Unmentioned in Laptop's piece is that the Skyfire browser actually shows you a page that has been pre-crunched by Skyfire's servers, so it's essentially showing you an image. And yeah, since the browser itself isn't doing any heavy lifting, it's going to fly. But stuff like text entry is annoying, since you have to input text, send that back to Skyfire, and then it comes back to you. Flash works the same way, but hey, at least it does flash. We're not really sure what's up with Opera Mobile 9.5 taking twice as long as Safari to render a page, but maybe that's 'cause it's big boned feature packed. [Laptop Mag]

AM is extremely easy to set up and has lots of options so you can choose which contacts you see. It supports Gtalk and AIM protocols in addition to ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and Jabber. AM even logs your IM sessions so you can refer back to old conversations. But best of all, it keeps your IM conversations going, even when you are on a call or out of the program, and sends Mail style notifications alerting you to how many IMs came your way while you were gone. All in all, an extremely good experience for IMing on the go, so jailbreak if you haven't yet, and install this puppy. [Google via Lifehacker]

In Manhattan, I loaded the National Geographic site on the N95's browser without Flash about 10 times. Each result was different, but the bulk came up in the 37-43 second range, even slower than Jobs' 33-second claim. Spotty reception could've been to blame, because the status indicator switched between 3G and 3.5G several times. Or that the local tower was being utilized; remember, 3G bandwidth is a shared resource. This stuff is hard to quantify without true side by side tests.

Over on the left coast, our intern John ran the test on his N95 too. The site loaded for him in 31 seconds without flash, and about 37 seconds with it turned on.

He also gave it a go with Opera Mini, and without flash the page loaded in an astounding 10.6 seconds, less than half the time advertised by the iPhone 3G. However, Opera works a bit differently than the default browser—it only loads optimized content filtered through their servers in Norway. But John was able to zoom in on any part of the page and see full image quality instantly, just like Mobile Safari.

What else is interesting is that the side by side EDGE/3G tests from iPhone to iPhone show a 2.4x increase in speed. But Apple uses the Lonely Planet website for benchmarking, according to the iPhone 3G website. So, despite the tests on stage at WWDC, were they showing numbers for Lonely Planet? I doubt it, but I'm also confused as to why they'd switch up metrics. (The fine print is here.)

So what's the answer? Well, we're not entirely sure. Jobs' test results look kosher, but the implied winner here is Opera Mini. Progressive loading in half the time of Safari? Sign me up. But when it comes to the speed of the stock browser on a Nokia N95 using 3G, let us know if you've had better results.

[iPhone 3G FAQ, Nokia N95 Review]

Additional reporting by John Herrman

Pre-installed apps: Quick Office document viewer, WebKit-based S60 browser, music and video player, push-email support, and other standard S60 apps.

Samsung's press materials included a table that claims the brushed steel L870 has something called the "Safari browser," but like all the latest Nokia S60 cellphones, it probably just uses Nokia's own S60 Web Browser, which is often referred to as "Safari" because it uses the open source WebKit—Apple's Safari foundation, but not the actual Safari. The possibility of Apple actually giving one of the iPhone's crown jewels to the competition, and then porting it to Symbian—without any of the iPhone's user interface programming classes—is close to zero.

In other words, nothing to see here that we haven't seen before. [S60 and Symbian Freak via Phone Arena]

Key Features: - Play most video formats (DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB + more) - Play DVD files WITHOUT converting them - Sync, organize and watch non-iTunes video files - Browse the web with a Safari based web browser - Rent & watch Hi-Def movies from Jaman.com - Stream media from UPnP(v1) media servers - View local weather forecasts - View RSS Feeds - Enable SSH access - All original Apple TV features remain intact - And much, much more...

