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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

drag2share: Skype update for iOS adds anti-shake, Bluetooth connectivity and ads for freeloaders

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/skype-update-for-ios-adds-anti-shake-bluetooth-connectivity-and/

Skype's latest app upgrade brings a few substantial features, some good, one not so. Alongside a new anti-shake video call function (limited to the iPhone's back-facing camera), you can now pair Bluetooth headsets with the VoIP calling service, something apparently "long requested" from Skype fans. However, users have to fork out for credit to avoid seeing advertising that's also baked into the new version. The update's now up for grabs on both the iPhone and iPad, though there are reports of a few teething troubles, including missing credit and account details. We've also been experiencing issues, with the app unwilling to play nice with our Bluetooth headsets, though oddly, we can still hear the Skype call ring through. Hopefully we'll see another update that sorts this out soon -- till then, tap the link below for more details, or ogle a bit of smoothed out anti-shake action after the break.

Continue reading Skype update for iOS adds anti-shake, Bluetooth connectivity and ads for freeloaders

Skype update for iOS adds anti-shake, Bluetooth connectivity and ads for freeloaders originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Motorola Xoom 4G LTE upgrade process begins tomorrow, new tablets on sale October 13th

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/motorola-xoom-4g-lte-upgrade-process-begins-tomorrow-new-tablet/

Verizon's dangled a 4G LTE upgrade carrot in the noses of the Xoom-adopting hordes from the start. Now, it appears the carrier's ready to make good on that promise. Starting tomorrow, current owners of Motorola's Honeycomb tab can visit a dedicated VZW site for a step-by-step guide through the upgrade process. If you were amongst the eager few who signed up for alerts, the company's going to prioritize you and send out a notification via email. The entire swap-out should take up to six business days, returning a freshly enhanced LTE-enabled slate free-of-charge. As for the rest of you Xoom-less onlookers, Big Red's going to be offering up the updated tablets this October 13th for $499 on a new two-year service contract. Jump past the break to parse through the official presser.

Continue reading Motorola Xoom 4G LTE upgrade process begins tomorrow, new tablets on sale October 13th

Motorola Xoom 4G LTE upgrade process begins tomorrow, new tablets on sale October 13th originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: a-JAYS One+ earbuds bring in-line remote, Swedish flair to your smartphone experience

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/a-jays-one-brings-in-line-remote-swedish-flair-to-your-smartph/

JAYS has been dishing out slick looking audio gear for years, but before now it only offered models with inline remotes compatible with iDevices. Good thing the new a-JAYS One+ has arrived to bring some fashion forward 'phones to a bevy of handsets and give Klipsch some competition. The One+ still has tangle-free flat cables, sleek looks, and the matte-black finish you know and love, but it can now control devices from HTC, Samsung, BlackBerry and LG with its one-button inline remote. This is truly an egalitarian set of earbuds, as it works whether your phone's running iOS, Windows Mobile, or Android. Plus, there's a free JAYS Headset Control Android app that brings voice, volume and track controls to your little green bot. It'll be available sometime in Q4 of this year for $50, so peep the PR and the source below to ready yourself for its arrival.

Continue reading a-JAYS One+ earbuds bring in-line remote, Swedish flair to your smartphone experience

a-JAYS One+ earbuds bring in-line remote, Swedish flair to your smartphone experience originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:03:00 EDT. Please ! see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: CHART OF THE DAY: The Incredible Growth Of Amazon's Kindle Book Sales (AMZN)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-amazon-kindle-book-sales-2011-9

During Jeff Bezos' presentation of the new Kindles, he flashed the slide below which shows the phenomenal growth of Amazon's Kindle eBook sales in comparison to physical book sales.

kindle sales

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drag2share: Zeo Mobile turns phones into a sleep clinic, aids in advanced Power Rangers dreaming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/zeo-mobile-turns-phones-into-a-sleep-clinic-aids-in-advanced-po/

