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

The iPhone 5S Teardown: Everything New Is on the Inside

The ace team at iFixit is currently gutting the iPhone 5S , as only they can, to see what’s new inside the next iPhone. What’s the fingerprint scanner look like on the inside? What about all those fancy new chips? And how’s that goldpagne? Read more…        

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The iPhone 5S Teardown: Everything New Is on the Inside

California Becomes First State In Nation To Regulate Ride-Sharing

Virtucon writes “Ride Sharing Services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar received a big boost today when the California Public Utilities Commission approved rules that would allow them to continue to operate as long as the followed a few rules. This makes California the first state to adopt such rules and is expected to preempt local governments who are trying to clamp down on these services and try to regulate them like local taxi companies.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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California Becomes First State In Nation To Regulate Ride-Sharing

How to Trick iOS 7 Into Letting You Hide Apple’s Annoying Default Apps

Be honest: when was the last time you opened your iPhone’s Stocks app? Yeah, us neither. Everyone has their own habits when it comes to iOS apps, and fortunately, YouTube user macmixing has posted a wonderful little hack that lets you get rid of any offending stock apps from your home screen— without actually deleting them altogether. Read more…        

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How to Trick iOS 7 Into Letting You Hide Apple’s Annoying Default Apps

The First Flexible Silicon Paper Could Revolutionize Mobile Gadgets

Imagine a smartphone you can roll up and slip into your shirt pocket. Or a tablet that can be folded like a newspaper and slipped in your back pocket. It’s an idea that’s been tossed around in science fiction for a years, but now it’s a small step closer to reality because researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China have developed the world’s first flexible silicon . Read more…        

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The First Flexible Silicon Paper Could Revolutionize Mobile Gadgets