Thursday, March 31, 2011

WinZip System Utilities Suite giveaway

WinZip has just released WinZip System Utilities Suite! Earlier today we published a quick hands-on with the app, but why should we have all the fun?

While you can always download the trial version, WinZip has also provided us with 10 full System Utilities licenses to give away! To enter our random draw, you just have to leave a comment. Full terms and conditions are after the break.Continue reading WinZip System Utilities Suite giveawayWinZip System Utilities Suite giveaway originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Royal wedding app for iPhone and iPad now available

If you can?t get enough of the impending British Royal Wedding, now there is an app for that! Trinity Mirror has launched a universal iOS app that includes photo galleries, video clips and audio from its royal correspondent James Whitaker.

Appealing to all users, whether they be staunch Royalists or just swept up in the fairytale [...]Royal wedding app for iPhone and iPad now available 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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Windows Home Server 2011 released to manufacturers

Just a little under two months after its release candidate went live, Windows Home Server (WHS) 2011 has been finalized and released into the wild. The new version of Microsoft's slick, do-it-all server OS is a big step forward from its predecessor.

Built on the Windows Server 2008 R2 base, Home Server 2011 features a simpler dashboard, a better backup solution, dead simple remote access to your home computers, and Silverlight-powered remote media streaming. For a more detailed look at what's new in Windows Home Server 2011, you check out Microsoft's official breakdown.

Drive Extender, of course, didn't resurface for the final release of WHS 2011 and that's something a lot of power users are still pretty irked about. Even without Extender, Windows Home Server offers a boatload of useful functionality and might be a good fit for your home network. Manufacturers have already begun building hardware, so you should be able to pick up a device in the very near future.

An evaluation download for Windows Home Server 2011 will be made available in April -- we'll let you know when the links are ready.Windows Home Server 2011 released to manufacturers originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Netflix beefing up service center in preparation for global launch

It's no secret that Netflix has grand plans to expand its global footprint that now feeds media to some 20 million North American subscribers. Hell, the company was boasting of the "significant dollars" allocated to its 2011 international expansion plans just four months ago. While nothing's official yet, we've unearthed a few tantalizing openings posted to the Netflix job site over the last few days that could point to an imminent launch. Notably, Netflix's customer service call center in Hillsboro Oregon is gearing up to expand its scope of operations beyond North America. Two new job postings for a Training Supervisor and Quality Assurance Analyst both mention the need to prepare for "rapid" international expansion and "will support a specific country / region outside of North America." The Training Supervisor is being hired specifically to educate customer service reps in preparation for that future international growth. Neflix is looking for fluency in English in addition to Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), and Spanish (Latin American and European), leaving things pretty wide open with regard to the countries targeted for initial launch.

We do know that Netflix had plans to launch in the UK way back in 2004 -- plans that were ultimately scrapped in order to focus on its core US business (and later Canada). But if not the UK then we should at least expect to see Netflix target the European continent first if a statement attributed to CEO Reed Hastings from way back in January of 2010 still rings true: "the big market for Hollywood content (after the U.S.) is Europe...Third is Asia. Fourth is the rest of the world." Can't let Amazon have the market to itself now can we Reed?

[Thanks, Chico]Netflix beefing up service center in preparation for global launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Netflix (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

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Social Media Monitoring Company Visible Technologies Lands $6 Million

A mere day after Salesforce announced that it was acquiring social media monitoring company Radian6 for $326 million in cash and stock, rival Visible Technologies this morning announced that it has secured an extra $6 million in financing.

The round was led by the company's previous backers, which include Investor Growth Capital, Centurion Holdings, Ignition Partners, In-Q-Tel and WPP. Visible Technologies has raised a total of $45 million in funding to date.

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Zapd iOS app creates your next website in seconds flat, seriously (video)

Sure, the end result looks like a highly styled Tumblr, but let's repeat this: it's created on your phone. For those who are flat terrified of coding (or simply don't have the time to stay on top of a so-called "blog"), PressPlane has created Zapd -- a free iOS app that allows the creation of picture-led sites in seconds flat. The app truly is as streamlined as the company advertises it to be; load up a few images (or take a few), select a website style, find a decent web connection, and watch as things are published and shared with your pals on Facebook and Twitter. Enough chatter -- peek the video below to see where we're coming from, and give that iTunes link a look if you're hoping to join what's next. You know, now that your honeymoon with Color is thoroughly over.Continue reading Zapd iOS app creates your next website in seconds flat, seriously (video)Zapd iOS app creates your next website in seconds flat, seriously (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink TechFlash  |  Vimeo (Rocketvox), iTunes  | Email this | Comments

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Twitter?s Interactive ?Web Intents? Turn Your Site Into A Lightweight Twitter Client

Twitter has just released a pretty snazzy API tool that allow site publishers to provide users with the functionality of Twitter follows, retweets, replies and favorites without forcing them to leave their own sites. Those interested can invoke an intent by embedding a line of Javascript and HTML, without having build an OAuth app in order to attach these functions.

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Project Noah App Lets You Learn About Nearby Wildlife and Provide Worthy Research Yourself [Apps]

This could be an app that makes you relinquish control of your iPhone and see the nearest kid around you begin a lifelong journey in wildlife appreciation. The free Project Noah app lets you snap photos of a plant or animal and submit it to find out details on exactly what it is, and what it's good for. More »






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Fukushima's Four Troubled Nuclear Reactors Will Be Permanently Shut Down [Japan]

TEPCO says they're going to permanently shut down the four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant which caused catastrophic problems for the entire Japanese nation after the earthquake that hit on March 11. More »






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5 Reasons To Buy A Nintendo 3DS? And 5 Reasons Not To

With the hoopla over the Nintendo 3DS dying down and the hard reality of the thing clear, it's time to take stock and assess if the 3DS is right for you and/or your family. First off, I'll say I'm a fan. It's a wildly fascinating device and the 3D effects are amazing - when done correctly. I believe the 3DS has legs and will maintain sales at a steady clip over the next few years and I also think Nintendo has set a new level of interactivity and creativity in the creation of this new handheld. This isn't just an upgraded DS, it's a new handheld console.

Let's go through a few reasons why the 3DS is worth picking up - and a few caveats before you buy.

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Personal Activity Monitor tracks time you spend using desktop apps

Up until a couple of years ago, I used to turn to RescueTime to figure out how I spend my time online. Then it got too complex, and I stopped using it. Personal Activity Monitor is like a vastly dumbed-down version of RescueTime, and I mean that as a compliment. It's free and bare-bones -- all it does is track what applications you're using and for how long.

A big drawback at this point is that it doesn't integrate with Web browsers to help you analyze how you spend your time on the Web. Still, if your work doesn't require constant Web app use, knowing how long you've used a browser overall might be enough to help you manage your time.


This is far from the only application in this space -- alternatives such as Slife and Chrometa are full-featured and impressive -- but PAM is good option for those who want a nice, simple tracker.Personal Activity Monitor tracks time you spend using desktop apps originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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The Best Deal of the Day [Dealzmodo]

Remember that movie with James Franco? The one where he's trapped under the boulder or something, and he has to saw his own arm off? I think it won an Oscar? I forget, I never saw it. I did, however, see Blue Valentine, and it almost made me cry. It was really good though! But anyway, imagine, for a moment, if that James Franco movie had been about a big laptop instead of a boulder or whatever. Trapped under a massive, leaden laptop from the late 90s. Awful plastic hinges, giant ports! A laptop leviathan. This scenario isn't that far-fetched. It could happen to you. At work. Or at home. Right now. You could find yourself pinned under your laptop. Trapped. Desperate. Ready to saw off your own limb. Or, if you bought this new 11-inch MacBook Air (with free shipping!), you'd be able to lift the thing off of you with ease and then frisbee it out of your nearest window. Show that computer who's boss! Now you're as handsome and famous as James Franco. -SB More »






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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Versatile Magstand2 for iPad 2

There isn’t a lot of information available yet, but Macally will be releasing a product for iPad 2 that can be used as a tabletop stand or as an under-counter mount.� It appears the Magstand2 will make use of the iPad 2′s internal magnets (that hold the Smart Cover in place) to securely hold the [...]

