Tiger Glory: October 2013

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Adobe's iOS app now allows you to author PDF files

Adobe's iOS app now allows you to author PDF files, for a hefty price

Adobe has just released a new app for the iOS devices that lets you edit PDF documents from your smartphone or tablet. Now, I know touchscreen devices aren’t the most comfortable things to edit documents on, but it is certainly nice to be able to make a few minor changes on the go.

And the great news is that the application, called CreatePDF by the way, also supports a number of other document (docx, doc, xlsx, xls, pptx, ppt, rtf etc.) and image (ai, psd, indd, jpg, bmp, png, gif, tiff) formats.

The sad part is that the app doesn’t come cheap. Adobe’s asking price is a penny under $10, which is certainly more than what I’d pay for a document editor/PDF creator. Then again, if you need a PDF creator on your mobile, you don’t have too many apps to choose from, so you might think otherwise.

Source
|Via

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Facebook introduces Timeline

Facebook introduces Timeline, Music and a whole bunch of other things

It was a big day for Facebook yesterday as they announced a raft of new features for the world’s most popular social networking website. Mark Zuckerberg himself announced all these new features at the Facebook f8 keynote yesterday, which included stuff like the new Timeline view and integration with music and video services, among other things.

Let’s start with Timeline. Timeline will be your new Facebook profile page but instead of just showing your latest posts and info it will show your ‘stories’ as Facebook likes to call them, that will stay there regardless of the new content coming in. You can choose what content is visible in the Timeline and who can view it. It can have your posts, images, videos, apps, etc., all in one place that will help people learn more about you as a person. And there will be a timeline that users can go through to see your stories from that particular period of time. Whether you see it as a great new way to share your information with others or a scary new way for stalkers and other unwanted people to access your information is for you to decide.

Another new addition is Facebook Music. This isn’t a new music service however, but one that relies on existing services such as Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, SoundCloud, etc. to share with others the music you are listening to and to find out what your friends are listening to right now, which is basically what Ping was, or is (I keep forgetting that it’s still active).

This is not just limited to music. Facebook has also partnered with Netflix and Hulu, so you can share and watch movies and TV shows on Facebook itself.

Lastly, there are also some new verbs added for the grammar nazis among us. Find yourself cringing at the overuse of the word ‘Like’ on Facebook? Well, now you can be ‘Reading’ a book, ‘Watching’ a movie, ‘Listening’ to a song, etc. Developers of apps are now free to pair any verb with any noun and are no longer restricted to just make you ‘Like’ stuff.

All the new features mentioned here except for Timeline are now available to users. Timeline is currently in beta and restricted to developers but will be available to others in a few weeks.

For more information, click on the source link below.

Source

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Cat B15 flexes rugged smartphone muscle at MWC

The latest trend of dust and waterproof smartphones continues with the newly launched Cat B15. The rugged device can withstand a 1.8 meter drop and being submerged in up to one meter of water for about 30 minutes.

The Cat B15 comes with a 4″ LCD display of 480 x 800 resolution, a capacitive multi-touch screen, Gorilla glass and wet finger tracking. The smartphone is powered by a 1 GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor along with 512 MB of RAM, and features a 5 megapixel rear camera, a VGA front-facer, 4 GB of inbuilt memory with a microSD slot and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The Cat B15 measures 125mm x 69.5 mm x 14.95mm and weighs about 170g. The device is said to be protected by silver anodized aluminum and shock absorbent rubber, which enables it to withstand drops from up to 1.8m. Furthermore, the Cat B15 is IP67 certified, meaning it can survive immersion of up to 1m for about 30 minutes and is protected against dust.

The Caterpillar B15 carries a price tag of �329 and will be available from March.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

YouTube adds an online video editor to its host of services

Latest YouTube update includes video editor allowing you to create/edit movies from your uploaded content. It’s easy to work out, doesn’t require any software installation and your new videos will directly appear on YouTube once they’re done.

YouTube video editor can combine clips, trim the beginning/end and change the audio track. That’s basically everything you need to create or edit a movie.

Here is a quick video explaining the basics:

It uploads the new videos directly into YouTube, so you don’t need to worry about space, processing power and video formats.

YouTube video editor is still in testing phase, but you’re welcome to try it in TestTube.

