Thursday, March 31, 2011

BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game

battlepaint
In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you're not even a cube -- just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That's important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place.

The "baddies" are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. If that doesn't sound very emotionally deep, it's because it isn't. But it's fun!

After you shoot a baddy, it splashes paint as it disappears. You need to skate across this blob of paint and "eat it up" to get points. This game is fast. It clocked in at around 60-70 FPS on my system, and was loads of fun to play. It does tend to insult you when you die, though, but don't be offended -- I don't think it's personal.

BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/09/battlepaint-is-an-addictive-geometric-shooter-game/

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Skyfire Web browser for iOS goes multiligual, adds related sites feature

Skyfire, the popular Flash-video-playing Web browser for iOS and Android, has released a new version for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. The update includes a handful of important changes, including seven new localizations: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

There's also an improved support process for when you need to submit feedback or bug reports to Skyfire's team of developers. User agent switching has been enhanced as well, allowing you to choose among desktop, iPad, and iPhone views of the websites you browse. Skyfire has added a 'related sites' feature, bringing a nice discovery element to the app, too.

You can find the new version of Skyfire in the App Store -- existing users can simply check for updates, of course.

Skyfire Web browser for iOS goes multiligual, adds related sites feature originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/29/skyfire-goes-multiligual-adds-related-sites-feature/

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Rhapsody app for Windows Phone 7 now available in Zune Marketplace

rhapsody wp7Rhapsody continues strengthening its position as a go-to music streaming service in the U.S. In the wake of offering an extended 60-day trial of its services, Rhapsody has now launched a Windows Phone 7 app.

It's very similar to the Rhapsody apps for other mobile OSes, with the obvious exception of a Metroesque interface. You can search for and stream songs, access your playlists, and browse through various genres and recommendations. Rhapsody Radio is also available for streaming, and you can pull up detailed information about the current artist with a single tap.

Subscribing to Rhapsody will run you $9.99 per month, but the two-month trial will give you plenty of time to decide whether or not it's the right fit for your streaming music needs -- whether you own a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone 7 device.

Rhapsody app for Windows Phone 7 now available in Zune Marketplace originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/24/rhapsody-app-for-windows-phone-7-now-available-in-zune-marketpla/

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Samsung Galaxy S getting a 1.4GHz '2011 edition' next month (update: confirmed)

You didn't think Samsung was going to leave the classic Galaxy S handset in the past, did you? Dmitriy Ryabinin of hi-tech.mail.ru has tracked down the above comparison sheet showing off a new variant of the 4-inch Android phone, this time packing a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255T chip and a 14.4Mbps HSPA+ radio. Other than those upgrades and a 1650mAh battery, it's a faithful reproduction of last year's original and should be arriving in Russia around the end of April for a price of just under 24,000 rubles ($846). What gives us faith in this apparent leak is our earlier sighting of a 3.7-inch Galaxy S2 "Mini" device from Samsung, which also clocks in at a mighty 1.4GHz. Coincidence? We doubt it.

[Thanks, Andy]

Update: That was quick. Samsung's Russian mouthpiece has confirmed all of the above, adding note of a metal back cover and a Galaxy S Plus name for markets outside of Russia. Sadly, there's no word as to where else it might be showing up.

Samsung Galaxy S getting a 1.4GHz '2011 edition' next month (update: confirmed) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 06:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  source@dryab (Twitter), Samsung Russia  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/VrMiL12A7hs/

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Amazon Appstore for Android hands-on review: Android Market is in trouble

Amazon Appstore vs. Android Market
Earlier today Amazon released its long-awaited Appstore for Android. Fundamentally it's very similar to Google's first-party Android Market or the third-party AppBrain, but it has a few Amazonian differences that could set it apart from the competition very quickly.

First and foremost, Amazon is promising to give away one paid app for free every day. Today it's Angry Birds Rio, and it only retails for 99 cents, but that doesn't really matter: people love free stuff. People will download stuff simply because it's free, even if they don't want it! The best bit (or worst bit) is that developers still get 20% of the usual retail price, which will be paid out of Amazon's pockets.

The next defining feature is Amazon Appstore exclusives. Angry Birds Rio, CoD:MW:Force Recon and other apps will be available only from Amazon. As we know from the console wars, exclusive titles aren't always a good thing, but who cares? Amazon simply wants unique selling points, and exclusive titles are definitely that.

It's not all good, though. We ran in to some rather serious bugs while playing around with the Amazon Appstore for Android app, and then there's the matter of having to enable installation from Unknown Sources before it will even install...

Continue reading Amazon Appstore for Android hands-on review: Android Market is in trouble

Amazon Appstore for Android hands-on review: Android Market is in trouble originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/22/amazon-appstore-for-android-hands-on-review-android-market-in-trouble/

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Royal wedding app for iPhone and iPad now available

If you can?t get enough of the impending British Royal Wedding, now there is an app for that! Trinity Mirror has launched a universal iOS app that includes photo galleries, video clips and audio from its royal correspondent James Whitaker. Appealing to all users, whether they be staunch Royalists or just swept up in the fairytale [...]