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Adobe patches latest Flash and Reader vulnerabilities

Just recently, new critical vulnerabilities were reported in Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader. While Google and Adobe managed to deliver an update to secure Chrome users, it took a few more days to put together the necessary bits for the general Flash and Reader using public.

Fortunately, the work is now complete, and Adobe has posted updated downloads for both products. You should be notified via the Adobe Updater that a new version is available, but you can always download manually as well. We'd recommend doing so immediately rather than waiting on a notification.

You can find the updated Flash Player and Reader downloads on Adobe's site, and Windows versions are available on Filehippo (Reader and Flash) as well.Adobe patches latest Flash and Reader vulnerabilities originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Mark Cuban And Kevin O?Leary Invest In Online Toy Rental Service Toygaroo

Just in case you missed it: Mark Cuban's most recent investment took place in what is a fairly unusual setting for early-stage startup seed funding -- a shark tank. That's right, the controversial billionaire and media mogul was a recent guest shark on ABC reality show "Shark Tank", in which 5 business moguls listen to entrepreneurs pitch their companies and decide whether or not to devour them like so many sardines. Great premise. (I'm also pretty sure ABC lifted the show's name from Ron Conway's boardroom, but I haven't confirmed that yet.)

In the most recent Shark Tank-isode, co-founder and chief executive of Toygaroo, Nikki Pope, pitched her startup to the panel of honchos, hoping for big-time investment. Toygaroo, the self-labeled "Netflix for toys", is an online toy rental service in which parents can sign up for and choose a "wish list" of toys that are then sent to their home, played with by their kids, before being returned to Toygaroo via a FedEx box. Before you start shuddering, the toys are, of course, cleaned and sanitized before being shipped.

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MIT professor touts first 'practical' artificial leaf, signs deal with Tata to show up real plants

A professor at MIT claims to have Mother Nature beat at her own game. Dr. Daniel Nocera says his invention is ten times more efficient at photosynthesis than a real-life leaf, and could help to bring affordable alternative energy to developing countries. Described as an "advanced solar cell the size of a poker card," the device is made of silicon, electronics, and inexpensive catalysts made of nickel and cobalt. When placed in a gallon of water under direct sunlight, the catalysts break the H2O down into hydrogen and oxygen gases, which are then stored in a fuel cell -- the energy produced is apparently enough to power a single house for a day. Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen scientists try to one-up nature, in fact, we've seen solar-powered leaves before, but this thing actually looks poised for the mass market -- Nocera signed a deal with Tata in October. Full PR after the break.Continue reading MIT professor touts first 'practical' artificial leaf, signs deal with Tata to show up real plantsMIT professor touts first 'practical' artificial leaf, signs deal with Tata to show up real plants originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Green Car Congress  |  American Chemical Society  | Email this | Comments



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DARPA's Urban Photonic Sandtable Display enables 3D battlefield planning without goofy glasses

You probably point and laugh at your friends when they have big, bulky 3D glasses perched on their noses in theaters. That kind of tomfoolery just won't do amongst the military brass, who frown at the slightest hint of snickering in the operations room. This new 3D system, called the Urban Photonic Sandtable Display (UPSD), should help. It's a DARPA project, a fully holographic table (no glasses required) that can be scaled up to six feet diagonally and allows visual depth of up to 12-inches. The technology comes courtesy of Zebra Imaging, which earlier wowed us with some insane 3D printouts, and the data will come from LIDAR systems like this ROAMS bot. No word on when the system will be deployed to the field, but it should allow grizzled commanders and uppity businessmen to find unobtanium deposits, even if they happen to be located right under a big 'ol tree.Continue reading DARPA's Urban Photonic Sandtable Display enables 3D battlefield planning without goofy glassesDARPA's Urban Photonic Sandtable Display enables 3D battlefield planning without goofy glasses originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Information Week  |  DARPA  | Email this | Comments

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Monday, March 28, 2011

March 31 is World Backup Day 2011

Those benevolent armchair philanthropist Redditors are at it again! Four days ago a 'self' post extolling the potential virtues of a Backup Day exploded with 2500 upvotes and 1000 comments -- and now World Backup Day 2011 is actually happening.

On March 31, as part of the global data-saving initiative, you are encouraged to back up all of your cherished photos and videos, and important documents. If you've ever had a hard disk fail, and not had a backup to fall back on, you'll know that it's a bit like losing a sizable fragment of your soul. If you've never backed up your important files -- or if you only back up sporadically -- do it on World Backup Day!

It's not hard to back up your data, either. A 2TB drive costs only a fistful of dollars, and it takes just a few minutes to set SyncToy for Windows, or Time Machine for Mac, to mirror your data every night. If you prefer a cloud-based solution, there's always SugarSync and Dropbox. Finally, don't forget that Bundlelytic has a charity giveaway for three excellent data-backup-and-recovery tools -- $160 of software for only $25, and 100% of the proceeds to go the Japanese Red Cross.

For even more backup options, for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, check our list of 13 great backup programs.March 31 is World Backup Day 2011 originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Victorinox Swiss Army RescueTool Knife

This Swiss Army knife was developed over a five-year period in conjunction with emergency medical and rescue services personnel.� The Victorinox RescueTool has a window breaker and a seat belt cutter in addition to the more traditional Swiss Army tools.� Luminescent, bright yellow grip shells make it easy to see, and the nylon cord allows [...]

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Hands-On: Banana TV Streams iOS Video, Pictures to Mac

One of the coolest gimmicks of iOS is AirPlay, a button you press on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to stream photos, videos and audio to a huge display connected to an Apple TV. Problem is, you can’t normally use this nifty feature without your Apple TV (or an AirPlay Express, if all you [...]

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It's Earth Hour Tonight, We'll Understand If You Turn Off the Lights [Video]

In what has become an annual event, Earth Hour 2011 is upon us. From 8:30 PM (local time) to 9:30 PM, Earth Hour encourages us to turn off the lights. We'll see you back at 9:30 (or tomorrow!). [Earth Hour] More »






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Surfy for Windows Phone 7 is a free, tabbed Web browser

While you wait patiently for Microsoft to deliver Internet Explorer Mobile 9 to your Windows Phone 7 device, you may find yourself wanting for a slightly more feature-filled browser that you can use right now. Surfy is a nice option that's worth checking out, introducing several features you won't find in the stock WP7 browser.

Surfy offers tabbed browsing, a fullscreen mode, and orientation locking so that you don't unexpectedly switch from landscape to portrait viewing. Its address bar provides suggestions as you type, and autocomplete is supported for text input fields.

There's also detailed in-app help provided, and Surfy's developer is keen on adding new user-suggested features -- you can pitch your ideas using the app's feedback system.

