Firefox Nears 10 Percent Market Share
Firefox continues to make gains on Internet Explorer, even though the Microsoft browser still holds a commanding lead, a Web-monitoring firm reported Friday. NetApplications said Firefox had reached an 8.71 percent usage share in June, up slightly less than three-quarters of a percent from the previous month. Internet Explorer use fell by a similar amount to 86.56 percent, suggesting most users were switching from IE to Firefox over other options.
NetApplications said it expected Firefox to reach a ten percent share shortly, and that it would continue "to gain significant traction once it gains acceptance by large corporations." The data, which is derived from traffic to more than 40,000 Web sites, also showed Apple's Safari with a 1.93 percent market share, AOL's Netscape with 1.55 percent, and Opera with 0.59 percent.
In-Flight Cell Phone Use Gets a Hearing
The Federal Aviation Administration said at a hearing of a House aviation subcommittee on Thursday that it was up to the carriers and phone manufacturers to get the ban on cell phone use in planes lifted. "The FAA is not changing its rules," the group's administrator for Aviation Safety Nicholas Sabatini bluntly told attendees.
The move to lift the ban started back in December after several European countries began to relax their rules on in-flight cell phone use. Numerous independent studies have shown that cell phones do not interfere with plane operations; however, government agencies and some airline passenger interest groups continue to resist any move to change the rules.
Rockstar's Sex Mod Scandal Deepens
If Rockstar Games thought its statement on Wednesday regarding pornographic material within the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was sufficient, at least one U.S. Senator and a media watchdog group disagree.
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on Thursday announced that she would ask the Federal Trade Commission to look into the matter, and the National Institute on Media and the Family said they would back Clinton's efforts.
Trend Micro's $8 Million Bug Fix
Trend Micro on Thursday warned investors that it would not meet original revenue and profit forecasts for the April to June quarter of this year, lowering profit forecasts by over one-fifth and adjusting net income down 16.7 percent. Behind the adjustments are costs related to recovery from an April 23 update to its software that caused customer's computers to experience high CPU usage, become unstable and possibly crash.
At the time of the incident, Trend Micro told BetaNews that it would do all it could to assist customers in bringing their systems back online. The company estimated the cost of this process at 903 million yen ($8.05 million USD) as of the end of June. Trend Micro received service requests from about 28,300 customers and 700 corporate accounts according to company estimates.
Report: Intel Based Apple Macs 'Fast'
Developers with access to Apple's Intel Mac development systems say they are impressed with the speed that Mac OS X and several associated applications are running at, enthusiast site AppleInsider reported on Wednesday.
According to one developer, the Intel Mac ran the operating system faster than his home dual 2.0GHz Power Mac G5. The development systems come with a Pentium 4 3.6 GHz processor, an 800MHz frontside bus, and 1GB of SDRAM. The developer said Windows XP boots quickly on the machine, as does Mac OS X -- in about 10 seconds.
MS Developing Online Game with Marvel
In hopes of drawing more gamers to its new Xbox 360 platform, Microsoft on Thursday announced it had obtained the exclusive rights to produce massively multiplayer online games (or MMOGs) featuring the Marvel characters. But fans will have to wait; the first game isn't expected until 2008.
The deal is the first for Marvel on a MMOG, and the first for a Microsoft console. Microsoft already had struck some deals with companies for games on the PC side. The Xbox 360 is expected to be launched in November.
Sharp Introduces Dual-View LCD
Electronics maker Sharp on Thursday unveiled a new LCD screen that will allow it to display two different images depending on the angle it is viewed from. Production of the screen begins this month, and the new LCD could be used in applications such as automobiles where such a feature would be useful.
To make the dual-view technology work, the screen sends light from the backlight in two different directions, each showing a different picture. However, if need be, it can be switched to operate as a normal screen where everyone can see the same image regardless of the angle viewed.
Sony Bests Apple in Japan
Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer alluded to it in the company's quarterly conference call Wednesday, although he didn't mention specifics - Apple isn't happy with its performance in Japan. On Thursday, it became apparent just who was the thorn in Apple's side: Sony.
In flash based devices, Sony has been able to best Apple for two straight months, knocking the iPod Shuffle into second place in both May and June. Behind this success is a new player from Sony that looks much like a perfume bottle and offers 50 hours of battery life with a 512MB or 1GB capacity in several colors.
palmOne Returns to Palm Roots
palmOne on Thursday announced that it had changed it's name to Palm, Inc. after completing the process of purchasing the rights to the name from PalmSource, the spin-off that controls the rights to the Palm OS. Also, the company announced a new logo that it will begin to use on products this fall.
The new logo, which is an updated version of Palm's old circular blue design, uses orange as its main color and a digital-looking font for the text. Palm says the color is meant to invoke a sense of energy and the font signifies the move toward digital content.
Apple Posts Another Record Quarter
The good news kept coming out of Cupertino on Wednesday as Apple announced its best quarter financially in the company's history, and touted record iPod sales and the best sales numbers for its Mac line in four years.
Apple posted a quarterly profit of $320 million, or 37 cents per share on revenue of $3.52 billion. Revenue grew 75% and profit grew 425% year over year.
Cell Phone Handset Sales Slowing
Consumers are continuing to buy new cell phones at a record pace in 2005, the fourth year in a row that sales will reach record levels according to a study by market research firm In-Stat. While sales in terms of volume are at record levels, percentage-wise only a 6 percent increase in sales is expected overall. This is down from the double-digit gains seen over the past few years.
"The slowing pace is a result of some mature markets at, or near, full penetration, and weaker-than-expected growth in some emerging ones," says Allyn Hall, Director of Wireless Research. "It's a sign of a maturing industry."
Microsoft, Alacritech Settle Dispute
Microsoft on Wednesday settled a lawsuit with Alacritech that claimed the software giant was going to implement the company's networking technology without permission. Under the terms of the agreement, Broadcom and Microsoft will be granted use of patents for a fee that was not disclosed, and the case would be dropped against Microsoft.
The technology is supposed to help increase network performance by moving the workload off of the CPU and onto a specifically designed chip created for such a purpose. Microsoft had entered into talks to use the technology in the 1990s, however nothing ever materialized.
Feds Want to Monitor Airline Net Usage
The U.S. government is asking the FCC to give it more authority to monitor Internet usage on board airplanes. The FBI along with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security hope that doing so will help to prevent possible terrorist attacks, although some see it as a breach of privacy.
In the event a security alert is issued for a flight, the agencies are asking that they be given access to the plane's network within ten minutes. They would then be able to identify the user by their seat number and would require the airline to store the information for up to 24 hours.
Podcasters Finding Ways to Stay Afloat
With podcasting entering the mainstream thanks to Apple's recent addition of podcast support into iTunes, groups that previously may have been ignored by the mainstream media are finding ways to reach their target audiences as well as touch new ones.
The whole idea of radio is being turned on its head much like TiVo did to television when it first became available several years ago - allowing the listener to hear what they want, when they want.
Game Maker: Sex Mod Not Our Fault
After staying silent for several days following the discovery of a modification in one of its games that allowed the main character to engage in sexual acts, Rockstar Games said that the modification to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is simply not its fault and should be blamed on "hackers."
The modification, known as "Hot Coffee," does not actually modify the game, according to one of the people behind it. Patrick Wildenborg says that "all the contents of this mod was already available on the original disks. Therefore the scriptcode, the models, the animations and the dialogs by the original voice-actors were all created by RockStar."
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
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