Sunday, February 10, 2013
Most Beautiful Items: February 2-February 8, 2013
BLU Products ships Studio 5.3 II, rugged Tank 4.5
BLU Products is leaving no niche uncovered, it seems. Just a week after the Quattro line surfaced, we're seeing two more budget smartphones arrive that fill in what few gaps are left. The Tank 4.5 seen above is a rare rugged entry for BLU that's dust- and water-resistant, yet still reasonably slim for a toughened phone at 0.38 inches -- it's the 4.5-inch qHD screen, dual-core 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera and 4GB of expandable storage that keep the price in check. The Studio 5.3 II (below), meanwhile, is a direct sequel to last year's Studio that takes on the improved processor and resolution of the Tank 4.5 while throwing in a better 8-megapixel camera. Regardless of the phone, you'll find Jelly Bean and roaming-friendly dual SIM slots with unlocked HSPA 3G. Both are shipping now to the US for $199, which could be just low enough to catch travelers who want a simple smartphone for that late winter vacation.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: BLU Products
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/blu-products-tank-4-5-and-studio-5-3-ii/
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Google Talk Guru answers questions via your IM app
Bots -- like the kind which automate IRC rooms and Google Wave -- are a good thing to know about. There are plenty of useful bots worth knowing about, too, including the Google Talk Guru.Just add guru@googlelabs.com to your GTalk buddies, and you can start firing off questions. Lifehacker suggests that the same types of queries supported by Google SMS will work, though we didn't have any luck getting a response out of the Guru with phrases like "score detroit red wings" or "sushi R3N 1Y1."
Still, Guru does answer a good variety of questions and it works right within your favorite IM app. It's well worth adding to your friend list, especially for getting answers on the go on your mobile device of choice.
Google Talk Guru answers questions via your IM app originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/google-talk-guru-answers-questions-via-your-im-app/
How Monster Lost the World, Mind-Bending Optical Illusions, Iranian Stealth Fighters, And More
Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support
Zoho Docs 2.0 has landed in the App Store, and the most notable change is that it's now a universal app. Now you're able to take advantage of the app's mobile productivity powers on your larger iOS device. Retina display support has also been added, as have document sharing options -- which you can utilize in both the viewer and collaboration modes.
Just like the basic Zoho service, the app is available totally free of charge. Paid subscriptions get you additional storage space and start at $3 per month for professional use.
Zoho Docs 2.0 adds iPad support originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/zoho-docs-2-0-app-for-ipad-arrives/
Supercomputer "Dr." Watson Is Now Seeing Patients
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/gBozp2l-4JU/supercomputer-watson-is-now-seeing-patients
OUYA promises quick game approval process, reviews start by the end of February
OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman's promising a quick, simple approval process for games on her company's upcoming Android-powered game console, the OUYA. She told us in an interview this week:
"It's similar to mobile: they'll submit their games, and we'll review for intellectual property infringement, and malware, and excessive pornography. But ultimately it's a quick review and you're in the storefront in one capacity or another."
That's not the only mobile model OUYA's following; Urhman already said the OUYA hardware will iterate on an annual basis, similar to the mobile market.
Despite the console's impending March launch to Kickstarter supporters, OUYA's yet to begin reviewing games for its storefront. "We literally just opened the ability for developers to upload their games into the store," Uhrman explained. The review process isn't too far off, however -- she's predicting a "middle-to-end of this month" timeframe. "We're building that right now," she said, when asked who's staffing that approvals process. "We are a start-up like any other start-up, it's just-in-time business."
The first consumer-ready OUYA consoles are planned for a March launch, with availability at retail to follow in June. The $99 console made a big splash on Kickstarter, eventually raising over $8.5 million when the original goal was a meager $950K.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/ouya-game-store-approval-process/
Friday, February 8, 2013
Watch the Entire Pirate Bay Documentary TPB AFK Right Here for Free
CE-Oh no he didn't!: Vodafone's Vittorio Colao says 4G is for 'technofreaks'
Prefer the internet to be, um, fast? That puts you outside the norm, according to Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao. Speaking to investors, he said that he'd visited an EE store to try out 4G LTE speeds for himself and "all I saw [were] technofreaks." As reported by Mobile News, the CEO added that only "early adopters" would notice the difference between LTE and HSPA+ and none of his friends or colleagues have told him "that we need this fast internet." While he may want to start running with a different crowd, EE's already hoisted him on his own petard with a new Twitter campaign -- "EE welcomes technofreaks." See the coverage and image after the fold for more.
[Image credit: WikiMedia Commons]
Filed under: Wireless, Internet
Source: Mobile News
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-vodafones-vittorio-colao-4g-technofreaks/
Spotify Is Finally on Windows Phone 8
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PP_clItX4SU/spotify-is-finally-on-windows-phone-8
This Is the Best Tooth Extraction Method I Can Possibly Imagine
Hundreds of Full-Length Movies Are Reappearing on YouTube
Eventually This Mind-Bending Exhibit Would Brute Force Every Possible Image
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Dropbox announces an easier, more constrained way for developers to implement sync
Dropbox, folder sync darling of iOS developers and users alike, has announced a new Dropbox Sync API that aims to make implementing in-app sync easier, but also safer and more constrained. The Dropbox blog announced three key parts of the API:
Dropbox, built in, which lets developers embed Dropbox to the extent that it looks like a local file system inside an app.
Write locally, sync globally, which lets a developer do basic file system actions like list contents, move, and delete.
Work offline, which uses local cache to handle operations when not connected to the internet.
The Dropbox SDK has examples of a notes app for iOS that includes just such Sync API integration, to help developers jumpstart their efforts.
I'm not a dev, so I can't claim any deep insight into the challenges of mobile sync. However, having spoken to numerous Dropbox developers in the past, it sounds like the seamless experience users have enjoyed in North America hasn't been easy to implement on their side, and hasn't been as seamless internationally. Obviously, Dropbox's hosts building more data centers outside U.S will help with the latter, while the Sync API is aimed squarely at the former.
That said, for those developers who have already spent time and effort building against the old API, there doesn't seem like there's any reason for them to considering a switch to the new API any time soon.
Justin Williams, the developer of Elements, an enormously popular Dropbox-based Markdown text editor, told us:
The current incarnation of the sync API doesn’t have any effect on Elements users. Since Elements allows users to work with any directory in their Dropbox, we can’t use the new sync API in its current form. I’d love to see them open the sync API up to any directory in Dropbox, rather than just a specific app sandbox. Hopefully they’ll do that in the future.
Denys Zhadanov of productivity powerhouse, Readdle shared:
This is a great move by Dropbox. For all devs, it will be much easier to integrate Dropbox sync with their apps. For us, it doesn't change much. We have invested a lot of work to create a similar functionality for our apps with Dropbox (more than a year ago) and other popular cloud services (google drive, box, skydrive, etc) If you have a working system in place, you won't benefit much. But if you are adding Dropbox to a new app, it's great and saves a lot of time.
Of course, if a person has many files in one place/app he or she is kind of bound to it. It creates additional barriers for developers like us when moving users from a current app to a new one (like Documents).
So we may well see more apps with Dropbox sync in the future, but not necessarily anything transformative-ly better. That means, for me, it still doesn't solve the biggest problem with Dropbox. But I'll save that for a later article. If any developers are giving the new Dropbox Sync API a whirl, let me know your thoughts. For Dropbox users, let me know what you'd like to see improved in the Dropbox apps you're using.
Source: Dropbox blog
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