Monday, May 11, 2009

5/12 Tech stories - TechChuck


Tech stories

Code freeze on Snow Leopard APIs issued
May 12, 2009 at 12:31 am

Code freeze on Snow Leopard APIs issued

We're getting close to Mac OS 10.6 release time, I can feel it. MacNN is reporting that Apple has issued a code freeze on Snow Leopard APIs. What that means is developers who are using the current build, number 10A354, are able to write code assuming all major components of the OS are in place. Minor changes in this build include Chinese handwriting recognition for multi-touch trackpads.


New iPhone specs leaked -- 600MHz CPU, 32GB, 3.2MP cam?
May 12, 2009 at 12:25 am

New iPhone specs leaked -- 600MHz CPU, 32GB, 3.2MP cam?

Take this for what it is -- a totally unverified rumor from a Chinese forum -- but a set of specs for a next-gen iPhone have leaked out along with this screenshot, and they're not entirely far-fetched. According to the alleged leak, iPhone model MB717LL 9 ("iPhone2,1" perhaps?) will have a 600MHz processor (up from the current 400MHz unit), 256MB of RAM (from the current 128MB), 32GB of storage, a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, as well as a digital compass and FM radio, all while retaining the same battery, basic shape, and screen size. Do we believe it? Well, if we were to conservatively guess at specs for a next-gen Apple phone that's pretty much what we'd come up with -- with the exception of FM -- so we're not shaking our heads too hard.


Salesforce's Summer 09 release lets companies collaborate to answer complaints
May 12, 2009 at 12:00 am

Salesforce's Summer 09 release lets companies collaborate to answer complaints

Salesforce.com has been unveiling some big additions to its customer relationship management software and related products, including a scaled-down mobile application called Mobile Lite and the Service Cloud, a tool for addressing customer service queries across the web. The details of its just-announced Summer 09 upgrade (which will go live to the San Francisco company's 55,400 customers in June) aren't as groundbreaking, but there are still some cool new features.


Chevy Camaro evidently nabs Microsoft Zune support
May 11, 2009 at 11:48 pm

Chevy Camaro evidently nabs Microsoft Zune support

You've heard of Chevrolet, right? You know -- that struggling automaker underneath the General Motors umbrella? For those who've long given up their ties to muscle cars in favor of the kid-friendly minivan or Earth-friendly hybrid, you may not even know that a revitalized Camaro is just around the bend. Based on some hands-on time with a production vehicle at an undisclosed dealer, Microsoft's Zune integrates perfectly into the sound system, and said integration is supposedly a standard feature on the car. What's more is that we're told some 27 other GM models will also include Zune support from the factory as they launch in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia through 2011, though details beyond that are scant. Hope they cooked in support for the Zune HD, ya dig?


Baiting Nigerian scammers for fun
May 11, 2009 at 11:22 pm

Baiting Nigerian scammers for fun

Who are scam baiters, and why do they bother trying to give scammers the runaround? Ars explores the flourishing communities of scam baiters who help each other do everything they can to waste scammers' time, including enticing them to get ridiculous tattoos and sending them on treks across Africa for nonexistent cash.


Times Wire: New York Times Experiments With Real Time News, FriendFeed Style
May 11, 2009 at 11:17 pm

Earlier today we wrote about the new version of the Times Reader desktop app, notable for swapping from Microsoft's Silverlight technology to Adobe's AIR platform - a significant win for Adobe over its RIA (Rich Internet Apps) rival. The New York Times has followed up with another new for people to read its news online. This one is called Times Wire and it aims to be a real time 'river of news', taking a large leaf from the book of Twitter and Friendfeed. The site is described as "a new layout of New York Times news in reserve chronological order." It updates every minute with the latest news and blog posts from across NYTimes.com.


Google News Gets An Update. Still Sucks.
May 11, 2009 at 10:52 pm

Google News Gets An Update. Still Sucks.

