IBLOG SPACE

A dad and his son have decided to take up high altitude ballooning with a helium filled balloon and an attempt to carry a GoPro camera and a smartphone to 107,000 feet in the air and snap some photos. The duo sent their balloon into the air with the plan of having a two-hour flight that would take photos of the sun coming up in California. The balloon was made from parts that were purchased on the web. The payload the balloon carried was an old camera digital camera that snapped pics every 15 seconds, an iPhone with a GPS tracking app, a SPOT GPS device, and GoPro HD camera. The payload also had a warmer to keep the gear inside from freezing up. The total payload was about three pounds. The team ran into a few issues on this flight attempt. They under filled the balloon with helium thanks to a bad digital scale. The balloon being under filled made for a slow climb and changed flight path. The balloon flew out over the pacific ocean, but eventually made its way back to land and cam

One of the most iconic and frequently restored of all mustangs is the first generation cars from 64.5 to 1966. The problem with restoring one of these old cars is that many of them have long since succumbed to rust and damage from the decades on the road. That leaves a bunch of folks that would like to have a fully restored Mustang sitting in the garage out of luck. A company called Dynacorn International is now making a fully licensed Ford Mustang convertible body shell. The body is a 100% reproduction of the original 1964.5, 1965, and 1966 convertible body and comes complete and ready for you to paint and install the interior and drive train into along with other parts. The idea is that the restorer can use this body and swap over parts to build a complete car rather than trying to weld and fix body damage or rust. The new body can be used along with other Ford approved Mustang restoration parts to build a completely new Mustang if that is what the builder wants to do. The new b

Apple’s Siri personal assistant service for the iPhone 4S is back online, with users having experienced network outages of the voice-controlled system yesterday reporting that it is now functional again. Yesterday, users across the US found that Siri was unable to answer their requests, citing a network connection problem, although their iPhone 4S did indeed have a data connection. While Siri’s interface is on the iPhone 4S, and the service can interact with some of the apps, data and multimedia stored on the smartphone, the heavy work processing spoken commands and figuring out what to do with them actually takes place in Apple’s remote servers. Because of that, Siri demands a network connection to those servers, even if the commands relate to solely local content. Apple is yet to comment on the outage, though customers services representatives at the company were supposedly confirming issues with overloaded servers. Apple was keen to stress that Siri is being seen as a “beta” re

The next Kindle Fire ereader tablet in Amazon’s line-up is likely to use an 8.9-inch touchscreen display rather than a 10.1-inch panel as originally expected, sources in the supply chain have revealed. While we’ve heard talk of a pair of tablets – one small, the 7-inch Kindle Fire shipping in little over a week’s time, and one large, potentially arriving toward the end of the year – since the beginning of the Amazon rumors, DigiTimes‘s sources say the retailer has switched to a smaller screen and pushed a 10.1-inch version further back down the roadmap. In fact, Amazon could have quite the spread of tablet sizes, potentially rivaling Samsung in the breadth of its range if the tipsters are correct. The company is believed to be considering 9.7- and 10.1-inch models, though it seems unlikely that it would opt for both those sizes since the resulting slates would be so close in size. LG Display and CPT, both suppliers of the 7-inch LCD in the Kindle Fire, will apparently also be supp

This week a study has been done by a wireless service firm by the name of WDS and published by Reuters to offer up the idea that Android repair costs far outweigh their mass appeal due to their wide variety of shapes and sizes. On the other end of the conversation, they put the iPhone on a pedestal, saying that because there are only a few different types of iPhone on the market today, repair costs are low, this giving them a distinct advantage on the carriers they’re with. Let’s have a peek at what they’re saying and yes indeed, tear them apart if they’re wrong. The story goes like this: WDS data is showing that “costly hardware failures” are more common on Android devices than on their Apple and RIM opponents. WDS also says that BlackBerry and iPhone devices have “strict control over the components used in their devices,” this therefor meaning, I suppose, that Android devices are, on the whole, poorly made. Rueter’s goes on to say, at this point in their article, that “cheaper And

