Hasta La Gadget!

The good folks over at Skype have been mighty busy recently. In the last month (give or take a day) the company has announced integration with Facebook, launched a new version of its Windows client to support the social network, released an iPad-optimized version, and expanded Android support to an additional 17 handsets. Now the video-chat stalwart has update its Mac app with support for Lion and HD video calls — something Microsoft fans have been enjoying since 2010. You can check out the full announcement and download Skype 5.3 for Max OS X at the source link.

Skype for Mac updates to 5.3, adds Lion and HD video call support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

They’ve gone by many names — “programs,” “executables” and “applications” — and the development of technologies such as HTML5 calls their nature into question. But the explosion of apps that have set the mobile device market alight over the past several years have been around for almost as long as digital computing has. Disagree with that statement whilst chatting with those who took early programming classes, and you may be staring down a punch card to the face.

In terms of consumer technology, though, apps have migrated from PCs to video game consoles (where they’ve been long burnt into ROMs) to smartphones and tablets, and now — perhaps — back to televisions proper. One thing we’ve learned over the course of that history is that companies will rarely refuse an opportunity to turn a successful “purpose-built device” into an app platform given enough marketplace success.

Continue reading Switched On: When apps meet traps

Switched On: When apps meet traps originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How better to celebrate your billionth download than with a brand new app store? RIM just rolled out App World 3.0 beta to its Beta Zone users, bringing with it a redesigned home screen created to “let you quickly find what BlackBerry app, game or theme you’re looking for.” Seems a bit overdue if you ask us, but better late than never, as the idiom goes. There are also new home screen icons for Games and BlackBerry Themes — the store’s two most popular categories. (Yes, Themes really is one of the two most popular categories… behind Games, we hope.) You can also flick between app summaries, screenshots, and reviews from one screen, and share links to your favorite apps over Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, and BBM. You may find it difficult to get too excited about an app store update, but for those of us who use BlackBerrys despite the occasionally less-than-stellar app experience, anything RIM can do to streamline the procurement process is more than welcome.

RIM BlackBerry App World 3.0 beta adds home screen search, social media features originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 02:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In this week’s app roundup: songs, made EPIC; DSLRs, controlled by Androids; trail maps, downloaded to your iPhone; photos, edited by a touch; sharks, made interactive; Rdio, iPadified; Skype, also iPadified; notifications light, customized and much, much more. More »

The Chrome Web Store welcomed a new arrival today, and it goes by the name of appMobi XDK. While the addition is targeted squarely at developers, it’s entirely free and packs quite a doozy — cross-platform HTML5 software development from within the web browser. As you might expect, the tool is perfect for making applications to run within Google Chrome, but get this… it’s also capable of creating native apps for submission to Apple’s App Store and the Android Market. Like any competent development environment, it features a full set of debugging tools, along with the ability to test your apps via on-screen emulation and directly from your target device. Hardware integration is accomplished with JavaScript hardware abstraction, which enables access to the camera, GPS, accelerometer and the like. Further, the platform boasts full compatibility with PhoneGap, which means you can easily transition if you’ve got a project in the works. If you’re already hooked, be sure to check out the PR after the break, which describes such goodies as in-app purchasing and secure user authentication, which are made possible with appMobi’s cloud services.

Continue reading appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store

appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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