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  • New Skype Beta for Mac
    Skype released a new Beta client for Mac OS X yesterday. The most important changes are:

    • Effortless search integrating the Mac AddressBook
    • Group Video calling has finally arrived on the Mac
    • New call control bar that let’s you monitor the most important infos about ongoing calls in a little overlay window
    • Completely revamped User Interface

    The UI part is what has the most impact from my point of view, so it’s probably best to watch the following little video that explains all of the updates:

  • Apple accepts App submissions to it’s upcoming Mac App Store
    Now it’s time to get your software App Store ready and submit them via iTunes Connect.
    The Mac App Store’s launch might be imminent.
  • Last.fm Kinect Application
    To be honest I didn’t pay much attention to Microsofts Kinect launch previously, but now a very funny blog post by Last.fm highlighted a few features of this interesting technology and introduced a Kinect application that can control your music.
  • Google Chrome gets a PDF viewer
    I really like using Google Chrome for all my browsing habits, since it’s fast and feels very light, compared to Firefox or  Safari. The only thing I really missed from Safari, was the ability to view PDF documents in the Browser without having to download them and start another application. Now the newest Google Chrome Beta version includes PDF viewing support. The feature will be implemented in the next stable update.
  • A funny little picture explaining what your phone says about you

    What your phone says about you

    What your phone says about you (click for larger version)

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  • Google released an Apache module that auto tunes performance
    Google has announced that they are launching a module for the Apache HTTP server called mod_pagespeed, that will automatically tune several properties to optimize page load speed. I haven’t tried it out yet, but will definitely do so.
    Amongst other things, mod_pagespeed will:

    • recompress images
    • modify cache lifetime for static elements
    • make changes to pages built by CMS

    I don’t know if I’ll see a great performance on this server, as I already took care of a lot of speed improvements myself, but this module is a great way to implement common best-practices without having to dig into Apache’s configuration too much.
    Read more and download the module on the Page Speed Google Code website.

  • Facebook Mobile Announcements
    Just a short summary of what Facebook announced yesterday, there’s already tons of coverage out there:

    • Facebook for iPhone updated (as I hoped in my tweet just minutes before the event started).
    • Facebook for Android updated.
    • Single Sign-On for mobile platforms.
      So you don’t have to deal with entering your password in every app that uses Facebook connect.
    • Facebook Places API Update. Full read and write access for third parties.
    • Deals. This sounds kind of like Groupon mixed with Foursquare.
      Could be very interesting, once it reaches the critical mass of user adoption.
    • No dedicated iPad App in the near future.
      Although I’ve read about speculations of a HTML5 based website/app that could offer the same experience on multiple tablet based platforms.

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  • Google to offer cloud printing for Chrome OS, web apps predicts cloud-aware? printers
    Saying, Our goal is to build a printing experience that enables any app (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer anywhere in the world.? Google has published a?new set of documents that outline an exciting new (and as yet unavailable) service: Google Cloud Print.
    Cloud Print will seemingly be how all printing from Chrome OS will be handled. As all apps on Chrome OS are actually web apps, Google says, we want to make sure printing from web apps is as natural as printing from traditional native apps is today.? Cloud Print will not only work with web apps, however Google says that it will also work with both mobile and desktop apps as well. All of these print jobs will be handled through APIs, according to the documentation. All printing from Chrome OS will be done through Cloud Print.
  • Movie Industry sues UPC Austria (broadband provider)
    Net neutrality seems to become a really pressing topic in Austria. The “Verein f?r Antipiraterie (VAP)” together with Wega Film, Constantin Film and Satel Film has issued a cease and desist order against UPC because they offer access to the website kino.to which let’s users view movies and TV shows for free.
    (Article from futurezone.at in german / translated version)
  • iPhone table connector project gets a demo video
  • New York City’s new offline P2P file-sharing? network
    So far there are 5 places in NYC to drop or find files on a dead drop. Each dead drop contains a readme.txt file explaining the project.

    Dead Drop – New York offline file-sharing