I'm sorry, but for as good as Google is at organizing the world's data, Google News absolutely sucks. Now, to be fair, I'm going to focus on Google News from a tech news perspective, because that's what I follow. Maybe it's better in other areas, but I doubt it's much better. I bring this up because a new update to the service today promised "More ways to see the story." Okay, that's true, as long as you don't mind seeing stories that range from partially unrelated to entirely unrelated.


Microsoft takes aim at the iPod
May 11, 2009 at 10:50 pm

Microsoft takes aim at the iPod

The paint wasn't even dry on the Laptop Hunter ads and Microsoft is after Apple again, this time with a 30 second TV spot [YouTube link] complaining about the costs of filling an iPod, and what an absolute bargain the Zune Pass is.

Claiming that it would cost $30,000US to fill a 120 gigabyte iPod with music, and only 15 dollars a month for a Zune pass, Microsoft wants to make a point that in these trying economic times, Microsoft products make the most sense.


Dell's $299 Mini 10v now officially on sale
May 11, 2009 at 10:49 pm

Dell's $299 Mini 10v now officially on sale

Looks like Dell's Stateside online store has put the new $299 Atom N270-powered Mini 10v (née Inspiron 1101) up for order after it went on sale in Denmark late last night. Preliminary ship date is listed as June 1, but we're guessing it'll arrive a little sooner, as the original date was "mid-May." Anyone taking the plunge?


Warners, Watchmen, Blu-ray Live, and Facebook: The Fantastic Four?
May 11, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Warners, Watchmen, Blu-ray Live, and Facebook: The Fantastic Four?

If Warner Bros. had their own Facebook profile, their most recent status update would inevitably read, "Warner Bros. went from being 'single' to being ‘in a relationship' with Facebook."

Why, you ask? That's because the two have just inked a deal to allow viewers to simultaneously watch Watchmen on BluBlu reviews-ray Disc Live (BD-Live) while exchanging comments with their Facebook friends.


Facebook Payment Platform To Enter Testing Soon. Only 7 Months Late.
May 11, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Facebook Payment Platform To Enter Testing Soon. Only 7 Months Late.

One of my longstanding gripes with Facebook Platform has been its lack of a unified payment platform that would offer developers a way to tie a Facebook-branded payment system into their apps. Back in March 2008, the company announced that one was coming in the "next 180 days". That milestone came and went, and since then the company has been quiet about its current progress (we're typically told things like "It's not coming out any time soon").


Times Wire Gives You NYT In Real-Time. But The News May Be Old.
May 11, 2009 at 9:47 pm

Times Wire Gives You NYT In Real-Time. But The News May Be Old.

One of the biggest knocks against traditional media isn't necessarily that it's not online - most of it is now - but rather that it's slow when it comes to delivering news. By the time an old media site gets a story approved, written and edited, a dozen blogs probably have already covered the same news. That's not always the case of course, and for those stories, Times Wire, a new service by The New York Times, will be very useful.


What's the point of a Windows 7 ARM port?
May 11, 2009 at 9:43 pm

What's the point of a Windows 7 ARM port?

When I first heard the speculation that Microsoft might port Windows 7 to ARM, I thought it could be a game-changer. But after actually thinking about it for a minute, I'm pretty sure it would be a wasted effort.

Last week saw the emergence of speculation, instigated by none other than the CEO of ARM, Warren East. In a conference call with reporters, East suggested that Windows 7 support for ARM would make the netbook space "a very different marketplace," but he declined to elaborate, suggesting that there could eventually be ARM support, but it's up to Microsoft to comment on the possibility. (The EE Times was on the call and has the exact quotes used.)


NightTline: Twitter and ABC Launch a Tweetable News Show
May 11, 2009 at 9:40 pm

NightTline: Twitter and ABC Launch a Tweetable News Show

Twitter has rapidly become an invaluable tool for news outlets: news anchors are using Twitter constantly to ask questions and gather feedback from their audience, while CNN's Breaking News account is the #2 most followed user on Twitter. But what ABC and Twitter are about to do tops our list for the boldest use of Twitter within traditional media.


