Dec 24

uTorrent Now on your Mobile Device

Posted in: Freeware, iPhone, mobile, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on July 26, 2007 by CyberNet.

My favorite dedicated BitTorrent client has always been uTorrent, and with the new uTorrent mUI you’ll be able to control your Torrent downloads no matter where you are at. It is optimized for mobile devices, and works great on Opera Mini or on the iPhone. When you pull it up you’ll quickly be able to gain access to all of the important information regarding your current Torrents:

uTorrent mUI

While using uTorrent mUI you’ll be able to start, pause, stop and monitor your downloads. It also offers some additional info about every Torrent and a couple of settings you can change.

So how do you access it? You’ll need to have the WebUI plugin installed in uTorrent so that it is all setup for remote access. Then all you have to do is point your mobile browser to utorrentmui.com and you should see a login screen similar to the one pictured above.

It doesn’t require any installation on your mobile phone, but remember that this can only be used for tracking Torrents that you have already started to download. You can’t specify the link to a torrent and have it start, but I’m sure that will be a feature for a future version.

If you want to see what this is like, and whether it is going to work for you, head on over to this Opera Mini demo where you can login to your uTorrent and give it a shot.

uTorrent mUI Homepage

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 24

Skype finally bringing video calling to iPhone 4, maybe other mobile platforms?

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, ios, iPhone, skype, Today's Chili, video

So let us set this up for you: Skype has been telling everyone that it’ll be making a “series of video-related announcements” at CES next month… and it’s participating in a panel called “Video Calling Gets Ready for Primetime,” so yeah, needless to say, we’d have to guess that Skype’s finally getting ready to enter the mobile video calling game in a big way. Anyhow, the final piece in the puzzle filtered into our inbox this morning: a help document on Skype’s site detailing making video calls using Skype for iPhone. We don’t know whether there’s a corresponding document out there for Android, Symbian, or other operating systems, but we’re certainly hoping so — because if these guys come to the table at once with versions for all the major phone platforms, we’ve got a feeling they’ll be dominating the mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-PC video calling market in no time.

Oh, and here’s a little trivia fact for you: the Nokia N900 was actually the first device to get official video calling support from Skype, so this isn’t a first for these guys — but it’ll certainly be the first time they’ve taken it to a mass market. Seems like they’ll probably have the MeeGo build ready to go, at least.

[Thanks, Nelson]

Update: …and they’ve pulled the help document. You’ll just have to trust us, it was there. We swear!

Skype finally bringing video calling to iPhone 4, maybe other mobile platforms? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 24

Get instant Polaroid prints from a pinhole camera

Posted in: Today's Chili

Korean designers Yoo Geun-hyuk & Yoon Bo-jung have conceptualized the Flutter in Pinhole camera, which is made from cardboard and has two Polaroid sheets inside.

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Dec 24

FCC releases full net neutrality rules

Posted in: legal, Today's Chili, Wireless

Here’s a fine Christmas Eve present from Uncle Sam: the FCC has just released the full text of the net neutrality rules it passed earlier this week by a hotly-debated 3-2 vote. The rules are basically what we expected: the three basic rules require ISPs to be transparent about their network management practices, and further forbid them from blocking any lawful application or service or discriminating against different types of traffic. The biggest tweak comes in the language around paid prioritization, which would let some companies pay for selectively faster access to an ISP’s customers — the FCC is pretty clear that such arrangements will be heavily scrutinized and probably won’t pass muster. And then, of course, there’s wireless, which is subject only to the transparency and no-blocking rules; the FCC decided to take “measured steps” with mobile because it believes that is still too new and fluid. We’ll have a full breakdown later today, but hit the source and check out the full rules yourself — you’re going to be hearing a lot about them over the next few weeks.

[Thanks, Phil]

FCC releases full net neutrality rules originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Washington Post  |  sourceFCC Report and Order (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 24

Monster sues Fanny Wang, purveyor of fine knockoff headphones

Posted in: headphones, kirf, Law, lawsuit, legal, Today's Chili
Monster Cable’s reign of legal terror has resulted in several things over the years — a tiff with the Chicago Bears over the “Monsters of the Midway” nickname, a lawsuit against a minigolf company, and eventually even a hard ban on the pages of Engadget — but we can’t say we ever expected the target of a Monster lawsuit to try and use the case for cheap free publicity. Well, surprises come in all forms: the delightfully-named Fanny Wang is now proudly proclaiming that it’s being sued for copying Monster’s Beats headphones and trying to score some free good press — even though it appears that Fanny’s headphones are indeed a fairly close copy of Beats. (Just check the image above.)

To give you an idea of the ridiculousness at work, Fanny’s presently hosting a copy of the Beats design patent and Monster’s complaint on its own website, right next to a rebuttal of the charges. Fanny claims its headphones have different packaging and minor design differences such that “no reasonable consumer would likely confuse the two,” which we suppose is arguably true — but we’d also point out that Fanny’s original press release proudly proclaims that “the same sound engineer who designed the Beats by Dr. Dre acoustics tackled the Fanny Wang collection.” Copy, coincidence, or crafty PR strategy? You be the judge… for now.