Surfy is available for free from the Zune Marketplace.
Gallery: Surfy for Windows Phone 7Surfy for Windows Phone 7 is a free, tabbed Web browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Panasonic Lumix GH2 review roundup: impressive video recording, murky still images

In case you're still wondering if Panasonic's mirrorless Lumix GH2 is worth your $900, we've rounded up a handful of reviews to provide a pointer for your next big purchase. While most reviewers agree that this Micro Four Thirds camera appears to be very similar to its predecessor, they universally praise the subtly improved ergonomics, speedy liveview autofocusing, and refined image quality, especially with its 1080p AVCHD video recording (although Digital Camera Resource Page did notice some artifacting in its clips). Noise is also a non-issue up to about ISO 800 or 1600, though it's apparent that the 16 megapixel stills are comparatively dull and, like those from many other MFTs, aren't quite on par with DSLRs -- expect plenty of manual processing work here, as demoed by the good folks over at Digital Photography Review. All in all, the GH2 is a great kit for high quality video capturing, bundled with a pretty good still performance that requires some extra TLC afterwards -- kinda ironic in a way, but hey, this isn't a problem for lovers of video bokeh. Head over to the links below for some in-depth analysis and walk-through before you leave a small dent on your bank account.

Read - Digital Photography Review
Read - Photography Blog
Read - Camera Labs
Read - Digital Camera Resource Page
Read - Let's Go Digital

Panasonic Lumix GH2 review roundup: impressive video recording, murky still images originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments



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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Weekly Links ? Did you miss anything on The Gadgeteer this week?

If you don’t subscribe to our daily email newsletter or our RSS feed, you might have missed one of our reviews or news items. Don’t worry, you can catch up fast by checking out this handy list of everything we posted this past week. Reviews Monsoon Multimedia Vulkano Flow Review EveryList iOS app Review NuForce [...]

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Balance is a challenging mouse-based physics game

Years of computer use have taught us that the mouse cursor is "above" the windows. It doesn't push anything around; at least not without you clicking anything.

Balance takes that ingrained bit of knowledge and cancels it out. Suddenly your cursor (a blue dot) is solid - and if it touches the blue block, it pushes it around.

Your job is to use your cursor to nudge the blue block over to the orange block. You will have to push it, lift it and even flip it on its side, and then balance it. It's a very tricky game - one I wouldn't recommend tackling with a laptop trackpad.

Still, if you have a mouse and a hankering for a little physics gameplay, this is a cute little game. I like how the blue block never stops smiling, it makes me feel better about the world.Balance is a challenging mouse-based physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game

In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you're not even a cube -- just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That's important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place.

The "baddies" are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. If that doesn't sound very emotionally deep, it's because it isn't. But it's fun!

After you shoot a baddy, it splashes paint as it disappears. You need to skate across this blob of paint and "eat it up" to get points. This game is fast. It clocked in at around 60-70 FPS on my system, and was loads of fun to play. It does tend to insult you when you die, though, but don't be offended -- I don't think it's personal.BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Scientists improve blue OLED efficiency, don't promise everlasting light

Although this is not the first time we've seen an efficiency increase in blue OLEDs, it's worth noting that their proposed cap of productivity up to this point was a lowly five percent. It's exciting to learn, therefore, about a breakthrough by professor John Kieffer and graduate student Changgua Zhen from the University of Michigan, which has resulted in them successfully increasing azure diode power efficiency by 100 percent. The duo, accompanied by some bright minds in Singapore, manipulated performance controllers by rearranging OLED molecules in a computer model, improving material characteristics. In simple terms though, we're still looking at a measly ten percent efficiency, so we'll see where they take it from here.Scientists improve blue OLED efficiency, don't promise everlasting light originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Physorg  |  University of Michigam  | Email this | Comments

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Daily Crunch: Unplugged Edition

The Loog Three-Stringed Guitar: You Know, For Kids Power Pod, A Practical, Pellet-Shaped Power Strip Yamaha Creates Voice Masking System To Quiet Discrete Conversations Blackbird?s Travel French Press For Good Coffee In The Woods Has HP Lost Its Soul?

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Apple looking to 'radically improve' iOS Maps experience, may look to you for help

It's tough to read too much into this, but when Apple publishes a couple of job applications hoping to bring on folks who can "radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services," we can't help but take note. The outfit's currently seeking a pair of full-timers to be labeled as iOS Maps Application Developers, and it's honing in on applicants with "excellent skills in object-oriented software design and programming." We've felt for awhile that Apple's built-in Maps application wasn't even comparable to Google Maps Navigation, but it could be time for that to change. Even now, iOS users need to fork out cash on a legitimate turn-by-turn app if they're hoping to navigate with the iPod touch or iPhone, but we can only hope that these applications are hinting at a more full-fledged internal program for the software's next major iteration.'Course, we're sure TomTom would beg to disagree...Apple looking to 'radically improve' iOS Maps experience, may look to you for help originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Apple Insider  |  Apple (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Apple Peel 520 sleeve gives your iPod touch cell services, coming March 28

The Apple Peel 520 t has now been confirmed that it will be released in China on March 28, that is next week! Back in July 2010, we heard about an iPod touch sleeve coming out of China called the Apple Peel 520. What’s interesting about this particular sleeve is it can give your iPod [...]Apple Peel 520 sleeve gives your iPod touch cell services, coming March 28 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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Play with Mozilla's HTML5 and WebGL Web O' Wonder

Step right up! Mozilla's Web O' Wonder is a fantastic and enthralling and slightly terrifying playground for surfers of all ages and experience levels. Feast your eyes on funky uses of WebGL and CSS3 transitions as slick as a bald man's pate. Marvel at the flexibility of HTML5 video -- but most of all, revel in the fact that everything in the Web O' Wonder is made of Open Web technologies.

The Web O' Wonder is Mozilla's new demo site, and much like Microsoft's Internet Explorer Test Drive it's designed to showcase its new browser, Firefox 4. Unlike the IE Test Drive, however, the Web O' Wonder is actually fun. While the IE Test Drive is soulless, a raw and synthetic benchmark for new browsers, the Web O' Wonder will actually entertain. The Planetarium demo is beautiful, and the Motivational Poster demo is a lot of fun. Click through the demos, you won't be disappointed.

Don't get too excited, however. While the Web O' Wonder is undoubtedly very cool, it only really works with Firefox 4, brutally reminding us yet again that truly cross-platform HTML5 Web experiences are still flights of fancy. The Web O' Wonder just about works in Chrome, but IE9 and Opera can only run a few of the demos successfully.

In other news, the final build of Firefox 4 is expected to arrive on March 22!Play with Mozilla's HTML5 and WebGL Web O' Wonder originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Beyond Mobile: A Computer the Size of a Grain of Sand

When so-called "minicomputers" first appeared in the 1970s, they supplanted mainframes on a scale of size and cost expressed by Bell's Law, which holds that a new class of smaller, cheaper computers comes along roughly every 10 years. Personal computers, notebooks, smartphones, and tablets followed, and the latest entry was displayed last month at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

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Researchers produce cheaper, 'cooler' semiconductor nanowires

Advances in nanowires may occur on a pretty regular basis these days, but this new development out of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems could have a particularly big impact on one all-important area: cost. As PhysOrg reports, manufacturing semiconducter nanowires at an industrial scale is currently very expensive because they need to be produced at extremely high temperatures (600 to 900 degrees Celsius), and the process used to manufacture them generally uses pure gold as a catalyst, which obviously adds to the cost. This new process, however, can use inexpensive materials like aluminum as a catalyst, and it can produce crystalline semiconductor nanowires at temperatures of just 150 degrees Celsius. Of course, that's all still only being done in the lab at the moment, and there's no indication as to when it might actually be more widely used.Researchers produce cheaper, 'cooler' semiconductor nanowires originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  PhysOrg  | Email this | Comments



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This Watch Is Hideous Enough to Boil the Ocean if You Dropped It In [Crap]

Look upon my unbelievably ugly watch, ye Mighty, and Despair! We're not sure what Casio was thinking when they designed this Baby-G Shock watch, other than that you might want to buy it and give it to someone you hate. More »






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Friday, March 25, 2011

Google Latitude for iOS adds check-in, Places goes multilingual

Android users have been able to post Latitude check-ins via the Google Maps app for some time. Now, Google has brought the same functionality to its Latitude app for iOS. Being able to check-in at specific locations gives the app a much more social feel, and it's nice to be able to do more than track your friends' positions on a map.

