New Black Snake Blues – Part 2 Amazon Me New Black Snake Blues – Part 2 - http://blues.mp-3.lt/chicago... 2 hours ago from Blues MP3 Music - Comment - Like
Reggae Worship: The First Fruits Of Christafari Amazon Me Reggae Worship: The First Fruits Of Christafari - http://alternative-rock.mp-3.lt/2010... 1 hour ago from Alternative Rock - Comment - Like
New Black Snake Blues – Part 1 Amazon Me New Black Snake Blues – Part 1 - http://blues.mp-3.lt/chicago... 4 hours ago from Blues MP3 Music - Comment - Like
LG 42LH20 42-Inch 720p LCD HDTV, Gloss Black Amazon Me LG 42LH20 42-Inch 720p LCD HDTV, Gloss Black - http://www.gamerob.com/tv-sets... 4 hours ago from Reviews - Comment - Like
Новости путешествий и туризма - интересные места, яркие впечатления, доступные цены
туристическая планета это: Поиск туристических объектов для отдыха Общение с представителями туристических объектов Предложения от представителей объектов и объявления туристов
Steam for the Mac has been given a date: May 12th. We were hoping to see it by the time April ended, but they've pushed back the date to just a few scant weeks from today. So come the second Wednesday in May, you the public will be able to go and pick up the beta and see what the biggest digital distribution system in the world looks like running native on your Mac.
Keep in mind that you'll have to have an Intel Mac running 10.5 or higher (and you might even need a more current OS for some of the games on the system), and of course this is the Steam platform, not all of the games along with it. But at the very least, the official Valve games will be Mac-ported, including the Half Life and Left 4 Dead series, and the very excellent Portal. Should be fun!
Microsoft's Courier project was an exciting and fascinating concept. When it first appeared last year, the folding two-screen tablet was one of the most incredible things we've seen out of Redmond for a long time. Similar in concept to Apple's Knowledge Navigator concept device, Courier used a combination of touch and pen-based computing to generate a lot of buzz and interest about what was going on in Microsoft's labs.
Gizmodo is reporting that the project was killed yesterday. There's speculation that the intense popularity of Apple's relatively low-cost iPad, coupled with the imminent arrival of Android-based tablets and possibly even WebOS slates from HP, could have scared the software giant away from releasing the device.
Nobody outside of Microsoft knows for sure how far along Courier really was -- the video that was widely distributed last fall was obviously a marketing dream -- or how much the proposed device would have cost. With two iPad-sized touchscreens and a strong, yet lightweight hinge mechanism holding the Courier screens together, it wouldn't have been as inexpensive as the iPad.
Although those of us at TUAW are Apple fanboys to the max, we regret that the Courier never made it to market. Competition is good, and when a possible contender fails to make it out of the conceptual stage, it's a loss for all of us.
Apple has released an update to Aperture 3, its professional imaging software. The 3.0.3 update improves overall stability and fixes issues in a number of areas, including:
Applying adjustments such as Retouch or Chromatic Aberration
Creating and using Raw Fine Tuning presets
Viewing, adding and removing detected faces
Switching target printers and paper sizes when printing
Duplicating Smart Albums
Repairing and rebuilding Aperture libraries
Reconnecting referenced files
Working with GPS track files in Places
Searching for keywords in the Query HUD or Keyword Controls
The Aperture 3.0.3 update weighs in at 69.4MB and requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, or Mac OS X 10.6.2 or later. The full release notes can be found here.
Wired has located and interviewed the man who "found" Apple's lost prototype iPhone in a Redwood City bar: 21-year-old Brian Hogan. With a statement from his attorney, Hogan has shed a great deal of light on the ongoing saga of Gizmodo's premature unveiling of Apple's next-gen iPhone. The story, as told by Hogan, supposedly goes like this:
Another bar patron handed Hogan the iPhone when the patron found it lying on a nearby barstool. This patron asked Hogan if it was his iPhone, then abruptly left. Hogan asked nearby bar patrons if the phone belonged to them. When no one said it was theirs, he and his friends left with the iPhone. Critically, there's no mention that Hogan made any effort to leave the phone with the bartender, which is what I probably would have done in that situation. [Ed: After you put together a hands-on and gallery for TUAW, you mean.]
In some incredible news, Apple has passed Motorola to become the largest phone maker in the US. According to Forbes, Apple sold 8.8 million iPhones in the first quarter, while Motorola sold 8.5 million of their various mobile devices. This is despite Motorola having posted an unexpected profit in the quarter and outdoing both its own and Wall Street's forecasts.
