Author Archive
Yahoo revitalizes Flickr with huge images, sharing, and a terabyte of free space (hands-on)
Author: James Cliff
Yahoo has just taken the wraps off a major update to Flickr, it’s long-suffering photo service, and we just sat down to put the revamped service through its paces to see how it has improved — and whether or not it’ll be enough to keep up with the likes of Facebook and Google+. While it’s a massive visual improvement, it’s still works much like the Flickr of old, for better or for worse. But for a visual site like Flickr, those changes make for a huge upgrade over what users experienced before.
For starters, Flickr made it a priority to remove the massive amounts of whitespace, text, and links that covered up its page, and it makes all the difference. You’re now presented with a stream of photos from your contacts with minimal…
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Dijit unveils NextGuide Web with Facebook-sourced TV recommendations
Author: James Cliff
Dijit Media just launched a closed beta of its browser-based service, NextGuide Web, which expands on the features of the NextGuide iPad app. NextGuide’s interface will be familiar to Pinterest fans, with a scrolling feed through which you can browse your buddies’ favorites and bookmark shows for later viewing. If you have a North American cable or satellite provider, you can sign up to receive e-mail reminders for live TV showings while Comcast and DirectTV subscribers can also use NextGuide to schedule DVR recordings.
If live TV isn’t your thing, NextGuide provides a universal search of Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and iTunes for your online viewing pleasure. The social aspect of the service — along with its Facebook integration — is arguably the most interesting as it makes it easier to discover programs based on recommendations pulled from your friends’ activity. NextGuide’s web service is currently invitation-only, but users of the iPad app and Dijit Remote will be able to log on immediately. Since Dijit acquired Miso back in February, users of Miso’s TV app will also be granted access sometime within the next month.
Source: Dijit Media
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ASUS Transformer Book review: meet ASUS’ first detachable Ultrabook
Author: James Cliff
More Info
For a while, it looked like ASUS’ Transformer Book would turn out to be vaporware: after debuting to much fanfare a year ago, it encountered numerous delays, and even missed the crucial holiday shopping season. Now it’s finally here, priced at $ 1,499 with a Core i7 processor, a 13.3-inch (1080p) screen and a detachable keyboard dock housing both a spare battery and a 500GB hard drive. The problem is the timing: Intel is about to launch its new Haswell chips, and here’s the Transformer Book, arriving on the scene with a lofty price and a year-old CPU.
It’d be easy enough to tell you just wait for a refresh, which is how we’ve been ending all of our PC reviews in the weeks leading up to this year’s Computex. But it’s still worth investigating whether the Transformer Book (aka the TX300) is a compelling idea. Though we’ve seen many tablet hybrids (the Surface Pro, etc.), they’ve mostly had smaller 11-inch screens. So what happens when you take that form factor and stretch it to accommodate a bigger screen — and a more spacious keyboard? And how does it compare to all those convertible options out there, like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 or the Dell XPS 12? Let’s have a look.
Gallery: ASUS Transformer Book review
Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, ASUS
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Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Sky City One, sub-zero cafe and the world’s longest Lego train track
Author: James Cliff
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Eyes in the design world turned to New York City this week as New York Design Week officially launched. We hit the floors of International Contemporary Furniture Fair today to bring you the best new green designs from one of the largest contemporary design shows in the US — including Blackbody’s gorgeous OLED light trees and Tat Chao’s ethereal LED lamps made from recycled wine glasses. We also checked out the locally focused BKLYN Designs show, where design duo Bower unveiled an awesome magnetic LED lamp, made from discarded pieces of scrap wood. Lighting designer Adam Frank unveiled three inspiring new designs at BKLYN Designs: the LED Lumen lamp, which casts tree-shaped shadows from a little candle holder; the incredible Reveal Projector, which projects an image of outdoor foliage and sky through a window on a blank wall (good for tiny NYC apartment dwellers); and the 3D Hologram-ish LUCID Mirror, which displays a 3D image of illuminated clouds over your head!