Google has also delivered a massive internationalization update for the Google Places app. Version 1.1 now supports a total of 30 languages, and it adds a saved places feature which allows you to quickly access your favorite check-in locations while you're out and about. Your saved places will also sync with Maps and Hotpot.

Head to the App Store and grab the new Google Latitude and Google Places apps for your iOS device!Google Latitude for iOS adds check-in, Places goes multilingual originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Apple releases iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone, iPad

Apple has released iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and as expected, it’s a bug fix release. So connect to iTunes, hit Check for Updates, and go get it!

Sorry, updating while in line for iPad 2! Yes, compatibility is the same adios 4.3 so no iPhone 3G, no Verizon iPhone. And if you’re [...]Apple releases iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone, iPad 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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Android in-app billing coming next week, starts developer testing today

Google promised us the ability to buy stuff while inside Android apps, and sure enough, it's now just about ready to deliver it. Eric Chu, responsible for the company's Android Developer Ecosystem, has announced app submissions are now being accepted from those wanting to offer up purchasable items within their software. He also points out there'll be about a week's worth of internal testing before the whole system opens up to the public, likely before the end of the month so that Google may stick to its word of rolling out the service in the first quarter of this year. Once that's done, you'll finally be able to buy your way to in-game glory instead of having to grind away at it like some unenlightened schmo.Android in-app billing coming next week, starts developer testing today originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 06:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Android Developers  | Email this | Comments



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Pastebin updated to V3, releases Windows app

Pastebin is a very popular website aimed at coders and other nerdy types, which allows them (or should I say, us) to paste and share snippets of code with lovely syntax highlighting.

It has recently undergone a major overhaul which includes the release of a brand new Windows client. The new client lets you create new "pastes" and manage your existing ones. It joins a host of other tools from Pastebin, such as the Google and Chrome extensions, OS X widget and the mobile apps.

If you're currently using Pastebin, the new client is a great addition. And if you haven't tried it before, next time you have a piece of code you want to share or get some feedback on, you could do worse than try out Pastebin.

[Thanks, Jeroen!]Pastebin updated to V3, releases Windows app originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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We interrupt your gadget coverage?

I’ve been running The Gadgeteer since the dawn of time (1997) and during all these years I’ve met, chatted and emailed a lot of wonderful people who have become my friends. For that reason, I have decided to share something personal with all of you. I don’t normally talk about my personal life on this [...]

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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Free iPad a Day Giveaway From Zagg

Everyone loves a great contest, especially when it’s free to enter and involves giveaways! How would you like the opportunity to win a free iPad? For all of February Zagg will be giving away a free iPad to one lucky winner each day of the month! You can enter the contest once a day simply [...]

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Facebook Is Reading What You Write to Sell Ads. Live. [Wtf]

Ugh, you know, I love Facebook, but sometimes it's really frustrating how the targeted ads aren't relevant enough to me and my consumer lifestyle. Like, yeah, I enjoy pizza and videogames, but couldn't it be more precise and creepy? Yes. More »






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Beyond Mobile: A Computer the Size of a Grain of Sand

When so-called "minicomputers" first appeared in the 1970s, they supplanted mainframes on a scale of size and cost expressed by Bell's Law, which holds that a new class of smaller, cheaper computers comes along roughly every 10 years. Personal computers, notebooks, smartphones, and tablets followed, and the latest entry was displayed last month at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

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Loca Brews Pod Coffee in a Stovetop Moka

Luca Veneri’s “Loca” takes the simple, effective and well loved moka coffee pot and modifies to use expensive, wasteful and environmentally questionable coffee pods.
The moka is a classic, and can be found in almost every kitchen across western Europe. I have used one daily for most of my adult life. It’s cheap, easy to use [...]

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Improve Your Ramen While Keeping It Simple [Recipes]

Instant Ramen noodles were designed to be quick-cooking and edible in almost any situation. But you don't have to settle for just noodles, water, and seasoning packets. Serious Eats' resident food hacker provides more than two dozen noodle additions and upgrades that will make you see those square packets as a rich canvas for quick eats. More »






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Flickr adds lightbox viewer for iPad surfers

Flickr has announced that visitors who browse the site using an iPad can now view photos using a lightbox-style viewer. On any photo page, simply tap the picture you'd like to view and the background will darken and the higher-resolution image will load in the foreground.

It's a subtle change, but one which definitely makes browsing Flickr on an iPad a more enjoyable (and efficient) experience. As our editor in chief put it, "This is pretty sick."Flickr adds lightbox viewer for iPad surfers originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Yahoo intros Search Direct, takes on Google Instant with insular effect

Remember Google Instant? Now, Yahoo's got something like that -- it's called Search Direct -- and like Instant, it consists of a search box that quickly and automatically suggests results as you type. Unlike Instant, however, it won't update the entire results page to reflect the outcome of your potential search, but rather just an enlarged search box like the one you see above, providing up to ten suggested queries and three suggested results. That makes it a little bit speedier (we were able to use it on our 3G phone connection quite easily) but also fairly limited in comparison. It's also a bit... ahem... self-serving, as any search that happens to include the same letters as one of Yahoo's own services will promote them above all others in the results -- in fact, only five letters of the alphabet presently bring up anything but a Yahoo website as the first result when typed in solo.

I = iTunes
J = Jennifer Lopez
Q = QVC
X = Xbox 360
Z = Zsa Zsa Gabor

Some of the improved functionality is pretty useful, though, as that Xbox query will instantly bring up prices for the console, and you can type in "movies" or "weather" and your zip code to immediately plan your night out. ("Restaurants" and "food" don't work, though.) Anyhow, Search Direct is in beta. Why not give it a go?Continue reading Yahoo intros Search Direct, takes on Google Instant with insular effectYahoo intros Search Direct, takes on Google Instant with insular effect originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Mashable  |  Yahoo  | Email this | Comments

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Alienware M11x R3 specs leaked, brings Sandy Bridge to your next LAN party?

Alienware's laptops first hopped on the Sandy Bridge bandwagon when the company's top-of-the-line M17x got Intel's second-gen Core processors, and now it appears the more budget-conscious M11x may get some Sandy Bridge love too. According to Dell News and more -- who correctly foretold the 3D screen on the M17x R3 before its January debut, among other things -- the littlest alien laptop is getting your choice of Core i5-2537M, Core i7-2617M, and Core i7-2657M chips ranging in speeds from 1.4GHz to 2.7GHz. Accompanying the new silicon is an optional 750GB HDD (up from 640GB) and an upgrade from 800MHz to speedy 1333MHz RAM. And, to keep you gaming wherever you please, the company will offer optional 3g, LTE, and WiMAX radios as well. Unfortunately, one minor detail didn't make it out -- how much will the extra goodies cost?Alienware M11x R3 specs leaked, brings Sandy Bridge to your next LAN party? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink PC World  |  Dell News and more  | Email this | Comments



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USB Flashdrive Pendants from Unica Italian Design

I have a fascination for USB flash drive jewelry, and Unica Italian Design has some really pretty pieces that caught my interest.� Unica Italian Design is a company formed by people with years of experience in designing and manufacturing gold and silver jewelry.� Their mission was to combine jewelry with technology to make art out [...]

