It contains the latest security and some new spankin' features
It also includes a new look and feel with new buttons and icons
Biggest Changes:
Theme - now integrates better with operating system. So Linux FF utilizes Linux icons, XP with XP icons, & Mac icons on the Mac
New Location Bar. The place where you type the web address has gotten a major overhaul, it is now one part location bar, one part search, and one part bookmark locator.
New Bookmarking engine, keeps tracks of sites you visit frequently, new "star" feature allows you to pick your "cream of the crop"
Can be downloaded at http://www.mozilla.com
Mozilla is reporting that Firefox 3 was downloaded over 8 million times in 24 hours (8,290,908)
Google and Yahoo have entered into a non-exclusive deal where Yahoo will run Google Ads next to Yahoo search results
The ads can be intersparsed with Yahoo ads as well as as from other providers
The deal is expected to bring around 800 million/year to Yahoo's revenue and 250-450 million operation cash flow
This means that the Yahoo/Microsoft talks are officially over
Also, the Department of Justice has already launched an investigation into the deal, but doesn't think there will be too much of an issue as the deal is not very anti-competitive in nature.
Time Warner is already testing metered bandwidth in Beaumont, TX
Comcast said it is looking to give priority to certain kinds of traffic during peak hours
and AT&T said that limits on heavy use were inevitable.
All this means that the future of the internet and how you choose to use it might be called into question as more companies look to make the heavy users pay more for bandwidth
The basic strategy here is that there will be different tiers of accounts as the amount of bandwidth (how much you download) increases, you'll need to pay for a more expensive plan.
This harks back to the dial-up internet days when you got "x" number of hours on AOL (or Compuserve/Prodigy).
"The water is free the pipes are not" - Leo Laporte on This Week in Tech
As media moves to IPTV and digital downloads, everyone's internet usage is going to increase so the question then becomes, "who are the heavy users?"
Revision3 is an IPTV "station" that produces several video podcasts (including my personal fav Tekzilla).
Revision3 utilizes BitTorrent technology to help distribute their shows
They recently switched to new BitTorrent (tracker)server software and left it open
A R3 user discovered this and informed R3
R3 closed the BT server to only allow downloads of their shows
Doing so, caused MediaDefender to essentially flood R3's BT server with "hello" packets
This brought down the R3 site, offices, and email server over Memorial Day weekend
MediaDefender is a subsiderary of Artist Direct.
MediaDefender uploads bad torrent files to illegal torrent sites and floods the torrent networks with bad data in order to protect the copyrights of RIAA and MPAA companies
They basically just assumed that since that R3 was using BitTorrent for illegitamate purposes and when they were locked out, they flooded the server with requests
The odd thing is, MediaDefender has a history of doing this kind of attack in the past (see Ars Technica article)
in Q1 of this year, RIM has beat out Apple in smartphone sales, almost 2 to 1
RIM also sold the most smartphones for Q1 of 2008
The numbers?
RIM 44.5% in Q1 (up from 33.5% in previous quarter)
iPhone 19.2% (down from 26.7%)
Palm 13.2% (up from 7.9%) thanks to the Centro device
Samsung was in fourth
One might be able to attribute the lack of iPhone sales is because of the strong rumors that a new one is expected to be announced/released early next week
I expect that we will see different numbers for Q2 of this year, but I think that RIM might hold the number 1 spot
If not they'll probably get it back by the end of this year, with the release of their newest devices: Bold, Kickstart, and their touchscreen Thunder
