Tuesday 16 July 2013
VLC for Windows Phone still on its way, but its going to be some time
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WP-Hub reports that, while VLC for Windows Phone is still on its way, one should probably not hold one’s breath while waiting for it to show up.
VLC is of course the popular multi-codec video player, and the Windows Phone version of the app was an off-shoot of a Metro version being created for Windows RT.
That project has run into unexpected snags which is requiring large portions of the code to be rewritten, so it seems likely that the port, which was expected for April this year, will end up arriving a lot later, and the Windows Phone version some time after this.
Bluetooth 4.0 updates from Nokia passes through Bluetooth SIG, may be Nokia exclusive
We have recently learnt that many Nokia Lumias will be getting the Bluetooth 4.0 update with Bluetooth Low Energy support with Nokia Amber.
At the time we assumed that this was part of the Windows Phone GDR 2 update, but it seems update may be Nokia exclusive.
Nokia’s own WP Controller Subsystem for Windows Phone has just passed through the FCC, with Bluetooth 4.0 support. At the same time there is no evidence of any update to the Windows Phone 8 Bluetooth stack, with the last update being in August 2012.
Unfortunately it suggests Nokia is once again driving Windows Phone improvements ahead by itself, and while we are unlikely to want to choose a Windows Phone from any other OEM, the OS is increasingly splitting into Nokia’s Windows Phone and that of everyone else.
Thanks A2J for the tip.
Advanced Timekeeping Suite avirall: Beta Available
PilcrowApps is excited to announce private beta program for our timekeeping tool suite – avirall.
What is avirall? avirall, lets you track your time efficiently and accurately with a suite of 5 timekeeping tools having tasks and profiles. It is based on patent pending Distributable Active Time E-document architecture, designed by the developer of avirall. Do you need always active (yes, even after you pull your phone’s battery off) quick stopwatch? Do you want to keep track of your projects’ earnings (yes, multiple projects), with tasks and people? Do you want to time your activities? Do you want to share your track and field training timings with your friends with best and worst laps? Do you simply need a kitchen stopwatch? avirall is meant to help you with all these and more. avirall is designed and developed grounds-up for windows devices to fulfil the needs of basic to advanced timekeeping. It is built on the principles of modern and minimal UI design with beautiful, easy and advanced timekeepers…
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avirall has Quick Stopwatch, Chronowatch – an advanced stopwatch, TaskTimer – a timer with tasks, ActLogger – for activity logging, and ProKeeper – an earning timekeeper. 4 more innovative timekeeping tools are under development. Using these tools you can create as many timekeepers as you wish in each type. All the timekeepers can keep running despite avirall is not running or even if your device is completely switched off (don’t believe us, join our beta program and receive an invite, download and run avirall, create some timekeepers, switch off your phone, if possible, remove battery, switch your phone on again, fire-up avirall and voila, find all your timekeepers kicking).
Some features of avirall:
Point to the QR code below to get beta program access:
See a video demo after the break.
Latest Insider app update adds support for new languages
Insider App for Windows Phone 8 got updated v2.5.0.0 with new languages and advanced live tile option.
The update has added support for new languages, including Italian, Chinese and Polish.
The app now supports English, Korean, Chinese, Italian and Polish.
The app now supports English, Korean, Chinese, Italian and Polish.
Change log (v.2.5.0.0)
Key Features:
Upcoming Features:
Download it here from Windows Phone Store for free or use the QR code.
Chinese OEM Oppo Working On A Windows Phone Device
Last year, we reported about Chinese OEM Oppo joining Windows Phone platform to release devices in 2013. It seems their plans to release Windows Phone device is still on and OPPO’s Social Marketing Director Li Ying Ming posted a series of mockups of Oppo Find 5 device running Windows Phone OS on Sina Weibo.
