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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Monday, May 30, 2011
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion 'Nearly Ready'
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is being tested internally at Apple, according to reports.
The TUAW website claims that "trusted sources" have revealed that internal testing began last week and that the company is nearly ready to officially launch its next-generation OS.TUAW even speculates that Apple might make Lion available during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) due to take place between June 6 and 10 in San Francisco.
Earlier this month, reports emerged suggesting that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion would launch through the Mac App Store . Apple issued a thirdDeveloper Preview a couple of weeks ago, complete with the Reading List function enabled.
Reading List is similar to the iOS app Instapaper and suggests that Apple is remaining true to its promise that Lion would see elements of OS X and iOS brought to the fore.
Other new features first seen in Developer Preview 3 included new wallpapers, a new boot animation and new graphical elements in the Finder toolbar.
PayPal Says Google Wallet Steals Trade Secrets
While Google
was outlining Google Wallet for mobile payments, PayPal was readying a lawsuit against the search giant. eBay-owned PayPal filed suit against Google and two executives for allegedly stealing trade secrets that helped Google develop Google Wallet and push for a piece of the multibillion-dollar mobile-payments pie.PayPal sued Google in the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County. The suit names Google and former PayPal employees and now Google execs Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius.
Bedier previously was vice president of PayPal's mobile platform and came aboard as Google's vice president of payments in January 2011. Tilenius served in various executive roles at PayPal and eBay, including vice president of PayPal Merchant services, from 2001 to 2009, when she joined Google as vice president of commerce.
"Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognized by both California law and public policy," Google said in a published statement. "We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims."
PayPal's Beef
The PayPal complaint argues that Bedier had intimate knowledge of PayPal's capabilities, strategies, plans and marketintelligence
regarding mobile payments and related technologies -- information constituting in part PayPal's trade secrets. "In the course of his work at Google, Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google to major retailers," the complaint alleges.PayPal also asserts that Tilenius solicited and recruited Bedier to Google. By doing so, PayPal argues, Tilenius violated her contractual obligations to eBay. PayPal said Bedier also violated his obligations to eBay by soliciting and recruiting PayPal employees to jump ship to Google.
"In addition, from 2008 to 2011, Google and PayPal were negotiating a commercial deal where PayPal would serve
as a payment option for mobile-app purchases on Google's Android Market. During that time, PayPal provided Google with an extensive education in mobile payments," PayPal said in the complaint."Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period," it added. "At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for a job at Google -- without informing PayPal of this conflicting position. Bedier's conduct during this time amounted to a breach of his responsibilities as a PayPal executive."
Wrongdoing?
The movement of executives and other workers from company to company is hardly big news in Silicon Valley, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund IT , but if Tilenius sent Bedier an alleged Facebook note before she left PayPal, he's not sure how that could violate an order enforceable after she left PayPal for Google.
, but if Tilenius sent Bedier an alleged Facebook note before she left PayPal, he's not sure how that could violate an order enforceable after she left PayPal for Google."The note could suggest that Tilenius was acting for Google prior to actually joining the company. But the reality of the workplace is people who are working for companies are actively talking about working for other companies before they leave. A lot of that has to do with the dates of when these events occurred and whether or not the no-solicitation order was enforced at the time that she sent this Facebook note."
The bottom line: Talk of electronic wallets and portable payments has been around for the better part of a decade. No company has made a truly viable business based on the concept so far, but PayPal has made its moves and is clearly intent on protecting its intellectual property.
based on the concept so far, but PayPal has made its moves and is clearly intent on protecting its intellectual property."As Google expands its area of interest and expertise beyond online advertising to enable electronic purchases of one sort or another, it's going to be touching live wires with any number of competitors with a major footprint in this area," King said. "It would be hardly surprising if future suits related to different kinds of electronic payments were filed against Google."
Utility Apps for Your iPhone's Toolbox
By Chris Maxcer
Killer tips for mastering Google Chrome
ip one: Keep your browsing private with Incognito.
Incognito mode is a private browsing mode that turns off the regular in-browser tracking such as your history and cookies. While it lends itself well to "porn mode" jokes, it's actually a useful tool for a heightened level of privacy, such as when conducting online banking. It's so useful that Chrome OS uses Incognito for its Guest account log-ins, so you can share your Chromebooks with friends and not have to worry about having your tabs accidentally deleted, for example.
Incognito mode is a private browsing mode that turns off the regular in-browser tracking such as your history and cookies. While it lends itself well to "porn mode" jokes, it's actually a useful tool for a heightened level of privacy, such as when conducting online banking. It's so useful that Chrome OS uses Incognito for its Guest account log-ins, so you can share your Chromebooks with friends and not have to worry about having your tabs accidentally deleted, for example.
The keyboard shortcut to launch a new Incognito window is Ctrl+Shift+N. In Windows 7, you can launch an Incognito window directly from the desktop taskbar by right-clicking on the pinned Chrome icon and choosing "New Incognito window" from Tasks. You can also open a link directly into Incognito from a regular session of Chrome by right-clicking on the link and choosing "Open link in Incognito window".
