Microsoft unveils new IE9 Developer Preview and Test Drive site
Microsoft is continuing to push on its?Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) project, hoping to continue early momentum that has brought some new sheen to the venerable brand.
The company is releasing a new Developer Preview, the 6th for IE9, and a new Test Drive website to allow the masses to interact with the underlying technology of the browser without committing to using it.
Twitter Debuts Official App for Windows Phone
Twitter has just announced an official mobile app for Windows Phone. The application is available immediately for all Windows Phone 7 devices.
Twitter also?says this app is particularly fast and brings users all of the features that you’d expect from Twitter.?
Electrostatic feedback: how future touchscreens might shock us
Toshiba and Senseng have developed a prototype of an electrostatic variant of vibrotactile feedback for touchscreens in other words, they’ve developed a way for users of smartphones, tablets and other touchscreens to get tactile feedback from their devices using static.
Flickr Now Lets You Sign Up With Your Google Account
Flickr announced today that Google would be its first partner in its introduction of?OpenID for new account signups. Starting today, anyone can sign up for a new Flickr account using their Google account.
Adobe Demos Flash-to-HTML5 Conversion Tool
When we talked to Adobe’s Paul Gubbay about how?the company sees Flash and HTML5, he made it clear that Adobe is very interested in supporting both platforms.
At Adobe’s MAX conference the other night, that message was made manifest with a live demonstration of a?Flash to HTML5 conversion tool, which is currently in the works. The tool is incredibly impressive in that it can convert full Flash animation into HTML5 on the fly.
Myspace Accused Of Ripping Off Stealth Startup Pinterest
This morning?Pinterest co-founders Ben Silberman, Paul Sciarra and Yashwanth Nelapati woke up to a barrage of?tweets,?So @myspace has completely ripped off @pinterest. It really pisses me off when an old, tired hack tries to undermine hardworking inovators. [sic]?Myspace revealed its new redesign last night and Pinterest users quickly picked up on the similarities between the two site aesthetics, leading to an?intense Twitter debate.
Sencha Takes On Flash With HTML5 Animator Sencha is making a big bet on HTML5. The company, which was formerly known as Ext JS, raised a hefty?$14 million round led by Sequoia Capital in June. Since then it has been perfecting its HTML5 framework Sencha Touch a framework that lets you build mobile web apps for iOS and Android that feel?almost native and are also cross-platform. And today, the company is adding another big addition to its product suite:?Sencha Animator.
Apple holding “secret summit” with select iOS devs next week
Business Insider is reporting that Apple is set to hold a?secret iOS developer summit next week. The event apparently begins next Tuesday and will run for three days. While Business Insider doesn’t have any firm details yet, they speculate that the purpose of the summit is to improve the quality of apps on iOS devices in order to stave off competition from Google’s Android App Store.
Google makes some design changes to Gmail in mobile Safari The first change is a that scrolling now mimics the speed of your swiping on the screen, making longer messages easier to read through. The second change is that the toolbars within Gmail are now locked while you scroll (they used to appear after you were finished scrolling).
Google donates $5 million to promote journalism
Google has donated $5 million to non-profit organizations promoting new forms of journalism, including $2 million to the Knight Foundation, which will but $1 million of that toward the the Knight News Challenge.
PayPal Announces Micropayment System and Facebook Partnership
The company calls PayPal for Digital Goods the online equivalent of dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a newspaper or play a video game. With a few lines of code, developers can integrate PayPal micropayments into their websites.
Google Docs’ New Charts Editor Adds Timelines, Org Charts, and Better Data Visualization
Google Docs just rolled out a new Charts Editor that brings some impressive new tools to Google-Docs-built charts. Those new features include organizational charts, annotated timelines, and a motion chart for visualizing data over time. They’ve also given an all-around facelift to their regular old charts.
Macworld posts MacBook Air benchmark results
The folks at?Macworld ran some formal benchmark tests on both the 11.6-inch and the 13-inch Airs, comparing them to their predecessors and even a 13-inch MacBook Pro. The results may surprise you. To begin, the?Speedmark 6.5 score doubled when comparing the 13-inch 1.86GHz MacBook Air and the 2009 13-inch 1.86GHz MacBook Air (Speedmark is Macworld’s benchmark test suite). Most of the gains were made over drive-based tests, as the new Air’s flash storage was able to show off a bit. Duplicating a 1GB file on the new Air took 13 seconds; compare that to 69 seconds on the model from 2009. Likewise, compressing a 2GB folder was 21% faster on the new Air.
Twitter Hits 300 Employees As The Search For A New Office Continues
This past June, we?noted that Twitter had zoomed past 200 employees basically doubling in just six months. The rapid hiring pace continues at the startup, though not quite as quickly. The company has just hired their 300th employee a?tweet confirms today.
After Ten Years, LimeWire Capitulates To The Music Industry
The music industry lawyers just put another notch on their wall. After ten years of existence, peer-to-peer music sharing serviceLimeWire is joining Napster, Kazaa, and all the rest. It will abide by a court-ordered injunction today and begin to disable the file-sharing and music-searching features of its P2P software. Years of?legal battles and the prospects of paying?astronomical fines finally did the service in.
Top 5 TED Talks On Tech
Everyone needs a little inspiration now and again, and there is usually no better place to go than to TED to catch up on what the world’s real visionaries are working on. TED regularly hosts brilliant people from around the globe to talk about their ideas for the future.
Google is giving away 10,000 Google TVs to lucky developers
Want a Google TV filled with all that Android goodness, but don’t want to pay for it? You may be in luck, that is you might be if you went to the right conferences or have some serious programming chops.If you attended the Adobe MAX conference, you should have been a part of Google’s 3,000 unit giveaway. If you missed it, circle back and raise Cain, free stuff is too important to miss. Secondly, if you are a member of the Google Code community, Google is going to be calling your digits to ship you a device.
What if none of that applies to you? You can always submit an entry to the Google TV Web Developer Promotion, to be considered for a free Google TV. Really, if you want to develop for the new platform do yourself a favor and get started without paying hard cash.
Facebook rolls out a new design and features for Pages management
Manage a Facebook page? Chances are that you’ve been frustrated at one time or another with trying to change things on it, even as simple as editing a name of a page. In answer to that frustration, Facebook has (it seems)?just rolled out new page management tools.
How To: Avoid Getting Fleeced By Firesheep
Over the last 24 hours the world has been abuzz with talk about a small Firefox extension. Usually Firefox extensions don’ make headlines, but in this case one did. Why? This extension is called?Firesheep, and it’s scary.
