RIM has just revealed it will expand its free PlayBook promotion for Android developers by two weeks. What's more, it has expanded the offer to Native C/C++, HTML5, Adobe AIR, and Qt developers. The offer was due to end on Monday, but was extended due to the overwhelming interest, RIM said.
Mozilla, makers of the Firefox Internet browser, will release a version of its signature software that will resemble Microsoft's Metro user interface. A concept version will be out sometime in the spring, according to Mozilla's 2012 strategy, followed by an alpha and beta version later on, in the second half of the year. Metro uses tiles instead of the traditional Start button and menu in Windows, and Mozilla hopes to integrate its new Gecko-based browser with the Metro environment.
The Acer Iconia Tab A200 is getting an official update to Android 4.0, users on the Android Police forum have reported. The update moves the tablet from Android 3.2 to Android 4.0.3, as promised earlier. If owners didn't get an automatic notification of its availability, they can manually check by going to the System update screen in their settings menu.
VideoLAN says it is working on a major v2.0 update of VLC, the group's free, open-source media player software. The project is described as a complete rewrite, one which will add major features to different platforms. The Mac version, for instance, will gain Blu-ray playback, a native fullscreen mode in Lion, and an overhauled interface, closer in appearance to iTunes. Media formats, for instance, are situated in a left-hand column.
Bonobo has released a major update for its realtime automotive analytics app, Zilla. The software can be used to plot a vehicles braking, corning, and acceleration G forces on live graphs, as well as view weight transfer in real time. Version 2 adds five new color schemes that can be added via in-app purchases, as well support for auto-calibrating Zilla on startup, and configuring metric and imperial unites separately. Additionally, the Lateral G display has been corrected and no longer shows inverted data. Zilla is currently being offered at the discounted price of $3 and can be purchased in the App Store.
Cider port house TransGaming's download service GameTreeMac is now accepting pre-orders for The Darkness II, a first-person shooter released earlier this month for Windows and consoles originally from 2K Games, TheLoop reports. The Mac version is expected in March, and the sequel is based on the same comic book series that inspired the original game, which was released in 2007. The game, when released, will be available via Steam.
Using a network of Facebook event pages, a wiki and a spreadsheet in Google Docs, the anti-censorship group Fight for the Future is planning to launch large-scale crowd-sourced protests on Saturday against what they call the "European version of SOPA," known as ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Over 200,000 people have committed to participate in 200 cities, mostly in Europe but with scattered protests in Canada, the US and elsewhere.
Avatron, known for its iPad Air Display app, has now released its Air Display app for Android tablets ($10, Amazon Appstore). It allows the display of the Android device to see what's on the display of a Windows or Mac OS X system wirelessly. It can act as an extension or mirror the computer display.
O'Reilly has released a new programming book for iOS developers with more than 100 lessons. iOS 5 Programming Cookbook is geared towards users that are comfortable with the iOS SDK and includes lessons that show different approaches to designing an interface, how to develop location-aware apps, access the accelerometer, and more. Currently, the digital copy is being offered at the discounted price of $20, while print and print/digital options are set at $50 and $55 respectively.
Nokia has just detailed its new Nokia Public Transport app (free, Ovi Store), for its Belle-powered smartphones. It offers bus, train, underground and suburban train schedules for nearly 80 cities and urban areas around the world. Users can also bookmark often-visited locations such as their home or work.
Google in the same breath as the Chrome 17 final release has also posted a beta release of Chrome 18. The new version swings attention to graphics and now hardware accelerates 2D elements using HTML5's Canvas spec, a common part of more advanced websites. Animations and action-sensitive websites should see the most benefit.
Feral Interactive has ported over Sega and The Creative Assembly's Empire: Total War and will release it as Empire: Total War Gold Edition for Mac in the spring. The game was originally developed for Windows as the sixth instalment in the series in 2009, but the Mac version will include all game updates, improvements and all downloadable extra content, including The Warpath Campaign and four "elite unit" packs.