This week the the DigiTech iPB-10 has been revealed, a digital pedalboard which will allow your iPad to play host to several music pedals at once. Inside with your iPad running the official app for this device as its plugged into the device itself, you’ll have access to 87 different pedals, 54 amplifiers, and 26 cabinets, all at a flick of your finger. What more could you want? And don’t say a DJ station, because that’s separate, and we’ve done that before as well — read on for guitar iPad action! What we’ve got here is your ability to drag and drop up to 10 different pedals to each pedalboard available on your screen. Your iPad is connected to the iPB-10 station you see above and with each pedalboard you’ve got the option to add an amp or cabinet. You can save up to 100 pedalboard setups with a tap of the finger, and recall them “with a stop of a foot.” How convenient! Have a peek at the virtual tour of this device here: Then note the cost of this device: $499.95. That’s nearly as m

The Lenovo C325 and C225 all-in-one PCs are now ready to ship. The C325, announced last month, features a sleek 20-inch HD+ 1600 x 900 display, while the C225 packs a smaller 18.5-inch display. Both systems sport AMD’s Fusion dual-core chip in various spec configurations as well as the option of having multi-touch touchscreen display. The C325 is powered by an AMD Fusion E450 1.65GHz processor with 8GB of RAM, 1TB of HDD, and includes a DVD drive. It has an embedded 0.3-megapixel webcam, 6-in-1 card reader, HDMI output, USB keyboard and mouse, and a special speaker feature that lets you play music from your MP3 player without having to boot up the computer. The multitouch touchscreen as well as optional USB 3.0 support will be available later on. The system is priced at $699. The smaller C225 features the same AMD Fusion E450 1.65GHz processor, but comes in two standard configurations of one sporting 4GB of RAM and 500GB HDD while the other sports 6GB of RAM and 1TB HDD. The two c

Now that we’ve reviewed the gigantic Galaxy Player 5.0 for what it is on its own, it’s time to compare to the rest of the market a bit more in-depth, starting with what at first glance might appear to be the Player’s closest cousin: the Galaxy S II. Before we continue, know this: it’s almost as if these two devices aren’t from the same family, that’s how different they are. Though the Galaxy Player 5.0 is only being released now near the holiday season, the Galaxy S II (in all its forms here in the United States) takes no prisoners when it comes to power and abilities. The Galaxy S II comes in several different shapes and sizes here in the United States, two of the more powerful ones being the two we’ve got right here, the Galaxy S II from AT&T and the Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch. The first of two has a 4.32-inch display at 480 x 800 resolution and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor made by Samsung. The Epic 4G Touch has the same specifications on a 4.5-inch display. This means that the

The world’s second largest PC chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced today that it will be cutting 10 percent of its workforce by the end of Q1 2012. That amounts to about 1,200 to 1,400 workers to be let go from its global workforce. The weak computer market has forced AMD to refine its cost structure and to consider investing in lower power, emerging markets and the cloud. AMD has been struggling with setbacks this year, including the delay of important new chips due to manufacturing problems. Furthermore, worldwide PC sales have been stagnant while smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices experienced strong growth. In order to stay competitive, AMD may have to enter these emerging markets. The 10 percent cut in AMD’s global workforce along with other cuts in operational costs will save the company a total of $200 million in 2012. That savings will then be reinvested into new technologies such as lower-powered chips for mobile devices or cloud computing.

This week a device by the name of HTC Rezound was released, one that’ll be carried by Verizon on their 4G LTE network and will play host to the very first appearance of HTC’s Beats collaborative fruits here in the USA. While several other devices have been announced for the UK already, this 720p (another first for the company) dual-core 1.5GHz processor 4.3-inch display having smartphone will be on its own here in the United States, at least at first. Here in this post there’s a collection of hands-on accounts from across the web on the device that HTC has already called “Ice Cream Sandwich ready.” Brian Heater of Engadget spoke on how the Beats were flowing through the device, noting that the actual earbuds that will come with the device didn’t seem to be on hand to test out, but that the much more expensive over-the-ear headphones sounded heavy: Unfortunately, the company wasn’t showing off those custom Beats earbuds for our demo, and we had to settle for an over-ear pair — naturally

