Items tagged with Beta
The unlimited-mobile-wireless-everything-for-$19-a-month dream is a step closer to reality. Republic Wireless announced in a blog post that a new, large-scale round of beta testing will launch this summer, and if you were one of the thousands who signed up for the Republic Wireless email list, you’ll have the chance to participate. In about a week, the company will organize everyone on the list in a “beta waves” according to letters of the alphabet, and over the course of the summer, each group in turn will be given the chance to jump in on the beta. Those who signed up the earliest will be in the first waves. Here are the details, via the blog post: 1) We’re going to...
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You can't very well call yourself a power user if you don't have VLC installed on your desktop system, the popular media player that will play anything nearly anything and everything you throw at it. Wouldn't it be rad if VLC was available on Android? The answer is 'yes' and, to an extend, VLC for Android has arrived. It's an unofficial build, and it's also currently in beta, but it's available to download, provided you're rocking a rooted Android device with one of the supported chipsets. There are three main build variants available: ARMv6/ARM11 ARMv7a/Cortex-A8/NEON ARMv7a/Cortex-A9 To break it down even further, a common device list of supported devices includes: Snapdragon S1 --> ARM11...
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What's probably the most popular keyboard alternative on Android has a new beta out, and there's a major new feature included: Dragon Dictation support. That little add-in makes for speech-to-text support, making the overall package even more compelling. Simply press the Flame key in the lower right, speak at will, and watch as the keyboard translates that to text on your phone. Apple may have hit one out of the park with Siri, but something tells us the Android camp isn't far behind when it comes to dictation. Have a look at the video below to see how it's done....
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If you're reading this, it's only because you're stuck at work. Otherwise, you'd be home in your man cave slaying dragons in Skyrim or shooting up your buddies in Battlefield 3. It's a good thing we caught you too, because before you check out for the day and get ready to blow your weekend playing either of the aforementioned games, there's something you should know. If you own an Nvidia graphics card and are willing to roll the dice with beta drivers, you can squeeze out better performance out of either game with the newly released GeForce 285.79 drivers. These beta drivers are supposed to squash several bugs in Battlefield 3 and make the game run better. The fix applies to both DX10 and DX11...
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Developers have access to a new beta version of iOS 5 -- version 5.0.1 -- that's supposed to fix battery life issues reportedly plaguing some iPhone and iPod touch users who installed Apple's latest and greatest mobile OS. iPhone 4S owners have been particularly vocal in voicing concerns that their shiny new smartphone is giving up the ghost well before their previous iPhone device used to, even though their usage habits are the same (we haven't run into this issue ourselves). What gives? According to the release notes, Apple discovered and fixed a bug affecting battery life. What exactly that bug is, Apple didn't elaborate, but the Cupertino company did outline other changes included in iOS...
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No sooner did Mozilla release its Firefox 7 browser to the public in final form, the browser maker has now made available the next version in beta trim. Such is the way it goes with Mozilla's recently adopted rapid release schedule. Should you rush out and grab the Firefox 8 beta before the paint has even had a chance to dry on FF7? To help you answer that question, let's take a quick look at what's new in FF8: Twitter Search: The new build adds Twitter as a default search option, so if you're heavy into the microblogging service and keeping up with the latest social networking trends, this could be a valuable addition to your day-to-day surfing. Otherwise, no big deal. Restore Tabs on Demand:...
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Listen up tightwads, if you view paying for antivirus software only slightly more appealing than shoving bamboo under your fingernails, then we have good news for you. ClamAV recently announced the public beta for ClamAV 3.0 for Windows, which the company says "includes full integration of the ClamAV engine into the Immunet Protect product." As Yahoo News points out, "corporate users on a budget" may want to take a look. It won't cost them a cent, and the cloud-based Immunet Protect integration offers a bit of additional protection. Some of the main features of ClamAV 3.0 include: ClamAV 0.96.5 libraries for real-time scanning and offline scanning, Customizable signatures support and signature...
