Saturday, April 30, 2011
How to Create a Custom Page on Tumblr
Hell As Moral Compass, Ctd
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How The Wedding Was Watched: Social Media Does A Royal Flyover
If you, like millions of others, witnessed any of today’s Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton on the TV, Internet or in person, you will have seen the crowds that assembled down the Mall, around Westminster Cathedral, in front of Buckingham Palace, and in many other places. But as expected, crowds hit the media world, too—with some sites like the BBC’s buckling under the pressure.
Microsoft Q3 2011 by the numbers: Record $16.43B, Windows revenue declines
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
The gravity of slowing PC sales hurt Windows during the quarter, while Office lifted Business Division sales revenue by 21 percent.
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The Fat We Notice
Samsung ramps Apple attack: adds US patent suit to legal feud
Samsung has added US patent infringement lawsuits against Apple to its existing European and Asian cases, citing ten mobile phone patents in the San Jose, California, federal court. The move follows Apple’s initial case against Samsung�earlier this month, and is part of what the company describes as its “continuing to respond actively to the legal action taken against us.”
According to Samsung, the ten patents “relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.” That includes simultaneous voice calls and browsing, ways to boost mobile network capacity, and other performance tweaks. “Apple continues to violate Samsung’s patent rights by using these patented technologies without a license” the company maintains.
Meanwhile, Apple insists that Samsung has “slavishly” copied its own UI, packaging and device styling with its Galaxy series of tablets and smartphones; three of the ten patents Apple claims its rival is infringing refer to the aesthetic of the iPhone and iPad, such as their distinctive fasciae. Arguments have raged over which design came first, Apple’s or Samsung’s, though it’s likely that the court battles will be less vitriolic though far more expensive and time-consuming.
[via Bloomberg]
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- Samsung Profits Drop, Saved Only By Smartphones And Tablets
- Samsung says it will fight Apple suit with counter-suit
- ZTE countersues Huawei over LTE patents in China
- Samsung counter-sues Apple with 10 patent infringement cases
- Apple Sues Nokia in UK, Looks to Invalidate a Patent
The Ultimate Gaming Pod - OVEI
Perry Darling from OVEI has built the ultimate gaming pod for gamers. With full 5.1 surround sound, multiple screens, and the technical ability to house your Xbox 360...this thing is awesome.
How to Help a Proud Person
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With PlayStation Network still down, will you switch to Xbox?
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
It's time to publicly pose the question that many of PSN's 77 million subscribers must be asking privately -- with the service down now for 10 days and Sony admitting hackers stole personal data.
Greenwald Bait
Silverlight TV 69: UX and Perceived Performance of WP7 Apps
In this video, Jobi Joy, UX Architect with IdentityMine, joins John to discuss some of the lessons his company learned while contributing to the very popular and successful IMDB and Twitter Windows Phone applications. Jobi covers a wide array of topics, including the design and the UX of the IMDB application as well as what "perceived performance" means, and he dives into the framework he put together for panorama controls.
Relevant links:
John's blog and on Twitter (@john_papa)
- Jobi on Twitter (@jobijoy)
Follow us on Twitter @SilverlightTV or on the web at http://silverlight.tv
Face Of The Day
RIM Lowers Forecasts For Q1 Earnings And Revenue
In contrast to the positive earnings reports from rivals Apple and Microsoft, the BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) warns of slower than expected sales for their smartphones. RIM has lowered their forecasts on their current quarter’s earnings guidance with its shares plunging 11 percent.
RIM is struggling to compete in the U.S. market as iOS and Android smartphones continue to increase their dominance. An NPD report suggested that Android’s share of the market is at 50 percent, while the top 5 best selling smartphones did not include any BlackBerries.
It also didn’t seem to help with consumer interest in BlackBerries when their Playbook tablet launched recently to complaints about the firmware. However, RIM is not revising its sales expectations for the tablet and also assured that there are no significant delay in supply due to the Japan earthquake.