Motorola has been in a skid for a while. Four years ago they posted 46.1 million phones sold in the 1st quarter (back when the RAZR was hot). Their current strategy is to focus on smart phones that they can charge more for, like the Droid. It's working, Forbes notes, but more slowly than executives would like.
Motorola earned US$69 million, or 3 cents per share in the quarter. In the same quarter last year, it lost $231 million, or 13 cents per share.
Motorola has been in the market for a long time, which makes Apple -- a relative newbie -- even more impressive as the 1st quarter winner. If only we had a hit of what they'll be doing next.
The iPad. It is awesome. And the iPad camera connector kit is even more awesome. It works with USB keyboards. It works with USB headsets (seriously, I just spent a half hour on the phone with Kyle Kinkade on Skype voice chat that way). And, of course, it does photos. You can import photos from cameras, from SD cards, and even from iPhone OS devices.
But that's not the sum of what most people really want to do with their iPad USB ports. What people want, what they really really want, is to insert a USB memory stick and read arbitrary files off and write arbitrary files onto that device.
On that end, there's good news and there's bad news.
The good news is this. USB drives do mount properly and show up in the system as /dev/disk2s1. Yay. You can even add more drives via a hub. The iPad supports both FAT and HFS+ drives.
The bad news is this. As iPhone developer Dustin Howett discovered, that mount point is sandboxed away from normal developer use. You cannot read from or write to that disk using standard iPhone SDK applications.
Another unnamed developer did a little digging. He discovered that the iPhone supports the same kind of Image Capture Core engine that is used on the Macintosh. Unfortunately, that engine (which is backed by the Mobile Storage Mounter application in Core Services) appears to be limited at this time. The only data that can mount and be read is DCIM folders, and only through the Photos application.
That's not to say that the functionality for reading arbitrary disk storage is not available -- it is -- but it has been blocked off from general use at this time. (Yes, a jailbreak will easily bypass this limit.)
Posting the images mounted notification com.apple.mobile.images_mounted Posting a notification that regular storage has been mounted com.apple.mobile.storage_mounted
This remains in line with Apple's user empowerment policy. Just as the UIImagePickerController can only access pictures that the user selects, just as the UIDocumentInteractionController can only present documents chosen by the user, the USB system (for now) will only offer access to pictures that the user decides to move to the iPad.
Should the demand for a more general shared documents approach be loud enough and strong enough, history has shown that Apple can and does respond to the clamor of the buying public's requests.
Leave it to Jon Stewart to put things into perspective. In this segment from The Daily Show, Jon satirically cops to being an Apple user since the 80s and takes Apple to task for stealing the evil empire crown from Microsoft in their handling of the Gizmodo lost iPhone incident.
After Giz gave back the iPhone, the cops busted down its editor, Jason Chen's door. "Don't they know there's an app for that?" Say what you will, I think Jon nailed it.
Apple and Adobe may be at each others' throats, but that won't stop the software from going out. Adobe has released "Gala," a Flash Player preview that introduces support for H.264 video hardware decoding on Mac OS X 10.6.3. While Flash Player H.264 video hardware decoding has been available on Windows for some time, Apple has only recently made available to developers APIs that support H.264 hardware video decoding in the browser, with the release of Mac OS X 10.6.3. Gala's hardware decoding "enables supported Macs running the current version of OS X to deliver smooth, flicker-free HD video with substantially decreased power consumption," according to Adobe.
In order to take advantage of Gala's hardware decoding, users will be required to have Mac OS X 10.6.3 running on a Mac with one of the following graphics cards: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. Those Macs include MacBooks shipped after January 21st, 2009, Mac Minis shipped after March 3rd, 2009, MacBook Pros shipped after October 14th, 2008, and iMacs that shipped after the first quarter of 2009. Mac Pros are not supported at this time.
The Gala preview is available for download now. Until the release is finalized, users will see a small white square in the upper left corner of the Flash video while video is hardware decoding. I've only played around with it for a few minutes, but I can happily report that I've noticed huge improvements in the playback of HD Flash video on YouTube on my 2009 MacBook Pro.
While most still wait for their iPad 3Gs to arrive tomorrow, reader Robert S. was kind enough to send us the following screen shots of signing up for AT&T 3G service on his iPad 3G (he got his a day early -- lucky guy).
As you can see, you simply touch the Settings iPad app, tap on Cellular Data, enter your payment details, and boom! you're presented with a Cellular Data Account page which shows you your Cellular Data Plan account number, the status of your plan (how many days you have remaining), the billing period, and the abilities to add data or change your current plan and also add an international data plan.
