socialrosiechen: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Google Chrome to get Gmail Labs-like experimental features

Many of our readers have been frustrated by having to add command line switches to Google Chrome in order to try out a new feature. In truth, it's really not a difficult procedure (though Windows and Linux users have it far easier than those on Mac) -- but wouldn't it be cool if you could just click something to turn them on?

Starting soon, you just might be able to do that. Google OS spotted a new addition to the Chromium browser: an about:labs page. Load it up, and you'll see experimental browser features which you can enable -- like side tabs on Windows and tab expose on Mac.

At least, very soon you'll be able to turn the features on via this page. Right now, it's not functional. Clicking enable on tabs on the left didn't actually activate the feature for me -- I still had to add the --enable-vertical-tabs switch to my shortcut.

The addition of about:labs is a nice touch, and will allow more users to kick the tires on cutting-edge features. That, of course, is a good thing for Google. A larger group of testers should allow them to tackle bugs more quickly and push features from the dev and canary builds to the beta and stable channels even more quickly.

Google Chrome to get Gmail Labs-like experimental features originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rihanna
Jordana Brewster
Jennifer Love Hewitt

Gboard, il tastierino studiato appositamente per Gmail

Gboard, il tastierino studiato appositamente per Gmail
Google e la sua rapida espansione e innovatività ci portano per forza di cose a utilizzare i suoi servizi. In particolar modo il servizio di Gmail, utilizzato dalla maggior parte delle utenze, in questo momento svolge un ruolo fondamentale per l’invio / ricezione della posta elettronica. Tuttavia, c’è qualcuno che si ingegna ad inventare qualcosa di [...]

gboard

Google e la sua rapida espansione e innovatività ci portano per forza di cose a utilizzare i suoi servizi. In particolar modo il servizio di Gmail, utilizzato dalla maggior parte delle utenze, in questo momento svolge un ruolo fondamentale per l’invio / ricezione della posta elettronica.

Tuttavia, c’è qualcuno che si ingegna ad inventare qualcosa di apposito per il servizio citato pocanzi. Ed infatti il gadget che andremo a presentare oggi prende il nome di Gboard. Gboard è un semplice tastierino sviluppato appositamente per usufruire delle funzioni di Gmail.

(...)
Continua a leggere Gboard, il tastierino studiato appositamente per Gmail, su Geekissimo

Gboard, il tastierino studiato appositamente per Gmail, pubblicato su Geekissimo il 07/12/2009

© Paolo De Michele ( k3asd ) per Geekissimo, 2009. | Permalink | 13 commenti | Aggiungi su del.icio.us
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Post tags: gadget, Gmail, Google, servizi

Malin Akerman
Mila Kunis
Eliza Dushku
Adriana Lima

Mark Zuckerberg has Facebook's only unblockable account

A rumor went around over the weekend that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg couldn't be blocked on Facebook. I just checked, and it's true. Like many others who have tried to block Zuck, I just got the infamous "General Block Failed Error" when I tried to block his account. Every site reporting on this phenomenon has tested and confirmed it, but I thought there was a missing piece: are other Facebook higher-ups unblockable too, or is it just Zuckerberg?

I tried blocking some other folks from the Facebook organizational chart, like Mike Schroepfer and Sheryl Sandberg, and it worked just fine. Even Mark's sister, Randi Zuckerberg (who also works at Facebook) is blockable. So, is this just a joke by Facebook, laughing off Zuckerberg's poor reputation on privacy? I'm not taking it too seriously ... it's not like blocking Facebook employees' personal accounts would stop them from seeing your data if they wanted to, so I'd interpret Zuck's unblockable account as a funny easter egg designed to amuse FB employees and people who get the joke, and outrage those who take themselves too seriously.

