The demo only showcased a selection of tips for the
Safari browser but a couple were interesting. Some were obvious, I already knew how to bookmark a Web pages and open multiple Safari pages, but I didn’t know about the one-step process for getting to the top of a Web page or how to use the convenient shortcut for including a link in an e-mail. The instructional process is very easy to use. Saied himself appears in a little window and guides you through the steps using an onscreen iPhone graphic.

It’s About Time to learn iPhone will be available in Apple stores by early April, or you can download it off the company’s Web site around that time. The price will be $29.95. Once it comes out, I’ll give it a full review to see all the tips it has to offer.

(Credit:
Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

This week I perused the demo version of an upcoming product that promises to unlock the secrets of the iPhone by telling you about all sorts of secret tips and tricks. It’s About Time to learn
iPhone, as the product is called, is offered by a small Silicon Valley company that exhibited at last month’s Macworld. I met Saied Ghaffari while I was there and he told me about an online demo, which I only now got around to trying (the GSMA World Congress got in the way).

When compared with other Samsung touch-screen phones like Alltel’s Samsung Delve and T-Mobile’s Samsung Behold, the Samsung Finesse isn’t too remarkable. But it is the first ever touch-screen phone for MetroPCS, which is great for MetroPCS aficionados. The Finesse is quite a sleek handset in its own right, with a nice 3.2-inch touch-screen display, a responsive interface, plus Samsung’s unique TouchWiz tray of drag-and-drop widgets.

Samsung Finesse photos

Check out our review of the Samsung Finesse and the Finesse’s photo gallery for a closer look.

The new channel is expected to reach some 10 million households in North America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world, according to the news reports. In addition to providing 24-hour TV broadcasts, NHK is working with Microsoft and NTT, to distribute video content via the Internet.

The new TV channel will be majority-owned by Japan Broadcasting or NHK, which will issue new shares through private placements with the 13 investors to launch the new TV service. NHK will own a 60 percent in the new TV service and the 13 investors will have stakes of less than 5 percent each. News of the new channel, which is the first of its kind in Japan, was first reported by the Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei and was picked up by Thomson Financial.

The Stirling security package, the next wave of its Forefront software, offers one management console, enabling administrators to push policies out across PCs, servers, and other computers that access the Internet.

The console is easy on the eyes, showing graphical representations of the severity of security threats to the network, even down to the individual PC level.

A beta refresh with new features will be available before the end of the year, Hamlin said.

Microsoft also is rebranding its Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) Server as Forefront Threat Management Gateway. The software includes firewall, and Web antivirus and remote access technology for protecting computers that connect to the Internet.

Administrators can set the system up so that policies are automatically followed or so that they require administrator approval before further action is taken, such as blocking a computer from accessing the network if the system detects that it has been compromised, said Ryan Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft’s Access and Security Division.

Grand Theft Annoying: Main characters like Niko Bellic and his cousin Roman look great, but many of the secondary characters are sometimes ugly, looking a bit like clunky PS2 holdovers. The camera still has a little trouble with tight, indoor spaces, making navigation difficult. Some of the cars are especially hard to control, and using the handbrake to pull off hairpin turns is more difficult than in previous GTA games. We wouldn’t play most of the mini-games, such as bowling and darts, more than once or twice, and activities like shopping for clothes have an awkward interface, making it a chore to try on different looks.
One area that hasn’t really been updated is the save system. Missions can be long and complicated, and often require split-second timing, so not having a more modern save-anywhere system can turn off mainstream and casual gamers (or anyone who only has 15 to 20 minutes at a stretch to play).

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re very interested in a video game being released Tuesday, April 29, called Grand Theft Auto IV (actually something like the eighth game in the series, depending on how you count).

(Credit:
Rockstar)

We previously tried the game out a couple of times while it was still in development, and now that we’ve had a chance to give the final shipping version a serious run-through over this past weekend, here are our initial thoughts on the final game’s pluses and minuses.

Even at the predicted sale rate of 500,000 units in the fourth quarter, the Android phone won’t be selling as quickly as the first-generation
iPhone. Apple shipped about a million iPhones during the quarter in which it first released the smartphone, in the summer of 2007. Still, 500,000 phones is nothing to sneeze at. And if the pace continues, Android developers will certainly have a big enough market to target with their new applications.

T-Mobile will also order up to 2 million of the devices from G1 handset maker HTC, the site said, quoting industry insiders. This could mean a big boost in revenue for HTC in the fourth quarter and into next year.

T-Mobile will launch the G1 on October 22 in the United States for $179. The new phone, which has a touch screen and GPS navigation, along with a rich software interface, has been compared to Apple’s iPhone.

The new iPhones, however, would be about 2.5 millimeters thinner than their predecessors, and have a slightly different exterior finish that’s less “plasticky,” according to Daily Tech. I’m not sure if “plasticky” is a word, but you get the drift. No changes are planned to the operating system or user interface, the report says, though you’ll, of course, be able to download the iPhone 2.0 software in late June.

A tradition unlike any other: the 3G
iPhone rumor on the Internet.

The fabled 3G iPhone could be slightly thinner, according to a new report.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

These 3G iPhone rumors are par for the course, really. With WWDC just a chip shot away, the gallery is ready for Apple to choose a club for the rest of 2008.

Today’s rumor, courtesy of Daily Tech, actually has a fair amount of detail. According to what it heard from a little birdie, Apple plans to stick with the 8GB and 16GB options for the 3G iPhone, as well as the pricing for those models, and announce the new phones at the Worldwide Developers’ Conference in early June.

The Komuku name and independent product line will go away, Microsoft said, but most of the 4-year-old company’s nine staffers are joining the software giant. Microsoft didn’t announce financial terms of the deal, which closed on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley points out that Microsoft is moving forward with “Stirling,” the next generation of its Forefront, which will add in further management capabilities.

As my ZDNet colleague Larry Dignan (who was more on the ball on this) points out, the move gives Microsoft’s security unit the Department of Defense as a customer, along with the Department of Homeland Security.

Microsoft said it will build Komuku’s technology into future versions of both its Windows OneCare consumer security products as well as Forefront, its line of security software for businesses.