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Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser still claims the lion's share of the browser market, but let's be honest here, it's been so long since IE led the pack in terms of features and performance that Microsoft has forgotten what it's like for users to be genuinely excited about a browser release that doesn't belong to Mozilla, Google, or any of the other competition. Hence the feeling of euphoria emanating from Redmond over the initial interest in Internet Explorer 9 Beta. "The initial reaction has been pretty overwhelming, and we are very humbled by the response our customers have had," Microsoft announced in a blog post. "In the first two days, over 2 million people worldwide downloaded IE9...
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Most of us here behind the scenes roll through the Web with Firefox or Chrome, but for those of you still clinging to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you'll have a new browser to play with in September. That's when the Redmond software juggernaut will push out the first fully fledged beta (as opposed to that highly limited Preview release floating around) of its next-gen browser, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said during a financial keynote. We have little reason to doubt Turner's time frame for IE9. Following the release of the first developer preview back in the middle of March, Microsoft has been pumping out updated test builds every 8 weeks. There's still no word on when the...
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When the first Service Pack shipped for Windows Vista, it was a pretty big deal. After all, it took several performance and reliability updates to turn what debuted as a buggy OS into a serviceable platform, all of which were rolled into SP1, and then some. Windows 7 has gotten off to a much smoother start, but hey, if you're at all curious what the first Service Pack will bring, by all means, go find out - the beta is now available for download (as well as for Windows Server 2008 R2). Keeping in mind that this is beta software (the Service Pack, not Windows 7), we'd advise against downloading this on mission critical rigs. But really, we're not expecting too much quirky behavior here. Rather...
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There's a new beta browser in town, and its name is Firefox 4. Previously available in "Candidate" form, this latest release is a bit more polished and ready for anyone comfortable playing with beta software, which may or may not prove stable (been running fine for us so far). If Firefox 4 looks eerily familiar, then you must have logged some time with Google's Chrome browser. Mozilla appears to have taken a few design cues from Chrome, with Firefox 4's UI now sporting tabs at the top, a new Firefox button that replaces the menu bar, and the merging of the stop and reload buttons, to name a few. Underneath the browser's hood sits a few architectural upgrades, like better HTML5 handling, full...
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There's just no question that Skype has revolutionized calling, and has basically delivered VoIP to the mainstream. Before Skype, VoIP was mostly used to make intracompany calls and teleconference calls, but few consumers bothered with it. The setup was simply too difficult, and there was no unified way to actually find someone else who was setup to handle VoIP calling. But you knew that the Internet had the chance to revolutionize calling thanks to the elimination of "roaming," and that it did. VoIP carriers began to pop up everywhere, from Vonage to cable companies. But even those used a standard phone number, so international calling still cost something. Skype, however, enabled people around...
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Have you picked yourself off the floor yet? It's no lie, Google Apps, which includes Gmail, is finally out of beta. Gmail had been in beta for five years. In fact, Gmail had been in beta for so long we wondered if Google simply forgot it was in beta. Here's what the company said on the official Google blog:Ever since we launched the Google Apps suite for businesses two years ago, it's had a service level agreement, 24/7 support, and has met or exceeded all the other standards of non-beta software. More than 1.75 million companies around the world run their business on Google Apps, including Google. We've come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn't fit for large enterprises that aren't keen...
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If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on the latest browser from Mozilla, you won’t have to wait much longer. The next version of Firefox is nearly complete, as evidenced by yesterday’s release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 3, the fifth development milestone in the popular web browser. Beta 3 has been plagued by delays. Mozilla originally intended to launch Firefox 3.1 in late 2008. Because progress on the browser has been slower than planned, the company reworked its schedule and added Beta 3 to the timetable to give developers more time to fix bugs. Earlier this year, Mozilla pushed back Beta 3’s release. Beta 3’s release comes just a week before the expected release of Internet Explorer 8. Just two...
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Apple today announced the beta release of Safari 4.0, and it's promising blazing fast browsing, for Mac or PC users.It has a new "Nitro Engine," that Apple says executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and more than 3 times faster than Firefox 3. (Side note: Firefox is THAT much faster than IE7?) It also loads pages about 3 times faster than either browser, according to Apple.Other new features:• Top Sites: Safari 4.0 tracks your favorite sites based on your browsing history and gives you a look at up to 24 thumbnails of those sites. The display is customizable, and you can "pin" a specific site to a specific spot in the thumbnail display. Sites with new content...
