IBLOG SPACE

It seems that this Mobile World Congress is just getting better and better by the moment – this most recent announcement coming from Mozilla that they’ll be naming partners for their mobile OS “Boot2Gecko” at the event in a bit over a week in Barcelona! We had out own hands-on with the user interface of B2G or simply “Gecko” yesterday, it appearing to us to be much more of an interesting concept than a final product at the moment. What we’ve got here is a web-based mobile operating system looking to take a piece of the mobile market with a service that can potentially work from any web browser on any device. What Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brandan Eich said this week was that “B2G is partnering up” and to look for “more at MWC.” We expect to see at least some hardware partners, but perhaps a whole lot more on the software side of things. If you take a peek at what they’ve got set up thus far for preview, you’ll note that Facebook and Google Maps are already integrated, but it may

If you’re often tired of holding up your iPad whilst laying in bed or on the sofa, then you may benefit from a new adjustable mount called the spiderArm. The modular and highly adjustable spiderArm can securely support both the iPad and the latest iPad 2. The spiderArm system comes with two base units, essentially a SurfaceMount that is padded and can be secured to a table or desk or a VersaMount that allows it to be attached to walls, under cabinets, or near work stations. Then you can choose from three modular extension arms that offer 270-degree joints that lead to the secureSnap casing for the iPad itself that features a 360-degree adjustable connection. The arm extensions themselves aren’t clunky and are rather versatile in that they should blend nicely into your home or office. They are made of polycarbonate for strength and durability. The spiderArm comes in piano-key white or in a soft, anodized aluminum finish. It retails for $79.99 and is available at spiderArm.com or on Amaz

One of the most awesome displays of power at last year’s Mobile World Congress was Google’s own Android setup, it being a vast room of gigantic robots, two levels of giant images of devices and Android characters having a wonderful time, and a conveyer belt of every Android device on the planet. This year it appears that they’re rolling out the details piece by piece on a special MWC 2012 events page, complete with a countdown meter. Will we see the same massive set of preferred developers, free collectable pins, and Android version flavored smoothies? We certainly hope so! What we’re able to see so far reminds one very much of what was seen last year at the Google Pod, Android being represented by at least one gigantic Android figure around which developers will certainly be placed. There’s also the second level stand we saw last year and a set of Android-labeled boxes which could very well contain anything. The countdown meter reads 9 days and 10 hours from now, this leading up to th

This week a British student who’d been found guilty of hacking Facebook’s internal network with potentially “disastrous” results was jailed with a sentence of 8 months. This fellow’s name is Glenn Mangham, was until today a software development student, and admitted to a series of infiltrations of the Facebook network from his bedroom at his parent’s house in York, Northern England. His sentence is being filled due to the potential for serious damage to the network and amid prosecutors fears that the U.S. company was dealing with “major industrial espionage.” These same prosecutors, including London’s Chief Prosecutor Alison Saunders, noted that this hack is the most serious case of its kind they had ever seen. The court was told this week that Facebook had spent $200,000 dealing with the actions the student had taken, but no real damage appears to have been done. Of course prosecutors in the case beg to differ, to a degree: “This was the most extensive and flagrant incidence of social

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a mobile app called BrailleTouch that makes eyes-free texting possible for the visually impaired. The flat sleek screens of today’s smartphones don’t offer the tactile surfaces needed by traditional Braille systems, but the BrailleTouch app offers a solution. The BrailleTouch app features three buttons on each side of the screen with the device held facing away from you. No matter what orientation you hold the device, the BrailleTouch buttons will align accordingly. The six buttons represent the six-dot code used by Braille for the English alphabet. As you type, the app reads out each letter. According to early research, users have been able to type at speeds up to 32 words per minute and still maintain a 92 percent accuracy. The app also suggests the possibility of eyes-free typing even for those with sight, but the researchers do not recommend the technology as something to be implemented in a way that drivers may be able to text while keepi

