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Sun is releasing a new version of client-side Java insipidly called SE 6 Update 10 that sets the groundwork for JavaFX, a major overhaul of the runtime environment set to debut before the year�s end and challenge other RIA platforms such as AIR, Silverlight, and Google Gears.

Update 10 comes with two major consumer-facing improvements: a smaller footprint and enhanced speeds. Whereas the current version of Java comes as a 14.5mb download, the newest has been slimmed down to 4.5mb. This will matter most for Windows users who don�t have high-speed internet access (since Java comes prepackaged on Macs and the difference of 10mb is inconsequential over broadband). Nevertheless, the move reflects Sun�s commitment to trimming down a technology that has been criticized for its bloat (many optional components no longer come preinstalled but must be added to the kernel after-the-fact).

Call me a skeptic. When Lala came to our offices last week trying to convince me that music was heading to the cloud, and that they were going to help lead the transition, I wasn�t convinced at first. The company has floundered for years, moving from a CD swapping service to a failed music hub that shut down last summer. But now they�ve completely redesigned and are coming back with an advertising-free music site that makes me think that they might be onto something big here.

At first glance, Lala resembles most other music stores. You use a search box to find your favorite artists, and can buy DRM-free music for around 90 cents (there is some slight variation depending on the song). Each page features an artist profile, their albums, and playlists that other users have included them on. It�s standard fare, and while the DRM-free music is nice, it would have a tough time competing with Amazon on its own.

Fortunately Lala�s real potential stems from its integrated media player and your web library (which looks a lot like iTunes, but in the cloud). At the top of the screen is a music player that will continue playing whatever song you listen to, no matter where you navigate on the site. And you�ll have lots of content to play: users will be able to play any song on the site�s massive catalog in its entirety exactly one time free of charge.

A lot has already been said and written about the current economic crisis, and how the financial meltdown is and will keep on affecting startups in the US. VC�s and angel investors are telling their portfolio companies to say goodbye to the good times and batten down the hatches, and at the same time raising the bar for new financing rounds, while startup CEO�s are executing substantial lay-offs and some company founders are even jumping ship altogether.

Bloglines got a much needed band-aid this weekend that fixed the feed update problem that has plagued users for weeks and caused long-gone founder Mark Fletcher to write �Bloglines, please stop sucking. It�s been a couple weeks now. I don�t want to have to move to Google Reader. Sigh.�

In our continued testing we see all of our feeds now updating regularly on both the default and beta versions of the site.

But we�ve also heard that the service has been up for sale throughout this last summer, with no serious bidders so far (Microsoft and Newsgator may have had a passing interest). Bloglines was originally acquired in February 2005 for around $10 million, and our understanding is that Ask isn�t necessarily even looking for a break-even sale.

With the impending release of the first phone to feature Google�s Android platfrom, we�re beginning to see a few of the first apps that will be available through Google�s Android Market. Among these is SugarTrip, an application that takes an innovative approach to measuring street traffic by taking advantage of the GPS units that will be integrated into most Android phones.

As users drive their cars, SugarTrip will measure how quickly they�re traveling and report their speeds back to a central server. The company says that while the traffic updates available on sites like Google Maps do an acceptable job, they are only useful on interstate highways and rely on computer models based on only a few datapoints. Conversely SugarTrip will be able to provide data on far more streets with many more data points (assuming the application can establish a significant user base).

BusinessWeek discusses Obama�s plan to appoint a cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer for the United States if elected. The CTO would mainly spend his or her time trying to get broadband internet access into more homes (currently, only about 23 out of every 100 Americans have such access, putting the country as a whole at a lousy 15th place among nations). The CTO would also lead a new, $50-billion-dollar venture capital fund for the advancement of green tech.

Muxlim.com, a social network aimed at Muslims, is planning to launch an entire virtual world aimed at the global Muslim community. Currently, worlds like Second Life or MMOs are blocked in many Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East, because much of the in-world content and advertising is considered offensive to Muslim culture. But with a global population of a billion, the Muslim community is one that brands like Coca Cola cannot afford to ignore, and the Finland-based Muxlim plans to capitalise on this.

Update: Wikia has confirmed that about 10 percent of its workers have been laid off, but points out that it is still trying to hire for open positions.