Waze, an Israel-based mobile-apps start-up has issued a new release of its iOS version of its app to let drivers report traffic conditions while still staying focused on the road (free, App Store). The app makes use of the iPhone's proximity detector to activate voice recognition by waving a hand. It then asks a series of questions which helps the driver create and send a traffic report.
Verizon has just released a slew of software upgrades for its Android-powered gear, including the Droid Xyboard tablets which are getting the 1.6.0M_279 update. It promises to enhance third-party pen and native touch performance, better browsing, maintaining a data connection while swapping from Wi-Fi to broadband, and in a twist now has global roaming for data. The update is nearly 84MB.
The same Microsoft preview that discussed Windows 8 on ARM in detail also gave the first official appearance of Office 15. True to some earlier rumors, the interface will be much sparser than Office 2010 and, at least in the touch implementation, lets users hide the ribbon. Both the menus and the main document view have ample amounts of white space to improve their usefulness for touch.
Slidevana, a new template package designed for Keynote, has been launched at the discounted price of $69. More than 130 slides are included in the bundle, ranging from simple lists, tables, and charts, to more complex timelines and business frameworks. Currently, slides are available in both Mac and iOS Keynote optimized formats, however, Slidevana has stated that a PowerPoint template will soon be available.
Google has updated its Google+ app (Free, Android Market) for Android. The latest version incorporates significant speed boosts, including quicker load times. One of the new features added includes a ‘What’s hot’ stream allowing users to quickly see the latest buzz from friends.
IGG Software, which is planning to release a version of its iBank financial software for the iPad sometime later this year, has teased a new feature of the unreleased app on its developer blog. The product now has a name -- iBank Access -- and will feature a new optional service to automatically keep bank records and the app in sync every time the app is launched. The new feature, which expands the number of institutions available, will be available by subscription.
Google wrapped up and posted the finished version of Chrome 17 for the desktop on Wednesday. The new browser update takes site prerendering beyond just search results to include autocompletion. If the autocompletion in the address bar is headed towards a likely web address, the browser will start loading content in the background to speed up the perceived load time. It can give the impression that favorite sites load almost immediately, Google suggested.
Microsoft will ship its public beta of Windows 8, otherwise known as Consumer Preview, on February 29 at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. The OS will have a two-hour event devoted to it starting at 3PM, according to invitations sent to ZDnet and others. The date lines up with Microsoft's previous promises of a late February release, if only just.
The Consumer Preview of Windows 8 will have a number of Metro-style apps preinstalled, The Verge has learned. They will include mostly simply-titled core apps, such as Camera, SkyDrive, Messaging, Mail, Calendar, People, Photos, Video, and Music. There may be even more than that, and all will be updatable from the Windows Store.
Luca Visual FX has launched four new plugins for Final Cut Pro, Motion, and After Effects. The first of these, Grunge Effects, is split between overlays and transitions. Both sets consist of animated textures, and despite their specialization, the transitions can potentially double as overlays.
Sony has released its latest firmware update for the PS3 taking it to version 4.10. The new update is referred to as being minor, but brings with it a change in the Terms of Service following the PlayStation Network (PSN) being folded into Sony’s larger Sony Entertainment Network. The move continues a trend towards Sony developing a more cohesive and integrated online platform that brings together its movie, music, TV and gaming content.
Final Cut Pro X, a radical re-thinking of professional video editing that initially sparked more a revolt than the revolution Apple intended, has gone on to win PC Magazine's "Editor's Choice" award after a review of the program and the features restored and improved by its third free update. The latest version, released at the very end of January, restored multi-cam editing, broadcast monitoring and richer XML support to the suite, enabling Final Cut Pro 7 projects and third-party plug-ins. In doing so, it has begun to silence its critics.
[Update: MacBook Pro eligibility corrected] Apple late today issued further EFI firmware updates to allow previous-generation MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMacs to access Lion Internet Recovery, a technology that lets users re-download and reinstall Lion when the hard drive containing the recovery partition has completely failed and no other backup medium is available. The models updated today include the MacBook Air (late 2010), the mid-2010 aluminum iMacs and the mid 2010 MacBook Pros.
