Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad

It's still a bit odd seeing Microsoft deliver apps for Apple's mobile platform. And it's even stranger still to see one as sexy as the new Bing app for iPad, which brings a slick, immersive search experience to Apple's tablet.

Just as a regular search on bing.com will, the Bing app for iPad tailors the results it displays based on what you're searching for. There are loads of custom views, covering everything from movies and maps to weather and shopping. The app also offers a heads-up display of currently trending searches, complete with related images, which is an iPad-exclusive feature.

Navigation is a breeze thanks to multitouch controls, allowing users to flick or swipe through results. And while the development team refers to the app as "touch and decide," Bing Voice Search is also built in -- making it easy to start a query without using the iPad's on-screen keyboard.

The Bing app for iPad is available for download now from the App Store.

Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/microsoft-releases-sexy-bing-app-for-ipad/

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OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

I have a thing for full-screen text editing. I use WriteMonkey for my creative writing needs, and VIM in a full-screen PuTTY session for my Web development work. That being the case, I'm all over the monospace, dark-background, focused editing scene.

OmmWriter attempts to take that aesthetic and make it somehow more spiritual, with three picturesque backgrounds and ambient background audio tracks (there are seven of each in the paid version).

I'm of two minds about this app. On the one hand, yes, it's beautiful. But if you want music as a background to your writing, why not pick your own soundtrack with Winamp or Foobar2000 running in the background?

OmmWriter also offers three keyboard-clicking sounds, which are kind of nice. None of these features are groundbreaking, really. OmmWriter could be seen as a way to gently ease into the world of distraction-free writing -- in case something like WriteMonkey's dark background is just too oppressive for you.

After the fold you can see a video showcasing several of OmmWriter's features and creative soundscapes.

Continue reading OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/ommwriter-brings-its-clean-calm-writing-interface-to-windows/

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Jay Wilson, Diablo III Director Admits Auction Houses "Really Hurt the Game"

Creating a stable economy in an online game is difficult to do – and the only people surprised to discover that were Diablo’s game director and the higher ups at Blizzard, it turns out. The game’s auction houses, which let players hawk in-game loot for virtual gold and real-world money, were a bigger draw than its creators...

Source: http://hothardware.com/News/Jay-Wilson-Diablo-III-Director-Admits-Auction-Houses-Really-Hurt-the-Game/

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TV broadcasters resist FCC proposal to surrender more airwaves

Many broadcasters are already worried about declining viewers, and now they say the government wants to take away something more: the airwaves themselves.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=205eeb66af4f411e2926dd6b0c24f399

TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE SYNTEL

Tasty Planet is a fun flash game where you eat everything in sight

So this professor comes up with a new toilet cleaner that works by "eating" the dirt; or so he thinks. That's how the plot starts for Tasty Planet. You play the role of the toilet cleaner, but you're not really a toilet cleaner after all -- you're a blob of gray goo that can eat anything that's smaller than yourself.

As you chomp away, you grow -- and as you grow, you can eat bigger and bigger stuff. The first level pits you against microscopic particles; by the time I stopped playing, I got all the way to eating cats and dogs. I know that sounds disturbing, but it's a really cute game, and there's no gore or anything like that.

Supposedly you keep growing and growing until you're able to eat whole planets (hence the name). The challenge factor comes when you realize you can't touch any critter larger than yourself - you'll get "bitten" and become smaller. In the beginning you're so small, that a single touch can kill you. Later on, you're big enough that touching larger animals doesn't kill you on the spot, but it does reduce your size. Each level is timed, so if you're not large enough by the time your clock runs out, you need to start again. As long as you don't touch the larger animals, you should be fine.

All in all, a fun, addictive little game. It's available for iOS, too.

Tasty Planet is a fun flash game where you eat everything in sight originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/08/tasty-planet-is-a-fun-flash-game-where-you-eat-everything-in-sight/

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Source: http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=6b1cfb09d10bb144d1b364385fc54696&p=4

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Pastebin updated to V3, releases Windows app

Pastebin is a very popular website aimed at coders and other nerdy types, which allows them (or should I say, us) to paste and share snippets of code with lovely syntax highlighting.

