Google released a developer-oriented update to its Chrome Web browser

Google released a developer-oriented update to its Chrome Web browser on Wednesday that fixes some crashes and video playback issues.
Chrome is still in beta testing, and for those who have an even higher tolerance for rough-around-the-edges software, Google also offers developer versions. Chrome 0.3.154.3 is the latter; see our earlier post on how to subscribe to the Chrome Dev channel.
"Release 154.0 (the most recent publicly released Chrome developer build) had a few browser crashes, including a crash on startup on tablet PCs running Windows Vista. We fixed the new crashes, and 154.3 should be much more stable," Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, said in a mailing list posting Wednesday evening.
The browser wars are back in force, albeit in a more standards-compliant and collegial way, and a major thrust of the resurgent competition is higher performance for faster, more sophisticated Web applications. The first beta version of Firefox 3.1, released Tuesday, brings significant improvements to JavaScript, the programming language that underlies many such applications. Microsoft is on the verge of releasing Internet Explorer 8 (though it still hasn't convinced innumerable people to upgrade even to the current version 7), and the Webkit project that forms the foundation of Apple's Safari browser is being fitted with a new JavaScript engine called Squirrelfish Extreme.
Other fixes addressed problems with plug-ins such as a bug that could hang video playback after a second or a plug-in priority issue that cause the browser to become unresponsive. Chrome can use the Mozilla Firefox versions of plug-ins such as Adobe Systems' Flash.
In the security department, Chrome requires more manual intervention before users can save executable files with .exe, .bat, and .dll extensions.
Chrome is open-source software, and Google credited two outside programmers for their contributions.

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FileMaker Bento 2 offers a spreadsheet feel, more app integration

Less than a year after the beta of its first personal database for Mac, Apple's FileMaker has released Bento 2, an edition that adds features in two main areas: more integration with outside applications, and the addition of sophisticated spreadsheet-like functionality.
As previously reported in BetaNews, Bento is geared to helping consumers and business people manage and organize information that runs the gamut from contacts and calendars to projects and events, all without any database programming.

Web users who are expecting a major shift in philosophy in the first round of Firefox betas, may want to wait for the developers to have their say. For now, there are a few helpful features, but one really useful one remains on the way.
Typically the purpose of a public beta is to enable general folks to comment about new features. But in the case of Mozilla, which seeks contributions from the general public on ideas of how features should look, the first public beta of Firefox 3.1 is actually being presented as an empty vessel for ideas to be fleshed out by its users.
For that reason, one of the new version's more prominent features is actually absent from Beta 1: the private browsing window. Yes, it will be in the final version; but Mozilla is continuing its active solicitation for comments and ideas about how to go about presenting the feature, now that Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and the Google Chrome beta both already implement it in their own way.
Private browsing sets up a way for users to temporarily visit Web sites without their history and temporary files being recorded. Ostensibly, manufacturers have said, this enables dutiful husbands to buy gifts for their wives without leaving tracks for them to uncover before they arrive; but perhaps in want of greater placement in Google News, many have taken to calling the feature "porn mode."
So the question on Mozilla's mind is, should Firefox 3.1 be explicit -- to borrow a phrase -- in how it tells the user his browsing window is a private one (Chrome, for instance, puts a little cloaked spy icon in the upper left corner)? Or if it's a private browsing mode, perhaps that fact should be kept private as well.
"The notification should be subtle," reads a suggestion made yesterday by Mozilla contributor Michael Ventnor. "A big change like the location bar color would fail the over-the-shoulder test (although based on common uses of Private Browsing, the signal that they're in PB mode is the least of their worries if someone is looking over their shoulder, I suppose). We must still meet the goal of a non-distracting chrome [front end] and one that is simple to implement and fast to render."
Ventnor goes on to suggest changing the hue of the throbber icon in the browser's upper right corner.
While discussion on that topic continues, one new feature that does appear to work for the first public beta of v3.1 is the tab preview. Up to now, the Firefox user could flip back and forth through open tabs in a window using the Ctrl+Tab keystroke (Ctrl+Shift+Tab to go backwards). But with the tabs being easily accessible via mouse pointer, I've never seen a lot of folks use this key sequence, and I haven't been one to use it myself.

Wi-Fi moving Cost down of mobile calls

The cost of talking on the go is coming down, thanks to an increasing number of options for using Internet calling services on cellphones as an alternative to traditional cellular service plans.

Nokia is one of the biggest makers of cellphones that include chips for using Wi-Fi, the short-range wireless technology. Some high-profile devices are equipped with the technology, including Apple's iPhone and some BlackBerry models from Research In Motion. The soon-to-be-released G1 Google phone from HTC and T-Mobile also sports a Wi-Fi chip.

For Mark Laris, a Dallas-based nuclear engineer who travels the world running his consulting business, the technology saves him thousands of dollars a year on international phone bills.

Wi-Fi chips and Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, let him do most of his business and personal calls over cut-rate phone services that work over the Web. His only cellphone bill is a 1,400-minute-per-month family plan from AT&T that he shares with a business partner.

"I always make VoIP calls," he said, adding that the call quality was as good as with a traditional mobile phone service.
He has access to the VoIP services by using a Nokia phone that has a Wi-Fi chip similar to the ones that allow laptops to connect to the Web in smaller venues like coffee shops.

The new phones are capable of operating exclusively with Wi-Fi - they do not need to use a cellphone network at all - and when the user is not in a Wi-Fi "hot spot," calls are routed to the Wi-Fi carrier's voice mail service.

