The second beta release of the next version of Firefox is now available.

Download Firefox 4 Beta 2 from Mozilla and test it out. Windows, Mac OS X and Linux builds are available in multiple languages. We were originally expecting it to arrive last Friday, but the release was delayed a few days for quality assurance testing.

Keep in mind, this is a pre-release version of the browser, and it may not be entirely stable. But it should be stable enough for daily use, and it will give you a heads up on all the new goodies coming in Firefox 4 when it’s officially released this fall.

Tuesday’s release has a number of new features, including support for CSS 3 transitions, better handling of retained layers on pages and a new feature in the add-ons manager that confirms when an add-on has been installed. There are also the requisite performance boosts and stability improvements, so if you’re running beta 1, definitely consider upgrading.

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According to Wikipedia, The Social Network is an upcoming 2010 comedy-drama film directed by David Fincher about the founding of Facebook. The film features an ensemble cast which consists of Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara and Armie Hammer. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.

The film is distributed by Columbia Pictures and is set for an October 1, 2010 release.

None of the Facebook staff, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, will be involved with the project. One of the co-founders, Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich’s book.

Watch the trailer after the jump.

The Social Network

The Mozilla Foundation has released Firefox 3.6.4 and Firefox 3.5.10 to address multiple vulnerabilities.

These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, cause a denial-of-service condition, obtain sensitive information, or conduct cross-site scripting attacks. Some of these vulnerabilities also affect Thunderbird and SeaMonkey.

Security Advisories for Firefox 3.6

Starting May 17, 2010 those who order from Domino’s Pizza can monitor their pizza’s delivery status using Domino’s new online GPS Tracking service. Interesting right?More details will be revealed later.

Via TheStar Intech

The sparring between Apple and Adobe, on whether Flash belongs on mobile devices such as the iPhone, has gone from philosophical to real. Steve Jobs wrote in an open letter that he’s yet to see Flash running on any mobile device, and Adobe responded by saying it’ll ship Flash Player 10.1 for Android phones as a public preview in May, with a general release in June.

Finally, Android will demonstrate whether Flash on the iPhone would’ve been as bad as Jobs makes it out to be. I think not, and here are five reasons why:

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Do you tweet while walking, working, sleeping, bathing, eating, running or sleeping?

If you are reading this, then you must be very interested on Twitter.

While there are so many ways to “tweet” out there such as via the Twitter website, mobile, and tons of Twitter apps , thanks to the Twitter API, here’s another way to tweet via your web browser.

Here are 6 interesting ways to use Twitter:

1. How to tweet URLs and post to del.icio.us with one click?
2. How to tweet URLs and enter contests at the same time?
3. How to tweet even faster?
4. How to tweet directly from the Firefox address bar5. How to integrate Twitter into your Firefox sidebar?
5. How to integrate Twitter into your Firefox sidebar?
6. How to share links and track them on Twitter?

To know the full details visit FrieedBeef’s Tech Blog

Dear readers,

Malaysia Technology Blog will be moving to a new and a faster server.

The site is expected to be offline for the next estimated 24 hours.

Thanks you for your patience and stay tuned for more updates!

In the very near future, we may see batteries that can recharge in just three seconds. Researchers at MIT have discovered a method of recharging lithium ion batteries at greatly increased speeds. The best news is that their method uses common materials and therefore could hit the marketplace in as little as two years.

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts sped up the process in which lithium ions are torn from the cathode compound and sent back to their anode store. In plain English: Kang and Ceder essentially changed the structure of everyday lithium ion batteries by building nanoparticle clumps and mixing the ordinary concoction with carbon and other materials.

The practical uses of this new battery recharging system are widespread, as lithium ion batteries already are widely used. Electric cars, cell phones, laptops, portable gaming systems — you name it; it’s likely the device sports a lithium ion battery.

Kang and Ceder are most excited about the innovation their discovery will bring to the electric car. “The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes,” the team writes in their Nature paper.

With the world steadily going green, advancements in the practicality of an electric car and its ability to recharge speedily could alter the roads of the world and hugely impact the environment. That’s all fine and well. But c’mon — we’re mostly excited about souping up our iPhones in the time it takes to exhale. -PC World

Plastic Logic, maker of an electronic book reader, plans to announce partnership deals on Monday that it says will bring a number of major publications to its planned device.

The company plans to make a device with a 10.7-inch diagonal electronic display, larger than the screens on an Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, two of the more popular models currently on the market. Plastic Logic says the device will be available early next year. It uses the same technology to display print as its main competitors.

