computer and mobile tricks

There’s very little we know about Internet Explorer 9 but certainly one the most interesting bits that is already publicly available is that it will support hardware graphics acceleration. And here come those bad guys from Mozilla Foundation to steal the limelight again.

Internet Explorer 9 will undoubtedly have other surprises in store for us, if we live long enough to see its release (it will probably be out in 2011). Nonetheless, getting beaten at its own game again surely hurts.
Of course we saw that coming at the moment Microsoft published the Windows 7 Direct2D API but it’s happening even sooner than we expected. Apparently Bas Schouten and his team already have at their hands a Firefox browser that can render everything using Direct2D, making intensive usage of the GPU (including the browser UI elements themselves). And the load times it shows on some websites, compared to the regular version are impressively different. You can check them out after the break.


So if you have a half decent GPU at hand you might save yourselves quite some time when browsing simply structured websites. On complex ones with more text than images for example the GPU-accelerated rendering shows pretty small-to-none advantage over the conventional CPU-powered rendering. Still the results are pretty encouraging and indicate that the sooner GPU-assisted rendering makes its way to the desktop browsing, the better.
Some time will pass before we actually get that browser to our computers, but with the developers already having a working version, the first beta can’t be that far away.

We have to admit that all this interest for the BlackBerry Bold 9700 puzzles us a bit. No, it’s not a bad handset or anything but the BlackBerry devices are anything but mass market and feature-stuffed. But then again, that only makes the BlackBerry Bold 9700 achievement all the more prestigious.

Our first BlackBerry Bold 9700 studio shots
And now that we have one of those babies in our office we can finally check out what all this fuss is about ourselves. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is certainly much more compact and easily fitting in the hand than its predecessor. Oh and that trackpad certainly works great too outdoing the E72 optical trackpad by several laps.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 next to Nokia E72
As a special treat for you guys, we’ve prepared a short unboxing video for you. Check it out after the break.

Well, if you own a G1, a Dream or a Hero, then most probably you’re in for a nice treat! Not only can you get the Android 2.0 goodness on your smartphone, but also as recently became clear, you can even get Google Maps Navigation even outside USA. On the other hand, if you own a Motorola Droid, please just find another place to enjoy your smug grin, will you?

So where were we? Ah, the Android 2.0. It turns out that after Google let their 2.0 cat out of the bag (meaning they released the complete source code), there’s no stopping the hard working devs into porting it to *unofficially* to older devices.

Only hours after the source code was published, developers were already able to run it on the T-Mobile G1 – all nice and fluid.
HTC Hero’s users need to be patient, because their 2.0 official upgrade is already cooking, while the rest Android handsets still count on custom ROMs.
Currently Android 2.0 is available only on the Motorola MILESTONE (or DROID in the USA) and there is no word when and if it will become officially available as an upgrade to the rest Android handsets out there (except for the Hero).
Still the G1 port manages quite well, except the audio/video playback. These issues of course will be fixed very soon and more cooked 2.0 ROMs will start popping up.