With around two months left before they debut, the beta versions of Norton Internet Security 2012 (download) and Norton AntiVirus 2012 (download) provide a solid glimpse of how Symantec wants to protect you in the coming year, including significant updates to its detection engines. See what else is new in this First Look video.

Most interesting of these under-the-hood improvements is the ability to scan downloads not just for viruses and malware, but also to determine if the file will adversely affect your computer's stability. Other new features include long-awaited Google Chrome support, online backup, and an Android app in beta that remains free--so far.

Read more about the Norton 2012 betas
• Norton 2012 betas tweak already well-regarded suite

Norton has undergone some significant changes in the past three years and is well on its way to turning around its reputation from the early and mid-2000s. But is it enough? If you've downloaded and tested the new beta, let us know what you think in the comments below.

Google has revamped its Android Market app for smartphones with a new look as well as some more products for purchase.

The Android Developers Blog points out that this new interface could work better for both customers and developers. The new user interface is intended to be more engaging as it showcases top apps and games while providing a quicker path to purchasing products. For developers, this ideally means that there are more opportunities for apps to get picked up and downloaded.

(Although, doesn't the box-like new design, as seen in the side screenshot, look a tad reminiscent of the home screen on Windows Phone 7? Or is it just me?)

Some of the new features include more lists (i.e. top paid, top free, top grossing, etc.) that are country-specific, and individual app product pages have been rearranged to streamline the buying process.

Aside from the new user interface, Android users might be more interested to learn that they can now purchase books, which will be linked to their Google accounts like on the iriver Story HD, as well as rent movies starting at $1.99.

Otherwise, it's likely to be business as usual. Even as nice as the new design might be, it might be awhile before Google can catch up to the 15 billion downloads record secured by Apple's App Store.

Available for smartphones running at least Android 2.2 (Froyo) and higher, the new version of Android Market will be rolling out worldwide in the coming weeks.

In case you want a closer look at the new version of Android Market without having to reach for your smartphone (or if you don't have an Android phone at all), then check out the following promo video:

This story was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Originally posted at News - Wireless

Let's just get this out of the way right up front. The best "Star Trek" series was the original. Second-best: "Star Trek: Voyager." Worst by far: "Enterprise."

I say that so you know who you're dealing with: a lifelong Trekkie who has strong feelings about the shows and movies. (I also thought J.J. Abrams' reboot was good, but not great.)

Assuming you're still reading (most people shun me after hearing of my love for "Voyager"), you'll be glad to know there's finally an official Star Trek PADD app for the iPad. And by official, I mean produced by CBS Interactive (which owns both Paramount Pictures and, it should be noted, CNET).

The highly prescient Personal Access Display Device featured prominently in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and later series. It employed the still-sexy Library Computer Access/Retrieval System, or LCARS, interface, which the app reproduces like never before.

And what is the app, exactly? A fairly comprehensive "Star Trek" encyclopedia, with sections devoted to aliens, cast, characters, episodes, food, places, ships, "sci/med," staff, and technology. There's even a slick screensaver of sorts that engages (heh) after a period of inactivity, switching back and forth between a system scan and ship-status overview.

Star Trek PADD looks--and sounds--like it came right off the bridge of the Enterprise. It's without question the best LCARS implementation I've ever seen. And it's actually functional, unlike some fan-made apps that don't really do much. It beeps or speaks with every tap of your finger, even when you hit buttons or areas that aren't specifically tied to database functions.

Speaking of which, there's plenty of reading material here for the die-hard Trekkie, though the PADD falls short in a few key areas. First, it lacks any kind of video, though it has no shortage of photos. Second, its episode guide is listed alphabetically and spans all five series; you can't sort the list or browse by series. As someone who'd like to forget "Enterprise" ever happened, I find it frustrating to see its episodes listed alongside, say, "TOS" classics.

Bonus points, though, for incorporating official "Star Trek" Facebook and Twitter feeds; you can read both without having to link your accounts.

Ultimately, Star Trek PADD is cool, geeky fun, and reasonably priced at $4.99. If you've always dreamed of turning your iPad into a "real" PADD (or you just need a realistic-looking prop for your fan film), your starship has come in.

Originally posted at iPad Atlas

Android-toting users of the do-it-all note-taker Evernote, listen up. Whether you do your scrawling on your tablet or on your less generously proportioned phone, you're in for a delicious treat today, as Evernote introduces its shiny new Android app for tablets, along with a handful of serious new features for the rest of our Android devices.

First up, Evernote for Android tablets. Perfectly suited to the expanded real estate, the new Evernote app shows off an all-new Snippet View home screen, which displays your notes in a clean grid, and tucks all of the controls neatly along the left and top edges. Tapping on a note brings it into full view, while a tap and hold brings up options. There's also a conveniently placed Search button in the upper-right corner which brings up a sleek popover panel where you can conduct a simple keyword search or get more specific with an Advanced Search.

While viewing a single note, you'll also notice the scrollable sidebar along your right. This extra panel gives you easy access to the rest of your notes, without forcing you to exit your current note to go back to the Home screen. And finally, there's a Map View, which plots all of your geotagged notes by location.

But Android tablet users aren't the only ones with something to smile about today, as all Android devices now have rich text capabilities. For a long time, a big knock on Evernote's mobile app was its inability to stylize text in notes. It forced users to create rather bland documents on the go, then spruce them up later while sitting down at a full desktop browser. Well, with today's major update, that is no longer the case. Download the app now, and you'll see a new bar just above the keyboard, with ample editing options like bold, italic, underline, bullet list, numbered list, and check box. This is indeed a welcome addition.

Also, all Android devices get a new large widget option. Paste the widget on your Home screen, and you'll be able to perform all of your core Evernote features, plus you'll see snippets of your most recently accessed notes. It takes up quite a bit more screen space than the small widget option, but for those who constantly edit or append the same few notes over and over, it could be hugely convenient.

Evernote for Android is available now for free in the Android Market.

There aren't many security-focused browser add-ons that funnel the entire Internet through a proxy before allowing it to reach you, and that rarity was part of the reason Cocoon was one of a small group of add-ons that charged for its services. Starting today, however, the makers of Cocoon (download) have exclusively told CNET that the add-on will be completely free--for now.

The add-on, which appears as a toolbar in Firefox, creates a protected browsing state. When active, all interactions between the Internet and the computer you're using are forced to occur over protected SSL connections to Cocoon's servers. Those servers are guarded by Security-Enhanced Linux, which was developed by the United States' National Security Agency. So Cocoon provides a significantly enhanced level of browsing peace of mind when compared with basic browsing.

Cocoon has been installed more than 10,000 times, said its makers, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based start-up Virtual World Computing. Adoption rates definitely figured into the calculus when deciding to make the add-on free. "We wanted to grow Cocoon and improve it. We've been able to increase the speed of the service; it's actually faster than it was before," said Kris Washburn, vice president of marketing for Virtual World Computing, in a phone interview last week. It's the growth rate, though, that led to the company making Cocoon free.

In an interview at CNET's San Francisco offices in April of this year, Cocoon Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Jeff Bermant said that about 4,000 people had installed the add-on since it entered into a public beta at the beginning of 2011. Since then, another 6,000 people have signed on, but Cocoon wants significantly more users than that. "We want to improve the whole user experience," Bermant said, and it was clear from his tone that the subscription fee was impeding that.

More about how Cocoon works
• Wrap Firefox in a Cocoon of privacy

Going forward, Bermant said his company is looking at several options for keeping Cocoon in the black. "We're considering premium features down the road, and an enterprise model." Free users, he noted, will always have their privacy, and he assured CNET that there will be "no tracking of any users online within Cocoon."

In addition to the current Web proxy and on-demand e-mail "mailslots" for quick e-mail anonymization, Cocoon is looking to protect downloads. "Currently, one of the advantages of Cocoon is blocking unwanted downloads," Bermant said. "The reality is that people still want to download things. So, we will be introducing in the near future antivirus scanning of downloads."

He confirmed that the antivirus engine would be provided by a third party, as opposed to being developed in-house, although he wouldn't reveal which company would be licensing its technology to Cocoon at the moment.

Cocoon for Internet Explorer has been in the works since the spring, although the company would only confirm that it would be available "soon." Washburn said a version of Cocoon for the Android edition of Firefox is "a little further down the line."

Bermant says he believes Cocoon is on the right side of history, both in terms of what the technology powering the add-on is and how Cocoon implements it. "The future of VWC and Cocoon on the whole is that we're filtering from above, and that's what I see the world should go to," he said. "Somebody said to me, 'Oh, you'll have terrible latency problems [when browsing],' but in fact we don't. We have no latency problems."

Foursquare has created a daily-deals program that relies upon services that consumers are already using.

The location-based social network that allows people to "check in" at different locations, has formed agreements with LivingSocial, AT&T, and fashion-focused Gilt Groupe, among others, to deliver the deals. According to the company, the daily deals are an expansion of its current Specials program, which allows merchants to advertise deals to the social platform's users.

Foursquare's new offering will help people find deals around their current location. The deals Foursquare offers will be tailored to the person based on what the social network calculates the individual may like best. Foursquare will also inform people why a deal might be right them, such as "if two of your friends have been" to a specific location.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Foursquare's new feature last night, the social network's partnership with daily-deals providers seems to be quite straightforward: LivingSocial and the rest do all the legwork in securing daily deals to offer users, and Foursquare offers those deals on its service. The companies will then share a cut of the revenue, though that split has not been divulged.

Conspicuously missing from Foursquare's partnerships is Groupon, the leader in the daily-deals market. AllThingsD reported earlier this year that Foursquare and Groupon were nearing an agreement that would see the daily deals offered to Foursquare users. So far, that partnership hasn't materialized.

Whether it will materialize remains to be seen. Groupon last month rolled out a service, called Groupon Now, that allows people to input their location and find deals around them. Perhaps most importantly, the service is available in Groupon's iPhone and Android apps, in addition to the Groupon Now site.

With that functionality, it would seem that the mobile-reliant Foursquare and Groupon have become competitors.

Foursquare, which recently announced that it has 10 million users, said that it will roll out its daily deals this week.

Originally posted at The Digital Home