Apple today announced the public beta of Safari® 4 for Mac and Windows PCs. The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3. Innovative new features that make browsing more intuitive and enjoyable include Top Sites, a stunning visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive.
Apple claims that the new Nitro JavaScript engine executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. Safari loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.
Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. The browser passes the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.
Features in Safari 4 include
• Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
• Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;
• Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes.
• Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones.
• Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history.
• Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches.
• Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text.
• built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility.
• A new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.
Safari 4 is currently a public beta for both Mac OS X and Windows and is available immediately as a free download at safari.
Monday, March 2, 2009
New Version of Safari Web Browser is Available
India Shatters Monthly Mobile Subscriber Record
The nation increased its mobile subscriber tab by a monthly record high 15.4 million people in January, up from the previous record, 10.8 million, in December, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
A large portion of the new additions came from the entry into GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) services by Reliance, a large Indian mobile services provider, a source at TRAI said on Monday.
Reliance added 5 million new subscribers in January to reach a total of 66.3 million subscribers. Reliance rolled out its GSM services nationwide to 11,000 towns and 300,000 villages at special rates aimed at luring new subscribers.
Previously, the company only offered mobile services based on CDMA (code division multiple access).
India's largest mobile services company, Bharti Airtel added 2.7 million new subscribers in January, taking its total to 88.3 million.
The country's mobile market has not been affected by an economic slow down, posting monthly increases in subscribers of about 10 million in recent months.
Consumers in India regard spending on communications as a necessity, according to research firm IDC. Growth in unit sales of PCs has been flat, in contrast, with businesses buying less, IDC said.
IT spending in India is forecast to increase by 5.52 percent this year, down from 13 percent last year, research firm Gartner said last week.
The total number of wireless subscribers in India was 362 million at the end of January, while the total number of telephone connections - fixed and mobile - crossed 400 million, TRAI said on Friday.
In the fixed telephony segment, the number of subscribers continued to decline. The subscriber base decreased to 37.75 million in January from 37.9 million subscribers in December.
Windows Vista SP2 Release Set for May
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) looks set to be released in mid-May, after Microsoft completed work on the package, according to reports.
The company would only confirm that it recently notified some testers of a new build, but declined to say whether that was a release candidate, dubbed 'RC' in software development parlance.
Vista SP2 RC's release was first reported Thursday by Ars Technica , which claimed that a group of invitation-only testers had been told of its availability via Windows Update, Microsoft's update service.
Late last month, the Malaysian Web site TechARP.com said that Vista SP2, the next major update to the problem-plagued operating system, was ready as a release candidate 'escrow' build, and would make it to RC no later than Friday.
The final version of Vista SP2, said TechARP, will be a release-to-manufacturing (RTM) build that should be ready sometime in the first half of the second calendar quarter - in other words, before mid-May.
Microsoft, meanwhile, stuck to a broader second-quarter target for Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. "Microsoft distributed notification of an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 testers in an effort to gain additional feedback," a spokeswoman said in response to questions. "We will have more to share on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 soon."
The one public version of Vista SP2 issued so far was the beta posted in early December 2008.
Elsewhere, TechARP also recently reported that Microsoft has told its hardware partners that it will not provide them with an OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK) containing Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 until 60 days after the general availability of Windows 7, Vista's successor. Previously, TechARP had said that computer makers would not be required to use Vista SP2 on new hardware, as is usually the case when the Microsoft finishes an update of that size.
"Don't expect to see any products with Windows Vista SP2 or Windows Server 2008 SP2 until at least two-to-three months have passed after Windows 7 is launched," the site said earlier this month. "End-users, though, can receive Service Pack 2 via Windows Update."
Microsoft released a public beta of Windows 7 on January 10, but as of yet, it has not set a timetable for the new operating system's release.
Google Apps Dashboard Provides Downtime Details
Google has made good on a promise to keep its customers better informed of service outages by introducing a new dashboard for Google Apps.
The feature comes after Gmail went down for a couple of hours worldwide due to a coding problem, although Google said last year it would make more efforts to inform customers after several Gmail outages last August.
The Google Apps Status Dashboard shows a list of applications such as Gmail, Video and Docs and a green check if the service is up, according to the company's enterprise blog.
If not, it shows either a red 'x' representing a service outage, a yellow wrench for a service disruption or a blue 'i' icon for more information. The dashboard also has an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed.
The dashboard will be available to subscribers to Google Apps, the company's hosted suite of collaboration, messaging and office productivity services.
Nokia to Launch Laptop Range
Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has revealed it is considering launching a range of business laptops.
According to Reuters, Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo confirmed the move during an interview on Finnish TV.
"We are looking very actively also at this opportunity," Kallasvuo said in answer to whether the phone manufacturer would diversify into the laptop market.
"We don't have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a mobile phone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging. Today we have hundreds of millions of people who are having their first internet experience on the phone. This is a good indication."
Nokia's admission comes after laptop manufacturer Acer revealed at this month's Mobile World Congress it will be launching a range of smartphones later this year. The Tempo handsets will run the Windows Mobile platform and will offer super-fast web access, built-in GPS and 5Mp cameras.
Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight, told Reuters: "All leading mobile network operators and retailers are adding connected notebooks and netbooks to their portfolios alongside mobile phones. On this basis it comes as no surprise that Nokia is evaluating this segment".
Sify Launches Cricket Streaming for Ind-NZ Series
Commenting on this initiative, Mr. Venkata Rao Mallineni, Head of Portals and Consumer Marketing, Sify Technologies Limited, had this to say: "We are extremely happy to bring the series live to a global audience on Sify.com, aimed at providing viewers with the convenience of watching the game from wherever they happen to be."
We checked out the service at sify, the scorecard updates every minute or so. If you have a broadband internet connection, click on the "Watch Live Streaming" button (find it under the "Full Scorecard" page) to start watching YouTube-like streaming video of the cricket match in progress.
