Skins – Personalize Opera Mini by choosing a new colorful skin. We have reintroduced the popular skinning feature from Opera Mini 3.

Performance – Opera Mini 4.2 can use our newly established server park in the US. This means significantly faster page downloads for our users in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region. Users in the rest of the world will also experience faster page downloads since we’ve reduced the load on our other servers.

Video – We are working to make video content available on more phones through Opera Mini. If you have a new Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone, the chance is high that you can take Opera Mini for a spin on m.youtube.com.

Sync Notes – The handy Notes functionality from the Opera Desktop Web browser just got more portable through Opera Link. All of your notes are available in Opera Mini directly from the Bookmarks menu.

Now even faster – Prior to this release, we upgraded our servers and Opera Mini now receives your requested Web pages up to 50% faster. So you can now access sites like Facebook, BBC, and any of your other favorite Web sites even faster, with desktop-like speeds.

Find things faster – The new Opera Mini lets you search for text within a Web page so you can get to the information you need even quicker than before.

Get to your Web sites faster – When typing Web addresses, Opera Mini will recognize and suggest completions for you based on your Bookmarks and browsing history, making address input faster, easier and much more intuitive.

Download and upload files – On phones with JSR-75, you can now upload and download files using Opera Mini, without being re-routed to your phone’s native browser. Update your blog while on the go. Upload photos to your Web site or social network. Add attachments easily to Web-based email, and download other non media-rich content to your phone using Opera Mini.

Save it for later – On phones with JSR-75, Opera Mini lets you save pages for offline viewing so you can quickly access and read your desired Web content, even when you’re on a plane, in the subway, or in other places where you can’t get network reception. Depending on your phone, you may need to choose a destination folder for storing pages for offline viewing.

Sync bookmarks and Speed Dial – Opera Mini features Opera Link, which allows you to synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial with a computer running Opera 9.50 or other mobile device running Opera Mini.

View pages in Landscape mode – To view the Web on a wider screen, just hit * # and flip your phone to the side to enjoy browsing in Landscape mode. Change your default view to landscape by turning “Landscape mode” on inside the Settings menu.

Give your phone a mouse – Opera Mini gives your phone a virtual mouse, so you can easily scroll in any direction. Move the mouse cursor towards what you want, and then it quickly snaps your view to the link or content.

Power scrolling shortcuts – Scroll at warp speed using your phone keypad. Find your way around on the Web pages quicker by using your phone’s number keys. Press 2 to go up, 4 to go left, 6 to go right and 8 to go down. Hitting 5 zooms you in and out.

Create custom search shortcuts – Just like in Opera for your computer, you can create your own Web search from any search field on the Internet using Opera Mini. Simply click on the search field that you want to grab on a Web page and then choose “Create search” within your menu alternatives. Then you can enjoy making frequent searches without having to type in the site link again.

Tools and support for Web designers – We support Web designers who want to make their Web sites look even better to those browsing with Opera Mini. In Opera Mini, we have included all of the CSS support that Web designers need to make their Web pages look pixel perfect on in the mobile Web world.

Full Web in your palm – When visiting a Web page, Opera Mini displays the overview of the page and suggests where to begin your reading.

Built for speed – Opera Mini is built for speed. Web pages are compressed by up to 90% of its orginal size for speed, saving your time & money.

Links

• Opera Website
• Download Opera Mini

While Dropbox functions as a storage service, its focus is on synchronization and sharing. Dropbox synchronization uses SSL transfers with AES-256 encryption, and it supports revision history, so files deleted from the Dropbox folder may be recovered from any of the synced computers. Dropbox’s version control also helps users know the history of a file they may be currently working on, enabling more than one person to edit and re-post files without complications of losing its previous form. There is no limit to file size for files added via the Dropbox application, but files transferred through the web interface are capped at 350 MB. Dropbox uses Amazon’s S3 storage system to store the files.

The Dropbox service is similar to companies such as Box.net, Mozy, and the now defunct Omnidrive and XDrive. The major feature (and limitation) of the Dropbox system is that only files in the Dropbox folder are backed up and synced. The company received seed funding from Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital.

