Filed under: Games, Linux
If we're to believe this new job posting over at Valve, reports of Steam for Linux's death may have been greatly exaggerated. As you can see, Valve is on the hunt for a senior engineer who can port Windows games to Linux.
If you recall VP Doug Lombardi's actual words, he never said Steam for Linux was dead -- only that they weren't currently working on it. Maybe that's because they just hadn't found the right man or woman for the job yet. As Sebastian pointed out to me, this doesn't necessarily mean "Steam for desktop Linux" -- it could just as easily have to do with embedded gaming.
Whatever the case may be, the news is certainly a bit more encouraging than Lombardi's interview.
[via Tech Drive-In]
update: as Kaushik points out (as do a few of our friends at Reddit) this one's a tad on the old-and-moldy side. Linux gamers, return to your pining...
Share TweetRenewed hope for Steam on Linux: Valve job boards looking for engineer to port Windows games originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Internet Explorer 9 Image May Have Leaked
Microsoft's big plan is to launch the public beta of Internet Explorer 9 on Sept. 15, at a high-profile event in San Francisco. While the browser's features--including speedier browser performance, greater compatibility and compliance with standards, and enhanced HTML5 support--are well-known among the developer community by this point, there's been precious little info about how IE 9 will actually look.
Until now, perhaps. That's because a Microsoft Russia site might have accidentally posted a screenshot of IE 9's interface. Mary Jo Foley over at All About Microsoft seems to have spotted the image first, before a site administrator yanked it down, and posted it on her blog along with a machine translation of the accompanying text:
If the image is authentic, and that text a reflection of the final product, then IE 9 will include a streamlined navigation panel with a merged search/address bar, as well as Firefox-style tabs that can "rip away" to become new windows. To me, at least, the interface feels quite a bit like Google Chrome.
What do you think?
Until now, perhaps. That's because a Microsoft Russia site might have accidentally posted a screenshot of IE 9's interface. Mary Jo Foley over at All About Microsoft seems to have spotted the image first, before a site administrator yanked it down, and posted it on her blog along with a machine translation of the accompanying text:
If the image is authentic, and that text a reflection of the final product, then IE 9 will include a streamlined navigation panel with a merged search/address bar, as well as Firefox-style tabs that can "rip away" to become new windows. To me, at least, the interface feels quite a bit like Google Chrome.
What do you think?
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Google buys mobile game dev SocialDeck
SocialDeck has become the latest addition to Google's Hall of Acquisitions. The creators of the popular iPhone game Shake and Spell have also produced Spark, which allows mobile gamers to challenge or chat with friends, recommend games, save games in the cloud, and more.
In their own words, SocialDeck are "super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have - in this case, that "someone" is Google." They'll even have a nice group of friends with common interests to play with now that they're part of the Google collective.
Earlier this month, Google acquired Jambool -- who created the Social Gold virtual currency platform. Back in April they picked up Lab Pixies, who specialize in social and casual gaming widgets. And let's not forget Google is also a major investor in casual game maker Zynga -- the demons behind the game you love to hate, Farmville.
What does it all mean? Clearly Google sees gaming (and social gaming in particular) to be an area worth getting involved in. With Android picking up momentum and Google TV and Chrome OS both on the way, there are going to be a whole lot more Google hardware users looking to kill some time destroying pixelated zombies or spelling their way to a high score.
That means money spent on games, on virtual goods, and, of course, delicious, delicious ad impressions.
[via Inside Social Games]Google buys mobile game dev SocialDeck originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
In their own words, SocialDeck are "super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have - in this case, that "someone" is Google." They'll even have a nice group of friends with common interests to play with now that they're part of the Google collective.
Earlier this month, Google acquired Jambool -- who created the Social Gold virtual currency platform. Back in April they picked up Lab Pixies, who specialize in social and casual gaming widgets. And let's not forget Google is also a major investor in casual game maker Zynga -- the demons behind the game you love to hate, Farmville.
What does it all mean? Clearly Google sees gaming (and social gaming in particular) to be an area worth getting involved in. With Android picking up momentum and Google TV and Chrome OS both on the way, there are going to be a whole lot more Google hardware users looking to kill some time destroying pixelated zombies or spelling their way to a high score.
That means money spent on games, on virtual goods, and, of course, delicious, delicious ad impressions.
[via Inside Social Games]Google buys mobile game dev SocialDeck originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iHome teases first AirPlay-compatible portable speaker dock
No surprise that iHome is first out of the gate with a speaker dock that's compatible with Apple's newly-open AirPlay music streaming system, but unfortunately the teaser page is maddeningly light on details -- all we know is that it'll have a rechargeable battery and be available for the holidays. We're actually pretty stoked for AirPlay gear -- the idea of setting up a quick mix-and-match whole-home audio system that can stream lossless audio straight from iTunes seems awfully hard to resist -- so we're eager to hear more about this thing, as well as the other third-party AirPlay devices like receivers and stereos that have been promised. We'll keep digging for more, so stay tuned.
[Thanks, Fred]iHome teases first AirPlay-compatible portable speaker dock originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | iHome | Email this | Comments
[Thanks, Fred]iHome teases first AirPlay-compatible portable speaker dock originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | iHome | Email this | Comments
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Tablet Wars at IFA in Berlin, 3D Cameras, and More
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R2-D2 Droid 2 dock pictures revealed
Verizon's R2-D2 version of the Motorola Droid 2 will be released September 30th, news w broke a few weeks back. Pictures have now begun to creep up showing off some of the R2-D2-specific accessories. The phone dock, pictured above, is one such item. It's style and color fits in with what the phone will look like and it even has a couple Star Wars references on the device in case you forgot where the phone got its inspiration. How many of you will be springing for the R2-D2 version coming to Verizon at the end of the month? [Engadget]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
Toshiba Folio 100 Hands-On
We took a gander at Toshiba's Folio 100 today and here's the main takeaway: sucker be huge. It has a 10.1" screen and a fairly reasonable bezel around it - though the resolution on that screen is still only 1024x600, same as the 7" Galaxy Tab. The whole thing is hard plastic with a small texture to the back and felt fine despite being what we suspect is still pre-production hardware. It weighs in at 1.7 pounds and is carry-able, sure, but it's such a large, wide screen that this is pretty much a sit-down device only. The battery died on us pretty quickly - at 1020mAh it's probably difficult to get through an entire day of IFA fondling. Toshiba claims 7 hours of battery life. The HDMI-out and USB-host (yay!) ports are hidden underneath a port cover. There's 16gigs on board and it's expandable via a standard, large SD card slot. Combine that full-sized SD card slot, the USB Host port, and the HDMI-out and we're thinking this is a business-focused device that has aspirations of being a professional photographer's bestest friend ever. We were looking at at build of Android 2.2 that didn't look quite optimized for the big screen and definitely isn't final build ("TOSHIBA_FOLIO_AND_A 2.2 3.0004 for IFA test-keys" is a pretty good hint there), but we did find it to be responsive and quick - for the most part. There was the occasional lag and jaggy transition, due to that early build moreso than the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, which should be the definition of fast. We would definitely like to see the final build on this - we bet that the included Opera Mobile browser will simply fly. $540 in "late October" for the WiFi only version is what they quoted us in the booth, with the 3G version coming next year. Catch more photos after the break!
Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
Google Chrome 6 goes stable, 2nd birthday celebration brings extension and autofill sync
Filed under: Google, BrowsersIt's Chrome's second birthday today, and in addition to posting some fancy-schmancy images to celebrate Google Chrome's stable channel has been bumped to version 6. For those of you still keeping tabs on version changes, it's only been four months since Chrome 5 went stable.
The update means that all Chrome users can now take advantage of extension and autofill sync -- both important parts of Google's desire to keep your 'browsing platform' uniform across all the computers you use.
Version 6 also brings the new consolidated menu, richer content settings (JavaScript, plug-ins, notifications, and the like), and the first-run search engine selection screen. There's also a faster V8 JavaScript engine under the hood.
No announcement yet from the Chrome Blog, but we'll add a link once their official post has gone live. In the meantime, the Chromium blog has a breakdown of some of the more important security updates and feature additions.
Share TweetGoogle Chrome 6 goes stable, 2nd birthday celebration brings extension and autofill sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
The update means that all Chrome users can now take advantage of extension and autofill sync -- both important parts of Google's desire to keep your 'browsing platform' uniform across all the computers you use.
Version 6 also brings the new consolidated menu, richer content settings (JavaScript, plug-ins, notifications, and the like), and the first-run search engine selection screen. There's also a faster V8 JavaScript engine under the hood.
No announcement yet from the Chrome Blog, but we'll add a link once their official post has gone live. In the meantime, the Chromium blog has a breakdown of some of the more important security updates and feature additions.
Share TweetGoogle Chrome 6 goes stable, 2nd birthday celebration brings extension and autofill sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Friday, September 3, 2010
Microsoft Plans Slow and Steady Retail Store Pace
Apple's retail stores won't have a challenger from Microsoft, at least in the short term.
That was one of the nuggets pulled from an Aug. 10 talk at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference by Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations. Near the end of that event, an analyst in the audience asked a question about Microsoft's retail stores, which have been opening over the past year in cities such as Denver and San Diego.
"I think we have six open today, or we've announced six," Koefoed told the audience, according to a transcript released by Microsoft. "We think stores are important. We think they're important to give the end customer the experience of our products in an environment that we think we can optimize."
That being said, Koefoed added, "We've got to get the model right, and I think [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's] been pretty clear that the stores need to make money." To that end, "We're continuing to grow at a prudent pace, one that we're learning from, and one that we're going to continue to learn from [to] make sure that we're making the right investments in the right places."
After months of Microsoft executives trumpeting that they were preparing to challenge Apple's retail experience head-on (and hiring George Blankenship, the former Gap executive who helped launch Apple's retail arm in 2001, to assist in the effort), the company opened stores in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., in late 2009.
Since then, Microsoft has seemed content to dip its toes in the water: a store opening here, another one there. The company could be reluctant to challenge big-box stores such as Best Buy that already sell Microsoft products and would doubtlessly be irritated if Redmond tried to seize a major chunk of their electronics revenue. But this could also be a more generalized feeling-out of the retail space; no sense in spending hundreds of millions on invading strip malls across the country if your company lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a strategy work.
In any case, Microsoft likely won't be challenging Apple store-for-store any time soon--but based on Koefoed's comments, the company obviously sees value in continuing the retail effort.
That was one of the nuggets pulled from an Aug. 10 talk at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference by Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations. Near the end of that event, an analyst in the audience asked a question about Microsoft's retail stores, which have been opening over the past year in cities such as Denver and San Diego.
"I think we have six open today, or we've announced six," Koefoed told the audience, according to a transcript released by Microsoft. "We think stores are important. We think they're important to give the end customer the experience of our products in an environment that we think we can optimize."
That being said, Koefoed added, "We've got to get the model right, and I think [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's] been pretty clear that the stores need to make money." To that end, "We're continuing to grow at a prudent pace, one that we're learning from, and one that we're going to continue to learn from [to] make sure that we're making the right investments in the right places."
After months of Microsoft executives trumpeting that they were preparing to challenge Apple's retail experience head-on (and hiring George Blankenship, the former Gap executive who helped launch Apple's retail arm in 2001, to assist in the effort), the company opened stores in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., in late 2009.
