Archive for May, 2010

Mozilla has announced plans to launch a free iPhone Application that will let you access most of your Firefox browser data on the iPhone.

Called Firefox Home, the native iPhone app gives you access to your Firefox browser history, bookmarks, and Awesome Bar. Home will also sync any currently open tabs from Firefox on your desktop to the iPhone, giving you “on the go” instant access to important Web pages.

It’s not clear when Firefox Home will become available, but Mozilla says it plans to submit the app to Apple in June, at which point Apple will either approve or reject it. Firefox Home is designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and Mozilla has not announced plans for a version for the iPad.

Wait. This app will allow you to access most of your Firefox browser data on the iPhone, but what about the browser itself? No. There will be no browser.

This is simply an app which will allow you to sync your Firefox bookmarks with your iPhone. You will not be able to sync your iPhone bookmarks with your Firefox.

Using an iPhone is like heading down a one-way street, but it appears Firefox is going the wrong way.

Who’s the strongest guy on the block? The one that drops by naturaltestosterone.org before starting his daily regimen, or the guy who spends his day at the hot dog stand? Yeah. With muscle comes respect, or so they say…

Walmart announced on Tuesday that it had dropped the price of the iPhone 3GS 16GB to $97, the lowest price on the handset ever in the United States. The 32GB variant of the iPhone 3GS, however, remains at its previous price of $297 on Walmart.

Down from its previous price of $197, the $100 price cut brings for the 16GB 3GS puts it on par with the price for the 8GB iPhone 3G, which Apple sells for $99. However, Engadget reported on Tuesday that the 8GB iPhone 3G seems to currently be unavailable at Apple’s online store, adding further fuel to rumors of a new iPhone.

It looks like it might be time for a new iPhone 3GS for me, but then again, maybe I should wait for the 4G.

Dashing the hopes of dozens of startups that had hoped to make money where Twitter had so far been unable to do so, the social mini-messaging company announced Monday that it would not allow third-party advertising on its platform henceforth.

In a blog post Tuesday, the company spent more than 1,200 words to get to the meat of the announcement: Twitter will reserve permanently the right to “inject paid tweets into a timeline” using the Twitter API. In other words: Sure, you can accept payment for a Tweet, type it up yourself and publish it using the service — but you can’t create an automated system to do this using the code Twitter provides to companies that want to build their own empires using the Twitter infrastructure.

This makes sense doesn’t it? People can type an ad into the system, but they can’t automate the process. Bots aren’t allowed in many places.

People are crazy if they think Steve Jobs would disappoint them with his keynote speech. Remember when you were a kid and you were searching for the best acne treatments? Some may not have been perfect, you can’t say you were ever disappointed with the results, were you?

More of Steve Jobs’ trademarked one-line e-mail messages have surfaced, with the capricious CEO promising a concerned iPhone user that “you won’t be disappointed” by his upcoming WWDC keynote — which, by the way, has just been confirmed for June 7, the first day of Apple’s annual developers confab.

For the past two years, Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference has served as the launching pad for the latest iPhones, and we’ve known for weeks that the annual event would be held from June 7 to June 11. But Apple hadn’t officially disclosed the exact day and time of the keynote address — until now . Mark your calendars for 10 a.m. Pacific time June 7, and yes, Jobs will be delivering the keynote.

Any time Steve speaks at a keynote, it’s awesome.

Why would the iPad hurt Mac sales? If someone wants the power of a laptop and the ability to install Mac based applications, they are going to buy a Mac. If they want a tablet based device that acts more like the iPod Touch or iPhone, then sure, they are going to pick the iPad. It’s like saying that cardio workouts will interfere with your ab workouts. The two won’t interfere with each other at all.

Is the stunning success of the iPad cutting into Apple’s Mac sales? One leading Wall Street analyst says no, but another industry watcher says it’s too early to tell.

Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster, after reviewing new data from market research firm NPD Group, believes the iPad isn’t harming Mac sales, although it might be contributing to a decline in iPod purchases, Fortune reports.

Duh.

Um. Things are so messed up at Google right now, they need to look at a few good prototype 37c reviews to see if those wrinkles can be ironed out before people get too upset.

“Don’t be evil” has gone all 1984 on us. Or so it seems after Google revealed Friday that its Street View cars, in addition to snapping photos of the world’s roadways, have also been collecting sensitive personal information from unencrypted wireless networks.

It was no secret that Google’s cars had already been collecting publicly broadcast SSID information (Wi-Fi network names) and MAC addresses (unique numbers for devices like Wi-Fi routers). But this techie data, which is used for location-based services such as Google Maps, didn’t include any “payload data,” or personal information sent over the network.

Wow.

British bank Standard Chartered is replacing the BlackBerry, currently its standard corporate communications device, with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of bankers switching to the Apple device for business communication on the go.

Standard Chartered bankers in Asia told Reuters that the London-based lender was giving its corporate BlackBerry users the option of switching to the iPhone, with the company agreeing to continue to pay monthly billing for business-related telephone and data services.

Just like good diet pill reviews, this is a non-issue. As someone who has used both the Blackberry and the iPhone extensively, the choice here is a no-brainer. I get twice as much done on my iPhone than I ever got done with a Blackberry.

How many people will still be using Firefox by the end of the year? Let’s just say, more people will be taking adipex diet pills than will be wasting their time with Firefox.

The next version of the Firefox browser, set for release by the end of the year, will pare down the software’s menus and certain user options while giving Web surfers more control over privacy.

Firefox 4 promises to let users better control relationships with websites by describing more simply what information is gathered by cookies, which are files that store data on website visits.

I stopped using it because I couldn’t navigate to more than four sites before it wigged out on me and brought my system to a crawl. Maybe the update will fix that too?

Some people don’t like contemporary furniture. I do. A lot of people have a problem with AT&T. I don’t.

I don’t know if it’s the fact I live in the sticks and get the best coverage from them or the fact that I just don’t use my iPhone in many areas with tower problems that cause calls to drop.

Either way, I am happy, for now anyway.

Looks like you can toss your Verizon iPhone dreams in the garbage for now, as AT&T — the network with the lowest customer satisfaction rate and most dropped calls — holds an exclusive on the iPhone until 2012. Apparently everything we thought about the contract’s expiration was wrong.

Before the original iPhone launched in 2007, USA Today reported that Apple and AT&T has entered a five-year carrier exclusivity agreement. That report was never verified, though, and the terms of the agreement between Apple and AT&T have long been the subject of debate. Until this week, that is, when Engadget poured through documents and found that, in 2008, a class-action lawsuit alleging monopoly was filed against Apple. Apple’s response confirmed the five-year deal: “[T]here was widespread disclosure of [AT&T's] five-year exclusivity and no suggestion by Apple or anyone else that iPhones would become unlocked after two years.”

Oops! Can someone turn on the Minka Aire fan, please?

A Twitter glitch has allowed users to game the popularity contest by making it appear that celebrities had subscribed to read their mini-blog postings known as tweets.

The flaw, which Twitter said Monday it has fixed, allowed users to add anyone else as a follower of their tweets. Normally, the other person has to initiate such “following.”

It’s unclear how long the flaw existed and how many people took advantage of it. Twitter Inc. says it’s looking at the issue.

Twitter has an immediate remedy. Click “unfollow” to remove the hijacked follow. Hmm.

Anyone who took advantage of this “glitch” is a tweetjacker, not fake.