First Firefox 6 build next week, Firefox 7 by May, and aurora channel introduced

Mozilla's Engineering Project Manager, Christian Legnitto, has detailed the release schedule for Firefox 5, 6 and 7. If all goes to plan, Firefox 6.0a1 will be released next week, April 12, and Firefox 7.0a1 in the middle of May. The final build of Firefox 5 should be released on June 21, exactly three months after the release of Firefox 4.

Along with the faster 6-week release cadence, Firefox's new Chrome-like release channels have also been given names and anticipated update frequencies. The most notable change is the introduction of a new alpha channel -- which is analogous to Chrome Canary -- that will be called 'aurora' and will update nightly. Aurora will be where fixes and features are tested, and either approved for Beta, or backed out to Central. Aurora will have a new icon, too.

The Nightly (mozilla-central) channel will remain unchanged in name and frequency, but it will gain a new 'nightly icon.' The Beta (mozilla-beta) channel will remain as-is, with new builds rolling out weekly. The Release (mozilla-release) channel will also remain as-is, with security and stability updates coming every 6 to 12 weeks.

It should be noted that the names (including 'aurora') are not necessarily final, but it's unlikely that they'll change. We're also awaiting the arrival of the new 'channel switching' technology, which should arrive in the next few days -- in time for the release of Firefox 6 aurora!

First Firefox 6 build next week, Firefox 7 by May, and aurora channel introduced originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boomshine is a soothing-yet-frustrating time waster

One click; just one single well-aimed click. That's all you get in Boomshine.

That single click triggers a chain reaction; circles start exploding, and other circles colliding with the shockwaves explode as well, creating their own shockwaves, which then catch other circles.

It's been done before, yes, but this one is a great iteration. The soundtrack is mellow, with lots of piano and some nice percussion (not electronic - it sounds like drums).

At each level you need to make a certain number of circles explode to go on to the next level. I got up to level 12, where you get 60 circles and need to make 55 of them explode. And then I kept trying and trying, but simply couldn't get it. I did get to 54 circles a couple of times, but as they say, you don't get points for trying.

There's no time limit, so you can carefully study the pattern of motion and place your click at the exact right place to create the best chain reaction. I've found that clicking near the middle of the screen works quite well, especially if the balls are slowly moving in that direction. By the time the first shockwave dies off, the oncoming balls usually hit it and the chain reaction continues.

What level did you reach? Screenshots please!

Boomshine is a soothing-yet-frustrating time waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 8 to feature adaptive Aero colorization, get it now on Windows 7

While we've still yet to see anything truly Earth-shattering, the tandem of Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott continues to churn out insight about interesting new features they've discovered in Windows 8 milestone 3. The latest discovery is that Aero in Windows 8 will be able to automatically adapt itself to match your current wallpaper image. It's a bit like what Windows 7 already does with your taskbar icons: if a program alert needs your attention, the icon will glow using the predominant color (e.g. Firefox should glow orange).

And yes, you can already make Windows 7 behave this way if you like. Over at CodePlex, there's a little program called Aura that parks itself in your system tray and automatically adjusts your window borders to compliment your wallpaper images. The effect is quite nice, and you can try it out by minimizing your windows and cycling through your theme's wallpapers (right click on your desktop and choose next desktop background).

Windows 8 to feature adaptive Aero colorization, get it now on Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac OS X Lion Available in July from Mac App Store

Apple today announced that Mac OS X Lion ? the eighth major release of the world?s most advanced desktop operating system ? will be available to customers in July as a download from the Mac App Store for $ 29.99. OS X Lion offers more than 250 new features, including Multi-Touch gestures; systemwide support for [...]

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Platform Wars: How Competing App Stores Stack Up

We took a look at some of the most prominent mobile-application ecosystems out there today, comparing the benefits and drawbacks of each. Before buying that next tablet or smartphone, we suggest you take a look.

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Olympus Puts Pro Sensor into Tiny PEN EPL3 and PEN Lite

In addition to the new top-end EP3, Olympus has also announced a pair of smaller Micro Four Thirds cameras. These are more like Sony’s NEX range, or the new Panasonic GF3 than their big brother, but they’re still pretty capable cameras.
First is the EPL3, and update to the EPL2. It has a new tilting three-inch, [...]

