(Credit: Google)

Daily deal-aholics now have another avenue for purchasing discounted local offers, thanks to the arrival of the new Google Offers app for Android.

Simple and straightforward, the app immediately serves up a list of location-specific deals upon first launch. You can swipe up and down through the list, or tap any deal to see its price, number of purchases, and time remaining. From the deals list, you can also swipe left to see your Google Offers history, including Purchased, Saved, and Used or Expired deals.

The Google Offers app (download) is available now for free in the Android Market. And according to the Offers mobile Web site, an iOS version is on deck to hit the App Store "soon" as well.

[Read more]

Whether you're an aspiring producer or just itching to drop a beat, Beatlab makes it fast, easy, and fun to forge a quick track.

Many of us march to our own rhythm, sometimes unconsciously. We see it everywhere: commuters bobbing their heads on the way to work, students lost in their music players, or even those who beatbox under their breath when they think no one else is watching. Don't kid yourself; we know you've done it, too, at some point. Artists, musicians, and producers consciously try to tap into this rhythm when they are brainstorming or formulating ideas.

During moments of inspiration, sometimes there's a limited window of opportunity to record it before it gets lost in the mind's abyss. Unfortunately, not all of us have access to professional DAWs or expensive studio programs. Beatlab is a Flash-based audio sequencer with which you can quickly construct beats and generate downloadable loops on the Web at no cost.

Edit each track on the sequence grid, and Beatlab will preview your loop as you go.

(Credit: Screenshot by Eddie Cho/CNET)

The interface is fairly intuitive and friendly: Beatlab lays out tools and workspace functions in simple words instead of knobs and tempo counters. Players control the track speed by choosing from five default tempos that range from... [Read more]

Although the product suffered in performance, we definitely did like Total Protection 2012's interface.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

For a high-end suite, McAfee Total Protection 2012 (download) isn't a bad program. It's just not a particularly good program, and it misses being great by several miles.

We liked its interface, a continuation with only minor adjustments from its 2010 overhaul. The feature set is generally competitive, too, although this update really only brings it into line with the middle range of competitors. It doesn't really push the envelope as to what a high-end suite can do for its customers.

Its biggest problems lie in its performance, and for a security suite that can be the kiss of death. This kind of program has deep hooks into your Windows computer by necessity. Where competitors fight tooth and nail for fast scans and as small an impact as possible on startup and shutdown times, McAfee blunders ahead. Worse yet, it received terrible ratings in the past year from three independent labs on its ability to keep you safe.

For more details on McAfee Total Protection 2012, where it went wrong and what it did right, check out our full review.

[Read more]

Google's iOS GMail app provides access to almost everything the Web service can do. But the UI needs some refinement

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

At Google, the bungling of the iOS GMail app launch goes deeper than the bugs the first, short-lived version of the app threw off when it was fired up. The app is unfortunately a typical product from Google's Mail group: It has most of the useful features you want, but it's missing the one or two you need. And it's designed for engineers. With fingers the size of pipettes.

Its competition is the e-mail app built into every iOS device. That app is by necessity general; it works on almost every e-mail back-end there is. It lacks access to several GMail features. But it's fun, fluid, and pretty.

Google's GMail app is a big step up from the Apple app in key areas: It's easier to label and star incoming messages and to attach pictures to messages you're composing. And it has the de facto "pull down to refresh" behavior that pretty much every app except Apple's own e-mail app now has (seriously, Apple).

Related stories

• Looks like Google borked its first iPhone Gmail app
[Read more]

Opera Mini 6.5 on the iPad.

(Credit: Opera Software)

Two new features arrived today in Opera Mini and Opera Mobile for most operating systems besides Android, which already had received the upgrade.

Opera Mini 6.5 for iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian S60, and Java-enabled phones, and Opera Mobile 11.5 for Symbian received improvements to bookmarking and data-use notification, coming just after the company announced significant growth in the use of its mobile browsers.

The minor update brings a data saver notification and simpler way to add bookmarks and speed dial shortcuts to the browser. The data saver in Opera Mini is one of those nonessential features that draws your attention to a key function of Opera Mini: namely, how much bandwidth the browser's Turbo mode has saved you. Turbo is really a compression agent that runs whatever Web site you're visiting through Opera's servers and squeezes it down to a size that makes it easier to resolve for people with slow phones or on slow connections.

The commonplace "star" in the address field of most browser location bars has now been added to Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. This means that bookmarking or adding a site to speed dial is dramatically simple... [Read more]

If you plan on running multiple operating systems on your Mac, one route you can take besides a direct installation like Windows in Boot Camp is to use a virtual machine, which installs the OS within OS X so it and its applications will run alongside your OS X applications.

