HTML5 MP3 player lets you listen to your music library inside your browser

html5 browser mp3 audio player
While this slick little HTML5 audio player might not pack all of the features of your favorite desktop media application, it's still a very cool demonstration of what a Web app can do with access to local resources -- like MP3 and OGG files.

Just fire up http://antimatter15.github.com/player/player.html in your HTML5-compatible browser and browse to the topmost folder in your music library. The app will quickly build an index of all your tunes and let you start listening right inside your Web browser. Click on the filter library text, and you can enter a search string -- results load as you type.

There's a volume control, shuffle mode, play/pause control, and you can click and drag to skip forward or rewind during playback. As OMG! Ubuntu points out, you can even save the app to your hard drive and run it offline, which is pretty darn cool.

Not all browsers are equal when it comes to HTML5 implementation, of course. We found that Chrome worked the best, and Firefox was OK. It's also worth noting that this music player comes from the same developer that created one of our favorite restartless Firefox 4 add-ons, drag2up.

HTML5 MP3 player lets you listen to your music library inside your browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/html5-mp3-player-lets-you-listen-to-your-music-library-inside-yo/

Luca Liebe Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann

AUO Sipix e-paper staggers through video at 6 fps, could go as high as 16


We haven't heard from the folks at IRX Innovations in a while, but if this video is any indication, they haven't given up on their e-reader dreams just yet. A wily internet video shows the outfit squeezing a modest 6 fps out of an AUO Sipix e-paper panel. Playback is noticeably choppy, but IRX engineers say they can eek an additional 10 fps from the unit by running content through a memory buffer. It's a far cry from Mirasol's crazy-smooth 1080p color displays, or even Bookeen's anti-chromatic offering -- but we won't complain if they can keep it cheap. Besides, Chariots of Fire was born to be seen in slow motion.

AUO Sipix e-paper staggers through video at 6 fps, could go as high as 16 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/6QtIkO1Ht2A/

Hans-Joachim Kammann Antonio Fellberg Emma Knebel Jason Randow

Jailbreak iOS 4.3.1 on OS X or Windows with PwnageTool or Sn0wbreeze

iOS 4.3.1 jailbreakA jailbreak of iOS 4.3.1 is now possible with both PwnageTool on Mac, and Sn0wbreeze on Windows. RedmondPie -- who else? -- has some handy guides that you can follow for all iOS 4.3.1 devices on Windows, for iPhone 4 on OS X, iPad 1 on OS X, iPhone 3GS on OS X, and iPod touch 4G and 3G on OS X.

All iOS 4.3.1 jailbreaks are still tethered, meaning you'll have to jailbreak your device after every reboot. An untethered jailbreak is slated for release sometime in the next week -- but 4.3 was meant to have an untether, too, and that never emerged.

Maybe Apple's updated security mechanisms will finally keep hackers at bay!

Jailbreak iOS 4.3.1 on OS X or Windows with PwnageTool or Sn0wbreeze originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/jailbreak-ios-4-3-1-on-os-x-or-windows-with-pwnagetool-or-sn0wbr/

Hartmut Theobald Nicholas Graul Malin Hock Helmut Hölzer

Elephant Quest is an addictive, deep platformer

elephantquest
When someone tells me about a "platformer", my first thought is that it's probably a simple game that mainly revolves around running and jumping around, with a minimal plot. [Play a Zelda game! -Ed]

Elephant Quest is one platformer that managed to prove me completely wrong. Yes, you do run and jump around, and you also shoot at stuff. But the game has much, much more going for it.

Basically, as you run, jump and shoot, you gain experience points and level up. Hitting Space brings you into an interface where you can convert your experience points into Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Dexterity points. Once you've "specialized" your points, you then get to pick what exact skills you'd like to enhance in each field. For example, you could use your dexterity to enhance your weapons or increase your swiftness.

The game is played in a huge maze; you go through rooms using doors, and there's a large map. As the name implies, there are quests you can take, too. For example, one quest had me searching all over the place for ten balloons.

The bottom line is that this is a surprisingly deep game that just might ensnare you for a good bit longer than you intended to play. Beware!

Elephant Quest is an addictive, deep platformer originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/elephant-quest-is-an-addictive-deep-platformer/

Kerstin Klos Dieter Schreiter Monika Kley Heidemarie Frick

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests

Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem.