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NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena

MagicJack rival NetTalk is planning to crawl out of the infomercial doldrums and launch its own, branded LTE wireless service with the aid of LightSquared. See, when the cellular wholesaler is done taking out GPS signals it plans to sell space on its network to other companies who will then market it to consumers -- and NetTalk wants to be one of those companies. Obviously, offering mobile voice and data is new territory for the VoIP provider but, as always, more competition on the cellular scene is quite welcome. It's still too early for details like pricing, features, or devices, but we do have some lovely PR after the break.

Continue reading NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena

NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US Army testing haptic belt that nudges soldiers in the right direction

Haptic belts and other wearable devices that can guide you may not exactly be a new idea -- we've even seen some DIY attempts -- but the US Army testing them? Well, that's something worth noting. As New Scientist reports, the Army Research Office in North Carolina is now working on just such a device (likely more advanced than the one pictured here), and hopes that the belts could eventually be used to remotely guide soldiers on the battlefield. That's done with a combination of GPS, an accelerometer and a compass -- and, of course, the haptic part of the equation, which vibrates or pulses to point the soldier in the right direction, or indicate when they're nearing their target. The idea there being to reduce the need for any handheld devices (at least until thought helmets become a reality), which can both take the soldiers' eyes off the battlefield and potentially reveal their position at night. There's still no indication as to when the belts might actually see use in the field, but early tests show that they're at least as accurate as a handheld GPS, and the soldiers say they actually prefer it.

[Image credit: Sreekar Krishna]

US Army testing haptic belt that nudges soldiers in the right direction originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Specific Media buys MySpace, already has one friend named Tom

To be honest, we weren't entirely surprised to hear rumors back in February that News Corp. was looking to hand off MySpace -- after all, most of the luster seems to have left the once-mighty social network, and Rupert Murdoch's time these days is pretty full running a media empire and saying things in an Australian accent. Word got out this week that the site has landed firmly in the hands of the broadly-named Specific Media, a digital ad network that apparently couldn't get together a cool $19.1 billion for the first-place Facebook. According to rumors, the company scored MySpace for the rock-bottom price of $35 million, a fraction of the $580 million its predecessor paid a half-dozen years ago. No word on whether Murdoch's electroclash band will continue to use the service to promote its gigs.

Specific Media buys MySpace, already has one friend named Tom originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zynga To Provide Customized Mobile Games And Content To AT&T Customers

Zynga and AT&T have just announced a strategic partnership, in which the social gaming giant will bring customized games and content to the carrier's customers. Financial terms of the agreement, which is the first of its kind for Zynga and a U.S. carrier, were not disclosed. According to the release, mobile games such as Words with Friends and Zynga Poker as well as customized content will be featured for download on AT&T?s shelf in Android Market later this year. AT&T customers will also receive free credits in select games and Zynga giveaways at AT&T sponsored events.

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Luca Technologies Files To Go Public, Producing New Natural Gas From Old Wells

A Colorado cleantech venture, Luca Technologies, filed an S-1 today revealing its intention to go public, and raise up to $125 million (though that number could vary with the receptivity of the market by the time they actually go public). The company stimulates microbes with a "proprietary formulation of nutrients," in already-drilled natural gas wells, which enables the wells to produce more methane, the primary component of natural gas. Luca Technologies owns and operates wells and infrastructure, then sells natural gas into existing markets. Its end users include power utilities, and government entities that use natural gas for power production. Today, Luca's chief executive Bob Cavnar explained...

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Cisco Cius: The Biggest Difference Between a Tablet and a Business Tablet Is $400 [Tablets]

Oh, Cisco. I appreciate that you're elbowing your way to a seat at the Android tablet table. Everyone else is! But dropping a $750 Android slate on an unsuspecting enterprise market is not how you make friends, Cisco. More »

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ChillBed Laptop Cooling Stand Review

One of the problems with laptops is their tendency to overheat, which can damage internal components.� Their small size doesn?t allow a lot of venting nor big cooling fans to keep down heat.� And their portability often means that people are using them places that can block the cooling vents ? like on laps or [...]

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Google Enters the Ring for Social Smackdown, Round 2

Google took a second stab at social networking Tuesday with the launch of Google+, a program designed to interactively connect users and challenge worldwide social networking king Facebook. The search engine giant failed with its first attempt at an online social network, last year's Google Buzz.

