Category Archives: Technology

PS Vita is out now!

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PS Vita, the most powerful handheld video game console ever, is out now. Have launch day nerves? Here’s what you need to know. Sony is selling two different SKUs: the $249 PS Vita with WiFi and the $299 model that also packs in 3G from AT&T. (Also available are the $299 Launch Bundle and the $349 First Edition Bundle, but these are being sold in limited quantities.) If you opt for the 3G model, AT&T is offering up tiered data plans that go like this:  250MB ($14.99), 3GB ($30), and 5GB ($50). There are 25 PS Vita-specific titles from first and third party developers, and the standout must-buy game is Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Golden Abyss. In addition to fantastic graphics, Uncharted takes advantage of many of the Vita’s innovative input functions including the dual analog sticks, the six-axis motion sensor, and the touch-sensitive back; and so the game will help acclimate you to the new handheld. What else? The PlayStation Store has been updated with Vita-specific apps including Facebook, Netflix, LiveTweet, and Flickr; these freebies are necessities for early adopters, no doubt.

Gamers, it’s time to getcha game on and discover what the new PlayStation Portable is all about. Links to snag one for yourself rest in the paragraph above.

Apple reveals OS X Mountain Lion: “inspired by iPad, reimagined for Mac.”

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And so it seems like newly appointed Apple CEO Tim Cook is not following in the footsteps of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs when it comes to announcing the latest iteration of the Mac’s OS. Instead of gathering the press and making a grand presentation of it all, with OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8) Apple simply added a new “sneak peek” portal to their website that outlines many of the OS’ new features.

When OS X Lion was announced, Apple made it clear that their intention to bring the magic of the iPad to the desktop was very real. The most obvious port was Mission Control, a way for Mac users to organize and flip through their apps on the desktop just as they would on a mobile iOS device. This time around Apple is infusing so much more from iOS into OS X with new features like Messages with iMessage support, Notification Center, and even wide scale Twitter integration. Take a look below and follow after the break to read all about the new Lion in town.

Messages

RIP iChat. That’s right–Apple is replacing their in-house instant messenger with a new app called Messages. In addition to supporting instant messaging services like AIM, Jabber, Google Talk, and Yahoo! Messenger like its predecessor, Messages also supports iMessage. This means “you send unlimited messages to anyone on a Mac [using Messages] or an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5.” In essence, this is iChat with a revamped UI and iMessage compatibility, oh and built-in FaceTime. Messages functions exactly like iMessage does on iOS devices; in addition to sending text you can share photos, videos, documents, and contacts and also initiate group messaging. Additionally you can see when your message has been delivered, when someone’s typing a reply, and you can allow the recipient to see when you’ve read their incoming messages. Click a button to immediately initiate a FaceTime video chat. And since Messages has iMessage support baked in, “you can start a conversation on your Mac and pick it up on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.” Simple, the Apple way. Download Messages today in beta form.

Notification Center

In iOS it’s a swipe from the top to pull down the unified Notification Center and view your alerts; in OS X it will be a swipe from the right. When you receive a notification on your Mac, a notification banner will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the desktop. When you receive an email, a calendar alert, an instant message, or whatever it might be the banner will pop up and preview the notification and then it will fade away so as not to interrupt your activity. When the banners disappear they relocate to the Notification Center which, as described above, can be reached at any time with a swipe to the left. To access it you can either perform a two finger swipe to the left on a trackpad, or you can click a new bulls-eye icon that sits up top where the Spotlight magnifying glass has been located for years (that is now shifted slightly to the left to make room). When the bulls-eye center is blue that indicates you have one or more notifications waiting for you. To exit Notification Center, simply click anywhere else on your screen and it will slide away. And just like in iOS, you can customize Notification Center by arranging app-specific alerts to your liking, enabling banners or more obtrusive alerts, sounds, and you’re also given the option to disable Notification Center if you don’t feel like dealing with it at all. It has been confirmed that Apple will be making available an API so that developers can take advantage of Notification Center with their own apps.

Share Sheets

Apple is baking in the share button iOS users should be accustomed to by now. It’s that button with a square and an arrow popping out of it that allows you to quickly share–say, a photo–with others by providing a drop-down list of places to send the information to. In iOS, for example, in the Photos app you can select an image, click the share button, and tap Email and the photo will instantly drop into a new email as an attachment ready to be sent off. In OS X, Apple plans to plant these “Share Sheets” into many apps including (but not limited to) Safari, Messages, Photo Booth, Quicktime, Preview, and iPhoto. Want to tweet a link you’re viewing in Safari? With Share Sheets there’s no need to login to Twitter and copy and paste the link; simply click the share button and click Twitter and the app will automatically open with the link ready to be sent off into the Twittersphere. Other sharing options include Vimeo and Flickr.

