Tech News

Apple Will Replace Dead Battery iPads For $99

2010-03-15T10:37:00.001-07:00

The Battery Replacement Service FAQ on Apple's site outlines their policy for handling iPads with diminished battery capacity, and its surprisingly generous: for a $99 service fee, they'll send you a replacement iPad.

The first two items on theFAQ lay it out plain and simple:

If your iPad requires service due to the battery's diminished ability to hold an electrical charge, Apple will replace your iPad for a service fee.
Note: Your iPad is not eligible for Battery Replacement Service if the product has been damaged, for example, as result of an accident, liquid contact, disassembly, unauthorized service or unauthorized modifications, or if the product is not operating correctly as a result of a component failure. Please review Apple's Repair Terms and Conditions for further details.

As to how much it costs:

The service costs $99, plus $6.95 shipping. The total cost is $105.95 per unit.
All fees are in U.S. dollars and are subject to local tax.

If you're still skeptical, they spell it out in a section on backing up your data:

You will receive a replacement iPad that will not contain any of your personal data.

Batteries losing their ability to hold a charge is just a sad fact of gadget life, and, short of allowing for user-replaceable batteries, there's not a whole lot Apple can do about it. This policy, at least, should make things a bit easier to bear.

8 Things That's bad About the iPad

2010-03-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

A lot of people at Gizmodo are psyched about the iPad. Not me! My god, am I underwhelmed by it. It has some absolutely backbreaking failures that will make buying one the last thing I would want to do. Updated

Big, Ugly Bezel
Have you seen the bezel on this thing?! It's huge! I know you don't want to accidentally input a command when your thumb is holding it, but come on.

No Multitasking
This is a backbreaker. If this is supposed to be a replacement for netbooks, how can it possibly not have multitasking? Are you saying I can't listen to Pandora while writing a document? I can't have my Twitter app open at the same time as my browser? I can't have AIM open at the same time as my email? Are you kidding me? This alone guarantees that I will not buy this product.

No Cameras
No front facing camera is one thing. But no back facing camera either? Why the hell not? I can't imagine what the downside was for including at least one camera. Could this thing not handle video iChat?

Touch Keyboard
So much for Apple revolutionizing tablet inputs; this is the same big, ugly touchscreen keyboard we've seen on other tablets, and unless you're lying on the couch with your knees propping it up, it'll be awkward to use.

No HDMI Out
Want to watch those nice HD videos you downloaded from iTunes on your TV? Too damned bad! If you were truly loyal, you'd just buy an AppleTV already.

The Name iPad
Get ready for Maxi pad jokes, and lots of 'em!

No Flash
No Flash is annoying but not a dealbreaker on the iPhone and iPod Touch. On something that's supposed to be closer to a netbook or laptop? It will leave huge, gaping holes in websites. I hope you don't care about streaming video! God knows not many casual internet users do. Oh wait, nevermind, they all do.

Adapters, Adapters, Adapters
So much for those smooth lines. If you want to plug anything into this, such as a digital camera, you need all sorts of ugly adapters. You need an adapter for USB for god's sake.

Update: Why stop at 8? Here are more things we are discovering that suck about the iPad.

It's Not Widescreen
Widescreen movies look lousy on this thing thanks to its 4:3 screen, according to Blam, who checked out some of Star Trek on one. It's like owning a 4:3 TV all over again!

Doesn't Support T-Mobile 3G
Sure, it's "unlocked." But it won't work on T-Mobile, and it uses microSIMs that literally no one else uses.

A Closed App Ecosystem
The iPad only runs apps from the App Store. The same App Store that is notorious for banning apps for no real reason, such as Google Voice. Sure, netbooks might not have touchscreens, but you can install whatever software you'd like on them. Want to run a different browser on your iPad? Too bad!

20 Megapixel 3G Camera Phones On the Way

2009-10-12T07:22:00.001-07:00

US : Two new coprocessors have been announced which provide up to 20MP capabilities for 3G camera phones. Texas Instruments say that the new coprocessors provide up to 20 Megapixel ( still imaging capabilities ) and 720p high-definition video recording ability. The new coprocessors are the latest additions to the OMAP-DM5x family.

The OMAP-DM515 and OMAP-DM525 coprocessors accelerate imaging and video performance. The OMAP-DM515 offers 12MP camera imaging capabilities whilst the OMAP-DM525 offers 20MP camera imaging capabilities. Both offer DVD quality to 720p.

The OMAP-DM515 is available now and OMAP-DM525 coprocessor is expected in 2010 and is currently undergoing sampling.

The specification of the devices includes :

- Industry's highest MP support, with up to 20 MP capabilities and high-quality 720p HD video capture
- Integrated software that delivers stand-alone consumer electronics quality imaging and video:
- Perfect moment technology: Captures a series of shots then select the best image in a series
- Smart lighting: Compensates for backlit and low-light environments
- Face tracking: Identifies, recognizes and focuses on faces
- Auto scene detector: Determines appropriate settings based on environment
- TV-out capabilities enable content sharing on larger screens
- Works with a variety of 3G mobile baseband and application processor solutions

5 Rules for Better Web Writing

2009-09-09T03:17:00.001-07:00

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashableregularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of putting together a website or social media campaign is the copy. Many people assume that the same words that work for print campaigns or materials can just be copied and pasted for the web, but that’s just not true. The web is an entirely different medium, and copy needs to be treated with the same respect that design and user interface elements get.

Text is a very important part of user experience on the web, so it needs and deserves the same sort of design consideration. You must make your text usable in the same manner that you do the rest of your website or social media campaign materials. In short: text is user interface. Here are five rules for writing better for the web.

1. Know Your Objective

This actually applies to any sort of copywriting. Unless you have a clear picture of the end result, your writing won’t be as clear as it could be. Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with each bit of text you write. Once you know the objective, you’ll be able to more clearly articulate what you need to get across to your customers in your copy, and you’ll be able to identify any superfluous text that you can throw out.

2. Know Your Audience

The web is unique as a marketing platform because it can be so hyper-targeted. You can theoretically know exactly who your audience is and target your writing accordingly. Further, depending on where you’re writing, your audience will be different. Any time your audience changes, you may need to make changes in your copy as well. Obviously writing for Twitter is different than writing for your blog, but writing for your blog is different than writing for email, which is different than writing forFacebook, which is different than writing forMySpace, and so on. Before you lay any words down on the page, figure out who you’re speaking to, and write with them in mind.

3. Keep it Short

Studies have found that the more words you add to a web page the less time people spend reading it. Attention spans are shorter on the web, so your writing will be more effective if it is also kept shorter. One study found that users only spend about 4.4 seconds on a page for every 100 words of content. When you factor in average reading speeds, that means users generally only read about 18% of the text on a page (perhaps less — since at least some portion of that 4.4 seconds is probably spent doing things other than reading page copy). That suggests that if you keep your copy as concise as possible, it will be more likely that your website visitors will actually read more of your text. Of course, you can adjust this rule based on your audience — some audiences might be more likely to read long articles than others.

