Rivals AMD and ARM unite, summon others to become 'heterogeneous'

AMD, ARM, Imagination, MediaTek and Texas Instruments Unleash the Next Era of Computing Innovation

–Technology Leaders Establish the HSA Foundation to Create a Unified, Open Industry Standard Architecture for Heterogeneous Processing; Heterogeneous Processors, Which Combine Two or More Different Types of Processors into a Single Chip, Accounted for Nearly Half of All Microprocessor Revenue in 2011 –

BELLEVUE, WASH. – June 12, 2012 – Today at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS), global technology leaders came together to announce the formation of the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation The HSA Foundation is a non-profit consortium established to define and promote an open, standards-based approach to heterogeneous computing that will provide a common hardware specification and broad support ecosystem to make it easier for software developers to deliver innovative applications that can take greater advantage of today's modern processors.

AMD (NYSE: AMD), ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek Inc., and Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE: TXN) are the initial founding members of the HSA Foundation. The companies will work together to drive a single architecture specification and simplify the programming model to help software developers take greater advantage of the capabilities found in modern central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), and unlock the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in heterogeneous processors.

By standardizing the heterogeneous programming model, developers can more easily and cost-effectively develop new software tailored to take advantage of the expanding $55.5B heterogeneous (also known as "hybrid") processor market1. The HSA Foundation will help usher in the next era of software innovation, from enabling unprecedented user experiences to improving cloud-based data management, streaming, and security.

"HSA moves the industry beyond the constraints of the legacy system architecture of the past 25-plus years that is now stifling software innovations," said Phil Rogers, HSA Foundation President and AMD Corporate Fellow. "By aiming HSA squarely at the needs of the software developer, we have designed a common hardware platform for high performance, energy efficient solutions. HSA is unlocking a new realm of possibilities across PCs, smartphones, tablets and ultrathin notebooks, as well as the innovative supercomputers and cloud services that define the modern computing experience."

As an independent consortium, the HSA Foundation is open to any and all computing industry professionals with an interest in driving the next era in computing performance and energy efficiency. The HSA Foundation welcomes forward-thinking semiconductor companies, platform and OS vendors, device manufacturers, independent software vendors, academia and open source developers. Members of the HSA Foundation plan to deliver robust development solutions for heterogeneous compute to drive innovative content and applications with developer tools, software developer kits (SDKs), libraries, documentation, training, support and more.

"One year ago, AMD boldly announced a roadmap for making HSA a reality, starting with combining the CPU and GPU as a unified processing engine to create an architecture that would greatly simplify the programming of heterogeneous platforms," said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president of Heterogeneous Applications and Developer Solutions for AMD. "Today, we are continuing our heterogeneous computing leadership and dedication to driving broad industry adoption by making the HSA architecture an open standard."

"We are all demanding more from the technology that connects us to our digital worlds. Graphical interfaces are critical to the user experience but can have a power impact. With open standards, developers can now provide outstanding graphics without compromising power-efficiency," said Jem Davies, ARM Fellow and vice president of Technology, Media Processor Division, ARM. "ARM welcomes the formation of the HSA Foundation and is pleased to be one of the founding members. ARM's extensive experience with heterogeneous systems brings a unique leadership perspective to developing the right compute processor for the right tasks based on the latest ARM technology, such as ARM® Mali™ GPUs and Cortex™ processors."

"Imagination is delighted to be one of the founders of the HSA Foundation. Our long-held view is that heterogeneous processing architectures are fundamental to scalability, flexibility and performance for future SoC (Systems-on-Chip) design," said Tony King-Smith, vice president of Marketing, Imagination Technologies. "We believe that the combination of CPUs with increasingly powerful on-chip GPUs, using industry standard APIs such as OpenCL™, Renderscript Compute, and Direct Compute, is the vital first step along this path. The HSA APIs and tools complement these higher level APIs to help SoC systems engineers create future generation computing platforms. As applications developers embrace the benefits of embracing such architectures, the HSA Foundation will provide a valuable cross-platform, cross-OS means of ensuring maximum heterogeneous application portability and optimization. We look forward to working closely with all of the founders and other members of the HSA Foundation to deliver this key open standard that is set to fuel the future of mass market high performance computing."

"MediaTek is excited about the potential of heterogeneous computing in enabling innovative mobile applications. We believe that an open standard is key to bringing the technology to the mainstream smartphone market, said Chien-Ping Lu, senior director, Corporate Technology Office, MediaTek. "As a chipset and platform supplier with a strong focus on mainstream smartphones, we are excited to join AMD, our IP partners, Imagination, ARM, TI and other industry leaders to promote HSA as the open standard for heterogeneous computing."

"TI's expertise in delivering low-power, high-performance experiences via the smart, multicore architecture of our OMAP™ platform undoubtedly makes our position as a founding member of the HSA Foundation a natural fit," said Matthew Locke, director, Linux Development Center, TI. "We look forward to working with other leaders in the industry to drive adoption of heterogeneous computing as a standard platform across embedded, mobile, personal and cloud computing."

In addition to the founding members, contributor and supporting-level members will assist with research, development, production, manufacture, use, and the sale of HSA and heterogeneous computing software. For more information about the HSA Foundation's membership levels and benefits or to join the organization, please go to www.hsafoundation.com.

Supporting Resources

- For additional information about HSA and the HSA Foundation visit the HSA Foundation website at www.hsafoundation.com .
- Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter: @HSAFoundation.
- "Like" the HSA Foundation on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HSAFoundation.
- View Phil Rogers' AFDS keynote presentation via AFDS-D. Register here.

About Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA)

Developers will benefit from the open standard programming of HSA for both the CPU and GPU, which allows the two processors to work cooperatively and directly in system memory. Additionally, HSA provides a single architecture across multiple operating systems and hardware designs. By maximizing the full compute capabilities of systems with both CPUs and GPUs, users can see performance and energy efficiency boosts across a variety of applications.

About the HSA Foundation

The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium for SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose goal is to make it easy to program for parallel computing. HSA members are building a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, and support for a diverse set of high-level programing languages, thereby creating the next foundation in general purpose computing.

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Posted on 21.08 / 0 komentar / Read More

Facebook to experiment with access for under-13s

By Mat Smith posted Jun 4th 2012 4:44AM

Facebook is exploring options to connect kids to its social network, while ensuring it obeys federal laws. According to the Wall Street Journal, the social network is pushing for a more formalized structure for under-13s in an effort to curb users registering under a false age. Consumer Reports currently pegs the number of under-age users at around 7.5 million. Despite other privacy concerns, Facebook is reportedly looking to add buffers and parental controls to any kid-friendly version that might result from its current experiments. It could also tie parents' accounts to their little tykes' pages, allowing game purchases to be made through their bank details. Well, that new HQ isn't going to pay for itself.