It has recently undergone a major overhaul which includes the release of a brand new Windows client. The new client lets you create new "pastes" and manage your existing ones. It joins a host of other tools from Pastebin, such as the Google and Chrome extensions, OS X widget and the mobile apps.

If you're currently using Pastebin, the new client is a great addition. And if you haven't tried it before, next time you have a piece of code you want to share or get some feedback on, you could do worse than try out Pastebin.

[Thanks, Jeroen!]

Pastebin updated to V3, releases Windows app originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/pastebin-updated-to-v3-releases-windows-app/

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T-Mobile details new Simple Choice plans

T-Mobile USA just announced that the iPhone is coming to their network on April 12, and they also provided details on their new Simple Choice plans that cover their new LTE network. Plans start at $50 per month for one line that includes unlimited talk, text, and web with 500MB of high-speed data. T-Mobile is also offering plans for 2GB and unlimited high-speed data.

Customers can add a second phone line for $30 per month, and each additional line is just $10 per month. They can also add 2GB of high-speed data for $10 per month more per line. Unlimited 4G data is only $20 more per month per line. No caps. No overages. Just simple value.

There are no overage fees if you exceed your allotted data amount on the 500MB and 2GB plans, though you are throttled until your next billing period begins. These plans, along with T-Mobile’s iPhone pricing, mean that a single user would pay up to $90 per month for an iPhone 5 with unlimited high-speed data.

Do you like the look of these plans? Has it got you considering a switch to T-Mobile, or will you have to wait and see their LTE coverage first? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: T-Mobile USA

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/SpMG4x-LVOo/story01.htm

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Verizon iPhone 4 doesn't represent a huge advance over AT&T's

A funny thing happened Thursday: Verizon finally started selling the iPhone, and mass hysteria did not erupt. After years of yearning and months of hype, there was not a mass rush to Apple's and Verizon's stores.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=68ed6e28d8b853b6044455477eca6e87

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At 10, dance-dancing his way to Guinness record

Let other parents stick honor-student bumper stickers on their cars. Ted Wada has a framed certificate from Guinness World Records on his mantel to celebrate his 10-year-old's excellence in . . . video gaming.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=edc32d6eb7eb3c4693e7569a355f8661

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Surface Pro usage inches up, lags other Windows devices

March was another ho-hum month on the usage front for laptops and tablets running Windows 8 and RT, according to AdDuplex, a cross-platform network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 app developers.

Few new releases appeared during the period to affect usage patterns, the ad network noted. The one new release that did appear—the HP Envy m6 laptop—immediately broke into the month's top 10 usage rankings.

Microsoft's premium tablet, the Surface Pro, showed some usage gains during the month, but it's still deep in the rankings compared to other Windows 8 devices and its RT slate sibling.

Surface Pro jumped to 25 in the table, up from 52^nd place in March. Still, it only has 0.5 percent of the usage pie.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2032073/surface-pro-usage-inches-up-lags-other-windows-devices.html#tk.rss_laptopcomputers

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Huawei sues to stop Motorola's deal with Nokia Siemens

Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant that has run up against U.S. government opposition as it seeks business in the United States, announced Monday that it was suing to stop its former partner, Motorola, from transferring what it said were trade secrets to a rival.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=8ea0f93f84429dac8836888448734a36

SILICON LABORATORIES SI INTERNATIONAL

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon

Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.

Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.

Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.

In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/you-can-now-rent-adobe-photoshop-for-29-per-month/

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Review: GPS running watches offer improvements

NEW ORLEANS -- My accessories for last month's Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans included a pair of bead necklaces and three watches.

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=5d7828f1926b353eb2c163f4a78950a0

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Apps and other electronic fitness aids

Let me guess: You've resolved to get healthier in 2011. That goal is nothing new, but the technology you can use is. Want to carry a personal trainer in your pocket to the gym, mountain board from the comfort of your living room, calculate exactly how fast you ran the first mile of your morning j...

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=e3bc094f2ba49b75bd9d63a98f8c50e5

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How Secure is My Password lets you know just that

We've all heard it before; you need to select a lengthy password, one that's hard to guess. Not a dictionary word. And it has to have some capital letters in it too, and some digits, and a symbol or two won't hurt either.