Robert also notes that AT&T apparently assigns you a new mobile number for billing purposes.
Narayen began by reinforcing Adobe's belief in open content, noting that the Creative Suite apps were designed to work on multiple platforms, and notes that Adobe "certainly" will be shipping on the latest version of Android. He goes on to call Steve's essay "a smokescreen," noting that more than 100 apps are currently in the App Store used Adobe's software.
In response to Steve's assertion that "...Flash is the number one reason Macs crash," Narayen said that, if Adobe does crash a Mac, it's probably got something "to do with the Apple operating system."
He goes on to warn developers that Apple's restrictiveness will make their work "cumbersome," saying that they'll need to manage two workflows: One for Apple and one for everything else. In fact, he asks WSJ writer Alan Murray if the Journal would want two separate development processes when creating content. Mr. Murray responded that it would be "...better if you could use one set" of tools.
Finally, Narayen insists that Apple's adherence to a single platform is a detriment. He concludes that Adobe's concept is best for most developers, as it allows them to distribute apps out to many places rather than forcing them to pick one.
And for the record, Narayen uses a Google Nexus One and considers the iPad "a good first-generation device."
Apple has filed trademark motions on a number of its official app icons, and none of them are new (though the trademarks for the iDisk app and the MobileMe gallery app threw me a bit, not having MobileMe myself). Apple appears to be shoring up its official iPad and iPhone app icon library, and trademarking all of the official icons that it's put together.
Each icon is marked not only by description (the Camera app icon is described as "rounded corners depicting a stylized camera lens"), but by its colors as well, which is standard for a logo trademark. It's also interesting that all of these icons are submitted at a gigantic size of 955x955 pixels, but iPhone icons are shown at 57x57, and iPad icons are displayed at 72x72. Clearly, though, Apple makes its icons Texas-sized and then scales them down to display them.
As iPad 3Gs travel to eager owners, AT&T has posted specifics on data pricing [PDF]. Best of all, you can activate and manage the whole works from the iPad itself. Here's the lowdown of domestic plans. All prices are US dollars.
$14.99 per month for 250 MB
$29.99 per month for unlimited data
Unlimited access - no added cost - to AT&T's 20,000+ Wi-Fi Hot Spots
Domestic plans can be canceled at any time from the iPad with no penalty. Otherwise, they'll automatically renew after 30 days at the same rate.
There's a "usage meter" in the general settings of 3G iPads (Settings > Cellular Data) that lets you monitor your data usage. Additionally, when you purchase the $14.95 plan, you'll get three warnings that you're about to exhaust your plan: One at 20 percent, one at 10 percent and finally at zero. If you do exceed your plan, it simply expires until you renew (so you're not racking up "penalty minutes" or anything like that). Note that AT&T defines a month as a 30-day period.
Kerio Technologies, Inc. is a major player in the enterprise messaging and collaboration software market, and the company's products are well-known in the Apple world. Their primary product, Kerio Connect 7, provides tools for corporate IT departments for email, calendaring, and group contact lists, all using cross-platform server tools that are much less expensive to implement and maintain than their counterparts from Microsoft (Exchange) and Apple.
Now, Kerio has announced that Kerio Connect 7 natively supports the Apple iPad. Kerio is spotlighting the integration of Connect 7 and the iPad platform at Interop 2010, which ends today in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Kerio Connect 7 allows iPad users to synchronize email, contacts, and a private calendar to the server. Users can also search the Global Address List (GAL) and manage invitations, and admins can easily perform remote wipes. All of this is done through Exchange ActiveSync, one of the many standards supported by Kerio Connect. CalDAV support is also built in, so users can access shared and global calendars.
IT managers will appreciate the fact that Kerio Connect comes complete with integrated anti-virus and anti-spam features, as well as automated archiving and backup of email. The server solutions starts at US$450 for a five-user license, and additional users can be added for as little as $24 each. For small or large companies looking at integrating the iPad into their businesses, Kerio Connect is an answer to a lot of questions.
Apple is currently on a dog-and-pony-show tour, proclaiming the benefits of iAd to potential customers across the US. According to a "person familiar with the matter," initial participants could be charged as much as $10 million. It's a number that has some market veterans surprised.
Phuc Truong, managing director at Mobext, called it "...a hefty sum... What Apple is trying to do is certainly above and beyond what's been done in the past." Mobext's clients include Sears, Choice Hotels, Amtrak and Volvo.
