News
Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices
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Spark Linux tablet specs updated, going up for pre-order next week
Spark Linux tablet specs updated, going up for pre-order next week originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink Netbook News | Aseigo | Email this | CommentsFinding Lost Recording From the 1880s
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Vimeo app lands for Windows Phone, lets you upload your next student film over 3G
Gallery: Vimeo for Windows Phone
Vimeo app lands for Windows Phone, lets you upload your next student film over 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink Pocketnow, The Verge | Vimeo (Marketplace) | Email this | CommentsWindows Phone exec Brandon Watson leaves Microsoft, headed to Amazon
Windows Phone exec Brandon Watson leaves Microsoft, headed to Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink WMPoweruser, ZDNet | @BrandonWatson (Twitter) | Email this | CommentsIndia Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France
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Ask Engadget: Best sub-$100 camera/laptop bag?
"I've recently gotten into semi-pro photography and I've come to the problem of how to transport all my gear. I'm looking for a camera / laptop bag that has enough space for a DSLR body (Nikon D90), a 15-inch laptop, 3 or 4 lenses and a speedlight or two. My budget can't stretch beyond $100 and I need it to be durable and weather-proof. I don't have any preferences with style (backpack, messenger bag etc), I just need a large, affordable bag to carry all of my gear. Thanks for the help and keep the gadget passion guys!"
We don't think you should scrimp too much on a bag, given it'll be carrying $3,000 worth of kit. Your host uses a Lowepro Fastpack 250, costing $99.95, its only drawback that it has no space for a tripod or cables, so you have to sacrifice a couple of lens slots just to tote your power lead. Other staffers suggested using a standard bag with individual Crumpler pouches (a suitable Crumpler like the "7 Million Dollar Home" is $150) or the KataKTD, which sadly doesn't pack a laptop sleeve. How about you, commenters? What's the budget bag you wouldn't let your DSLR venture away from? Together, we can work it out.Ask Engadget: Best sub-$100 camera/laptop bag? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsThe Phone Stacking Game: Let’s Make This A Thing
So it’s Saturday night and you’re out with friend. Are they the inconsiderate jerk who can’t stop checking their smartphone? Or is that you?
Either way, here’s one way to make dinner a little more interesting.
I’ve seen/heard this described as both “The Phone Stacking Game” and “Don’t Be a Dick During Meals”. It’s been mentioned on a couple of blogs, but a quick straw poll of my friends suggests that it hasn’t become widespread yet, at least on the West Coast. Which is a shame, because it’s perfect for folks in tech.
Here’s how it works: At the beginning of the meal, everyone puts their phone face down at the center of the table. As time goes on, you’ll hear various calls, texts, and emails, but you can’t pick up your phone. If you’re the first one to give in to temptation, you’re buying dinner for everyone else. If no one picks up, then everyone pays for themselves.
You can explain the game in a few different ways. Most obviously, it could be a protest against the incessant, unthinking use of cell phones during social gatherings. Or maybe it’s a game that acknowledges the new reality and tests your willpower accordingly. Personally, I like to think of it as a free market exercise. After all, people love to say, “Sorry, but I have to take this.” Do you have to answer it? Really? Is it that important to you? Great, then you can pay.
No matter what the explanation, it could make for a tense meal. And I look forward to defeating MG Siegler.
[image via Kempt]
New Hampshire Passes 'Open Source Bill'
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This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]
- Radioactivity Counter Turns Your Android Phone into a Geiger Counter (Android) Getting one step closer to turning your phone into a tricorder, Android app Radioactivity Counter uses the CMOS camera sensor on your phone to record radiation levels.
- Use Colorblind Assistant to Identify Whatever Color Your Cursor is Pointing At (Windows) If you're colorblind or just need to constantly know what colors are on your screen the free program Colorblind Assistant might be for you. The program tells you whatever color is displayed at the current location of your mouse/trackpad pointer.
- CCleaner for Mac Comes Out of Beta, Adds New Browser and Disk Cleaning Features (Mac OS X) CCleaner for Mac has been in beta for awhile, but now Mac users can enjoy the final version of our favorite Windows utilities. If you're a little starved for disk space or just want to engage in some early Spring cleaning on your Mac, CCleaner is now finished, stable, and ready to help you out.
