Firefox to change its look--again (screenshots)

After years of tough competition from dominance-seeking Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, Mozilla faces a second year in a row of forced adaptations. Its aggressive Firefox 2012 development plan calls for surgeries both minor and radical to integrate many new pieces into the browser, but it may not survive post-op. At least, not as you know it.

So far, the changes have resulted in a Firefox which, simply put, runs better. Two of the most tangible new tools have changed add-on behavior. The addition of add-ons to Firefox Sync let you mirror the same add-ons at work and at home, and you won't have to reinstall them manually if your computer crashes.

A second add-on change marks around 80 percent of ... [Read more]

What makes a game addictive? Obviously your answer to that question will depend on what type of games you like to play, but certain games have a way of breaking down those barriers when they have just the right mix of challenges, rewards, and overall feel.

If you had never heard of Angry Birds, a description of the game probably wouldn't entice you to play. But once you fling your first bird at a structure and hear the sounds as it flies through the air and takes out the pigs, suddenly you start to want to chase that perfect 3-star rating. Few games have just the right mix to keep you playing, but when you find one you can't wait to jump back in whenever you get a spare moment.

This week's collection of iOS apps are games that keep you coming back for more. The first is a puzzle game that challenges you to reach the goal using your mind as well as your reflexes. The second has you solving puzzles while navigating unique cylindrical 3D gameboards. The last is a fun mix of adventure and RPG that might one of the best I've played in the genre.

On some levels you'll need to first figure out your strategy before making your first flick.

Fibble ($1.99) is a puzzle game that has you touching the screen t... [Read more]

(Credit: Babbel.com)

Travel, work, or personal advancement are some of the primary reasons for wanting to pick up or brush up on a language other than your native one. For these purposes and more, Babbel's free language packs for mobile are a great place to start your efforts.

Babbel is an online language-learning company that offers French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, English, Dutch, Polish, Indonesian and Turkish. Impressive, huh? Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Pick a language and download the corresponding language pack for Android or iOS.

This How To will work with the Babbel Spanish pack for Android, but feel free to try French (Android, iOS), Italian (Android, iOS) German (Android, ... [Read more]

CrowdCall on an iPhone and Galaxy Nexus.

Conference calls are part of the ugly side of doing business. Sometimes they just can't be avoided. So, next time you have to set one up, instead of paying for a third-party service, use CrowdCall.

CrowdCall is an app (Android | iPhone) that allows you to easily create a conference call from your smartphone, while on the go.

Setting up a conference call is easy. Before you make a call, make sure all of the contacts you are going to include in the call have the proper area/country code added to their number.

After ensuring the numbers are formatted correctly, simply add the participants (up to 20) from your address book or by number. When you have completed your list, tap on Call. CrowdCall will then dial out on your device, give you a nice greeting, and play some music for you while the service is calling everyone else. When the participants answer the call, they will be prompted to press 1 before being placed in the call.

The only cost to you, and the participants if you dialed their cell phone, is the use of minutes from your wireless plan. There are no international fees or hidden conference call-hosting fees.

Apple's notification icon could be coming to iOS.

Apple earlier this week filed a trademark application in Europe requesting ownership of an icon, presumably designed for iOS, that would allow it to show communications applications with pending notices in a single pane.

An art example in the application shows a black box listing "Mail," "Calendar," and "SMS," with Apple's familiar numbered circles, indicating pending notifications.

Patently Apple was first to report on the trademark application.

Related stories

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• CNET's review of the Apple iPhone 4S
• CNET's review of the new Apple iPad

Patently Apple also recently reported on a patent application that Apple has filed in the U.S. The application describes a ... [Read more]

Gordon, the Google Go gopher mascot

Google has released version 1 of its Go programming language, an ambitious attempt to improve upon giants of the lower-level programming world such as C and C++.

Graduation to Go 1, which happened this week, makes the project less academic and more real in several ways. For one thing, Google has declared it mature enough to use. For another, it's available for use on Google App Engine, a foundation for cloud-computing applications.

And last, there's a bit of validation for Go readiness: it's being used today on one of the Internet's highest-profile sites.

Go is used at YouTube "and other places within Google," said Russ Cox, one of the engineers behind Go, in a Google+ comment yesterday.

A measure of a programming language's fortunes is the success of the software built using it. But Go's backers have long promised more enjoyable programming, not just better output from that process. Go is designed for rapid programming.

The language itself is designed to add modern language features -- better support for programs whose elements run in parallel on multicore processors... [Read more]

Mad Magazine comes to the iPad, just as inappropriately funny as it is in print.

Despite Apple's ostensibly strict rules that prevent inappropriate content from its App Store, DC Entertainment, publisher of such upstanding heroes as Superman and Wonder Woman, is about to sneak through its first dedicated MAD Magazine app.

Not available until Sunday, which is known to watercooler comedians as both April Fools' Day and the birthday of MAD mascot Alfred E. Neuman, the MAD app might surprise you: it's not a waste of time.

Guarantees against it insulting your intelligence, however, have yet to be made.

The app itself will be free and offer some free content, although full issues of MAD will cost you. New issues of MAD run $4.99 in the app, while back issues go for $1.99. Unlike DC's Comixology-powered app for its comic books, the MAD app, developed by 1K Studios, will offer digital subscriptions for $1.99 per issue or $9.99 per year. Current print subscribers will automatically get a free digital subscription.

It presents the magazine in a remarkably accessible manner. The full contents of each MAD issue are available on the iPad, including my favorite feature as a kid: the fold-in. For those not familiar with it, the fold-in is full-page illustration accompanied by a leading ... [Read more]

Adobe thinks the Creative Cloud subscription plan is the wave of the future, but it's got plenty of work to do to convince potential customers.

It looks like Adobe Systems has some more convincing to do when it comes to the Creative Cloud, the company's subscription for software and online services due to arrive later this year.

A survey of creative professionals by analyst firm Jefferies & Co. and CNET showed that people have concerns about the Creative Cloud and its price of $600 per year for individuals and $840 per year for corporate users.

Specifically, 41 percent said that they had a negative view of the Creative Cloud compared to 32 percent who expressed a positive view. Beyond that, 62 percent of respondents had a negative view of the price compared to 27 percent who felt positive about it.

Adobe must convince people that Creative Cloud is a good value for the money.

Complaining about prices is nothing surprising, but some just don't see how the subscription makes sense. "Rent my software? What if Adobe one day goes bankrupt?" complained one respondent.

Added another: "$600+ per year, every ... [Read more]

PARIS--Engineers have begun taking the first big steps in overhauling Hypertext Transfer Protocol, a seminal standard at the most foundational level of the Web.

At a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) here yesterday, the working group overseeing HTTP formally opened a dicussion about how to make the technology faster. That discussion included presentations about four specific proposals for HTTP 2.0, including SPDY, developed at Google and already used in the real world, and HTTP Speed+Mobility, developed at Microsoft and revealed Wednesday.

There are some differences in the HTTP 2.0 proposals that have emerged so far -- for example, Google's preference for required encryption contrasting with Microsoft's preference for it to be optional -- and there's another two-and-a-half months for people to submit new proposals. But notably, there also are similarities, in particular Microsoft's support for some SPDY features.

"There's a lot of overlap," said Greenbytes consultant Julian Reschke, who attended the meeting and is involved in Web standards matters. "There's a lot of agreement about what needs to be fixed."

SPDY has a big head start in the market. It's built into two browsers, Google Chrome and... [Read more]