Apple and developers will share iAd revenue with a 40/60 split; that is, Apple gets 40% while developers get 60%. In addition, Apple will charge advertisers US$0.01 for each ad displayed. If a user taps a banner and brings up an ad, Apple will charge $2. Under the $1 million package, the WSJ points out, costs would potentially reach $1 million with all of that tapping.
With 85 million installed iPhone, iPod touch and iPad customers, the potential customer base is huge. I tend to ignore ads in apps, but if they can provide me with something more than a picture and a pitch -- location-based store finders, coupons or a little entertainment for example -- I'll pay attention.
As you can see from the series of twelve icons above, only four of them are definitively app icons (Maps, Calendar, Photos, and Messages), four are icons for new iPhone OS 4.0 services or features (multitasking, iAd, Game Center, and Enterprise), while the last known three are standerd developer icons (the lock, the x-ray applications icon, and the iPhone pref file).
Of course, it's likely that the remaining camera icon is just referencing the access developers have to the iPhone's video recording software and hardware. We've gotten quite a few emails about this, though, so we are posting this in the interest of pure speculation only.
There are a lot of Twelve South fans here at TUAW. The company makes nothing but Apple accessories, and they do it with a flair and panache that most other accessory makers seem to lack. We've reviewed or introduced a number of their products -- the BackPack shelves for iMac and Cinema Displays, the BookBook cases, BookArc desktop stand, and BassJump subwoofer for MacBooks -- and now we have another lovely aluminum arc to add to the list.
The BookArc for iPad is a tabletop stand for the iPad. While we've seen everything from empty tape rolls and carry-out trays used as stands for the iPad, the BookArc is definitely one of the more stylish stands. The US$39.99 BookArc for iPad is a sleek arc of aluminum, outfitted with silicone rubber inserts to keep your iPad from getting scratched while it's sitting in the stand. Depending on which insert you use, you can orient the iPad in portrait or landscape mode, and either upright or tilted.
In the tilted mode, the BookArc makes a wonderful dock for using the iPad with an external wireless keyboard. SInce the BookArc is open on the bottom, you can even use the standard Apple Dock Connector to USB cable to sync and charge your iPad while it's lookin' good.
With all of the chaos going on around the lost iPhone case, everyone has more or less assumed that Apple is behind the police department's actions in searching Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen's house late last week. Of course, no one believes that the sheriff is working for Apple, but most people seem to be under the impression that Apple wants to get to the bottom of the case, and that the company is pulling strings in law enforcement to try and do that.
However, some new information discovered by Wired suggests that the story may be more complicated than that. They have heard claims from an anonymous source that Apple already knew the identity of the person who found the iPhone, and allegedly sold it to Gizmodo. Someone identifying themselves as being affiliated with Apple apparently arrived at the finder's house in Silicon Valley last week, looking for the finder (and possibly the phone) but finding only a roommate, who didn't let them in.
Wired's source also says that the person who found the phone never tried to keep it a secret and even contacted Apple and searched Facebook for someone to return the phone to. When money finally changed hands (from Gizmodo), Wired's source says it was "for exclusivity," and not for a sale of the actual device.
Of course, this is all a mix of hearsay and conjecture, spoken by an anonymous source who may or may not know about the case. The bottom line at this point is that the police investigation is underway. If they find evidence that makes them believe a crime was committed, then we'll see them take action. Until then, though, it's unclear exactly what happened with the iPhone's finder and whether the "sale" was illegal or not.
Overall, music sales fell by more than a billion dollars last year, but Apple's iTunes is doing better than ever. The digital music distribution service claimed more money than ever, and now represents the biggest U.S. market for music sales, making up over a quarter of total music sales in this country. Unfortunately, not even iTunes may save the industry; total music sales in the US only rose by 1.1 percent over the previous year (which, according to industry analysts, is as good as not growing at all), and the total worldwide market decreased to $17 billion. That's nothing to sneeze at, but the fact is that, even if more people are buying music through iTunes, less music is being sold. The way the trends are going, it looks like actual music sales themselves may start dropping off, even in the United States.
So what's the solution? The record industry is actually looking to iTunes now to save their own business. One executive is quoted as saying that an iTunes subscription service might be just the thing to get people interested in buying music again (or at least renting it). It would appear that, with the purchase of Lala, Apple may be laying the groundwork for a service like that.
However, there are a lot of other factors going into this market change (not the least of which is that it's easier than ever to make, buy, sell, and share music outside of the record industry system, which includes iTunes), and even a subscription service won't solve the problem.