- Waze for Android Updates, Adds New Maps, Driver-Friendly UI, and More Social Features (Android) Waze, our pick for the best turn-by-turn navigation app for Android, updated today to include an entirely new UI that minimizes buttons and tools so they're all accessible under one spring-out on-screen menu, easier-to-navigate maps that you can now easily spin around and navigate with one hand, and new location-based information from services like Yelp and FourSquare.
- Belvedere Updates, Can Now Automate Your Folders and Automatically Send Files to iTunes (Windows) Belvedere, our automatic file management tool for Windows, has updated with a few new features, like the ability to move folders around and add tracks to iTunes.
- Simplify is an All-In-One Desktop Controller for iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio (Mac OS X) Mini-player apps like previously mentioned Bowtie or GeekTool are great, though they usually only support one or two media players-which isn't great for music junkies that might use multiple programs. Simplify is a simple desktop controller and shortcut customizer that controls iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio.
- PacApt Brings Arch Linux's Amazing Manager to Other Linux Distributions (Linux) It's no secret that we love Arch Linux, and one of Arch's best features is the simple, easy-to-use package manager, Pacman. Here's how to get Pacman's simple command structure in other Linux distributions.
- Cobook Powers Up Your Mac's Address Book with Social Networks, Mouseless Navigation (Mac OS X) Cobook is an Address Book app for Mac that sits in your menu bar, offers quick mouseless navigation, and lets you add a lot more to your contact cards, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.
- Syncly Automatically Uploads Every Photo You Take to Dropbox (Android) Syncly keeps watch over your Android's SD card, automatically uploading new photos to Dropbox as soon as you take them-so you don't need to do anything to keep everything synced to the cloud.
- Dashlane Securely Manages Passwords, Form info, and Even Purchases For You (and We'ev Got Invites) (Windows/Mac) There are plenty of services that promise to keep your passwords safe, secure, and synchronized across devices behind a single master password that you can remember, but Dashlane is a new service that does that, audits those passwords for strength, saves your form information for quick entry on new web sites, and even keeps track of the purchases you make with that information so you can see it all in one view-one that's only available to you, not even DashLane employees.
Roland's iModela 3D milling machine: it's a crafty tool
Continue reading Roland's iModela 3D milling machine: it's a crafty tool
Roland's iModela 3D milling machine: it's a crafty tool originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Roland | Email this | CommentsGiants Website Prematurely Reveals Super Bowl Winner [PIC]
The New York Giants official website accidentally announced the winner of Super Bowl XLVI more than 24 hours before Sunday’s big game even started, by the look of images floating around the web.
The error was immortalized Saturday in this TwitPic screenshot (above), which Jeff Frias posted to Twitter. No signs of the mistake are left on the team’s site other than a reported link that leads to the image below:
The Giants have yet to publicly confirm whether this whammy is real or the handy-work of a prankster.
While online blunders have cost people their jobs in the past, this misstep — if real — shows that the Giants organization is unsurprisingly ready to financially capitalize on a possible win.
The tweeted image displays championship garb traditionally sold after national sporting contests. Giants quarterback Eli Manning and three other players are cropped into the image along with the Super Bowl’s most-coveted prize, the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The image is emblazoned with these words in all caps: “The Giants are Super Bowl champions!”
SEE ALSO: Super Bowl 2012 By the Numbers | How to Watch the Super Bowl Online
The Feb. 5 broadcast of the Giants vs. New England Patriots game kicks off at Indianapolis Lucas Oil Stadium at 6:30 p.m. ET and will be followed by many post-game breakdowns of the games and commercials. One Super Bowl post-game analysis will occur within an NBC-backed Google+ Hangout. Participants will dissect the commercials, which this year cost $3.5 million each.
Did you notice the premature winner’s announcement before it was taken down? Sound off below.
BONUS: 10 Athlete Gaffes Aided by Social MediaOnline whammies in the sports world are not uncommon. Here are a few recent memorable digital mistakes.
Cappie Pondexter
After a tsunami devastated Japan this March, Cappie Pondexter of the WNBA's New York Liberty tweeted, "What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes." Later she continued hypothesizing with this tweet: "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so you can't expect anything less." Predictably, Pondexter's tweets sparked a strong backlash, and she eventually took to Twitter again, this time to apologize (left).