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Posted on 16.36 / 0 komentar / Read More

Twitter to give users fewer characters to tweet with when URLs are involved

Twitter to give users fewer characters to tweet with when URLs are involved data = {blogUrl: "www.engadget.com",v: 235};when = {jquery: lab.scriptBs("jquery"),plugins: lab.scriptBs("plugins"),eng: lab.scriptBs("eng")}; var s265prop9 = ('20396236' !== '') ? 'bsd:20396236' : ''; var postID = '20396236'; var modalMNo = '93319229', modalVideoMNo = '93303029', modalGalleryMNo = '93304207'; when.eng("eng.omni.init", {pfxID:"weg",pageName:document.title,server:"",channel:"us.engadget",pageType:"",linkInternalFilters:"javascript:,engadget.com,joystiq.com,massively.com,tuaw.com,switched.com,techcrunch.com",prop1:"Engadget",prop2:"",prop9:s265prop9,prop12:document.location,prop17:"",prop18:"",prop19:"",prop20:"",mmxgo: true,disablepipath:true,mmxtitle:"us.engadget" + " : "}); adSendTerms('1')adSetMOAT('1');adSetAdURL('/_uac/adpagem.html');lab._script("http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ads/adhesion/js/adhads-min.js").wait(function(){var floatingAd = new AdhesiveAd("10000057",{hideOnSwipe:true});}); EngadgetMenuReviewsEventsPodcasts Engadget ShowBuyers GuidesFeaturesVideosGalleriesTopicsHD Mobile Alt Announcements Cameras Cellphones Desktops Displays Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Household Internet Laptops Meta Misc Networking Peripherals Podcasts Robots Portable Audio/Video Science Software Storage Tablets Transportation Wearables Wireless Acer Amazon AMD Apple ASUS AT&T Canon Dell Facebook Google HP HTC Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Nokia NVIDIA RIM Samsung Sony Sprint T-Mobile Verizon About UsSubscribeLike Engadget@engadgettip uswhen.eng("eng.nav.init")when.eng("eng.tips.init") Twitter to give users fewer characters to tweet with when URLs are involvedByDarren MurphpostedDec 6th, 2012 at 2:19 PM 0

The shock! The horror! The genuine nightmare of losing two more valuable character spaces per tweet! Such a scenario is indeed going to play out, as Twitter has just announced a subtle change in its t.co wrapper that'll go into play this coming February. The firm will be extending the maximum length of t.co wrapped links from 20 to 22 characters for non-https URLs, and 21 to 23 characters for https URLs. It's announcing the change now in order to give developers time to tweak their apps to handle things with poise, though it's not going so far as to clarify why the change is being made. Enjoy those shortened links while you can -- that whole "140 characters" thing will soon be gaining yet another asterisk.

when.eng("eng.perm.init")

Via: The Next Web

Source: Twitter

Tags: social network, social networking, SocialNetwork, SocialNetworking, t.co, Twitter, url

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Posted on 12.03 / 0 komentar / Read More

Apple updates Siri with sports stats, help from Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, expanded local search

Reception and call quality 8.5 Display 9.7 Battery life 7.3 Camera 9.4 Ease of use 9.6 Design and form factor 9.3 Portability (size / weight) 9.3 Media support 8.5 Durability 7.7 Ecosystem (apps, accessories, etc.) 9.7

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Posted on 08.28 / 0 komentar / Read More

Netflix app for the Nintendo Wii U, pictured

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HTC confirms One S with 1.7GHz Snapdragon S3 being sold 'in select markets'

Ease of use 9.4 Speed 9.3 Configurability 9.4 Ecosystem (apps, drivers, etc.) 8.5 Openness 9.2

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iPod nano review (2012)

If you think Apple is getting a little predictable with its yearly device refreshes, you probably haven't been charting the progress of its iPod nano. While most products in the Apple line receive an update every 12 months or so, few have experienced the kind of annual reinvention of the nano. It's a rare example of the company drastically re-thinking a product with such regularity -- or of simply not really knowing what to make of it.
Depending on how you look at it, this new seventh-generation iPod nano is either the latest, most optimal design of the long-running series, or it's Apple's latest shot in the dark. Even the cynics will have to agree this is a pretty good shot, thinner than ever and packing more functionality than in the past -- including Bluetooth 4.0. It sure doesn't make much of a wristwatch, but is the latest littlest iPod worth the $149 price of admission to its 16GB capacity? Read on to find out.

It's a tiny little thing, this new nano. No, it isn't the smallest in terms of volume -- that honorific resides with the decidedly square sixth generation, which measured 37.5 x 41 x 8.8mm. This new, clipless model is far thinner, just 5.4mm, but it's also taller (76.5mm) and a bit wider (39.6mm), creating a device that is overall slightly larger. But, that's like saying Gerard Butler is a slightly hunkier dude than Hugh Jackman. Both dudes are pretty hunky.

This new nano is properly tiny. Its weight, 31 grams, is less than half that of the new iPod touch and about the same as 10 sticks of Juicy Fruit.

Indeed, this new nano is properly tiny. Its weight, 31 grams, is less than half that of the new iPod touch and about the same as 10 sticks of Juicy Fruit. It weighs less than the batteries in many modern smartphones -- those that still have removable batteries, anyway. Put it in your pocket, even the tiny fifth pocket that Steve Jobs famously pulled the original nano from back in 2006, and you absolutely won't be able to tell it's there.
The reason for this change in dimensions is the move away from the square, 240 x 240 resolution LCD found in the last-gen nano. That's replaced by a 2.5-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio, multi-touch LCD that clocks in at 240 x 432. It's actually a slight step down in terms of pixel density, but the extra space is more than worth it, as now this can make for a passable video player. In a pinch.
Still, even ignoring its size, this panel won't dazzle you like the one on the new iPod touch does. It's bright and clear and reasonably good-looking, but viewing angles are not this thing's forte. Tilt the screen downward and the contrast quickly plummets, and the color balance appears pretty sickly when gazing onward from any other direction.

Situated beneath that display is a tiny home button, a first on the nano. (Previous iPods had click-wheels or no such buttons at all.) That makes one of five buttons here -- yes, five. There's a slender power button up on the top and, on the upper-left, a three-way volume rocker like those found on many BlackBerry handsets. With this you can adjust volume and, by pressing in the middle, play/pause music or engage in any of the Morse code-like commands for shuffling or skipping tracks.
This rocker sits flush with the side of the device, the indentation in the middle serving as the only thing that sets it apart from the left extent. Still, it's easy to find, but given the size of this thing we think you'll probably want to rely on the inline remote on a pair of suitably endowed headphones. Sadly, the EarPods included with the device are lacking in that regard.
On the bottom are the three means of connectivity -- two ports and a tiny plastic window through which this thing's Bluetooth 4.0 antenna talks. On the left is the 3.5mm headphone jack and on the right, the Lightning connector. As on the iPhone 5 and the new iPod touch, the Lightning connector is a huge upgrade in terms of usability and size -- far easier to connect and, of course, much smaller. But, that comes at the expense of adaptor-free compatibility with the zillions of iPod docks out there today.

The design language of the device is simple, clean and, frankly, not too far off from the previous nano.