4. Make it Scannable

Because only a portion of your text is actually likely to be read by your audience, it’s also important to write with scannability in mind. That means readers should be able to get the main gist of your copy even if they just scan it. When it comes to scannability, large blocks of text are your enemy. It is nearly impossible to quickly draw out the key points from a long paragraph, so when presented with one, many readers will just skip over it automatically. Make it easier for them to pull out the central topic points by using descriptive headers and sub-headers (like the ones in this article), bulleted lists, highlighting of key points, and images or diagrams, which can both break up the monotony of text and present the same information in a different way.

5. Embrace Constraints

Every platform has its own set of constraints when it comes to writing copy. The most obvious example right now is Twitter, which enforces a 140 character limit on every message you send, but every platform has limitations (for example, messages on Facebook can only have very limited formatting). These limits can be seen as a burden, or they can force you to think creatively about your content. If you only have 140 characters to work with, for example, you have to work extra hard to pack as much information as you can into each tweet while maintaining a voice consistent with your brand’s other copy.

What Will Apple Announce Tomorrow? Here Are Some Possibilities

2009-09-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that Apple will be hosting a media event on September 9th (tomorrow) where it will likely make some big announcements and even launch a few new products. The event is focused around music, if its rock and roll theme is any indication. The Mac and iPhone maker usually holds an event around this time every year.

And much like past years, the September 9th event has been a hotbed for speculation within the media. There has been constant chatter around iPods with cameras, a new version of iTunes with Facebook and Twitter integration, The Beatles coming to iTunes, the fabled Apple Tablet, an appearance by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and more that could be revealed at this event.

So what should you actually expect this Wednesday? While we are not oracles and can’t predict what Apple will in fact announce, we can gather a pretty good idea from the reports we’ve gathered and the evidence we’ve seen. Below is our assessment of what could happen at this week’s media event, from a new line of iPods to the potential first public appearance of Steve Jobs:

iPods

This event is almost guaranteed to be focused around the next generation of Apple’s media player. It just wouldn’t make sense if Apple didn’t announce a new iPod at this event. So what iPod announcements should you expect?

The speculation has focused around iPod Touches with cameras. Just like an iPhone, the iPod Touch line would now be able to take pictures (with a 3.2 MP lens), record videos, and upload them to the web with ease. There will probably be other iPhone 3G S-like upgrades, such as compass navigation and perhaps voice recognition. The key is the camera, though.

The new iPods could launch this month or even tomorrow, although some rumors indicate that it may not appear on the market until later this year.

The fate of the older generation of iPods, like the Classic and the Nano, is not yet known. Some believe they’ll be discontinued as a line, but we’re not so sure about that discussion, especially in regards to the Nano.

iTunes

There seem to be two likely announcements in terms of iTunes. First, it’s almost guaranteed that Apple will announce a new version of iTunes, iTunes 9. Most likely this new version will improve the interface, address concerns with organizing iPhone apps, and include music sharing features via Twitter, Facebook, andLast.fm.

The other announcement could be that The Beatles are finally going to be downloadable in the iTunes store. The date of Apple’s keynote adds fuel to the fire of this rumor – it is the same day of the launch of The Beatles Rock Band, which itself is a reference to Revolution 9. A deal struck earlier this year between Apple and the storied rock band also makes this announcement a likely one.

Apple Tablet

We separated fact from fiction a short while ago on the subject of the Apple Tablet, but here’s the essential news: while the Tablet most likely exists, it probably won’t appear at this event. Tomorrow’s Apple keynote is a music-centric event focused on iPods and iTunes, not on a brand new computing product. It also appears to need a bit more time before it’s ready for the market.

Our suggestion: don’t hold your breath for a Tablet surprise, because you’ll probably pass out. Still, anything’s possible and the Tablet could blow us all away.

iPhone

No, you’re not going to see a new iPhone. Yes, you’re likely to hear more about the iPhone 3.1 OS upgrade. Bluetooth voice control and improved video editing controls should be part of the package. And while releasing the iPhone 3.1 OS during the keynote would make sense, the activation of MMS for AT&T customers could be included in the package as well, which would make its release date September 25th.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, who recently went back to work after battling illness for most of this year, is rumored to be the man who will give this keynote. He’s always been the man with the keynote, and while Phil Schiller (Senior VP of Marketing) did a great job with the 2009 Macworld keynote, Steve Jobs is now back in command. If he’s healthy enough to lead Apple, he’s probably healthy enough to handle this keynote.

If that’s the case, Wednesday would mark the first public appearance by the Apple CEO since his leave of absence.

These are just a few of the things that you can expect tomorrow. Apple always likes to pull out surprises though, so if you think you can predict what else it will launch or announce tomorrow, be sure to add it to the comments.

HOW TO: Plan a Wedding on the Web

2009-09-09T03:14:00.001-07:00

Noa Gafni is a social media consultant with a focus on women and Gen Y. She authorsWebutantes, a blog about Internet trends impacting women.

Wedding planning can seem like an overwhelming process — with so many details to take care of and options to choose from, where does one begin? Fortunately, there are many online resources available to offer advice, ideas, and even some deals. You can solicit tips from experts, use tools to stay organized, and share updates with friends and family. With the help of social media, your big day can be everything you had hoped for.

Getting Started

Particularly in the early stages, it’s hard to know where to start. Luckily, many sites provide planning resources from the onset. The precursor to any wedding, of course, is getting engaged, and Where to Get Engaged will help you find inspiration for your proposal. Users can discuss how to pop the question on forums and blogs, and watch real engagement videos, as well as find vendors (for things like rings and flowers). You can register in stealth mode to avoid surprises, or conversely, integrate with your existing social media profiles, and even create a blog to document your proposal.

Once you’ve gotten engaged, it’s time to start planning the big day. Because planning a wedding is such a big task, OneWed figures you need all the help you can get. The site enables couples to seek out friends and family to share tips and offer advice. The Wedding Checklist feature provides a customizable task list that can be edited, delegated, and, of course, checked off once completed. By sharing the planning workload with friends and family, you can free yourself to spend more timeactually enjoying your wedding.

Weddings, though, don’t generally come free, so you’ll need a way to keep on top of how much everything you’re planning costs and how it fits into your budget. WedSnap, the creator of a number of Facebook wedding planning tools, has a Wedding Budget application that offers an itemized breakdown based on one’s overall wedding budget and number of guests. The budget covers all categories, including the reception, photo/video, fashion, music, flowers and decoration, rings, transport and hotel, ceremony, and stationary.

Finding Vendors

The wedding industry is vast, and selecting quality vendors can be difficult, especially when you’re trying to stick to your budget. Large sites like The Knot, Bridal Fever, and Brides.com offer local directories based on region, as well as discussion forums, enabling couples to get advice and reviews about vendors in their area. On the Wedding Channel’s Community, profiles include location, making it easy to reach out to other users in the area, and Project Wedding provides a Vendor Reviews section that can be sorted by date (newest/oldest), score (highest/lowest), and the reviewers’ credibility.