Much like hope, love and Coconut M&Ms, sleep is one of those things that is both hard to live with and impossible to live without. But unlike the first three, it's evidently possible to throw math into the whole "shut-eye" thing. Like it's bedside-based older brother, the newly-announced Zeo Mobile includes a SoftWave wireless headband that wraps around your grey matter as you sleep, reporting on how well your brain is shutting down. Instead of the custom base-station, the data is sent straight to your iOS or Android device and syncs up with the Zeo site to give you the inside skinny on your dreaming. Best of all, the device can wake you at the peak of a sleep cycle, rather than halfway through that dream about Björk and the melting clock. Of course, if you didn't already know that mainlining Red Bull until 3am isn't healthy, then perhaps you're beyond redemption.

Zeo Mobile turns phones into a sleep clinic, aids in advanced Power Rangers dreaming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Remains of the Day: Developers Allowed Free App Integration of Dragon Voice Recognition Software [For What It's Worth]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5844432/remains-of-the-day-developers-allowed-free-app-integration-of-dragon-voice-recognition-software

Nuance gives developers Dragon app integration for free, OnStar reverses their decision to stalk you, and T-Mobile says they love Android.

Nuance Lets You Use the Dragon SDK for Free: Nuance now has a silver tier in their mobile development program which allows developers to integrate the Dragon voice recognition software and text-to-speech capabilities into their apps for free. [Nuance News Release]
OnStar Reverses Decision to Track Former Subscribers: OnStar said today in a short press release that they will not keep a data connection to vehicles belonging to former subscribers. [TechCrunch]
T-Mobile Says the iPhone Is Great But So Is Android: T-Mobile released a letter yesterday saying, yes the iPhone is awesome but Android is cool too and emphasized their continued focus on putting out Android phones. It probably means that we shouldn't expect the iPhone on T-Mobile anytime soon. [T-Mobile]
If You're in Europe, Facebook Will Give You Your Data: Europeans can follow this guide to have Facebook will send them a PDF file of all your archived activity. [SiliconFilter]
PDF Trojan Horse Tamed: We mentioned a few days ago a Mac OS X Trojan that poses as a PDF file. Apple has already updated the anti-malware definitions in Mac OS X to detect and warn you of the fake PDF but there is another Trojan horse floating around that pretends it's an installer for Adobe Flash. [Macworld]
More Information on Google Apps Status Dashboard: Google's Apps Status Dashboard gets a new timeline setup and now shows a transcript of messages if the app goes down. [TheNextWeb]
LaterSpam.org Turns Reporting Twitter Spam Into A Game: LaterSpam.org lets you mark the tweets that you think are spam and reports spam tweets for you through the Twitter API. It also keeps track of suspended accounts. [TheNextWeb]
Google Revamps Blogger: Blogger users can now choose from seven different interactive layouts depending on the content of their blog. [Blogger Buzz]

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drag2share: Medify Helps You Easily Find the Relevant Medical Research You Need [Health]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5844610/medify-helps-you-easily-find-the-relevant-medical-research-you-need

Looking for health information online is often hit-or-miss, with results sometimes too generic. If you want more personalized, yet thorough information about a condition, now there's Medify, which takes millions of medical research studies and lets you filter according to your situation.

Seaching on a topic, you'll find information on treatments and causes with the most recent research, ones with the best supporting evidence, links to institutions studying the condition, and more. You can read the abstracts for free and save studies for future reference.

Besides being able to filter the studies by demographics, treament types, and more, there's an interesting bubble chart visualization where you can see at a glance which treatments are stronger or more recently researched.

Medify takes its data every night from Medline, the National Institutes of Health's National Lirary of Medicine, and other sources, such as drug side effects from the FDA. It takes all that complex data and presents it interactively, so you can be a more informed patient or help a loved one manage a chronic condition (Derek Streat, Medify co-founder and CEO, started the service after being frustrated trying to find information about his two-year-old daughter's rare autoimmune disorder).

Medify | via CNet

You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter or Google+.

