Monthly Archives: April 2012
iOS: Tweetbot updated to version 2.3, Skype to 4.0
Major app update ahoy – two incredibly popular iOS apps have today been updated with all new features and UI improvements aplenty. The apps in question are Tweetbot, one of the most popular Twitter clients for iOS, and Skype, which is, well, Skype.
Tweetbot comes with various improvements, most notably including a new tweet detail screen that includes conversation, Droplr support for image hosting, and (finally) higher resolution image uploading when over wifi.
Meanwhile, Skype has been almost completely overhauled with a brand new UI, a unique “auto re-open” feature that relaunches the app in the event of a crash, and accessibility improvements.
You can download both in the App Store – I just did.
Check out the full change log of each app after the break.
Awesome looking midnight purple Nintendo 3DS announced
Nintendo of America has today announced that an awesome looking midnight purple Nintendo 3DS will be released on May 20th. The console will go on sale for the now standard Nintendo 3DS price of $169.99.
Nintendo had previously shown off the handheld in such a color back in E3 before the 3DS was actually released, but to date the console had been sold only in Cosmo Black, Aqua Blue, Flame Red and Pearl Pink colors – and if I had known that this would be launching soon, I wouldn’t have gone ahead and purchased my Flame Red 3DS, that’s for sure.
Via: My Nintendo News
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announce new partnership
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have today announced not only an end to their ongoing patent dispute, but more excitingly a new venture and partnership with a focus on improving e-reading and the education.
The venture will be 82.4% owned by Barnes & Noble with the rest belonging to Microsoft. Microsoft will also make a $300 million investment on the new subsidiary.
Though there is no officials on any of the following just yet, it would come to no surprise if at this point the result of the new venture was some sort of Windows RT ( the ARM version of Windows 8 ) based e-reader. Such a device could be influential in a market currently saturated by Android based offerings, if it could find a foothold in the market.
Android developer applauds OEM efforts for Android update turnaround time
Lead Android developer Jean-Baptiste Queru has gone on Google+ recently to talk about his view on how OEMs are fairing with Android update turnaround time, specifically Sony’s latest push to get Ice Cream Sandwich on their devices. In the post, Jean-Baptiste says,
It took Sony only about 5 months to ship this after I released the code in the Android Open Source Project at the very end of last year. This is actually a very reasonable time, since under the hood Ice Cream Sandwich is quite different from Honeycomb (and upgrades from Gingerbread are likely to take longer as those differences are huge).
Some critics of the Android platform have argued that this sort of five-month wait between updates is actually rather unacceptable, with competitors such as Microsoft being able to push updates out to all of their devices in mere days, and Apple in one day.
Via: The Verge
Source: +Jean-Baptiste Queru
Featured Friday: How to build a computer for $200
There are a lot of great guides out there to help those on a budget to build cheap computers, but one thing that always bugs me is that they either never seem to be worth the money, offering low-end, garbage parts, or on the flipside they seem to be too expensive for what it could be. So today, I was on a mission: what’s the cheapest I could build a computer that’s worth using using only parts currently sold on NewEgg?
Read more after the break.
Steam for Linux caught on camera
Phoronix has recently gone on record to announce the existence of the popular gaming client Steam for Linux, complete with photo and video evidence to back up their claim. What we’re seeing in the photo above appears to be Left 4 Dead playing natively on a computer running Ubuntu.
Work appears to be in the early stages, but this is undoubtedly good news for the platform, which to date has seen little to no commercial interest, especially in the gaming industry. It’s unclear as to the intended release date, or even if it’ll actually ever be released at all, but rest easy Linux-users – if all goes well, you could soon be slaying zombies along with the rest of us.
Check out video evidence after the break.
Via: Engadget
Source: Phoronix
Virgin Mobile announcing new phones, switching all customers over to $35/mo rates?
It appears that Virgin Mobile is getting ready to change things up – long gone are the days of their $25/month plans (which offered 300 minutes, unlimited data/text), as customers will soon be moved over to a $35/month plan with the same 300 minutes and unlimited data and texting. It appears that Virgin Mobile doesn’t believe in the the whole concept of grandfathering in older customers – everybody will soon be ponying up that $35 a month, including users of the $25/month plan, as the following text messages have been sent out to such customers:
VMFreeMsg Starting 5/27/12, new smartphones will be subject to current plan rates. This will apply if you switch phones. Go to http://msg4u.us/src for info
Kaspersky: Apple’s security initiative is “10 years behind Microsoft’
Today, Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, commented that he believes that Apple is about “10 years behind Microsoft” when it comes to security of their Apple Mac OS X platform, citing the relative success of the Flashback trojan that infected more than 600,000 Mac OS X users this past month.
Kaspersky then went on to say that Apple will soon be having to deal with the “same problems Microsoft had ten or 12 years ago”, and that more and more viruses will succeed to break through Apple’s now mainstream platform as time goes on. “(Apple) will have to make changes in terms of the cycle of updates and so on and will be forced to invest more into their security audits for the software,” said Kaspersky.
Samsung Galaxy S3 revealed by manual?
Well what do we have here – SamMobile has today posted what they claims to be a scan of the Samsung Galaxy S3′s (previously known as the Galaxy S III) service manual, complete with official specifications and even a sketch of the device. The exact device we appear to be looking at here is the “GT-I9300″ model, which seems comes complete with Android 4.0 ICS, HSPA+ (but no LTE), an 8Mp camera, a 1.5GHz quad core CPU, and, oddly enough, a barometer. You know, in case you want to use it for… uhhh… barometer stuff.
We’ll continue to cover any updates regarding this new Samsung Galaxy phone leading up to the big reveal on May 3rd. Keep an eye out!
New Samsung phone to be named Samsung “Galaxy S3″?
Evidence seems to be mounting that the phone Samsung is getting ready to reveal on May 3rd, the successor to the Galaxy S II line
will be entitled… the Galaxy S3. Shocker (well, a little bit. Kinda.)
As Sammobile reports, news comes out of Samsung’s Kies software, which is Samsung’s smartphone companion software for PC’s. Apparently hidden deep inside the software was the “Galaxy S3″ name with two model numbers - GT-i9300 and GT-i9300T. It’s unclear what the difference between the two models would be at this time – perhaps a CDMA variant and a GSM variant?
Who owns your Google Drive data?
Uhhoh – just one day after the launch of Google’s highly anticipated Google Drive service, which allows users to upload and share files to the cloud to be shared anywhere, controversy is afoot. Apparently, hidden deep within Google’s terms of service is a clause that claims, and I quote,
Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps).
Essentially, what this means is that once you upload a file to Google Drive, it’s also Google’s, not just yours. And if you delete those files off of Drive, it’s still Google’s. They can basically do whatever they want with your their files too.
I have yet to upload anything to or even activate my Google Drive account, but I think I’ll be sticking to Dropbox or Microsoft SkyDrive, where I at least get to own my own data.
Via: CNet News
Apple announces WWDC ’12, already sold out
Apple has today announced that their annual WWDC conference will be hosted between June 11-15 this year. The conference has usually been used to showcase upcoming hardware and software refreshes by Apple and is almost always preceded by a keynote address from the Apple CEO.
Thus keeping with tradition, Tim Cook will be kicking off the event with a keynote presentation of June 11th. I would advise all interested developers to go get their tickets before they’re too late, but, well, it’s already too late and it’s sold out. Sorry guys!
Though apple does not usually pre-announce the contents of their announcements, it’s not unlikely that we’ll be seeing more of Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, as well as some sort of iOS update – more than likely iOS 6. MacBook’s are also overdo for an update at this point so we may very well be seeing that as well.
Via: Ars Technica
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