The Download Blog

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Time.com news content has never been farther away on a BlackBerry phone than a good RSS reader like Viigo. On Monday, Time launched its own reader, for the brand's content alone. Time.com for BlackBerry is a free, ad-supported application that mimics Time.com's Web experience, albeit through a wisely pared-down interface.

The graphics-rich application shines in Time's signature carmine hue. Buttons along the top strip navigate to top stories, popular stories, lists (including 50 Essential Travel Tips and 10 Big Recession Surprises), and photo galleries. Keep scrolling to the right to pick up a fifth, hidden button--More--from which you're able to browse categories that have been condensed in the interest of saving space. For now, video isn't supported.

Time.com's straightforward application is easy to navigate by scrolling and clicking stories. Text loads quickly, but if you're in data and Wi-Fi dead zones, thumbnails make a scattered appearance. You can switch to a lighter text view, which strips out the thumbnails, but retains the red border and graphical navigation buttons.

When you're done reading, four buttons at the bottom of each page let you send the article to yourself or to a friend, post on Delicious, or share via Twitter.

Personalizing the feed is the Time.com reader's best feature. Scroll through the list to approve or nix categories you'd like promoted in the Top Stories home screen. Swampland, pass. Nerd World, check.

Time.com's application for BlackBerry is available by pointing the mobile browser to app.time.com.

Correction: QuickTime 10 is likely to be released with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the fall, and won't be updated Monday.

At WWDC Monday morning, Apple's Bertrand Serlet came out with guns blazing, not just in support of Snow Leopard, but of Safari and QuickTime, too. Announcing that Safari 4 would leave beta later Monday and that QuickTime would receive a massive overhaul, Serlet introduced new features while taking swipes at both Microsoft and Mozilla.

Safari 4 can be downloaded from CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac.

Safari 4 shipping today.

(Credit: (Credit: James Martin/CNET))

The senior vice president of OS X software said that QuickTime 10 is now "super efficient" and will support HTTP streaming based on h.264 and AAC, a feature that many competing programs have long offered. The new QuickTime will automatically adjust the playback bit rate, and it will be able to stream through firewalls.

In addition to receiving a major version jump from v7 to v10, the interface has also received a complete refresh. Onscreen controls will disappear when playing back video. The QuickTime "Q" logo will also see a slight redo, changing from its familiar blue to a silver and purple.

Safari 4's Nitro will be the fastest JavaScript engine of any browser on the market, Serlet said. Without describing what kind of benchmarks he was using, he showed a chart indicating that Chrome 2 is 5.3 times faster than Internet Explorer 8, but that Safari 4 is 7.8 times faster. Safari 4 also loads JavaScript three times faster than Safari on the iPhone, Serlet said. HTML 5 audio and video tags will be support in Safari 4, too.

Microsoft was not the only target for Serlet. "The number one cause of crashes," he said, "is browser plug-ins." Mozilla Firefox is the best-known extensible browser, and one new feature in Safari 4 is designed to address the instability that some plug-ins can bring to browsers. Crashes in Safari 4 that are caused by a plug-in will cause only the plug-in to fail. Refresh the page, Serlet said, and the plug-in will reload. "All you need to do is reload that page and that's it. You haven't missed a beat."

I'll be running hands-on tests on Safari and QuickTime later today when they're made available to the public. The update to QuickTime in particular is somewhat surprising, given that Apple had been resistant for years to make any dramatic overhauls to its movie player. If the company can improve its performance, then we may be looking at a heated battle in the video playback market in addition to Web browsers.

(Credit: CNET)

Apple Insider has unearthed proof that YouTube uploading will be built into the upcoming version of QuickTime that ships with OS X 10.6.

According to beta testers, several video-sharing options will be baked into the latest release of Apple's QuickTime media playback and editing software, including the capability to directly upload to YouTube. With the new QuickTime, you will be able to convert and upload any supported video file type to the online video service and all you will need is to be a registered YouTube user. You also will be able to seamlessly upload supported video to the MobileMe Gallery.

In addition to these new sharing options, iTunes also will offer ways to convert and export your video files to work on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. All of these options will be available to you from the same convenient location and will automatically be imported to iTunes before being synced to your supported devices.

With this latest discovery, Apple will effectively offer built-in support for YouTube across all of its main products. Both the iPhone and Apple TV already offer YouTube support, along with some of Apple's other software including recent releases of iMovie. With the addition of direct uploads through QuickTime, Apple is providing support for desktop and laptop Macs.

