29Dec2010
Skype teases mobile video calling ahead of CES
Skype on Wednesday posted a teaser for its known upcoming mobile video calling feature. The page shows a collection of videos that could only have been taken without using a computer, such as a concert or a snowboard run. None of them focus on the user, however, and it's strongly implied that Skype will allow saving clips and turn it into a live streaming app like Qik or UStream. Only an update to the iPhone version of Skype has been tipped so far, although Skype could theoretically update its
Read MoreLeave a Comment29Dec2010
Skype: outdated Windows version triggered outages
Skype honored its promises today and gave a post-mortem on the reasons behind its worldwide outage. The company blamed the failure on a bug in a slightly outdated Windows version of Skype. After some servers handling offline text chat were overloaded, these older clients -- which were still 20 percent of all users --couldn't handle the delays and crashed, taking down some of the supernodes managing calls and putting too much strain on others. The company had shut off the overloaded servers
Read MoreLeave a Comment29Dec2010
Lawsuit accuses SoHo Apple store of discriminating against employee
A former employee of Apple's retail store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming she was discriminated against after she took a medical leave of absence. According to a suit filed in a U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, Nicole Sullivan, 22, began work at the SoHo Apple Store in 2008. In April of 2009, she took a leave of absence due to a nervous disorder, and sought the services of a psychiatrist. Sullivan was
Read MoreLeave a Comment29Dec2010
Android nearing 200,000 apps but growth leveling out
Android could be close to reaching the 200,000 app mark based on stats from AndroLib. The unofficial count has Android Market passing the milestone at about the turn of the new year. It's unlikely so far to have crossed the mark despite the graph, as the officially hit 100,000 apps in October, when AndroLib was registering about 140,000 apps. Unofficial trackers sometimes don't factor in apps that have been removed from the store or have been given a new name. Reaching 200,000 should be a
Read MoreLeave a Comment29Dec2010
RIM struggling to fix PlayBook tablet battery issues, analyst says
Research in Motion is unable to match the iPad's longer battery life with its prototype PlayBook tablets, which get just a "few hours" of battery life, according to one analyst. Analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. issued a note to investors Tuesday warning that engineering issues with the BlackBerry PlayBook's battery life could be the cause of delays. According to Wu, the PlayBook's "relatively poor battery life of a few hours" needs improvement. By comparison, Apple's iPad gets 10 hours of
Read MoreLeave a Comment28Dec2010
Omega Headphone Stand: The $180 Plywood Curve
If ever there was a solution to a first-world problem, this is it. Behold, the Omega Headphone Stand, a perfect answer to a question that was never asked. The stands are exactly what they claim to be, nothing more: a place to keep your over-the-head headphones. If you have been suffering the awful chaos of a pair of expensive cans sitting messily on a table, or even worse, sprawled across a shelf, offending the eyes of every sensitive soul who visits your luxury, minimalist home, then
Read MoreLeave a Comment28Dec2010
New Galaxy Tab firmware bans hacks beyond iPad levels
Samsung may soon roll out a new firmware update for the Galaxy Tab that will clamp down much more tightly than Apple does for the iPad, experimenters found late Sunday. The new JM6 A, C and D builds Samsung is planning have bootloaders that are signed and prevent unauthorized firmware from running. Once the firmware is installed, any jailbreaks, roots and other custom firmware won't run, XDA-Developers members learned. Later builds aren't as uniformly locked, but they so far all have at least
Read MoreLeave a Comment27Dec2010
Microsoft plans to gain the lost share launching Windows 8 focusing Games
Microsoft's Windows 8 could have a much stronger focus on gaming, a slip alleged today. The developer is said making gaming not just important but a "key component for the whole OS." What that would entail wasn't given to the TechRadar source. The company has made periodic attempts to improve gaming in Windows, starting with DirectX in Windows 95 and including more recent additions like the Games section in Vista and 7. However, the company doesn't have a simplified gaming app store and
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Samsung’s Android ‘iPod Touch’ coming at CES 2011
At last, somebody, somewhere will sell a credible alternative to the iPad Touch. Ever since September 2007, Apple has had the phone-less pocket computer market to itself. This is about to change, thanks to Samsung’s Galaxy Player, a non-cell version of its super-successful Galaxy S. Last year, Samsung got a rather crappier Galaxy-branded media player into European stores, but this on is the real deal. It sports a pair of cameras (3.2MP round back, and a VGA webcam up front), Bluetooth, GPS,
Read MoreLeave a Comment26Dec2010
How to become popular on Facebook
Want to be the most popular person on Facebook? All you have to do is write longer status updates, talk about music and sports, don’t be overly emotional, don’t talk about your family, don’t refer to time and use the word “you” a lot. That’s according to a recent Facebook study that took a look at the way people write and react to status updates. Facebook analyzed the word usage for about 1 million status updates from its US English speakers. The social network said all
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