Macworld Expo 2010 started on Tuesday here in San Francisco, and will continue through tomorrow (Saturday) at the Moscone Center. I had a chance to walk the expo floor on Thursday and though there weren't nearly as many vendors as in years past, I was able to talk to a few iPhone developers about their products and all seemed excited about showing off their latest projects.

Even though Apple is no longer in attendance at Macworld, Moscone North was crowded with throngs of Mac and iPhone fans, looking at the latest software, peripherals, and gear. While the big Apple stage that usually dominates the middle of every expo was noticeably absent, plenty of vendors filled up the void with iPhone case displays, storage solutions, product demos, and much more. I had thought that Macworld would suffer greatly in Apple's absence, but you wouldn't know it by talking to anyone at the expo. Hopefully, the many Mac peripheral vendors and iPhone developers will continue the Macworld tradition. It would be sad to see the expo with such a storied history end.

This week's apps are both games: a motorcycle stunt game I've talked about before that received a huge update, and a new asteroid-shooting RPG that's both funny and challenging.

When Moto X Mayhem (99 cents) was first released, I wrote (in August of last year) that you could play a very similar game online for free. Though I liked the mechanics of the original game, it was hard for me to recommend anyone pay for it if there was only one track. Maybe the guys at Occamy Games were listening because subsequent updates have added two additional islands of courses, making this game well worth the price tag.

In the game, you use your accelerometer to lean forward or back, press the right side of the screen to accelerate, and press the left to brake, as you navigate your way through a 2D course. You get 10 lives to try to complete seven different courses on each island. The graphics are cartoon-smooth and the controls are excellent, making it easy to pick up and play, yet challenging to master all three islands of courses. Overall, if you liked the original or were reluctant to pay for the single track in the earlier version, I highly recommend the new and improved Moto X Mayhem. It's a great time-waster that makes it easy to get a couple of runs in wherever you are.

Space Miner: Space Ore Bust ($4.99) takes the old arcade classic Asteroids and mixes in some RPG elements and a sense of humor to create a truly entertaining game. Most of your time is spent mining different sectors of open space, using an onscreen joystick to turn and buttons for thrust and fire. By itself, blowing away the asteroids is pretty fun, but there's much more to Space Miner than a simple arcade shooter. You warp to sectors from your base, a mining facility run by your Uncle Jeb (which also offers a store to buy new ships and ship components), and from your apartment, where you can view stats, and which acts as the place where the funny storyline plays out through conversations with cartoon-like characters.

Space Miner: Space Ore Bust has a southern country feel, with banjo music, ships that look vaguely like semi trucks, and dialogue that fits right in with the down-home theme. As you progress, you'll gain new licenses that let you explore more difficult sectors as you mine for ore and blow away enemies. Each load of ore adds to your money total, letting you buy new ships and parts to increase gun damage, strengthen your hull, improve your engines, and increase tractor beam strength for easier ore collection. The RPG elements are truly well done, making it easy to get addicted to this game as you try to build the ultimate mining and fighting machine. Overall, with the funny storyline involving cleaning up Uncle Jeb's mining operation, the ability to improve your ship, the non-linear sandbox-like layout, and the familiar Asteroids core gameplay, this game is perfect for those who have been looking for a casual RPG.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Is Moto X Mayhem a worthwhile purchase now that they've added the new content? Are you as impressed with Space Miner: Space Ore Bust as I am? Let me know in the comments!

Windows security software vendor Comodo has added its contribution to the short list of Chromium-based browser remixes that have sprung up in the wake of Google Chrome's success. Best known for its firewall software, Comodo's Chromium browser is called Dragon, and it promises better security features than those available in Google Chrome. It is the first browser released by a security software company.

Previously only available in beta test form from the Comodo forums, Dragon introduces one new feature not in Chromium and strips out all of the Google-based innovations. Comodo Dragon has a stricter policy on Web site certification than other browsers, and it will throw up a yellow warning page, if a user tries to access a Web site with an unvalidated certificate. Users can see this on the Facebook log-in page, for example. You can still click through with the "proceed anyway" button, but it's interesting to see major sites with poor certification get called out.

Facebook.com is a trustworthy Web site, but Comodo CEO Melih Abdulhayoglu sees it differently. "My goal is to secure end users. And if that means I need to put a message saying that this site is unprotected because [it doesn't have] a validated certificate...then I will." Abdulhayoglu added that cost shouldn't be an issue for Web site certification because an unvalidated certificate "costs the same" as a validated one.

Dragon is based on Chromium version 3, so it supports themes but not extensions. Abdulhayoglu said he expects Dragon to update to Chromium version 4 before the end of March. There are plans, he said, to introduce more security-based features, including banking Web site support and a remote-access collaborative feature that allows two people at different computers to share the browser.