(Credit: CNET)

To go along with my obsession with software, games, and all things iPhone-related, I also have a healthy(?) obsession for basketball. March Madness is over, but there's still the NBA playoffs coming up on April 19. A few teams are still in the playoff race, even with only a few games to go in the regular season. While my team didn't even come close to making the playoffs (Hint: We Believed), I will still be watching a few of the playoff matchups and can't wait to see who makes the NBA Finals.

This week's apps include a brand-new app to keep track of the NBA playoff race and a golf game that might be the best yet in its genre.

Use the schedule tab to find the day's matchups and find out on what channel you can watch the game

(Credit: CNET)

NBA Game Time (free) gives you a no-frills approach to getting your NBA basketball info quickly and easily. Simply launch NBA Game Time and quickly find out scores and game times for games played yesterday, today, or tomorrow (and more if you dig a little deeper). Three tabs across the bottom of the interface let you quickly find out the latest live scores, a schedule for all teams, and current standings (with highlighted playoff clinching teams) to see who still has a chance to squeeze into the playoffs. Pick a matchup in the scores tab to get a complete box score with all the important stats for each player. Check out game times and where to find games on TV using the Schedule tab, and you can even go back in time to the beginning of the season to get box scores for your favorite games.

This app will be useful for quickly finding out when and on what channel to watch playoff games, but I really think it will come in handy more next year. I guess that might be because my team didn't make it, but I know there are plenty of people (whose teams are in the playoffs) who will find this app useful immediately.

Check the wind speed and make sure you have the club you want for the perfect shot.

(Credit: CNET)

Let's Golf ($5.99) is an excellent golf game for iPhone which is a lot like the hit platform game from recent years, Hot Shots Golf. Using crisp, 3D, cartoonlike graphics, Let's Golf lets you play on your choice of four complete 18-hole courses--and you can choose to play the front nine, back nine, or all 18 holes. There are three skill levels and four characters to choose from with varying abilities in different areas (some can drive well, while others recover from bad shots well). Winning a round in tournament mode opens up clothing options for your characters with items that boost specific abilities. That means that along with having player customization, you'll have to choose the gear that makes your character better.

Let's Golf offers three game types including Instant Play, a random assortment of three holes pulled from the collection of courses; Tournament play, to win trophies, open up more courses, and unlock new clothing options; and Multiplayer so you can play with friends on the same Wi-Fi network. Overall, I think golf fans and really any game fan will be amazed at how well this game looks and plays on the iPhone. If you like golf, this game is easily worth the $5.99 price tag.

What's your favorite iPhone app of the moment? Do you have a better NBA stats program I should check out? Have you gotten a hole in one (I've tried, but no luck yet)? Let me know in the comments!

(Credit: Sonos)

Add iPhone control, Last.fm, and an expanded Internet radio roster to Sonos' bag of tricks.

Starting Tuesday, a free application available at the iTunes App Store will allow iPhone and iPod Touch owners to control their Sonos digital audio system via their home's Wi-Fi network. The Sonos Controller for iPhone provides the Apple handheld with most of the same functions as the Sonos CR100 Controller, but provides direct touch-screen access not available on the latter device.

The Sonos system can already be controlled via its companion Windows and Mac software, but the iPhone Controller provides a much more convenient and accessible interface to the multiroom music system.

In addition to providing a secondary control option for existing Sonos owners, the Controller App also lowers the effective entry-level price for the Sonos. The company's two-room bundle, the $1,000 BU150, includes a ZP120 base station (with built-in amplifier), ZP90 base station (no amp), and CR100 remote. Previously, those looking for a single-room option were left with purchasing a separate ZP90 ($350) and CR100 ($400), netting out to a very pricey $750.

But the availability of the iPhone application means consumers can grab a ZP90 and an iPod Touch for $580. Still a lot of money, to be sure, but now you're getting top-notch home and portable digital music players. And existing iPhone or iPod Touch owners, of course, need only get the ZP90 or ZP120.

Photos: Sonos Controller iPhone App

Sonos is also updating the product's firmware to version 2.7. The free upgrade (it's a one-touch automatic free download for all Sonos systems, available now) adds the following:

The New York Times has added a new feature to its Web site that takes a few cues from Facebook and Digg: TimesPeople, now in beta.

