Skyfire Looks To Be The Best Mobile Browser

The free mobile phone web browser (still in beta) looks to shove Operamini out of the picture and even out perform the iPhone's Safari browser (GASP!)- IF it delivers on its promise to make "browsing on your phone exactly like browsing on your PC."

They even go so far as to say that its the fastest mobile browser you'll ever use...

Skyfire is faster than any mobile web browser you’ve ever used. You’ll load web pages as fast as your PC and eliminate the long delays and error messages you get with other browsers. That’s a big claim, so we encourage you to experience it firsthand

Right now its only available for Windows Mobile 5/6 and Nokia series 60, 3rd edition phones. Blackberry users seem to be out of luck:

We are currently investigating support for Blackberry, but it's not on our immediate roadmap.

Here's a video of it in action, its very very promising.


[Skyfire.com]

Windows 7 Screen Shots Hit The Web

A beta tester has released all kinds of good screen shots of Microsoft's upcoming OS.

Although it looks  almost identical to Vista, Windows 7 should take care of most of the issues Vista has.  This will be the OS that has me upgrading from XP, it just can't come soon enough.

More details HERE.

[From BGR]

Google Chrome To Support Add-ons

If you've been holding off on Google Chrome due to its lack of support for add-ons or plug-ins, be ready to make the switch. Chrome has proven itself to be much faster and better laid out than my previous favorite - Firefox.

Even so, Firefox has remained my primary browser due to the add-ons that I just can't live without (Foxmarks, Adblock Plus, Gmail Redesigned).

Informationweek.com reports that Google plans on integrating support for add-ons soon. Although, they aren't going to rush it.

... Google will work hard to make sure its add-on paradigm keeps Chrome stable. "We hope to do them right," he said. "As many people notice in Firefox add-ones, there are problems with instability."

Hopefully, it gets here quick - I've been eyeing the newest Opera browser for a while and I'm about to give it another test drive.

Can't Afford Photoshop? No Problem!

Lifehacker.com's recent featured download is great Photoshop alternative for those of us who can't afford the software.

Its apparently very similar to Photoshop itself. So similar that "seasoned Photoshop users will find themselves wondering why a feature is suddenly missing from the menu."

Its certainly worth checking out.


[Read more at Lifehacker.com]

Orb Lets You Access Your Media On The Go

This is probably one of the most exciting applications I've ever seen. If you have a computer at home running XP with a broadband connection, you can use Orb.

Orb allows you to stream ALL of your media to any device that has a browser and streaming media player. Meaning most smart phones, PDAs and laptops.

It even works with the iPhone over edge!

Get it HERE

A Great Media Converter

Quick Media Converter is a handy little app that puts a GUI on the FFmpeg application. For those of you that don't know - FFmpeg is a fantastic command line tool that converts any audio or video from one format to another. Its so simple, your grandma could use it.

Having the same video formatted for your phone, iPod, and DVD player - has never been so easy. Best of all - its free.

Download it HERE.

[From Lifehacker]

Swype Technology To Improve Touch Screen Text Entry

Gizmodo reports:

Everyone who has owned a cellphone over the last 10 years should at some point pour one out in thanks to Cliff Kushler, one of the inventors of the T9 text entry system that knows you mean "DONKEY" when you type 366539 in an SMS. Now Cliff is smartly shifting his focus on touchscreens with Swype—a way to type blindingly fast on a touchscreen by tracing your finger or stylus over the letters you want without lifting up, connect-the-dots style. It looks frankly amazing in a demo—so amazing that we remembered we've seen it somewhere before. Thankfully, it could be heading to the iPhone and Android really, really soon.

Turns out, as the folks at jkOnTheRun also point out, that the idea of this kind of input system has been around since 2004 (when touchscreens were still kind of from the future), when it was developed by IBM and called SHARK. Now, SHARK is called ShapeWriter, who are the developers of the WritingPad Android app and a similar app for the iPhone. How about that?

Swype is currently near prime time for Windows Mobile, with an SDK to bring it to other platforms in the works. ShapeWriter's Android version of WritingPad is forthcoming, and their iPhone version, which was released briefly before being pulled from the App Store for reasons unknown, should be back soon.

Great stuff, this would make my iPhone that much better :D

Magnetosphere Officially Included In iTunes 8

Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.

The once separate visualizer plugin for iTunes is now the standard. It is pretty amazing - best visualizer I've ever seen.