Since then, Microsoft has seemed content to dip its toes in the water: a store opening here, another one there. The company could be reluctant to challenge big-box stores such as Best Buy that already sell Microsoft products and would doubtlessly be irritated if Redmond tried to seize a major chunk of their electronics revenue. But this could also be a more generalized feeling-out of the retail space; no sense in spending hundreds of millions on invading strip malls across the country if your company lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a strategy work.
In any case, Microsoft likely won't be challenging Apple store-for-store any time soon--but based on Koefoed's comments, the company obviously sees value in continuing the retail effort.
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iTunes 10 now available to download
Filed under: Audio, AppleJust a quick note to say that the wait is over: iTunes 10 is now available to download. If the iTunes page shows the old logo, hit Ctrl+F5 to refresh the page.
For more details, check Jay's post -- or indeed, just peruse the Apple site!
There seems to be a lot of fallout over the 99-cent TV episodes, and the complete lack of Facebook integration in iTunes Ping -- we'll try to cover it in more detail later today.iTunes 10 now available to download originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
For more details, check Jay's post -- or indeed, just peruse the Apple site!
There seems to be a lot of fallout over the 99-cent TV episodes, and the complete lack of Facebook integration in iTunes Ping -- we'll try to cover it in more detail later today.iTunes 10 now available to download originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Nagoya Institute's folding X-Frame car lacks S-foils, hyperdrive, rolls on a big orange ball
Welcome to the future, dear readers, where boring black tires are replaced with bright orange and yellow ones and where your car can dynamically expand or contract. This is the X-Frame Folding Vehicle, a concept from the Nagoya Institute of Technology that was first shown at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, but rolled out of hiding again for the city's recent Good Design Expo. The car changes shape to offer seating for either one or two and can raise or lower itself dynamically based on terrain, speed, and proximity of Clown Gang members when you're cruising in Neo-Tokyo. No word on when or if it will see production, but don't let a complete lack of crash-worthiness get you down on this vision of tomorrow.Nagoya Institute's folding X-Frame car lacks S-foils, hyperdrive, rolls on a big orange ball originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink DVICE | Pink Tentacle | Email this | Comments
5 great content discovery sites which aren't Digg
Filed under: Features, Social Software, web 2.0, ListsDespite what you may have heard in the last two weeks, Digg is not dead. It is, however, a very different service than when it started. What used to be a great place to find interesting links and hilarious commentary has become, for almost all intents and purposes, a Twitter clone.
Digg isn't about to shut its doors, but I do get the feeling that regular, loyal Diggers are looking to take their custom elsewhere. Judging by the 'Reddit incident' on Monday, where Digg users revolted in favor of Reddit, it looks like a mass exodus might already have begun.
So, if you're a disenfranchised Digger, or if you're just looking for the best of the rest when it comes to social news aggregators and content discovery, take a look at this list of alternatives!
StumbleUpon
In my opinion, StumbleUpon is actually the most similar service to Digg -- at least if you're an end-user, rather than a 'Power Digger'. StumbleUpon is, without a doubt, the best way to discover the Web's hidden gems. In any given 'stumbling' session you can (and will) discover innumerable sites and pictures that make you go 'ooooh'.
The other great thing about StumbleUpon is that it learns from your browsing habits. By simply filling in your interests, and by processing which sites you thumbs-up or thumbs-down, SU tailors what kind of sites you'll be shown while stumbling.
There's also commenting, though they take the form of 'reviews', and there's no meta moderation -- just a raw stream of how much users love or hate a given website.
I've heard tales of people losing whole days to stumbling sessions. It's a little too easy to pop open a new tab and hit the 'stumble' button on the toolbar.
Reddit
Ah, Reddit. It's almost like a rags-to-riches story, with Reddit playing the role of Cinderella and Digg the ugly step-sister. Both services launched around 2005, but Digg has always received all of the riches and glory. Digg's new overhaul could mark the end of its supremacy, but I don't think Reddit is the natural 'next stop' for Diggers.
Reddit is completely different from Digg, but in a good way. You will still find a lot of fun and cool links on its home page, but it's actually more of a forum than anything else. You can post pictures, links or simply begin a discussion thread. Just like Digg, meta moderation is a key aspect of Reddit posts and comments, so funny and insightful commentary always bubbles to the top.
What sets Reddit apart is its huge list of boards (or categories). Check the right-hand list -- and also note how you can tailor your front page to show only the categories you're interested in. I love how each category, no matter how esoteric, has an even mix of text-only discussion and fantastic website links. It's a bit like a meta moderated 4chan...
As a crowning cherry, Reddit is also incredibly lightweight in terms of layout and interface. Page load times are, as a result, very fast.
Slashdot
Many, many years ago I used to read Slashdot. I actually stopped because I couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of news, and the huge thread of comments that each item generated.
Slashdot is, in many ways, the father of all modern news aggregators, and is actually a blog. News is submitted by users, and then Slashdot's authors pick and choose which items make it onto the site itself, sometimes adding their own commentary. The comments are where things really kick off, though, with some stories seeing more than 10,000 comments -- and of course, there is meta moderation, so you can choose what kind of comments you want to see; funny, insightful, informative or interesting.
If you like a more 'curated' news source, Slashdot is definitely the one for you. It's often not as 'bleeding edge' as Digg or Reddit, but in many cases, who cares if you hear about a technology breakthrough a day or two later?
Twitter
Don't hurt me! Yes, really, Twitter is a fantastic alternative to Digg.
I think we can all agree that Twitter is by far the best option when it comes to timeliness, but how do you sort the cream from the cruft? Twitter lacks meta moderation, so your best bet is follow twitterers that have already done the filtering for you.
It's pretty damn hard to sort tweeters by quality, but with directories like WeFollow and the lists at Listorious you can hit the ground running. It will be a bit hit and miss, but having the ability to curate your own news stream made from excellent, insightful and timely tweets is unbeatable. Be brutal with your unfollowing -- and follow lots of new people too! -- and you should have a veritable Ganges of cool content to sift through.
And of course, with millions of potential commenters, Twitter can be a goldmine for contemporary commentary too.
Yahoo! Buzz
To finish, I'm including a service that is, basically, old Digg. Yahoo Buzz, launched in 2008 (well before Google Buzz!), is almost completely derived from Digg. From what I can tell, the only real difference is slight editorial control over what appears on the front page.
As you'd suspect from Yahoo, Buzz is slightly more mature than both Digg and Reddit. A lot of the story submitters are just random Yahoo users (and thus, many of the popular stories are written by Yahoo!), but there's plenty of content from across the World Wide Web. You won't find any funny cat pictures or infographics, however!
Yahoo Buzz also has an editor-maintained site called The Buzz Log, which provides a great overview of the world's most important and interesting news.
Finally, there are localized versions of Buzz, with the top stories from UK & Ireland, Brazil, Mexico and so on.
Share Tweet
Share Tweet5 great content discovery sites which aren't Digg originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Digg isn't about to shut its doors, but I do get the feeling that regular, loyal Diggers are looking to take their custom elsewhere. Judging by the 'Reddit incident' on Monday, where Digg users revolted in favor of Reddit, it looks like a mass exodus might already have begun.
So, if you're a disenfranchised Digger, or if you're just looking for the best of the rest when it comes to social news aggregators and content discovery, take a look at this list of alternatives!
StumbleUpon
In my opinion, StumbleUpon is actually the most similar service to Digg -- at least if you're an end-user, rather than a 'Power Digger'. StumbleUpon is, without a doubt, the best way to discover the Web's hidden gems. In any given 'stumbling' session you can (and will) discover innumerable sites and pictures that make you go 'ooooh'.
The other great thing about StumbleUpon is that it learns from your browsing habits. By simply filling in your interests, and by processing which sites you thumbs-up or thumbs-down, SU tailors what kind of sites you'll be shown while stumbling.
There's also commenting, though they take the form of 'reviews', and there's no meta moderation -- just a raw stream of how much users love or hate a given website.
I've heard tales of people losing whole days to stumbling sessions. It's a little too easy to pop open a new tab and hit the 'stumble' button on the toolbar.
Ah, Reddit. It's almost like a rags-to-riches story, with Reddit playing the role of Cinderella and Digg the ugly step-sister. Both services launched around 2005, but Digg has always received all of the riches and glory. Digg's new overhaul could mark the end of its supremacy, but I don't think Reddit is the natural 'next stop' for Diggers.
Reddit is completely different from Digg, but in a good way. You will still find a lot of fun and cool links on its home page, but it's actually more of a forum than anything else. You can post pictures, links or simply begin a discussion thread. Just like Digg, meta moderation is a key aspect of Reddit posts and comments, so funny and insightful commentary always bubbles to the top.
What sets Reddit apart is its huge list of boards (or categories). Check the right-hand list -- and also note how you can tailor your front page to show only the categories you're interested in. I love how each category, no matter how esoteric, has an even mix of text-only discussion and fantastic website links. It's a bit like a meta moderated 4chan...
As a crowning cherry, Reddit is also incredibly lightweight in terms of layout and interface. Page load times are, as a result, very fast.
Slashdot
Many, many years ago I used to read Slashdot. I actually stopped because I couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of news, and the huge thread of comments that each item generated.
Slashdot is, in many ways, the father of all modern news aggregators, and is actually a blog. News is submitted by users, and then Slashdot's authors pick and choose which items make it onto the site itself, sometimes adding their own commentary. The comments are where things really kick off, though, with some stories seeing more than 10,000 comments -- and of course, there is meta moderation, so you can choose what kind of comments you want to see; funny, insightful, informative or interesting.
If you like a more 'curated' news source, Slashdot is definitely the one for you. It's often not as 'bleeding edge' as Digg or Reddit, but in many cases, who cares if you hear about a technology breakthrough a day or two later?
Don't hurt me! Yes, really, Twitter is a fantastic alternative to Digg.
I think we can all agree that Twitter is by far the best option when it comes to timeliness, but how do you sort the cream from the cruft? Twitter lacks meta moderation, so your best bet is follow twitterers that have already done the filtering for you.
It's pretty damn hard to sort tweeters by quality, but with directories like WeFollow and the lists at Listorious you can hit the ground running. It will be a bit hit and miss, but having the ability to curate your own news stream made from excellent, insightful and timely tweets is unbeatable. Be brutal with your unfollowing -- and follow lots of new people too! -- and you should have a veritable Ganges of cool content to sift through.
And of course, with millions of potential commenters, Twitter can be a goldmine for contemporary commentary too.
Yahoo! Buzz
To finish, I'm including a service that is, basically, old Digg. Yahoo Buzz, launched in 2008 (well before Google Buzz!), is almost completely derived from Digg. From what I can tell, the only real difference is slight editorial control over what appears on the front page.
As you'd suspect from Yahoo, Buzz is slightly more mature than both Digg and Reddit. A lot of the story submitters are just random Yahoo users (and thus, many of the popular stories are written by Yahoo!), but there's plenty of content from across the World Wide Web. You won't find any funny cat pictures or infographics, however!
Yahoo Buzz also has an editor-maintained site called The Buzz Log, which provides a great overview of the world's most important and interesting news.
Finally, there are localized versions of Buzz, with the top stories from UK & Ireland, Brazil, Mexico and so on.
Share Tweet
Share Tweet5 great content discovery sites which aren't Digg originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Verizon Fascinate: $199 on contract, plus buy-one-get-one!