The design language of the device is simple, clean and, frankly, not too far off from the previous nano. The anodized aluminum chassis curves around to cradle the LCD on the left and right, but it's flat on the top and bottom, with edges exhibiting the subtle chamfering that appears to be all the rage these days. It has a soft, polished finish to it that we think will hold up reasonably well to scratches. It will, at least, be far more scratch-resistant than the previous mirrored, stainless steel backs.
Overall, the new nano isn't quite the visually arresting device that the latest iPod touch is, but that's at least in part because it's so much smaller -- it's harder to appreciate the design features. Look closely, though, and the attention to detail shines through. This is a great-looking and great-feeling device.

Users of the previous-gen iPod nano will feel right at home here, for the most part. Not an awful lot has changed in the interface or functionality, though things are a bit more streamlined than before. It's still the same basic iOS-like UI, but again we're not talking actual
iOS. There are nine icons this time, spread across two pages -- with just three icons taking up the second. Thankfully you can re-arrange them and relegate your least-used functions to the depths of the second page.
Music and playlist controls are all contained beneath the single Music icon now, which brings up the familiar iPod interface for browsing tracks by artist, album or playlist. There are the same loop and shuffle playback options as before. Making a triumphant return after a few years off is the video player, which makes the best use of the limited screen real estate to play back footage in 16:9 Tinyvision.


Nike+ functionality is still here, made even better in this iteration by having everything built into the device. You no longer need to clip on a receiver or put an accelerometer on your shoe to track your walks or runs, and you can even connect Bluetooth heart rate monitors wirelessly. That makes this an even better workout companion than before -- though the lack of the integrated clip will be seen as a slight step backward by those whose running shorts lack pockets. (Surely some intrepid case maker will fix that problem in short order.)

Photo viewing is still possible, made better with pinch-zooming this time around. And, thanks to the accelerometer, images will auto-rotate as you go from portrait to landscape. Radio playback is largely unchanged, including song tagging and the Live Radio pausing, which enables up to 15 minutes of time shifting. There are lots of clock faces, made somewhat less necessary thanks to this thing's shape being unsuitable for wrist wearing, but we have no doubt someone will prove us wrong on that front. Finally, pop in a headset with a microphone and you'll get the Voice Memos icon, which allows the recording of little reminders.
But, since the set of EarPods included with the nano lack inline controls and the inline microphone, if you want to make such recordings you'll have to BYO ear buds.

We stacked the new nano up against the new iPod touch to see if you're giving up anything in the audio quality realm as compared to something bigger -- well, slightly bigger, anyway. We tested with Apple's EarPods, Klipsch S4i buds and some Sennheiser HD555 cans and could find no discernible difference between the players when listening to the same tracks. So, while we wouldn't recommend powering anything with an overly high impedance, the new nano is more than capable of driving your average 'buds.

The radical change in design here -- closer to the fourth- and fifth-generation nanos than the last -- won't be universally liked, but the seventh-gen iPod nano is absolutely the best yet. It brings all the functionality of the last nano to the table and adds plenty more in a deliciously slender package. The integrated Nike+ functionality will make the runners happy and, while it still doesn't mark the return of video capture, we welcome the re-acquired video playback. At $149 for 16GB there are certainly plenty of cheaper options out there, but if you're looking for something tiny, something light, something beautiful and something that plays nice within the Apple ecosystem, stop looking.

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Posted on 04.17 / 0 komentar / Read More

Maingear Pulse 11 review: a small and surprisingly powerful gaming laptop

Gaming laptops are strange beasts. While they may have been lugged all the way to the LAN party, they aren't too much fun to use on a plane. That was, until the advent of Alienware's 11-inch M11x, which kept the fast internals at the expense of weight and battery life. When it was unceremoniously yanked by parent company Dell, it left a gap in the market for people who really did need a gaming laptop on the go.

Fortunately, Clevo stepped in with its W110ER, an 11-inch laptop that companies like Maingear and others have tweaked to sell as their own. Packing an Ivy Bridge CPU, NVIDIA's Kepler-based GeForce GT 650M and the same 1366 x 768 display as the M11x, it's obviously trying to step into Alienware's shoes. So, is this the new standard-bearer for small-yet-powerful gaming laptops? Does it really blow us away with its power? Will you want to part with a minimum of $999 to get hold of one? Read on to find out.

The first thing you'll notice when you open the box is Maingear's attention to its customers. Gaming machines comprise something of a niche category, but that hasn't stopped the company from adding a few extra touches to ensure its customers feel valued. You're greeted with a solid plastic box that holds your documents, a branded mousepad, toolkit, T-Shirt and a hand-written quality-assurance sign-off sheet from the person who tested and set up your gear. By the time you've waded through all of the accoutrement, the laptop itself almost feels like a pleasant extra.

Pull it out of its protective sleeve and you'll instantly worry that someone's made a mistake and sent you a netbook in place of the monster you were expecting. At first blush, it's shockingly small: 11.2 inches wide, 8.3 inches deep and 1.46 inches at its widest point. While it's thick, it's hardly unwieldy, nor is it weighty -- it adds just 3.77 pounds (1.71kg) to your carrying load. You'll also notice that absent from the unit is an optical drive -- not surprising, given the size.

The plastic upper shell has been textured, making it look a little heftier and studier than comparable units. It's a smart use of materials to make the body seem a little more expensive and tactile given that it's just black plastic. It won't win any awards from design aesthetes either: function was prioritized over form with its retro stylings -- but the real achievement here has been to cram that much power into this tiny box.

Down the left-hand side, we've got Ethernet, VGA, HDMI 1.4a ports, 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks and a pair of USB 3.0 slots as well as a 2.8-inch vent where all the heat that it generated is pumped out. Beneath the keyboard up front is the SD/MMC/MS slot and down the right is a powered USB 2.0 socket, the power port and a Kensington lock slot. Build quality is excellent throughout and makes you feel confident about chucking this about without worrying. Raking your fingernails down the shell does more damage to your digits than the device itself, and no amount of bending or twisting will cause it to yield. Paired with the functional design, it's oddly reminiscent of a tank -- stocky, functional and hard as nails, with plenty of power hidden beneath the hood.

The most important component of any laptop is its inputs. The biggest issue here is that the island-style keyboard isn't full-size, a necessary yet unwelcome compromise given the compact nature of the device. The keys are tremendously shallow and resistive, meaning that you have to hammer them down with plenty of force in order to make sure your typing registers. Packing in the keys means shaving millimeters off the footprint and space in between, which is a nightmare for chubby-fingered typists. In fact, a certain reviewer typed the early parts of this review hunt-and-peck fashion until his fingers had acclimatized. If you were looking for another stick to beat this keyboard with, then the lack of back lighting grates. Compared to the M11x, which looked like the Disco where Tron hung out on weekends, we were hoping for at least a simple white light to help our typing in the dark.

Meanwhile, the dinky 3.2 x 1.6-inch Synaptics trackpad is textured in the same way as the lid, which adds unwanted friction to your mousing around. During a week of constant use, we had to grab a USB mouse just to get our day's work done. Gamers who left their external rodent at home aren't going to find any solace here -- in fact we'd have preferred a pad with a built-in button just to gain a few more square centimeters of real estate for our fingers. In fact, just take it as read that you'll always need to bring your peripherals along with you, even for casual surfing or typing.

