Sponsored
Engadget News |
- Google search nerds out, adds full-button scientific calculator
- Microsoft confirms dates for BUILD 2012: October 30th to November 2nd in Redmond
- Video Store application for BlackBerry PlayBook now available in Canada
- CenturyLink gets $35 million FCC grant to connect 45,000 rural homes to the internet (updated)
- Samsung SGH-i547 runs through certification gauntlets with quad-band LTE, shroud of mystery
- X-Cap automatically protects your lens even if you forget
- Poll: Are you having problems downloading Mountain Lion?
- AT&T reveals new multi-beam antenna tech for live events, could offer data speeds five times faster (video)
- Sigma R&D shows Kinect sign language and Jedi savvy to win gesture challenge (video)
- Malware invades Apple's App Store for iOS, only harasses Windows users
- Apple unveils Safari 6: goes well with your new Mountain Lion (update: Windows version absent)
- Apple updates iWork suite with support for Mountain Lion, Retina MacBook Pro
- Cubify Invent: affordable design tool created just for 3D printing
- Apple retires Lion from Mac App Store, there's a new king in town
- Pebble smartwatch will miss September shipping date, blames darn popularity
- Mountain Lion hits the Mac App Store, is one $20 credit card deduction away
- Apple OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 review
- Samsung Galaxy S III replaces check-in, keycard, TV remote and AC control in Olympic hotel
- Broadcom promises triple-speed 5G WiFi for mobiles in early 2013
- Bots edit Wikipedia, clean up your nonsense
- O2 offering free WiFi around London's busiest streets
- PSA: PlayStation Network scheduled maintenance in Europe starts tomorrow
- VIA makes its first ARM-based Pico-ITX board, adds dual graphics for your in-car pleasure
- Samsung Galaxy S III update sheds universal search feature on international model
- Japan LTE growth continues, NTT DoCoMo adds a million users in under 2 months
- Google regulatory filings reveal Motorola's worth: IP is nearly half of the company's value
- Nintendo Q1 results: Wii sales cut in half since 2011, but 3DS sales more than double
- London bans wireless access points, joy, kittens from the Olympics
- Canon reports higher profits, lower net income in Q2, points finger at pricey yen
- Big Fish Unlimited lets gamers resume play on mobile, PC and TV, stay distracted at all times (video)
- ARM sees profit surge 23 percent, tests forecasters' patience
- Angry Birds with gesture controls collides with select Samsung Smart TVs
- Kipon preps Canon EF lens adapters for Micro Four Thirds, NEX cameras with electronic control
- Fujifilm unwraps FinePix F800EXR camera with wireless sharing to Android, iOS
- LG Q2 2012 earnings show a loss on cellphones, but higher profits overall thanks to home theater
- Nao humanoid climbs spiral staircase, breakfast in bed is around the corner (video)
- Engadget HD Podcast 309 - 07.24.2012
- Virgin Media coats millionth TiVo in Gold (Gold!), always believed in your soul
- Security researchers find new wafer-thin ATM card skimmers in use
- IBM cluster powers Murchison Widefield Array's radio telescope, answers mysteries of the universe faster than ever (video)
| Google search nerds out, adds full-button scientific calculator Posted: 25 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT Search is Google's bread and butter, so it stands to reason the company would want to cram in as much universal functionality to that unassuming text box as possible. After having integrated graphing capabilities this past Winter, the Mountain View gang's at it again, expanding the breadth of its moneymaker with a full, pop-up scientific calculator. Users that input the beginnings of an equation from either the desktop site or mobile version (landscape only) will instantly see a 32-button layout appear in the space below, mapped for all the mathematical functions your left brain can't handle alone. The calculator can also be triggered by voice commands, so those of you averse to thumb-smashing will have the luxury of barking those algebraic equations straight into your handset. It's live now for the testing, but we warn you, it's no replacement for that game-filled TI-83. |
| Microsoft confirms dates for BUILD 2012: October 30th to November 2nd in Redmond Posted: 25 Jul 2012 10:24 AM PDT Microsoft just announced the big launch date for Windows 8 last week, and it's now also confirmed the dates for another of the company's key events this year. The next BUILD conference will take place between October 30th and November 2nd, with the company's Redmond campus serving as the host location. Registration will open up at 8AM Pacific on August 8th (hint, hint), at which point the company will also start dishing some details about speakers and events taking place. Naturally, we'll be there to report on all the goings-on if you can't make it yourself. |
| Video Store application for BlackBerry PlayBook now available in Canada Posted: 25 Jul 2012 10:17 AM PDT We all know things aren't exactly looking bright over at RIM's Waterloo HQ, but, thankfully, that's not keeping the company from taking care of its current and very valuable customer base. How so? Well, earlier today the BlackBerry maker announced its official Video Store application is now live in Canada's App World, giving the PlayBook crowd a hub to buy / rent "thousands" of movies and TV shows. Obviously -- similar to iTunes and Google Play on their respective slates -- folks will also be able to preview content before taking the plunge, and as a Berry rep told us, there should be no problem with streaming videos to a high-def television via the the tablet's HDMI output. Video Store Canada, as it's known by its formal name, is up for download now at the source link below. |
| CenturyLink gets $35 million FCC grant to connect 45,000 rural homes to the internet (updated) Posted: 25 Jul 2012 09:51 AM PDT CenturyLink has announced that it's getting $35 million from the FCC's Connect America Fund to hook 45,000 homes in rural areas up to the internet. The company isn't hiding its disappointment at the donation, since it was originally angling for closer to $90 million. However, the conditions attached to the extra cash made further deployment "uneconomic," so the company will have to settle at this first target to begin with. There is some hope for countryside folk: CenturyLink mavens have filed a waiver application which, if granted, would let the company connect a further 60,000 homes where service is currently too expensive to install. Update: The FCC has made its own announcement, pledging that it'll connect up to 400,000 unconnected citizens in the next three years and up to seven million in six. The full text is after the jump. WASHINGTON, July 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) announced today that it will accept $35 million from the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund (CAF) to deploy broadband service to 45,000 homes in unserved rural areas. CenturyLink was eligible for nearly $90 million in CAF Phase I funding. However, restrictions on the use of the CAF 1 funds made further deployment uneconomic. "CenturyLink is excited to be able to work with the FCC to bring broadband services to thousands of homes for the first time. In addition to the incremental CAF funding, we are investing millions of dollars of our own money to bring robust broadband services to more customers because we believe these services will bring essential educational and economic opportunities to high-cost, rural areas of the country," said Steve Davis, CenturyLink executive vice president for public policy and government relations. "We are disappointed that restrictions on the use of these funds will not allow us to deploy rural broadband services to the extent we had originally anticipated," Davis said. "However, we share the FCC's overall goal of deploying needed facilities in high-cost areas where reliable and affordable broadband service is not available. Therefore, we will continue working with the FCC to find ways to efficiently and effectively use additional CAF 1 funds to provide broadband services to our rural customers." CenturyLink has filed a waiver application which, if granted, would allow it to deploy broadband services to approximately 60,000 more homes in high-cost areas where reliable and affordable service is currently not available. This waiver has been supported by the Washington Public Service Commission, the Minnesota Department of Commerce and other state agencies. --- FCC KICKS-OFF 'CONNECT AMERICA FUND' WITH MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: NEARLY 400,000 UNSERVED AMERICANS FROM RURAL COMMUNITIES IN 37 STATES WILL GAIN ACCESS TO HIGH-SPEED INTERNET WITHIN THREE YEARS Marks beginning of most significant public-private effort in history to connect 19 million unserved rural homes and businesses by 2020 Washington, D.C. – The Federal Communications Commission today announced that nearly 400,000 residents and small businesses owners in 37 states will gain access to high-speed Internet within three years, as a result of the first phase of the 'Connect America Fund.' About $115 million of public funding will be coupled with tens of millions more in private investment to quickly expand broadband infrastructure to rural communities in every region of the nation. Many projects will begin immediately, and all projects must be completed within three years. Nationally, nearly 19 million rural residents currently lack access to broadband. Without broadband, consumers and small business are cut off from the $8 trillion global Internet economy, severely limiting opportunities for jobs and economic prosperity. This announcement marks the beginning of the most significant public-private effort in history to ensure that every American has access to broadband by the end of the decade. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, "I'm pleased to announce today that nearly 400,000 residents and businesses in rural communities who currently lack access to high-speed Internet will gain access within the next three years. Today's action is just the beginning of our efforts to unleash the benefits of broadband for millions of homes and small businesses in unserved rural communities across the U.S. In today's economy, broadband is a vital platform for innovation and opportunity, including jobs, education, and healthcare." ABOUT THE 'CONNECT AMERICA FUND' The 'Connect America Fund' aims to connect 7 million unserved rural Americans to broadband in six years, and puts the nation on a path to connect all 19 million unserved rural residents by 2020. The FCC launched this unprecedented broadband expansion last year when it reformed and modernized the Universal Service Fund, which connected rural America to the telephone network in the 20th century. The Commission created the 'Connect America Fund' to unleash the benefits of broadband for all Americans in the 21st century. Key reforms allowed Connect America to expand support to both broadband and voice without increasing universal service fees on consumers and businesses. Reforms improve fiscal responsibility and accountability, and target funding more accurately and effectively. Without these reforms, millions of Americans had no path forward to gaining access to the job, education, healthcare, and public safety benefits of high-speed Internet. The FCC's reforms provide a clear path to rural America's broadband future, benefitting Americans no matter where they live. For more information about the Connect America initiatives to provide broadband access to rural communities across the U.S., visit http://www.fcc.gov/ encyclopedia/connecting- america . |
| Samsung SGH-i547 runs through certification gauntlets with quad-band LTE, shroud of mystery Posted: 25 Jul 2012 09:24 AM PDT Samsung is already cooking up a lot of mid-range phones for Sprint and Verizon in the near future. Why not throw an AT&T model on the stove? Based on a flood of certifications (and Samsung's own browser profile), the SGH-i547 will sit squarely in the mid-range of Big Blue's Android phones -- with one exception. Its 800 x 480 screen, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC won't rock most people's worlds, but the quad-band LTE still sticks out like a sore thumb despite other in-testing devices going the same route: the 700MHz, 850MHz, 1,700MHz and 1,900MHz bands may give the i547 more 4G support than AT&T-compatible 3G. We suspect the support is either an early sign of LTE futureproofing or for roaming on LTE networks as they go live around the world. Globetrotter or not, the i547 still has a lot left hidden under its kimono; we're expecting one or two more surprises before all is said and done. |
| X-Cap automatically protects your lens even if you forget Posted: 25 Jul 2012 08:58 AM PDT Most point-and-shoots have an integrated lens cap that closes off, protecting the delicate glass underneath the moment you're done taking shots. DSLR's and other interchangable-lens cameras? Well, you've got to remember to put those covers back on yourself. The X-Cap, however, brings that automated protection to your fanciest of cams with a simple add-on that wont interfere with your picture taking (provided it's mounted right). It's pretty self explanatory really, you can see the Taiwanese designed and manufactured cap in action after the break and hit up Engadget Chinese for an interview with the designer. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Poll: Are you having problems downloading Mountain Lion? Posted: 25 Jul 2012 08:29 AM PDT We've been fielding a number of tips this morning from eager Apple users who have been experiencing issues downloading Apple's latest operating system update. There's the usual round of server errors that come with major software upgrades and some issues with those download codes provided for folks who recently picked up a new Mac. We confirmed the issue with Apple support, who told us to try again in about an hour. Have your Mountain Lion dreams been temporarily put on hold? Let us know in the poll below, and please sound off in the comments. |
| Posted: 25 Jul 2012 08:23 AM PDT AT&T's improving its coverage at live events by establishing a new (impressive sounding) setup -- the five-beam multi-beam antenna. It works by dividing its customers' signals into five narrow parts, illustrated above by the color bands, upping the bandwidth by splitting traffic to each segment, enabling up to five times the data traffic. Ma Bell even used similar technology to craft a "super" multi-beam antenna, which expands the same idea into two rows of nine, possibly offering up to 18 times the speed of a typical single-tower arrangement. AT&T adds that this setup also reduces dropped calls and failed uploads, and is apparently already being put to use at live concerts and games. Not quite wrapping your head around it? Check the video after the break.
