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Zune HD2 Will Be Like iPod Touch for Windows Phone 7 (Read: Apps! Also, Zune HD Is For Suckers) [Rumor]
about 10 hours ago - No comments
Sorry, everybody who bought a Zune HD! You screwed up. It won’t be a part of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 party—meaning it won’t play those new mobile Xbox Live games for Windows Phone 7—unlike the Zune HD2.
It’s through MIcrosoft’s XNA Game Studio 4.0 that developers get access to the Xbox Live goodness, using Gamer Services APIs. And that’s not in the cards for the plain old Zune HD, according to Microsoft’s Klucher:
“Development for the Zune and Zune HD will continue to exist in XNA Game Studio 3.1, however, in XNA Game Studio 4.0, we’re encouraging you to migrate your games over to the Windows Phone 7 Series platform.”
That’s where the Zune HD2 comes in, which Mary Jo Foley hears is in the pipe, and “will be similar to an iPod Touch,” and could ship as early as this year. In other words, it’ll presumably be a part of that “Windows Phone 7 Series platform” and run Windows Phone 7 apps.
Which is what Microsoft will need—as many devices as possible running WP7 apps to give the platform a running start, and a wide base of them that don’t require carrier contracts isn’t a bad idea. Like Steve Jobs once supposedly referred to the iPod touch as “training wheels for the iPhone,” devices running around with Xbox Live games and Zune music, getting people hooked on the platform early, the people who aren’t quite ready for a full phone (though maybe that’s where the mysterious Project Pink comes in), is almost a necessity, really.
But, uh, everybody who already bought a Zune HD, especially in the past month. Um, yeah. Sorry, but we told you this could happen. [ZDNet]
Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Tomorrowland Edition [Remainders]
about 11 hours ago - No comments
In today’s Remainders: tomorrow’s news! Cisco’s ushering in the next generation of internet with the CRS-3; Kempler & Strauss’s futuristic PhoneWatch gets reviewed; geolocated Tweets; a WebKit-borrowing Firefox; an HTML 5 drawing app; Samsung’s point and shoot prices, and more!
Hang Ups
Back in October we previewed the Kempler & Strauss PhoneWatch—the smallest of its kind and the model that promised to bring the James Bond dream to every geek’s wrist. Or so we hoped. PC Mag just published their review of the watch and found it “basically unusable,” complaining about the tiny screen and how texting (as you might assume) was pretty much impossible. As they point out, i’s a one way street, this watch/phone business: your phone will always be able to tell the time, but your timepiece will not always be able to make phone calls. [PC Mag]
Tubular
Last night Cisco grabbed our attention with its promise that it was soon to make an announce that would “forever change the internet.” This morning they unveiled their internet changer: the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? Basically, the new server triples the capacity of Cisco’s current ones, allowing for 322 Terabits per second transfer and ushering in, Cisco hopes, the “next generation” of the internet. Sure, that’s great, but even with crazyfast back-end, there are still plenty of things limiting the speed of the intertubes. Cisco’s claims for the CRS-3 are impressive, for sure:
The Cisco CRS-3 triples the capacity of its predecessor, the Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System, with up to 322 Terabits per second, which enables the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second; every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously; and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.
But if it’s only three times as fast as the one that came before it, Cisco’s current platform can stream every movie ever made in twelve minutes. It took me like two hours to download Lost last week, so I’m not ready to say that Cisco forever changed anything just yet. [Cisco]
Firey Fox
Firefox’s JavaScript engine, TraceMonkey, is starting to fall behind some of the other browser monkeys, so Mozilla is building a new engine, JagerMonkey, to get back up to speed. Ars Technica reports that Mozilla will snatch code from Apple’s WebKit to add to their TraceMonkey optimization techniques. David Mandelin, a developer on the project, explained:
The reason we’re [building JägerMonkey] is that TraceMonkey is very fast for code that traces well, but for code that doesn’t trace, we’re stuck with the interpreter, which is not fast. The JägerMonkey method JIT will provide a much better performance baseline, and tracing will continue to speed us up on code where it applies.
From the sound of things, JagerMonkey is aiming to put the fire back in the fox. [Ars Technica]
Image credit Smoking Apples
Gates’ Cells
Intellectual Ventures, the very cool, very smart invention factory we’ve covered before, has a new patent for the modification of red blood cells. Edward Jung, Intellectual Ventures’ CTO, explains:
Red blood cells are odd cells in the body because they have no nucleus. Thus they are ’stripped down’ cells that cannot reproduce and cannot renew themselves; therefore they die quickly and must be constantly manufactured by special cells in the bone marrow. All these attributes make red blood cells interesting vessels for sensing devices and medicines. There is no risk of their reproducing thereby creating a hazard, nor is there a lot of machinery to run awry.
We’ll take your word for it, guys. [TechFlash]
Doodling
We’ve already explained why HTML 5 isn’t going to save the internet. But it might save you from a few hours of office drudgery, in the form of Harmony, an awesome HTML 5 drawing app. Warning: Not Safe For Productivity. [Harmony]
Tweetin’ All Over the World
These days, social media seems to be focused on location, location, location. Foursquare is more popular than ever. Buzz, despite its faults, is a big play by a big company the location game. And Facebook is set to roll out its location-based solution next month. Today, geolocated Tweeets went live on Twitter.com (only to be turned off a few hours later). Still, Twitter is expected to turn the service on for good any day now, adding yet another element to Twittermania, for better or for worse. [TechCrunch]
Pricetags
We were very excited when Samsung’s new point and shoots, the TL500 and the TL300, first splashed on the scene last month. Now we have prices: the TL500 will go for $449 and the TL350 for $349. As for the “rugged” cams, the water-friendly AQ100 will have a price tag of $199 with the SL605 going for $129. [Engadget]
Browsin
Lab 126, the unit in Amazon responsible for the Kindle, posted a new job opening looking for someone to help build “an innovative embedded web browser.” The Kindle’s web browsing capabilities have been, well, lacking, so a more fully realized browser would be a welcome addition. And maybe a necessary one, if Kindle’s going to keep up with the iPad and its finger friendly version of Safari. [All Things D]
Apple Reportedly Disrupting iPhone Competitors With Legal Threats Backed Up by HTC Suit
about 13 hours ago - No comments
Fortune reports on a new research note from Oppenhiemer & Co.’s Yair Reiner claiming that Apple in January began high-level talks with major phone manufacturers expressing its displeasure with what it con…
Found Footage: Deconstructing the iPad Ad
about 15 hours ago - No comments
Filed under: Found Footage, iPad
Neil Curtis, the guy behind the adjective-filled iPad mashup video we presented last month, has taken the iPad commercial shown on the Oscar broadcast and clarified it. Our own Sang Tang did a graphical breakdown of the ad’s focus earlier today, so this is a nice companion piece.
In his version, he slowed down the ad to 15% speed, which gives you a much better idea of what’s really going on. He also comments on a few ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ moments like switching models in mid-stream and how a graphic dragged into text continues to move without any user intervention. Take a look at this iPad video and see what else you can find.
TUAWFound Footage: Deconstructing the iPad Ad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Video – TUAW – Apple – Business – The Emperor’s New Clothes
Microsoft bringing XNA Game Studio 4.0 to GDC this week, does 3D gaming for Windows Phone
about 16 hours ago - No comments