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As they said earlier, Windows 7 beta downloads will be ending this week. In fact, if you haven't already signed up for the beta, it's already too late to sign up. You can, however, continue an in-progress download until Thursday. In a reminder posted on the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft noted that new download availability ended at 12:00 PST AM February 10th, though you can continue your downloads until 9 AM PST February 12th. As Microsoft also previously indicated, you will still be able to get activation keys after Feb. 12th. It's unclear if they will offer a public release candidate, but some verbiage in a blog post about changes upcoming to Windows 7 UAC seemed to indicate it was a possibility,...
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How long has Google's Gmail been in beta? Years. And yet a report indicates that Google wants to take its Chrome web browser out of beta, only three months after its first beta release. Seems difficult to imagine, what with the product's still buginess, but there's an apparent method to this madness. According to TechCrunch, VP Marissa Mayer gave them the news at Le Web 08. The reason for taking the browser out of beta makes sense: many OEMs want to bundle the browser with their PCs, but are unwilling to do so with a beta product, although Mayer did not specify an exact date. Still, to "artificially" call what is a relatively buggy product a 1.0 version in order to make some deals seems questionable...
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Recent tests have shown that the third Chrome beta version offers faster performance than previous iterations. In these tests, Google Chrome's latest version, 0.3.154.9, shows a 37% improvement in JavaScript performance over the initial beta that was released two months ago.Using Google's JavaScript benchmark, the first beta scored 1,851; the 0.3.154.3 developer release scored 2,265; and the new 0.3.154.9 beta hit 2,546. A higher score is better. In the SunSpider test, Google’s Chrome also scores well, finishing the test in 2,546 milliseconds compared with 2,904 milliseconds for version 0.3.154.3. This new, faster score is close to Firefox 3.1 beta 1’s score of 2,250 milliseconds with the new...
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You'll recall last week NVIDIA announced that its 177.39 drivers would provide PhysX support on the GeForce 9800 GTX, 9800 GTX+, and GTX 260/280 cards. You'll also probably recall the big dust-up over whether or not NVIDIA was cheating in terms of optimizations for various benchmarks. Whether or not you believe that (read their response here), for end users, the real question is: "where are the drivers? I want to try them." NVIDIA has posted beta versions of 177.39 on its site. Just remember, they're beta, so the normal warnings apply. Windows Vista 32-bit Windows Vista 64-bit Windows XP 32-bit Windows XP 64-bit...
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The folks over at Skype are hoping that you want to be a beta tester. Starting today, Skype 4.0 Beta 1 for Windows goes into public beta, and there are a number of significant changes in the new version. The most noticeable transformation from the existing client to the new beta is a much lager default video window for video calls. (Skype estimates that about 25 percent of current Skype users use the software's video calling feature.) The user interface is being reworked a bit as well to make it easier to "resize and move your own video window around the screen" and to position your IM conversation window next to the video window. Also, instead of spreading all of your conversations across a...
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Mac users represent a small percentage of computer users--about three percent worldwide. But if Mac sales are any indication--up 51 percent in the last year--the number of Mac users are growing rapidly. One of the reasons for this is that all new Macs can also run Windows, allowing users to have access to both operating systems simultaneously via virtualization software.There are several options available for those who want to run Windows on their Macs. Apple's Boot Camp software, which comes with OS X 10.5 (Leopard), sets up a Windows partition so the system can boot directly into the native Windows OS. This way offers the highest level of Windows compatibility and performance, but precludes...
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Linux is finally starting to make inroads into mainstream computing, as evidenced by the Eee PC and the HP Mini-Note ultraportable laptops. It should come as no surprise that vendors are starting to embrace Linux with open arms, due to its low-cost of entry. VIA Technologies is the latest Linux lover with its launch of the VIA Linux Portal beta Website, intended to provide support to the open source community for development of Linux drivers for VIA-based platforms. A VIA press release stated: "The VIA Linux Portal will initially offer graphics drivers for the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset for the new Ubuntu 8.04 LTS distribution. Documentation and source code for these drivers will be...
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