By Rik Myslewski
5th January 2009 18:44 GMT

Use of Apple's Safari browser grew in December to 7.93 per cent, up from 7.13 per cent in November, suggesting a parallel growth in adoption of Mac OS X, according to browser-usage figures released today by internet-analyst Net Applications.

While use of Apple's browser is growing, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is sinking: down to 68.15 from 69.77, according to an article in Electronista, which also states that IE has been "on a continuous decline since the beginning of 2008."

Before Mac fans get too cocky, however, they should note that Electronista also cautions that "browser use during December was unusually residential", and home usage is where Macs have been gaining most of their market share due to the oft-touted iPod and iPhone "halo effect".

And although IE remains by far the dominant browser for surfing ex-Senator Ted Stevens infamous "series of tubes," Redmond has another competitor nipping - albeit gently - at its heels: Google's Chrome passed the one-per cent threshold, accounting for 1.04 per cent of browser usage in December. Only 67.11 per cent to go, Google.

By Lucas Mearian
January 5, 2009

A decreased demand for NAND flash-related applications has led DRAMeXchange Technology Inc. and other analysts to lower their outlook for 2009 NAND flash chip sales. DRAMeXchange trimmed its forecast for higher chip sales from 108.2% to 81%.

The research firm expects the market to reach 1.16 billion units sold in 2009, a decrease of 5.4% over 2008. While the lowered sales expectations may not appear dramatic, over the past three years NAND flash sales grew 175%, 151% and 121% in 2006, 2007 and 2008, respectively. So 2009 will be the first year in recent memory that the market will likely see only double-digit growth.

Gregory Wong, an analyst at Forward Insights, said NAND flash chip sales were down 20.1% between 2007 and 2008, with 12.4 billion flash chips sold last year, compared with 15.8 billion in 2007. He doesn't expect those figures to improve for 2009. While Jan. 26 marks the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Ox, Wong said Asian workers will have little to be bullish about when it comes to the technology marketplace.

"The layoffs in Asia will occur just before Chinese New Year. This way the companies will avoid paying year-end bonuses," Wong said. "If those rumors are true, there will be a lot of people let go." Wong said widespread layoffs will hit NAND flash chip production and sales negatively.

By Stewart Meagher
5 January 2009, 12:00

ADOBE FLASH technology will soon be seen in a number of new consumer devices including TV's, set top boxes and media players thanks to a collaboration between chip giant Intel and graphics leader Adobe. The Open Screen project will concentrate on porting existing Flash technology to Intel's CE 3100 media processor which will allow the viewing of web-based content and video on consumer electronics.

The two companies are working together to make consistent approach to viewing media across a wide range of gadgets using Adobe's Flash Player and Flash Player Lite. So what you see on your laptop will be exactly the same as the content you see on your portable DVD player, or your TV set... or your internet connected fridge.

by David Morgenstern
January 5th, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Customers will point to FileMaker’s friendly new interface in Version 10, for good or bad depending on how welcoming a site is to change. However, some significant improvements in the database’s programming support may drive sites to upgrade, according to several FileMaker consultants.

FileMaker is the venerable, cross-platform database for workgroups that started on the Mac and moved over to include Windows way back when. But FileMaker may not get the respect it deserves, first, because it’s going up against Microsoft Access, and second, because of its static interface, which has been frozen in time for more than a decade, reminding me of classmates who haven’t moved on from the haircut and style of high-school days.

FileMaker’s interface was once cutting edge, but that was a long time ago. Still, both of these wrong perceptions should change with the release today of Version 10, which sports a totally rewritten interface, as well as with the realization that the product is used by 70 of the Fortune 100 companies. According to Ryan Rosenberg, FileMaker’s vice president of marketing and services, the database outsells Access in a number of non-Mac market segments.

Ryan said the new “modern” interface would avoid the problems for the installed base when Microsoft introduced Ribbon Bar that replaced many menu commands and buttons in MS Office. Instead, FM10 retains all its menus and keystroke commands. “It’s all compatible. There is no file format change and that was tricky. Compatibility that was a big reason that [the update] took a while]. We had to make sure that we nailed it,” Ryan said.

by Stephen Shankland
January 5, 2009 2:00 PM PST

Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google's cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company's online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

"We have many Mac users," Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, "and we think they'll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better." Online photo sites are great for several reasons, but problems can arise when people manage separate and different set of images. They often upload only a selection of photos on a PC, for example.

By Lester Haines
5th January 2009 13:08 GMT

China has announced a new clampdown on websites accused of "threatening morals by spreading pornography and vulgarity" - including Baidu, Google and Sina.com.

China's Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies today launched a "nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people", as state television put it.