Facebook DOES have privacy issues, but this isn't one of them. If you want to block Mark Zuckerberg from seeing information about you, don't put that info on Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg has Facebook's only unblockable account originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olivia Wilde
Megan Fox
Bar Refaeli

Hannspree to introduce a beastly Android tablet at IFA 2010

Expect Android tablet news to flow like water as IFA 2010 gets into gear, so let's start things off with a bang. According to German site Areamobile.de, Chinese manufacturer Hannspree will be introducing a nice, high spec piece of kit that sets a very high bar for others to follow:

10.1 inch 1024x600 display
14 mm thick
1 GHz dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 system on chip
16 GB internal memory
HDMI output @ 1080p
Accelerometer and ambient light sensor
Wifi and Bluetooth
Android 2.2

Pick your chin up, and keep an eye out for more news about this one and more from IFA 2010, Dieter's there on the ground, and as long as there's not a beer tent he'll keep us informed. [Areamobile.de] Thanks GaMMeLHaNsy!

Posted originally at Android Central

Sponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

Eliza Dushku
Adriana Lima

3-way hardware-accelerated browser shoot-out: Chrome on top, IE9 just behind and Firefox brings up the rear (video)

Filed under: Browsers

After yesterday's announcement that Chrome 7 is now hardware accelerated, I instantly wanted to get the major browsers back into the ring for another screencasted deathmatch. Back when I did the 4-way speed test, only Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 featured hardware acceleration, and as a result Opera and Chrome were many orders of magnitude slower. If you watch the video, however, you'll see that's definitely no longer the case: Chrome is now the fastest of the three major browsers.

That speed comes at a price! As I discuss in the video, Chrome might be faster, but it uses significantly more resources than either IE9 or Firefox 4. Firefox is some 30% slower, but at the same time seems to use less CPU and GPU time. IE9 seems to utilize the same amount of CPU time as Chrome, but a little less of the GPU -- and it's marginally slower as a result.

What I don't know is whether this is by design or not. You'll notice that the GPU never went far above 50% -- why, with three browsers open, does it not get closer to 100%? The resources are there to be used -- why not use them?! Likewise, my CPU is still only half-used even when all three browsers are drawing 1000 frantic fishes at the same time. If you're curious, the other IE9 test drive samples all provided similar results. I wanted to try Google's 'HTML5 rocks' sample gallery, but they intentionally used elements of CSS and HTML5 that aren't yet supported in Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 4.

In the name of science, here's some more information about my process: the screen capture does slow down each browser by a few frames per second, but relatively the figures are still accurate. I saw a small deviation in FPS when I was only running one browser at a time (probably because my CPU has multiple cores). There are a few unknown variables too, like whether the CPU core usage is defined by the app, or by the operating system (but with Chrome using more resources than IE9, you can only assume that Windows isn't unfairly biasing its own-brand browser).

If you'd like to recreate my test, you'll need to enable hardware acceleration in Firefox 4 and Chrome -- IE9 has it turned on by default:

Firefox 4 -- grab a nightly build, navigate to about:config and add gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled -- set it to 'true'
Chrome 7 -- grab a nightly build and add the following flags to the shortcut before opening it: --enable-accelerated-compositing --enable-gpu-plugin --enable-gpu-rendering --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas

3-way hardware-accelerated browser shoot-out: Chrome on top, IE9 just behind and Firefox brings up the rear (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bar Refaeli
Malin Akerman
Mila Kunis

LG Loop now available on Rogers

Rogers has begun selling the LG Loop. You may remember it as the LG Optimus, which we've had our hands on at CES in January, and again at Google IO in May. Not really that much to be said, other than it's another notch in the ol' Android belt. Here are the specs and prices:

3.0-inch screen
3MP camera
120 MB internal storage (2 GB SD card, expandable to 32 GB)
Android 1.6 (Donut)
$29.99 with a 3-year contract
$199 with a 2-year contract
$249 with a 1-year contract (or monthly)

The Loop is obviously on the low-end of the Android family, but it does show an important trend that points to Android gaining even more traction in market-share.

It's great that Android has solid high-end phones to compete with other platforms; its growth has been exponential, which has been a great thing to see. This trend is likely to continue as it is installed in more low to middle end phones that customers transitioning from feature phones are likely to start with before jumping for the expensive devices. As they familiarize themselves with the Android platform, these phones, like the Loop, will ease them into it rather than diving into the complex stuff out of the gate. This will increase their chances of choosing better Android phones in the future because they're already used to the platform.

