Apple have released their latest iPhone SDK numbered 3.2 Beta 5. At the moment the differences between Beta 4 and Beta 5 are not known although we should know more by the end of today.

When Beta 4 launched on March 9 a few new features were found within the SDK that indicated more gestures were to be made available to developers, specifically 3Tap and LongPress.

We don’t know yet what is in Beta 5, but we’ll probably see a couple of minor adjustments and perhaps an addition or two for new functions. [Read more…]

Amazon have announced that Kindle for Mac is now available for download. To get the software working you need to download at the link above and ensure you have a Mac running OS X 10.5 or above.

The Kindle software brings eBooks to your Mac and lets you read books from the Amazon bookstore without using an Amazon Kindle.

If you do have an Amazon Kindle, or another device that uses the Amazon Kindle software then when reading books on the Mac or another device, the last page viewed is synced with other devices allowing you to easily pick up the book from where you left off. Bookmarks and annotations can also be viewed between devices. [Read more…]

The CEO of Spotify recently said that ‘On certain days, we’re consuming more Internet capacity than Sweden has as a country.

Spotify uses a P2P setup that takes bandwidth usage away from a single server setup allowing the network to grow larger. P2P works by users instlaling the Spotify application which then streams information from one computer to another rather than from a central server setup.

It’s interesting to see how quickly Spotify have grown as they now have 320,000 paying subscribers with around 7 million users in total and yet, they have not entered the US market. [Read more…]

Microsoft [MSFT] have made Internet Explorer 9 available for download as a developer preview. (download available at ietestdrive.com)

Internet Explorer 9 is expected to support HTML5 and have a new JavaScript engine that MS have codenamed Chakra. Also support for CSS3 and SVG2 is said to be included.

What Microsoft want to achieve with Internet Explorer 9 (or IE9) is a faster browsing experience that gives a better user experience which will be welcomed by anybody. Hopefully security is also on their to-do list for the browser along with better compatibility with websites which often render incorrectly when compared to firefox for example. [Read more…]

PayPal have updated their iPhone application that now includes the software from Bump Technologies allowing a couple of iPhones to be tapped together to transmit a payment to each other.

PayPal first launched their PayPal application for the iPhone back when the app store first opened in 2008 and since then have provided various updates with this one being the latest.

The new Bump software is integrated in to the section where a transaction is initiated (as pictured above) and allows you to quickly transfer the money when needed to another user. [Read more…]

First Data have created a microSD based contactless payment system in collaboration with a company called Tyfone.

The new system is called SideTap. SideTap is based on a microSD card which can be inserted in to any mobile phone with a correct slot. Once inserted the phone can become a means to authorise a transaction.

By putting the system on to the microSD card it doesn’t restrict the contactless payment system to just one device as many devices are already compatible with the system. When purchasing the card you upload your financial and bank information to it allowing the data to be used when performing a transaction. [Read more…]

Apple [AAPL] started allowing people to pre-order the Apple iPad in the US where we will see the Wi-Fi model shipping April 3 and the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models shipping late April. Both models of all capacities can be pre-ordered now.

A team at Investor Village AAPL Sanity board did some analysis of numbers and estimate that 124,596 items were ordered on the Apple site on Friday March 12 with 16,500 of those being other items that are normally ordered. They also estimated that per person an average of 1.11 iPads were ordered bringing the total up to 119,987 iPads pre-ordered in the first day. [Read more…]

Google’s email service GMail is web based and for some people it runs slow. If you only have a few hundred or few thousand emails in your GMail box then you might not be aware of the issue, however if you have hundreds of thousands or even millions of emails in your GMail inbox then the service runs slow.

Google [GOOG] are aware of this apparently and are already working on a fix for those “power users” who are hit with the problem.

It is unknown how Google are going to fix GMail for power users, but we assume some back-end change with perhaps a more dedicated solution being set up for super busy accounts. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] have now updated the UK maps with 96% coverage of the UK in Street View. There’s just a few streets missing as of now, but generally the whole UK is covered.

This allows Google Streetview users to view almost any street in the UK from the eyes of cameras that have been mounted on cars for the last 18 months or so and immerse themselves in to the streets around them (or anywhere else).

Google came under fire though due to Streetview with some people believing it was too obtrusive. However, most people feel it’s quite a cool feature to have and I have to admit it’s an impressive undertaking to get the whole of the UK covered. [Read more…]

Imagination Technologies are responsible for creating the PowerVR chip that runs in phones such as the iPhone, DROID as well as others. They believe that in three years time they will have a chip that will bring the power of Playstation 3 graphics to pocket sized devices.

The reason they actually believe (or know it) is due to the fact that the chip is already being designed and due to waiting for licensing, and bringing the chip in to publicly available phones (which takes 3 years) they know that 720p HD will be available with an output to TV that has PS3 capable graphics. Perhaps mini screens will also be cable of 720p at that time too. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] have launched Google Apps Marketplace that integrates third-part cloud apps with Google Apps.

The Google Apps Marketplace offers products and services designed for Google users, including installable apps that integrate directly with Google Apps. Installable apps are easy to use because they include single sign-on, Google’s universal navigation, and some even include features that integrate with your domain’s data.

By integrating the applications together it allows you to directly access third-party applications from GMail for example. With various apps running such as contact sharing it can be just a matter of logging in to GMail, clicking the More tab, loading your listed 3rd party app and passing contacts quickly to another user. [Read more…]

Hard drive manufacturers are about to change the format on new hard drive which will prevent older operating systems (such as Windows XP) from working. The new controller technology is increasing the byte sector size from what it is now (512 bytes) to somewhere in the region of 4K to allow the data that we currently have to day to work better.

The problem will only become apparent if you want to install Windows XP on a new hard drive. At this point it simply wont work.

The new hard drives are supposed to start being launched in 2011 at which point, you won’t be required to switch over as your XP machine will continue to work as normal… that is until the drive fails and you end up having to buy a new drive. [Read more…]