We just got some pricing info on the Verizon Samsung Fascinate, and it's about as you'd expect, with a bit of a twist. The fourth U.S. version of the Samsung Galaxy S will go for $199.99 on contract with Big Red. Plus, it'll be offered as buy-one-get-one/buy-one-get-any, which makes it fun for the whole family. And note that this is even more confirmation of the Sept. 9 launch date that we broke last week.Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
Rounds provides fun and intimate video chat via Facebook
Filed under: Fun, Social Software
This morning, I had the pleasure of chatting to a charming British expatriate currently living in Israel. We started with Skype but quickly moved to Rounds' new Facebook video chat app. It took all of 60 seconds to be won over by Rounds and the cute, intimate conversations that it catalyses. In a single sentence, Rounds is video chat with a bunch of buttons that you can push to make things more friendly.
With that said, I don't much care for the interface -- it really feels quite cramped inside Facebook's mega-narrow center column -- but it's easy enough to use with a bit of trial and error. Almost the entire UI changes as you mouse-over things, which is probably quite handy after you get used to it, but it's confusing at first.
Back to the topic of friendliness: I have to admit, I was pretty dubious at first. Rounds is a Flash app, and my only prior experience with Flash-based video chat was a brief stint as an anonymous phallus on Chatroulette. But I needn't have worried; the entire service seems to be about bringing people closer together, but without the massive spam of dribbly man bits.
But how does Rounds bring people together? How does it make standard video chat more friendly? By simply providing interactive buttons. Push one button and your video stream will become all fiery, or on the other hand, smattered in snowflakes. Another button turns your face into a Warholesque piece of art. There are masks and overlays, too, like the halo, cloud, and sunbeams that you can see above. The image in the background is a 'skin,' which either chat participant can change at any time.
And that's the key to Rounds: you're encouraged to mess around. You can mess with your own face, or you can mess with your friend's -- either way, you'll both see each other's reactions in real time. In the photo above, Natasha had no idea that I was about to beatify her with a halo -- and the glowing grin that I received positively filled my heart with joy!
I've only touched on the video chat aspect of Rounds, but there's a lot more. Like MSN Live Messenger, there are games like Checkers and Backgammon -- or even Spin the Bottle (with built-in questions and dares!). One of the coolest features is the ability to 'share' a website; you can open up Facebook or Flickr and share the mouse, navigating this way and that. (What a great way to share a photo album with friends and family online!) There are also some FarmVille/Facebook'ish aspects like Coins and Gifts, but I haven't played with them yet.
In conclusion, Rounds converted me from mature-and-serious into a wobbly pile of giggles. That's not bad for a Flash app and a five minute conversation.
Share TweetRounds provides fun and intimate video chat via Facebook originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
This morning, I had the pleasure of chatting to a charming British expatriate currently living in Israel. We started with Skype but quickly moved to Rounds' new Facebook video chat app. It took all of 60 seconds to be won over by Rounds and the cute, intimate conversations that it catalyses. In a single sentence, Rounds is video chat with a bunch of buttons that you can push to make things more friendly.
With that said, I don't much care for the interface -- it really feels quite cramped inside Facebook's mega-narrow center column -- but it's easy enough to use with a bit of trial and error. Almost the entire UI changes as you mouse-over things, which is probably quite handy after you get used to it, but it's confusing at first.
Back to the topic of friendliness: I have to admit, I was pretty dubious at first. Rounds is a Flash app, and my only prior experience with Flash-based video chat was a brief stint as an anonymous phallus on Chatroulette. But I needn't have worried; the entire service seems to be about bringing people closer together, but without the massive spam of dribbly man bits.
But how does Rounds bring people together? How does it make standard video chat more friendly? By simply providing interactive buttons. Push one button and your video stream will become all fiery, or on the other hand, smattered in snowflakes. Another button turns your face into a Warholesque piece of art. There are masks and overlays, too, like the halo, cloud, and sunbeams that you can see above. The image in the background is a 'skin,' which either chat participant can change at any time.
And that's the key to Rounds: you're encouraged to mess around. You can mess with your own face, or you can mess with your friend's -- either way, you'll both see each other's reactions in real time. In the photo above, Natasha had no idea that I was about to beatify her with a halo -- and the glowing grin that I received positively filled my heart with joy!
I've only touched on the video chat aspect of Rounds, but there's a lot more. Like MSN Live Messenger, there are games like Checkers and Backgammon -- or even Spin the Bottle (with built-in questions and dares!). One of the coolest features is the ability to 'share' a website; you can open up Facebook or Flickr and share the mouse, navigating this way and that. (What a great way to share a photo album with friends and family online!) There are also some FarmVille/Facebook'ish aspects like Coins and Gifts, but I haven't played with them yet.
In conclusion, Rounds converted me from mature-and-serious into a wobbly pile of giggles. That's not bad for a Flash app and a five minute conversation.
Share TweetRounds provides fun and intimate video chat via Facebook originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Adobe Photoshop Express for Android taken for a spin, leaves me a little unsatisfied
Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Adobe, AndroidFrom the outset, a smartphone photo manipulation app is a fantastic idea. Thanks to the turtleneck mafia, awful-and-noisy-built-in-camera photography has become something far bigger than most of us expected -- who could've predicted that the iPhone would become the most popular camera on Flickr in under two years? But now, ladies and gentlemen, it 's the turn of the Android. With dozens of new Android handsets emerging every month, and with the Android market share creeping ahead of the iPhone, it's now time to talk about Android photography.
There's a bit of a problem, though: most photo manipulation software for Android phones smells worse than a Titan's loincloth. Mashable has a list of them, but they're all plagued with inadequacies and bugs; some are slow and some simply don't work on newer phones!
Enter Photoshop Express for Android. From Adobe you'd expect nothing short of a photo editing miracle app, but alas that isn't the case. Photoshop Express is certainly useful -- and it is a very polished, professional app that's free of bugs -- but I just wish it did a bit more. I wish it wasn't so annoyingly devoid of obvious, easy-to-implement features.From the outset, Photoshop Express is very smart. You're welcomed with a pretty, blue Adobe splash screen, and then you're shown all of the photos currently on your phone. You can start editing right away, or choose a photo to upload.
You also have the option of viewing your online photos (those stored at Photoshop.com), but here's my first gripe: you can't download photos to your phone! I wanted to edit one of my Photoshop.com photos, but the app simply won't let me. I have no idea why Adobe has locked it down in this way -- perhaps to provide a 'new feature!!1' for the next release? (Also, look at the Phone/Online tabs in the image above -- notice how the 'depressed' look indicates which tab you're on. I don't like it!)
Back to editing, then. Either select a photo already on your phone, or push the hardware camera button to take a new photo. This is the screen you'll see:
Beneath those four headings there are a variety of functions. Here's a complete list (don't worry, there aren't many): crop, straighten, rotate, flip, exposure, saturation, tint, black & white, contrast, brightness, soft focus, effects, and borders. Most of these are self-explanatory, and they all do the same thing as their desktop software equivalent. The 'effects' are nice, providing you with a bunch of pre-programmed filters that'll make your mundane on-the-way-to-work photos less boring.
There's a couple of handy undo/redo buttons at the bottom -- and no, you can't make those two annoying bars disappear while you edit the photo. The only way to see the final result is to save the image (thus losing your undo/redo history... awesome!)
Finally, the app has the ability to upload your edited photos to Photoshop.com, Facebook and TwitPic. You can also set it to 'auto upload' your photos, which is a rather cool way of keeping your phone synchronized with your Interwebs. [If you're interested, you can see my awesome full-size photo on Photoshop.com!]
Photoshop Express for Android Tech Specs
Installed Size -- 2MB, but it has a cache that will grow as your library of images expands!
Speed/Responsiveness -- Snappy and smooth (Android 1.6 @ 600 MHz, LG GT540 Swift)
User Interface -- Pretty and very intuitive, except for the complete lack of buttons on the 'Online photos' tab, grrr
Configurability & Extensibility -- Nope, nothing like that (but being able to upload to other non-Photoshop.com services is cool)
License -- Free, closed-source
Share TweetAdobe Photoshop Express for Android taken for a spin, leaves me a little unsatisfied originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
There's a bit of a problem, though: most photo manipulation software for Android phones smells worse than a Titan's loincloth. Mashable has a list of them, but they're all plagued with inadequacies and bugs; some are slow and some simply don't work on newer phones!
Enter Photoshop Express for Android. From Adobe you'd expect nothing short of a photo editing miracle app, but alas that isn't the case. Photoshop Express is certainly useful -- and it is a very polished, professional app that's free of bugs -- but I just wish it did a bit more. I wish it wasn't so annoyingly devoid of obvious, easy-to-implement features.From the outset, Photoshop Express is very smart. You're welcomed with a pretty, blue Adobe splash screen, and then you're shown all of the photos currently on your phone. You can start editing right away, or choose a photo to upload.
You also have the option of viewing your online photos (those stored at Photoshop.com), but here's my first gripe: you can't download photos to your phone! I wanted to edit one of my Photoshop.com photos, but the app simply won't let me. I have no idea why Adobe has locked it down in this way -- perhaps to provide a 'new feature!!1' for the next release? (Also, look at the Phone/Online tabs in the image above -- notice how the 'depressed' look indicates which tab you're on. I don't like it!)
Back to editing, then. Either select a photo already on your phone, or push the hardware camera button to take a new photo. This is the screen you'll see:
Beneath those four headings there are a variety of functions. Here's a complete list (don't worry, there aren't many): crop, straighten, rotate, flip, exposure, saturation, tint, black & white, contrast, brightness, soft focus, effects, and borders. Most of these are self-explanatory, and they all do the same thing as their desktop software equivalent. The 'effects' are nice, providing you with a bunch of pre-programmed filters that'll make your mundane on-the-way-to-work photos less boring.
There's a couple of handy undo/redo buttons at the bottom -- and no, you can't make those two annoying bars disappear while you edit the photo. The only way to see the final result is to save the image (thus losing your undo/redo history... awesome!)
Finally, the app has the ability to upload your edited photos to Photoshop.com, Facebook and TwitPic. You can also set it to 'auto upload' your photos, which is a rather cool way of keeping your phone synchronized with your Interwebs. [If you're interested, you can see my awesome full-size photo on Photoshop.com!]
Photoshop Express for Android Tech Specs
Installed Size -- 2MB, but it has a cache that will grow as your library of images expands!
Speed/Responsiveness -- Snappy and smooth (Android 1.6 @ 600 MHz, LG GT540 Swift)
User Interface -- Pretty and very intuitive, except for the complete lack of buttons on the 'Online photos' tab, grrr
Configurability & Extensibility -- Nope, nothing like that (but being able to upload to other non-Photoshop.com services is cool)
License -- Free, closed-source
Share TweetAdobe Photoshop Express for Android taken for a spin, leaves me a little unsatisfied originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Thursday, September 2, 2010
iPhone live 115: Whoosh! Another 200!