All in all, not a great phone to add to the army, but a signal of a trend that Android is going to proliferate throughout all phones, not just the top dogs. [Marketnews via Rogers]

Posted originally at Android Central

Sponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

Olivia Wilde
Megan Fox

100dollardreams, scommettere bei soldi per avere buone probabilità di vincere

100dollardreams, scommettere bei soldi per avere buone probabilità di vincere
Sicuramente saprete a cosa mi riferisco se vi parlo di aste al ribasso. Per chi non lo sapesse si tratta di vere e proprie aste in cui vince che effettua l’offerta unica più bassa. Appena si capisce il meccanismo la prima cosa che si tende a pensare è di aver trovato un modo semplice di [...]

Sicuramente saprete a cosa mi riferisco se vi parlo di aste al ribasso. Per chi non lo sapesse si tratta di vere e proprie aste in cui vince che effettua l’offerta unica più bassa. Appena si capisce il meccanismo la prima cosa che si tende a pensare è di aver trovato un modo semplice di vincere gli cose costose spendendo relativamente poco. Fatta un po’ d’esperienza ci si rende conto della difficoltà e dell’estrema improbabilità di una nostra vincita.

Ci sono anche i cosiddetti giocatori professionisti, che arrivano a spendere fino a metà del valore dell’oggetto per accaparrarselo, e spesso riescono nell’intento. Le probabilità di riuscire a vincere un premio erano direttamente proporzionali al suo valore, e spesso sfiorava le centinaia di migliaia di possibilità (considerate che ad esempio tra il valore di un euro ed il valore di due euro passano cento puntate).

(...)
Continua a leggere 100dollardreams, scommettere bei soldi per avere buone probabilità di vincere, su Geekissimo

100dollardreams, scommettere bei soldi per avere buone probabilità di vincere, pubblicato su Geekissimo il 25/07/2010

© Angelo Iasevoli per Geekissimo, 2010. | Permalink | 6 commenti | Aggiungi su del.icio.us
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Post tags: fortuna, premi, scommessa, soldi, vincere

Eliza Dushku
Adriana Lima
Freida Pinto
Taylor Swift
Sienna Miller

Firefox Friday, a weekly round-up: Beta 4, Beta 5, Panorama, breaking add-ons and our Private Browsing habits analyzed

This week has produced some fantastic Firefox news. That's a good thing, but because we covered it all on Download Squad in a timely fashion, it leaves me with a bit of a problem: there's no new news to share with you. I've been left with producing a round-up for this week's Firefox column. I've never done a round-up before, but I'm sure it'll be good.

I think I'm meant to take each nibble of news and provide a refreshing, opinionated point of view that throws it into a new light. Let's start with one that got a lot more interest than we anticipated:

1. Firefox 4 Beta 5 will feature a two-column main menu

I think I actually told Lee that this one wasn't worth posting..., how wrong I was!
"It's like one of those Google-search-box-grows-by-18-pixels stories." Personally, I hate Chrome's unified wrench menu, and I'm disheartened to see it make an appearance in Firefox.

This is the next stage of the Web Revolution; where the browser was once your trusty portal to the Web, it will now become a svelte platform for other Web apps. Think of the new Firefox menu as a Windows Start menu, and you'll see what I mean. In fact, I wonder if we'll ever see a browser menu at the bottom of the window, rather than the top...

At least, with Firefox, you can keep the full menu bar -- with Chrome, you're stuck with that damn one-button wrench wonder!

2. ~~Tab Candy, Tab Sets,~~ PANORAMA is confirmed as a new feature of Firefox 4

The brainchild of maniacal, Mountain View-based Aza Raskin has a new name, a new look, and even an introductory video on the Firefox Beta site! It sounds like it's being narrated by someone that's seeking entrance to the Movie Trailer Voice Over Society, but it's well worth watching.

Panorama, if you missed our introductory posts on its predecessor Tab Candy, introduces a whole new paradigm in tab management and, thus, browser-based workflow! Using the "out of sight, out of mind" tenet, Aza hopes that Panorama will greatly improve both productivity and the joy of surfing the Internet. (He pontificates on Pover on his blog, if you want to find out more!)