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Skype gets Congressional approval, will help Representatives stay in touch with the common people

Look, Capitol Hill is a nice place to be, okay? There are interns eager to please, lobbyists keen to buy you dinner, why would you ever want to leave? Unfortunately for US Congressmen and women, the schleps who elected them insist on getting face time with their supposed representatives, which means a regular schedule of commuting getting in the way of some critically important foot massages and aromatherapy treatments. Never fear, though, Skype has come to the rescue. Microsoft's latest acquisition has scored a stamp of approval from the House of Representatives, permitting Congresspersons to use it to interact with constituents, attend virtual town hall meetings, and collaborate with other members of the House. All fun-making of lawmakers aside, this strikes us as a step in the right direction and Skype promises that it's done its homework on keeping communications secure. Let's hope so.

Skype gets Congressional approval, will help Representatives stay in touch with the common people originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 03:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Was William Shakespeare a Pot-Smoking Hippie? [Bizarre]

A South African anthropologist wants to dig up William Shakespeare's bones to find out if the playwright smoked pot. He got this crazy idea from an earlier study which turned up pipe fragments in Shakespeare's garden that were coated with a marijuana residue. More »

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Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game

Sand Trap is one of those games that at first seem too hard to bother with, but when you try to stop playing it you discover you're hooked.

The goal is to get as much sand as you possibly can out of the maze and into the bucket at the bottom of the screen. You need to rotate your maze every which way to get the sand rolling around it. You then try to direct the sand to one of the exits of the maze, and hopefully into the bucket. It took me several tries to actually get sand into the bucket, but that might be due to the fact that I didn't even realize the bucket was there at first. Things improved significantly after that.

As you level up, the mazes get more complicated, with moving parts and other things making your life more difficult. Once you manage to get through all these obstacles and get enough sand into your bucket, you can move on.

As I mentioned, this is not an easy game, but it's highly addictive. The graphics remind me of some long lost game from the 80s, but this just proves that you don't need super graphics and crazy sound to make a game work. There's a soothing guitar track playing in the background and that's it, as far as I could hear, and you can enjoy it just as much with no sound at all.

If you like a fun physics challenge, don't miss out on this one!

Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blue Jeans Nabs $23.5M For The Video Conferencing Platform To Rule Them All

A pain point for online video conferencing platforms is that many of them don't integrate with each other. For example, a Skype user needs to engage with a fellow Skype user to start a multi-party video conversation. Today, the Blue Jeans Network is coming out of stealth as a video conferencing solution to integrate across many platforms. In conjunction with its public release, Blue Jeans is announcing that it has raised $23.5 million from Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Norwest Venture Partners. The name for the company is definitely original for a video-conferencing startup, but the company says that the name is exactly how clients should feel when using their product. So, you know that comfortable, easy feeling you get when wearing your favorite pair of blue jeans? This company wants to provide that ease and comfort when initiating multi-party conference calls in the cloud.

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A Portal On Your Sidewalk You Can't Jump Through (Updated) [Image Cache]

Here's a chalk portal created by an unknown artist in an unknown city of an unknown state. Despite all the unknowns, the sidewalk drawing is absolutely fantastic. [James Stowe via NerdApproved] More »

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GNOME 3 released, ushers in an interesting amalgam of iOS and OS X

GNOME 3, after more than two years of development, has been released into the wild. GNOME 3 is not merely the logical successor of GNOME 2: it is an entirely new project, started from scratch, to create a "completely new, modern desktop designed for today's users and technologies."

The best way to check out GNOME 3's new features -- and it has lots of new features -- is to run a live version of openSUSE or Fedora, or simply head over to the GNOME 3 website and watch the (rather pretty) introductory videos. If you want a synopsis, though, here it is: GNOME 3 looks a lot like Mac OS X, with a healthy dollop of iOSesqueness for good measure, but yet it still somehow retains an underlying feel of Linux.

The overall aesthetic is very simple, very elegant, and despite being slightly out of fashion, there are plenty of rounded corners, too. The main addition, workflow-wise, is the addition of an app-launcher-cum-alt-tab screen, where you can launch apps, or flip through your open windows. For a complete list of the new features and changes, check the GNOME 3 release notes.

Despite GNOME 3 being officially launched, there aren't actually any releases for existing, stable Linux distros -- it's the live CD/USB images, or Ubuntu users will have to wait for the launch of 11.04 for a GNOME 3 PPA, but it will break Unity in the process. Fedora users will have to wait for for the May 24 release of Fedora 15. Of course, if you're feeling crazy, you can always build GNOME 3 from source.

GNOME 3 released, ushers in an interesting amalgam of iOS and OS X originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 06:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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