A Galaxy S III owner in Ireland is reporting that his newly-purchased phone burst into flames, exploding with an audible bang while he was taking a drive yesterday. Photos posted by boards.ie user dillo2k10 show a significant amount of charred and molten plastic on the bottom of the device, originating about halfway between the right edge and the microUSB port (pictured above). Samsung has already issued a statement on its blog, saying:
"There have been recent online posts displaying pictures of a Samsung GALAXY SIII that appears to have heat-related damage at the bottom of the device. Samsung is aware of this issue and will begin investigating as soon as we receive the specific product in question." Lots of companies have had electronics explode over the years, and as far as we can tell, this is the only case of a Galaxy S III overheating. Still, Samsung has to be taking the claim very seriously
Drobo's been delivering quality desktop storage for businesses and prosumers for awhile now, but previously, the company hadn't dipped its toe into Thunderbolt waters. But that's about to change with its two new units. The 5D is a BYOD desktop offering with two Thunderbolt ports and one USB 3.0 socket for connecting up to five hot-swappable, 3.5-inch drives to your Mac or PC. It also has an SmSATASD for data-caching quickness and a variable-speed fan to keep things cool and quiet. We don't know exactly when the 5D will go on sale -- Drobo's not telling until July -- but it'll cost under $850 when it does, and that price includes a Thunderbolt cable. Meanwhile, the Mini is the first Drobo meant to be taken on the road. It packs up to four 2.5-inch drives in its front bays, plus, like the 5D, there's an mSATA SSD nestled in its underside that serves as a caching tier to speed up your main storage -- all in a 7.3 x 1.8 x 7.1-inch package weighing three pounds when fully loaded. All the drives are hot-swappable, a process made simple and easy with a trick, spring-loaded mechanism (patent pending) that lets users swap drives as they would SD cards. As for connecting the thing to your computer, dual Thunderbolt ports (for daisy chaining) and one USB 3.0 port reside round back along with the power plug and two vents for the Mini's variable-speed fans. Ringing the front face of the Mini are five LED strips that serve as drive indicators and capacity meter to let you know when a drive has failed or you're running out of space. Intrigued? Well, we got a sneak peek at the Mini and a little history lesson about its origins at Drobo HQ, so join us past the break for more.
The Mini's shell is crafted from metallic carbon fiber coated in a grippy soft touch material with the Drobo logo embossed on top, and a magnetic front plate covers up those unsightly HDDs -- it's a very clean, appealing design. We got our hands on a prototype unit that was almost production spec (the Firewire ports didn't make it into the final design due to cost concerns), and we can certainly see the appeal of such a portable, robust storage solution. But, because it's such a departure from Drobo's previous products, we were curious as to how the Mini came to be. Turns out, its genesis was borne of company co-founder Julian Terry's desire for a Drobo that could fit in his office workstation, so Terry hacked together a bit of kit you see in the picture below. Terry's work was subsequently discovered by CEO Tom Buiocchi, who saw its potential as a portable solution for travel-weary videographers and photogs. After that, Terry designed and built the spring-loaded drive housing to complete the main Mini innards, and then it was a matter of designing the exterior and adding some elbow grease in the prototyping stage to get it ready for mass consumption.
The result? A handsome, onyx number that'll sate most any mobile professional's storage needs for under $650 (drives not included). Best part is, Drobo addressed a common pain point with other Thunderbolt drives: the Thunderbolt cable's included. Unfortunately, as with the 5D, we won't know the Mini's exact pricing or availability until next month, but until then you can peruse our spate of pictures to feed your Drobo dreams.
Microsoft is lifting the curtain to provide a preview of some of the software and hardware changes for its Windows Phone 8 operating system today. NFC, dual- and quad-core support are all set, and Microsoft has shifted over to the NT kernel for Windows Phone 8 to make it even easier for developers to code for its mobile and desktop ecosystems. There's a new Wallet hub, deeper integration of Skype, and an updated Start Screen interface with support for small tiles. Despite the improvements and hardware support, Microsoft will not release this particular update to existing devices. Instead, the company plans to rollout a Windows Phone 7.8 update separately that will bring some of Windows Phone 8’s user interface changes to existing devices, but many of the other improvements will require new hardware. After shipping an initial Windows Phone 7 release in November 2010 and a major 7.5 "Mango" update less than a year ago, Microsoft’s mobile efforts excel in some areas but also lack the big name app support and feature sets of its rivals iOS and Android. While Microsoft isn't discussing all of its Windows Phone 8 features today, it's clear the fundamental platform change will help the company achieve feature parity in some areas, greater support for a wide range of hardware, and ultimately attract new users to Windows Phone. Discover the first details about Windows Phone 8 right here.