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus crept onto Amazon last month for pre-orders followed by an official announcement for US availability. The revamped 7-inch Samsung tablet was scheduled to ship starting November 13, but it looks like Amazon’s shipping early with the 16GB model listed as in-stock and ready to ship today. This new Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus replaces the original Galaxy Tab 7-inch tablet and boasts more beefy specs. The tablet now runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb underneath Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI and is powered by a faster 1.2GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. It features a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen display, a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera. The tablet comes in both 16GB and 32GB models, priced at $399 and $499, respectively. However, it appears that only the 16GB model is available on Amazon for shipping out today. Overnight delivery is even available so that you could get your hands on your own Tab 7.0 Plus by t

This week the folks at Barnes & Noble have had leaked the newest addition to their NOOK family, a device by the name of NOOK Tablet, one that looks rather similar to the NOOK Color of the past but with a dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor instead. Inside you’ll also find 16GB of internal storage as well as a microSD card slot which can take 32GB, battery life of something around 4 hours of video playback (with wi-fi on) or 8 hours off. This device will connect over Wi-fi only and has the same 7-inch VividView IPS display as the NOOK Color. The tablet has been thinned out by .02 inches, made lighter by .9 ounces, and increased in built-in storage by 8 GB. Other than that, This device seems to be rather similar to the original NOOK Color indeed. Have a look at our massive week-long look at the NOOK Color from back when it was called NOOKcolor right here: Week With NOOKcolor. Other than that, there’s a bump in NOOK Color software in that it now features Hulu Plus, you’ve

Research firm IDC has issued new data today further confirming recent reports that Samsung has overtaken Apple in worldwide smartphone shipments. Samsung is said to have shipped 23.6 million smartphones during the summer, which puts it in the lead with a 20 percent share of the global smartphone market. The wait and anticipation for the iPhone 4S drove Apple’s iPhone shipments down to second place. Samsung’s smartphone shipments tripled from the same period last year. Its now 20 percent share in the smartphone market is up from 8.8 percent the year before. Apple’s smartphone shipments for last quarter was about 17.1 million units, pushing it down to 15 percent market share from 17 percent. Nokia’s slice of the market continues to shrink as it lost more than half of its market share, which is now down to 14 percent. RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones also slid, falling to 10 percent market share from 15 percent. Meanwhile, HTC saw a boost in market share from 7.1 percent to 11 percent, n

The makers of the BlackBerry, Research In Motion (RIM), had a very tough year. It’s been steadily losing business and customer loyalty, struggling through technology problems and eroding investor faith. And now the company is facing a 68 percent drop in stock value this year, with its book value now worth less than the net value of its property, such as patents and other assets. For the first time in nine years, RIM is trading below its book value, indicating a serious loss of confidence in the company and its leadership. The company had a troubled year, delivering a rushed and ill-received BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, was late on the promised updates, unveiled underwhelming new BlackBerry smartphones, and announced a series of layoffs. Top that off with the four-day worldwide outage last month that seemed to coincide perfectly with the release of the iPhone 4S, driving away more customers to Apple. And, it’s still facing legal action from customers for compensation relating to the

This week at an event in NYC that made clear the release of the HTC Rezound, it was revealed that the device would be getting an update to Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012. This was easily one of the most talked about points in the forums, Facebook pages, and live blogs throughout the internet leading up to the event, and it was Jason MacKenzie, president of global market for HTC that let known the plan. Of course there’s no exact date for the addition of Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, for this 720p dual-core LTE device as of yet, but we can dream! The crowds of highly excited fans of HTC devices had their appetite filled at the event that revealed the device to indeed be the 1.5 GHz dual-core chip toting HTC smartphone they’d been waiting for, and more than that, a hyped-up introduction by no less than the CEO of Beats, mister Jimmy Iovine. What else we got to hear included information on the official Beats earbuds complete with red wire and on-wire controls as well as bits ab