At the beginning of this year, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales officially launched his attempt at a human-powered search engine, dubbed Wikia Search. TechCrunch was not impressed initially, to say the least. Although it has come a long way since launch, it looks like the young venture behind the experimental search engine is feeling the nasty sting of the troubled economy.

Rumor has it that parent company Wikia is letting go 30% of its current 43-person workforce, a percentage that appears to be the rule of thumb for lay-offs these days. TechCrunch has been hearing rumors along these lines as well. The company, which also offers wiki software, has raised a total of $14 million to date from rockstar angel investors like Marc Andreessen, Joi Ito, and Ron Conway, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, the Omidyar Network and Amazon.

As a boy I fell in love with Whodunnits - mystery stories that weave subtle clues into the plot that allow the reader to solve the crime alongside the story�s protagonist (usually a brilliant detective). Novel-length whodunnits are still alive and well, but many of us would prefer more bite-sized mysteries, which are surprisingly hard to come by. In the 90�s Salon published a regular series called 5 Minute Mystery but it was eventually discontinued. Now entrepreneur Randy Okane is trying to bring the format back to life at his site 5MinuteMystery.com.

Every day the site posts a new mystery, followed by the solution the next day. At the end of the story is a menu asking who the reader thinks committed the crime. Users are also asked to highlight up to four statements in each story, indicating if they either Exonerate or Incriminate one of story�s characters. To help spice things up, the site keeps score for every member based on their accuracy, with the most ingenious detectives featured on the site�s leaderboard.

iPhone addicts love their iPhones, but nothing is perfect. Customer feedback for Apple just went public on Please Fix the iPhone. The site let�s iPhone owners, or anyone else, list and vote on the features that most need fixing on the iPhone. The features that get the most votes rise up the ranks.

Yes, we know you can get Qik for your jailbroken iPhones now, but this is the App Store version and Mr. Rose, personal hero of mine, gets a look at it before all of us. Jealous? Didn�t think so. Anyway, Rose pontificates that the version he has is near final and that it should be coming soon for free. Would you want your Qik followers to know exactly where you�re streaming from?

Also, you better order that Mophie Juice Pack now because this is going to suck the life out of your iPhone 3G faster than a paparrazo�s shutter when Lohan slips a nip.

[Update]: We�ve been informed that the folks at Qik had yet to submit this app to Apple as of last week, so this may not be �coming soon� as Rose says. It would be the first video application to appear on the App Store.

Two-man startup AppLoop has added to its suite of self-service tools for iPhone developers by launching App Generator, which automatically turns any blog with an RSS feed into a native iPhone app modeled after that of the The New York Times.

To create an app, all you have to do is answer a series of questions for the App Generator�s setup wizard. These include your blog�s address, name, icon and logo, as well as how much you�d like to charge for your application (if anything) and what color scheme you�d like to use. Once you finish the form (and verify that you are indeed the owner of the domain in question), AppLoop will submit your application to Apple for approval and, once approved, you can start promoting it to your readers.

Okay, this has to be the coolest hack of the week. Visual search engine SearchMe has just added a music search tab that brings back results with free, legal, unlimited full-song streams and cover art you can flip through. It�s CoverFlow on the Web. And it actually trumps the experience one Yahoo�s music search, which also offers free full streams through Rhapsody�but those are limited to 25 streams a month per searcher.

SearchMe instead is tapping into imeem�s vast catalog of fully licensed music. (Along with Rhapsody and MySpace Music, imeem is one of a handful of companies with comprehensive music streaming rights from all the major labels). [Correction] But SearchMe is not using imeem�s API, which originally was limited to apps on imeem itself, but has since been extended to other sites through a. Instead, it using the widget loophole in imeem�s licensing deal with the record labels. Imeem users can stream any song and create playlists on imeem itself or through imeem�s widgets which can be embedded elsewhere. (Other partners such as Apture and Slide also use imeem�s API to invoke imeem widgets).

The advertising war between Apple and Microsoft continues. Apple�s latest TV spots mock Microsoft�s $350 million ad campaign for Windows Vista, suggesting that some of that money would be better spent fixing Vista. The ad is funny (see above), but it does seem petty and elitist. After all, the new Microsoft ads got much better once they dumped Jerry Seinfeld as a spokesperson and went with the everyman �I�m a PC� rallying cry (which itself was a response to Apple�s long-running campaign mocking PCs).