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More About: Entertainment, football, sports, Super Bowl, trending
I’m A New York Times Subscriber, So Where’s My Tote Bag?
The New York Times released its latest earnings report earlier this week, spurring another round of discussion about the newspaper’s paywall, which was launched near the beginning of last year. The consensus: Early signs are positive, but it’s not doing well enough to offset plummeting print ad revenue.
What’s the solution? Well, if you listen to a number of online media pundits, it’s all about bringing more value to the most devoted members of The Times’ readership. Over at GigaOm, Matthew Ingram suggests, “Regular readers should get more than just a sales rep hitting them up for a monthly payment — the fact that they are a devoted fan should entitle them to earn rewards, whether it’s money off their subscription for interacting with the paper, or offers that others don’t get.” It’s a point he’s made before, as has Clay Shirky, who wrote that “this may be the year where we see how papers figure out how to reward the people most committed to their long-term survival.”
I’m a happy New York Times subscriber, but I have to say: I don’t think The Times is doing a good job on this front, or much of a job at all. It’s odd, because NYTimes.com general manager Denise Warren appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with Shirky, and she seemed largely on-board with his ideas:
I think Clay has outlined it exactly right. I mean, this model was not designed to get everybody who comes to our website to pay. Clay is absolutely right in terms of the distribution of the audience, and I think this is true for most publishers. The vast majority of people come and turn one article or two articles.
But there is a very loyal minority of folks who told us through rounds and rounds of research that they value the New York Times content, they’d be willing to pay to support the New York Times content. And so the key for us in this model was threading that needle – remaining open to the Web, enabling those who are coming to us for that one article or two article, et cetera, to still enjoy the content but at the same time enable those who are very loyal to have some kind of a different experience with us.
Warren goes on to outline some of the advantages of a Times digital subscription — not just access to unlimited articles (20 per month is the limit for non-paying readers, though there are lots of ways around it), but also to the Times smartphone and tablet apps, as well as bonus apps like Politics and Collections, and email newsletters giving behind-the-scenes portraits of the newsroom. Now, as someone who’s constantly reading The Times on both his laptop and his iPhone, I’m happy to fork over $15 a month isn’t a bad price for those features, but I also feel like they’re a missed opportunity.
As Shirky puts it, newspapers “must also appeal to its readers’ non-financial and non-transactional motivations: loyalty, gratitude, dedication to the mission, a sense of identification with the paper, an urge to preserve it as an institution rather than a business.” Those seem to be some of the main reasons people subscribed, but The Times isn’t doing much to encourage that feeling.
The closest it comes is through its newsletters, but those newsletters also have the clearest shortcomings. I’ve been a Times subscriber since the program started in March, and in that time, I’ve received a total nine newsletters. And of those, five are “Innovations” emails, which function as ads for new features on The Times website — useful, maybe, but not particularly loyalty-inspiring. Emails offering “The Story Behind The Story” are better (though a still a little impersonal for my taste), but they show up about once every two months.
Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan makes an interesting comment about this during his interview with Shirky and Warren: He notes that NPR has convinced one in six listeners to donate, while The Times has only convinced one in a hundred to subscribe. He later says, “If you get into the tote bag business, we’re going to have a problem.”
Here’s the thing about those tote bags — they’re nice, but as NPR broadcasters constantly remind listeners, they’re not the real reason to donate. To pick an example from my local NPR station, is there anyone who would pay $144 just because it’s a great deal on a KQED hoodie? (I hope not.) They make the donation because they love KQED, and the hoodie is a sign of their dedication.
Compare that to The Times digital subscription page and pricing model, which are all about functionality — there are three pricing levels, and they reflect different levels of mobile access. That approach has its limitations — from a functional equivalent, it can be hard to justify the price, especially when you take into account the easiness of circumventing the paywall and the low price of other online services. (As a friend pointed out, it’s $15 a month for the cheapest plan, which is more than a basic Netflix subscription.)
To keep The Times in business, however, I’m happy to pay $15 a month, and I’d probably be fine paying significantly more. I don’t think the basic subscription price should change (if anything, it seems a little high), but I suspect the paper could also offer higher price points without providing a dramatic improvement in the product. It just needs rewards that make subscribers feel loyal to The Times, and maybe a little special — the digital equivalent of a tote bag.