Because weddings are one-time affairs, most wedding vendors don’t get a lot of repeat business, so it’s not likely that you’ll have personal experience with many of the vendors you’ll end up working with. Local directories can help you find everything from a venue to a caterer to a photographer and by relying on the reviews of others, you can help assure that you’ll be working with vendors that will make sure you wedding goes off without a hitch.

Invitations and Wedding Websites

Keeping guests informed and involved is often a challenge. Paper invitations, save the date cards, and directions to the reception are both expensive and often misplaced. Luckily, there are a variety of online tools that can be easily located and synchronized with email and calendars, as well as cut costs, save paper, and engage guests.

While you may not be able to completely do away with paper invitations (since it is doubtful that all of your guests will be tech savvy enough to rely solely on electronic invites), creating a wedding web site is essential. Your wedding web site will be able to provide guests with vital information about the wedding schedule, location, travel arrangements (such as nearby hotels and restaurants), background about you and your fiancé, and links to your registry. There are a large number of options for creating your web site, including MomentVille, eWedding, and MyWedding.com.

Another option is Zank You, which provides wedding websites with multimedia capability, so that guests can not only post comments, but upload songs and videos in the guest book. Zank You also provides couples with the ability to poll guests on their wedding websites so you can involve guests in wedding planning decisions (such as whether to go with the prime rib or the NY strip).

Wherever you choose to create and host your wedding site, you can augment your site with the Bridal Guide Save the Date Widget, which allows your guests to add your wedding information to their calendars with one click. Also be sure to check out Weddingbook, which is another Facebook application from WedSnap that allows users to fill out a profile with wedding details, a countdown, and registry info. Couples can add their wedding party and guest list, enabling guests to connect with each other on the social network before the event.

Sharing the Big Day

Even after the wedding is over, your guests will still want to hear from you. Send a thank you tweet once you’re back from your honeymoon, and upload pictures onto Facebook and Flickr. Use sites like thisMoment or Panraven to create multimedia storybooks of your big day, and even consider creating a hard bound photobook of your wedding as a keepsake for close relatives (like your parents or grandparents) at Blurb or Lulu.

You can also take advantage of your wedding web site after the big event and encourage your guests to keep in touch and share any pictures or video they may have shot during the wedding. Create an invitation-only group on Flickr and invite guests to share photos, or create a special wedding hashtag on Twitter and ask guests to tweet their memories of the wedding. By keeping connected with guests on social media sites you can share with them other milestones in your new life together.

Hierarchy of Digital Distractions Topped by iPhone, Email, and Retweets [PIC]

2009-09-09T03:13:00.003-07:00

Call it a Maslow’s Hierarchy for the digital age: David McCandless’s Hierarchy of Digital Distractions breaks down what trumps what in the new universe of always-on communication.

Entries at the top of the pyramid win your attention over the lower levels of the hierarchy when they come in. Note that landline still has a place here but is thoroughly trumped by anything coming in on your iPhone. It also has to compete with the large vertical range of Twitter, and is ultimately beaten out by retweets and tweets from hot strangers.

Facebook makes a surprisingly low showing, occupying only the lowest two levels of the hierarchy and topping out at a notification of a cool party. Zombie flagellation, however, rightly beats out any plain old invite.

Email has about the same vertical reach as Twitter but descends even lower into the pyramid for anything “work-related.” A message from a romantic partner narrowly beats out emails “linking to video of kittens frolicking” which, depending on the day, we imagine might flip-flop.

At the very top of the pyramid is the ultimate arbiter of them all: your significant other closing the laptop lid on your fingers. At the very bottom? Any kind of actual work.

We think Mr. McCandless has managed to peg it all quite well here. My only quibble is that “new voicemail” shows up so high on the list — flagellating zombies is objectively more interesting. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have emails linking to funny cat videos to attend to.

EMAIL ADDICTS: Gmail Users Consume the Most Email

2009-09-09T03:13:00.001-07:00

Do different personalities choose different email clients, or is it that different email clients foster different habits? Will a Yahoo Mail user open and read as much email as the average Gmail user? This is the type of data that can be essential for both researchers and marketers.

eMarketer picked up on some recent numbers released by MailChimp that indicate that, in fact, Gmail users are more likely to open emails and click on links within them when compared to the other mail email clients.

The following is a graph of email engagement, based on MailChimp’s analysis of over 184 million emails:

While Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL mail users are very similar in terms of the amount of email they read (the low 20% range) and how often they click on links (between 4.2% and 4.5%), Gmail users open emails at a 30.9% rate. They also click on links 6.4% of the time.

As eMarketer points out, Gmail also produces the lowest bounce rate of all email services, although that probably has more to do with Gmail’s spam protection than any other factor. As for why Gmail users are more engaged with email, the answer may be about Gmails more tech-savvy demographic, or it could be that the Gmail interface is more friendly to opening emails. It’s tough to stay.

Gmail’s still a smaller player in the scheme of things, though. Yahoo Mail still dominates with about 106 million visitors, as compared to Gmail’s 36.9 million uniques, just over 1/3 of Yahoo’s traffic. As Gmail continues to grow, these engagement numbers may change. As a marketer though, you should be thrilled with Gmail subscribers to your email lists.

Palm Pixi Now Official, Coming to Sprint For the Holidays

2009-09-09T03:11:00.000-07:00

The other webOS phone from Palm, oft rumored Palm Pixi (originally spelled Pixie), has been officially announced, and it’s coming to Sprint “in time for the holidays.”

The device is the thinnest phone Palm has ever produced; just like the Pre, it also has a full QWERTY keyboard, but in a candy bar body. Other specifications include 8GB of onboard storage, a 2 megapixel camera equipped with flash, a 2.63 inch capacitive display with a 320×400 pixel resolution, and…no WiFi.

It’ll also come in many different colors and designs as part of something called the Palm Pixi Artist Series, which will offer a selection of limited-edition back covers for the device. As far as price goes, since Pixi is Pre’s younger brother, it’ll probably be lower than $149.99 which is how much Sprint is currently asking for the Pre.

14 Alternative Browsers That Are Not IE6

2009-08-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, we’ve been waging an IE6 Must Die campaign here at Mashable (see thepost that kicked it off here). In that spirit, we thought it wise to arm you fine folks with a few alternatives for your web browsing pleasure.

Some of the members of this list are heavyweights in their own right you may have heard of. But others are a bit farther off the beaten path, and we encourage you to experiment with a few and let us know what you think.

Are there contenders in this list to subvert the web browsing paradigm? What browser(s) do you use and why? Let us know in the comments!

1. Mozilla Firefox

This open source, cross-platform favorite is the one almost everyone knows about already. With a huge number of available add-ons and even more customization available via user-created Greasemonkey scripts, Mozilla’s Firefox offers a highly tweakable browsing experience for power users.

The latest version 3.5 is supposedly faster than ever, but in practice I personally find it feels subjectively slower than past iterations. Have any feedback on its browsing speed? Let us know in the comments.

