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Monday, January 31, 2011
Complete Your Ensemble with the TV Hat
Daily Crunch: Snow Day Edition
The psp is dead
Five Reasons The PSP Will Fail �
the psp is here
Sony Reveals The PSP2 In All Its Glory �
Satarii star for iphone
It's Always Watching You.... In A Good Way �
Superior Sound
Review: Zoom Q3HD Camcorder �
the psp2 cometh
OLED, 3G, HD... Sony Announcement Thursday �
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Another look at the upcoming HTC 'Saga'
Remember that unannounced HTC�Android phone that was spotted on a Taipei subway? Looks like it's appeared again, with a new pic being sent to Gizmodo. It's reportedly codenamed "Saga." Not a whole lot more to say about it -- capacitive buttons, front-facing camera, and the usual HTC�design cues. But we're willing to bet it'll have a few tricks up its sleeve. Might we see it in two weeks at Mobile World Congress?�It's looking fairly likely. [Gizmodo]
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Android OS Now World?s Leading Smartphone Platform
Looks like another big milestone for Google?s signature smartphone operating system. Android-based smartphone shipments reached 33.3 million worldwide �in the fourth quarter of 2010, now making Android the world?s leading smartphone platform.
In hitting the number one spot, Android has knocked out Nokia?s Symbian platform, which for years has been the leader in global smartphone shipments. Symbian now clocks in at second place with 31 million units shipped worldwide in 2010, according to the report released by research firm Canalys. Android?s sales rocketed up from just 4.7 million units shipped over the same period in 2009.
In the United States alone, Android OS-based phones now account for over half of consumer smartphone purchases, according to a report released by NPD Group.
?The US landscape will shift dramatically this coming year, as a result of the Verizon-Apple agreement,? Canalys Analyst Tim Shepherd said in a statement. ?Verizon will move its focus away from the Droid range, but the overall market impact will mean less carrier-exclusive deals, while increasing the AT&T opportunity for Android vendors, such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung.?
2010 was a big year for smartphones. The global market exploded with smartphone shipments totaling 101.2 million units over 2010, almost double that of 2009. Android?s growth has been fast and furious, having launched only in late 2008 and already besting the long-established Nokia and RIM platforms. Samsung recently boasted of 10 million Galaxy S handset sales since its June debut.
With 2011 promising new smartphone technologies such as dual-core processors and Near-Field Communications, and with many of those technologies showing up on Android phones, this could be a very good year for Google. However, the coming of the iPhone 4 to Verizon might take some wind out of Android?s sails, as Verizon?s Droid and Droid Pro have been perennial bestsellers for the platform.
Rounding out the top five sales performers for 2010 were Apple?s iOS-running iPhone, which came in third with 16.2 million, and RIM?s BlackBerry OS at fourth place with 14.6 million. With its October 11 launch coming too late in the quarter to get a jump on the holiday sales rush, Microsoft?s Windows Phone 7 shipped 3.1 million units.
?Windows Phone 7 entered the epicenter of competition between iOS and Android at AT&T,? NPD Group?s Ross Rubin said in a statement.
See Canalys? table below for info on 2010 smartphone sales.
Photo by Charlie Sorrel/Wired.com
See Also:
Five privacy protection Firefox add-ons for Data Privacy Day
Happy Data Privacy Day! While Lee already published one roundup showing a multitude of various tools, this post is all about Firefox!
If you're reading Download Squad, you already know all of these classics. Kudos to you! Now go ahead and let your less computer-savvy coworkers or family members read this list, and make sure they install at least one of these if they use Firefox at all.
- HTTPS Everywhere is an add-on by the beardies over at the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). It forces Firefox to communicate using HTTPS (secure HTTP) with a number of major websites, such as Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, PayPal and others.
- Ghostery focuses on those corporations and institutions bent on tracking your movements around the Web (or on their own websites). It detects when you're being tracked by Google Analytics, Facebook and over 400 other ad networks, and provides an easy way to block those tracking mechanisms while leaving all other JavaScript functionality intact.
- Web of Trust provides a clear "traffic light" indication showing which sites you can trust with your credit card details, and which sites you should be leery of. The ratings are user-generated, and you don't have to access the actual website in question to view them ? they show up right on the search results page when you use Google, Yahoo!, Bing and even Wikipedia.
- NoScript is somewhat similar to Ghostery mentioned above, in that it also blocks JavaScript. But it's a more extreme solution: Rather than just block trackers, it implements a "white list", blocking all JavaScript except for scripts running on domains you trust. One of its many advantages is that it protects against cross-site scripting attacks.