The following may disturb some of you, but as a loyal Target shopper since before I was born (I’ll address this in a moment), I find it sort of awesome: Target has a unique Guest ID for me with a record of everything I’ve ever purchased. Of course this record is based on the times Target was sure I was the person purchasing items, via credit card for example, and if a coupon was sent to my home and someone used it, they assume it was me and this is recorded as well. With this method, Target has become a superpower in the retail world and keeps us all in the fold with a perfect suggestion: “just buy everything here, why not?” According to an interview with a statistician working with Target since 2002, Target not only has their specialists working on deciding when its the right time to send you coupons for cleaning supplies, they’re going for the holy grail: the birth of your children. The use of Guest IDs has been going on in Target for “decades” and whenever possible collects data on

If you’re one of the thousands of press and public heading to the Mobile World Congress 2012 event at the end of the month here in February, you may have heard of the planned Public Transport strikes that will be taking place. Today the folks at GSMA Mobile World Congress have released a statement assuring soon to be attending ladies and gentlemen that negotiations are currently taking place between government officials from the City of Barcelona, Catalonia Regional Government, Spanish Ministry of Industry, the Fira and the various police authorities as well as the GSMA senior executives themselves. These negotiations will, they hope, be resolved before the dates of the event: February 27th through the 1st of March. The GSMA have also stated that should the parties not reach an agreement in time, “comprehensive contingency plans” are ready to go for all participants of Mobile World Congress, allowing them all “unfettered” access to and from the Fira the entirety of all day of the event

It’s time to make the opening of ZIP files easy, finally, on the the iOS platform for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. This application takes files that have been compressed with the .ZIP file extension and opens them up for you – but more than that, it’s able to show you what’s inside without you having to run the files in other applications. In the example we’ve got here, a simple image is sent in a .ZIP file through email, opened in the basic Mail app, and the image is previewed inside WinZip. When you open WinZip for the first time, you get a set of instructions that you’ll see below this paragraph. Because WinZip is an application that’s supposed to work with you as an almost invisible tool, it’s not something that you have to open from its icon to work with. You can toss it in a folder and forget about it, in fact, as the way you’ll be working with it is through your basic pop-up menus anywhere you’ve got a ZIP file on your smart device. As you’ll be able to see right away when you

The update avalanche for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is in full effect around the world now, and HTC’s latest update brings us much closer to some tasty goodness on many US-carrier-specific handsets. Included in this latest update, HTC confirms that they’re planning on updating several Verizon-carried devices including the HTC Rezound which had already been on the docket from a previous list released by the company. This is great news for HTC customers who were until now unsure if their devices would indeed be updated to the newest version of the Google mobile operating system. HTC’s update to Ice Cream Sandwich will be unique to their own custom user interface, the setup of which has been leaked a couple times in the past few weeks. What we’re seeing thus far is pretty much the same look on the surface with some much more vanilla-looking innards going on with menus and the like. The devices that have been tipped today as being on the list for future update to Ice Cream Sandwich are

The next generation of Angry Birds is right around the corner – a phrase we could say basically any day of the month. But this time it’s true insofar as they’ve announced a brand new concept: Angry Birds Space. This will be an entirely separate game just like Angry Birds Seasons is separate from Angry Birds Rio, and not one whole heck of a lot of information has been revealed thus far. There’s a very short teaser out already, and the logo has dropped, but other than that, we’re expecting lots of gravity modifications. Samsung fans will also note that the 22nd of March is also the day that the Samsung Galaxy S III has been tipped (though denied in kind) to come out – so a possible cross-release may well be in order . Can you imagine Angry Birds in outer space on a Galaxy from Samsung? It’s certainly not the first time they’ve worked together on a release. Have a peek at the teaser video they’ve released already, straight from Rovio: You can also head to space.angrybirds.com to see the