There are several virtualization options for OS X, including VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, both of which offer robust solutions for running multiple operating systems that integrate the guest operating system well with the Mac OS. Recently, Parallels released an update to its latest version of Parallels Desktop that, in addition to a round of bug fixes, includes new options for installing and managing operating systems.

In Parallels Desktop 7, the new Wizard interface for setting up virtual machines has a Convenience Store feature for purchasing copies of Windows, in addition to direct links for downloading and installing other popular operating systems such as Ubuntu, Chrome, and Fedora, and even installing OS X Lion using its Recovery HD partition.

With the latest version of Parallels, you can directly select the Lion installer application from the Mac App Store to install Lion in a virtual machine (click for larger view).

[Read more]

Norton Tablet Security

(Credit: Symantec)

While some app makers are taking a unified approach to Android, Norton has decided to split its security apps into a phone version and a tablet version.

Norton Tablet Security debuted today as Symantec also released a minor update to Norton Mobile Security, its smartphone version.

Norton Tablet Security is an updated version of Symantec's Android app, Norton Mobile Security. The Tablet Security version comes with an interface optimized for Android tablets. This means that instead of presenting its features in a narrow column, its interface is in a widescreen format.

Like its smartphone counterpart, Tablet Security offers anti-malware for scanning apps; Web protection, which uses Norton's Safe Web technology for protecting against malicious and fraudulent sites loaded in the default Android browser; and Web-based anti-theft measures, which allows users to protect their device after it's been lost.

Norton Mobile Security, now with Scream

(Credit: Symantec)

The anti-theft options involve logging into a Web site, from which you can then lock the device, add a custom "devic... [Read more]

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Hours after launching the hotly anticipated Gmail for iPhone app (and for all iOS devices), Google pulled the broken app from the Apple App store and apologized on Twitter.

"The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications," the tweet reads. "We have pulled the app to fix the problem. Sorry we messed up."

Google later followed up with an official statement:

Update: 11/2/11: Earlier today we launched a new Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately, it contained a bug which broke notifications and caused users to see an error message when first opening the app. We've removed the app while we correct the problem, and we're working to bring you a new version soon. Everyone who's already installed the app can continue to use it.

This is what greeted me when I launched the Gmail app on my iPhone 4.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

We witnessed the broken notifications first-hand on multiple iPhones when loading the Gmail app for the first time after a reboot (see right).

iPhone users also complained vociferously on social networks like Twitter and Google+ (here's one example of dozen... [Read more]

Apple's lead in mobile browsing increased in October 2011, while Android's browser passed Opera Mini for second place.

(Credit: Net Applications)

Google's mobile browser leapfrogged Opera Mini to take the second-place spot in worldwide usage of the Web with smartphones and tablets in October.

The change, revealed in Net Applications' monthly browser usage statistics, reflects the shift from older phone operating systems where Opera Mini is more popular to Android. But while Google's unbranded browser rose in the rankings, from 16.3 percent in September to 18.7 percent in October, top-ranked Apple rose even more.

Safari usage rose from 55.6 percent to 62.2 percent, extending its dominance in mobile computing.

Opera Mini plunged from 18.9 percent to 13.1 percent, Net Applications said. As the mobile market evolves, Opera is trying to tie its future more to Android--in particular with an upcoming version of the full Opera Mobile browser that can run in the lightweight Opera Mini mode when there's not enough network capacity available.

Other losers in the October mobile statistics were Symbian, which dropped from 4.7 percent to 2.6 percent, and BlackBerry, which dro... [Read more]

(Credit: Glu Mobile)

If this year's Halloween festivities haven't sufficiently freaked you out yet, we'd like to direct your attention to Contract Killer: Zombies, a gory first-person shooter that puts you smack dab in the middle of an undead apocalypse.

Fans of the original, non-zombified hit, Contract Killer, should recognize both the format of the game and the swipe-to-aim interface.

In Contract Killer: Zombies, you and your partner Evelyn trek through zombie-ridden streets in search of both survivors and supplies. As you conquer missions, you gain experience points and earn money, both of which lead to the buying of bigger and badder weapons. The gameplay is far from monotonous, as mission objectives vary from procuring supplies from abandoned buildings to rescuing trapped survivors. The constant among them all, however, is the smattering of zombie blood throughout the city streets.

Contract Killer: Zombies (download) is available now for free in the Android Market.

[Read more]

Much has been made of the "do not track" features built into the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari (the setting for Firefox is shown below). A do-not-track option is available in Google Chrome only as an add-in from Google called Keep My Opt-Outs.