Other Information

• Developed by Evenflow, Inc.
• Initial release September 2008
• Latest release 0.6.427 / 25 November 2008;
• OS Cross-platform
• Available in English
• Development status Active
• Type Online backup service
• License Proprietary

Links

• Website www.getdropbox.com
• Crunchies 2008 Awards
• List of other online file storage and sync services

eBuddy is a web browser-based instant messaging service that originally started as e-Messenger in 2003. It combines MSN, AOL, Google Talk, ICQ, Facebook and MySpace IM into a single web based interface. It is also available via mobile phones, independent of carrier or device via WAP or mobile internet browser.

eBuddy is a privately-held company backed by Prime Technology Ventures and Lowland Capital Partners.

eBuddy is headquartered in Amsterdam and has a second, local office in London. The company launched a third and fourth, US office in San Francisco in April 2008.

History

Paulo Taylor is the inventor of eBuddy. The idea came to life when he made a bet with a friend in which he said he could get MSN to work on a mobile phone. Working full-time at an internet company, Paulo spent his after hours working on a mobile MSN application. After several weeks, he won the bet and uploaded the application on a server. It was here that visitors asked if he could make a web version of the application. As user traffic spurred, Paulo decided to take the idea to the next level.

On September 9th 2003, Paulo together with two partners created EverywhereMSN.com. Microsoft however claimed the domain name and shortly after on December 4th 2003 the domain was changed to e-messenger.net. On May 1st 2004, e-Messenger became incorporated. On June 1st 2006, e-Messenger was renamed to eBuddy.

Features

eBuddy offers a secure login option. Users can also indicate if they wish to sign on invisibly. The chat client includes a tab mode setting to differentiate chat windows, similar to tabbed web browsing. The beta version released in June 2007 supports multiple IM networks in one interface.

Mobile

The mobile instant messaging version (eBuddy Lite), compatible with Cell Phones, PDAs, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS works on devices that support WAP or xHTML.

In June 2007, a Java ME client (eBuddy Mobile) was released that is claimed to work on the top 600 cellular phones used worldwide.

iPhone

On July 13th eBuddy released an Alpha version for the iPhone. It is based on the same AJAX platform as the Beta web version. Somewhere at the start of 2008, the eBuddy iPhone version started to point to their Lite Messenger. An optimized version of the Lite Messenger is provided to iPhone users.

Unsupported features

* QQ Protocol
* Skinning – Users cannot customize application appearance.
* Webcam interface – Users cannot utilize a webcam.
* File Transfer – Users cannot send or receive files.

Links

• eBuddy homepage

History

Cooliris, Inc. was founded in January, 2006, and later launched Cooliris Previews (later renamed CoolPreviews) for Firefox, followed by versions for Internet Explorer and Safari. In May, 2006, the company released Coolringer, and introduced PicLens (later renamed Cooliris) in October, 2006.

Early versions of Cooliris Previews displayed the contents of a link in image form, which limited the user’s ability to explore the contents of the page. The product was subsequently updated to make the preview fully interactive, improving performance and usability.

Cooliris, Inc. received funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in July 2007.

Server side vs. client side

Of note is that the CoolPreviews software is client-side, whereas some other products, e.g. Snap, are server-side. There are advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Namely, client-side software must first be downloaded, and must be developed specifically for each browser platform; however, once installed, it can offer functionality exceeding the constraints of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. In contrast, server-side software can be deployed by web site administrators without user intervention, removing a barrier to adoption; however, it is subject to the aforementioned constraints and each site owner must implement it for the user to benefit. According to open source project ffmpeg Cooliris is violating ffmpeg’s license agreement.

Links

• Download Cooliris

Features

Interface

Major revisions to Reader’s interface were made on September 28, 2006. In an interview with Robert Scoble, product manager Nick Baum stated that the redesign is a movement toward making news aggregation something for the general public to enjoy.

Here are some of the features that are now included within Google Reader:

• A front page that lets you see new items at a glance
• Import and export subscription lists as an OPML file
• Keyboard shortcuts for main functions
• Choice between list view or expanded view for item viewing (showing either just the story title or with a description, respectively)
• Automatic marking of items as read as they are scrolled past (expanded view only)
• Search in all feeds, across all updates from subscriptions
• An easter egg that allows a special “Ninja!” skin to be accessed if the user inputs the Konami Code.

Organization

Users can subscribe to feeds using either Google Reader’s search function, or by entering in the exact URL of the RSS or Atom feed. New posts from those feeds are then shown on the left-hand side of the screen. One can then order that list by date or relevance. Items can also be organized with labels, as well as being able to create “Starred Items” for easy access.