WINDOWS CORE FOR WINDOWS PHONE 8 The biggest change in Windows Phone 8 is Microsoft's transition to the NT kernel and related operating system elements — defined as the Windows Core. Steve Ballmer and company have been hinting at the change for months, but Microsoft is detailing this fully today. Windows Phone 8 will share the same kernel, file system, media foundation, device drivers, and parts of the security model from Windows 8. While this might seem like overkill for a phone operating system, the core elements of the Windows NT architecture will allow Windows Phone 8 to support multi-core processors, device encryption, removable storage with microSD cards, and a whole host of improvements for IT pros and businesses. Developers will also benefit from a shared Windows Core in Windows Phone 8. Rather than taking advantage of the .NET Compact Framework in Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8 moves to a Core CLR which will allow managed code to run in a manner identical to how it runs on desktop Windows, with improved performance benefits and shared components for developers to leverage across desktop and phone apps. Despite this change, all 100,000 existing Windows Phone apps will continue to run on Windows Phone 8. "We architected Windows Phone 8 in a way to drive full application compatibility so that every existing application will continue to run," says Microsoft's Larry Lieberman. Developers will get access to new tools and an updated SDK later this summer that are based on Visual Studio 2012 — supporting apps for both Windows Phone and Windows Phone 8. "Developers will be able to leverage one codebase to drive an application," says Lieberman. "They can use one code base to build applications that will run across Windows Phone and Windows 8 devices." The changes also mean that developers can use native C and C++ libraries, alongside SQLite and Direct X support. "This means is that it's going to be radically simpler for games studios to port their games to Windows Phone," explains Lieberman. "Developers will be able to build games for Windows and Windows Phone at the same time." DEVELOPERS WILL BE ABLE TO BUILD GAMES FOR WINDOWS 8 AND WINDOWS PHONE 8 AT THE SAME TIME HARDWARE - MULTI-CORE PROCESSORS, THREE SCREEN RESOLUTIONS, NFC, AND FULL SD SUPPORT With a shift to the shared NT kernel, Microsoft brings with it an array of support for multi-core processors and device drivers. "We have support for dual-core, quad-core, octo-core, in theory as many as 64-cores," says Lieberman, all as a direct result of the move to the Windows 8 Kernel. Although Microsoft isn't discussing hardware specifics and device announcements, the company is confirming there will be dual-core handsets initially. Those handsets will also support two new screen resolutions introduced in Windows Phone 8. Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and HTC will all launch Windows Phone 8 hardware across 180 countries. Windows Phone 8 will support three resolutions in total: WVGA, WXGA, and 720p. Discussing the various leaks about Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's Greg Sullivan confirmed to us that the company did have another resolution under consideration. "It was essentially 640 x 480 for a type of device that we're not gonna do." Microsoft dropped the idea primarily because of the disparity in aspect ratio and the impact on app developers. The three screen resolutions supported in Windows Phone 8 will have similar aspect ratios (two at 15:9 and one at 16:9) to ensure there's no separation in classes of applications. "A developer doesn't need to do anything to take advantage of the new screen resolutions," says Lieberman. "We will automatically scale all of the assets of the application appropriately." App developers will have the opportunity to optimize their apps with higher resolution imagery and additional assets, but they won't have to. "GOOGLE HAS THE NFC PAYMENT PART, APPLE HAS THE PASSBOOK THING, WE'LL HAVE BOTH." Microsoft will also officially support NFC directly within the Windows Phone operating system for the first time. Windows Phone 8 includes a new Wallet hub designed to support NFC payments and the ability to store credit card information, member cards, and frequent flier cards. "Google has the NFC payment part, Apple has the Passbook thing, we'll have both," says Sullivan. You can expect to see a variety of partnerships for NFC payments, including Chase bank, and Orange France. Microsoft is also showing off a way to surface deals in its Wallet hub, using Groupon to show a deal panel in the panorama of the hub itself. Additionally, there's a new feature called Tap + Send that takes advantage of Windows Phone 8's NFC hardware support. Similar to Android's Beam function, it allows you to bump a phone against another device to share content. Microsoft is integrating the tap feature into Windows 8 so content can be easily shared across the two operating systems. Another big hardware change in Windows Phone 8 is full SD support, thanks again to the Windows 8 kernel. SD cards will act like removable external storage in Windows Phone 8, allowing users to transfer music, photos, video, and even install applications. Existing SD card support in Windows Phone 7 was always troublesome. Intended to be used only by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), only certain SD cards would work well enough to extend the storage system and the card could not be removed and used in another device. It was ugly and the majority of manufacturers opted to ditch micro SD slots on recent devices as a result. The new support will only be available to Windows Phone 8 devices, not existing Windows Phone 7 ones with SD slots.
WINDOWS PHONE 8 USER INTERFACE The main Windows Phone 8 user interface change that Microsoft is showing right now is its improved Start Screen. "We're going to have three sizes of live tiles, small, medium, and large," says Sullivan, pointing out that the existing ones in Windows Phone 7 are medium and large versions. "The small tiles will enable us to fit more on the start screen, and to have things that don't require a lot of real estate to convey information." Inline with this change, Microsoft is also expanding the screen real-estate that you’re going to be able to place live tiles on. The trough along the right hand side of the Start Screen will now be filled with tiles. "It's going to fill up the whole screen," explains Sullivan. Users will also get the ability to customize the size of every tile, so each one can now be small, medium, or large. Likewise, developers will now be able to create a custom large tile — something that was previously reserved for OEMs and Microsoft’s first party hubs in Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has updated its first-party apps to take advantage of the smaller tiles, and the company will automatically generate smaller tiles for third-party applications — providing developers with an option to create a custom version too. Although Microsoft isn’t discussing any further UI changes, the company is also showing off more color customization and personalization options for the new Start Screen in Windows Phone 8. Microsoft is also adopting Windows 8's Metro style logo for new Windows Phone 8 devices.
SKYPE AND VOIP INTEGRATION We touched on Microsoft’s new Wallet NFC hub in Windows Phone 8, but the company has created other ways to extend existing hubs. "There's been discussion about native Skype integration," says Sullivan. "That's not really how I'd characterize this." Microsoft is building in the APIs and infrastructure to support generalized VoIP applications in Windows Phone 8, including Skype and others. "Skype largely will just be an application that you'll be able to download that will take advantage of the VoIP integration that we think will be industry leading," explains Sullivan. The integration means VoIP applications will become a full first-class app on Windows Phone 8 handsets, allowing them to integrate into the phone dialer, People Hub, and more. Sullivan believes the integration is so good that he jokes Apple should create its own FaceTime app on Windows Phone 8, "it'll actually be better integrated on Windows Phone than it is on the iPhone." The functionality is clearly a platform by itself, allowing app developers to plug into it in a seamless way. "Skype is fully gonna take advantage of that," says Sullivan, "but it'll still be an app you download." Microsoft is also demonstrating its updated Internet Explorer 10 browser on Windows Phone 8. The new and improved browser borrows the same desktop code used in the Windows 8 Internet Explorer 10 variant, and brings with it some security-related improvements. Internet Explorer 10 mobile will include a phishing filter and Microsoft's SmartScreen URL reputation system — allowing Windows Phone 8 users to leverage the data used across millions of Windows systems to warn against malicious sites and phishing schemes. The company isn't revealing a whole lot more about its browser update for Windows Phone 8, although previous leaks suggest it might be preparing to leverage built-in server-side compression to reduce data usage.