Also he revealed that internal version of Windows Phone OS (I guess GDR3) already supports 1080p display support and I guess they are waiting for Microsoft to finalize WP8 GDR3 update to release their WP8 devices with 1080p display.
via: Liveside
Tech Details Behind Nokia Lumia 1020 Revealed
Lumia 1020 is a great engineering achievement from Nokia. While many predicted that Nokia will introduce a stripped down version of 41MP sensor/over sampling tech in Nokia 808 PureView to make a slim mass market device, Nokia did the opposite. Nokia revealed a device which combined the following,
Even though Nokia had most of the above components ready, they could not use them in a single device due to size constraints. They developed completely new components of all the above to pack them in a slim device which we now saw as Nokia Lumia 1020. The camera unit of Nokia Lumia 1020 contains 100 parts and it is 10mm tall which is larger than the phone casing itself.
Two less-highlighted technologies in the 1020 each illustrate the necessity for long-term R&D and the need for partnerships to produce bespoke hardware. Both are a case of Nokia requiring others to push the limits of what they can do. These are the flash unit and the audio recording technology.Nokia’s Rich Recording audio system (PDF) has a wide dynamic range, capable of recording whispers alongside gunshots, and no distortion in a range of sound pressure ranging from 33 dB (Sound Pressure Level) to 140dB (SPL). The sound of a watch ticking is 30 dB SPL and the human pain threshold around 120 dB SPL.To miniaturise this required the design and production of custom High Amplitude Audio Capture microphones. Xenon flash, which gives a burst around 100 times as bright as that of an LED, is very rarely seen on smartphones for cost and size reasons.Nokia insisted on having it, and this in turn required miniaturising conventional tubular Xenon capacitors – inevitably replaced with flat capacitors.
You can download the whitepaper from Nokia here. Read more from the link below.
Source: The Register
Phillips W6500 leaked before being officially announced in China
Thanks to our friends from @leakschina we know about one upcoming Philips smartphonewhich likely won’t be released in the Western hemisphere. It’s the Phillips W6500 that comes with a 4.3-inch qHD touchscreen, MediaTek’s MT6589 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, coupled with 1GB of RAM. Plus, there’s a pair of cameras — 8-megapixel on the back + 1.3-megapixel front-facing one — as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and amemory card slot, while Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is running the show. Size wise, the W6500measures 128.7×66.0×11.8 mm and has a weight of 151 grams.Can Intel sustain the thunder?
With Acer pulling out of team Thunderbolt, can the next generation of Intel’s Thunderbolt make it in the PC world?
Acer was once an evangelist for Thunderbolt. Last year the PC maker was right behind Intel, giving the company its unbridled support for its connectivity protocol that it had recently brought over to the PC world.
Now, that enthusiasm has waned.
“We’re really focusing on USB 3.0 — it’s an excellent alternative to Thunderbolt,” Acer spokeswoman Ruth Rosene said to CNET today. “It’s less expensive, offers comparable bandwidth, charging for devices such as mobile phones, and has a large installed base of accessories and peripherals.”
While Rosene isn’t quite right on the bandwidth front, she does bring up what is Thunderbolt’s inherent flaw and USB’s inherent strength: cost and install base.
Given these two formidable strengths from USB, can Thunderbolt survive in the connectivity market? Or is it destined to be another FireWire?
Thundering or floundering?
If last year’s Computex was Thunderbolt’s first weekend Frosh party, this year’s Computex was its homecoming. The super-fast connectivity protocol that Intel moved from Mac to PC last year seemed to be everywhere at this year’s Computex.
The jump between Thunderbolt 1 and 2 is big, enormous on paper. Thunderbolt doesn’t include more per-channel bandwidth, it just carries more channels. Thunderbolt 2 has four 10Gbps channels that are bi-directional and independent, which allows for simultaneous video and file transfer — or display daisy chaining.
OEMs are slowly catching on and adding the connectivity protocol to their respective devices. Motherboards, desktops, notebooks; there seemed to be dozens of Thunderbolt-equipped on the trade show floor. Intel said that there are now 80 devices on the market that come equipped with Thunderbolt, a “diversity of devices” is the company’s marketing-speak to describe the growing ecosystem.
But Thunderbolt’s trickle is slow. The protocol has been available on the PC for over a year, yet OEM’s enthusiasm for the protocol has been lukewarm. Part of that is due to the high cost of controller chipsets and cables (which have both come down in price since), but another part of the lukewarm adoption has been the lack of perceived need from the general public.