Monster sues Fanny Wang, purveyor of fine knockoff headphones originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceFanny Wang  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 24

Questioning the Quality of some Firefox Extensions

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

I’m always flipping through the Mozilla forum looking for interesting things to read when I came across one that was called “addons.mozilla.org recent and open issues.” It sounded interesting because I didn’t realize that there were any open issues with Mozilla’s Add-on site.

I started reading through it and quickly became aware of why the thread was started (Note: AMO stands for the Mozilla’s Add-Ons site):

The purpose of this thread is to make people aware of some tactics used in extensions considered by some people not worthy of the AMO (addons.mozilla.org) “trust” seal. It has also the purpose of discussing the AMO quality standards and the views on these and other extensions that might be considered harmful for common non-tech-savvy users.

One of the big questions is on the quality of the toolbars that are available. When I had installed the 200 Firefox extensions at one time there were several toolbars that were installed, but most of them were the more popular/unique ones since I was traversing the list with the most downloaded extensions being first. There is, however, a website called Conduit that will allow anyone to make their own Firefox toolbar extension with their own branding:

Conduit Toolbar Creator

I haven’t looked much into Conduit, but I’m guessing that they are making money through searches that are performed with the toolbars being generated for websites. They say that websites will benefit from offering the toolbars by keeping their logo in front of the user’s face, which will hopefully keep the reader coming back to your site.

The only problem is that 93 of these toolbars currently exist (listed at the end of this article) on the Mozilla Add-ons page alone, and I’m sure there are also several sites that don’t have theirs listed there. The fear is that this may jeopardize the quality of the experience new users to Firefox receive if they install them because they also collect information from users:

Those extensions were collecting data and uniquely identifying users without notifying them. This caused some stir into the community as most of the people thought that AMO had a high quality standard and sought to protect users from such tactics, things that we realized weren’t true. AMO doesn’t even have a policy for extension submitting.

As Firefox continues to grow I think a policy needs to be enforced that focuses on the quality of the extensions. Mozilla wants to ensure that new users receive the best experience possible, and one of these days they may let an extension slip through that does more damage than good. Let us know what you think of Mozilla letting extensions like this into the “trusted” Add-ons site.

Finally, I’ll close by listing the extensions that the forum members have managed to find so far that were created using Conduit:

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 24

Friday Poll: Most divisive tech battle of 2010?

Posted in: Today's Chili

Motion control gaming systems, digital TV, e-readers, and smartphones represented some of the competitive battlegrounds in 2010. Which race got you most riled up?

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Dec 24

Apple applies for ‘logo antenna’ patent, hides your resonator behind the brand indicator

Posted in: Apple, imac, ipad, patent, patent application, PatentApplication, Today's Chili, wifi, Wireless
Apple applies for 'logo antenna' patent, hides your resonator behind the brand indicator

Embedding an antenna in the external body of a phone? Maybe not such a good idea. Hiding it behind the logo sounds a little more practical, and that’s the idea Apple wrote up in a patent application dated June 17th, 2009, back before we knew antennas and gates could be so wickedly conjoined. That was also before we knew about the iPad, which seems to have one of these so-called “logo antennas” within it, as found when iFixit did their dirty thing. The same can be said for iMacs, which also have antennas peering through an apple-shaped hole to avoid any reception issues caused by an aluminum chassis. It looks to be a good solution, but not exactly a novel one. In roaming around the USPTO archives we found a similar 2003 patent from Dell also called “Logo Antenna,” the big difference being that while Apple’s logo forms a window for the antenna the logo in Dell’s patent actually is the antenna.

Apple applies for ‘logo antenna’ patent, hides your resonator behind the brand indicator originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 24

Nanopore DNA sequencing technique promises entire genome in minutes or your money back

Posted in: Today's Chili
Scientists refine speedy nanopore DNA sequencing technique, entire genome in minutes or your money back

Those vaguely affordable DNA tests that promise to tell you just how likely you are to be stricken by some horrible and unavoidable genetic affliction in the future? They only look at a tiny fraction of the bits and bobs and bases that make up your genetic code. There’s a race on to develop a quick and inexpensive way to sequence a human’s entire genome, a process that costs about a million thousands of dollars now and takes ages but, via the technique under development at Imperial College London, could be done in a few minutes for a couple of bucks in 10 years. The process relies on nanopores, which are the go-to tech for companies trying to pull this off. Basically, a DNA strand is pushed through a 2nm hole on a silicon chip and, as it moves through, that chip is able to use an electrical charge to read the strand’s coding sequence. That is then spit out to a supercomputer to crunch the numbers at a speed of 10 million bases per second and, within minutes, you too can have some hard data to make you freak out about the future — and maybe a place to put your iPod, too.

Update: As many of you pointed out, there are multiple places to get your full genome scanned now for prices in the mere thousands of dollars. Pocket change, really.

Nanopore DNA sequencing technique promises entire genome in minutes or your money back originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceImperial College London  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 24

Crave giveaway: Intel 80GB solid-state drive

Posted in: Today's Chili

For this week’s giveaway, we’re giving away a high-performance 80GB solid-state drive from Intel that works in notebook or desktop computers.

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