Garnet Red Samsung Galaxy S III Hands-on

This week we’ve gotten our hands on the rarest of the Samsung Galaxy S III models in the wild, that being the AT&T Garnet Red. The differences between this device and the white or blue versions of the device carried by AT&T are few and far between, with the red front, back, and home button shining uniquely in the palm of your hand. What you’ve got here is a sort of pattern extremely similar to what we’ve seen with the blue version of the device, just Garnet Red in this case. This device has a 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich onboard, and AT&T 4G LTE connectivity in select locations across the USA.

This device also brings on the same fabulous 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor as each of the other USA-based Galaxy S III units and has a lovely 8 megapixel camera on the back with the ability to film 1080p video. You’ve got both 16 and 32GB built-in memory options and a microSD card slot with which you can expand your memory by another 64GB if you wish. Also under the battery cover is a massive 2100mAh battery that’ll have you powered up all day long, no worries.

You’ve got a choice between Metallic Blue, Ceramic White, and Garnet Red for this device when you pick it up on AT&T here in the USA, and inside you’ve got a collection of software and hardware perks that will make you want to purchase a device for each of your friends and family too. Have a peek at some Galaxy S III exclusive sharing options as well as our [full review of the AT&T Galaxy S III] too for more information on this cool smartphone – out in stores right this minute.

You’ll be able to pick up the Garnet Red version of the Samsung Galaxy S III on July 29th, that being this weekend for those of you keeping track, and it’ll cost the same prices that the other color combinations have cost thus far – check it out!

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Also have a peek at our hands-on with the Galaxy S III in many different iterations in the timeline below:


Garnet Red Samsung Galaxy S III Hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Google Fiber: how do I get it in my home?

This week Google has reintroduced their very own internet service they’re calling Google Fiber, and today they’ve shown exactly how you can get it for yourself. Though at the moment the service is only available in Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and a few surrounding areas, Google plans on spreading this ultra-fast internet connection to the whole United States if it ends up being successful here to start. If you want to get Google Fiber for yourself, you’ll first have to work with your community to summon up enough interest that Google can safely say ,”yes, it does seem like it’d be profitable enough for us to head to that area to offer Fiber.”

There’s an easy to understand video sitting below this paragraph that you should watch if you’ve got no idea what Fiber is in the first place. It’s basically an alternative to the internet service you’ve got running in your home right now, but with next-generation technology that allows you to go 1000 Mb per second. That’s essentially 100 times faster than your current internet goes – upload and download included.

Each city in the areas that are already set to have Google Fiber ready to be set up must also participate in this program to make it a reality for their neighborhood. All you’ve got to do is head to Google’s Pre-Registration page and drop $10 so you’ll be on the list. You’ll need to have as many of your neighbors do this same thing in order for your area to have a chance at getting Google Fiber.

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You can track your “Fiberhood” status at that same link once you’ve pre-registered. If you get enough people to register, you’ll be able to purchase Google Fiber with one of three plans for yourself in the very near future. Fun stuff!

Head to the timeline below to see the rest of our Google Fiber coverage and to see the different purchase plans you’ll have soon!


Google Fiber: how do I get it in my home? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Wearable technology developer exclaims massive adoption potential

This week we had a brief chat with Will Powell, a developer responsible for some rather fantastic advances in the world of what Google has suddenly made a very visible category of devices: wearable technology. With Google’s Project Glass nearer and nearer reality with each passing day, we asked Powell how his own projects were making advances at the same time, and how he saw advances in mobile gadgets as moving forward – and possibly away from smartphones and tablets entirely.

Those of you unfamiliar with Powell’s work, you can hit up the following three links and see the videos of the projects he’s done throughout this post. Some of the products Powell uses are the Vuzix STAR 1200 AR glasses, Raspberry Pi – the fabulous miniature computer, and of course, a good ol’ fashioned ASUS Eee Pad Transformer.

Raspberry Pi takes on Google’s Project Glass
DIY Project Glass makes Google’s AR vision real
Will Powell brings on AR vision real-time translation

SlashGear: Where you working with wearable technology before Google’s Project
Glass was revealed to the world?

