Hasta La Gadget!

The store’s still not very well stocked, but now you can pay Apple for DRM-ed books in most of Europe

Apple has pushed its iTunes music store into the last corners of Europe, launching the store in the twelve EU member countries still without it. Now iTunes users in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia will now be able to buy music from Apple, just eight and a half years after it first opened for business.

These aren’t the only rumblings in iTunes, either. The iBookstore is also moving into new territories, adding 25 new territories. These are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland, according to author Liz Castro, who compiled the list from a new drop-down for publishers that lets them choose where their books are sold.

Previously, paid-for books were only available in the U.S, UK, France, Germany, Australia, and Canada. Everywhere else got free Project Gutenberg titles.

I checked in at the Spanish store and there are indeed a bunch of books in there, although not many. Last night there was one title for sale — Davis Allen’s Getting Things Done. The fact that stock is now increasing makes me think that some Spanish Apple engineer may have read it (rimshot).

Lack of any kind of announcement from Apple means that your best bet is to just check in on the various stores over the next few days and see if anything has changed. And if anyone in a country not listed above sees the new stores, let us know in the comments.

Apple’s iBookstore opens in 25 new countries [Pigs, Gourds and Wikis]

iTunes Music Store Goes Live In 12 More EU Countries, iBookstore Coming To More Countries Soon [Mac Stories]

See Also:

• iBooks Store Loaded with Project Gutenberg Titles at Launch …
• Kobo Beats iBooks with International iPad Bookstore, App

Nokia always said there’d be “substantial reductions in employment” but it’s still brutal to see it happen. The manufacturer just revealed it intends to close its massive manufacturing plant in Cluj, Romania (pictured above) in order to shift high-volume feature phone production to Asian factories. The Cluj plant currently employs 2,200 people. Further “consolidation” of Nokia’s Location and Commerce business will result in the closure of sites at Malvern in the US and Bonn in Germany, impacting around 1,300 employees. Finally, the company also says it’ll review its production operations at Salo in Finland, Komarom in Hungary and Reynosa in Mexico, but we won’t know how many workers this will affect until a further announcement at the beginning of next year. Nokia’s press release says these cuts will take place by the end of 2012 and be in addition to the 4,000 job losses announced back in April — it’s copied in full after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading The Nokia contraction continues: 3,500 further job losses and more on the horizon

The Nokia contraction continues: 3,500 further job losses and more on the horizon originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on October 27, 2010 by CyberNet.

A few months ago we wrote about an awesome iPhone/iPad game called Solipskier that some of my friends put together. The developers realize how much some of you love stats, and have assembled two gorgeous infographics that breakdown the traffic and money they scooped up with the hit game.

The first infographic they posted was done in early October after they had a solid month’s worth of data from their players. Here you will see the result of them putting some “robots” inside the free Flash-based version of the game. In the first month they had 15 million plays, and only a mere 0.4% of the runs scored over 100 million points. They also go on to talk about the different ways people died in the game, areas that players need to work on the most, traffic sources (Stumbleupon tops the list), and more.

The second infographic they posted has all the juicy details. It covers the first two months that the game has been in the wild, and lays out how much money they’ve made thus far. The stats include money from both the Apple App Store as well as the Flash-based game. You’ll also be able to see a chart of how their App Store sales have progressed since the launch, and they point out what a big affect sites like Engadget had on their sales. Even more interesting, however, is their visual explanation of how the “bidding war” went on for the sponsorship of their Flash-based game.

An Android version of the game will be coming out shortly, and I can’t wait for them to tally up the stats on that one as well. In the mean time I was talking with the game creators and asked how they came up with the Solipskier name. The “skier” part was rather obvious, but I wasn’t sure about where “solip” came from. They apparently grabbed “solip” from a shortened version the word solipsism. According to Wikipedia solipsism “is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist.” So basically it’s like living in a dream world that your own mind is making up. According to Mikengreg this is how it applies to the skier:

The implication is that the skier and his world just exists within his own head, and therefore he can create the world however he sees fit. So the obvious use for his infinite power is to make a mountain and do sweet tricks.

Fair enough. If you haven’t played the game you can jump on over to their homepage to play it for free, or you can grab the universal app for the iPhone/iPad for $2.99 in the App Store:

Solipskier Homepage (where you can play the free Flash-based version)
Solipskier iTunes Link ($2.99 to purchase as a universal iPhone/iPad game)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Solipskier, Canabalt, Osmos, and Other iPhone Games on Sale for CharitySolipskier Brings Skiing to Your Browser, iPhone, and iPadSolipskier, Osmos, and Others Collectively Raise Over $35k for CharityiPhone Dev Team Posts Jailbreak StatsFlickr Stats for Pro Users

Embarrassingly, it has taken Flickr over a year to make an Instagram rival

Just a year after Instagram stole its lunch, ate it and then moved in with its girlfriend, Flickr has launched a rival mobile application — on Android.

Unlike the plain Jane Flickr app on iOS, which lets you upload vanilla images and view pictures already on Flickr, the Android app has ten filters which can be applied first, just like Instagram. Also like Instagram, you can see where geotagged photos were taken on a Google map, share images on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and so on and see comments.

In short, it’s the closest thing Android users will get to Instagram without Instagram itself, and it’s free.

Also announced by Flickr is Photo Sessions, and it’s pretty damn sweet. Photo Sessions lets you watch slideshows of your photos with friends around the world, in real time. Say you’re on your iPad, and your mom is on her crappy old Mac at home. You can start a session (pick the set of your latest vacation, for example) and then send her the URL. It’ll launch into the same slideshow, and whenever you swipe to the next picture, your mom’s computer does the same.

You can even zoom in and draw on the picture, and this is mimicked almost instantly on others’ machines. And if mom is signed in to her own Flickr account, you can use a chat box in the bottom corner. I’m going to try out this exact same scenario, only I plan to do it alongside a Skype session.

Both Photo Sessions and the new Android app are good examples of what Flickr should have been doing a long time ago. With its huge existing community, it could have out-Instagrammed Instagram. As it is, Instagram has grown to 10 million users in a year, with just six employees, leaving Flickr playing catchup.

Flickr App [Android Market]

In-sync browsing with Photo Session [Flickr]

See Also:

• IPad Flickr
• Instagram 2 Ruins Almost Everything
• Instagram Hacks: How to Get More Out of (and Into) the Electronic …
• Instagram for iPhone, Like a Lomo-Twitter for Your Photos

This little soldier carries the big responsibility of extending HTC’s dominance to the budget end of the Android spectrum, and it must achieve this mission with only a bare minimum of weaponry: a 3.2-inch HVGA (480 x 320) capacitive display, 600MHz processor, 3MP camera and 512MB of expandable memory. You’ll just have to believe us when we say we had a play with a pre-release device at an HTC event recently, even though the manufacturer’s reps refused to let us take any photos or video to prove it. You’ll find publicity shots in the gallery below plus a full press release, some educated guesswork about price and availability and our initial impressions of the handset right after the break.

Update: The UK’s Three network has confirmed it will stock the device, but it hasn’t divulged the price.

Continue reading HTC Explorer now official, we go hands-on (updated)

HTC Explorer now official, we go hands-on (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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