NOKIA MAPS WILL NOW FUEL THE FIRST PARTY MAP EXPERIENCE IN WINDOWS PHONE 8 Another big takeaway from today’s announcements is Microsoft’s work with Nokia. After announcing its partnership with the Finnish handset maker in early 2011, the pair have worked together on a range of Lumia handsets. Nokia is announcing today that it will be distributing a software update to enable internet tethering on its Lumia 710 and 800 handsets. That’s not the only announcement for today though. We knew Bing and Nokia’s Map technologies were slowly aligning, but Microsoft is taking that even further in Windows Phone 8. "Nokia Maps will now fuel the first party map experience on the device," explains Lieberman, "it will be available to third party developers as a control to add to their applications." The change will see Nokia’s NAVTEQ data fuel the mapping experience in Windows Phone 8 and "in a lot of other places too" for Microsoft’s services. Nokia Maps will bring support for offline maps and better global coverage of mapping data — something that Microsoft’s Bing Maps lacked previously. Microsoft isn’t saying exactly how the experience will be branded, but Lieberman says it’s "going to be very clear to users" that it’s fuelled by Nokia data. ENTERPRISE AND BUSINESS FEATURES The final highlight from today’s sneak peek at Windows Phone 8 is a renewed focus on enterprise and business users. After years of failed attempts with Windows Mobile to capture enterprise market share from RIM’s BlackBerry devices, many believed Windows Phone 7 would focus on this particular crowd of users. "In some ways...we regressed in terms of enterprise functionality from an IT pro standpoint with Windows Phone 7," admits Sullivan. "With this shift to the Core, we will regain and attract beyond what we had [in Windows Mobile 6.5] in terms of the IT pro features." One big aspect for big business and enterprise users is on-device encryption, something that Microsoft plans to support in Windows Phone 8. Microsoft is also adding support for device management, internal line-of-business software, and a private marketplace for application distribution in the enterprise. "Some of the key things that our enterprise and IT customers have been asking for will be enabled," promises Sullivan, a move that will please Microsoft’s crowd of IT pros who had been calling for such features. Microsoft’s event today is only a sneak peek at where Windows Phone 8 is heading, outlining the Windows Core changes and some features to expect in future handsets — a demonstration that feels like a reaction to a number of recent leaks. "We're not showing all of Windows Phone," explains Sullivan. "We're really just showing some of the platform elements, primarily relevant to developers and IT pros." Microsoft is taking a secret approach for some other end user capabilities that the company plans to introduce closer to availability. "Our hope is that we'll be able to keep some of the stuff secret until closer to launch," says Sullivan, which indicates that this is only a small glimpse at Microsoft’s plans. "We are not talking about any other UI changes...the rest you’ll be hearing about later." EXISTING WINDOWS PHONE USERS MIGHT FEEL A LITTLE LEFT OUT BY THE SWEEPING HARDWARE CHANGES THAT ARE COMING So, when is Windows Phone 8 arriving? Much like Microsoft’s Surface tablet devices, the company isn’t disclosing availability dates just yet. "We’re saying fall for availability of new phones running Windows Phone 8," says Sullivan. Existing Windows Phone 7.x users will also receive the 7.8 update around that time, bringing UI updates and other undisclosed "core customer experiences." From our early discussions with Microsoft it appears Windows Phone 8 is still very much a work in progress at this stage, but the company is planning some type of program to seed developers with pre-release hardware — as its done in the past for Mango. The update feels like a promising one for potential Windows Phone candidates, but we get the feeling existing Windows Phone users might feel a little left out by the sweeping hardware changes that are coming. The company is clearly trying to address some changes in its phone operating system by appeasing existing users with an update, but it’s unclear at this stage exactly how much functionality Windows Phone 7.8 will gain from its 8.0 counterpart. Nevertheless, Microsoft is taking a giant step towards a future where developers can write once and run everywhere (Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox) with some minor tweaks and changes. Such a step might open its phone platform to the quality apps it so badly needs and deserves. Although SDK and developer tools details are thin on the ground, it appears as though Microsoft has addressed some common complaints around application development for Windows Phone. Metro is about to get its biggest test yet with Windows 8 in a few months time. If Windows 8’s Metro style applications are a hit then that’s bound to benefit Windows Phone 8 too, as developers have an easier way to share common code across each platform. Alternatively there’s the possibility that app developers will stick to the x86 platform and continue to push desktop apps, avoiding Microsoft’s Metro world. It seems unlikely that developers would want to ignore an opportunity on millions of potential Windows 8 PCs and phones, but a number of them have ignored Windows Phone so far. Now it seems Microsoft is willing to partially ignore its existing user base of Windows Phone 7 users in its strive towards greater hardware support and features in Windows Phone 8. Microsoft’s vague details on Windows Phone 7.8 leave it as an unknown entity that could generate ill-feeling towards the company from recent, or even early Windows Phone adopters. Whatever happens, there’s a lot more to Windows Phone 8 than Microsoft has unveiled today. Whether that results in some feature improvements across the board, backported to Windows Phone 7.8, remains to be seen — but Microsoft will be hopeful that its small taster session will be enough to satisfy Windows Phone fans for now.
The Microsoft Surface is a 10.6" tablet powered by Windows 8, coming in two distinct versions -- both equipped with touch screens. One will be powered by an ARM processor and will be more like a traditional tablet running Windows RT. The other will be powered by Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge chips running the desktop version of Windows 8.
The Windows RT version is just 9.3mm thin, weighs 1.5lbs, includes a built-in kickstand and is the first PC with a vapor-deposited (PVD) magnesium case, according to Microsoft. It will ship in 32GB or 64GB versions.
Microsoft's Intel-based Surface tablet will run Windows 8 Pro, with a thickness of 13.5mm, a weight of 1.9lb, and USB 3.0 support. This particular version will also include magnesium casing and a built-in kickstand, but will ship with either 64GB or 128GB storage. The Intel version will include additional digital ink support through a pen that magnetizes to the body of the tablet.In addition to the tablet itself, Microsoft will sell two Smart Cover-like devices that attach magnetically to the Surface. Unlike Apple's add-on, which serves only as screen protection and as a stand, Microsoft's Touch Cover and Type Cover turn into a full-sized keyboard complete with a built-in trackpad. Microsoft says using the Touch Cover is "twice as efficient as typing on glass", a clear shot at the iPad's on-screen keyboard.
Microsoft did not share any information on pricing or availability, saying both the ARM and Intel editions would be price competitive with like products.
www.tech-sanity.com Along with updating the existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, Apple has reinvented the MacBook Pro with a Retina display, as announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote on Monday. The standout feature of the Retina-display model is the brand-new, high-density display. The new MacBook Pro's 15.4-inch (diagonal) screen has four times the number of pixels as the previous model at 2880 (horizontal) by 1800 (vertical), for a total of 5,184,000 pixels or 220 pixels per inch. Despite its glossy screen, it has a 178-degree wide viewing angle, has 75 percent less reflection, and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation, Apple says. The company says it was able to achieve this reduction in glare by building the layers of the display into the laptop’s Unibody frame, eliminating the need for a separate cover of glass.