Microsoft has revealed a new Windows logo, coming into play with Windows 8 and intended to better mesh with the Metro UI used in the new OS and indeed Windows Phone. Gone is the wavy, four-color flag, replaced by a single color skewed four-pane block; Microsoft says the original, simple logo of Windows 1.0 had been corrupted by the temptations of color, animation and 3D capabilities, and this new version will take things back to their roots. “Microsoft and Windows are all about putting technology in people’s hands to empower them to find their own perspectives. And that is what the new logo was meant to be” the company says about the simple squares, which are the handiwork of Paula Scher from the Pentagram design agency. Don’t think it came easy, either: it involved a sit-down meeting for a full day with several people from the design team, designers and marketers from Microsoft and the Windows team, and others from around the company. The new version is flat and clean, and Microsoft s

Philips only revealed its HMP2000 smart TV adapter this morning, and one of the compact Apple TV/Roku rivals is already sat under our TV. The palm-sized box really is as straightforward as Philips promised, predominantly because you don’t have much in the way of choice: there are just three connections, for power, HDMI and an optional USB drive. More first impressions after the cut. Style-wise, the HMP2000 is a simple black wedge with a high-gloss top – that instantly collected our fingerprints – and matte sides. A red/green status LED is hidden behind the front edge. Philips includes a small credit-card style remote with a dedicated Netflix shortcut key among others, along with a wall-wart power adapter, but there’s no HDMI cable. That’s a bit frustrating, given HDMI is the only way you can hook the HMP2000 up, so Philips can’t play the “we didn’t know which you’d want to use” card. Power on, and you can start playing local media from the USB port instantly, even without setting up a

The folks at Apple have announced the soon to be hit 25 billion downloads mark from the iTunes App Store – that is, all apps downloaded for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. These apps number in the millions, and now the downloads of these apps have nearly reached the 25th billion – that’s no tiny mile mark. When the 25 billionth download is hit, the person to grab that final download is said to be eligible to win a $10,000 App Store Gift Card – you could download the whole darn place with that kind of cash! You’re also able to enter this contest without purchase or download of course, per US regulations that you’re not going to be entering a contest by paying cash to buy something else, but why not just pick up a freebie? You’ll be in the best shape to grab that 25 billionth app if you hit it some time over the weekend, as the counter currently reads 25,296,xxx,xxx. But it’s going fast! Head to the Apple 25 Billion App Countdown page to get more details on entering the contest without

Over the past few weeks Google has found itself in some hot water over its Privacy Policy changes on its wide range of websites, today being called by Consumer Watchdog to testify on the matter. Consumer Watchdog has called Google CEO Larry Page to the House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Committee as they hold hearings on the new Google privacy and data policies. Both subcommittee Chair Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Ranking Member G.K Butterfield, (D-NC) have been called in a letter sent today. The privacy issues being spoken about here came into effect on March 1st and concerned Gmail, YouTube, Search services and more. The changes have been called “a simpler, more intuitive Google experience” and essentially stack all of the privacy policies from each of their many services into one big document. John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director noted the following on the subject: “Various Google executives dispatched to Congress in the past have voiced high-

For those of you waiting to play the ultra-popular game Temple Run on your Android device, beware: it’s not out yet, and if you’ve downloaded what you think is an official game, you’ve been scammed. There have been several Temple Run impersonators sitting on the market over the past couple of weeks, and there are some pretty awesome temple run genre games out there such as iRunner, but the real deal Temple Run is now yet on the market. Those of you working with iOS on your iPhone or iPad – there’s a different story entirely. This game Temple Run has been a smash hit for some weeks now, especially so since the developers changed it from a pay to download game to an entirely free release. This game has been downloaded for the iPhone an undeniably awesome 36 million times and it does not look to be losing steam any time soon. For Android we do have word from the developer that the game is coming soon, possibly by the end of the month, but nothing entirely solid. The developers at Imangi h

