Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 released, this time for real

A few days after an unusual false start, during which testers at a virtual worldwide party made do with a release candidate, Mozilla gives the public its next taste of what's coming in Firefox.
BetaNews FileForum has posted Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 this morning, and the good news is, it's still there.
Microsoft revamps its FolderShare remote access beta

It's perhaps the simplest example of cloud computing there is: two gigabytes of free storage space sitting out there on Microsoft's servers to be used for file synchronization, and all for free. But there's an added feature that purports to be a benefit, that some users might not expect.
Ostensibly, the new version of Windows Live FolderShare offers a convenient pocket for files you may need to access from remote locations. The surprise is, it's also a remote access system to your computers' complete file systems.
AOL Radio and CBS Radio combine operations in troubled times

What was supposed to be a boom year for Internet radio in 2007 took a very negative turn, according to recent ratings service numbers. And a move by major online and terrestrial broadcasters Friday shows consolidation may be happening earlier than anticipated.
In the spring of last year, when the threats of dramatically higher royalties rates for Internet radio first loomed on the horizon, industry analysts had reason to believe that the audience for the new medium was growing at a rate of about 27% per year. But comScore Arbitron ratings for December 2007 point to the opposite trend: Over a nine-month period, listenership as measured in terms of sampling the average quarter hour (AQH, the average 15-minute slice out of a given measurement period) dropped almost 20.5% for AOL Radio, the US' most listened to Internet radio service.
US delegation to ISO votes in favor of OOXML

A Microsoft technical evangelist and member of the INCITS V1 technical committee reports that after deliberating the many comments raised on Office Open XML's viability, the US contingent has voted to maintain its "Approve" recommendation.
The news reflects just the US' vote on the matter, and not whether the ISO Subcommittee 34 has voted as a whole in favor of adopting OOXML as an international standard.
Sony reportedly in talks with Microsoft on Blu-ray for Xbox 360

Inevitably, the other leading game consoles will need a high-resolution video disc option, and with the format war now over, there's only one option to be had. So it seems like now's as good a time as any for the two sides to talk shop.
A Financial Times report this morning cites Sony Electronics US President Stan Glasgow as saying his company is presently in talks with Microsoft about the possibility of it producing a Blu-ray accessory drive for its Xbox 360 game console.
Not so fast: Latest Firefox beta posted, then un-posted

This morning, BetaNews FileForum received word that Beta 4 of Mozilla Firefox was posted for testers to download...and for a short time, that's how it genuinely appeared.
But as one of our readers soon found out -- and apparently Mozilla as well -- what went up in the properly named releases/3.0b4 directory was not the final public Beta 4 at all, but rather a release candidate for Beta 4 (as opposed to a release candidate for the final product). Essentially, it's the latest build for what Mozilla hopes to be able to distribute as Firefox 3.0 Beta 4.
Legal team scrambles to suppress MobiTV addresses shared in the clear

Once again, a string of characters that purports to be secret intellectual property turned up in the clear, and its public dissemination has triggered more efforts by its owner's legal team than, evidently, by its security team.
As early as last November, a user in Sprint's mobile phone forums who was ostensibly giving a positive user review for a certain model of handset, happened to share a URL he discovered which would enable users of that phone to bypass the MobiTV front end -- and the monthly charges attributed to it -- and access its lineup of streaming mobile TV channels for free.
First new principles, now an interoperability initiative for OOXML

Microsoft wants to show that it's working really, really hard on adopting the principle of interoperability in its key software. To keep the rhythm flowing in its direction, it's building new alliances with software vendors.
A few days after the scheduled Ballot Resolution Meeting of ISO Standards Committee 34 has come to a close, Microsoft wants to leave a positive picture in the minds of members still considering their Office Open XML votes. That picture, it hopes, shows a company that is practically flogging itself over the interoperability issue.
IE8 Beta 1 experiences Acid2 hiccups, while Acid3 is rolled out

Testers anxious to see the first Internet Explorer edition that passes a Web standards test by default, were disappointed yesterday to discover it wasn't passing as expected. Naturally, Microsoft had an excuse on hand.
A choice regarding the default handling of ActiveX controls, according to Internet Explorer developer Phil Nachreiner late yesterday, forced the first public Beta 1 build of IE8 to fail the independent Acid2 test for public standards.
The virtualization challenge and whether IT is ready

The tools businesses need to be able to manage a virtualized data center are coming, though they haven't arrived yet, according to a panel of industry executives. What's more, IT may not know what to do with them when they get here.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The most obvious effects of virtualization in the data center, most experts have predicted, is a radical consolidation of processing power. Today, most server processors use about 5% of their total processing capacity. Engineers at Microsoft expect that figure to grow to as high as 60%, once operating systems such as Windows Server 2008 and built-in virtualization hardware on both AMD and Intel CPUs, are deployed in big business' data centers.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 goes live

FROM MIX 08 - At last, we'll all be able to see "Standards mode" for itself, and whether the new default operating mode for Internet Explorer truly adheres to written W3C standards as Microsoft now says it has bound its browser to do.
There's a lot of activity surrounding the public release of Beta 1 of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8...and we mean that quite literally. While its general appearance is not in as stark a contrast with its predecessor as IE7 was from IE6, there is one prominent feature about it that developers such as Scott Guthrie were proud to show off this morning in Las Vegas: It's called "activities."
Richer AOL Mail demoed with Silverlight 2 Beta 1

FROM MIX 08 - In a sign that major Web services, after studying their options, are moving into the Silverlight camp, an AOL development team appeared in Las Vegas today to show off its latest take on online services using Microsoft's rich development environment.
During the opening session of Microsoft's MIX '08 convention in Las Vegas, AOL's vice president for e-mail, Roy Ben-Yoseph, led a team demonstrating a new version of its Web-based e-mail client, with significantly enhanced functionality by virtue of using Silverlight 2, the latest test version of Microsoft's graphical runtime platform. The Beta 1 runtime was posted just this afternoon, along with the Beta 1 toolkit, which requires Visual Studio 2008.
Are we actually ready for the multicore and virtualization era?

The problem before hardware and software vendors alike, a panel of leading industry executives discovered yesterday, is getting their own adopters to understand and embrace the technology they're already buying today.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - Today, very few PC processors are sold with single cores, and that number is dwindling down to zero. And one of the largest commercial server operating systems, Windows Server, just last week added a virtualization platform as a principle option for all customers.
AMD moves cautiously into the 45 nm era

The term "latecomer" is a particularly uncomfortable one for AMD. So for its 45 nm CPU unveiling at CeBIT in Hannover today, the company had to make the case that, despite being later, Shanghai and Deneb will be technologically better.
It's now an unavoidable asterisk in AMD's history: Intel introduced its first 45 nm CPUs to consumers last fall. So the fanfare accompanying the demonstration of AMD's first 45 nm quad-core CPUs just today at CeBIT in Hannover can't come from the usual source. It's following up, and it has to catch up fast, but it won't have the full arsenal of process technologies that Intel is already putting to use.
Nokia to help move Silverlight to Symbian S60 devices

Every day, it seems, Microsoft is incrementally adding to its interoperability message. Tomorrow, as Nokia blurted out this morning, its regularly scheduled increment is a demonstration of Silverlight on a mobile platform other than Windows.
Today, Nokia provided something of a spoiler for tomorrow's keynote address at Microsoft's MIX '08 convention in Las Vegas: The two companies will be demonstrating Silverlight, Microsoft's runtime environment for rich graphics and functionality, running on the Symbian S60 mobile platform.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.