If you happen to own one of five kinds of Nokia phone–an E72, E71x, 5800, N97, and N97 mini phones–and you’re fond of Netflix, then I’ve got some great news for you.

Netflix, just two days ago, launched a new kind of app exclusively for those five phones, that will allow you to remotely modify your queue, browse their library for possible additions to that queue, and even watch previews of upcoming releases.

It’s available on the Ovi Store, under entertainment.

About the only people saddened by this news is everybody at Blockbuster Online, who doesn’t have anything even remotely like this and is still jumping for joy over their new “download movies to SD card” system.  This would admittedly be awesome except the downloaded movies will only play on a television, but that’s beside the point.

If you’ve got Netflix and Nokia, folks, you might as well get the app.

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Well, folks, it’s true.  An era has ended.  One of the greatest early guardians of Internet content just got wiped off the face of the web about ten hours ago.

I’m talking about Geocities, folks, the place where everybody who was anybody who knew HTML went for free web hosting.  They too could make a web page about their cat or their dog (Foofie, even–if you saw the White and Nerdy video that makes a lot of sense) or anything like that.

Back in the early days of the Internet, long before blogging and SEO and any modem speed much faster than 14.4 kbps (yeah, K.  As in Kilobyte.), Geocities was the place to go to get a chunk of the world wide web for yourself.  And Yahoo realized this, inevitably buying it for a whopping $3.5 billion bucks.

Of course, these days, Geocities wasn’t as widely used as the blogs and social media of today, so that spelled the end for Geocities.

So long, old friend.  We’ll miss this simple relic of a bygone era, back when the Internet seemed new and potential seemed limitless.

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Sometimes you want nothing more out of life than to be able to step through your computer monitor and go live on that magnificent stretch of beach pictured on your desktop.  Google has sensed your plight, o cubicle dwellers, and offered up something to make it worse: a Google gadget called My Daily Hawaii.

My Daily Hawaii not only shows incredible beaches, but also offers up Hawaii trivia, history, travel tips and more.  If you actually answer the Hawaii trivia right, though, you win a “super cute puppy picture prize”, which actually makes some sense.

Admittedly, if you live in, say, a cold Northern climate, you may well consider My Daily Hawaii to be a huge dose of masochistic glee, but for those of us who just like to look at a sunny beach as a quick pick-me-up in the cold black depths of winter, then this is a great piece for us.

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Hewlett Packard’s just recently introduced a new software gadget designed to help you get a little more green with your daily computing and offers the Power To Change gadget, part of a whole lineup of said energy saving widgets from HP, Google and Microsoft, among others.

This gadget syncs up with various Windows power management features to shut down monitors and turn off unused computers completely throughout the day.  HP will let you download that gadget for free, as well a host of other companies offering a similar gadget.

This is actually a really good idea.  There’s more than a little potential for waste involved with computers, so helping users find a fast and easy way to save a little extra juice.  Once you save a little extra juice one day, saving it every day can really add up to stomething big, which just might be the way to help everybody go a little greener.

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Well, if you’ve been worried about using your various Net-capable gadgets because of the lack of net neutrality law, then worry no longer.  Seems that the FCC is about to adopt net neutrality as a set of general principles soon.

Net neutrality, in case you don’t know, is a standard that requires all internet service providers to treat all information equally in terms of download speed.  For instance, Comcast recently decided to force BitTorrent users to accept vastly slowed download speeds as they gave precedence to other users.  Technically, that’s not illegal, but the FCC did scold Comcast, and now with net neutrality, such actions as Comcast took will be illegal in the future.

So download away, folks–your ISP can’t stop you any more.

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Guess who wants a piece of Amazon’s Kindle market?  As it turns out, a whole a lot of people.

The list is pretty wide and growing by the day, and includes names like News Corp (otherwise known as Fox), Hearst Publishing, and now, Time Magazine wants to change the way you read books and possibly even its own magazine.

At the rate things are going now, it’s not so hard to believe that dead tree publishing will go the way of the dodo within the next 20 years.  After all, who is really that interested in keeping giant cases full of books in their house when all they have to do is put their library down on the nearest end table at night?  Taking a paperback book with view to the grocery store or jury duty or to a doctor’s appointment is a pretty cumbersome task unless you have deep pockets or a handbag,  and you can really only carry one at a time. But imagine the possibilities of being able to take your entire library with you. And why stop at yours? Why not the entire Library of Congress?

Maybe print-based books will have longer than I think they do to live.  But with the sheer amount of competition coming for them, it won’t be an easy fight.

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Europe has a pretty big problem with its gadget vendors these days–roughly half of them, according to a report from the European Union, are under investigation for something.

The worst part is just what that “something” entails, according to reports:  concealing delivery charges, misleading customers about products, and failing to honor the customer’s right to return products within a week as mandated throughout the European Union.

Three hundred and sixty nine websites throughout twenty eight countries are currently under investigation by EU officials, and punishments for wrongdoing vary wildly according to the charges filed.

I don’t know about you folks, but to me, this is horrible news.  When you can’t trust the web stores in any basic level you’re leaving a serious potential for economic devastation.  If no one trusted Amazon any more, or eBay, we’d lose a HUGE portion of revenue.  And with three hundred sixty-nine European websites under investigation, this doesn’t bode well for an economic recovery.

