Since it was introduced in late 2008, VoxOx has tried to cut a name for itself in the competitive multi-protocol chat client market by providing users with an aggressive feature set. These include VoIP, a "personal assistant" for managing incoming calls with more than a simple redirect, and SMS and Web-based callback to cut down on the cost of long-distance, transnational calls. The latest improvement is a universal translator that translates all text-based messages in real time, and with a reasonable amount of accuracy, for both the Windows and Mac versions of the program. It will work with all supported instant messaging services, including Facebook IM, Twitter, and SMS messages.
The VoxOx Universal Translator will work on all supported IM networks, including Facebook IM, as well as Twitter and SMS messages.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)To activate the translator, click the Universal Translator button to the right of the text box; it looks like a grayed-out globe. Check the "translate" box and choose whether you want all messages translated, only incoming, or only outgoing. Next, choose your languages, hit OK, and start typing. For both incoming and outgoing messages, you will only see them in your preferred language. Click on one to view its translation.
The feature supports 50 languages, from French, Spanish, simplified and traditional Chinese, and Hindi to more obscure languages such as Welsh, Icelandic, and Catalan. Some heavily-used languages, such as Tagalog, are not currently supported.
In tests performed with several colleagues at CNET, we discovered that the translator works well in general. It works best when the selected languages are set as the defaults for the system users. This means that if I'm translating into Chinese, the person I'm chatting with should have his or her chat program's default language set to Chinese. While this may seem frustrating to some, it's important to remember that the program only requires one user to be using VoxOx to take advantage of the translation feature.
The translator only requires one participant to use VoxOx. This is what somebody receiving the translated text might see.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Somewhat annoyingly, the translation feature also lacks any kind of "nuance engine" to help determine the context of the words as they're being used in the conversation. In other words, there's no support for slang. It translates what you type more or less literally, so expect some broken translations along the way.
For a free, on-the-fly text translation service that requires little effort from users, this seems like an acceptable trade-off and should be considered another feather in the VoxOx cap.
(Credit:
CNET)
Before we get to this week's apps, a news item over at AppleInsider indicates we may be getting a change to the iPhone operating system that many have been talking about. According to one AppleInsider's more reliable sources, the iPhone OS 4.0 could add multitasking support in the next OS update. This means you'll be able to run apps simultaneously making it possible to switch between apps without closing them.
A lot of smartphones already have multitasking support, so it's been one of the bigger complaints for detractors of the iPhone. Frankly, I think it's a welcome change to the OS that might make it easier to do some tasks, but up until now I haven't really had any need for it. I'm sure there are plenty of readers who have been waiting for this rumored upgrade in the next iPhone OS, so please let us know in the comments how you think multitasking will change the way you use your iPhone.
This week's apps include a powerful clipboard manager to store information and media, and an enormously popular arcade fighting game that is now on the iPhone.
Store images or text and browse through your clips with a swipe of your finger.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)Pastebot Command Copy & Paste ($2.99) lets you take clips of information and save them for later in a slick-looking interface. When you're browsing the Web and come across interesting information or find an image you want to save, Pastebot lets you copy the image or information and save it to its own clipboard. Simply use the iPhone's copy tool to select the info or image you want to copy, hit copy, then launch Pastebot and the image or text will automatically show up in the app. From there you can edit text, give the clip a title, or run the clip through a filter to perform specific tasks such as converting all text to lowercase, straightening quotes, wrapping in HTML tags, and much more.
Pastebot lets you store up to 99 clips through the normal clipboards, but you can store items in folders for long-term storage. This makes creating titles for clips extremely important because it will enable you to search for them later. If you're using a Mac, you also can download the Pastebot preference pane from the developer's Web site that allows you to wirelessly transfer clips to your Mac over Wi-Fi (the Windows sync tool is still in development). Overall, if you have the need to collect information and images you find on the Web, or need a good way to transfer info and images from your iPhone to your Mac, Pastebot Command Copy & Paste is a good choice.