ViewSonic throws caution to the wind, plans own 3G smartphone
May 11, 2009 at 9:37 pm

ViewSonic throws caution to the wind, plans own 3G smartphone

Take it from Garmin-Asus -- making a smartphone ain't exactly easy sauce. Regardless of the facts, ViewSonic has decided it prudent to jump head first into the tumultuous waters known only as "the smartphone industry," announcing today plans to create its very own offering that'll undoubtedly compete with the likes of HTC, Samsung, LG, Apple and the rest of the gang. The portfolio addition brings it a major step closer to realizing a "3- to 300-inch product line," but outside of a launch pattern, no details whatsoever were dished out. We're told that China will get the phone first, with Europe and the Americas following suit. We'll go ahead and start the vaporware watch now, just so we aren't caught off guard when there's nary a mention of this at CES 2010.


How Google Blew It In Radio
May 11, 2009 at 9:23 pm

How Google Blew It In Radio

Google (GOOG) is finally throwing in the towel on its plan to take over the radio ad sales business. Jessica Vascellaro of the WSJ takes a close look at how the company blew it.

The story is similar to Google's failed plans for newspaper ads and its failing plan for TV ads: The competencies that make Google great in search don't work in traditional media, and ad agencies and media buying shops don't want to be rendered irrelevant.


Things 1.1/Things Touch 1.3.5: Area Sync
May 11, 2009 at 9:14 pm

Things 1.1/Things Touch 1.3.5: Area Sync

Things Touch 1.3.5 has been released along with Things 1.1 and, among a heap of bug fixes and UI improvements, you'll find a new feature for syncing Areas of Responsibility from your Mac to your iPhone (it's not yet possible to create Areas in Things Touch). The feature requires Things 1.1 on the Mac side, which was officially released today, but has actually been available (sans release notes) for about a week (assumedly waiting for Things Touch to make it through App Store approval).


10 Things We Hate About ISPs and Cable and Phone Companies
May 11, 2009 at 9:00 pm

10 Things We Hate About ISPs and Cable and Phone Companies

Her voice is urbane, saccharine-sweet, maternal. She is grateful that I telephoned; my call is important to her. I hate the sound of her voice.

It's the recorded voice you hear when you call your cable, telephone, or satellite TV company. I saw the owner of that voice on TV once, on a news show, recording her happy, reassuring, tranquil little messages in some voice-over booth in Burbank. A pretty mom, late thirties, tanned--exactly what you'd expect.


Twitter Passes NYT, WSJ in Unique Visitors
May 11, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Twitter Passes NYT, WSJ in Unique VisitorsWhere do you get your news from? While there's a lot of reasons to visit Twitter online, it's essentially a place to learn about what's going on in your world. For the first time last month, the site saw more unique visitors than the websites of both the New York Times and the Wall St. Journal.


Palm and Sprint announcing Pre availability May 19th in the WSJ?
May 11, 2009 at 8:49 pm

Palm and Sprint announcing Pre availability May 19th in the WSJ?

We just got a tip from a very proven tipster who informed us that Palm and Sprint were set to make a big announcement in the Wall Street Journal on May 19th. They said that there's a very good chance of Palm and Sprint announcing the Pre release date then. Confusing, eh? Well, if we were betting boys, our money would be on Tuesday the 19th. We will soon see!


David Geffen Wants A Chunk Of The New York Times. What Does Google Want?
May 11, 2009 at 8:03 pm

David Geffen, who had previously tried to buy the Los Angeles Times, has been trying to buy a chunk of the New York Times (NYT). So says Fortune magazine, which says that Geffen offered to buy the stake owned by Harbinger Capital, and so says TheWrap.com and Reuters.

None of the stories cites an on-the-record source. But my assumption is that in all cases the authors talked to Geffen, who has been known to chat up a reporter or two, and always with very specific agenda.