You can start Chrome in Incognito mode by default, too. Create a Chrome shortcut on your desktop, then right-click it and choose Properties. In the Target field, go to the end of the line and type " --incognito" (space, dash, dash, incognito, no quotes), then hit the OK button. That shortcut will always launch Chrome in Incognito, and it won't conflict with another, regular shortcut.
Another essential Incognito tip is that you can toggle your installed extensions to run while in Incognito mode. Go to the Wrench icon (or Preferences on a Mac) and choose Tools, then Extensions. Enabled extensions that can run in Incognito mode will have a check box that you can tick to allow them to run. This is not the safest way to use Incognito, however, because it's possible that the extensions will record browsing tracks that the browser won't. Still, it's appropriate for each user to make the decision about which extensions ought to work while the rest of the browser's tracking methods have gone silent.Tip two: It's all about the "about:"
Chrome has a different set of about: functions than Firefox, and it's a good idea to memorize some of the basic ones that you can type into the location bar. One of the most important is about:flags, which provides access to experimental features. The list is constantly changing, as Chrome engineers develop new features that they want power users to play with, but that might decrease the stability of the browser as a trade-off.
Chrome has a different set of about: functions than Firefox, and it's a good idea to memorize some of the basic ones that you can type into the location bar. One of the most important is about:flags, which provides access to experimental features. The list is constantly changing, as Chrome engineers develop new features that they want power users to play with, but that might decrease the stability of the browser as a trade-off.
Currently, some of the best options in about:flags include Side Tabs, for moving tabs from the top of the browser to the side, great for wide monitors; Grouping, which adds a grouping option to the tab context menu to keep related tabs together; Better Omnibox history matching, which gives a kick in the pants to the location bar's search feature; and the various GPU-related choices. These will likely decrease your browser's stability, but you will also see dramatic gains in browser speed, especially on Windows XP or older machines, as these flags toggle the more experimental aspects of hardware-accelerated browsing.
Another smart "about" to remember is about:memory. This shows you not only the memory that Chrome is using, both in its entirety and broken down into individual tab processes, but also the memory usage of any other browser you're running at the moment. (I used it for gauging memory usage during the most recent CNET browser benchmark battle.)
Chrome doesn't yet have a hot key to jump you directly to the Extension manager, but it does have about:plugins, which will take you there.
Many of the rest of the about: features get deep into browser management and reveal important browser data to developers. You can always check out the full list of 18 standard about: pages, and the list of seven additional ones that will force different kinds of crashes for developers, by typing in about:about.
Tip three: Use the keyboard, Luke.
Hot key combinations not only improve finger strength and dexterity they also help you navigate faster. Chrome and the coming Chrome OS have an extensive list of hot keys, and the list of 30 hot keys below includes both basics and some of the more esoteric options.
Hot key combinations not only improve finger strength and dexterity they also help you navigate faster. Chrome and the coming Chrome OS have an extensive list of hot keys, and the list of 30 hot keys below includes both basics and some of the more esoteric options.
| Hot key combo | What it does |
|---|---|
| F1 | Loads the Google Chrome Help center URL |
| Ctrl+J | View Downloads window |
| Ctrl+H | View History window |
| Ctrl+D | Bookmark page |
| Ctrl+F | Opens/Closes search box |
| Ctrl+P | Opens Print window |
| Ctrl+T | Opens a new tab |
| Ctrl+W | Closes current tab |
| Ctrl++ | Zooms in |
| Ctrl+- | Zooms out |
| Ctrl+0 | Returns page to default size |
| Ctrl+Shift+T | Re-opens most recently closed tab |
| Ctrl+N | Opens a new window |
| Ctrl+Shift+N | Opens a new Incognito window |
| Ctrl+Tab | Cycles tabs, left to right |
| Ctrl+Shift+Tab | Cycles tabs, right to left |
| Ctrl+1-8 | Jumps to tab. 1 = first tab, 2 = second tab |
| Ctrl+9 | Jumps to last tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+Del | Opens Clear Browsing Data window |
| Ctrl+Shift+B | Shows/Hides Bookmarks bar |
| Shift+Esc | Opens Chrome's internal task manager |
| Alt+Home | Opens home page in current tab |
| Alt+D/Ctrl+L | Highlights text in location bar |
| Ctrl+Enter | Adds www. and .com to text in URL bar |
| Ctrl+Shift+V | Pastes from the clipboard without formatting |
| Shift+Alt+T | Moves focus to first tool in toolbar |
| Tab (after Shift+Alt+T) | Cycles through tools on toolbar |
| Space or Enter (after Shift+Alt+T) | Activates selected tool |
| Shift+F10 (after Shift+Alt+T) | Reveals context menu for selected tool |
| Esc (after Shift+Alt+T) | Returns focus to page |
There are, of course, many other hints, tips, and tricks you can use to maximize your Google Chrome experience. One is the ability to click and drag tabs off the tab bar to create new windows, and to drag them back to re-integrate them into one window. Another that's currently only available to Chrome dev users is the return of the ability to create desktop shortcuts for Web apps and Web sites, like Gmail or Flickr. If you've got a favorite hint, tip, or trick for Chrome that wasn't mentioned here, let me know what it is in the comments below.
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