The 'do not track' option in Firefox and other browsers is merely a suggestion; it doesn't actually prevent trackers from recording your Web activities.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly)

As Wired.com's Ryan Singel reported last April on the Epicenter blog, Google's wait-and-see attitude toward do-not-track features reflects the uncertainty about what kind of tracking is prohibited.

(In a Privacy Inc. post earlier this month, Declan McCullagh examined the approach to Web tracking being taken by the Federal Trade Commission and the World Wide Web Consortium.)

At the same time, Google and other Web services stand to lose a considerable amount of money if they're no longer allowed to track their users.

At present, the track-me-not setting in browsers is merely window dressing. Compliance is strictly volu... [Read more]

What's next for Mac OS X?

(Credit: Apple)

Apple is already testing a new version of its desktop operating system, reports claim.

Citing their respective Web logs, Apple rumor blogs MacRumors and 9to5Mac say that they have seen a steady increase in the number of visits to their site by computers running Mac OS X 10.8. The blogs said that the computers running the operating system started accessing their sites in August. The people using the operating system appear to be Apple employees, since the site requests originate from the company's headquarters and surrounding areas.

Although those findings are by no means a smoking gun that Apple is working on a follow-up to its desktop operating system, the timeline appears to make some sense. As MacRumors points out, Apple typically launches new versions of its operating system every other year, and based on Web logs, visits from computers running Lion first started hitting its site in late 2009, seeming to indicate that testing starts nearly two years before the software's launch.

Assuming Apple keeps the same schedule, the company is t... [Read more]

(Credit: CNET)

Now that people have had some time with their iPhone 4S, I'm sure many have had plenty of time to take pictures using the upgraded 8-megapixel camera. On it's own, the iPhone 4S takes great shots, but what if you want something more?

This week's iOS app collection is all about adding effects to your images. The first lets you flip through numerous effects and stack them for amazing results. The second offers tons of premade effects, but also gives you the option to adjust everything to your liking. The third app lets you play with the focused area of your image to produce visually unique images.

Check out the various textures to add a unique effect to your images.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Picfx ($1.99) lets you play around with 47 different effects and 13 different styles to tweak your images and adds some extras not found in other apps of this type. Like most image manipulation apps, you can snap a fresh photo with your iPhone camera or import a picture from your photo library. Across the bottom of the screen are icons of leather-bound books, each of which has a bunch of effects. The categories are broken up into Grunge, Classics, Textures, Light, Space, and Frames. Once you've selected or taken a photo, the interface layout... [Read more]

Halloween is just around the corner and adding a little festive flavor to your Android can be fun.

A spooky wallpaper, some ghostly ringtones or background noises, and even some scary games are easy to get and use on Android. Here's how to add all these things to your device for free this weekend:

Live wallpaper

First you'll want to set the scene. What better to use for this than a live wallpaper that has a Halloween theme?

(Credit: LW Livewallpaper)

Halloween Live Wallpaper is a great one to start with. This LWP has a small wrought-iron fence with skulls on it, and some pumpkins and bats that fall in and out of the sky. Not too scary, but definitely festive.

(Credit: The Mobile Co.)

Halloween Witch Live Wallpaper has a solid-black witch figure that travels across the screen from time to time. The scene behind her is a spooky neighborhood with yellow lights that turn on in the windows as the background gets darker.

(Credit: Xllusion)

... [Read more]

Your kids might actually want to do chores once they start using You Rules Chores!

(Credit: Opposite Inc.)

You may find this shocking, but getting my 11- and 9-year-olds to do household chores is like pulling teeth. Rotten kids!

That may change now that I've got You Rules Chores on my iPhone. This clever new app turns household chores into a game, rewarding each kid a designated number of coins for each completed job. Whoever finishes the week's chores first is the winner. (Of course, we all know who the real winners are: mom and dad.)

The app features cute graphics and music, and after a parent gets set up as the "referee," each kid gets to choose an avatar (from only six available, alas).

Next, you create a chore list, using a supplied selection of common ones (make bed, fold laundry, etc.) and/or your own additions. Each chore earns one, three, or five coins depending on difficulty, though you can also assign your own number.

The only slightly challenging part about using You Rules Chores is setting up the calendar for each and every chore and assigning them to each kid. Fortunately, this is pretty much a one-time setup hassle.

As chores are completed (and ver... [Read more]

Another day, another Trojan. The malware bot called "Tsunami" that has been developed for Linux systems since around 2002 has been found on OS X.