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We’re all up in Apple’s 2010 Special Music event – new iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch with Retina Display and FaceTime, Apple TV with iOS… but no apps! Along with iOS 4.1 and iOS 4.2. We’re streaming [...]iPhone live 115: Whoosh! Another 200! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
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We’re all up in Apple’s 2010 Special Music event – new iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch with Retina Display and FaceTime, Apple TV with iOS… but no apps! Along with iOS 4.1 and iOS 4.2. We’re streaming [...]iPhone live 115: Whoosh! Another 200! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
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PerformanceTest by PassMark lets you benchmark and compare your system
Filed under: Shareware
"I need a new computer!" is a cry often heard by parents and system administrators alike. But often, the problem isn't in the hardware - if the user isn't an avid gamer or using a really ancient system, more often than not the problem is a crudded-up Windows installation (yes, I know, "this doesn't happen on Linux").
Proving to your user/kid that the hardware isn't the problem is often easier said than done. What they see is just a slow computer, but PassMark's PerformanceTest may be able to help you prove that the hardware isn't all that wimpy.
First of all, you should know this is a Shareware product. You get it for a 30-day free eval period, after which you should buy it. But for most home users, 30 days should be plenty - you just want to see if you should buy a new computer, and if so, how much would that computer really be better than what you have now.
PerformanceTest runs a fairly comprehensive battery of tests, including CPU, graphics (2D and 3D), memory, hard-drive and CD performance. It then lets you upload the results onto its online database, and you can also pull information from the database to compare your system to right within the program.
For some reason, I was unable to find other systems listed as running Windows 7 x64, and so I had to compare my system with rigs running Vista x64.
Even if you don't want to benchmark your own system, the database provides some very illuminating statistics. If you're on the market for a new system, you should definitely take a stroll through some of the charts.PerformanceTest by PassMark lets you benchmark and compare your system originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
"I need a new computer!" is a cry often heard by parents and system administrators alike. But often, the problem isn't in the hardware - if the user isn't an avid gamer or using a really ancient system, more often than not the problem is a crudded-up Windows installation (yes, I know, "this doesn't happen on Linux").
Proving to your user/kid that the hardware isn't the problem is often easier said than done. What they see is just a slow computer, but PassMark's PerformanceTest may be able to help you prove that the hardware isn't all that wimpy.
First of all, you should know this is a Shareware product. You get it for a 30-day free eval period, after which you should buy it. But for most home users, 30 days should be plenty - you just want to see if you should buy a new computer, and if so, how much would that computer really be better than what you have now.
PerformanceTest runs a fairly comprehensive battery of tests, including CPU, graphics (2D and 3D), memory, hard-drive and CD performance. It then lets you upload the results onto its online database, and you can also pull information from the database to compare your system to right within the program.
For some reason, I was unable to find other systems listed as running Windows 7 x64, and so I had to compare my system with rigs running Vista x64.
Even if you don't want to benchmark your own system, the database provides some very illuminating statistics. If you're on the market for a new system, you should definitely take a stroll through some of the charts.PerformanceTest by PassMark lets you benchmark and compare your system originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter'
Back in the early 90's whilst playing our Atari Lynx -- friendless and alone, of course -- we couldn't have imagined that a second-rate spinoff of the popular Gauntlet franchise would unlock the secrets behind the birth of Google's Android OS. But, lo and behold, what has one of our faithful tipsters found down here, amongst the ruins of Gauntlet: The Third Encounter? That's right, nearly irrefutable proof that the Android team (or at least its graphic designers) have plumbed the depths of Epyx's not-quite-masterpiece for the iconic droid logo we've come to know and love. Sure, the top-down scroller provided all kinds of new character classes like the "Nerd," "Punkrocker," and "Pirate," but only one of these fresh faces would provide the blueprint for Android's public face. It's hard to argue that there isn't some level of appropriation here, given the multiple similarities between the two pieces of art, right down to the antennae, dotted eyes, general size and shape, and even the strip which cuts across the midsection of the bot. Oh yeah, and the character is named Android. We personally would like to hear what Google has to say for themselves in regards to this blatant theft of intellectual property, and as for the Epyx artists who slaved over a hot Amiga to bring this image to life -- the taste of sweet justice is yours.
Gallery: Android / Android transformation
[Thanks, Davey]Continue reading Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter'Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Gallery: Android / Android transformation
[Thanks, Davey]Continue reading Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter'Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
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Two more tablet-friendly features on their way to Google Chrome
Filed under: Google, Browsers
Google had originally pegged December 2010 for the first release of Chrome OS, but it's been looking like a fall release is now a safe bet. It's certainly netbook-ready at this point, though some missing features (like an on-screen keyboard) may mean that tablet devices arrive slightly later.
Developers keep plugging ahead, however, and continue to work on tablet-friendly features. Two code revisions have landed in the past couple days which will definitely make Chrome more at home on tablets. The first is device orientation support (think auto-rotating content on your Chrome OS tablet and accelerometer-enabled games) and the other is speech input (hello, voice commands!).
Both features have been part of the Chromium code for a while now, but they're now enabled by default and it's typically a very short amount of time between a new Chromium feature being defaulted and its arrival in the official Google Chrome builds. It's also worth noting that voice input support is only on by default for Chromium's Windows users -- Mac and Linux users would need to add the ?--enable-speech-input switch to their shortcut for the time being.
Developer Jeremy Selier has posted a simple-yet-cool demo video of device orientation using his Macbook Pro -- check it out after the break!
Device orientation demo from Jeremy Selier on Vimeo.Two more tablet-friendly features on their way to Google Chrome originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Google had originally pegged December 2010 for the first release of Chrome OS, but it's been looking like a fall release is now a safe bet. It's certainly netbook-ready at this point, though some missing features (like an on-screen keyboard) may mean that tablet devices arrive slightly later.
Developers keep plugging ahead, however, and continue to work on tablet-friendly features. Two code revisions have landed in the past couple days which will definitely make Chrome more at home on tablets. The first is device orientation support (think auto-rotating content on your Chrome OS tablet and accelerometer-enabled games) and the other is speech input (hello, voice commands!).
Both features have been part of the Chromium code for a while now, but they're now enabled by default and it's typically a very short amount of time between a new Chromium feature being defaulted and its arrival in the official Google Chrome builds. It's also worth noting that voice input support is only on by default for Chromium's Windows users -- Mac and Linux users would need to add the ?--enable-speech-input switch to their shortcut for the time being.
Developer Jeremy Selier has posted a simple-yet-cool demo video of device orientation using his Macbook Pro -- check it out after the break!
Device orientation demo from Jeremy Selier on Vimeo.Two more tablet-friendly features on their way to Google Chrome originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Microsoft had a 'priority email inbox' way before Google, and has patents to prove it
Filed under: Internet, E-mailMuch has been said about Gmail's new priority inbox -- all of it good! -- but it turns out that Microsoft Research has been working on similar technology since the 1990s.
Not only is there a slew of research papers detailing how the technology works (it sounds very similar to Gmail's priority inbox), but Microsoft also has a bunch of well-targeted patents filed as far back as 1999!
Is this just another case of Microsoft being beaten to the market? Back in 2007 Microsoft Research released the Outlook Mobile Manager which seems to forward prioritized email to your mobile device. TechFlash also points out that some of the announced updates for Hotmail sound like they use the same Microsoft Research technology. I think this is more a case of Gmail simply being more nimble than Hotmail; a case of Google being less bogged down by bureaucracy and conservatism. I fully expect Hotmail will receive the same (or better) priority inbox technology in the next few months.
And once Hotmail has a priority inbox, I can't imagine Microsoft will continue to let Gmail use the same technology -- especially if Google offers the priority inbox to its business and enterprise Google Apps customers. But at the same time, I can't believe Google would spend time developing and implementing a service only to have it quashed by Microsoft. I wonder how this one will play out...
Share TweetMicrosoft had a 'priority email inbox' way before Google, and has patents to prove it originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Not only is there a slew of research papers detailing how the technology works (it sounds very similar to Gmail's priority inbox), but Microsoft also has a bunch of well-targeted patents filed as far back as 1999!
Is this just another case of Microsoft being beaten to the market? Back in 2007 Microsoft Research released the Outlook Mobile Manager which seems to forward prioritized email to your mobile device. TechFlash also points out that some of the announced updates for Hotmail sound like they use the same Microsoft Research technology. I think this is more a case of Gmail simply being more nimble than Hotmail; a case of Google being less bogged down by bureaucracy and conservatism. I fully expect Hotmail will receive the same (or better) priority inbox technology in the next few months.
And once Hotmail has a priority inbox, I can't imagine Microsoft will continue to let Gmail use the same technology -- especially if Google offers the priority inbox to its business and enterprise Google Apps customers. But at the same time, I can't believe Google would spend time developing and implementing a service only to have it quashed by Microsoft. I wonder how this one will play out...
Share TweetMicrosoft had a 'priority email inbox' way before Google, and has patents to prove it originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Choosing Between a laptop and an iPad: A guide
One of the big questions many consumers are faced with today is whether to purchase a laptop or an iPad. We hope to take some of the pressure off and help make that decision easier for you in this guide. Since many of you are already more than well aware of what laptops can be [...]
Toshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wilds
That Folio 100 (alias Smart Pad) from Toshiba we'd been hearing about? Yep, totally real, and totally Tegra 2-powered -- a theme that we think is going to be pretty popular among tablet makers this season. We caught a handful of Folio 100s firmly affixed to a wall at IFA today, showing a remixed version of Android 2.2, a handful of capacitive buttons, a front-facing camera, and not much else -- there's really nothing visually stunning about the setup as far as we can tell, and it's not particularly thin. After bouncing out that crazy Libretto W100, Toshiba's going to have to turn up the style dial to 11 if it wants to rise above the forthcoming onslaught of Google tablets, we suspect.
Gallery: Toshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wildsToshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wilds originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Gallery: Toshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wildsToshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wilds originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Apple claims 50 percent of portable gaming market, iPod touch 'outsells Nintendo and Sony combined'
Nintendo famously called Apple the enemy of the future in the video gaming space, and by golly, it looks like the Japanese giant was right; Steve Jobs just told an audience that the iPod touch alone outsells Nintendo's DS and Sony's PlayStation Portable combined, worldwide. How many games iPod touch users actually play and for how long wasn't discussed, but Jobs said 1.5 billion "games and entertainment" apps have been downloaded -- again, on the iPod touch alone, never mind all those iPhones.
Update: As many fine readers have suggested in comments, this particular statistic seems a little hard to swallow, given that the Nintendo DS alone sold roughly 132 million units -- a good bit less than the 120 million iOS devices Apple claims, and only some of which are iPod touch -- as of the Japanese company's July earnings report. We've contacted Apple for clarification and hope to be able to explain the discrepancy soon.
Check out our liveblog of the keynote event right here!Apple claims 50 percent of portable gaming market, iPod touch 'outsells Nintendo and Sony combined' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Update: As many fine readers have suggested in comments, this particular statistic seems a little hard to swallow, given that the Nintendo DS alone sold roughly 132 million units -- a good bit less than the 120 million iOS devices Apple claims, and only some of which are iPod touch -- as of the Japanese company's July earnings report. We've contacted Apple for clarification and hope to be able to explain the discrepancy soon.
Check out our liveblog of the keynote event right here!Apple claims 50 percent of portable gaming market, iPod touch 'outsells Nintendo and Sony combined' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
CSS3 Playground lets you experiment with new CSS features and generates code
Filed under: Design Tips, web 2.0
I have recently been experimenting with CSS3 box properties for my own personal site. I was thrilled with how easy it was to create a box with rounded corners, some shading and a border - it was really trivial.