Of course, if you're an Opera fan, you'll know all about tab grouping, and you won't need me to tell you of its benefits...

3. Erez thinks that Firefox 4.0's extensive changes to its add-on framework are too much too soon

You'd be surprised, but one of the biggest changes in Firefox 4 is also one of the least-advertised: add-ons, and how they hook into Firefox, are changing in a big way with the release of 4.0.

There's always a bit of compatibility pain when a new version of Firefox is released -- usually it's just a matter of developers changing a few numbers in the code -- but with Firefox 4.0 there are so many changes that many popular add-ons might simply not work.

I don't have any hard and fast numbers (nor does Erez) as to how many add-ons will be incompatible come FF4's release, so it's hard to gauge just how big an issue this is. I'm pretty sure this is a case of "it'll get worse before it gets better," with these changes designed to make the transition to Jetpack (in Firefox 5?) smoother. Firefox 4 currently supports both Jetpack and the old-style XUL add-ons that we've all been using for years -- but these changes represent the beginning of the end for XUL, I'm afraid.

4. A Test Pilot study shows when we use Private Browsing, and for how long (read: porn surfers unite!)

The facts are simple: we use Private Browsing for 10 minutes at a time, and we use it during four main time slots. The late-night and after-work spikes are obvious (porn), but that lunch-hour spike has caused a lot of discussion by the community.

I think people are masturbating at work, but then the puritan Adam Pash (of Lifehacker fame) thinks there are plenty of non-porny uses of Private Browsing. I'm not convinced; yes there are plenty of reasons for using Private Browsing but they don't explain why 75% of all private sessions are close to 10 minutes in length. Perhaps people are doing multiple 10-minute activities, but why would you close the browser in between checking your bank statement and Facebook?

I just hope the next Test Pilot study also (anonymously!) captures what sites are looked at in those 10 glorious minutes.

5. Firefox 4 won't support your ancient PowerPC G4 Apple iBook

I'm struggling to find anything interesting to add to Jay's commentary of the issue. The facts of the matter are thus: the G4 iBook probably represents only a few thousand installations world wide. In fact, the iBook is only still used because of Carrie from Sex and the City. Mozilla, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that it isn't a valid use of its time to make its new technology work with 11-year-old CPUs.

Anyway, Jay's advice is to get a new Mac. My advice is to get a Windows 7 PC.

* * *

Firefox Friday, a weekly round-up: Beta 4, Beta 5, Panorama, breaking add-ons and our Private Browsing habits analyzed originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bar Refaeli
Malin Akerman
Mila Kunis

iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox

Filed under: Google, Browsers

One of the most talked about features in Safari 5 has been its Reader function -- Apple's built-in implementation of the Readability bookmarklet. Both are nice ways to reformat articles on blog or news sites for distraction-free reading.

If you like the look of Safari Reader but would rather not change from Google Chrome or Firefox, don't worry. The iReader extension brings the same functionality to your browser of choice!

Like Safari Reader, iReader shrouds the background in semi-opaque blackness . Hover near the bottom of the page to display zoom and print controls, as well as e-mail/Twitter/Facebook sharing buttons. iReader is also highly configurable -- set Gmail as your 'send page' client, change the display font, activate smooth scrolling, set the "curtain" to be more or less transparent, and adjust the reading area and margins. You can also choose hotkey combination to activate iReader (rather than having to click on the Omnibar icon).

Download iReader : Google Chrome extension or Firefox add-on

iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olivia Wilde
Megan Fox

CES 2020: previsioni di un futuro tecnologico

CES 2020: previsioni di un futuro tecnologico
Ci spiace per chi si sta arricchendo sulla stupidità altrui, ma nel 2020 noi saremo tutti qui, freschi e pimpanti come non mai. E ad allietare le nostre vite da geek ci saranno tante succulente novità tecnologiche. Quali? Beh, rispondere a una domanda del genere non è affatto facile, eppure Jason Hiner di ‘Tech Republic’ ci [...]

Ci spiace per chi si sta arricchendo sulla stupidità altrui, ma nel 2020 noi saremo tutti qui, freschi e pimpanti come non mai. E ad allietare le nostre vite da geek ci saranno tante succulente novità tecnologiche.

