Tech Bangla

The Problem With Opera

2010-04-28T12:18:00.001+06:00

Opera has always been a bit of a curiosity to me. Nearly everyone seems to tout its speed and adherence to web standards — and yet, no one seems to use it. Well, at least not in the United States anyway, and really not that many people worldwide either. Why is that?
Today, Opera announced a new version (10.52) available for OS X. The promise is that it’s ten times faster than the last version I used (10.10). In fact, they’re saying it’s the “world’s fastest browser for Mac.” So I decided to try it out as my primary browser the entire morning.
First off, let me just say that the thing does seem pretty fast. Noticeably faster than Chrome or Safari? No (more on that below), but definitely faster than Firefox. And, a few rendering issues aside, it does seem like a pretty solid browser. But still, the entire time I was using it, I found myself itching to go back to Chrome or Safari. It took me a while to figure out why. But I’ve come to the realization that it was staring me in the face.
I simply don’t like the way Opera looks on a Mac.
Now, I say that knowing full well that they’ve revamped the look for OS X since the last version. And it does look much better than that version — not quite so pixelated. But there’s still too much chrome (no, not the browser Chrome, UI chrome). Worse, the chrome seems to be too dark. The bottom toolbar is cluttered up with buttons I’ll simply never use (Unite? Widgets?). And those blue status indicators on the top of tabs are simply hideous.
This latest version of Opera looks as if it’s the spawn of Safari and Firefox mating. On paper, that may sounds like a good idea, but the result is awkward. It just feels alien.
That’s not to say I demand all applications to look the same. Safari is obviously Apple’s own web browser, but it’s not my browser of choice. I like Chrome much more for a number of reasons (the first of which is the Omnibox), even though it doesn’t particularly look too Mac-like. Before Chrome for Mac was available, I had used Mozilla’s Camino browser for a number of years rather than Safari as well. That’s two other browsers made by two other vendors that seem (at least to me) to have nailed browser development on the Mac. Opera, in my opinion, still hasn’t. (Nor, in my view, has Firefox.)

Opera on Windows is a different matter. I don’t use Windows on a daily basis (or really, at all, except when I have to test something out) so take this with a grain of salt. But Opera on Windows looks pretty solid compared to the competition in my view. It’s much, much better than Internet Explorer, and on-par with Firefox. Safari for Windows doesn’t look right in the same way that Opera on the Mac doesn’t look right, so I never use that. While Chrome, of course, is still king of the hill in my book on Windows too.
I guess what it boils down to is that when browsing the web, I basically just want a giant window that renders an HTML page correctly and fast — that’s it. All these features sound nice, but most are just clutter. That’s especially true on the desktop, where most of us are on fast connections (or fast-enough), and things such as Opera’s “turbo-charging” don’t seem to make much of a difference (obviously, that’s different on the mobile web — but usually only with Edge connections, in my experience).
Chrome nails this experience that I’m looking for, and that’s one of the reasons why Chrome OS excites me so much. Anything not rendering HTML on my screen is just noise. Opera has a lot of noise.

written by,
MG Siegler

Gmail for IPAD

2010-04-03T22:54:00.001+06:00

Google has just announced on its mobile blog that it has created a web-based version of Gmail that’s optimized for the iPad. The HTML5-based site, which is automatically activated when you visit Gmail.com from device, features a slick looking two-column view, with a list of messages in the left column and message content on the right.

Of course, the iPad comes with a built-in native Mail application, but the Gmail web app offers a few advantages, as it allows you to use Gmail features like starring, labels, and (perhaps most importantly) threaded conversations. Google launched a similar web app for the iPhone last year.

We haven’t gotten to try out the app for ourselves yet, but it will be interesting to see how responsive it is. In general, I’ve found the iPhone web app for Gmail to be good, but not great — it’s never matched the responsiveness I get on the native Gmail app Android (perhaps the iPad’s speedy processor will make up for this). Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing a native Gmail app launch on the iPad given the ongoing conflict between Google and Apple.

As part of its post, Google highlighted some of the native applications it has that are included on the iPad — Apple is using Google as the default search provider (though there have been rumors that may change to Bing), Google powers the Maps application, and there’s also a native YouTube app.

Google Shows How HTML5 Can Run Quake In The Browser

2010-04-02T19:37:00.001+06:00

A lot of attention lately has been put on the video capabilities of HTML5 browsers, since the iPad doesn’t support Flash. It turns out not to really matter that much because most online video platforms are now drinking the HTML5 Kool-Aid. But what about other things that Flash does well, like games? Well, HTML5 might be a more powerful game engine than most peopel think.

