The Technopath

Its not officially out yet, but you can still download Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, which is due for an official release next week. We are getting closer to the new stable version, which would bring a brand new JavaScript engine along with In private (porn) browsing mode. The latest release features a new Privacy dialog that gives you more control over the In Private browsing mode. Screenshots and direct download links for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux after the break.

Following the footsteps of Hulu, YouTube is now also set to roll out full length TV Shows and Movies for US residents. YouTube has partnered with several networks and studios, including MGM, Lionsgate, Discovery, CBS (and many more), in order to bring a wide array of titles available for streaming. The downside here is that they aren’t available outside US, though you can still use the traditional methods of bypassing that check (like HotSpot Sheild).

I live in a country which just adopted to Daylight Savings Time last year. Most time synchronization services and devices don’t recognize us as a DST observing country. Luckily, for Windows users, Microsoft has several ways to help you – one of which is its good old Time Zone Editor utility.

Windows timezone database is stored in the registry. Though you can edit and manipulate the registry keys directly, it isn’t recommended if you don’t really know what you are doing. Alternative ways include optional hotfixes that Microsoft releases, but they aren’t always available for all operating systems.

Though the idea did alarm me at first, a careful study suggested it to be more productive than the layout we have right now. Aza Raskin, the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, came up with the idea after being inspired by addons that provide a somewhat similar functionality. The mock up sketch he shared on his blog gives an idea of one of the several possible layouts we can have. Though the discussion has just started, I already believe that this would actually be far more productive then having a horizontal bar of tabs spread across the screen.

Engadget recently stumbled upon images of a possible new portable media player by Microsoft, which we now refer to as the Zune HD. The images, though rendered are believed to be authentic which pretty much reflect the new product in the Zune line of media players. The interesting thing about this Zune is the HD that appears in the images, suggesting that the device would be capable of playing back at least 720p video, something that the current generation iPod (Touch) can’t do.

Decoding high definition video requires a lot of processing power, which isn’t possible with the current line of ARM processors that dominate the industry today. So how would Zune be able to pull it off? My guess is that it may rely on NVIDIA’s Tegra platform. There are a number of reasons to believe that its happening.

A lot of web based screencast services have sprouted recently. That’s not because there is a lack of good desktop screencasting applications – its because of usability. Web Services don’t need to be installed and are usually quite straight forward to use.

That said, ScreenCastle is one such service, that gives you an overdose of usability. It lets you record and upload screencasts with just one click! You don’t even need to sign up and create an account. What’s the catch? continue reading.

Ever wanted the Facial Recognition technology used by the FBI at your finger tips? Well that dream is a little hard to satisfy, but what I can give you is Face.com’s Photo Finder – a Facial Recognition tool for Facebook.

Photo Finder uses advanced Facial Recognition algorithms and existing Facebook photos and tags to identify you and your friends around Facebook. The technology, though not as powerful as you see in the movies, is quite neat and works out great most of the time.

MySpace has long been rubbing it in that if it were a country, it would be the 5th largest in the world with a population somewhere between 200-250 million. Facebook isn’t that far behind either, which also hit the 200 million mark recently. But what if I tell you that the largest online community in the world is the one you would actually never expect; Windows Live.

I came across this while reading a research article I came across via LiveSide. The article, recently published by Microsoft summarizes a research study they conducted on the European internet market. While the focus of the research was something else, I did find some amazing numbers that reflect how well Microsoft is doing in keeping up with its claims.

One of the most basic features of email finally make there way into Gmail as well. You can now easily embed images in your email messages; without having to go through any hassle. The functionality had been there in Yahoo! and Hotmail for years now, and I wonder why Gmail was left behind. The feature comes to Gmail as part of a Lab addition, meaning it still is buggy, and may cause problems occasionally.

For those who are interested to know about it more, you get a brand new toolbar button in the rich editor. Clicking that butting lets you embed an image in your message by either uploading it from your computer, or by giving a web address. Once inserted in the message, you can do a number of manipulations on the image like resize, scale etc.

The TwitTrend is spreading like wildfire these days. Every other person you bump into would be tweeting that he has actually stepped out of his home today, or if he’s any geekier, he would tweet with a GeoTag to his exact coordinates.

And thanks to an open API, developers have found a fun way to kill their spare time with developing innovative web apps around Twitter, some of which hardly add any value to your experience. Without further to do, here is a list of some of the apps I find good, but would probably never use.