Mozilla announces that Firefox 3 will be officially released this coming Tuesday, June 17th US time. Get your clickers ready, because they’re aiming to break a world downloading record that day.
Mozilla Labs shows off their Firefox Mobile mockup with an impressive video demonstration of zoomable tabs and optimised screen real estate worthy of your mobile device. It’s still just a mockup at this point, but as mobile browsers like Safari on the iPhone continue to innovate, it’s nice to see Firefox on board. Hit the jump for a look at the video demo.
While scouring the far corners of the internet, we often run across tools that look great but come up just short of making the cut for a post. For example, I’ve been keeping my eyes on a few Firefox extensions lately that I love, but they’re still in Experimental mode on Mozilla, meaning that you need to register with Mozilla and sign in to download them—because Mozilla testers haven’t yet gotten around to approving them to go public just yet. We pass on these to make sure anything we post is readily available to our readers. Rather than continue to wait, which can take a while with Mozilla’s approval process, check out three of my favourite experimental Firefox extensions.
We’re used to TV stations cramming the credits with ads for upcoming programs, but Ten is now taking it a step further: for new local programs, it’s telling producers not to include any end-of-show credits at all. The Australian’s Media section reports that the change is designed to ensure people don’t switch over between shows, or, as a spokesperson ludicrously put it, “maximise accelerated audience flow”. (One way to prevent channel change would be showing better-quality productions and not using Kyle Sandilands, but I digress.)Given you can grab most show credits on IMDb, this isn’t much of an informational concern (though it would be nice if the Australian coverage was more comprehensive). But I can’t help thinking that Ten’s missing the bigger picture. In an era where people increasingly download shows to watch later, just how relevant is transitioning the audience to the next show anyway?Ten cuts credits to lure viewers
Give web site TorrentRelay the URL of any torrent on the internet and it’ll automatically download it for you through your web browser. Not only does that mean that you can download files over BitTorrent without installing a new BitTorrent client if you’re on someone else’s computer, but it also means you can download torrents directly to hardware that doesn’t support BitTorrent clients, like your Wii, PS3, or even iPhone. Currently TorrentRelay downloads are limited to 400MB. For a similar solution, check out previously mentioned BitLet. TorrentRelay [via TorrentFreak]
A new study by sleep scientists shows a 20-minute nap combats sleepiness more than a cup of coffee. Time to get that sleep pod installed at the office! For more tips for counting sheep, check out our top 10 ways to sleep smarter and better.
Windows/Mac/Linux: Free, open source application KeyJnote transforms any simple PDF into a powerful interactive presentation similar to PowerPoint or Keynote. After you plug your PDF into KeyJnote, you get a slate of powerful presentation tools, with everything from simple forward and back navigation with your left and right mouse buttons, mouse highlighting, rectangle highlighting, slide zooming, and more. KeyJnote doesn’t yet have a graphical interface for starting a PDF presentation, but using it is simple.
Mozilla developers found a “showstopper” bug in Firefox 3 for Mac, and they’re issuing a third release candidate to resolve it. Update: Download Firefox 3 RC 3 here.
Scary reports of a malicious ransomware virus—a software that encrypts your files and holds them hostage until you buy a decryption tool—make you glad you’re running one of the best antivirus applications. Even better: An automated backup plan is just as important in situations like this.
Weblog ScienCentral reports that when you can’t come up with an answer that’s sitting on the tip of your tongue, you’re best off forgetting about it altogether. That’s because, according to a study by experimental psychologists at Canada’s McMaster University, the more you struggle to remember a word on the tip of your tongue, the more difficulty you’ll have remembering it in the future. Their recommendation: Just look it up, and do so as soon as possible. Do their findings match up with your experience? Let’s hear about it in the comments. Tip of the Tongue Learning [ScienCentral]