2. Apple Safari

Based on the open source browser engine WebKit, Apple’s Safari 4 is available for both Mac and Windows machines. Featuring support for HTML 5 media tags and loads of extras, Safari is a full-featured contender for your web browsing arsenal.

3. Google Chrome

Officially only released for Windows so far, Google Chrome is yet available to the adventurous Macintosh or Linux user by grabbing the Chromium nightly builds (which we’ve found to be quite stable overall).

Based also on WebKit’s layout engine and application framework, Chrome prides itself on browsing speed and to that end we find it delivers. This one has been gaining market share quickly and is definitely one to watch in the browser space.

4. Internet Explorer 8

If you’re a staunch supporter of the IE lineage and want to stick with it, then there’s no reason not to upgrade to the latest version, Internet Explorer 8. It offers better web standards compliance and enhanced performance when working with dynamic sites built with AJAX, which in this day and age tend to be a majority of the great social sites we use daily.

5. Opera

With a history of innovation and standards support, Opera has been a respectable browser option since the late 90s. Though it’s never captured quite as much market share as one might expect, its highly usable implementation on mobile devices nevertheless makes it a browser with a broad and multi-platform reach.

6. Camino

Camino is a Mac-only browser dedicated to providing the best specifically Mac web browsing experience for OS X users. An open source project based on Mozilla’s layout engine, Camino also features add-ons and integrates with a number of OS X features and services.

If you currently use Safari and want to give Camino a try, they have a handy migration guide for getting your settings and data ported over.

7. Flock

Billing itself as the “social web browser,” Flock features a number of social media integrations with sites like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Blogger, Picasa, Gmail and more.

Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, Flock is also powered by the Mozilla application framework. When it first launched it sparked lots of debate regarding whether a specialized approach would be viable in the marketplace versus something as customizable to your needs as Firefox. What do you think — is the service-integrated approach of Flock valuable? Have you used the browser? Let us know your impressions in the comments.

8. Seamonkey

Wait — another browser from Mozilla based on Mozilla? Yep. The Seamonkey Project inherits the application suite-ideology of what was once the Mozilla Application Suite, bundling a web browser together with an e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client and HTML editing.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one internet suite that integrates all the above functions, you can give Seamonkey a try for Macintosh, Windows or Linux platforms.

9. Konqueror

For Linux users only, Konqueror is both an open source web browser and a file manager designed as a core element of the K Desktop Environment (KDE). Its name comes from the browser landscape at the time of its initial release in 1996: “first comes the Navigator, then Explorer, and then the Konqueror.”

Though it hasn’t quite conquered the browser market just yet, Konqueror is a popular choice for Linux users. Is Konqueror one of your browsers of choice? Let us know why Linux users should consider it in the comments.

10. K-Meleon

For Windows only, K-Meleon is focused on being extremely fast and lightweight while also remaining customizable. Also based on Mozilla’s Gecko layout engine, the look and feel is crafted via the native Windows API to integrate tightly with the user interface of the Windows desktop.

11. Shiira

Another Mac-only offering, the Shiira browser is based on WebKit like Safari and written in Cocoa. The bold goal of the project is to “create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari.”

Have you tried Shiira? How close is it to achieving its lofty goal? Let us know in the comments.

12. Maxthon

Maxthon is another Windows-only browser option, originally developed in China with the idea of making a browser with a more customizeable interface than Internet Explorer. Hugely popular in China, it also has a bit of a cult following elsewhere for its power features and customization options.

If you don’t mind a bit of obtuse configuration options and a more utilitarian interface in exchange for all the extra options, you might want to give Maxthon a try.

13. iCab

One of the only non-free options on this list, iCab is a Mac-only browser that carries a shareware cost of $20, but can also be used as “nagware” for free (you’ll have to tolerate the periodic requests to register the software). It boasts a number of features it says aren’t found in other browsers.

Have you used iCab? Is it worth shelling out actual money for a web browser, and are the features it touts worth the cost?

14. OmniWeb

Yet another Mac-exclusive browser, OmniWeb is a project of the Omni Group whose other fine software includes great apps like OmniFocus, OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner.

Developed using the Cocoa API, OmniWeb takes advantages of many of the features of the OS X operating system. Once a paid app, the Omni Group earlier this year announced that OmniWeb was going free of charge.

Did we miss any browsers other folks might want to check out? Do you have a good argument about why your daily browser is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

Google Now Offers Over a Million Free Ebooks in EPUB Format

2009-08-28T22:34:00.001-07:00

Have you noticed that Sony launched its best ebook reader a couple of days ago, with an AT&T 3G modem for fast wireless connection? Not by accident, Google has now announced they’re offering over a million public domain books in EPUB format – the exact format compatible with Sony’s Daily Edition reader.

To download a book, search for a title over at Google Books. Public domain titles will have a download link in the upper right corner. Which brings us to the first major difference between the Kindle and this Google-Sony open book strategy: while Amazon only offers 300,000 titles, Google’s million books aren’t, for the most part, the most attractive ones, and Sony’s own ebook library doesn’t offer a choice as good as Amazon – at least when it comes to modern titles.

Sure, if you’re interested in an oldie, such as the Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Google’s library is a good choice, but if you’re looking to buy a digital copy of the latest bestseller, you’re more likely to find it on the Kindle than in Google’s library and Sony’s ebook store combined. You can sometimes buy an ebook online and then transfer it to your Sony ebook reader, but on the Kindle it’s simpler and easier to do.

Google and Sony’s format of choice, EPUB, is also important. It’s an XML-based, free, open ebook standard which can be optimized for different devices, but Kindle does not (natively) support it. So, any titles you have in EPUB format, you can transfer to another device (it’s a bit more complicated than that, since EPUB also supports DRM, but Google’s selection of public domain titles will be free of any restrictions); on the Kindle, it’s forbidden. In geek terms, when it comes to ebooks, Sony and Google are to Amazon Kindle like Linux is to Windows: free and open vs. closed but perhaps easier to use. We’ll see which one wins in the end.

Google UK Office Catches Fire, No Injuries Reported

2009-08-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

Google’s headquarters in London, located in an office building on Buckingham Palace Road, have caught fire. Daily Telegraph reports that the fire was quickly extinguished, staff in the building was evacuated, and luckily no injuries were reported by the firemen.

The fire is apparently the result of a barbecue gone bad. “All I know is that there was a barbecue on a roof terrace on one of the Google floors,” a Google spokeswoman told Telegraph.

Daily Telegraph reporter Jon Swaine managed to catch a photo of the fire and share it on Twitter. See it after the break.

10 Fabulous Free Social Apps for Mac

2009-08-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

If you’re a Mac user and a social media addict, what’s better than social apps for the Mac? Free social apps for the Mac, of course!

In this post we’ll take a look at 10 gratis programs for connecting to your social world via OS X. From file sharing to instant messaging, from Twitter to social television, there is very likely something on this list for you.

