NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena

NetTalk and LightSquaredMagicJack rival NetTalk is planning to crawl out of the infomercial doldrums and launch its own, branded LTE wireless service with the aid of LightSquared. See, when the cellular wholesaler is done taking out GPS signals it plans to sell space on its network to other companies who will then market it to consumers -- and NetTalk wants to be one of those companies. Obviously, offering mobile voice and data is new territory for the VoIP provider but, as always, more competition on the cellular scene is quite welcome. It's still too early for details like pricing, features, or devices, but we do have some lovely PR after the break.

Continue reading NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena

NetTalk joins forces with LightSquared, enters the cellular arena originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/VzO-CE1swpI/

Edith Hupertz Heinrich Peller Viktoria Barz Emma Sauter

Dodge is a space-shooter in which you have no weapons

dodge
Space-shooters are usually a fairly fiery affair, with many types of guns, weapon upgrades, power-ups and more. Dodge does away with all of that, while keeping the very essence of a space shooter: Dark background, fast action, and stuff blowing up all over the place.

Your vector-looking spacecraft is the fastest thing on the screen, most of the time. And as the header implies, you have absolutely no weapons; you can't get any, either. All you have is agility and maneuverability.

Your opponents shoot heat-seeking missiles at you; the missiles lock on and start tracking you. The trick is to dodge the missiles while putting them in the path of one of your enemies, thus letting them have a taste of their own medicine.

There are three types of enemies, at least in the first few levels: "simple" spaceships which fire slow projectiles, "tanks" which seem to be more serious and take more hits to destroy, and "circles." The circles simply explode, spewing twenty or thirty very fast projectiles. This sounds dangerous, but is actually great once you learn to use them; they are very destructive for tanks, and can even blow up other circles.

The soundtrack is very techno, but it meshes very well with this type of game. Intense fun!

Dodge is a space-shooter in which you have no weapons originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/01/dodge-is-a-space-shooter-in-which-you-have-no-weapons/

Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann Charlotte Kadelbach Hugo Ruß

WiGig hits version 1.1, adds wireless HDMI to its arsenal to celebrate

WiGiG and HDMITo this point, not much has come of this whole WiGig thing, but the coalition is marching forward and expanding the standard's capabilities with the introduction of version 1.1. The latest specification makes several tweaks to the 60GHz wireless protocol, but the big news is that the Wireless Gigabit Alliance has signed up with HDMI Licensing, LLC -- adding the ubiquitous video jack to its arsenal, which already includes cable-free DisplayPort. WiGig display adapters are still expected to hit the market by the end of the year but, for now, our dream of input agnostic wireless HD video streaming is just that -- a dream. So don't start tying up your old newspapers with those HDMI cables just yet.

Continue reading WiGig hits version 1.1, adds wireless HDMI to its arsenal to celebrate

WiGig hits version 1.1, adds wireless HDMI to its arsenal to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/tUevuEzbErg/

Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf Janine Harrer Emilia Münchow

Internet Explorer 9 nears 4% share on Windows 7, IE6 extinction countdown picks up steam

internet explorer 9 ie9
Microsoft has shared some news about the state of its most and least loved Web browsers -- Internet Explorer 9 and 6, respectively. Even with IE9 only recently exiting beta, Microsoft reports that 3.6% of Windows 7 users are now running the new browser (no mention of Vista... what's with that?). The post also reveals that the adoption rate is almost five times what IE8 garnered in the early going.

It's also interesting to note that there are now more than 1,000 sites utilizing Internet Explorer 9's Windows 7 integration features -- like the new desktop notification support we showed you in Hotmail.

But perhaps the best news of all is that Microsoft's IE6countdown.com now has more than 400 partners and is generating nearly two million pageviews per month, helping to lure users away from the woefully out-of-date browser. Can the end come soon enough, DS readers?

Internet Explorer 9 nears 4% share on Windows 7, IE6 extinction countdown picks up steam originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/internet-explorer-9-nears-4-share-on-windows-7-ie6-extinction/

Dieter Schreiter Monika Kley Heidemarie Frick Maike Beetz

VMware adds Mozy to its cloud and virtualization empire

mozy vmware
Mozy is one of the most popular cloud backup services around, with more than one million users storing around 70 petabytes of data. Its popularity apparently put it on the acquisition radar of VMware -- which has now made Mozy part of its virtualization empire.

