Android Market hits 50,000 apps; PayPal support coming

With Google I/O just around the corner, the Internet giant is expected to show off the progress of their app market and the staggering growth that it's seen. Last month alone, the Android Market had over 9,000 app submissions. Back in January, the Android Market hit the 30,000 apps mark. Now, just 4 months later, AndroLib.com is reporting the Market to be nearing the 50,000 mark.

The plethora of new apps being introduced into Google's app store means more opportunity for developers to make money. On that note, it's been nearly impossible for Android users in many foreign countries to get their hands on paid apps (Google Checkout is not available everywhere). Phandroid has pointed out that sometime in Q2 2010, PayPal will become a payment option in the Android Market. No longer will users be limited by their geographic location. If you're worried about Google knowing too much of your personal information, this would be a great way to limit yourself from their services, while still enjoying their products.

 

By Benjamin Rubenstein

 

www.neowin.net

Sony to discontinue 3.5 inch floppy disk in Japan

Sony announced on April 23rd that they will be discontinuing sales of the classic 3.5 inch floppy disk in Japan in 2011. The news marks a major end to a nearly three decade history of the disk type that the company helped to pioneer.
According to Sony, they introduced the 3.5 inch floppy disk size to the world in 1981, and began sales within Japan in 1983. Sony had shipped approximately 47 million disks within the country at its peak around the year 2000, but that number had fallen to around 8.5 million by 2009, Sankei News reported.
In 2008 Sony accounted for around 40% of the world’s market share in 3.5 inch floppy disks, Nikkei wrote; within Japan, Sony has held about 70% of the market share in recent years, the Asahi added.
Sony will stop sales within Japan in March of 2011, and with the exception of a few niche markets such as in India, the company’s worldwide sales finished in March of this year, the Mainichi stated. Sony ceased its outsourced production of the 3.5 inch floppy in 2009.  It is also noted that most other major manufacturers of the disk type have already withdrawn from the market entirely.
Lack of demand was stated as the major reason for the decision, with many pointing to the rapid expansion of other media saving methods, such as CDs, DVDs, and USB drives, as well as a significant decrease in floppy disk-supporting hardware.
Beyond the floppy, the 3.5 inch size is still used for Sony’s magneto optical disks.

(image: Sony Japan)

 

www.examiner.com

New Core i7 MacBook Pros reach 100 °C

Apple finally put out new MacBook Pros earlier this month, but the launch with Intel’s latest processors hasn’t come without a few problems. PC Authority’s hands on testing with the new 17” MacBook Pro found that the internal Core i7 topped out at around 100 degrees Celsius. 

The computer review company found that when performing various benchmarks with the laptop, the processor generated so much heat that they had to stand the MacBook Pro on its side in order to complete their testing. (as pictured above) Testing in both Mac OS X and Windows cranked up the heat output to over 100 degrees.

The 2.66 GHz Core i7 620M inside the laptop reached 84 degrees in the Dwarf Fortress graphics benchmark and 100 degrees in the Cinebench 3D rendering benchmark. For comparison, they tested a Fujitsu Lifebook SH760 that used the same processor and found that it only reached a maximum of 80 degrees and kept cool to the touch thanks to its thicker plastic casing which allowed for greater airflow and a larger copper heat sink.

Engadget’s own testing found that the new MacBook Pros were actually cooler than previous models in real world usage, so new owners should not worry too much. They do recommend that Apple should consider sacrificing its low noise output when the CPU gets worked though, as it can get toasty at times.

Image credit PC Authority

 

www.neowin.net

Windows Home Server Code Name "Vail" public preview announced

Microsoft has announced a public preview release of Windows Server Code Name "vail".

"Vail” is the version 2 release of Windows Home Server based on Windows Server 2008 R2. Vail provides simple file sharing, remote access, home computer backup, expandable storage through Drive Extender, and media streaming both inside and outside the home. Vail also contains an application catalog and product-wide extensibility model so that new services such as anti-virus, online sharing, and home automation can be seamlessly and easily added to the solution. Vail will be available pre-installed on systems by OEM partners, and a standalone software package will also be available for those who want to build their own systems.

Vail supports a number of Windows 7 technologies including "PlayTo" DLNA support to stream digital media to DLNA enabled devices. HomeGroup is also supported allowing simplified file sharing. Vail also includes Remote Streaming using Silverlight. Users can access their media remotely over the internet, anywhere. MPEG-4, 3GP, H.264, ADTS, AVI, MPEG-2, AAC, MP3, LPCM, MPEG-1. AC3 should be supported in RTM. MPEG2 and AC3 support are not available in the public preview version, but are planned to be supported in the released version.

Vail originally leaked in January as build number 7360. Today's Public Preview release is build 7495. Vail is 64-bit only and requires 1GB of RAM or more, and minimum 160GB hard drive for installation. More information is available over at Microsoft's Connect site or the "Vail" Public Preview beta forums.

Download: Windows Home Server Code Name "Vail" build 7495

 

www.neowin.net

Top 10 Best Firefox Add-Ons for Improved Browsing

Firefox has quietly become a forgotten browser lately, with Google Chrome taking on the mantle of preferred geek browser. Don't let the hype fool you. Firefox holds roughly 30% of the browser market, second only to Internet Explorer.  Below is the top 10 best Firefox add-ons to improve your browsing experience.