TimesPeople users can build up friends lists and can see a "news feed" of which stories their friends are recommending, sharing, and commenting on. Times online readers have been able to comment on stories, as well as rate reviewed restaurants and movies, for some time now, but recommending is new.

The TimesPeople drop-down menu, with a news feed and people search.

(Credit: NYTimes.com)

TimesPeople is currently available only as a Firefox browser plug-in, but software engineers told CNET News.com that it would eventually be more widely available and without a download required. New features will be added too, but don't expect the venerable newspaper to try to compete with Mark Zuckerberg: Engineers stressed that the Times will always be an information source, not a social network. That's why the TimesPeople application is extremely light and minimal--profiles are limited to locations and user icons, and content from the social feature is limited to a "news feed" page and a drop-down menu. However, at some point, a "Most Recommended" tab may join the popular "Most E-mailed" story list that the Times' site displays.

The TimesPeople iPhone interface.

(Credit: NYTimes.com)

Outside NYTimes.com, you can subscribe to a feed of an individual's activity using RSS, or browse your friends' updates with a specialized iPhone interface; TimesPeople members can also push their updates to their Facebook profiles by syncing the two. And if you'd rather just be an observer, you can subscribe to friends' updates on NYTimes.com while leaving your own feed updates turned off.

Many print publications have been working on social-news projects, primarily by partnering with existing sites like Digg. Conde Nast's Wired Digital went ahead and acquired Reddit. Critics might say that by building a social-news technology in-house, the Times is hurting itself by not tapping into the user base of an existing site.

But here's the catch: while NYTimes.com content is free, it requires a log-in to read more than a story or two at a time. The Times, consequently, has millions of user accounts already on file.

This story was researched and reported in collaboration with Andy Plesser of Beet.tv, who produced the video.

The New York Times is bringing its e-reader desktop application to the Mac this month. The newspaper publisher unveiled its latest efforts last night, with a slew of screenshots. The Times' First Look post notes that the application will be running on Microsoft's Silverlight technology, enabling rich-media effects and rendering. Users will be able to read, browse, and search the entire publication while offline.

The big difference between the PC application and the Mac version will be the ability to view pages in three different sizes, all of which have been crunched on the company's servers instead of on people's machines. Mac users will also be able to do a text search with an index of the last seven days' worth of news, while PC users are currently limited to just one day's worth.

PC users will still have the leg up on Mac users for a few features, including Pictures of the Day, which Rob Larson, vice president of digital production for the Times' Web site, says has been quite popular on the PC side.

The company will be offering the new Reader to Mac users free of charge over the "beta" test period. After that, it will assume a similar role to the PC version, which gives access only to people who are current physical subscribers, or who have subscribed to the paper's digital editions. The software is expected to ship in the next two weeks.

Mac users will soon be able to enjoy reading The New York Times while offline with the company's upcoming Reader product.

(Credit: The New York Times)

Acrylic

(Credit: CNET Networks)

There are several solid newsreaders for Mac OS X including the popular NewsFire and NetNewsWire which I've talked about here before. But I found an application today which puts a different sort of visual spin on the standard newsreader. It's called Times and it organizes feeds in an entirely different, though immediately familiar way. One quick note: this application only works on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The newspaper layout makes it easy to browse through news stories.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Most newsreaders offer a three-paned interface with your feed list on the left, headlines with summaries on the upper right, and full stories (once clicked) in the lower right. What Times does is turn your newsfeeds into a fully customizable newspaper layout. Choose categories like World News, Technology, Science, or Sports at the top, and Times displays the latest newsfeeds of that type, laid out like a newspaper. To add a new feed you can click on the pencil icon in the upper right of the interface to display a list of recommended sites which you can drag onto your page. You also can add feeds to this quick-drag area by clicking on the "+" button to bring up a huge list of topics.

Choose from several available feeds or add your own.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

One of the best things about Times is you can create your own page and add feeds based on your favorite sites. I was able to create pages with some of my most frequently visited sites, such as CNET News.com, Engadget, Gizmodo, Digg, and Reddit, and I also created a page with my most viewed politics sites. You have complete control over where your feeds show up, so you might put your favorite site in the featured headline area at the top, while another feed is moved to the sidebar on the right. It's completely up to you.