Besides missing extensions, Dragon lacks bookmark sync, automatic translation, and all the other Google features. It also lacks the reporting feature, which was a major concern for many users when Google Chrome debuted. Although you can uncheck the anonymous reporting in Chrome's Options pane, some users have found this unsatisfactory.

In a statement it e-mailed on Friday, Comodo touted this lack of reporting as beneficial because it prevents attackers from finding vulnerabilities in the software error-compiling mechanism. It's entirely unclear at this point, though, how big of a vulnerability the remote-reporting compiler has posed.

After using Dragon for a few hours, it's not clear that many users will find it superior to Chrome at the moment. Too many features are missing, and although Comodo claims on its Dragon launch page that it's "very easy to switch from your browser to the Dragon," you can't import settings from Chrome, only from Opera, Internet Explorer, or Firefox.

Right now, Dragon is little more than a curiosity, except for the excessively paranoid, but if it is able to gain back some of the features it lost through extensions and introduce better security features on its own, it might be able to hold its own as a niche browser.

After tonight's opening ceremonies, the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games will get down to business: skating, slaloming, bob-sledding, and all the rest of it.

Of course, it's always a challenge keeping tabs on the various events, which is why I'm tickled to have the free NBC Olympics app on my iPhone. Among other things, it serves up a complete interactive event schedule.

That schedule includes a scrolling TV guide so you can easily see what events are being aired during any given day--and on what station (NBC, CNBC, or Universal Sports). The app provides online listings as well, though as of now those schedules weren't available.

You can also see the day's events in a list view, browse by category, and set up alerts to get the results of medal events. (Too bad you can't get alerts when specific events are about to start.)

AT&T, which developed the app for NBC, packed it with news, photos, videos (nothing live, though--rats), and a wealth of social-media tools. You can follow various athletes' tweets, share items on Facebook and Twitter, and create/join Huddle groups.

In short, if you have even a passing interest in the Olympics and own an iPhone or iPod Touch, this is a must-have app.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

We've taken a first look at Google Buzz (video) from many angles--as a Gmail feature, as a privacy nightmare, and as a pain to disable. Now it's time to fire up the mobile phone to see how Google's new social networking service works on the go.

We give you a taste of Google Buzz for mobile in our First Look video, as tested (fittingly) on Google's Nexus One phone. But heed our warning--what you can access using Buzz from various outlets is a brain-bender, and depends on your smartphone.

There are four main ways to buzz:

1. From a link on Google.com
2. From a dedicated Buzz site, buzz.google.com
3. As a layer in the native Google Maps app
4. As a voice prompt

Now here's the first kicker: you can't exercise just any posting option from every phone.

Here's how you can get to Buzz if you have:

• iPhone: Google.com, buzz.google.com, iPhone-optimized Google Maps Web site (not the native Maps app), Google Mobile App voice search shortcut
• Android: Google.com, buzz.google.com (for Android 2.0+ only at launch), Google Maps (Android 1.6+), Google voice search shortcut (Android 2.0+)
• Symbian Series 60 and Windows Mobile 5+: Google Maps 4.0 (download from m.google.com)

Google plans to roll out broader support for all of the above on more platforms and more phones in the coming months.

Confusing, disparate

After working out how you can get to Buzz from which smartphone comes the second kicker. Not every Buzz outlet lets you do the same thing. You can post a geolocation-optional buzz from any of these four avenues, but the extras--finding buzzes from others nearby, adding a photo, and seeing locations on a map--differ by Buzz portal.

For instance, the well-developed buzz.google.com Web app lets you search, view nearby buzzes, read the updates of those who follow you, and view a map of nearby Buzzers (Buzzards?). Tap a person's buzz and you can "like" it, reply, and view the geotagged location from a map. Those are good features, as is being able to use Google search to find your precise location if there's no perfect match on Google's list of GPS'ed suggestions.

The Buzz layer in Google Maps, however, lacks the granularity of being able to search for your GPS location. You can't "like" another's buzz, and you can only view buzzes from those around you, not your buddies. On the plus side, you can include a photo in a Maps buzz.

What it all boils down to is that Buzz as service lacks unity and inhabits an almost frenetic quality. While all public buzzes post to the same place--your Google profile--the experience differs too greatly through the various portals. We'd like to see the Buzz Web app and Maps layer, the two most substantial ways to get to Buzz from a mobile phone, share all their features. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to peek at who you're following from the map, or upload photos to the Web.