- BetterPrivacy protects you against a different kind of cookie ? one that you can't flush just by clearing your browser history. These cookies are called Local Storage Objects, or Flash cookies, and are put on your computer using the Flash plug-in. BetterPrivacy scrubs these cookies off your system every time your exit your browser.
[Image credit: dcJohn]
PADX-1 LEDGE Wearcom Pullover for iPad
CorelDRAW tutorial: Trace, vectorize and modify a simple logo (video)
This is the second CorelDRAW tutorial in a series of four. Last week we looked at how to make a Polaroid-like image, and this week I'd like to show you how to vectorize a simple logo. I use the Android logo in the video, but you can do this with pretty much any logo other simple graphic.
There are many reasons why you might like to vectorize an existing logo. Perhaps you need to modify it, integrate it into a larger design, or generate a high-res printout. As you can see in the video, there's not much you can do with the low-res Android logo Google gives you. If your bitmap logo is large enough, you might be able to use CorelDRAW's auto-trace capabilities and simply generate a good vector outline of it. However, since the bitmap I selected was so small (and simple), I opted to use a completely manual tracing method ? I just recreated the Android logo using a few simple shapes.
Rather than wax poetic about what the video contains, if you're curious to see the Android logo dissected and recreated in full vector glory, just watch the video after the jump.
Web of Trust (WOT) brings Web trust, safety, and privacy ratings to Opera
Web of Trust has been a trusted browser privacy and security add-on for Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer for quite a while. Now, Opera users can take advantage of WOT trust ratings as well! Just head over to the Opera Extensions gallery and install Web of Trust, and you'll have access to the same drop-down ratings panel we've shown you before for other browsers (we suspect it was probably re-spun from the Chrome extension).
Remember, Opera 11+ is required to use extensions, so upgrade first if you're on a previous version. Don't forget to check out other great extensions for Opera, like LastPass and our collection of other handy add-ons.
Daily Crunch: Crossing Edition
The psp is dead
Five Reasons The PSP Will Fail �
the psp is here
Sony Reveals The PSP2 In All Its Glory �
Satarii star for iphone
It's Always Watching You.... In A Good Way �
Superior Sound
Review: Zoom Q3HD Camcorder �
the psp2 cometh
OLED, 3G, HD... Sony Announcement Thursday �
SNL Brings Jesse Eisenberg And Mark Zuckerberg Together
The Social Network was an amazing film about an amazing technological innovation that has definitely changed the way we communicate with friends and family. Facebook was recently valued at around $50 billion, and it's easy to see why. Millions of people visit the site every single day to post status updates, and it has become the homepage of so many users. It's hard to even imagine a world where we couldn't easily "Like" something, and it's easy to imagine that this is just the start of a social networking revolution.
But until this weekend, the star of The Social Network had never actually met the star of Facebook. You can thank Saturday Night Live for finally bringing the two together. On the most recent episode of SNL, Mark Zuckerberg met Jesse Eisenberg as the show was introduced, and the result was hilarious, if not a little awkward. The video below explains it all!
But until this weekend, the star of The Social Network had never actually met the star of Facebook. You can thank Saturday Night Live for finally bringing the two together. On the most recent episode of SNL, Mark Zuckerberg met Jesse Eisenberg as the show was introduced, and the result was hilarious, if not a little awkward. The video below explains it all!
Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)
Augmented reality is swell, don't get us wrong, but it's no substitute for the real thing -- especially when that thing is a badass tricopter equipped with a jury-rigged firework cannon to rain down miniature hell. Swedish R/C enthusiasts built this first-person flying contraption to carry out a single mission -- destroy a series of hydrogen-filled balloons -- which will hopefully be hard-coded into future automatons too. After all, balloons could serve as an excellent distraction when they inevitably come for you. Still, there's no need to worry quite yet, so kick back and enjoy the video above while you contemplate humanity's end.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Mozilla's HTML5 Game On finalists now online; go play, go vote!
Mozilla Labs' jury has selected the 35 finalists of its inaugural Game On 2010 competition. The games all use a combination of Open Web technologies -- HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, SVG and WebGL -- and while they have been designed for playing in Firefox 4, they should mostly work in Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer 9, too.While the grand prizes will be handed out by a panel of expert judges, you're encouraged to play some games and vote for Community Choice award. You have until February 1 to vote, and all of the prizes will be awarded on February 3.
