News Archive for 09/12/15

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AT&T: Fake Steve's "operation chokehold" is irresponsible

12/15, 11:55pm

Blogger calls for network overload on Friday

AT&T has responded to Fake Steve Jobs' call for iPhone users to work together in an attempt to overload the carrier's data network at noon on Friday, according to Cult of Mac. An AT&T spokesman criticized the protest, claiming it was totally irresponsible and simply an attempt to bring more readers to the blog, which is written under the Fake Steve pseudonym by Newsweek's Dan Lyons.

Borders prepares e-book store for 2010 debut

12/15, 11:30pm

Company teams with star-up Kobo

The bookstore chain Borders has confirmed plans to enter the realm of digital distribution, with an e-book store expected to debut in the second quarter of 2010. The upcoming portal will integrate with the company's current website, Borders.com, and offer content for a wide range of devices such as standalone readers or smartphones.

McDonald's Wi-Fi to be permanently free

12/15, 10:25pm

Restaurant drops Wi-Fi fees

McDonald's tonight revealed that its Wi-Fi hotspots will soon be free. The fast food chain is dropping its previous $3, two-hour rate as of mid-January as an effort to turn its stores into "destinations" where customers are encouraged to stay for longer periods and use their notebooks or smartphones.

Permanent injunction bans Psystar's Mac cloning activities

12/15, 10:05pm

Court rules final judgment in Apple's favor

The US District Court for the Northern District of California has entered a final judgment granting Apple's motion for permanent injunction against Psystar. The decision effectively bans the clone maker from continuing to infringe on the Mac OS X copyrights, including manufacturing and distribution of non-Apple computers with the Mac operating system pre-installed.

Apple using lockdowns and cellphone searches to curb leaks?

12/15, 8:00pm

Team of moles allegedly watch HQ and retail stores

Apple's Worldwide Loyalty Team allegedly uses lockdowns and cellphone searches to root out individuals that may be responsible for information leaks, according to a source, known only as Tom, who contacted Gizmodo. The unconfirmed report suggests the team, reportedly known as the Apple Gestapo by many employees, is composed of investigators that keep a close eye on employees from the company's Cupertino headquarters and even the retail stores.

Israeli security gunfire destroys 'suspicious' MacBook Pro

12/15, 6:55pm

Owner still awaiting compensation

Israeli Border Police allegedly destroyed a MacBook Pro owned by Lily Sussman, a student and US citizen who was recently interrogated while crossing from Egypt into Israel, according to her blog. The guards thoroughly searched Sussman's belongings while asking questions about people she knows, where she is traveling, her stance on the local conflicts, and her family, among other things.

Google, not HTC, files for Nexus One trademark

12/15, 6:40pm

Google claims ownership of Nexus One name

Google was discovered today as having quietly filed for a trademark for its Nexus One phone. The application, submitted on December 10th, confirms that at least one variant of the Android device will be attached to the company's own name rather than badged by its creator HTC. HTC isn't known to have trademarked a device of its own.

WIND to launch with BlackBerry Bold 9700

12/15, 6:00pm

New carrier gets Bold 9700 prepaid, subscription

The newcomer to the Canadian cellular business, WIND, today revealed that its first phone will be the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Besides giving the carrier a 3G smartphone for its debut, the WIND version of the Bold will be rare in its prepaid option: while a subscription option remains, the move will let users get voice, e-mail and other services as they need it. Either choice won't have a minimum monthly voice plan for those who rarely need voice service.

EA Mobile launches Battleship for iPhone, iPod touch

12/15, 5:45pm

Battleship offers Wi-Fi multiplayer capabilities

EA Mobile has added to its collection of App Store games with the launch of Battleship. The game follows the same theme as the classic Battleship board-game, requiring players to sink their opponent's ships in a strategic naval battle. Players can press a square which corresponds to the desired coordinates for the attack strike, which is then displayed as a 3D battle sequence including gunfire and battleship destruction. Throughout the game, players can strive for ascending ranks starting at Seaman and ending at Admiral.

New nanowires could lead to smaller devices

12/15, 5:30pm

New silicon-germanium nanowires prototyped

Researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, Purdue University and IBM have succeeded in growing silicon-germanium semiconducting nanowires that could result in the next generation of ever-smaller electronic devices. They measure between a few tens to a few hundreds of nanometers in diameter and can be as large as a few millimeters, and have taught researchers the physics involved in the growing of nanowires.

HDBaseT Alliance to bring uncompressed HD over Ethernet

12/15, 5:20pm

LG, Samsung, Sony and Valens found HDBaseT

LG, Samsung, Sony Pictures and Valens Semiconductor have partnered to launch the HDBaseT Alliance in order to create a new standard that would allow users to send uncompressed HD videos throughout their homes using their Ethernet cables. The alliance hopes to create a worldwide standard that will eventually be used in TVs, projectors, AV and home theater equipment, as well as content providers and IT companies, among others. The companies feel this is necessary as current technologies are limited in bandwidth and don't support uncompressed video.