That was even before I found CSS3 Playground. Had I found this neat little tool before, I would not have had to hand-code a single line of text.
Like so many other showcases and playgrounds, it's basically a canvas with a bunch of sliders. The sliders let you visually control a CSS div. You can set a ton of CSS3 properties, and watch how they affect the div in real time. Skew it, rotate, zoom in, play with borders and shadow, rounded corners - it's all there, and it's very accessible and fun to play with.
The bottom pane of the window has all of the style declarations you've visually set, both in JavaScript syntax and as CSS. You can just play with the sliders to get it to look just right and then copy/paste it into your own site. Neat!
[Thanks, Yaara!]CSS3 Playground lets you experiment with new CSS features and generates code originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
I have recently been experimenting with CSS3 box properties for my own personal site. I was thrilled with how easy it was to create a box with rounded corners, some shading and a border - it was really trivial.
That was even before I found CSS3 Playground. Had I found this neat little tool before, I would not have had to hand-code a single line of text.
Like so many other showcases and playgrounds, it's basically a canvas with a bunch of sliders. The sliders let you visually control a CSS div. You can set a ton of CSS3 properties, and watch how they affect the div in real time. Skew it, rotate, zoom in, play with borders and shadow, rounded corners - it's all there, and it's very accessible and fun to play with.
The bottom pane of the window has all of the style declarations you've visually set, both in JavaScript syntax and as CSS. You can just play with the sliders to get it to look just right and then copy/paste it into your own site. Neat!
[Thanks, Yaara!]CSS3 Playground lets you experiment with new CSS features and generates code originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Angry Birds beta flying to Android Market this Friday
Rumors around the web had been pointing to a release of Angry Birds for Android by the end of the summer. In checking our calendars, we've realized that it's now the September, so where is our Angry Birds!? The guys over at Talk Android contacted Rovio, the game's developer, to see what's going on. Rovio's response (truncated by us):This week, we were planning to run a closed beta test of Angry Birds Lite for Android. Due to the massive response and demand from the Android community, we have decided to make Angry Birds Lite Beta available for everybody through the Android Market this Friday.Please note that this will be the beta version of the application which is still undergoing final testing before official release. Angry Birds Lite Beta is presented on an “as is” basis, and we cannot guarantee its functionality on every Android device.Angry Birds Lite Beta will run on second generation Android devices and upwards.So there you have it people. Let's hope we can get our bird on starting Friday, so our webOS and iOS pals can quit lording it over us. [via Talk Android]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
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3-way hardware-accelerated browser shoot-out: Chrome on top, IE9 just behind and Firefox brings up the rear (video)
Filed under: Browsers
After yesterday's announcement that Chrome 7 is now hardware accelerated, I instantly wanted to get the major browsers back into the ring for another screencasted deathmatch. Back when I did the 4-way speed test, only Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 featured hardware acceleration, and as a result Opera and Chrome were many orders of magnitude slower. If you watch the video, however, you'll see that's definitely no longer the case: Chrome is now the fastest of the three major browsers.
That speed comes at a price! As I discuss in the video, Chrome might be faster, but it uses significantly more resources than either IE9 or Firefox 4. Firefox is some 30% slower, but at the same time seems to use less CPU and GPU time. IE9 seems to utilize the same amount of CPU time as Chrome, but a little less of the GPU -- and it's marginally slower as a result.
What I don't know is whether this is by design or not. You'll notice that the GPU never went far above 50% -- why, with three browsers open, does it not get closer to 100%? The resources are there to be used -- why not use them?! Likewise, my CPU is still only half-used even when all three browsers are drawing 1000 frantic fishes at the same time. If you're curious, the other IE9 test drive samples all provided similar results. I wanted to try Google's 'HTML5 rocks' sample gallery, but they intentionally used elements of CSS and HTML5 that aren't yet supported in Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 4.
In the name of science, here's some more information about my process: the screen capture does slow down each browser by a few frames per second, but relatively the figures are still accurate. I saw a small deviation in FPS when I was only running one browser at a time (probably because my CPU has multiple cores). There are a few unknown variables too, like whether the CPU core usage is defined by the app, or by the operating system (but with Chrome using more resources than IE9, you can only assume that Windows isn't unfairly biasing its own-brand browser).
If you'd like to recreate my test, you'll need to enable hardware acceleration in Firefox 4 and Chrome -- IE9 has it turned on by default:
Firefox 4 -- grab a nightly build, navigate to about:config and add gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled -- set it to 'true'
Chrome 7 -- grab a nightly build and add the following flags to the shortcut before opening it: --enable-accelerated-compositing --enable-gpu-plugin --enable-gpu-rendering --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas
Share Tweet3-way hardware-accelerated browser shoot-out: Chrome on top, IE9 just behind and Firefox brings up the rear (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
After yesterday's announcement that Chrome 7 is now hardware accelerated, I instantly wanted to get the major browsers back into the ring for another screencasted deathmatch. Back when I did the 4-way speed test, only Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 featured hardware acceleration, and as a result Opera and Chrome were many orders of magnitude slower. If you watch the video, however, you'll see that's definitely no longer the case: Chrome is now the fastest of the three major browsers.
That speed comes at a price! As I discuss in the video, Chrome might be faster, but it uses significantly more resources than either IE9 or Firefox 4. Firefox is some 30% slower, but at the same time seems to use less CPU and GPU time. IE9 seems to utilize the same amount of CPU time as Chrome, but a little less of the GPU -- and it's marginally slower as a result.
What I don't know is whether this is by design or not. You'll notice that the GPU never went far above 50% -- why, with three browsers open, does it not get closer to 100%? The resources are there to be used -- why not use them?! Likewise, my CPU is still only half-used even when all three browsers are drawing 1000 frantic fishes at the same time. If you're curious, the other IE9 test drive samples all provided similar results. I wanted to try Google's 'HTML5 rocks' sample gallery, but they intentionally used elements of CSS and HTML5 that aren't yet supported in Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 4.
In the name of science, here's some more information about my process: the screen capture does slow down each browser by a few frames per second, but relatively the figures are still accurate. I saw a small deviation in FPS when I was only running one browser at a time (probably because my CPU has multiple cores). There are a few unknown variables too, like whether the CPU core usage is defined by the app, or by the operating system (but with Chrome using more resources than IE9, you can only assume that Windows isn't unfairly biasing its own-brand browser).
If you'd like to recreate my test, you'll need to enable hardware acceleration in Firefox 4 and Chrome -- IE9 has it turned on by default:
Firefox 4 -- grab a nightly build, navigate to about:config and add gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled -- set it to 'true'
Chrome 7 -- grab a nightly build and add the following flags to the shortcut before opening it: --enable-accelerated-compositing --enable-gpu-plugin --enable-gpu-rendering --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas
Share Tweet3-way hardware-accelerated browser shoot-out: Chrome on top, IE9 just behind and Firefox brings up the rear (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Multitask With The New Compass iPad Stand
Twelve South is well known for their exclusive and stylish accessory designs for Apple products and most recently they have introduced the all new Compass stand for the iPad. You may recall back in April Twelve South was one of the first companies to release a quality iPad stand, also known as the Bookarc Stand. [...]
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3D Sony Vaio landing next year, we preview the prototype
See this computer here? Yeah, well Sony's going to launch a laptop next year that will most likely look nothing like this. Intrigued? We thought you would be. Sony announced today that it will be launching at least one laptop next year (probably a mini-series of 'em) with a 3D-capable 240Hz LCD. The laptop will be using a built-in IR blaster to sync with your regular Bravia shutter glasses, but it's unclear whether the price of a laptop will get you a free pair of the precious specs. The prototype we got to look at here has a 16-inch 16:9 display, housed in a current F series chassis, but all that is of course subject to change when the final model lands. We do have to say, in comparison to some of the other 3D laptops we've seen, Sony's tech comes off looking pretty good, but there's nothing here to convince us this is anything beyond a niche luxury for now -- although an ability to use this screen as a 3D display for our PS3 might help us change our mind (we asked, the answer is no). Expect to hear more about this mysterious beast at next year's CES. Gallery: 3D Sony Vaio landing next year, we preview the prototype3D Sony Vaio landing next year, we preview the prototype originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Google Chrome to get Gmail Labs-like experimental features
Filed under: Google, Browsers
Many of our readers have been frustrated by having to add command line switches to Google Chrome in order to try out a new feature. In truth, it's really not a difficult procedure (though Windows and Linux users have it far easier than those on Mac) -- but wouldn't it be cool if you could just click something to turn them on?
Starting soon, you just might be able to do that. Google OS spotted a new addition to the Chromium browser: an about:labs page. Load it up, and you'll see experimental browser features which you can enable -- like side tabs on Windows and tab expose on Mac.
At least, very soon you'll be able to turn the features on via this page. Right now, it's not functional. Clicking enable on tabs on the left didn't actually activate the feature for me -- I still had to add the --enable-vertical-tabs switch to my shortcut.
The addition of about:labs is a nice touch, and will allow more users to kick the tires on cutting-edge features. That, of course, is a good thing for Google. A larger group of testers should allow them to tackle bugs more quickly and push features from the dev and canary builds to the beta and stable channels even more quickly.Google Chrome to get Gmail Labs-like experimental features originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Many of our readers have been frustrated by having to add command line switches to Google Chrome in order to try out a new feature. In truth, it's really not a difficult procedure (though Windows and Linux users have it far easier than those on Mac) -- but wouldn't it be cool if you could just click something to turn them on?
Starting soon, you just might be able to do that. Google OS spotted a new addition to the Chromium browser: an about:labs page. Load it up, and you'll see experimental browser features which you can enable -- like side tabs on Windows and tab expose on Mac.
At least, very soon you'll be able to turn the features on via this page. Right now, it's not functional. Clicking enable on tabs on the left didn't actually activate the feature for me -- I still had to add the --enable-vertical-tabs switch to my shortcut.
The addition of about:labs is a nice touch, and will allow more users to kick the tires on cutting-edge features. That, of course, is a good thing for Google. A larger group of testers should allow them to tackle bugs more quickly and push features from the dev and canary builds to the beta and stable channels even more quickly.Google Chrome to get Gmail Labs-like experimental features originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Chrome extensions with right-click context menus coming soon! And your chance to win a Chrome hoodie...
Filed under: Developer, Google, BrowsersIn a move that is surely an effort to keep pace with Firefox's helter-skelter development of Jetpack, Chrome Beta now has a context menu API!
There's also a bunch of other new APIs, the most exciting being the Omnibox API. Imagine Chrome's built-in search engines (type 'Amazon', then a space, and then a book name -- it searches Amazon!), but with extension access. Type the name of an extension into the Omnibox, and then any further input is redirected to the extension. Actually, having said this is an exciting addition, I'm really not sure what an extension would do with it... Perhaps something Ubiquity-esque?
The new Infobar API might be of interest, too. You know that blue bar that appears when Chrome asks you whether you want a page to be translated? Well, extensions can now pop those up for you. I can see security and privacy extensions like LastPass making use of them, or an extension that alerts you when a page you're visiting has an 'official Chrome extension' (you know, instead of that awful JavaScript hack...).