City cyclist rejoice, there’s a brand new lamp in town – one made with six high-powered LED bulbs, an aluminum body, and a construction that’ll make it impossible to be stolen by thieves. The idea for this light came from its developer’s colleague getting hit by a car at night after his lamp had been stolen. The developers of The Defender are former MIT students Slava Menn and Brad Geswein saw the problem and surveyed over 100 bikers around NYC, over a third of them confirming that yes, they’d had a bike light stolen at some point or another. From there, these two fellows created a business called Gotham Bicycle Defense. The first product of Gotham Bicycle Defense has been crowd-funded by KickStarter and has garnered $24,915 of their $18,000 goal – with 57 days left to go! That’s 359 backers for a project that will soon be shipping this lamp with its hardcore features galore. What you’re getting here isn’t just a secure bike light, it’s a wholly unique piece of hardware that only YOU w

Apple’s AirPlay system promises easier music streaming from your iPhone or iPad, and for a moment it seemed Systemline’s Airway in-ceiling AirPlay-enabled speakers might be the best way of using it. Simple enough for DIY installation, the stereo speakers offer minimal visual clutter with Sonos-style remote control from your iOS gadget; unfortunately, it seems Systemline didn’t go the whole hog and make the Airway speakers entirely self-contained. The most elegant – and simple to install – way, of course, would be to integrate an AirPlay receiver chip into one of the speakers, thus requiring only a power supply and a connection between the left and right units. That’s not how Systemline’s setup operates, however. Instead, the speakers are routed via a CAT5 connection down to a wall-plate, into which both a power supply and an Apple Airport Express are plugged. It’s the Airport Express that handles the AirPlay magic, simply feeding into the wall-plate via an optical digital cable. System

Siri‘s incoming Japanese skills have apparently been confirmed, with a leaked copy of the iOS 5.1 Gold Master showing the new language addition in the settings menu, as well as a tweaked iPhone lockscreen. Hints of Siri’s new linguistic abilities had been shown earlier in the week, when the virtual personal assistant itself began confirming Japanese was supported, and BGR‘s access to a leak of the GM 5.1 release confirms it. Meanwhile, there’s also another new feature that everyone can enjoy, in the shape of a camera shortcut on the iOS lock-screen. As well as the usual slide-to-unlock bar – the patent behind which is causing Motorola headaches in court - there’s also a button to take you straight to the camera app. Interestingly, it seems there’s no need to actually hit the button itself. Instead, the lock bar now gets a second dimension of movement, and sliding it all the way up or down unlocks the iPhone and takes you direct to the camera. Given Apple did plenty of work speeding up

Samsung has revealed a new line-up of memory cards, seven microSD or SD chips slotting into the company’s High Speed Series and Plus Extreme Speed Series, and promising up to 24MB/sec read rates. The brushed-metal cards are available in capacities from 2GB to 32GB in the High Speed Series, topping out at Class 10, and from 2GB to 8GB in the Plus Extreme Speed Series, all of which are Class 10. Five High Speed options are available, in both SD and microSD sizes, with up to 13MB/sec write rates depending on model. They’re priced from $9.99 to $99.99. Meanwhile, two Plus Extreme Speed Series options accompany them, with 8GB and 16GB SD or microSD options, priced at $29.99 and $54.99 respectively. They support up to 21MB/sec write and 24MB/sec read. All of the cards are ruggedized, capable of withstanding shocks, water and magnets. They’ll still work after up to 24hrs submerged in water, a 1.6 ton weight being placed upon them, and 10,000 gaus magnetic fields: basically, you’re safe as lon

