Adobe Systems released a preview version of its widely used Flash Player plug-in that catches up to newer trends in Web browser development: 64-bit designs and support for the newly Internet Explorer 9 beta.

The new Flash beta, code-named Square, is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, siad Adobe's Paul Betlem in a blog post today. The download is on Adobe Labs; note that if you install Square, you'll have to manually update it on your own.

The move isn't a big surprise--in June, the Adobe said 64-bit Flash is a "top priority"--but it will mean a major transition for Web developers. And it's important in Adobe's effort to maintain Flash's incumbent power in light of new Web standards that offer many Flash abilities without a browser plug-in.

The computing industry is in the midst of a gradual transition to 64-bit computing that started years ago with processors, moved through the operating system, and now is arriving with mainstream programs. Although 32-bit software runs on 64-bit operating systems, you generally can't get a 32-bit plug-in to run in a 64-bit browser.

That hasn't been a huge problem, given that the main advantage of 64-bit computing is access to more than 4GB of memory and browsers rarely anything like that much. But JavaScript performance can improve notably on 64-bit machines, browsers are making the jump, and Adobe took heat earlier this year when it withdrew a test version of 64-bit Flash for Linux originally released in 2008.

Along with 64-bit support, the new version taps into a computer's graphics chip power, at least when used on the new IE9 beta. Hardware acceleration is all the rage among browser makers, speeding up everything from graphics to text in various cases. Here's Betlem's sales pitch:

As part of our collaboration with Microsoft's Internet Explorer team over the past few months, Flash Player "Square" has been enhanced to directly support the hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities in the newest version of IE. Flash Player "Square" leverages the new GPU support available with Internet Explorer 9 Beta to deliver a faster and more responsive user experience with Flash-based content. In our internal testing, we've seen significant improvements in Flash Player graphics performance--exceeding 35 percent in Internet Explorer 9 Beta compared to Flash Player running in previous versions of IE.

What's not clear at this stage is how well the new version will deal with hardware acceleration on Mac OS X. Adobe has been trying to address complaints--including very public ones from Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs--that Flash is a CPU hog.

Graphics acceleration also has the potential to help with Adobe's ambition to spread Flash from personal computers, where it's common, to mobile devices, where it's almost unknown today.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Do you read Reddit? Reddit is a user-powered information aggregator--everything from funny links and pictures to programming advice and politics can be found in the many subcategories or "subreddits." The last I heard there were over 50,000 subreddits, so if there's something you're interested in (old-school video games, black-and-white photography, underwater basket weaving, etc.), chances are there's a subreddit and community for your interests.

You access Reddit mostly via your favorite Web browser, but a couple of apps have surfaced for the iPhone and other devices that make browsing the popular link site even better. The latest (and possibly greatest) is brand-new today for iPad and it might be the best way to browse Reddit stories and comments available--even better than your desktop browser.

Alien Blue HD for iPad (an unofficial third-party Reddit client) cleverly organizes the site a little bit like an RSS reader would. You have navigation on the left with stories and links on the right. After you register with the site by creating a username and entering an e-mail address, your left navigation pane lets you subscribe to subreddits (topics that will show up on your front page), manage your comments and submissions, and submit stories of your own. When you click on a link in the main viewing window on the right, the interface shifts to the left, so you now can browse stories on the left while reading comments for the stories on the right.

Don't be afraid to read the comments, either. While you'll get more than your share of jokes, Internet memes, and snarky comments (and certainly plenty of adult-only commentary), the Reddit community will often surprise you with thoughtful discussions about the hottest news topics of the day. Probably the best advice for entering this online community is simply to keep an open mind and soon you'll be just as hooked as I am (yes, it should be obvious by now that I'm what's known as a "Redditor").

Blue Alien for iPad costs $3.99, which might be a little steep, but if you're a Reddit fan you'll quickly see the advantages of split-screen browsing and the highly intuitive interface.