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/adblock-plus-developer-pokes-holes-in-mozillas-new-add-on-perfo/

Edith Berner Lea Linden Kevin Fickenscher Amelie Schweizer

SageTV Acquisition Could Aid Fledgling Google TV with Potential DVR-Style Devices [Video]

Google's not saying much about it, but one can't help but think the company's late-week acquisition of open-source home theater and DVR software developer SageTV is related to its struggling Google TV offering. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/jTnBbyM47mQ/sagetv-acquisition-could-aid-fledgling-google-tv-with-potential-dvr+style-devices

Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf Janine Harrer Emilia Münchow

Joe Hewitt?s First Post-Facebook Web Gift: Inertial Scrolling For All

Back in early May, developer Joe Hewitt surprised a lot of people when he abruptly announced he was leaving Facebook after nearly four years. Hewitt had been vital to everything from the social network's iPhone app (the most popular app of all time) to (supposedly) the don't-call-it-a-phone secret phone project. But he apparently wanted to return closer to his pure web roots (he was an early developer of Firefox and built the still widely-used Firebug dev tool). And today we're seeing the first fruits of that journey back. Hewitt has just announced a new site, Up on a Hill, a photo blog he made in collaboration with his girlfriend, Laura Copeland. The site itself looks great, but the real key (at least from the tech perspective) is Hewitt's use of Scrollability, the native scrolling framework he created for mobile web apps. "Most mobile websites still rely on clicking (actually, tapping) buttons to navigate through sections that should really be using inertial scrolling, like photo galleries. That's unfortunate, because flicking through pages is a far more comfortable than tapping on small "next" and "previous" buttons," Hewitt writes.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/g27tD4CYtGk/

Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann

Speedtest.net overhauled with new look, new features

speedtest
Speedtest.net is pretty much the go-to site for quickly figuring out how fast (or slow) your connection really is and comparing the numbers your ISP boasts with what it actually delivers. And now it's got a new coat of paint and a couple of neat features. In brief:
  • New UI: The map widget is much improved; it actually looks like a map now, and it's easy to see where you are.
  • Smart server selection: If there are several test servers nearby, Speedtest will now ping each to see which has the least latency and use that for the test. You can still specify servers manually, too.
  • User accounts: You can sign up for a free account and aggregate results from several computers/connections.
  • Speed Wave: This new feature lets you add your test results to the results of many other users, and get a nice composite view.
All in all, you get some nice, new functionality and a snazzier interface to boot. Nice!

Speedtest.net overhauled with new look, new features originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/07/speedtest-net-overhauled-with-new-look-new-features/

Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann

Is The World Crazy For Bitcoin, Or Has The Bitcoin World Gone Crazy?

I last wrote about Bitcoin less than a month ago. (If you're one of the people who admitted in comments "I still don't get it," here's a terrific and detailed explainer from The Economist.) Since then the value of Bitcoins has quadrupled?and then halved. The founder of Sweden's Pirate Party moved all his savings into Bitcoin (which disappoints me; I had hoped they were buried on Oak Island) just as US Senator Charles Schumer attacked it as "an online form of money laundering." Malware designed to steal Bitcoin wallets has been seen in the wild, and in possibly related news, 25,000 Bitcoins were stolen a few days ago. Meanwhile, the virtual currency's long-term stability has been seriously questioned ... but does it really make any sense to think about any "long term" at all for Bitcoin, given the insane volatility of the last month? Well, sort of. I concede it does look a bit like the lunatics, black-hats, and bubbleheads have conquered the asylum, but there's nothing inherently crazy or shady about a distributed online currency. What is kind of crazy is assuming that the first one that comes along will last and retain its value indefinitely, which is what almost everyone investing in Bitcoin is doing. (The rest are hoping to sell out to a greater fool, a strategy which admittedly made a few people wealthy during the South Seas tulip bubble and the dot-com boom, but - pretty much by definition - was a loser for most.) Does Bitcoin have a long-term future? I strongly doubt it ... but I expect that something like Bitcoin eventually will.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/g-qbWlwg1pQ/

Luca Liebe Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann

Canon Camera Porn: Deep Inside the Mechanics of Image Stabilization [Video]

Curious as to how a Canon 18-55mm IS lens manages to make your shaky-handed videos smoother and more watchable? Check out this brief video, which does exactly that. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ZFz3kTyH9lM/canon-camera-porn-deep-inside-the-mechanics-of-image-stabilization

Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann Charlotte Kadelbach