This week at an event in NYC that made clear the release of the HTC Rezound, it was revealed that the device would be getting an update to Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012. This was easily one of the most talked about points in the forums, Facebook pages, and live blogs throughout the internet leading up to the event, and it was Jason MacKenzie, president of global market for HTC that let known the plan. Of course there’s no exact date for the addition of Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, for this 720p dual-core LTE device as of yet, but we can dream! The crowds of highly excited fans of HTC devices had their appetite filled at the event that revealed the device to indeed be the 1.5 GHz dual-core chip toting HTC smartphone they’d been waiting for, and more than that, a hyped-up introduction by no less than the CEO of Beats, mister Jimmy Iovine. What else we got to hear included information on the official Beats earbuds complete with red wire and on-wire controls as well as bits ab

This week at the HTC / Beats event in New York City which played host to the reveal of HTC next big device the HTC Rezound, Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Beats by Dre, was invited on stage to regale about the device and its history. What you’ll find is that not only does he have complete faith in the record industry, he sees HTC as the next stepping stone that’ll keep the record industry out of the water that’ll otherwise drown it. Will the man who spearheaded the connection between HP and Beats be able to knock out another winner with the first HTC / Beats collaborative device in the HTC Rezound? We shall see! At the event, Jimmy noted that while he was concerned with services like Napster when he was was a record producer, and that he now saw that “we have to figure out a way that tech companies need us, the music industry, or we will get destroyed.” Having spoken to Intel, complaining about Napster, he received a hearty: “Not every industry was made to last forever.” Of course then iTunes

This week HTC has revealed its next step in the 4G LTE game with the HTC Rezound, a device that not only has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, it’s enabled with Beats for high quality audio as well. This device is the first HTC device with a 720p display, its 4.3-inch display showing off a monstrous 1280 x 720 pixels for HD action across its entire Gingerbread Android environment. This device was previously code-named HTC Vigor and will be the first device to usher in the Beats / HTC collaboration here in the United States. Inside the device you’ll find Beats software that’ll work with your brand new Beats earbuds that come with the device. There’s a big fat “B” on the back of the device that lets you know you’re working with nothing less than the official Beats software and hardware, and there are some lovely red capacitive buttons on the front of the device to drive the point home. There’s also a red speaker grille, a red camera ring, and two cameras: one 2 megapixel camera on the fro

Apple’s much touted voice-controlled intelligent assistant feature called Siri is apparently experiencing a major outage, affecting users across the country. The feature was introduced with the recent launch of iOS 5 and is currently exclusive to the iPhone 4S. But today, several iPhone 4S users tweeted basically the same question: Is Siri down? iSmashPhone first noted the series of tweets with most folks getting the message that Siri cannot connect to the network. The problem seems to have affected some users for a good part of the day and continues to be spotty. Apple hasn’t confirmed any issues with the service and it’s not clear if only iPhone 4S users in certain regions are experiencing the problem. Since Siri requires communication with Apple servers to complete all its tasks, even simple voice transcription tasks are failing to work for some users. This also doesn’t seem to be the first time the service has been down, as one user tweeted “Siri is down again,” but it may be

It was all the way back at the start of this September that we got our first look at Toshiba’s entry into the Ultrabook world with the X830 series, and today is the first that pricing has been revealed in the UK. Pricing over the ocean from where I’m sitting is a bit indicator on what the device will cost here in the USA as well, so let’s have a look: anywhere from £899.99 for the most basic to £1099.99 for the most powerful of models. In addition, there doesn’t appear to be any option to add the i7 processor we heard about earlier this year. Each of the models up with pricing on the UK Toshiba site right this moment are as follows: for the 1.4GHZ Intel i3-2367M processor toting model, you’ll be paying £899.99, and that also gets you 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD as well as Windows 7 Home Premium. For the next step up, you’ll be paying £969.99 and getting Windows 7 Professional in addition to the same specs as the bottom step. For the top of the pack (for now,) you’ll be paying £1099.9

