AirSync for doubleTwist brings wireless syncing to Android phones

Been looking for the perfect thing to boast to your iPhone-owning friends about? Well brace yourself, because doubleTwist has just gone wireless with its latest update, introducing a feature called AirSync which allows Android users to keep their media collection simpatico sans cabling. The new app for PC and Mac boxes couples with its Android counterpart (along with a new AirSync component) and lets you do most of your management without needing a wire between your phone and computer. The desktop application and DoubleTwist player for phones won't cost you a thing, though AirSync itself is $0.99 on the phone for the first 10,000 buyers, and then jumps to $4.99 a shot.

Setup is relatively painless, requiring just a passcode from your phone which is input on the PC side. From then on, whenever you've got the app open and your device in range, the content stored on the phone will appear in your DoubleTwist list just as if you'd plugged the phone in (similar to the Windows Phone 7 / Zune wireless sync). We took AirSync for a ride with our Mac and Droid Incredible, and everything seemed to work fine, though we did notice a few bugs (one that was pretty major) that need worked out. Firstly, you'll probably want to just start fresh with syncing your collection -- we made the mistake of trying to pick up where we'd left off and accidentally wiped the content stored on the phone. We also noticed issues with the application trying to sync or update your database while listening to music; more than once our playback abruptly stopped when the app was attempting to talk to the phone. Syncing can also be pretty slow depending on your connection -- really slow if you've got a big collection.

Despite those complaints, AirSync (and both the doubleTwist Android app and desktop client) are incredibly slick solutions to a problem plaguing lots of smartphone users. The company obviously has just begun its work with the app -- and it's clear that there are kinks to work out -- but the dream of a wireless future for Android users just got a lot closer to reality.

AirSync for doubleTwist brings wireless syncing to Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/j6A1kmk5zYI/

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The Best Smartphone on Every Platform [Smartphones]

The most important thing about your next phone isn't what carrier it's on, how big the screen is, or even who makes it. It's the platform, stupid. So here are the best phones on every platform. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/TSlKGOMoylM/the-best-smartphone-on-every-platform

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Steve Jobs E-Mail: AirPlay Video Could Expand in 2011

When Steve Jobs introduced the latest iOS update (version 4.2), the biggest addition was AirPlay, a feature that wirelessly streams some audio and video from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to the Apple TV. An e-mail from the CEO suggests this feature is poised to become more powerful next year.
The AirPlay feature shipped in [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/steve-jobs-airplay/

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BitTorrent-Based Domains Could Make Sites Invincible Against Government Seizure [Internet]

In response to the recent flurry of aggressive takedowns against P2P and piracy-related websites, a group of programmers is working on a new, decentralized system that would make domains untouchable. The Dot-P2P project is partially powered, appropriately enough, by BitTorrent. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/4pJ0849t8oE/bittorrent+based-domains-could-make-sites-invincible-against-government-seizure

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Facebook E-Commerce Platform Payvment Raises $6 Million

Payvment, a startup that allows anyone to create and operate a retail storefront on Facebook, has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Sierra Ventures with a BlueRun Ventures participating in the round. This brings the startup's total funding to $8 million. Payvment?s Facebook App lets anyone create a retail store on the social network. The app lets you set up products, categories of products (i.e. shoes, T-shirts, sweaters), import photos, list terms of service and shipping options and more. Once you set up your online shop on Facebook, it will show up in a separate tab on your profile or page under ?storefront?.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-MjPiBf7XXY/

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Foki vacuum footwear concept lets you walk in Roomba's shoes

They may not be the first vacuum shoes to emerge in concept form, but these so-called Foki shoes from designer Adika Titut Triyugo are certainly the most stylish -- at least in an ASIMO chic sort of way. They also boast a few new tricks not seen before, including an LED display on top that indicates how much dirt you've picked up, and a unique deign that allows them to be completely folded up when not in use. Of course, "concept" is the key word here, but we've got to guess there's an untapped market out there for wearable appliances. Dust Buster gloves, anyone?

Foki vacuum footwear concept lets you walk in Roomba's shoes originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/30/foki-vacuum-footwear-concept-lets-you-walk-in-roombas-shoes/

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Multitasking For iPad Arrives With iOS 4.2

Multitasking for the iPad is finally here with the latest iOS 4.2 update. This is a feature many iPad owners have been patiently waiting for and now the wait is over. For example now you can listen to your favorite online radio station while simultaneously browsing the web among many other things. Over 100 new [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ipadbuzzblog/~3/crgPslT2pHM/

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Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Gaming

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season.

