Stainless adds Chrome-like functionality to new Mac browser beta
Download Stainless 0.1 beta for Mac OS X Leopard from FileForum now.
It may not be Mr. Right, as browsers go, but for Mac users who may be craving Google Chrome and who can't wait for the port-over, Stainless makes a case for being Mr. Right Now.
Legislation would force all new US radios to include digital 'HD'
More digital radios, especially those installed with new automobiles, include the capability to pick up digital "HD Radio" broadcasts over the air. But should the government mandate that satellite radio sets include HD Radio capability?
Demonstrating that there actually were at least a few spare minutes for Congress after all, during the debate over the financial bailout plan, House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D - Mass.) introduced a bipartisan bill that will require all future AM/FM radios or satellite radio receivers made or sold in the US to also receive digital HD broadcasts.
BT to test Phorm again, this time telling customers
UK internet service provider BT, a branch of British Telecom, will be running another trial of the controversial behavioral advertising system Phorm.
Last February, British ISPs BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media announced that they had joined together to deliver a targeted advertising platform. However, this was met with public outrage when BT admitted that it had already tested such a system with secretly collected user data.
With an iPod rival on tap, Nokia dumps enterprise software and security
With a new touch-screen phone dubbed "The Tube" rumored for later this week, Nokia is creating a new consumer e-mail service, while dropping its in-house enterprise software development and striving to sell its security appliances arm.
In line with its intentions to turn into more of an "Internet company," mobile phone maker Nokia today announced plans to stop producing its own enterprise software, in favor of pacts with companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco. In addition, it will to sell its security appliances line-up to a financial investor, if a contemplated deal goes through.
Tech stocks slammed amid House rejection of bailout plan
Last summer, companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Apple showed buoyancy amid a gathering economic storm in the US, giving investors confidence they could weather the storm. This afternoon, the storm was upgraded to a 'Cat-5.'"
In the clearest indication to date that the US technology industry cannot sustain its position as the fortress in the storm forever, a precipitous drop in stock values slammed values of shares in technology firms perhaps worst of all. Falling off of a cliff today are shares of Apple Inc., which at one point lost as much as 28% of its value at about 1:50 pm EDT, before recovering slightly to an 18% loss by 2:30 pm EDT at $105.48 per share -- still a 52-week low.
Circuit City looks to better 'customer experience' after another loss
The struggling consumer electronics retail chain today blamed its continuing financial losses on a 'weakened brand image,' together with competitive pressures and the faltering economy.
US retailer Circuit City plans to put more emphasis on "improving the customer experience" in its stores, in the wake of a $162.7 million loss for the second quarter of its 2009 fiscal year. Earlier efforts to do that haven't been "sufficient to reverse our overall business results," acknowledged Bruce H. Besanko, executive VP and CFO.
Microsoft shares early videos, screenshots of Visual Studio 2010
With the next edition of Microsoft's development tools suite, every commercial edition will feature some type of architectural tool that competes directly with a slew of UML-based add-ons, including a major revenue center for IBM.
Though Visual Studio 2008 was only formally introduced last January, the betas of Microsoft's development environment were often found in full production use as early as late 2006. Now with Windows 7 looking to be a reality for around this time next year, Microsoft finds itself accelerating the pace of its rollouts and tightening the beta schedule.
Finally, Nero will let you make your PC into a real TiVo
The final step in making your PC into a TiVo is about to be bridged. Today, Nero AG -- makers of the famous desktop CD and DVD authoring software -- announced its LiquidTV TiVo-for-PC package.
The package includes a Hauppauge USB ATSC TV tuner and USB IR transceiver with paired remote control. LiquidTV offers most of the features of a standard TiVo DVR: online scheduling with the integrated Electronic Programming Guide, recording of up to two shows simultaneously to the hard drive, HD and standard image quality, and support for as many as four tuners.
Baltimore becomes the first Xohm WiMAX city
Sprint's Xohm WiMAX service begins this morning in Baltimore, Maryland. Customers will be able to pay for daily or monthly access to the 4G wireless service without long-term contracts or usage caps.
The expected average downlink speed for the service will be 2-4 Mbps and will cost either $10 per 24-hour block of time or $35 per month for home access and $45 per month for "on-the-go." Sprint also offers multi-device packages in anticipation of future hardware availability.
Apple officially sells unlocked iPhones in Hong Kong
Hong Kong gets the iPhone without the carrier obligations by which many other countries must abide.
Available officially through Apple on its Hong Kong regional site, the 3G iPhone is compatible with any carrier's SIM. However, the devices do come at a rather prohibitive price point: HK$ 5,400 ($694.75) for the 8 GB and HK$ 6,200 ($797.65) for the 16 GB.
Convergence for the smartphone and credit card is nearer
Visa is now readying two sets of credit card payment services on separate continents for users of Android and Nokia smartphones. And there may be more convergence to come around mobile payments in various sectors of the globe.
On a brighter note than most of the other financial news in the world this week, Visa is planning new services for Android and Nokia smartphones that might ultimately make it possible to use your smartphone much like a credit card.
Paul Allen's Evri whips up a semantic widget
Evri, a Seattle-based semantic-Web project backed by Paul Allen's Vulcan Capital, has thrown open the doors on its beta site and on Evri's Garden, a sandbox for researchers and interested bystanders.
Formerly known as Hypertext Solutions, Evri's first widget offering in the Garden is a pop-up that examines the words it finds significant (generally nouns) on a page and returns various related articles, images, and video, and (if sufficient connections are available) a circle-and spoke chart, showing terms with which a given word has a close connection. An automatically generated chart might link, for example, "Barack Obama" with "Joe Biden," or "Beverly Hills" with "Ed McMahon," or "Mariners" with "failure." (I may have made that last one up. You can check for yourself on Evri's site or download the widget for your own uses.)
Latest WebKit build gives Safari a 100% score on Acid3
Download Safari for Windows version 3.1.2 from FileForum now
BetaNews has verified through its own testing that the latest build of the open source WebKit rendering engine, version r36882, makes Apple's Safari for Windows pass the Acid3 rendering test from the Web Standards project: 100%.
Open source office phones get Skype
Alabama telephony company Digium announced its flagship product Asterisk, open source PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system, has released a beta version of Skype for Asterisk.
Since Asterisk is designed for commodity PC hardware, inclusion of one of the world's most popular consumer VoIP clients seems a natural fit. The add-on channel driver module integrates Skype VoIP calls into the Asterisk structure. Skype calls can be made, received, transferred, routed to voice mail or automated menus, and conferenced without the need for any additional hardware.
A response to Vint Cerf: Enough of the content, already
A recent essay by Google's chief Internet evangelist has BetaNews' Scott Fulton thinking about the meaning behind all this content, and whether the evolution of the Internet has made its creators forget the need for meaning.
One of my favorite movies of any genre made in this decade has been Pixar's Wall-E, and one of the reasons is that it depicts skillfully, though gently, the exact nature of a world that has become chock full of content. The title character's world became overrun with stuff, but devoid of people. In fact, the people got so sick of it, they left.
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