It’s time to get gaming, ladies and gentlemen, with a barrage of shooters released all in the span of a few weeks leading up the holiday season – the newest announcement being Ubisoft’s next hero: Rainbow 6 Patriots. The next chapter in the wildly successful tactical gaming series based on the classic Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. This time around it’ll be the same Team Rainbow tactical squad this time put up against a group of United States terrorists called the True Patriots. Of course our minds immediately turn toward the classic Scorsese film Gangs of New York with the Natives lead by Bill the Butcher, but chances are that this Rainbow game wont be a time traveling adventure, sadly enough. Instead Ubisoft promises another cooperative or single-player shooter taking place in the present day, and given that the last installment in this franchise was 2008 with Rainbow Six Vegas 2, we’ve got to expect the ante is up. Ubisoft noted that inside this new environment “players will face cr

Just this morning we got our first official glimpse of two new Motorola tablets, the XOOM 2 and the XOOM 2 Media Edition, and just now we’ve got the first prices as set by Clove. For those of you that’ve never been there, Clove is a retailer that tends to the UK, and prices for these new editions have been set at £325 + VAT for the XOOM 2 and £299 + VAT for the XOOM 2 Media Edition. For comparison, the XOOM original with Wi-fi only currently costs £274.99 at the same store and cost £449.99 at launch. With only incremental updates to the specifications of these tablets over the original XOOM, is this Motorola’s idea of a joke? On the other hand, we’ve seen some very similar situations going on with other products of late with a “2″ tacked on to them, for example the Atrix 2 has essentially the same changes made to it from 1 to 2. In particular, take note that the processor in both cases has switched from an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core chip to a OMAP4 Texas Instrument dual-core chip. In

HTC is set to launch its first Beats Audio enabled device for the US market in just a few hours time, but press shots of the phone, the HTC Rezound, have already leaked. The Rezound is expected to pair its upgraded audio with a sizable 720p HD display – a first for HTC – along with LTE, something the leaked renders from Pocketnow partially confirm. There’s also tipped to be a 1.5GHz dual-core processor running Android, while dual cameras of unknown resolution are also onboard. Going by European Beats Audio devices, like the HTC Sensation XE and Sensation XL, we’re expecting a decent set of Beats-branded headphones in the box; we could even see some custom headphones, as certain Sensation XL markets will get, making it into the mix. Meanwhile, according to a leaked Verizon product list, there won’t be long to wait before the HTC Rezound hits shelves. The smartphone is tipped to go on sale November 10, priced at $299.99 with a new, two-year agreement. We’ll know for sure in just a f

Apple execs reportedly have no fear of the Amazon Kindle Fire, according to analysts meeting with CEO Tim Cook and others at the firm, because the 7-inch slate will only highlight Android’s growing fragmentation problem. Cook and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer supposedly told Barclays analyst Ben Reizes that the stability of the iOS could prove to be the iPad’s greatest allure, Business Insider reports, and that “the more fragmentation, the better.” The Kindle Fire – announced in late September and shipping on November 15 – runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a version of the OS that Google intends for smartphones rather than tablets. However, Amazon’s software team has significantly redesigned the interface, replacing it with the retailer’s own UI. The upshot is heavy integration with Amazon’s own Kindle ebook, Prime video streaming and Music Store downloads; the downside is no official Android Market access, instead relying on Amazon’s own Appstore for Android. “While the pricing at $199

The BlackBerry Curve 9380 has shown up in the wild again, this time promised on Canadian CDMA carrier TELUS with a release in time for the holidays. RIM teased the smartphone itself last month, revealing a 3.2-inch 480 x 360 display – on what TELUS describes as the “first all touch Curve” RIM has made in the brochure MobileSyrup spotted – while previous leaks have indicated the device will have an 800MHz processor. There’s also been talk of a 5-megapixel camera capable of 720p HD video recording. OS is BlackBerry 7, complete with the usual array of BBM support and push-email. The user-experience is likely to be much akin to the Torch 9850/9860 we reviewed earlier this year, though probably slower thanks to the reduced CPU speed, and more cramped due to the smaller, lower-resolution screen. As you can see just before the TELUS brochure cuts off, the target audience is young people and first-time smartphone owners, a group RIM is obviously hoping will be more price-conscious than th

There’s a whole lot riding on the Lumia 800. Nokia’s first Windows Phone and the handset that will usher in – so the company hopes – a new era of smartphone relevance and a turnaround in fortunes. Question is, will the Lumia 800 be Finnish enough for long-time followers as well as mainstream enough for a new audience of smartphone users. Symbian may not have been universally appealing, but at least it was unique; has Nokia sidelined its independence alongside its faithful old platform? Check out the full SlashGear review to find out.