If there's one annoyance with the otherwise fine 1,366 x 768 panel (aside from glossiness, but we've tread that ground before) it's the relatively weak 200-nit backlight. Comparable 11-inch laptops with similarly sharp displays can nearly double that. Trying to work in direct sunlight is made tremendously difficult as a result, not to mention the nightmare we had trying to photograph the thing. Perhaps Maingear (or more appropriately, Clevo) felt that its primary consumer base wouldn't be spending too much time offing the Zerg in strong light, but we'd have appreciated it.

A pair of asymmetrical speakers built into the base supply the sound for the laptop, which can only be charitably described as weak. There's very little bass and as such, the sound is muted, coarse and a little tinny. The addition of THX Tru Studio Pro smoothes off many of those rough edges, at the sacrifice of some of its loudness. Certainly you won't be using this as a media-watching machine without some external speakers as the laptop on its own won't comfortably fill a room, but for quiet time with the device, it's perfectly serviceable.

Maingear Pulse 11 (2.1GHz Core i7-3612QM, GeForce GT 650M)MSI GT70 (2.23GHz Core i7-3610QM, GeForce GTX 670M)The higher the score, the better.

Remember when we used the phrase "small but powerful?" If anything, that's an understatement. The model we received had a boot up time of 24.7 seconds and ratcheted a PC Mark Vantage score of 17,126. That's a number strong enough to send plenty of other laptops off for a cry in the corner, and it comfortably outperformed the 17-inch monster that is the MSI GT70.

When gaming, that performance becomes even more apparent. We tested Crysis (you just have to test Crysis. It's tradition, or an old charter, or something) at the panel's native 1,366 x 768 resolution -- and the machine kept the action going at 42 fps with only a stutter during scene transitions. At the same resolution, we got 32 fps while navigating the frozen lands of Tamriel in Skyrim and old favorite Mafia II chugged along at a staggering 60 fps.

At the risk of grading this thing on a curve, it's obvious that this machine isn't going to eke much out of that six-cell 61.16Wh battery, which Clevo promises offers up to almost seven hours of battery life. To complain about that fact would be like whining about the gas mileage on a Bugatti Veyron -- it's clearly never going to outlast even the most pedestrian of laptops. In our standard test, with WiFi on, brightness fixed at 65 percent and a movie looping continuously from the hard drive, it lasted three hours and 21 minutes, less than half the runtime originally promised.

More anecdotally, we found that while we couldn't fault its gaming performance, we'd be lucky to eke out even an hour of battery life playing with the settings turned up to full. We unplugged it at 100 percent and played 15 minutes of Arkham City, followed by 10 minutes of Gratuitous Tank Battles and noticed the battery was down to 51 percent. Once recharged, we switched to Skyrim and just getting past the dragon and out of the keep (barely the first level) caused the unit to fall to 41 percent. If you're going to be using this for its intended purpose, then you'll need to keep it surgically attached to its power cord wherever you go.

Of course, given that it's squeezing both Ivy Bridge and Kepler into such a small space, we were a little concerned about the heat it's capable of generating. It was with a small measure of trepidation that we balanced this on our lap for a couple of hours of work. It kicks out enormous temperature, but while that left-sided vent is directed high enough that it won't scorch your legs, if you've got any plans to have children, we'd suggest keeping it on the table.

The machine comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit lovingly pre-installed as well as a disc of device drivers and utilities. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that you'll need an external drive to access them, since the Pulse 11 doesn't come with one.

On its website, Maingear includes a logo that reads "Zero Bloat Ware" across a stop sign, saying that because it isn't in the thrall of a third-party software provider, its units are delightfully free of unwanted crap. This is essentially true -- THX TruStudio Pro does appear on the machine, but given that it's a necessary component to improve the device's speakers, we can't really fault Maingear here. The company also also rather thoughtfully included zipped files with Microsoft Security Essentials and OpenOffice. Because neither were installed, the choice was left entirely in our hands.

The stock unit begins at a highly reasonable $999. For that amount of cash, you'll get a 2.6GHz Ivy Bridge Core i5, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 256GB HDD and the six-cell battery. Every unit comes with Intel's HD 4000 Graphics and NVIDIA's Kepler-based GeForce GT650M, paired with 2GB of video memory. Bundled into that price is a one-year hardware warranty and a lifetime "angelic service," offering free phone support for the lifetime of the system.

You can choose between two further CPUs, a 2.8GHz Core i5 or a 2.1GHz Core i7, add up to 16GB of RAM and select from a choice of 21 other hard-drive units, topping out at a whopping 600GB Intel 210 Series SSD that costs $1,225 on its own. The version that we're testing would set you back $1,679, and packs the Core i7, 8GB of RAM, a 240GB Intel 520 SSD and a beefier Centrino Wireless-N adapter. If you've got money to burn, you can trick out the unit baller-style, with the price costing over $2,600 -- with the only real limit on your hardware being the contents of your wallet.

Since the chassis of the unit was forged in Clevo's laptop foundry, it's important to know that plenty of other manufacturers have put their own spin on this 11-inch gaming laptop. Origin's EON 11-S, for example, starts at the same $999 price and offers a wider range of colors, but its packing a dual-core Intel Pentium B960 instead of a Core i5 -- which costs an additional $137. That's not mentioning the Eurocom Monster 1.0, Sager NP6110 or Mythlogic's Chaos 1212, which all share the same DNA. To help you navigate so much choice, we've added a table with the core features of each base system -- from there it's just a matter of customization.

Base model only, prices subject to change

Partway through the week we spent with this laptop, we started to think about Arcade Fire's My Body is a Cage. It took us a while to understand why that was, but it seemed like a rather apt description of this device as a whole. At its core, this frankly bonkers gaming laptop has an unreasonable amount of power compressed and compacted into a shell the size of a netbook. Take it to your local LAN party and heads are gonna turn as you invite feelings of inadequacy from those around you. The $1,679 version that we tested will keep it well beyond the reach of many, but if you're looking for a dedicated games machine that you can take with you, it's quite simply staggering.

Of course surrounding that beating heart is the compromised outer shell which stops us from waxing too lyrically. Sacrifices have had to be made in order to make this piece of hardware work and if you don't have the thick end of two large ones to blow, then you'd be right to have pause and ask if it's worth it. The keyboard and trackpad take a lot of getting used to (we couldn't get comfortable no matter what we tried), while the display and speakers were simply lackluster -- fundamental components you'd expect them to get right on a device of this cost.

But here's the thing. Most of you will prefer to tote around a mechanical keyboard and balanced gaming mouse even when you're just doing some work. You'll probably be using it in decently lit rooms and you'll always have access to a power supply. In those conditions, you're entitled to disregard our concerns entirely, because the one thing that's undeniable is that this machine is tremendous fun. When we finished playing with all of these games (and then turning in 2,500 words on the subject), we just wanted to sit down and play them all over again. In fact, we'd go so far to say that this machine is addictive, because going back to console gaming afterward felt like a massive step down.