Slacker Radio first launched in 2007 as an intuitive online music player that let you stream a variety of preprogrammed and custom-made radio stations based on your favorite artists and songs. Since then, the service has added a continuous array of new features, from its own short-lived devices to apps for your Blackberry and iPhone to Twitter feed functionality. Tonight at an event in New York, Slacker, Inc. will show off its latest offering: Premium Radio.

Slacker Premium Radio will offer all the features of Radio Plus--no ads, no skip limits, mobile station caching--with the added benefit of on-demand functionality. For those not in the know, this will pit Slacker against the likes of Rhapsody by allowing subscribers to request specific songs and build their own custom playlists. And as with Rhapsody, you will be able to save this music to your iOS, Android, or BlackBerry device. The service is competitively priced at $9.99 and will be available starting in October.

Originally posted at MP3 Insider

Here's an anniversary worth celebrating: it was 50 years ago last month that Dr. Seuss published "Green Eggs and Ham." It's since gone on to become the fourth best-selling children's book of all time.

Oceanhouse Media, which for the past year has been turning "Green Eggs and Ham" and other Seuss classics into spectacular apps, decided to honor the event with a 50-percent-off sale. For the rest of the week, you can buy Yertle the Turtle (possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle-stacking) for $1.99, the kids game Up With a Fish for 99 cents, and so on.

Here's the complete list of what's on sale. (Where possible, I've linked to previous posts I've written about the titles.) Every app is either $1.99 or 99 cents.

• Green Eggs and Ham e-book
• The Cat in the Hat e-book
• Dr. Seuss' ABC e-book
• One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish e-book
• Yertle the Turtle e-book
• Hop On Pop e-book
• The Lorax e-book
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas e-book
• Oh, the Places You'll Go e-book
• Gertrude McFuzz e-book
• The Big Brag e-book
• Dr. Seuss Camera - The Cat in the Hat Edition
• Dr. Seuss Camera - The Grinch Edition
• Up With A Fish kid's game
• Lorax Garden kid's game
• Grinchmas kid's game
• Dr. Seuss Senders card deck

Most of the games are pretty good, but I can't say enough positive things about the e-books. They're faithful recreations of the originals, but with optional narration that highlights each word as it's read. Plus, readers can tap a picture to see and hear the associated word. Educational!

If you have kids, especially younger kids, you owe it to yourself to grab at least a few. At these prices, the books are significantly cheaper than their hardcover equivalents.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

These days, most file compression activities are baked into your operating system, but there are still plenty of reasons to get a specialized compression utility. With StuffIt 2011 for Mac--exclusive to CNET Downloads today--you can create customized "Destinations" that let you drag and drop files or folders for automated compression and sending. Want to compress to ZIP format and upload via FTP, for example? With a quick setup, you can create your custom destination beforehand with your preferred compression algorithm, and you'll never have to worry about flipping through menus for this destination again. To top it off, you can create several destination tiles to fit your workflow all using a slick-looking Mac-friendly interface.

For the next 24 hours, the Stuffit 2011 download is exclusive to CNET Downloads. New features in Stuffit 2011 include the aforementioned Stuffit Destinations, a free copy of StuffIt 2010 Windows (for those who run both Windows and Mac OS), a multi-user license so you can install on up to three machines, and improved compression and speed on SITX archives. If you're looking for an easy way to automate your common compression actions, download Stuffit 2011 today.

Do you just want an easy way to open files downloaded from the Web? Get the latest version of the regular Stuffit Expander 2011, which lets you open more than 30 common download file types.

After several months of teasing Internet Explorer's upgrade with a series of feature-free developer's previews, Microsoft has unleashed on the world an Internet Explorer 9 beta on Wednesday (from CNET Download.com: 32-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 7; 32-bit Windows Vista; 64-bit Windows Vista) with some impressive new features. Like any properly named beta, though, there are also some bugs to be ironed out.

This is the biggest overhaul to the browser since Internet Explorer 7 landed. The changes to the interface are enormous, the browser's overall usability has greatly improved, it's more secure, and it's significantly faster and more standards compliant.