As I've mentioned many times before, I have mixed feelings about security and utility software. But I have no doubts whatsoever about getting something for nothing, especially when it's a software bundle worth $180.

Update: And I'm not the only one. Looks like this is sold out, at least for online ordering. Your only option now is to visit your local Fry's--if you have one.

Fry's is offering Norton Internet Security 2010 (three-user license), Norton Utilities 14 (three-user license), and Norton Ghost 15 absolutely free--if you're willing to jump a couple hoops, that is.

Here's the deal. Purchased separately, these products would run you $179.97. Fry's sells them as a bundle for $84.99. Currently, that bundle is on sale for $74.99 shipped. A pair of mail-in rebates knocks your total cost down to $0.

Rebate No. 1(PDF) nets you a $50 prepaid Visa card. Rebate No. 2 (PDF) is good for a $25 prepaid Visa card--but here's where the hoop jumping comes in.

To get rebate No. 2, you need to supply proof that you're upgrading from an earlier version of "any Norton or Symantec software or another company's antivirus, firewall, antispam, antispyware, utility, or back up software product."

What constitutes proof? You name it: a receipt, the first page of the manual, an e-mail confirmation, or even a screenshot of the software's Help/About screen. It shouldn't be too hard to scrounge up one of those.

If you don't feel like waiting up to eight weeks on your Visa cards (or you'd prefer cash), check out RebateRemedy. In exchange for a percentage of the rebate, this service cuts you a check (or delivers PayPal funds) in a matter of days. You can read more about it over at PC World.

By the way, CNET hasn't yet reviewed Norton Internet Security 2010, but gave Norton Internet Security 2010 fairly high marks, and PC Magazine awarded it an Editors' Choice. I haven't found any worthwhile reviews of the other two apps, but both products have good reputations.

Bonus deal: Meritline has a 1,800mAh iPhone-iPod battery pack for $9.99 shipped (with coupon code MLC262531021240N). It expires after the first 150 orders, so act fast!

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

It's a good time to be a Dr. Seuss fan--and an iPhone or iPod Touch owner. Hot on the heels of last year's criminally overlooked "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and thoroughly entertaining Dr. Seuss Camera, Grinch Edition, Oceanhouse Media just dropped three new Seuss apps, starting with a spectacular e-book edition of "The Cat in the Hat."

Like "Grinch" before it, this book is animated, narrated, and interactive. Children can choose either "Read to Me" or "Read It Myself" mode, both of which produce the original book's artwork and text--but with a little panning and zooming to lend an animated feel.

"The Cat in the Hat" is not only a great diversion for bored children (and their harried parents), but also a learning tool. In "Read to Me" mode, each word gets highlighted as it's read. When the narration finishes, readers can tap different areas of the accompanying picture to hear the corresponding word spoken and see it "zoom up."

The same is true of "Dr. Seuss's ABC," another children's classic brought to e-book life. While not as story-driven, it's definitely more educational--perfect for younger children still learning their alphabet.

Finally, there's Dr. Seuss Camera--The Cat in the Hat Edition, which uses your iPhone's camera (Touch owners can tap their photo libraries) to create fun, Seuss-inspired images you can easily share with friends.

Does this sound familiar? It's a lot like the aforementioned Grinch Edition (which my children are still enjoying, even six weeks after the holidays), but with "Cat in the Hat" characters. It's $2.99.

As for the books, they cost $3.99 apiece. (Are you paying attention, Apple, Amazon, and book publishers? That's a reasonable price for an e-book--and these are narrated!)

All I can say is, keep 'em coming, Oceanhouse Media. I'm still waiting on "Yertle the Turtle," and while you're at it, how about "The Lorax"?

How about you, fellow Seuss fans? What titles would you like to see get the e-book treatment?

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Opera, which was bumped down to fifth place in browser usage after Google Chrome burst on the scene, has embraced a super-fast JavaScript engine as part of its bid to stay relevant.

Unfortunately for Opera, my tests show more work is needed.

The beta version of Opera 10.5 arrived Thursday morning, and I thought it a good time to compare how some of the cutting-edge versions of the browsers were shaping up in performance--especially because Mozilla has released a preview version of the next version of Firefox.

Before we dig into the statistics, let's start with some important caveats. First, these benchmark tests don't show all there is about browser performance, much less browser features.

Second, these tests were run on a single machine--a dual-core Lenovo T61 with 3GB of memory running Windows XP SP3. Different machines will produce different results.

Third, these are emphatically not finished products, so expect bumps, glitches, and hitches.

