Hasta La Gadget!

Carriers often want to provide unique device software as a lure for their services — like it or not — and gaming is undeniably one of the more attractive hooks. It makes sense, then, that Verizon now says it will use PlayPhone’s SDK as the framework for a new hub, Games Portal, on its Android devices. The effort will give any optimized titles direct carrier billing and a social component, as well as theoretically better exposure than what they’d get on a very crowded Google Play. Verizon will preload the portal on new devices from this spring onwards, in addition to updating some existing hardware. The code should be comparatively simple to implement, but we’d add that there’s no guarantee of success: Verizon’s last experiment with reviving the carrier-controlled app gateway didn’t quite pan out.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon

Comments

Via: Phone Scoop

Source: PlayPhone

Google Chrome for Windows, OS X, and Linux received a fairly hefty update today. The browser got bumped up to version 26, and it comes with spell check improvements, desktop shortcuts for multiple profiles on Windows, and an asynchronous DNS resolver on Mac and Linux versions, as well as the usual bugfixes and performance improvements.

The improved spell checking is quite a bump up from traditional spell checking that we’ve known. Google Chrome’s spell checker checks for grammar this time around, as well as proper nouns, homonyms, and context-sensitive spell checking. All you have to do is enable the “Ask Google for suggestions” spell check feature in settings.

Of course, Google Search and Google Docs have had the new spell checking feature for quite some time, but now it’s coming universally in Google Chrome on any website, which is pretty cool. The update will be rolling out in the next couple of weeks, so don’t worry if you’re not seeing the update right away, as it’s still being released.

As for the desktop shortcuts feature for multiple users, Google Chrome users who share a computer can now create shortcuts on their desktop of Google Chrome for each specific user in the family. This eliminates the need to open up Chrome and manually switch accounts — a great feature if you have multiple people in your household using one computer.

Google Chrome for desktop updates with improved spell checking is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I can still remember the first time I had my fortune told using a Tarot card deck. I was only 12 years old and it was in an old restaurant in New York City. I remembered being frightened and at the same time, excited by the old woman who whispered to me the meanings of the cards as they were laid out on the table. I knew I wanted a deck of those cards, they seemed so mystical and important in her old gnarled fingers. I got the cards, but they never quite presented the same unearthly appeal they had that night.

These attractive and symbolic fortunetelling cards have been around since the 1400′s with the the first known documented cards having been created between 1430 and 1450 in northern Italy and they continue to have worldwide appeal. Originally used for games, Tarot continues to find use as a tool for personal insight, spiritual guidance and divination, and millions of printed Tarot decks are still being sold all over the world. WizardToo LLC is now bringing this centuries old tradition into the digital age with its new Tarot e-cards, making the world of Tarot more accessible and much easier-to-use for anyone with a mobile device. Now we can all have the World of Tarot at our fingertips.

This new Tarot eCards App is designed with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that simulates real tarot card use and makes Tarot accessible on most mobile devices. The newly introduced Tarot eCards is the only Tarot App where users can actually build and use a library of Tarot decks within a single App platform. The Tarot eCards iOS App is available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Applications are under development for our Android devices, and Mac and PC computers will be telling our futures sometime this Spring.

Somehow I’m not sure that spooky old lady would have had the same magical appeal had she told my fortune with her iPhone, but we cant know that for sure, can we? I mean, she was right about a lot of things. Get your Tarot eCards at the app store for under 4 bucks.

 
[ Tarot e-Cards are in Your Future copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

(Credit: DUS Architects)

With 3D printing growing ever more powerful, it’s really only a matter of time before a 3D-printed house arrives. So far, we’ve seen Dutch firm Universe Architecture announce its 3D-printed Landscape House, modeled after a Mobius strip. London firm Softkill pooh-poohed Universe’s design, since it will use poured concrete in 3D-printed molds, and presented its own spiderweb-Skeletor ProtoHouse.

Not to mention the European Space Agency’s plans to 3D-print a moon base, a sort of extraterrestrial abode for astronauts.

Now another Dutch firm has stepped up to the plate. DUS Architects has announced that it will make the world’s first 3D-printed canal house, with work to start in the next six months.

Read more of “Amsterdam architects join 3D-printed house race” at Crave Australia.

[Read more]

Related Links:
3D-printed car saves money, energy
3D-printed implant replaces 75 percent of patient’s skull
Unique Lumio lamp disguises itself as a book
MakerBot honcho kicks off SXSW 2013
The 404 1,216: Where we 3D print our way out of the friendzone (podcast)

For as ubiquitous as connectivity has become and how reliant we’ve grown on it, the Internet is still a digital jungle where hackers easily steal sensitive information from the ill-equipped and where the iron-fisted tactics of totalitarian regimes bent on controlling what their subjects can access are common. So instead of mucking around in public networks, just avoid them. Use a VPN instead. More »