surfing

Kindle Touch won't browse Web over 3G

Over the weekend, Amazon broke a bit of bad news to prospective buyers of the upcoming Kindle Touch 3G, which starts at $149: you won't be able to the surf the Web using the "experimental" browser over 3G (outside of Wikipedia). Web surfing is a Wi-Fi-only affair on the device.

Amazon, as it sometimes does, delivered the news on its Kindle message board after someone read the fine print on the Kindle Touch 3G product page and noticed the small disclaimer, "Browsing available only in Wi-Fi mode."

Here's the official statement from the Amazon Kindle Team:

We apologize for the confusion. Our new Kindle Touch 3G enables you to connect to the Kindle Store, download books and periodicals, and access Wikipedia--all over 3G or Wi-Fi. Experimental Web browsing (outside of Wikipedia) on Kindle Touch 3G is only available over Wi-Fi.

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Fisker Surf electric wagon detailed in quiet video

At this point, Fisker Automotive has been showing off various incarnations of the Karma series hybrid sedan at various auto shows for about four years now. It's practically done at this point. Not wanting to show up at the 2011 International Auto Show in Frankfurt with the same song and dance, the automaker slapped a hatchback onto its mustachioed Karma and dubbed it the Fisker Surf.

This week, the Surf shows off its shooting brake design in a B-roll video released on the Web by Fisker. Check it out below. There's no music, but if you crank your … Read more

How to find the best surf: MSW Surf Forecast

Most people, when they see a hurricane coming, hunker down or move out of its path. Surfers, on the other hand, aren't like most people. To them, a hurricane is to be tracked for the swells it brings. And with an iPhone or Android phone, a surfer can keep tabs on local conditions, ready to grab his or her board and hit the water when the waves are just right.

Before we proceed any further, allow me a disclaimer, lest I be dubbed a poser by surfers reading this post. I am not a surfer. I live in New Hampshire--not exactly the world's hottest surf spot. There is, however, a small surf scene here. I live an hour from the NH seacoast and have a few friends who regularly make the trek to Hampton or Jenness to go surfing. I've tagged along with them a handful of times, and with their encouragement and large, foam board, I have successfully ridden embarrassingly small waves.

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What a drag

We should all know the dangers of browsing the Web without any protection. That's why it's best to take the proper precautions. One way to do that is to hide your IP address from prying eyes. Surf Anonymous Free offers a way to disguise your IP address while you browse. It worked as promised, though our browsing performance suffered, often with connections that timed out.

The program's user interface is basic and to the point. Your real IP address appears in the small window, and from there, you have two options: Hide IP and Select Fake Location. … Read more

RSS scroll for Firefox

RSS Ticker is a free Firefox extension that displays your subscribed RSS feeds in a scrolling toolbar. It's easy to use, customizable, and an effective way of staying on top of things without cutting away from your browsing.

We installed RSS Ticker and restarted Firefox. RSS Ticker began scrolling preloaded headlines along the bottom of our browser window. A pop-up notified us that our saved RSS feeds would appear shortly and also offered a link to instructions for adding new feeds, which is as easy as saving a page in Live Bookmarks. We browsed to some news sites and … Read more

Run and hide boss key

Boss keys, aka boss buttons or panic buttons, have probably been around about an hour longer than computers--long enough for the first bored programmer to write the first string of code to clear the screen whenever the boss strolls by. And just think: they had no Web sites, no games, no chatting--none of today's distractions, which demand so much more time and effort. So we were tickled silly to see Don't Panic. It's a free application that can open, close, or hide multiple applications with a single button.

Don't Panic's interface has two modes: a … Read more

Hands-on look at Opera Mini 6 for iPhone and iPad

Opera Mini 6 (universal) was released earlier today for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, bringing this version of the alternative browser to iOS devices for the first time. We have had a chance to put the slimmed-down browser through its paces and think it offers several features that users will like. With the right tweaks, it may even become the favorite over Apple's Safari--if people are willing to give it a try.

The clean, elegant interface hides multiple useful features, with only five buttons to choose from, along with the address bar and search box. The main Opera menu … Read more

LEDs light the way for big-wave night surfer

Professional big-wave surfer Mark Visser might possess superhuman athletic skills, but surprisingly, he does not have night vision. Therefore, when he made history riding 30- to 40-foot waves in the middle of the night last month, he got some help from techies--presumably by telling them, "Oh, don't worry about me, I'll just surf those monster waves alone in the dark."

For his 2 a.m. ride in darkness at Jaws off the shores of Maui, Visser rode a surfboard tricked out with LED lights created specially for the project by LED company Solus using NASA submarine … Read more

Fast like a cheetah, tame like a house cat

Safari has always felt more finished on its native Mac home than its Windows port, and version 5 is no different. Though the improvements made in Safari 5 lack the visual pop of the biggest changes in Safari 4, such as the Cover Flow-inspired Top Sites and history browsing and the interface refresh, Safari 5 contains just about the same level and quality of changes--with one caveat.

The biggest new feature that comes in Safari 5 hasn't been fully implemented yet. A new add-on network won't be officially available until later this summer according to Apple, but Safari'… Read more