Reality Bites
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Much better video quality then my previous post about Terra Nova. This looks promising!
The last trailer we saw from Steven Spielberg’s dino drama Terra Nova was a bit blurry at best. But now we’ve got a brand new clip with new dialog and better dinosaurs. More »
Android: Unless you know the title of an app, the Android Market’s search engine isn’t great. Chomp is a new Market search engine that blows Google’s default out of the water, letting you search by category and filter by price. More »
It’s a short and sweet disclosure from BGR this morning as multiple sources have apparently informed the news outlet that RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook will make its debut on store shelves on April 10th. The BlackBerry Tablet OS will reach Gold Master status on March 31st, according to the same soothsayers, which is late enough in proceedings to necessitate it being delivered as an update upon first booting up your device. We too have heard of a late March / early April launch for the PlayBook, which RIM itself promised for the first quarter of 2011, though the intrigue of what carriers will be providing you with connectivity on this 7-incher remains. You’ll know more as soon as we do.
BlackBerry PlayBook to be released on April 10th? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Windows only: A bit of Gmail drama made us look for easy and cheap Gmail backup solutions. What we missed was MailStore, a single-purpose app that connects to your email, backs it up, and doesn’t bother you otherwise. That’s just about perfect. More »
We’re sure that the debate of a carefully controlled and curated environment like Apple’s App Store versus a free-for-all like the Android Market will rage on for years to come, but here’s something to chew on: Google just removed some 21 apps from the Market in the last day from a publisher going by Myournet for doing all sorts of naughty things to your device. Offenses include attempting to root your phone, uploading phone information (including IMEI) to who-knows-where, and — most egregiously — adding a backdoor that allows additional code to be pulled down and executed.
At least some of the apps are pirated versions of existing apps that have been re-uploaded at zero cost to the user, which makes them appealing… and the trick apparently works quite well, because the 21 managed to clock over 50,000 downloads before getting taken down. This isn’t the first time malicious apps have shown up on smartphones — far from it — but it’s probably the highest-profile case of a first-party app store being infiltrated by really bad stuff. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Google was extraordinarily quick to respond once Android Police reported the situation — the site says it took less than five minutes from the time they reached out to the time the apps actually went offline. Still, that’s little consolation if you’ve already installed your “free” copy of Super History Eraser. Hit the source links for the full list of pulled apps.
Update: Android Central points out that the type of root exploit used in these apps was patched in Android 2.2.2 and up, so Nexus One and Nexus S owners should be fine; everyone else is left out in the cold, though, thanks to the vexing third-party update lag. Thanks, Z!
Google spikes 21 malicious apps with big download counts from the Market (update: Android 2.2.2 and up are immune) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s been a very good year for Detroit’s crime-fighting cyborg. You’ve seen the RoboCop statue plans and heard Peter Weller address the robo-statue naysayers. Now it looks like the RoboCop remake from MGM is finally going forward. More »
Android/iOS: Somewhere between unwieldy chat rooms and focused-but-limited SMS must lie a way to tell a group—co-workers, friends, roommates—that you're stopping at India Gate, if anyone wants takeout. Beluga is that middle ground. You might also call it BlackBerry Messenger for the iOS/Android crowd. More »
It’s not rare to hear talk of other operating systems employing webOS-like elements — we’ve been asking to see its elegant notification system in iOS for years — but RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook borrows so heavily from the UI concepts of the software built by Palm and now owned by HP that it could easily be confused for a webOS tablet. It handles multiple concurrent applications using a card view and allows you to shut down unwanted apps by swiping them off the screen, a multitasking implementation that exhibits “uncanny similarities” in HP’s eyes to its own TouchPad tablet. Still, the Hewlett Packard team insist that they’re focused on their own products and will “keep innovating, we’ll keep honing and those guys hopefully will continue to see the value in it and keep following us by about a year.” Ouch.
RIM’s response, as espoused by Jeff McDowell, has been to say that “when you’re trying to optimize user experience that juggles multitasking, multiple apps open at once and on a small screen, you’re going to get people landing on similar kinds of designs.” This essentially sidesteps the issue by throwing a subtle compliment HP’s way, but it brings up an interesting question — shouldn’t companies aim to make the best software possible, in spite of it potentially looking like a ripoff of someone else’s work?
HP derides BlackBerry PlayBook OS as a ‘fast imitation’ of webOS, RIM says it’s just good UI design originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google’s notoriously generous at developer events, tossing out free devices like candy on Halloween, but here at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco it’s letting them flow like wine. Each attendee at Google’s Web Developer Day yesterday got a free Cr-48 laptop, and today the company dished out even greater prizes — either a free Motorola Xoom tablet or a Nexus S smartphone to every soul listening to some exceedingly well-attended technical sessions on Android. That’s certainly one way to attract game developers to your platform.