Nokia, Samsung invest in Swype's texting method

12/15, 5:10pm

Nokia, Samsung invest in Swype texting method

Swype, a Seattle-based company that has developed a new, faster way of texting on touchscreen devices, has just secured a second round of funding from Nokia, Samsung and an older investor, Benaroya Capital. The technology involves swiping a finger across a virtual keyboard rather than hitting each key individually, with software that will predict the indented word based on the finger's motion and any pauses or changes of direction. The technology has thus far only appeared on the Samsung Omnia II handset.

Palm plans a second CES keynote

12/15, 5:05pm

More Palm phones, webOS likely in store

Palm this afternoon sent an invite to Electronista and other members of the press to attend a keynote on January 7th, the first official day of CES. The company has provided no clues as to what it's expected to release other than "new" developments. Last year was the company's first CES keynote in a long time and saw the introduction of webOS and the Pre, both of which were key to revitalizing the struggling phone maker's business.

LaCie intros most compact 2.5-inch hard drive

12/15, 4:40pm

LaCie intros 2.5-inch Rikiki external hard drive

LaCie recently and quietly outed its latest portable hard drive, the 2.5-inch Rikiki. It is said to be one of the smallest drives of its types on the market, with its name being slang for "tiny" in French. It is encased in a brushed aluminum case and the only connection for both power and file transfer is a USB 2.0 port.

UxSight debuts iPhone holder with USB 2.0 hub

12/15, 4:40pm

Hub allows four connections

UxSight has introduced a non-slip iPod/iPhone holder with a four-port USB 2.0 hub. Devices are gripped using an anti-slip pad, while the USB hub is located in a base module. The hub is primarily powered through USB, but can also be run off an AC adapter, not included.

Chunghwa intros largest projected capacitive touch panel

12/15, 4:30pm

Chunghwa shows 21.5-inch projected touchscreen

Taiwan's Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) showed off what it is calling the largest projected capacitive touch panel with its 21.5-inch display. The device is currently undergoing testing by clients and the company has already started shipping 10.1-inch projective capacitive touch panels and 3D panels.

Comcast's TV Everywhere exits trial as xfinity TV

12/15, 4:20pm

Comcast xfinity TV tries to keep users on cable

Comcast today brought its TV Everywhere project out into the open by launching xfinity TV as an extension of its Fancast service. The former trial and now beta product lets those who subscribe to both Comcast's Internet service and its TV services have free access to a large amount of the content normally available only on cable, including HBO.

Mamut to distribute AccountEdge in UK starting in April '10

12/15, 4:20pm

Acclivity signs deal

Acclivity, producer of the small business accounting software AccountEdge, has announced a partnership with Mamut Software to offer an upgrade path for UK MYOB Mac customers. The two new products, AccountEdge and AccountEdge Plus for the Mac, will be available in April 2010. The programs will carry the Mamut name, launching in the UK as Mamut AccountEdge and Mamut AccountEdge Plus.

Feud with AT&T brings Verizon extra publicity

12/15, 3:55pm

May be building on Droid success

Verizon is benefiting more from recent struggles with AT&T than its opposition, a new YouGov marketing study claims. In a survey of over 5,000 US people aged 18 to 34, roughly 40 percent had heard something about Verizon at the beginning of November, while slightly more were familiar with AT&T. By December the figures for each were over 50 percent, and Verizon now has a 62.2 percent awareness, compared to AT&T's 54.5 percent.

Intel readying six-core, 3.33GHz Core i7

12/15, 3:20pm

Core i7-980X hints at 6-core Xeon too

Intel's first mainstream six-core processor should be fast across the board, a leak late Monday has given away. Built on the 32 nanometer Westmere process and part of the Gulftown architecture, the Core i7-980X will keep the Core i7 badge despite its two extra cores. At the same time, it will also maintain a high clock speed and should run at 3.33GHz, or the same speed as the current quad-core leader.

KavaTunes 4 adds custom artist pages, music website links

12/15, 2:55pm

Also adds Snow Leopard support

KavaSoft has launched KavaTunes 4, a new version of its web jukebox. KavaTunes produces websites with an iTunes look and feel, where visitors can search for, play and download music and videos. Playlists stream using a Mac's built-in web server. Pages display a mixture of artist photos and cover artwork, as well as galleries of most played, recently added and recently played tracks.

iVideoCamera brings recording to iPhone 2G and 3G, at 3 fps

12/15, 2:50pm

Resolution and frame rate expected to improve

Apple has finally approved a video recording app, iVideoCamera, for the iPhone 2G and 3G. The utility currently shoots video that is poor quality compared to the native recording on the iPhone 3GS. Users will be limited to one-minute segments at 3 frames per second, while the resolution is just 160x213. The developer, Laan, claims the next update will bring improvements to the frame rate, resolution, and clip length.