The laptop has a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 processor with 8GB of 1600MHz RAM (upgradeable to up to 16GB), a GeForce GT 650M graphics processor with 1GB of VRAM, and 256GB of flash storage. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display weighs 4.46 pounds, heavier than a MacBook Air, but similar in weight to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Like the new Air, it has no optical drive. Closed, it’s 0.71 inch thick—about as thick as the base of the old MacBook Pro but about as thin as an Air. Unlike the current wedge-shape of the MacBook Air, this laptop has a uniform thickness. The new MacBook Pro with Retina display offers up to seven hours of battery life and 30 days of standby. Apple noted that the battery cells take up much of the interior. Built around flash storage, users can opt (when ordering) to equip the new MacBook Pro with up to 768GB of internal flash storage. It also features the fastest graphics on a Mac laptop—Nvidia GeForce GT 650M. The laptop also has 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0. a FaceTime HD camera, and dual microphones using beam-forming technology. There’s also the obligatory glass Multi-Touch trackpad and backlit keyboard. It also features an SD-card slot, HDMI out, two USB3/USB2 ports (one on each side), two Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone port. Apple also announced Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 and Thunderbolt-to-Gigabit ethernet adapters. The new MacBook Pro also ships with a new, thinner MagSafe 2 power port. Apple spaced the fan blades asymmetrically so that the fan noise is not a uniform sound, but more dispersed. The laptops is also environmentally friendly, with Energy Star 5.2 certification, and is arsenic-free, BFR-free, and PVC-free. It is also highly recyclable, and has mercury-free glass. Prices for the new MacBook Pro with Retina display start at $2199. It’s available immediately. Updates to non-Retina MacBook Pro models In addition to introducing the MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple has updated the standard MacBook Pro line. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is now available with a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 500GB hard drive starting at $1199; and with a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, and a 750GB hard drive starting at $1499. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 500GB hard drive starting at $1799; and with a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 750GB hard drive starting at $2199. Build-to-order options include faster quad-core processors up to 2.7GHz, additional hard drive capacity up to 1TB, and solid state storage up to 512GB. Both 13-inch and 15-inch (non-Retina) MacBook Pro models can be upgraded to 16GB of memory, but, oddly, Apple doesn’t offer build-to-order upgrades for the non-Retina models. There were no announcements regarding the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Apple’s MacBook Pro release came as the company also updated its MacBook Air lineup with new processors and USB 3.0 integration.
www.tech-sanity.com Apple introduced new Macbook Air models at Monday morning’s WWDC keynote.
The new Airs—which come in 11-inch and 13-inch models—run on Intel’s third-generation Core processor (Ivy Bridge) family: a Core i5 chip in the standard configurations, with a Core i7 processor available as a build-to-order option. The updated laptops ship with 4GB of memory, but you can expand that to 8GB. The updated MacBook Airs now come with USB 3 in addition to USB 2. There's still a single USB port on each side of the laptop, but each incorporate both standards so you don’t have to think about which one to plug into, according to Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller. A high-speed Thunderbolt port alongside lets you easily connect to external displays and a variety of other peripherals. The 13-inch model also has an SD card slot. Both sizes feature an updated MagSafe 2 power port, which uses the same technology as the original MagSafe port but has been slimmed down for a lower profile.
The MacBook Air’s FaceTime camera has been updated to match the MacBook Pro's FaceTime HD version, offering 720p resolution. Schiller claimed that the new Air's 1600MHz RAM offers better performance than the memory in the previous generation Air, and the new Intel HD Graphics 4000 offers up to 60 percent faster graphics performance. The new Air also uses a faster SSD (solid-state drive) for storage; Schiller said the new SSDs can provide data-read speeds up to 500MBps, which is up to twice as fast as the SSDs in the previous models. Configurations and options The 11-inch MacBook Air features a 1.7GHz dual-core i5 processor and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor. It comes in a 64GB-SSD configuration for $999 and a 128GB configuration for $1099—that’s $100 less than Apple charged for the previous higher-end 11-inch model. Both 13-inch MacBook Airs got a $100 price cut, too: The 128GB model costs $1199 while the 256GB version costs $1499. Those 13-inch laptops feature a 1.8GHz dual-core i5 processor and 4GB of memory. All Airs feature Bluetooth 4.0, stereo speakers, and an omnidirectional microphone. Build-to-order options for the MacBook Air include a 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up to 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 onboard memory and up to 512GB of flash-memory (SSD) storage. The 13-inch MacBook Air delivers up to 7 hours of wireless battery life, while the 11-inch MacBook Air provides up to 5 hours, Apple says. Their batteries use advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology to provide up to 1,000 recharges, according to the company. Availability The new MacBook Airs ship immediately. They ship with OS X Lion, and starting today, customers who purchase a Mac are eligible for a free copy of Mountain Lion when it becomes available. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available from
www.tech-sanity.com In Monday’s keynote address at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed several new tidbits about Mountain Lion—including its ship-date. Apple’s vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, took the stage to announce that Apple’s newest OS X release will be ready for consumers to download in July. He also chose eight new features to highlight during the keynote, including some—such as Dictation on the Mac and Power Nap—that weren't included in the Mountain Lion preview we saw in February. iCloud OS X Lion already integrates with Apple’s iCloud service, but Mountain Lion is taking that integration a step further with Documents in the Cloud. The February demo briefly touched on this feature, showing off integration in Preview; at the keynote, Federighi announced that the cloud data service will now be integrated with other Apple apps (including the iWork suite).
Developers will be able to enable iCloud integration in their own programs (though presumably only those that have been sandboxed) by using a software development kit. Federighi also briefly demonstrated iCloud syncing for Reminders, Notes, and Messages. Notification Center Borrowing a card from iOS’s deck, Mountain Lion sports its own Notification Center for apps and alerts. At the keynote, Federighi showed off a new icon for the service along with a Do Not Disturb option and auto-disabling when your Mac is connected to a projector. Dictation comes to the Mac No, Mountain Lion users won’t get Siri just yet, but Apple is bringing forth system-wide dictation. It reputedly works anywhere on your Mac that you can type, including third-party apps—even, as Federighi joked, in "Microsoft Word!"—and websites. Sharing Mountain Lion’s extended sharing features have been pretty well-documented, and Federighi gave a brief rundown of those during the keynote, mentioning built-in support for Twitter and Flickr sharing anywhere that you can Quick Look a file. Developers will also be able to add a standard Share button to their apps. It also appears that Mountain Lion will finally introduce the long-rumored integration with Facebook to OS X. Safari We’ve previously covered Safari’s new unified search bar and faster JavaScript rendering engine in Mountain Lion. At the keynote, however, Federighi unveiled iCloud Tabs, which uses Apple’s sync service to let you quick access any tabs open on your other iCloud-enabled devices.