Apple began its Mountain Lion Gatekeeper charm-offensive with developers last week, it’s been revealed, though there remain concerns around whether non-Mac App Store apps will get the same advantages as those released through the official download store. Developers Panic have documented Apple’s outreach efforts, co-founder Cabel Sasser having been invited to a preview session with Mountain Lion earlier in February, where the Cupertino company was keen to reassure him that it has no plans to make the Mac App Store the only way to get apps in OS X. “Cabel [Sasser] was told point-blank that Apple has great respect for the third-party app community, and wants to see it continue to grow” Panic engineer Steven writes, “they do not want to poison the well.” That’s despite the engineer’s concerns that – as we suggested yesterday - Apple could one day look to lock down developers to solely use its own app store. Unfortunately, that “great respect” doesn’t necessarily extend to allowing third-pa

iPad users in the UK now have access to the free CloudOn (iTunes) application via the AppStore in the UK. The free productivity app is cloud based, allows full Microsoft Office capability, and has Dropbox integration. This allows the mobile professional access to a workspace that allows them to create, edit, and save any Office documents on the go. Early this year the app launched in the United States where it became the number one productivity app for iPad. The productivity tool offers access to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and document saving is done directly to a users Dropbox account that is linked with app. The Microsoft office software runs on CloudOn servers and is shown in a view that is easy use on the iPad screen. CloudOn claims that users can do anything using its mobile app they could do with Microsoft office on a full PC. Users will be able to create new charts on Excel, create new PowerPoint presentations, and create new Word documents. Spell checking is supported, and for

Apple Messages, the iChat replacement that integrates cross-platform text, video and photo messaging between Mac and iOS, will only be available for OS X Lion users until Mountain Lion is released this summer it’s suggested. Having previewed Mountain Lion, Apple released the Messages beta yesterday for those with Macs running Lion to try the software out. However, according to Consomac‘s digging, the beta will only be valid until Mountain Lion’s release, at which point users will apparently have to upgrade if they want to continue chatting. The revelation comes from text strings unearthed within the Messages beta’s own resources, in the form of a warning message presumably intended to be shown toward the end of the test program. “Thank you for participating in the Messages Beta program. With the inclusion of Messages in OS X Mountain Lion, the Messages Beta program has ended” the notification says, “To continue using Messages, please visit the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Mountain L

Astronauts in orbit on the ISS take some of the coolest pics of earth that I have ever seen. The latest picture to be shared from the International Space Station is this one of the famed Northern Lights, otherwise known as aurora borealis. This particular photo is showing a north to northeastward view, and it was shot as the space station flew over the Midwest on January 25. Thick clouds that can’t be seen in these photos are making the identification of the bright cities you see difficult. The aurora borealis has been particularly bright and widespread over the last few months and is an aftereffect of a massive solar eruption that spewed radiation towards Earth where it bounced off our atmosphere. This photo was taken roughly above south-central Nebraska. NASA astronauts aboard ISS are going to be snapping all the photos and video they can of aurora borealis as they orbit the earth. The venture is part of an effort called AuroraMAX with the goal of sharing with people the beauty of th

Philips is taking on Apple TV, Roku and others with a smart TV set-top-box, the Philips HMP2000, adding YouTube, Netflix and BBC iPlayer streaming, among others, to any regular display. Connectivity includes integrated WiFi and HDMI for Full HD video output along with audio, and there’s a USB port for hooking up a memory stick and playing back local media. The remote, meanwhile, has a dedicated Netflix button as well as one for YouTube, and you can also stream content from across your home network that’s stored on a NAS. The HMP2000 will handle up to 1080p videos in MPEG1, MPEG2, H.264, MKV, VC-1 and WMV (V9) formats, together with BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF images, and PCM, MP3, Dolby Digital and WMA audio at bitrates up to 320 kbps. The box itself is 90 x 50 x 100 mm, and connections really are kept to a minimum: there’s no wired ethernet, and only the HDMI output, so those still rocking analog connections or looking for S/PDIF-style digital audio will need to look elsewhere. Prici