Key Microsoft program managers Sharif Farag and Ben Srour on Tuesday gave a detailed outline of how Windows 8 will manage Metro apps to control power. While the two stressed that multitasking will still be active, the principle will be to devote attention almost exclusively to apps in the foreground. If in the background, especially if the screen is asleep, it should be having no impact on the battery, they wrote.
Microsoft announced that it has finally released its mobile productivity app, OneNote, for devices running Google's Android OS. The Android Market debut marks the company's latest expansion onto popular mobile platforms, following equivalent releases for Windows Phone, iPhone and iPad.
The FTC has sent warnings to six developers of background checking mobile apps that their software may violate consumer credit protection law. The agency advised the six that their apps and the procedures surrounding them might not comply with the privacy protection provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Letters were sent to the three makers of the six apps, Evertify, InfoPay, and Intelligator.
Symantec has revealed that a hacker has followed through on a threat to release the source code for the company's pcAnywhere utility software. The hacker, known as YamaTough, took the action after negotiations via e-mail for a forced payment of $50,000 failed. The exchange, it has been revealed, was actually between the hacker and police in a sting.
Motorola may get a very important victory in its legal campaign against Microsoft. Based on observations from the Mannheim, Germany courtroom, patent lawsuit follower Florian Mueller believed that the court was "inclined to rule" that Microsoft owed Motorola royalties on Windows 7 and the Xbox 360 as well as two core apps, Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Media Player. The Android device maker wants the same 2.25 percent sales royalty that it has asked from Apple for 3G, which could lead to hundreds of millions in compensation with Microsoft's current results.
Windows 8 on ARM may retain the same desktop as the standard OS, despite a number of early rumors that suggested otherwise. In a blog post on Microsoft's Windows 8 development site, several of Microsoft's lead program managers make references to both desktop and Metro-style apps for system-on-a-chip (SoC) hardware.
Architects can take their designs to the next level, creating fly-throughs that offer physical simulation of light, reflections, time-of-day adjustability, water and sky renderings to achieve extremely realistic presentations based on Google SketchUp drawings with e-on Software's LumenRT 2, now available for Mac and Windows. The plug rendering solution for SketchUp uses an entirely new rendering engine that brings Vue environmental technology to design drawings.
Alien Skin Software has announced that Exposure 4, the latest version of its photography effects plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom, will launch this month. The software provides accurate film simulation as well as a range of effects with customizable parameters. The new release will feature a completely redesigned interface, as well as new controls for effects, and a text search feature. At release, a full Exposure 4 license is expected to sell for $250, while upgrade license will be sold for $99.
Rogers has brought out a new One Number is a new service for the carrier's wireless customers who want to use their computers to talk, text, and video chat from their computers using their cellphone number. The service is free for subscribers and includes a unified inbox for e-mails, calls, and texts. Contacts from the phone are synced onto the website as well.
Google answered one of the longstanding calls among Android users by putting out a beta version of Chrome for mobile (Android Market) that we've had an opportunity to test. The app borrows the extra tricks of the desktop browser to run faster than the stock Android browser as well as simplifying its use. When on Wi-Fi, it can pre-cache pages in the search results to load them faster, and the engine itself was visibly faster on a Galaxy Nexus in our own testing, not to mention somewhat more responsive to scrolling and multi-touch zooming.
Nokia has began releasing its promised Nokia Belle software updates for a number of its handsets on Tuesday, a day earlier than expected for some. The handsets that will benefit from the changes now include the Nokia N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7, and Nokia Oro, with owners of the Nokia 500 having to wait a few more weeks. There are a number of changes with the update, with the easiest to notice being the new interface.
The Windows 8 public preview when it ships will have a handful of available games that mostly come from familiar sources in the Microsoft universe, according to new tips on Tuesday. Some of the games seen by The Verge will be direct ports of Xbox 360 downloadable titles, such as Ms. Splosion Man and Toy Soldiers. Others would be titles that are better known on mobile even with a big-screen version, such as the seminal Angry Birds and ilomilo.