Do you know of any great free social Mac applications that are not listed? Let us know about them in the comments.

1. Dropbox

Looking for a dead easy way to share even large files with people quickly? Check out Dropbox, a great utility app for the Mac (it actually runs on Windows and Linux as well) that essentially gives you 2 free GB of unrestricted cloud file storage.

A bit of a Swiss army-knife type of app, Dropbox does a lot of other things besides file-sharing. It can serve as a great automatic backup utility for important files as well as one of the easiest ways to synchronize a set of files between two computers, even across platforms. You also get a web-based interface for accessing your files, which is useful if you’re using a machine without Dropbox installed.

Further, you can increase the amount of your free space by 250 MB for every new user you refer to the service. Anyone who signs up via a referral link also gets an extra 250 MB.

2. Skitch

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We really can’t rave enough about Skitch (we recently profiled it in our fun image generators list). Part screen capture tool, part easy doodling app, Skitch is also a dead simple way to quickly share screencaps, images and illustrations with others.

Included in the cost of this free app is server space for file storage, so in one click you can send an image to the web. There are privacy controls for your images as well, so you can make specific things public, or keep them private from anyone who doesn’t know the URL. You can even get an embed code or forum URL if desired.

Skitch also keeps a history trail of the images you send to the web for later retrieval and you can set it up to upload your pics to your own FTP server instead of the Skitch servers.

3. TweetDeck

Everybody has their favorite Twitter client, and the one I keep coming back to always seems to beTweetDeck. It’s certainly worth doing the TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop head to headcomparison for yourself (as well as checking out some of the other Twitter clients out there), but the interface and functionality of the former has won me over.

It’s got all the standard features you’d expect like inline URL shortening and the ability to send and receive tweets, plus goodies like multiple columns, groups, multiple account management,Twitscoop trends, short URL previews, and even a way to sync multiple instances of TweetDeck between different machines and your iPhone.

Disclosure: TweetDeck partnered with Mashable to create MashDeck, a branded version of the software.

4. Gruml

Gruml is a desktop application that synchronizes with Google Reader for feed reading and brings many of the social features of gReader along with it. There are some who think RSS’s usefulness has been usurped by things like Facebook and Twitter, but to many it’s still the bread and butter method of staying up to date on what’s going on in their field.

Gruml brings the Google Reader RSS experience to your desktop and includes its social features like starring, liking, and sharing posts with notes and/or tags. You can also see headlines from stories that your friends have shared with you.

Gruml also comes with built-in Twitter integration, letting you tweet articles directly from the app itself after conversion to a short URL. It’s in beta for now so there may be the occasional bug or wonky bit here and there, but overall it’s a promising way to take your RSS experience to the Mac desktop if you already use Google Reader for your news-gathering.

5. NetNewsWire

If you don’t already use Google Reader and are looking for a good desktop RSS and Atom client for the Mac, check out NetNewsWire. Featuring a number of OS X integrations, attention filtering, delicious.com integration, blog posting integration, and more, NNW sports a familiar Mac-style three-paned interface.

6. Flock

Flock is a social web browser we recently profiled in our alternative browsers that are not IE6feature. It features tight integration with a plethora of social sites including Facebook, Twitter,Flickr, YouTube, Wordpress and more.

If you basically live on the internet, which we completely empathize with, Flock might be a great web browser to add to your arsenal. Remember there’s no reason (that we can think of) not to use multiple browsers at once, especially if you run a lot of cloud apps and so on.

7. Adium

If you use more than one instant messaging service regularly, you’re going to want a chat client that can support multiple protocols and accounts seamlessly. Not only does Adium deliver that, but its default sound when your contacts log in or out or send you a message is a quacking duck. What’s not to like?

The free and open source Adium supports a boatload of chat services including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, Facebook Chat and more. With a customizable look and feel and a number of user-created themes and icons to choose from, Adium is my IM client of choice on the Mac.

8. Boxee

Television over the internet is all the rage these days, and if you’re a Mac user into video content, one app you’ll definitely want to check out is Boxee. Boxee is basically a socially-enabled media center for your Mac, allowing you to browse both your personal media collection as well as your favorite online video services in one convenient and easy to use interface. It’s designed to give you a great experience for internet content on your television screen, and works with the Apple Remote control that ships with a number of Mac models (and is available for purchase separately).

It’s also a highly socially-aware app, giving you the ability to broadcast what you’re watching to your Twitter, FriendFeed, or Tumblr accounts. You can set fine-grained controls about what to broadcast, including recommendations, watched items, music you’ve listened to, and items you rate.

Besides pulling in content from various video services like YouTube, Comedy Central, Revision3, CNN, MTV and more, Boxee also connects to social music services like last.fm and Pandora (as well as to your local music collection).

9. Hulu Desktop

Unfortunately, one thing Boxee currently lacks is a great integration with the uber-popular TV and movie streaming site Hulu, thanks to an on-again off-again contentious relationship between the two. Hulu continues to do everything in its power to block Boxee users from accessing Hulu.

However, for users there is hope in the form of the Hulu Desktop app. If you’re a television and/or movie buff with a penchant for streaming content, the desktop app offers a nice fullscreen viewing experience as well as support for operation via the standard Apple Remote.

Once tied to your regular Hulu account, you have access to your queue and subscriptions as well as the ability to rate items and get recommendations.

10. Skype

We’d be remiss for not mentioning this staple voice calling app. Skype is one of the leading voice over IP (VoIP) services on the web, and you can use it to make free voice calls between any two computers running the software.

For an astonishingly small amount of money you can do a lot of other cool things with Skype too, like send text messages from your computer, get low-cost international calling to landlines around the world, forward calls to your cellphone, get a “Skype In” number your friends can use to make a local call to you from regular phones, get voicemail services and more.

But since this list is about free apps, let’s not neglect the fact that you can place Skype-to-Skype video calls at no charge, along with group conference calls and group instant messaging as well.

As usual, this is just the tip of the iceberg. What other free social Mac apps are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

First U.S. Rehab Center for Internet Addiction Opens Its Doors

2009-08-23T23:26:00.001-07:00

Over the last few years, a new and disturbing phenomenon has been increasing in frequency. It’s called Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), and it has been the subject of new research and debate. It is not currently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but many argue that addictions to the web and to Internet-based video games like World of Warcraft does indeed exist.

The debate is now back in focus after the Heavensfield Retreat Center announced that it has opened what appears to be the first addiction recovery program for Internet Addiction Disorder in the U.S. Called reSTART, the 45-day program is designed to take serious sufferers of IAD and bring balance to their lives. It already has its first patient, a 19 year old who could not remove himself from World of Warcraft.

The Program

reSTART is a 45-day treatment program out of Fall City, Washington (near Seattle) that takes 2-6 people at a time and essentially cuts them off from the web and works with them to “reprogram” their social skills. It includes work with a recreation coach, a therapist, exercise and yoga instructors, and more. Their website actually provides a detailed sample schedule, which includes exercise, nature hikes, “discovery quests,” career development, therapy, and more.