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Editor’s Letter: When it rains, it pours
Author: James Cliff
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
It’s been a slow couple of weeks here through the beginning of May. Everyone, it seems, was saving up to pile all of their announcements at once, leaving us scrambling and our RSS feed spinning. Over the past few days, new phones were announced by BlackBerry, Nokia, Sony and Samsung while Google has been dropping all sorts of stuff in our laps at I/O and even Microsoft got in on the game by confirming Windows 8.1 will be shown next month. Surely someone could have made a few phone calls and maybe pushed their bit of news up or back a week or two.
As I write this, late at night in a hotel in San Francisco, it’s Google I/O that’s dominating the headlines. New Android boss Sundar Pichai promised a very dev-focused event, moving away from the consumer-heavy fireworks of years past, and that’s exactly what we got, with Google spending far more time talking APIs and IDEs than tablets and smartphones.
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The Most Important Google Announcement You Missed Yesterday
Author: James Cliff
Google showed off lots of new stuff yesterday . But this is the one thing you’ll use the most.
The concept is simple: money as an email attachment. And it’s not fundamentally more capable than PayPal, which has let you send money to other people for years. But in online payments, ease counts for a lot — preexisting iTunes accounts are a large part of why the App Store caught on so quickly, for example. Which is why this, which was buried among flashier announcements about Chrome, Glass, Android, Music and Maps, might be the most important thing Google's announced in months.
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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S available online, reaches Best Buy on June 23rd
Author: James Cliff
Lenovo teased a potential sweet spot in its convertible laptop line when it revealed the IdeaPad Yoga 11S, blending the portability of the Yoga 11 with the raw performance of the Yoga 13. As of now, we can do more than just imagine how well that balance works: the Yoga 11S is at last available to order. Those who plunk down at least $ 800 can buy the bendy Windows 8 PC online from either Best Buy or Lenovo, although shoppers will want to think carefully before jumping in with both feet. While both outlets equip their Yogas with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive at that price, Best Buy lists a 1.5GHz Core i5 where Lenovo starts with a more modest 1.4GHz Core i3. No matter which outlet beckons, would-be owners will have to bide their time. Lenovo is quoting a four-week wait for new shipments, and Best Buy will only see the Yoga 11S grace its retail stores on June 23rd.
Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo
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VERIZON MOTOROLA A956 A 956 DROID 2 GLOBAL for verizon only
Author: James Cliff
VERIZON MOTOROLA A956 A 956 DROID 2 GLOBAL for verizon only
- 6.5×4.5×2
Includes:
? Include Battery: Yes, Used.
? Include Battery Cover: Yes
? Include Charger: No
? Include Memory Card: No
? Include Box/Paperwork: No
Functionality Tests Performed:
? All Data Removed
? Keypad/Touch Screen Tested
? Speaker Tested?
? All Ports Tested ?
? Camera Tested (if applicable)
? ESN Check (if applicable)
List Price: $ 115.86
Price: $ 115.86
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Nokia Confirms The Flagship Lumia 925 For T-Mobile U.S: 4.5″ AMOLED Screen, Metal Edges, Extra Lens & New Camera Software
Author: James Cliff
Fresh from last week’s Verizon Lumia device launch, Nokia has taken the wraps off a new smartphone in its Windows Phone-based Lumia range at an event in London today. The Lumia 925 is its first flagship for T-Mobile in the U.S. This means that following the Lumia 928 launch on Verizon, and factoring in Nokia’s initial launch of the Lumia 920 on AT&T last year, Nokia now has a flagship Windows Phone ranged on all three major U.S. carriers. Globally the Lumia 925 will be ranged with Vodafone in Europe, coming to markets including Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. (priced at €469), and in China with China Mobile and China Unicom. The device will ship in June in Europe, with a U.S. launch slated for soon after.
