Google is now inviting developers to submit their Chrome extensions to the Chrome Extensions gallery. At the moment, it is only possible to upload extensions to the online repository, currently in limited beta. Google will soon allow two-way traffic in a limited manner, meaning that some beta testers will be allowed to download the extensions that are uploaded in the next few days.
All extensions will have to pass through a fully automated review process, except for those extensions “that include an NPAPI component and all content scripts that affect "file://" URLs.” Extensions beyond the scope of the automated review process will be vetted manually. Developers can supplement their extensions with explanatory text, screenshots and/or YouTube videos.
“During the last few months, our team has been working hard to support extensions in Google Chrome's beta channel. Today, we are getting one step closer to this goal; developers can now upload their extensions to Google Chrome's extension gallery. We are making the upload flow available early to make sure that developers have the time to publish their extensions ahead of our full launch,” programmer Lei Zheng wrote on the Chromium blog.
Where is half of the world's mobile data bandwidth disappearing? The avaricious Apple iPhone is devouring more than half of the global mobile data bandwidth, according to a new report published by mobile advertising company AdMob. The report details the mobile internet usage trend during the month of October. This is the first time that the iPhone's share of the global mobile internet traffic has gone past 50 percent. It stood at 43 percent at the end of September.
The iPhone is almost performing out of its skin when it comes to hogging mobile data bandwidth. This is because its share of the global smartphone market is just a third of its contribution to the world's mobile internet traffic. Symbian smartphones came in a distant second in October with a 25% share, down 4% from the previous month. While RIM and Blackberry smartphones lost a bit of their share, Android's share rose to 11% during the month.
Amazon has added a native PDF reader to its Kindle 2 e-reader, making it only the second device in the Kindle family to boast this feature. The Seattle-based company also announced a much enhanced battery life for the Kindle 2. The longer battery life, it says, is the fruit of a six-month-long firmware improvement program.
According to Amazon, it has managed to extend the Kindle's battery life by 85 percent, which translates to seven days on a single charge with wireless turned on. But apparently Amazon's firmware improvement program failed to yield any such improvements in battery performance when the wireless is turned off. These enhancements will be delivered to existing Kindle owners as part of a firmware update. Some earlier versions of the device will also be receiving native PDF supports via Whispernet wireless.
Barnes and Noble is facing an enviable predicament, that of failing to keep the Nook in stock. But Amazon made it very clear in a press release that the “Kindle is in stock and available for immediate shipment today.”
Google has conveniently spurned its own Adsense policy by adding Adsense ads to Google Earth. The Adsense policy clearly bars developers from milking desktop applications using Adsense ads. The ads appear on the right side, in the search section of the application, and whenever a user clicks in one of the red markers. This could prove to be a precursor of a full-fledged invasion of the desktop, which could open a new revenue stream for developers of desktop apps.
Many tech analysts feel e-book readers will have to breach the $100 price point if they are to go beyond their niche audience. With the number of companies lining up to try their luck in the nascent e-book reader market increasing rapidly, the contenders will soon realize that e-readers will need a wider audience for even a few of them to stay in the hunt.
According to Scott Liu, chairman of electrophoretic display (e-paper) maker Prime View International (PVI), e-readers will not be breaching the $100 price point in 2010 as the demand will stay strong. He told Digitimes that electrophoretic displays are becoming affordable but his company is still not offering them to clients at reduced prices.
Just recently an American man accused of robbery was exonerated after a Facebook status update posted at about the same time as the robbery became his alibi. But Nathalie Blanchard, a 29-year-old Canadian woman, witnessed a different side, a much darker side, of using Facebook. Her rather jaunty Facebook alter ego has cost her dearly.
This IBM employee has been on sick leave for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with major depression. As if her long-drawn battle with depression wasn't enough, her insurance company, Manulife, withdrew her monthly sick-leave benefits this fall, using her happy Facebook pics as a pretext. Pics of Blanchard partying and holidaying were enough to convince the insurance company that she was back to normal.
The fun she was having, or trying to have, was strictly therapeutic - just what the doctor ordered, says Blanchard. She is also miffed at Manulife's meddlesome ways: the insurance company accessed her photos despite the fact that she has chosen to limit her profile to only friends. "My client was diagnosed with a major depression. And there were pictures of her on Facebook, in a party or having a good time. It could be that she was just trying to escape," Blanchard's lawyer Tom Lavin told CBC News.
The insurance company admits using social networking sites to keep a tab on clients. But it claims that it does not terminate claims "solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."
As one of the leading developers of games for mobile phones, Gameloft wields considerable clout. The France-based games developer has decided to cut back on the development of games for Google's Android platform just like other developers. According to Gameloft finance director Alexandre de, the Android Market is not all that conducive to paid applications.
He revealed that his company sells "400 times more games on iPhone than on Android." But with the number of Android-based phones growing with each passing day, it will be difficult for games developers to completely ignore the platform. However, there are a lot of issues that Google will have to address, if it wants Android to be taken seriously as a games platform.
Google is striving to make YouTube friendlier for deaf and hard of hearing people. It today announced the launch of machine-generated automatic captions. But it has chosen to limit the technology to a few YouTube channels for now.
The auto-cap feature has been built on top of the YouTube caption system, and uses the same speech-to-text technology as Google Voice. Though the auto-cap feature is only meant to work with English-language speech, it is possible to automatically translate these automatically-generated captions to 51 different languages.
