Gmail's new 'people widget' promotes contextual communication
In attempt to provide more context when composing e-mails in Gmail, Google on Thursday said that it was adding a new "people widget" to the interface that will provide contextual information on the contact. Information will be culled from a number of sources.
"Email is just as much about the people you communicate with as it is what you communicate about," software engineer Zohair Hyder said in a blog post announcing the new feature. "The people widget surfaces content from friends, family and colleagues that is already available to you but may be hard to find and makes it easier to connect with them."
Sparrow 1.2 adds unified mailbox, Facebook friends
Sparrow, the minimalist email client for Mac, has been updated to version 1.2. The latest release sees a number of improvements and additions, including the much requested unified inbox. This works in much the same way as the inbox in iOS, displaying all of your emails in one place. A neatly redesigned interface is in keeping with Sparrow's minimalist philosophy.
The app has been labelled 'the social email client' and to this end there are a number of improvements. There is better integration with Facebook meaning that friends' avatars are displayed in the application's chat window. In addition to Facebook avatars, Sparrow 1.2 adds support for contact images in your address book as well as the use of Gravatar.
Google debuts NFC enabled pay-by-phone system
As expected, Google on Thursday announced Google Wallet, a mobile application for Android that will use near-field communication (NFC) technology to allow users to pay with their mobile phone. The effort is a joint venture between Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint.
Google Wallet is currently in field testing and Google expects to launch it to consumers this summer. Transactions will be secured through the use of an application-specific PIN, ensuring that a stolen phone doesn't subject the user to credit card theft. The first phone to support the functionality will be the Samsung Nexus S, although support for others are expected to be added soon.
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7 and Xara Designer Pro 7 are now available
Xara has updated both of its flagship vector and bitmap design tools -- Xara Photo & Graphic Designer and Xara Designer Pro -- to version 7. New features include the addition of fly-out galleries, a magnetic snap feature, and a photo-erase tool that aims to simplify the process of replacing the background in one image with that of another.
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7 is aimed at graphic enthusiasts, while Xara Designer Pro 7, which adds web-design functionality and professional-level tools such as CMYK and PANTONE support, is geared towards professional designers and web builders.
AT&T and T-Mobile merger: No way to resurrect competition once it's gone
The House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet met Thursday morning to examine the effects a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would have on wireless competition.
AT&T, the United States' second largest wireless network, is looking to obtain federal approval to acquire the fourth largest network, T-Mobile USA in a deal that could fundamentally change the wireless telecommunications industry as it transitions into the 4G era and beyond.
avast! Free Antivirus for Mac beta is impeccably timed
Mac owners have long been notoriously smug about the lack of viruses for their chosen operating system, but it is far from true to say that viruses do not exist for OS X. In reality, the platform has simply been of little interest to virus writers and coders of malicious software, but the Mac Defender Trojan highlights the fact that Macs are just as vulnerable as other computers. avast! Free Antivirus for Mac is, and there's a clue in the name, a free antivirus tools for Mac -- and a new beta version has just been released. Timing is appropriate given all the noise about Mac Defender.
Coming from a well-respected name such as avast! you would be right to expect great things from the application, and things certainly bode well. Although there is a memory resident virus scanner that is constantly on the lookout for potential viruses, on-demand scanning is available. If you want to be thorough you can opt to scan your entire system, but you can also perform custom scans or check only in your Home folder. Individual files can be scanned by dragging them onto a special drop zone in the corner of the application window.
Five things you need to know about Mac security
The Mac Defender outbreak has stirred much debate about the state of Mac security and whether or not a malware deluge is headed for Apple computers. However, the nuances of the problem, if there really is one long term, are more complex than the majority of blog posts or news reports indicate. It's wrong to wholly, or even largely, assume that increasing Mac install base is reason for Mac Defender and other malware to follow.
I present five things you need to know about the state of Mac security, in no order of importance. All five matter.
When crashes occur, Soluto can tell you why
We recently took a look at Soluto, the self-proclaimed "anti-frustration software." The application started off by helping to improve Windows' startup times by analyzing the programs and services that were configured to run automatically and suggesting which were not necessary. This in itself was nothing new, but the suggestions were community driven, so everyone using Soluto was able to contribute to the improved performance of other users' systems. The application has now been updated and the latest beta adds new features to speed up your web browser as well as determining the causes of system crashes.