For those who don’t do multimedia production, the only conceivable use for Thunderbolt is 4K video. But with 4K monitors still at stratospheric prices and a lack of available content in the format, it isn’t a sustainable anchor. On the Apple side, Thunderbolt powers its massive 27-inch cinema display — a niche product that is quintessentially Apple because of its low sales volumes and high margins.
In many ways Apple’s cinema display is symbolic of Intel’s Thunderbolt strategy. Make it pretty with high sales margins to make up for a low sales volume. As Intel’s Jason Ziller admitted once in an interview, Thunderbolt isn’t aiming for mass acceptance: it’s aiming for a niche.
Source: CNET
HBO wants to take down VLC Media Player for infringment
HBO has asked Google to take down VLC Media Player as a copyright infringer in an attempt to stop pirates from downloading episodes of Game of Thrones.
The most pirated television show on the web is HBO’s Game of Thrones. In response to this, HBO has sent a DMCA takedown notice to Google. Google receives requests like this all the time; every day, copyright holders send lists containing the web address to hundreds, if not thousands of copyright infringing files that the holders wish to be removed from Google’s web search, thus making the pirated material harder to find. In the past month alone, 14,855,269 URLs have been sent to Google.
Not all of these lists are legitimate. Sometimes, the URL requested for removal is already off the web when Google checks, and sometimes, perfectly legal sites end up on the lists as well. Copyright holders use automated systems to create the lists, and that means that non-infringing material sometimes ends up on the DMCA request by accident. Google does keep a close eye on the lists, but of course, it can’t catch all mistakes.
It did however, catch something amiss on HBO’s recent DMCA notice. Included in the list of links that usually only contains pirate sites, there was a link to the URL for downloading VLC, a popular media player. The URL does link to a torrent site, but since VLC is free, there isn’t any infringing material to speak of. Further more, the list contains links to Prince of Persia 5, various free Java applets, Naruto and even a Ben Harper album, neither of which have anything to do with Game of Thrones or HBO.
Here’s the list, with VLC highlighted
This is a worrying development. Over the past months, HBO and other copyright holders have been sending increasingly dubious DMCA lists, which once even included HBO’s own site. While occasional random mistakes won’t make any difference in the long run, it points to negligence and gives us a picture of how wrong things could get if nobody picks up on it. This is true especially since Google downranks sites on their search results depending on how many DMCA requests they get for them.
“We still do our best to catch errors or abuse so we don’t mistakenly disable access to non-infringing material. Google continues to put substantial resources into improving and streamlining this process, including into identifying erroneous and abusive takedowns, and deterring abuse”, said Google.
Via Torrentfreak
League of Legends is now officially a sport in the USA
League of Legends has become a professional sport according to the US visa bureau, which is going to start granting sport visas to high-level players.
Professional League of Legends players can now receive the same visas for entering the United States as traditional pro-athletes, reports the game’s developer, Riot. A few days ago, Riot’s e-sports manager, Nick Allen, told Gamespot that he had reached an agreement with the US immigration services to officially recognize League of Legend (LoL) as a sport, thereby simplifying the visa application process for players traveling to the United States for competitions.
“This is a watershed moment,” said Dustin Beck, vice president of E-sports, “It validates e-sports as a sport. Now we have the same designation as the NBA or NHL or other professional sports leagues.” Practically, this now means that foreign players can travel to the US in order to join American gaming teams, something which has been problematic in the past: Danny “Shiphtur” Lee, a Canadian and the first person to make use of the new visa, was unable to compete in the US this spring because of complications with his work visa.
Beck explained that convincing the US government to recognize LoL as a sport was a long process, and hinged on whether it could be established that E-sports was a profession through which one can earn a living. “A lot of people have been dismissive of it because they don’t understand the scope of this,” he explained, “Our viewership numbers are stronger than 80 or 90 percent of the sports covered on ESPN.”
The visa will allow foreign players to live in the United States for up to five years. This isn’t the first time a non-athletic sport has been considered for such a visa, a well-known other example being chess. An important consequence of LoL being branded as a sport is that it opens the doors for other e-sports in the future.