Before the update, Safari's marketshare on Windows was a barely detectable 0.07 percent at its peak, with basically flat growth for nearly a year. Then BOOM, there's a huge spike post-update shenanigans. Wonder if it'll correspondingly drop as people rip it out of their computers (or not, if they actually like it) since it's got its own pane in Software Update now. [Net Apps via Gadget Lab]

After installing iTunes and updating Apple Software Update to 2.1, it gave us the image above. The checkbox is still checked by default, BUT the difference now is that it's under "New Software" instead of "Updates". A distinction that should make it more clear that you're installing a new piece of software instead of updating something you've already installed previously. [Apple]

The beauty of Flickr is its serendipity. I found Mr Perverso's oh-so-perverse materials by innocently typing "I love Jesus" into the search box. Usually I'm on the hunt for stuff at work such as "Treo unboxing," "broken iPhone" or "computer dungeon," which gets you some guy's basement server farm, screenshots of PC-based RPGs, and, for some reason, a shot of a dude's first computer, an Atari 800. But "dungeon", all by itself, gets you into much more trouble: French châteaux, a shackles-and-rubber-gasmask outfit attached to a cross, a girl in stripy socks and a picture that is so NSFW I will only tell you that the person whose stream it is has a blog devoted to the art of the blow-job.

The crazy thing is that, unlike some photo sites, Flickr uploads are public and searchable. Why are people so interested in sharing their most tender or outrageous or embarrassing moments with the world? My theory is that beyond friends-n-family photo sharing, many people on Flickr are amateur photographers and artists who want to show off what they can do, but beyond that there are the crazy cakes just dying to have themselves a bunch of virtual friends who will write a testimony like "April-May's deep-throat technique just has to be seen to be believed." And what keeps me coming back is that it's always changing. A search from one day to the next can yield totally different results.

Here are some quick fun tag safaris to illustrate the point:
• Taxidermist
• Foshizzle
• Space Pants or, better still, Spacepants
• Repossession - Note the Jude Law cameo
• Disco Biscuit
• Junk In the Trunk

I get a tingly sensation looking into the private lives of random people. Sure it's mostly mundane stuff—weddings, parties, vacations—but on occasions you can get a sudden rush of tenderness mixed with guilt, like when stumbling on these secret stolen moments of a couple of strangers at Glasto.

There's a knack to celebrity stalking on Flickr. Direct searches turn up eclectic results. Bill Gates brings up pictures of bananas, a subway escalator—even windows as opposed to Windows—before fielding a couple of shots of the actual software baron with Michael Arrington, with Steve and Walt, and, heh, with an iPhone. There was nothing at all interesting for either Clooney or Madonna. Hayden Panettiere turned up a few shots of the saved cheerleader licking things, if you're into that sort of stuff. Looking for particular celebs, it seems, is a waste of time; you've got to cast a wider net (like using the actual word "celebrity" in a search") and just see which A-Listers (or B-Listers or C-Listers) get caught.

All of sleb life is here, from A(niston) to (Jay-)Z. Look! It's Tara Reid and Tommy Lee hanging out in a bar. What they might lack in make-up they sure make up for in drunkenness. Here's a giant, beige John Goodman queuing up for some bar-b-que. It's Twisted Sister's Dee Snyder actually looking cool, and Keanu Reeves actually looking irritated. Kirk Hammet from Metallica seems to have taken the time and effort to have his shirt match the shopfront he was photographed outside of. Here's a great back-of-the-head shot of Paris Hilton and a wax model of Lady Di that I thought was a tranny lookalike.

You can actually play games with Flickr as well. Rather than going on individual tag safaris like the ones above, you can embark on a sort of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: How far can you get from one subject in six moves? I started off with Porkins, going via POTUS, Pewkus, Poker and Bummer before ending up back in Star Wars country (sort of), at Clones.

I've made some peculiar discoveries. For one, Konaboy, whose Spring Clean picture cropped up in about 60% of my searches, seems to be Flickr's Kevin Bacon. Another, Pisces Romance, showed me how to say "I wuv woo" with roses and sunsets. Best of all (especially Jesus), I found a recently-uploaded pic of—I'm guessing here—the upcoming series of Flight of the Conchords. It's Brett and Jermaine in roller-disco mood. Because, my little friends, on Flickr, it's always Business Time.