Roku is adding a dedicated Pandora button to the remote controls for its streaming media set-top boxes, allowing for one-touch access to the internet radio service. The Roku 2 XD and Roku LT models will both get the new remote sometime this month, adding another option alongside the existing homescreen shortcut. According to Roku, Pandora remains the most popular music channel the STBs offer. It’s unclear whether existing owners will be able to buy the new remote control, or if they’ll have to satisfy themselves with the menu option. It will be bundled with Roku’s most recent – and cheapest – STB, the Roku LT, announced last month and offering streaming access to Netflix, Pandora and other services for just $49. We’re waiting on images of what the new Roku remote will look like, so for the moment we’ll just have to use our imaginations. Updates when the pictures arrive. Update: Image of the remote has arrived, and as you’d expect it has a big Pandora

Motorola has officially revealed its next two Android tablets, the XOOM 2 and XOOM 2 Media Edition, each running Android 3.2 Honeycomb. The Motorola XOOM 2 has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 10.1-inch display and 10+hrs of quoted battery life; the Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition, meanwhile, has an 8.2-inch display, the same processor, and 6hrs+ of battery life. Both have 5-megapixel main cameras and 1.3-megapixel front cameras. The XOOM 2 is splash-resistant, and Motorola is billing the squared-off edges as ergonomic improvements on how easy the tablet is to hold. It measures in at 253.9 mm x 173.6 mm x 8.8 mm and 599g, and has 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. As for the XOOM 2 Media Edition, that also has a splash-resilient coating and boasts 178-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles, along with the same RAM and storage. It’s 139 mm x 216 mm x 8.99 mm and 386g. There’ll be a Work and Play kit, with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse along with a desk dock, as well as a Motorola S

Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 beta – seeded to developers yesterday – not only promises to address the iOS 5 battery life issues many owners have experienced, but also fixes some of the more vocally complained about problems for the iPad and iPad 2. Original iPad owners discovered that the full release of iOS 5 removed the gesture support present in the beta version, something which has now been added back in with iOS 5.0.1, MacRumors reports. Meanwhile, 9 to 5 Mac reports, the much discussed security flaw on the iPad 2 affecting the official Smart Covers has been addressed. Users found that, with either a Smart Cover or indeed a simple magnet, along with some button presses in a specific combination, the iPad 2 lock could be bypassed and access granted to whatever app was active when the tablet was last secured. That loophole is no longer present, along with some bugfixes for Documents in the Cloud and improved dictation support for Australian users trying to get Siri to figure out what exac

Hack collective Anonymous has ramped up its anti-pedophile campaign, reportedly tricking those attempting to browse clandestine sites hosting child pornography into accessing a service that would identify their IP address and, subsequently, identify and location. According to a statement attributed to the loosely-banded group, a custom Firefox button was developed and links placed to it – along with a fake Tor update message – on the “Hard Candy” and “Lolita City” sites offering the illegal content. Those who clicked it “would then be forwarded to our special forensics server and log the incoming IP and destination.” The operation, which Anonymous named “Paw Printing” in a reference to the “pedo bear” character, collected data for 24hrs, grabbing 190 user entries in that period. The map above shows the rough location of each entry, though the hack group also released the full IP logs. Meanwhile, Anonymous also continues to target the hosts, and companies and individuals responsibl

Streaming media service Plex has launched a Google TV version, putting its IPTV content on the latest version of Google’s smart TV platform. All of the channels from the Android version of Plex are present, and the company says the “vast majority” of content will play, even with Google TV’s limited transcoding support. The one omission is the remote control functionality, which means you won’t be able to control your laptop’s playback from the Google TV interface. Considering that was really intended to turn an Android phone into a remote, that’s probably no great loss. The Queue system is still present, so users can send videos to their to-watch list and then catch up with them later. It’s also possible to stop watching a show on your phone and then pick up playback on your Google TV box, handy if you want to finish a film you started on the commute home. You’ll need a Google TV box running v2.0 of the software in order to access Plex, which is a free download from the Android Ma