To qualify for admittance to reSTART, you have to display symptoms of its nine guidelines for IAD. They are as follows:

1. Have a strong desire or impulse to use the internet.
2. Decreasing or stopping of the internet leads to withdrawal symptoms (e.g., general malaise, restlessness, irritability, lack of concentration, dyssomnia); and the above mentioned symptoms may be relieved by similar electronic media (e.g., TV, handheld games, gaming devices).
3. Continually increasing the amount of internet use and the extent of internet involvement to reach sense of satisfaction.
4. Use of internet in spite of its harmful effects; despite knowledge of harmful effects, internet use is hard to stop.
5. Difficulties controlling beginning, and finishing, and the duration of time of internet use; efforts to modify internet use may be attempted multiple times without success.
6. As a result of internet use, interests, recreation or social activities are decreased or abandoned.
7. Internet use is seen as a way to escape problems or to gain relief from negative feelings.
8. The extent of internet use is denied or minimized to teachers, schoolmates, friends or professionals (including actual time and expenditure of internet contact).
9. Everyday life and social function is impaired (e.g., in social, academic and workability.)

For more on Internet Addition Disorder and the debate surrounding it, be sure to read the Wikipedia article on the subject.

Of course, this program is not free. For 45 days, the price is a hefty $14,500. Rehabilitation programs have never been cheap, though, so this price does not particularly shock us.

What Are We to Think of These Programs?

It’s getting tougher and tougher to argue that there is no such thing as Internet Addiction Disorder, especially if you watched the CNN video above. The sad truth is that it’s possible to become addicted to just about anything, and that the web (and World of Warcraft) has sucked many people in so deep that they ignore social interactions and forget real-world obligations.

Does a rehab center for extreme cases make sense? Yes, especially if reSTART can provide scientific proof of success in breaking the addictions of its patients. Still, rehab doesn’t work for all drug addicts, and it probably won’t work for all Internet addicts. And unlike drug addiction, you can’t simply avoid and abstain from using the web; it’s too central to our economy, our work, our education, and our lives to be ignored.

This debate isn’t going away anytime soon, and most likely, neither is reSTART. We want your opinions in the comments below. Do you think IAD is real? Do you think reSTART is a good idea? Is it possible to “recover” from something as central to our lives as the Internet? Please chime in on the discussion.

Southwest Airlines: Wi-Fi on Every Flight by Early 2010

2009-08-23T23:21:00.000-07:00

Social media and Internet addicts, rejoice! When you board a Southwest Airlines flight sometime early next year, you’re going to be able to surf the web via Wi-Fi.

Southwest Airlines is joining Virgin America, American, Delta, United and others in offering Wi-Fi on its flights. The airline just finished its first round of testing on four different aircraft and has decided to roll out Wi-Fi across its entire fleet. In fact, we covered the original tests last year.

The Wi-Fi wil be powered by Row 44, a satellite and broadband service company. This is interesting because Wi-Fi on Delta, American, and Virgin are all powered by rival Aircell.

While everything from YouTube to email was allowed during the test of Southwest’s Wi-Fi, you’re probably not going to be able to use VoIP, Skype, or video chatting. This is a restriction most airlines place on their Wi-Fi service in order to limit possibly disruptive chatter and noise for its other customers.

There’s no word on prices or exactly when every flight will have Wi-Fi, but the target is the first quarter in 2010. That’s not all that far away. Let’s hope other airlines keep picking up on this trend and offer us our Internet fix in the sky.

Get free Sports gifts from freebiejees.co.uk

2009-08-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

There is a site called freebiejees.co.uk which offers you free gifts when you refer from a minimun of 3 gifts. Now i am hopoing to get a nike t shirt which requires 3 referals. This site is not a scam there are many people who had received items from this site.

This site not only allows you to purchase sports items but also has sister sites which allow you to get items which range from i pods( shuffles, nanos, touch)to mac books imacs.It also contains many game consoles which also includes the very latest ps3 slim.

The other option is for you to get your own gift of your choise with your referals using the custom order.

There are only three simple steps for you to get your own dream item that you allways wanted

1.Register by cliking here

2.Complete one offer ( there are some free offers also)

3.Refer friends of yours to join.

If you refer 16 friends you can get an I phone 3G

I pod nano 8GB for 8 referals

for a more detailed view on the gifts and the referals click here

I will be posting some you tube gifts unboxing videos which people had recieved from feebiejees

Hope you all will be making use of this golden oppotunity

GPush Finally Brings Push Gmail to the iPhone

2009-08-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

One of the knocks against the iPhone has long been its lack of push email, a feature that is essential to many corporate users who live in their inboxes. It’s one of the major advantages that the BlackBerry has over the iPhone, especially for enterprise users, and even though the iPhone 3.0 software update added support for push notifications, Apple didn’t update the phone’s built-in email application with push.

Edit: As some commenters point out, push email has been available on the iPhone for other email providers, just not for Gmail.

A new 99-cent application from Tiverias Apps called GPush (iTunes link) aims to change that. Calling GPush simple would be an understatement – this app literally has a one-track mind. The only thing it does is provide push notifications for new emails in Gmail. It doesn’t open emails, or send emails, it just lets you know when new ones arrive, as soon as they arrive, and no matter what you’re doing.

Easy Set Up, But a Bit Flaky

GPush is extremely simple to set up: you just enter your Gmail username and password and that’s literally all there is to it (though you can also control sounds and alert permissions from the iPhone’s settings menu). GPush would definitely make Ron Popeil proud – you really can just set it and forget it. Unfortunately, in my testing today, I ran into some issues, and apparently I wasn’t the only one.

The app had two undesirable bugs in my testing. First, it would occasionally pop up alerts for old but unread emails. Second, it would sometimes miss new emails entirely. Resubmitting my account credentials would usually fix it for a bit, but missing emails is a rather egregious offense for an app that’s sole function is to push notifications of new messages.

Still, if they work the bugs out, GPush is certainly worth the 99 cents for anyone who needs to be kept in the loop on a more instant basis than the iPhone’s current fetch functionality offers. According to Tiverias, a premium version is coming that will support push for multiple Gmail accounts. We hope it also emulates some other BlackBerry features, such as notification profiles, so we could control when we get pushed alerts for email on specific accounts (or better yet, for specific filters).

Digital Textbooks: 3 Reasons Students Aren’t Ready

2009-08-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

For higher education students who spend an average of$702 per year on course materials, mostly textbooks, the prospect of going digital is an appealing one. Among the theoretical benefits of digital textbooks is the possibility of significant cost savings due to lower overhead costs — bits are cheaper than printed pages, after all. Unfortunately, students shouldn’t chuck their backpacks any time soon; there still exist some major hurdles that digital textbooks must overcome before they widely replace traditional, printed textbooks on college (and high school) campuses.

The benefits of digital textbooks are numerous: they’re potentially cheaper, they’re better for the environment (at least so long as you don’t continually need to upgrade your electronic book reader), they weigh less, they can be updated more easily, and they’re more easily searched. But for all that, a number of hurdles still exist.