Street Fighter 4 ($9.99) is a 2D fighting game that needs little in the way of introduction, but is surprisingly fun even using the iPhone touch screen. In the iPhone version you can play with eight characters from the original game across seven environments. The graphics look great even on the iPhone 3G, and the touch-screen controls work surprisingly well with only a little bit of practice. There are a few different ways to play including a Tournament mode, where you fight multiple matches against each of the different characters; Dojo, which trains you on all of the different moves for your selected character; Free-Sparring, for when you want to fight a specific character to find his weaknesses; and a Training Room where you can practice your moves. You also can play against your friends in versus mode, but only over a Bluetooth connection.
Though it may appear the controls get in the way of the action, once you start playing you won't even notice.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)I think the main question most people will have about Street Fighter 4 on the iPhone (before spending the money) is how well the controls work on a touch screen. You get a control pad on the left and buttons for Punch, Kick, and special moves on the right (though you can move the controls wherever you want using the settings). Capcom decided to leave out the low and medium punch/kick buttons, which may bother Street Fighter veterans, but even without them, the game offers an enormous amount of moves. When I first started playing, it was admittedly difficult to get used to the onscreen control pad and buttons to perform some of the more complex moves. But after a few fights, even the more difficult moves started to get much easier. Overall, if you're a fan of Street Fighter, the iPhone version is true to the original with great-looking graphics, surprisingly solid controls, and a challenging AI, making it easily worth the price tag.
What's your favorite iPhone app? Are you happy to hear about the rumored addition of multitasking support? Do you have a better clipboard manager than Pastebot? What do you think of the touch-screen controls of Street Fighter 4? Let me know in the comments!
Earlier this week, Opera Software released Opera Mini 5 beta for Android, a vast improvement to the version 4.2 browser that had previously been available for Android. Opera Mini 5 beta isn't new to the scene--it's been out for some months on Java phones, BlackBerry, and interestingly, it just hopped on board Windows phones.
In this First Look video, we take you on a hands-on tour of Opera's slick-looking browser alternative for Android smartphones, which is available for free in the Android Market or by downloading it from www.opera.com/mini/next/.
Browser makers, grappling with outmoded technology and a vision to rebuild the Web as a foundation for applications, have begun converging on a seemingly basic by very important element of cloud computing.
That ability is called local storage, and the new mechanism is called Indexed DB.
Indexed DB, proposed by Oracle and initially called WebSimpleDB, is largely just a prototype at this stage, not something Web programmers can use yet. But already it's won endorsements from Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google, and together, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome account for more than 90 percent of the usage on the Net today.
"Indexed DB is interesting to both Firefox and Microsoft, so if we get to the point where we prototype it and want to ship it, it will have very wide availability," said Chris Blizzard, director of evangelism for Mozilla.
And standardization could come. Advocates have worked Indexed DB into the considerations of the W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium that standardizes HTML and other Web technologies. In the W3C discussions, Indexed DB got a warm reception from Opera, the fifth-ranked browser. ... Read More
Just because the Moscone Center in San Francisco hosts a veritable plethora of techie conventions, that doesn't mean it offers Wi-Fi. If your phone can pick up a 3G signal, you might not care--and you might not have to pay for it, either. Thanks to PdaNet's phone app and laptop drivers, and the unlimited data plan that you're already paying for, you can use many of the major smartphones as your Internet connection.
After connecting your Android phone and running the PdaNet app, you'll need to finalize the connection from the PdaNet system tray icon.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)From the improbably-named software publisher June Fabrics, PdaNet is known for offering tethering solutions for PalmOS, but it also offers iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry versions. (Note that the iPhone version requires you to jailbreak the phone.) We'll be focusing on the Android version, which is available for Windows 32-bit and Mac. Its installation is surprisingly simple and doesn't involve rooting your Android phone.
There are two ways to install PdaNet. You can download it directly to your phone by connecting your phone to your computer, mounting the phone as a drive, and running the executable file from there. Or you can download it directly to your computer and run it. If you run it from your phone, the onscreen instructions will tell you when you need to disconnect your phone to complete the installation.
You'll be prompted again to enable USB debugging on the Android, and then to connect the USB cable. Once connected, it will install the PdaNet app on your phone. To create the connection, you'll need to connect the USB cable, run the PdaNet app on the phone, and then complete the connection by choosing "Connect" from the system tray context menu. If the Windows driver warns you that it's unverified, install it anyway.