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AOL Play for Android helps you discover and share great music

Looking for a way to share what you're listening to and discover some great new music at the same time? Check out Play by AOL. It's a new Android app which lets you post what you're listening to on Facebook or Twitter, sample free downloads from Spinner, and see what your friends are listening to. [Disclosure: Play, Spinner and Download Squad are all owned by AOL.]

There's also the promise of "exclusive" tracks, but we're guessing that means exclusive to AOL -- so you'll see the same tracks offered in Winamp as well.

Play also features Rdio integration, which comes courtesy the company's freshly-released API. From time to time, Play will also offer exclusive video streams. All in all, it's a nice, free app that Android-toting music lovers should take for a spin!

iOS users, you're getting an app too. While no release date has been specified, it's said to be "coming soon."AOL Play for Android helps you discover and share great music originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Daily Crunch: Feat of Strength Edition

x-Ar Exoskeleton Arm Lets You Lift Like a Robot: Indefatigably Gemini Introduces FirstMix, A USB DJ Controller For Noobs The Chevy Orlando Play-Doh Edition Hits London Streets The Kinect Earns A Guinness Record For Fastest-Selling Device Just In Time For March Madness: Hannspree 55-inch Basketball TV

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Group Buying Industry In U.S. Estimated To Grow 138 Percent To $2.7 Billion This Year

The group buying industry has sprung out of nowhere over the past two years. A new report (embedded below) by daily deal aggregator Local Offer Network puts the U.S. gross revenues across the industry at $1.1 billion last year, and estimates gross revenues will grow 138 percent to $2.7 billion in 2011. Groupon alone, according to other sources, is expected to bring in between $3 billion and $4 billion this year, up from $760 million las year, but those numbers are worldwide. If you figure at least half of Groupon's revenues come from the U.S., you can get a sense of how much it dominates the market?capturing anywhere from about 50 to 75 percent of expected industry revenues this year.

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Rdio gets the jump on Spotify with API release, affiliate program

Rdio is a much-beloved streaming music service, and it's got one serious advantage over Spotify at the moment: it's already available in the U.S. So while Americans continue to wait for the arrival of Spotify, Rdio is doing its best to strengthen its position in the marketplace.

To that end, Rdio is enlisting the aid of developers by releasing an API for the service and announcing an affiliate program. The API is already in use in a few places, like AOL's new Play app for Android devices and the GRAMMY's MusicIsLifeIsMusic site.

Affiliates receive 2-3% commission per month per subscriber for as long as they remain an Rdio user, which makes for an enticing residual income opportunity. Rdio has done well to increase its reach before more competitors arrive in the U.S., and we're interested to see just how ubiquitous the streaming service can become.Rdio gets the jump on Spotify with API release, affiliate program originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Otaku Rooms Are Dangerous In Earthquakes [Japan]

The recent earthquake and tsunami ravaged northeastern Japan, but it also turned much of the Kanto area upside down. Otaku are uploading images of havoc it caused in their nerd kingdoms. More »






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Texas researchers aim to solve wireless bandwidth bottleneck, hopefully before SXSW 2012

As anyone attempting to stream high-quality video on any major metropolitan subway has likely found, doing so often requires the patience of Job and a willingness to spend more time 'buffering' and less time 'enjoying.' It's a problem that's particularly evident at crowded events like the never-ending South by Southwest, and it's probably no coincidence that a team from The University of Texas at Austin are now spending their waking hours attempting to solve the looming wireless bandwidth crisis. Five faculty in the school's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department have been selected to receive a $900,000 gift from Intel and Cisco to "develop innovative and novel algorithms that could improve the wireless networks ability to store, stream and share mobile videos more efficiently." Their work is part of a five university tie-up, seeking to solve quandaries such as tower interference, selective compression (read: pixelating the areas you don't pay attention to in order to squeeze more out of the existing infrastructure), cell tower intelligence and data output redundancy. Hard to say if any of the major carriers will be implementing proposed solutions in the near future, but we can think of at least one company that's crossing its fingers in hopes of that very outcome.Texas researchers aim to solve wireless bandwidth bottleneck, hopefully before SXSW 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  The University of Texas at Austin  | Email this | Comments

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The Most Powerful Bluetooth Speakerphone Can Also Tweet and Update Your Facebook Status [Bluetooth]

Those clip-on-to-your-visor bluetooth speakerphones are mostly pass�, right? I mean most are easy enough to set up but I'm just so lazy that I never do it anymore. Howeva! The upcoming SuperTooth HD might be worth something because not only does it have three times more power than a typical bluetooth speaker (making it the most powerful, for what that's worth), it even lets you update your Facebook status or Tweet through voice command. Tweeting in traffic is better than sitting in it. $129 in April. [SuperTooth] More »






Jda Software Group Jack Henry And Associates Ixys

Monday, March 21, 2011

Enable iOS 4.3 gesture controls on your iPad with free Xcode 3 download

When the iOS 4.3 beta emerged it included 4-and-5-finger gestures for the iPad, such as pinching to return to the home screen, and swiping to reveal the multitasking tray or switch apps. Just one week later, Apple said that iPad gestures wouldn't make the cut, and indeed, iOS 4.3 was summarily released without gestures for the iPad and recently-released iPad 2.

Don't despair, however: they can be re-enabled by turning your iPad into a developer iPad by using Apple's Xcode developer tools. Our bleached and glistening cousins at TUAW originally reported that you had to pay $5 to get Xcode 4 from the Mac App Store, but our very own Samuel Gibbs found that the free-to-download Xcode 3 works just fine.

To unlock iOS 4.3's gesture controls on your iPad, download and install Xcode 3 (bottom of the page), open Xcode, connect your iPad to your PC, then Window > Organizer and press the "Use for development" button. You can also download Xcode 3 from elsewhere on the Internet if you don't want to sign up for an Apple ID.

Let us know in the comments if you successfully enable gestures on your iPad!Enable iOS 4.3 gesture controls on your iPad with free Xcode 3 download originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Photoshop Express 2.0 for iOS adds $4 in-app purchase for noise reduction, self timer

For the grand old fee of $3.99 you can now have access to two very alluring photographic features on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad 2: noise reduction for your low-light shots, and a self timer so that you can be in your own photos!

These new features are available as an in-app purchase for the excellent (and free) Photoshop Express 2.0 for iOS. $3.99 seems a little bit expensive, but there's no denying that noise reduction and a timer are incredibly useful features. Judging by the sample screenshots, the noise reduction algorithm is rather excellent, too.

We can't get our head around one problem with the self timer, though. How do you set up an iPhone to take a photo of yourself? Can you prop it up against some books? It's not like there are many vertical planes to rest your camera against in real life -- and you're not going to leave your iPhone unattended in a public place while you pose for a photo.

iPhone photographers, if you can think of a good use for the self timer, leave a comment!

Download Photoshop Express 2.0 for iOS from the App StorePhotoshop Express 2.0 for iOS adds $4 in-app purchase for noise reduction, self timer originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Windows Phone 7 'NoDo' update temporarily on hold

If there's anything Windows Phone 7 doesn't need, it's yet another botched update. And as much as the company would like to push the NoDo update, which will add copy and paste functionality to WP7 phones, it has been temporarily put on hold. In an official blog post, Microsoft's Eric Hautala explains that while the February pre-update was largely a success, the failures were a great source of concern.

