I am liking the changes.  Hopefully you will too.  My favorite tweak so far, is when you start entering an address or keyword into the location bar; the browser pulls up possible matches from your bookmarks.  With this launch they are trying to break the world record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period.  Help them out. 

Thanks to Matt for the heads up on the world record thing. 

“It’s a whole lot easier and safer than donning a beard of bees or underwater jump roping. All you have to do is download Firefox 3 when it goes live on Download Day — some time in June. In the meantime check out Download Day Headquarters and pledge to download Firefox 3. We’ll let you know when Firefox 3 goes out the door, kicking off our 24-hour attempt.”

(Via The Mozilla Blog.)

From Engadget:

“In a patent application dated April 24, 2008 and titled “Solar cells on portable devices” attributed to a number of Apple employees, Apple reveals possible plans to integrate solar cells into devices such as iPods and MacBooks.”

Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.

To underscore its resolve, Microsoft is offering a 62 percent premium to Yahoo’s closing stock price Thursday. If the deal is consummated, it would be by far the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history, eclipsing last year’s $6 billion purchase of online ad service aQuantive.

From Google:

“We’re bidding adieu to 2007 with a look back at the breaking news, the big events and the must-have gadgets that captivated us this year (give or take a few weeks; we compile this list by early December). To get a glimpse of what’s been on our collective consciousness, we mined billions of search queries to discover what sorts of things rose to the top. We encourage you to check out our findings to see if you, too, reflect the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times.”

CNet offers a short video on the technology and facilities inside Skywalker Sound — a portion of the filmmaker's retreat known as Skywalker Ranch.

AppleInsider:

“Apple on Friday afternoon issued a press release confirming that it will indeed halt sales of NBC television shows through its ubiquitous iTunes download service beginning with the upcoming television season.”

“The move, the company explained, follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.”

“As the iTunes catalog expands daily, we’re faced with a massive amount of music that might feel a bit daunting to some. We’ve decided to shuffle some things around and have a sale — and you’re all invited. We handpicked some of the biggest-selling iTunes albums of all time, and dropped the price to $7.99. Enjoy.”

(iTunes Link)

“Today, Last.fm was acquired by CBS, a company who had the first commercial radio station in the US, ran a record label (CBS Records), and amongst other things are responsible for several respected TV series (CBS on Wikipedia).”

(Via Last.fm.)

From Apple:

“CUPERTINO, California — May 30, 2007 — Apple today launched iTunes Plus — DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings — for just $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of outstanding recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums availa

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From ReadWriteWeb:

“Online radio station Last.fm is adding a video section to its site this week, enabling users to create their own personalised video channels - similar to how users can already create radio stations based on their music tastes.”

Despite starting as a member of the HD DVD camp, HP is planning on introducing an HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid drive as an option in two of its Pavilion desktop machines on May 9. The option will only be available online, and standalone purchasing/pricing points remain unknown.

On May 1st, Dell and Canonical (creator of the Ubuntu Linux distribution) announced a partnership that will see Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed on select desktop and notebook lines. This is quite a departure from the solely-Microsoft stance Dell has had in the past, and should hopefully encourage other computer hardware vendors to provide supported software alternatives to their users.

AT&T recently sent an email to employees limiting vacation requests during the June 15 - July 15th timeframe, citing the likely “biggest selling period we have seen in a few years.”

This is to ensure adequate staffing for the iPhone launch period, which is still on track for a “late June” release, according to Apple.

(Via MacRumors.)