The Opera version is the only one to sport a beta label. I called the Firefox software version 3.7a because Mozilla did, but this preview version may not actually be called 3.7 when it's released. The Chrome version is 5.0.317.2, part of the developer-preview channel and still a relatively early branch of the new 5.0 tree. Finally, for WebKit--the foundation of Apple's Safari--I downloaded the latest nightly build, called r54649.

A year ago, when Opera announced its new JavaScript engine, called Carakan, it set a lofty goal: "The Web is a changing environment however, and tomorrow's advanced Web applications will require faster ECMAScript execution, so we have now taken on the challenge to once again develop the fastest ECMAScript engine on the market," Opera programmer Lars Erik Bolstad said at the time, referring to a standard group's official name for JavaScript.

On my machine, though, Carakan lagged Chrome in JavaScript performance on both the SunSpider 0.9 test from the WebKit team and the V8 test from Google, named after Chrome's JavaScript engine.

Carakan did, though, edge out WebKit and trounce Firefox, and it's a significant step ahead compared with Opera's older JavaScript Engine, Futhark.

JavaScript is used for many mundane programming chores on Web pages but in recent years has assumed a much more central role in powering Web applications such as Google Docs and Yahoo Mail. Since 2008, browser makers have been focusing developer attention on better JavaScript, and even laggard Microsoft has indicated it's going to become more competitive with Internet Explorer 9.

And slower JavaScript is a real issue now. Drawing a line in the performance sand, Google announced that starting in March with Google Docs, the company is phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6.

Another performance measurement is how well a browser handles what's called the DOM--the document object model that describes the structure and components of a Web page. As Web pages grow more complex, DOM processing does, too. So I ran the DOM core tests from Firefox, too, to get a view of this aspect.

Here, WebKit topped the list, followed by Chrome, Firefox, and very much in last place, Opera.

New Opera features
So what exactly is in the new Opera besides Carakan? Two significant features are support for Windows 7 display features and support for HTML5 video encoded with Ogg Theora.

Under the covers, Opera gets the new Vega graphics library for various graphics tasks--including potentially, a faster Direct2D interface on Windows.

Also arriving is support for another HTML5 feature, local storage, which lets applications work even while a computer is disconnected to the network and can help Web site performance.

But there are some missing pieces Opera had hoped to get in. One that was pushed back is support for downloadable fonts for fancier Web typography.

Also missing is geolocation. That lets an authorized Web page know where a computer is physically located, which can be handy for tasks such as showing a person's location on an online map. Opera users will have to wait a little longer for it: "Geolocation is disabled in the public beta until we iron out the last details with our location," Opera's Adam Minchinton said in a blog post.

And despite some bug fixes in Opera 10.5, Microsoft's Silverlight and Oracle's Java plug-ins don't work and there are problems with Adobe Systems' Flash and Apple's QuickTime.

New Firefox features
Opera isn't the only seeking users' help hammering a new browser into shape. Mozilla also just released a new preview version of its Firefox browser.

Firefox currently is at version 3.6, and Mozilla is working on a modification called Lorentz designed to help avoid plug-in crashes. After that, though, comes a Firefox prototype based on version 1.9.3 of the Gecko engine that underlies the browser.

It's this latter software Mozilla wants help testing through a preview release. Most of the features are under the covers, but there are some that users might notice, too.

One important one is WebGL, a technology to bring hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web. However, WebGL is disabled by default.

And for Apple fans, the software moves text handling from the older Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging service to the newer Core Text interface. It's one of the changes that's leading Mozilla to drop support for Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier.

New features, of course, have the potential to slow browsers down--there's a perpetual tension in software between streamlining existing code and adding new capabilities.

All four of these browsers are in growth mode, with new features arriving rapidly. Those who spend a lot of time on the Web, though, should take heart that, in this competition, better performance is one of those features.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

With the release of the Opera 10.5 beta, a fourth browser is available that can play video built directly into Web pages with no plug-ins required.

The HTML5 Web pages standard under development lets programmers build video into Web pages so browsers don't need a plug-in such as Adobe Systems' Flash to play it--the way they've been accustomed to doing with JPEG images for years. However, Opera's arrival isn't likely to bridge a video technology divide that's a serious hurdle for adoption of HTML5 video.

Opera 10.5, like Mozilla's Firefox, can play video encoded only with Ogg Theora technology. Apple's Safari, on the other hand, supports only H.264 encoding. Google's Chrome supports both, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports neither.

With such differing implementations, the HTML5 video standard is far from a complete standard in practice, and Web developers thinking of employing it must deal with browser incompatibilities.

Programmer Andreas Bovens announced Opera's HTML5 video support in a blog post. To try it out, watch Opera's Web evangelist, Bruce Lawson, showing his Turkish dancing skills.

Originally posted at Deep Tech