Games, Apps, Softwares, Operating Systems and Software Hacks
Google has fancied up some search fun for everyone by adding a full featured Scientific Calculator to the Search results. Simply perform a mathematical search and poof! A full fledged Scientific Calculator pops right up.
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 you can handle.
[Google]
Apple has just confirmed in their Q3 earnings call that the next version of their OS for computers will be available for download starting tomorrow. The upgrade will be just $19.99 (unless you’ve recently bought a new Mac — in which case it’ll be free) and will be available via download on the Mac App Store in 24 hours or less.
YouTube has launched a feature which blurs the faces of people in videos uploaded to the site.
According to a Wednesday blog post by the video sharing site, this application is its first step toward providing visual anonymity for YouTube videos, enabling the sharing of “sensitive protest footage” without showing the faces of activists involved, or protecting the identities of people in the videos.
[quote]“Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube,” wrote Amanda Conway, a YouTube policy associate, on the company blog post.[/quote]
The technology is similar to the one deployed by Google across several of its services such as StreetView and Google goggles.
People can check if the blurring has worked frame by frame through a preview function.
[quote]Conway added: “This is emerging technology, which means it sometimes has difficulty detecting faces depending on the angle, lighting, obstructions and video quality. It’s possible that certain faces or frames will not be blurred. If you are not satisfied with the accuracy of the blurring as you see it in the preview, you may wish to keep your video private.[/quote]
Microsoft on Wednesday announced that its next-generation operating system tailored for a world shifting from personal computers to smartphones and tablets will be available on 26 October.
Windows unit boss Steven Sinofsky revealed the Windows 8 debut date at a sales meeting, Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog post.
Windows 8 will be available in 109 languages across 231 markets worldwide, according to LeBlanc.
Microsoft has promised to make the new operating system available in August for computer, tablet or smartphone makers to build into hardware.
The Redmond, Washington-based firm has gone on record stating that Surface tablets would hit the market when the Windows 8 operating system became publicly available.
At a press event in San Francisco, Microsoft has unveiled the new Office suite, sporting a new look in line with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
One of the key features of the new Office is cloud integration using SkyDrive. Users will be able to sync key settings across multiple devices after logging in to SkyDrive. You can continue working on the same document using a different device, as well as share it with others.
Microsoft also showed off how users can collaborate on Office through social network integration. For example, you can see if your Skype contacts are available from any application in the new Office suite and make Skype calls directly from within Outlook. There’s also the ability to collaborate on documents through Microsoft’s Lync application.
Good news for tablet users: A Microsoft RT version of Office for ARM-based tablets will be included for free on RT devices, including the Surface.
The new Office will have touchscreen capabilities, where users can use taps, swipes, and other gestures to create presentations. You can also draw on your presentations using a stylus.
Meanwhile, the subscription-based Office 365 will now come with three tiers–Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium and Office 365 ProPlus–with pricing information to be announced later.
Microsoft also unveiled a new version of its notetaking app, OneNote, which will have touch, pen and keyboard input.
Although Office is currently being used by more than one billion people, it faces stiff competition from cheaper alternatives, such as Google’s suite of Web-based office applications.
Three weeks ago iOS 6 Beta 2 arrived, now apple is pushing out Beta 3 of the worldly OS to the developers and those with Developer accounts. This version of iOS6 inches closer with a lot of bug fixes and multiple tweaks that will now finally hit the end user.
SInce Apple has already closed down access for in-eligible downloads, its best to wait for the final build to arrive.
The HTC HD2 has always been the most easily adapted phone when it came to running multiple OS’ . This was the first phone to triple boot Android and Windows phone 7 with Windows Phone 6.5.
Evervolv at the XDA-Developers forums has produced a pre-alpha port of Android 4.1 for the originally Windows Mobile-based phone. The funny thing is that in comparison to other devices, the HD2 build is running quite stably, except the camera, Google Now and web browser.