The Windows Phone 8-based 4G Lumia 925 continues Nokia’s strategy of emphasising the camera smarts of its flagships Windows Phones, including PureView branding, Carl Zeiss optics and an 8.7MP lens with image stabilisation tech inside. But the camera hardware in the 925 is a little different to the 928 and 920, with one extra lens. This sixth lens improves photo performance in bright sunlight, according to Nokia, as well as sharing the low light performance abilities of its fellow flagships. In addition to that new camera hardware, the phone includes new software, called Smart Camera, that’s aimed at extending the photography experience by giving users new ways to capture and share photographs.
The camera software on the device includes a burst mode which allows up to 10 shots to be captured at a time. The software also has three new capture modes that take advantage of this burst feature, namely: Best Shot, for composing a composite shot from the best elements of several images; Action Shot for snapping a series of stills of action shots, such as sports, that can then be edited and shared as a sequence; and Motion Focus, a Lytro-style mode that allows the snapper to pick different elements to be in or out of focus after the shot has been taken. Nokia confirmed to TechCrunch that the latter featured is the first bit of software to make use of technology Nokia acquired when it bought imaging company Scalado last July.
“Whatever you do you can go back and edit again and again,” said Jo Harlow, head of Nokia’s smart devices unit — pictured above left, with SVP of product design chief Stefan Pannenbecker at the London launch. “The Nokia smart camera is our latest uniqie experience for our Nokia Lumia portfolio.”
The Smart Camera software is exclusive to the Lumia 925 initially but will be pushed out as an over-the-air update called Amber to Windows Phone 8-based Lumias in Q3, the company said. Nokia looks to be trying to bolster its efforts against Samsung here, which included a raft of new camera features on its flagship Galaxy S4 device, such as Dual-Shot and Drama Shot. The lack of Instagram for Windows Phone continues to hamper Nokia’s photo-focused efforts however, but also today it announced a partnership with Oggl, Hipstamatic’s new photo community app — noting that since Oggl has a relationship with Instagram, users will be able to access the latter service via that app.
Design wise, the Lumia 925 is the first Lumia device to include metallic trim. A silver aluminium band runs around its four edges, and doubles as the phone’s antenna — taking its cues from the iPhone’s design (but with “rigorous testing” to ensure no repeat of antennagate, according to Nokia). The mobile maker’s trademark polycarbonate clads the back of the device, so there’s a two-tone look and feel.
Nokia says the plastic back is designed to make it feel nicer and grippier in the hand. It may also be about keeping the weight down (to 139g), since heavy handsets is something Nokia has been criticised for. It certainly felt lightweight and slender during a brief hands on. Handset colour options are muted rather than the usual bold Lumia offerings, with black, white and grey options for the plastic back. Wireless charging shells, sold separately, can reintroduce the usual Lumia splashes of yellow, cyan and red.
Under the hood there’s a 1.5GHz Dual-Core Snapdragon chip, and 1GB of RAM. On board memory is 16GB (Vodafone will also get a 32GB variant) plus 7MB free cloud storage on Microsoft’s SkyDrive. The 4.5 inch AMOLED display has a resolution of 1280 x 768. Dimensions are 129 x 70.6 x 8.5mm. The 2000mAh battery is good for up to 12.8 hours of talk time on 3G, or up to 6.6 hours video playback, according to Nokia.
A ‘true PureView’ Windows Phone device — codenamed EOS — has been rumoured for several months, and the Lumia 925 looks to be that device. However it certainly does not include the 41MP sensor and pixel oversampling techniques featured in the Symbian-based 808 PureView. It seems unlikely that bona fide PureView technology will ever make it to Windows Phone, not least because it’s something of a camera pro curiosity, rather than a consumer-friendly mainstream feature. Rather Nokia is extending the PureView branding — to associate it with a range of camera-centric features, not just that original huge sensor.
Harlow closed the presentation by hinting at further new device launches from Nokia “later this summer”. “I can’t wait to see you later this summer when we will continue to bring new innovation and new experiences to our Lumia portfolio,” she said.