No matter what you think of iOS devices, this is a very impressive statistic. Apple sold more iOS devices last year alone that it has ever sold in the Mac line during the 28-year history of the product. The chart you see here illustrating this statistic comes from Asymco, with some of the data apparently coming from Apple’s Tim Cook. Apple sold 140 million Macs with some form of OS X so far since the Mac brand was launched. The number of iPads sold since the tablet launched is 55 million. The number of iPods listed as sold since they came on the market is 22 million. Since the iPhone launched Apple has sold 175 million of them with 37 million of that number coming the last quarter alone. All totaled, those numbers add up to 316 million iOS devices sold by the end of 2011 with 122 million collective Mac computers sold through 2011. Asymco claims that so far since the iOS platform launched 316 million total units were sold as of the end of last year. The company also claims that in 2011

Microsoft has wasted no time in sniping at Google over claims the search company deliberately circumvented Apple’s privacy systems in Safari so as to track users, pimping Internet Explorer in the process. “If you find this type of behavior alarming and want to protect your confidential information and privacy while you’re online” Ryan Gavin, IE business and marketing manager writes on the official Windows Team blog, “there are alternatives for you.” “The novelty here is that Google apparently circumvented the privacy protections built into Apple’s Safari browser in a deliberate, and ultimately, successful fashion” Gavin says, bringing up the last batch of Google privacy concerns. Back then, Microsoft launched another campaign intended to capitalize on users worried their personal data might not be safe. We’re expecting to see Google fire back with some claims of its own, just as it did before over Microsoft’s “Gmail Man” advert that suggested Google was reading all users’ email so as t

Apple may be coy on touchscreen MacBooks, but PC manufacturers are tipped to be gung-ho on touch-enabled Windows 8 ultrabooks, with a range of form-factors and designs expected later in 2012. Lenovo, Asus and Acer are all said to have finger-friendly models in the pipeline, DigiTimes reports, though limitations around hinge design have apparently forced some creative thinking in what each company’s version will look like. According to sources in the notebook supply chain, current ultrabook hinge designs aren’t up to users stabbing at the displays. Right now, the tendency would be for the lid to topple back, but if the hinges were tightened then the lightweight ultraportables might simply rock back altogether. The solution is more unusual form-factors, such as Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga, which we tried out at CES last month and which has a 360-degree hinge, though rotating/folding screens and even sliders like Intel’s concept model are expected. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga hands-on: Asus is believed

I have played both the first and second titles in the Mass Effect franchise and these are some my favorite games ever. Being a gaming geek, I even read the book that launched about the same time as the original game. Any fan of the franchise knows the third installment is coming on March 6. If you want to get your hands on the game a full week before it hits stores, you don’t need to be professional game reviewer; you just need to have some spare time. EA is using one of the coolest marketing gimmicks I have ever seen to promote Mass Effect 3. The company has taken copies of the game, attached them to weather balloons, and then sent the weather balloons way up into the Earth’s atmosphere. The balloons will be launched in New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, London, and Paris. If you’re in those cities and can find the balloons once they come back to earth, you get keep the copy of the game. How bad would it suck if you found the balloons only to discover it was the wrong format

When Clearwire started, it was operating WiMAX networks in limited areas around the country. The rollout of those WiMAX networks took longer than expected and Clearwire ended up without the giant lead in 4G expected over LTE. Clearwire decided to start rolling out LTE networks in addition to WiMAX. Clearwire will specifically roll out TD-LTE networks around the country. Right now, Clearwire is expecting to have 5000 TD-LTE sites up and running by June of 2013. The news comes directly from Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch during a conference call to announce the Q4 earnings for the company. The CEO also stated that not too long after those first 5000 TD-LTE sites go live, the coverage will be expanded 8000 sites.

