Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=2a80e47eeceaa81d49023aa248a07b13
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Obama to unveil wireless Internet plan
President Obama is to unveil a plan Thursday to bring wireless high-speed Internet access to all Americans, a goal the administration says is key to the country's ability to compete globally in the years to come.
Super Sync Sports makes Chrome sync between devices fun!
The latest Chrome Experiment out of Google shows off the power of sync between devices with a fun little game called "Super Sync Sports". Head to chrome.com/supersyncsports on your computer and g.co/super on your phone or tablet (Android 4.0 and above), enter the code to get them synced up and you're off to the races. Literally. You use your phone or tablet as a controller, with the computer display as just a portal to view the game. Select a character, and you can run, swim or bike against the computer or friends that you invite.
It's a fun game to play, especially with more than one device, but it what it really shows off is the power of Chrome to provide real-time syncing between devices using just a browser. When on Wifi, there isn't any perceptible lag between actions on the phone and the response on the screen, which is quite impressive considering that you're just using an HTML5 game in two browsers.
Google loves to do fun little experiments like this, and when they show it off to the public it's even better. Hopefully this means that it is planning to leverage these technologies in user-facing Chrome products in the future. Head to the source links to learn a bit more about how it works and to play the game for yourself.
Source: Google; More: Play Super Sync Sports
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/AhT-3CpErKc/story01.htm
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Personal Tech Live with Rob Pegoraro
Rob Pegoraro answers your questions on recent gadget reviews, technology news and provides personal tech buying and fixing advice.
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=0f5d492f2cff63c0a39cfe7334ec6494
ChromeLite: experience the ASCII Web of yesteryear
Now, ChromeLite isn't really all that functional. For the most part, it simply strips images and converts text into a monospaced terminal font. There are a few Easter eggs inserted -- such as a fun message at the bottom of YouTube (image after the break) -- and some fun ASCII art, but that's about it. Rather oddly, most JavaScript continues to work -- so you can still enjoy Google Instant Search!
ChromeLite was actually made by Google as an April Fools' joke -- and indeed, an annoying 'you can uninstall this!' message appears at the top of every page -- but we're kind of hoping that Google, or another developer, takes ChromeLite and turns it into a real ASCII browsing extension with configurable settings. If anything, it will provide an easy way to save bandwidth and CPU time.
Continue reading ChromeLite: experience the ASCII Web of yesteryear
ChromeLite: experience the ASCII Web of yesteryear originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 07:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/chromelite-experience-the-ascii-web-of-yesteryear/
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Pocket Casts 4: more than just a fresh coat of paint
Pocket Casts has been around for some time, and is always part of the conversation when talking about podcast apps on Android. But like many other apps, it was long overdue for a redesign. This latest update, Pocket Casts version 4, has thrown the app back into the forefront of quality Android design. But the update is more than just skin deep -- underneath that design is a whole bucket of new features that are just as appealing as the visuals.
Hang around with us after the break, and take a look at the completely redesigned Pocket Casts 4.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/rMpF5fXpEIc/story01.htm
Monday, February 25, 2013
Personal Tech Live with Rob Pegoraro
Rob Pegoraro answers your questions on recent gadget reviews, technology news and provides personal tech buying and fixing advice.
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=35fe8492fe327193e981fabd7879a31c
Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game
The goal is to get as much sand as you possibly can out of the maze and into the bucket at the bottom of the screen. You need to rotate your maze every which way to get the sand rolling around it. You then try to direct the sand to one of the exits of the maze, and hopefully into the bucket. It took me several tries to actually get sand into the bucket, but that might be due to the fact that I didn't even realize the bucket was there at first. Things improved significantly after that.
As you level up, the mazes get more complicated, with moving parts and other things making your life more difficult. Once you manage to get through all these obstacles and get enough sand into your bucket, you can move on.
As I mentioned, this is not an easy game, but it's highly addictive. The graphics remind me of some long lost game from the 80s, but this just proves that you don't need super graphics and crazy sound to make a game work. There's a soothing guitar track playing in the background and that's it, as far as I could hear, and you can enjoy it just as much with no sound at all.
If you like a fun physics challenge, don't miss out on this one!
Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/sand-trap-is-a-fun-physics-maze-game/
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Coming to Grips With Wire
If there's one area of complication in any direct-current, hobbyist tech project, it's wire. What gauge of wire should you use? How should you terminate it? How can you join wire on a budget? You'll encounter issues like this in any DC-current application project, whether you're working on audio amplifiers or other after-market automotive accessories, solar equipment or amateur radios.
webOS 3.0 beta now available to developers
Right now, the webOS 3.0 beta is only available to Early Access developers. The crew at PreCentral states that HP appears to have eased up on access restrictions, however, so hopefully more devs will get on board and those of you who are planning to buy a TouchPad in the next couple months will have plenty of slick webOS 3.0 apps to install on your new tablet.
webOS 3.0 beta now available to developers originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/31/webos-3-0-beta-now-available-to-developers/
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Google Debuts Pixel, a Premium Touchscreen Chromebook
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/02/chromebook-pixel/
LG Optimus G finally arrives in Europe, enhanced and improved along the way
Sometime after the initial launch of the LG Optimus G, Europeans are finally getting a chance to sample it for themselves. We'd previously heard rumors that the Optimus G would be available in European territories before the end of Q1, and low and behold here it is. Better yet, the Optimus G has been 'enhanced and improved' during its long voyage to Europe.
The big news is of course that the Optimus G now ships with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean on board. For whatever reason, LG decided to ship the Optimus G -- essentially the same hardware as the Nexus 4 -- on Ice Cream Sandwich, but that's old news now at least as far as prospective European customers should be concerned.
With the Jelly Bean upgrade, the Optimus G receives the usual Google flavored treats such as Google Now and Project Butter, but LG has thrown in a couple of goodies too. QSlide, which allows users to use multiple applications at once as transparent layers on top of each other is included, as Safety Care and Privacy Keeper.
Initially the Optimus G will go on sale in Sweden sometime before the end of the month, soon to be followed by other markets including France, Germany and Italy. Despite being somewhat overshadowed by the Nexus 4, the Optimus G is still one whole heck of a phone. The full press release and a video walkthrough can be found after the break.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/I2dTnWlXa-c/story01.htm
Friday, February 22, 2013
Jetbus is a retro-tastic physics game, with a bus
Jetbus is not that game, but it's obviously inspired by it. You're driving a yellow school bus which has jets. I guess the jet engine takes quite a bit of space inside the bus, because you can only pick up one person at a time.
There are several doors on the screen, each with its own number. As you pick up a person, the status bar at the bottom of the screen shows you which number door you have to take them to.
You must fly your bus carefully, because if it gets bumped around too much, you lose. You earn money on each level, and can visit the garage to buy better jets and damping, power-ups, or even a whole new vehicle.
So while this game isn't made as well as the original that inspired it, it does provide a few minutes of fun. And now, which one of you guys remembers the original and feels like pointing to it in the comments?
Jetbus is a retro-tastic physics game, with a bus originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/15/jetbus-is-a-retro-tastic-physics-game-with-a-bus/
Xbox 720 Durango Kinect 2.0 Specs Leaked, 1080p, USB 3.0
Just hours before Sony presumably takes the wraps off of its next-generation PlayStation, we're now faced with a fresh leak that details some of the more vital aspects of the next-generation Xbox. Every so often, we hit a period of rapid competition from console makers, and with the Wii U freshly in stores, it looks as if the rivals are now...Source: http://hothardware.com/News/Xbox-720-Durango-Kinect-20-Specs-Leaked-1080p-USB-30/
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers
As you may have guessed from the name, you're a bison (not a burrito, though). In the course of your day-to-day grocery shopping, you're abducted into a bag of gummy bears, and must now fend for yourself.
At the beginning of each round you launch yourself onto the marching gummy (gummi?) bears, while you're being watched by a huge crowd of even more gummy bears. Your goal is to keep bouncing on the bears and earn more and more money while you do it. Every time you hit a gummy bear, you lose some momentum. If you hit the floor, you basically lose all of it.
But don't give up just yet! You have an emergency thrust which you can use to gain some momentum and keep bouncing on those bears. This extra thrust gets refilled as you hit more bears.
There are also special gummy bears that give you extra thrust or extra money. The money comes in handy at the end of each round, when you can shop for cool stuff to make your bison even more effective against those gummy bears.
It's a fun and colorful game that kept my interest for quite some time, and almost sent me running to the closest store to get some gummy bears!
Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/26/burrito-bison-is-a-simple-game-for-gummy-bear-lovers/
webOS 3.0 beta now available to developers
Right now, the webOS 3.0 beta is only available to Early Access developers. The crew at PreCentral states that HP appears to have eased up on access restrictions, however, so hopefully more devs will get on board and those of you who are planning to buy a TouchPad in the next couple months will have plenty of slick webOS 3.0 apps to install on your new tablet.
webOS 3.0 beta now available to developers originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/31/webos-3-0-beta-now-available-to-developers/
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Thou shalt have no brand before Twitter
Tweetbot just updated to support Twitter's 1.1 API, and to partially support Twitter's new interface display guidelines. Come March 5, the old version of the app will stop working, and if you want to keep accessing Twitter, you'll have to do it with the new app, with it's new, more standardized look. Tweetbot won't be alone. Right now, every Twitter app designer is likely wrestling with the same problem -- how to conform to Twitter's new guidelines without losing what makes their app distinct, how to compromise without sacrificing what makes them special.
Here's the diversity we currently enjoy in 18 popular iPhone Twitter apps and 8 popular iPad Twitter apps. Take a moment to look at them and appreciate them.
Any and all of those that want to stick around will have to change, at least somewhat. The new guidelines include things like putting all avatars on the left, and displaying @usernames in specific ways and places. Mike Beas put together a post translating Twitter policy-speak to regular English to better explain the changes, and what they may mean to your favorite Twitter apps, depending on how consistently and strictly they end up being enforced. I'll do my best to sum it up in a single line:
- Thou shalt have no brand before Twitter.
Or, less dramatically, "Twitter first". If you look over everything from the new display guidelines to the new user token limits -- no previous app can grow beyond 2x their existing account base, no new app can grow beyond 100,000 accounts -- then it becomes pretty clear what's at stake for Twitter -- perceptive ownership of their own platform. Twitter is in a battle for their own brand identity.
In a very real way, much of the brand identity now associated with Twitter came from those hard-working third-party developers. Indeed, much of it came from the Iconfactory and Twitterrific, including such fundamental things as the bird as mascot (see Ollie in the picture up top), and even the word "tweet".
We often look at that as a sign of how much Twitter gained from third parties. Their new management may look at it as a sign of how dependent they were on third parties.
For end users, the interface is the app, and the app is the service. Take a Twitter app and hook it up to a similar service, and the barrier of transition becomes incredibly low. Social has always been subject to migration, and from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook we've seen them rise and fall. And that was just with the browser as interface. The world has gone mobile, and now the app is the gateway.
From a brand identity point of view, Twitter made mistakes when they started. They abdicated ownership, and they failed to predict the importance of mobile apps. Facebook, by contrast, never really allowed third party clients to become established (and neither has Google for Google+).
"I use Twitter", from a branding perspective, should only ever be the answer a user gives. Not "I use Twitterrific" or "I use Tweetbot".
That's a simplistic take, and it ignores all the leadership changes, business (and non-business) directions, and mixed and conflicting messages Twitter has given developers over the years. But it is what it is now.
Twitter bought Tweetie from Loren Brichter's Atebits and then willingly sacrifices some brilliant interface work, and redesigned everything from web to iPhone to iPad to all look the same, and to all be unmistakably Twitter and nothing else. And they apply that strategy cross-platform.
At the same time, new guidelines for third parties instruct them, among other things, to display the Twitter logo (not their own logos) as a consistent interface element, and to otherwise conform to a singular, unified look and feel. That reduces differentiation and devalues alternatives.
They forbid mixing or mingling content with other services, likely in their minds to avoid a -- "hey, we now support X" [...] "hey, we now only support X" migration, as logistically tough as that might prove in reality. ("Tap here to re-find all your friends!")
Lastly, they impose user token limits so new brands can't take off and even powerful existing brands can't spread any further. Even if an app is spectacularly popular on iOS, with millions of users, if they try to go to Android or Windows 8, they'd be capped at 100,000 tokens (which means less than 100,000 users, assuming some users have multiple accounts, requiring multiple tokens). That makes for very little chance of reasonable profits, and very high chance for pissed off users caught on the wrong side of the cutoff.
As Twitter's ideal user goes from being a geek to being someone in the mainstream with almost no followers, who follows hundreds of celebrities, and who hashtags #americanidol everything, catering to, and ensuring the loyalty of, that user becomes paramount for them.
When your business model depends on brokering the attention of your user base, you have to control that attention. That puts Twitter in recovery mode, and preventing third party clients from establishing or growing their own brands, reducing their visual and feature differentiation to decrease their value, and always making sure Twitter is what the user knows and sees, is how they've decided to regain that control.
It just sucks for everyone who enjoyed making and using clients before Twitter figured that all out.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/HlgMDkWDpbQ/story01.htm
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