1. Cost Savings Must be Greater

In theory, digital textbooks should cost a lot less than their printed counterparts. Textbook publishers will always have overhead costs (they must still compensate authors, editors, typesetters/designers, proofreaders, indexers, etc.), but the costs associated with physically printing, binding, warehousing, and shipping the book are eliminated when going digital. Further, many textbook publishers already publish electronic editions of their books. McGraw-Hill, for example, which is one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States, publishes nearly 95% of its books electronically.

In practice, though, the cost savings for electronic textbooks are miniscule. “Human Biology,” a textbook published by Pearson imprint Benjamin Cummings, for example, costs about $50 used, and about $80 new in its printed/hard copy form (according to BigWords.com). Via electronic textbook publisher CourseSmart, the digital version costs just over $70, a savings of about 12.5% over the printed version. However, the printed version can be kept forever or sold back at the end of the semester to mitigate costs, while the electronic version is automatically deleted after 180 days, and requires additional equipment, such as an ebook reader or a laptop computer. As a student, which of these options makes more sense?

“At the moment, there’s not a lot of [cost savings],” Tom Rosenthal, the senior manager of electronic product sales at textbook publisher Academic Press, told the Wall Street Journal. Those cost savings will have to become more significant for students to start opting for electronic texts over printed ones.

2. A Standard Format is Needed

When Amazon announced the larger format Kindle DX in May, and along with it a pilot digital textbook program at several major US universities to be launched this fall — including Princeton, UVA, Case Western, Arizona State, and Reed College — we called it “a game changer.” But it also raises a very important question about formats and ebook compatibility issues.

There are many different competing ebook formats and a huge number of textbook publishers that don’t all use the same format. If I buy a book on the Kindle, it may not necessarily be available on my Sony reader (and I certainly won’t be able to transfer that specific purchase from one reader to the other), and if I buy a book through CourseSmart, I need to use their proprietary software to download it. What that means for students in a practical sense is that vendor lock-in might prohibit them from going print-free even if they wanted to, because not all of their required course materials may be available for the reader or software they invested in. Because buying an ebook reader is a significant initial cost outlay, it’s hard to expect students to make that investment without assurances that all, or at least nearly all, of their required books will be available in that format.

With ebook readers expected in the next year from Plastic Logic, Hearst, and News Corp., and the much-rumored “Apple Tablet” on the horizon, things may only get more muddled.

3. Questions of Ownership

One of the most important stumbling points for the adoption of digital texts is the question of who actually owns the books. CourseSmart’s books, for example, generally only last for 180 days before being automatically deleted, which means that students are essentially renting them for a set period of time. That’s not a consideration students need to make when purchasing a hard copy book from a bookstore, where the answer to question of ownership is very clear.

Further, the recent Orwellian (literally) case of Amazon remotely deleting books from Kindle readers, has rightly raised a number of eyebrows. One high school student even filed a lawsuit against the ecommerce giant when, as he claims, the notes he had made on the book for school were “rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book,” as a result of the remote deletion.

“Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people’s Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon’s bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment,” said Jay Edelson, the lawyer who filed the case.

If students feel that they don’t actually own the textbooks they purchase, or that their books might be taken away before they are done with them (or that their notes might be damaged), they’re unlikely to embrace electronic textbooks.

Conclusion

Digital textbooks are indeed a potential game changer, and they are likely going to be a major part of the future of academia. A year from now, the National Associated of College Stores estimates that digital textbooks could account for 15% of all textbook sales. However, for that to happen, textbook publishers, ebook reader manufacturers, and schools must first address some of the major hurdles that are making students wary of electronic books.

Further, in addition to the problems that exist with the digital books themselves, electronic textbook publishers also need to overcome deeply ingrained student behavior. For many students, the idea of reading words on a screen is not as appealing as on a printed page. That may change as more so-called digital natives progress into higher education and as ebook reader technology gets better, but for now, 60% of students would rather pay for a low-cost printed book than use a free digital version.

“We may have actually made enough progress for this to be a landmark device, but the caveat that humans have proven is that they are resistant to change,” said Andrew Dillon, Dean of the University of Texas School of Information about the Kindle DX device. “Fighting 700 years of human familiarity with paper is a huge challenge.”

Would you use electronic textbooks if available? Let us know in the comments.

Identity Theft: Three Men Indicted for Stealing 130 Million Credit Card Numbers

2009-08-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

Identity theft isn’t a regular topic we cover on h2ovision, but when three people allegedly stole 130 million credit cards, it’s hard not to be bewildered.

Earlier today, a Grand Jury indicted a U.S. man and his two co-conspirators for stealing 130 million bank card numbers in 2007. Albert Gonzales of Miami is charged with hacking and compromising major credit card hubs, including 7-Eleven, Heartland Payment Systems, and Hannaford Brothers.

According to the indictment, the men sold some of the numbers, which were used to make illegal withdrawals from multiple banks. They apparently got around the security of these systems with database injections that helped them intercept credit card transactions in real time.

Gonzales has already been indicted for similar crimes, according to The New York Times. Last year, he was indicted for the theft of 40 million credit cards from companies including Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax, Forever 21, and Boston Market. And even more interesting, in 2003 he was working with federal agents to identify his associates after he was arrested for hacking.

This is yet another reminder of how important it is to secure and monitor your credit cards, financial data, and passwords for any anomalies. This type of thing can happen to anybody. Always rotate your passwords and cancel your credit card if any unknown charges start appearing in your bank statement.

iPhone to Become #1 Camera on Flickr

2009-08-17T19:51:00.001-07:00

For the longest time, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has been the most widely used camera on Flickr. With a 10.1 MP Lens, an image sensor ibration cleaning system, 9-point auto focus, and a mid-range price point, it’s easy to see why the Canon camera has been so popular with the photography enthusiasts on Yahoo’s photo-sharing website.

But while Canon has dominated, there’s another camera that’s been zipping up the Flickr charts. Actually, camera phone would be more precise, because we’re talking about the iPhone.

That smartphone, with its weak 2 MP camera and its lack of zoom, is now set to overtake Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 camera on Flickr. This is according to Flickr’s Camera Finder graphs. Actually, as theLA Times has already caught, the iPhone has already passed the Rebel XTi on a few occasions as the two duke it out for the top spot.

So what does this development mean? First, it’s a reflection of the intense popularity of mobile smartphones and specifically the rise of the iPhone. You always have a camera in your pocket (and with the 3GS, a camcorder too). Just as important is that it’s easy to upload your pictures directly from your mobile phone to your Flickr account. That’s something most digital cameras can’t do, since they aren’t connected to 3G or Wifi connections.

This doesn’t mean people prefer lower quality images over the higher resolution photos that can be captured with cameras of the Rbel XTi’s quality. Instead, it’s a sign that the world is becoming a more mobile place. Being able to get your photos to all of your friends while on-the-go is part of that mobile revolution.