If you don't want to play all 35 (and admittedly, some of them are not all that great), take a look at Favimon (Lee loves this one) and TankWorld (check the sound effects!) Grave Danger is also strangely enjoyable -- perhaps it's the voodoo skulls, or something...
Finally, if 35 games weren't enough, you can also take a look at all of the entrants. Not a bad haul for emerging, beta technologies. Here's to Game On 2011!
[I actually tried some of these on the Android browser, and while they didn't work very well... they did work.]
Do Not Track: Analysis of Google, Microsoft and Mozilla's solutions
All three major browser providers have now publicized their solution to the FTC's Do Not Track problem. Google has waded in with a thoroughly brute-force extension that was probably programmed in a few hours, and Mozilla has a much softer, "meta" HTTP approach up its sleeve. Microsoft seems to be somewhere in the middle, with a built-in solution that may prove to be the best of both worlds.That they've all produced different solutions to the problem seems counter-productive, though. Rather than Google and Microsoft working together to create a unified targeted ads blacklist, or a concerted push behind Mozilla's HTTP header approach, we'll have to deal with all three. Not only will this annoy website owners and ad companies -- all three of the methods require their intervention -- but ultimately, you and I will have to deal with fragmented and incomplete blocking, depending on which browser we're using at the time.
Let's take a closer look at how Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer will block tracking cookies, and which solution is ultimately the best.
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla's approach is by far the most softly-softly and open solution. The idea is to create a Do Not Track HTTP header, which you can enable or disable -- and presumably, you will have granular control over which websites you enable it on. When your browser sends the new HTTP header, the website then omits any tracking cookies from the response.The problem is, every website has to be modified to accept the new Do Not Track HTTP header. By default, Mozilla's solution does nothing -- and there's nothing that can force a website to accept the new header. Mozilla hopes that the header will gain momentum, though -- and unlike Google and Microsoft's platform-dependent solutions, any browser could be configured to send a Do Not Track HTTP header, including browsers on smartphones, tablets, TVs, and so on.
Finally, Mozilla notes that the Do Not Track HTTP header is only one of its solutions to tracking cookies. Mozilla Labs is fantastic at shoehorning functionality into Firefox, so it wouldn't be surprising to see some cool cookie-related add-ons from it in the future.
Google Chrome
With what seems like a very hasty, heavy-handed solution, Google has produced an extension with a long list of blacklisted targeted advertising providers. If a cookie originates from a blacklisted domain, it blocks it... and that's about it.As it stands, there's no granular control, and the blacklist only covers U.S.-based ad companies. The fact is, though, that granular control isn't even all that useful -- I mean, do you even know which advertising company provides ads for your favorite websites? If you opt out of targeted ads on Download Squad, will that also impact your ads on Engadget?
Google says that the blacklist will automatically update as companies join the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, which is a lot easier than implementing the Do Not Track HTTP header -- but it doesn't help you, if you don't want to be tracked on your mobile phone, or on a computer that doesn't have Chrome installed.
Having said that, if you really don't want to be tracked, Google's method is the best immediate solution -- and presumably, there will eventually be a Firefox add-on that uses the same blacklist.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
The most graceful solution to the Do Not Track problem belongs to Microsoft and Internet Explorer's Tracking Protection. It's similar to Google's approach, in that it uses a client-side blacklist, but more control is ceded to website owners, and human curators.Rather than just blocking ad companies en masse, Internet Explorer 9 will have access to human-curated Tracking Protection Lists. You will be able to choose which list you want to use, and presumably some will be more aggressive than others. The neat bit, though, is that website owners can create a TPL that explicitly allows third-party cookies -- that way, if a website relies on tracking cookies for its business model, or to provide specific functionality, the owner can be sure that IE9 users will experience the site properly. I presume that you'll still be able to force-opt-out of these tracking cookies if you need, though.
Fragmentation
In conclusion, we're in for a bit of a bumpy ride over the next few years. Mozilla's standards-based approach gives both end-users and content owners the most control, but it will take months or years to gain momentum. The idea of every browser having a 'Do not track me on this website' flag is surely the most desirable solution, though.Google and Microsoft both offer great stop-gap solutions, with Internet Explorer edging ahead in terms of actual functionality and usability. Who can say which method will win out? If Microsoft's standard schema for Tracking Protection Lists gain traction, it will become trivial to implement intelligent blacklists in all three browsers. Ultimately, all three browsers will use both methods -- it might just take a few release cycles to get there.