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Today Microsoft released the final version of Internet Explorer 8.0. According to initial reports, the new browser has a lot to like and becomes a solid contender in the war of browsers. Some reviewers even go so far as to say it outperforms Firefox when it comes to basic browsing, although they’re quick to note that Firefox’s extensibility still cannot be touched.

Feature highlights include:

• Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.
• Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web
• Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time

Official press release:

 

REDMOND, Wash. — March 18, 2009 — Today Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser that offers the best solution for how people use the Web today. It can be downloaded in 25 languages at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 starting at noon EDT on March 19. Internet Explorer 8 is easier to use, faster and offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people’s increasing concerns about online safety. A new study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. shows that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78 percent are more likely to choose a Web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago.

“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers; cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.

Helps Protect People From Online Threats

The new study released today reinforces the importance of safety in browsing, indicating that 78 percent of people are more likely than they were two years ago to choose a browser that includes built-in protection against security threats without them having to go online to download additional programs or browser add-ons. It also showed that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online fraud and identity theft in today’s economic climate, and 37 percent are less likely to shop online because they would have to give their personal information.

Internet Explorer 8 offers the best security protections among leading browsers: a study released today by NSS Labs indicates that Internet Explorer 8 blocks two to four times as many malicious sites as other browsers on the market today.

Makes Common Online Tasks Faster and Easier

In addition to offering improved security and privacy protections, Internet Explorer 8 is one of the fastest browsers on the market today, beating other top browsers in page load time on almost 50 percent of the 25 top comScore Inc. Web sites.* It also helps people save time while using the Web with easy-to-use new features, including the following:

•	Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.
•	Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.
•	Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

“We are excited about Internet Explorer 8 for several reasons, including its ability to provide our customers with updates to eBay products using Web Slices so they can keep track of their buying activity while surfing the web,” said Matt Ackley, vice president of Internet Marketing and Advertising at eBay.

“The new ESPN Web Slices on Internet Explorer 8 make it easy for sports fans to check on the latest news and sports videos in a new and exciting way,” said Jason Guenther, vice president of technology and product development at ESPN Digital Media. “We have a heritage of leveraging technology to deliver the best sports content to fans, and this is another example of our dedication to that.”

 

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Not sure how I missed this one but Microsoft recently enabled POP3 access for users of Hotmail. What this means is that you can now easily check your hotmail on external non-Microsoft e-mail clients and mobile devices without the messy plugins and workarounds.

Here are the settings:

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)   
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)   
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

For more details click here.

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My Safari 4 experience rocks so far.  It’s super speedy and based on my 6 hour test drive has no glaring bugs.  Big ups to Apple.  My only gripe are the God awful top tabs.  They make navigating between each tab a cryptic experience to say the least, and I’m constantly clicking into another window.  But – drum roll please – there is a fix.  Close out all Safari windows, upon up Terminal (just search for that in ’spotlight’ if you ain’t familiar) and when it’s open and loaded, copy and paste the following and hit return (note: you need to restart Safari to get it to ‘take’):

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

If you wanna restore the top tabs, because your a masochist:

defaults delete com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop

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Apple has launched a public beta of Safari 4, the Apple OS web browser.  The Cupertino company claims that Safari 4’s Javascript engine, dubbed Nitro, can process Javascript 30 times faster than Microsoft’s IE 7 and 3 times faster than Firefox.  They also lay claim to loading pages 3 times faster than both competitors.

So what else is new?

• Top Sites – See your favorite websites at a glance. Open one with a single click.
• Cover Flow – Flip through your site history or bookmarks like you flip through albums in iTunes.
• Full History Search – Easily retrieve sites you’ve seen before. Spot the one you want in Cover Flow.
• Tabs on Top – Manage your tabs elegantly and open a wide window for exploring the web.
• Nitro Engine – Wait less. Browse more. Surf the web with the world’s fastest browser.
• Windows Native Look and Feel – Vista and XP users: feel right at home in Safari for Windows.
• Developer Tools – Access the best suite of development tools ever included in a browser.

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Rejoice all you Windows Mobile users. The mobile goodness of  Google Mobile apps now extends to your device. Now that it’s integrated directly on your Today screen, you can start a search without opening a browser (a real time saver). You can also access Maps, Gmail, News, and more from the mobile app.

Download the Windows Mobile version here.

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According to reports, the Google Chrome browser will soon be receiving their much anticipated extensions. A Google developer conference on May 27 will include a session on developing extensions for the browser. The extensions should be available shortly before or on that date.

I’m definitely looking forward to this as the extensions are the only thing keeping me from switching over. Chrome is surprisingly fast, stable, and quick loading but it absolutely needs extensions to make it a complete browsing solution.

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According to reports, a milestone Firefox Mobile update a.k.a Fennec will be available on Windows Mobile as soon as next week. The initial release will be made available on the HTC Touch Pro, with other versions coming in the later months.

According to internal Acid 3 tests, Fennec scored a 88/100, which beats iPhone Safari’s 74/100. Let’s hope the new browser meets and exceeds our high expectations. Read more about it here.