Sit back, relax, grab a controller, and enjoy some obsessive-compulsive button mashing while you work in that body-sized groove into the couch... that's not the M.O. for the console makers this year. You don't have to embrace the jumping, hand-waving, and other methods of physical exertion, but it's definitely the "it" gaming hardware of this holiday season. Be sure to triple-check just what box your loved ones play on, and click on through for our gaming gift suggestions.

Continue reading Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Gaming

Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Gaming originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/D7BP1PuTQeM/

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Acer Puts Its Tablet Cards on the Table

Acer on Tuesday entered the tablet PC market, announcing that it will launch two Android tablets and a third running Windows 7 in early 2011. One Android tablet will have a 7-inch screen; the other will have a 10.1-inch screen. The Windows tablet will also have a 10.1-inch screen. The company has also unveiled a dual-screen tablet concept called the "Iconia."

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/71326.html

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New European Startup Programme Resembles Y-Combinator Model

So we have Seedcamp, Startup Bootcamp, The Founder Institute, Launch48, Hackfwd and various other startup programme across Europe. And we can now add another to that list: Springboard. But this is not the Springboard we wrote about last year. Then, it was the brainchild of Red Gate Software who were effectively offering a very informal arrangement, helping young startups. It was also B2B focused. This is a different beast. The new Springboard programme has wisely realised that there is a gap in the European eco-system for the super-early stage startup that really just needs enough cash to create something. That is in the Y-Combinator and TechStars sort of area, which is much more at the hacker/product end of the market.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GmCGc9jWidc/

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Hacker gets native code to run on Windows Phone 7 -- will a jailbreak follow?

It seems, thanks to one of Samsung's recent additions to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, that a jailbreak of Microsoft's latest mobile platform might come a lot sooner than anticipated.

In a high-tech plot twist that even mother could've predicted, it turns out that Windows Phone 7 can run native code! Until today, it was thought that WP7 apps could only be written in Silverlight, an abstracted platform that made jailbreaking all but impossible. If third-party apps can contain native code, it makes jailbreaking all but a foregone conclusion. There still remains the problem of getting such apps onto your phone, though: Microsoft isn't going to approve the addition of a jailbreaking app on the Marketplace!

Microsoft's acceptance of Samsung's native app raises one other important question: why can Samsung submit a native app, but small-time indie developers can't? Samsung's app obviously required some functionality that only native, low-level code could provide -- but why shouldn't all developers get the ability to hook into the underlying operating system?

As Long Zheng says, for a phone's indie and homebrew community to really thrive, unfettered access to the phone's hardware is required. Let's hope this is just the beginning of WP7 hacking!

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Microsoft

Hacker gets native code to run on Windows Phone 7 -- will a jailbreak follow? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/12/hacker-gets-native-code-to-run-on-windows-phone-7-will-a-jailbreak-follow/

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The Endless Mural is an abstract HTML5-powered drawing canvas

When Microsoft launched IE9, they sponsored a number of interesting demo projects to showcase its hardware acceleration and HTML5 support. I posted about one of these projects some time ago - A Rough Guide To The World.

The Endless Mural is another such showcase project. It's a drawing application with a twist: as you make gestures and draw lines across the canvas, fractals bloom in your wake. That means your gestures serve as a rough outline that the application uses to render a ton of abstract-looking "glyphs" that spiral, explode, and do all sorts of crazy things.

You're not going to draw anything coherent with this, but if you like abstract art, it's certainly fun. It's also surprisingly fine-grained. When you click the Draw menu, you get a selection of four different "gesture behaviors," such as swarm, burst, spiral, etc. You also get to pick from twelve different artwork sets (used for the glyphs drawn on the canvas), and each of those has four possible color variations.

When you're done expressing your inner artist, you can save your work and add it to the site's namesake, the "endless mural" itself. That's a showcase of all of the art created with the site. When you view a drawing in the mural, you can hit Play and see a complete animated playback of how it was created.

One of the things I like about the project is how tasteful Microsoft's sponsorship is. There is no huge IE9 logo plastered all over the page, and you won't find an irritating banner exclaiming "best viewed under IE9." In fact, I've used it with Chrome, and it worked beautifully. The only evidence of Microsoft's support is in small print on the front page of the site: "made possible by the generous support of Microsoft and Internet Explorer 9." That's very nice.