The crackdown is specifically targeting 19 'internet operators' and sites which had failed to excise "vulgar" content. TV reports showed "officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office", Reuters explains. Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, said:

"Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations. They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the internet." Cui Jin, a China-based PR official for Google and Sun Yao, Baidu's PR rep both declined to comment to Reuters, insisting they were "unaware of the announcement".

By Lucas Mearian
January 5, 2009

Seagate is now shipping its densest desktop hard drive, the Barracuda 7200.12, which offers 1TB of capacity on two disks. The drive is a 3.5-in. disk that spins at 7,200 rpm and has an areal density of 329 gigabits per square inch.

Seagate said it expects to add platters using the same technology later this year to achieve even larger total capacity. "Demand for more desktop PC storage capacity is far from letting up, as computer users worldwide generate massive amounts of digital content every day," Tom Major, vice president of Seagate's Personal Compute Business, said in a statement.

The Barracuda 7200.12's serial ATA 3Gbit/sec. interface delivers a sustained data transfer rate of up to 160MB/second and a burst speed of 3Gbit/sec. The drive is also offered in capacities of 750GB and 500GB, with cache options of 32MB and 16MB. Seagate said it achieved the aerial density of the 7200.12 by using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

Seagate's highest density disk prior to the 7200.12 was its Barracuda 7200.11, which offered 1.5TB of capacity on a four-platter, 3.5-in. desktop drive. Seagate has not announced retail prices for the drive as of yet, but a 500GB 7200.12 drive is available at Newegg.com for $64.99.

5 January 2009, 13:24

LENOVO has announced the birth of four new models, three in its Ideapad lkaptop range, and a new all-in-one Ideacentre desktop which the company reckons will be one of the thinnest desktop computers available.

The A600 will have a 21.5-inch frameless screen and will be less than an inch thick "at it's thinnest point" according to Leneovo. Most of the staff here at the Inquirer are less than an inch thick at our thinnest points, and most of us spend our days sat in front of a computer monitor eating pizza and drinking sugary energy drinks... you get the picture.

Regardless of its heft, or lack of it, the A600 will treat your peepers to 1920 x 1080 hi def visuals, comes with a BluRay option and arrives complete with a remote control and a motion sensitive game controller all for a smidgen under $1000. The $1200 Y650 laptop has a 16-inch screen and weighs less than many 15-inchers according to the maker.

The $830 Y550 has a 15.6-inch screen and the as-yet-unpriced Y450 is a 14-incher. The laptops should be with us in March whilst the desktop won't be around until April.

by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
January 4th, 2009 @ 5:46 am

Having my hands on the beta 1 of Windows 7 over the holidays has been an interesting experience because it’s allowed me to show the OS to people and get feedback from a broad range of users as to how they feel about Microsoft’s upcoming operating system.

First off, let me point out that these reactions aren’t based on some sort of half-assed Mojave Experiment that I carried out. Feedback is based on people having a play with the OS and then being asked what they thought. Overall, reactions from all OS camps (Windows users, Mac users and Linux users) was fairly positive.

In a world where the majority of computer users are happy if they can access the web, check email, sort through a few photos and play games, this isn’t all that surprising. There was, of course, some negative feedback. A few points of concern included:
* The startup screens being too black, giving the impression that something had gone wrong.
* Taskbar too big/clunky/confusing/just too new.
* No classic Start Menu.
* Too many things moved compared to XP/Vista.

What I found interesting was the responses I got to the question of shifting to Windows 7 once it was out. I haven’t yet found a Mac or Linux user who feels tempted back to Windows based on what they’ve seen in Windows 7. Those Mac and Linux users who still make use of Windows in a limited way (for gaming or running specific applications) see themselves sticking with XP or Vista as their secondary OS until they either can break ties with Windows completely or until forced to switch.

by Josh Lowensohn
January 5, 2009 11:21 AM PST

Despite the addition of Microsoft Exchange and the App Store with version 2.0 of the iPhone's firmware, the device is still a long way from competing with Windows Mobile handsets when it comes to the native editing of several popular file formats.

Mobile-productivity software company Quickoffice is trying to change that with a new iPhone application that lets users edit their Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets. Called MobileFiles Pro, this $9.99 application can pull in Excel workbooks from any of your computers (over Wi-Fi) or on the Web through MobileMe's iDisk sharing.

It supports editing over multiple pages in a workbook, row and column resizing and insertion, and manages to do it all with a good deal of simplicity. To edit a cell, you simply tap it with your thumb and type in a new value. There are also options to format what's inside it, run formulas, and add new pages.

The option to edit files joins the functionality to view other file types, including movies, music, images, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and iWork documents (akin to Quickoffice's QuickAccess sister product). QuickOffice says it will continue to push out editing for other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, in future releases.