Windows only: PortableApps.com—the folks who convert just about every popular application to a portable one you can carry with you on your thumb drive—have just released Google Chrome Portable 3.0, the portable version of Chrome’s latest stable release.

There’s not much more to it than that. Yesterday we walked you through our updated power user’s guide to Chrome, and while this release won’t have all of the features available in the dev channel release, it’s a good step up from the previously available 2.0 portable release.

Finally, if you’re planning to use Chrome Portable as your default browser, take a look at previously mentioned DefaultBrowser to do just that.

It’s one day before Halloween and while other bloggers are writing about horror movies and costumes, I honestly can’t think of anything more scary than the thought of myself attempting to raise a baby. ReadWriteWeb’s own Sarah Perez is about to boldly go where many women have gone before. As a tribute to her bravery and baby bump we’re doing a roundup of baby gift registries:

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Almost every TV channel offers some programming on the Web these days. Epix, a new premium movie channel that will launch this weekend, goes a step further. If you are a Verizon FiOS subscriber, you will be able to watch the same movies that Epix shows on TV on the channel’s Internet site. Epix is a joint venture between Viacom, MGM Studios and Lionsgate. If you are not a FiOS subscriber, you can still take a peek at the service. You can request a three-day pass here or read on for instructions on how to claim a 30-day pass.

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In its most significant update to date, Jive Software is following the evolution of the social web in the enterprise with features that allow users the flexibility to use the tools in multiple ways.

Social Business 4.0 (SBS), is Jive’s latest version of its enterprise collaboration technology. In this new release, Jive includes deep integration with Microsoft Office, a mobile application for the iPhone and Blackberry plus the ability to bridge from internal to external communities.

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You won’t find a better media center than the open-source XBMC, but most people don’t have the space or desire to plug a noisy PC into their TV. Instead, I converted a cheap nettop into a standalone XBMC set-top box. Here’s how.

In the spirit of our Winter Upgrades theme this week, this guide details how to turn a cheapo nettop (think netbook for the desktop) into a killer settop box running XBMC. It handles virtually any video file I throw at it with ease (including streaming Blu-Ray rips from my desktop), it looks tiny next to my Xbox 360, it’s low energy, and it’s whisper quiet.

Move your mouse over a taskbar application in Windows 7, or over the outline button in the lower-right corner, and previews show up in half a second. Customize that wait time, or disable it entirely, with a quick registry hack.

At his home away from Lifehacker, the How-To Geek details the registry value that sets the millisecond wait time on Aero Peek previews—the kind that show application window previews and window outlines. Its default is 500, but those with snappy systems can go all the way to “0″ for instant graphical effects, or those who dislike the drag on their graphics card can pull it up higher.

What could be a better feeling than beating a world record? Beating your own world record. The Tesla Roadster has put an extra exclamation mark on its world-conquering single-charge antics by raising the bar from 241 miles back in April to an even more impressive 313 this week. As you can see in that homemade “world record” sign above, that’s 501 kilometers in metric terms, or pretty much the exact distance between Paris and Amsterdam. The Global Green Challenge in Australia — where this feat was achieved — allows only production battery-powered vehicles to compete, meaning that the new record is down to driver skill on the part of one Mr. Simon Hackett, and not some newfound techno mojo. Kinda makes those long recharge times seem like less of a burden, no?

Tesla Roadster keeps on rollin’, goes 313 miles on single charge originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Both Intel and Numonyx have been talking up phase change memory for years now, but for some reason, we’re slightly more inclined to believe that the latest breakthrough is actually one that’ll matter to consumers. In a joint release, the two have announced a new non-volatile memory technology that supposedly “paves the way for scalable, higher density phase change memory products.” Put as simply as possible, researchers have been testing a 64Mb chip that “enables the ability to stack, or place, multiple layers of PCM arrays within a single die,” and the two are calling the discovery PCMS (phase change memory and switch). We know, you’re drowning in technobabble here, but if these two can really apply Moore’s Law to density scaling, you’ll be thanking ‘em as you pick up your $50 6TB hard drive in 2014.

Filed under: Storage

At today’s Unite Conference, game dev platform provider Unity Technologies announced it will be releasing the latest build of its Unity Platform and making a previous version available at the low, low price of free.

All platforms allow developers to create games for PCs, Macs, Nintendo Wiis, and iPhones. The free version, formerly known as Unity Indie, was previously priced at $199. Broke and/or stingy devs are welcomed to download the platform here. The pro version of Unity’s platform will continue to sell for around $1,500.

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For a time, it looked Aptera might be missing out on the US Department of Energy’s funding bonanza for energy-efficient vehicles due to its car’s three-wheeled nature, but it looks like President Obama has now had the final say on the matter, and signed legislation that makes both two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles eligible for the same funding as their four-wheeled counterparts. Of course, that doesn’t yet mean that Aptera will actually receive any funding, and the legislation doesn’t have anything to do with safety regulations, where the 2e is still classified as a motorcycle by the Department of Transportation. For its part, however, Aptera says that it’ll be filing another application to meet the updated requirements, and it still insists that it’ll hit “volume production” of the car sometime in 2010, and get it on the road for between $25,000 and $40,000.

Filed under: Transportation