Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Microsoft pushes out Internet Explorer 7, Sony drops the final deets on the PS3, Apple celebrates the iPods 5th birthday, but the most exciting event is the next step for Mozilla’s Firefox. The changes are not major nor drastic, a couple of fixes here and changes there but 2.0 proves that the renegade web browser, Mozilla Firefox, has what it takes to make it to 2.0 and fight IE!

Go and download it for yourself. You’ll never be so happy to replace IE ever again.

Download [Mozilla]

Nokia is going to integrate Orb MyCasting into the Nokia N80 What is Orb MyCasting? Essentially Orb offers you a way to enjoy your digital media stored on your home computer, via your phone. You can view/watch/listen to home photos, videos, music and even TV, where and when you want.  Orb streams content from your home PC using the Web browser and player on their Nokia N80 Internet Edition.  You can also remotely record TV programs using Orb’s Digital Video Recorder (DVR) function and then play back those recorded programs on a N80.

Read [Darla Mack]

The new Nokia N80 Internet Edition offers wireless LAN (WLAN), WLAN wizard, web browser, support for internet calls, a 3.0 megapixel camera, and quadband GSM WCDMA, and a host of other internet services not found on other Nokia devices.

Use the integrated Yahoo! Search for finding whatever you need and use the Mini Map function to manage the pages you find.  Browse through thousands of items at Amazon.com, or scroll though a book with Amazon’s MobiPocket Reader. You can also snap a photo and send it directly from your device to your Flickr...you get the point.

The Nokia N80 Internet Edition comes loaded with Nokia’s new Download! client, which allows you to see what new applications are available, as well as keeping other applications current.  The web browser with Mini Map makes browsing the internet the same way that PC web browsers display web pages. VoIP is integrated into the Nokia user interface, and the handset allows for compatible third party internet call applications. The Nokia N80 Internet Edition comes in two colors, patina bronze and pearl black, and is expected to be available from mid-September 2006.

Any more .x.x.x versions and the upgrades won’t even be noticeable. Mozilla upgraded their popular web browser Firefox with update 1.5.0.5, a security update that is part of their, “ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers.” This update most notably improves stability (which is needed for me as my browser has begun to crash every session) and patches some security issues. AS always Mozilla recommends that all users upgrade to this latest version and will or has been sent through as a automatic update.

It is nice to see that even though the developers are working hard at the next major version, FireFox 2.0, they are still working on improvements for current versions. Now if only all companies would be so kind.

Read [Firefox]

Opera released Opera 9, its newest Web browser for PCs in more than 25 languages for Windows, Mac, Linux and other platforms. Opera 9 includes widgets, BitTorrent support, a high level of security and more. Though not as popular as the renegade Firefox or incumbent Internet Explorer/Safari, Opera does offer a rich feature set. Opera comes with a built in saved sessions, the trash can (to get those closed tabs back), notes, pop-up blocker, skins, and more.

Opera believes in an open Web by supporting open standards and technologies that lead the next wave of innovation. Opera 9 includes tools to make it easier for sites to code for these open standards. Built-in Extensible Rendering Architecture (ERA) helps developers make sure their sites work well on any Web-connected device. Opera’s browsers are built on the same core technology, making it easy to test once in Opera 9 and ensure compatibility with a variety of devices - from mobile phones to Nintendo’s Wii and DS.

I will admit that while using the software over the weekend it took some time to get used to, after being addicted to Firefox and my plugins, but I can see myself giving the browser a run here and there. Who knows, maybe I’ll get hooked, it happened with Fx.

Read and Download [Opera]
Read [Opera Watch]