To show off what is possible with HTML5 in the browser, some of the engineers on the Google Web Toolkit team created an HTML5 port of the classic first-person shooter game Quake II. Check it out in the video above. It is based on an open-sourced Java port of Quake called Jake2. A post on the Google Code blog explains how they did it :

We started with the existing Jake2 Java port of the Quake II engine, then used the Google Web Toolkit (along with WebGL, WebSockets, and a lot of refactoring) to cross-compile it into Javascript. You can see the results in the video above — we were honestly a bit surprised when we saw it pushing over 30 frames per second on our laptops!

Flash Player To Come Bundled With Google Chrome

2010-03-31T01:06:00.000+06:00

Adobe and Google are tightening their partnership.Concretely, Adobe has announced that its Flash Player will be included with future versions of Google Chrome right out the gate, so users will soon no longer berequired to download and install a third-party plugin to make it work with the open source browser built on top of Chromium.Furthermore, updates to Flash Player will be delivered directly via Google Chrome’s updating system, ultimately minimizing security risks that tend to surface when using outdated software and components.

You can download the dev channel build now, and yes, you can easily disable the built-in Flash Player if you like.In addition, Adobe says it is working with Mozilla and Google and the “broader community” to create a new API for browser plugins. This new API, which will build off Mozilla’s NPAPI, which has been designed from the start to be both operating system and browser neutral. In essence, the goal of the new API is to allow plugins to more tightly integrate with host browsers, which in turn should benefit users in terms of performance and security.

The new browser plugin API will allow add-ons to directly share more information about its current state to its developers and the makers of the host browser it was made for, and it could also allow for a more secure browsing experience as the process of unifying security models and collaboration on techniques to defend against hackers (e.g. sandboxing) will be made easier.

OpenDNS now serves 1% of the Internet

2010-03-23T20:49:00.000+06:00

When you think of one percent of something. It’s usually not a very big number. But in some cases it is. Like when you’re talking about all of the users of the Internet in the world. Today, OpenDNS is announcing that over one percent of the world’s Internet users are using its services. It’s the first DNS provider to hit such a milestone, and it means that over 18 million people are using the service to access the web in a way that founder and CEO calls “safer, faster, smarter and more reliable".

And that usage number has doubled in just the last 12 months.That type of growth is important because a new, big time player just entered the ring: Google. But despite the big name, and the right price (free), the results for Google’s DNS offering have varied. And in a test we ran with Google’s own Namebench product, OpenDNS easily beat Google in DNS speed.

The truth is that most users have no idea what any of these DNS services do, or how to go about changing them. So companies like OpenDNS have to rely on partnerships with schools (they have over 25,000), partnerships with large corporations (they have them with many Fortune 500 companies), or parents really worried about what their children are surfing for on the web. But again, the growth is clearly happening, and actually picking up speed, according to CEO

Google's first 1335$ prize money goes to Sergey

2010-03-21T21:13:00.001+06:00

In January, Google announced that it would follow Mozilla’s lead and start offering cash bounties for bugs found in the code of Chrome by the community. Google both matches Mozilla’s $500 and ups the bounty all the way up to $1,337 for “particularly severe or particularly clever” bugs. This week, they rewarded the first of those.
As noted on the Chrome Release blog, Google made four cash payments on Wednesday. There were two $500 prizes (both for memory errors), one $1,000 prize (for a cross-orgin bypass), and the first-ever $1,337 prize. The lucky receipient of that was a man named Sergey Glazunov, who located a bug that Google is calling, “High Integer overflows in WebKit JavaScript objects.”
This crowd-sourced bug hunting seems like a great idea, especially for a browser moving through development as quickly as Chrome. Chrome has only existed for a year and a half and already they’re testing version 5.0. Stable builds of both the Mac and Linux version of the browser are likely to launch at some point over the next few months.

Thinking about Apple iPad or Neofonie WePad?

2010-03-21T18:48:00.003+06:00

While every man and his dog is waiting for their preordered iPad to arrive, some Germans went their own way and yesterday presented a Slate that appears to have, well, better features. The Neofonie WePad has similar form and function .but facts are that the German Android device has a bigger multitouch screen and a faster CPU than the iPad. Also it runs Flash, has USB ports, an inbuilt card reader and expandable memory. Additionally it allows complete multitasking and has a webcam.

The WePad is set to arrive sooner to German stores than its Apple counterpart and will be significantly cheaper than the iPad, says Neofonie CEO Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen. Preorders and deliveries are planned for next month and that’s no April Fool’s joke. At first I thought it was a fake, because some specs feel too great and the choice of OS sounds just weird: a Linux derivate with Android on top. That’s Linux with Linux inside, which makes it possible to install apps from the Android Market as well as special Adobe Air software from Neofonie.