|
| Sigma R&D shows Kinect sign language and Jedi savvy to win gesture challenge (video) Posted: 25 Jul 2012 07:57 AM PDT Sigma R&D has won first prize in a gesture challenge to show just how much more talent -- like sign language translation and light saber fun -- can be unlocked in a Kinect. Normally the Microsoft device can only scope body and full mitt movements, but the research company was able to track individual fingers with a Kinect or similar sensor, plus its custom software, allowing a user's hand to become a more finely tuned controller. To prove it, the company introduced a virtual lightsaber to a subject, tracking his swordsmanship perfectly and using his thumb extension to turn it on and off. The system even detected when a passing gesture was made, seamlessly making a virtual transfer of the weapon. The same tech was also used to read sign language, displaying the intended letters on the screen for a quick translation. The SDK is due in the fall, when we can't wait to finally get our hands on a Jedi weapon that isn't dangerous or plasticky. To believe it for yourself, see the videos after the break.
|
| Malware invades Apple's App Store for iOS, only harasses Windows users Posted: 25 Jul 2012 07:29 AM PDT Windows users can't catch a break with viruses, even when they're getting software for their Apple device. An app called "Instaquotes Quotes Cards for Instagram" was found to contain a worm called "Worm.VB-900," which isn't a threat to iOS itself or any other MacOS platform. However, users who tend to their apps with a Windows machine are susceptible to the baddie -- also known affectionately as Mal/CoiDung-A. Any antimalware should detect it since it's been up to no good since 2009, but Cupertino has already pulled the app and the vendor is working on a virus-free version. Just goes to show -- if you're on a PC, it pays to watch out for worms when you bite into a strange Apple. |
| Apple unveils Safari 6: goes well with your new Mountain Lion (update: Windows version absent) Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:59 AM PDT Apple's web browser has joined its latest OS, and joins the dots on a raft of new features that we've been promised for a while. These include iCloud tabs and a new tab view -- both Mountain Lion only -- alongside a new smart search and unified search (with support for Chinese search giant Baidu) and address bar. If your older OS is missing out on those iCloud tabs, there's some other good news, Reading Lists will now work without being online -- which all sounds very in-flight friendly. There's also a Do Not Track option to cover your internet tracks, but for all the minute detail on some new developer additions, we'd advise hitting the source below. Update 1: We're not spotting a Windows release yet -- and nor can we see whether it will work on Snow Leopard. Let us know in the comments if you manage to grab the latest iteration. For anyone on Lion, the update will be available from the Mac App Store. Update 2: The latest version may not arrive on Windows -- with all references to the old version now gone from Apple's site. As 9to5Mac notes, nightly WebKit builds are still out there if you have a sudden pang for Safari. We've reached out to Apple to confirm. |
| Apple updates iWork suite with support for Mountain Lion, Retina MacBook Pro Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:58 AM PDT Looking for something else to download once you're finished with all 4.34GB of Mountain Lion? Then you'll be glad to know that Apple has now also updated its full iWork suite of applications for the occasion. That includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers, all of which have not only be updated with support for new Mountain Lion features like dictation and iCloud syncing, but support for the new Retina display-equipped MacBook Pro as well. No major changes beyond that, from the looks of things, and all three are of course free updates in the Mac App Store for those that have already purchased them (they run $20 apiece for everyone else). |
| Cubify Invent: affordable design tool created just for 3D printing Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:44 AM PDT |
| Apple retires Lion from Mac App Store, there's a new king in town Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:15 AM PDT Cue the video of 10.7 walking off into the sunset. Today is Mountain Lion day, and with the arrival of the new operating system comes the departure of its predecessor. Clicking the link for Lion will bring up a "The item you've requested is not currently available" error message in the Mac App Store. Thankfully, Mountain Lion is just one $20 download away for Lion and Snow Leopard users alike. |
| Pebble smartwatch will miss September shipping date, blames darn popularity Posted: 25 Jul 2012 06:03 AM PDT The latest update sent to Pebble's Kickstarter backers (and a few Engadget editors) is a double-edged one. After announcing that the smartwatch will be available in a new orange edition, the makers admitted that the crowd-funded wrist candy won't be shipping to its backers on schedule in September. No new date has been disclosed just yet, but the delay was attributed to the project having to abandon early plans of making just 1,000 smartwatches. The level of production has now ballooned, meaning the factories involved are aiming to hit 15,000 Pebbles per week "as soon as possible." |
| Mountain Lion hits the Mac App Store, is one $20 credit card deduction away Posted: 25 Jul 2012 05:33 AM PDT You've read (or closely skimmed) the review, you've watched the video -- now it's time to fire up your downloading finger and see for yourself. The latest version of Apple OS X just hit the Mac App Store, carrying a a modest $20 price tag. Of course, this round is download-only, so if you want to get your grubby paws on the desktop version of AirPlay Monitoring, Messages, Share Sheets and the rest of those 200+ features, this is the only way to do it. Update: Looks like the big cat is "Temporarily Unavailable" for download. We'll let you know when that's not the case. Update: Everything seems to be fine now. Download away.
|
| Apple OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 review Posted: 25 Jul 2012 05:31 AM PDT More InfoA lot has changed since early 2001. We've got a new president approaching the end of his first term, the US has embarked on two major wars and the words "Lady Gaga" have become much more than just gibberish. Some things, however, don't change. In nearly each of these intervening years, Apple has issued a major update to its desktop operating system, OS X. This time last year, the company issued OS 10.7 Lion, a king-of-the-jungle moniker many thought would mark the end of Apple's big cat naming scheme and, by extension, the OS X lineage. In February, however, the old operating system showed she still had some life left in her, when the next edition was revealed, arriving over the summer and called Mountain Lion. Based on the name alone, you'd think 10.8 would be a modest improvement over its predecessor -- not unlike the baby step between Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6). But Apple insists that this latest build is more than just a seasonal refresh -- in all, it boasts more than 200 new features. Some are major, including things like a new Notification Center, AirPlay Mirroring and a desktop version of Messages. Others, such as full-screen mode for Notes... not so much. What seems to unite the vast majority of the 200 features, however, is a nod to iOS. So, how easily can Mac users justify that $20 download? Follow along after the break, as we put those 200 features to the test. Table of contents
Upgrading
Finder Twin galaxies: A Mountain Lion desktop, left; Lion, right OS X reached its 10th anniversary last year. When it was first introduced in 2001, the operating system was something of a revolution, surpassing its predecessor and, arguably, what was then the most current version of Windows. In the past 10 years, Apple's desktop OS has seen its share of changes, with a major point upgrade coming nearly every year. With the release of Lion 12 months ago, many suspected the company had issued the final installment in the OS X story, but Apple had at least one more up its sleeve. With that in mind, it's no surprise that Mountain Lion bears more than a passing resemblance to its similarly named predecessor. In fact, out of the box, the only striking difference between 10.7 and 10.8's respective desktops is a new default wallpaper. (Clearly, Apple wasn't through with its celestial theme.) As with Lion, hard disks and other drives won't show up on the desktop by default, but you can easily adjust that in Preferences. Though Apple crammed more than 200 features into its latest OS, these upgrades don't include any significant changes to the overall look and feel -- certainly, it's nothing like the transition from Win7 to Windows 8, which will also be released within the coming months. That said, the Finder has gotten a bit of a facelift. First up is the introduction of an inline progress indicator for file transfers from a drive or server -- one of many features borrowed from iOS. In addition to the traditional progress window that pops up in the middle of the screen, a small white bar is overlaid on top of a grayed-out file icon, letting you know how much of the transfer is left. A big "X" also pops up on top in the upper-left corner, if you get cold feet about moving files back and forth. Addressing a complaint in 10.7, Apple has made the sidebars in Finder windows a bit more customizable, so that drag-and-drop functionality now includes categories. In other words, you can pick up and reorder things like Favorites, Shared and Devices to suit your quick-selecting needs. Another handy addition is the ability to encrypt files from the comfort of the Finder sidebar -- just highlight a drive and either click Control or give a two-fingered tap to the right side of the trackpad to protect it from prying eyes. Enter a password twice followed by a hint and your machine will start encrypting. If you thought Apple had already used up every possible swipe and tap combination, boy have we got the one-handed gesture for you -- tap three fingers on a file or folder, and you'll get a preview window, offering up an icon, the name of the file, its version and size and an option for opening it. In the case of multimedia files such as movies, you can hit play without launching a separate program. Once that window is open, you can preview other apps by highlighting them with the cursor, which should prove a boon for people who prefer large icons. Like the Finder windows, the Preview also features the new share button, a near-ubiquitous addition to Mountain Lion that allows you to transfer files through a variety of methods, tailored to different apps. These include email, Message and AirDrop. AirPlay mirroring Mirroring works with iTunes, of course, switching to full-screen automatically. We used it to watch some movies on Hulu, mirroring both the video and the full system output (if you do that, you'll want to silence everything else that's going on). We noticed less than a second of lag -- not a problem for videos, but it could be an issue if you plan on using your TV to play Game Center titles. Otherwise, it's a seamless experience with one major oversight: some serious hardware limitations. We attempted to do some mirroring using our two-year-old MacBook Air, but couldn't quite accomplish the task. In order to take advantage of the feature, you'll need one of the following devices: • iMac (mid-2011 or newer) Whatever you own, you'll also need a second-generation Apple TV or a newer model. Sharing button And while Apple's not going out of its way to highlight a certain Mountain View-based company -- it programmed a Safari bookmark for Yahoo, of all things, but not Google -- YouTube is included as a sharing option in QuickTime. (Interestingly, this doesn't apply when a QuickTime file is highlighted in the Finder, for some reason.) Apple's done a good job tailoring sharing to different services -- Finder, for example, just offers up email, Message and AirDrop, while Preview includes all those options, plus Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and iPhoto. It's hard not to note certain oversights with regards to the selection here -- while Apple's mostly done a good job including heavy hitters, we'd love to see services like Google+ and Viddler included in future releases. Some apps, like DropBox, might be a tall order, given their overlap with Apple's own offerings, such as iCloud. If sharing were anything less than idiot-proof, it would be hard to imagine it becoming an essential part of people's workflows. After all, pasting a link to Twitter or uploading a photo to Flickr are already straightforward options -- as is AirDrop's close-proximity peer-to-peer sharing, which was introduced in Lion. That said, Apple made the whole ordeal as simple as possible. Click the Share button in your chosen program (or from Finder, with your chosen file highlighted), select your sharing method from the drop-down menu and send it off. Obviously, with