We’ve all had a feeling that Microsoft is holding back some pretty big surprises (or at least completely reasonable revelations) when it comes to Windows Phone 7 Series and gaming, and here at GDC this week it sounds like we’re going to get a little glimpse into that. Microsoft is unveiling its new XNA Game Studio 4.0, which lets developers work on games for Windows Phone 7 Series, Xbox 360 and Windows PC. The integration with Visual Studio 2010 that we saw the other day allows developers to build a single project and then make slight modifications to let it run on each platform respectively. Most importantly, Microsoft specifically mentions that 4.0 will include hardware accelerated 3D APIs for Windows Phone 7 Series — not stunning, giving the fact that Zune can do 3D games (and is supported by XNA), but relieving just the same. Other phone-related tidbits are also telling: there will be fairly deep Xbox LIVE integration, including unlocking achievements from phone-based games and push notifications for asynchronous turn based gaming. Hopefully we can get some real live multiplayer gaming going as well, but there’s no mention of that just yet. Microsoft promises “much, much more” will be revealed at MIX 2010, but for now we’re gonna dig for all we can here at GDC.
Microsoft bringing XNA Game Studio 4.0 to GDC this week, does 3D gaming for Windows Phone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A look at the framework of Apple’s iPad ad
about 20 hours ago - No comments
Filed under: iPad
The iPad, like the iPhone, used the Oscars to make its ad debut. As is typical with an Apple ad, the iPad’s ad featured a montage of different uses for the device, all while set to the backdrop of a catchy tune.
In making his case for the iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that it would offer a better experience than a smartphone and a notebook computer in the following areas:
- Browsing
- Photos
- Videos
- Music
- Games
- eBooks
The iPad’s first ad reflects this ideal. The ad, when analyzed based on the on-air time dedicated to a particular function, reveals a device that will be marketed for jack-of-all-trades functionality, with a particular focus on its media consumption appeal and differentiation.
About 80 percent of all 720 frames (30 seconds of total ad’s total time multiplied by 24 frames per second) of the iPad’s ad showed an app being used. And within this time, the photo app was shown the most, accounting for 26 percent of total frames where an app is being used. The mail app came in second, with 22 percent.
With 20 percent of airtime, the iBook app highlights Apple positioning the iPad to compete against eBook readers.
While a New York Times app wasn’t shown, the ad, which shows the paper being displayed in a Safari browser window instead, also points to Apple positioning the iPad to appeal those who consume traditional print media publications — such as newspapers and magazines. Although a Safari browser was briefly shown toward the end of the ad browsing Facebook, almost all Safari activity displayed the New York Times.
In a September 2009 interview with the New York Times’ David Pogue, Steve Jobs provided somewhat of a glimpse into how Apple would market and differentiate the iPad. Jobs argued that while dedicated devices such as Amazon’s Kindle will always exist and that they may have offer some advantages in doing just one thing, “general-purpose devices will win the day” because “people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.” The iPad’s first ad clearly follows this ideal.
TUAWA look at the framework of Apple’s iPad ad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Steve Jobs – Apple – New York Times – Safari – iPhone
Twim 1.17 j2me Mobile Twitter Client [update 06.03.10]
about 1 day ago - No comments