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Samsung and Yahoo have teamed up to bring us a TV Widget service, called “Internet@TV – Content Service”.  Thanks to Samsung’s Internet enabled 2009 flat panel TVs, users will be able to access a variety of Yahoo content as well as many well known third party sites such as YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks directly on their sets.  And the apps widgets won’t stop there thanks to the open-platform Widget Development Kit (WDK), which will enable other third party developers, such as Hulu (fingers crossed), to get in on the action.

Full release below

SAMSUNG AND YAHOO!® BRING
THE BEST OF THE WEB TO TELEVISION

Internet@TV – Content Service
to Open a Whole New World of TV Interactivity for Consumers

SEOUL, Korea and SUNNYVALE, CA – January 5, 2009 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a market leader and award-winning innovator in consumer electronics, and Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today announced a new Internet-based service to Samsung televisions available in the spring of 2009.  Select models in Samsung’s 2009 flat-panel HDTV line-up will be powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, a fifth-generation applications platform that enables TV watchers to interact with and enjoy a rich set of “TV Widgets.” TV Widgets make it easy to interact with Internet content and services to complement and enhance the traditional TV viewing experience. The lightweight Javascript and XML applications bring content, information and community features available on the Internet within easy reach of the remote control.  The new televisions will be displayed at CES 2009 in Samsung’s booth located at Central Hall, Booth #11033.

Select models in Samsung’s 2009 flat-panel HDTV lines will support the new TV Widget service, called “Internet@TV – Content Service.”  The service, which adapts the Yahoo! Widget Engine, enables users to engage in a variety of experiences that traditionally could only be enjoyed on a PC.  Not only will users be able to track their stock portfolio and stay on top of headline news, but they may also browse through videos, share photos and interact with friends.  Users can access the service by connecting the HDTV to a home network via the built-in Ethernet port or using an optional Wi-Fi USB dongle.

The suite of TV Widgets range from a host of Yahoo! properties, including Flickr™, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance, to third-party content from well-known brands, including USA TODAY®, YouTube™, eBay® and Showtime Networks® among others. The content and services offered will grow to include video streaming and other popular internet services.

Developers worldwide will be able to develop and deploy TV Widgets for the television by using the open-platform Widget Development Kit (WDK). At the same time, Samsung will continue to provide high-performing TV hardware so that developers can easily deploy widgets on Samsung HDTVs. Samsung and Yahoo! will expand their collaboration further to bring more developers to the Internet@TV –Content Service and build an open ecosystem where more developers can create various TV Widgets for consumers to enjoy on their televisions.

“Samsung has been a proven innovator in Internet-enabled TV technology for some time now, offering the ground-breaking InfoLink service last year in 2008. There’s no denying that the easy-to-use, one-touch of the remote control service successfully provides information simply and effectively,” said Boo-Keun Yoon, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Division at Samsung Electronics.  He continues, “The collaboration with Yahoo! lets viewers go one step further. This new interface allows them to interact and connect with many of their favorite Web services on a personal level.  It’s frankly way beyond just passively watching broadcasts and is no doubt the future of TV.”

“As a leader in developing innovative technology platforms to provide indispensable Internet services to millions of users, Yahoo! is excited to be working with Samsung to enhance consumers’ television viewing experience by bringing the best of the Web to their televisions,” said Patrick Barry, vice president of Connected TV at Yahoo! “Through this partnership, we can combine the Internet benefits of user choice and personalization with Samsung’s leading product innovation and global reach to deliver a new experience to users around the world.”

Samsung HDTVs with the Yahoo! Widget Engine and TV Widgets will be available in 13 countries in 2009 including the U.S, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.  This provides publishers and developers the opportunity to create exciting TV Widget experiences that will reach and engage millions of Samsung TV viewers.

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Google released the final version of their Chrome 1.0 Windows browser. Not much has changed since the first release besides a few bug fixes, new bookmark manager, and improved plugin support.

According to reports, the browser should still be in beta but Google’s desire to push it out to PC manufacturers caused them to release it early. I say kudos to them if they can make a dent on IE’s dominance on pre-configured PCs.

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Google announced an update to the Chrome browser, version 03.154.9, that features improved security and performance tweaks. I’ve been using it for a while now and it’s been surprisingly stable and quick for a beta release. Read more about the update at Ars Technica.

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Watch out Google Chrome, there’s a new player in town and its name is…Firefox? Mozilla’s Minefield browser figures to be the fastest gun in the west (or east) and initial reports indicate that it’s true. It’s still in alpha phase but Minefield absolutely blazes with a javascript engine that’s 10% faster than Chrome. Yup, the word you’re looking for is ’smoked’.

Download the latest build here.

[Cnet]

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By: Albert S

Google announced the availability of their new Chrome web browser in beta form. Yeah, I know, it’s not a gadget but it sure seems like one with its shiny name and numerous, nifty functions. Basically, it’s a browser designed from the ground up to be extremely stable, functional, and streamlined.

After looking into it, all I gotta say is that Microsoft and Mozilla should be very concerned.

Read more about it here.

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