Twitter, Facebook and email, you'll want to add some context, too. You can do all of that from a "Share Sheet," Apple's sharing interface, which offers up an image of the file you intend to send, paper clipped to its side. The first time you attempt to send something using email, Twitter, etc. you'll be prompted to add an account, at which point the Mail pane will open in System Preferences. Once signed in, you're good to go across all of the apps that use this functionality. In the case of Twitter, Mail and Facebook, messages will be delivered directly to the Notification Center once you're logged in. Sharing is just one of many features in Mountain Lion ported over from iOS -- take a look, even, at that little arrow icon, first used in the mobile versions of Mail and Safari. In the context of the iPhone and iPad, this feature is a necessity. On the desktop, not so much -- not with true multitasking and all that screen real estate anyway. Still, as unnecessary as it may seem, it's a nice addition to the OS. And, unlike other features introduced in this release, we can honestly see ourselves incorporating this into day-to-day workflow. Notification Center Notification Center can also be accessed with a two-fingered swipe, right-to-left, starting from off the trackpad. If you were worried that Apple was having trouble figuring out how to utilize screen real estate opposite the Dashboard, worry not. Shifting everything back is a simple matter of swiping the other way or clicking the icon or the desktop itself. If you're wondering just how liberally Apple borrowed from iOS in Mountain Lion, take a little trip just off to the side of the desktop. Notification Center mimics iOS' drop-down notifications, right down to the color scheme. All important messages (and plenty of non-important ones) flow through here: email, Twitter, Facebook (coming soon), Messages, Calendar appointments, reminders and updates from OS X, the App Store, Safari, Facebook and Game Center. Click on a note and it will open up the full message / alert in its respective program. Not keen on checking the Center every few minutes? Fear not: before populating the sidebar, the notes appear as a small banner in the upper right corner of your desktop (sorry, Growl), where they linger for a few seconds and then disappear, vanishing into the ether. You can speed up the process by swiping them offscreen using the trackpad. More important notes -- system updates, reminders and calendar appointments, for example -- show up as alerts, which need to be dismissed before they go away. No, you can't blame missed meetings on ol' Mountain Lion. Of course, the whole banner / alert thing can be adjusted through the settings menu at the bottom of the Notification Center -- you can also opt to receive no notes at all, as well as disable sounds. If you're not feeling the default arrangement, you can't actually switch things around in Notification Center, but you can fine-tune things all you want in the settings. Apple has also found yet another location for sharing in the form of Notification Center, adding "Click to Post" and "Click to Tweet" buttons for Facebook and Twitter. (Again, Facebook support is currently in beta, coming later this year.) With the addition of banner alerts, Notifications go right to the forefront of the OS X experience -- unless you go into settings and disable them (or just never sign into any accounts), it's awfully hard to avoid them. Not that we'd want to. Notifications are a truly handy addition that should fit quit comfortably into most people's workflows. They never felt particularly intrusive to us (especially since they disappear after a few seconds), but again, on days when you can't handle Twitter screaming for your attention, tuning out is as simple as rejiggering the settings. Messages Messages, wherever: Mountain Lion, left; iPad, right; iPhone, below. Save for the touchscreen keyboard, the app looks pretty much the same as it does on the iPad. The left side is where you'll find different conversations, with a search bar at the top. The main pane, meanwhile, shows dialogues with the usual word bubbles -- by default, you're on the right side in light blue, and your friend is on the left in white, but you can tweak colors (as well as fonts) in the settings. As ever, you'll see an ellipsis when your friend is typing. Additionally, you can send messages to a phone number or email address (with a autocompletion if it's in your address book and connected to an Apple ID). If you happen to have Messages closed while someone's attempting to get your attention, a notification will pop up in the corner of your desktop. If you're online, a new conversation will pop up in the left column, with a blue circle showing it's unread. You can add attachments like photos and video (up to 100MB), both of which will show up inline. Video, however, will open up in a separate player when you click on it. Speaking of video, you can click the FaceTime button in the upper-right corner to cut straight to staring at your friend's beautiful mug. Group messages are also possible by typing multiple names into the "To" field. The desktop version of Messages supports full-screen mode, message forwarding and lets you set delivery and read receipts, so you know your messages are getting through. Mail and Contacts Speaking of preferences, all of your favorites, recent senders, signatures, smart mailboxes and other account info gets pushed out to iCloud and, by extension, all of your connected devices. Search in the Mail app has been souped up a touch, too -- start typing and it starts filtering, weeding out results that don't match. And skipping to the top of your inbox is as simple as clicking the sort bar at the top, in the blank space to the left of the actual "Sort By" drop down. Oh, and if you're looking to email a webpage, you can do so by clicking the Share button in Safari and selecting Mail from the drop down. A blank message will pop up, letting you chose how you want to deliver that content -- in Reader View or as a webpage, a PDF or link. Address Book is now known as Contacts (*cough* iOS). Name change aside, things haven't really changed. A share button has been added, so you can send contact cards via email, Message and AirDrop. There are categories now, too -- you can add those by selecting New Group from File, dragging and dropping selected contacts into the categories. Handily, the Contacts app combines info from multiple sources -- email address, phone numbers, etc. -- into single entries, so you don't end up with multiple cards for any given person. Calendar and Reminders Similar to Contacts, iCal has been renamed Calendar to match its iOS counterpart. On the whole, though, the program looks nearly identical to its predecessor, down to the faux leather gracing the top pane, and the remnants of torn-out pages. There are a few minor tweaks here and there -- for one thing, the menu for toggling between multiple calendars (e.g., Work, Home, Gmail, etc.) has changed from a drop-down dialog box to a sidebar on the left. Calendar's search, meanwhile, offers up events on the right side, rather than the bottom, where it sat in Lion. That search features offers up suggestions and search "tokens," which can be combined to create more specific searches. The date selector inside of an event now offers a small pop-up calendar, making it easier to choose a date by allowing you to go back and forth between months. And, of course, once events are added to the calendar, they'll feed into the Notification Center, sitting at the top of the screen until you see fit to dismiss them. Reminders, compared: On Mountain Lion, left; On the new iPad (cropped to fit), right As in iOS, Reminders live outside of the Calendar. The app, new to OS X, looks a lot like its iPad counterpart, except with a few aesthetic tweaks, including a more leathery theme and more detailed texturing in the app's binder paper. Rather than relying on the List / Date buttons on the left sidebar, the desktop version has a calendar in the bottom left (though you can make it disappear by hitting the calendar button at the bottom). Using the calendar, you can refine the reminders by day (though not by month or week), so you can see everything you need to do on, say, July 25th. Reminders are organized by categories in the sidebar. You can toggle between them by highlighting your chosen category or doing a two-fingered swipe left and right on the reminders themselves. Clicking the triangle icon in the bottom left-hand column will collapse the app into one column, removing categories from the view. Click Reminders in that left sidebar and select a line on the paper to start writing. You can program due dates so Reminders can nag you as the deadline looms. Next to each reminder is a check box -- tick this when finished, and it'll get filed as complete. You can always untick it, if you need to add it back to your reminder list. As you'd expect, clicking the "i" that appears when you hover over the entry lets you go in and adjust its settings. You can add notes, change its priority, from None (no exclamation marks) to High (three explanation marks) in a drop-down menu and add reminders by ticking one of two boxes. Reminders can be set for a given date and time location -- be it arriving or leaving. To utilize the latter, you're going to have to enable location-based tracking in the Privacy pane of System Preferences. We set the reminder to pop up when we left Engadget HQ and took a quick stroll outside the building, and lo and behold, one New York City block later: This popped up on the old iPhone 4. Pretty handy. The reminders get pushed to your devices via iCloud, appearing on the device you're using when the time comes to remind you. Really, that's what this app is all about -- it's less a desktop application than a counterpart to a feature that many are already using on their mobile devices. Notifications are key here. We've had some difficulty incorporating these sorts of applications into our daily lives -- particularly on the desktop. The ubiquity of the notifications, however, may be enough to give it one more go. Safari Naturally, Apple would love few things more than to wean you, the OS X user, off of your Chrome / Firefox dependency. As such, it's added a sprinkling of welcome features to help sweeten the pot. Chief among these is the new Smart Search field, which, to be honest, is more of an "it's about time" addition than a truly innovative feature. In short, it incorporates predictive search into the address bar. If you've used Chrome, you know the drill: start typing and Safari will start listening, pulling up suggestions based on your search history. As with Chrome, results from your Bookmarks and history are listed below the suggestions; Apple does a good job separating these results from one another, with a horizontal line. Speaking of tabs, the new Tab View feature does a good job incorporating the glass trackpad into the proceedings. Pinch with two fingers and the tabs will shrink down, arranged flat on a gray background, just under their respective page titles and URLs. From here, you can quickly scroll through the pages. It's a nice feature, to be sure, but it's not likely to become an essential part of the workflow for too many people outside of Safari power users. For all of Apple's unabashed love of all things cloud-based, one new Safari feature does actually manage to acknowledge the fact that we can't always live our lives online. Reading List, that icon with the little spectacles that sits along the bottom of the Safari toolbar, now does offline browsing, a feature that actually manages to distinguish itself from bookmarks, something Apple didn't properly manage in Lion. Save something to Reading List (either through the Bookmarks drop-down menu or the Share This icon next to the toolbar) and you'll have to wait just a bit while system caches textual and graphic elements. And sure enough, if you fire up Safari offline, you'll be able to read full pages, images and all -- a handy little feature for reading news stories on the go, should you plan on taking your computer on the subway or on a plane that doesn't offer WiFi. Even handier (and more secure, too) is the new Password pane, which lives inside of the Preferences menu in Safari. Click through and you'll see a list of websites along with usernames and encrypted passwords. If you ever need help remembering one, click Show Passwords to bring up a dialog box, where you'll enter your system password. Once you've done that, you'll see your passwords listed, clear as day. You can also remove saved passwords from the pane, should you ever start to feel paranoid. Do Not Track, a privacy standard supported by browser bigwigs Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera, meanwhile, complements the privacy options offered by Private Browsing, helping to limit the amount of private information you let slip while browsing. iCloud With iCloud at the epicenter of Apple's cross-device push, it's hardly a surprise that it's the cornerstone of this latest OS upgrade. Cloud-based storage is, after all, the glue binding much of the OS X and iOS experiences