Twim is a mobile Twitter client that runs on devices that are compatible with Java MIDP 2.0. User can browse history, replies, friends, direct messages and public feeds with the application. User can also also update his/her status. Links can be opened in phone browser. You can search for tweets.
You can upload photos and videos to Twitgoo, TwitnGo, TwitPic, TwitrPix, Twitvid, Mobypicture, Posterous or yFrog services. Twim also supports auto-refreshing (in every 5 minutes) and it will alarm you if new tweets are available by vibrating your phone and playing a small info sound.
Version History
Twim 1.17 (March 6th, 2010)
Posterous and TwitnGo support
Theme support
Duplicate retweets fixed
Twim 1.16 (November 2nd, 2009)
Google Translate support
Paging support in home screen and in search results
Twim 1.15 (August 22nd, 2009)
TwitrPix support
Cancel option to media menu
Initial auto-refresh option with alarming of new tweets
Option to automatically load tweets on startup
Tab names changed: Recent > Home , Friends > Following
Fix for non-latin characters when posting photos ( Lexa!)
Twim 1.14 (July 27th, 2009)
Twitvid support for videos
Experimental touchscreen support
Search
Follow/Unfollow
Minor improvements
Twim 1.13 (June 28th, 2009)
Mobypicture support
Video upload support to yFrog and Mobypicture
Minimize app from menu
Twim 1.12 (May 10th, 2009)
yFrog support
Favourites support
File based photo upload
Recent timeline not loaded automatically on startup
Twim v1.11
Twitgoo support
Retweet quote feature
Clock is shown in menu screen
Twim v1.10 (April 16th, 2009)
Fixed Unicode support
Twim v1.9 (April 4th, 2009)
Fixed date stamp bug
Added TwitPic support
Improved highlighting of selected status
Improved error handling in case of wrong username
Twim v1.8 (March 21st, 2009)
Load only selected timeline
Twim v1.6 (January 1st, 2009)
Show direct messages
Unicode status update support
Send direct message shortcut
Twim v1.5 (December 10th, 2008)
Fixed Tweet age parsing
Twim v1.4 (November 22nd, 2008)
Unicode support
Reload tweets without restarting app
Twim v1.2 (September 13th, 2008)
Improved performance
Browse public feed
Fixed replies browsing
Improved user interface rendering
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HTC Legend Review: Frankly, It Feels Expensive [Android]
about 1 day ago - No comments
With HTC’s upcoming crop of Androids, you’ll be able to separate people into two distinct groups: those who spring for the brainier, better-specced Desire, and those who get bowled over by the beautiful, yet lesser-specced Legend.
The Desire (or Nexus One) is the final word in the Androidsphere—it’s a mark of someone who knows what they’re doing, who wants to show people they NEED that extra computing power. If you compare it to the Legend, you could be justified in saying Legend-salivators are more shallow, ignoring the might of a Snapdragon processor in lieu of a unibody aluminum shell and slim build.
You’d be wrong, however.
I Mean, It Is Just a Sequel
The internal upgrades are minor, when you consider it next to the HTC Hero, but like the Empire Strikes Back, sometimes sequels are far better than the original. While we found the Hero “tragically flawed” in its slugginess, the Legend’s slightly more powerful 600MHz processor behaved—well, like a legend. The 3.2-inch screen has the same amount of pixels as the Hero, but swaps the HVGA for a more superior AMOLED. The 5.0-megapixel camera is still the same quality, but has the much-welcomed addition of a flash. You get the picture—the Legend is building on the Hero’s quality in incremental upgrades, but every change, however minor, radicalizes the experience of using the Legend.
It’s running Android 2.1, which as any Hero owner knows should be released as an over-the-air update soon. One day. The jump from 1.6 to 2.1 is impressive—it’s a lot faster, the multitouch is better, there’s greater integration of social networking profiles with contacts, and HTML5 support, amongst other—admittedly small—changes.
Design Works
Plain and simple—the Legend is the most well-built phone I’ve ever had in my hand. You just know when you feel the weight of it, the cool curved exterior of the unibody aluminum shell, and touch the ultra-responsive touchscreen. It’s that sensation when you first tenderly held the original iPhone, which has been long-missing in the market.
The bottom and top of the back is actually made from rubberized plastic though, so there are no issues with wireless signals—unlike the first generation of the iPhone. Removing part of the case reveals a very thin battery and a touch-sensitive catch which keeps the SIM and microSD cards encased. It’s a small point, but it’s also the most polished example of a phone’s innards that I’ve ever seen.