Royal wedding app for iPhone and iPad now available is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/eOEEF61ckcw/

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Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Android Honeycomb
Google, in an interesting but not entirely unexpected twist, will not be open-sourcing Android 3.0 Honeycomb for the foreseeable future.

Historically, Android is usually open-sourced via the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) a few days or weeks after the code is finalized. While this departure from the norm won't affect OEMs like HTC and Motorola that have access to internal builds of Android, small-time developers will likely have to wait months before rolling their own distributions.

As to why Google is holding back Honeycomb, its reasons are actually rather rational. Honeycomb, while originally intended to run on all mobile form factors, is only ready for deployment on tablets. "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."

In other words, Google wants to prevent OEMs and homebrew developers like Cyanogen from rolling their own smartphone versions of Honeycomb -- it doesn't want to see the same bitter-tasting tabletified bastardization that occurred with Android 2.1 and 2.2 last year.

Continue reading Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/google-holds-back-on-open-sourcing-honeycomb-heralds-shift-android/

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Boxee details next Box update with iPad support and more in May

Boxee Box iPad app
We refuse to be surprised that the next Boxee Box update isn't actually arriving by the end of March, but just to tide us over CEO Avner Ronen has picked up his blogging pen and revealed many of the changes on the way. As mentioned on that Australian podcast, the browser will be faster, as well as a new on-screen display for FF/RW controls, options for sorting local files and additional language support. A smiley face is reserved for the news that support for Boxee for iPad will be included, before moving on to a list of bugs that will be stamped out. Early access users should expect to see test builds rolling out shortly, with plans for major updated to the Boxee Box (and "other Boxee based devices") every three months or so so we should expect this one in May -- no word on anything for the PC clients. Until then hit the source link for all the details or just relive our special CES hands-on time with Boxee for iPad in the gallery.

Boxee details next Box update with iPad support and more in May originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceBoxee Blog  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/boxee-details-next-box-update-with-ipad-support-and-more-in-may/

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Ignoring Angel Investors' Advice and Other Web 2.0 Pearls

At first glance, the Web 2.0 conference, being held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, appears tailor-made for today's audience. Keynotes are kept short -- about 20 minutes each -- and follow each other in rapid-fire succession. They're posted on the Web. The audience is mainly young and armed with multiple mobile devices -- several had smartphones and iPads, for instance.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72167.html

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Rhapsody app for Windows Phone 7 now available in Zune Marketplace

rhapsody wp7Rhapsody continues strengthening its position as a go-to music streaming service in the U.S. In the wake of offering an extended 60-day trial of its services, Rhapsody has now launched a Windows Phone 7 app.

It's very similar to the Rhapsody apps for other mobile OSes, with the obvious exception of a Metroesque interface. You can search for and stream songs, access your playlists, and browse through various genres and recommendations. Rhapsody Radio is also available for streaming, and you can pull up detailed information about the current artist with a single tap.

Subscribing to Rhapsody will run you $9.99 per month, but the two-month trial will give you plenty of time to decide whether or not it's the right fit for your streaming music needs -- whether you own a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone 7 device.

Rhapsody app for Windows Phone 7 now available in Zune Marketplace originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/24/rhapsody-app-for-windows-phone-7-now-available-in-zune-marketpla/

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AT&T's Fake 4G Phones May Actually Get Real 4G Soon [At&t]

It's been well documented that AT&T's 4G phones aren't just slow—their upload speeds are often slower than its 3G network. So what happened to that extra G? Turns out it's not the network itself that's borked; it's the phones. AT&T has intentionally crippled the Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire—the carrier's only fourth-gen network phones—by actively disabling the handsets' HSUPA capability. Gross. But there may be sweet relief coming soon. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/2rvGeT9r-4w/atts-fake-4g-phones-may-actually-get-real-4g-soon

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Scrabble Helper helps you improve your Words With Friends gameplay

scrabblehelper
If you play Scrabble (or a scrabble-like game) from time to time, you may want to check out Scrabble Helper. This simple website is a godsend when you're at a loss for words. Simply enter whatever letters you have, and the word you'd like to connect with. Scrabble helper comes up with a whole bunch of suggestions sorted by score.

The site lets you select one of five dictionaries - Scrabble International/US, Lexulous International/US, and Words With Friends. Some people might say this constitutes cheating -- I think if the other side knows you're doing it, it's definitely not cheating. And it doesn't take the challenge out of the game, because implementing Scrabble Helper's suggestions and deciding which words you'd like to connect with still takes a fair bit of thought.

Very handy, though perhaps not one for the Scrabble puritans in the crowd.