YouTube

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Beats and HTC part ways

Beats and HTC part ways, but mobile exclusivity will continue

Today HTC and Beats have taken another step apart in their partnership, as Beats have purchased back some of the shares they sold to HTC last year.

Beats execs once again have a controlling interest in their own company, as HTC have agreed to sell them back half of the shares purchased in last years acquisition. Beats now have 75% of the shares, while the remaining roughly 25% still belong to HTC.

This news does not come as a surprise, considering HTC CEO Martin Fichter told CNET this past April that headphones are not a deciding factor when purchasing smartphones. Since that time, no premium Beats headsets have come bundled with new HTC devices – although the Beats equalizer options have been included – most notably in the new HTC One series.

This trend is likely to continue, as HTC and Beats have not completely cut ties, at least for the time being. The two companies have announced that Beats audio enhancements will continue to be exclusive to HTC, with a joint marketing campaign in the works for later this year.

According to HTC, the readjustment of shares is aimed at giving Beats more freedom to expand globally. It’s still too early to speculate whether this expansion will continue to include HTC as a major shareholder or not.

Source | Via

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Marvel releases digital graphic novels on the iBookstore

Popular comic book company Marvel Comics has released 80 of its classic graphic novels on the iBookstore. Although, Marvel has had a dedicated app for the platform for a while now, you could only purchase single comics through it.

The first batch consist of a wide variety of graphic novels from over the years encompassing several genres such as action (X-Men: Messiah Complex), suspense (Secret Invasion), mysteries (Castle: Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm), literary adaptations (Pride & Prejudice) and children’s tales (Wonderful Wizard of Oz). As a bonus, Marvel is also giving away the first full issue of ‘New Avengers Vol. 1: Breakout’ for a limited time.

To download these graphic novels, head to the iBookstore app on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. You could buy the novels directly or even download a free sample. To check out the full list of novels available right now, click on the source link below.

Source

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

5 new and cool features the iPad is getting with the upcoming iOS 5

Many new things were announced at this years’ WWDC in San Francisco ranging from the upcoming iOS 5, through the refreshing Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” and all the way to the brand new iCloud service. While not everything that was presented today is as revolutionary and “magical” as we hoped for, there are still interesting new features that the new iDevices are getting.

We already covered the new iOS 5 features so now we are going to focus on the top 5 most interesting and cool features the iPads will get from the latest iOS iteration, which will come in the Fall.

Notification Center

Let’s face it, Apple devices have been lacking proper notification functionality for a long time now, but today with the announcement of the Notification Center things are starting to look bright. Yes, there are certain ideas borrowed from some places like the swipe-down drawer with notifications (*cough* Android *cough*), but there are others like the unobtrusive in-app notification band which, to be fair, are done quite right in my opinion. Another cool tidbit is the addition of beautifully displayed weather information right in the notification drawer. This means that with just a quick glance at the notification screen you can get some general idea of the weather conditions. Simple and effective. Though borrowed too.

Split Keyboard

Typing on an iPad may be an adequate experience when when laid on a table with both of your hands touching the virtual keyboard. But, when you’re holding it with these two hands you only have your thumbs to type with and the traditional, almost full-size QWERTY keyboard doesn’t cut the mustard. Apple have realized that and as a result are introducing the so called “Split Keyboard”.

The Split Keyboard is basically a regular keyboard layout split into two equal parts positioned on both ends of the horizontal ends of the screen. This allows for a much easier typing, which hopefully, could prove to be faster than the traditional approach to keyboards on tablets. While clever, it’s not groundbreaking, or should I dare say “magical”? Even Microsoft have thought of it in the early concept of Windows 8 (check out the video at around 2:59 – 3:01)

Tabbed browsing

Tabbed browsing is godsend, pretty much rewriting the way we browse the web on our computers. This functionality has been around for couple of years now and many mobile web browsers have had a go at implementing it in their products. Some are pretty nifty like Firefox 4, where a simple swipe brings the different tabs on the screen. Others like the default Android browser require more tedious actions like pressing (touching) the menu key, going to “Windows” and then selecting the tab you want to switch to.

In the next release of iOS, Safari brings the tab functionality to the iPad just like a desktop web browser does. Literally. Tabs are displayed below the address bar on the top of the screen and you can switch through the different ones with a simple tap. Tabs can even be reordered, which is a nice touch.

