It might have been a smart strategic move for Opera Software to move to the WebKit browser engine and scrap its own Presto, but some think it's a step backward for the development of the Web overall.

"A switch to Webkit might benefit Opera. It's just not going to benefit the open Web," said Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan in comments on his blog about Opera's Presto change-o. "This will strengthen the WebKit mobile monoculture and make it even harder for us to promote Web standards over 'coding to Webkit.'"

Browser engines process the instructions on Web pages written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, rendering the page on a person's smartphone, tablet, or computer. WebKit is used in Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and the unbranded Android browser. With Opera's change, there will be three major browser engines remaining: WebKit; Microsoft's Trident, used in Internet Explorer; and Mozilla's Gecko, used in Firefox and Firefox OS. Opera will move most of its its mobile and PC browser software to WebKit gradually this year, starting with an Android version that will debut at Mobile World Congress this month.

The concern about Opera's WebKit move stems from the way new features are added to the Web.... [Read more]

A&E's iPhone app

Apple iPhone owners can now stream full episodes of popular A&E shows.

The network updated its iOS application this week, allowing iPhone owners to watch everything from "Duck Dynasty" to "Storage Wars" to "The First 48." A&E's other networks, Lifetime and The History Channel, have also received updates supporting the iPhone.

A&E initially launched its app in December for the iPad. The company allows viewers to watch full episodes of the current season of shows for free. As with the iPad application, only Comcast customers will have access to episodes from previous seasons.

For now, AirPlay support is not available in A&E's line of applications. However, the company noted in its App Store description that the feature is "coming soon."

Slacker's new look has rolled out on the company's Web site, as well as on its different mobile apps.

SAN FRANCISCO--At an invite-only press event in San Francisco, popular streaming music service Slacker Radio last night unveiled a completely revamped brand. The company's name remains, but Slacker's look and feel have been significantly simplified.

Of course, with the re-brand, Slacker's Web site and product designs have been updated with cleaner, more modern looks as well. Gone are the dark tones, textures, and gradients that crowded Slacker's interfaces in the past. Now, Slacker's multi-platform face is made up of brighter colors, clean lines, and lots of white space, which bring it more in line with what seem to be modern Web design standards.

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As great as Slacker's product has been (check out our ... [Read more]

Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie

Opera Software, an independent voice in the browser market since the 1990s, will dramatically change its strategy by adopting the WebKit browser engine used by Safari and Chrome.

The Norwegian company announced the move today and said it will show off the first fruits of the work with a WebKit-based version of its Android browser at the Mobile World Congress show in less than two weeks. But the company will move to WebKit for its desktop browser, too.

A browser engine processes the Web page instructions written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS then renders the results on screens. The engine interactions are increasingly important as the developer world expands from static Web pages to dynamic Web apps.

Opera's chief technology officer, Håkon Wium Lie, described the company's motives for the change in a statement:

The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need. It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine further. Opera will contribute to the WebKit and Chromium projects, and we have already submitted our... [Read more]

If you use popular computational programs such as spreadsheet workhorses Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, you might run into an issue in which, when using large number values, the system will appear to truncate the values of numbers entered.

For instance, if you open Excel and enter the value "12345678901234567890" into a cell, the program will change this to "12345678901234500000," where every value past the 15th character is set to zero. This happens in Apple's Numbers spreadsheet and other programs as well.

While the significance of the last numbers is perhaps questionable, it does limit how precise calculations can be in these programs.

The problem here takes us back to a related discussion of the old 32-bit-vs.-64-bit discussion that cropped up when computer processors were transitioning to higher-precision and higher-value number handling capabilities. At the time, hardware memory addressing was the overall limitation; 32-bit systems could only allocate up to 4GB of memory for a program, a limit that greatly encroached on demand for many programs.

If you enter the number with more than 15 units, 32-bit programs like Numbers and Excel may truncate them to values they can handle.

(C... [Read more]

Apple's AirPlay feature is a convenient technology for sending audio to various devices. If you are on the same wireless network as the device then it will be available to your Mac, iPhone, or iPad to play music via iTunes, or even be used as a general audio appliance for system sounds.

In general, AirPlay devices are hardware accessories like routers such as Apple's AirPort, or media appliances like the AppleTV. However, if you are not willing to shell out about $100 or more for a new AirPlay and you have an old Mac lying around (especially a Mac Mini), then one option is to turn it into an AirPlay hub.

AirFoil running will wait for iTunes or another program to use it as an audio device.

To do this, simply connect the Mac to an audio system or a set of external speakers. While you might attach the Mac to a television to have some sort of display for it, this is optional if you enable Screen Sharing on the Mac. By doing so in the Sharing system preferences, you can access it through another Mac or with a VNC client on a Windows or Linux machine, and be able to configure it over the network.

Another detail you might consider is to enable automatic log-in, which can be enabled in the Users & Groups system preferences in the "Log-in Options"... [Read more]