I think it's important to note that content providers need to have some input in this whole Do Not Track process. Targeted advertising is used because it works -- it generates money! If targeted advertising disappears, and clickthrough rates plummet, free websites may need to find alternative revenue streams, or shut down.
While it's true that we need more control over who tracks our Web surfing habits, completely removing targeted advertising from the equation may do more harm than good.
Daily Crunch: Squid?s Clinic Edition
The psp is dead
Five Reasons The PSP Will Fail �
the psp is here
Sony Reveals The PSP2 In All Its Glory �
Satarii star for iphone
It's Always Watching You.... In A Good Way �
Superior Sound
Review: Zoom Q3HD Camcorder �
the psp2 cometh
OLED, 3G, HD... Sony Announcement Thursday �
Enspert Identity Tab E201 rings up at $350 with Froyo, Gmail and Android Market
Enspert blindsided us at CES 2011 with a pair of quality Android tablets, and here's another surprise -- next month, the company's Identity Tab E201 will apparently ship 100% Google-certified. Importer Dynamism is taking preorders on February 1st for the 7-inch Android 2.2 tablet, which comes with both Gmail and Android Market on board, though admittedly for a somewhat larger outlay than we originally heard. $350 is what you'll pay for the 800 x 480 slate, which sports a 1GHz Hummingbird processor and PowerVR SGX540 graphics, 8GB storage and 512MB RAM, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a full compliment of sensors and an SD card slot. Just a month ago we'd have called this quite the deal, but come February 1st you may want to wait -- after all, Google's busy bees may show off the fruits of their labors the very next day.
SHIFT: Freedom! is a fun, intelligent platformer -- Time Waster
Creating a good casual game is not a simple task: On the one hand, people want to "get" the game instantly, and just start playing without having to read lengthy tutorials or figure out complex controls. On the other hand, you don't want the game to be too one-dimensional.
And really, the first thing I noticed about SHIFT: Freedom! is that learning how to play was fun. The built-in tutorial walks you through a couple of levels, but you still have to think a little bit, and it's very fast.
As you might have gathered from the title, this is one platformer that doesn't emphasize crazy speed and agility. It's more cerebral ? you have to figure your way out of every level using just what you see on the screen (no extra "tools" or anything like that).
It's a lot of fun to play, and due to the way it "teaches" you, you keep finding out new things you can do during the first few levels. And by the time you're done with those, you might just be hooked!
Switched On: A suite segment for PlayStation games
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. One thing that has set Sony apart from its home console rivals has been the extended lifecycles of its hardware. Riding the momentum of a massive install base, both the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 each kept selling strong nearly a decade after their debut, and years after their respective successors were introduced. In fact, as late as 2009, Audiovox began offering a PS2 integrated into an aftermarket ovehead car video system with a 10" screen. Sony could pursue this strategy in home consoles because the PS2 was the runaway unit volume leader of its generation. Not so with the PSP.
Ross Rubin is executive director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
When Sony introduced the PlayStation Portable, it entered a portable console market with fierce, entrenched competition from the incumbent Nintendo, and the powerful widescreen handheld was outsold by the Nintendo DS and its later derivatives. Sony couldn't attain the market share it needed to steamroll existing competition.
With Sony's announcements this week, however, the PlayStation purveyors seem to have found a way to take their one-two punch on the road with a strategy that takes the PSP and segments its evolution.
Sony's beastly next-generation portable, with advanced components such as a 5" OLED display, quad-core processor, and optional 3G modem, calls out to the enthusiasts in more ways than one. Its premium components attract the diehard gamers, even as they likely push the NGP price north of $249 -- the price of the Nintendo 3DS and the original North American PSP -- such that those enthusiasts may be the only ones to afford the system at launch.
Simultaneously, Sony is expanding its gaming footprint with the release of PlayStation Suite. Whereas NGP is clearly highly optimized hardware for gaming, PlayStation Suite is "hardware-neutral" and will run on multiple Android smartphones (and perhaps eventually other Android devices like Sony's own Internet TVs powered by Google TV). While PlayStation Suite will start out with aging PSone titles rather than newer PSP fare, it nonetheless extends the PlayStation legacy in the mobile realm while offering Sony a rival platform to the Xbox Live integration within Windows Phone 7 and perhaps Apple's Game Center.
