Attention iPhone users: Push instant messaging is now available. This means you can now stay connected to your instant message service like AIM or Gmail chat on your phone even when it’s in sleep mode. With Push instant messaging, you can receive instant messages the same way you receive text messages.
BeeJive is one of the first Instant Message clients to take advantage of this instant message feature. It has been reported by users that push IM works quite nicely. On the iPhone 3GS, the instant messages appeared almost immediately on the screen, even when other applications were in use. The messages appear in a small box, giving the option to close the message for later, or view it in the BeeJive app.
It has been reported however that during testing there were a few occasions where the push IMing wasn’t working. However, this is likely a problem related to Apple’s push-notification server, so hopefully Apple will fix the bugs over time.
This early version appears to perform better on iPhone 3GS compared with the earlier iPone models. This might be because the 3GS is more efficient with radio and memory usage than the 3G and original.
Overall, after testing various isntant message apps that works with this feature like AIM, BeeJive is so far the favorite. Flipping the iPhone sideways displays the keyboard in landscape view for easier typing unlike the others. The application supports eight instant message services including AIM, Google Talk, Facebook IM and ICQ.
The newest version of Apple’s web browseris now available. The company announced Safari 4 is available for download from Apple’s website. The emphasis with this release is speed. Safari 4 features an updated page rendering engine and a revamped JavaScript engine that improves the performance of the webs applications.
Safari 4 has a new feature that lets you flip through previous web pages in Cover Flow mode; the same way you view album art in iTunes. Spotlight search has been added to the browser as well, so you can search the text within recently-viewed web pages using the system-wide search tool. A great feature includes a crash protection mechanism that keeps the browser running, even if a plug-in crashes.
The latest version of Safari had been in beta since February. A demo of the new features was shown at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. Aside from the visual search and Cover Flow features, the focus of the Safari 4 demo was on the browser’s performance.
Apple claims Safari 4 is around three times faster than Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8. As of yet there are not any independent backings to this claim just yet, but if the data holds up, those are some enticing claims Also according to Apple’s claims, Safari 4 aces the Acid3 test, which shows how well a browser supports the latest emerging standards, with a perfect score of 100. Internet Explorer 8 currently only scores 24. Firefox 3 scores in the 70’s.
The new crash protection feature in Safari was certainly added in response to the number of rich web apps. For example, if you’re running a Flash application in one of your browser tabs, and that app crashes, Safari 4 isolates that tab and handles it without taking your other open tabs down with it. The same feature happens if you’re doing something simpler such as, watching a Flash video and it crashes. Google Chrome also has a similar feature.
Your Facebook profile’s URL right now ends in a string of numbers that is not so easy for anyone to remember. The social networking site changed this on Friday by allowing users to customize a profile URL.
This will make URLs on the site easier to remember,much cleaner, and give users the abbility to network their page to others. Names can be claimed on a first come, first served basis. Any name you choose has to be at least five characters long, and they can only contain letters or numbers.Once the user name is established, you won’t be able to change or transfer it.
As of now, this feature is only available to users; groups do not get human friendly URLs at this time. Facebook has a full rundown of the eligibility requirements posted on its site. Facebook’s move towards customized URLs for profiles is not mandatory. Facebook offering real names in URLs is part of a larger movement in social websites, as users want to make it easier for others to find them.
For those who have added this feature already, there is the added benefit that when your name is searched for say in Google, you should see that your Facebook profile pops up on the results. This is a great feature for the SEO of your name or business because You’re simply going to be that much easier to find on the web.
The most popular way to post photos on Twitter has become the photo hosting service Twitpic. But what about that photos that you have loaded on Flickr? Is there a way to get those pictures over to Twitter? Flickr had has ignored Twitter in the past. But that is about to change. Flickr has quietly corrected its oversight by providing a new method of cross-posting your uploaded images to your Twitter stream. Rather than adding a new tool, Flickr added Twitter to a list of options on the “blog this” link that appears next to each photo.
While you’ll need to give Flickr permission to access your Twitter account, it has implemented this account verification using Twitter’s new OAuth support, so there’s no need to give away your Twitter username or password. Just follow the link provided to Twitter, give Flickr permission, and its done. Once that is set up, the “blog this” option will offer a link to post to your Twitter account.
The compose screen has all the basic things you need to to post to Twitter — photo preview and character count. This method may seem a little cumbersome if you have quite a few photos to upload, which is why Flickr will also offer an e-mail posting address that will automatically push multiple photos onto Twitter.