Oh, and if you make an extension (featuring the new APIs? It's not clear), let Google know and they might send you a free Chrome hoodie! Hooray.Chrome extensions with right-click context menus coming soon! And your chance to win a Chrome hoodie... originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
There's also a bunch of other new APIs, the most exciting being the Omnibox API. Imagine Chrome's built-in search engines (type 'Amazon', then a space, and then a book name -- it searches Amazon!), but with extension access. Type the name of an extension into the Omnibox, and then any further input is redirected to the extension. Actually, having said this is an exciting addition, I'm really not sure what an extension would do with it... Perhaps something Ubiquity-esque?
The new Infobar API might be of interest, too. You know that blue bar that appears when Chrome asks you whether you want a page to be translated? Well, extensions can now pop those up for you. I can see security and privacy extensions like LastPass making use of them, or an extension that alerts you when a page you're visiting has an 'official Chrome extension' (you know, instead of that awful JavaScript hack...).
Oh, and if you make an extension (featuring the new APIs? It's not clear), let Google know and they might send you a free Chrome hoodie! Hooray.Chrome extensions with right-click context menus coming soon! And your chance to win a Chrome hoodie... originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Vision of Humanity offers beautiful infographics on the state of the planet
Filed under: Design, Education
Vision of Humanity is one of the most beautiful and thorough visualizations that I have recently seen.
It's a zoomable Flash world map, which lets you browse and compare a vast number of "peace indicators," such as level of violent crime, access to weapons, jailed population, relations with neighboring countries, and more.
You view a world heat map, which shows where that index is most prevalent. You can zoom in on a specific country and browse through all of its indicators, and you can compare two or more countries.
The site takes all of these indicators and derives a single number, which it calls the "peace index." At a glance, you can basically see which countries are the most peaceful and which ones rank worst on the list.
As per usual with these tools, the tool itself is very impressive, but I cannot say that I fully trust the data. The data comes from an entity that calls itself the Institute for Economics & Peace, which is an incredibly nebulous name. Even reading their About page didn't improve my level of trust in this "institute." There's a Wikipedia entry about them, so they seem to be real. I cannot, however, vouch for the quality of the data.
Still, from a technology/design viewpoint, this is an impressive visualization that I could easily spend a great deal of time with, discovering new (if troubling) facts.
Share TweetVision of Humanity offers beautiful infographics on the state of the planet originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Vision of Humanity is one of the most beautiful and thorough visualizations that I have recently seen.
It's a zoomable Flash world map, which lets you browse and compare a vast number of "peace indicators," such as level of violent crime, access to weapons, jailed population, relations with neighboring countries, and more.
You view a world heat map, which shows where that index is most prevalent. You can zoom in on a specific country and browse through all of its indicators, and you can compare two or more countries.
The site takes all of these indicators and derives a single number, which it calls the "peace index." At a glance, you can basically see which countries are the most peaceful and which ones rank worst on the list.
As per usual with these tools, the tool itself is very impressive, but I cannot say that I fully trust the data. The data comes from an entity that calls itself the Institute for Economics & Peace, which is an incredibly nebulous name. Even reading their About page didn't improve my level of trust in this "institute." There's a Wikipedia entry about them, so they seem to be real. I cannot, however, vouch for the quality of the data.
Still, from a technology/design viewpoint, this is an impressive visualization that I could easily spend a great deal of time with, discovering new (if troubling) facts.
Share TweetVision of Humanity offers beautiful infographics on the state of the planet originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Engadget's back to school guide: Televisions
Welcome to Engadget's Back to School guide! We know that this time of year can be pretty annoying and stressful for everyone, so we're here to help out with the heartbreaking process of gadget buying for the school-aged crowd. Today, we have HDTVs in our sights -- and you can head to the Back to School hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month.
All those small screen devices in our back to school guide so far are nice, but lets face it, when it comes to watching TV or taking a quick Call of duty study break, you're going to need something more sizable. Higher end features like 1080p resolution, 120Hz and LED lighting have trickled down to more affordable price ranges so there's really no excuse for lugging a CRT as old as you are into any dorm room this fall. Whether you're looking something that pulls double duty as a computer monitor for work and HDTV for play (at the same time) or just the biggest screen for the buck there's plenty to choose from, so let's select a few winners from the crowd.
Continue reading Engadget's back to school guide: TelevisionsEngadget's back to school guide: Televisions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
All those small screen devices in our back to school guide so far are nice, but lets face it, when it comes to watching TV or taking a quick Call of duty study break, you're going to need something more sizable. Higher end features like 1080p resolution, 120Hz and LED lighting have trickled down to more affordable price ranges so there's really no excuse for lugging a CRT as old as you are into any dorm room this fall. Whether you're looking something that pulls double duty as a computer monitor for work and HDTV for play (at the same time) or just the biggest screen for the buck there's plenty to choose from, so let's select a few winners from the crowd.
Continue reading Engadget's back to school guide: TelevisionsEngadget's back to school guide: Televisions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Do you still regularly sync your iPhone with iTunes?
Tomorrow at their annual special music event, Apple might announce a new version of iTunes (iTunes X?) — maybe with $0.99 TV rentals or streaming cloud music — and thinking about that made me realize I hardly if ever sync my iPhone with iTunes anymore.
Just before iPhone 4 came out the Apple Store swapped out [...]Do you still regularly sync your iPhone with iTunes? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Just before iPhone 4 came out the Apple Store swapped out [...]Do you still regularly sync your iPhone with iTunes? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Samsung to unveil Media Hub Sept. 16
Those of you with a T-Mobile Vibrant, AT&T Captivate or the new Sprint Epic 4G might have tried the "Media Hub" app only to find that it just doesn't work. That's by design, as Samsung has yet to launch the service that will bring TV shows and movies to your phone. But that all changes Sept. 16 in New York City, when Samsung unveils what it's been working on. Stay tuned, folks.Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox
Filed under: Google, Browsers
One of the most talked about features in Safari 5 has been its Reader function -- Apple's built-in implementation of the Readability bookmarklet. Both are nice ways to reformat articles on blog or news sites for distraction-free reading.
If you like the look of Safari Reader but would rather not change from Google Chrome or Firefox, don't worry. The iReader extension brings the same functionality to your browser of choice!
Like Safari Reader, iReader shrouds the background in semi-opaque blackness . Hover near the bottom of the page to display zoom and print controls, as well as e-mail/Twitter/Facebook sharing buttons. iReader is also highly configurable -- set Gmail as your 'send page' client, change the display font, activate smooth scrolling, set the "curtain" to be more or less transparent, and adjust the reading area and margins. You can also choose hotkey combination to activate iReader (rather than having to click on the Omnibar icon).
Download iReader : Google Chrome extension or Firefox add-on iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
One of the most talked about features in Safari 5 has been its Reader function -- Apple's built-in implementation of the Readability bookmarklet. Both are nice ways to reformat articles on blog or news sites for distraction-free reading.
If you like the look of Safari Reader but would rather not change from Google Chrome or Firefox, don't worry. The iReader extension brings the same functionality to your browser of choice!
Like Safari Reader, iReader shrouds the background in semi-opaque blackness . Hover near the bottom of the page to display zoom and print controls, as well as e-mail/Twitter/Facebook sharing buttons. iReader is also highly configurable -- set Gmail as your 'send page' client, change the display font, activate smooth scrolling, set the "curtain" to be more or less transparent, and adjust the reading area and margins. You can also choose hotkey combination to activate iReader (rather than having to click on the Omnibar icon).
Download iReader : Google Chrome extension or Firefox add-on iReader extension is like Safari Reader for Google Chrome and Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Microsoft Plans Slow and Steady Retail Store Pace
Apple's retail stores won't have a challenger from Microsoft, at least in the short term.
That was one of the nuggets pulled from an Aug. 10 talk at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference by Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations. Near the end of that event, an analyst in the audience asked a question about Microsoft's retail stores, which have been opening over the past year in cities such as Denver and San Diego.
"I think we have six open today, or we've announced six," Koefoed told the audience, according to a transcript released by Microsoft. "We think stores are important. We think they're important to give the end customer the experience of our products in an environment that we think we can optimize."
That being said, Koefoed added, "We've got to get the model right, and I think [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's] been pretty clear that the stores need to make money." To that end, "We're continuing to grow at a prudent pace, one that we're learning from, and one that we're going to continue to learn from [to] make sure that we're making the right investments in the right places."
After months of Microsoft executives trumpeting that they were preparing to challenge Apple's retail experience head-on (and hiring George Blankenship, the former Gap executive who helped launch Apple's retail arm in 2001, to assist in the effort), the company opened stores in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., in late 2009.
Since then, Microsoft has seemed content to dip its toes in the water: a store opening here, another one there. The company could be reluctant to challenge big-box stores such as Best Buy that already sell Microsoft products and would doubtlessly be irritated if Redmond tried to seize a major chunk of their electronics revenue. But this could also be a more generalized feeling-out of the retail space; no sense in spending hundreds of millions on invading strip malls across the country if your company lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a strategy work.
In any case, Microsoft likely won't be challenging Apple store-for-store any time soon--but based on Koefoed's comments, the company obviously sees value in continuing the retail effort.
That was one of the nuggets pulled from an Aug. 10 talk at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference by Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations. Near the end of that event, an analyst in the audience asked a question about Microsoft's retail stores, which have been opening over the past year in cities such as Denver and San Diego.
"I think we have six open today, or we've announced six," Koefoed told the audience, according to a transcript released by Microsoft. "We think stores are important. We think they're important to give the end customer the experience of our products in an environment that we think we can optimize."
That being said, Koefoed added, "We've got to get the model right, and I think [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's] been pretty clear that the stores need to make money." To that end, "We're continuing to grow at a prudent pace, one that we're learning from, and one that we're going to continue to learn from [to] make sure that we're making the right investments in the right places."
After months of Microsoft executives trumpeting that they were preparing to challenge Apple's retail experience head-on (and hiring George Blankenship, the former Gap executive who helped launch Apple's retail arm in 2001, to assist in the effort), the company opened stores in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., in late 2009.
Since then, Microsoft has seemed content to dip its toes in the water: a store opening here, another one there. The company could be reluctant to challenge big-box stores such as Best Buy that already sell Microsoft products and would doubtlessly be irritated if Redmond tried to seize a major chunk of their electronics revenue. But this could also be a more generalized feeling-out of the retail space; no sense in spending hundreds of millions on invading strip malls across the country if your company lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a strategy work.
In any case, Microsoft likely won't be challenging Apple store-for-store any time soon--but based on Koefoed's comments, the company obviously sees value in continuing the retail effort.
Firefox 4 Beta 4 is out, with Panorama and Sync
Filed under: Mozilla, Open Source, Browsers
"Tab Candy" has finally come into its own in this most recent iteration of Firefox, Beta 4. The feature is now called "Panorama". Not all of Raskin's envisioned features made it, but it's still pretty dang cool.
Panorama now lets you group tabs and optionally name the groups. You can resize the groups, and when you shrink a group down to its smallest size, it becomes a "pile" and you can zoom into it by clicking a button next to it.
Another major addition is Firefox Sync. It works with its own accounts, "Firefox Sync accounts." Interestingly, it prompts you for a pass phrase in addition to a password. It's a service which syncs your history, open tabs, bookmarks, Awesomebar, etc. Sounds identical to what Google already does with Chrome, but now Firefox has it, too.