Via Polygon
Congress wants a national park on the moon
Members of the US congress have introduced a bill that hopes to turn part of the moon into a natural park to preserve it for the future.
Humans tend to be messy creatures. We like to build, pollute, tear apart and occasionally blow up anything we come into contact with. Some members of congress seem to think this problem is here to stay and if we begin colonizing the moon one day, there should me measures in place to protect its most important historical sites. Enter, the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act.
The act is a bill proposed by congress in the House of Representatives that would establish preservation sites in the landing area where Apollo 11 through 17 touched down and men first walked upon the moon. The proposed sites would contain all artifacts and footprints left behind by the astronauts, and within a year, the parks would be submitted to UNESCO to become a World Heritage Site.
This is the first time a piece of legislature has been proposed with the express aim to protect something beyond our planet’s confines. It yet another one of our baby steps towards becoming a truly space-faring civilization, and also one of our first steps into space environmentalism.
A national park seems like a good idea; there’s already a plaque up there, even.
Most of us know Neil Armstrong’s first words as he exited the Apollo 11 lunar lander, but few remember Buzz Aldrin’s words as he stepped out next: “Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation”. There is indeed beauty out there, and we shouldn’t forget or neglect it. Though these sites would preserve human accomplishments in space, it’s easy to see other sites popping up to preserve the desolate landscape itself. Well done, congress.
Via Wired
Teen murders father with weapon inspired by Dead Rising 2
An 18-year-old teen from Spain has allegedly admitted to murdering his father with a weapon inspired by the game Dead Rising 2.
It’s a tug-o-war when it comes to the debate of whether or not video games can increase a person’s tendency to be violent. In the case of Andreu Coll Tur, the teen that murdered this father, the rope has been pulled slightly in the favor of people who oppose violent video games.
Using a bat fashioned with nails (spiked bat), vase and hammer, the teen and his co-conspirator hacked down 57-year-old Bennassar Coll Andreu, and then tried to hide their tracks by disguising the scene to look like a robbery.
Tur stated that he thought he would be able to live a better life after his father was dead, free from the ‘harassment’ that he had to deal with. Ironically, his father, who is estimated to be worth €50 million, recently amended his will to make Tur the sole inheritor of his fortune.
Although various studies have concluded that video game violence cannot be blamed for a person’s violent actions, murder cases like these make it harder for some to believe that video game aren’t somehow linked to real-life violence. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that they will be taking a closer look at how video games and media can bring about violent instinct in people.
Samsung Galaxy Folder launching in August as a Jelly Bean flip phone with LTE
Here’s a nutty idea of blending the past and future of mobile tech – putting Android on a flip phone. You know, the kind of handhelds that everyone owned or dreamed of owning a half a decade ago. Just with Android on top of it all.
SCH-W2013, or one of the world’s first ever Android flip phones.
Not sure what the target audience might be there, but apparently Samsung sees a market niche in need to be exploited. The Koreans have already introduced two Android clamshells last year, the GT-B9120 for China and SCH-W2013 for Korea, and apparently these have been successful enough to warrant a follow-up.
Enter the Galaxy Folder (cool name, eh?), due out in August on KT and SK Telecom, the two biggest wireless providers in South Korea. Confirmed by a Samsung official already, the phone carries the model numbers SHV-E400S and SHV-E400K, but doesn’t have very many specifics attached to its name.
In fact, all we have is that vague ETA, plus the promise it’ll be extremely budget-conscious while packing a dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU, 4G LTE speeds and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Oh, yeah, and apparently the touchscreen (there will be one in addition to a physical keyboard) will boast a modest 800 x 480 pixels resolution.
Not exactly groundbreaking, but hey, if you’re ever hit by nostalgia and want to give someone a call old school, this might just be the thing for you. All that remains to be seen is how Android will behave in a sorta, kinda unfriendly environment.
Via [Android Beat] and [DDaily]
Lava Xolo Play is now up for pre-orders: Tegra 3 power and Jelly Bean butter for Rs. 16,000
Just when we thought the Indian battle for smartphone supremacy couldn’t get any more heated, Lava has made the Xolo Play T1000 available. Only for pre-orders at this time, but shipping is to get underway later this week.