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drag2share: Ferroelectric transistor memory could run on 99 percent less power than flash

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/ferroelectric-transistor-memory-could-run-on-99-less-power-than/

We've been keeping an optimistic eye on the progress of Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FeRAM) for a few years now, not least because it offers the tantalizing promise of 1.6GB/s read and write speeds and crazy data densities. But researchers at Purdue University reckon we've been looking in the wrong place this whole time: the real action is with their development of FeTRAM, which adds an all-important 'T' for 'Transistor'. Made by combining silicon nanowires with a ferroelectric polymer, Purdue's material holds onto its 0 or 1 polarity even after being read, whereas readouts from capacitor-based FeRAM are destructive. Although still at the experimental stage, this new type of memory could boost speeds while also reducing power consumption by 99 percent. Quick, somebody file a patent. Oh, they already did.

Ferroelectric transistor memory could run on 99 percent less power than flash originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: OCZ Z-Drive R4 review roundup: this is what 2,800MB/s looks like

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/ocz-z-drive-r4-review-roundup-this-is-what-2-800mb-s-looks-like/

Assuming your local laws give you permission to drool, you might want to smack your lips and read on for some expert verdicts of OCZ's enterprise-level 2.8GB/s Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD. If your statutory position is trickier, then maybe just do it quietly?

Storage Review: the R4 "blew away the competition in nearly every test by a significant margin," even though it costs just $7/GB -- up to 40 percent less than its rivals.
Hot Hardware: benchmarks support the ridiculous speed claims, but thermal sensitivity means the card must be constantly bathed in cool air.
AnandTech: it's hard to compare the Z-Drive R4 because no other SSD comes close, but this type of technology has no track record for reliability and may therefore be a hard sell.

OCZ Z-Drive R4 review roundup: this is what 2,800MB/s looks like originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Amazon Kindle Fire tablet unveiled: Android-based, 7-inch display, $199 price tag

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/amazon-fire-tablet-unveiled-7-inch-display-199-price-tag/

Okay, so it wasn't much of a surprise, but Amazon finally has a tablet, and as expected its name picks up where the Kindle left off: Fire. Of course, rumors of an Amazon tablet date back to this time last year (if not before), but it seems that Jeff and co. have wisely chosen to get this thing out on the open market before having yet another wild and wacky holiday quarter. Bloomberg has curiously reported on some of the details before the event itself kicks off, noting that the 7-inch device will run a version of Android while acting much like a "souped-up Kindle." The real kicker, however, is the price -- at just $199, it's bound to turn heads, regardless of whether you were interested in a slate before. Naturally, that bargain-bin sticker explains the lack of an embedded camera and microphone, though consumers will find WiFi (no 3G, sadly) and a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. It's also quite clear that Amazon's hoping to make a bigger splash on the content side of things than has been made already by Apple, and with the deals flowing like wine, we wouldn't be shocked if it does just that.

Update: Itching for specs? How's about a 7-inch IPS (!) panel, Gorilla Glass coating, a dual-core CPU and a chassis that weighs 14.6 ounces. There's also access to things you'd expect to have access to: Android Appstore, Kindle books, magazines, etc. -- all stored for free via Amazon Cloud Storage. Per Jeff: "Delete it and get it back when you want." Oh, and Whispersync now works with movies and TV shows! "When you get home, switch to your big screen TV. Your movie will be right where you left it."

While it's clearly Android underneath, the actual UI looks effectively nothing like it -- considering TechCrunch's intel that Amazon went and did its own thing without Google's blessing, we guess that makes some level of sense.

Update 2: We've added the first commercial video after the break.

Keep up with the unveiling at our liveblog of the Amazon event.

Gallery: Amazon launches Kindle Fire tablet in NYC!

