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‘software’ Stories

HTC Hero Android 2.1 update from April 4th?

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Mar 17th 2010 No Comments

It's looking more and more likely that HTC will miss their self-imposed deadline for the Android 2.1 update for the HTC Hero, which we were told back at MWC 2010 would arrive in February or March. According to a supposedly leaked timescale document on xda-developers, HTC in fact won't start pushing out the update until April 2010, kicking off on April 2nd with the unlocked version of the smartphone.

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HTML5 and Flash can work together insists Adobe evangelist [Video]

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Mar 17th 2010 No Comments

Flash and HTML5 are hot topics in the online world right now. We’ve heard plenty about how more smartphones will get Flash, how performance might not be what users expect and how mainstream sites are looking to alternatives, and of course there’s Apple’s ongoing reluctance to add Flash functionality to their mobile devices. Meanwhile HTML5 is getting plenty of positive press, and most recently Microsoft have announced full support for the technology in IE9. Is there room for both to live together in harmony, however? ”Adobe platform evangelist” Serge Jespers reckons so, and he’s thrown together the code to demonstrate it.

html5 flash geolocation integration

Video demo after the cut

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Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview revealed: GPU-accelerated HTML5, new JavaScript engine, more

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Mar 16th 2010 No Comments

We may have been looking to MIX10 for its juicy Windows Phone 7 series tidbits – and have you seen our demo videos of the latest apps and functionality? – but smartphones aren’t the only think Microsoft want to talk to developers about. Today has been Internet Explorer 9’s turn to take to the stage, with the focus on hardware-accelerated HTML5, a new JavaScript engine and Direct 2D technology.

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Pogoplug add Xbox 360 & PS3 media streaming, remote backup

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Mar 16th 2010 No Comments

Pogoplug are pushing out a new update for their plug-and-play HDD sharing system, improving media streaming functionality and adding in the ability to set automatic copy jobs. The new Pogoplug firmware allows for streaming to PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, presumably using DLNA, while Active Copy can be set to automatically copy files to a remote Pogoplug unit for offsite backups.

pogoplug active copy 540x250

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Palm Pre gets 800MHz overclock [Video]

By Chris Davies on Monday, Mar 15th 2010 No Comments

Palm Pre not fast enough for you? The Pre Plus doubles the webOS smartphone's RAM but leaves the processor (a 600MHz TI OMAP 3430 underclocked by Palm to 500MHz) unchanged; happily where Palm themselves seemingly fear to tread, owners themselves have no such qualms. A couple of mod-happy Pre owners have overclocked the smartphone to 800MHz, resulting in swifter performance and, surprisingly, no significant increase in power consumption.

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NVIDIA 3DTV Play adds 3D HDTV & gaming to any GeForce machine

By Chris Davies on Monday, Mar 15th 2010 No Comments

NVIDIA have announced a new string to their 3D bow, in the shape of NVIDIA 3DTV Play, a way to hook up GeForce-based notebooks and PCs to HDTVs for full 3D video and gaming. A new software app – that works with any GeForce GPU-using machine with either DVI or HDMI connectivity – 3DTV Play supports 1080p24, 720p60 and 720p50 3D formats and will work both with active-shutter TV glasses and passive polarized glasses.

As well as full HD Blu-ray 3D playback, the system offers streaming 3D video support and the ability to convert over 400 games titles from 2D into 3D, in real-time, with no patches or extra software.

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Barnes & Noble eReader for iPad promised, but will Apple approve?

By Chris Davies on Friday, Mar 12th 2010 No Comments

Apple have made no secret of the fact that they’re positioning the iPad as an ideal ebook reader device, but if Barnes & Noble have their way – and if they can navigate the App Store guardians – iBooks won’t be the only way to buy ebooks on the tablet. According to the retailer’s blog, a version of their free B&N eReader app – already available for the iPhone and iPod touch – is in development for the iPad, and B&N expect it to be ready at roughly the same time as the iPad itself.

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Apple Mac Developer Program launches: $99 per year

By Vincent Nguyen on Friday, Mar 5th 2010 No Comments

Apple have announced a new scheme for their developers, the Mac Developer Program, based on the same system as the iPhone Developer Program and eventually replacing the current ADC scheme. Priced at $99 per year, the Mac Developer Program gives access to early builds of OS X, developer boards and technical support, and various tools to produce software for the platform.

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MeeGo for N900 and Atom netbooks later this month

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Mar 4th 2010 No Comments

Got a Nokia N900 or an Intel Atom based netbook, and keen to play with a new OS? According to MeeGo Technical Steering Group member Valtteri Halla, the team behind the Nokia/Intel open-source platform plan to have a rough and ready baseline to a source and binary repository to build MeeGo on Intel Atom devices and the N900 smartphone by the end of March 2010.

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Skype for Symbian S60 slides into Nokia’s Ovi Store

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Mar 3rd 2010 No Comments

The latest version of Skype's mobile VoIP app for Symbian S60 devices (aka Symbian^1) has been added to the Nokia Ovi Store, making free calls over WiFi or 3G a slightly easier possibility for the millions of handset owners out there. In fact, there are over 200 million Nokia phones worldwide, and with the Skype app they'll be able to send SMS messages, share images and other files, use IM and of course make free or low-cost Skype calls.