Amazon is expected to announce a new version of its Kindle Monday.

Plastic Logic, a start-up based in Mountain View, Calif., also plans to demonstrate a prototype of its device at a technology conference in New York City on Tuesday.

Unlike the other products, the screen of the Plastic Logic Reader is big enough to more closely approximate the look of a printed newspaper or magazine page.

The company is hoping that the larger size will interest publishers who think that shrinking a newspaper page onto a small screen does not provide a good reading experience.

Users will be able to receive updated versions of the paper over a broadband or wireless connection. But the company did not say how much the device would cost or the price of subscriptions to various publications.

Plastic Logic said it had struck deals with The Financial Times, the British business newspaper, and with LibreDigital, a content aggregator that offers electronic versions of The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and other publications on the Internet.

In addition, Plastic Logic said it would announce a “direct relationship” with USA Today.

Plastic Logic also has content relationships with Ingram Digital and Zinio, distributors of periodicals from such publishers as Hearst, IDG, Hachette Filipacchi, Playboy Enterprises and Ziff Davis.

As other device makers are doing, Plastic Logic will create an online store for customers to buy books and periodicals. It is offering tools to publishers and individuals that will allow them to format and sell books at the store.

The New York Times Company has not yet decided if it would make an electronic version of its newspaper available to Plastic Logic owners. “We’re talking with Plastic Logic and LibreDigital, but no decision has been made,” Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman, said.

Unlike the Amazon and Sony products, Plastic Logic is gearing its device toward business professionals rather than the casual reader. It wants to sell to people willing to pay a premium for the convenience of a large-screen device to store, read and mark up stacks of documents and PDFs using a touch screen, and then forward the documents to colleagues.

The additional content that the company will make available will be a secondary reason to buy the product, said Joe Eschbach, vice president for marketing. He said that a number of financial models are being considered for their product offerings, including subscription and per-use fees.

How the market will look a year from now is unknown. The company had originally planned on selling the product this year, but delayed the start because of the recession.

“The collapse in retail spending makes it really difficult to launch now,” Mr. Eschbach said.

The problem, says Richard Doherty, an analyst with the Envisioneering Group, is not the products’ appeal, but in figuring out a business model that will succeed. “I have not interviewed any owner of an ebook device who says that I should not have bought the thing,” he said.-Ny Times

Amazon.com is seizing on the popularity of its electronic book reader Kindle to reach a new market. On Friday the online retailer said it will make Kindle e-books available on a variety of mobile phones, but the company is not saying which books would be available or on which phones, according to the Associated Press.

Amazon.com currently has 230,000 book titles available for Kindle.

The news comes one day after Google launched its Google Book Search project, a controversial project that brings books to Apple’s iPhone and T-Mobile’s G1 Android-based phone. The project, started three years ago, landed Google in court when it was sued by the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers, but the case has since been settled.

Amazon.com said it has not been able to keep up with the demand for Kindle, which costs $359, and as of last week had run out. To deal with the demand, Amazon.com has encouraged buyers to reserve a Kindle by ordering in advance.

In the future, however, readers will also be able to read Kindle e-books on mobile phones.

Wave of the Future

While books and newspapers continue to be the dominant platform for reading, there is a shift toward mobile devices. Consumers continue to embrace change, such as newspaper readers who get their daily news online and hard-copy book readers who are beginning to see convenience in reading a book electronically.

“This is clearly a wave of the future,” said Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst. “For some people you will want a dedicated e-book reader; for others it is about the screens that they are carrying around in their pockets. It makes great sense for Amazon to not only want Kindle to be a device, but software as well.”

Will consumers be receptive to using Kindle e-books on cell phones? Gartenberg said yes. “It’s about consumers who want their content to flow device to device and location to location.”

Companies such as Sony are paying attention and want a piece of the e-book market. Sony has come out with the PRS-505 Portable Digital e-Reader System. Stanza, an e-book reader software developer, has sealed a deal with Random House to allow several books to be read on the iPhone.

Easy Reading

Electronic readers were listed as the second fastest-growing products in 2008 based on estimated shipment revenues, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. E-reader shipment revenues grew 265 percent, according CEA, who expects revenues for e-reading devices to increase 110 percent this year.

Advances in screen resolution have helped consumers embrace the idea of using a mobile phone to read a novel. And some consumers, according to Gartenberg, would rather have it all in one device instead of multiple devices or having to lug a book around.

Amazon.com’s leaders are grateful for Kindle’s success, but say sales of physical books are still greater than for electronic books. – News Factor Network