TechTalk: Exploring the Latest Technology News, Updates, Reviews, and Gossip

Skyfire, the makers of the samename browser for mobile devices, has announced the launch of its 1.0 version now available for free download at get.skyfire.com. Skyfire allows uses to use their phones to watch web videos and live events, stay connected with friends, share web pages instantly, and use the full-featured PC versions of their favorite websites. It also supports popular web standards and plug-ins such as Flash 10, Silverlight 2, Ajax, Javascript and more. Skyfire users can customize the start page with RSS feeds from their favorite websites, integrate their Facebook and Twitter accounts to import status updates and tweets, and publish their status to these networks. Improvements specific to the Skyfire 1.0 release include enhanced navigation, zooming and interaction as well as faster launch, power optimization, and new search functionality. As the new version starts-up, users can type a search or URL in the Superbar even while Skyfire is connecting in the network. "We ...

The next wave of technology spending is expected to flow toward gadgets and software that help people access the Internet from any location, and interact online in more innovative ways. While the global economic downturn has forced companies to cut back on spending and favor technology like "cloud computing" that helps save costs, executives at the Reuters Global Technology Summit forecast growth in new wireless and online arenas. Ralph de la Vega, head of mobility and consumer business at AT&T Inc, said he expects a wider range of devices, from digital cameras to automobiles, to offer direct Internet access and smarter social networking capabilities. "Just about everything you touch will have the capability to be connected and to talk to other machines and other devices, in the next generation of wireless growth that is in front of us," he said. Well-known venture capitalist Tim Draper said he was enthusiastic about companies like ShareThis, which have develope...

Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behavior in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex. Around 700 clerics, or imams, gathering in the world's most populous Muslim nation on Thursday were considering guidelines forbidding their followers from going online to flirt or engage in practices they believe could encourage extramarital affairs. Inside Facebook, an independent Palo Alto, Calif.-based blog dedicated to tracking the site, says Indonesia, a nation of 235 million, was the fastest-growing country in Southeast Asia for the site in 2008, with a 645 percent increase to 831,000 users. It is already the most visited site in Indonesia, and with less than 0.5 percent of Indonesia's citizens wired, there is a huge potential for growth. "The clerics think it is necessary to set an edict on virtual networking, because this online relationship could lead to lust, which is forbidden in Islam,...

Social networking and photo-sharing websites retain photographs deleted by users, reveals research by Cambridge University. Researchers uploaded photos on 16 popular websites - including Facebook, Yahoo's Flickr and Google's Picasa - noting the web addresses where the images were stored and then deleted them. The team said 30 days later, it was able to find them on seven sites, including Facebook, using the direct addresses even after the photos appeared to have gone, BBC reported Thursday. Facebook, however, says deleted photos are removed from its servers "immediately". Joseph Bonneau, one of the PhD students who carried out the study, said, "This demonstrates how social networking sites often take a lazy approach to user privacy, doing what's simpler rather than what is correct. "It's imperative to view privacy as a design constraint, not a legal add-on." The Cambridge University researchers said sites such as Flickr, Picasa did better and M...

Singapore rewarded 10 young dating couples on Saturday for being the most popular "Beautifully Imperfect" pairs online, the latest bid by the city-state to get its citizens married at a younger age. But the government-sponsored campaign made a last-minute change to the prizes, awarding a S$400 ($270) cash voucher for each winning unmarried couple instead of a stay at a beach resort suite - a gesture to avoid accusations it was promoting pre-marital sex. "Get married for heaven sake! Don't have sex before you get married," Malaysian film director Yasmin Ahmad, whose television commercial for the campaign has become a hit in Singapore media, said on a stage. "Get married and have children!" The island state of less than 5 million people has launched various incentives to encourage Singaporeans to start families as it is quickly becoming an ageing society, where people marry at a much older age and married couples tend to have few children. The latest sta...

Militants and hate groups increasingly use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube as propaganda tools to recruit new members, according to a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The report released on Wednesday noted a 25 percent rise in the past year in the number of "problematic" social networking groups on the Internet. The report was based on "over 10,000 problematic web sites, social networking groups, portals, blogs, chat rooms, videos and hate games on the Internet which promote racial violence, anti-semitism, homophobia, hate music and terrorism." "Every aspect of the Internet is being used by extremists of every ilk to repackage old hatred, demean the 'Enemy,' to raise funds and since 9/11, recruit and train Jihadist terrorists," the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement. The Jewish human rights group named after the renowned Nazi hunter has been monitoring the use of the Internet by extremists for over a dec...