Back near the start of 2008, it was announced by the Redmond software-giant Microsoft and Finnish communications company Nokia that the Silverlight platform would be coming to Symbian OS phones. Fast forward to 2010, and there’s still no sign of that happening – until now. Two days ago, Microsoft posted the Silverlight for Symbian beta, including the developer tools, which were both taken down soon after.

Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet noted down the description from the beta, listed here: “The installable executable enables users to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform.” The developer tools read, “The installable executable file enables users to run Silverlight on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform. The executable file includes the Silverlight runtime for the Nokia S60 5th Edition devices, the Silverlight runtime for the Nokia S60 5th Edition emulator, sample applications, and developer documentation.” Microsoft is hosting its annual Mix Web conference beginning in a few days, so it’s very likely that the beta will be made available then, as the SDK seems to be ready for a beta release (judging by the brief leak two days ago).

If you’re a Windows developer, be sure to keep an eye out on the announcements as they come next week, especially if you deal with Silverlight and/or Symbian. Additionally, Microsoft may also issue an update on its plans for Silverlight on Google’s Android platform, though there’s a good chance they may remain silent on the issue. Neowin will be covering any major announcements, as per usual.

The Dev channel has been updated to 5.0.342.3 for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms

This release improves stability and fixes some known crashers (such as Issues: 37035, 37674, 37567)

Known Issues

• All: Form auto-fill is not enabled by default (Issue 37466) – Fixed on Trunk
• Windows: Browser crashes on quiting with Authentication dialog opened (Issue: 37698) – Fixed on Trunk
• Linux: Chromium Bookmark Sync Not Working (Issue: 36460)

More details about additional changes are available in the svn log of all revisions.

You can find out about getting on the Dev channel here: Early Access Release Channels (Chromium Developer Documentation).

If you find new issues, please let us know by filing a bug at Project hosting on Google Code.

Karen Grunberg
Google Chrome

Download: Google Chrome 5.0.342.3 | Mac | Linux

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According to AppleInsider, the next version of the iPhone OS, 4.0, will support multitasking, allowing users to switch back and forth between third party applications.  The inside source said they have provided a “full-on solution” to multitasking.  The much anticipated feature will put the iPhone and iPod touch in-line or even above other mobile phones in terms of features.

The issue of supporting multitasking on the iPhone has always been battery life and resources on the phone.  However, the iPhone always technically supports multitasking, if you count being able to make phone calls and use an application such as mail, text messaging or any other third party application at the same time.  The iPhone always has the phone application running in the background, so users can receive phone calls at any time.

This isn’t true multitasking as users have always wanted, where consumers are looking for the Palm Pre, Android or even the Windows Mobile multitasking experience, being able to switch between any applications they want, having it run in the background.

Users that jailbreak their devices can even multitask by installing an application called “backgrounder”, which gives the user the ability to run multiple third party applications at the same time.  Further tweaks can support switching between these background apps just like the Palm Pre can.

The development for iPhone OS 4.0 still has a long way to go, but nevertheless, it will bring multitasking.  There wasn’t any mention if this will support earlier versions of the iPhone and iPod touch.