Scrabble Helper helps you improve your Words With Friends gameplay originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/14/scrabble-helper-helps-you-improve-your-words-with-friends-gamepl/

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Twitter?s Biz Stone Talks About Awkward Acquisition Meeting With Zuck On Howard Stern

After talking to Conan a few weeks ago, and CNN's Piers Morgan last night, Biz Stone made an appearance on another mainstream media show today: Howard Stern. You can access the interview here. Unlike many of Stern's interviews, this one was mostly PG-rated. One of the most interesting tales revealed in the interview was the backstory behind Facebook's offer to acquire Twitter back in 2008 (the story is at the 16 minute mark in the interview). As we know, Facebook reportedly offered Twitter $500 million to acquire the company in the fall of 2008. Biz tells Stern that he showed up at work one day and Twitter employee Jason Goldman (who is no longer with the company) told him that fellow co-founder Evan Williams was waiting for him downstairs in a car.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QHVi1mMYeBI/

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Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive
When Amazon Appstore for Android launched last week, one of its primary features -- Test Drive -- was disabled just a few minutes after it opened. With no try-before-you-buy, no refund process, and 1-Click purchasing ready to strike at any moment, this caused some problems. Anyway, don't despair: Test Drive is now enabled.

Before you get your hopes up, Test Drive doesn't work with every app. The IMDb app works fine -- you can even watch movie trailers on it! -- but the Angry Birds games are sadly not enabled. Some games work surprisingly well, though, like Bubble Buster. There's very little latency, and the framerate is really rather good. The Test Drive experience is so true to life that you even get ads; how cool is that?

Continue reading Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/amazon-appstore-for-android-test-drive-hands-on-surprisingly-co/

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Dell Pulls ?Business? Card to Trash-Talk the iPad

The iPad is doomed to fail because it doesn’t appeal to business users. That’s what Dell dreams, at least.
Dell’s global head of marketing for enterprises Andy Lark claims Dell will have an edge because it entered the tablet PC market with an enterprise approach, whereas Apple’s iPad has a consumer approach.
?Apple is great if you?ve [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/dell-enterprise-ipad/

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Ignoring Angel Investors' Advice and Other Web 2.0 Pearls

At first glance, the Web 2.0 conference, being held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, appears tailor-made for today's audience. Keynotes are kept short -- about 20 minutes each -- and follow each other in rapid-fire succession. They're posted on the Web. The audience is mainly young and armed with multiple mobile devices -- several had smartphones and iPads, for instance.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72167.html

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Adobe Flash 10.2 for Android available today, improves performance, adds hardware acceleration for Honeycomb

Flash 10.2 on Android 2.2, 2.3, 3.0
Adobe Flash Player 10.2 will land in the Android Market today, bringing with it modest performance improvements for Android 2.2 and 2.3, and hardware acceleration for 3.0. Flash 10.2 is also the first version of Flash to work on the Motorola Xoom tablet.

Engadget says that they "saw a slight but noticeable boost in framerate when playing a YouTube trailer at 480p" on their Droid 2, and that the same videos were "perfectly smooth" on their Motorola Xoom tablet. Engadget were playing with a beta version of Flash 10.2, however, so performance might be further improved by the time it hits the Market later today.

Other than some further performance and usability improvements for Android 3.0, there doesn't seem to be much else of note in Flash 10.2.

Adobe Flash 10.2 for Android available today, improves performance, adds hardware acceleration for Honeycomb originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/18/adobe-flash-10-2-for-android-available-today-improves-performan/

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Dell's Andy Lark bashes the iPad, points out far-fetched figures instead of actual flaws

In business, there's a right way to take on a rival, and apparently, the Dell way. If you're up for taking a lesson in the latter, look no further than the CIO article down in our source link. There, Dell's global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organizations, Andy Lark, attempted to prove why the iPad didn't stand a chance in the enterprise market -- a market where two-thirds of the Fortune 100 are already adopting or piloting the device. The interview meanders on in a few different directions, but the highlight of the whole thing is right here:
"An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you'll be at $1500 or $1600; that's double of what you're paying," he claimed. "That's not feasible.... Apple is great if you've got a lot of money and live on an island. It's not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex."
Even in Australia, the most expensive iPad 2 (a 64GB model with 3G) runs A$949, and unless Lark plans on bundling an Optimus Maximus and Hela Glider Mouse into the package, we're struggling to see where his estimates came from. In fact, the one thing that major tablet makers have struggled to match the iPad on is price, making the comparison even more galling. 'Tis a shame -- all he would've had to do in order to be taken seriously was point out the lackluster screen resolution, omission of a USB port, the missing SD card slot and disgusting reliance on iTunes. Lesson learned, we guess.

Dell's Andy Lark bashes the iPad, points out far-fetched figures instead of actual flaws originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Yahoo! News (Digital Trends)  |  sourceCIO  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/dells-andy-lark-bashes-the-ipad-points-out-far-fetched-figures/

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