Performance
That last point is a key issue, as the majority stakeholder in Windows browser usage finally enters the all-out war between browser publishers. What will come as a surprise to people who didn't check out the Internet Explorer 9 technical previews is that IE, long known for its struggle with standards compliance, has made serious strides in the other direction. HTML5 receives a lot of love from IE in the beta, including support for the < video >, < audio >, and < canvas > tags, and better support for DOM, CSS3, and ECMAScript5. While this may sound like alphabet soup to some, the importance can't be understated: when browser makers split on how to render code, it can make a single site look odd or function improperly across browsers.

Internet Exploer 9 beta has gotten fast, too, becoming the second browser--along with Firefox 4 beta--to offer full hardware acceleration. (Note that Internet Explorer claims it's the only one to do so, while Mozilla offers a strong rebuttal that Microsoft is overstating its case.) Google Chrome has so far implemented only partial hardware acceleration, although it has plans to complete the task.

Hardware acceleration of the variety currently implemented in the Firefox and Internet Explorer betas allows the browser to shove certain rendering tasks onto the computer's graphics processing unit (GPU), freeing up CPU resources while making page rendering and animations load faster. These tasks include composition support, rendering support, and desktop compositing.

JavaScript plays a major role in the Web, and Internet Explorer 9's new Chakra engine combined with the GPU acceleration gives the browser some serious rocket fuel. On WebKit's SunSpider 0.9.1 JavaScript benchmark test, IE9 beta averaged 379.4 milliseconds over three cold-boot runs. On the same Windows 7 computer, Internet Explorer averaged 5,236.6 over three cold-boot runs, nearly 14 times faster and just a hair slower than Chrome dev 7.0.517.5 and Opera 10.62.

The new Add-On Performance Advisor takes the IE8 feature of exposing add-on load time and warns you if a particular add-on is slowing down your browsing session by more than 0.2 second. You can adjust that time to one of several presets from the same menu that you can disable an add-on.

Interface
Internet Explorer aficionados have mostly likely already seen screenshots of the interfaces when Microsoft's Russian subsidiary leaked the look a few weeks ago. The interface has undergone an enormous change, following the trend of minimizing the layout to maximize screen space. Microsoft takes an interestingly different approach than its competitors, which placed the tabs above the location bar. In IE9, the tabs reside on the same row as the location bar.

This results in a cramped feel that other minimalist interfaces avoid. It may work for some people, but the experience suffers from an otherwise unnecessary shortening of the location bar and a limited amount of space available for tabs. If you only have a handful of tabs open at a time, you might not mind. If you're the kind of user who runs dozens of tabs simultaneously, you might want to consider becoming a different kind of browser user if you can't let go of your IE addiction. It quickly becomes difficult to distinguish multiple tabs.

Besides that drawback, IE's new look is quite usable. The stop and refresh buttons have been shrunk to take up as little space as possible while still being visible. It's a bit curious that Microsoft didn't combine them into one, as other browsers have. The cramped location-and-tab bar could use all the extra space it can get.

Most items in the Command bar, such as print, page controls, and safety controls have been collapsed into the redesigned Tools menu. Only the Home button and the Favorites button retain their own top-level icons. As with other browsers, the status bar is hidden by default, although it and the Command bar can be re-exposed by right-clicking on the Tab bar.

The new Tools menu is highly usable, as well, with a clean and simple layout. The Internet Options menu, on the other hand, could desperately use some font resizing and re-organizing, because it's a chaotic mess of options that are hard to read and harder to find.

Firefox fans will no doubt enjoy that IE9 has a larger "back" button than "forward," mimicking Mozilla's browser interface.

Features
Internet Explorer 9 is crammed with new features. One of the interesting concepts implemented by Microsoft is a reversal of the current trend to make the browser the operating system. Internet Explorer comes with some natural-fitting Windows 7 integration. In IE9, you can pin specific sites to your Windows 7 desktop taskbar. Click and hold on a tab, and drag it to the taskbar. The site's favicon will become the pinned site icon.