That's a handy set of rules to keep in mind, but How Secure is My Password helps us understand why they're important.

It's basically like a full-screen version of one of those password-strength meters websites sometimes use. But instead of showing you a bar going from "weak" to "strong", it shows you an estimation of how long your password would take to crack. That's a much more visceral way to understand why your password is strong.

For example, when I entered "rabbit", it came back with "your password is one of the 500 most common passwords. It could be cracked almost instantly". "rabbit5" would take two hours, "$rabbit5" would take 38 days, and "$rabbitZ5" would take 237 years. It's quite enlightening to see what a difference three simple characters can make.

How Secure is My Password lets you know just that originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/05/how-secure-is-my-password-lets-you-know-just-that/

VIRGIN MEDIA VIEWSONIC

Write for Dropbox lets you create notes on your iPhone quickly and beautifully

Write for Dropbox is a brand new text editor for iPhone that lets you create notes on the fly quicker than ever. With extensive gestures, markdown support, lots of sharing options, and a beautiful interface, Write for Dropbox may just be the best text editor for iPhone we've ever seen.

When first launching Write for Dropbox, you'll be taken through a short tutorial of how to use gestures and the editor bar. All of which are straight forward and easy to remember. Now you're ready to start writing.

The first thing you'll notice is the editor bar that appears above the keyboard. You'll find commonly used symbols as well as a handy cursor tool that allows you to move the cursor around the screen without having to actually move your entire hand off the actual keyboard. Sliding the editor bar to the left reveals markdown options such as bold, italics, headers, links, and more. You can also insert images and preview markdown with the two icons to the far right in the markdown editor bar.

Write for Dropbox makes simple tasks just as they should be, simple. Expanding to full screen can be done by simply pulling the screen outwards with two fingers. You can access the top menu again by pushing inwards with two fingers. Deleting notes and saving them are also extremely quick and use pull to refresh actions. Naming a note is as easy as tapping in the title bar. It's little things like these that you really learn to appreciate as they can be huge time savers.

As far as sharing goes, Write for Dropbox supports tons of options including Evernote, Google Drive, CloudApp, and more. You can copy links to your clipboard as well for easy sharing on social networks such as Twitter.

Write for Dropbox creates a default folder called Write in your Dropbox account. You can add folders inside this one natively inside the app as well as create notes inside of it. They'll then sync and organize as you left them in your Dropbox account. You can also favorite notes for quick access later.

One of the biggest things when it comes to saving notes and using them across platforms is the ability to pick up where you left off on another device. For this, Write for Dropbox offers a free Mac plugin that allows you to quickly take notes on your Mac and they'll sync down to your iPhone. It isn't a great solution and not as powerful as a fully functionally Mac editor but it gets the job done for short notes and lists.

The good

• Best interface of any iPhone text editor we have ever seen
• Gesture controls make simple tasks even simpler
• Sharing options aplenty, you'll be able to get your content to any platform or app you need to
• Fast syncing, like super fast
• Markdown support and the text editor bar are well laid out and make more sense than most

The bad

• No iPad support, I really like to write on my iPad and this app would be amazing on the iPad
• No full Mac support and quick notes are about the limit right now
• You can't move documents to a new folder after they're already created, unless I'm missing something

The bottom line

Write for Dropbox is not only the most beautiful text editor I've ever seen for iPhone, it's the best. Everything from the menus to the gestures to the text editor bar are easy to use and the care and thought that went into creating them is obvious. The only down side is that there is no iPad or Mac version at this time which will keep me with Byword on those platforms for the time being.

If Write for Dropbox can deliver the same on iPad and Mac, there's no doubt that it'd be the best editing suite available.

$1.99 - Download Now

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/0KEU-KMPL2Q/story01.htm

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Gift guide: Cameras, phones, MP3 players and GPS receivers

Not all gadgets require careful research and parsing of specification sheets. In some branches of the consumer-electronics ecosystem, competition and decreasing costs have turned high-end products into near commodities, with relatively little risk involved in their purchase. (Well, besides droppi...

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=7a862ca3be1c6106554f01ea09887b0d

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