Author: kenmay

Top 10 Secret Features of iOS 7

Apple released iOS 7 to the public this week, providing a new design and a handful of cool features to iPhone- and iPad-lovers everywhere, but some of the best stuff lurks beneath the surface. Apple failed to advertise quite a few awesome features. These are our top 10. Read more…        

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Top 10 Secret Features of iOS 7

Android to Airplay Mirroring demonstrated, coming soon to CyanogenMod

Just in case you thought incorporation would slow things down among the folks behind CyanogenMod , dev and VP of Engineering Koushik Dutta just posted this video showing off Airplay Mirroring from an Android phone. He’s been working on Android streaming support to various protocols / devices for the “AllCast” media streaming app since Google’s changes cut it off from the Chromecast (for now at least), and Apple’s screen sharing feature is the latest target. There are other apps in the Play Store that connect Android devices over Airplay, but mirroring support integrated into the OS feels fresh. AllCast support is already in place for pushing media to Roku and DLNA-compatible hardware, and he says this mirroring feature is “coming soon to a CyanogenMod near you.” Filed under: Cellphones , Software , HD , Mobile , Apple , Google Comments Source: Koushik Dutta (Google+) (1) , (2)

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Android to Airplay Mirroring demonstrated, coming soon to CyanogenMod

Software Glitch Means Loss of NASA’s Deep Impact Comet Probe

Taco Cowboy writes “‘NASA is calling off attempts to find its Deep Impact comet probe after a suspected software glitch shut down radio communications in August, officials said on Friday.’ Last month, engineers lost contact with Deep Impact and unsuccessfully tried to regain communications. The cause of the failure was unknown, but NASA suspects the spacecraft lost control, causing its antenna and solar panels to be pointed in the wrong direction. NASA had hoped Deep Impact would play a key role in observations of the approaching Comet ISON, a suspected first-time visitor to the inner solar system that was discovered in September 2012 by two Russian astronomers. The comet is heading toward a close encounter with the sun in November, a brush that it may not survive.” Deep Impact has had a pretty good run, though: from its original mission to launch a copper slug at a comet (hence the name), to looking for Earth-sized planets. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Software Glitch Means Loss of NASA’s Deep Impact Comet Probe

Amazon MP3 is 78% Cheaper than iTunes, On Average

By default, a lot of us just buy music from iTunes because it’s cheap and easy. However, Deal News recently took a look at the numbers, and it turns out that Amazon is cheaper than iTunes almost 80% of the time. Read more…        

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Amazon MP3 is 78% Cheaper than iTunes, On Average

LucasFilm Combines Video Games and Movies To Eliminate Post-Production

llebeel writes “Lucasfilm is currently prototyping the combining of video game engines with film-making to eliminate the post-production process in movies. ‘Speaking at the Technology Strategy Board event at BAFTA in London this week, the company’s chief technology strategy officer, Kim Libreri, announced that the developments in computer graphics have meant Lucasfilm has been able to transfer its techniques to film-making, shifting video game assets into movie production. Real-time motion capture and the graphics of video game engines, Libreri claimed, will increasingly be used in movie creation, allowing post-production effects to be overlayed in real time. “We think that computer graphics are going to be so realistic in real time computer graphics that, over the next decade, we’ll start to be able to take the post out of post-production; where you’ll leave a movie set and the shot is pretty much complete, ” Libreri said.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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LucasFilm Combines Video Games and Movies To Eliminate Post-Production

Blackberry warns of near-$1 billion loss this quarter

Blackberry released a statement on Friday saying that it expects to report an operating loss of almost $1 billion in the coming days. According to The Wall Street Journal , Blackberry overestimated the number of new phones it would sell and is facing an “inventory charge of as much as $960 million and a restructuring charge of $72 million.” Specifically, the company said that it would likely report a loss of $950 million to $995 million for the second quarter. Earlier this week we reported that Blackberry was planning to lay off up to 40 percent of its employees, taking the company from 12, 700 full-time employees to about 7, 620 employees. The WSJ reported today that 4, 500 people will be laid off, lower than earlier estimates. (Is that a silver lining we see?) The Canadian company also reported today that it only sold 3.7 million smartphones in the last quarter, most of which were older phones. To stem the bleeding, Blackberry said that going forward, its “smartphone portfolio will transition from 6 devices to 4; focusing on enterprise and prosumer-centric devices, including 2 high-end devices and 2 entry-level devices.” As Quartz writer Christopher Mims wrote , it’s probably too late for Blackberry to turn around its share of the enterprise market given the latest moves made by Apple and Samsung to get their hardware into the hands of businesspeople. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Blackberry warns of near-$1 billion loss this quarter

iPhone A7 Chip Benchmarks: Forget the Specs, It Blows Everything Away

We just ran benchmarks on Apple’s new iPhone 5S, revealing that, yup, this is the dopest smartphone silicon ever made. This thing freaking churns, crushing every other smartphone out there on both computational power and graphics. But if you look at common specs like core-count and clock speed for the hardware, you’d never know it. Read more…        

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iPhone A7 Chip Benchmarks: Forget the Specs, It Blows Everything Away

Apple releases iOS 7.0.1 update to fix fingerprint scanner

The new iPhone 5S is out and normal folks are getting their fingerprints all over it—exactly what Apple intended with the inclusion of the fingerprint scanner. However, early reviews have included the occasional note that the fingerprint scanner’s ability to enable iTunes purchases didn’t quite work correctly—the iPhone 5S would prompt for a password instead of simply accepting the fingerprint. To address this, Apple has issued an update to iOS 7 for the iPhone 5S (and also for the 5C, though it’s unclear what else the update addresses). Several other outlets are reporting that the update is only 17.5MB, but when I checked via iTunes on my fresh-from-the-box iPhone 5S, I got a download that was 1.39GB in size. We’ll have our full iPhone 5s review up as soon as possible, along with video showing off how the new devices (and their new cameras) work. Read on Ars Technica | Comments        

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Apple releases iOS 7.0.1 update to fix fingerprint scanner