Reader

The iPad and the iPad 2 can be used for many different things but one of the most fundamental of them is browsing the web. And nothing can be more annoying than a messy, hard to navigate website giving you a hard time concentrating on the article you want to actually read and not be distracted by the many images, text and banners there are around the said article.

What the new Reader does is eliminate all the unnecessary side images, text and ads and giving you the main article of the page with black font on a white background. Now reading websites feels more like reading a book. The Reader feature is integrated into the new Safari and when the browser detects that there’s a lengthy article on the current page it will display a button named “Reader”. Whether to press it or not to press is up to you, though. Bear in mind, it would also combine multi-page articles into one longer read.

The Reading list feature would allow you to save any interesting articles you come upon for later, offline viewing. iOS 5 would even sync those across your iOS devices for you so you can continue reading on your iPhone, for instance.

AirPlay Mirroring

And last, but certainly not least in our rundown of new and cool features for the iPads in iOS 5 comes AirPlay Mirroring. Why it’s so cool? Because having the option to share and show off your screen to friends or relatives is genuinely cool. Yeah, I know all modern Android tablets come with mini HDMI connectivity and yes, it kind of sucks that you’ll need an Apple TV to get it to work, but hey – it’s wireless and you could use the Apple TV for other stuff too.

[Update 10.06.11] 9to5mac.com have successfully synced 1080p video content with the iPad 2, running iOS 5. Up until recently this wasn’t really possible, which leads us to thinking that iOS 5 will allow the iDevices to play 1080p videos. Now, keep in mind that the first generation iPad, as well as the iPhone 3GS and iPoud Touch may not cope with the demands of full HD video playback.

Nevertheless, combine some sweet 1080p videos and AirPlay together and the iPad 2 can turn into a proper little media center for your home entertainment system. We just have to wait for the fall to get the official iOS 5 release.

[Bonus] Panorama shooting

This is something new as well. Again, thanks to the peeps at 9to5mac a little piece of code has been discovered, which indicates Panorama shooting will be added as an option to the camera app in iOS 5. Here’s how the code looks like.

Apple is ruining yet another developers’ businesses, this time of those with Panorama shooting applications. It’s yet unknown whether the first beta of iOS 5 has the full Panorama functionality or Apple has added just the code for the various messages.

There were my five cool and new features which the upcoming iOS 5 will bring to the iPad and iPad 2. It’d be great to hear from you which are your five most favorite things to ship with the new iOS 5.

30-pin to Lightning adapter now available

30-pin to Lightning adapter now available, will set you back $30

Apple did what rumors have been suggesting for weeks and what many thought impossible – the old 30-pin connector that has been around for ages is gone and has been replaced by the Lightning connector.

So, what are you to do if you have many iGadget accessories but plan on getting an iPhone 5 or one of the new iPod Touches or the nano? Well, there’s an adapter for that, but wait till you see how much it costs.

Ready? 30 bucks. Yes, 30 American dollars to go from 30 to 9 pins. And here’s the fine print: “Video and iPod Out not supported.”

The adapter itself looks similar to the iPad Camera Connection Kit. My complaint here is that it looks big and clunky – it’s that big and it doesn’t even support a couple of features that were always touted as big advantages of the 30-pin connector over standard USB.

You can also have the adapter in cable form – well, a 20cm cable anyway. That one costs $39.

Source

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Google+ hits 50 million users

Google+ hits 50 million users, adds CityVille to its arsenal

Recently, there were rumors that Google+ is starting to lose its inertia and that users are leaving the social network rather than joining it. As it turns out, those were hugely exaggerated as the Google social network now has over 50 million users.

That’s 50 million people that registered in the 88 days since the network launched. A really impressive achievement, considering that Google+ was invite-only since last week. To put things in perspective, Facebook took almost four year to get that many users, while Twitter achieved it in three years.

And not only isn’t the growth slowing down, but it’s actually speeding up. Since registration was opened to everyone, there are 2 million new registrations per day. At that rate Google+ members will double in the next month and a half.

To celebrate the milestone Google+ introduced a new game to its users. Zynga’s CityVille is a huge success on Facebook and now its developers hope to replicate the success on the Google network.

Source | Via

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Google+ for Android updated with a new UI

Google+ for Android updated with a new UI, better performance and lots of bugfixes

The Android version of the Google+ app just got an update, bringing a redesigned UI, several new features and the usual for such releases batch of bugfixes. The latest version of Google+ is already available in the Android Market for most regions and as you can see it brings an Ice Cream Sandwich-inspired UI.