Power Nap A new Mountain Lion feature exclusive to SSD-equipped Mac laptops, Power Nap works behind the scenes to keep your Mac up to date while it’s sleeping or you aren’t using it. With Power Nap enabled, your Mac can automatically sync email, calendar appointments, notes, and reminders; update Photo Stream; download app and OS updates; and back up to a Time Machine drive. AirPlay Mirroring Good news, streamers: You’ll be able to mirror your Mac's screen to your Apple TV (at resolutions up to pixel-for-pixel 1080p) using the Mac’s new AirPlay menu-bar control. You'll also be able to use AirPlay to stream any audio from your Mac to AirPlay-enabled audio systems. Game Center In another move to unify accounts across iOS and OS X, you’ll be able to use your iOS Game Center login to keep track of your Mac games and achievements in Game Center. You can also challenge your friends to turn-based or head-to-head games, either Mac-to-Mac or iOS-to-Mac (assuming the game has App Store options for both iOS and Mac users). Aside from those major features, Federighi also mentioned VIPs in Mail, Launchpad search, Gatekeeper, offline reading for your Safari Reader list, and new features for Chinese users. Developers also have a lot to look forward to with SDKs for iCloud and Game Center along with more than 1700 new APIs for sharing, Notification Center, high-resolution graphics, gestures, and more. Mountain Lion is set to ship sometime in July via the Mac App Store. Anyone who purchases one of Apple’s new laptops is eligible for a free upgrade; otherwise, you can upgrade for just $20 if you’re running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later.
www.tech-sanity.com Apple on Monday took the wraps off iOS 6, the next version of the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Senior vice president for iOS software Scott Forstall told the developers and press in attendance that iOS 6 includes 200 new features, including Siri enhancements and Facebook updates. The updated mobile operating system is slated to arrive this fall. By the numbers First, Forstall recapped some amazing numbers: He said there are more than 365 million iOS devices, and that more than 80 percent of them are running iOS 5. He said that 7 billion push notifications are sent to iOS devices each day, and more than 1.5 trillion such notifications have been pushed to date. He added that there are 140 million iMessage users who send more than 1 billion messages per day. Maps
Maps in iOS 6 sports a new icon, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Apple built an entire new mapping solution “from the ground up,” Forstall said, doing all the cartography itself. And the assortment of features Apple will now include for free with the Maps app may well leave the folks over at Google feeling a little envious. Part of Maps is local search. Apple ingested more than 100 million business listings, integrated with Yelp for reviews and ratings. Maps also integrates a traffic service, so you can see where slow traffic is. On top of that, actual incident details are overlaid, so that you can get a sense of when traffic should clear up. Apple says that one of the data-sources for traffic reports is anonymous crowd-sourced data from iOS users. Also new is turn-by-turn navigation. The app gives you your estimated time of arrival, updated in real-time with traffic data. Maps will guide you around traffic jams when possible, too. And it all works from the lock screen, and integrates with Siri, too. Ask Siri where to go, and it will start the turn-by-turn guidance. And you can ask Siri to point you towards a gas station; it will find one on your route. Forstall said Apple is very excited about Flyover, a 3D model Apple has built by flying over major metropolitan areas with planes and helicopters. The maps are vector-based, so zooming in and out is quick and painless. Tap on a specific building to get an information card with more details from Yelp. You can switch to a 3D map mode to see wireframes of what individual buildings look like, adjust camera angles, toggle between 2D and 3D, and more. Perhaps no element of Forstall’s presentation included more “Oohs” and “Ahhs” than his Flyover demo. And, of course, with Maps in iOS 6, Apple is eschewing Google Maps entirely. That leaves the rarely-updated YouTube app as the last remaining vestige of the once-tight Google integration with iOS’s core offerings. Siri enhancements
Siri in iOS 6 is expanded to include information on sports and know more about restaurants. It can also launch apps and let you post to Facebook or Twitter as well. With iOS 6, Siri support comes to the third-generation iPad; previously, only the iPhone 4S offered Siri as a feature. iOS's voice-driven personal assistant also gains support for numerous more languages, too. For more, read our complete coverage of Siri updates. Facebook integration
As with Twitter in iOS 5, Facebook will be integrated systemwide on iOS 6. You’ll be able to share photos, links, locations, iTunes and App Store items, and more via Facebook. And Facebook is integrated directly into Notification Center: You can drag down to post a new Facebook update (or tweet). You can post to Facebook via Siri, too. Your Facebook friends’ contact information and calendar events can also sync to your iOS device. The Phone app
Slide up on an incoming call that you’re not ready to take in iOS 6, and you can reply with a message or remind yourself to call the person back later. As with the Camera lock screen shortcut, you'll swipe up on a button when an incoming call arrives to access several built-in automatic messages you can send to tell the caller you're unavailable, or schedule the call-back reminder. Do Not Disturb iOS 6 also includes a Do Not Disturb option: Your iOS device still receives push notifications, calls, and text messages, but they won’t light up your screen or make a sound. For added control, you can allow certain numbers to sound your phone as they otherwise would even when Do Not Disturb is enabled. If someone calls you back within three minutes after a muted call arrives—implying it’s urgent—your phone will ring. FaceTime In iOS 6, Apple’s video chatting feature will work over a cellular connection, not just Wi-Fi. Forstall also said that Apple is unifying your Apple ID and phone number, so if someone sends a FaceTime message to your number (or an iMessage), it can arrive on your iPad or Mac, too. Safari About two-thirds of all mobile Web traffic comes from Safari on iOS, Forstall said. With Mountain Lion, your iOS devices will be able to sync your open tabs with iCloud, so the sites you visit from one device are accessible on your others. And as with Mountain Lion, Safari in iOS 6 now supports offline reading for webpages saved in Reading List.