Microsoft: Windows 7 release in August '09
May 11, 2009 at 7:53 pm

Microsoft has officially dropped the façade on Windows 7 in 2010 and conceded that its essentially completed operating system will ship this year.

Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing in about three months, pending feedback on the current release candidate, senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live engineering group Steven Sinofsky said Monday.


Google adds more ways to keep up with the news
May 11, 2009 at 7:46 pm

Google adds more ways to keep up with the news

A quiet rollout last week added several features to Google News results. The new features are meant to give searchers more ways to quickly get up to speed on a story. The add-ons alleviate, to some extent, Google's habit of returning a whole bunch of newspaper and TV site writeups, many of them edited from the same Associated Press or Reuters syndicated reports.


Applied Materials: Chip Orders Seen Better; Solar Soft
May 11, 2009 at 7:41 pm

Applied Materials (AMAT) is likely to provide mixed news when it reports results after the close tomorrow for its fiscal second quarter ended April. The Street is looking for revenue of $904 million and a loss of 10 cents a share; the thinking on the July quarter is $923 million and a loss of 8 cents.


Your hidden footprint — energy per Google search?
May 11, 2009 at 7:26 pm

Your hidden footprint — energy per Google search?

The Official Google Blog just published a revealing post breaking down the environmental impact of every search made on the site. The verdict? About 1 kilojoule of energy is used and 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide emitted every time someone enters a query. The company provides a nifty little chart putting these figures in context:


Babble Raises $1 Million For Hipster Parenting Site
May 11, 2009 at 7:01 pm

Babble Raises $1 Million For Hipster Parenting Site

Babble, a magazine and parenting community site aimed at urban hipsters, has secured $1 million in Series A funding from Greycroft Partners. This round adds to the $2 million Babble raised earlier from Village Ventures in December of 2008. (This is an extension of that round at the same valuation) Born from sex and dating community Nerve Media, Babble takes a more modern view on parenting, aimed at a younger generation of parents who live in cities, equally share parenting duties (or at least make an effort) and use the internet to access information. It is the same demographic that the magazine Cookie is going after, except it tries to appeal to the Dads as well. Urbanbaby.com is also a site that appeals to urban dwellers and parents.


Microsoft's latest ad: iTunes and the iPod are crazy expensive
May 11, 2009 at 7:01 pm

Microsoft's latest ad: iTunes and the iPod are crazy expensive

We've been wondering when we'd see the next Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft, but it looks like the company's throwing a change-up: its latest 30-second spot features Wes Moss, Certified Financial Planner, explaining that iTunes "costs a lot" while Zune Pass "costs a little." The argument, of course, is that at a buck a song (or more), filling up your iPod costs way more than the $15 / month cost of the Zune subscription service, but we've got a feeling that Wes just won't convince as many people as Lauren and Giampaulo -- while we certainly think Zune Pass is a great deal, especially with the 10 free tracks a month now included, most people have plenty of music from all kinds of sources already, and an additional monthly bill doesn't seem all too appealing. Plus, well, this argument has never really worked in the past. We're sure you've got your own opinions -- check out the vid after the break and sound off.


Remains of the Day: Apple Doesn't Understand BitTorrent Edition
May 11, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Remains of the Day: Apple Doesn't Understand BitTorrent Edition

Google PowerPoint-argues that they're not a monopoly, Apple rejects an application because they're afraid of BitTorrent, and don't be alarmed by fake Windows 7 updates this week.

  • Apple rejects BitTorrent control app Drivetrain

    Proving that they either don't understand what BitTorrent is or they're just not willing to touch anything with the slightest hint of a piracy association, Apple rejects an iPhone application that remotely controls the BitTorrent client, Transmission. Their reason? "This category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights." By that logic, they'd better reject Safari while they're at it. To complicate matters, they've actually already approved a BitTorrent remote control called Trackr (iTunes link) that, incidentally, supports remotely adding torrents to Transmission and uTorrent. [iLounge]

  • Google's "We're Not A Monopoly" PowerPoint Presentation


Chinese rumor claims 2009 iPhone will be modest upgrade
May 11, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Chinese rumor claims 2009 iPhone will be modest upgrade

A forum thread on a Chinese Apple fan site is generating some interest by AppleInsider readers because one commenter claims to have used prototypes of Apple's next-gen iPhone because he purportedly has a friend working at the company's manufacturing partner Foxconn.

