| VLC media player app pulled from Apple App Store Posted: 09 Jan 2011 04:31 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Sun 9 Jan 2011 Disagreement over Apple App Store distribution leads to pulling of VLC application. Playing video files on an iPod or iPhone can be a pain, requiring lengthy and cumbersome conversions using third party software just because iOS doesn't support your choice of video format. Then along came VideoLAN, creators of the hugely popular play-everything media player VLC, with their own app for iPhone. And now it's gone.
After a lawsuit filed by one of the VLC team's original developers Remi Denis-Courmont, the app which allowed iPhone and iPod users to watch videos in almost any format was pulled from the Apple App Store. The dispute was apparently over Apple's imposition of DRM (digital rights management) on all apps in the App Store, in direct conflict with VLC's open source philosophy.
But while on the one hand we're happy to see open source advocates standing up to Apple, the upshot of the decision is that iPhone and iPod users who depended on the app to watch content are now stuck once again with Apple's less-than-extensive list of compatible formats. Users who downloaded the app while it was still available report that, for now at least, it continues to function, but for everyone else, watching videos on their iDevice is now business as usual.
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| Google fix text message delivery bug Posted: 09 Jan 2011 03:45 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Sun 9 Jan 2011 Google forum users' concerns over mis-sent text messages are put to rest. A bug in Google's Android operating system that saw text messages being delivered to the wrong recipients has been fixed, according to Google's engineers. Among the many embarassing stories the bug threw up, one user complained that a message they had sent regarding a change of job to a potential employer had gone to her current boss instead.
The problem has apparently been occurring, albeit in very small numbers, since June last year. Google's slow response to the problem is apparently down to its rarity of occurence, which made the bug difficult to recreate at Google HQ.
Speaking on the Google forums, a representative for the company said: "Separately, some users have reported that their SMS messages are being delivered to the wrong people. It took us some time to reproduce the issue, as it appears that it's only occurring very rarely. Even so, we've now managed to both reproduce it and develop a fix that we will deploy."
It's unclear whether this bug was restricted to the US, or whether UK Android users were at risk as well. However, Google have said that they "don't anticipate any persistent problems" but will "continue to investigate in case we come up with additional ways to trigger these bugs".
Have any of your Android texts ended up in the wrong person's inbox? Get in touch via e-mail or on Twitter.
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| Microsoft Kinect-like hardware coming to PC Posted: 09 Jan 2011 02:58 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Sun 9 Jan 2011 Kinect developer says that "games are just the start" for Kinect sensor. The Minority Report, gesture-controlled PC of the future is inching closer, as Tamir Berliner - one of the founders of PrimeSense, the developers of Microsoft's Kinect motion-tracking peripheral - announced that the company is selling development versions of the technology to other developers.
Following some already impressive hacks, incluing an air guitar mod, gesture control for web browsing and, ahem, some more adult-orientated efforts, PrimeSense are making the code which controls the sensor open source, allowing developers to use the device however they please.
"It will all be open source so you can take it and port it to any device", says Berliner. "When we founded the company we set out to change the computer industry with movement games, but we did not have the Wii to prove us right. Now we see that computer games are just the start."
The first company after Microsoft to license the technology is Asus, whose own Kinect-a-like called the Xtion lets users browse their PCs media files with hand gestures.
Via: BBC
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| Kinect-like hardware coming to PC Posted: 09 Jan 2011 02:58 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Sun 9 Jan 2011 Kinect developer says that "games are just the start" for Kinect sensor. The Minority Report, gesture-controlled PC of the future is inching closer, as Tamir Berliner - one of the founders of PrimeSense, the developers of Microsoft's Kinect motion-tracking peripheral - announced that the company is selling development versions of the technology to other developers.
Following some already impressive hacks, incluing an air guitar mod, gesture control for web browsing and, ahem, some more adult-orientated efforts, PrimeSense are making the code which controls the sensor open source, allowing developers to use the device however they please.
"It will all be open source so you can take it and port it to any device", says Berliner. "When we founded the company we set out to change the computer industry with movement games, but we did not have the Wii to prove us right. Now we see that computer games are just the start."
The first company after Microsoft to license the technology is Asus, whose own Kinect-a-like called the Xtion lets users browse their PCs media files with hand gestures.
Via: BBC
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