SoBeTECH

Facebook Chat: Now We’re Talking

“We’ll be rolling this out slowly going forward, but fairly soon you’ll notice our new Chat bar at the bottom of your browser—no installation or assembly required. From this bar you can view your list of online friends and open conversations with any or all of them. There’s no need to setup a “buddy list.” Unlike the Wall or Inbox, the messages are delivered and displayed to your friend as soon as they’re sent, so you should expect a response right away and without any page loading. Of course, Chat has to play nice with the rest of the Facebook experience. You can collapse conversations to get them out of the way, and go offline if you don’t want to use Chat at all. Chat is there when you want it, and tucked away when you don’t.”
Log on and see if your one of the lucky ones that has it now!!!

MobiBLU Cube3 Has OLED Display

Remember MobiBLU? They made what was touted to be the smallest MP3 player in the world back in 2005, and here we are with an updated version which comes with a full color OLED display, crammed into its 1″ x 1″ x 1″ footprint. Targeting a US release this May at $99 a pop, the Cube3 will feature 2GB of internal memory, support for podcasts, MP3, WMA and WMA-DRM files. Its rechargeable lithium polymer battery offers up to 10 hours of playback, although I tend to take marketing claims with a pinch of salt. Will this dent the Shuffle’s sales figures?

(Via Ubergizmo.)

Apple Notebooks to See Major Design Changes?

Appleinsider claims that the current MacBook and MacBook Pro designs will be retired and are expected to see “major design changes” in their next revision.

The consumer MacBook line is expected to transition from plastic enclosures to aluminum and stainless steel, which are reportedly more “eco-friendly”.

The MacBook Pro will share a similar design transition to bring it in line with existing iMac and MacBook Air designs.

(Via MacRumors.)

Analyst Polishes Apple’s Outlook

Thomas Weisel Partners upgraded Apple Monday, saying the company’s current share price severely discounts long-term growth potential. The firm also said the risk that 2008 results will disappoint has faded. Analyst Doug Reid moved his rating to “Overweight” from “Market Perform” and raised his price target to $195 from $188. The new target implies he expects shares to rise about 27 percent over Friday’s $153.08 close. Apple will likely report a 24 percent compound annual revenue growth rate over the next five years, said Reid.”

(Via MacNewsWorld.)

Yahoo rejects Microsoft ultimatum
Yahoo on Monday morning published a letter rebuffing Microsoft’s imposed three-week deadline to accept a takeover bid, dismissing many of the claims made in the original argument. The formal rejection again states that Microsoft’s $31 per share bid.

(Via Electronista.)

T3’s Exclusive look at the new LG Black Label handset

“First the Chocolate, then the Shine, and then…
The Chocolate was delicious, and the Shine dazzled us. Now LG is launching a similar attack on our senses with the next in its classy Black Label series.
So what’s new? Well, it promises to be the world’s slimmest 5-megapixel camera phone. To beat the Samsung G600, that means it’ll have to be thinner than 14.9mm.
Damn, that’s seriously slim.
Of course this being the Black Label it also looks absolutely gorgeous, with carbon fibre and tempered glass styling. It resembles the Chocolate more than the Shine, with no scroll wheel.
Natch, touchscreen controls are here as standard.
Stay tuned for our exclusive hands-on soon. Until then, pore over our image gallery and let us know your thoughts on the Chocolate’s younger sexier relative.”

[Via T3]

Flow goes 1.0

Flow, a pleasant FTP client for the Mac, has definitely come a long way since we last took a look at it (so very long ago). Flow just hit version 1.0, and here are some of the new features:

• QuickLook
• Built-in editor
• FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, .Mac, and local FTP
• Droplets to upload quickly

Flow is designed specifically for Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5). Flow costs just $29; you can also download a free 15-day trial version then buy a license. I am an adamant Transmit/Panic addict; however, Flow has such a great Aqua-licious UI and feature list, that I may make the jump (sorry Panic guys).

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Computerworld: 25 overlooked and underrated Leopard featuresComputerworld’s Ryan Faas looks at the OS X 10.5 features that are buried just beneath the surface, unknown or ignored by users even though they’ve had Leopard installed for months.

(Via Macworld.)

Cyberduck - Free FTP/SFTP Utility For OS X

Cyberduck
2.8.5 is an excellent free FTP/SFTP application for OS X. It includes support for external editors such as BBEdit, TextWrangler, Smultron, CSSEdit, TextMate, Tag and skEdit.

(Via Cool OSX Apps.)