Recently Google has launched two new services for your mobile phone. The first is Gmail Mobile which lets you check your Gmail from anywhere.

Now you can access your Gmail messages from the web browser on your mobile phone or device. Read and reply to your Gmail messages any time, anywhere.

* It’s free. (But your wireless plan might still charge, so you might want to check with your provider first.)
* It’s smart. It can handle attachments like photos and .pdf files.
*

It also has these cool features:
• Automatically optimizes the interface for the phone you’re using
• Opens the attachments you receive in messages, including photos, Microsoft Word documents and .pdf files
• Lets you reply by call to people whose phone numbers are in your Gmail Contacts list

Google has also launched a second service that let’s you take Google Local to your phone.

Combining directions, maps, and satellite imagery, Google Local for mobile is a free download that lets you find local hangouts and businesses across town or across the country — right from your phone.

Detailed directions: Whether you plan to walk or drive, your route is displayed on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions.

Integrated search results: Local business locations and contact information appear all in one place, integrated on your map.

Easily movable maps: Interactive, draggable maps let you zoom in or out, and move in all directions so you can orient yourself visually.

Satellite imagery: Get a bird’s eye view of your desired location.

Mozilla has issued a security advisory to the users of its newest browser, Firefox 1.5 about this bug, which is related to how the software handles extremely long names. This bug can at worse reportedly crash the targeted computer. However, the organization has claimed that contrary to earlier reports by researchers, the bug does not expose users to attack.

The extremely long name in this case is 2.5 million characters. If the user clicks on a link containing an extremely long file name Firefox will appear to hang. Additionally Firefox will act sluggish until the history is cleared.

Clearing the history is the current “fix” as Mozilla has not released an update. Mozilla says this is not a security problem as it won’t expose the user to attack.

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Virgin Airlines is to offer frequent-flyer “Space Miles” that passengers can put towards flights in space with the company’s soon-to-be-launched Virgin Galactic, boss Richard Branson revealed.

The British tycoon, in Hong Kong to promote new Virgin flights to the city, said customers who collected two million points would be entitled to be among the first commercial astronauts when his space plan takes off in two years.

“There are already 30 people in the world who have collected enough air miles to fly into space,” Branson said Tuesday.

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NBC, currently in last place for viewers within the major networks, will be trying their hand at marketing their shows via iTunes. A collection of current and older TV programs will be made available for download through iTunes.

NBC Universal has inked an agreement for 11 shows–current series as well as library programs. This includes NBC’s mainstay “Law & Order,” as well as “The Office,” “Surface,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” USA Network’s “Monk,” and Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica,” as well as classic library shows “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Dragnet,” “Adam-12,” and “Knight Rider.”

The shows are currently available on the iTunes store for $1.99 each, commercial-free.

There have been 2 million downloads of the new Firefox 1.5 since it was released late Tuesday.

Mozilla’s servers weathered the release of Firefox 1.5 much better than last year’s roll-out of 1.0, a Web performance company said Thursday, with the systems showing no evidence of downtime.

Mozilla’s distributed network of mirror sites in 30 countries, said U.K.-based Netcraft, “appears to be handling current download demand with few difficulties.”

Read a review of Firefox 1.5

The developers focused a lot of their efforts on “under the hood” improvements — beyond making the browser super fast, it features much stronger security, a tweaked built-in pop-up blocker to recognize even more sites and controls and several new search sites including Creative Commons, eBay, Amazon.com and Answer.com built into the search bar, and it now supports DHTML.

Microsoft has launched Windows One Care Live Security beta, an anti-virus and anti-spyware service for consumers only.

The service offers anti-virus, firewall, backup and recovery, as well as personal computer maintenance. Initially free, it will eventually be available for a subscription fee.

The service is part of the company’s Windows Live strategy announced last month, which sees Microsoft compete more directly with the likes of Google, Yahoo and Salesforce.com by using the web to deliver new products and services to customers.

Windows Live is a web-based service whereby users can sign up for a ‘live’ home page that pulls in constantly updating content from a range of information sources including web searches, email, syndicated headlines from other sites and photos and audio from across the web.

Yeah, like I would pay Microsoft extra to protect me against their own security problems.

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