Continue reading Apple reveals OS X Mountain Lion: “inspired by iPad, reimagined for Mac.” →

Kinect ‘Star Wars’ Xbox 360 bundle gets a spring release date

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Star Wars fans and gamers alike have been waiting patiently for Microsoft to stamp an official release date for the movie themed hardware and software bundle. Well, the time has finally come. According to Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, the bundle–which includes an R2-D2-themed Xbox 360 console with custom sounds, a C-3PO-themed golden wireless controller, a white Kinect sensor, a 320GB HDD, a wired headset, and copies of Star Wars Kinect and Kinect Adventures–launches into the marketplace this spring on April 3. It is being valued at $449.99 and can be preordered today at Amazon and Gamestop. Take a gander at the sleek packaging above and mark your calendars appropriately.

[Via Major Nelson]

Motorola’s Droid 4 is out now on Verizon for $199.99

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In January at CES Motorola unveiled two new Droid-branded handsets: the Droid RAZR MAXX and the Droid 4. Shortly after slapping the former phone with a January 26 release date and a $299.99 price tag, Moto finally let slip the same information regarding the QWERTY keyboard wielding Droid 4. On February 10 the Droid 4 hit Verizon Wireless and can be bought for $199.99 with a new two-year contract. The 4G LTE capable phone packs a 4.0-inch qHD display, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, an eight megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture and a front-facing cam for video chat. It ships with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, with a promise to upgrade to 4.o Ice Cream Sandwich at some undisclosed point in the future. Want yours? Click here. PR after the break.

[Via VZW] Continue reading Motorola’s Droid 4 is out now on Verizon for $199.99 →

Google ports the Chrome browser to Android

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In a not-so-surprising move, Google has brought its desktop Chrome browser to Android mobile devices. Dubbed Chrome for Android Beta, the new mobile browser focuses on speed, simplicity, and seamless sign-in and sync. The Chrome omnibox rests up top and search results are loaded in the background instantly as you type in it. Intuitive tabbed browsing is in tow, as is link preview and incognito mode. When you first launch the browser you are asked to sign-in with your Google account. Connecting your account to the browser allows you to view open tabs you left on your computer on your mobile device, get autocomplete suggestions based on searches you made on your computer, and sync your bookmarks across devices. Chrome for Android is now available to download from the Android Market, but for now it’s only compatible with Android phones and tablets running version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Hop after the break to watch an introductory demonstration.

[Via Google] Continue reading Google ports the Chrome browser to Android →

According to Google, “one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second”

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Did you read the mind-boggling factoid? One hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. Or, 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. No matter how you spell it out, this really is remarkable stuff. Furthermore, this amount of uploaded content is an increase of more than 30 percent in the last eight months! In other fascinating news, the video sharing service has exceeded four billion video views globally every day–up 25 percent in the last eight months and “the equivalent of more than half the world’s population watching a video every day.”

Are you finding it hard to wrap your head around all this? YouTube has put together a neat visualization at www.onehourpersecond.com that helps interpret the facts. Preview it in the video embedded above, and consciously know that you are contributing to the site’s daily viewership that now exceeds four billion!

[Via YouTube]

Apple reports 2012 Q1 earnings: $13.06b profit, $46.33b revenue, Macs up 26%, iPhones up 128%, iPads up 111%, iPods down 21%

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Apple’s 2012 first quarter financial results are in and it’s reporting record breaking numbers here including highest quarterly revenue and earnings ever and all-time record sales for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Apple posted a $13.06 billion profit on $46.33 billion in revenue.  Compare this to one year ago, that’s up from a profit of $6 billion on $26.74 billion in revenue.  Says CEO Tim Cook: “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

Now let’s break it down by product category.  Apple sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter (representing a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter); an impressive 37.04 million iPhones (representing a 128 percent unit growth); 15.43 million iPads (representing a 111 percent unit growth); and 15.4 million iPods (representing an 21 percent unit decline).

Other interesting facts to come out of the earnings call… Apple sold 1.4 million units of Apple TV, its designated “hobby” in the TV space; the company’s latest effort to revolutionize the education market has started off strong seeing over 600,000 downloads of iBooks Author from the Mac App Store; there are currently over 85 million people using Apple’s iCloud services; and CEO Tim Cook admitted this: “There is cannibalization of the Mac by the iPad, but we think there’s more cannibalization of Windows PCs by the iPad – we love that trend.” Oh snap, indeed.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer expects revenue of about $32.5 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.

