Sony PlayStation Vita battery life: as little as three hours on a charge

We've had plenty of QT with the Vita on the floor at TGS, but battery life is hard to judge when you can't take the device away with you. Back at our earlier hands-on in June we were told that longevity should be on a par with first-gen PSPs, which were all rated at 4-6 hours and -- with the PSP-1000 -- achieved around 3.5-5.5 hours in real-world tests. Now though, Sony says the Vita has just enough juice for 3-5 hours' gaming. We need to play this thing to death before we can be sure, but this does sound like a potential 15-25% drop in minimum play time. Do we care at this point? Not particularly. We're too busy salivating over this.

Sony PlayStation Vita battery life: as little as three hours on a charge originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceCNET, IGN (PSP tests)  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/16/sony-playstation-vita-battery-life-as-little-as-three-hours-on/

Jacqueline Kiesel Michel Rohr Hilde Baaden Hartmut Theobald

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features

opera 11.10 battery power
Just recently, the Opera 11.10 release candidate was made available for download. It brought a handful of important feature additions -- like HTML5 File API support and IMAP enhancements -- and loads of bugfixes. Nestled in amongst the other details in the Opera team's announcement is one more interesting tidbit: Opera 11.10 offers improved battery optimizations.

The timing here is certainly interesting, what with Microsoft's recent report on how much power the top five Web browsers consume. In its findings, Opera 11 was fairly low in the standings. While we've not seen any new benchmarks yet, we're curious to know whether the Opera 11.10 RC offers any significant gains.

If you're running Opera 11.10 on a laptop, let us know if you're seeing an improvement in your battery life while browsing!

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/opera-11-10-includes-improved-power-saving-features/

Janna Löhnig Gabriela Schnee Rita Imhof Angelika Frey

New software uses facial recognition to defend against prying eyes

Having the right programs and hardware to keep the information on your display safe from prying eyes is never a bad idea, and new software from Oculis Labs offers a very interesting take on how to do just that. It's called PrivateEye, and it utilizes facial recognition to automatically pixelate the contents of your display when you look away.

If you step away from your system and someone else decides to sit down and poke around, PrivateEye will present a confusing jumble of garbled text. It'll even notify you if someone tries to peek over your shoulder -- and display a picture of your peeping Tom, throw up an alert, or sound an alarm.

Check out the video embed after the break, and share your thoughts in the comments!

Continue reading New software uses facial recognition to defend against prying eyes

New software uses facial recognition to defend against prying eyes originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/new-software-uses-facial-recognition-to-defend-against-prying-ey/

Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein Michael Vollmar Robin Jones

Sony PlayStation Vita battery life: as little as three hours on a charge

We've had plenty of QT with the Vita on the floor at TGS, but battery life is hard to judge when you can't take the device away with you. Back at our earlier hands-on in June we were told that longevity should be on a par with first-gen PSPs, which were all rated at 4-6 hours and -- with the PSP-1000 -- achieved around 3.5-5.5 hours in real-world tests. Now though, Sony says the Vita has just enough juice for 3-5 hours' gaming. We need to play this thing to death before we can be sure, but this does sound like a potential 15-25% drop in minimum play time. Do we care at this point? Not particularly. We're too busy salivating over this.

Sony PlayStation Vita battery life: as little as three hours on a charge originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceCNET, IGN (PSP tests)  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/16/sony-playstation-vita-battery-life-as-little-as-three-hours-on/

Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann Annette Lechner

2D Versions of Films Are Out-Performing Their Pricey 3D Counterparts [3D]

Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch kernel source now available

Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch

In what may possibly be the fastest turnaround for kernel source code releases from Samsung, the still fresh out of the box Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch kernel source is now available for download via the Samsung Open Source Release Center. This is a good way to start off a release, now developers will be able to jump right into things and start developing some custom kernels for us all and see what limits can be pushed on the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch. In order to get the download link, you'll have to search for D710 on the Samsung Open Source Center.

Source: Samsung


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/7mCbWjCfIOk/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-epic-4g-touch-kernel-source-now-available

Sylvia Lösche Steven Walnsch Lennart Tonn Simone Temme

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features

opera 11.10 battery power
Just recently, the Opera 11.10 release candidate was made available for download. It brought a handful of important feature additions -- like HTML5 File API support and IMAP enhancements -- and loads of bugfixes. Nestled in amongst the other details in the Opera team's announcement is one more interesting tidbit: Opera 11.10 offers improved battery optimizations.

The timing here is certainly interesting, what with Microsoft's recent report on how much power the top five Web browsers consume. In its findings, Opera 11 was fairly low in the standings. While we've not seen any new benchmarks yet, we're curious to know whether the Opera 11.10 RC offers any significant gains.

If you're running Opera 11.10 on a laptop, let us know if you're seeing an improvement in your battery life while browsing!

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/opera-11-10-includes-improved-power-saving-features/

Annette Lechner Margarethe Lachner Lutz Yalcin Birte Höß

Android App Review: MellowYellow Theme for CM7

 MellowYellow Theme for CM7

With the arrival of the CyanogenMod 7 alpha for the EVO 3D and the Sensation, it meant I could finally take advantage of the theme engine that's built in. I've been on a bit of a yellow kick lately, so I was pretty excited when I pulled the trigger and installed MellowYellow.

For anyone who has used MattedBlues before, you'll probably be able to tell MellowYellow comes from the same developer. It's described as being for people that "love minimalism, dark greys and blacks with bright highlights" and it certainly delivers on that front.

Once you've selected MellowYellow from inside the Theme Engine app, all your taskbar icons, highlights, check arrows, and the like go yellow. That's expected, so all is good. There's also at least one new icon that I found, the 3G indicator, when you're not on Wifi or 4G.

The biggest visual change is the notification pulldown menu. Instead of the usual pulldown, all of the CM7 widgets are now black on a background of yellow. (I've found if you make the widget color black, it blends really well.) The pulldown bar itself is different, too, pleasantly transparent and sporting a MellowYellow'd Android head at the bottom.

The phone dialer has also received a much-needed revamp, with the same transparency found on the pulldown bar. The font has also been altered slightly, and there's plenty of empty space, giving the dialer a clean, open look. This is seen throughout all of the dialer menus, too.

Overall, I'm really pleased with MellowYellow. I liked MattedBlues when it came out, I knew these guys were good, but to see them branch out into other colors (orange next, please?) is great. The theme works without a hitch, looks great, and adds a great vibe to the phone.

MellowYellow for CM7 is $2.99 in the Android Market.

We've got more screenshots and download links after the break.

read more


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/X1FlY7JzXHc/android-app-review-mellowyellow-theme-cm7

Jason Randow Benjamin Schötz Johannes Liebl Arne Koller