Powell: Yes at Keytree we were working with wearable technology before the unveiling of project glass. I was working on CEO Vision a glasses based augmented reality that you could reach out and touch objects to interact or add interactive objects on top of an iPad. I have also had lots of personal projects.

SG: What is your ultimate goal in creating this set of projects with
Raspberry Pi, Vuzix 1200 Star, etc?

P: I would say that the ultimate goal is really to show what is possible. With CEO Vision at Keytree we showed that you could use a sheet of paper to interact with sales figures and masses of data using the SAP Hana database technology. Then creating my own version of project glass and now extending those ideas to cover translations as well, was just to show what is possible using off-the-shelf technology. The translation idea was to take down barriers between people.

SG: Do you believe wearable technology will replace our most common mobile tech – smartphones, laptops – in the near future?

P: Yes I do, but with an horizon of a couple of years. I think that with the desire for more content and easier simpler devices, using what we are looking at and hearing to tell our digital devices what we want to find and share is the way forward. Even now we have to get a tablet, phone or laptop out to look something up. Glasses would completely change this because they are potentially always on and are now adding full time to at least one of our fundamental senses. Also many of us already wear glasses, according to Vision Council of America, approximately 75% of U.S. adults use some sort of vision correction. About 64% of them wear eyeglasses so people are already wearing something that could be made smart. That is a huge number of potential adopters for mobile personal information delivery.

I think we still have a way to go with working out how everything will fit together and how exactly we would interact with glasses based technology. With the transition from a computer to tablets and smartphones we opened up gestured with glasses we have the potential to have body language and real life actions as interaction mechanisms. And it would be the first time that there is no keyboard. There is also the potential for specifically targeted ads that could end up with us having some parodies come true. However, I do think we will have an app store for a glasses based device in the next few years.

SG: What projects do you have coming up next?

P: I have many more ideas about what glasses based applications can be used for and am building some of them. I am creating another video around translation to show the multi lingual nature of the concept. Further to that, we are looking at what areas of everyday life could be helped with glasses based tech and the collaboration between glasses users. The translation application highlighted that glasses are even better with wide adoption because Elizabeth could not see the subtitles of what I was saying without using the TV or tablet.

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Stick around as Powell’s mind continues to expand on the possibilities in augmented reality, wearable technology, and more!


Wearable technology developer exclaims massive adoption potential is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


SlashGear 101: What’s new in OS X Mountain Lion?

Those of you considering upgrading your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion from an earlier version of the system like OS X Lion should be asking: what’s new? That’s why SlashGear has the simple guide you’re about to look over, complete with a collection of the most important set of changes and updates that play a big part in Mountain Lion’s “200 new features” touted by Apple. This system is the next big step towards perfect integration between your Mac, your iPhone, and your iPad – that’s the first thing to keep in mind.

Before you go too far, be sure to check out our [Mac OS X Mountain Lion full review] to make sure you know what you’re getting into. After you do, continue below if you still need a quick run-down of what you’ll be getting that’s above and beyond the previous version of OS X, Lion – without the Mountain.

iCloud

This feature was introduced several months ago to make connections between your desktop computer and your iDevices much simpler. Now with Mountain Lion you don’t just have to rely on your web browser to deliver your various bits of media between devices. Documents in the Cloud allows instant updating of documents between devices with this new update, these documents sitting kindly on your Mac, updating with ease.

Messages

You’ll no longer be using iChat, instead you’ll be working with the same message environment that the iPad and the iPhone use. Messages are now seamless between the iPad, the iPhone, and your Mac.

Reminders

You’ll now have the same convenient ability to leave yourself reminders that pop up whenever you want them to – these reminders also work between devices, so you can create one on one device and each of your devices will know to notify you when the time comes for your reminder to remind you.

Notes

Similar to the functionality of Reminders and Documents in iCloud, you’ve got Notes which also work in iCloud – it’s basically a very simplified version of the situation. You’ve got a stack of notes and they’re all synced no matter which device you’re on.

Notification Center

Just like your iPad and iPhone, you’ve now got a list of notifications from your apps and system. Calendar invitations will pop up independent of your email system, you’ll be able to get alerts from apps when they need or want an update, and you’ll have a quick overview of it all in the upper-right of your display whenever you want it.