"You heard it here first, people! The latest version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware that was just seeded to developers has a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app"

Boy Genius also goes onto suggest that this may be indicative of some form of native Flash support, but we just can't raise your hopes like that. It wouldn't be right. [BGR; Thanks, Ted B. Image via Limited Edition iPhone]

Apple has made it incredibly easy—the default, even—for users to install ride along software that they didn't ask for, and maybe didn't want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.

Oh, he don't stop there girlfriend:

It's wrong because it undermines the trust that we're all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn't just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the Web by eroding that relationship. It's a bad practice and should stop.

First, it requires a restart (damnation) but it's worth it. So far, it seems faster loading pages than the previous versions. And the response in CSS heavy pages seems more fluid (see reported problems at the end.) We are trying now the new CSS animation, Web Fonts, and multimedia support in HTML 5.

HTML 5
The new HTML 5 video element works great, without a glitch, as the video shows. A page encoded with the new video will show you the video without any problem, like if it was a picture integrated in the page. If you pass the cursor over it, it will show you overlaid controls in the movie, and when you resize it using the + icon, it grows until it fill the full column, making all the other elements in the layout to move fluidly. You can try it here.

CSS Animations
They also work without problems, although I've yet to find a page to really put the whole spec through its paces.

Acid3 Test
Not that it means a lot in terms of real world browser performance but, weirdly enough, Safari 3.1 only gets 74/100 here on the Acid 3 test. The latest nightly built of WebKit apparently was getting 93/100 as of yesterday.

Other things
Benny and Wilson say that they are having problems using the shift key in Gmail. Trying to type with the shift key pressed will change the field focus for them. It works fine for me. If you have any problem or test, please write in the comments.

More updates as we test these features.

Apple Releases Safari 3.1

The World's Fastest Browser Now on Mac and Windows

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today introduced Safari(TM) 3.1, the world's fastest web browser for Mac(R) and Windows PCs. Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari also runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers, and is the first browser to support the latest innovative web standards needed to deliver the next generation of highly interactive Web 2.0 experiences*. Safari 3.1 is available immediately as a free download at http://www.apple.com/safari for both Mac OS(R) X and Windows.

"Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience."
The incredible performance of Safari, combined with its elegant user interface, lets users spend more time surfing the web and less time waiting for pages to load. Safari features an intuitive browsing experience with drag-and-drop bookmarks, easy-to-organize tabs, an integrated Find that shows the number of matches in a page and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information.

Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support the new video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations. Safari also supports CSS Web Fonts, giving designers limitless choices of fonts to create stunning new web sites.

Pricing & Availability

Safari 3.1 is available immediately as a free download at http://www.apple.com/safari for both Mac OS X and Windows users. Safari software updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple's Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.

Safari 3.1 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard(R) or Mac OS X Tiger(R) version 10.4.11, a minimum of 256MB of memory and is designed to run on any Intel-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor and built-in FireWire(R). Safari 3.1 for Windows requires Windows XP or Windows Vista, a minimum of 256MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.

To be completely honest with you guys, I did kind of download Firefox twice when I was installing it. I threw the extra .dmg file right in the trash, which obviously means they are still on 499,999,999 downloads. What the heck, what's one download between friends, apart from a heap of rice goodness? Jump in and let the Mozilla team know how much you appreciate not having to choose between IE or Safari. [Spreadfirefox]

I know, everyone's mad at Apple for charging $20 for an upgrade that only brings the iPod touch up to speed with the original iPhone (minus the phone, of course), but it seems to me, anyone who paid $399 for a first-gen 16GB touch especially can spring for the extra Jackson. Besides, I think Apple learned a thing or two about overcharging and then regretting it with the iPhone—because of that, the chances are slim that the company will change its mind and turn this into a free download. It would cause additional outrage that Apple doesn't want.

