Three things you need to know

Coming to a cellphone near you - better video quality. -- ST FILE PHOTO

Finds: The new Mozilla Firefox
THE best way to protect your computer against Trojans is to use Mozilla Firefox. No, it is not because Firefox burns away the worms, but most hackers go for Internet Explorer 7 simply because there are more users on this browser.

So for those who just cannot wait to try out Firefox 3, it is here at www. mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html.

Some cool new features include anti-virus integration in the download manager, full page zoom and smarter bookmarking.

Try it out and give your feedback on the new enhancements to the browser to mozilla.com. A word of warning: many of your plug-ins will not work since this is a beta release.

Words: Copyleft
IT IS a play on the word copyright.

While it does not have a legal meaning, copyleft refers to a software licensing scheme, where the original copyright owner can give everyone the right to adapt his work so long as the resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft principle.

Most open source software come under the GNU general public license rules, which is a classic copyleft scheme. You can use the open source software, but you must give back your contributions to the open source community.

It is usually used to modify copyrights for works such as computer software, documents, music and art.

Watch: Mobile TV
EVERYONE knows about 3G and now 3.5G: it lets you surf the Internet on your mobile phone and even watch video clips. So when the word mobile TV starts floating around, it is easy to get confused.

Mobile TV refers to watching TV on your cellphone. Usually, it refers to the use of a digital broadcast technology instead of cellular technologies like 3G.

The main standard used in Singapore is Digital Video Broadcast Handheld (DVB-H) technology. The phone needs to have a receiver chip to receive the TV broadcasts. Several broadcasters here have been testing DVB-H broadcasts and are now applying for licenses. When such broadcasts go commercial, anyone with a phone which has the DVB-H chip will be able to get the mobile TV service.

As DVB makes use of broadcast instead of streaming technologies like 3G, video quality is better and less jerky. The cost is also lower since you do not pay for every kilobyte used.

While DVB-H is for small devices like mobile phones, its cousin DVB-Terrestial (DVB-T) is for viewing on larger screens like the TV Mobile channel on buses. Mediacorp has also launched trials of Channel 5, 8 and Channel News Asia on DVB-T. What this means is that you can actually buy DVB-T USB adapters and stick one into your laptop to watch these channels for free. However, because it is still in beta, you may not get coverage in your area.

Compiled by Oo Gin Lee