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Samsung Chromebook (3G, 11.6-Inch)
Author: James Cliff
Samsung Chromebook (3G, 11.6-Inch)
- 11.6 inch Display
- Samsung Exynos 5 Dual 1.7 GHz
- 16 GB eMMC
- Verizon 3G WWAN included (2 years)
The New Samsung Chromebook
For Everyone. The Samsung Chromebook is a new computer that helps you get everyday things done faster and easier. It starts in seconds, has virus protection built-in, and runs your favorite Google apps plus thousands more. The Chromebook comes with leading Google products, like Search, Gmail, YouTube and Hangouts, so you can work, play, and do whatever you want, right out of the box.
You can easily share it with multiple people- switching accounts takes seconds, and everyone gets their own files, apps and settings. And it’s simple to use. There’s no setup, and your files are automatically backed up in the cloud. At just 2.4 pounds, 0.7 inches thin, and with over 6.5 hours of battery life, the Samsung Chromebook can go anywhere you go. It’s built to stay cool, so it doesn’t need a fan and runs silently. It also includes 100GB of free Google Drive storage (for 2 years), a built-in webcam, and dual band Wi-Fi to make it easy to connect to wireless networks.
About Chromebooks
The new, faster computer that keeps getting better and better.
Boots in Seconds
Boots up in 10 seconds, resumes instantly and loads web pages blazingly fast.
Thousands of Apps
Built-in apps and thousands more from the Chrome Web Store.
No Hassles
Multiple layers of security
so you don’t need to install anti-virus software.
Cloud built-in
Save your stuff safely in the cloud and never lose another file or photo.
(see larger image).
Introducing the New Chromebook
Chromebooks are easy to use, and don’t slow down over time. They have built-in security, so you’re protected against viruses and malware. They come with apps for all your everyday needs, and keep your files safely backed up on the cloud. And with free, automatic updates, your Chromebook keeps getting better and better.
Automatic updates
Chromebooks automatically update themselves: all of your apps stay up-to-date, and you get the latest version of the operating system without having to think about it.
Get started without the setup
Chromebooks require almost no setup, so you can go from unboxing to doing in minutes. Unlike other computers, you don’t need to spend hours installing patches and software.
Portable, powerful, cooler
The Samsung Chromebook’s dual core processor delivers exceptional performance and battery life in an ultra-slim package. And unlike traditional computers,
it has no fan or moving parts, which means it stays cooler on your lap and runs silent (no humming, unless you’re listening to music).
Stay connected in-flight
With your Chromebook, you can get online at 10,000 feet with free Gogo in-air internet passes. Your Chromebook comes with 12 free passes (estimated 0 value) that you can use over 2 years on domestic US flights.
(see larger image).
Collaborate on documents
Create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings with apps like Google Docs, Zoho and SlideRocket. With productivity apps, you can collaborate in real-time with others, access your documents from any computer, and have your files backed up automatically. Access other everyday files using the built-in PDF and document viewer.
More storage in the cloud
With 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years, you can keep all of your apps, documents, favorites, and settings safe and securely accessible from anywhere. You don’t have to bother downloading and installing any applications onto your hard drive.
More storage in the cloud
(see larger image).
Oversized, multi-touch touchpad
You can enjoy better control using a large multi-touch touchpad With a glass coating and image sensor it provides a stylish and convenient way to use your Chromebook.
Oversized, multi-touch touchpad
(see larger image).
Full-sized keyboard designed for Chrome
The keyboard is optimized for Chrome with a dedicated search key, a row of web-enabled keys, and a comfortable, full-size layout that doesn’t cramp your fingers.
Simply more flexibility
The Chromebook has a range of ports, including HDMI and USB 3.0/2.0 ports, to enable greater flexibility for sharing data and multimedia playback. Its unique hinge design makes it easier to connect all of your peripherals.
3G included
If you don’t have a Wi-Fi network at your fingertips, the 3G-equipped Chromebook models come with flexible internet plans, included with this device for 2 years, (up to 100MB per month) of Mobile Broadband Service provided by Verizon Wireless, so you can keep working on the go.
List Price: $ 329.99
Price: $ 293.00
