.::REALITYRECALL::.

Now that Kinect competitors have begun to spring up, Microsoft’s tipped its hand — CEO Steve Ballmer told the BBC that his company will officially support the depth camera in Windows PCs at some undisclosed point in the future, confirming earlier suspicions. Whether that will just be part of a risky new operating system or just another notch in Games for Windows‘ belt is hard to say, but it’s nice to know that there will be uses for those eight million cameras when we’re done hacking and dancing our hearts out.

Ballmer: Microsoft will eventually support Kinect on PC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 12:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen plenty of data to show that Android is the hottest-selling smartphone OS among US buyers today, but now we have a stat point to show that it’s doing pretty well in cumulative terms as well. According to ComScore’s latest estimates, Android had 26 percent of all US smartphone subscribers in the quarter ending November 2010, bettering Apple’s iPhone for the first time. The major victim of Android’s ascendancy has actually been RIM’s BlackBerry, whose lead at the top contracted by 4.1 percentage points (nearly 11 percent less than the share it had in the previous quarter). Guess those Verizon iPhones and dual-core BBs had better start arriving pretty soon.

ComScore: Android jumps ahead of iOS in total US smartphone subscribers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, here’s some good news: it looks like spam is on the decline. According to Symantec’s latest State of Spam and Phishing report, the volume of spam and junk mail in circulation around the world has been decreasing steadily since August, and dropped noticeably around Christmas. No one has a concrete explanation for the drop-off, but Symantec’s Eric Park suggests that the demise of major botnets may have played a role.

The notorious Rustock botnet, for example, virtually disappeared after December 25th. Once the most powerful botnet in all the land, Rustock now accounts for less than 0.5-percent of all the world’s spam. Two other big-time botnets, the Lethic and the Xarvester, have also gone mysteriously quiet in recent weeks. So, why did these botnets suddenly stop spamming? No one knows. But, until they start up again, we should all enjoy our (relatively) clean inboxes while we can.

Global Spam Volume on the Decline, Report Shows originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Along with a “review“, we’ve also got for you tonight some footage of the (rumoured) PlayStation Phone’s menu, game performance and screenshots of the thing in action. More »

Even a slight whiff of a woman’s tears can dampen a man’s libido.

An unruly Team Russia was booted from a flight at the Buffalo, N.Y., airport while trying to get home after winning gold at the world junior hockey championship.

Instead of dealing with the Google Bookmarks browser toolbar and lack of direct importing, a new open source tool allows Delicious users to transfer bookmarks and tags in a quick, one step process to their Google accounts. More »

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Skype said Thursday that it had acquired streaming video service Qik for an undisclosed amount, believed to be around $100 million USD. The VoIP provider says it plans to use Qik’s technology to enhance its own video calling functionality.

Qik was founded in 2006 and is compatible with about 200 phones across several platforms including the iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile platforms. The company has also struck several partnerships to have its applications come preloaded on select devices.

The concept is simple: the user shoots video with his or her camera phone, which is then uploaded to Qik’s servers and delivered in near real time via the company’s website. The user also has the option to share the video via social networking.

“Qik’s deep engineering capabilities and strong mobile relationships will be an impressive complementary fit with Skype,” Skype CEO Tony Bates said in a statement. The company did not disclose whether it planned to continue offering Qik’s standalone application or fold its capabilities into Skype.

Bolstering Skype’s video sharing capabilities seems like a solid move considering the increasing popularity of such applications including Apple’s FaceTime and other video sharing apps like Knocking and UStream.

In related news, Skype also announced its own video capabilities had been improved. The application will now support videoconferencing for up to 10 parties for $8.99 per month, as well as announcing new partnerships with Sony and Vizio to build Skype into televisions and other consumer electronics.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Happy New Year! We’re starting this year by making it easier to view memories from 2010 that you’ve uploaded to your document list directly in your browser. Just click on a video in a supported format and press play.

Please note that some videos uploaded earlier last year might not have been processed yet and will be available soon. Also, newly uploaded videos may take some time to process before they are available for viewing.

So what are you waiting for? Press play!

Posted by: Patrick Lacz, Software Engineer

““Love is a shining thing, like a golden fire or a silver mist. It comes very quietly; you…

Windows only: Your scanner probably came with OCR software. Chances are, though, it’s both awkward and space-hogging. FreeOCR is an slim, efficient app that has just four main buttons, and performs well at converting scanned images and PDFs into edit-ready text. More »

Oh, never mind then. Google’s ever-informative and ever-knowledgeable Dan Morrill has disabused the world from the bogus belief that Android’s “made for tablets” iteration, aka Honeycomb, will require a dual-core processor as a minimum to run. Dan says there are no specific CPU requirements for aspiring Android 3.0 tablets to meet and we should all sit back, relax, and enjoy our breakfast. That’s reassuring to note, but let’s not read more into it than what’s said — while Honeycomb might not technically require a dual-core beastie to power it, there’s a reason why the Motorola Xoom (which is soon to become the first device to offer Honeycomb onboard) is launching with a Tegra 2 chip inside.

[Thanks, Dean]

Honeycomb will not require dual-core CPU as minimum hardware spec originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been years since Microsoft first wowed us with Surface, years that we’ve been looking at cool applications for the smart tables, but still Microsoft thinks you aren’t ready. Or aren’t rich enough, anyway. Samsung has unveiled the “SUR40 with Microsoft Surface,” a third-party implementation and what’s being called the “2.0 Experience.” On the outside things look a bit different, with a variety of pedestals that the thing can be mounted to, including one with two wood panels that flow up to cradle the display. But, if you like, the 40-inch, 1080p screen and the 2.9GHz AMD Athlon II X2 processor and Radeon HD 6700M behind it is now wall-mountable, meaning it really isn’t technically a smart table at all. Up top the interface looks more polished and refined, and naturally Windows Phone 7 support has been added, as you can see in the video below. It all looks rather good, we think, but it’s all rather focused on businesses as ever.

Continue reading Microsoft and Samsung unveil SUR40, the ‘Surface 2.0 Experience’ you still can’t buy (video)

Microsoft and Samsung unveil SUR40, the ‘Surface 2.0 Experience’ you still can’t buy (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Any post about Google Voice brings a small collection of sighs and aggravation from our non-U.S. readers: “What about us?” Here’s how you can obtain a U.S. Google Voice number and use it overseas. More »

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