together, syncing your contacts, notes, reminders, calendar appointments and Safari bookmarks. As such, the company has gone out of its way to simplify the process. Sign in with your iCloud account and Apple gives you a chance to opt out of syncing all the above-mentioned services, as well as set up Find My Mac, for locating and remotely wiping a lost PC. Once signed in, iCloud lets you pick and choose which services you want to sync: Mail, Contacts, Calendar / Reminders, Notes, Safari, Photo Stream, Documents, Back to My Mac and Find my Mac. After you opt in, Apple will begin the great syncing, pulling data from your iOS devices onto your computer and vice versa. If you uncheck one of the elements, it will remove the synced data from your computer (though not before warning you). The primary iCloud page also offers up a status bar on the bottom, letting you know just how much of that iCloud storage you're currently using. A feature that was unavailable back when Mountain Lion first arrived in beta, the Documents Library marks a big step forward for iCloud. Just save something in a cross-device app like Pages, and it offers up a drop-down menu of locations, starting with iCloud, which makes that file accessible on devices signed into that account. Accessing the Library is as simple as clicking Open in an app with that functionality. From here, you can open the doc to read or edit, duplicate it, rename it or transfer it via email, AirDrop or Message, courtesy of the Share button. Docs can be viewed as icons or lists, and can be sorted by name, date and size. You can also create folders by dragging one doc onto the other, iOS-style. Documents can also be dragged and dropped from the Library onto your desktop and vice versa. Auto Save, TextEdit and Notes Pinch-to-zoom, another "sure, why not" feature, has been brought over to TextEdit, letting you adjust text size using the trackpad. It'll save your cursor a trip to the toolbar, but mostly it feels like another step in Apple's eventual plan to incorporate that functionality into all of its native apps. And, again, why not? The MacBook's got a great trackpad -- might as well get as much use out of it as possible. Still, the implementation isn't perfectly smooth here -- once pinched, the text takes a moment to snap into place. Along the top, you get the date and time and an option for expanding the little app to full-screen, if you're the sort who loves to cram a lot of information onto a single page. Along the bottom are a trashcan for dumping notes you no longer need (what, no crumpling paper animation?) and an option for sharing the text via email or Messages. To the left of the sheet is a list of the notes you've made and above that is a search bar for finding something amongst the pad. Double-click a note in the list, and it'll get "pinned" to the desktop, staying open after you close the app. At the bottom is a big Plus for making new notes. Click the button just to the right of that and you'll get a broader list of notes across devices. Yep, Notes is connected to iCloud too, getting pushed to connected devices in a matter of moments. Click the Plus icon next to the list items, and you can organize your notes into sub-folders. The addition of Notes in Mountain Lion makes the app all the more necessary for those using both OS X and iOS. It's a truly handy tool for keeping track of those little bits of information that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle. The changes to Autosave are welcome, as well -- anything that makes it harder for us to accidentally lose our hard work is alright by us. TextEdit has certainly received some nice boosts, particularly its broader integration with iCloud. Apple's clearly looking to take on Google Docs here, though we'd be hesitant to make the jump, given that Docs is more accessible on more platforms. If, however, you're an iOS / OS X devotee who already uses Pages, this integration will certainly make your life a heck of a lot easier. Dictation The actual spoken text was:
One or two fumbles. Still, not bad for a first go. And yeah, this writer has been told that he has a tendency to mumble. For periods, simply say "period." It's the same with commas and question marks and commands like "all caps" and "new paragraph." It's all quite straightforward and easy to use the first time you give it a shot. It currently supports US, UK and Australian English, Japanese, German and French. But again, it can't do much about your coworkers staring at you while you talk to your computer. Mac App Store and Game Center The Mac App Store gets some upgrades here, too: app update notes show up in the Notification Center, you can use the trackpad to swipe between pages in your App Store history and a Share button lets you broadcast your app discoveries over Twitter, Messages and Facebook. And since ML is only available through the App Store, it makes sense that all OS X upgrades come through there as well, downloading automatically for your installing pleasure. App updates auto-download as well, and all new applications you download will get pushed to other computers tied to your account. A tale of two Game Centers: Mountain Lion, left; the new iPad (cropped to fit), right. Oh, how people would have laughed at you 10 years ago, had you told them that one day, Apple would become a kingpin in the gaming world. Yet in a relatively short amount of time, the company has managed to go from a virtual non-presence in gaming to the creator of one of the industry's most popular platforms. Of course, that popularity grew mostly independently of Apple's desktop operating system. Having managed to capture the imagination of slews of mobile gamers, the company is now looking to translate some of that success into the desktop experience, offering up an OS X version of Game Center, the social gaming experience first introduced for iOS 4. The primary reasoning behind bringing the feature over to the desktop seems to be the opportunity to allow OS X users to compete against iPhone and iPad owners in multiplayer games in an already bustling ecosystem (with 130 million registered accounts, as announced at WWDC last month). Sign in with your existing account and you'll bring over your info from iOS. Through Game Center, you can find friends and opponents. Game Center also offers up in-game voice chat, parental controls and, of course, notifications, which alert you to friend requests and invitations, and tell you when it's your time to play a turn-based game. Unfortunately, you're going to have to re-buy / re-download the OS X version of the games -- and at the time of this review, that selection is pretty sparse. We can certainly see the appeal of maintaining scores across devices and playing against pals with iOS, but at the moment, we can't see the desktop version of Game Center becoming vital gameplay -- at least not in the near future. Gatekeeper and Security This can all be adjusted by making your way into the Security and Privacy pane in System Preferences, where you can ratchet up the security (allow applications downloaded from Mac App Store) or pare it down (allow applications downloaded from anywhere). Apple would no doubt love to keep your downloads restricted to its tightly vetted App Store. But even extended to include non-App Store downloads by companies with a Developer ID, legit programs can still get flagged (see: Spotify). Of course, Apple's been working double-time to get developers signed up ahead of Mountain Lion's launch -- and, worst case scenario, you can always switch your system settings when you need to download an app not listed in Cupertino's database. Though Gatekeeper is the primary new security addition to Mountain Lion, Apple's got a few more tricks up its sleeve to tackle the aforementioned ever-growing threat against OS X. For one thing, the OS promises to check for security updates every day. Also, Safari, Mail, Reminders, FaceTime, Game Center and Notes all join the list of sandboxed applications offered up by Apple. Kernel ASLR malware protection is on-board as well, along with new FileVault management tools. According to Apple the encryption being offered up is currently in the process of getting its FIPS 140-2 certification, to help it hit the government's standards. We're not yet seeing the kind of focus on security enhancements that Microsoft will talk up with each new release of Windows, but Apple does seem to be coming to grips with the fact that, yes, Macs can get malware. Dashboard and Launchpad Along the top of the page is a search bar so widget hoarders can find an item amongst the clutter. As you type, widgets that don't match the description will begin disappearing. Need something that's not stored locally? Click More Widgets and you'll be magically whisked away to Apple.com's Dashboard page, where you can download around 3,900 widgets -- at last count. Oh yeah, and you can add widget folders to the list of borrowed iOS features. From the Dashboard browser, simply drag on widget icon onto another and the screen will split, revealing the contents of your newly created folder. Once created, you can keep dragging more icons into the folder (you can't drag a folder into a folder however -- let's not get greedy). To make a folder disappear, simply drag all of its contents out. Launchpad, Lion's boldest step toward an iOS-like interface, is still present in Mountain Lion, accessible via the dock, a click of F4 (on newer-model MacBooks) or by pinching the trackpad with three fingers and thumb. The Mac app interface looks nearly identical to its predecessor: rows of mobile-inspired icons atop a blurred desktop backdrop. As with Dashboard, however, Apple's added a search bar to the top of the screen, with irrelevant apps disappearing as you type. Accessibility Still Universal: Lion's Universal Access settings, left; Mountain Lion's Accessibility menu, right Apple has also done a bit to make Universal Access more, well, universally accessible, beginning with the name, which has been truncated to Accessibility -- a name borrowed from iOS (naturally). The pane offers up various options to help users with disabilities customize their experience (it's possible for both sighted and visually impaired people to do this). Apple has also improved Accessibility through a new keyboard shortcut -- Command-Option-F5 -- which brings up a simplified version of the menu, anywhere in the operating system. From here you can enable the zooming of features (via keyboard shortcuts or scrolling), VoiceOver, adaptable keys and display configurations like color inversion and contrast adjustments. More complex Accessibility features can be accessed by hitting Preferences in that window, or by locating them the old-fashioned way, through System Preferences in the dock. In Mountain Lion, the settings are a bit easier to navigate -- a vital consideration for this user group. The push buttons on the top of the pane have been traded in for a simpler, easier-to-navigate side panel with large icons, offering up options in the category of Seeing, Hearing and Interacting (which combines the Keyboard and Mouse & Trackpad offerings from Lion). Again, simplicity is the thing here. Graphical user interfaces can be quite difficult to navigate for the visually impaired and people with other disabilities -- there's no need to clutter them up unnecessarily. The visual element of VoiceOver's spoken text. Mountain Lion's also ushers in some revised features in Accessibility. VoiceOver, which translates onscreen elements into spoken text, gets the most love here, with drag-and-drop functionality coming via modifier keys and the ability press and hold buttons and reorder tables. The latest big cat release also sees the introduction of 14 new braille displays. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking on this front, but it's definitely nice to see Apple expand its support for disabled users. Power Nap What's the old saying? If you can't nap longer, nap harder? Pretty sure it's something along those lines. That's the driving force behind Power Nap, an attempt to put your system to work, even while it's sleeping. The new feature, introduced in 10.8, works while your system is in sleep mode, whether plugged in or on running off of battery power, performing Time Machine backups and delivering updates that you can install the minute the machine wakes back up. Mail, Notes, Reminders and Messages all get delivered as well, without the addition of fans or system lights. And, it works whether your machine is napping with its lid up or down, all without spinning up any fans or using a lot of power -- however, it's only going to work if your system has flash-based storage. Pretty cool feature, all in all. Preview Even poor, oft-neglected Preview gets a little bit of feature love this time out. The image / PDF viewer gets sprinkled with the normal assortment of Mountain Lion features, including Sharing (via Email, Message, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, Flick and iPhoto) and Documents in the Cloud, so you can check out those images and PDFs on the go -- pretty handy, that. The PDF functionality gets some bumps as well, detecting text fields for you to fill out and letting you add inline notes. You can also search notes and highlights and plug scanned images and pages into PDF, going a ways toward making you a little less reliant on yet another Adobe product. Oh, Apple, you scamp. Features for the Chinese market Most other Mountain Lion features for China are related to text input. While we're not exactly experts in every single type of Chinese input method, Apple claims it has significantly expanded on the existing offerings, especially handwriting recognition and the pronunciation-based Pinyin (including the newly added Fuzzy Pinyin to cater to different regional accents). Most notably, in Pinyin mode you can now type in English within a Chinese sentence without having to switch keyboards like in the olden days -- your English words would simply show up as an option in the suggested word list. Speaking of which, Mountain Lion will also quietly update its library to enhance its phrase suggestions over time, and the Chinese user dictionary gets the same iCloud sync treatment as its English counterpart. If you do get stuck with certain Chinese words, fret not, because OS X will now come with a simplified Chinese definition dictionary, so you can look up Chinese words by tapping on them with three fingers (tip: if your system's set up in English, you'll need to activate the Chinese dictionary in the Dictionary app). Alas, this is only a Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary, and it's just in simplified Chinese (Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan still use traditional Chinese), so some users will still have to rely on third-party solutions. Other tidbits include the addition of Baidu as an optional default engine in Safari (to be honest, many advanced users would probably prefer sticking with Google for all sorts of sticky-icky reasons), as well as eight new Chinese fonts (though only four of them include traditional Chinese characters). System Scrolling with Dinosaurs: The standard bar, left; the expanded version, right. The most prevalent tweak on the system side has to be the beefed-up scroll bars. Anyone who's had trouble grabbing ahold of the disappearing / reappearing page movers will appreciate the ability to expand / change the color of the things by hovering over them. Those engaging in screen sharing, meanwhile, will like the ability to just drag and drop files between computers for transferring. The full-screen app mode, which was introduced back in 10.7, has been extended to secondary displays. This isn't a huge change, mind you -- in Lion, you could have an app go full-screen in an external monitor, so long as it was set as your primary display. Also, as with Lion, your other monitor will be blocked out when in full-screen on one of the displays, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole dual-monitor thing. Screen saver gets a little love, too. There's a slew of new slideshow viewing options, including a panning one named after our documentarian pal Ken Burns, who already got a nod over in iMovie. Click one of those options and you can choose the source of your photostream from a drop-down menu, including default folders like National Geographic, Aerial and Cosmos or your own shots. The new Faces feature in iPhoto lets you tag people in pictures, making it easier to choose images when time comes to pick a profile pic or putting faces to the names in Contacts. While we can't personally claim to be heavy Font Book users, the new Smart Collections feature is pretty neat, letting you group different styles together by refining search criteria. Speaking of collections, the Xsan 3 cluster file system is on-board for shared storage, as is X11 install, if you should happen to need it for a particular app. PerformanceApple hinted at some small performance enhancements, but the company isn't exactly broadcasting them as a selling point for 10.8. Overall, we found the performance to be quite brisk -- we ran our standard OS X benchmarks, Geekbench and Xbench, and saw slight performance boosts versus the numbers we got with the same Retina display MacBook Pro running Lion. It wasn't a huge gain by any stretch, but we'll never argue against with a performance boost, no matter how minor. Odds and ends
Above: Flipping through pages in Dictionary. Hmmm... Wrap-up Let's get this out of the way, shall we? Does Mountain Lion justify its $20 price tag? Yes. Of course it does. If you're an OS X user with a reasonably new piece of hardware, stop what you're doing and upgrade now. There are 200 features here -- odds are you're going to discover a couple you like. Better yet, if you picked up your system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on June 11th or later, you can get it for free. AirPlay Mirroring, Messages, Notifications and some great new uses for iCloud make for an extremely solid upgrade. In our time with the new operating system, we experienced no major issues; just rare hiccups that can are likely to be fixed in a system update. Heck, even the installation went smoothly. Apple devotees will find a lot to like amid the long list of tweaks and new features.
Taken as a whole, the features mark a fairly aggressive bid to fold the best of OS X and iOS into one product -- a strategy we first saw with the introduction of the Mac App Store on Snow Leopard, and with the arrival of Launchpad last year in Lion. Fears that the operating system has become more walled-off in the face of these moves are mostly overblown -- for now, at least. GateKeeper and the App Store hint at how Apple might seek to regulate the OS X experience to the degree it does on iOS, where content from outside the App Store's heavily vetted selection is strictly forbidden (though not expressly illegal, of course). Moving ahead, we hope the company continues to allow end users to download whatever they please. As for that question of precisely how fresh OS X feels -- it's not quite fair to compare the change between Lion and Mountain Lion to the steps between Windows 7 and 8. After all, the company has mostly been keeping to a yearly upgrade schedule, and while OS X has maintained a fairly consistent aesthetic presentation since it was first released in the world back in 2001, every upgrade has brought with it key features, and the end result is a very different operating system than the one we were introduced to more than 10 years ago. That said, it seems time for Apple to make a bold new pronouncement on the desktop front. The company appears to have most of its resources invested in the mobile side -- and there's no question as to why: the iPhone and iPad have reinvigorated the company, making it a computing player on a scale that no one (save, perhaps, for Jobs himself) could have predicted a decade ago. Still, it might be hard for OS X users not to feel neglected -- many of the latest new features feel a bit like iOS hand-me-downs. When and if Apple rolls out a new operating system this time next year, hopefully we'll be seeing a very different side of Mac OS. Tim Stevens, Richard Lai and Zach Honig contributed to this report. |
| Samsung Galaxy S III replaces check-in, keycard, TV remote and AC control in Olympic hotel Posted: 25 Jul 2012 04:59 AM PDT Samsung has turned the Galaxy S III into the ultimate hotel accessory in preparation for the Olympics. It's equipped 40 rooms in London's Stratford Holiday Inn to use the official smartphone of 2012 to check in and out, order room service, unlock doors and control the TV without moving. VIPs staying at the hotel for the games season will get first dibs on the technology that'll let them call up a snack whilst tweeting -- just as long as Cody Brocious doesn't work out how to intercept it. |
| Broadcom promises triple-speed 5G WiFi for mobiles in early 2013 Posted: 25 Jul 2012 04:23 AM PDT |
| Bots edit Wikipedia, clean up your nonsense Posted: 25 Jul 2012 04:01 AM PDT Wikipedia, a triumph of human effort, knowledge and collaboration... or so we thought. Turns out that along with the tens of thousands of brains regularly editing the online encyclopedia, hundreds of bots also patrol the virtual aisles keeping us in check. Some of the bots take care of the boring stuff -- organizing, formatting and other admin. Others correct the wrongdoings of wiki-villains, such as removing off-topic vandalism and naughty language. In the beginning, pages were even created by select bots, pulling data from various sources to create bare bones records for our keystrokes to flesh out. They do a pretty good job, but there are fears that a rogue bot will one day ruin a lot of hard work, although due to the privileges needed it would have to be an inside job. So now you know -- the machines not only have access to the largest single collection of human knowledge, but they edit it for us too. Don't say we didn't warn you. |
| O2 offering free WiFi around London's busiest streets Posted: 25 Jul 2012 03:30 AM PDT O2 is making good on its promise to coat the busiest parts of London in free WiFi. Between now and the end of July, seven locations including Oxford Street, Regent Street, Exhibition Road, Leicester and Piccadilly Squares will offer unfettered access -- even if you don't subscribe to O2's cellphone network. There's no word on if the network will remain free forever, but given the painful time we spent crouching in Starbucks doorways on recent trips to New York and Paris, we hope the company does the right thing for the sake of harassed visitors to the capital. Landmark free O2 Wifi deal gives London another reason to celebrate this summer Running at no cost to the council or the taxpayer, the scheme enables millions of people living in or visiting the capital to enjoy fast, free, reliable wifi whilst out and about. O2 Wifi is free for everyone, regardless of network or broadband provider and once registered, customers will be automatically connected each time they enter a coverage area. With over a million visitors and commuters daily and a 13% increase expected during the Summers' festivities the new network will enable Londoners and visitors to the city share their pictures and updates of the events, or check on transport links, for free. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "With millions of extra people coming to town for the Games, we want to ensure we showcase the capital as the best city in the world to work and visit, and the addition of free Wifi to some of our most popular landmarks is crucial in helping to maintaining that reputation." Content on the homepage will be automatically updated depending on the users' location and the UK's leading premium department store, House of Fraser, will be the first exclusive advertiser across the outdoor O2 Wifi network. A recent survey of Westminster residents revealed that 69% own a smartphone compared to 43% of the total UK population. This figure rises to 81% among 25-44 year-olds in Westminster and even 25% of over 60s have a smartphone. In addition, 23% of all Westminster residents own an iPad compared to just 12% of the population nationwide, proving Westminster residents to be some of the most connected in the UK. Gavin Franks, MD of O2 Wifi said, "We are proud to announce that today, we can bring O2 Wifi to some of the busiest streets and squares of central London. We are now providing Londoners and visitors alike with fast, free, reliable wifi when visiting some of the busiest areas in Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. This comes after a succession of venue announcements with partners like Costa Coffee, House of Fraser and McDonald's. O2 Wifi was launched fifteen months ago and in that time we have transformed the wifi market with innovation and fresh thinking." |
| PSA: PlayStation Network scheduled maintenance in Europe starts tomorrow Posted: 25 Jul 2012 03:01 AM PDT |