[Via Apple; Engadget 1, 2, 3, 4]

Nintendo reveals plans for Wii U, 3DS online communities & downloadable content with Nintendo Network

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On Friday Nintendo president Satoru Iwata presented his company’s lackluster third quarter financial results but also managed to lift spirits by dropping some interesting hints about the Wii’s successor, the Wii U. Over the years Microsoft and Sony have been generating a community of online video game players with Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, respectively, while Nintendo really dropped the ball and failed to ever capitalize on online gaming. This is about to change with the introduction of “Nintendo Network,” a network platform which will cover both Wii U and 3DS gamers. The Nintendo Network will allow for “competitions and communication among users, as well as the sales of digital content.” The company is also toying with “the future possibility of digital distribution of packaged software.” Wii U users will be able to setup personal accounts under the Nintendo Network, so that multiple household members will be able to login and use the console under their own usernames. Over time the 3DS will be the first hardware to see the upgrades that the Nintendo Network promises to offer; it is likely that the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection brand will fade away but this has not been confirmed yet. Mario Kart 7 is the first 3DS title to take advantage of the Nintendo Network, generating “Community” matches between online players. The upcoming title Theatrythm Final Fantasy will be the first to sell downloadable add-on content.

Additionally, Iwata revealed that the Wii U’s tablet-like controller will pack NFC (Near Field Communication) functionality. “By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world,” says Iwata. “Adoption of this functionality will enable various other possibilities such as using it as a means of making micropayments.” Intriguing, to say the least.

Nintendo plans to showcase the final Wii U hardware at this year’s E3 in June. It is also expected that they will expand upon the aforementioned Nintendo Network service. The new home console will release “between the E3 show and the end of this calendar year.” Holiday 2012 wouldn’t be a surprise. And as for the launch of Nintendo Network? “This concept was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure,” reveals Iwata. “We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U. However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it.”

[Via Nintendo]

Sony details new PS Vita launch day bundle

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As we get closer and closer to the launch of the PS Vita, Sony is making it harder to resist the temptation to purchase the powerful mobile gaming platform. On Friday the company added a new bundle to the mix. At $299 the “special launch day” bundle will get you the PS Vita (3G + WiFi) hardware, an 8GB memory card, an AT&T DataConnect Session Pass that’s good for 250MB of data, and a free PlayStation Network game. Sony is also adding to the previously announced “first edition bundle.” In addition to the the PS Vita (3G + WiFi) hardware, a 4GB memory card, a copy of the Little Deviants game, and a limited edition case, early adopters will also receive an AT&T DataConnect Session Pass (250MB) and a free PSN game upon activating 3G on the device. This bundle will run you $349 and is now available for preorder. Order it today and receive the Vita a week before its official US release that is February 22. As for the newly announced “special launch day” bundle? That’ll release on the 22nd and will remain on shelves for a limited time “in the few days that follow.”

[Via PlayStationBlog]

Motorola’s Droid RAZR MAXX is out now on Verizon for $299.99

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Earlier this month at CES Motorola announced the successor to the RAZR-thin Droid dubbed the RAZR MAXX. What makes the MAXX better than its predecessor is its superb battery life (it can last up to 21 hours on a single charge) and beefier interal storage (32GB). As of January 26 the slightly thicker RAZR (at 8.99 mm) is available at Verizon Wireless for $299.99 with a new two-year contract. Pick up the latest 4G LTE Droid today. But don’t forget–if you’re in the market for a smartphone packing a physical QWERTY keyboard, Moto also has the Droid 4 coming out of the pipeline soon. Continue reading Motorola’s Droid RAZR MAXX is out now on Verizon for $299.99 →

Nintendo eShop is now host to downloadable game demos

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With each update, Nintendo’s 3DS handheld system gets better. The latest enhancement for the 3D-capable portable gaming machine is an update to the eShop. As of January 19, the virtual store is offering up free downloadable game demos, giving 3DS owners a way to test out games before buying them. A free demo version of Resident Evil Revelations is begging to be tried out today. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the next game given the demo treatment later this month on January 26. Ninty promises that the eShop “will be periodically updated with new game demos,” so be vigilant gamers. Look out for demos of Rayman Origins and Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D coming soon. PR sits after the break.

[Via Nintendo] Continue reading Nintendo eShop is now host to downloadable game demos →