Text Message Brands Quebec Man a Terror Suspect
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Give Each Day a Dinner Theme to Help Plan Family Menus [Meal Planning]
29 Meme-Inspired Movie Posters [PICS]
If Internet memes were turned into movies, their promotional posters might resemble the designs London-based Stefan van Zoggel conjured up.
“I took the context of the usually short-lived internet memes and virals, and translated that to simple film poster designs,” says van Zoggel on his Meme Movie Posters blog.
He has designed 29 meme-inspired posters so far. Below, you’ll find posters about Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” planking, Nyan Cat, Double Rainbow, Keyboard Cat, Shake Weight and a slew of other memes.
SEE ALSO: 10 Best Memes of 2011 | Hey Girl, Here Are Foursquare Ryan Gosling Memes
Which designs are your favorite of the bunch? Which new memes should inspire his future designs?
I would like to see movie posters about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop, NFL quarterback Tim Tebow‘s Tebowing and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s sweater vests.
Meme Movie Posters
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More About: art, memes, Movies, trending
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Apple Overturns Motorola's German iPad and iPhone Sales Bans
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Top 10 Twitter Pics of the Week [PICS]
1. Feb Photo a Day
Blogger @fatmumslim (4500+ followers) started the #febphotoaday trend on Twitter by creating a "photo challenge" where Twitter users share a picture on every day in February, displaying the subjects mentioned on this image. She did the same thing in January, when #janphotoaday was trending throughout the month.
Click here to view this gallery.
We’ve sifted through tens of millions of pictures posted on Twitter during the week and narrowed them down to the 10 most popular, and here they are.
Using a special algorithm developed by our partners/wizards at social media search engine Skylines, we’ve taken the most popular hash tags and found the most widely shared pictures within.
There weren’t a tremendous amount of big events going on this week, so our astute curators made a special effort to take the most amusing and interesting pictures and subjects that resided in the top 100. Even so, there were slim pickings this week. C’mon Twitter users, you can do better than that — share some blockbuster pics next week!
If you’d like to know more about the selection process, see the full results from Skylines.
If you missed them, here are last week’s Top 10 Twitter Pics.
More About: Skylines, Top 10 Twitter Pics, trending, Twitter
For more Social Media coverage:
- Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
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Elpis is a Lightweight Desktop Client for Pandora [Windows Downloads]
2012 Grammys Embrace Digital, Mobile and Social Media
The 54th Grammy Awards ceremony is only eight days away and the Recording Academy is kicking off the next phase of its digital and social campaign. Under the heading of “We Are Music” the Academy and its partners are harnessing the power of social, mobile and digital to make the award show more modern than ever.
The Recording Academy made the decision to invest in social and digital media several years ago (you can read Mashable’s past coverage of the 2010 and 2011 campaigns) and the organization and its awards show are now seeing the dividends. Big time. The latest trends in social TV and second screen experiences are in direct alignment with the road Grammy has been traveling for years.
We spoke with Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy, and he told us the strategy around the 2012 Grammys was to put mobile and digital at the forefront of the project. That means the campaign and the show itself were designed with the digital and mobile attributes in mind from its inception, not tacked on at the end. As someone who has been beating the drum of making social and digital a part of the creation process from beginning to end, this is great to see.
Grammy Live and the Second ScreenAs in years past, the cornerstone of the digital Grammy experience is around Grammy Live. Grammy Live is a three-day webcast of special Grammy events, red carpets and parties, designed to bring fans behind the scenes and close to all the action.
Although CBS (Grammy’s broadcasting partner) doesn’t stream the awards themselves online, Grammy Live is available as a second screen experience during the event, giving additional insight and tidbits into what’s happening, views from the crowd and access to backstage areas.
As Peter Anton, executive producer of Grammy Live pointed out in our conversation, Grammy Live was actually the first major second screen experience designed around an award show — and this was before the iPad!
Of course, now that the iPad is here, it makes sense to extend the Grammy Live experience to other devices. In addition to viewing the experience at Grammy.com, users can also interact with the experience in the Grammy Live app for iOS [iTunes link].
This year, Greene told us, the Recording Academy worked hard to make the Grammy Live app a perfect extension of the website itself. CBS was also heavily involved this year, both in helping craft the app and in giving Grammy Live official on-air callouts and integration.