HDMI to mDP adapter lets Xbox, Blu-ray reach Macs

12/15, 2:10pm

Apogee teases HDMI to Mini DisplayPort link

Apogee today promised an upcoming adapter that would give owners of the 27-inch iMac and LED Cinema Display the option of using the display for HDMI-based sources. The Kanex-branded HDMI to Mini DisplayPort adapter should work with any typical HDMI device and has been shown working with Blu-ray players, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It should also pipe data from a Mac mini using its mini DVI output as the source.

ViewSonic intros 10-inch netbook with Windows 7

12/15, 1:40pm

ViewSonic to ship Win 7 ViewBook on Friday

ViewSonic on Monday entered into a new category for the company in North America with its VNB102 ViewBook. The 10.1-inch netbook uses a 1024x600 LED-backlit panel but is one of the relatively few netbooks so far to launch with Windows 7 Starter Edition. As with other netbooks, there is a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU and 1GB of internal memory, along with a 160GB hard drive.

Safari slips behind Chrome in browser usage

12/15, 1:15pm

Figures linked to Mac, Linux Chrome betas

Usage of Google's Chrome web browser surpassed that of Apple's Safari for the first time last week, says tracking firm Net Applications. The company monitors roughly 160 million visitors to 40,000 sites, and notes that Chrome users represented 4.4 percent of the market between December 6th and the 12th. The figure was a growth of 0.4 percent over the month of November, and beat out Safari's 4.37 percent share.

Audio-Technica outs new noise-cancelling headphones

12/15, 1:15pm

Audio-Technica outs new QuietPoint headphones

Audio-Technica on Tuesday revealed its new ATH-ANC1 QuietPoint active noise-cancelling on-ear headphones. The headphones use the company's active noise-cancelling technology to block out 85 percent of ambient noise and produce clear sound. For less weight on the user's head, the noise-canceling technology is on an external module inline with the signal cord.

Cherrypal rolls out $99 netbook, 13-inch Atom notebook

12/15, 12:25pm

Cherrypal Africa carries 7in screen, Linux

Cherrypal today sought to bend the limits of notebooks by formally releasing the Africa, what it bills as the world's first $99 portable. The system is intended both for the developed and developing worlds and achieves its price by using a 7-inch screen, a normally phone-oriented 400MHz processor and the choice of either Linux or Windows CE. By virtue of its roots, the Africa only needs 256MB of RAM and 2GB of permanent storage.

TypeTrax integrates InDesign projects with Cumulus

12/15, 12:10pm

Imports associated resources

Moksa and Insider Software have together announced the release of TypeTrax, a supporting tool for Canto's Cumulus 8 DAM suite. When a user imports an InDesign project into Cumulus, TypeTrax is employed to automatically import all fonts and files required. It accomplishes this in part by checking the differences between fonts in incoming projects and those on a user's system.

Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X2 delayed to January

12/15, 12:05pm

XPERIA 2 delay leaves just one SE smartphone

Sony Ericsson today said it would delay the launch of the XPERIA X2 to the first week of January. It blames the setback on problems integrating the customized Windows Mobile 6.5 platform with carrier-specific apps. Most of these resulted in lower battery life or slowdowns that Sony Ericsson wants to polish out of the final release.

New patent lawsuit attacks Apple over remote registrations

12/15, 11:30am

Adobe, Microsoft, others named as defendants

A company called BetaNet has filed a new lawsuit against 18 corporations -- including Apple, Adobe, Intuit and Microsoft -- accusing them of violating two patents held in relation to remote software registration. The technology in question allows a user to enter registration information into local software, and then unlock the full version of a program by communicating with a remote server.

Sprint launches desktop WiMAX modem

12/15, 11:25am

Sprint ships 4G desktop modem

Wireless provider Sprint is now offering a 4G desktop modem, the CPEi25150 from Motorola. The device uses the WiMAX network to deliver Internet speeds that can be up to ten times faster than current 3G networks, or just under two times as fast in the worst case scenario; as a fixed modem it's meant for those who may use 4G as their primary connection at home. Sprint offers the 4G service in 27 cities and lets users port the modem around.

Nintendo files "Zii" trademark in Japan, blocks Creative

12/15, 11:05am

Nintendo Zii TM may snub Creative hardware

Nintendo raised speculation late Monday by quietly filing for a trademark on the name "Zii" in Japan. The name rights would cover both video games as well as other electronic devices and appears intended to block Creative from using the Zii name on devices in the country, such as the Zii Egg developer media player or the ZiiSound speaker line.

