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beta

Opera Mini 5 Beta Android App Launched

Opera Mini 5 beta became available for download on the Android Market yesterday and after a long hands on, I believe it shows a lot of promise as a mobile browser on Android.

Opera has good history on mobile devices such as their Opera Mobile 9.5 browser for Windows Mobile phones, so the first thing that struck me about Mini 5 is that it too has an extremely simple user interface (UI) that’s extremely intuitive and makes a lot of key operations in mobile browsing very easy.

At the bottom of the screen, there’s a black bar with all the navigation tools you need, and although this may take up valuable screen estate on an already small screen, it’s very functional. You have your back, forward and refresh buttons as expected, but the tabs button makes it incredibly easy to add, remove and switch between tabs – much easier than it is on Android’s stock browser.

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SeeSaw TV Review (UK Online TV Service)

SeeSaw is a combination of already popular online TV services from BBC, C4 and FIVE. I believe this idea to have a great amount of potential when it comes to attracting visitors. With some good publicity and strong marketing, I’m pretty sure people would be swayed towards it for the simple reason that everything is in one place.

Given the choice, I think everyone would prefer it all to be on one site rather than having to flick between separate services from each channel – which was one of the driving forces behind the Kangaroo online TV service which got cancelled before launch, SeeSaw is what has been created from the ashes of that service.

But that’s just an idea, a principle, a basis to build upon. The real question is, how have they executed it? Well, after testing the site for a while over the past couple of days since it’s public release (after previously having tested out the SeeSaw TV Online beta), I have found the site to be an interesting addition to the UK online streaming TV landscape.

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Microsoft Office 2010 RC Download Released

Every few years or so we are all presented with a new version of Microsoft’s hugely popular office suite of applications. The last time this happened was in 2007 and please correct me if I’m wrong, not all that many people/companies took kindly to it with the majority choosing to stick with the perfectly capable 2003 version.

Microsoft Office 2010 has now hit the Release Candidate (RC) stage after a period of beta testing which started in November and now the beta testers will be getting to play around with this Office 2010 RC download. As of last month, there were a total 2 million downloads of the beta release. This is no doubt a major milestone on the way to releasing the final version which will be offered in both 32 and 64 bit editions for the first time ever.

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Facebook For Microsoft Silverlight Beta Client Released

All the news this past week has been about the Apple iPad announcement, and the exclusion of Flash from the device. We all know that Flash is an integral part of browsing the web, but it faces more competition in the future, with the capabilities of HTML 5 threatening the main advantages of the platform and a certain Microsoft Silverlight, which may not make the news very often, but has certainly come on by leaps and bounds if their latest creation is anything to go by.

I’m an avid user of Facebook, but don’t always want to go to the full website to check the statuses of my friends or update my own. When I first tried out the beta of Silverlight’s Facebook client (currently in Beta), I was wowed by the stunning interface, even if there are some features that didn’t make the Beta.

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Firefox 3.6 Update Released – New Persona Themes & Faster!

You may have seen our coverage of the Firefox 3.6 beta 1 and beta 3 late last year – since then, there have been quite a few further changes made, which lost its beta status this week as Mozilla released the finished version of Firefox 3.6 upon the world.

There’s lots of reasons to carry on using a Firefox’s great web browser, the most visually noticeable change to Firefox with the new release is the introduction of a new feature called Personas. Downloadable from getpersonas.com, you can choose from other 35,000 themes on offer that let you customise the way that Firefox looks.

When viewing Personas, you can hover over one to see how it will look in your browser, where you’ll get a preview before you choose to install it by clicking it. Downloaded themes can be managed via the Add-Ons window, where you can change and uninstall your Personas using the “Themes” tab.

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SeeSaw Online TV Service Beta – Register Now! (UK)

SeeSaw is an upcoming online TV service that will be launched in the UK in the next few months which will be aiming to provide its users with a variety of content, including British programming as well as international shows such as those from the US. SeeSaw will be presented in a high quality viewing platform which should allow viewers to enjoy a wide variety of popular TV programming on-demand, presumably in an iPlayer straming video kind of presentation.

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MAG Multiplayer Open Beta (PS3)

Sony has announced that there will be an open Beta available for MAG at the start of 2010 after the closed Beta was released a few months ago.

In case you haven’t heard of it, MAG (Massive Action Game) is an online action game which will be able to host matches of up to 256 players in each game and is a PS3 exclusive.

The two playable modes available will be ‘Sabotage’, which will play with up to 64 players and ‘Domination’ which will be the stage the massive 256 player mayhem.

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Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 Released…Without Windows 7 Aero Peek?

Remember how excited I got about the beta 1 of Mozilla Firefox 3.6 the other week? Well I’ve just got the latest beta of 3.6, beta 3, and it’s missing a key feature I found in the previous beta! In case you didn’t catch the article, earlier Firefox 3.6 beta’s utilised Windows 7’s Aero Peek feature in the same way as Internet Explorer by displaying each of the tabs in previews.

I also noted that there was a bug, which displayed a spinning circle in the first preview window. This bug was also present in the second beta and apparently the recently released third, which explains its omission from the default features. Despite this, you’ll still find many under the hood upgrades as expected.

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Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Preview

Remember Windows 7’s Aero Peek feature I was telling you about a few weeks ago? I loved it when I first used it, and I still love it now. The only problem, as with all new features in Operating Systems, was support for the feature in third party applications – I loved Aero Peek tabs in the super bar for Internet Explorer, but I don’t use Internet Explorer…

…Well you can imagine my excitement at the latest beta of Mozilla Firefox then, which includes support for Aero Peek in the super bar when you have multiple tabs open!

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Google Wave: How To Add Extensions (Gadgets & Robots)

Google Wave works well as standalone system for chat, file sharing and so on. However, it also gives you the option to add extensions which enhance your experience and the range of functions it can perform. Extensions can be thought of as similar to Facebook applications; just as you can install apps to customise the way you use Facebook, you can add extensions to personalise the way you use Google Wave.

Extensions come in two varieties: gadgets and robots. Gadgets are the most similar to Facebook apps, you install them and they run as part of a wave (thread). To give an example: you can install the Sudoku gadget, and use it to play against a group of friends. Robots are more similar to the bots you see on Twitter, but far more sophisticated because they behave as kind of artificially intelligent participant in a wave. The best example is the Twitter robot, Tweety, which can be used to update your Twitter status and also to follow tweets from other users.

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