Not only does the Grammy Live app give users access to the photos, videos and articles available at Grammy.com, it also features Grammy trivia, the ability to guess who will win at the 54th Grammy Awards and the ability to listen to a streaming radio station of Grammy nominees. One of my favorite features of the app is that it also includes a database of past winners, as well as nominees for the 2012 awards. During the show on Feb. 12, those listings will be updated in real time.
The app also lets users browse tweets from various Grammy accounts and hashtags, and of course, access the full Grammy Awards experience before and during the show itself. The app is optimized for iPhone and iPad, and is one of the best apps we’ve seen for an awards show.
The Campaign: We Are MusicFor the fifth consecutive year, the Recording Academy teamed up with TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles for the awards show campaign. The team created a robust campaign with print, outdoor, digital, mobile and television components centered around the theme of “We Are Music.”
The genesis of the campaign was formed around the emotions and social experiences that music brings out in us all. The agency TBWA\Chiat\Day wanted to capture the way music moves us as humans and wanted a way to help visualize that emotive experience.
TBWA\Chiat\Day always likes to push the technical boundaries in the digital aspects of its campaigns, and this year was no different. The centerpiece is a microsite that lives at Wearemusic.grammy.com. This site was developed using cutting-edge web technologies (in this case, Flash 11 Stage 3D) to create robust real-time 3D visualizations that are modified based on what music is playing in the background.
Users can select their own mix of songs (powered using Rdio‘s library API) and add in their own photographs to create their own unique visualizations. Users can then share these visualizations with others using Facebook or Twitter. The effect is insanely cool and I encourage you all to visit the site and see it for yourself.
Creating a robust and cutting-edge desktop experience was important, but the agency also wanted to have a powerful mobile component. Enter the We Are Music iPhone app [iTunes link]. This app helps bring the visualized experience to mobile devices.
In the mobile app, a user’s own music library is used to power the visualizations. Users can also provide their own photos or take one within the app. The app then creates customized experiences based on the music, and also uses the camera flash on the iPhone 4 and 4S to create special pulsing experiences (you can shut this off if you don’t like it). Up to 15 users on the same WiFi or Bluetooth network can even share their experiences with one another.
It’s a super cool app and again, it’s cutting edge. The technology team relied on some of the newest features in iOS 5 to take advantage of these tools. What I like about this app — as with the Music Mapper from the 53rd Grammy Awards, is that the app and microsite can still be enticing and fun even outside the context of the awards show.
The TV spots TBWA/Chiat/Day crafted around the campaign have already made the rounds on YouTube. The Grammy artists profiled in this campaign include Adele, Foo Fighters and Bon Iver. All the spots have style, but the ad with Skrillex is notable because they outfitted the artist in a motion-capture suit to get the liquid movement effect.
Check it out:
Staying SocialOf course, no modern digital campaign strategy would be complete without a big focus on social media. For the 54th Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy is putting Grammy everywhere and engaging with the community of music fans across social platforms.
In addition to the Grammys Facebook Page @TheGrammys Twitter account, the Grammys are also active on:
- Instagram — Photo contests were held for the first month of the campaign
- Tumblr — The Grammy team held a contest asking users to blog about what artists have influenced them.
- Foursquare — This profile includes historical tips about venues that have hosted the Grammys as well as locations of studios where Grammy Winning albums were recorded.
- GetGlue — GetGlue is offering exclusive stickers not just for checking into the awards, but for checking in to the artists nominated for the Big Four awards.
- YouTube
- Google+
What made me really excited, however, was to see how The Grammys embraced digital music services. Grammy and Pepsi teamed up to create a custom Pandora station that includes Best New Artist videos and Grammy winners and nominees in 12 different genres. Next week, Grammy will also roll out its official Grammy Spotify app that will let users listen to all past Grammy winners in four major categories. The Spotify app will get more categories in the months ahead.
What this strong commitment says to us is that the Grammy Awards aren’t playing around with social, the team gets it.
Mashable will be at the Grammy Awards live on Feb. 12, 2012 and covering the digital action from the ground. Let us know what you think of the digital campaign for the 54th Grammy Awards in the comments.
More About: 54th Grammy Awards, apps, grammy awards, grammys






