At the start of the year, Disney launched an app for iOS which allows you to stream all the Disney, Pixar, and Marvel movies you own. Now, it’s arrived on Android, too. Read more…
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You Can Now Stream All the Disney Movies You Own on Android
Have an iPhone 4S running iOS 8? You’re due for a speed increase. Andrew Cunningham Late yesterday, Apple released the first beta build of iOS 8.1.1 to developers . The first update to iOS 8.1 will include customary bug fixes, but the preliminary release notes suggest a far more interesting development: the update promises to improve performance on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 , two of the oldest devices that support iOS 8. This would address one of our biggest criticisms of iOS 8, which in our testing was significantly slower on these older devices than iOS 7 was. Apps took longer to launch, and the user interface was often jerky and inconsistent in ways that it wasn’t before. Apple has a long history of speeding up new iOS versions on old hardware post-release— iOS 4.1 on the iPhone 3G , iOS 7.1 on the iPhone 4 , and now iOS 8.1.1. It would be nice if performance on older hardware was better optimized in the first place, but newer hardware obviously takes precedence. When the final version of iOS 8.1.1 is released, we’ll throw it on an iPhone 4S and iPad 2 to see how much the performance really improves. Although they’re not mentioned by name in the release notes, we’d also expect the improvements to help the original iPad Mini and the fifth-generation iPod Touch, which are internally similar to the 4S and iPad 2. Read on Ars Technica | Comments
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iOS 8.1.1 said to address iPhone 4S and iPad 2 performance problems
With thousands of TV shows and movies available to stream at home, it takes more than just celebrities in a film to get people into theaters. You need to show them something spectacular, and for Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Interstellar , that meant shooting almost an hour of the movie with a 70mm IMAX camera. Read more…
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Why Seeing Interstellar in 70mm Might Just Be Worth the Effort
VLC is easily one of our favorite media players (and yours too ). However, it’s not just a one-trick pony. Under the surface, there’s a wide range of features that you might not have known it could do. Read more…
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The Best Hidden Features of VLC
The claim that binaural beats simulate the effect of recreational drugs enjoys little scientific support. But Dr. Sargan Al Meheini of the United Arab Emirates’ Police Sciences Academy says the dreamy, weirdly rhythmic music should be dealt with like cannabis and ecstasy .
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"Police scientist" in UAE: binaural music is "digital drug", ban it
Microsoft would just love it if you used OneDrive for all your document storage needs, but let’s face it: loyalties to rival cloud services run deep. That’s why, in the spirit of compromise (or acknowledging user demand), the folks in Redmond have inked a curious deal with Dropbox . Over the coming weeks, you’ll be able to access your Dropbox files from your Microsoft Office apps, and edit those Office documents from within the Dropbox mobile app. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too, as Dropbox is working on connecting its website to Microsoft’s Office Online tools and prepping a Dropbox Windows Phone app for a launch within the next few months. It might seem a little odd for Microsoft to so openly embrace an apparent rival, but the company can’t deny the facts. Dropbox currently has over 200 million users dumping their files into accounts all the time, and Microsoft isn’t trying to beat them over their heads with word of OneDrive’s superiority this time. No, it’s meeting people on their cloud-based doorsteps with a terribly useful feature, and it just might win some new fans because of it. Comments Source: Dropbox Blog
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Microsoft Office will soon tap into your Dropbox
Add / Remove This is part of a series of articles that looks at entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing, each of these innovations is currently seeking funding. Running out of smartphone battery is a perennial problem that can range from being a small annoyance to leaving victims stranded without a way of contacting anyone. In the past we’ve seen entrepreneurs develop numerous ways for consumers to charge their phone on the go, but a new Kickstarter project is taking a different tact. Talkase is an ultra-slim device that acts as a secondary mini phone when the battery runs out on your main one. The size of an average credit card, the Talkase device features a small screen and keypad. If your phone runs out of battery, the micro-SIM can be taken out and inserted into the Talkase to act as a backup. Otherwise, users can simply place a second SIM inside. Since it has a lack of non-necessary features, its battery life spans much longer than a smartphone’s at up to 100 hours, although owners could just keep it turned off until they need it. Talkase comes with an iPhone case that fits the phone into the back, along with space to hold a sim and a hook to get the SIM out of the phone. Talkase looks more like a calculator than today’s smartphones, and indeed it has a calculator mode so users can simply flip their iPhone over to do some quick sums. Alternatively, Talkase can sync with existing phones via Bluetooth. This option enables owners to duplicate their smartphone and take the cheaper, lightweight version along with them on sports activities or other locations where they’d rather not get their smartphone damaged. Watch the video below to learn more about Talkase: Talkase can be purchased along with an iPhone case through Kickstarter from USD 39. The campaign ends on 20 November. Are there other ways to tackle the problem of constantly draining smartphone batteries? Kickstarter: www.kck.st/1r9jixZ Website: www.talkase.com Contact: hi@talkase.com
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Credit card-sized phone is a backup when your battery runs out
The subprime lending market that plunged America into the Great Recession is back and as unscrupulous as ever. Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans , and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it. Two “partners” in Uber’s vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn’t slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans. Read more…
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Uber and Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers into Subprime Loans
US EIA A few years back, when I got my first LED-based lightbulb, it seemed natural to stick it into a wattmeter to get a sense of its efficiency. At under 15 Watts of power drawn, it clearly beat any incandescent bulbs I’d ever put into the same lamp. But I was disappointed to find that it wasn’t any better than a compact fluorescent bulb. Based on the graph shown above, my experience was hardly unique; in fact, it was decidedly average. Although the technology behind LEDs had the potential to be far more efficient than any other lighting source, the complete LED bulb package wasn’t doing that much better at the time than the far more mature fluorescent bulbs, which output roughly 60 lumens for every Watt put in. After some small boosts in 2013, however, a new generation of more efficient LEDs hit the market this year, raising the typical efficiency to nearly 100 lumens per Watt. The increased efficiency is coming at a time when prices for the bulbs continue to drop; given their expected lifetimes, they’re now far and away the most economical choice for most uses. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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LED bulb efficiency clearly pulling ahead of compact fluorescents
After rumors swirled for months regarding SoundCloud’s pending licensing deals with major labels, Warner Music Group is the first to sign on. As part of the agreement, the German audio-streaming site will shell out funds each time one of the labels’ songs are spun. What’s more, it seems the crux of the deal was that SoundCloud would guarantee it’d be launching its own subscription service — which is said to happen during the first half of 2015. The label will get a kickback when parts of its catalog are used in mashups too, but it doesn’t have to open its entire library for access. Warner also nabs a small stake in the site, a stipulation that was reported to be somewhere between 3 and 5 percent back in the summer . Right now, SoundCloud and its apps are free, but pack in ads to bring in revenue from its 175 million monthly users. Artists who upload their work in bulk have to fork over a monthly fee, but that’s for sharing only, as musicians don’t see any money in return. Lastly, it seems that talks with both Universal Music and Sony are on-going, per the Wall Street Journal report. Filed under: Internet , Software Comments Source: Wall Street Journal
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SoundCloud inks its first major label deal, eyes streaming service in 2015