If you haven't had a chance to stop by MSI, Chicago to check out the 2011 Smart Home exhibit, it's cool — you're busy, we understand. Gizmodo's own Joe Brown recently gave Discovery Canada a guided tour through the exhibit, so you can see some our favorite items in the house without leaving your computer. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9NkPBvAaWgc/walk-through-the-2011-smart-home-with-joe-brown

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Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem.

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/adblock-plus-developer-pokes-holes-in-mozillas-new-add-on-perfo/

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Hard disk drives have a tendency to fill up with all sorts of useless files. I try to keep up on the small stuff by using the trash often and frequently, but there's always some large files lurking deep within the bowels of your Mac. And inevitably, I look at the bottom of a folder and realize I've got just 10 GB left of my 320 GB hard drive.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72410.html

ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS ALLTEL AMAZONCOM AMERICA MOVIL

So this professor comes up with a new toilet cleaner that works by "eating" the dirt; or so he thinks. That's how the plot starts for Tasty Planet. You play the role of the toilet cleaner, but you're not really a toilet cleaner after all -- you're a blob of gray goo that can eat anything that's smaller than yourself.

As you chomp away, you grow -- and as you grow, you can eat bigger and bigger stuff. The first level pits you against microscopic particles; by the time I stopped playing, I got all the way to eating cats and dogs. I know that sounds disturbing, but it's a really cute game, and there's no gore or anything like that.

Supposedly you keep growing and growing until you're able to eat whole planets (hence the name). The challenge factor comes when you realize you can't touch any critter larger than yourself - you'll get "bitten" and become smaller. In the beginning you're so small, that a single touch can kill you. Later on, you're big enough that touching larger animals doesn't kill you on the spot, but it does reduce your size. Each level is timed, so if you're not large enough by the time your clock runs out, you need to start again. As long as you don't touch the larger animals, you should be fine.

All in all, a fun, addictive little game. It's available for iOS, too.

Tasty Planet is a fun flash game where you eat everything in sight originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/08/tasty-planet-is-a-fun-flash-game-where-you-eat-everything-in-sight/

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My reaction to the latest version of Ubuntu can be summed up in just three words: Far from awesome! That impression largely results from the switch to the new Unity desktop. Canonical, the developer of the Ubuntu Linux operating system, released version 11.04, also known as "Natty Narwhal," on April 28.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72417.html

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While it hasn't always been clear just how big of a bet Google was going to make on Chrome OS, after Google I/O today, it seems very clear that they're very serious. With the launch of Chromebooks, Google is aiming to strike right at the heart of Microsoft and the Windows stronghold. But they know that one big hold up remains before a browser-based OS can be everywhere: offline access. With that in mind, on stage today, Google's Sundar Pichai revealed that Google has internally been using offline versions of their three most popular apps for months now: Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. And this summer, all users will be able to use these apps offline too.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Ybr7r9hZIxQ/

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The Chrome Web Store has made lots of headway since it's initial release -- Google took the time today to tell us all some stats behind the Web Store and the numbers are quite impressive to say the least. Developers are on board all the way and users have now downloaded 17 million apps.

Now, the next step -- Google announced they will be launching the Chrome Web Store in 41 different languages and making it totally available to all to all 160 million users of Chrome. Aside from all that, they are now working on in-app payments so that developers can better profit off of their apps and as such, they've also laid the groundwork for a developer relationship in which Google only requires 5% of the profits meaning, developers take the remaining 95% home. We like that idea, and we're pretty sure developers will as well.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/NIcm2d5zn4A/chrome-web-store-goes-worldwide-app-purchases-coming-soon

PRICELINECOM QIMONDA QUALCOMM QUANTA COMPUTER RESEARCH IN MOTION

The vast majority of Mac users do absolutely nothing to prevent malware or viruses from infecting their systems, and very few of them have experienced anything that would make them think twice about it. The fact is, however, that Mac malware does exist, and there are tools available to ensure that your Mac is as safe as possible from emerging threats. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/F57I5Xc1j4o/the-non+alarmists-guide-to-mac-malware-protection

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When Toy Story met your fridge's leftovers: MELTDOWN (the horror movie.) [Vimeo via DailyWhat via Neatorama] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/tZ_HtRNfIio/wont-someone-think-of-the-poor-leftovers-when-the-fridge-thermostat-fails

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If you're lucky enough to own an Xperia Play -- Sony Ericsson's new Gingerbread-powered smartphone-cum-gamepad -- you can now buy PlayStation (PSX) titles from the Android Market.

There are five titles currently available, all priced at £3.99: Syphon Filter, MediEvil, Cool Boarders 2, Destruction Derby, and Jumping Flash. They don't have an American price yet, but that will surely change once the Xperia Play launches in the States.

Two important questions remain unanswered: How big are these games? The Market descriptions say the games are only 5MB, but that sounds incredibly unlikely -- and more importantly, will it be possible to 'spoof' the Xperia Play and download PSX games onto other Gingerbread-powered phones, like the Nexus S?

In other news, the PlayStation emulator PSX4droid was recently removed from the Android Market. This obviously has nothing to do with today's release of first-party PlayStation games.

PSX games now available in the Android Market, if you own an Xperia Play originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/psx-games-now-available-in-the-android-market/

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