Quali? Beh, rispondere a una domanda del genere non è affatto facile, eppure Jason Hiner di ‘Tech Republic’ ci ha provato. Ha infatti dato vita ad una fantasiosa lista di gadget tecnologici presenti al CES 2020, manifestazione che – secondo lui – anche tra dieci anni sarà un punto di riferimento per il mondo dell’elettronica di consumo.

L’elenco – sia chiaro – è da considerarsi più come un gioco che come un agglomerato di previsioni “serie”, ma consultarla è interessante lo stesso. Fatelo anche voi e diteci cosa ne pensate.

Occhiali con realtà aumentata

Si tratta di occhiali speciali che, sulla scia di quanto proposto oggi da alcune applicazioni per i telefonini, sfrutteranno la realtà aumentata. Questo vuol dire che, scaricando dati da Internet in maniera intelligente, permetteranno a chi li indosserà di conoscere il prezzo di un determinato bene semplicemente guardandolo, visualizzare i profili on-line delle persone che si hanno di fronte (riconoscimento facciale), visualizzare informazioni stradali in tempo reale e molto altro ancora.

(...)
Continua a leggere CES 2020: previsioni di un futuro tecnologico, su Geekissimo

CES 2020: previsioni di un futuro tecnologico, pubblicato su Geekissimo il 20/01/2010

© naqern per Geekissimo, 2010. | Permalink | 9 commenti | Aggiungi su del.icio.us
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Post tags: ces, eventi, futuro

Nicole Scherzinger
Katie Cassidy
Arielle Kebbel

Google finally updates Gmail's search -- and lets you search your Docs too!

Filed under: E-mail, Google, Search

Google, in its infinite wisdom, has finally upgraded Gmail's advent-of-the-Web-what-is-semantics? search engine to something a little more snazzy. You can now search your Google Docs from within Gmail, and there's also a 'did you mean?' subtitle if you typo a search query.

Despite the update, searching is still slower than a three-legged tortoise. At least the Google Docs results come in asynchronously -- so if you're just searching your email, you won't see any speed degradation.

To enable the new feature, click the green 'beaker' in the top right of Gmail and scroll down to Apps Search > Enable. Save your changes and enjoy your new 'Search Mail and Docs' button!

Google finally updates Gmail's search -- and lets you search your Docs too! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Avril Lavigne
Fergie

Firefox Friday, a weekly round-up: Beta 4, Beta 5, Panorama, breaking add-ons and our Private Browsing habits analyzed

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Nikki Reed
Elisha Cuthbert

Monday, August 30, 2010

New version of Digg released; face-lifted, faster, but is it too little too late?

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

The new version of Digg, after a couple of months of beta testing, has today been released to the public.

If you missed my preview of it back in July, here's the basic gist of new Digg: by virtue of a streamlined UI that requires less clicks, it's faster; you now 'follow' news sources (and friends), which generates a personalised 'My News' page; and... well, that's about it, really.

The new Digg is, mostly, about removing its one-page-to-rule-them-all focus. Digg wants to be your social news aggregator, rather than the plaything of power Digger demagogues. The 'Top News' section is still there, but the idea is that you can now tailor your own page to show sites and articles that come from your favourite news sources, or from your friends. Digg, which has had a flat growth graph for a while, is trying to attract a new, classier, social clientele.

It is, in essence, a Facebook-and-Twitter amalgam, but without the critical mass of users that has made both aforementioned services so damn useful. Digg has always been a bit of a knackered one-trick pony, and by watering down the efficacy of its front page traffic hose, I just wonder if Digg has enough clout to stand proud amongst the heavyweights.

New version of Digg released; face-lifted, faster, but is it too little too late? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lily Allen
Nadine Velazquez

Google takes measures against malicious Chrome extensions, adds developer fee

Filed under: Developer, Security, Google, Browsers

With Chrome's Web app store about to launch and Chrome extensions skyrocketing in popularity, a little extra security makes sense. Right now, there's nothing keeping extension developers from introducing malware or using extensions to take over systems. Google is addressing this problem by adding a sign-up fee for developers and running domain verification for Chrome extensions.