	WePad	iPad
Display	11.6-inch (1,366 x 768 pixels)	9.7-inch (1,024 x 768 pixels)
Processor	1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 Pineview-M	1.0 GHz Apple A4
Memory	16 GB NAND Flash (optional 32 GB internal + 32 GB SDcard)	16 / 32 / 64 GB
Webcam	1.3 Megapixel	None
Ports	2 USB ports, card reader, audio out, SIM card slot, multi pin connector	Apple connector for camera or card reader as peripherals
Flash/Adobe Air	Yes / Yes	No / No
AppStore	WePad AppStore + Google Android Marketplace	iTunes App Store
Multitasking	Yes	Restricted, allowed only for Apple apps
Battery life	6 hours	10 hours
ebook Format	eBook format All open standards	Proprietary Apple format from iBooks store
Wirless connect	Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi N, 3G optional	Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, WiFi N, 3G optional
Body	Magnesium-Aluminium	Aluminium
Dimension	288 x 190 x 13 mm	242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4 mm
Weight	800 g (850 g with 3G)	680 g

The company from Berlin, although unknown, is no newcomer. The 12 years old Neofonie GmbH is a software company that also runs a search enginge called WeFind and sells an epublishing platform by the name of WeMagazine. It makes newspapers and magazines readable on computers and smartphones, and that’s also where they see the real business for their WePad tablet PC.

Do you know?

2010-03-13T22:53:00.000+06:00

Mobile social networks have tremendous potential to flourish in developing countries where mobile phone usage trumps internet connectivity. SMS based social networks like SMSGupshup have gained considerable traction in Asia because of this. For example, in India, there is currently a 10 to 1 mobile-to-PC ratio. Mig33, a mobile social network that involves VoIP calls, instant messaging, e-mail, text messaging, and picture sharing, has accumulated 35 million registered users of its service and is growing fast in South Asian markets such as Indonesia and India. Assuming 3 to 10 percent are active on a monthly basis, that would be 1 million to 3.5 million active users.
Mig33’s users are now sending over 1 million virtual gifts a month, and posting approximately 100 million messages a day on its network, or 1,000 messages every second. Twitter, in comparison, just passed 50 million a day. Mig33 is eying the virtual gift economy as a revenue maker because of the model’s success for China’s similar application, Tencent QQ. According to Mig33, the Chinese mobile social application has nearly 8% of its over 500 million users in China paying about $2 per month in virtual gifts and goods. Mig33 is hoping to emulate that model in markets like Indonesia, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Bosnia.
Mig33 is available worldwide and optimized for more than 2,000 different mobile devices. The startup has steadily added to its app by integrating social games, user-owned groups, virtual gifting and, most recently, avatars. Avatars are actually a source of revenue for mig33, by charging users to customize and enhance their avatars. Mig33 is looking to expand the virtual economy. In fact, the startup says that its revenue stream has grown to over $1 per user per month in countries such as Indonesia and India.
Founded in 2005, mig33 is backed by Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and DCM and has raised a total of $23.5 million.

Seven alternatives to the Apple iPad

2010-03-13T22:28:00.002+06:00

Are you dreaming about an ipad in your hand? Wait! Stop. Before you hand over Apple your credit card and pre-order ipad, you may want to check out the other touchscreen options available now and in the near future. The iPad isn’t the only game in town. Sure, it might have a fancy-pants interface, but each of the follow seven tablets win the hardware fight, which is just as important to a lot of consumers.

Of course the hardware only tells part of the story. The iPad has a leg up on all of these options because of the user-friendly iPhone interface, but it’s not like you’re dropping $600+ on a tablet for your parents, right?

ModBook

The ModBook is the original Apple Tablet — besides the Newton of course. Except it’s not made by Apple proper, but rather Axiotron who has been making them since 2007. Prices start out at $899, but customers have to provide a pre-polycarbonate unibody Macbook making the total price closer to $2,000.

Advantages over the iPad

Full OS X
Multitasking
Flash support
Built-in camera
Built-in optical drive
13.3-inch screen
120GB hard drive
Windows compatibility

Disadvantages

No 3G modem
No multitouch
No access to the App Store

Viliv X70

Viliv came out of nowhere last year — South Korea actually — and introduced a round of sleek portables with the X70 heading up the tablets. This widescreen 7-inch tablet has nearly every piece of hardware missing from the iPad. Prices start out at $597.

Advantages over the iPad

Windows
Flash support
Multitasking
Unlocked 3G GSM modem
GPS
SD card slot
Camera
USB slot
Haptic-feedback touchscreen
Video out
128GB SSD

Disadvantages

No multitouch
No access to the App Store
Only a 7-inch screen

Archos 9 PC tablet

Archos has been a major player in the MID market since it started. The Archos 9 PC tablet is the company’s largest slate device to date. It also proves that Apple isn’t the only one to out beautiful looking devices. Prices start out at $549.