What’s so special about this Xolo Play? Well, as the name suggests, it’s perfect for gaming, packing Nvidia Tegra 3 power.
I know what you’re thinking. Tegra 4-powered devices are incoming and we’re getting excited about a phone based on a one year-old chip? You can definitely put it that way, but the thing is India is yet to get a Tegra 3 smartphone (MediaTek CPUs are all the rage around those parts), so Xolo Play’s release is still kind of a big deal.
Plus, the 4.7-incher is super cheap, going for Rs. 15999 ($266) sans contracts, so again… big deal. Also, the Xolo Play does have a few extra aces up its sleeve aside from the quad-core 1.5 GHz processor.
Like the already mentioned large display, boasting a decent 1,280 x 720 pixels (aka HD) resolution. Or the 8 MP rear camera packing a BSI sensor, flash, auto focus and a number of other goodies. Things are looking good on the software front too, though they could have been even better – there’s “only” Android 4.1 Jelly Bean there.
What I have a really big problem with is the thrifty on-board storage (4 GB, Lava, really?) and “slender” 2,000 mAh battery. That ticker might be enough to hold its own when paired with a frugal MediaTek CPU, but Nvidia’s chips have always been massive power squeezers.
Not to mention that, for some reason, the Xolo Play is chunky, measuring 10.4 mm in thickness while weighing in at 167 grams. That’s unacceptable for a phone with a 2,000 mAh battery!
Oh, well, if you keep your eyes on that lucrative price and the smooth gaming experience, the Lava Xolo Play T1000 remains a good deal. Will you or won’t you… buy it?
Via [Engadget]
AMD FX-9370 and FX-9590 CPUs released
AMD’s beast of a chip, the 8-core FX-9590, has been spotted on a retailer’s website along with the lesser powered FX-9370. But good luck getting a motherboard that can support the 9590′s required TDP.
During June’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, AMD announced the first commercially available 5GHz processor: the 8-core FX-9590.
The FX-9690 technically isn’t clocked at 5GHz. Its base speed is clocked at 4.7 GHz, and it hits 5GHz with the help of a turbo core. AMD also launched another chip in the 9000 series with a slightly slower clock speed, the FX-9370. This chip has a base clock speed of 4.4 GHz and a turbo clock speed of 4.7 GHz.
Both chips come equipped with eight AMD “Piledriver” cores and have a 16-MB of on-chip cache as well as an unlocked clock multiplier.
However, there is a caveat. In order for these processors to run they need to be provided with 220W of power. That’s how big the chip’s TDP is. With a TDP like that, the number of motherboards that can support the chips are severely limited. One OEM that has released a PC that sports an FX-9590 equips it with an MSI 990FXA-GD80 V2 motherboard and a 1200W PSU.
CPU World spotted a FX-9590 on sale at TigerDirect for $829, though only its slower clocked sibling the FX-9370 was available retailing for $319. As AMD has said that this chip is going to OEMs first, it is more widely available in prebuilt systems.
Source: CPU World
Sony PS4 dev kit passes FCC filing, 2.75 GHz max core clock listed
A Sony PlayStation 4 dev kit just passed through FCC with a previously unheard of high 2.75 GHz max core clock speed listed in the product description. What clock speed will the CPU finally be set to run at?
Thanks to FCC, we are getting to have a closer look at the internal components of a Sony PlayStation 4 developer kit, and it sure is spicy in there. Up until now, from the first time when the PS4 was revealed to the world, we were of the solid impression that the 8-core Jaguar based AMD CPUs ticking away at the heart of every PS4 are running at 1.6 GHz core frequency. The FCC filing reveals that the maximum core clock of the PS4 CPU is 2.75 GHz, a number that we completely hadn’t even dreamed off. Why so? Because Jaguar architecture is built for maximum efficiency around the 2-2.4 GHz mark. A 2.75 GHz core clock speed would require much higher power with a disproportionately lesser increase in performance over, say, 2 GHz. The listing does specify “max clock frequency” as 2.75 GHz, are we looking at “Turbo Core” here? If so, it would mean that individual PS4 cores can clock as high as 2.75 GHz when a task or game is less multi-threaded and depends more on fewer cores with faster performance. Bear in mind, the listing also reveals that the core should always function between a temperature range of 5C to 35C. We know for a fact that the PS4 will be launched in India later this year, perhaps we should pass a memo containing max temperatures of our country’s capital (48C), just in case that slipped out of their minds.
Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-ps4-dev-kit-passes-fcc-filing-2-75-ghz-max-core-clock-listed/45606.html#ixzz2ZDh1WFxM
Apple is after 3D sensors
A report says that Apple is looking to buy the Israeli semiconductor company that developed the Kinect 3D sensor with Microsoft.
Apple is after PrimeSense, the Israeli fabless semiconductor company that made the Kinect’s 3D sensor, according to a report from the newspaper Calcalist.
Calcalist’s sources say that Apple is offering up to $280 million to buy the 3D sensor company with an aim to embed its technology into future Apple products. Reportedly, a delegation of senior engineering managers from Apple’s optical hardware division visited PrimeSense in Israel earlier this month.
In all likelihood, PrimeSense’s 3D-sensor is destined for an upcoming refresh of Apple TV. Apple TV has had a tough time competing against other set-top boxes, and the inclusion of the ability to navigate through the system’s menu with hand gestures would make for an interesting feature.
Alternatively, Apple could be trying to get into the console gaming business by equipping its next generation of perhaps 3D-sensor equipped Apple TV with some beefy hardware and bringing the iOS app store to the device. While it wouldn’t be going after the next-generation of Xbox and Playstation, it would be able to take a bite out of the growing casual gaming market dominated in the console world by the Wii.
Apple is being tight lipped about the report, which is to be expected from the company. Perhaps something will emerge right around the time Apple launches its new version of iOS and iPhone.
Source: Calcalist
Via: Reuters
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active demonstrated (video)
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active recently went on sale and now is the first unboxing video appeared of this water - and dustproof version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 .
The specifications of the Active S4 are as follows:
- Full HD 5 inch TFT LCD
- resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and 443PPI
- quad-core 1.9 GHz processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
- 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash on the back
- 2 megapixel front camera
- 16GB built-in storage plus the ability to expand with microSD card
- dust and water resistance to IP67 standard and therefore can stay underwater for up to half an hour.
( via )
Official Transport Tycoon Port Coming To Android, Directed By Creator Chris Sawyer Himself
While an open source remake is already available on Google Play, an official version of Transport Tycoon is coming to Android before the end of 2013. The game's original creator, Chris Sawyer, is designing and directing what is being billed as the definitive version of the simulation classic. Developers at Origin8 Technologies, who are also working on the game, have recreated and restored Sawyer's original code and are revising it for touchscreen devices.
Transport Tycoon met with both critical and commercial success when it debuted in 1994, and Sawyer's follow-up, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, repeated this achievement a year later. The addictive gameplay and degree of depth have attracted both casual and dedicated gamers alike to the series. For decades now, aspiring business tycoons everywhere have competed to run virtual challengers out of the industry in their quest to hoard as much money as they can. It's a learning experience, really, and now a new generation of gamers conditioned on hyper casual imitations will get in on the action when Transport Tycoon hits the Play Store later this year.
Source: Press Release
IMDB App Updated To v3.3 With Movie Ticket Purchasing, A Much Improved Watchlist, And More
The IMDB app is one of those things you always end up installing. It's the biggest database of movies, TV episodes, and actors around, after all. Today the app is getting a big update to v3.3. This will refine a few features and add support for movie ticket purchases in the app.
People will probably be most interested in movie ticket purchasing, and the devs made it pretty easy to find. At the top of each movie listing is a bar that immediately searches for showtimes near you. This feature is provided by Fandango, so not all theaters are supported. Buying tickets pulls up a stripped-down web interface to complete the purchase. It's not the most elegant solution, but it gets the job done. Here's the full changelog:
The watchlist changes are also pretty solid. The filtering and sorting finally make it powerful enough to manage your movies. This appears to be yet another staged rollout, so give it a little bit.
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