Another new feature has been added to YouTube in the form of "automatic caption timing." Captions are created using the transcript (text file) uploaded by the user. Google's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology helps ensure that each word hits precisely the right mark on the timeline, making it easier for users to manually create captions.
"Each of these features has had great personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, but also because I'm deaf. Today, I'm in Washington, D.C. to announce what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: machine-generated automatic captions," Google engineer Ken Harrenstien wrote in a post on the Official Google Blog.
Windows 7 is the best PC operating system ever, according to Steve Ballmer. "We've already sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable time frame," an exultant Ballmer informed shareholders at a meeting on Thursday.
Its latest operating system has helped the company obscure the spectre of Vista's failure. A couple of NPD reports published during the past fortnight indicate that Windows 7 has so far surpassed Vista in terms of sales, revenue, and adoption rate.
One shareholder apparently became the face of moderation for a bit during the meeting when he questioned Ballmer about Apple's huge popularity with the younger generation. Ballmer admitted that there is some room for improvement. But on the whole, he seemed satisfied with the fact that Windows is by far the most popular OS in the world.
Asus will soon be bringing NVIDIA’s 3D Vision technology to notebooks in the form of the Asus G51J 3D. NVIDIA and Asus will be showcasing the G51J 3D at Pepcom’s Wine, Dine & Demo media event on Nov 19th in New York. The notebook will have a 120Hz 3D Vision-capable display fitted directly into its chassis.
The list of 3D Vision-compatible games is growing continuously. It currently boasts over 400 titles, including Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Star Trek D-A-C. All 3D Vision-capable notebooks will ship with 3D Vision active-shutter glasses.
“NVIDIA and ASUS have a passion for gaming and cutting-edge technology, and this is another example of how great companies working together can deliver awesome new platforms to our combined customers,” said Asustek’s PC Wang. The G51J 3D will hit the market next month.
The beta of Office Mobile 2010 is also now available from the Windows Mobile Marketplace. However, it is only meant for Windows Mobile 6.5. The consumer version of Office Web Apps – the online version of Office - is yet to bid adieu to the technical preview stage, however, the enterprise version has safely reached beta.
An anonymous commenter paid with his job for what was an earnest attempt to breathe some life into a discussion on a newspaper’s site. Last Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a blog post titled “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?” One anonymous user replied with “a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy.” But his terse reply was deleted within one minute of being posted (probably for being way too brief). The obdurate commenter returned to repost his single-word comment, only to have it deleted once again.
But the paper’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum, who had posted the concerned article, managed to track down the anonymous poster using the WordPress e-mail alert that accompanies every comment. The alert included the commenter's IP address, which was found to be from a local school.
“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot,” Greenbaum wrote in a blog post on Monday. Was it right on the paper’s part to pursue an anonymous commenter? If yes, then what is the point of allowing anonymous comments? Have your say without the fear of getting fired.
Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky is expected to shed more light on the company’s plans vis-à-vis IE9 when he delivers tomorrow’s keynote speech. According to Cnet, Microsoft will not be previewing IE9 at PDC. It also ruled out the possibility of Microsoft switching its browser to the WebKit engine.
They entered the building by drilling a hole in the roof. Initial reports differ on the number of iPhones pilfered, with the number hovering between 3,000 and 4,000. The thieves have compounded wireless carrier Mobistar’s woes: the carrier is finding it hard to keep pace with the huge demand for the iPhone.
Mobistar says it has already blacklisted the serial numbers of the stolen phones, effectively staving off their use on its network. However, it may prove to be a futile attempt as the iPhones sold in Belgium don’t feature a SIM-lock and so can be used on another network. There is still no breakthrough in the case.
“CyberPower customers can configure and order a Gamer Xtreme system with the super speed USB 3.0/SATA III interface today. With Intel's latest i5/i7 processors and P55/X58 chipsets, you'll enjoy maximum performance today and be ready for tomorrow. Both USB 3.0 and SATA III are backward compatible to assure users their current peripherals will not become obsolete,” the company said in a laconic press release. The Gamer Xtreme range starts at $749.
According to the report, a vast number of such fraudulent online pharmacies are based out of Russia, while the bulk of their victims are from the United States, Germany, Britain, Canada and France. A lot appears to be at stake as online charlatans are earning thousands of dollars each day by selling drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza online. "The criminals can be members of more than one affiliate network, and some have boasted of earning more than $100,000 per day," Sophos said in a statement.
“The strategy and vision of Zune is to continue to build out that full entertainment experience. This is a very important step for us to introduce Zune to new consumers around the world,” Christine Heckart, general manager for TV, video and music marketing at Microsoft, told the Financial Times. Apart from rebranding the video service on the Xbox 360, the company will also be introducing direct access to social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Now, the company has upgraded its app store to offer enhanced anti-piracy protection, a better developer’s portal for its registered independent software vendors (ISVs), and the ability to make application purchases from the PC.
But the enhancement that should interest WinMo users the most is the ability to “browse and buy applications from the PC.” All applications bought from the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site will be delivered wirelessly to the user’s Windows phone. Microsoft will make the store accessible to Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 customers later this month.
According to a fresh report, Wistron is developing a 5- to 6-inch device featuring Polymer Vision’s flexible e-paper technology. Brian Chong, chief of product planning at Wistron, told Digitimes that the new device will borrow its design from the Readius e-reader. The plan is to launch it in 2010.
Polymer Vision’s Readius e-reader made heads turn when it made its first public appearance. But Polymer Vision soon found itself in financial disarray that culminated in bankruptcy, and the Readius never came close to being launched.
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