Safari 4 Screenshot Roundup

Apple has recently released Safari 4 beta. Before starting the review, here are some related links:

Speed Comparison:

http://lifehacker.com/5160709/browser-speed-tests-how-safari-4-stacks-up

Hidden Preferences:

http://lifehacker.com/5160709/browser-speed-tests-how-safari-4-stacks-up

There is a new start page:

It, like Chrome’s start page, auto-populates with the most often accessed pages.

The tabs are now up at the top of the window, and use Aero:

The three dots at the right bring up a menu with the tabs that are not shown.

There is a new toolbar customization menu:

You can browse your bookmarks in coverflow:

The same goes for history:

RSS feeds are in the same wonderful interface as before:

Just like in Chrome, you can drag tabs out to make new windows, or swap tabs between windows. Also like Chrome, the interface is good at getting out of the way.

Overall this is a great browser. Beware though, it is a beta and when running many tabs at once I have had it crash.

Hypothetical Gadgetry

I’ve decided to do a segment which may be repeated if it is successful called “Hypothetical Gadgetry” in which I take a few pieces of technology, and just suggest that they may work well together. The first one is:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5159939/realtime-mobile-video-stitching-is-so-crazy-it-just-might-work

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10171472-56.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave

The first link is a demonstration of live video feeds being meshed, while the second is an article about a Microsoft Surface projector that allows it to project a display onto a large dome.

Google Earth 5

You know Google right? Its that company that plans to index all information everywhere in the world. They’ve outdone themselves again this time with Google Earth 5. The main new features are a time machine (way cooler than that Apple invention) and a way to see under the sea.

The sea now shimmers, though the picture does not show it.

The depth of the ocean is now represented.

You can now see through time.

Some imagery of Cupertino from 1953.

One interesting thing is that if you zoom out a lot, the star field changes with the date. They seem to be accurately calculated star positions for each date.

Areas of scientific interest (Antarctica for one) seem to have lots of older imagery.

You can see an ice shelf that broke off a while ago on Antarctica.

I’m not sure if this is a new feature, but right clicking gives this:

Moving the mouse up while right clicking zooms out, down zooms in, and rotating the mouse around it rotates the view. All operations are centered around it, so zooming in zooms in on the point where you right clicked.

Overall this is a really cool update to what is already a really cool piece of software.

Images copyright Google 2009