Software-Programming

If you're not a Mozilla Firefox user already, now's the time to become one. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is coming to a computer near you today, and it's loaded with better features and faster browsing than ever before.

Users of the Firefox 3.5 test version are comparing the browser to Google's Chrome browser, known for faster searching and better performance than the current Mozilla Firefox. But as it stands right now, users are awaiting one feature in particular on Firefox 3.5: Private Browsing Mode.

Utter the word “firmware” to the average PC user, and you'll likely elicit a blank stare in return. But the concept isn't really that hard to understand, and once you have this knowledge, you can quickly improve your PC and any number of other devices, making them faster, more stable, and supplemented with features that didn’t come in the box.

Sugar Labs, a nonprofit organization that builds open source educational software, has announced the official release of Sugar on a Stick, a Linux-based platform that includes a suite of child-friendly learning tools. The software is available for download and is designed to be run entirely from a USB memory stick or similar removable media.

Mozilla will release the next major version of Firefox on Tuesday, June 30, Webmonkey has learned. Mozilla confirmed the news Friday afternoon.

The company previously made a promise that it would make the browser available for download “by the end of June” this year. Since next Tuesday falls on the last day of the month, Mozilla is sticking to its word — just barely.

Sony might be looking to get into the app business sometime soon, but for now, Apple is king. And with the recent release of the speedier iPhone 3G S, Apple will continue to utterly dominate the app front (gaming and non-gaming alike) for the foreseeable future. But if you’re an iPhone user looking to privately shove your device’s awesomeness in Sony’s face even more, then you’ll want to check out what a few crafty hackers have been up to lately.

Sony earlier released a minor system update for the PS3. According to the official announcement by Eric Lempel, the PS3 update 2.80 will improve the playback quality of some PS3 format software. But it looks like the firmware update is not just to improve the quality of games as dashhacker have discovered.

Apparently the new update blocks Open Remote Play, a homebrew program created by dashhacker that allows you to access the PS3's Remote Play feature from any laptop, desktop or mobile phone.

Just 18 days after the launch of the Palm Pre, their App Catalog has hit its first major milestone, 1 million downloads. On launch day, Palm sold 50k devices and their App Catalog experienced 100k downloads - that’s an average of 2 apps downloaded per device and 5,500 downloads per app (with a low of 600 and a high of 20k).

18 days later and they’ve tripled the user base to 150k units, averaging 6+ apps downloaded per device and 33.3k downloads per app (with a low of 2.4k and a high of 114k).

With little explanation, Palm has delayed the release of Mojo, the software development kit for its webOS platform, until the end of the US summer.

The operating system, based on a Linux kernel with an embedded Webkit rendering and JavaScript engine, is the foundation for building applications for the just-released Palm Pre. Mojo provides an array of interfaces and services that let developers easily access Pre features and functions.

Apple single handedly reinvigorated the smartphone industry and spawned a plethora of touch capable devices when it launched the iPhone. Since the original iPhone debuted, Apple has offered two more updated models of the device with the 3GS hitting the market last week.

One of the major missing pieces in the iPhone for many users is the ability to run AdobeFlash technology. iPhone owners have been crying for Flash support since the iPhone launched and still there is no version of Flash for the iPhone.

As Twitter becomes increasingly abused by hackers, Finjan Software released on Tuesday a free browser add-on with a new feature that scans links and warns if they point to a page containing malware.

The SecureTwitter component is wrapped into SecureBrowsing, a plug-in for either the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Finjan's CTO.