Back in April, I wrote about the Pinwide wide-angle pinhole lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. I liked it so much I ordered one, and I promised to let you know how it worked out. The short answer? Pretty good, for a pinhole. The long answer? Read on.
The Pinwide is a plastic disk that clicks [...]
07/11/2011
Joseph Holmes photographs punctilious texters in NYC, encourages you to have a peek
Joseph Holmes photographs punctilious texters in NYC, encourages you to have a peek originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 04:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/A27XDsjhffM/
Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android
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.
O'Reilly helps Japan, offers entire e-book catalog for 50% off, today only
O'reilly make some of the best computer books in the world. They also sell them as DRM-free e-books in a bunch of formats, including PDFs and Mobi for Kindle.
They usually offer one "Deal of the Day", which is a 50% discount code for a book chosen for that one day. But just for for today, they've created a discount code -- DDJPN -- that gives you a 50% discount on their entire catalog, and they give a part of the proceeds to aid Japan relief efforts.
So far they've raised over $60,000, and the day is still young. So if you've been recently hankering after some nerdy book (or three), now would be a great time to grab one.
They usually offer one "Deal of the Day", which is a 50% discount code for a book chosen for that one day. But just for for today, they've created a discount code -- DDJPN -- that gives you a 50% discount on their entire catalog, and they give a part of the proceeds to aid Japan relief efforts.
So far they've raised over $60,000, and the day is still young. So if you've been recently hankering after some nerdy book (or three), now would be a great time to grab one.
O'Reilly helps Japan, offers entire e-book catalog for 50% off, today only originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
07/10/2011
Crescent's Immersive Digital Entertainment VR: it's like a Virtual Boy that you wear
Crescent's Immersive Digital Entertainment VR: it's like a Virtual Boy that you wear originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/j8uCJaCxpas/
Android Quick App: Beautiful Widgets
If you've watched any of our reviews, seen any of our screenshots, or just been mildly involved in Android since you got your device, you've probably heard about Beautiful Widgets.
Beautiful Widgets, by LevelUp Studio, started off as the first legitimate response to HTC's Sense UI, namely their big, gorgeous clock and weather widget. What Beautiful Widgets has become, however, is a fully customizable, feature-packed app that aims to replace most of the other, non-beautiful widgets on your device.
With Beautiful Widgets, you get an individual toggle switch for most of the basic functions on your phone, like brightness, Wifi, and Bluetooth, but also some more specialized toggles for things like 4G, lock screen pattern, and a timed silence. Pretty cool stuff.
Beautiful Widgets' main attraction, though, is it's series of clock and weather widgets. You can opt for something like the Superclock, which was a newer, higher resolution clock/weather widget for high resolution screens, to a four-day weather forecast, to a single day's forecast, to just showing today's date.
What helps set Beautiful Widgets apart are the variety of skins, all free, user-made skins for the battery, clock, and weather. There are nearly limitless customizations you can do with your homescreens just by changing some skins around.
At ~$2.86, it's definitely not free, but nothing great ever is. If you're into taking full aesthetic control of your device or you just like how some of the skins looks, I wouldn't hesitate to buy Beautiful Widgets. It's one of the staple apps of the Android community and it's updated often, so you'll definitely be getting your money's worth.
Download links and more pictures are after the break.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/3HDO0cZ8gSA/android-quick-app-beautiful-widgets
New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching
Shortly thereafter, Firefox's new channel system will be implemented. Firefox 5a2 will be introduced as the first Aurora build, and we should also see a Firefox 6 Nightly build. While we we're not sure where they came from, one Sören Hentzschel seems to have unearthed the new Nightly and Aurora logos (see above), along with new About Firefox dialogs (after the break).
In other news, if you want to take a sneak peek at the new 'channel changing' technology that will be introduced in upcoming Firefox builds, head to about:config and create a new string called app.update.desiredChannel -- the value doesn't matter. Then open Help > About Firefox and you'll be able to switch channel, but it doesn't do anything just yet (image after the break). Here's hoping that Firefox channel switching is smoother than Chrome.
Continue reading New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching
New Firefox Nightly and Aurora logos unearthed, and how to enable channel switching originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Kingston Wi-Drive wireless storage for iOS review (video)
With nearly 350,000 apps and counting, the iPhone's maximum capacity of 32GB doesn't allow you to even scratch the surface of the App Store's catalog. Throw in an HD movie, some TV episodes, hundreds of tracks and a few thousand photos, and you'll be chewing through those available bytes in no time. Most manufacturers compensate this limitation by including a microSD slot for additional storage, but not Apple -- you're stuck with that original capacity until you're ready to upgrade to a new device. Luckily, for those who need more storage now and don't mind paying for it, AirStash, Seagate's GoFlex Satellite, and now Kingston's ultra-slim Wi-Drive allow you to boost gigs without upgrading, or switching to another platform. None of these pocket servers come without compromise, however -- you'll be spending over $100 for even the most basic option, while adding yet another device to your portable mix.
Continue reading Kingston Wi-Drive wireless storage for iOS review (video)
Kingston Wi-Drive wireless storage for iOS review (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/09/kingston-wi-drive-wireless-storage-for-ios-review/
SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY SCIENTIFIC GAMES SYKES ENTERPRISES INORATED SYBASE
GNOME 3 released, ushers in an interesting amalgam of iOS and OS X
The best way to check out GNOME 3's new features -- and it has lots of new features -- is to run a live version of openSUSE or Fedora, or simply head over to the GNOME 3 website and watch the (rather pretty) introductory videos. If you want a synopsis, though, here it is: GNOME 3 looks a lot like Mac OS X, with a healthy dollop of iOSesqueness for good measure, but yet it still somehow retains an underlying feel of Linux.
The overall aesthetic is very simple, very elegant, and despite being slightly out of fashion, there are plenty of rounded corners, too. The main addition, workflow-wise, is the addition of an app-launcher-cum-alt-tab screen, where you can launch apps, or flip through your open windows. For a complete list of the new features and changes, check the GNOME 3 release notes.
Despite GNOME 3 being officially launched, there aren't actually any releases for existing, stable Linux distros -- it's the live CD/USB images, or Ubuntu users will have to wait for the launch of 11.04 for a GNOME 3 PPA, but it will break Unity in the process. Fedora users will have to wait for for the May 24 release of Fedora 15. Of course, if you're feeling crazy, you can always build GNOME 3 from source.
GNOME 3 released, ushers in an interesting amalgam of iOS and OS X originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 06:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