[via WSJ]
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- Verizon: iPhone Could Boost Revenue 8% in 2011
- Intel posts record quarter
- BlackBerry 7 confirmed as renamed OS 6.1 since “such a big update”
- Microsoft Announces Fourth Quarter Earnings
- Microsoft Announces Strong Q3 Earnings Report, Revenue At $16.43 Billion
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Why Tiptoeing Through The Mobile Location Minefield Is Essential
The messy disconnect between modern technology and traditional notions of privacy is going to have to be resolved before the only winners in the debate over location-based services on mobile devices become members of the media hyperventilating about spying.
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New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution
Site founder Brandon Wade compares WhatsYourPrice.com to eBay. "When you see a hot single you want to date, just make an offer and buy the first date," Wade explains, in a press release. But that's where the similarities end.
WhatsYourPrice members are divided into two groups: "the generous" (i.e., men) and "the attractive" (women). Attractive users are invited to create profiles on the site, featuring all the basic information you'd find on most dating networks, as well as the amount of money they'd accept for someone to go on a date with them. The generous, meanwhile, can browse through these profiles, and make offers to any attractive users that catch their eye. Once an offer is made, the attractive member can choose to accept it, reject it, or come up with a different price.
Continue reading New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution
New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
XNA: Game Development ? Creating Player Animation
Animating objects in your game requires setting them up right. In this video, David Thany walks you through creating a sprite strip that animates your player character. Watch, then follow along at http://create.msdn.com/education/tutorial/2dgame/animating_the_player.
We will be featuring a new XNA Game Development video each Monday for the next ten weeks. If you simply can't wait and would love to jump ahead, here are the links to the videos for the entire series.
XNA: Game Development Intro
XNA: Game Development - Designing the Game
XNA: Game Development - The Game Loop
XNA: Game Development - Creating Player Animation
XNA: Game Development - Creating a Beautiful Background
XNA: Game Development - Introducing Debugging
XNA: Game Development - Making Games Respond with Collision
XNA: Game Development - Loading Content Into Your Game
XNA: Game Development - Playing Sounds
XNA: Game Development - Creating a User Interface
XNA: Game Development - You did it! Now what?
Hot Apps: Harbor Master, Pomodoro, Origami, Dropdown, Shut the Box
Hot Apps will feature 5 of the hottest apps each week for the Windows Phone 7. In this episode Laura takes a look at:
- Harbor Master on Xbox LIVE
- Pomodoro
- Origami
- Dropdown
- Shut The Box
Please leave suggestions for hot apps that should be featured in the comments section, thanks!
DROID Incredible 2 Review
Last April we described the original DROID Incredible as an “excellent” device, buoyed above the then-competition by virtue of its 8-megapixel camera and user-friendly HTC Sense interface. Since then, Android phones have grown second processor cores and even bigger displays, and the smartphone market in general has become a far more competitive place. Can the Verizon DROID Incredible 2 pick up where its predecessor left off? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Hardware
In many ways the Incredible 2 is doubly familiar. Not only does it maintain the unusually molded chassis of the first Incredible, it’s also very similar to the HTC Incredible S currently on sale Europe, and which we reviewed last month.
The similarities don’t end there. The processor is still a 1GHz single-core Qualcomm chip – though the newer MSM8255, rather than the original’s QSD8650 – and 1GB of ROM space, though RAM has increased by 50-percent to 768MB and the GPU is now the Adreno 205. There’s still a WVGA, S-LCD touchscreen, though that’s grown to 4-inches, while on the back there’s still an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus and 720p HD video recording.
Now it’s accompanied by a front-facing camera, though only 1.3-megapixels and fixed-focus.
Happily one of our biggest complaints about the original Incredible, its CDMA-only radio, has been addressed with the Incredible 2. A so-called World Phone, it has both CDMA/EVDO Rev.A connectivity for use in North America, and HSPA connectivity for use when roaming abroad.
Gone is the Incredible’s optical joystick, replaced on the Incredible 2 with on-screen cursor control in Android 2.2 Froyo, and leaving space for HTC to implement its trick rotating buttons. These automatically change orientation, flicking 90-degrees when the phone is tilted onto its side. Build quality in general is good, the narrow edges making the Incredible 2 feel thinner than it actually is, though the aesthetics are still likely to divide users.