Continue reading Amazon Kindle Fire tablet unveiled: Android-based, 7-inch display, $199 price tag

Amazon Kindle Fire tablet unveiled: Android-based, 7-inch display, $199 price tag originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:42:00 EDT. Please s! ee our < a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Amazon launches Kindle Touch and Touch 3G: starts at $99, ships November 21st

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/amazon-launches-kindle-touch/

Oddly enough, the Kindle Fire already feels like yesterday's news. Why? Because Amazon won't stop launching new products. Jeff Bezos just revealed the Kindle Touch here in New York City, noting that this guy's using an IR touch system, similar to the latest Nook and Kobo, and there's no keyboard (physical, anyway) to speak of. It's slimmer, smaller and lighter than the existing Kindle, with a muted silver chassis that looks almost nothing like the Kindles of today. The entire user interface has been re-thought out, with "taps" being used in place of buttons. Need another reason to buy? We're told that it's using the company's "most advanced" E Ink display yet, and while no specifics were doled out, "extra long" was the term used to describe battery life. A 3G-enabled model ($149 with free global roaming!) will also be available, with the duo up for pre-order later today and shipments going out on November 21st.

Keep up with the unveiling at our liveblog of the Amazon event.

Gallery: Amazon launches Kindle Touch e-reader in NYC!

Continue reading Amazon launches Kindle Touch and Touch 3G: starts at $99, ships November 21st

Amazon launches Kindle Touch and Touch 3G: starts at $99, ships November 21st originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:15:00 EDT. Please see our ! terms fo r use of feeds.

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drag2share: Amazon Silk mobile browser spins a faster mobile web, courtesy of cloud servers

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/amazon-silk-mobile-browser-spins-a-faster-mobile-web-courtesy-o/

Part of Amazon's new tablet pitch is its promise of Amazon Silk -- a "split browser" that gets the heavy lifting done on its EC2 cloud servers and promises faster access on your mobile device as a result. Check out our live blog of the event for more details.

...developing

Amazon Silk mobile browser spins a faster mobile web, courtesy of cloud servers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Are Cable Companies Secretly Planning An "A La Carte" Option? [Television]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5844513/are-cable-companies-secretly-planning-an-a-la-carte-option

According to Reuters, cable companies are secretly discussing plans that'll let customers choose what channels they want. Content providers won't like this "a la carte" arrangement, but who cares. This is something customers wanted like yesterday. [Reuters via Tech Crunch; Image from IKO/Shutterstock]

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drag2share: Here's A Map Showing The Devastating Power Of The Japanese Tsunami [Tsunami]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5844485/heres-a-map-showing-the-devastating-power-of-the-japanese-tsunami

Japanese researchers have spent the past few months surveying Tsunami damage at 5,300 coastal locations. This information has created the largest Tsunami survey dataset in the world and the first map to visualize the crushing impact of the wave.

In the above damage map, the blue coloring shows how far the destructive wave traveled inward and the colored bars show how high the wave was when it made landfall. It's amazing to see the variation in the strength of the wave. That area in the center - that's Sendai Plain which was struck by a wave 19.5 meters (64 feet) high and traveled over 5 km (3 miles) inland.

This information can't be used to predict when or if a Tsunami will hit, but it will help researchers isolate those areas whose geological characteristics increase the intensity of a Tsunami. That's a good thing to know as Japan rebuilds and repopulates its coastal area. [Geophysical Research Letters via NewScientist]

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drag2share: DVBLogic's Boxee app brings live TV streaming to the Box

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/dvblogics-boxee-app-brings-live-tv-streaming-to-the-box/

If online video streams and locally stored media aren't providing enough functionality for your Boxee Box, now you can watch regular TV on it too. The Digital Lifestyle mentions DVBLogic has released a new version of its DVBLink client for the device that lets you browse the program guide and watch live TV, provided you also have a home server set up with its software and a tuner. If you're not familiar with the software, it lets you turn most any UPnP-compatible device into an extender capable of caching live streams, with clients available for iPad / iPhone already, plus Android and WP7 on the way. You'll need the latest release candidate version of DVBLink Connect! server software to make it all go, then point your Boxee Box browser to the company's repository to download the client software and let us know how it all works out.

DVBLogic's Boxee app brings live TV streaming to the Box originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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