Advantages over the iPad

Windows 7
Flash Support
Multitasking
Two USB slots
SD Card slot
Webcam
A kick stand
Optical trackpad nub

Disadvantages

No multitouch
No access to the App Store

Upcoming

Viliv S10 Blade

The S10 Blade is Viliv’s first product of 2010, and it’s a looker. It has a 10-inch multitouch touchscreen in a convertible notebook setup that’s not much thicker than the iPad. The Viliv S10 is shipping soon at a starting price of $699. (Recently Announced)

Advantages over the iPad

Windows 7
Multitasking
Flash support
Unlocked 3G modem
Webcam
2 USB ports
SD card slot
Video out

Disadvantages

No access to the App Store

Notion Ink Adam

News about Notion Ink tablet broke late last year and many chalked it up to a fanboy dream. But it’s real and supposed to be coming this spring.

Advantages

Android
Multitasking
Nvidia Tegra 2 platform
10-inch Dual-mode display (full color to ePaper)
Rear-facing trackpad
USB and HDMI ports
Unlocked 3G modem

Tie

Android Market to Apple’s App Store
Multitouch

HP Slate

We joked that CES 2010 would be full of tablet computers. It wasn’t and only a few major players like HP and DELL showed off prototypes. Both take a totally different approach too as the HP Slate (the unofficial name, btw) opts for a Windows with full flash support. It should hit the market this year at a rumored price of between $500-$600.

Advantages

Windows 7
Multitasking
Flash support
Camera
USB ports

Disadvantages

No access to the App Store
No 3G modem (at least not yet)

Dell Streak

While HP decided to go with Windows, the 5-inch Dell Streak uses Android. The 5-inch Streak is clearly meant for a different market than the 9.7-inch iPad, but it’s also possible that we’ll see a larger version sometime soon, too. At least we hope we do.

Advantages

Android
Multitasking
Front and rear facing cameras
USB ports
Dual microSD slots
Rumored unlocked 3G modem

Tie

Android Market for the App Store
Neither support Flash

Disadvantages

Smaller screen
No 3G modem

Opera Mini 5 Beta Now Available For Android

2010-03-11T19:47:00.001+06:00

Opera Mini may already be the most popular mobile browser in the world. Following up on the Android release of Opera Mobile 4 just over a year ago, Opera has just launched Opera Mini 5 for Android into public beta.
The jump from version 4 to version 5 is pretty huge, introducing a handful of features that Opera says “makes your mobile browsing experience as close as it can be to your desktop experience.”

The biggest change here is probably the introduction of tabbed browsing — a must, given that just about every default smartphone browser supports it out of the box at this point.

Some of the other big new features:

Speed Dial: Gives you one-touch access to 9 of your favorite sites.
Password Manager
Opera Link: Syncs your bookmarks (and Speed Dial) between your handset and your desktop (be it that you’re running Opera on your desktop, that is)
Is Opera Mini 5 a worthy contender to the default Android browser? I’d say so. Opera Mini’s primary selling point is that they pipe everything through a data compression proxy before sending it to your handset. For those days when 3G just isn’t as fast as it should be, it’ll save you time; for those of us not on unlimited data plans, it’ll save some money. Alas, the current Beta doesn’t support multi-touch, which may very well be a deal-killer for some
Still: throw in Opera Mini 5’s seemingly rock solid build quality and its pretty dang decent UI, and I’d say it’s worth giving it a serious test session at the very least. Look for it in the Android App Market.

Facebook Location Features Coming Next Month

2010-03-10T01:58:00.000+06:00

Facebook is finally going to enter the location game at this April’s f8 conference, according to a report morning on the NYT’s Bits blog. And they’re looking to take Google head on.

We’ve been hearing rumors about Facebook’s location features for a long time, but the buzz has picked up in the last few months. Those rumors got legs in October, when we noticed that the site had added language explicitly talking about location features to its rewritten privacy policy.

The question now is exactly what this location sharing will look like. I’ve heard that Facebook has tested simply attaching location data to user status updates, similar to the way Twitter does it. According to the report, Facebook will also offer an API to third parties, presumably allowing services like Foursquare to send their location data into Facebook (it’s unclear if data will also flow the other way).

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Times piece is the assertion that Facebook isn’t looking to beat Foursquare, Gowalla, and similar location based services — something that I believe it could easily do if it wanted to. Rather, it’s looking to beat Google in the small-business advertising space. The Times report doesn’t say much on how exactly Facebook is going to do that, but I suspect it will involve getting as many third parties as possible to integrate its API.