Software – Page 5

Boxee Media Center Beta arrives Dec 7

November 6, 2009November 6, 2009 Doug Groves beta, Boxee, event, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows0 comment

Boxee, the social media connected media center, is having a beta reveal party on December 7, 2009. The software has been in alpha for the past year or so, and brings a wealth of online content to the living room interface, whether you’re running Windows, Linux, Mac or Apple TV. From the annoucement: At the event we will demo the new Beta, launch new applications from partners and start a 4-weeks early-access for users to test the Beta before we release it to the public at CES on Jan 7th….

Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 trumps GPS for anything else. Pricewise, at least.

October 28, 2009October 28, 2009 Danny X 4 Comments

You hear that? On the wind? That’s the sound of a million TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan owners saying “aw, crap.” It’s because Google today announced their own turn-by-turn navigation application, dubbed Google Maps Navigation. The buyer’s remorse for anyone who bought a standalone GPS will set in when they hear the price, which is significantly less then any other GPS nav system on the market. 100% less, to be precise. In true Google fashion, Google Maps Navigation is available on the Android 2.0 mobile OS and is absolutely free.

Apple’s Anti-Windows 7 Commercial Up The Irony Factor

October 23, 2009 Doug Groves advertising, Apple, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Windows 73 Comments

The day after Windows 7 launches, Apple has fired off the latest salvo of spots starring John Hodgman and Justin Long. Although one could argue that they wore out their welcome a long time ago, these just plain old stink. The focus this time round is “hey everyone’s switching to the Mac”, even though according to their own numbers, this is far from true, but then again, the PC/Mac spots were never known for their accuracy. Then again, very little advertising IS accurate (it’s rare, but it happens). The most…

Windows 7 Whopper In Action

October 23, 2009 Doug Groves Microsoft, Windows 70 comment

Proving that the poster wasn’t just for fun… maybe this could become an official IFOCE event…

Windows 7 Second Demos and Burgers

October 22, 2009October 22, 2009 Doug Groves advertising, Microsoft, Windows 77 Comments

To coincide with the worldwide launch of their new operating system, Microsoft has unveiled a slew of new ads. You know what? They’re actually pretty good. The above video is one in the “7 Second Demos” series, which demonstrates some of the new ‘speedy’ features of the OS. Other marketing ideas, maybe aren’t so good, like this Burger King Japan/Windows 7 ad… Now that the Whopper is out of the way, want to see the rest of the 7 Second Demos… just…

Windows 7 Launches Today

October 22, 2009October 23, 2009 Doug Groves Microsoft, Windows 711 Comments

Well, it’s not exactly a secret. Microsoft’s well-received OS is now official. Those of you still playing with the free release candidate can keep using the free version until March, but going forward, new PCs will be shipping with Redmonds latest and greatest. When I say greatest, I think it very well may be. After using just about every version of Microsoft’s OS, I have to say that Windows 7 is probably the best they’ve ever done. A few months ago, I might have said that honour would have went…

Google Voice mail searchable online, amusing

October 19, 2009 Doug Groves google, Google Voice2 Comments

If you haven’t already heard about Google Voice, the service promises one number for all your needs, and includes a voice message service, which can transcribe audio message into text. An interesting, and probably unwanted side effect of this is that a small number of these can be found in a google search… site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/* Into a standard google search. Some of the messages contain the phone number of the sender, and since Google also transcribes the voice mails to a readable form, when the caller leaves a new reply number,…

Alternate Universes: Windows 7 Edition

October 8, 2009October 8, 2009 Doug Groves Mossberg, Windows 7, WSJ8 Comments

Many things in this crazy world are unpredictable, but there are SOME things we CAN count on, at least for the brief time we’re each allotted on this big blue marble in space. The sun will come up in the morning, it will set at night, and the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg will always be an Apple fanboy. That is, until now… In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. [from…

Flash 10.1 Update announced for (almost) everything

October 5, 2009 Doug Groves Adobe, Android, Flash, ION, OMAP4, Palm Pre, Snapdragon, Symbian, tegra, Windows Mobile3 Comments

As the above video demonstrates, it looks like hardware acceleration for Flash video and websites is finally about to become a reality. Adobe announced this week that the Flash 10.1 beta will support a number of mobile platforms, including Nvidia’s ION and Tegra chipsets as well as OMAP4 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. The ION GPU provides advanced graphics for low powered and low cost devices such as netbooks and small form factor PCs like the Acer Aspire Revo and ASRock ION 330. Both the Tegra and Snapdragon are high powered…

Microsoft Security Essentials: Worth The Price And Then Some

September 30, 2009October 2, 2009 Doug Groves anti virus, Microsoft, Security Essentials1 Comment

I’ll be the first to admit that I hate anti-virus software so much, I never use it, except in test cases. I’ll also admit that I would NEVER recommend anyone NOT run anti-virus on their PC. Part of the reason I don’t run it is anti-virus is that historically it’s interfered with specialized software I use at work in post-production. The other part is that I generally don’t tread on the dangerous side of the internet. To put aside fears of being infected, I do run regular system scans with…

Flickr Generates Virtual Cities

September 18, 2009 Doug Groves 3D, visualization1 Comment

Last year, Microsoft released its Photosynth application, which allows users to build 3D environments based on their photo libraries. Now, computer scientists at the University of Washington’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory have one upped Photosynth by using the same imaging algorithms to create full, virtual cities of Venice, Rome and the Croation city of Dubrovnik, by analyzing thousands of photos posted on Flickr. The same labs created the algorithms for the Photosynth software, but have now been drastically enhanced to take pools of photos ranging up to the 100’s of…

RIM Acquires Iris Browser

August 31, 2009August 31, 2009 Doug Groves Blackberry, RIM, Webkit1 Comment

Windows Mobile and Qtopia users who were enjoying the Iris Browser might as well not bookmark the Torch Mobile site anymore. The Toronto-based makers of Iris have been bought up by Research In Motion. According to the Torch Mobile blog… Torch Mobile is excited to announce that our company has been acquired by Research In Motion (RIM), one of the most renowned mobile technology companies in the world. Our team of developers will join RIM’s global organization and will now be focused on utilizing our WebKit-based mobile browser expertise to…