The fee is a one-time payment of $5, which isn't enough to discourage serious developers, but it's too much to throw away on a dummy account (or two, or 50). The same fee covers you for both the extension gallery and the upcoming app gallery. Domain verification is just what it sounds like: it allows devs to associate the extensions they create with their domain names. So, if you trust Google.com, you should be able to trust a Google.com extension.

It's not hardcore security or anything, but it's much better than what's in place now, and it's definitely going to be needed if Chrome apps turn out to be big.

Google takes measures against malicious Chrome extensions, adds developer fee originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charlize Theron
Anna Faris

Foursquare breaks 3 million users, now tells you when you'll be mayor

Filed under: Web services, Social Software

For folks who are sick of checking in at a favorite venue on Foursquare all the time, with no clue when they'll finally become mayor, relief is here! Now, when you check in on Foursquare, you'll see how many check-ins you have toward mayorship, along with your overall total. If you're within 10 days of becoming mayor, you'll also see how many days you have to go. If you need more detailed info about your empire of mayorships, try Mayorama for iPhone.

Don't discount how much people care about mayorships, either. A recent study found that mayorship battles were one of the major reasons people use Foursquare's "off the grid" check-ins, which give points while concealing your location from your friends.

Foursquare is becoming a bigger deal all the time, and it now has 3 million users worldwide. That's compared to the 105 million that Twitter announced back in April at the Chirp conference.

Yeah, I know that Twitter has grown since then, but it does help put things into perspective, considering that Foursquare is a newer company. And Facebook Places hasn't hurt Foursquare, either. In fact, Places launch day was Foursquare's biggest day of signups yet.

Foursquare breaks 3 million users, now tells you when you'll be mayor originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anna Kournikova
Hayden Panettiere
Cameron Diaz

Apple starts rejecting iPhone apps that require registration to work

Filed under: Apple, iPhone

Just when we thought Apple's weird and arbitrary App Store rejections were at an end, they've invented a new reason to keep iPhone apps out of the store. Apparently, Apple doesn't like apps that require you to register for an account before they'll work. Wait, WHAT?

The app that was reportedly rejected is Read It Later, which needs a user account for you to save articles in so you can ... you know, read it later. Apple's rejection notice implied that Read It Later shouldn't be requiring customer registration, because it doesn't provide any "account-based features." Bullpucky!

Here's what Apple said:

"Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content; such user registration must be optional and tied to account-based functionality."

As TheNextWeb points out, that sentence is a confusing mess of contradictions. You can't require registration for your app to function, unless the registration is required for your app to function? I can't even begin to untangle that Mobius strip of a statement.

The funny thing is that Read It Later doesn't even need personal information beyond a username and password. What about apps like Facebook, Twitter, and the like? You can't use those without an account, but I hardly see Apple rejecting them. Read It Later appears to be the first app rejected using this rationale (if you can call it a rationale), and the developers don't have anything to go on in figuring out what it would take to get it back into the store.

I'll follow this post up if Apple responds to Read It Later or rejects any more apps for the same reasons.

Apple starts rejecting iPhone apps that require registration to work originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ciara
Blake Lively
Scarlett Johansson

Google Chrome dev channel hits v7 -- get ready for native code in Web apps!

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Those of you who have been waiting patiently to see what Google's Native Client is all about shouldn't have to wonder much longer. With yesterday's bump to version 7, Google Chrome dev now comes with the NaCl plug-in enabled by default -- and as we've seen countless times before, once a feature is turned on it doesn't take long for Chrome developers to pounce on it.

So, what is Native Client all about? It's Google open source tech which allows native code (the kind of code which powers your favorite desktop apps) to run inside your browser. Assuming that browser is Google Chrome, of course, because no one else sports NaCl support yet. Native code in the browser should mean the arrival of Web apps that truly compete with desktop apps in terms of performance -- which could be a big boost to things like online media converters and photo editors. At the very least, you'll be able to play Quake in Chrome.

If you want to see Native Client in action, Google has a gallery of NaCl demo ports you can check out -- or at least you're meant to be able to check them out. Both Chrome dev and Canary responded with a "missing plug-in" message when i tried to load them, even though Native Client was enabled (as you can see in my screenshot).