These are the two new major features in the Beta 4. The inclusion of Panorama is a big deal - it's Firefox's most innovative UI feature by far, and I think it signifies the release cycle rapidly moving to maturity for this version. You should definitely go give it a try, even if it's not ready yet for use as a full-time browser (due to lack of add-ons).Firefox 4 Beta 4 is out, with Panorama and Sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
"Tab Candy" has finally come into its own in this most recent iteration of Firefox, Beta 4. The feature is now called "Panorama". Not all of Raskin's envisioned features made it, but it's still pretty dang cool.
Panorama now lets you group tabs and optionally name the groups. You can resize the groups, and when you shrink a group down to its smallest size, it becomes a "pile" and you can zoom into it by clicking a button next to it.
Another major addition is Firefox Sync. It works with its own accounts, "Firefox Sync accounts." Interestingly, it prompts you for a pass phrase in addition to a password. It's a service which syncs your history, open tabs, bookmarks, Awesomebar, etc. Sounds identical to what Google already does with Chrome, but now Firefox has it, too.
These are the two new major features in the Beta 4. The inclusion of Panorama is a big deal - it's Firefox's most innovative UI feature by far, and I think it signifies the release cycle rapidly moving to maturity for this version. You should definitely go give it a try, even if it's not ready yet for use as a full-time browser (due to lack of add-ons).Firefox 4 Beta 4 is out, with Panorama and Sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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LG's 31-inch OLED prototype to slice through IFA
OLED's failure to do anything for the mainstream so far outside of phone and camera displays is only bittersweet: sure, we don't have millimeter thick TVs yet, but LCD has gotten slim enough that it hardly matters. So, in keeping with tradition, LG has stolen its own OLED thunder today. In line with earlier rumors, it will be showing off a 0.11-inch thick 31-inch 3D OLED display prototype at IFA this week, but that poor little OLED-that-would will be sharing a booth with a ready for retail 0.35-inch thick LCD that comes in big people sizes. Despite our undying affection for OLED, we know which one we'll be (theoretically) taking home in the windowless van we (theoretically) plan on parking out behind the Messe Berlin.LG's 31-inch OLED prototype to slice through IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Akihabara | LG | Email this | Comments
Google tests real-time as-you-type search results (video)
Filed under: Google, Search
Watch the video! Pretty awesome, eh?
The problem is, as TechCrunch says, what about the advertising? Does every page refresh count as an ad impression? Will slower typists incur more screen refreshes? By the same rationale, surely real-time results like that must chew through the bandwidth, especially as search results become more interactive and media-rich.
Chances are, though, we won't see these real-time as-you-type search results in their current form. Google famously works on hundreds of little tweaks at any given time, each being rolled out to just a tiny fraction of its users. Instead, this technology might find its way to YouTube, or (gasp) Gmail! Having said that, as long as it doesn't impact too heavily on bandwidth and advertising concerns, maybe we will see it on Google Search!
It also makes you wonder what other unreported changes are tried out by Google...Google tests real-time as-you-type search results (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Watch the video! Pretty awesome, eh?
The problem is, as TechCrunch says, what about the advertising? Does every page refresh count as an ad impression? Will slower typists incur more screen refreshes? By the same rationale, surely real-time results like that must chew through the bandwidth, especially as search results become more interactive and media-rich.
Chances are, though, we won't see these real-time as-you-type search results in their current form. Google famously works on hundreds of little tweaks at any given time, each being rolled out to just a tiny fraction of its users. Instead, this technology might find its way to YouTube, or (gasp) Gmail! Having said that, as long as it doesn't impact too heavily on bandwidth and advertising concerns, maybe we will see it on Google Search!
It also makes you wonder what other unreported changes are tried out by Google...Google tests real-time as-you-type search results (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Monday, August 30, 2010
YouTube courting Hollywood for pay-per-view movie service by end of 2010, says Financial Times
For all the stupid pet tricks, first-person confessionals, and clips from Conan O'Brien's formative years that form YouTube's content, the one territory it doesn't really venture is pay-per-view à la Apple, Amazon, and others. Well, it'll be a Brave New World for the service -- and parent company Google -- if this Financial Times report is worth its weight in 3mm. According to the publication, the G-Men have been in talks with "Hollywood's leading movie studios" for several months, touting its reach as one of the main draws for the players involved, for the launch of an international pay-per-view service by the end of this year. Some prices are also thrown around here, to the tune of about $5 for new titles (streaming, not download) available the same time as the DVD releases. The video site has been doing rentals on a trial basis since early this year, with just a smattering of indie titles. The thought of paying to watch Blockbuster titles in the same window we watched three dozen (if not more) remixes of Keyboard Cat is still a bit of a new concept, but hey, that's the future for you.YouTube courting Hollywood for pay-per-view movie service by end of 2010, says Financial Times originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Financial Times | Email this | Comments
RIM averts BlackBerry ban in India... for now
It was facing an August 31st deadline before India banned BlackBerry service in the country, but it looks like RIM has now managed to avoid that scenario -- at least for a little while. According to India's Ministry of Home Affairs, "RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalized immediately," and that "the feasibility of the solutions offered would be assessed thereafter." Details are still a bit light beyond that, but India's assessment will apparently come after 60 days, and there's still no guarantee that we won't end up back at square one at that point. Interestingly, India is also still raising complaints about Gmail and Skype, with it now saying that it wants Google and Skype to set up servers in the country that would give it greater monitoring capabilities.RIM averts BlackBerry ban in India... for now originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | The Globe and Mail, NDTV | Email this | Comments
Infineon WLS sold: iPhone?s 3G baseband now Intel inside
Intel has announced that they’ve bought Infineon’s wireless solutions business (WLS) for 1.4 billion dollars, which includes the Infineon 3G radio baseband used in iPhone. Here’re the PR bullets:
WLS sale enables Infineon to expand leading position in markets for automotive, industry and security technologies.
WLS will operate as a standalone business. Intel is committed to serving [...]Infineon WLS sold: iPhone’s 3G baseband now Intel inside is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
WLS sale enables Infineon to expand leading position in markets for automotive, industry and security technologies.
WLS will operate as a standalone business. Intel is committed to serving [...]Infineon WLS sold: iPhone’s 3G baseband now Intel inside is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Microsoft Attacks Yahoo Japan's Google Deal
It's on like "Donkey Kong," as the kids say.
Days after Microsoft's lead attorney opened fire (rhetorically speaking) on Yahoo Japan's selection of Google for its search and search ad technology, Microsoft announced it would take more concrete steps to scuttle the deal.
"We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google's deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the U.S. Dept. of Justice found to be illegal," a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK in an e-mail July 30.
In a July 27 statement e-mailed to eWEEK, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith argued that the Yahoo Japan deal "gives Google virtually 100 percent of all searches in Japan, both paid and unpaid." For its part, Yahoo Japan has insisted that Google's Japanese-language services currently outpace those of Microsoft.
Bing currently powers Yahoo's back-end search in 59 countries, and Microsoft no doubt hopes that the major components of its search-and-advertising deal with the Web portal company--which will see Bing power search for all of Yahoo's online properties, while Yahoo takes over worldwide sales force duties for both companies' search advertisers--will be in place by the end of 2010.
But Yahoo only owns 35 percent of Yahoo Japan (according to Bloomberg), meaning the subsidiary can choose its vendors without mother-ship interference. Now, ordinarily, I'd caveat that statement with "in theory," but Yahoo Japan CEO Masahiro Inoue seems determined to go his own road on this one; if the U.S. Yahoo tried to apply leverage before this situation erupted, it evidently didn't work.
As I mentioned in my previous post on this, the brouhaha suggests that Microsoft may face a decidedly heavy battle in some markets as it tries to expand Bing's international reach. The latest twist suggests that Microsoft is willing to use the tools at its disposal, including an army of lawyers, to make that happen; it'll be interesting to see what happens when Redmond tries to face down an opponent with equally substantive cash flow and leverage.
Days after Microsoft's lead attorney opened fire (rhetorically speaking) on Yahoo Japan's selection of Google for its search and search ad technology, Microsoft announced it would take more concrete steps to scuttle the deal.
"We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google's deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the U.S. Dept. of Justice found to be illegal," a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK in an e-mail July 30.
In a July 27 statement e-mailed to eWEEK, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith argued that the Yahoo Japan deal "gives Google virtually 100 percent of all searches in Japan, both paid and unpaid." For its part, Yahoo Japan has insisted that Google's Japanese-language services currently outpace those of Microsoft.
Bing currently powers Yahoo's back-end search in 59 countries, and Microsoft no doubt hopes that the major components of its search-and-advertising deal with the Web portal company--which will see Bing power search for all of Yahoo's online properties, while Yahoo takes over worldwide sales force duties for both companies' search advertisers--will be in place by the end of 2010.
But Yahoo only owns 35 percent of Yahoo Japan (according to Bloomberg), meaning the subsidiary can choose its vendors without mother-ship interference. Now, ordinarily, I'd caveat that statement with "in theory," but Yahoo Japan CEO Masahiro Inoue seems determined to go his own road on this one; if the U.S. Yahoo tried to apply leverage before this situation erupted, it evidently didn't work.
As I mentioned in my previous post on this, the brouhaha suggests that Microsoft may face a decidedly heavy battle in some markets as it tries to expand Bing's international reach. The latest twist suggests that Microsoft is willing to use the tools at its disposal, including an army of lawyers, to make that happen; it'll be interesting to see what happens when Redmond tries to face down an opponent with equally substantive cash flow and leverage.
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Context Menu URL Shortener for Google Chrome puts bit.ly sharing links close at hand
Filed under: Google, Browsers There's a big crop new extensions showing up which take advantage of Google Chrome's new context menu API, and that's great news for those of you who can't live without your right-click menu.
You can see a pair of newer extensions in my screenshot -- and while I'm not certain I'll be using the tab switcher, Copy Short URL is probably here to stay.
Just right-click a link and left-click and a bit.ly or tinyurl shortened link is copied to your clipboard for hassle-free sharing on your favorite social sites. That's it. Nice and simple, just how I like my extensions!
The developer states that more truncators will be added soon, which would be a welcome improvement. API and account support would be a nice touch as well -- perhaps that will be tacked on as well.Context Menu URL Shortener for Google Chrome puts bit.ly sharing links close at hand originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
You can see a pair of newer extensions in my screenshot -- and while I'm not certain I'll be using the tab switcher, Copy Short URL is probably here to stay.
Just right-click a link and left-click and a bit.ly or tinyurl shortened link is copied to your clipboard for hassle-free sharing on your favorite social sites. That's it. Nice and simple, just how I like my extensions!
The developer states that more truncators will be added soon, which would be a welcome improvement. API and account support would be a nice touch as well -- perhaps that will be tacked on as well.Context Menu URL Shortener for Google Chrome puts bit.ly sharing links close at hand originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Samsung Galaxy Tab to hit South Korea in early September
Samsung hasn't even had a chance to show off its upcoming Android 2.2-powered Galaxy Tab yet and already it is being leaked that South Korea's own SK Telecom will be launching the device come early September. No details on exact date, price, or possible contract were given for the launch. We will all just have to wait on Samsung's September 2 event in Berlin for more info. [Wall Street Journal (pay site)]Posted originally at Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories
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Joojoo lawsuit shocker! Court rules Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were business partners, tosses most everything else
It's been a few blissful months since we've thought about or had to interact with the Joojoo, but the court case Michael Arrington and TechCrunch filed against Fusion Garage just reached a significant milestone: the judge threw out several of Arrington's claims while importantly holding that TechCrunch and Fusion Garage were in fact business partners with legal obligations to each other. Here's the basic timeline so far: since there was (unbelievably) never a contract between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage to develop the CrunchPad / Joojoo, TechCrunch had to rely on a variety of alternative arguments in its initial complaint, which reached a zenith of optimistic fabrication in something called "misappropriation of business ideas." (We ran down the whole list way back in December, and also broke down Fusion Garage's subsequent motion to dismiss in February.)
