Hasta La Gadget!

The third-party app experience has always seemed like an afterthought for RIM. Lousy selection and a half-baked install process are just some of the issues plaguing BlackBerry owners and developers, but there’s no blow stronger in the app world than when a dev drops support for a platform, after dedicating the resources necessary to bring a product to market in the first place. That’s exactly what Seesmic has done with its popular social media app — effective June 30th, the company will drop support for BlackBerry, “in order to focus development efforts on (its) most popular mobile platforms.” It goes so far as to suggest that users “try out Seesmic for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7,” which would of course mean replacing that BlackBerry with another, more app-friendly device. The move doesn’t necessarily indicate that other devs will follow suit, but if jumping ship does become a trend, it could put a significant damper on RIM’s future earnings, to say the least.

Seesmic Twitter app drops BlackBerry support, RIM’s frown sags even lower originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For those unaware, a USB video class describes a device that’s capable of streaming video — you know, things like webcams, camcorders, TV tuners and even still-image cameras. For the longest time, you needed to rely on your machine to do the grunt work associated with encoding video, but new extensions to the USB video class 1.1 have enabled those very devices to support H.264. In other words, H.264 encoding can now be offloaded to the device itself, and furthermore, the compression provides more bandwidth for additional USB devices. We’re told that the H.264 Payload specification is compatible with drivers based upon the USB-IF’s UVC 1.0 and 1.1 specifications and relies on proper support of the MJPG and/or Stream Based payload format, and if you’re an engineer looking to integrate, the goods you need are stocked away in the source link below.

Continue reading USB-IF releases extensions to USB video class 1.1, offloading compression is a go

USB-IF releases extensions to USB video class 1.1, offloading compression is a go originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T customers looking for a prepaid plan now have two new options for quick messaging phones and smartphones.

Originally posted at Dialed In

Dry ice isn’t just great for keeping steaks cold and filling your bathtub with fog, it may also play a major role in producing the miracle metal material graphene. Researchers at Northern Illinois University have discovered that burning magnesium in frozen carbon dioxide produces a thin layer of the hyped-to-the-lattices carbon nanostructure. The so-called dry-ice method has several advantages over previous techniques, not the least of which is the ability to pump out the relative of pencil lead on a much larger scale. It also happens to be faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly compared with the lengthy processes involving hazardous chemicals used in most graphene production. It’s pretty great news but, honestly, all we want to know is when the stuff is going to start powering super-fast internet connections — that complete Flying Circus collection isn’t going to download itself.

Dry ice makes graphene cheaper, greener, and by the (relative) boatload originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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650 feet! That’s as tall as 113 average-height American men stacked on top of each other. That’s the size of a 54-story building. In other words, that’s huge. But why? More »