Last week, the folks from Ars Technica got a chance to stop by Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, CA. They kindly asked a question that many of us RTS gamers have been wondering about ever since the iPad was released: Is there any chance that we'll be getting StarCraft to play on the iPad? Sure, there are lots of games we'd like to play on Apple's revolutionary device. Real-time strategy seems a perfect fit for a touch interface, though, and when you talk about RTS, you're talking about StarCraft. Either a port of the old game, or maybe even a few teaser levels for the new version would be awesome to see in the App Store.
Unfortunately, it's not in the cards quite yet. StarCraft II's lead designer, Dustin Browder says it's not beyond the realm of possibility at some point, but the team is "certainly not working on it now." Like all of us, they're intrigued by the idea of the iPad, but they aren't quite convinced that it's ideal for their gameplay. "It's possible that's a control scheme that would work for us," Browder says. "It's possible that it isn't... we're not going to put it out there just to make a couple bucks." That's a shame, because I'd definitely pay a couple of bucks for it.
Still, the iPad is new, and Blizzard hasn't sworn off the device. Browder says that they, polishers and perfectionists that they are, would rather focus on matching experiences to devices rather than the other way around. That's fine, then. Command & Conquer isn't really what we expected from a marquis title. Hopefully someone else will come along and provide a premiere RTS experience on Apple's tablet.
Apple has posted their Thoughts on Flash, signed by Steve Jobs himself, which echos a lot of the commentary that you've probably already read on why Apple isn't supporting Flash on iPhone OS devices, and why they plan to block apps that allow Flash programs to be recompiled into iPhone OS programs, especially games.
Beginning with citing their long-standing relationship, Steve outlines six points: openness, "the full web", security and performance, battery life, touch, and the drawbacks of relying on third-party development tools.
In case anyone has been unclear thus far, or has been waiting for a version of the iPhone OS that supports Flash, here is your clear and unmistakable sign: you will never see Flash on an iPhone OS device. Steve's letter addresses the "why not?" questions.
Fast Company has come up with an awesome Gizmodo iPhone Saga flowchart to help us follow the increasingly confusing case. The flowchart allows users to pick what they believe to be the true facts, and it lets them follow the trail to its "obvious" conclusion. Possible outcomes include: it was all an Apple conspiracy, bloggers are journalists, and Gizmodo bowed to corruption to get site traffic. So, where did you end up?
This is just a quick note to say that we've gotten a flood of emails from readers stating that their iPad 3Gs have been shipped. Most have an estimated delivery time of 4:30PM on April 29 -- a whole seven and a half hours before the official April 30th release date! One guy emailed us saying that he's been checking his tracking information every five minutes. I know the anticipation of iPad 3G receipt is exciting, but just remember to take deep breaths, people. For those of you who didn't pre-order one originally, the iPad 3G should be in Apple retail stores by May 7th. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Chimes is a beautiful and subtle game; its simple graphics and premise hold up some interesting gameplay that's somehow both frantic and serene. You're given five chimes of five colors to touch, and little drops of color will soon arrive on the screen and try to make their way to the bottom. Your job is to hit the chimes, and as waves of sound and color ring out, the little drops will be cleared when they match up with the right colors. Chimes can be added together as well, so when a red chime hits a blue chime, it makes a yellow chime, and so on. Drops can also have multiple colors, and when you start to realize that sending out waves of color can sometimes "paint over" the drops that are coming down, this previously simple game gets more complicated.
It's a lot of fun, and it's free in the App Store. 1.1 added a few features to the in-app purchase that open up more modes and stages of gameplay. Even if you're too stingy to give the dollar, though, there's still plenty of gameplay to be had, even before you take the purchase plunge.
FriendFeed - amazonme
Apple has released an update to Aperture 3, its professional imaging software. The 
Wired has located and interviewed 
In some incredible news, Apple has passed Motorola to become the largest phone maker in the US. 
The iPad. It is awesome. And the iPad camera connector kit is even more awesome. It works with USB keyboards. It works with USB headsets (seriously, I just spent a half hour on the phone with 
Leave it to Jon Stewart to put things into perspective. In this segment from 
It's been an exciting 
Just hours after 
Apple has filed trademark motions on a number of its official app icons, and none of them are new (though the trademarks for 
As iPad 3Gs 
Kerio Technologies, Inc.
When Steve Jobs 
There are a lot of 
With all of the chaos going on around the lost iPhone case, everyone has more or less assumed that Apple is behind the 
Overall, music sales fell by more than a billion dollars last year, but Apple's iTunes is doing better than ever. The digital music distribution service claimed more money than ever, and now represents 
Last week, the folks from 
Apple has posted their 
