Here’s what’s new in Firefox 1.5:
* Automated update to streamline product upgrades. Notification of an update is more prominent, and updates to Firefox may now be half a megabyte or smaller. Updating extensions has also improved.
* Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance.
* Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs.
* Improvements to popup blocking.
* Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut.
* Answers.com is added to the search engine list.
* Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and “Safe Mode” experience.
* Better accessibility including support for DHTML accessibility and assistive technologies such as the Window-Eyes 5.5 beta screen reader for Microsoft Windows. Screen readers read aloud all available information in applications and documents or show the information on a Braille display, enabling blind and visually impaired users to use equivalent software functionality as their sighted peers.
* Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox.
* Better support for Mac OS X (10.2 and greater) including profile migration from Safari and Mac Internet Explorer.
* New support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6.
* Many security enhancements.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
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I think we remember Sony being caught at employing a DRM rootkit measure to stop innocent people from copying CDs on their computer, right? So Bruce Schneier explains this in full detail. Sony certainly covered it up well, but thats not the last of their worries. May all large corporatations learn from their mistakes, like this.
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Microsoft is not about to take the Web 2.0 revolution sitting down, says Bill Gates. In an internal e-mail sent out October 30, Gates writes that Microsoft must change to take advantage of the evolution of computing to a Web-based model.
(Source: BetaNews)
I figured Gates never actually ran any direction in the company, until this. He knows what he needs to do to compete and generate revenue (aka: MONEY!!!$!$$!$!1!). This seems to also be the direction America Online is taking too, since they have a noticable decline in membership, they need to find some way to generate some extra dollars; and they have it. Its premium services, and Music services that are available to AIM (aka “Registered Users”) and AOL members alike. From costing $3.95 - $9.95 monthly, it lets people chose a-la-carte style pickings, without the cost of AOL $23.90.
I expect Microsoft to suceed, but you wont find me paying Microsoft any money. 
I <3 Mozilla
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Kumho’s engineers must have inhaled tire smoke one too many times. We admit that tires spewing forth colored smoke from a burnout are kind of neat, but only if a set of the $1995 tires (that’s $2K each!) is being melted on some other guy’s car. But tires scented with the aromatic effusion of Lavender and Rosemary? C’mon. Eric has reported back that they smell like herbs that have been growing in a tire planter. Makes sense.
(Source: Autoblog)
Pretty nice tires, and finally girls can enjoy burnouts as much as we do. 
Funny
RENO, Nevada (AP) — The mayor of Las Vegas has suggested that people who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.
This is crazy. This nut wants to broadcast violence on TV just because of tagging. Obviously doesnt know anything since you dont tag with your thumb, you use the index finger, moron. I do agree tagging is lame, however, it doesn’t warrant violence to be issued due to it.
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Rants
“Amazon.com has a new program that wants you to ‘Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it.’ (example: ‘Is there a pizza parlour in this photograph?’). For each task you complete you get a small payment, usually ranging from a few cents to a little under a dollar. It’s named the Amazon Mechanical Turk after a famous hoax from the 19th century. Kill time and get paid in tiny increments to boot!” Similar to Google Answers, there seems to be a reliability ratings system and some incentives.
(Source: Slashdot)
This is cool, too bad it got slashdotted.
Tech News
America Online Unveils Next Generation, Web-based, Full-Service, Digital Music Store - Including Subscription, Portable Subscription, and a La Carte Purchases. Preview Available Now at AOLMusicNow.com
This is good, and competitive to iTunes. Though, realistically, iTunes has more marketshare and more opt-in users with iPods; this does offer people with that Microsoft “PlaysForSure” crap an option to use this service. This is a pretty cool service, for the same price as iTunes and integrates with your AOL/AIM login. I wish they had a PayPal option, but heh, I guess its okay as it is. This service is better than MusicNet that AOL has been offering for a while now. Glad to see some more progress. 
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