Use the Shelf to grab stories you want to read later.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As an added bonus, Times offers an interesting and useful feature called the Shelf. Clicking on the shelf icon in the upper right (next to the pencil icon) brings up a wood-grained shelf. To get at the news which interests you from each category, simply drag stories onto the shelf to read later. This makes it possible to quickly scan stories from each of the main categories (and your personal pages) to bring your reading list into one place. From there, just click on the pages to read the full page stories.

NewsFire and NetNewsWire are both great ways to get the news on your Mac and you can't beat the price: they're both free. Times might be the coolest way to display your favorite news feeds and create your own new pages, but you'll need to pay $30 to register. Playing around with it has made me seriously consider hitting that purchase now button and, with all of it's flexibility, Times might be worth the extra money.

If you've ever wondered how many minutes a day you spend using Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Gmail; or how much of your day is "wasted" by community Web sites such as Digg, Slashdot, or MetaFilter, a free application called RescueTime (also available for Mac) can track that information for you, while providing several other valuable features to monitor your time.

Monitoring productivity in the Internet age has become more complicated than ever, especially if you work online. E-mail, instant messaging, and multitasking keep many of us switching constantly between projects or contacts. RescueTime combines a local application with complementary Web-based software to track the time you spend with specific applications and Web sites, down to exact minutes and seconds.

The online RescueTime app provides lots of ways to slice, dice, and analyze your data.

(Credit: CNET Networks/RescueTime)

Getting started with RescueTime is simple. You'll need to download and install the data collector and then sign up for an account on the RescueTime Web site in order to start tracking your productivity. The local software monitors your application/site usage, communicates with the Web service, and lets you manage your privacy and other program settings. The Web service provides the meat. That's where you can view your usage statistics (as well as slice, dice, and tag them), set productivity goals and alerts, and grab HTML widgets for monitoring your time without even visiting the RescueTime site.

Once you get the RescueTime monitoring software up and running, it will take about an hour for your statistics to show up on the Web site. As soon as you can manage your application/site data, it's smart to tag your applications and Web sites to create some meaning from the raw data. For example, I tagged the CNET blogging tool and my favorite text editor, NoteTab Light, with the tag "text," which means "hey, I'm writing here." Next, I tagged the Web-based Download.com catalog tool with "catalog" (duh), SnagIt and Adobe Photoshop as "images," and Outlook with "e-mail." You can see a snippet of my usage data from the RescueTime widget below.

So, you might ask, am I seriously suggesting voluntarily allowing "Big Brother" access to your PC? Well, yes and no. If you use RescueTime in the default manner, you will certainly be providing personal information on application use and Web site visits to a software company. However, RescueTime does have a very solid privacy policy, and it also includes various options that let you customize exactly how much info (and what type) is shared with the Web service.

The RescueTime privacy options let you restrict the sites it tracks.

(Credit: CNET Networks/RescueTime)

For example, if you're concerned about sharing your Web browsing habits, you can enable a domain whitelist for tracking in the Privacy tab of the local RescueTime app. A domain whitelist is simply a text file with a list of Web sites. If you visit one of the sites on your whitelist, RescueTime will track it. All other Web sites will be grouped together in the data under "Other Web sites," which could be useful for browsers concerned about sharing their private surfing habits. You can also use the RescueTime Web service to exclude any specific applications or sites from its monitoring.

Similarly, you can ask RescueTime to only monitor domain-level URLs. That option means that the app will record that you visited Download.com, but not specifically the Kelly Clarkson Sex-E Screensaver. For security reasons, you can also set RescueTime to send updates to the Web service using the SSL protocol.

The communication between the local RescueTime client and the Web service is also completely transparent. To see the exact information that the software is sending online, visit the RescueTime.com folder in your Application Data directory within Local Settings. For XP users, the path is usually "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\RescueTime.com\logs\." For Vista users, it's generally "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\RescueTime.com\logs\." The "uploaded" directory holds all logs already sent to RescueTime; the "pending" directory holds the logs waiting to be sent.

Most importantly, you can always turn off logging by either quitting the local RescueTime application, or right-clicking the RescueTime icon in your system tray and disabling logging. The default keyboard shortcut for enabling/disabling logging is Ctrl-Alt-L. In my specific case, I have corporate monitoring and remote-access software on my work machine anyway, so I have no PC privacy to lose. Those users who consider installing and using RescueTime on their home PCs may want to consider the pros and cons, and contact RescueTime directly if you have specific concerns.