Filed under: web 2.0

The Endless Mural is an abstract HTML5-powered drawing canvas originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/14/the-endless-mural-is-an-abstract-html5-powered-drawing-canvas/

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Saunavihta Vortex is a creepy physics Time Waster

First off, Saunavihta Vortex is pretty creepy. I mean, it's not really kid-friendly. But having said that, it's can be lots of fun for teens and adults.

Basically, you control the fate of a ragdoll. You need to somehow get the ragdoll into a flaming pit. When the ragdoll gets there and stays there for three seconds, you pass the level.

To get the doll there, you need to launch, batter and roll it across the level in all sorts of creative ways. The level is composed of contraptions built of white and black bars. The white bars disappear when you click them. So if you have a "swing" that stays put thanks to a delicate balance between a white bar and a black bar, as soon as the white bar goes, that swing is going to move.

You can zoom out using SPACE to see more of the level; by default, you're zoomed in quite close. The closer zoom level is useful for getting the timing right when it's important, and zooming out helps you figure out the general direction.

A beautiful game with a unique atmosphere.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Saunavihta Vortex is a creepy physics Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/25/saunavihta-vortex-is-a-creepy-physics-time-waster/

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Sprouty is a bare-bones personal budgeting application

Mint is pretty much the behemoth of personal budget management. But it's also a tad complex, and it's very American. If you happen to live outside the US, you probably won't be able to use all of Mint's options.

Sprouty is no Mint-killer; it doesn't seem to have any such aspirations, either. It's a very, very simple budgeting application that feels intentionally international: I could not find a single currency symbol.

It's as bare-bones as it gets: First, you tell it approximately how much money you make. From that information, it builds a tentative budget for you - how much you might be spending on health, housing, utilities, food, transportation, and a myriad other areas. The numbers (and areas) are merely suggestions - you're supposed to tweak them for your own situation.

Once you're all set up, you can start logging your expenses. Logging an expense couldn't be easier: You set the date, enter a description and some tags, and then the sum. Sprouty's Overview screen then shows you how you're doing on the various areas of your budget, each represented as a progress bar.

It's very basic, and doesn't aim high. If budgeting seems kind of scary, this is one application you might want to try. The only thing I'd like to see is a mobile client.

Filed under: Web services

Sprouty is a bare-bones personal budgeting application originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/25/sprouty-is-a-bare-bones-personal-budgeting-application/

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PhotoFast's AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car

3.5mm auxiliary inputs and stereo Bluetooth used to be good enough -- but that was before Apple announced AirPlay a few months ago. Now, everything else sounds like someone is stabbing you in the ears; the world looks black and white, and food no longer has any taste. AirPlay, save us! Taiwanese firm PhotoFast is playing the superhero role here today with the AP1000, a little black module with WiFi that accepts incoming AirPlay streams and routes them through to your car's stereo. From the demo video, it's obvious that you're probably going to want to get a professional car audio installer involved to make this happen -- and before you ask, no, it won't do video -- but if you've got an Apple logo sticker on your rear window, we bet this is exactly how you want to roll. Follow the break to see the AP1000 get surgically implanted in a Mercedes.

Continue reading PhotoFast's AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car

PhotoFast's AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/26/photofasts-ap1000-takes-airplay-support-to-your-car/

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Tokyoflash brings RPM LED wristwatch concept to reality (video)

Tokyoflash, purveyor of all things awesome when it comes to watches, has just unveiled its latest addition. If you're of the eagle-eyed variety, you've probably spotted it just to the right (or after the break in video form). The difference between this fellow and most of the timepieces found here is pretty simple: the RPM LED watch started as a fan render. Over the months, the company took this grand idea and made it a reality, now offering it to anyone with with more money than sense. The operation is semi-simple -- the inner ring shows the hour, while the outer ring shows the minutes. There's a group of five LEDs at the top that further explains the latter, and we're hearing that the band itself pushes the IQ of the wearer higher by 12 to 15 points. Even if confirmed by a respected panel of mad scientists, we still say it's not worth the $208.42 asking price, but you're obviously free to disagree vehemently.

Continue reading Tokyoflash brings RPM LED wristwatch concept to reality (video)

Tokyoflash brings RPM LED wristwatch concept to reality (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/g2BamvJ9sk8/

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