with Nokia Messaging, which ships with a device for the first time in the Nokia E75.
Nokia Messaging is a service that has the world’s leading consumer email accounts – including Yahoo! Mail®, Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail – and is joined by Nokia’s corporate email clients, Mail for Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveler.
The richer and improved email experience in the Nokia E75 brings all of the owner’s accounts into one simple to access and easy to use User Interface, which supports the most common features for desktop email including expanding views, more features includes the one click reply and sub-folder and HTML support.
Enhanced email functionality is also, upgraded personal information management features such as the ability to create and respond to meeting requests, and contacts lookup and auto-complete, also introduced for the first time in the Nokia E75.
The Nokia E75 also integrates tightly to other Ovi services and ships with Ovi Files, for storing files online, Nokia Maps, which works with the onboard A-GPS, and Nokia’s games service N-Gage which is supported for the first time in a Nokia Eseries device.
Yahoo Image search gets major improvements
Apr 6th
During the last week, Yahoo made and unveiled major changes to its image search service. One thing which one immediately notices with the improved image search service is that the user experience is excellent and apparently superior to that of Google Image search.
Google may have various types of special collections such as the new Life Magazine archives, but Yahoo’ s service is more pleasant to use.
The latest image search interface provides:
- More recommended and suggested search queries.
- Image picking slide show
- Direct link to the image itself.
- Vast filter options
- Filter search by viewing images only from flickr/non flickr sources.
- Various image sizes (including the option to view as a wallpaper)
- View image in black and white color or original colors.
One of the shortcomings of this interesting interface is that it does not provide an option to filter by copyright conditions.
In the end, all I want to say is that the improved Yahoo Image search is really interesting and mind blowing. Go and have a look at it by your self. Let us see how Google and Microsoft respond to this.