Hautala resolutely states Microsoft's concern, too, saying "Let me be crystal clear: We're not satisfied when problems prevent you from enjoying the latest Windows Phone updates. When we find an issue, we study and fix it."

Microsoft can't really afford additional delays -- but a slight pause is certainly easier to deal with than any potential fallout from another misstep.Windows Phone 7 'NoDo' update temporarily on hold originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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How AT&T-Mo Will Ease NY and SF Network Suffering [Datapoint]

According to AT&T exec John Stankey, the long-suffering cities of San Francisco, New York, and Chicago will see the number of available cell sites increase up to 45% when AT&T and T-Mobile get together. Sure, the companies will be cutting some "redundant" cell sites, but one of the first steps in the proposed merger would be to dual-band sites in major urban areas so that customers from both carriers can benefit. Sweet relief! But how long will it take? More »






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Apple Will Not Be Building Their Largest Store in Grand Central [Blip]

The rumor that Apple was building their largest retail store in New York's Grand Central Terminal was always a little odd. Where would it all go? Why there? Aren't there rules against altering landmarks? In any case, a source close to the MTA has confirmed to BetaBeat that Apple has backed out of its preliminary plans. Guess Manhattan will have to wait a bit to get their fifth Apple Store. [BetaBeat] More »






Oracle Openwave Systems On Semiconductor

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Apple Confirms Web App Slowdown in iOS 4.3 [Apple]

The Register received word directly from Apple that web apps are in fact running slower on iOS 4.3 because they're not optimized for the new Nitro JavaScript engine. More »






Millicom Intl Cellular Mobile Telesystems Nanya Technology

The experimental drone that could help stop Japan's nuclear disaster [In Brief]

As Japan struggles to control the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, radiation has made the work dangerous to workers for even brief periods. Imagine if a drone helicopter could precisely drop water or chemicals on the reactors. One can. [Jalopnik] More »






Iron Mountain Inorated Iomega Intuit

Internet Explorer 9 tips for power users from Microsoft itself

Not too long ago, we shared some of the most useful keyboard shortcuts for Internet Explorer 9. Now, the folks at Microsoft have compiled a whole slew of tips for IE9 users, from novices to seasoned surfers.

There are four categories at the moment -- Faster ways to get to your websites, Top keyboard shortcuts, Change and manage search providers, and Manage add-ons -- and there's also a good resource of videos that can walk you (or a newbie friend) through IE9's core features.

Most of the 'power tips' are fairly light on details at the moment -- the keyboard shortcut page only has seven shortcuts! -- but we're sure, by the time the browser is released, that it will grow into a sizable and comprehensive resource, just like the Windows 7 pages.

In the meantime, you'll learn more from reading our IE9 guide.Internet Explorer 9 tips for power users from Microsoft itself originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Does FOSS Need a Charismatic Leader?

Apple has Steve Jobs; Microsoft has Bill Gates. The question on hand in the Linux community lately has been, does FOSS need someone similar? That, indeed, was the topic of a recent poll on TuxRadar, and it's sparked quite a debate. "Does free software need a figurehead?" the TuxRadar crew began. "We all talk about the freedom and democracy that FLOSS brings -- but does it also help to have a strong character at the top keeping us on the right path?"

Canon Memc Electronic Materials Microsoft

Flickr adds lightbox viewer for iPad surfers

Flickr has announced that visitors who browse the site using an iPad can now view photos using a lightbox-style viewer. On any photo page, simply tap the picture you'd like to view and the background will darken and the higher-resolution image will load in the foreground.

It's a subtle change, but one which definitely makes browsing Flickr on an iPad a more enjoyable (and efficient) experience. As our editor in chief put it, "This is pretty sick."Flickr adds lightbox viewer for iPad surfers originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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webOS 2.1 SDK now available to all comers, teases 'big push' for Veer launch

Though webOS 2.1 has already gone out to Pre 2s (and a handful of Pre Pluses) around the globe, developers not included in HP's NDA-protected Early Access Program have been shut out of the latest version of the SDK -- until now. That's right: any old riffraff coming in off the street now have access to the webOS 2.1 SDK download, featuring Exhibition enhancements, "hybrid" app support for packages that span HTML, JavaScript, and C / C++, and JavaScript-based webOS service development capability. In its blog post announcing the move, HP makes specific mention of the Pixi, saying that those apps will "just work" on the Veer -- in other words, if you'd been avoiding developing for the smaller screen resolution before, you've got newfound impetus to start now since the company is planning a "big push" around the Veer's release that's "coming just around the corner." Of course, it's the TouchPad that's got everyone really fired up in Palm land right now... but you've got to start somewhere.webOS 2.1 SDK now available to all comers, teases 'big push' for Veer launch originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink PreCentral  |  HP Palm Developer Center Blog  | Email this | Comments



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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Daily Crunch: A Drunkard Muses Edition

Study: Too Much Technology Has Destroyed Our Ability To Sleep A First: Surly Brewing Selling DIY, ?Open Source? Beer Dispatches From The Pokemon Black/White Launch (Plus A Contest) Necono: Cat-Shaped Digital Camera (Video) Excuse Generator Built From 14.4K Modem

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HTC Thunderbolt rooted for real, locked files nearly soured the deal

They thought it would be easy, but they were wrong -- AndIRC developers reportedly spent the last 72 hours readying the new HTC Thunderbolt for custom ROMs. Today, they emerge victorious, but that victory is bittersweet, because it may signify the end of a generally hacker-friendly era from the folks at HTC. While devices from the Taiwanese manufacturer have traditionally been easy to modify, the hacker community found Verizon's LTE flagship fully locked down, with a signed kernel, signed recovery image and a signed bootloader. FOF. Of course, if you're just looking for a way to overclock your Thunderbolt, you probably don't care about all that. You'll find all the (exceptionally lengthy) instructions you need at Android Police. Just be careful out there!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Continue reading HTC Thunderbolt rooted for real, locked files nearly soured the dealHTC Thunderbolt rooted for real, locked files nearly soured the deal originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Android Police (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments



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Gadget Lab Notes: iPhone 5 Could Have a Flat Metal Back

Gadget Lab Notes is an eclectic roundup of gadget news briefs and intriguing products that catch our eye.
Foxconn Source Says iPhone 5 Will Have a Flat Metal Back
According to a source at Foxconn, the iPhone 5 is already in production, and it sports a flat metal back (as opposed to the iPhone 4?s glass [...]

Arrow Electronics Asml Holding Asustek Computer

Let it Slide is an engaging, difficult puzzle game

I have a thing for physics games, and I've been known to post the occasional platformer or action game here and there. But Let it Slide is one of the brainiest games I've posted to date.

The idea is very simple, and far from original: You get a board with pieces arranged in a particular pattern; you have to slide those around until you get the special piece into its target location.

It's not even about finding out where the target location is - you can just hover over "dim tiles" and instantly see where you're supposed to bring the special piece. But getting it there is a whole different story.

There are five tutorial levels, which I strongly recommend you do. Then there are twenty "beginner" levels, but that's really a misnomer. If those are the beginner levels, I don't want to know what the intermediate and advanced levels look like!

Every time you finish a level you get a score based on how many clicks it took you - each level has a "par" (the minimum number of clicks it could be completed in), and your performance is compared to that gold standard. Because it's such a brainy game, getting it right is quite satisfying. I was downright proud of myself when I managed to finish a few levels. All in all, quite recommended, especially if you've got a few minutes of quiet. It might actually help you focus better later on.Let it Slide is an engaging, difficult puzzle game originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Help Bob make money in Sticks, a fun physics game

Sticks is another one of those rare games where the intro is actually worth watching. It introduces you to office worker Bob, who is basically a wage slave fantasizing about a better existence.