Safari

Mac’s built-in standard web browser now includes a Smart Search Field with instant reaction to your typing of URLs or search terms. You’ve also got Tab View that shows off open tabs – and iCloud Tabs allow you to pick up wherever you left off in your web browser no matter which device you’re on.

Sharing

Safari is only one of several apps throughout OS X Mountain Lion that benefit from the system’s ability to instantly share a variety of elements. Built-in sharing allows you to use Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo to share.

Facebook

Just as it is in iOS 6 – coming to an iPad and iPhone near you soon – you’ll be able to easily work with Facebook throughout your Mac. Sign in once and you’ll have easy posting of links and photos forever more. Your Facebook friend will appear in your Contacts automatically and you’ll receive updates in your Notification Center as well.

Twitter

Like Facebook, you’ll be able to quickly access Twitter from locations throughout this updated operating system. Tweet from your apps, sign in once to be able to share with Twitter from many places throughout your Mac, and get instant integration between the people you follow on Twitter and your Contacts list.

Game Center

Just as it is on your iPhone and iPad, you’ve now got full integration with Apple’s Game Center for social networking in a purely gaming level. You’ll be able to track your achievements, connect with friends to play collaborative games, and interact with your friends using their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

AirPlay Mirroring

This is the first version of Apple’s OS X desktop operating system that allows instant mirroring of your Mac’s display to your HDTV with your Apple TV. This wireless system allows high-definition mirroring of both your computer’s visuals and audio at once, seamlessly.

Note that AirPlay Mirroring requires that your Mac be one of the following: iMac mid-2011 or newer, Mac mini mid-2011 or newer, MacBook Air mid-2011 or newer, or MacBook Pro early 2011 or newer. Your Apple TV needs to be 2nd generation or newer as well for AirPlay Mirroring to function with OS X Mountain Lion.

Dictation

With Mountain Lion you can now speak out loud and have what you’re saying instantly typed up by the system. “Talk anywhere you can type” is their new motto, and no training or setup of any new system is required to make it all so.

Power Nap

While your Mac is sleeping, you’re now able to receive emails, software updates, calendar invites, and more. Where before if you wanted your computer to continue to keep up to date and synced with all things web-based, you’d have had to keep it awake – now you don’t. Simple as that. Note that Power Nap only works MacBook Air models mid-2011 and newer as well as MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Gatekeeper

You’ll have a new selection of controls for the entirety of your Mac, Gatekeeper giving you control over which apps are allowed to be downloaded and which apps are allowed to be installed as well. This feature has been implemented primarily to continue Apple’s battle against malware, and should very much be keeping the torch lit through the foreseeable future.

Download

You can download OS X Mountain Lion for your Mac right this minute through your Mac’s App Store for the cool price of $19.99. If you’re in need of instructions on how to do so or need guidance on what’s necessary to make the install happen, head to our post entitled Prepping for Mountain Lion: three steps you must take.

Also head to the timeline below to catch up on all things Mountain Lion while you stay tuned to our OS X Mountain Lion portal as well!


SlashGear 101: What’s new in OS X Mountain Lion? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Apple OS X Mountain Lion Review

Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion is here, but can it maul Windows 8? The much-anticipated update promises more iOS-style streamlined simplicity for your MacBook or iMac, further strengthening the ties between mobile and desktop with a healthy serving of iCloud and a fair few features borrowed from the iPad and iPhone. We’ve been using the final version of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 to see whether it’s really the cat’s meow. Read on for the full SlashGear review.

iCloud, Notifications and Productivity

Apple’s iCloud may already be a fixture on the iPhone and iPad, but Mountain Lion is in fact the first new version of OS X since the cloud storage and sync system went live. With over 150m iCloud users, and considerable overlap between those depending on both iOS and OS X, it’s no surprise that Apple has used iCloud to streamline the Mountain Lion setup process.

If you’re fresh to Apple’s ecosystem then it’s the usual few steps of setting up an Apple ID account, but if you’re already registered through iCloud then a single login sets up not only your user account but apps and services across the system. Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages and FaceTime are all automatically set up with your accounts, friends’ details and appointments, while Notes and Reminders sync and Game Center logs in for cross-platform play. Documents & Data are also synchronized with what you may have been editing on your iPad or iPhone, and Safari bookmarks are pulled down too; obviously your Mac App Store and iTunes credentials are automatically plugged in, and your previous media downloads re-acquired.