Just like BlackBerry, HTC is migrating its trackballs to optical trackpads. This is a relief, but in actual fact I barely had to use the trackpad—only when having to make an edit when typing out messages or emails. The screen is just so responsive, with nary a wrongly-actioned command made, that you can imagine HTC forgoing the trackpad altogether at a later date.

Only eight buttons reside on the Legend’s body. The on/off button up top, the two volume controls on the top left, and then on the lower face, home, menu, back and search. They all worked well, though the home, menu, back and search keys did feel a bit cheap in comparison to the high-end feeling of the rest of the handset.
Same Old Camera?
HTC’s used the same 5.0-megapixel camera as we saw on the Hero, but the addition of a flash is a new and exciting step for them—strange as that sounds. As you can see from the two photos below, the flash is very strong—too strong, I’d say. However, the quality is decent in lowlight conditions—noisy for sure, but I’ve seen worse.

My friends in lowlight at a cinema before Alice In Wonderland 3D
In daytime I had a lot more luck. Testing it out on some cakes in my kitchen in the late afternoon sun retained the nice rays of sun across the cakes, with the yellow of the flowers showing up bright. But even at 5MP, the general image performance isn’t enough to ditch your point and shoot just yet.

Testing indoors with daylight

More Sense Than HTC Sense
Most manufacturers are skinning Android with their own proprietary interfaces…MOTOBLUR, Mediascape, S-Class, they’re ok, but I’d almost rather use Android in its natural flavor than have to put up with some of their issues.
There just ain’t no Android phone like a HTC Sense Android phone. It’s simply the best skin an Android could ask for, even without the minor improvements seen in the Legend. By far the pick of the bunch is the new “Leap” view—or “Helicopter view” as it was known in-house when designed. It works much like Mac OS X’s Exposé function, bringing all seven homescreens up as thumbnails. The feature is very useful, particularly if you just can’t remember which screen your mail, or the weather widget, is listed on. The pinch command takes some getting used to, but once you’ve got the gesture down-pat, it’s a godsend.