But not a perfect one. Those mobile Xbox Live games and iOS titles are not only integrated into online social networks that include such features as friend lists and achievements absent from PSone games, but are also ? like virtually all mobile apps -- optimized for a modern touch experience. And while Sony can tap into the sprawling and rapidly growing market for Android handsets (and possibly the emerging one for Android tablets), its own sister Sony Ericsson group has so far captured only a small fraction of it. Finally, PlayStation Suite titles will need to compete with the teeming masses of smartphone games that aren't part of either network.
On the other hand, unlike in the home console market, where the software dollars poured forth from consumers who had already bought Sony hardware, PlayStation Suite has a different opportunity here. It can drive exposure to the PlayStation software and brand on a device where Sony might have no other presence. Should consumers like what they see and get hooked by the Sony-exclusive franchises on offer, it could lead right back to interest in Sony's high-end hardware.
Ross Rubin is executive director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
A Small Car is a frustrating 3D Flash Time-Waster
It's not often that I see 3D attempted in Flash, and to be honest, after playing A Small Car I can see why.
It's not that it's not a fun game ? otherwise I wouldn't mention it as a potential Time Waster. It's just very frustrating. Your job is to steer a car over a complex course, hanging in mid-air, to the checkered "landing zone" at the end of each level. You sometimes need to jump, too ? so that means you can't always drive super-slow. The tracks are quite short, and it's all keyboard driven -- you don't need to use the mouse for anything.
As an experiment in 3D Flash content, it is quite impressive. The graphics are very blocky, but the motion is smooth. You can even change cameras by pressing C if you want to see what the track looks like from the driver's seat.
It's a fun game, but only if you've got plenty of patience.
Video of Honeycomb on Nook Color
YouTube link for mobile viewing
A day after photos were posted of Android 3.0 Honeycomb booting on the Nook Color, the dev has now posted a video of Honeycomb in action on his, erm, "e-reader."
The clip clearly shows the Barnes & Noble Nook Color booting and finally running the new tablet-tailored OS (it finishes booting right after the two-minute mark).
Honeycomb is running upside down on his Nook in this vid, but considering the SDK preview was released only three days ago, we're nothing but impressed with this one. [xda-developers]�
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YouTube on the Shift 4G, HTC Thunderbolt love [from the forums]
What a week. Android news has been hopping and as we head on into the weekend make sure you folks check out whatever it is that you may have missed out on. We've got some contests happening that will need to be closed down soon plus, hit up the Android Central podcast if you've not had a chance to do so as of yet. Make sure you jump on into the forums as well at some point this weekend. Lots of discussion happening and as always, more is welcome.
If you're not already a member of the Android Central forums, you can register your account today.
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Google invites the entire world to a Honeycomb preview on Feb. 2
The event starts at 1 p.m. EST, 10 a.m. PST, and is expected to last about an hour and a half.
It should be interesting to see just how much more Google shows us of Honeycomb; they've slowly been lifting the veil since CES earlier this month. Will we see more for tablets?�Honeycomb for phones?�We'll find out Wednesday. [via Engadget]
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Run Android 2.3 Gingerbread on your x86 computer
Sure, Android is designed to run on ARM devices, but that doesn't mean it can't run on an x86 system. Older versions of Android were ported, so it's no surprise to see that an enterprising developer has managed to put together a working version of Gingerbread which you can install on your desktop or laptop.
You'll need a 64-bit build environment and the Java 1.6 to get the ball rolling, and you shouldn't expect all your hardware to work. At the moment, only wireless and audio are working -- but that's certainly enough to let you play around with Gingerbread and enjoy the experience a little. Head on over to developer cwhuang's site [machine translated] for more details, as well as the Git repo link you'll need to pull down his Gingerbread x86 code.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Amnesia Razorfish Announces Gesture Sharing for Smartphones and Tablets using Microsoft Surface
More details can be found in this overview video.
Google censors torrent, download terms from suggestions and Instant
It's pretty common for Google to revise its suggestion blacklist, adding in new terms that the company feels shouldn't appear. With the most recent update, you'll no longer see terms related to downloading -- terms such as torrent, RapidShare, and Megaupload. Why?
Google, indexing torrent sites and facilitating piracy, has been given plenty of flack from just about anyone with a copyright. It makes Google complicit, copyright holders argue. Fine, Google says, we won't suggest them any more when a users enters something like "Ubuntu tor."
Don't fret, searchers, you can still get your results. It just means you have to type "Futurama torrent" and hit enter instead of "Futurama to" and then pausing while Instant loads up what is probably the most commonly used pairing on Google anyway.
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