It is also hypocritical. Apple�s advertising budget is also pretty massive. I mean, I see more Apple commercials on TV than ads for Barack Obama. Apple is on track to spend more than $3.5 billion on SG&A (selling, general, and administrative expenses) for its fiscal year that ended September 30. How much of that was spent on advertising? I don�t know, but 10 percent doesn�t seem unreasonable.

It�s not exactly the Time 100, but Glam�s new men�s network (see previous post) has its own list: the Brash 100. This is the sort of list you�d expect to see in Details, an attempt at an iconic list of �unforgettable� men. It�s filled with everyone you�d expect: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, John McCain, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Al Pacino. Even our own Michael Arrington snuck on the list (he has a tendency to do that).

If you don�t feel like clicking through all 100 names, on the Brash site you can skim through the full list below.

Fast growing women�s network Glam Media is now a fast growing women�s and men�s network with the launch of a sister (err, brother) site Brash.com later this week. Update: Brash moved up its launch to today. The site will target 18-49 year old men and will, like Glam, bring in content from a network of third party sites. Glam will focus its efforts on ad sales and gathering content partners.

Screen shots of Brash are below. More than 25 content sites have joined the Brash.com Network at launch, including: ArtistDirect; DigitalTrends.com; eCoustics.com; InGameNowSeriousWheels.com; Squidoo and MonstersandCritics.com. Content will also be syndicated from Time.com for national news; Rolling Stone for music news and updates; TheCarConnection.com for car reviews and news, SB Nation for sports coverage and CNET for technology information.

Launch advertisers include Unilever�s Axe brand deodorant, H&M and HP. The new James Bond Movie �Quantum of Solace� is one of the top new advertisers on Brash as well. Glam says that the aggregated Comscore user numbers from the original content partners is over 10 million/month.

Popular music service iLike has teamed with TuneCore, a music distribution platform, to help artists promote and sell their music as easily as possible.

TuneCore (whose CEO thankfully seems to have stopped handling the site�s PR) actually has an intriguing business model. For a flat fee, TuneCore will help artists distribute their digital music to a collection of music stores that the company has forged deals with including Rhapsody, Amazon MP3, and iTunes. Prices vary depending on how many stores you wish to reach and if you�d like to sell a single song or an entire album, but they are very affordable and bands keep 100% of revenue (you can see the pricing guide here).

While TuneCore isn�t introducing many new features with the iLike tie-in (it has offered the service independently for some time), its increased exposure makes sense for both sites. iLike has geared itself as a platform for artists to promote themselves on Rhapsody as well as a variety of social networks like Facebook and hi5. Giving artists an easy way to sell their music is the next logical step.

Yahoo started out the year with layoffs, and it is going to end the year with more. The layoffs have been expected ever since Yahoo hired hatchet men from Bain & Co. to come help with the downsizing. The exact number of layoffs is still not known�between 1,000 and 3,000 are the numbers being discussed. During its earnings conference call on Tuesday, Yahoo is expected to announce how many people it will let go. In addition, operating budgets across the board are expected to be cut 15 percent.

In January, Yahoo laid off 1,000 people, and all year it has been suffering from a major drain of talent. But it still has plenty of employees�about 14,000. Getting rid of another 10 percent or so would have a meaningful financial impact by lowering expenses, but it would also lower morale.

Motorola, which is recruiting as many as 350 people to work on Android phones, is gearing up to make its first one:the Android Social Smart Phone. Last week, Android Guys spotted a job posting for the project, and now BusinessWeek has more details, including a mention of the Motorola job posting pictured at left on Monster looking for an Android application developer. If the people pictured in the ad to represent Motorola employees are any indication, embarrassing dance moves are a plus, but not required.

According to BusinessWeek, Motorola is putting $50 million into its Android project, which is being run by a team from Good Technology, a mobile e-mail company that Motorola bought in 2006. The first phone won�t come out until the second quarter of next year, it will have a touch screen like the iPhone and a slide-out keyboard like the HTC T-Mobile G1 launching on Wednesday, but will look more like the Motorola Krave. It is also expected to be cheaper than the G1�s $180 price.