Sharing

Items in Google Reader can be shared with other Web users. Previously this was done by sending a link through e-mail, directing the user to the shared article; or by creating a basic webpage that includes all shared items from a user’s account. In December 2007, Google changed the sharing policy so that items the user marked as shared were automatically visible to their Google Talk contacts. Users criticized this change because there is no way to opt out. The URL for a user’s page of shared items contains a random string, and Google originally advertised this as a way to limit sharing to only those people to whom you give the address.

Offline access

Google Reader was the first application to make use of Google Gears, a browser extension that lets online applications work offline. Users who have installed the extension can download up to 2000 items to be read offline. After coming back online, Google Reader updates the feeds.

Mobile access

A mobile interface was released on May 18, 2006. It now can be used by devices that support XHTML or WAP 2.0. On May 12, 2008, Google announced a version of Google Reader targeted at iPhone users. It can be found here.[7]

iGoogle

On May 4, 2006, Google released a new feature[8] which enables feeds from Reader to be displayed on iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage).

Firefox integration

Google Reader is included within Mozilla Firefox’s feed recognition (in version 2.0 and higher), which can automatically redirect users to Google Reader’s Add Subscription screen.

Wii version

On May 8, 2007, Google created a version of Google Reader specifically formatted for the Wii web browser.

More Information

• Developed by Google
• Platform Web browsers
• Type RSS feed reader
• Website google.com/reader

Google uses its Internet search technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user’s geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google’s targeted advertisement system may enroll through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the advertisements are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website.

Currently, AdSense uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating website. If the advertisements are included on a website that has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, AdSense will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes, also known as public service announcements (PSAs). (The Mediabot is different from the Googlebot, which maintains Google’s search index.)

Many websites use AdSense to monetize their content. AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small websites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and salespeople. To fill a website with advertisements that are relevant to the topics discussed, webmasters implement a brief script on the websites’ pages. Websites that are content-rich have been very successful with this advertising program, as noted in a number of publisher case studies on the AdSense website.

Some webmasters invest significant effort into maximizing their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:

1. 1. They use a wide range of traffic-generating techniques, including but not limited to online advertising.
   2. They build valuable content on their websites that attracts AdSense advertisements, which pay out the most when they are clicked.
   3. They use text content on their websites that encourages visitors to click on advertisements. Note that Google prohibits webmasters from using phrases like “Click on my AdSense ads” to increase click rates. The phrases accepted are “Sponsored Links” and “Advertisements”.

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program, which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction. AdSense commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (i.e., a bid not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.

How AdSense works

• The webmaster inserts the AdSense JavaScript code into a webpage.
• Each time this page is visited, the JavaScript code creates an IFrame with a src attribute set to the page’s URL.
• For contextual advertisements, Google’s servers use a cache of the page to determine a set of high-value keywords. If keywords have been cached already, advertisements are served for those keywords based on the AdWords bidding system. (More details are described in the AdSense patent.)
• For site-targeted advertisements, the advertiser chooses the page(s) on which to display advertisements, and pays based on cost per mille (CPM), or the price advertisers choose to pay for every thousand advertisements displayed.
• For referrals, Google adds money to the advertiser’s account when visitors either download the referred software or subscribe to the referred service. The referral program was retired in August 2008.
• Search advertisements are added to the list of results after the visitor performs a search.
• Because the JavaScript is sent to the Web browser when the page is requested, it is possible for other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their own webpages. To protect against this type of fraud, AdSense customers can specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. AdSense then ignores clicks from pages other than those specified.

Links

• Visit Google Adsense
• AdSense Blog
• AdSense Forum

If you want to know how to develop applications for Android, you’re in the right place. This site provides a variety of documentation that will help you learn about Android and develop mobile applications for the platform.

A beta version of the Android SDK is available for download. Along with the Android framework and application libraries, it includes sample projects with source code, a device emulator, and development tools for monitoring and debugging your code and GUI layout.

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. This beta version of the Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.

Features

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
• SQLite for structured data storage
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
• GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
• Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

Applications

Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language.
Application Framework

Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can publish its capabilities and any other application may then make use of those capabilities (subject to security constraints enforced by the framework). This same mechanism allows components to be replaced by the user.

Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, including:

• A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application, including lists, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser
• Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications (such as Contacts), or to share their own data
• A Resource Manager, providing access to non-code resources such as localized strings, graphics, and layout files
• A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in the status bar
• An Activity Manager that manages the life cycle of applications and provides a common navigation backstack

Libraries

Android includes a set of C/C++ libraries used by various components of the Android system. These capabilities are exposed to developers through the Android application framework. Some of the core libraries are listed below:

• System C library – a BSD-derived implementation of the standard C system library (libc), tuned for embedded Linux-based devices
• Media Libraries – based on PacketVideo’s OpenCORE; the libraries support playback and recording of many popular audio and video formats, as well as static image files, including MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, and PNG
• Surface Manager – manages access to the display subsystem and seamlessly composites 2D and 3D graphic layers from multiple applications
• LibWebCore – a modern web browser engine which powers both the Android browser and an embeddable web view
• SGL – the underlying 2D graphics engine
• 3D libraries – an implementation based on OpenGL ES 1.0 APIs; the libraries use either hardware 3D acceleration (where available) or the included, highly optimized 3D software rasterizer
• FreeType – bitmap and vector font rendering
• SQLite – a powerful and lightweight relational database engine available to all applications

Android Runtime

Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language.

Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included “dx” tool.

The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.

Linux Kernel

Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory management, process management, network stack, and driver model. The kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack.

Links

• Download Android
• Visit Android

As of November 2008, total downloads surpassed 22.5 million.

Avant Browser is currently available in 41 languages.

Avant Browser was largely inspired by Opera, the first major browser to have a multiple document interface. The developer’s objective was to wrap a comparable interface around the layout engine used by Internet Explorer, thereby achieving Opera-like ergonomics without suffering the frequent problems that browser had rendering pages tested only in IE. In fact it was initially released under the name “IEopera”, though this was soon changed due to the obvious trademark issues.

Latterly, Avant’s developer Anderson Che has concentrated on adding user-requested features, and Avant was among the first browsers to have popup blocking, advertising server blocking, and one-click disabling of potential security vulnerabilities such as ActiveX, Java, and scripts.

In the Avant Browser, unlike most other “alternative” browsers, the default search engine is not Google. Instead it uses a version of the Yahoo! search engine, given a custom look and renamed Avantfind, and it is not immediately evident how to change it. However Google and many other search engines are available via the address bar “Quick Search” facility, and instructions on how to change the default to an engine of the user’s choice have been posted by the very active Avant Browser user community.

The community has also created other tools and extensions for Avant, including registry files which allow it to use the Information Bar and other security enhancements of XP SP2.

Alongside Avant, the developer has a sister project known as Orca Browser, an Avant-like shell of Mozilla’s Gecko layout engine as used in Firefox 3 and has similar approaches as Flock. It is in the final testing stage and a public release candidate version is available.

Other Information

• Developed by Avant Force
• Initial release 2004, 4–5 years ago
• Stable release 11.7 Build 19
• Preview release none (n/a) [+/−]
• OS Windows
• Type Web browser
• License Proprietary EULA
• Website http://www.avantbrowser.com

Download

Integration

The design of the web site allows for integration of the service into other applications via a REST API, or an similar to the delicous API. The web browser Flock supports Ma.gnolia alongside other services out of the box.

Open Standards

Ma.gnolia supports open standards and is often among early adopters of these standards. The bookmarking service provides support for several Microformats: In July and August 2006, among other information, support for MicroID and XFN was announced on the Ma.gnolia blog. The announcements were well received by the community around online reputation management services.

In December 2007, Ma.gnolia collaborated with Engagd to let users build attention profiles from their bookmarks. In March 2008, Ma.gnolia changed its join and sign-in pages to require users to sign up with a verified identity using OpenID. In August 2008, Ma.gnolia, amon others, signed the OAuth 1.0 license.

M2

In August 2008 Larry Halff announced a ground-up rewrite of the service called M2. Parts of the new version are going to be provided under a open source license. It is planned that custom installations of Ma.gnolia can be federated with other installations or the Ma.gnolia website itself. This distributed aspect is the main difference to a similar project by Reddit. The open source aspects of M2 are published at Ma.gnolia.org.

