Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

Did ya miss us? We’ve been out of town since last Thursday, and since then there were some pretty big announcements that we wanted to be sure to cover. It appears as though the last few days before last weekend was the prime time for acquisitions.

–Firefox 3 RC1–

Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 RC1, which indicates that they are on the home stretch before releasing the final version. The Release Candidate doesn’t have many changes over the previous Beta, but as expected it’s a bit more polished:

• Improvements to the user interface based on user feedback, including changes to the look and feel on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.
• Changes and fixes for new features such as the location bar autocomplete, bookmark backup and restore, full page zoom, and others, based on feedback from our community.
• Fixes and improvements to platform features to improve security, web compatibility and stability.
• Continued performance improvements: changes to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimization continues to improve performance over previous releases as measured by the popular SunSpider test from Apple, and in the speed of web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office.

Thanks to “C” and “Cory” for the tips!

–Condé Nast/Wired Acquires Ars Technica–

Ars Technica has joined the likes of Wired and Reddit! That’s right, Condé Nast has acquired the news site that most geeks have come to love. They won’t disclose what was paid for the site, but TechCrunch says is in the $25 million range.

What I’m interested to see is whether the Digg button on Ars Technica will remain considering that their parent company are also the proud owners of Reddit. Ars Technica’s articles are constantly plastered all over the front page of Digg, and removing the button could cause them to drop in traffic. Maybe they’ll just add a Reddit button alongside it?

–Ask.com Acquires Dictionary.com–

When you need to lookup a meaning of a word there is a very good chance that you head straight to Dictionary.com. I know I do. That site has now been acquired by Ask.com, and they also get Thesaurus.com and Reference.com as part of the deal. By purchasing the rights to these sites Ask.com is looking to return to its roots a bit by being able to quickly answer basic questions.

Thanks for the tip Omar!

–CBS Acquires CNET–

CNET has got to be one of the top technology sites on the web, and they sure showed it with their price tag. CBS acquired them last Thursday for $1.8 billion, which includes all of the properties owned by CNET. Here’s a quick list of CNET’s more popular assets: ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon, Download.com, and TechRepublic.

–Digg Launches New Comment System–

Digg has finally decided to revise their comment system, and I think it’s much better than before. There’s just one problem… they didn’t test it in Opera. A formatting glitch would be one thing, but the new Digg comment system crashes the Opera browser anytime you try to visit an article. They admitted that they didn’t test the system in Opera, and tried to justify the glitch by saying that Opera users account for less than 1% of the visits to Digg. *sigh*

–Windows will be Available on the OLPC–

Looks like Windows is coming to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) after all. These budget machines will run a $3 version of Windows XP and Office called the Student Innovation Suite. I have a feeling that these laptops will now be even more appealing to developing countries.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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The United States government may be dissolved tomorrow, but it’s certainly taking care of one final piece of business before going into shutdown: this. If you’ll recall, Google announced its intentions to acquire ITA for $700 million in July of last year, and as we cruise into the start of America’s summer travel season, all signals are go. Today, the US Department of Justice approved Google’s request to move forward with the buy, but rather than having the entire travel search market under its wing, El Goog’s going to have to make a smattering of concessions in order to get the right signatures. For starters, the search monolith will allow ITA’s existing client contracts to extend into 2016, and it’ll let both current and new customers license ITA’s QPX software on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.” No one’s saying when the integration will be complete (or start, for that matter), but we’re desperately anxious to see just how Kayak and Bing Travel react after this launches in earnest. Power to the searchers, as it were.

US DoJ approves Google’s acquisition of ITA, but not without stipulations originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic has been kicking around the idea of a tricked-out Android-based in-flight entertainment system for awhile, and now it’s ready for airlines to start retrofitting their livery. The system, dubbed eX3, runs Android, relieving restless fliers with news, live television, games, and what the company calls on-board social networking, but that’s mostly a nod to the Facebook app. Other amenities include broadband internet access and GSM service, touchscreen controllers, capacative screens, proximity sensors, and, in some cases, 3D displays. Not going to front — we’re stoked on the idea of tuning out on-board babies via multi-hour Angry Birds sessions, but we’re seriously hoping the airlines ignore one of the system’s marquee features: in-flight video conferencing.

Panasonic gives its in-flight entertainment system an Android makeover, adds 3D displays originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you finding the Bing iOS app not quite as tablet-optimized as it could be? Microsoft seems to agree with you, as it’s just released a new version of Bing designed to make the most of the iPad’s more spacious dimensions. It works with both generations of the tablet, though iOS 4.2 is required, and brings an arsenal of goodies to tempt users into giving it a try. A trends area will serve up the top-searched items on Bing, a dedicated movie- and trailer-searching section will help make your matinee decisions that little bit easier, and multiple map views will enlighten you with turn-by-turn directions and real-time transit info. There are even weather updates for up to five cities via MSN Weather and, if for whatever reason you don’t find the touch-centric interface to your liking, there’s a Bing Voice Search option as well. All for free. On the iPad. Boy, that must bruise some egos up in the Redmond. Video after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft releases Bing search app tailored specifically to the iPad

Microsoft releases Bing search app tailored specifically to the iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If app developers have a pattern of going after the iPhone first and Android second, well, the same is apparently true of the folks who write software for the code monkeys. Novell just announced Mono for Android, the first set of tools that lets devs write .NET and C# apps for Android phones and tablets. Novell already lets developers do the same for Linux, iOS, and Mac OS X and, as always, lets coders continue to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 to write applications — if that’s the testing software they’re used to. In addition to the Visual Studio plug-in, you get bindings for native Android APIs and the core Mono runtime. It’s available now, starting at $99 for students (minus the ability to, you know, send finished apps to Android Market) and $399 for everybody else. Already developing for the iPhone? Prove that you own MonoTouch (essentially, the same Novell product for iOS devices) and get 50 percent off an Android tool kit.

Continue reading Novell’s Mono tools let devs create .NET apps for Android devices

Novell’s Mono tools let devs create .NET apps for Android devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink ZDNet  |  Mono for Android  | Email this | Comments