The commenter, who goes by the name patapon200, describes the next iPhone as a "repeat" in physical design with many of the changes relating to speed and other less overt upgrades.


Hold the phone: T-Mobile G1 v2 to really be the Samsung Bigfoot?
May 11, 2009 at 6:46 pm

Hold the phone: T-Mobile G1 v2 to really be the Samsung Bigfoot?

Well well -- it looks like whatever Android handset Motorola's cooking up might not be the T-Mobile G1 v2 after all. Unwired View just published this shot of a Samsung Bigfoot with a slider QWERTY keyboard, and we've got to say, it looks a hell of a lot more like the device in that leaked T-Mobile roadmap than that rendered Moto unit. (It also looks a lot like the Samsung Beat DJ, but that's neither here nor there.) Not only that, but there's also an early spec sheet and another image of a candybar set called the Spica -- apart from the slider, Bigfoot and Spica are nearly identical lower-end versions of the I7500, with three-inch screens, three megapixel cameras, and Android 2.0 "Donut" preloaded.


Playboy Losing Its Pants, Intends To Save Print Business By Increasing Prices
May 11, 2009 at 6:32 pm

Playboy Losing Its Pants, Intends To Save Print Business By Increasing Prices

The clock's ticking for Playboy, folks.

During an earnings call earlier today, Playboy Enterprises‘ interim CEO Jerome Kern (who replaced Hugh Hefner's daughter Christie after she stepped down last December) didn't really have any uplifting news to share. The publishing company reported a $13.7 million net loss during the first quarter of 2009, more than 3 times the loss it took during the same period in 2008 ($4.2 million). Athough, we should note Kern indicated that the loss includes $8.7 million of "impairment and restructuring charges".


Motorola's first Android phone to be the T-Mobile G1 v2?
May 11, 2009 at 6:21 pm

Motorola's first Android phone to be the T-Mobile G1 v2?

Okay, so T-Mobile confirmed on Saturday that it's launching "multiple" Android devices from "three partners" later this year, and since most people assume the HTC Magic / Sapphire / myTouch / whatever and the Samsung I7500 are pretty much locked in, speculation has generally centered around that mysterious G1 v2 and the identity of the third partner -- and it looks like it's going to be Motorola. Not only did commenter Someperson notice that the button labels on the G1 v2 are basically identical to those on other recently-launched Moto phones, Boy Genius Report says today that they can "more or less confirm" the v2 will be Schaumburg's first Android set -- a development that lines up perfectly with last month's rumors of a slider QWERTY piece.


Pirate outnumber buyers 3-1 on iPhone apps
May 11, 2009 at 6:16 pm

Pirate outnumber buyers 3-1 on iPhone apps

It's easy to sermonize that Hollywood fatcats should learn to live with the fact that 95% of online media are bootlegs, according to a Digital Hollywood panel last week, and focus on monetizing the remaining 5% of non-copyright-infringing copies. But what about standalone iPhone app developers? Should they turn the other cheek to pirates, too?


Interactive Housewives Finale Nets Social Media Success for Bravo
May 11, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Interactive Housewives Finale Nets Social Media Success for Bravo

Last week, Bravo hosted a virtual viewing party for The Real Housewives of New York season finale, and they were desperate for you to tweet them during this interactive live stream that combined Facebook Connect, Sign In with TwitterTwitter reviews, and mobile chat.

Now that the drama has played out on-air and the Web, we know that their efforts prevailed. Overall the campaign more than doubled Bravo's (@bravotv) Twitter follower count, resulted in a huge spike in Twitter mentions during the virtual viewing party, and attracted record numbers to Bravo's website. Plus, as it turns out, one of the housewives, Bethenny (@Bethenny), was a trending topic on Twitter during the season finale.