Acer has begun pushing out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Iconia Tab A200 owners in the US today, the company has confirmed to us, with the OTA upgrade expected to be completed by the end of next week. Meanwhile, the 7-inch Acer Iconia Tab A100 and 10-inch Iconia Tab A500 are both on track to be updated to ICS in April. However, don’t expect pure, unadulterated Android 4.0 on your refreshed slate. Acer hasn’t been able to resist tweaking Ice Cream Sandwich, and so its A200 build – and, presumably, its A100/A500 versions – will include some custom features. The Acer Ring shortcut wheel makes a reappearance, offering easier access to apps, web favorites, screenshot captures and social networking uploads, and there’s a new and supposedly improved weather widget. App shortcuts have also been added to the lock screen. The Iconia Tab A200 is one of Acer’s more affordable tablets, landing in January from $330. At launch, it ran Android 3.2 Honeycomb on a 1GHz Tegra 2 chipset, paired with e

Increasing attention on Apple-suing Taiwanese display firm Proview today as the company readies a $2bn lawsuit in the US, with suggestions that Proview facilities are physically crumbling while details of Apple’s £35k iPad trademark buy emerge. Chinese site Caixin dispatched photographers to Proview’s flagship Shenzhen factory, only to find it desolate, barely-staffed and falling apart. Meanwhile, it’s been revealed that Apple paid £35,000 (over $55,000 at today’s rates) to buy the iPad trademark, with documents lending weight to suspicions that Proview is hoping to double-dip with the Cupertino company so as to rescue itself from financial ruin. AllThingsD has been digging through Apple’s evidence in the Proview case, including emails that seemingly confirm the Taiwanese firm was fully aware of its subsidiary’s intention to sell the trademark. The Chinese “iPAD” mark itself is included in a list of registered marks Apple was buying, filed back in 2001, along with notarized transfer do

Apple has recently been successful in winning a patent dispute over something as simple as the slide to unlockfeature that almost every touchscreen smartphone on the market uses. This will lead to changes on future devices, and could see Android smartphone makers being forced to pay Apple royalties for previous use. The new patent application has surfaced over at Patently Apple that shows Google’s new idea for an unlock screen. The patent shows an unlock screen that uses a circle with a dot in the middle. It appears that all you need to do is place a finger in the center dot inside the circle and then flick your finger in another direction to unlock your device and go directly to things like files, e-mail, and the phone function. I actually like that unlock screen better than slide to unlock. The patent filing also shows other types of unlock features with things like “press here are drag shortcut to unlock.” I hope the unlock screen with the circle makes it to Android. It would be nic

All you Android gaming geeks out there, we have some good news for you today. Final Fantasy 8′s Triple Triad has been ported to the Android operating system. Granted, this is no Temple Run for Android, but fans of the Final Fantasy series will probably be interested in this, nonetheless. Triple Triad is some sort of mini game from within Final Fantasy 8. I have never played the Final Fantasy franchise, so I am not familiar with this game. The port has a bunch of different characters, including enemies that come from the entire franchise. The port also allows you and an opponent to play against each other using Wi-Fi for multiplayer deck versus deck battles. During these multiplayer fights, you can lose and win cards from your respective decks. You can also play against computer-generated opponents. Gameplay has players placing the cards with different values on a 3X3 grid. The card with the higher value wins and whoever has flipped the most cards when the grid is full wins the game. If

The fury that Netflix generated when it axed the DVD only plan a while back was swift and harsh. There were many angry people that didn’t want streaming and only wanted mail order DVD rentals. Netflix has announcedofficially that the DVD only plan is back and users can sign up for it right now for $7.99 monthly. Eligible customers can get a free one-month trial of the service to see if they like it. Netflix has a library of 100,000 DVD titles and had previously wanted to shift the bulk of its users over to streaming. It’s easier and likely cheaper for Netflix to have everyone on streaming rather than some using mail-order DVDs with the costs of postage and processing. This is part of the results of canceling Qwikster plans by Netflix. Last year Netflix had the bright idea to split out DVD rentals under the Qwikster brand and leave Netflix with video streaming only as two separate services with two separate charges. This plan quickly cost Netflix about 800,000 users as customers around