Software and Performance
Despite the twelve months in-between, Android on the Incredible 2 has only shifted a single sub-point. We criticized HTC for using Froyo on the Incredible S, and we’re criticizing them again for still failing to give the new phone Gingerbread out-of-the-box. Thankfully the addition of HTC Sense keeps the Incredible 2 feeling fresh enough until an update arrives.
As we found with the Incredible S, the single-core Snapdragon may not be the fastest processor on the market today, but it offers a good balance of power for a mainstream device. You get 3G Mobile Hotspot functionality, Flash Player 10.2 support, and SRS WOWHD pseudo-surround sound processing, which does add some extra depth to audio but isn’t going to convince you you’re listening in a theater.
Missing, though, is the HTCSense.com integration the European version of the handset gets. Verizon’s phone ‘t support the online tracking, remote access and other functionality, which takes a bite out of Sense’s usefulness. We were willing to overlook its potential impact on the timeliness of core Android OS updates when it offered legitimately unique features, but when those add-ons are stripped away then it becomes more like a mere UI reskin.
As for benchmarks, in Quadrant Pro the Incredible 2 scored 1752.
While SunSpider – the test of JavaScript performance in the browser – came in at 5728.9ms.
Camera
The DROID Incredible 2′s main camera is, like on the Thunderbolt, a solid performer. Stills are crisp and well-balanced, in daylight conditions at least, and HTC’s modified camera UI makes it easy to access the few custom settings – exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness – on offer. There’s more noise in low-light settings, unsurprisingly, while the dual-LED flash is strong but can leave closer subjects over-exposed (and backgrounds murky). Color accuracy is fair, and we prefer it to the unnatural hues some phones produce with over-enthusiastic post processing. As for the front-facing camera, that is sufficient for video calls but not something you’d want to rely on for any meaningful photography.
720p HD video turns out well, coping admirably with low-light situations and looking generally smooth and jag-free until you start panning more quickly. Then, as with most phone cameras, you get plenty of blur and tearing. We’d prefer 1080p HD, as on the Galaxy S II, but that seems to be a limitation of the Snapdragon chipset rather than the camera itself.
Sample video recorded with Incredible 2
Phone and Battery
Audio performance on Verizon’s network was solid, with little in the way of glitches or distortion. Both we and callers could hear each other?s clearly, likely helped somewhat by the integrated noise-cancellation system. What you don’t get, of course, is 4G LTE connectivity from the HTC Thunderbolt and DROID Charge.
As with the Incredible S, the DROID Incredible 2 is capable of a day’s use on a single charge. That’s pretty much average for a current-gen smartphone, and of course you can extend runtimes by turning off some of Sense’s social networking integration or cutting back on how frequently they check for updates.
Wrap-Up
At $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement, the DROID Incredible 2 by HTC is still cheaper than Verizon’s 4G smartphones. However, as we said about the Incredible S, it’s also based on technology that is being phased out: single-core processors are being replaced with dual-cores, and the Galaxy S II (review) shows that just because you have a high-speed CPU, it doesn’t mean you can’t have solid battery life too.
Given that, we’ve have liked to have seen Verizon price the Incredible 2 a little more competitively, though the 8-megapixel camera is some consolation. Our primary concerns are the absence of 4G and dual-core, which could prove limiting further down the line when more demanding versions of Android – and more data-heavy online services – are commonplace.
Still, for a midrange handset, the DROID Incredible 2 is a logical choice. Its name may no longer quite ring true – this isn’t the “incredible” handset in the top spot of Verizon’s range – but it’s another good example of a reliable phone well suited to the mainstream audience.
DROID Incredible unboxing and hands-on
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- HTC Droid Incredible and Motorola DROID X stock delayed until August
- Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC on sale today
- Verizon preorders for Droid Incredible by HTC begin
- OtterBox Commuter case debuts for HTC Evo and Droid Incredible
- Verizon HTC Incredible down to $150 at Amazon