Leap—or helicopter—view
But with ever feature that will be used often comes one with no point at all. FriendStream is a nice enough widget, which collates all your friends’ updates from Twitter, Facebook and Flickr into one feed, but for anyone who’s a purist and likes to see every form of update on each social networking site, it will be removed quickly from the homescreen. I preferred using HTC’s own brilliant Twitter widget, Peep, for the full Twitter options, and the Facebook app to see every form of action. The Flickr integration is handy, being able to see when my contacts upload photos, but not necessary if you get email notifications already.
Plus, FriendStream just felt slow sometimes—in fact, on a very speedy phone, it felt incongruous in comparison to everything else, often updating with tweets quite a few minutes later than the Twitter widget did. It’s not a big problem, but for someone who relies on Twitter heavily as a source of entertainment, it became a source of frustration.

FriendStream
Respectable Battery Life
The Legend ran 36 hours before it died on me. Not too bad, considering I had an hour-long call plus about five shorter ones, sent and received around 20 text messages, and spent almost a whole day browsing the web, checking Twitter, and showing it off to my friends. After the horror of seeing my G1’s battery deplete in half a day when I first bought it, the Legend’s 1300mAh battery ran to my satisfaction.
The Legend Is The Most Solid Android Phone I’ve Used
True, other phones may be better specced, but with that premium build it’s like comparing a Sony Vaio (not a bad laptop, sure) to a MacBook. Sometimes there’s just no contest. While the extra horsepower and added touches of the Nexus One and Desire are nice, I found the Legend more than satisfactory.
It wasn’t sluggish, certainly didn’t have bugs or issues like the G1 and Hero, and while it’ll inevitably slow down and have you cursing the fact you didn’t spring for something with a Snapdragon chip, I’m going to award it possibly the highest accolade a reviewer can gift a device: I’m going to upgrade to one.
It’s not the best Android phone. That badge still belongs to the Nexus One, or possibly the Desire, when we review it. But it’s one of the best all-rounders, when you consider the hardware—and the feeling you’re left with once it leaves your hand. I feel bereft without it.
Superb hardware quality
HTC Sense is better than ever
Addition of camera flash
Super-fast and responsive
FriendStream could be faster
Camera flash isn’t perfect
The HTC Legend hasn’t been announced for the US market yet, with the European launch sometime this month.
HTC HD2 breaks free in the T-Mobile USA wilds
about 2 days ago - No comments
HTC’s HD2 is a near perfect combination of physical hardware and silicon that delivers impressive performance on a device that’s surprisingly sleek given the display’s massive 4.3-inch exapanse. Even Microsoft’s much maligned Windows Mobile 6.5 is expertly masked by HTC’s Sense interface. So it’s easy to understand the anticipation felt by the HD2’s first US release, questions of a Windows Phone 7 OS upgrade path notwithstanding. T-Mobile has the release honors and is now showing the HD2 as “coming soon” in its phone inventory. We’ve also got the first “in the wild” shots courtesy of TmoNews showing that big Blockbuster shortcut linked front and center for downloading On Demand movies directly to the device. Still no firm price or date but $199.99 on contract ($449.99 unlocked) sometime around 24 March sounds about right. One more shot with official T-Mobile branding after the break; the rest at the source link below.
Update: Tipster Nigel spotted a “†” footnote to nothing (yet) at the bottom of the page that requires 4 payments of $112.50 (or 20 payments of $22.50). That’s $450, matching the rumored price of the unlocked handset.
[Thanks Taylor]
Continue reading HTC HD2 breaks free in the T-Mobile USA wilds
HTC HD2 breaks free in the T-Mobile USA wilds originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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IT Partner RingtoneMaker v1.01
about 2 days ago - No comments


Why wasting money on purchasing ringtones? With Flying Ringtone Maker you can create ring tones directly on your mobile phone in only a few steps and assign it to your contact.
Easy! Fast! Cool!
* Simply choose a song, select a start/finish point and save your new Ringtone
* Two modes: rough/fine tuning
* Use any songs or media file stored at your smartphone or on a media card to create your ringtones
* No computer software is required