Keep in mind that Flickr’s new Twitter feature is labeled as a beta. Though no problems have been reported so far, be aware that there may be bugs that exist.
Zune was down recently as Microsoft updated its site to debut its new content on the website, such as the ability to follow artists and bands. The updates also included a bunch of improvements to the site performance and a redesigned homepage show off its social applications.
Zune users can now receive updates when their band or artist is on tour. Logging into the site will provide a list of their most frequently listened to artists or bands so users can start choosing which group they would like to follow. A list of those who users are currently following will then appear on the social page. Another feature of the social page is that users can add news sites to an artist’s bio page, so that all the updated blog posts can be seen from one area. The final upgrade to zune is the opportunity to preview or watch an artist’s or a band’s videos from within the social page and have access to more content such as concert dates. Microsoft is pushing as the “social” aspect of Zune to try and distinguish the device from what others would experience using comeptitors products.
Most of today’s netbooks on the market run Intel’s Atom processor, which is not powerful enough to handle the high demands of video or audio playback. Terga is betting it can fix that with its latest attempt to join the growing netbook market
If you have tried to watch youtube or hulu on a netbook, your machine might have either crashed immediately or at least struggled its way through the clip. Nvidia’s latest system-on-a-chip, Tegra, could make your next netbook a video powerhouse.
Nvidia is betting the demand for video and music will drive demand for its products. At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, Nvidia listed PC manufacturers like Wistron, Foxconn, and Pegatron as those who plan to release Tegra-based netbooks by the end of this year. The Tegra includes a high-definition video processor, an 800-MHz ARM CPU, an audio processor, an imaging processor and an ultralow-power GeForce GPU in a single package. All of the different processors can be used together or independently, while consuming little power. This will bring the high-resolution experience we are used to on notebooks to netbooks and other mobile devices.
The idea is to make mobile devices like the netbook more powerful and capable of running high-definition video, An example of this is The Tegra 650, which can offer about one hundred and tirty hours of audio processing and about thirty hours of high-def video playback.
Devices based on Tegra could be available to consumers by the end of the year.
At the request of the CDC, Google took a look at its previous search data from Mexico. And it found a rise in flu-related search terms that did not match previous seasonal flu searches . Jeremy Ginsberg, with Google’s flu trends, said, “We did see a small increase in many parts of Mexico before major news coverage began last week.”
It’s encouraging to think that Google’s Flu Trends system may be able to detect the next unusual flu outbreak. Engineers have even checked their equations and graphs against cases of U.S. Flu Trends, the of flu, and it looks like Google’s system follows the CDC’s data pretty close.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple may manufacture computer processors in house based on anonymous sources, publications on LinkedIn linking more than 100 Apple employees with past expertise in chips, and the acquisition of PA Semiconductor. These three reasons could serve as evidence that the company is moving toward chip design for its iPhones, iPods and possibly Macs. Doing so would reduce Apple’s dependence on Intel and Samsung.
If Apple had control over its own processor production, it would be able to better guard its secrets from rivals and design exclusive features for its gadgets.
CompUSA Comes Back From the Dead with about thirty new stores that comes with aggressive prices, remodeled stores, and in-store web access for comparison shopping.
Once part of the big three electronics retail stores in the country, CompUSA filed for bankruptcy two years ago due to high overheads and the inability to compete with online prices. But after reorganization and a buyout from Systemax, a major electronics retailer, CompUSA is back in business.
The in-store web access may be the biggest gamble, since it raises the possibility that you might use a CompUSA floor model to find a better deal on the web.
Keyboard’s in front of the products allow you to check out the specs and reviews. There’s also custom information for each store, like how many are in stock.
It’s an untested concept. They will have to see if customers like to spend their time gathering information while shopping rather than doing it at home.. They are hoping customers still want to go stores to buy electronics.
If CompUSA can survive through the recession and manage its coststhe chain can hope for a future.
Michael Arrington has been on a quest for the past few months to create an inexpensive web tablet. Now photos of the device, called Crunchpad, are floating around online. This new machine could potentially compete with netbooks.
Arrington had first written about the idea of a tablet in June, suggesting a touch screen device that would run Firefox and maybe Skype. The machine would be as thin as possible, run low end hardware and have a single button for powering it on and off, a built in camera for video, headphone jacks, a microphone and speakers. The device would also come with Wi-Fi, 512 MB of memory, 4 GB hard drive and no keyboard.
The latest leaked photos of the Crunchpad show that they may be getting closer to a finished product. The price tag is looking to be about $200
