Posts Tagged ‘Beta’

Posted on August 19, 2009 - by admin

First Google Chrome 4 reveals the beginnings of cloud synchronization

With Google, one tends to learn the meanings and intentions behind the many events in its development programs pretty much as they happen. For example, the distinctions between what goes on in the Chrome browser’s development channel (”Dev”) and what happens in the beta channel, have frequently been explained to us after the fact.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on August 18, 2009 - by admin

Moonlight 2.0 beta tries to show off Silverlight 2.0 compatibility

Though it’s been in private testing for some time, the Silverlight 2.0 work-alike system for Linux built by the open source Mono Project is now ready to present itself to the general public. This afternoon (after a few fits and starts), Moonlight 2.0 Beta 1 was released for general testing, with one of the runtime module’s ambitious new features being the enablement of different media codecs, including Mono’s own rendition of open-source Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, and BBC Dirac.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on June 20, 2009 - by admin

Microsoft’s Security Freeware Poised for Beta Launch

Microsoft says it’s targeting unprotected computers with its free Security Essentials software, set for beta release next week and full launch this fall. Vendors who offer subscriptions to security services are bristling at Microsoft’s characterization of its new offering. It’s just another lightweight entry to the crowded security freeware field, said a Symantec official.

Read the full story at Technology News

Posted on June 3, 2009 - by admin

Opera 10 beta sports a new look, 23% boosted performance

A highly revamped rendering engine gives the first public beta of the new Opera browser 28% better performance than the latest stable Firefox. But is that enough?

The developers at Opera Software have been publicly working with version 2.2 of the Presto rendering engine for its premier Web browser since last December. Their goal has been to implement Web fonts for Scalable Vector Graphics without sacrificing performance or other standards support. Conceivably, this could allow sites to deploy both TrueType and SVG fonts in user-scalable sizes scaled to fit the current window size, as this recent Opera test pattern demonstrates. (Right now, Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 supports some scalable TrueType, but not to the degree that Opera does.)

Posted on May 22, 2009 - by admin

Google’s ‘30% faster’ Chrome is just the 2.0 beta released as RTM

This afternoon, Google celebrated what it called the release of a much faster version of its Chrome browser. Depends on what it means by “release.”

Up until today, Google had been distinguishing between development tracks 1 and 2 of its Chrome Web browser. Track 1 (last known build version 1.0.154.65) was the company’s production edition, though a link on the same page where you could download 1.0 could take you to the “test” version instead, version 2.0.177.1. Google’s always had interesting variations on the “beta” theme.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on May 20, 2009 - by admin

Microsoft launches ‘My Phone’ beta for Windows Mobile 6+

Today, Microsoft announced that its cloud-based data sync service for Windows Mobile called My Phone will be moving into its open beta phase. Similar to MobileMe from Apple, My Phone lets users automatically and wirelessly back up contacts, photos, video, text messages and calendar data to a password-protected cloud account.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on May 15, 2009 - by admin

Apple’s Safari 4 Beta for Windows speeds up after security update

The case for using an Apple browser in a Windows environment gets more serious as the distance between Safari 4 and Google Chrome 2 widens.

Earlier this week, Apple posted security updates for both its production and experimental versions of its Safari browser, for both Mac and Windows platforms. But Betanews tests indicate that the company may have sneaked in a few performance improvements as well, as the experimental browser posted its best index score yet: above 15 times better performance than Internet Explorer 7 in the same system.

After some security updates to Windows Vista, Betanews performed a fresh round of browser performance tests on the latest production and experimental builds. That made our test virtual platform (see page 2 for some notes about our methodology) a little faster overall, and while many browsers appeared to benefit including Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, the very latest Mozilla experimental browsers in the post-3.5 Beta 4 tracks clearly did not. For the first time, we’re including the latest production build of Apple Safari 3 in our tests (version 3.2.3, also patched this week) as well as Opera 9.64. Safari 4, however, posted better times than even our test system’s general acceleration would allow on its own.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on April 30, 2009 - by admin

Why the inclusion of Gracenote ‘Blu-ray’ in iTunes 8.2 beta is nothing

The iTunes 8.2 beta mentions Blu-ray in its fine print, now calm down…

Thanks to the fine-toothed comb that the Mac faithful run over their updates, readers of MacRumors noticed a passage contained within the iTunes 8.2 beta “About iTunes” window that references DVD and Blu-ray.

Because iTunes does not support the playback of DVDs or Blu-ray discs, the rumor mill’s first train of thought went directly to Blu-ray Macs, and then to DVD ripping in iTunes. But before you too head down that bumpy road, let’s look at the context of which the discs were mentioned.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on April 17, 2009 - by admin

Trillian sends Astra into beta

A very long-awaited chat client undergoes radical makeover…To the stars, indeed.

What next, Duke Nukem Forever? All right, that may be a cheap shot — we’ve only been waiting three years for the release of Trillian Astra, the update of the IM software that once owned the multi-service chat realm. The software moved from alpha to beta late last week.

Over the course of those three years, of course, we’ve seen radical changes in how we “do” instant communications (after all, what is Twitter but a one-to-many instant-messaging service?), and we’ve rethought which services we include in our must-monitor lists. And there’s a new breed of services out there, too — free stuff such as Digsby and Pidgin/Gaim, and run-anywhere Web-based options such as Meebo.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on April 6, 2009 - by admin

iPhone OS 3.0 beta 2 jailbroken

If you blinked, you might have missed it: one day after Apple released an update to the iPhone OS 3 beta, hackers have already jailbroken the OS 3 beta 2 release.

Read the full story at Cnet