The new Open Panel – accessed whenever you launch a document-based app – now allows you to flick between content stored locally and in Documents in the Cloud. Each app supporting the cloud-sync service gets its own iCloud Document Library, sorted by most recent update by default. Just as you can drag icons onto icons and instantly create folders in iOS, so you can stack documents to create folders in the Open Panel; the icon and open-animation is even the same as from the iPad. Apple will update its own productivity apps to support Documents in the Cloud to coincide with Mountain Lion’s release, as well as offer developers an API to add support to their own apps.

It’s all evidence of how slickly integrated OS X is with the overall Apple product range, and how Mountain Lion borrows elements from mobile to its benefit. The streamlined notifications system is a relatively new addition to iOS but it jumps the line to desktop in Mountain Lion in the shape of the new Notification Center. As with Growl pop-ups before, Apple Notifications appear in the top right corner – complete with action buttons if applicable, such as “close” or “show” – but Mountain Lion also corrals them together into the Notifications Center.

Pulling out from the right edge of the screen – triggered with a two-finger swipe from the right edge of the trackpad, or with the dedicated button in the status bar – Notifications Center shows all of the recent alerts organized by app and sorted by time or according to a manual order if you prefer.

Out of the box, Calendar, Mail, Messages, Reminders, FaceTime, Game Center, the Mac App Store, Facebook and Twitter all support Mountain Lion’s Notifications, while a third-party API allows developers to add support to their apps, notifications arriving even if the software itself isn’t running. It’s all intuitive and slick, and the temporary override to shut down all notifications for that day is very useful if you’re trying to focus on a specific task without distraction (they’ll automatically be muted if you’re presenting in Keynote, too).

Notifications aren’t the only elements borrowed from mobile. Reminders and Notes are each OS X counterparts to the iOS apps, as straightforward as their names suggest. The contents of both are automatically synchronized across devices using iCloud – so your up-to-date shopping list is to hand on your iPhone, even if you’ve been editing it on your Mac – and you can add extra highlights by setting alarms or location-based reminders, or by pinning a note to the desktop so that it stays open even if the Notes app itself is closed.

The idea of having your data anywhere and everywhere, without compromise, is carried over to Power Nap. Currently supported on the MacBook Air (mid-2011 or newer) and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Power Nap promises to automatically keep your Mac up to date even when it’s sleeping. Basically a sufficiently low-power mode that means the Mac notebooks can work silently and unobtrusively – no fans, no flashing lights – it means your computer is up to speed with the latest sync and messages when you open it up in the morning.

Mail pulls in new messages, Contacts and Calendar sync with any new updates or invitations, and Reminders and Notes pull in the latest versions from iCloud. Documents in the Cloud synchronizes changes to documents made on other devices, and Photo Stream grabs the latest shots from your iOS mobile devices. Arguably more useful in terms of reducing frustration while you’re actually using your Mac is support for Time Machine backups while it’s sleeping, Mac App Store updates automatically taking place, and Find My Mac working should you lose your laptop.

We’re used to turning on our phones and having the very latest data in front of us – and, conversely, turning on a computer and waiting for everything to synchronize, update and generally get ready for use while we distract ourselves with the first coffee of the day – so having that on the desktop really does feel, to use Apple’s phrase, “magical.”

Finally, there’s Dictation, reappearing after being first seen on the iPhone 4S and new iPad. Based on Nuance’s Dragon technology, only running on Apple’s servers rather than locally – meaning you’ll need a data connection in order to use it – the speech recognition supports any app that recognizes text entry, meaning you can dictate emails, documents and even Facebook messages.

Dictation is triggered by tapping the Fn button twice (or, alternatively, tapping and then tap-and-hold the button, releasing it when you’re finished) at which point a Siri-style microphone icon pops up indicating where the text will be entered. In theory you could dictate an entire document, complete with basic formatting: Dictation differentiates between regular text and instructions such as “all caps,” “new line,” “new paragraph,” “period,” “comma,” “exclamation point,” and “question mark.”

