iPhone 6 Cover

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Acer Iconia Tab A500 gets Android 3

Acer Iconia Tab A500 gets Android 3.1 update ahead of schedule

The start of the week brought some great news to the Acer Iconia Tab A500 users around the globe. The Honeycomb 3.1 update has just surfaced and those brave enough to try a manual flash might get it right away.

The update is the real deal, meaning an official Acer update, which just burst out ahead of its time. It could all be on purpose to test if there are any problems with it but as usual with such updates – those willing to risk it and try it sooner rather than later are in no short supply.

Here goes the download provided by the XDA developers forum. You can also head to this topic to find more on the leaked update, along with help on how to install it on your device. As usual with that kind of update deals you should proceed at your own risk and keep in mind that it most probably will void your warranty.

Source

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Facebook teams up with carriers to offer discounted data access to Facebook messaging

Facebook announced partnerships with multiple mobile operators to provide free or discounted data access for its website usage. As we already know, much of the Facebook’s usage is from the mobile devices and the Mark Zuckerberg’s company is trying to make it easier on the wallets to access it.

Facebook’s latest promotion offers you free or discounted data access on Messenger for Android, Messenger for iOS and, of course, for every platform, for which the service has been optimized.

As such, the promotion will be available in 14 countries and with more than 18 operators. Facebook has teamed up with operators that include TMN in Portugal, Three in Ireland, Airtel and Reliance in India, Vivacom in Bulgaria, Backcell in Azerbaydzhan, Indosat, Smartfren, AXIS and XL Axiata in Indonesia, SMART in Philippines, DiGi in Malaysia, DTAC in Thailand, Viva in Bahrain, STC in Saudi Arabia, Oi in Brazil, Etisalat in Egypt and Tre in Italy.

Facebook’s free data access hasn’t started yet and the offer will be applicable in the coming months.

Via

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

China to put heavy restrictions on Internet maps

China to put heavy restrictions on Internet maps, Google Maps is probably out of there

China has been censoring a lot of Internet related stuff lately – the latest victim is online maps. Citing security concerns, the Chinese government is going to impose some very restricting rules about maps on the Internet and location-based services in China…

The new rules, which will come in effect next month, include stuff like requiring “servers storing map data” to be located in China and those servers must not have had any information leaks of any kind in the last three years.

These restrictions apply to both maps and satellite images as well as maps downloaded or copied to mobile phones.

This likely means that Google Maps is going to be banned in China – after the China/Google disagreement, the search giant moved its Chinese servers to Hong Kong. There’s no official response from Google yet, though.

Apparently, Nokia hasn’t commented on how this will affect them either (they own map-maker NAVTEQ). And I’m not sure where Bing Map’s servers are, but they may be in trouble too.

Related location-based services are collateral damage to the new rules – some use map data from Google and I’m pretty sure none of them can afford to set up China-based servers so they store “map data”.

Source

Sunday, October 13, 2013

YouTube adds an online video editor to its host of services

Latest YouTube update includes video editor allowing you to create/edit movies from your uploaded content. It’s easy to work out, doesn’t require any software installation and your new videos will directly appear on YouTube once they’re done.

YouTube video editor can combine clips, trim the beginning/end and change the audio track. That’s basically everything you need to create or edit a movie.

Here is a quick video explaining the basics:

It uploads the new videos directly into YouTube, so you don’t need to worry about space, processing power and video formats.

YouTube video editor is still in testing phase, but you’re welcome to try it in TestTube.

YouTube

Thursday, October 10, 2013

BBC iPlayer goes live for Xbox 360 in the UK

The BBC’s popular VOD service iPlayer, which brings you popular TV and Radio programs from their site as well as on various mobile devices and and web-enabled TV’s, is now also available on the Xbox 360.

One cool feature that the developers have implemented for this version is the ability to control the application using gestures via the Xbox Kinect controller. At the time of writing, this isn’t available on other consoles, such as on the PS3 with the Playstation Move motion controller.

Gesture-controlling is still in the development, and as such does not work without the occasional hiccup. Fortunately, it also features pretty decent voice recognition, giving you yet another reason to shout at your TV.

If you live in the UK, look for the BBC iPlayer app on Xbox Live starting today.

Source

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

MeeGo and Ubuntu ported to Nexus S

MeeGo and Ubuntu ported to Nexus S, but they're not ready yet

The Google Nexus S was first rooted less than a month ago and there are already some pretty serious mods for it. One dev has managed to run both MeeGo and Ubuntu and while they run just barely, it’s still quite a feat…

Both OS’s currently load from the internal memory of the Nexus S, so there’s no need for flashing – great news, considering both can’t be put to daily use. One of the major items on the “doesn’t work” list is the screen – touchscreen doesn’t work and there are some color management issues with the MeeGo port.

Here’s a video of MeeGo booting on the Google Nexus S:

By the way, the Ubuntu port is based on the same image as the HTC HD2 Ubuntu port.

Source 1, Source 2

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

84-inch UltraHD panel from LG is bound to become world's biggest 3D screen

Everybody loves bigger and bigger TVs, but at what point do they get TOO big? 3D panels are obviously going there as LG are about to present the world’s largest 3D panel – a monstrous 84-inch giant with UltraHD resolution.

LG will showcase the 84-inch panel on the Society for Information Display expo in Seattle (25-27 May). It will be accompanied with another two great achievements in the 3D world – the 47-inch TV panel with liquid lens for use with no 3D glasses and another 47-inch 3D TV using polarized glasses with extremely low level of crosstalk – less than 1%.

It seems 3D technology is shaping really nicely and the Seattle expo promises to be interesting. But even if you are not a 3D fan, you may appreciate those chicks presenting every new Korean product.

Source