Google Is Greener Than Thou: One Newspaper Equals 850 Searches In CO2 Emissions
May 11, 2009 at 6:13 pm

Google Is Greener Than Thou: One Newspaper Equals 850 Searches In CO2 Emissions

Google can't help itself. It just loves to brag about how green it is, even though its data centers use up a tremendous amount of energy. Still, on a per-search basis, it is less polluting than many alternatives - a fact it likes to remind us of, especially since it was accused of being an energy hog last January.  In a greener-than-thou blog post touting how energy efficient its data centers are compared to the industry norm, Google points out that it takes 850 searches to emit the same amount of CO2 as it does to produce and distribute one newspaper.  I wonder which activity produces the most information.


Edison, BP unite to deliver 90 MW of wind power
May 11, 2009 at 6:13 pm

Edison, BP unite to deliver 90 MW of wind power

Southern California Edison is pursuing a 20-year contract to buy and distribute power generated by a BP Wind Energy-backed 90-megawatt wind farm in Idaho. The agreement is pending approval by the California Utilities Commission, the Wall Street Journal reports.

As part of the deal, the Edison International subsidiary would be able to purchase the energy for below market price (about 11.4 cents per kilowatt hour) - but transmitting it to California could raise the costs.


Why You Should Be Worried About Your Privacy on the Web
May 11, 2009 at 6:01 pm

She had me at hello ... or just about. Our conversation had barely started when privacy activist Betty Ostergren interrupted me to say that she had found my full name, address, Social Security number and a digital image of my signature on the Web.

I had set out to discover just how much information I could find about myself online, and Ostergren, who runs the Virginia Watchdog Web site, was my very first call. If this was what could be uncovered in just a few minutes, what else would I find? Quite a bit, as it turns out.


And by "Holidays," We Mean Christmas, Chinese New Year or Easter
May 11, 2009 at 6:00 pm

And by

Microsoft (MSFT) has finally given Windows 7 a release date. According to Bill Veghte, senior vice president for Windows, the next iteration of the operating system will arrive at market in time for the holiday shopping season. "We're tracking well to deliver Windows 7 in time for holiday availability based on the groundswell of feedback we received from the partner ecosystem, customers and through our own internal testing from pre-Beta to now," Veghte said in a statement, adding that Microsoft "will not ship the product…until it meets our quality bar."


Evernote for BlackBerry Has Arrived
May 11, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Evernote for BlackBerry Has Arrived

Evernote is one of our readers' favorite note-taking tools, its iPhone app is one of our must-haves, so we're guessing BlackBerry users will be happy to know that Evernote is now available for the BlackBerry.

Evernote for BlackBerry can create notes containing text, images, audio recordings, and file attachments on-the-go, and like the iPhone version, any note you create from your BlackBerry will be automatically uploaded to and synced with Evernote wherever you have it installed. Likewise, the BlackBerry app supports viewing, searching, and filtering all of your notes. Currently the Evernote for BlackBerry requires BlackBerry OS 4.6, but more devices will be added in time. We haven't been able to put it through the paces next to its iPhone counterpart, so if you give it a try, let's hear how you like it in the comments.


Android Poised for Massive Success?
May 11, 2009 at 5:54 pm

Android Poised for Massive Success?Google's initial success with its Android mobile operating system will continue-and in a very big way. That's according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which predicts that global shipments of Android-based smart phones will grow a stunning 900 percent this year.


Local TV News: Screwed
May 11, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Local TV News: Screwed

Election and auto ad spending is gone and it's screwing local TV stations, writes the New York Times's Brian Stelter.

Station revenue is down across the country: at E. W. Scripps, down 20 percent compared with the same quarter last year; at Belo, the owner of 20 stations, down 23 percent; at LIN TV, the owner of 29 stations, down 21 percent. The media conglomerates are also affected; the News Corporation reported a station revenue decline 28 percent and the Walt Disney Company reported a 30 percent decline.