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Posted on 20.17 / 0 komentar / Read More

Mobile Miscellany: week of June 25th, 2012

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week, Samsung introduced its first Windows Phone for China and both HTC and Samsung each chimed in about Android 4.1 -- the sweet treat better known as Jelly Bean. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of June 25th, 2012.

LG Optimus L5 to arrive at Bell Mobility on July 10th

Looks like Bell in Canada will have a new smartphone come July 10th. An internal leak suggests that LG's Optimus L5 is next on deck, which will play in the entry-level lineup. The phone combines Android 4.0.3 with an 800MHz CPU and a 4-inch, 480 x 320 display. Also included is a 5-megapixel camera, a 1,500mAh battery and NFC. No word on pricing yet, however. [Mobile Syrup]

Waterproof LG Optimus It L-05D arrives today in Japan

NTT DoCoMo is adding a new addition to its summer smartphone lineup today, which is known as the L-05D or the LG Optimus It -- just take your pick. It combines Ice Cream Sandwich with a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor from Qualcomm and a 4-inch, 800 x 480 IPS display. A waterproof handset, other significant specs include an 8-megapixel rear camera, a VGA front-facing cam, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage and a microSD slot. A 1,650mAh battery rounds out the equation for the Optimus It, which is available in white, black, pink and purple. [Unwired View]

Samsung Galaxy Ace Q arrives at Telus in Canada for $200 outright

Another entry-level smartphone has taken up residence at Telus this week, but this one has a sliding QWERTY keyboard. Available for just $200 outright, the Samsung Galaxy Ace Q combines Android 2.3 with an 800MHz CPU and a 3.2-inch, 480 x 320 display. Other relevant specs include a 3-megapixel camera and a 1,300mAh battery. The Galaxy Ace Q is also available for just $30 on a three-year contract. [Mobile Syrup, Telus]

Samsung Omnia M announced for China as company's first Windows Phone in the country

First revealed for European availability back in May, this week, Samsung announced that its Omnia M Windows Phone will soon come to China. Two handsets have been marked for availability: one through China Mobile and another for China Unicom. Both feature typical Windows Phone specs, which include a 1GHz CPU, a 4-inch, 800 x 480 display and a 5-megapixel rear camera. As with the European model, both phones are limited to 384MB of RAM. The handset for China Mobile will feature only 4GB of internal storage, whereas the China Unicom version will offer a full 8GB. [Unwired View]

HTC and Samsung respond to Android 4.1

Naturally, no discussion of Google's newly announced Jelly Bean update would be fully complete without remarks from two of the most significant Android phone manufacturers. For HTC's part, it is "excited about Android Jelly Bean" and plans to support the OS "across a variety" of its devices. Unfortunately, HTC has nothing solid to share yet in relation to a time frame, but said, "We are reviewing the software to determine our upgrade plans and schedule." Similarly, Samsung's comment should come as no surprise, which chimed in, "Samsung will soon announce which additional devices are eligible for the Jelly Bean update." [Android Central, PocketNow]

Other random tidbits

The Nokia Lumia 610 is now available from Vodafone in New Zealand for $449 outright. [Geekzone]Nokia has announced the availability of its Mail for Exchange app, which is compatible with the Asha 302 and 303 handsets. In addition to email, the application supports synchronization of calendars and contacts. [MobileBurn]Foursquare 5.0 was released for BlackBerry smartphones this week. The social check-in app brings a new interface that includes an improved friends tab and explore screen. [CrackBerry]

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Posted on 16.41 / 0 komentar / Read More

BBC introduces Red Button to the internet, thinks they'll be great pals

By Alexis Santos posted Jun 30th 2012 11:46AM

Since 1999, the BBC's Red Button feature has delivered alternative camera angles, sports scores and the like over broadcast spectrum, but it's now set to become internet enabled. Channel surfers shouldn't expect a full-blown web experience, however, as the Beebs stresses it's not about to include everything and the kitchen sink in terms of functionality. Rather, their Connected Red Button aims for simplicity. Punching the clicker could bring up the iPlayer to catch previous episodes of shows or save recipes from a cooking program for later viewing on a computer or smartphone. Companion screen experiences such as the Antiques Roadshow app, which is slated for a September release, are also part of their web-connected roadmap. Mum's the word on when these new features might roll out, but we're promised the BBC's Olympics coverage will give us a taste of what's to come.

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Posted on 13.06 / 0 komentar / Read More

LG Optimus L7 review: a beautiful, entry-level Android 4.0 smartphone with LG's new UI 3.0

Consider your last trip to the car dealership. Let's say you saved up and hit up BMW. While you might've looked at -- or even test driven -- the M3, there's a good chance that your better judgment (and your budget) led you to drive off of the lot with a 328i. Sure, it's only got a four-cylinder engine inside, but the car offers great handling and good gas mileage. Better yet, you didn't have to spend an atrocious amount of money to get behind the wheel. The same goes with mobile phones. While it's fun to dream of owning a One X, a Galaxy S III or an Optimus 4X HD, they're called superphones for a reason: they cater to power-hungry individuals with a fair amount of disposable income. Like supercars, they're designed to bring people into the store, even if shoppers ultimately leave with something else in hand.

Enter the LG Optimus L7. Positioned at the higher end of the company's entry-level lineup, it aims to be the 328i of smartphones. Sure, no one's lining up to drool over it, but LG is aiming for this to be a practical choice with just enough elegance and pizzaz to keep consumers grinning. Of course, that sweet spot is difficult to achieve, and we've seen plenty of smartphone manufacturers miss the mark in attempting to balance performance and amenities with a palatable price. So, does the Optimus L7 rise to the challenge? We've spent the past week with it as our daily driver, and we're ready to make the call. Read on for the answer.

The LG Optimus L7 is undeniably handsome. It's the leader of the pack in the company's L-Style series, which places an emphasis on a modern, sophisticated appearance, and it certainly looks the part. In fact, much of the design philosophy can be traced back to the more expensive LG Prada 3.0: both have boxy faces with large black borders and subtle chrome-like trim. It's a similar story around back, where you'll find a textured plastic cover that's tapered to create a greater illusion of thinness (the handset actually measures 8.7mm thick). These beveled edges also help the Optimus L7 feel quite comfortable in hand.

Naturally, there are differences. While the Prada 3.0 features only capacitive buttons up front, the Optimus L7 sports a physical home button that calls to mind the global Galaxy S II. On the rear, the horizontal camera pod struts a faux-brushed metal finish that nicely compliments the pinstripe enclosure. The design is both boring and beautiful. In a word, it's elegant.

If the phone were rocking more powerful internals, it'd be known in the car world as a sleeper -- something you don't see coming, but that punishes you just the same. With only a single-core 1GHz CPU, however, you'll need to ground your expectations from the get-go. It performs respectably for its class, but as with the BMW M3, once you've had your hair blown back by a quad-core processor, you'll be forever screwed to draw the comparison. Much of the spec sheet tells a similar story, which includes an Adreno 200 GPU, a 5-megapixel camera and HSPA network speeds that top out at 7.2Mbps. As the benchmarks will later reveal, this is fine for casual usage, but the antiquated architecture will leave many wanting a little more horsepower.