Another new feature in Safari is the ability to upload photos to websites that request them. Forstall also explained a new feature for developers called Smart App banners. When customers visit the website for a developer’s app, Safari can pop up a banner with a link to that app in the App Store. If you already have the app installed, you can launch the app directly. Additionally, landscape Safari will now support full-screen mode. Photo Stream New in iOS 6 are shared Photo Streams, which let you easily share photos with friends. Choose the photos you’d like to share, choose your friends, and you’re done. Friends receive a push notification, and photos appear in an album in the Photos app. Friends can also comment on your photos. Mail As it will in Mountain Lion, Mail on iOS 6 will add support for VIPs. Mark someone as a VIP, and you get a notification on the lock screen when their messages arrive, just like you do with a text message. And you get a special mailbox for those messages, along with a new Flagged mailbox. Mail also makes it easier to insert photos and videos as you compose messages. Also new is the ability to open password-protected Office files from within Mail. And Mail also adds the now-familiar pull-to-refresh option to update your inbox. Passbook
Forstall calls Apple’s new app Passbook “the simplest way to get all of your passes in one place.” It can grab your boarding passes, tickets, store card apps (like Starbucks), movie tickets, and the like, and organize them. And when you get to the location where you need a pass, iOS can tell, and pops up the appropriate pass on your lock screen. And the cards are live: If your gate changes while you’re at the airport, the saved card in Passbook gets updated automatically. Forstall told developers that iOS 6 includes a new Passbook API (Pass Kit) for creating and updating passes for the app. Guided Access “We set out to make the most accessible devices of anyone for all of our customers,” Forstall said. “So we’re really proud of how the accessibility community has been adopting iOS devices.” He said that Apple is particularly proud of how kids with autism have been benefiting from iOS apps. With Guided Access, you can circle the buttons you’d like to disable in an app, and iOS disables those. And you can put the iPhone in single-app mode, which prevents the Home button from exiting the app. But this feature, of course, goes well beyond kids with autism. Single-app mode lets a teacher lock an iPad into a test so that students can’t go look up the answers in Safari. And this would work well for museums, too, Forstall said. (Or parents with any young, iOS device-using kids.) Other details Forstall mentioned a slew of other features coming in iOS 6, too: Improved privacy controls (including limiting access to contacts or calendars), redesigned App Store, Game Center challenges, made-for-iPhone hearing aids, per-account signatures in Mail, Lost Mode for Find My iPhone (which sends a phone number directly to that phone), a variety of updates for China, and more. Forstall also told developers that there’s a new Reminders API, the ability to sell music from within iOS apps (without needing to send users to the App Store), and an integrated transit apps store within the new Maps app. Developers received the iOS 6 beta Monday; it’s due to ship this fall. It supports iPhone 3GS and later, iPad 2 and later, and the fourth-generation iPod touch. That makes iOS 6 the first iOS update since the iPad’s introduction to discontinue support for the first version of Apple’s tablet.
It offers a DVI output, Gigabit Ethernet, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports and audio input/output. It is fully compatible with Mac hardware and should cost around 250 USD. This is a rather premium price if you consider that you will have to purchase a Thunderbolt cable. However, for MacBook Air users especially it could be the perfect companion on a desk.
As expected, Microsoft just announced something called SmartGlass at E3. Less expected? Just how awesome SmartGlass turned out to be. What could have been just an Apple AirPlay imitation, is something more ambitious. Something that could change television forever. But what is it, exactly? It's the lifeline that'll make your dumb TV smart. SmartGlass is an app... SmartGlass is a new app that turns your phone or tablet into another screen for your TV, another controller for a game, a companion feature for a show, a remote control for the Internet and more. More importantly, it'll work with iOS, Android and Windows, so you won't need to buy new hardware to fit into its ecosystem. ...that connects your phone, tablet or computer with your Xbox 360... SmartGlass does more than just push video and audio around. It turns the Xbox 360 into the beating heart of a multi-screen media experience in your living room. A tablet, phone or computer running SmartGlass essentially becomes a second and third screen for your TV. A concrete example: As Game of Thrones was being shown on the TV via Xbox 360, a SmartGlass-enabled tablet displayed a map of Westeros and other relevant information about the show. Content can either be pushed from the tablet/phone/computer to the 360, or from the 360 directly to the TV. SmartGlass connects all of those devices to make content engrossing on multiple levels. Your individual devices don't have to ignore each other, they'll work together to entertain you more. ...and works with games, movies, TV shows and the Internet.. But SmartGlass can be used with more than just movies and TV shows. Microsoft also showed how a gamer could use a tablet as a separate playbook while playing Madden on the Xbox. Even further, Microsoft will finally bring Internet Explorer to the Xbox, with SmartGlass turning your phone into mouse. Sure, it's silly to surf the web on your television with an old and gray keyboard and mouse setup—unless the keyboard and mouse are your phone and tablet. ...to make your living room a lot smarter... Microsoft very clearly wants to make the Xbox 360 the center of your living room transformation. It's the hub that powers everything. But if the Xbox 360 is the heart and the brain, SmartGlass gives users the limbs needed for a full functional, self-sufficient media beast. Combined with the Xbox's growing dominance as a top-flight streaming box, and you've got yourself a potentially very powerful monster. ...and it's all because of the Xbox. If you think about it, Microsoft's vision of the living room of the future is a throwback to what the company has already known and mastered: the PC. It's smartening up the living room by using the Xbox as the PC, the TV as the monitor, the phone and tablet as the keyboard and mouse, Kinect as its futureproof wild card technology. SmartGlass, then, plays the role of Windows, seamlessly connecting everything. But the real key to SmartGlass is its openness. Bring your own tools, Microsoft is saying. It doesn't matter. Because however you control it, all that really matters is the Xbox. And that's all Microsoft.
Heres a copy of the blog from Stumbleupon. One of my favorite services/websites, apps.
We’re always looking for new opportunities to bring the surprise-filled Stumbling experience you love to more devices and platforms. Starting today, we are pleased to bring you a great Stumbling experience on Windows 8 Release Preview, available now in the Windows Store. StumbleUpon’s new Metro-style app for Windows 8 Release Preview has been designed to be fast and fluid, touch-optimized, and most of all clean and simple–just like Windows 8. The streamlined, full-screen experience of the Windows Metro-style UI is a terrific way to showcase the immersive experience of Stumbling. The intuitive user controls and virtually boundless Web make it easy to discover new and interesting things. Enjoy hours exploring the parts of the Web most relevant to you simply by selecting the “Stumble!” button on the app bar or by choosing from recommended Stumbles on the home page or when snapped. Great stuff is just a tap or click away.
Enjoy Stumbling recommendations in an immersive Stumbling experience.
With the StumbleUpon app for Windows 8 Release Preview you can: • Stumble seamlessly – Discover great web pages, photos, videos and more in an immersive full-screen experience. • Share with anyone – Share the content you discover with other Stumblers or with people using other Metro-style apps using the Share charm. • View your Likes – Quickly browse through your Likes in a visually rich grid view. • Explore specific interests – Enter a word or phrase using the in Search charm to discover related pages via StumbleUpon’s Explore Box. • Preview Stumbles – You can snap the StumbleUpon app and view recommended Stumbles, even when you’re using another app. • Stay Connected – See recommended Stumbles directly in the StumbleUpon tile before launching the app.
Use the Share charm to share content with other Metro-style apps.
We hope those of you with Windows 8 devices will enjoy exploring the stuff on the Web that matters to you from your Windows PC or tablet. And if you aren’t on a Windows 8 device or haven’t tried our other existing StumbleUpon apps, give our 4.5 star-rated iPhone and iPad app or 4.6 star-rated Android app a try today.
Windows 8 Release Preview has been released to the public and it's actually starting to look a lot better all round. I've had the Developer Preview installed since it was first released last September and was not that excited at all. The Consumer Preview was an improvement but again can't say I was really feeling the love at all. Now we have the new Windows 8 Release in our hot little hands I have to say it's finally getting it's act together. Things are generally more refined and the whole thing is feeling really fast. I'm definitely impressed with the overall speed of the system.