PdaNet for Android has one limitation. After 30 days, it will require you to buy a license for $23.95, otherwise it will block access to secure HTTPS Web sites such as Gmail. That's a tempting carrot, but for those who don't need access to secure sites, the free version should be more than enough to satisfy.
Making the connection was smooth and nearly flawless. Users can tether their Android phones with a USB cable, or they can connect their phones to their laptops via Bluetooth DUN. PdaNet warns users that Bluetooth connections can be hamstrung by baud rate, so browsing on your laptop can appear slower than on your phone. However, the company says that there should be no perceptible slowdowns if connected via USB.
I noticed occasional connection hiccups when waking the laptop from hibernating, but otherwise there were no problems. To get around those apparent connection loss situations, I disconnected and then re-established the tether. The program is light on your system resources, and is a strong choice for those who want the benefits of tethering without the risks involved in rooting their phone.
Mozilla made public the first beta of Thunderbird 3.1 today. Code-named Lanikai and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the milestone makes few noticeable changes to the open-source and free desktop e-mail client. This is not surprising, though, as Mozilla Messaging announced that the goal of this release was to fix problems created by upgrading the Gecko engine that powers the program.
Lanikai is the first semi-stable release of Thunderbird to use Gecko 1.9.2, which is the same engine that Firefox 3.6 uses. The changes made from Thunderbird 3 to the 3.1 beta test version include Mac OS X 10.6 upgrade path from Thunderbird 2 improvements, fixes for autocomplete, tabs, activity manager, minor interface improvements and corrections, and a spate of stability and memory corrections.
One new security feature is that Lanikai requires extensions to come from a secure server using the HTTPS protocol or be digitally signed. Absent either of these, the extension won't install.
The full list of bug fixes is available here.
There are also several known issues that persist in Lanikai. These include a conflict with the Kaspersky Anti-Spam add-on, an occasional plain-text e-mail interface bug that forces buttons out of the pane, and an occasional offline bug that prevents e-mails written in Offline mode from being automatically sent when the Internet connection is restored. They must instead be sent manually from the Drafts folder.
As noted when Lanikai entered the alpha phase of development, Mozilla Messaging is attempting to follow in the footstep of the Firefox release schedule. The final version of Thunderbird 3.1 is expected sometime in June, though that could easily change.
Check Software Update! Apple has released Safari 4.0.5, which brings a number of performance enhancements and bug fixes to Apple's browser. According to the updater, the following has been addressed:
- Performance improvements for Top Sites
- Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins
- Stability improvements for websites with online forms and Scalable Vector Graphics
- Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from changing settings on some Linksys routers
- Fixes an issue that prevented some iWork.com users from commenting on documents
The update is available for Windows and OS X, but on the Mac side the specific problems addressed are issues with RSS feeds setting values in cookies, even if you have blocked cookies, and potential problems with WebKit's loading of CSS, XML, and HTML scripts that could cause arbitrary code execution or crashing.
For specifics on the issues addressed, see this Apple knowledgebase document: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4070
The Safari update is 31.8MB, and does require a restart to fully install. Be sure to back up your system before installing, and also have an alternative browser available as a backup. Keep in mind that third-party add-ons may be affected by the update, so check their functionality after updating, and be prepared to remove or reinstall them if needed.
Questions? Comments? Post them below or email us!
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.
By Mozilla's lights, Firefox 3.6 has been a runaway success. The publisher of the open-source browser says that more than 100 million users have downloaded Firefox 3.6 since its launch in the middle of January. However, not all Firefox users have upgraded from Firefox 3 or Firefox 3.5, and Mozilla wants to change that.
Users of older versions of Firefox will start seeing this pop-up, asking them to upgrade.
(Credit: Mozilla)As of Thursday, users of older Firefox versions will start seeing a pop-up encouraging them to upgrade. The window will come with three choices: Ask Later, No Thanks, or Get the New Version. The pop-up will appear after 60 seconds of keyboard inactivity, which Mozilla called a courtesy toward users and their workflows. Selecting "Ask Later" will defer the window for 24 hours. If a user has chosen No Thanks but decides later to upgrade Firefox, running the "Check for Updates" option from the Help menu will bring up the upgrade window.