1. Xmarks Bookmark and Password Sync: Anyone who uses multiple PCs will appreciate Xmarks since you maintain one set of bookmarks across all PCs. Just install Xmarks into Firefox and it will record your current bookmarks roster, as well as the saved passwords in your Firefox password manager. On any other computer running Firefox, just download Xmarks, use your Xmarks login, and all your passwords and bookmarks are ported into the current browser. Sign out and the import is revoked. As a guy who logs into multiple VPNs on several machines - each with long, convoluted URL structures - Xmarks is a lifesaver.

2. Web of Trust (WOT) Safe Browsing Tool: Similar to the McAfee Site Advisor we previewed in our Internet Safety Guide, Web of Trust appends starred safety ratings to search results, so you know how "safe" a page is before clicking a link. WOT works with every major search engine, and the safety rankings are derived from WOT user feedback. Don't let the crowdsourcing angle throw you off, WOT is among the most popular Firefox add-ons out there, so it has more than enough support to provide accurate and timely safety ratings.

3. Google Gears: An oldie but a goodie, Google Gears is the Firefox add-on that's not a Firefox add-on; you can use it with any browser to store your Google Web app data to your hard drive. Why would you want to drag your Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Docs offline? So you can use them without a Web connection, of course. Frequent air travelers will understand how helpful this can be, especially since it's easier to get free Wi-Fi in-flight than at airports these days. Google Gears also works with several non-Google Web apps, including Remember the Milk and Zoho Office.

4. DownThemAll!: For you compulsive downloaders out there (who, me?), DownThemAll! is what you've been looking for. It's a highly customizable download manager that lets you pause, resume, accelerate and automate your Web downloads. Best of all? It offers the option to download all the images or links on a page, saving you the trouble of endlessly right-clicking every element of a gallery or, say, a list of great Firefox add-ons.

5. Adblock Plus: Yes, blocking ads will kill your favorite websites(or not), but a lot of us have had our fill of autoplaying video ads, scroll-preventing takeover ads or pages that never load because the ad server stalls. Enter Adblock Plus, which recodes web pages on the fly to exclude annoying advertisements. You'll never browse faster or with more peaceful sanity than the moment after you install Adblock Plus.

6. Session Manager: Don't just bookmark web pages, save them with Session Manager. What's the difference? Any tab you save with Session Manager can be reloaded exactly as it was when you saved it, with your credentials logged in, your preferences entered and even form-fields filled out. Want to open your private corporate web mail without jumping through three login challenges every time? Just save your inbox with Session Manager. It's more useful than you'd expect.

7. FastestFox: A virtual researcher's Swiss Army Knife, FastestFox allows you to save on-page video to your hard drive, even if there isn't a download link. Highlight on-page text and FastestFox will offer a Wikipedia definition as well as quicklinks to multiple search engines to query against the selection. If you click the Wikipedia link, all related Wikipedia articles are preloaded into a handy left-column list. If you query Google instead, you'll never have to click Next Page again, as FastestFox autoloads each successive results page so you can scroll seamlessly forever. If you regularly research on the Web, FastestFox is your new best friend.

8. Copy Plain Text: Its function is in the name: Copy Plain Text offers you the option of copying text from a web page (or Thunderbird email) without taking the bold/italic/underline/link/font style with it. Very handy for quoting source materials or just cleaning up those punchlines before pasting them into Facebook status messages.

9. IE Tab: Some websites remain stubbornly coded explicitly for Internet Explorer, especially where Microsoft-centric products like Outlook Web Access are concerned. That's where IE Tab comes in; it creates a new Firefox tab that simulates all the native functionality of Internet Explorer, but without requiring a second browser.

10. Feedly: An old school print newspaper meets a modern RSS feedreader, Feedly Firefox automatically imports your Live Bookmarks, Google Reader Feeds and Twitter followers, and combines the data into a clean, eye-friendly magazine interface that's immediately readable. While you won't scroll quite as fast through your data with Feedly as you might in GReader, you will enjoy the content a bit more, and you'll have access to more of it from the homepage. Recommended for information junkies everywhere.

Didn't find what you're looking for? Mozilla curates an almost exhaustive list of Firefox add-ons on its website. Look around; you're likely to find an add-on that sounds useful to you.

One final note: Greasemonkey is an add-on conspicuously absent from this list. This is because Greasemonkey is an add-on designed to replace all other add-ons by virtue of lighter, faster userscripts. Unless you know your way around userscripts, Greasemonkey is of questionable value. Once you've got the hang of Firefox add-ons, Greasemonkey is a logical next step, but it's not one I recommend most users adopt right away.

Greasemonkey notwithstanding, if you think I've overlooked a vital Firefox add-on, feel free to name it in the comments area.

 

By Jay Garmon

 

www.notebookreview.com

One more thing... two iPod touch prototypes with camera briefly show up on eBay

The two devices bear the prototype identification codes "DVT-1" and "DVT-2" ("DVT" stands for "design verification test" in Apple-speak, according to Daring Fireball), while the DVT-2 model wears an extra bar code label seemingly stamped by the "Apple Development Team."

What's interesting is that the model number "A1318" at the bottom matches the current iPod touch's, which may suggest the camera feature was ditched just before the current line went into mass production, or that we may see this variant as a minor update instead of a redesigned iPod touch in the coming months.

www.engadget.com

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Release Candidate Out Now

The Ubuntu development team unleashed the Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system, due for launch at the end of this month. As usual, we've downloaded a copy of it in order to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS development.

What's new in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS RC? Well, there's not much to talk about this release, except that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS RC is now powered by Linux kernel 2.6.32.11.

 

www.softpedia.com