The build is not meant for day to day use, but the devs are working hard to deliver a fully usable build. And knowing the history of this handset, we don’t fear it too far.
Microsoft has updated the SkyDrive for Windows App with a new user interface.The newest update to SkyDrive for Windows (version 16.4.6003.0710) includes quite a few improvements that are said to bring “performance, reliability, and compatibility.
Apart from that the app, no longer crashes out as it used to, and looks good while it downloads or uploads files. The new status windows allows users to see time and data remaining to be synced. The new SkyDrive logo also seems to be readied for the Windows 8 Metro UI
Research in Motion Ltd has been directed by a northern California jury directed to pay $147.2 million in patent litigation over a remote management system for wireless devices.
Mformation, a maker of mobile-device management software, sued RIM in 2008, alleging infringement of two patents. The company claimed it disclosed details of the technology to RIM during licensing discussions. After refusing to take a license, the BlackBerry maker modified its software to include the patented systems, Mformation said in its complaint.
Amar Thakur, an attorney for Mformation, said the jury directed RIM to pay an $8 royalty for every BlackBerry device connected to RIM’s enterprise server software, which brings the total award to $147.2 million. The verdict only covers U.S. sales through trial, Thakur said, and not future or foreign damages.
RIM’s stock has tumbled more than 70 percent in the past year as its customers abandoned the BlackBerry following the increasing popularity of its rivals Apple’s iPhone and other devices using Google Inc’s Android software. RIM last month posted its first and unexpected operating loss in eight years.
The CyanogenMod team has uploaded a video of an LG Optimus 4x HD running CyanogenMod 10 with Jelly Bean Android 4.1. The build is still in early production and has trouble with Google’s new Search dynamics, but considering the Jelly Bean Source code just came out, the progress is quite impressive.
It has been literally years, since the Blackberry App World updates had to be launched one by one. Blackberry users and fans will finally get a reason to rejoice as the latest update to App World introduces a feature that’s been a long time coming: the ability to upgrade all apps at once.
Now you can finally put the frustrating and slow single app list update, which can be really painful if you get more than 5 app updates at once. The latest update to Blackberry App World also brings the ability to view and share lists of installed apps with friends via NFC and adds Finnish language support.
Jean-Baptiste Queru the technical lead for the Android Open Source project has announced the source for the newest version of the OS, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be available today. Currently, binaries are available for the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus, with Nexus S and Motorola Xoom versions promised soon.
[quote]We’re releasing Android 4.1 in AOSP today. The name of the tagged release is android-4.1.1_r1. The name of the development branch is jb-dev. We recommend that you create new clients, even if you’re working in the master branch. It’ll make your clients smaller and faster to sync. Proprietary binaries are available for Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus. Nexus S and Xoom will follow.
-Jean-Baptiste Queru[/quote]
With the code now available developers will be able to flash their devices much faster, and create custom ROMs etc for rooted phones and tablets.
BitTorrent just announced Torque, a new JavaScript interface that’ll let you download BitTorrent files right from your browser making the process much easier now.
N o more need of pesky desktop clients for torrenting anymore but the possibilities of BitTorrent in the browser don’t just end there. Web Developers will be able to make tools like torrent video streaming, drag and drop file transfer, social sharing and more once Torque is completed. It’s BitTorrent finally modernized for the browser and potentially a lot easier to use. Torque is only in alpha right now but it could lead to a huge shift in Torrents.
Everything may seem horribly wrong at Rim but all is not lost , when the company shows up with good numbers in at least one sector. The Blackberry App World just registered 3 billion app downloads it’s seen since the launch. According to RIM, that number amounts to 2.5 million downloads a day. At present, there are 90,000 apps available through the mobile app market.
After receiving several complaints of auto brightness not working properly on their flagship Galaxy S3, Samsung has pushed an OTA update that adds a brightness widget to the notification panel. There’s also a handful of stability fixes included in the 73MB update. The Update is live now and can be accessed by going to the Settings> About >Update panel.