The Optimus L7 may not be the fastest phone in the world, but it sure does look pretty, and the same can be said of the display. Granted, it would be foolish to draw comparisons to some of the more premium options out there, but for a budget phone, LG nailed it with its 4.3-inch NOVA display at 800 x 480 resolution. Curiously, this isn't based on IPS technology like the company's other NOVA offerings; instead, it's based on the much more common TFT-LCD. Still, viewing angles are better than average, text is rather crisp, colors are vibrant, and when the brightness is maxed out, the phone is completely usable in direct sunlight.

We did identify one glaring omission with respect to the display, however, and that's the lack of an ambient light sensor -- a feature so pervasive that it's often taken for granted in smartphones. As such, an auto-brightness setting is nonexistent and users will need to manually adjust the levels to suit their surroundings. LG has included a bit of a workaround for this -- which we'll discuss later in the software section -- but the correct decision would've been to include the ambient light sensor. Needless to say, we're hugely disappointed that LG deliberately excluded the feature.

Take a quick tour of the phone's exterior and you'll find all of the usual amenities in their routine placements: the volume rocker is on the left, there's a micro-USB port on the bottom, both the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack are up top, and a speakerphone is on the rear. Try as you might, though, one thing you won't find is an access tab for removal of the back cover. That's not to say it's difficult to remove, but you'll need a decent set of fingernails to pry it free. Once inside, you'll be treated to some funky industrial stylings, along with access to the standard size SIM, an empty microSD slot and a removable 1,700mAh battery. You'll also find a pair of NFC connectors, as the antenna makes up part of the back cover.

As it stands, the Optimus L7 comes in two flavors: one suitable for use in the United States and Canada, and another for Europe. Both models support quadband GSM / EDGE, but the HSPA radios are unique to each continent. For this reason, an unlocked L7 would be usable -- but not terribly enjoyable -- for global travelers. Other hardware-enabled features of the Optimus L7 include an FM radio, NFC with Android Beam, along with WiFi hotspot and WiFi Direct. The GPS hardware was able to find satellites rather quickly, and the compass performed very well once calibrated.

Approximately £249 / €269 / $3004.9 x 2.6 x 0.34 inches (125.5 x 67 x 8.7mm)TFT-LCD NOVA display (450 nit)Quadband GSM / EDGE; HSPA 900 / 2100 (Europe); HSPA 850/1900 (North America)Qualcomm MSM7227A (Snapdragon S1)1GHz single-core ARM Cortex A5MP3, AMR, AAC, AAC+, WAV, AC3, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, DivX, Xvid

As we've alluded to, the Optimus L7 is a bit of a slowpoke in the performance arena. This is largely due to the Qualcomm MSM7227A chipset, which is based on the Snapdragon S1 platform. For comparison, this is the same chip that's within phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus and HTC Desire V.

The benchmarks reveal a similar story. While the L7 fared well in Quadrant, with an overall score on par with the dual-core Optimus 2X, this is largely in part due to its excellent performance in the I/O category. Other areas, such as CPU, memory and graphics reveal a phone that's more closely in line with the Nexus S -- which leads us to an interesting point. In real-world, day-to-day usage, the Nexus S with Android 4.0 feels more responsive than the Optimus L7. Granted, these phones are based on different architectures, but we couldn't shake the feeling that the Optimus L7's performance was in part hindered by LG's software. And if we're being honest, the company doesn't have a great track record when it comes to optimizing its Android skins for specific hardware architectures.

LG Optimus L7Samsung Nexus SSony Xperia UGLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)SunSpider: lower scores are better.

All things equal, Android 4.0 is a resource-intensive operating system that really demands beefier specs. It's sad to say, but anyone who insists on decent performance in Ice Cream Sandwich should look to a dual-core phone. We must emphasize that while overall performance isn't bad -- navigating through the launcher and working within basic apps like Gmail feel relatively snappy, for example -- you'll also need to deal with stuttering animations on the home screen, inconsistent touch response, a subpar browser experience and video capture that tops out at VGA. As a basic phone, the Optimus L7 fits the bill. For those wanting more, you'll need to pay for the privilege.

Call quality on the Optimus L7 is middling at best. While other people's voices were free of distortion, even calls to landlines sounded muted and muddy. Similarly, our callers commented that while our words were clear, our voices sounded flat. Even with a strong signal, calls would intermittently cut out. It's difficult to determine whether the phone or the carrier is to blame for these hiccups, however, so we'll reserve judgment on that one. Our experience with the speaker phone was similar: callers tended to sound tinny. Unsurprisingly, people told us the call quality over the speaker was distant, and some had to strain at times to make sense of our words.

With a 1,700mAh Li-Ion cell and just a single-core processor, it's no great surprise that battery life is one of the better aspects of the Optimus L7. In our standard rundown test, the phone lasted six hours and 40 minutes, which is solid, but unspectacular. Our real-world tests yielded much better results, and those with modest usage habits should have no trouble getting 36 hours or more off a single charge. Battery life can be extended even further with LG's power saver software, a feature which kicks in at a user-set threshold to more conservatively manage brightness, radios and data settings. For our part, we never felt compelled to enable the feature, and were still able to get an impressive 54 hours from a single charge with medium usage.

Along with Ice Cream Sandwich, LG threw an interesting twist into the Optimus L7 known as UI 3.0. With the new software, the company set out to introduce new functionality in an unobtrusive manner, and to that extent, it's succeeded. Granted, UI 3.0 is still a departure from stock Ice Cream Sandwich, but the look is now much cleaner than LG's prior efforts. Immediately apparent is the new lock screen, which allows users to swipe in any direction to unlock the device. Similarly, the lock screen brings quick access to four customizable apps, along with three different clocks for the choosing.

On the home screen, Google's omnipresent search bar can be found up top, which has been customized with an "add" button that gives users another way to populate their five home screens with apps, widgets and different wallpapers. While the dock includes only four icons by default, you'll be able to drag in a fifth application and create folders, which nicely replicates the functionality of Ice Cream Sandwich. Many other changes are less visible, accessible only through the settings menu. Here, users can choose between different transition effects and enable an infinite carousel of the home screens. In fact, the only additional feature that we'd like to see is the ability to increase or decrease the amount of home screens.

Remember how we complained about the lack of an ambient light sensor? Well, there's a partial solution. One feature that LG's added as a legitimate improvement over Ice Cream Sandwich is the quick settings menu in the notification tray. It's customizable, but by default, users may control sound, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. Although it must be manually enabled, a handy toggle also exists to switch between low, medium and full brightness -- nothing short of a life saver. We're also happy to see that quick access to the settings menu remains in the notification tray.

