• Receive and respond to notifications and inbox messages
  
• Browse photo albums
• Write on walls
• Update your status

• You can navigate a page by clicking and dragging it. There are no scrollbars, which means more screen real estate.
• There are also no back, forward, refresh, or other buttons on the main screen. The web page takes up the whole screen.
• You can find navigation buttons by dragging the screen to the right, which brings up a series of buttons on the left side of the screen, including back, forward, bookmark, and page info.
  
• You minimize a window by dragging it to the left or right and clicking the zoom button. You can then navigate between open tabs or open a new one.
• When you reach the bottom of a web page, there will be buttons for performing specific functions like submitting a page to Digg or del.icio.us or mapping an address found on a web page

• Support for device and ROM upgrades
• Smartphone version
• A file-black-list for files to ignore

Spb Backup 2.0 is compatible with Windows Mobile 2003 and newer devices with VGA and QVGA screens. There's a 5 day free trial available, but a full license will set you back $24.95. Current users can upgrade for $9.95. If you purchased Spb Backup in the last 90 days, you can upgrade for free.

For a long time, NetFront was the reigning champ of Windows Mobile and PocketPC web browsers. While Pocket Internet Explorer comes standard with most Windows Mobile phones and PDAs, the browser renders pages slowly, lacks support for tabs, and doesn't handle AJAX very well. NetFront does all of those things and more. And if it weren't for the introduction of Opera Mobile a few years ago, which has the same features plus speedier page rendering, we would still heartily be recommending NetFront.

But ACCESS, the company behind the NetFront browser is working hard to keep up with Opera. This week ACCESS released the second concept version (or beta) of NetFront 3.5 for Windows Mobile. When the final version is released you'll have to pay for this browser, but while it's in beta, it's free and definitely worth checking out. Here's a short list of updates in the latest version:

• Improved CPU usage
• AutoCruise function has been removed
• Faster page rendering
• Faster page zooming
• Faster scrolling
• Faster switching between rendering modes (landscape or portrait, single column or desktop style)

The beta will expire on August 31, 2008. Note that you should install NetFront to your device's main memory, not to a storage card or you may experience some stability issues.

Opera has released a report on the state of the mobile web. And considering the company claims more than 44 million users for its Opera Mini cellphone web browser, Opera's in as good a position as any company to report on mobile web usage.

There are two trends that are particularly noteworthy. First, 77% of all traffic was to full web pages, not stripped down mobile pages. This probably shouldn't be that surprising, since Opera Mini renders full pages pretty quickly and lets users zoom in and out to read the fine print. And while WAP might have been pretty exciting a few years ago when there wasn't as much rich media content on the web, and when mobile internet connections were significantly slower, those days are long gone.

The second trend is a bit more surprising. 40% of worldwide traffic was directed to social networks. In some countries including the US, South Africa, and Indonesia, that number was as high as 60%. Now, it's not like we didn't know that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, and Bebo were popular. We just didn't figure people would be spending half of their mobile web browsing time visiting them.

What sites do you visit regularly with your mobile web browser?

[via VentureBeat]

Microsoft has updates its Live Search for Windows Mobile software, adding four new features:

• 4 day weather forecasts
• Search the web from the Live Search software without opening a web browser first
• View maps and locations shared by other Virtual Earth users
• Take addresses from your contact list and see where your friends are on a map

You can download the Live Search software by visiting m.live.com on your mobile device. If you don't want to download anything, you can still use the web-based Windows Live search engine, but the Live Search application is pretty slick and much faster than the web interface at loading maps and satellite imagery.

[via MobileCrunch]

A little over a month after releasing a public beta of Opera Mini 4.1, the Opera team has pushed out the final version of its latest cellphone browser. The newest build is reportedly 50% faster than opera mini 4.0. It also has a handful of new features including the ability to save web paes fr offline viewing, the ability to upload and download images from within the browser, and improved page and web search features.

The final build looks a lot like the public beta, but the developers have fixed a bunch of bugs and made some changes to the page saving and address auto-complete features.

Opera Mini 4.1 is available as a free download for dozens of different cellphone models.

Gigabyte has released a new touch-friendly interface for Windows Mobile phones. While the Smart Touch UI is designed to run on Gigabyte's GSmart line of phones, an unofficial version of the software has been leaked and you can download it and install it on pretty much any Windows Mobile 5.0/6 device.

It's hard not to compare the Smart Touch interface to the Apple iPhone interface. Applications can be luanched by pressing large square-ish buttons, and you navigate the interface by dragging your finger across the screen. But Smart Touch does have a few innovative features up its sleeve.

When you first load the UI, you'll see just 4 icons on the bottom of the screen. But you can find more by moving your finger along the bottom of the screen to find 16 in all, including one square that you press to add new items to your menu. You can also customize your menu by dragging and dropping icons across the screen. You can easily flip back and forth between the Smart Touch interface and the default Windows Mobile UI by hitting the Today icon. To switch back, just hit the Smart Touch icon on your today screen.

You can check out a video of Smart Touch in action after the jump.

[via the::unwired and SolSie]

Continue reading Gigabyte's GSmart Touch UI for Windows Mobile available for everyone