The web browser performance enhancement is achieved by analyzing which plugins and add-ons you have installed and advising you about which are not really necessary or cause the most slow-down. Your browser is also protected as Soluto will warn you about search engine hijkacking and enable you to prevent it.
iPhone crypto issue isn't all it's cracked up to be
It's been a bad security week for Apple, what with the world of malware finally bothering with Macs. But there was another story: ElcomSoft Co. Ltd., a Moscow computer security firm, announced that it had developed a method to decrypt iOS 4 (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) file system images. ElcomSoft also will be releasing the product implementing this "...for the exclusive use of law enforcement, forensic and intelligence agencies."
Oh no, another embarrassing revelation for Apple? Yes and no. To put it bluntly, the actual cryptography in the iPhone 4 is not "cracked", nor is it bypassed. The method used by ElcomSoft is brute force, which means that it cycles through all possible decryption keys finding the one that works.
SoftMaker Office 2008: Good enough, if Microsoft Office 2007/2010 compatibility doesn't matter
SoftMaker Office 2010 is an interesting productivity suite that delivers much of the power of Microsoft Office, at a considerably lower price. If you prefer your office suites to come without any price tag at all, though, you could always try the previous version, SoftMaker Office 2008. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package and scripting tool, and is now available for free.
Opting for 2008 edition of the program may cause a few problems. In particular, there's no support for importing Office Open XML files, like DOCX, XLSX or PPTX, so you may not be able to view files created by a more up-to-date Office installation.
Can it be 8 out of 10 Mac owners don't use anti-malware software?
That's the early result of our two separate polls asking Macintosh and Windows PC users whether anti-malware software is installed on their primary home computers. What's most interesting: About as many -- 8 out of 10 -- Windows PC users have anti-malware software installed.
I don't consider the findings exact but they are directional -- as in good enough for identifying trends. Respondents aren't qualified, meaning there's nothing to confirm they are Mac or Windows users. Additionally, the questions specifically ask about primary home PCs, which don't account for work computers or multiple machines at residence. Finally, as I write number of respondents is still small -- 224 respondents about Macs and 361 for Windows PCs. Given that Betanews readers are a more technical lot, I find the poll results to be interesting.
This IE9 graph speaks for itself (in 93 languages)
Microsoft today more than doubled the number of supported languages in Internet Explorer 9, bringing its total to 93.
The IE9 team released the chart pictured above to illustrate how this update has helped Internet Explorer move from fourth place to first, ahead of Firefox, in terms of language support.
Google to debut mobile payments system with Sprint
Google is set Thursday to debut its anticipated mobile payments system based on near-field communication (NFC) technology built into modern Android smartphones. It is expected that the search company will partner with Sprint to offer the service.
Such a move will put the carrier ahead of its three biggest rivals, who teamed up last year on a service called Isis. However that service is not expected to be available until 2012, leaving an opening for a competitor to stake its claim in a nascent market.
This Mac malware thing is really scary now
It's time for Windows PC users to start a support group for their Mac friends. You know their pain -- clicking a link sent by email or instant message or simply visiting a website, and WHAM! You've got a virus, downloaded and installed with no administrator password required.
Uh-oh. The malware ghetto is coming to the Mac, where street gangs and thieves overrun the once pretty manicured neighborhood. Mac users, you may need to bar the windows and lock the doors. Uh, first install locks on the doors.
Sony security a house of cards as more attacks surface
Sony has appeared to be increasingly losing control of its network as reports of new attacks surfaced on Wednesday, bringing the number of known hacks to at least ten. While the biggest remains the attack that shuttered the PlayStation Network for over three weeks, these smaller incidents indicate Sony's security systems may be quite lax.
The latest reports come from three separate Sony sites. Sony confirmed that the names and e-mails of 2,000 customers who had used its Sony Ericsson Canada website had been stolen, and a website in Thailand was shuttered after it was found to be sending fraudulent emails. In Indonesia, Sony's music site was shut down after it was attacked and web access codes stolen there.
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