The launcher itself is more or less on par with Ice Cream Sandwich, which requires users to scroll horizontally between apps and widgets. LG has also added a downloads section, which is fine if you need quick access to an app that you've just installed. This will cause confusion to some users, though, as downloaded files won't appear here, and instead must be accessed through the downloads app. Within the launcher, infinite scrolling is enabled by default, and we genuinely appreciate that a user won't be immediately kicked over into the widgets section when they reach the end of the apps list. Another interesting addition -- and somewhat of a nod to CyanogenMod -- is the ability to more tightly pack the launcher screen with a 5 x 6 grid of icons.

You'll also discover a gear icon in the launcher, but instead of providing access to the settings menu, it opens an environment that allows users to rearrange their icons, create folders and even delete unwanted apps. The only quirk about the launcher is its inability to automatically sort apps. So, if you're the type who prefers your launcher in alphabetical order, you'll inevitably be doing a bit of rearranging each time you install a new application.

As for the software itself, we received an unbranded version of the Optimus L7 directly from LG, so naturally your experience may vary if you purchase the phone through a carrier. While many of the apps can't be uninstalled, they can be disabled, which will cause them to not appear in the launcher, although they'll continue to occupy storage space on your phone. This includes Application Manager, a utility to add live wallpapers and a task manager, or uninstall some bundled apps; Cell Broadcast, which allows you to send and receive mass alert messages to other cell broadcast-enabled phones; LG Tag +, which lets you configure and write location-based settings to NFC tags; RemoteCall Service, an app that grants tech support reps full control over your phone; and SmartShare for WiFi Direct connections. Other apps that can be disabled -- but not uninstalled -- include two apps from Yahoo! called Finance and News, along with a voice recorder utility. As for pre-loaded software that can be uninstalled, you'll find Memo for notes, Polaris Office, Weather from Yahoo! and SmartWorld, which is LG's own marketplace for apps, ringtones and wallpapers.

Put simply, the camera on the Optimus L7 seriously underwhelms. While a 5-megapixel sensor seems at home in an entry-level smartphone, even the most passive photographers are going to experience a letdown with this phone. The camera delivers lifeless, unnatural colors, and in distant shots, it's unable to capture anything beyond the most basic of details. Closeup snapshots fared a bit better in this respect, which is assisted by the touch-to-focus software, but you can forget about artistic effects such as bokeh. The camera's low-light performance is abysmal, and even reasonably well-lit indoor scenes brought about an unusable amount of blur and noise. Naturally, the built-in flash was able to compensate in close-up scenes, but it's altogether useless for subjects more than a few feet away. The front-facing VGA camera is thoroughly miserable, delivering dark, muted and inaccurate colors, along with perceivable jagged edges.

Two software features that seem nice on the surface enable users to capture both panorama scenes and a quick burst of six successive shots. In the case of the former, while the software is both easy and reasonably accurate, the results are less-than-VGA quality. Likewise, users are similarly limited to VGA resolution in quick burst mode.

Video capture on the Optimus L7 doesn't fare much better. While colors are surprisingly more accurate within video mode, the clips have a jelly-like quality and are likewise limited to VGA resolution. Those capturing video indoors would be wise to use the persistent LED light as an auto-focus assist, as the camera will otherwise struggle mightily with the scene.

As much as we wanted to like the Optimus L7, we must strongly urge those who want an entry-level smartphone to look elsewhere. It's quite a shame, really, because LG's design efforts hinted at something so much greater. We genuinely appreciate the phone's display, handy NFC capabilities, excellent battery life and even its software, which features LG's UI 3.0 layered on top of Android 4.0.

Unfortunately, that's where the party ends. The Optimus L7 is a sluggish performer that is further hindered by unnecessary animations and transition effects in the UI. While that alone wouldn't qualify as a deal-breaker in the budget category, its slow data transmission speeds, incompatible trans-Atlantic 3G bands, woeful camera, lack of an ambient light sensor, subpar voice quality and flaky touch response all point to a regrettable purchase. As it stands, if your budget dictates your next smartphone, look instead toward the HTC One V, Sony Xperia U and Samsung Galaxy S Advance for more compelling options. Similarly, if you're able to avoid the contract subsidies and go SIM-free, the Galaxy Nexus is now more affordable than ever.

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Posted on 08.56 / 0 komentar / Read More

IRL: Bose SoundLink, DropCopy and Worldmate Gold

Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment.
Happy Friday, folks. This week in real life, Brian invests in the Bose SoundLink after his pet rabbit destroyed his previous setup (no, really), while our own Andy Bowen explains why he'd rather use the DropCopy app than DropBox, much less AirDrop. And Darren, who racked up frequent flier miles this week traveling out to Google I/O, details the virtues of Worldmate over TripIt. Bunnies! Apps versus apps versus more apps. All that, just past the break.

I have what is likely a fairly unique problem: a pet rabbit whose overwhelming sense of curiosity, ever-growing incisors and insatiable appetite for electronics wires rendered my last sound system useless. I've been in-between stereo gear since then, largely relying on a tiny pair of computer speakers for sound -- a less-than-adequate solution, even in a New York City apartment. The question, then, is how to fill the small (by non-NYC standards) space on a reasonable budget, while using this as an opportunity to cut cords in the process.

The Bose SoundLink seemed an ideal solution, a standalone speaker that can be synced to multiple Bluetooth devices, and that's small enough to cart around. It's not particularly light, but it can fit in my messenger bag, and is a lot easier to pick up than a standard home stereo system. Granted, it's not quite as ritzy as a multiple-room system, but despite my love of music, I'm not really trying to impress anyone with my audio setup.

The Bose has big enough sound to fill the rooms of my apartment. It's a warm and full sound, and breathes a lot more life into those Thelonious Monk records than the computer speakers I've been relying on. The whole thing's pretty easy to set up, and being able to play Spotify tracks off of my iPhone the minute I get home is a nice bonus. I've run into a few syncing problems on occasion, but it's nothing that can't be remedied by holding down the Bluetooth button atop the speaker. Meanwhile, the range is good, but not great -- my dream of pushing music from my house into the back yard is often met with hiccups in the stream.

Those minor issues aside, this thing has been an awesome addition to apartment living. Since I picked it up, not a day's gone by that I haven't used it -- and that includes recent trips to Boston and LA, when I kept the speaker stashed in my luggage.

-- Brian Heater

DropCopy has quickly made its way onto my top 10 favorite apps list. Part of that being because it cost me not one penny -- well, the lite version anyway -- but mostly because of its amazing usefulness. Back in 2011, I was wildly disappointed to discover that AirDrop seemingly wasn't making its way onto iOS devices. Actually, I may have been more confused than disappointed. I'd been waiting on a native app like that for the sole purpose of quickly sharing URLs and text files with my iPhone 4S. Unless iOS 6 really surprises us all, I'll probably stick with DropCopy for my data sharing needs. For one, it's generally much quicker than AirDrop. Yeah, I know, DropBox and SugarSync accomplish the same task, but it's much faster sharing a single URL or message with DropCopy rather than having to produce a text file and toss that sucker into the cloud. DropCopy's shining star? Speed, obviously. No dialogues, accounts or confirmations. It's an IP address, drag-and-drop straight shot.

