Software

It took five years, three major versions and the contribution of thousands of volunteers, but Firefox has reached one billion downloads. Not so much a technical milestone, the number has a greater importance in reminding what it took to get here and how the browser market, and the Internet as a whole, have evolved. As you can imagine, the celebrations at Mozilla are already underway, but there's no time to rest on its laurels, and the team has already launched a new site to help spread the word even more.

Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, introduced the latest release of its Galaxy Implementation Platform delivering 2x faster design implementation and signoff throughput with new multicore performance and multi-corner/multi-mode (MCMM) technologies. Built-in support for multicore processing across the Galaxy Platform enables engineering teams to immediately boost runtime performance using their existing compute servers. Additionally, the Galaxy Platform includes new MCMM technology providing improved quality of results and faster design closure when using a combined Design Compiler Graphical and IC Compiler flow. The Galaxy 2009 release is available now.

Research In Motion (RIM) announced new and enhanced tools for developing web applications for BlackBerry smartphones. The tools include the new BlackBerry Web Development Plug-in for Eclipse and the BlackBerry Plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio version 1.2. These tools are part of a complete portfolio of BlackBerry developer tools for web and Java development and a rich set of APIs that enable developers to easily create a wide variety of mobile applications that connect BlackBerry smartphone users to the information they care about. The BlackBerry application platform also incorporates significant advantages, including real-time push technology, unmatched security and highly efficient data compression and network bandwidth utilization, allowing developers to deliver optimized applications on the most powerful, secure and efficient platform in the industry.

Microsoft Tag has evolved to the next level with the availability of an application programming interface. On July 23rd, 2009, the Redmond company announced the release to web of the Microsoft Tag API. The move is designed to expand the potential audience segments that can build Tags. According to the software giant, Tags can now be put together from not only the web, but also the desktop, and mobile devices.

Nokia and cellity nnounced an agreement for Nokia to acquire certain assets of cellity. cellity is a privately owned mobile software company which employs 14 people in Hamburg, Germany.