| VIA makes its first ARM-based Pico-ITX board, adds dual graphics for your in-car pleasure Posted: 25 Jul 2012 02:49 AM PDT VIA has only ever really had a dalliance with ARM; the VAB-800 might be a sign that it's willing to go steady for awhile. As the company's first Pico-ITX board with an ARM chip, the 800 stuffs up to a 1GHz, Freescale-made ARM Cortex-A8 and 1GB of RAM into a tiny, 3.9 x 2.8-inch board. Somehow, it still fits up to four USB 2.0 ports, mini HDMI, VGA and as much as 64GB of storage. The board's real tricks are its dual integrated graphics processors: the VAB-800 can independently steer two displays, just in case your in-car infotainment system can't be contained by merely one screen. You'll likely have to be a car designer or an industrial device maker to make an order, although the 5W power draw and support for Android, Ubuntu Linux and Windows Embedded Compact 7 should soon see the VAB-800 crammed into logic-defying spaces everywhere. VIA Announces First Embedded ARM Based Pico-ITX Board, VIA VAB-800 Ultra low power ruggedized design ideal for a broad range of industrial and in-vehicle applications Taipei, Taiwan, 24th July, 2012 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient computing platforms, today announced the VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX embedded ARM board. Featuring a choice of an 800MHz or a 1GHz Freescale ARM Cortex-A8 processor, the VIA VAB-800 combines a wide operating temperature range with extremely low power consumption to meet the demands of high-end industrial and in-vehicle fanless embedded applications. Based on the industry standard 10 cm x 7.2 cm Pico-ITX form factor created by VIA, the VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board combines a rich I/O set with superb multimedia performance, supporting playback of the most demanding video formats in resolutions up to 1080p. Leveraging VIA's hardware design expertise, the VIA VAB-800 delivers the highest I/O integration on the Pico-ITX form factor for an ultra compact yet highly flexible platform for the latest embedded devices. The extremely ruggedized VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX supports a wide operating temperature range from -20 to 70 degrees Celsius in an ultra low TDP envelope of only 5W and is backed with a minimum seven years longevity support. Customers can take advantage of VIA's worldwide embedded software development expertise to quickly create customized designs for a fast time to market approach and is available as a hardware starter kit with board support packages (BSPs) for the Android, Ubuntu and Windows Embedded Compact 7 operating systems. "The VIA VAB-800 extends our industry leading range of Pico-ITX embedded platforms," said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "As a leader in hardware and software support, VIA can tailor our new ARM based offerings for customers to create systems through starter kits, customization support or offering complete systems for different applications." VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX Based on the ultra compact Pico-ITX form factor, measuring 10 cm x 7.2 cm, the VIA VAB-800 combines the choice of an 800MHz or a 1GHz Freescale ARM Cortex-A8 processor with two independent, fully integrated GPUs for a power efficient platform with a max TDP of a mere 5W. The two integrated GPUs provide support for dual independent displays along with 3D/2D graphics acceleration to deliver full HD playback support for the most demanding video formats in resolutions up to 1080p. Rear I/O includes one Mini HDMI and one VGA display port, two USB ports and one 10/100 Ethernet port. On-board features include up to 64GB eMMC Flash memory, 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, support for one SATA port, two single channel LVDS display ports, two COM ports, CAN Bus, front pin headers for line-in/out and MIC-in, a further two USB 2.0 ports, an SDIO pin header and eight GPIOs. |
| Samsung Galaxy S III update sheds universal search feature on international model Posted: 25 Jul 2012 02:01 AM PDT The Sprint flavor of Samsung's latest flagship isn't the only one to feel the gentle tug of patent warfare. According to Android Central (and several XDA Developers forum members), the latest OTA update for the international (i9300) version also does away with the universal search function, which browses your phone's contacts and apps for results -- and drew Apple's ire. The new search box now offers web-only results, with the 27MB update also tinkering with the default browser layout. You may also find yourself back using Samsung's homemade keyboard UI after resetting -- though this can be quickly remedied in settings. Reduced functionality aside, if you like your smartphones legally sound, the update can be grabbed through the phone or Samsung's Kies software. |
| Japan LTE growth continues, NTT DoCoMo adds a million users in under 2 months Posted: 25 Jul 2012 01:53 AM PDT As British readers bang their heads on desks, and LTE remains something perpetually happening "next year," another island nation is very much on-board with the new tech. NTT DoCoMo, one of Japan's biggest mobile carriers, has announced it now has over 4 million LTE users, with the last million joining its 4G Xi (pronounced "crossy") network in the last month and a half. Speeds top out at an impressive 75 Mbps, with eight of its most recent releases -- including the Galaxy S III and the Optimus Vu -- compatible with the new network. NTT DoCoMo saw uptake growth double after launching the LTE-centric summer range. |
| Google regulatory filings reveal Motorola's worth: IP is nearly half of the company's value Posted: 25 Jul 2012 01:24 AM PDT Google's most recent filing to the SEC has revealed how the company came to that $12.4 billion valuation of Motorola. Unsurprisingly, its intellectual property portfolio comprised the bulk of the price -- with Mountain View stumping up $5.5 billion for the "patents and developed technology" owned therein. Larry Page claimed that the deal would "supercharge" the Android ecosystem, which led to the company paying $2.6 billion for goodwill -- which was only expected to arise once the buyout was completed. The company spent $630 million on "net assets," $2.9 billion to buy the phone maker's cash reserves and $730 million on customer relationships. During its most recent earnings call, Google said it had nothing to announce regarding the newest member of the family -- but perhaps we can look forward to some more exciting hardware... pretty please?
|
| Nintendo Q1 results: Wii sales cut in half since 2011, but 3DS sales more than double Posted: 25 Jul 2012 12:46 AM PDT Nintendo's results for the latest quarter reveal growth in profit for the Japanese games maker. Gross profit totaled 24.9 billion yen -- more than double that made from last year's Q1. Operating income remains negative, but substantially reduced since last quarter's statement -- presumably due to strong 3DS sales. Today's results tie in with the launch of both the 3DS XL and Nintendo's first downloadable titles for the 3DS, with sales of the handheld reaching 1.86 million units during the last quarter. Conversely, sales of the Wii have tailed off, with only 710,000 units sold in Q1, down from 1.56 million sold in the same period last year. Fortunately, according to the press release, Nintendo still aims to launch its Wii successor by the end of this year. |
| London bans wireless access points, joy, kittens from the Olympics Posted: 25 Jul 2012 12:43 AM PDT If you thought the list of banned items at the Olympic Games couldn't get any longer, now the IOC is gunning for that mobile hotspot in your pocket. The prohibited list includes all of the things you'd expect (weapons, alcohol, toxic materials) but also this:
Probably best to leave that router at home and make sure you only activate your smartphone's hotspot when you're hidden in a crowd, folks. |
| Canon reports higher profits, lower net income in Q2, points finger at pricey yen Posted: 25 Jul 2012 12:12 AM PDT Canon's financial results for Q2 2012 reveal an operating profit 18 percent greater than the results from the same quarter last year. However, net income has dropped from 61.5 billion yen to 51.7 billion yen since last quarter. The company saw demand grow for its DSLRs, both professional and entry-level, while sales of point-and-shoots continued to contract. The ever-increasing value of the yen -- and weakened demand in Europe -- has put a dent in its important overseas sales -- and profits. Perhaps the promise of Canon's first mirrorless ILC later this year will be enough get wallets out in the euro zone. |
| Posted: 25 Jul 2012 12:05 AM PDT The perpetual crisis of casual gaming is that need for just one... more... turn. After all, those 29 levels of progress aren't coming with you to the office, are they? Big Fish Games wants to ease our consciences (or at least our egos) with Big Fish Unlimited. By using HTML5 to constantly save progress, the cloud service remembers exactly where a player was and ports it to the next device: it's possible to hop from a Android tablet, to a Roku box, to a Windows PC's browser without having to replay anything. The nature of the streaming games themselves won't give OnLive players second thoughts, but their lighter footprint won't demand as much from an internet connection, either. Most of the intended audience will appreciate the price -- the now active service costs $8 a month for access to more than 100 games from the full catalog, and free play is on tap for 20 of the games as long as you can endure periodic ads. Whether or not coworkers can endure another round of your hidden object games is another matter. |
| ARM sees profit surge 23 percent, tests forecasters' patience Posted: 24 Jul 2012 11:48 PM PDT Just when financial boffins expected ARM's consistent double-digit growth to slow-down, the company has beaten their projections with a 23 percent rise in pre-tax profit compared to Q2 of last year. It made £66.5 million ($103 million) in profit from £135.5 million ($213 million) in revenue from its numerous mobile and low-power processor design licensees. Analysts expected lower performance for the simple reason that the world's biggest chip-makers have warned of tougher "macroeconomic" times ahead -- rival Intel has been careful to dampen people's hopes for its next quarter, for example, and Qualcomm (a major ARM customer) has also reduced its forecasts. Still, it's all just different shades of rolling in it. |
| Angry Birds with gesture controls collides with select Samsung Smart TVs Posted: 24 Jul 2012 11:26 PM PDT We first caught wind of Angry Birds' impending arrival on Samsung Smart TVs earlier this month, and now the war against pigs is available as a free download on some of the company's silver screens. Thanks to a built-in camera and the firm's Smart Interaction tech, which typically help users navigate menus and browse the web, gamers can smash through swine defenses using gesture controls. In order to download the app from the Samsung Smart Hub, you'll need a television in the Plasma 8000 range or a 2012 LED 7500 or higher. If your TV's not as intelligent as Samsung would like, however, the avian protagonists can already stage their skirmishes on your tube with a Roku, and come this holiday season, they'll be soaring on the Xbox 360 and PS3. |
| Kipon preps Canon EF lens adapters for Micro Four Thirds, NEX cameras with electronic control Posted: 24 Jul 2012 10:45 PM PDT Adapters to fit Canon's EF lenses on Micro Four Thirds and NEX camera bodies most definitely aren't new. Without any electronic link, though, that Lumix GX1 or NEX-F3 owner has had to focus by hand, sometimes without any aperture control -- what year is it, 1930? Kipon wants to make sure you'll never have to stoop to that level again through a pair of new adapters that keep the electronic controls working. As always with these parts, there's likely to be catches: we don't know the prices and ship dates, for one, and lens conversion can still hurt the autofocus speed. Even so, anyone who's been hoarding (or simply envious of) Canon glass now doesn't have to eye an EOS-M just to get a mirrorless camera with the lens adapter they crave. |
| Fujifilm unwraps FinePix F800EXR camera with wireless sharing to Android, iOS Posted: 24 Jul 2012 10:00 PM PDT If your company doesn't have a camera with WiFi sharing somewhere in your lineup, many will say you're not even in the photography game. Fujifilm is definitely playing: welcome the FinePix F800EXR, its first camera with wireless sharing as part and parcel of the experience. Its centerpiece is a free Photo Receiver app for Android and iOS devices that will catch as many 30 images at a time from an ad hoc WiFi camera link. The matching (if unceremoniously named) Camera Application can return the gesture by geotagging shots as well as finding existing photos on the map. Fujifilm will even pre-Instagram the photos through six new on-camera filters for those who can't stand posting images online without at least some Lomo or tilt-shift effects thrown in. As for the actual camera part of the camera, Fujifilm is keeping afloat in the competitive waters with a 16-megapixel, CMOS-based EXR sensor that can widen the dynamic range or lower the noise if sheer resolution isn't all that vital. An equally noteworthy 20x (25-500mm equivalent) lens out in front will zoom in a lot closer than any phone camera -- well, most of them. We're otherwise looking at the technology we'd expect in a point-and-shoot of this class, such as full-resolution burst shooting at up to eight frames per second, 1080p video and a RAW mode for image quality sticklers. Stores should have the F800EXR in August for about $350, or about as much as the Galaxy Nexus that just might serve as its companion. Fujifilm Brings Wireless Transfer to Compact Long-Zoom F800EXR Digital Camera Sleek new F800EXR Allows Users to Wirelessly Transfer Beautiful, Sharp Pictures to Their Smartphone or Tablet for Easy Online Uploading Valhalla, N.Y., July 25, 2012 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced the premium, compact long-zoom FinePix F800EXR digital camera that features a new innovative Wireless Image Transfer function that allows users to quickly and easily upload high resolution images to their smartphone or tablet. The F800EXR continues the tradition of superior image quality that the F-Series is known for with its speed, bright lens, intuitive use and advanced features. The new F800EXR also