The court didn't buy most of those arguments and dismissed everything but the breach of fiduciary duty claim in this latest ruling, which is both a significant loss and a significant win for TechCrunch: breach of fiduciary duty has always struck us as TechCrunch's strongest argument, and the court's now effectively ruled that Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were indeed involved in a joint business venture with legal obligations to protect each others' interests. That's not a bad position from which to proceed -- although TechCrunch now has to prove that Fusion Garage actually violated its duty by releasing the Joojoo on its own, which is a whole new fight. (The court also gave TechCrunch 20 days to try and amend some of its other claims, but "misappropriation of business ideas" was basically thrown out the window entirely.) So what's next? We're guessing another few months of cheerfully hostile motions accusing the opposing party of thwarting discovery and some firecracker depositions, all culminating in a matched pair of snippy motions for summary judgment. The suits, they dine well tonight.
P.S.- How or why either company continues to pay for all these legal bills is beyond us, but we've actually heard rumors of a Joojoo 2, so things could get even crazier. And potentially even less responsive to touch-based events.Joojoo lawsuit shocker! Court rules Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were business partners, tosses most everything else originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Daring Fireball | Ruling (Scribd) | Email this | Comments
The court didn't buy most of those arguments and dismissed everything but the breach of fiduciary duty claim in this latest ruling, which is both a significant loss and a significant win for TechCrunch: breach of fiduciary duty has always struck us as TechCrunch's strongest argument, and the court's now effectively ruled that Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were indeed involved in a joint business venture with legal obligations to protect each others' interests. That's not a bad position from which to proceed -- although TechCrunch now has to prove that Fusion Garage actually violated its duty by releasing the Joojoo on its own, which is a whole new fight. (The court also gave TechCrunch 20 days to try and amend some of its other claims, but "misappropriation of business ideas" was basically thrown out the window entirely.) So what's next? We're guessing another few months of cheerfully hostile motions accusing the opposing party of thwarting discovery and some firecracker depositions, all culminating in a matched pair of snippy motions for summary judgment. The suits, they dine well tonight.
P.S.- How or why either company continues to pay for all these legal bills is beyond us, but we've actually heard rumors of a Joojoo 2, so things could get even crazier. And potentially even less responsive to touch-based events.Joojoo lawsuit shocker! Court rules Fusion Garage and TechCrunch were business partners, tosses most everything else originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Daring Fireball | Ruling (Scribd) | Email this | Comments
Sunday, August 29, 2010
HP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on Twitter
Well, this is certainly interesting -- that's HP CTO Phil McKinney pictured above in a pair of redacted shots that were posted to Twitter by HP's Mark Budgell. Described only as "early protos" by McKinney himself, the pictures show what appears to be phone-sized device, a tablet-sized device and, perhaps most curiously, something on McKinney's wrist (all mysteriously blacked out). Before you get your hopes up too much about a new wave of webOS devices, however, you might want to take a look at the second part of Budgell's tweet, which encourages folks to vote for McKinney's SXSW 2011 panel -- a panel in which McKinney promises to make some "bold predictions for the future - backed up with a number of breakthrough prototypes," and specifically talk about what the future will look like in "5 to 10 years." Now, we can't be certain of course, but that doesn't exactly suggest these are right around the corner. Head on past the break for a slightly bigger image.Continue reading HP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on TwitterHP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on Twitter originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | @philmckinney, @MarkatHP (Twitter) | Email this | Comments
Amazon Kindle review (2010)
Amazon's third major iteration of its flagship reading device, the Kindle, comes out of the gate looking strong: the new graphite finish (just like its big brother, the Kindle DX) with a slimmer, lighter form factor, plus a bumped refresh rate for its E Ink screen. Best of all, the WiFi only and 3G readers have newly lowered prices (though they're still not exactly bargain basement level). We've spent the past few days putting the tinier Kindle through the paces to see just how much Amazon's improved it. Though the market is increasingly flooded with cheap readers, the Kindle is arguably still the leading name in the field, and Amazon is already touting the third model as its bestselling ever -- even though there are still no sales figures to be had. So, is this the best Kindle ever? Read on to find out.
Gallery: Amazon Kindle unboxing and hands-onContinue reading Amazon Kindle review (2010)Amazon Kindle review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Gallery: Amazon Kindle unboxing and hands-onContinue reading Amazon Kindle review (2010)Amazon Kindle review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | | Email this | Comments
MPEG LA chases its tail, says H.264 streaming will be free forever
MPEG LA, famous for nothing other than a portfolio of pretentiously pathetic patents, has finally taken a swing at the rapidly gaining popularity of its free-as-in-matted-beard competitor, WebM. Rather than running out in 2016, the license to stream H.264 will remain free forever.
This is a reactionary move to battle the rallying of Mozilla, Google and Opera behind the WebM video standard. As it stands, both Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6 only support WebM for HTML5 video -- with this licensing change, MPEG LA is obviously angling for H.264 support to find a place in both Firefox and Opera before their next stable release. Chrome, incidentally, supports both H.264 and WebM, and I expect it will continue to do so. IE9 supports H.264, but will include WebM support by the time it is released.
Despite the licensing changes, I can't imagine Mozilla leaping at the chance of including closed-source and patent-riddled code in its browser. At the end of the day, it will be services like YouTube and Hulu that actually decide the fate of the HTML5 video wars: if YouTube only provides WebM-encoded video, you can be damn sure that WebM will become the video standard!
Incidentally, if you want something disgusting to look at, check out the MPEG LA website. Not only does it look kind-of-90s-and-pseudo-NASA, but it also explains the dire, creativity-crippling concept of 'Patent Pools'. "Together, with the power of pooled patents, we can stamp out start-ups and create billions of dollars in the process! Mu ha ha!"
Someone pass me a bucket.
[via NewTeeVee]MPEG LA chases its tail, says H.264 streaming will be free forever originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
This is a reactionary move to battle the rallying of Mozilla, Google and Opera behind the WebM video standard. As it stands, both Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6 only support WebM for HTML5 video -- with this licensing change, MPEG LA is obviously angling for H.264 support to find a place in both Firefox and Opera before their next stable release. Chrome, incidentally, supports both H.264 and WebM, and I expect it will continue to do so. IE9 supports H.264, but will include WebM support by the time it is released.
Despite the licensing changes, I can't imagine Mozilla leaping at the chance of including closed-source and patent-riddled code in its browser. At the end of the day, it will be services like YouTube and Hulu that actually decide the fate of the HTML5 video wars: if YouTube only provides WebM-encoded video, you can be damn sure that WebM will become the video standard!
Incidentally, if you want something disgusting to look at, check out the MPEG LA website. Not only does it look kind-of-90s-and-pseudo-NASA, but it also explains the dire, creativity-crippling concept of 'Patent Pools'. "Together, with the power of pooled patents, we can stamp out start-ups and create billions of dollars in the process! Mu ha ha!"
Someone pass me a bucket.
[via NewTeeVee]MPEG LA chases its tail, says H.264 streaming will be free forever originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video)
How could we resist a story involving robot-powered babies? The Ithaca College Tots on Bots project aims to mobilize infants with physical disabilities by setting them atop a "mobile robot" equipped with a Wii Balance Board to let the young operator steer by leaning -- which, it turns out, works pretty well. Additionally, the vehicle uses sonar to avoid nasty crashes and a remote control that an adult can use to take control. Further study has to be made before any long term developmental benefits can be ascertained, but in the meantime it does look like a lot of fun. See it in action after the break.Continue reading Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video)Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Switched | Cornell University | Email this | Comments
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Mysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internet
Hey -- what's this? Well, from the looks of it, it's a new, as-yet-unnamed HTC device. There is perilously little info available about the mystery mobile, but it appears to boast an 8 megapixel camera with a flash plus a front-facing camera, a 4.3-inch screen, a headphone jack and a kickstand. It also appears that it's going to boast HTC's own Sense UI. This falls in line with what we've heard about Verizon's Android-heavy fall launch this year, so we would not be surprised to see this device make an appearance. Furthermore, we could go out on a limb and guess that it's possible this is the Merge mentioned in that lineup, which supposedly boasts a 1GHz processor. That's all there is to the story right now but we're going to stay up late tonight to be on the lookout for further information on this one. One more photo below and hit up the source for the rest.Continue reading Mysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internetMysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Boy Genius Report | Email this | Comments
MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video)
Think of it as an autonomous, swarming, photovoltaic legion of seagoing Roombas (or don't, if you're easily upset). The Seaswarm project at MIT takes a thin, hydrophobic material and drags it behind a robot outfitted with GPS and WiFi for determining its location and communicating within a swarm. When deployed, the group finds the outer edges of an oil spill, and works its way into the center, coordinating the cleanup with minimal human interference. The material itself can take on twenty times its weight in oil. And yes, the whole thing is re-usable. According to researchers, 5,000 of these relatively low cost devices could have cleaned up the BP oil disaster in a month -- which is more than we can say for Kevin Costner! See it in action after the break.Continue reading MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video)MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Switched | MIT | Email this | Comments
Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery?
Filed under: Google, Browsers
I've asked about this before, and I'll pose the question one more time: if you're not going to put Chrome themes where the other Chrome themes go, shouldn't you at least create a category, Google?
Google has introduced half a dozen new official Chrome themes, but you won't find them if you click the get themes link on your Personal Stuff menu. No, like the scores of user-created themes out there these new themes from Google have been dropped into the Extensions Gallery.
I'm sure the plan is to list everything in the Gallery at some point (possibly once it's re-branded as the Web Store?), but it really shouldn't be hard to give themes their own section on the existing Gallery. Or, you know, post them on the page Chrome takes you to when you click get themes.
The new themes are called Modern, Adaptive, Vibrant, Inventive, Fresh, and Orkut_Hudson. They're artist-created, and generally not for those of you who like Chrome's interface to be as unobtrusive as possible -- some are downright loud.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course -- tell us what you think of the new themes in the comments.Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
I've asked about this before, and I'll pose the question one more time: if you're not going to put Chrome themes where the other Chrome themes go, shouldn't you at least create a category, Google?
Google has introduced half a dozen new official Chrome themes, but you won't find them if you click the get themes link on your Personal Stuff menu. No, like the scores of user-created themes out there these new themes from Google have been dropped into the Extensions Gallery.
I'm sure the plan is to list everything in the Gallery at some point (possibly once it's re-branded as the Web Store?), but it really shouldn't be hard to give themes their own section on the existing Gallery. Or, you know, post them on the page Chrome takes you to when you click get themes.
The new themes are called Modern, Adaptive, Vibrant, Inventive, Fresh, and Orkut_Hudson. They're artist-created, and generally not for those of you who like Chrome's interface to be as unobtrusive as possible -- some are downright loud.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course -- tell us what you think of the new themes in the comments.Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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