Adobe has uncovered more details of Creative Cloud, its upcoming online service. The service was originally announced in October, but until now has been largely kept under wraps. Access will cost at least $50 a month under a one-year contract, but grant users access to the apps in Creative Suite 6; by comparison, current CS5.5 bundles start at $1,299 up-front, and can cost as much as $2,599 for the complete collection.
Mac recovery specialist SubRosaSoft has updated its entire line of data recovery software, including FileSalvage, CameraSalvage and PodSalvage to version 7.5, now featuring improved search and recovery functions that improve the chances of recovering lost files. The company has also updated the packages to fully support Lion and additional foreign languages. SubRosaSoft offers a risk-free trial version to show if files are recoverable before buying.
FileMaker-based solution developers have often debugged and optimized their products mainly by intuition -- looking at a bit of code and trying out alternative ways to accomplish the same thing until it works better, particularly when they are revising solutions that have been developed for clients over several years. A new product by 24U called FM Bench promises to introduce optimization through code analysis and bottleneck identification, saving time.
A flaw in the iMessage protocol that causes it to continue to route messages to an iPhone even after its SIM has been removed and deactivated has gotten the attention of Apple in a very direct way: a customer demand to be compensated for the problem, which the company has allegedly done. TheNextWeb reports that an unnamed customer who had her iPhone stolen but which continued to receive iMessages has now received an iPod Touch as compensation.
Harman has started delivering its DigiTech iStomp programmable effects pedal. Users can program the the guitar stompbox using their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to make potentially any sound, not just distortion or other effects associated with filters. Twenty alternative sound effects are available for download.
Swype will be posting an update for Android users shortly. The company has Tweeted that an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) version of its app, which offers a customizable virtual keyboard, will soon support the latest Android release. The company promises the update will fix a compatibility problem with ICS as well as adding new features.
Future Tap has updated Where To?, its iOS tool that can help find the closest and best rated restaurants, shops, and services, with support for five additional navigation apps. Building upon existing support, version 4.1 adds integration with Sygic, Waze, Navfree, Navmii, and Navigon Urban. Additionally, the update includes multiple images for listings, additional reviews, and landscape support for the homepage viewer. Where To? 4.1 can be purchased in the App Store for $3, with the option to add a 3D Augmented Reality mode through a $1 in app purchase.
Digital music service Rdio released a new Android app (free, Android Market) on Monday, with a number of key redesigns. The most noticeable is a new home screen that gives one-tap access to the app's features with new ones that include collections, playlists, new releases, and more. There is also support for Android 4.0's remote control client.
Sony has teased an update for the PlayStation Vita that should significantly expand its features just a week before the North American launch. The 1.6 firmware patch will add a mapping tool with both driving and walking directions. Likely based on Google Maps, it has the options of satellite and traffic views as well as sending locations out on the Vita's own group messaging for a meetup.
Beginning February 7th, several Mac and Windows games will be become temporarily unplayable, publisher Ubisoft has announced. These include Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes VI, and The Settlers 7 for Windows, and the Mac ports of Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and The Settlers. The company is moving servers out of a third-party data center into a new building, and promises that the end result will "improve the maintenance of our infrastructure and deliver better uptime and greatly improved services for our customers."
New leaks have shown that the Windows 8 public beta, the Consumer Preview, will take the risky step of dropping the Start button in the conventional desktop. As shown on PCBeta's forums, later pre-release builds now just have the app shortcuts, running apps, and taskbar. The menu will still be available, but users will have to mouse to the relevant corner to bring it up.
Sony has quietly released Bridge for Mac, a software utility that makes it easier for Mac users to to sync its Xperia line of smartphones. Mac users have long been overlooked by Sony, with its syncing software for smartphones and other devices previously limited to Windows machines only. The software will allow users to sync music, movies, podcasts and playlists across from iTunes, much like DoubleTwist for Android, as well as photos from iPhoto.
Apple has temporarily solved problems with the CUI bug in the Mac OS X 10.7.3 update by changing the download users get. Anyone who checks Software Update, along with seeking the usual download, now gets the combo update to Lion (1.3GB, link may not work) instead. The full installer is known to work properly at the expense of a much larger file size.