Other Information

• Registration Optional
• Owner Gnolia Systems
• URL http://ma.gnolia.com

Web pages are presented when the user clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which Web page to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. Users can rate or choose not to rate any Web page with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button resembles “channel-surfing” the Web. StumbleUpon also allows their users to indicate their interests from a list of nearly 500 topics to produce relevant content for the user. There is also one-click blogging built in as well.

Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer, but also works with some independent Mozilla-based browsers. A third party toolbar has also been created for Opera.

eBay acquired StumbleUpon in May 2007 for $75,000,000.

History

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd during Garrett’s time in post-graduate school (in Calgary, Alberta, Canada). The idea of creating a company was established before the content: of the five or six ideas for products, StumbleUpon was chosen. Garrett describes in a BBC interview the moment for him in which he felt the company had really taken off: “When we passed the half a million mark (in registered users), it seemed more real.”

The popularity of the software attracted Silicon Valley investor Brad O’Neill to take notice of the company and assist with a move to San Francisco, as well as bringing in subsequent fund-raising totaling $1.2 million from other angel investors including Ram Shriram (Google), Mitch Kapor (Mozilla Foundation), Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), and Ron Conway. Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith now reside in San Francisco, where StumbleUpon is headquartered.

Service details

StumbleUpon uses collaborative filtering (an automated process combining human opinions with machine learning of personal preference) to create virtual communities of like-minded Web surfers. Rating Web sites updates a personal profile (a blog-style record of rated sites) and generates peer networks of Web surfers linked by common interest. These social networks coordinate the distribution of Web content, so that users “stumble upon” pages explicitly recommended by friends and peers.

Users rate a site by giving it a thumbs up, thumbs down selection on the StumbleUpon toolbar, and can optionally leave additional commentary on the site’s review page, which also appears on the user’s blog. This social content discovery approach automates the “word-of-mouth” referral of peer-approved Web sites and simplifies Web navigation.

Stumblers also have the ability to rate and review each others’ blogs and join interest groups, which are community forums for specific topics. Users can post comments in the manner of a discussion board in these groups and post links to Web sites that apply to the specific topic.

[edit] StumbleVideo

On December 13, 2006 StumbleUpon launched their StumbleVideo site at http://video.stumbleupon.com/. The new site allows users without a toolbar to “stumble” through all the videos that toolbar users have submitted and rate them using an AJAX interface. The site currently aggregates videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, and MySpace Videos.

StumbleUpon launched a version of StumbleVideo for the Internet Channel Web browser that runs on the Wii console on February 12, 2007. This version of StumbleVideo is optimized for the Wii’s smaller screen resolution and offers similar functionality to that of the original version.

StumbleThru

In April 2007 StumbleUpon launched the StumbleThru service, allowing users of the toolbar to stumble within sites such as The Onion, Public Broadcasting Service and Wikipedia. According to the announcement of the feature, StumbleUpon plans on adding additional Web sites in the future.

Advertising

StumbleUpon uses knowledge of user preferences to deliver targeted advertising. A small proportion of the “stumbles” users come across (typically less than 2%) are sponsored pages matching their topics of interest. For example, those signed up for photography will occasionally see an ad related to photography. Such content is vetted by humans for “quality and relevance” prior to its delivery A sponsored site is identifiable by a green “person” logo on the toolbar. Paid accounts (referred to as “Sponsors”) have a variety of options, including the ability to turn off such advertising.

Success

In July 2006 StumbleUpon had 1 million users. According to the homepage, StumbleUpon has more than 6.3 million members as of November 5, 2008. Before the end of May 2008, StumbleUpon says that it will have collected its five-billionth “stumble”, more than one billion of which have taken place in 2008 alone.

eBay

In May 2007 StumbleUpon was purchased by eBay. Early reports indicated they were also in talks with Google before the eBay announcement. A year and a half later (September 2008) eBay has hired Deutsche Bank to try to sell StumbleUpon again. Although the number of registered user has been growing steadily, the number of visitors has declined from 4.4 million to 1.3 million between July 2007 and July 2008.

Similar Sites

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• Fark
• Reddit
• Slashdot

Other Information

• Design by Geoff Smith
• Developed by eBay since May 2007
• Latest release 3.26
• Platform Firefox, Seamonkey, Internet Explore
• Type Web site ranking and discovery
• License Proprietary freeware
• Website http://www.stumbleupon.com/