This release fills in many of the missing pieces and offers a much more nuanced picture of what the final release will look like. A lot of people consider the Metro-izing of Windows is a strategic blunder, a franchise killer that deserves a place alongside epic failures like New Coke and Star Wars: Episode 1. But if you’ve managed to retain an open mind about Windows 8, the Release Preview goes a long way toward making sense of Windows 8’s controversial design decisions.
If Windows 8 were being developed like its predecessors, the pace of change would be decelerating rapidly at this point, and reviewers would be focusing on the minutiae of system-level tasks. Instead, Microsoft has quickened the development tempo dramatically. To understand why, you have to look at what makes Windows 8 so fundamentally different from its predecessors. The built-in apps in the Windows 8 Release Preview are way better than those previously released. They actually work ! Here’s a quick summary but it's worth reading the rest of this large article. • The basic Windows 8 interface is essentially unchanged from what we’ve already seen in the Consumer Preview. It’s more polished and subtly refined, with a number of usability tweaks that have already been documented on the Building Windows 8 blog. Anyone who was expecting Microsoft to bring back the Start button will be disappointed. • The Windows Store won’t open for business until the Release Preview bits are publicly available, so I wasn’t able to install or use any third-party Metro style apps in my early testing. During the demo, however, I did see a selection of new Metro style apps that included two slick Twitter clients, a much-improved Amazon Kindle Reader, and a smart-looking Wikipedia app. I also saw numerous examples of apps that use the built-in contracts that are part of the Metro development framework—enabling apps to share data without any custom code. • Microsoft’s new apps make extensive use of Metro features, including live tiles and snapped views, and many individual items can be pinned to the desktop. That makes the Metro style desktop in the Release Preview much less of a collection of brightly colored tiles and more of a continually updated dashboard. That trend is likely to continue with third-party apps. • The Metro style digital media apps—Music, Photos, and Video—are significantly improved from the versions in the Consumer Preview. Windows Media Center has officially been yanked from this release.though we have found it is able to be enabled. See the next page. • The single biggest surprise in the Release Preview is that the Metro style version of Internet Explorer will include support for Microsoft-approved sites that use Adobe Flash. The Flash Player isn’t installed as a plugin but is instead a fully integrated part of the browser, managed and updated by Microsoft.
Windows Media Center is not preinstalled in Windows 8 Release Preview. If you want to use Windows Media Center, you need to add it by following these steps: 1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, and then click Search.) 2. Enter add features in the search box, and then tap or click Add features to Windows 8. 3. Tap or click I already have a product key. 4. Enter this product key: MBFBV-W3DP2-2MVKN-PJCQD-KKTF7 and then click Next. 5. Select the checkbox to accept the license terms and then click Add features. Your PC will restart and Windows Media Center will now be on your PC and the tile will be pinned to the Start screen. Most of what’s new in the traditional operating system part of Windows 8 is simply polish and refinement of what we’ve seen already. The Consumer Preview was already impressively fast to start, shut down, and switch between apps. This release feels even zippier, although I can’t confirm that with a formal benchmark. You’ll find more color choices in the colors for the Start screen, along with some new default images for the lock screen.
A few usability tweaks to the way hot corners work should deal with grumbling about how those new navigation features work. The Windows 8 design team has added Labels to thumbnails in the Windows key+tab app switcher (as shown here). The Start screen thumbnail in the lower left corner is smaller than in the Consumer Preview, making it less likely that you’ll confuse it with a clickable icon. The behavior of the corners on the right side of the display has changed subtly so that revealing the Charms menu feels less like a task where you have to unlock an achievement. And there are some very big changes to the way multi-monitor setups work, including the ability to view and snap Metro style apps on either screen. (I didn’t have a mini-HDMI adapter so couldn’t test this capability on my review PC.) I was literally delighted by how well one Windows 8 feature worked. I’ve been using the Consumer Preview full time since February, linked to my Microsoft (nee Windows Live) account. As soon as I signed in to the new device with that username and password, all of my settings, including web favorites, background images, and saved passwords were immediately available. My SkyDrive files—documents and photos—were available from the Metro style SkyDrive app immediately, although I had to install the desktop SkyDrive app to sync those files with the local hard disk. Installing that app unlocked a very useful new feature that allowed me to fetch photos directly from another synced device. The Windows desktop showed no major differences. In the interest of eking out a few minutes of additional battery life, especially on underpowered GPUs, Microsoft has removed the glass effects from Aero. Transparency options are still there, but the Vista-style reflections on buttons and other controls are gone. It’s the sort of change you’re unlikely to notice unless you’re looking for it. Other tiny changes are noticeable if you dig very deep. In the Consumer Preview, for example, every Windows Explorer folder included two tiny buttons in the lower right corner to switch between Details and Large Icons view. Those buttons are gone. (Update: Nope, they’re not gone. My account settings, which were synced to the review unit, had the Windows Explorer status bar hidden. When I changed that setting back to show the status bar, the two small icons reappeared.) Similarly, the button in the lower right corner of the Start screen that allows you to zoom out has changed from a magnifying glass icon to a simple minus sign. Internet Explorer 10 maintains its dual personality. Several web sites that had given me compatibility fits in the Consumer Preview displayed properly using the updated IE code in the Release preview. The most intriguing new feature in IE10 is support for some Flash-enabled sites in the Metro style Internet Explorer 10. As Adobe’s Flash Player diagnostic page confirms, this version of IE10 includes the most recent version of Flash Player 11.3 and correctly reports its windows version.
