MW8 • THEEDGE SINGAPORE | JUNE 22, 2009

Apple recently triumphantly an-nounced that its Safari 4 was downloaded 11 million times in

the fi rst three days of its release and that more than half of that was done by PCs and laptops that use Windows as their operating system.

With both Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox firmly entrenched, why would anyone want to download Sa-fari? In a word: Speed.

Apple claims that Safari can load HTML pages three times faster than the latest versions of Firefox and IE. It also states that its Nitro Engine renders JavaScript four times faster than Firefox and eight times faster than IE.

Safari 4 is also the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to various stand-ards designed for dynamic web ap-plications.

It also offers several features that

are sure to set new standards. For ex-ample, it supports HTML 5 and ad-vanced CSS Effects, allowing for more fonts and graphics, and a significant-ly richer web experience.

Here are some simple-to-understand things worth looking out for:

Top SitesThrough Top Sites, you can get a preview of your favourite websites at one glance. Safari tracks the sites you browse and ranks your favour-ites, presenting up to 24 thumbnails on a single page. You can even cus-tomise the display by pinning a fa-vourite site to a specific location in the grid. A star in the upper-right-hand corner of a site indicates that some new content has been upload-ed onto the site since your last vis-it. As you browse, Safari identifies the websites you’re most interest-ed in based on how often and how

recently you visit a site. So, as you explore the web and discover new sites, your Top Sites will change to match your evolving tastes.

Cover FlowCover Flow offers a visual approach to reviewing your site history and bookmarked sites, presenting full-page previews of the websites that look exactly as they did when you last visited them. You can flip through the website previews in Cover Flow just as you do with album art in iTunes.

Full search historyJust type a word or phrase in the His-tory Search field in Top Sites, and Sa-fari quickly presents you with a list of possibilities. You will be able to search for anything that was on a page you visited, even the photo captions. To help you remember, Safari presents

the sites it finds in Cover Flow, giv-ing you the opportunity to visually spot the right site.

Smart address field Enter web addresses quickly and easily. As you begin to type an ad-dress in the address field, Safari automatically completes it with the most likely match (called the Top Hit). If this is not what you are looking for, check the list of rele-vant suggestions, drawn from your bookmarks and browsing history, that Safari displays.

Speculative loading Safari loads the documents, scripts, and style information required to view a web page ahead of time, so they’re ready when you need them.

Just when you thought the browser wars were over, Apple shakes things up a bit. Safari 4 is available for Mac OS X and Windows as a free download at www.apple.com/safari/download.

Oon Yeoh is editor of new media at The Edge Malaysia. Read his blog, join him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter, via www.oonyeoh.com.

Safari 4 ups the ante

internettime | BY OON YEOH |

Time managementThere will be no reason to be late for work or morning appoint-ments with the iWakeUp Clock Radio by Memorex — part of Imation Corp’s portfolio of leading brands. The FM/AM radio and iPod-compatible device is designed to cater to the heaviest of sleepers, with the alarm becoming increasingly loud every fi ve seconds until it reaches maximum volume. It also has a dual alarm system, perfect for those who share a bedroom but have different daily schedules.

Audio integrationThe Plantronics Savi from Unifi ed Communications is an industry-fi rst suite offering an integrated wireless headset for PCs and landline phones. With possible benefi ts including improved business collaboration and cost savings, the system allows use over the PC, such as for web conferencing and multimedia streaming, while switching to/from the desk phone happens at the touch of a button. The Savi Go, meanwhile, is for PC/mobile phone communications. Both products have variants that support UC offerings from leading providers, including Avaya, Cisco, IBM and Microsoft, and other popular services like Google Talk and Skype.

Power up with Lenovo IdeaPadThe new IdeaPad S10-2 netbook by Lenovo is slimmer and comes with three USB ports, a four-in-one media card reader, larger-than-before keyboard and up to six hours of battery life. The netbook’s battery-saving software helps it achieve up to 30% more battery life than its predecessor. For those who want “on demand” functionality, the Lenovo QuickStart allows them use their favourite applications without waiting for the operating system to boot up.

Touch and goSony Ericsson’s recently unveiled Aino is an intuitive media browser that gives users a clear overview and one-touch direct access to content in their home gadgets. For example, you can control your Playstation 3 and access its media content on your Aino anywhere, anytime, using Remote Play with Playstation3. Aino’s Media Home, meanwhile, is an application that automatically pulls media content, via Media Go, from your PC to your phone over WiFi.

Snap talk timeHTC Snap takes streamlined communication to greater heights with its innovative Inner Circle feature, which brings emails from a pre-selected group of people to the top of your inbox, enabling important messages to be acted upon immediately. The slim and sleek HTC Snap measures a mere 12mm, yet can deliver up to 8½ hours of talk time with the standard 1500mAh battery. The full Qwerty keyboard is ergonomically designed, with extra-large domed keys and responsive tactile feedback, making typing emails and text messages fast, accurate and comfortable. High-speed 3G HSPA connectivity makes it quick and easy to send pictures, access favourite social networking sites or download large fi les while on the go.

for the managerToos&toys

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A screenshot of Safari 4’s Top Sites applications