Still, mobile VoIP is a fledgling field.

In the United States, T-Mobile sells Wi-Fi phones and Internet calling plans that cost $10 a month, on top of regular fees. It is the only U.S. carrier with such a package. The market is also filled with small, privately held companies hoping to make a name for themselves. They include DeFi Mobile, Fring, Gizmo5, Sipgate and Truphone.

One advantage that these new companies have in competing with established VoIP services like Skype and Vonage is that old-style Internet calling required users to be sitting in front of a computer or hooked up to a laptop to make calls. Mobile phones with Wi-Fi chips free them from their PCs.

Ivan Domaniewicz, a commercial airline pilot with homes in Miami and Barcelona, recently switched to DeFi Mobile from Skype. His $40-a-month DeFi plan gives him unlimited Internet calls, voice mail and phone numbers in Argentina and Spain that are automatically transferred to his Nokia phone.

"It's really helped me keep in touch with my family and friends in Argentina and Spain," said Domaniewicz, who shuttles between the United States, Japan, Europe and the South Pacific.

"What's nice is that I don't have to take my computer out and start Skype-ing to talk to them. I just turn on my phone," he said.

Jeb Brilliant, an event planner from Long Beach, California, reduced his monthly AT&T plan to 700 minutes from a more expensive unlimited access plan after he became comfortable using mobile VoIP.

He uses Truphone, which charges 6 cents a minute to call landlines in most countries and 30 cents a minute to call mobile numbers. It also sells bundles of minutes that are discounted over its à la carte rates.

Brilliant has tried other mobile VoIP services and said that the technology could sometimes prove more reliable than cellphone service. When a family friend recently went into labor, he found himself making phone calls via a Wi-Fi network at the hospital.

"You can get it in places where there is no cellphone reception," he said.

Viva la WiFi calls revolution!"
Now that WiFi enabled phones are starting to get into the market, it can be easily foreseen that WiFi calls will become a reality for mainstream users in the next 3-30 years. Why this wide range? Well, 3 years if it was dependant purely on technology advancement, 30 years if it's up to the operators...

Yes, though they try to be cool about it, operators are very much afraid of WiFi calls, and it's very easy to understand why: When you have a WiFi enabled phone, whenever you are around a WiFi hotspot you have internet access which means that you can technically make voice calls over the internet the same way you make them with Skype on your PC.

If your phone is Windows mobile based, you can actually run Skype Mobile, simple as that. If it's not, third parties such as Fring and Truphone offer their own solutions. Without getting into details about the solutions and their differences, they enable VoIP calls over WiFi and also over 3G. (BTW - VoIP over 3G is cost effective only if you have a flat/cheap data plan, if you're not roaming and of course provided that your operator doesn't block it...). In addition phones are starting to come with built-in VoIP software.
Now WiFi is not everywhere, and also not always free, but even if you are in the airport, suddenly the outrageous $10/hour rate can make sense when it comes as an alternative to mobile calls while roaming.

Over the past years, operators have been fighting to provide their subscribers a walled garden Internet instead of an open environment in order to route all mobile content through their channels and cut their usual 50% cut. This has been going on despite of legislation and despite of protests of strong content providers such as Google.How much of their revenues do operators make from data services you ask? Well, it's 7%-20% (Including SMS, browsing and mobile content). Voice accounts for more than 80%, and even 90% of operators revenues. Think how far they would be willing to go in order to protect that.And this exactly why Vodafone and Orange asked Nokia to disable VoIP on the N95 in such a way that not even possible to use Truphone, and you can see Truphone's video demo comparing an unlocked phone vs. a locked one. (BTW - I perceive the N95 as a breakthrough, since most of the other WiFi enabled phones are far away from mainstream, either the Blackberry-like E61, the Windows bulky smartphones etc.)

Another example is that the all powerful iPhone was released with no WiFi calls support. Apple has done a lot to equip this gadget with all the software needed to enjoy the full experience of a phone/media/Internet, so why not include the one killer app that could have utilized 2 of the iPhone strengths?

But unlike the battle for mobile content which is still waging (With the operators having the upper hand), this is one battle they can't win, and in fact this battle will also make them lose the battle over mobile content. And the reason for that is simple: Up until now, the operators were our ISP as well. Every data packet came through their gateways, and as such they could always block whatever they wanted: By IP address, by file type (ringtones, games), by protocol (SIP) etc.

WiFi phones provide the bypass everyone has been waiting for: You can access the Internet directly whenever you are around a WiFi spot, and the operator can't do anything about it. What it can do, is sell its subscribers blocked phones, but soon everyone will understand that it's better to buy unlocked phones from retail stores.

Knowing that, some operators are embracing the "if you can't beat them, join them" approach. One of those is T-Mobile which is even promoting now a WiFi phone, but still capitalizes on this "generous" offer by taking $10/month from subscribers. Another operator that promises to open up is Hutchison/3.In any case, operators are going to have to be creative and innovative to turn this situation from a potential disaster to a stage in their evolution. I am sure that in this case openness will be rewarded with customer loyalty, while tricks like locking phones, which is in any case a very temporary "solution", can only have the effect of antagonizing customers.We should also remember that in any case, that while WiFi is spreading to a lot of places even to the extent of city-wide hotspots, it is still far from the worldwide coverage that operators networks supply (for now...), and this is another reason for operators to act wisely and not block WiFi, so their users stay loyal and use their network when out of WiFi range.P.S. - For more on the N95 blocking you can read this. Also as a side note, even PSP will support VoIP soon.