Ideally, I'd like DropCopy to chug along in the background (as it does on OS X). Manually launching the app every time I'm in need of a transfer? That gets annoying. I'd also welcome the ability to share those bits and bytes with my Macbook Pro courtesy of my data plan, and not be limited to a local WiFi network. Cloud apps definitely have the advantage here. Of course, thanks to Apple's third-party app regulations, internal files aren't accessible through DropCopy anyway, and vice versa -- you won't find an "export to DropCopy" option. There are a few ways to sort through the files that you're storing in DropCopy on your iOS device, but other than that there's really no organization at all. Just one folder with many, many files. A falling star perhaps? This app has a temperament: it's 100 percent dependable, 90 percent of the time.

-- Andy Bowen

I've actually been using Worldmate for some time now, but I only upgraded to the Gold option recently -- right around the time it went on sale in the App Store for $2.99 (it's usually $9.99). Unlike so many other travel / itinerary managers, this one requires no yearly subscription. You pay once, and it'll work magic on whatever trips you have coming up. For one, I love that Worldmate Gold works on Android, iOS and the web, and it's relatively easy to make edits to trips on any of those platforms. It's also a super-polished app, and the ability to export minute details (things like multiple flight confirmation numbers for the Mr. and Mrs.) to my Google Calendar with minimal effort is a huge boon.

For those who aren't familiar with the app, it's designed to digest travel information via email. Just shoot over any email with confirmation details (a flight, car rental, hotel booking, etc.) and it'll update your trip and any connected calendars. The Gold edition also keeps tabs on your upcoming flights, alerting you to gate changes, time changes and the like as they're reported -- push notifications here work excellently, except when information isn't delivered to Worldmate from the airlines fast enough. Granted, that's not a Worldmate problem.

Overall, it's remarkably useful for keeping tabs on a schedule that involves well over 80 flights per year (read: mine). But, I do have a few bones to pick. For one, it didn't recognize legitimate Delta flight information for a flight that was 9.5 months out (but flights happening within the next six months were added sans fuss). Two, it rarely understands atypical emails. For example, your casual email conversation about a Homeaway.com rental will probably confuse Worldmate's processing engine, again forcing a manual entry. And lastly, it requires you to forward each piece of your trip to "trips@worldmate.com." TripIt, in contrast, simply looks in your inbox for you and makes updates as new email confirmations arrive -- that's way, way slicker. Of course, TripIt requires a $49 annual subscription for most of its niceties, so for $2.99, I'm more than willing to forgive Worldmate Gold's minor shortcomings.

-- Darren Murph

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Posted on 04.52 / 0 komentar / Read More

Apple brags: sells 365 million iOS devices, 140 million iMessage users

By Terrence O'Brien posted Jun 11th 2012 2:16PM

Apple has never shied away from taking a few shots at Android during its WWDC keynotes, and why would 2012 be any different. Just before taking the wraps off iOS 6, Apple took some time to toss out a few numbers highlighting its spectacular sales and sizable user base. All told, by the end of March, the company had moved 365 million iOS devices, with the vast majority of them (80 percent) running iOS 5 -- a point they made sure to drive home with a graphic comparing the install base of Android 4.0. But, sales alone mean nothing without an active user community. Which is why Cupertino was so happy to report that 140 million iMessage users were sending more than one billion messages each day, for a grand total of 150 billion SMS and MMS missives. Push notifications have also clearly taken off in a big way, with 1.5 trillion having graced our notification screens.

Check out our full coverage of WWDC 2012 at our event hub!

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Posted on 12.55 / 0 komentar / Read More

Insert Coin: Sensordrone lets your smartphone monitor temperature, air quality, inebriation

In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line.

Sensordrome is an attempt to pair a sensor-heavy dongle with your smartphone. The result is something slightly Star Trek, with the device connecting across Bluetooth to share a wealth of data on what's going on around you. Pledging over $149 to the Kickstarter project will net investors a spot on the first production run, while over $99 will land you a beta version for slightly zealous devs and testers. The sensor array includes some standard offerings like temperature and humidity but it also throws in a light sensor, non-contact IR thermometer and barometer. It can also analyze breath alcohol levels, and detect Carbon Monoxide and even gas leaks. Throw in an expansion connector to open up even more options, including medical equipment like blood pressure monitors, and you can see why it's piqued our interest.

Sensors aside, the gadget will hook-up with Android (other platforms will be considered in the future) and will be able to connect to the likes of Twitter and Facebook. Sensordrone can offer up its data in three different ways; call-respond mode will give you immediate read-outs, while streaming mode will send continuous data to your phone. Data logging mode will store the same data in its built-in memory which can be downloaded later as a .csv file -- and should mean graphs abound. Sensordrone's application software will also be open-source, allowing plenty more apps to utilize that sensor medley in the future. We'd still love a built-in radiation detector though. That aside, you can take a tour of Sensordrone's talents after the break. How can you say no to that face?

Previous project update: Motion-controlled sword-em-up Clang has just under a month left to go and has notched up just shy of $160,000 for the project -- all from under 3,100 backers. However, plenty of support is still needed to reach its heady $500,000 target.

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Posted on 08.22 / 0 komentar / Read More

Apple MagSafe vs. MagSafe 2: photos of the two incompatible power connectors

Apple quietly introduced a newer, slimmer, snazzier MagSafe connector here at WWDC, with the Retina display-equipped 15-inch MacBook Pro (yeah, the "next-generation" one) and the newly-unveiled MacBook Air machines utilizing it. Still, the original MagSafe is finding its way onto the refreshed MacBook Pro (both 13- and 15-inch), but we're guessing the original isn't long for this world. As with anything, change ain't easy -- for the two to talk to one another, you'll need an optional $10 adapter (which evidently ships gratis with the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display). It's also worth noting that the actual AC power plug returned to the "T-style" form factor, rather than the "side-style" seen in the MacBook units that were new... well, yesterday. We stacked a next-gen MBP atop a last-gen MBP just to showcase the differences; hit the gallery below if you're interested in such things.

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Posted on 04.46 / 0 komentar / Read More

Apple demos Passbook, a one-stop shop for tickets and boarding passes

By Zach Honig posted Jun 11th 2012 2:36PM

From airline and train boarding passes to concert tickets, we've seen a variety of tix make their way into the digital realm at venues around the world. With today's announcement of Passbook, the hard copy credential may soon be a thing of the past. Speaking on stage at Apple's WWDC keynote, VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall demonstrated the feature with United boarding passes, Fandango movie tickets and a Starbucks gift card. While none of these examples are making their premiere debut, Passbook will certainly make the QR-code-based stubs more user-friendly, while also increasing awareness among folks who continue to opt for paper while doubting the usability and authenticity of a digital counterpart. Passbook is also location aware, bringing up a Starbucks card as you approach a shop, for example. You can also get updates related to your stored credentials, such as a gate change announcement with a pending United boarding pass. The feature will come bundled with iOS 6, set to launch this fall.

Check out our full coverage of WWDC 2012 at our event hub!

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Posted on 01.11 / 0 komentar / Read More