The dev channel update was actually quite a major one, though it mostly contained bugfixes and cleaned up code. The full log of revisions is available here.

update: as reported in the comments, you need to add the --enable-nacl flag to your shortcut. I've done that, and the demos still don't load, however. The missing plug-in message did disappear at least...

Google Chrome dev channel hits v7 -- get ready for native code in Web apps! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pen�lope Cruz
Hilary Duff

Review: Daily Tracker for iPhone

Review: Daily Tracker for iPhone
Daily Tracker from CVZ Productions is like a Swiss Army knife of productivity apps. This thing does a little bit of everything; though you can’t actually stab anyone with it, I don’t want you to think that detracts from its value or anything. It’s fairly safe to assume that I have become somewhat obsessed with to-do [...]

Daily Tracker from CVZ Productions is like a Swiss Army knife of productivity apps. This thing does a little bit of everything; though you can’t actually stab anyone with it, I don’t want you to think that detracts from its value or anything.

It’s fairly safe to assume that I have become somewhat obsessed with to-do and/or productivity apps lately. Back in July I reviewed Taskly which quickly became, and remains my favorite to-do app, so you may be wondering why I’m even looking at Daily Tracker, it being simply more of the same boring old tool that most usually ends up reminding you, not of what you need to get done, but just how much you suck in getting anything done at all. That’s a valid question, and the answer is simple; Daily Tracker isn’t just a to-do app.

With Daily Tracker you can track almost anything you can think of. Miles jogged, books read, exercise, hours studied, really, the possibilities are nigh endless. It’s kind of like a replicator from Star Trek, you tell the app what you want to do and it let’s you set it up with ease. Ok, that may be a weak comparison, you can’t just tell Daily Tracker you want some hot tea and wait for it to materialize on your desk, although now that I mention it I haven’t actually tried that…

Daily Tracker is a to-do list, personal organizer, journal, spending tracker, and time clock all rolled into one app. And you can even keep track of all your favorite RSS feeds with it, though I feel this function is a little clunky; not nearly as smooth as with a dedicated feed reader, but hey you can’t be great at everything can you? The app comes with several built in trackers like a Sleep Tracker to help you monitor your sleeping habits, which I didn’t care for because it bascially requires you to just set a Daily Tracker timer just before you go to bed and stop it when you wake up. I made a new Sleep Tracker for myself where I just input the hours and minutes I slept the night before and any relevant notes. For instance, I awoke at exactly 3:45am this morning for no apparent reason and was unable to go back to sleep for a solid hour or so; I hate it when that happens, but now with Daily Tracker I can keep an eye on it and see if any patterns pop up.

The to-do list itself is actually kind of bland and simple. There are no bells and whistles here. Sorting by, or even assigning priority to a task is missing which is a shame, but I’m OK with that because, oddly enough, I probably wouldn’t use Daily Tracker for my to-do listing anyway. This minimalist to-do function might, however, appeal to many who are tired of overly complex GTD-style systems.

Daily Tracker has the potential to replace several apps with its versatility and customizability, and that is its appeal. It supports adding voice notes, maps, and pictures to notes, but I will say that it is kind of fussy to do these things on the fly as opposed to the quick, one-two punch action of capturing a hurried voice note with, say, Evernote. I know, I know, Daily Tracker is not Evernote, it’s more actually.

I stand by my earlier Swiss Army knife analogy for Daily Tracker. When you buy a Swiss Army knife you look at it, bristling with all its nifty little concealed…things, and you probably say to yourself that you’re never going to use even half of those tools. But, carry that knife with you for a while and you might begin to notice that you actually rely on it more than you thought. That’s how I feel about Daily Tracker; it might not excel at any one of the many things it does, but it does so many things it manages to make itself pretty dang useful.

I guess all that usefulness doesn’t come cheap; Daily Tracker is available from the App Store for a cringe-inducing $9.99. You can download a fully functional Lite version to try it out before you take that leap. The lite version limits you to a certain amount of daily entries, but other than that you get all of Daily Tracker’s functions. From there you’ll have to decide for yourself whether that versatility is worth the cost.