Then, on his way back home from another grueling day at the office, he passes a huge sign which says "Sticks." This is where the game starts.

Each level has a number of coins hovering in mid-air, and your goal is to place sticks that lead those coins to Bob -- but you only have a limited amount of wood to play with. As soon as you're done placing your sticks strategically, hit the big Play button and let nature, or rather gravity, run its course. The coins will drop down, and if you place your sticks correctly, they will roll all the way to Bob.

The soundtrack is soothing and playful, and didn't get on my nerves even after playing for quite a while. All in all, a very cute game, especially for a day at the office.Help Bob make money in Sticks, a fun physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Friday, March 18, 2011

Android Quick App - Gravitron Live Wallpaper

The various live wallpapers that are available on Android are one of my personal favorite parts, because sadly they can keep me entertained by just watching them. While the market is certainly flooded with live wallpapers, there are not very many which offer extensive customization options, but luckily Gravitron is one of the ones that do, and they offer quite a few options. This live wallpaper, which is based around a bunch of flying particles, gives you near complete control of the look of the wallpaper, with customization features including: Built-in presets: Original, Patriot, Love, Bokeh, Pride, Droid, St. Patrick's day, and more. 10 shapes for particles & decoration Color randomization & cycling Up to 8 colors preselection Background color selection Camera movement adjustment: speed, distance and behaviour (3D positioning) In addition to all these custom settings, they have implemented the ability to save and load various presets, and soon they hope to have the ability to share these via Twitter. For less then $1 you can have all these features, as well as whatever they are able to add in the future, so if you want a live wallpaper that you are able to customize fully, be sure to check this out. Download links, and video can be found after the break.
Android Quick App - Gravitron Live Wallpaper posted originally by Android CentralSponsored by Android Cases and Accessories



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Will iPad 3 Arrive In 2011

It’s incredible how fast new technology becomes outdated and obsolete these days. The iPad 2 hasn’t even gone on sale yet and there’s already rumors about iPad 3 making it’s debut sometime during the fall, around September to be exact. There’s no confirmation on whether or not these rumors are true. However, Apple must be [...]

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Google and Microsoft offer Japan tsunami and earthquake resources, Bing bungles it

Over the weekend, large corporations have been scrambling to offer support to the devastated north east of Japan, where a tsunami destroyed towns and farmsteads and looks set to claim over 10,000 lives.

Google, as always, was the first to respond with a Google Person Finder for Japan. There is now a full Google Crisis Response page for the earthquake and tsunami, which is full of extensive resources for those in Japan, those trying to contact friends and family in Japan, or for people who want to help out by donating money to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Google has already updated its satellite imagery to show the to-scale effects of the disaster.

Apple was next on the scene, giving iTunes users the ability to donate money directly to the American Red Cross (which is different from the Japanese one!) There doesn't seem to be much else coming out of Cupertino, though, probably because of the impending worldwide release of iPad 2.

Microsoft published a similar 'crisis response' page on its Corporate Citizenship site. Microsoft is working on a "cloud-based disaster response communications portal, based on Windows Azure," which will hopefully help improve government and nonprofit communication with agencies and citizens. Microsoft says it's also giving out temporary licenses to "all impacted customers and partners as well as lead governments, nonprofit partners and institutions involved in disaster response efforts." All in all, though, Microsoft's page doesn't include a whole lot of useful data.

Finally, the Bing department at Microsoft got it a bit wrong by offering $1 for every @bing retweet of Microsoft's Corporate Citizenship site. It wasn't long before comedian Michael Ian Black accused Bing of cashing in on the Japanese tragedy. A few hours later, Bing apologized and said that $100,000 had been donated.Google and Microsoft offer Japan tsunami and earthquake resources, Bing bungles it originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Porsche gives 911 GT3 R hybrid more power, less weight -- swears it wasn't fat or anything

There are two ways to make a car go faster, add power or subtract weight, and Porsche has done a little bit of both to its new 911 GT3 R hybrid racer in preparation for this year's Nürburgring 24-hour race. Porsche took last year's version, put it on a 50kg diet, and bumped the output of each of the car's two KERS-powered front-wheel electric motors by 21hp (giving drivers 202 'lectric horses and 480 of the ICE variety for a pavement-melting 682hp total). The boys from Stuttgart hope the Jenny Craig routine will improve performance, fuel economy, and the car's chances of winning the endurance event in June. The hybrid-drive technology -- originally sourced from Williams' F1 cars -- made an appearance in the firm's 918 RSR hybrid and is largely unchanged from the 2010 model. Unfortunately, this is a racing-only situation, what with the KERS flywheel riding shotgun, but we're sure one of the hundreds of other technologically-inclined 911 variants will sate your need for speed.Porsche gives 911 GT3 R hybrid more power, less weight -- swears it wasn't fat or anything originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  AutoWeek, Autoblog  | Email this | Comments

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Like.fm aggregates, simplifies your music discovery and sharing

Those of you who spend a lot of time online discovering and listening to music may want to check out Like.fm, a new app which is designed to automatically track and share what you play. It's a sort of 'discovery aggregator,' pulling in tunes from services like YouTube, Pandora, Rdio, and Grooveshark -- which already offer their own discovery tools.

Like.fm aims to provide one-stop shopping, so you and your friends don't have to remember to follow each other on a dozen different services. By aggregating data from a wide variety of sources, Like.fm hopes to make itself the place to get your new music recommendations. Facebook Connect support is also built-in, making it easy to find and follow your friends as you build out your Like.fm profile.

There's still a lot of construction going on at Like.fm, but browser extensions are already available for Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. There's also a Windows desktop client to scrobble your plays in iTunes and Winamp.Like.fm aggregates, simplifies your music discovery and sharing originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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How Secure is My Password lets you know just that

We've all heard it before; you need to select a lengthy password, one that's hard to guess. Not a dictionary word. And it has to have some capital letters in it too, and some digits, and a symbol or two won't hurt either.

That's a handy set of rules to keep in mind, but How Secure is My Password helps us understand why they're important.

It's basically like a full-screen version of one of those password-strength meters websites sometimes use. But instead of showing you a bar going from "weak" to "strong", it shows you an estimation of how long your password would take to crack. That's a much more visceral way to understand why your password is strong.

For example, when I entered "rabbit", it came back with "your password is one of the 500 most common passwords. It could be cracked almost instantly". "rabbit5" would take two hours, "$rabbit5" would take 38 days, and "$rabbitZ5" would take 237 years. It's quite enlightening to see what a difference three simple characters can make.How Secure is My Password lets you know just that originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Imperfect Balance is a classic physics time waster

Imperfect Balance is a very simple game: You have a bunch of blocks on a "stage" in the middle of the screen, and your goal is to make them all fall off.

You do this by using other blocks: There are several blocks you can use on each level; you pick a block and rotate it using A and D (or W and S for finer angles). Once you have it at the angle you want, simply click to drop it. It's not an easy game, despite being simple. You need to drop the right block at the right angle and at the right location -- sometimes that's trivial, but it can be quite daunting too.

The soundtrack is somewhat on the eerie side, but it's not too irritating. All in all, there are certainly worse ways to kill a few minutes.Imperfect Balance is a classic physics time waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Daily Crunch: Photobomb Edition

Will This Be The Worst.iPad.Announcement.Ever? Does It Matter? Apple Announces The iPad 2: A5 Processor, Front And Back Cameras, Available March 11 Hands-On With The iPad 2 Nintendo 3DS To Get Netflix Streaming And Free AT&T WiFi By This Summer Blue Microphone Styled By Dr. Dre Takes Center Stage On American Idol

Openwave Systems On Semiconductor Nvidia

How to Transfer 8mm Footage to a Canon DSLR in Real Time [Video]

Wrap your head around photographer James Miller's tutorial, and you're half-way to transferring dusty reels of 8mm family videos to digital. Of course, you could always pay someone to scan frames for you, but Miller's way is a lot more affordable—you just need a certain amount of tech nous and equipment. More »






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Play with Mozilla's HTML5 and WebGL Web O' Wonder

Step right up! Mozilla's Web O' Wonder is a fantastic and enthralling and slightly terrifying playground for surfers of all ages and experience levels. Feast your eyes on funky uses of WebGL and CSS3 transitions as slick as a bald man's pate. Marvel at the flexibility of HTML5 video -- but most of all, revel in the fact that everything in the Web O' Wonder is made of Open Web technologies.

The Web O' Wonder is Mozilla's new demo site, and much like Microsoft's Internet Explorer Test Drive it's designed to showcase its new browser, Firefox 4. Unlike the IE Test Drive, however, the Web O' Wonder is actually fun. While the IE Test Drive is soulless, a raw and synthetic benchmark for new browsers, the Web O' Wonder will actually entertain. The Planetarium demo is beautiful, and the Motivational Poster demo is a lot of fun. Click through the demos, you won't be disappointed.

Don't get too excited, however. While the Web O' Wonder is undoubtedly very cool, it only really works with Firefox 4, brutally reminding us yet again that truly cross-platform HTML5 Web experiences are still flights of fancy. The Web O' Wonder just about works in Chrome, but IE9 and Opera can only run a few of the demos successfully.

In other news, the final build of Firefox 4 is expected to arrive on March 22!Play with Mozilla's HTML5 and WebGL Web O' Wonder originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Gullible Brits Believe You Can See Gravity, and That Light Sabers Exist [Star Wars]

You've got to wonder about the sanity of some of the 3,000 surveyed people who believed that light sabers actually exist—and that memory erasers, in the style of the Men In Black neuralizer, are being used. More »






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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Daily Crunch: New Temple Edition

What Is Thunderbolt And Will It Change Your Life? Stealth: The Arcade Table With 60 Built-In Games LaCie Is The First With A Thunderbolt-Equipped External Drive Startup Company QuakeGuard Develops Early Warning System For Earthquakes Hooray: Alan Turing?s Papers Successfully Acquired For Public Display

Inventec Kddi Klatencor

The Sad Story of the Real-Life Simpsons House [Architecture]

Back in the day before decent digital cameras, a Fox and Pepsi-sponsored competition was held with the main prize being a life-size replica of The Simpsons' house. Unfortunately its winner chose a cash-prize alternative, and the house was stripped and sold. More »






Adobe Systems Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Alliance Data Systems

Cueboy Quest is an adorable 8-bit style physics game

Yes, that's right, I said adorable. Because Cueboy Quest really is!

You play an 8-bit cowboy whose goal on each level is to get to the door (and thus to the next level), but the door is often locked. To get it to open, you must shoot at one or more targets, and those targets aren't always in your line of sight. For example, on one level the the target is a balloon which is stuck all the way at the other end of the screen. You must first nudge it free, and then watch it float up and try to shoot it before it floats clear off the screen. Your bullets are chunky pixels that have some weight - the have arcing trajectories, so you don't always hit exactly where you aim.

There's another level where you must jump on the balloon as it floats up, use it as a platform to get to the other end of the screen, and then turn to shoot it very quickly before it flies away. Each level is very short, and most of them are quite easy. And not only are the graphics 8-bit blocky, but they're large too. Simply beautiful!Cueboy Quest is an adorable 8-bit style physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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SoundTracking Sings The Praises Of ?Mobile-First? And ?From-The-Ground-Up Social?

Late last week, we first wrote about SoundTracking, a new iPhone application from Schematic Labs that allows you to easily share not only the music you're listening to, but the music you're listening to in the context that you're listening to it in. Yesterday at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, I got a chance to sit down with co-founder Steve Jang for his thoughts on the app and the space.

Jang talks about the rise of the "mobile-first"�experience, noting that phones are good enough now to match the websites that have been built for years now. And in many ways, the experience is better because mobile is so personal. Jang talks about his inspiration for SoundTracking when he was traveling around Europe and wanting to share the music he was listening to on the go, but in a way beyond text.

Osi Systems Oracle Openwave Systems

Hylas 1 completes testing, Europe's first broadband satellite to start serving customers next week

It hasn't exactly been all that long since Avanti Communications' Hylas 1 satellite blasted off at the end of November, but it's now almost ready to start spreading some wireless broadband across 16 countries in Europe. Avanti just announced today that the satellite's in-orbit testing phase has been a "complete success," and that it will go into service sometime next week with an initial test group of customers, before beginning a broader transition on April 4th. All told, over 60 operators have signed up to offer the satellite broadband service to customers, which promises to offer connections of up to 10Mbps to folks in even the most rural areas. It's also only just the beginning -- Avanti plans to launch Hylas 2 sometime in the second quarter of 2012, which will extend its coverage to Africa and the Middle East.

[Thanks, Brett]
Continue reading Hylas 1 completes testing, Europe's first broadband satellite to start serving customers next weekHylas 1 completes testing, Europe's first broadband satellite to start serving customers next week originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Stockopedia News  |   | Email this | Comments



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Vidyo?s HD Video Conferencing Platform Now Supports iPad 2, XOOM And Atrix

Video conferencing technology company Vidyo is enhancing its platform with support for Apple?s just released iPad 2, Motorola?s XOOM tablet and Atrix smartphone. The platform utilizes the company's VidyoTechnology SDK, which is available to third parties, and enables 720p HD multipoint video conferencing that works on a range of mobile devices.

With Vidyo?s platform, customers can join video conferences from anywhere using a bunch of devices (see below for a list of previously supported hardware), from mobile phones to tablets or room systems, using client apps built by Vidyo or its partners.

Insight Enterprises Ingram Micro Informatica

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Free Pie on Pi Day [Blip]

The traditional free pie on Pi day (3/14) is here, so go grab a slice today at participating restaurants/pie shops/pie food trucks. [Walletpop] More »






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Motorola Droid 3, Droid X 2 and LTE-equipped Targa pictured?

The Motorola Droid 2 and Droid X are both headed toward their one-year anniversaries this summer, which has pretty much become the culling hour for a smartphone of any creed these days. Their successors, ingeniously titled the Droid 3 and Droid X 2, have seemingly made an appearance over at HowardForums, courtesy of longtime forum member wnrussell. He's also kindly provided imagery of a heretofore unknown device, called the Targa, which promises Verizon 4G LTE and has a protrusion on its rear that looks to be dedicated to accommodating an outsized camera sensor. It reminds us most of Motorola's XT720, though it sports a chrome outline to its body similar to what you see above on the purported Droid 3. Click past the break to get an eyeful of this Targa device and its Droid X 2 brandmate.Continue reading Motorola Droid 3, Droid X 2 and LTE-equipped Targa pictured?Motorola Droid 3, Droid X 2 and LTE-equipped Targa pictured? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Phone Arena  |  HowardForums (Droid 3), (Droid X 2), (Targa)  | Email this | Comments



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