Google introduced a new search style “Search, plus Your World”. The company is integrating its social network, Google+ and the photo-sharing site, Picasa with Google search. Three new features, called "People and Pages" ,"Profiles in Search", or "Personal Results" will help you find information related to a specific topic or people you may know when searching the web.
Earlier this week Nokia announced that their high-end phone, the Lumia 900 runs a newer build of Widows Phone called Mango Commercial Release 2. According to an article in the official Nokia corporate blog this new operating system is not the next Tango 1 OS which is supposed to be on devices that will launch in the first half of this year, but just a name for the Windows Phone build 8107.
Monotype released its compression technology that shrinks font download sizes and made it free for public use. MicroType Express is going to be used in major browsers like Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Google even plans to include the Monotype's technology into its Web fonts site for free to use fonts that can be embedded on Web pages.
Read MoreApple released third beta version of the iOS 5.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. The update is a pre-release version which is meant for developers only. It includes some bug fixes and a new Enable 3G toggle feature that allows users to manually on and off 3G data connection on their iPhones.
Adobe announced its Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta version for Windows and Mac. It is already available for free download on Adobe Labs. The Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta is a a preview of the final version of the Adobe digital photography workflow solution which allows users to import, edit and showcase their photos.
Adobe is planning to release updates for Adobe Reader X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Mac OS, and Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Mac in order to resolve critical security issues. The patches are expected to be available on Tuesday, January 10, 2012.
Mozilla announced its plans for the end of support for Firefox 3.6. The company won't release any new fixes or updates after April 24, 2012 which is also the date when Firefox 10 will be launched as it'll be Mozilla’s first Extended Support Release (ESR). Using Firefox 3.6 beyond the end of life date is dangerous and not recommended.
Google released Chrome 17 beta version which comes with improved speed and security. Thanks to the recent changes the browser will start to load some web pages in the background while the user is typing the URL and will examine executable files that are being downloaded in order to warn the user if any of them is malicious.
Mozilla didn't make big changes in the standard look of its latest Firefox 9.0.1 but the browser is much faster and better according to the reports. Tests show that Firefox 9.0.1 still is not as fast as Google Chrome 16 but its performance is far better than in the previous versions.
Yesterday Microsoft revealed more details regarding the new refresh and reset your PC features. The company includes this new buttons in order to provide an easy way for their customers to roll back the operating system to an earlier state. With the two new features users will be able to reset their PCs without losing their personal data and the whole process will require from 6 to 24 minutes.