The good news is that the upgrade works great. We added two accounts to Mail within minutes, sending e-mails with a cute little "Sent from iPod" sig file. The Maps program uses Wi-Fi triangulation to identify the general vicinity and it works within a minute, and completely indoors (obviously). I'm not thrilled with the directions app, and a reliance on Wi-Fi for the map makes it hard to envision using as a real guide in the car, but it's a good start. Stocks, Weather, Notes and the web clip option in Safari are all what they are, but all in all it's a welcome improvement over the paltry Calendar, Contacts, Clock and Calculator that were there initially. (Didn't Apple once rip on PCs for bragging about a Calculator?)

Some things to keep in mind: When you upgrade, remember that it's two separate iPod touch updates. First, after you've upgraded your iTunes to 7.6, connect the touch and click "Check for Updates." You'll get 1.1.3, but things won't look any different than they did before. You then need to go to iTunes, click on the "January Software Upgrade" offer and buy it.

Once purchased, you go to your iPod Summary page and click Sync. If things don't work out just right, don't panic (like we did). Instead, uncheck "Manually manage music and videos"—you might get an error message saying it can't sync all 1 billion of your MP3s, but still, it will sync the new apps and they'll be visible in seconds. [Apple]

—Video by Benny Goldman

Today in class [name] had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told [name] to close the program and to resume work but he told me that is was just a different browser and that he was doing his work. I had given him two warnings but he insisted that it was just a "better" browser and he wasn't doing anything wrong. I had then issued his detention.

It's OK, faceless teenager. High school is tougher for the smart kids, if only because it's the last chance the world has to kick you in the balls before you take it over. [image via digg]

UPDATE: This was a prank. From the school's website:

Recently, a file was uploaded to the Internet purporting to be a copy of a letter from Big Spring High School to a student regarding a two hour detention. The uploaded letter was an altered version of a detention letter sent to a student. Unfortunately, privacy concerns prevent the School District from giving a full explanation of the nature and source of the letter's alteration at this time. The Big Spring School District does have confirmation that the discipline letter was altered.

The reports, blogs and other sources on the Internet indicating that a Big Spring student was assigned detention for using the Firefox internet browser instead of Internet Explorer are untrue and were based on the fake letter. Detention is assigned in our schools after appropriate warnings are given, if students continue to engage in non-academic activities or fail to follow a teacher's directive during class time discipline can and will be assigned.

Sincerely yours,

John C. Scudder

High School Principal

One of the inventors of GroundSurf, Stephane Pelletier, says GroundSurf gives you "that surf feeling," but on the ground. He explained, "It's been tested and developed with professional surfers. The back is a very specific truck that moves in different dimensional ways. Compared to a skateboard, it's not moving the same way at all. You really have to try it to believe it."

The GroundSurf will first roll out in 2008, distributed by California surf brand Gordon & Smith for retail price of between $1,770 in $2,040. [GroundSurf, via BlueTomorrow]

OK, maybe there's nothing special about 400 million in particular, but it seems like an impressive amount. And congrats to the Mozilla on their free product. Because without it, I couldn't do my job. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Safari and Explorer. And no, I didn't know you were standing right there, Opera, but I sort of don't care.) Let's all dork out and list our favorite extensions in the comments. [spreadfirefox via boygeniusreport]

While this may be quite clever by meerkat standards, Monty still has no grasp of basic composition techniques. [Telegraph]

Press Release [PRNewswire]

P.S. Jackson J, this is a preview of things to come. Get mah scoop ready. - BL

Download Page [Apple]

The Safari 3 Public Beta was released on June 11 for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista. This beta software is for trial purposes and intended to gather feedback prior to a full release. As with all our products, we encourage security researchers to report issues to product-security@apple.com.

Safari 3.0.1 Public Beta for Windows is now available and addresses
the following issues in Safari 3 Public Beta:

CVE-ID: CVE-2007-3186
Available for: Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to arbitrary code
execution
Description: A command injection vulnerability exists in the Windows
version of Safari 3 Public Beta. By enticing a user to visit a
maliciously crafted web page, an attacker can trigger the issue which
may lead to arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the
issue by performing additional processing and validation of URLs.
This does not pose a security issue on Mac OS X systems, but could
lead to an unexpected termination of the Safari browser.