The malware (OSX/Tsunami.A) is a minimal threat, and like other Trojans and backdoors for OS X requires you to manually install it. While it is almost irrelevant to most users, it is out there and has the potential to cause harm for some.

The malware is an IRC bot, which is a program that connects to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network servers and channels, where it can be controlled as a client for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on targeted systems and networks. In addition it has the capability to both download files to an infected system and run shell commands (terminal commands) on it.

The current OS X variants of this malware appear not to work and may be in testing phases.

IRC bots are common programs used for numerous legitimate activities on IRC servers, but as with other well-intentioned routines, there is the potential for these bots to be developed and used for malicious activities.

Malware detection group ESET is claiming that so far there are two variants of this malware that connect to different IRC servers and channels. Both variants require someone to manually open the installer file, which then performs the following actions:

1. It installs the malware in the... [Read more]

Firefox Share brings a new take on sharing to the browser.

(Credit: Mozilla)

If at first you can't learn your social skills, try, try again. At least, that's what the Mozilla Foundation is doing.

Following the demise of the first Firefox initiative to bring a more modern range of social sharing to the browser, Mozilla has released today its second attempt in early alpha called Firefox Share (download).

Mozilla has lofty plans for Firefox Share. Along the same lines as the Firefox Weave add-on that later became the default-shipping feature known as Sync, Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of products, told CNET during a meeting at the company's new San Francisco offices on Wednesday that Mozilla wants to bake Firefox Share directly into the browser.

"It's a new sharing option based off of F1, with the same team, but learning from the F1 experience," he said. F1 was the add-on first released about a year ago through the Mozilla Labs sub-group within the Mozilla organization.

Even though Mozilla prefers to rely on add-ons to expand the browser's feature set, sharing was a no-brainer, said Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's Director of Firefox Engineering. "We're doing it because we feel it's such a common thing to do today... [Read more]

Tapping the designated corner in the Dolphin HD browser will let you control many browser functions with gestures.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

The makers of a popular mobile browser called Dolphin HD confirmed that their software leaks the addresses of all Web sites a user visits, a potential privacy and security breach.

MoboTap, a Pasadena, Calif.-based mobile developer, told CNET today that Dolphin HD for Android transmitted the Web addresses back to the company's servers but that they were not stored. The addresses were used to determine whether to format Web pages in "Webzine" format, MoboTap said.

The privacy and security implications arise when a user connects to a secure Web site (usually shown by "https://" and a closed lock icon). The second, surreptitious connection to MoboTap is unencrypted, allowing an eavesdropper on a Wi-Fi network to learn what's happening.

"In some cases, if you knew the URL, you can take over the user's session," says Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has advocated the adoption of encrypted Web browsing to thwart eavesdroppers.

Alan Cooper, a spokesman for MoboTap, downplayed the impact of the security snafu, saying that "we've never stored anyone's user data" and have no intention to do so. [Read more]

Have you ever filled out a comment on a blog or forum, only to have your browser crash, losing everything you wrote? Or maybe you have an itchy thumb and accidentally hit the back button. Frustrating, isn't it?

With a Firefox extension called Textarea Cache, you can automatically save what you type in a comment box or Web form and retrieve it, even if your browser crashes. Here's how:

Step 1: Install the Firefox extension, Textarea Cache.

Step 2: Fill out a blog comment or post to a forum.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 3: To retrieve your text, go to your Firefox add-ons by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+A, then click on the "Options" button under Textarea Cache.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 4: Click on the "Open cache window" button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 5: Review the text that was automatically saved and copy the text, remove it, or empty out the entire cache.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 6: To get quicker access to the Textarea cache window, hit CTRL+/ to display the Firefox add-on bar, then click on the Textarea icon in the lower right-hand corner.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

That's it. Now yo... [Read more]

Ever wanted to give your old 2D pictures or photos that extra oomph? How about adding an extra dimension to that dusty two-axis plane?

3Defy offers a fully functional 3D modeling environment, all within the comfort of your browser.

(Credit: Screenshot by Eddie Cho/ CNET)

Users can use a small but effective set of tools to edit their pictures.

(Credit: Screenshot by Eddie Cho/CNET)

3Defy Modeler is an interactive Web app that allows users to transform their photos into three-dimensional objects for free. Built by a team of passionate engineers, designers and 3D enthusiasts, 3Defy provides a a relatively basic set of tools to alter two dimensional images. Powered by Adobe Flash Player 11's 3D technology, users can turn various objects in their images into separate layers. Each layer can be exaggerated by users using 3Defy's built in tools. Users can push, pull, bend, or warp objects in various ways. Though 3Defy won't replace your industrial level 3... [Read more]