Android Market cracks 20,000 apps

12/15, 10:25am

Android trails App Store but catching up quickly

Google's Android Market has passed the 20,000 app mark after just over a year, according to stats tracking the mobile store for AndroLib. Having just passed the 10,000-app mark in September, the portal has already doubled that number in the past three months as the number of new apps each month has grown steadily. A sharp spike in November saw 3,544 apps published on the Market, a jump of more than 34 percent over just the month before.

Autodesk begins shipping Smoke 2010 for Mac

12/15, 10:20am

Suite handles editing, visual effects

Autodesk has begun shipping the Mac version of Smoke 2010, its high-end video production suite. The software is described as an editorial finishing tool, combining normal timeline editing with visual effects. Users can for instance implement 3D titles, color correction, compositing and/or rotoscoping.

Addonics outs internal and external eSATA card readers

12/15, 9:55am

Addonics card readers offer eSATA transfer speeds

Addonics recently introduced two products meant to speed up transfer speeds of content from memory cards, with its Pocket eSATA/USB DigiDrive and Internal SATA/USB DigiDrive. Either can read 15 different memory card formats with an optional adapter, with transfer speeds topping out at 1.5Gbps when connected using the eSATA interface. A traditional USB connection is also possible and peaks at the spec's 480Mbps.

Apple ranks in top 10 in November Nielsen ratings

12/15, 9:45am

Beats Amazon in web brands

Apple was one of the top 10 US brands on the Internet in November, says ratings firm Nielsen. The company was precisely 10th in terms of parent company rankings, with just under 62.1 million people visiting at least one website owned by Apple, or launching an Apple-owned application. People spent an average of an hour and 18 minutes looking at Apple content.

BenQ launches its first 27-inch LCD

12/15, 9:30am

BenQ M2700HD a computer TV LCD crossover

BenQ today took the wraps from its first 27-inch computer display. Considered a crossover display, the M2700HD has the usual computer inputs but also has twin HDMI 1.3 connectors plus component and RCA to take in traditional TV sources, such as cable boxes or game consoles. A native 1080p resolution, a 10W stereo speaker system and a remote further stress the hybrid nature of the LCD.

Verizon gives 3G data users free Wi-Fi

12/15, 9:05am

Verizon Wi-Fi a bonus for broadband users

Verizon today pushed back against AT&T's command of free US Wi-Fi by offering its own Wi-Fi service. The service is considered an extension of the carrier's mobile broadband and gives free Wi-Fi to those who already use a data-only 3G devices such as a modem, a netbook or a MiFi hotspot. Verizon counts "thousands" of hotspots both in the US as well as in Canada and Mexico and considers it a more economical alternative to a roaming plan.

Broadcom chip gives phones 1080p recording, 3D

12/15, 8:35am

Broadcom CPU gives handhelds fast visuals

Broadcom on Tuesday morning launched its most advanced mobile media chip to date, the BCM2763. Based on the company's next-gen VideoCore IV architecture, it's the first from the company to not only play back 1080p on a handheld media player or smartphone but also to record it. The full HD experience includes 3D, as Broadcom claims the processor can render games at the same resolution.

RED to show EPIC, Scarlet prototypes in February

12/15, 8:05am

RED's next-gen cameras to get demo

RED early today made clear its efforts to persuade videographers by promising to hold a "RED Day" February 13th. At the Los Angeles gathering, the company plans to show prototypes of its long-delayed EPIC and Scarlet cameras along with some of their accessories. It additionally plans to show the current RED ONE camera outfitted with the new generation's Mysterium-X sensor and to show 4K footage at its native resolution using a Sony 4K projector.

LG to help trial 3D TV in 2010, ship 3.8m 3D TVs

12/15, 7:40am

LG teams with SkyLife to grow 3D TV

LG today set out plans to greatly expand the use of 3D in TVs within two years. The Korean firm has partnered with satellite broadcaster SkyLife both to set standards for how 3D broadcasts behave, including both delivery and in minimizing the side effects, as well as to roll out trials for 3D TV. The two will start in Korea but plan to expand to Europe and North America in 2010; the rest of the Americas and Asia will get the experience in 2011.

QuickerTek intros Wi-Fi antenna upgrade for MacBooks

12/15, 12:15am

New 5dBi Whip Antenna improves range

QuickerTek has introduced a Wi-Fi antenna upgrade claimed to offer up to three times the wireless range compared to the stock MacBook components. The antenna mounts to the LCD screen, while the cord attaches directly to the internal AirPort card by passing through either the security slot or ExpressCard slot of any unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro, including 13-, 15-, and 17-inch models. It requires no extra software and includes a detailed installation manual to assist with installation.