CVE-ID: CVE-2007-3185
Available for: Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to an unexpected
application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: An out-of-bounds memory read issue in Safari 3 Public
Beta for Windows may lead to an unexpected application termination or
arbitrary code execution when visiting a malicious website. This
issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

CVE-ID: CVE-2007-2391
Available for: Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may allow cross-site scripting
Description: A race condition in Safari 3 Public Beta for Windows
may allow cross site scripting. Visiting a maliciously crafted web
page may allow access to JavaScript objects or the execution of
arbitrary JavaScript in the context of another web page. This issue
does not affect Mac OS X systems.

The update is available via the "Apple Software Update" application,
which is installed with the most recent version of QuickTime or
iTunes on Windows.

Safari 3.0.1 Public Beta for Windows is also available via Apple's
Safari download site at: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Safari for Windows XP or Vista
The download file is named: "SafariSetup.exe"
Its SHA-1 digest is: e468f56613abaa3afd692ded78c35eaf109ca0b6

Safari+QuickTime for Windows XP or Vista
The download file is named: "SafariQuickTimeSetup.exe"
Its SHA-1 digest is: af73dd81793b2802200da5d7d5c8077a67ca57ec

This message is signed with Apple's Product Security PGP key,
and details are available at:
http://www.apple.com/support/security/pgp/

Currently only six bugs have been found. Four involving Safari crashing & two that allow remote code to be launched. Currently there's no official word on whether these can be re-created on its OS X counterpart. So for now we'll call this a sneak attack, or maybe a beta. Yeah, beta sounds better– Ben Longo

Security researchers: Safari for Windows not so secure [CNet]

It's definitely snappy, and subjectively it does seem to beat Firefox rendering the 10 or so pages I visit daily outside of my RSS feeds. However, on my 1920x1200 widescreen monitor, pages in Safari seem a bit "fuzzier" than they do in Firefox. And yeah, while it's cliché to say at this point, I do like the interface for the most part—it beats the pants off of the ugly-stick-beaten IE 7, in any case.

In-line finding, while slightly slower than Firefox's find-as-you-type, is also more detailed with instance numbers plus a fairly schmancy highlighting effect. Also nice is SnapBack, which brings you back to your original search results or main page of site with a little icon in the search bar.

Now for some complaints: One niggling annoyance is that the keyboard shortcut for opening new tabs from the address bar is different from both Firefox and IE 7—with them you just hit Alt+Enter and the address pops up in a new tab.

I realize it's an Apple app, but can't we follow some standards? (Clearly, I don't own a Mac, so your Mac standards mean nothing to me.) Which, depending on how much of a stickler you are for an aesthetically unified computing experience, Safari's steadfast refusal to pick up any of Aero's UI elements might drive you a little nuts. The sole tiny corner for resizing the window is bothersome to boot, since I'm used to just grabbing and dragging.

Final thoughts? Definitely worth a download. You might like it, you might not, but overall it's a solid experience. – Matt Buchanan

WWDC 07 [Gizmodo]
Safari 3 Public Beta [Apple]

•Resizable Text Fields
Probably the best new feature of the beta (aside from increased speed). If you frequent message boards or use online blogging software you will appreciate being able to resize any of your text input blocks.

•Movable Tabs
Just like Firefox, Safari lets you rearrange your tabs into any order you want. And it even 1-ups its competitor by letting you drag them off and to create their own new window.

•Real Time Text Searching
And taking another cue from its foxy friend, you can search for text in real time throughout the web page your viewing. Although Safari does it in a much prettier way.

•Modify How Long Safari Keeps Your History
We can't tell you how many times we wanted to go check back on a page we visited, only to find that our history didn't keep track that long. Safari lets you decide how long it should remember where you've gone. Just for a day or even a year.

– Ben Longo

10:24: Scrolling, zooming, all via the gestures. You view the entire page first (too small to read in normal view, so you need to zoom in).