If you have been excited about iTunes Match since the button for the Match service showed up in iOS 5 earlier this month it is one-step closer to ready apparently. iTunes match has now been updated alongside a new beta 2 version of iTunes 10.5.1. For now, the beta version of iTunes and the updated Match service is still for devs only and adds in support for the Apple TV. The latest beta update for iTunes 10.5.1 brings with it updates for stability and performance improvements according to the change log. Match was updated alongside the new beta for iTunes and to continue to use the iTunes Match service, the updated version of iTunes is required. One the updated to the beta version of iTunes for devs iTunes Match storage can be enabled on all Apple devices. iTunes Match is the service that allows the uploading of your entire iTunes Music catalog to iCloud. Once on iCloud the music can be accessed from any device including the Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone. For now, there is no new inf

Those who thought ebooks would kill libraries obviously didn’t plan ahead to when Amazon replaced their friendly local librarian with a digital repository of borrowable books; the online retailer has launched the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, giving Prime-subscribing Kindle users a chance to borrow certain titles rather than buy them. Over 5,000 titles are currently on offer under the scheme, though it seems Amazon is yet to entirely convince publishers that it’s a good idea. Titles that support borrowing under the scheme will have a new option in their listings – either on the Amazon site, its mobile apps, or on dedicated Kindle hardware – to “Borrow for Free”. Tapping that will download the ebook, with no limit on how long you can keep hold of it. However, readers can only have a single borrowed book on the go at any one time. Highlights, annotations and bookmarking is all supported, with that data left behind when you return the book; if you subsequently borrow it again – or

Title: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Release Date: November, 2011 Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Label: Capcom Genre: Fighting Age Rating: T

Title: The Lord of the Rings : War in the North Release Date: TBA 2011 Platforms: Xbox 360 Label: Warner Bros Interactive Genre: Role-playing Age Rating: RP (Rating Pending)

Set across three defining eras from 20 years of Sonic the Hedgehog video game history, the instantly recognizable environments of Sonic Generations have been re-built in stunning HD and are now playable in both classic side scrolling 2D from 1991, as well as modern 3D style found in Sonic's most recent adventures. Buy Sonic Generations for PC , Sonic Generations for XBOX , Sonic Generations for PS3 , Sonic Generations for Nintendo 3DS from Amazon

Title: Planetside 2 Release Date: TBA 2012 Platforms: PC Label: Sony Online Entertainment Genre: MMOFPS Age Rating: RP (Rating Pending)

Dragon's Dogma is an exciting new franchise which redefines the action genre from the team that produced some of Capcom's greatest action games. Set in a huge open world, Dragon's Dogma offers an exhilarating and fulfilling action combat game with the freedom to explore and interact in a rich, living and breathing world. Alongside your party of three, you set out to track down and destroy a mysterious dragon. Your teammates fight independently of you, demonstrating prowess and ability they have developed based on traits learned over time from you and your actions. Dragon's Dogma offers a near endless opportunity to help develop partner characters to fight alongside you. With an epic story and incredible action, Dragon's Dogma is set to be one of Capcom's newest hit franchises. Buy Dragon's Dogma for PS3 , Dragon's Dogma for XBOX from Amazon

The Darkness II is the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2007 release The Darkness. Inspired by the popular comic book series produced by Top Cow Productions, Inc., The Darkness II is an intense first person shooter that delivers a twisted and gripping narrative of tragedy, modern crime drama, and supernatural horror. Players will be taken down the brutal and personal path of Jackie Estacado, head of a New York crime family and wielder of an ancient and ruthless force of chaos and destruction known as the Darkness. The Darkness II stands out visually with its distinctive graphic noir style, and it is the only first person shooter to feature Quad-Wielding : the ability to simultaneously utilize four different weapons. It's been two years since Jackie Estacado used the Darkness to kill the men responsible for his girlfriend's murder. He's been unable to shake the memory of Jenny's death since bottling up his supernatural power and now the Darkness wants out. A sudden, u

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