In order to keep iPhone and iPod Touch Free from bugs, improve performance, add new features, resolve speed issues and patch any known exploit used to jailbreak and unlock iPhone and iPod touch, apple is continuously keeping its Firmware updated. From iPhone and iPod touch firmware 1.0 to 2.2.1 many new features got added for e.g iPhone firmware 2.0 got app store support.

Apple iPhone firmware 3.0 which was unveiled at Macworld Expo 2009 on March 17.

iPhone official Firmware 3.0 Features

• In-App Commerce: Developers can sell their applications partially instead of selling the whole package
• Accessories: Control and communicate with external hardware devices through Dock connector or Bluetooth
• Peer to Peer: Protocol that allows an iPhone to find other local devices within the vicinity using Bluetooth
• Push Notification
• Landscape mode: Landscape mode keyboard works in all apps including mail!
• Copy, Cut and Paste
• Forward / Delete: Support for message forwarding and deleting individual messages in a conversation
• Spotlight: Search virtually everything including apps, text, messages or simply anything
• Multimedia messaging: Sending photos or audio files through messages

The upgrade will come free for the iPhone users. Unfortunately iPod Touch users will have to pay $10 in order to get their devices upgraded. Currently, iPhone 3.0 SDK is available for developers and will be ready for public download in summer.

After hearing that Toshiba selected Nimbuzz for the TG01 mobile phone, more good news came our way. Apparently one of the most comprehensive and useful iPhone/iPod VoIP application in the Apple store, Nimbuzz promises to allow you to make Wi-Fi calls to instant messaging buddies on your iPhone and also extend the calling services for VoIP calls to landlines and mobile phones with Skype Out. How? By using 10 VoIP partners that include famous providers like Gizmo5, Vyke, SIPgate and A1.

The 3G-enabled service not only offers greater connectivity for your iPhone, but brings in calling options for iPod users and even extends it those that do not have an access to Wi-Fi networks. Because Nimbuzz is smart! If you happen to be outside the signal coverage the app still allows you to make cheap local and international calls– using Nimbuzz’s Dial-Up VoIP in over 50 countries.

And since Nimbuzz already has the iPhone and iPod users elated on this one, you can also receive Twitter feed updates from your IMs and also chat on sites like Facebook and MySpace

Since there are many people that couldn’t imagine a day without checking their mail accounts on google, the fact that Gmail is becoming more and more popular, doesn’t come as a surprise.

Significant as they indicate the “weight” of some of the most popular websites, reports showed that in the last few weeks, Americans have accessed Gmail more than before. Much more! Actually, the popular mail service made it to the top10 list by demoting YouTube. The market share of visits to Gmail has increased 70% by March 7, 2009, compared to the same time last year– while YouTube has seen a relatively low growth of just 16% in the same period.

Gmail holds 0.92% of the dynamic market share currently, while close on its heel is YouTube at the 11th spot with 0.87% of the share.

With most referrers from Google (48.83%), Faceboook (4.37%) and Yahoo! Mail (4.29%) and with the fast growing of other social networks (smells like Twitter), Gmail is expected to settle the YouTube war in a matter of a weeks and plans to take on its next rivals, MSN & Yahoo! Search.

Are you surprised?

The global economic meltdown has hit hard everyone and it seems that even the biggest tech tycoons in the world are finally feeling the pinch of the difficult times.

Image by Joi

Some would argue that the $40 billion that Bill Gates potentially owns is still no joke, but just the fact that it could have been a lot more and could end up being a lot less in the next couple of years is a clear sign that the rich are not getting richer that easily anymore! The list of world’s leading billionaires recently published by Forbes (cut down to 793 from 1125 the previous year) gives an indication as to how the tech tycoons have lost tons of cash and could be heading in the wrong direction…

The 40 tech and media moguls had a cumulative loss of around $ 81.5 billion in the last year alone and have seen their collective wealth drop to $ 203.4 billion. Although it sounds small compared to the whooping $1.4 trillion that left the billionaire club when compared with 2008.

While Bill gates sits on top of the tech giants list and gained a couple of spots, it is only because others have also lost huge. Gates lost a staggering $18 billion while Sergey Brin of Google parted with over $6 billion. With Michael Bloomberg the only one gaining ($5 billion), numbers are further expected to take a hit in the billionaire club.

That’s how nice the financial world is …

No?

If you develop apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, you can now start making those apps more social. With just a few lines of Objective-C code, your users can log in to Facebook from within your app, find their friends, then share what they do in your app back on Facebook, which opens up exciting new opportunities for your users.

Now your iPhone apps can enjoy the benefits that Facebook Connect sites and Facebook Platform apps already enjoy, including:

* Making API calls so your app can access users’ profiles and share information on Facebook.
* Publishing to Facebook via Feed forms.
* Asking users for extended permissions, like offline access, so you can still interact with their data when they’re offline.

To get started, download the Facebook Connect for iPhone code, read the documentation, and start coding!

During the live Diggnation at SXSW in Austin, Texas last Kevin Rose gave details of how the iPhone OS 3.0 will integrate copy and paste. According to Rose to copy or cut a word you would press and hold a word and a magnifier bubble would appear, you can then drag “copy boundaries” around what you want to select and then hit either copy or cut.

In addition Rose said that MMS and video recording would not be present in this release nor the ability to run background applications.

Finally Rose made a mention the Palm Pre and how Apple will match all the features of the handset.

In a recently published survey by Nielsen Online the company stated that the incredible growth in popularity of social networking sites and blogs was largely due to the use of mobile phones which allows consumers to stay always online.

Nimbuzz, the only messaging company to have ever won the prestigious Red Herring Global 100 award, was chosen by Toshiba as its partner for the launch of the brand new TG01 handset. Expanding with over 20,000 new users each day, Nimbuzz will enhance the internet connectivity, web browsing experience and the social messaging capability of the mobile phone – that is all set to make its debut in the market.This strategic partnership is not just something that would benefit both the firms immensely, but also adds to the user experience of the TG01.

Combining social networking and mobiles services seamlessly, Nimbuzz has been known to provide top notch VoIP services that include Skype, Google and Yahoo Messenger and also access to sites like Facebook and MySpace from the comfort of your mobile.

Designed to perfectly suit the tech-savvy generation of today, the Nimbuzz addition to TG01 ensures that you stay hyper-connected and always in the loop, wherever you go and whatever time it might be. Seems like a win-win situation, don’t you think?

Invites have begun to trickle out for a March 17th Apple event, at which they’ll be debuting iPhone OS 3.0. It has been about 8 months since the release of OS 2.0, and 6 months since Apple missed their self-imposed deadline for push notifications for background applications.