now includes six built-in photographic filters for users to get even more creative with their photography. The FinePix F800EXR, with Wireless Image Transfer, features a powerful 1/2" 16 MegaPixel EXR-CMOS sensor that delivers superior image quality and performance - especially in low light situations. The F800EXR also uses the bright and fast FUJINON 20x Wide-Angle long-zoom lens (25-500mm) that produces exceptional images, along with an Intelligent Digital Zoom feature that effectively doubles zoom capability and an ultra-clear 3.0" high contrast 460K resolution LCD. New Wireless Image Transfer Function Fujifilm's innovative Wireless Image Transfer function allows users to connect their smartphone or tablet* to the F800EXR and upload high-quality images to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in seconds. Connecting your FinePix F800EXR to any Android™ smartphone or tablet, or the iPhone™ or iPad™ is easy - all users have to do is download the free application "FUJIFILM Photo Receiver" to their device, then follow the simple instructions to get connected. To start uploading (up to 30 images per transfer), users press the F800EXR's on-screen connect button to join to a device, then the images will be transferred to the Android™ smartphone / tablet or iPhone™ / iPad™ for easy sharing. Then by downloading the free "FUJIFILM Camera Application," the FinePix F800EXR is also able to record the user's current location data provided by the smartphone or tablet's location data (latitude and longitude), and display it on the F800EXR's LCD. Users can also send their images to their smartphone or tablet to display on a map where images were shot. With a database of approximately 1 million landmarks worldwide, users can enjoy various functions, such as Landmark Navigator which displays the distance to a nearby landmark in the direction the camera is faced towards, and Photo Navigation which displays the distance from the photographer's present location to the place where a tagged photo was taken. "Sharing pictures has always been one of the most important things that people like to do with their images, and the new F800EXR allows everyone to do just that with its Wireless Image Transfer function," said David Troy, director of marketing, Digital Cameras, Electronic Imaging Division, FUJIFILM North America Corporation, "With sharing this easy, consumers now have a better performing, full-featured compact digital camera that delivers the beautiful images that smartphones just can't produce." Fantastic Built-in Photographic Filters: With its built-in photographic filters, users can now get even more creative with their photography. The F800EXR has six new filters: Pop Color, Toy Camera, Miniature, High Key, Partial color and Dynamic Tone. EXR Auto mode with Motion Detection: Fujifilm's advanced EXR-CMOS sensor enables the F800EXR to correct motion blur on three fronts with mechanical image stabilization, high ISO sensitivity and the new Motion Detection capability working together. In low light conditions with EXR Auto mode selected, the F-Series automatically identify if the subject is moving. If it is, the camera deploys Motion Detection and a higher ISO to ensure the subject is captured with reduced blurring. If no subject movement is identified, the EXR-CMOS sensor automatically keeps the ISO lower and uses image stabilization to reduce noise. Users who prefer to take more control themselves can also choose from: • EXR HR (High Resolution) priority mode – the sensor utilizes all of its 16 megapixels for the highest quality results. • EXR DR (Dynamic Range) priority mode – takes two pictures and combines them to • EXR SN (Signal to Noise) priority mode – pixels are doubled up to increase sensitivity and give better results in low light conditions. Sharp, Clear 20x Lens: The FinePix F800EXR camera uses the FUJINON 20x Super Wide-Angle optical zoom lens that produces crisp high resolution results throughout the focal range, from 25mm wide-angle to 500mm telephoto, along with a Super Macro Mode that allow sharp focusing down to 5cm delivering the most brilliant detail possible. Impressive Speed: With auto focus speeds as fast as 0.16seconds, the F800EXR delivers outstanding high speed shooting capabilities, up to 8 frames per second (fps) at full resolution (11fps max speed at medium resolution), and full HD movie capture at 1080p (30fps) in stereo. The FinePix F800EXR offers these additional features: • Intelligent Digital Zoom: With 20x optical zoom, Intelligent Digital Zoom delivers 40x total zoom, and 15x optical zoom extends to 30x total zoom. • HD Movie Capture: Full 1080p HD quality, a mini HDMI port and stereo sound with a high speed movie option for freezing fast moving action at up to an incredible 320fps. • Intelligent Image Stabilization: Intelligent Image Stabilization system provides further improved image quality with reduced blurring and noise in still pictures and even when shooting movies at the full optical zoom or in very low-light. • Amazing panoramic shots: Enhanced Motion Panorama mode that allows users to capture beautiful, seamless 360° panoramic images both horizontally and vertically that show fine detail, low noise and high resolution at 180°, 240˚ or full 360˚ panoramic ranges. • Tracking Auto Focus (AF): Tracks fast moving subjects so they don't escape from the frame in a blur. Subjects will be tracked automatically for as long as it is kept in the frame and the shutter is half-pressed; when users fully press the shutter button your subject will be in the centre of the photo in perfect focus. • Shoot in RAW: Images can also be captured in a RAW file for advanced creative work after shooting. • Super Intelligent Flash: A flash control system which efficiently controls the level of flash for a given exposure to produce beautifully balanced flash illumination across the foreground and background. The FinePix F800EXR will be available in August 2012 for $349.95 in black. For complete camera specifications, please go to: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/. * AndroidTM smartphone/ tablet, iPhone/iPad |
| LG Q2 2012 earnings show a loss on cellphones, but higher profits overall thanks to home theater Posted: 24 Jul 2012 09:36 PM PDT LG has released its earnings statement for the Q2 2012 period, the claim of "turning a corner" in Q1 has just managed to hold up as it registered net profits of $138 million, up 46 percent from the same period last year. Revenues, while higher than Q1, were actually down from last year and blamed on declines in featurephone sales and slow sales of IT products. The mobile division also struggled after a strong Q1 and took an operating loss, however the positive takeaways are a rising percentage of smartphone shipments and plans to launch new LTE-connected models in North America (we've spotted the likely Spectrum 2 for Verizon already), Europe and Asia later this year. The good news for the home theater segment continued however, with an operating profit of more than double last year at $187.5 million despite slightly lower sales due to an increase in sales of premium products like its Cinema 3D HDTVs, which it expects to become the "top global seller" in the 3D segment. There's more details in the press release after the break or PDF linked below if you need more numbers. LG ANNOUNCES SECOND-QUARTER 2012 FINANCIAL RESULTS Solid Performance in Home Appliance and Home Entertainment
SEOUL, July 25, 2012 –- LG Electronics (LG) today reported a 46 percent increase in net profits for the second quarter of 2012 versus the same period a year ago. Despite the continuing recessionary conditions, LG's operating profit in the most recent quarter increased significantly year-over-year. Stronger performance in home entertainment and home appliances compared to the second quarter last year helped offset profit declines in LG's mobile business.
Due to a combination of more premium products, strategic focus on developing markets and aggressive cost reductions, second-quarter net profit increased 46 percent year-over-year to KRW 159 billion (USD 138.02 million) while operating profit more than doubled to KRW 349 billion (USD 302.95 million) from the same period last year. Revenues, while 5.2 percent higher than in the first quarter, declined from last year's second quarter by 10.6 percent to KRW 12.86 trillion (USD 11.16 billion) due to declining feature phone sales and weak demand for IT products.
LG Home Entertainment Company posted significantly improved operating profit in the quarter compared to the same period in 2011. Due in large part to an increase in sales of more premium products and improved supply chain management, operating profit more than doubled to 216 billion (USD 187.5 million) year-over-year. Sales declined 5.8 percent from the same period a year ago to KRW 5.48 trillion (USD 4.76 billion) but increased 2.8 percent from the first quarter of 2012. LG's popular CINEMA 3D TVs will continue to drive sales in the second half as it pushes ahead to become the top global seller in the 3D segment.
LG Mobile Communications Company, after a positive first quarter, struggled somewhat in the most recent quarter with an operating loss of KRW 57 billion (USD 49.48 million) mainly due to greater marketing expenses related to new model launches in the quarter. Overall revenues declined 28.5 percent year-over-year to KRW 2.32 trillion (USD 2.01 billion) as a result of shrinking feature phone sales but smartphone shipments rose to 44 percent of unit sales, up from 36 percent the previous quarter capitalizing on LG's strength in LTE phones. The company is planning to introduce new LTE models in the second half in developed 4G regions including North America and parts of Europe and Asia.
LG Home Appliance Company saw its second-quarter 2012 operating profit nearly triple to KRW 165 billion (USD 143.23 million) from the same period last year thanks to a better product mix and improved cost efficiency. Revenues also increased year-over-year to KRW 2.88 trillion (USD 2.50 billion) from growth in developing markets. The company still expects improved results in the second half compared to the previous year despite ongoing weak demand in developed markets.
LG Air Conditioning and Energy Solution Company posted operating profit of KRW 70 billion (USD 60.76 million), a 17 percent increase year-over-year. Revenues increased 21 percent quarter-to-quarter but declined year-over-year to KRW 1.47 trillion (USD 1.28 billion) due to weak residential conditioner sales in Korea and low demand in developed markets. However, profitability improved year-over-year led by higher contribution from system air conditioner sales. The company will focus on improving profitability by introducing more energy-efficient products and by accelerating growth in its commercial air conditioner systems business.
2012 2Q Exchange Rates Explained
Earnings Conference and Conference Call
# # # |
| Nao humanoid climbs spiral staircase, breakfast in bed is around the corner (video) Posted: 24 Jul 2012 08:33 PM PDT Robots can clean your pool and pick up after your lavish dinner parties, but what use is Mr. Nao when you're ringing for a nightcap from the comfort of your second-floor bedroom? Okay, so we've seen the odd bot take a journey up some stairs, but how many cyborgs are prepared to scale flights that twist and turn? Researchers from the University of Freiburg's Humanoid Robots Laboratory have demonstrated a Nao humanoid capable of climbing spiral staircases, which, of course, are more challenging to scale than their non-curving counterparts. A laser range scanner on the top of the robot's head provides a global estimation of the bot's position, and the humanoid uses a 3D model of the staircase to match up with the images it captures on each step. This system lets it get a good enough grip on its geography to successfully detect stair edges and make it to the top with nary a trip. Take a look for yourself in the video below. |
| Engadget HD Podcast 309 - 07.24.2012 Posted: 24 Jul 2012 07:53 PM PDT Get the podcast 08:11 - DirecTV and Viacom deal brings MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the rest back on the air Hear the podcast This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Virgin Media coats millionth TiVo in Gold (Gold!), always believed in your soul Posted: 24 Jul 2012 07:12 PM PDT Companies might not be able to mention that big sporting event, but that doesn't stop them from being clever. Virgin Media UK is one such enterprise, which decided to award its millionth TiVo customer with a gold medal in the form of a similarly-colored TiVo box. Rather than risk the ire of the IOC's lawyers, the company used the moment to (perhaps sarcastically) celebrate the release of Spandau Ballet's Gold. Bundling bassist-turned-soap-star Martin Kemp into a van, he turned up at the door of customers Allan and Christine Ward with the glistening PVR and a 3D-ready TV to surprise the couple. We don't know if he told the husband and wife from Nottinghamshire that the HDTV market is like a high prison wall, but we hope the gift of a new home entertainment system leaves them standing so tallllllllllll...
