In 1952, the first video game was invented at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Tennis for Two was played on an oscilloscope screen, it involved a side view of a simulated game of tennis using two controllable lines and a dot created by an algorithm that was intended to predict the movement of ballistic missiles. Twenty years later came Pong, and four years after that, Breakout! for the Atari 2600 was released. It's been 63 years since the invention of the video game, but Bricks by Konstantin Gonikman proves that, in spite of all the advancements in hardware and graphics, all anybody really wants to do is make a dot move around on a screen by bouncing it off a line.
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2 hours ago | Posted in: software
Previously on Pointers we talked about how OS X comes with text shortcuts, a way for you to write a couple of characters and have your Mac expand those out into words and whole sentences. This is true and if it weren't fantastically useful, we wouldn't have told you about it. However, all the way through that Pointers column, we really did have to point out that TextExpander is better.
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2 hours ago | Posted in: industry
The last chapter of Aereo has nearly been written, with the conclusion of its bankruptcy sale. Falling far short of a peak $34 million expected, the company's asset auction concluded at $2 million. TiVO was the main winner, capturing the trademark, the customer list, and other assets. Patent aggregator RPX purchased the company's patents, with equipment being scattered amongst many bidders.
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Tactical shooters aren't anything new to most gamers. Raid-style games are a cornerstone of today's PC game market, thanks in no small part due to the rising success of indie games. We've checked out Door Kickers and Jagged Alliance Flashback for the PC master race, but we've not spent much time with titles aimed at mobile platforms. That changed, however, as we took a look at Frozen Synapse by Mode 7, an iPad port of their well-received PC title.
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2 hours ago | Posted in:
On February 26, Ericsson filed two complaints with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and seven complaints in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Apple asserting 41 patents covering many aspects of Apple's iPhones and iPads. The patents include standard essential patents related to the 2G and 4G/LTE standards as well as other patents that are critical to features and functionality of Apple devices such as the design of semiconductor components, user interface software, location services and applications, as well as the iOS operating system.
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Lux DLX by Sillysoft Games is a play-and-pass strategy board game of troop movements and world domination. The app has been around since 2008, it's the mobile version of Lux Delux. Behind it is an enthusiastic community of players, creating custom maps and providing strategy tips with an in-app accessible wiki.
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Apple has added GreatSchools and GasBuddy to its list of sources for data in its Maps program. The latter company is said to be supplying Apple with gas station locations, exact business names and what major gasoline producer they are affiliated with, rather than the gas pricing spot-check that the company is known for. GreatSchools is likewise likely to be providing school locations information rather than specific school information.
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Pebble has released a new version of its smartwatch SDK, in preview. Version 3.0 is built with the Pebble Time in mind, including support for 64 colors in apps, a new animation framework, PNG and Animated PNG support, and automatic detection of which platforms the developer wants to build for when compiling. According to the company, developers looking to make apps for the new SDK will need to make relatively few changes to the application to get it to work.
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The latest Good Technology Mobility Index Report on the mobile enterprise space, based on a survey of Good's customer base for its own enterprise-level email services, shows iOS gaining ground by taking away share from Android in calendar Q4 2014, with the former growing by four percentage points to hit 73 percent share of global enterprise activations. Android fell by the same amount to 25 percent, while Windows Phone held steady at one percent.
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The curiously-named CoconutBattery 3.2 is a free app that examines the batteries in your MacBooks and your iOS devices. One click and you know everything: it gives you the skinny on every possible scintilla of information about the state your battery is in.
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18 hours ago | Posted in: iPhone
In addition to sandwich chain Panera Bread and Subway, and fast food king McDonald's, some 860 branch locations of sub sandwich chain Firehouse Subs will now officially begin accepting Apple Pay starting today. Apple Pay allows users to pay for food by simply holding the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus to a terminal while holding the Touch ID button on the devices. The franchise is hoping to more than double the number of locations it has in the US to over 2,000 by 2020.
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19 hours ago | Posted in: software, Apple
PC users that have been curious to try out Apple's suite of productivity programs, formerly known collectively as iWork, are now able to do so from the main iCloud.com website, the feature having been taken out of Apple's beta.icloud.com lab. Earlier this month, Apple made a free 1GB account available to any users who wanted to sign up but did not have an Apple device, but only within the beta site. Now the applications (in their web versions) are available free for anyone with an Apple ID to use.
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As expected, the Federal Communication Commission's votes today have not gone unnoticed by the telecommunications and Internet industry. There are no surprises in the commentary generated by the vote, with posturing and veiled threats being delivered by those impacted negatively by the vote.
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Welcome to Daily Deals, the time when we search for deals, offers, discounts, and sales on hardware, software, and other technology for you, the discerning MacNN and Electronista reader. Alongside our usual recap of still-active deals, the new batch of offers include a 28-inch 4K-resolution monitor, a cheap 42-inch Vizio TV, and a digital camera bundle featuring the Fujifilm FinePix S9250.
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Thu February 26, 2015 | Posted in: Apple
Apple has today invited the media to an event on March 9. The "Spring Forward" event is taking place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and is likely discussing firm release dates, and details of the final shipping version of the Apple Watch. The title of the event makes reference to time, suggesting the upcoming change in most first-world nations that sees clocks moved forward an hour -- in effect, a brief leap into the future.
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Thu February 26, 2015 | Posted in: industry, networking
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved the net neutrality rules, including Title II regulation of Internet Service Providers as proposed by FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, with minor modifications. The vote wasn't unanimous, nor was it expected to be, and predictably split across party lines. The two Democratic members and the Chair voted to approve the contentious policy, and the two Republican members voted against it.
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