OS X Mountain Lion‘s reimagined iOS features may have brought Notifications Center and more gestures to the desktop, but Apple CEO Tim Cook is playing coy on whether an actual touchscreen will show up on Macs any time soon. Echoing former CEO Steve jobs dismissal of touchscreen desktop ergonomics, Cook told the WSJ that “this kind of reach for me isn’t a terribly intuitive thing” if dealing with a touch-enabled iMac. However, as for touchscreen notebooks, Cook declined to answer. “Well, our notebooks, I wouldn’t want to answer,” he said, “because that’s sort of a roadmap question, and, you know, we like to be secretive on those things.” Although Jobs had been dismissive of all forms of touch notebook and desktop display, Cook seemed more concerned about the poor ergonomics of finger-friendly iMacs. “Other people have tried that with desktops, and I think to say it hasn’t caught traction is probably an understatement of the year” he explained. Whereas, say, an iPhone is “sort of an inti

Google has reportedly been caught bypassing privacy settings that Apple has in place on the web browser it uses on the iPhone and Mac computers. Google isn’t alone in bypassing the privacy settings reports the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, several other advertising firms have been caught doing this as well. Google and others are reportedly using special code that tricks the Apple Safari browser into allowing the monitoring of a user online. The code Google used for tracking was discovered recently by a researcher from Stanford named Jonathan Mayer. The WSJ also independently confirmed that Google was using the tracking code via an outside advisor named Ashkan Soltani. The WSJ’s outside advisor found 22 of the top 100 websites had installed Google’s tracking code on a test computer and that 23 different sites install the same code on the iPhone browser. The scary part is that according to the researcher once the code is activated on the mobile device or the computer it allows Google

Touchscreen, gadget and multimedia rich dashboards like the vast touchscreen in Tesla’s new Model X could end up largely non-functional on the move, if the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has its way.New guidelines around digital distractions have been proposed by the NHTSA this week, applicable to “communications, entertainment, information gathering and navigation devices or functions that are not required to safely operate the vehicle”, with future phases potentially encompassing smartphone and tablet use. Some of the proposed guidelines read like common sense, such as asking manufacturers to reduce the complexity of functions and limit them to demanding just one hand, so that your other can remain on the wheel. However it’s rules like limiting unnecessary visual information in the driver’s field of view, and cutting off-road glances to sub-2sec in length, that could have the biggest impact on some of the more complex dash tech we’ve seen car manufacturers flirting

A pair of new mobile phones from Nokia that includes the 305 handset and the Lumia 610 Windows Phone have both passed certification processes in Indonesia. The 305 is believed to be low-end mobile phone, perhaps part of the Asha range. The Lumia 610 is expected to be an entry-level Windows Phone device running the Tango flavor of the OS. There are some rumors that the Lumia 610 may be entering the UK soon as a smartphone for pay-as-you-go users. One of the good things about smart phones passing certifications is that often we get more details of devices from the certification report. The certifications won in this case don’t offer a lot of detail. The Lumia 610 is listed as supporting GSM 900/1800 frequencies along with WCDMA 2100. We do already know that Tango is a lower-end version of Windows Phone and is supposed push hardware requirements down making for cheaper handsets. Tango requires only 256 MB of RAM and allows smartphone makers to use three megapixel cameras keep costs down.

Apple Mountain Lion will force many Mac models into legacy status, with no support for the upcoming OS X refresh for numerous pre-2007 MacBooks, MacBook Pros and desktops. The minimum hardware requirements of Mountain Lion - which we previewed comprehensively yesterday - apparently count out multiple models using integrated Intel GPUs, so TUAW‘s developer source says. That means, if you have a pre-unibody MacBook or the original MacBook Air, there’s no Mountain Lion for you. Those notebooks using Intel GMA 950 or Intel GMA X3100 GPUs are apparently out of luck, but the list also includes the 8-core Mac Pro from 2007 and the mid-2007 Mac mini. However, if you have one of the following models you should be okay: iMac (mid 2007 or later) MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later) MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, 2.4/2.2 GHz), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later) MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later) Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later) Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)