Google gifts Xoom tablets to game devs at GDC 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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With no federal money in hand for a proposed $400-million domed stadium for Regina, the deal is dead for now, the Saskatchewan government says.
Bell recently discounted the Samsung Galaxy Tab to #349.95 on a 3-year contract and today Rogers has come out with a better price. From March 1st until march 31st Rogers is offering the Tab for $299.99 on a 3-year (either the White or the Black version). Just remember if you are thinking about getting the […]
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A meteorite offers new clues into how essential biomolecules laid the foundation for life on Earth.
It’s the first of March, which in NVIDIA land means no longer just talking about Tegra Zone, but actually activating it and letting users see what all the fuss is about. For those who’ve not yet heard of it, the Tegra Zone is an Android application that curates and highlights content that would most benefit from having the dual-core power of that Tegra 2 chip within your device. At launch, that means a hand-picked selection of games whose makers have gone the extra mile and thrown in additional geometric detail, heavier computation loads, and higher-resolution textures specifically for Tegra 2 smartphones and tablets. The snazzier, more interactive games will still be sourced from the Android Market, the Tegra Zone is no more than a portal unto the vast world of Android content, but it’s hoped that its presence will help convey the full value of owning a dual-core mobile device. Even if that value will go down considerably when NVIDIA introduces its quad-core SOC in August — but, one super chip at a time!
Continue reading NVIDIA Tegra Zone officially launched, takes Android to new dual-core heights
NVIDIA Tegra Zone officially launched, takes Android to new dual-core heights originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As a loyal iPod user, you’d have thought that Queen Elizabeth II would have seen fit to bestow an honorary knighthood on a certain Steven Paul Jobs by now. After all, Sir Bill received his back in 2005 even though his company couldn’t quite get its cellphone or tablet strategies to stick with consumers. According to an anonymous senior Labour MP who left Parliament in the last election, Jobs had reached the final stages of approval for “services to technology” only to be rejected in 2009 by the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Why? Well, according to The Telegraph, Jobs had the audacity to turn down an offer to speak at Labour’s annual conference. In retaliation we hear that Apple is holding Jony Ive — himself, an honorary Commander of the British Empire — hostage in an infinitely looping orange grove somewhere in northern California.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Steve Jobs’ knighthood rejected by Gordon Brown? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It’s not available on actual phones yet, but a core code change in Android 2.3.3 allows for apps to take screenshots, without “rooting” or setting up a development kit. Yes, iPhone users have been able to do this for some time, and, yes, it should have been available earlier. But, hey, it’s a major pain that’s going away. [Android Central] More »
We all know that light can’t exactly pass through solid objects — unless of course, you’re using a laser or something. Yes, X-rays allow us to look into suitcases at the airport and broken bones in our bodies, but there’s a new kid on the block that claims to have done the impossible in a novel fashion. Jochen Aulbach and his colleagues of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics out in Amsterdam have developed a technology that allows scrambled light to remain focused as it passes through ultra-thin layers of paint. You see, when light is sent through opaque material, it becomes muddled and lost in the space-time continuum. Aulbach and his crew used a spatial light modulator, or SMT, to control a 64-femtosecond long laser pulse that’s passed through a thin layer of paint. The SMT emits pulses that last long enough for only a machine to see and the data is sent to a computer for calibration. NewScientist claims that with this technology, it might be possible to hone in on cancerous cells and blast them to oblivion without damaging the healthy tissue surrounding them.
Scientists figure out how to see through walls, sort of originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The IE9 Release Candidate came out on February 10th, so you might think it’s about time it stepped its game up to a final release and Microsoft seems to be of the same mind. Download Squad reports insider sources have pinpointed the South by Southwest gathering in Austin, Texas, this month as the launch platform for the non-beta, non-RC Internet Explorer 9, with a direct download becoming available around 9PM ET on March 14th. That’s highly specific, though still unconfirmed, information. For some more official word on the matter, we have to go to the Indian branch of the Microsoft Developer Network, which has tweeted out the announcement that IE9 will launch on March 24th at Tech.Ed India 2011. We imagine that’s a launch party specific to India itself, however it does provide an official date for the latest time we can expect Microsoft to take the training wheels off its newest, shiniest browser.
Internet Explorer 9 expected on March 14th, definitely released by March 24th originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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