Pinned sites by default re-color IE9's Aero glass-style interface based on the color schemes in the site's favicon, which is a neat little trick. If coded properly, a site can customize the jump list links. You can currently see what this looks like if you pin CNN.com to your taskbar. I didn't see thumbnail preview media controls in action, but Microsoft says that the feature should be available to sites that want to implement the API. Pinned Web mail sites, for example, will be able to show in-box counts on the Windows 7 taskbar.

IE9 takes Internet Explorer's tab sandboxing and gives it Chrome-style "ripping," so that you can drag a tab to create a new browser window. IE's tabs allow the user to rip them off and immediately Aero Snap them to either side of the browser, useful for looking at two sites simultaneously.

Again, like its competitors, Microsoft attempts to re-brand the location bar thanks to bolstering it with search features. Internet Explorer's "OneBox," as the company is calling it, combines the search box with the location bar. You can navigate to a site, search for sites, or look at browsing history or favorites. You can also change search providers at the bottom, which is a slick merge of the old search bar functionality into the location bar. By default, the OneBox won't remember your keystrokes. If you let it, though, you'll get additional search suggestions.

Notifications in IE9 have taken on an entirely different look. Small and minimalist, they appear at the bottom of the browser and don't stop you from browsing. Tab sandboxing will not only prevent a single tab crash from taking down the whole browser, but IE9 will ask if you want to resurrect the tab, too.

A new "New Tab" page lets you resurrect closed tabs and previous browsing sessions, as well as provide large versions of your most frequently-visited Web sites' favicons for quick access. It feels a bit empty and lacks deep customization, but it's a step in the right direction. It's appreciated that when you mouse over a site's favicon, you're told how in general terms frequently you visit the page. Annoyingly, IE9 lacks a radio button in the Tools menu to make about:Tabs, the new tab page address, your default home page. You can type it in manually, which is certainly easy but not effortless and makes the page just a bit harder to reach.

The new Download Manager incorporates reputation-based security, to accelerate the pace at which you can install a new download if not speeding up the download itself. This means that well-known files, such as installers from trusted vendors, will cause fewer warnings if any to pop up.

Other bugs
However, at least in my experience on a laptop running 32-bit Windows 7, I found Internet Explorer 9 beta to be shockingly unstable. Despite restarting the computer, uninstalling and reinstalling the browser, and closing all other running programs, IE9 beta crashed with disappointing frequency. It was too frequent to believe that Microsoft would release a beta that was so wobbly, but the browser would freeze on me when opening tabs, closing tabs, switching tabs, adjusting settings, or performing searches.

It's likely that this has a lot to do with the multitude of software that I install and remove, but interestingly I found the session recovery feature on the IE9 new tab page to be more than effective at resurrecting whatever tabs had been closed.

Conclusion
This first beta of Internet Explorer 9 continues Microsoft's trend of pushing out betas that are highly usable. Despite the inevitable hatred that the browser will attract, it's a solid build, with interesting takes on existing feature-concepts, and some others--such as the reputation-based security--that hopefully competitors will take note of. It's worth downloading and checking out for the great strides Microsoft has made in speed alone; along with the snappy design and standards compliance, Microsoft may have finally gotten IE right.

The roadmap called for the sixth Firefox beta to freeze the browser's new features so that developers could work on making them stable, but that plan's been pushed back to the seventh Firefox beta as Mozilla hustled out some quick fixes for the browser. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 4 beta 6 fixes a a critical stability bug affecting all platforms and a major bug related to plug-ins on Macs.

The stability bug at issue was first reported on August 20th, and remained the top-reported crash-causing bug on Windows versions of Firefox 4 beta 5, with 9399 crashes. The Mac bug messed with plugins, showing white boxes over some Web sites while making it challenging for users to type into others. Mozilla's Firefox 4 beta 6 changelog also includes a full list of changes made to the beta.

Mozilla hopes that the next Firefox beta, now beta 7, will stick to the Firefox 4 beta 6's old schedule and be released by the end of September.