Bramcote residents Allan and Christine Ward had the surprise of their lives this week when their favourite television personality Martin Kemp arrived to install the couple's new television service from Virgin Media. Mrs Ward opened their front door to find the soap star and music legend, complete with a one-off, specially created, golden Virgin Media TiVo set-top box. The surprise was arranged to celebrate Virgin Media reaching a landmark one million customers of its TiVo service, the fastest growing pay TV service in the UK. Bringing together broadcast television, thousands of hours of on-demand programming and the best of the web in a single box, Virgin Media TiVo boasts a TV guide that goes back as well as forward in time and an unbeatable ability to record three shows simultaneously while watching another recorded earlier. In homage to Martin Kemp's biggest 80s music hit with Spandau Ballet, 'Gold', the Wards were delighted with their celebrity surprise and thought their glistening new gold TiVo box was a "winner". Mrs Christine Ward, age 60 of Eastcote Avenue, said: "I'd been nagging Allan for ages to get TiVo but little did I know it would come complete with Martin Kemp! I've been a huge fan of Martin for years now so to have him arrive on my doorstep was incredible – it has been an amazing day! We feel very lucky with our new TV and can't wait to get to get watching and using all the TiVo services." Martin Kemp, the multi-award winning actor famous for his portrayal of EastEnders villain Steve Owen, said: "Being here to surprise the Wards was a great way to brighten up the start to the week and I hope they are delighted with their new TiVo service – it was a pleasure to meet both!" As well as their new TiVo service, Mr and Mrs Ward were treated to a full-scale red carpet surprise, with Kemp arriving in a limo rather than the usual engineer's van, ready to get to work installing TiVo. The couple were also spoilt with a new HD Ready 3D TV so they can enjoy the full range of leading services from Virgin Media. Cindy Rose, Virgin Media's executive director of digital entertainment, said; "Reaching one million customers for our TiVo service in such a short time is a huge milestone for Virgin Media and celebrating it with our customers felt right. Being able to present Mr and Mrs Ward with a golden TiVo box and their favourite TV personality as well as a new television was a real pleasure. With Virgin Media TiVo, Christine need never miss anything Martin Kemp ever appears in ever again! We hope they had as much fun as we did in planning the surprise and seeing their reaction." |
| Security researchers find new wafer-thin ATM card skimmers in use Posted: 24 Jul 2012 06:36 PM PDT ATM card skimming is hardly a new activity, and neither are card skimmers that continue to get smaller and more discreet. As Brian Krebs of the Krebs on Security blog reports, though, a new development out of Europe has now crossed a key, and potentially troublesome threshold. The European ATM Security Team (otherwise known as EAST) has discovered a new type of wafer-thin card skimmer in use in at least one unnamed European country that's small enough to fit directly in the ATM's card slot -- that's as opposed to most current skimmers that can be well-disguised but generally sit on top of the card slot. As you can imagine, that makes it considerably more difficult to spot for even the most attentive ATM users, but Krebs notes that the skimmer still requires a secondary device like a camera or keypad overlay to record a person entering their PIN. |
| Posted: 24 Jul 2012 05:54 PM PDT Radio telescope operators have as much of a problem coping with the avalanche of data as getting that information in the first place. The Victoria University of Wellington is all too aware and is leaning on IBM for a powerful (if very tongue-tying) iDataPlex dx360 M3 compute cluster to sift through the deluge at the upcoming Murchison Widefield Array. Combined, the 4,096 array antennas probing deep space and solar atmospherics will have the Xeon-based cluster tackling signal data to the tune of 8GB per second, and about 50TB per day -- that's a Nexus 7's worth of astronomy faster than you can sneeze, folks. A 10Gbps network connection will feed the results to Perth to save scientists a roughly 435-mile trek. Construction is still in mid-stride, but the $51 million Australian ($52.2 million US) being spent on the Murchison array may be worthwhile if it helps solve the riddles of star formation and solar flares. IBM to Power New Generation Radio Telescope and Help Probe the Origins of the Universe IBM computing cluster to help Australia's Murchison Widefield Array process massive amounts of data captured from epoch when galaxies first formed SYDNEY, Australia - 24 Jul 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that the Victoria University of Wellington, on behalf of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Consortium, has selected IBM systems technology to help scientists probe the origins of the universe. The result of an international collaboration between 13 institutions from Australia, New Zealand, U.S. and India, the MWA is a new type of radio telescope designed to capture low frequency radio waves from deep space as well as the volatile atmospheric conditions of the Sun. The signals will be captured by the telescope's 4,096 dipole antennas positioned in the Australian Outback in a continuous stream and processed by an IBM iDataPlex dx360 M3 computing cluster that will convert the radio waves into wide-field images of the sky that are unprecedented in clarity and detail. The IBM iDataPlex cluster replaces MWA's existing custom-made hardware systems and will enable greater flexibility and increased signal processing. The cluster is expected to process approximately 50 terabytes of data per day at full data rate at a speed of 8 gigabytes per second, the equivalent to over 2,000 digital songs per second, allowing scientists to study more of the sky faster than ever before, and with greater detail. "The MWA project is dependent on the massive computer power offered by IBM's iDataPlex to create real-time wide-field images of the radio sky," said Professor Steven Tingay, MWA Project Director from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Perth. "The combination of the MWA, IBM technology and the radio-quiet environment of the Murchison will allow us to search for the incredibly weak signals that come from the early stages in the evolution of the Universe, some 13 billion years ago." The ultimate goal of the revolutionary $51 million MWA telescope is to observe the early Universe, when stars and galaxies were first born. By detecting and studying the weak radio signals emitted from when the Universe consisted of only a dark void of Hydrogen gas – the cosmic Dark Age - scientists hope to understand how stars, planets and galaxies were formed. The telescope will also be used by scientists to study the sun's heliosphere during periods of strong solar activity and time-varying astronomical objects such as pulsars. "Victoria University was delighted to work with the IBM team to find a solution for the compute challenges of the MWA," said Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Victoria University of Wellington. "The IBM iDataPlex cluster provides an elegant resource to handle the processing and imaging requirements of the telescope, allowing us to do cutting-edge radio astronomy." "IBM is delighted to have been selected by the MWA consortium in this significant global scientific endeavour," said Glenn Wightwick, Chief Technologist, IBM Australia. "'High performance processing capabilities are essential to facilitating world-class science. The IBM iDataPlex cluster will be used to digitally process incoming signals and produce image data in a standard astronomical format, ready for use by scientists." The IBM iDataPlex cluster will be housed on-site in the Murchison Radio Observatory (MRO) site around 700 km north of Perth, near the radio telescope antennas. With a 10 Gbps communications link to Perth, it will allow the images to be transferred and stored and made available for research. The MRO site will also be the Australian location for a significant portion of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will be the world's most powerful radio telescope and is being co-hosted by Australia and South Africa. For more information MWA, please visit: http://www.mwatelescope.org For more information on IBM iDataplex, please visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x/idataplex/ |
Here at Engadget HQ, there's no single Mountain Lion feature we're more excited about than AirPlay mirroring. It worked on the iPad, so why not bring it over to OS X? Using an 
You can run, but you can't hide from the Share button. Apple's integrated this feature into just about every first-party app in Mountain Lion. Cupertino clearly knows how devoted you, the Mac user, are to the various social networks in your life, and it wants to save you a few extra steps when it comes sharing content. Notably, these sharing options include a number of third-party services, including Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr and Facebook (in beta until later this year).
The most significant addition to Finder in Mountain Lion is actually hidden away -- or rather, pushed to the side. Your first hint that the Notification Center is even there is a rather plain graphic added to the upper-right corner of your desktop's toolbar: three parallel lines, the one in the center slightly shorter than those flanking it, with three square bullet points to their left. Clicking this will shift the whole desktop (save for the toolbar) to the left, revealing a hatched gray pane, the Notification Center. Just how far the whole thing shifts depends on the resolution of your monitor -- using the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display at a medium resolution, the display moved by about a fifth of the screen.
Mourn not the loss of iChat -- Apple's long-running chat client had a good run, but things change, software evolves and mobile apps get absorbed en masse by desktop operating systems. It's the circle of life, really. iChat is being put out to pasture a month ahead of its 10th birthday, making room for another friendly face: Messages. The iOS client has been fully grafted onto OS X, and compared with other mobile-inspired features in Mountain Lion, Messages is arguably the most comfortable fit. After all, Messages is simply unavoidable in iOS. Integration here means you're able to communicate directly with anyone who has an iOS device. Thankfully, however, it's not just a closed Apple system; services that had been supported by iChat -- AIM, Google Talk, Jabber and Yahoo -- are included here, too.
Not a ton of changes on the Mail front, though Apple's made a few tweaks to its email client. Chief among these is the addition of VIPs -- a priority inbox of sorts that lets you hand-pick the folks who should skip to the front of your ever-flooded inbox. Hover over the email address of a sender and you'll see a little hollow star. Click this and, boom, that person gets the velvet rope treatment. You can view them and all their fellow Cristal-drinking emailers by clicking the VIPs tab in the mail toolbar. The rest of the riffraff will have to wait. It's worth mentioning too that Mail's got an itchy spam-filtering trigger finger. You'll want to do some inbox training when you first get started.
Those holding their breath for the arrival of Siri on the desktop will likely be pretty blue in the face until this time next year -- the cheeky personal assistant isn't on the list of Mountain Lion's 200-plus features. Apple has, however, seen fit to bring Dictation over to OS X in a major way, incorporating it into any app that involves typing. This means Pages, TextEdit, Notes, Mail -- heck, you can even type in Gmail, so long as it's open in Safari. You can also put it to work in third-party applications -- we were able to dictate Gmail messages in Chrome, for instance, though we couldn't quite get it to work in Google Docs, regardless of whether we had it open in Safari or Chrome. Hit the Function key twice (you can also change this command in the settings), and a small microphone glowing purple will appear in a word bubble off to the side of the app. Speak slowly and clearly, hit Done when you're finished, and it'll get to work. We gave the feature a test drive and were pretty impressed with what we saw:
When Apple first tipped us off about Gatekeeper, we were admittedly skeptical. We're all for security, of course, especially in a world were OS X's growing popularity has made it an increasingly popular target for hackers, but as OS X begins to look more and more like iOS, it runs the risk of becoming a far more controlled, less flexible environment. Because, let's be honest: Apple craves fewer things more than complete control over its hardware and software, even if that means severely limiting the influence of third parties. Gatekeeper seeks to reduce the presence of malicious applications on your system. By default, your system is set up to only accept downloads directly from the App Store or identified developers -- a fact that leads to dialog boxes such as this one:
| You are subscribed to email updates from Engadget News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment