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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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]

Apple made its lossless audio format open source this week, allowing for others to view and change the code for use in their own software and tools.

As Daring Fireball notes, the format--which goes by the name, Apple Lossless Audio Codec (or ALAC)--adopted the Apache license yesterday.

ALAC was first introduced to Apple's Mac OS X Core Audio framework in 2004, where most users saw it as part of iTunes 4.5. It let users rip a CD into smaller compressed files without reduction in quality. Still, the resulting files are considerably larger than the more ubiquitous MP3, AAC and WMA formats, which compress music tracks even further at the expense of lower fidelity.

It also rivals the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), another lossless codec, that's been open and royalty-free from the start, but is not supported on Apple's portable devices.

ALAC-formatted audio tracks can be played back on software and hardware that support it, which for Apple included things like iTunes and QuickTime, along with the company's iPod--and later iOS--products, and AirPort Express hardware through AirPlay.

As Ars Technica notes, it took developers about a year to reverse engineer the technology to add support for ALAC files in their own software. That includes aud... [Read more]

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 pre-made 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.

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 makes... [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!

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]

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

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]