Even if it oozes the desperation of sex-starved C++ nerds, the theory behind Bang With Friends is genius. A service that helps people who know each other hook up—if and only if both parties are interested in getting jiggy. It’s funny! And as Mark Wilson at CoDesign points out, the service has lured in a half-million users in just a few weeks, so the developers are expanding with new features. More »
Parking a car can be a real hassle in big cities, and there are plenty of reasons why I drive a scooter: parking is free and it’s no problem. That being said, I can already imaging people toting around this foldable, electric scooter to go where they need to, completely eliminating the need for parking.
The Antro MOVEO can be folded up and wheeled about like a suitcase. When unpacked, it can weave its way through traffic, and get you wherever you need to go on short urban hauls. It weighs only 55 pounds, and has a seat mounted on the chassis. The scooter has an enclosed body and can go up to 28mph. It’s powered by in-wheel electric motors that have a range of 22 miles, while taking only an hour to charge.
Antro anticipates a production run of about 4,000 scooters per year, and the MOVEO is expected to sell between $3,100 to $4,600(USD). I can already see people packing these in the trunks of their cars so they can make short runs around town without losing their parking spaces.
When it comes to smartphones, you can more or less say that Nokia has already lost the race a long time ago across the globe, no thanks to full touchscreen devices from the iOS and Android camps. Well, the Finnish phone manufacturing company has come up with their Windows Phone 8 collection of handsets recently, but this does not mean that they have forgotten to cater to other developing countries whose population do not have the kind of purchasing power to change their smartphone every single year to a new flagship model. Featurephones, then, still have a place in this world, and the Nokia Asha 310 is the latest featurephone to arrive from Nokia, sporting dual SIM capability not to mention Wi-Fi connectivity for the first time in a device of its class.
As the Nokia Asha 310 allows you to enjoy the benefits of both Wi-Fi and dual SIM, it will, in the long run, help you cut down on costs as you get to save money by choosing a wireless network for accessing the Internet, as well as having the flexibility to use the right SIM card for the right purpose, all without having to even change your handset or to turn off your mobile device in order to swap SIM cards.
After all, Nokia makes life easy with the Nokia Asha 310 courtesy of its Easy Swap Dual SIM technology that was specially designed to make swapping between different SIM cards a snap. This is made possible as your main SIM card remains comfortably tucked away behind the battery, but the second SIM card slot is at the side of the phone, letting you switch the second SIM easily, all without having to turn off the phone. The included SIM manager lets you assign unique profiles for up to five SIM cards, and you can even define just which SIM card you want to use for calling, sending text messages or for using Internet data.
This GSM/EDGE 900/1800 featurephone will come with a 3-inch WQVGA, capacitive touch display, up to 20MB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP connectivity, and up to 17 hours of talk-time. Expect to see the Nokia Asha 310 hit Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa and Brazil sometime in Q1 2013 for $102 a pop.
Thanks: Nokia Conversations
[ Nokia Asha 310 does the dual SIM dance copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
The Indianapolis Colts obviously didn’t have the best of luck while playing the eventual Super Bowl XLVII champions in the playoffs this past season, but something tells us a little 360-degree imagery might help turn those frowns upside down — and that’s for both local and long-distance fanatics. Starting today, Colts devotees (or any other curious folk, really) can virtually experience what Lucas Oil Stadium is all about thanks to Google Maps, making this the first time ever the Mountain View search firm has taken its hefty visual resources inside an NFL arena. As part of the virtual stroll, observers can experience a tour of the Colts’ locker room premises, a tunnel that was once graced with Peyton Manning’s presence and plenty of other areas around the stadium — such as the Quarterback, Field Level and Loge-Level suites. It’s very likely that Google will soon start taking its Maps team into stadiums you’re, perhaps, more fond of — until then, however, you may just want to peruse the gallery past the break to get a better view of the Colts’ stomping grounds.
Source: Google Maps
Ever since Microsoft acquired Skype and confirmed the end of Windows Live Messenger, a merger has been a tiny dot off on the horizon. Now Microsoft has pinned down when the two will become one: this April. More »
Parody Twitter accounts are a pox on the internet. Comedian Jake Fogelnest, however, has done his part to prevent another one of these vile, unfunny things from becoming a thing. More »
After the recent fiasco with the new Boeing 787 Dreamliners and their melting lithium-ion batteries, it seems that Airbus won’t be taking any chances and will be dropping lithium-ion batteries when building their new A350 aircraft. The airplane manufacturer is afraid that regulatory uncertainties will delay production of its new plane.
However, Airbus says that the reason for not using these unpredictable lithium-ion batteries has nothing to do with safety concerns, but rather scheduling and the possible delay of the A350 aircrafts, which are expected to ship to airlines sometime during the summer next year. Airbus says that they don’t want the ongoing battery investigation to interfere with their production schedule.
Airbus will switch back to traditional nickel-cadmium batteries in the A350, mostly because the technology has been proven solid over the years, and they believe in the safety of the tried-and-true batteries. Of course, Boeing’s bold step toward lithium-ion technology was unprecedented and an ultimate game-changer, but it was a risk that ended up turning sour for the airplane manufacturer.
Airbus expects its new A350 to make its first test flight sometime this summer, and it will then undergo further test flights over the year. The manufacturer plans to seek certification from European aviation authorities by early 2014, with an expected launch date of summer 2014, where the new plane will finally be ferrying passengers around the world.
[via WSJ]
Airbus to skip lithium-ion batteries in new planes is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
We’ve seen our fair share of convertible notebooks and shape-shifting hybrids over the last several months, but one particular offering from ASUS stood out. In the latest issue of our tablet mag, we spend some quality time getting to know both faces of the TAICHI 21. Brad Molen goes in-depth with his first week back to BlackBerry while Sean Buckley discusses Nintendo’s digital content issues in Forum. Eyes-On gets modular with rucksacks, Recommended Reading recalls Monster’s loss of Beats by Dre and Turquoise Jeep’s Flynt Flossy dances through the Q&A. That’s just a few pages of another jam-packed edition, so pull up a cozy seat and download your copy via that weekly link of choice.
Distro Issue 78 PDF
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Filed under: Announcements, HD, Mobile
Source: iTunes, Google Play, Windows Store
Google+ is apparently experiencing an outage. If a social network falls on the internet and nobody’s on it, has it actually fallen at all? More »
The streak continues once again. Microsoft has announced that their Xbox 360 gaming console has been the highest-selling console for the 25th straight month, beating out the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii U for the month of January. The Redmond-based company sold 281,000 consoles last month, with gamers spending a combined total of $338 million on Xbox consoles, games, and accessories in January alone.
Overall, Microsoft maintains 44% of the marketshare when it comes to current-generation console sales. If you count all gaming consoles, games, and accessories, the NPD says that people spent a collective $834.7 million on all that alone during the month of January, with Call of Duty: Black Ops II being the best-selling game last month.
Rounding out the top five highest-selling games in January include Far Cry 3, Just Dance 4, NBA 2K13, and Madden NFL 13. What’s perhaps most interesting is that Far Cry 3 ranked second-highest in terms of sales, which marks the first time since January 2002 (with Final Fantasy X) that a December launch has ranked second in the following January.
As far as specific sales for the PlayStation 3 and the Wii U, Sony and Nintendo have yet to announce their sales figures. The Wii U released three months ago, and while a just-released console should technically be receiving all of the sales glory, it hasn’t beaten the Xbox 360 yet in sales. However, according to Gamasutra, Wii U sales for January are “well under” 100,000.
Xbox 360 best-selling gaming console for 25th straight month is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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