VMware's official blog post makes it clear that the company wasn't so much interested in Mozy as a consumer offering. Rather, it's the inner workings of Mozy which piqued VMware's curiosity. CTO Steve Herrod says, "Over the past 5 years, Mozy has built one of the best examples of a globally distributed, large-scale cloud offering." He adds that the move will allow VMware to "further ramp our own cloud-related learning and accelerate new IP, scale, and capabilities" of its existing offerings.

Existing Mozy customers don't need to worry, of course. VMware has pledged to continue running Mozy's service without interruption.

VMware adds Mozy to its cloud and virtualization empire originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/vmware-takes-over-operation-of-mozy/

Nicholas Graul Malin Hock Helmut Hölzer Maurice Giese

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison

Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.

A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.


But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test...

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/ie9-and-firefox-4-post-top-marks-in-pc-power-use-comparison/

Helmut Hölzer Maurice Giese Frederik Faulhaber Svenja Hoferichter

Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice

Konstruct generative augmented reality art for iOS
If you have an artistic temperament, but you weren't blessed with steady hands or an eye for color, Konstruct might be the app for you. Not only does the iPhone app let you produce generative art using words, warbles and whistles, but it also uses augmented reality to bring your artistic creation to life.

To get started, you first need to print out the Konstruct marker and place it wherever you'd like to create your AR sculpture -- it could be on your living room wall, or on the floor of your bathroom, it doesn't matter. Open the app, point your iPhone at the marker, and start making some noises! Once you're done, you can save your creation, or simply wipe the slate clean and start again.

The volume of your voice affects the size of the shapes that are drawn on the screen, and you can move your head around to alter the path of your 'brush' -- but to change the shape of your brush or modify the color palette you have to use a menu. Without knowledge of the app's internal workings, it's hard to say what the actual difference between whistling, talking and singing is -- and judging by the developer's affinity for whistling in the demo video (after the break), the app probably doesn't perform that much analysis on your input.

Still, Konstruct is just a prototype! A later version could do away with menus and rely entirely on the location, tonality, quality and amplitude of your voice -- and judging by the the words of the developer, James Alliban, there is definitely more in store for Konstruct: "The idea of transforming entire cities into user generated virtual art galleries really appeals to me. I see Konstruct as an early prototype that will hopefully be realised in this form in the future."

Download Konstruct for free from the App Store (iPhone 3GS and 4 only)

[Thanks to Richard for the tip!]

Continue reading Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice

Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/konstruct-for-ios-creates-generative-augmented-reality-art-with/

Karla Reusch Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf Janine Harrer

Maybe the Only Google Selling Point You Care About [Humor]

Sometimes when you're running for office, being smart and likable and well-dressed doesn't really matter. Not nearly as much, at least, as the fact that you're not the incumbent. And that's why you're going to try Google+ despite yourself. [xkcd] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/93oEECOq_VM/maybe-the-only-google%252B-selling-point-you-care-about

Janine Hillenbrand Vivien Strupp Elena Lasch Hans-Jürgen Haake

Danish Trolls Are Playing All Sorts of Twinkly Music On This Pan Pipes Bridge [Architecture]

"Who's that tripping over my bridge?!" roared the troll. "It is I, the creator of elevator and massage room muzak, and I've come to have a tinkle on your bridge's underbelly-pipes!" More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/CaWZdoCauvY/danish-trolls-are-playing-all-sorts-of-twinkly-music-on-this-pan-pipes-bridge

Edgar Betz Antonia Koppe Gertrud Hölzl Ulrike Kellner

OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2 review roundup: SSD melts faces with 1.5GBps read and 1.2GBps write speeds

Did our footage of OCZ's new RevoDrive 3 X2 whet your appetite for more info on the super speedy SSD? Well, your wish is the web's command, and we've got a full roundup of reviews that'll tell you all you need to know. After putting OCZ's latest through its paces, the consensus is that the SSD is seriously quick in remembering and retrieving data. According to Tom's Hardware, the RevoDrive 3 X2 -- with its max 1.5GBps read and 1.2GBps write speeds -- "smokes everything" they've had pass through their lab. However, AnandTech noted that such capacious bandwidth is "simply overkill" for most users, as the drive only really flexes its muscles once the queue depth increases from enterprise-level workloads. Several sites noted that the drive's lack of TRIM support was also a concern, and that more cost effective (albeit slower) storage solutions can be had with a DIY RAID array of SATA SSDs. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it, get down to the nitty gritty in the links below.

Read - Hot Hardware
Read - AnandTech
Read - Tom's Hardware
Read - PC Perspective
Read - The SSD Review

OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2 review roundup: SSD melts faces with 1.5GBps read and 1.2GBps write speeds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 07:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/bVPCVHHt5qI/

Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf Janine Harrer Emilia Münchow