FreshDirect on NYC's 'Horrendous' Grocery Scene
May 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm

FreshDirect's Rick Braddock writes today that "too much attention has been given to digital advertising," and that he and other executives at the online grocery store have instead focused on customer relationships and making sales.

He got even more customer feedback on Friday, when he delivered similar remarks at a marketing conference in New York.


Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 Release Ready for the Holidays
May 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 Release Ready for the HolidaysMicrosoft originally promised that , and while almost everyone was positive that the shiny new operating system would be available in 2009, this is the first confirmation from Microsoft. [Ars Technica]


Apple Takes Over WSJ.com For iLife Ad
May 11, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Apple Takes Over WSJ.com For iLife Ad

Apple (AAPL) has another one of its now-regular wow-that's-huge roadblock ads on WSJ.com today. This time, it's an ad for iLife, its app bundle that includes iMovie, Garage Band, etc. Check out the video where John "PC" Hodgman gets zapped. Not quite as noisy as its recent iPhone app store ad, but still neat. Intel (INTC) has a nearly-as-huge ad on NYT.com today.


Nokia's Qt cuts paperwork for open sourcers
May 11, 2009 at 2:19 pm

Nokia has reduced the barriers to contributing code to the Qt cross-platform framework.

The Nokia-owned Qt Software has created a public repository for outsiders to contribute and monitor code and eliminated the need for filling in a faxed copyright assessment of code and manual checking by Qt Software.


Drunk Sniper: An unofficial sequel to those iPhone beer apps
May 11, 2009 at 2:18 pm

Drunk Sniper: An unofficial sequel to those iPhone beer apps

In the proud tradition of iPhone applications that demonstrate the wonders of the human body, such as the popular and lucrative fart apps, a developer called Apalon Studio has released a game called Drunk Sniper (iTunes link). You can think of it as a sequel of sorts to the iBeer application - which is one of the bestselling paid apps in the App Store - because it shows you what happens after you finish several of those virtual beers.


First Look: File Magic 2.0
May 11, 2009 at 2:16 pm

First Look: File Magic 2.0

If there's a genre of iPhone app that's even more prevalent than fart apps, it's file transfer and viewing apps.

, an app development firm with years of history in the mobile space. As with the other apps of this type, File Magic provides a way to send files from a Mac or PC to an iPhone or iPod touch, then view those files on the handheld.


Color e-paper displays look to pigmented past
May 11, 2009 at 2:16 pm

Color e-paper displays look to pigmented past

Several companies are developing display technologies that may take the pigments used in traditional printing and embed them in a low-power electronic display.

One of the constant refrains in discussions of the various e-book readers now (or soon to be) on the market is the request for color. For a large population of users, the current greyscale screens that provide the extremely low-power displays for devices like the Kindle simply aren't good enough, and there are some markets-science textbooks spring to mind-where color would really add value to the product. It's not clear what technology will power the first generation of color devices, but researchers are looking to steal a page from traditional print media by making colored pigments part of the future of e-books.


Apple Doesn't Like BitTorrent, Bans Drivetrain From the App Store
May 11, 2009 at 2:13 pm

Apple Doesn't Like BitTorrent, Bans Drivetrain From the App StoreAh, that App Store approval process. The overly strict and sometimes odd rules are causing more and more controversy every week; exactly seven days ago, we covered the rejection (now silently approved by Apple) of Nine Inch Nails' application due to foul language in a song used in the app; a song which you can buy on iTunes.


emWall Street Journal/em wants your micro-payments
May 11, 2009 at 2:09 pm

The Wall Street Journal online, one of the few remaining news websites that's charging for access, plans to introduce a micro-payments scheme this autumn.

Non-subscribers will be charged to view individual articles, according to a report Sunday — somewhat amusingly by the WSJ's overseas rival, The Financial Times and not the paper itself.

 

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