Along with the new looks, Google+ should bring improvements to battery life, better notifications, a sign out option and several more minor improvements like the option to add people to a circle from the circle profiles screen.

Google also claims the new Google+ update improves performance and navigation, so it’s actually a pretty major update. Go grabs yours now from the Android Market on your smartphone or directly from the website of the app repository.

Via

Beta of Windows 8 a

Beta of Windows 8 a.k.a. Next could be ready by September, RTM in mid-2012?

What do you know, it turns out that Windows 8 may be surprisingly close – a leaked roadmap has led to speculation that Windows 8 (codenamed Windows Next) could turn up in beta form at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in September.

Which is just in time, if the rumors about the Dell Peju tablet coming out in Q1 2012 are right…

About 10 days ago, some leaked Dell roadmaps sparked our interest – they showed upcoming Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets and a few droid tablets. Tucked in at the bottom was “Peju”, a Windows 8 tablet, scheduled for the first quarter of next year.

Now, Microsoft aficionado Mary-Jo Foley is talking about a new roadmap for Windows 8, which shows that the second of three milestones for Windows 8 should be ready tomorrow.

Work on the third milestone starts next Monday and if it takes as long as the second one it should be ready by September (allowing for about a month of testing). That’s just on time for a beta version of Windows 8 to show up at the PDC, or at least a more details on the progress so far.

Of course, that would be followed by (at least) another beta and a release candidate, so the middle of 2012 is the rough target for when Windows 8/Next should be released to manufacturers.

As for the ARM port of Windows, Mary-Jo says it’s unlikely that it will be ready by January, so the Dell Peju may just be a developers’ platform. Anyway, if we don’t see it this September, CES 2012 is the next possible event for Windows 8 to officially break cover.

Source

Friday, October 4, 2013

Nokia Drop update adds support for sending map views and RSS feeds

Nokia Drop update adds support for sending map views and RSS feeds, automatic handling

Nokia has just announced an update for their Drop app for Symbian smartphones. Initially used for pushing images and URLs to your smartphone, Nokia Drop now also gains support for sending map views and locations and RSS feeds from your computer to your smartphone.

The RSS feeds could be sent to both the Nokia reader app on your Symbian smartphone and its native browser, while the map views and locations will be pushed to the OVI maps app.

The update also brings a key usability improvement – you can now choose how you want to handle received items, automatically or manually. Automatically means that received items are handled without the Nokia Drop UI popping-up when you receive items. In manual mode, you need to click items in the client if you want something to happen.

If you like what you hear, you may follow this link and get the latest version of Nokia Drop.

Source

Nokia releases a new version of the S40 web browser

Good news for all S40 fans – you haven’t been forgotten. Nokia has just released a new 2.0 version of the S40 Nokia Browser.

The major update brings faster web browsing, new user interface, easier sharing, better media handling, etc.

So, the new Nokia Browser 2.0 is capable of reducing the data usage by up to 90% thanks to cloud-acceleration services. This means a lot faster loading times and overall cheaper internet access.

The new browser also brings new intuitive user interface, even better web app support and media handling enhancements plus background downloads, easy sharing to social networks, etc.

Nokia Browser v2.0 is supported by all of the most recent S40 devices (touch and non-touch) including the entire Asha lineup. It supports 87 languages. You can get it from the Nokia Store on your phone or from this link.

Source

Sony announces NEX-C3 and Alpha A35 cameras

Sony announces NEX-C3 and Alpha A35 cameras, priced at $649 and $699 respectively

If you were one of those who mourned the loss of the Sony NEX-3 camera when Sony abruptly discontinued it a short while after it was launched then we have good news for you. Sony has announced that they will be launching the successor to the NEX-3 in the form of the NEX-C3, which also happens to be the smallest, lightest interchangeable lens camera with an APS-C sensor.

Among the list of changes is a new design, a higher resolution 16.2 megapixel sensor, improved battery life, new Picture Effects and a new macro lens, the 30mm F3.5 SEL30M35, which also happens to be the world’s lightest life-size macro lens. Rest everything is identical to the model it replaces, including the 3-inch articulating display, add-on flash, 3D Sweep Panorama and 720p video recording.