Google Chrome: Now with Bookmark Syncing (for the Brave)

2009-08-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Google keeps on adding and testing new features for itsChrome browser. Things like extensions and Chrome for Mac are still missing, although available if you are adventurous and install Chromium, the open-source project for Google Chrome. Chromium has beta and development features that Google is testing before adding to the Chrome browswer.

Chromium got a new feature, as it occassionally does, but this one definitely caught our eye. The Chromium team announced the addition of bookmark syncing in the developer’s build of Chromium. The new feature will let you keep the same set of bookmarks on multiple machines as well as store them in your Google Docs. This is not unlike the very popular Firefox extension Xmarks.

Here’s how Google explained the new addition, as well as how to implement it:

As of today’s dev channel build, we’re adding a brand new feature to Google Chrome: bookmark sync. Many users have several machines, one at home and one at work for example. This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.
To activate this feature, launch Google Chrome with the –enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account. Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync (using the same XMPP technology as Google Talk).

A note: the Chromium Dev version is the least stable of the Chromium browsers. Windows can crash, new features can need tweaks, and we may never see bookmark syncing ever reach Google Chrome itself. However, this new feature still tickles our fancy, so if you’re brave, subscribe to the dev channeland get the update

FACEBOOK LITE: The Early Details and Screenshots

2009-08-12T02:40:00.002-07:00

We just broke the news earlier tonight that Facebook is launching a newer, simplified version of the Facebook platform, called Facebook Lite. This news comes only a day after Facebook made its blockbuster acquisition of FriendFeedand rolled out its Realtime Facebook Search. You may be asking yourself “what the heck is Facebook Lite?” or maybe “why would Facebook launch a stripped-down version of its website?” We’re here to answer those questions, and we have screenshots of the new Facebook Lite to help us out.

1. What is Facebook Lite?
A: It is a completely stripped-down version of the Facebook platform. From what we can tell, it is almost like a Twitter stream: you can see your most recent status updates and the updates of your friends. There is a left-hand navigation with four main categories: Wall, Info, Firends, and Photos & Videos. It does little more than that.

2. What does Facebook Lite look like?
A: Here is what we believe to be a screenshot of Facebook Lite, courtesy of Hacker News:

Very stripped down, very basic, very reminiscient of Twitter and FriendFeed.
3. Is this Facebook integrating with FriendFeed?
A: Most likely not. The deal is still new to integrate their technologies in this way, and we’re hearing reports that these tests have been ongoing for the last 2-3 days. That would put its development well before the FriendFeed acquisition
4. What’s the point of Facebook Lite?
A: Speculation says it’s a direct assault on Twitter. Facebook continues to find ways to make itself competitive with Twitter. This is why Facebook has been launching features such as public profiles, profile fans, public status updates, and realtime search. Twitter is simple, so Facebook’s fighting back with the same.
However, we don’t know for sure. They may just be making a speedier version for slow connections. We’ll find out more from the Facebook team soon.
5. How can I access it?
A: It’s a limited test for only a subset of users. The fact that thousands, if not millions of users got the test notice was a bug. Most likely Facebook will open up the test to more users very soon, especially since everybody now knows about it.

We’ve contacted Facebook and are awaiting a response on this development. In the meantime, we want to hear your thoughts. Do you think it’s a good idea? What do you think is the social network’s goal is with Facebook Lite? And will people use it?

BREAKING: Facebook To Launch Facebook Lite

2009-08-12T02:40:00.001-07:00

Facebook’s clearly up to something big. Facebook acquired Friendfeed. Facebook rolled out realtime search. And now, it looks like “Facebook Lite” is coming, because thousands of Facebook users have been chosen to test out Facebook Lite, including myself. And just as quickly, the message disappeared. What it is exactly…we’re not quite sure.

Here’s the full text you see on the homepage if you were selected:

“You have been selected as a beta tester for Facebook Lite!
We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It’s not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far.
Check out Facebook Lite now at http://lite.facebook.com.”

The link doesn’t seem to work, but this feels very much like a new and direct shot over Twitter’s bow. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about Facebook Lite.

Guy Catches Laptop With His Butt: YouTube Video Raises Eyebrows

2009-08-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Computer manufacturer MSI is doing a big promotional push for a series of notebooks called the X-Slim. As you might expect, their big selling point is their size: they’re less than 3 pounds and, according to the ads, are less than an inch in thickness.

Core to that promotion is a YouTube contest to win a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and a new notebook. The goal is to create an “extreme crazy video” with an MSI notebook; the company will then choose 15 winners.

However, it isn’t the contest that’s making buzz, but apparently one of the insane demo videos. One where acrobats catch laptops with their butts.

Yes, seriously. The video, launched two days ago (August 10th) has become a viral sensation, growing to over 75,000 views – this is up from just 7000 a few hours ago. The video literally depicts one man in tights using his rear to grasp onto laptops thrown at him.

The video’s so insane that many YouTube commenters think this is a fake video or that the footage was done backwards. How you’d throw a laptop out of your butt though…we won’t even begin to speculate. Regardless, this is great publicity for MSI. Clearly it’s a slim laptop if you can catch it where the sun don’t shine.

Form your own opinion by watching the video below and telling us what you think. Is this a smart campaign? Do you think this is real? Are you as disturbed as we are? Let us know in the comments.

Top 10 Funniest Google Suggest Results

2009-08-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

After we discovered what Google thinks of Twitter we were inspired to spelunk a bit deeper intothe strange and wonderful territory of Google Suggest.

A feature from Google Labs, Suggest offers you real-time suggestions to complete your search query as you type. One of the factors in the algorithm that determines the results is the overall popularity of searches by other users.

Part illuminating, part entertaining and part terrifying, Suggest is a window into the collective search psyche of our fellow humans. And based on the contents of this list — be afraid. Be very afraid.

1. When will…

Esoteric meets practical where concerns over death and the apocalypse meet the need to procure Twilight on DVD and Windows 7.

2. Why is my g…

Attention must be paid, to one’s girlfriend and one’s goldfish. [Via questionsuggestions.com]

3. Can I have a…

Yes, you can has cheeseburger.

4. Is it impossible to l…

Obviously revealing a secret society of would-be elbow lickers. [Via gdumb]

5. Why do…

Seriously though, why do men have nipples?

6. Can you…

We get the concerns about pregnancy. But freezing cheese? Is that a thing now? [Thanks to commenter davidmbigler for this suggestion]

7. Where do…

People are apparently very concerned about the locations of Joe Biden, polar bears, penguins, Robert Pattinson, Miley Cyrus, and Jon and Kate. And of course, where babies come from.

8. How does…

Birth control, David Blaine levitating and Google making money are near equivalent sources of mystery to the human population.

9. Can Jes…

Clearly the top question on everyone’s mind: Can Jesus microwave a burrito?

10. Can go…

Populated perhaps by the same folks wondering if Jesus can microwave a burrito. And a sizeable contingent of people with gonorrhea who want to know if gorillas can swim.