That doesn’t mean you can go to any Flash-powered site and expect it to work. Microsoft is carefully curating the whitelist of apps that can use Flash Player in the Metro style browser and applying it via its own compatibility settings. The most obvious addition is YouTube, which failed on the Consumer Preview but plays properly here. Right-clicking a video clip confirms that it’s using the new Flash Player code. In this release of IE10, the Do Not Track capability is enabled by default. It’s unclear whether websites will voluntarily agree to stop tracking, however. The Samsung Series 9 notebook on which I tested this release doesn’t have a touch screen. It does, however, incorporate a new trackpad design. In combination with some admittedly early (and buggy) drivers, the new hardware design recognizes the swipe gestures that work on a touchscreen—swipe in from the right to expose the Charms menu, swipe from the left to switch between running apps, use multi-touch gestures to scroll up down, and side to side. The new gestures can’t be retrofitted to existing trackpads, unfortunately, because those existing devices don’t have subtle enough edge detection. But the real star of this release, as I mentioned up front, is the greatly improved selection of Metro style apps that are bundled with the Release Preview. In the Developer Preview released last fall, the only Metro style apps were crude prototypes built by summer interns. With the Consumer Preview, Microsoft tossed those apps and included a new collection of more robust “app previews.” In this release, the bundled apps are still called previews, but the difference in quality is striking. I’ve focused extensively on the new apps in the companion screenshot gallery for this post. Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect. Communications The Mail, Calendar, Messaging, and People apps in the Consumer Preview were frankly underwhelming. So it’s remarkable to see how much progress they’ve made in the Release Preview, only 90 days later. All four apps are tied tightly together. You can connect Hotmail, Google, and Exchange accounts, and their contents appear in separate modules (you can selectively exclude items—if you want your Gmail messages to appear in the Mail app but don’t want Google contacts in the People app, that’s your choice). In addition, you can connect Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other services. When you do, those contacts appear in the People app, which functions as a global address book for Mail and Messaging. Updates from any contact appear in the People app as well, and you can pin any contact to the Start screen, where their updates appear on the live tile. The Mail app sports a traditional three-pane view and is far more versatile than the Consumer Preview version. Using options in the Settings pane, you can configure whether you want an account to be selectively synchronized (just the most recent two weeks’ worth of messages) or fully synched. That distinction neatly reflects the range of devices on which Windows 8 is likely to run, from tablets with limited storage to full PCs with ample hard disks or SSDs.
The effect is very similar to what Microsoft has done with the Windows Phone platform. Hopefully between now and the final release the designers of this app family will borrow more features from that platform, including the ability to manually link contacts from different sources. News, Sports, and Travel Three new showcase apps in the Release preview are tied directly to Microsoft’s Bing search platform. All of them are aggregators, with common designs and navigation features. (They join the Bing-powered Weather and Finance apps, which were in the Consumer Preview. News aggregates stories from nearly 200 sources in 10 categories as well as regional sources. The home page follows the Metro design principles, with a single large image for the cover story and individual stories in rectangular blocks, grouped by category. You can drill down into one of the predefined categories (World News, Technology, Entertainment, and so on). You can also build your own collection of custom topics and let the app gather stories using the search terms you define.
The Sports app follows a nearly identical model, with a different set of sources and an organization by leagues (the exact selection varies by your geography. You can personalize the Sports app to include your favorite teams and then pin those tiles to the Start screen, giving you access to live scores and news (updated every 30 seconds), standings, player rosters, and so on. The Travel app is the most aggressively commercial (and least newsy) of the the three newcomers. It aggregates information from Frommer’s, Fodor’s, and other travel sites to provide a complete overview of travel destinations, complete with some stunning visual panoramas of popular tourist spots. At any point, you can use links to book flights, hotel rooms, and other transactions where, presumably, Microsoft gets a cut. Digital Media If you dig into Windows Explorer, you’ll find that these Metro style apps are still called Zune Music and Zune Video in the Packages folder. But they’re branded as Xbox in the apps themselves. The Music app is promising, although navigating it takes some getting used to. I found it was was able to quickly gather albums and artists from my collection, from both local and network sources, and then play them efficiently. If you have a Zune Pass, as I do, you can search for and play any album that’s available in the 10 million or so in the Zune marketplace.
With the new Music app, there’s no way to separate your collection from the marketplace, and the graphics that play in the background while an album is playing can be incongruous. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Justin Bieber and Kelly Clarkson flashing across the screen as I listened to Doc Watson and Wilco. The Photos app brings together pictures from local storage and from online services like SkyDrive and Flickr. I was disappointed to find that in this build the Photos library still doesn’t recognize network locations. And just to confirm what you already suspected: This build does not include Windows Media Center. My review unit didn’t include a DVD drive, but if it had I suspect that it would have been unable to play DVD movies without extra software. Update: Microsoft’s Windows 8 Release Preview FAQ is worth reading. It includes instructions for downloading and enabling Media Center: The Remote Desktop and Xbox Companion apps from the Consumer Preview are MIA in this release. Presumably they’ll be available from the Windows Store at some point. All in all, this is an impressive and surprisingly rich release, largely thanks to the diverse collection of apps it includes. Originally, I thought the choice of name—Release Preview, rather than Release Candidate—was mere semantics. But after seeing this release up close and personal, the name makes perfect sense. This code isn’t finished yet—it will be a few months, no doubt, before it’s released to manufacturing, and then a few months after that before Windows 8 is ready for retail sales. Between now and then, the collection of Metro style apps from third parties should grow substantially, and Microsoft’s own apps should continue to evolve. What you see here is, literally, still just a preview of what’s to come.
Hot on the heels of the new Seas0nPass release we're happy to present to you a brand new version of aTV Flash (black). Version 1.6 adds a bunch of great new features including integrated subtitle downloads, expanded codec support, refined video playback, improved networking, additional translations and a truckload of other improvements and bug fixes. Integrated Subtitle Downloads By popular request we've added one-click subtitle downloads, courtesy of OpenSubtitles.org. Now instead of spending hours searching for the right subtitles they can be easily downloaded right from your Apple TV in a matter of seconds. Check out the screenshots below to see this feature in action.
Need additional subtitles? Just click 'Get More...'.
Choose from thousands of available subtitles. Full Changelog • Added integrated subtitle downloads from OpenSubtitles.org • Added support for purchased iTunes content (matching iTunes login required) • Added video deinterlacing option • Added Wake-on-Lan (WOL) • Added Portuguese (Portugal) translation • Added support for displaying subtitles in lower 'black bar' • Added support for .WTV files • Added support for multiple simultaneous AFP connections • Improved bulk fetching & added automatic artwork caching • Improved automatic downscaling for large thumbnails • Improved metadata reloading for images • Improved buffering over AFP • Resolved various audio synchronization issues • Resolved possible overflow in 5.1 AC3 audio • Resolved issues with zoom for 4:3 movies • Resolved missing audio for .dvr-ms files (ASF containers) • Resolved rare SRT file crash • Resolved issues with slideshow animation • Resolved file specific metadata fetching issues • Resolved rare ISO file crashes • Resolved issue with displaying identical thumbnails for images with the same name • Resolved metadata loading issues for files containing non-latin characters • Resolved rare 5ch audio file crash • Resolved issues with incorrect metadata for files with '/S01E0.avi' pattern • Resolved auto-start issues in Couch Surfer • Reduced memory footprint for large software-decoded videos and slideshows • Other minor UI improvements & bug fixes Great! Where can I get it? If you're already running a version of aTV Flash (black) the new 1.6 version can be installed through the Maintenance --> Manage Extras menu.