The camera will be sold in a choice of two lenses, one is the standard 18-55mm zoom lens and the other is the 16mm “pancake” lens. If you choose to go with the former you can select the camera in a choice of three colors, black, silver and pink for $649 whereas you only get the camera in black if you choose the 16mm lens along with a price tag of $599. The NEX-C3 will be available by late July or August.

Having used the NEX-3 as well as the NEX-5, I must say I don’t get the point of these cameras. Sony says that these cameras deliver DSLR quality images in a compact body and while the former maybe closer to truth the latter is definitely not. The camera is only compact with a lens attached and the last time I checked you definitely need one to shoot anything. The compact body also means the flash has to be carried separately and that there are hardly any controls on the body and everything is relegated to the menu. In my humble opinion a DSLR would be much better.

Speaking of DSLR, Sony also announced the Alpha A35 DSLR camera that’s replacing the A33. It has the same 16.2 megapixel sensor as the NEX-C3 and uses Sony’s Translucent Mirror Technology, which technically makes the A35 an SLT camera and not DSLR as Sony falsely claims. These type of cameras use a digital viewfinder instead of an optical viewfinder on a traditional DSLR. A translucent mirror directs some portion of the light above at a sensor which assists in continuous auto focusing even when recording a video.

The A35 can shoot at 5.5fps at full resolution or at 7fps at 8.4 megapixels. In the second mode the camera zooms in and provides approximately 1.4x magnification, while providing continuous tracking auto focus of moving objects. The A35 can also record videos in 720p and comes with the new Picture Effects as on the NEX-C3 that you can view on the 3-inch LCD on the back.

The A35 will go on sale in August for $599 or with the 18-55mm kit lens for $699. Click on source for more info.

Source

New Apple iPad: expectations vs reality

The rumor marathon leading to the announcement of the new iPad was one of the most intensive we have ever witnessed, so naturally we expected to see plenty at the Apple event tonight.

Now we’ll try and go through the rumors that came up most frequently on the web and see if the new Apple iPad actually matches the expectations or fails to deliver.

Retina display
This one was obviously spot on and is by far the biggest update brought by the new iPad. Okay, you might argue that a 264 ppi screen does not technically qualify as Retina, but that’s nitpicking, really. We can’t think of many real world scenarios, where you’ll be holding the iPad 10 inches away from your face, so the screen resolution is really as much as you are ever going to need (if not even more).

A6 chipset with quad-core CPU
This one went right down the drain – everyone was all but certain that the new iPad will come with a quad-core CPU, just like most of its Android market rivals did recently, but Apple chose to only upgrade the GPU instead. The two extra GPU cores will probably be just enough to make up for the extra resolution, so you shouldn’t expect a dramatic change in performance compared to the iPad 2 or the iPhone 4S.

No home button
We kinda liked the idea of an iPad without a homescreen button. The screen is big enough to fit all the buttons you need and it would probably make the whole UI simpler and more straightforward. Alas, it was not to be and the new iPad sticks to the tried and tested formula.

8 megapixel camera
This one came up partially true – the new iPad does represent a significant improvement over the one in terms of camera prowess, but its shooter does 5 megapixel, rather than 8 megapixel stills. We don’t think anyone will argue that this would have made any difference on a slate, though.

Thicker and heavier
Unfortunately, this one came out true – the new iPad has gained 55g of weight and 0.6mm of thickness compared to its iPad 2 predecessor. That’s the price you need to pay for getting the same battery life on a slate with four times the pixel count and LTE connectivity. Mentioning which��

LTE connectivity
That’s another particularly exciting bit about the new Apple iPad. Web browsing is bound to be its element with a large ultra high-res screen and it would only make sense for you to have the fastest network data transfers to make full use of it.

Siri
It seemed inevitable that Siri will be available on the new iPad, but that turned out not to be the case. Given that it uses the same version of the platform and a newer chipset, it’s rather puzzling why Apple chose to leave it out and only include the voice dictation option. Not that we are too disappointed – the whole talking to your smart devices thingy seems a bit awkward to us, but we are a bit confused nonetheless.

Obviously, we couldn’t get everything we wished for, but the new Apple iPad still feels like a pretty solid update. Any existing iPad user will be tempted to upgrade and we bet many newcomers to the tablet world will put it on top of their shortlists.