One reason that many users cite for not upgrading Firefox is a legitimate concern about add-on forward compatibility. In the press release announcing the push, Mozilla stated that more than 90 percent of Firefox add-ons are compatible with Firefox 3.6. Users can also try to force older add-ons to be compatible by using the MR Tech Toolkit or Nightly Tester Tools add-ons, which add a "force compatibility" option to the add-on context menu, but these tricks also decrease the stability of the browser.
If you use an older version of Firefox, tell us why and which version in the comments below.
Moshe Ben Abu announced his Internet Explorer exploit on Twitter.
(Credit: Twitter)An Israeli security researcher has published exploit code for an unpatched hole in Internet Explorer that Microsoft disclosed two days ago.
Microsoft had warned in an advisory that a new vulnerability in IE 6 and IE 7, which could allow an attacker to take control of a computer, had been targeted in attacks.
Releasing the exploit code publicly increases the chances of attacks on the zero-day hole and could pressure Microsoft to issue a patch before its next scheduled Patch Tuesday in four weeks.
Researcher Moshe Ben Abu announced his work in a blog post on Wednesday and said it was being included in the open-source Metasploit exploit database.
He was able to create the exploit code after figuring out where an existing exploit was in the wild, based on information in a McAfee blog post, he told Ryan Naraine of the Zero Day blog at CNET sister site ZDNet. It took him about 10 minutes to de-obfuscate the exploit and pinpoint the vulnerability, he said.
Ben Abu told CNET that he would have found the original exploit code sooner or later without McAfee's help.
Asked how serious the zero-day hole is, he wrote in an e-mail to CNET: "The exploit covers Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7, which are not the latest version [IE 8] but many users still use it. In addition, the exploit is quite unstable, with about 60 percent to 70 percent success rate. So I guess it is critical, but not for users who update their Windows with the latest IE."
Microsoft's advisory on the vulnerability includes information on workarounds but suggests that IE 6 and IE 7 users upgrade to IE 8 immediately.
A McAfee spokesman said the company would be more careful about the details provided in its blog posts in the future.
"McAfee Labs does not support the release of exploit code, particularly in advance of a security patch being made available. We regularly sanitize blog content to prevent providing information that might assist attackers, while at the same time providing a service to customers and the security community to help improve protection levels," the spokesman said in a statement via e-mail. "The post in question did not contain enough information to directly lead anyone to exploit code. However, we regret that in this unique situation the post did contain details that may have given exploit writers a starting point to hunt for exploit code. Future blog posts will be subject to additional sanitization."
Updated at 11:44 a.m. PST with comment from McAfee and updated at 10:37 p.m. PST with comment from Ben Abu.
All those Android smartphone owners who have been wondering when they can ditch the outmoded Opera Mini 4.2 browser in favor of the latest beta can now unfold their pouts, stop that kicking, and remove their pounding fists from the floor. Opera Mini 5 beta for Android has arrived.
On Thursday, Opera Software pushed out the Android version of its Mini 5 browser that improves the browser experience for Java phones by leaps and bounds. The beta build is equipped with an updated interface that includes a new "speed dial" start screen featuring thumbnails of most-visited sites. The browser also supports tabs, a first for Mini but old hat on Opera Mobile.
Opera Mini 5 beta (beta 2, actually) and the nearly identical Opera Mobile 10 beta (for Symbian and Windows phones) have been making the mobile rounds since September. We're fans of the latest advances to come to the free browser, and we're looking forward to Opera making those changes final and retiring Opera Mini 4.2 (and Opera Mobile 9.6, while they're at it.) We just wish that Opera had submitted Mini 5 beta to the Android Market sooner.
Opera adds Android to its Mini 5 beta lineup.
(Credit: Opera Software)There's no confirmation from Opera, but we're speculating that Opera could officially flip the switch on at least one of the Opera Mini 5 variants at the CTIA trade show later in March.
To download Opera Mini 5 beta for Android, check the Android Market from your smartphone or point to mobile browser to www.opera.com/mini/next/.
Related:
Opera Mini now on Windows Mobile. Yeah, you read that right
Opera Mini browser for iPhone?
Opera Mini and Mobile betas bestowed with sync