As with Nuance’s own DragonDictate, Apple’s Dictation learns from repeated use and promises increased accuracy over time, including handling more difficult accents. It also gets a head-start by looking through your contacts so as to aid in identifying names. Out of the box there’s English (US, UK and Australian), French, German and Japanese support, Dictation automatically selecting the correct option depending on your Mac’s system settings, with Apple promising Cantonese, Mandarin, Canadian English, Canadian French, Italian, Korean and Spanish in a subsequent update.

Our experience with Dictation proved mixed. For quickly jotting down brief messages and emails it could be very useful, though we had to ensure the pace of our speech was suitably measured in order for the system to keep up. Longer periods of text entry saw more typos creep in, and remembering to say “comma” and “period” to manually insert them was often a distraction from our train of thought. Admittedly, going back through blocks of text and cleaning up errors was a relatively simple matter, and the experience should get better over time.

What Dictation isn’t is Siri as we know if on the iPhone 4S. Ask what the weather is in San Francisco or when your next appointment is, and you’ll see your question transcribed not answered. Apple hasn’t said when – or indeed if – Siri will be brought to OS X, but we’d like to see even basic functionality such as opening apps by voice introduced.

Social Networking and Messaging

Sharing and social are baked into Mountain Lion from the ground up, with both Facebook and Twitter woven through the new OS X while a one-click sharing system makes pushing content between services straightforward. (Facebook integration won’t actually arrive until a software update in the fall, though it was present in our test build.) Apple uses so-called “Share sheets” to handle content sharing, pop-up boxes that gather together all the privacy, media and location elements you might want to control.

So, once you’ve logged into your Facebook and Twitter accounts – you can only have one of each – clicking the “Share” button in apps like Safari, Preview, Photo Booth and Quick Look brings up the option of sending out the current content via one of those services. For Facebook, you can choose which friends can see the update, whether a photo should be left on your wall or slotted into an existing album, and whether your current location should be appended.

For Twitter, you have the same location and media options, though no gallery option. Unfortunately, there’s no way to send to multiple services simultaneously with the same Share sheet; you can’t update both your Facebook and Twitter accounts with the same content.

It’s not just about sharing, though. Details of Facebook friends are automatically pulled into Contacts, dynamically updating existing records as your friends keep their contact numbers and other details up to date. Twitter photos are also integrated into Contacts, while Facebook adds friends’ birthdays to your Calendar. Meanwhile the ShareKit API allows third-party apps and services to offer the same social network posting.

Sharing doesn’t end at Facebook and Twitter; Mountain Lion also improves how content is shared with other services. Click the Share button and you might find the ability to email or send by Message the webpage you’re viewing, the photo or video you’re watching, or the document you’re working on. It also hooks into AirDrop, meaning you can share directly with nearby Macs (as long as they’re running Mountain Lion or Lion) in just a few clicks. There’s also support for uploading to Flickr and Vimeo, and while there’s no YouTube sharing by default, developers could add it by using the ShareKit API.

The other big social element of Mountain Lion is Messages, the OS X version of iMessage on iOS devices. Replacing iChat, Messages replicates the functionality of SMS and MMS between Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, with support for photo and video attachments up to 100MB in size, and synchronized across all of your devices. So, you can now pick up a conversation started on your iPhone on your MacBook, including one-button FaceTime call access and support for group conversations.

Messages will get even more useful come the release of iOS 6, when Apple unifies iPhone phone numbers and Apple IDs. Then, you’ll be able to receive and respond to iMessage messages – or FaceTime calls – directed at your iPhone number from your Mac (or iPad) instead. As a data service, the speed of messages can sometimes be delayed somewhat, but read receipts do at least give confirmation as to when they’ve actually been read.

Safari

More and more of us are living online, and so Apple has spent no small amount of time finessing the Safari experience. Updates to the browser include practical ones to boost speed under the hood, as well as interface and usability tweaks that cut down on key presses and clicks. So, the separate address and search boxes have been merged into a single Smart Search Field which suggests both likely webpages and searches (with a choice of search engines), and Safari has riffed on the thumbnail tabs of the old iPad browser with a new preview system. Pinch in (or choose the “show all tabs” button next to the tab row itself) and a side-scrolling list can be navigated using two-finger swipes.

As of iOS 6 on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, there’ll be support for iCloud Tabs as well, using the sync service to list what webpages you had open on each of your devices (even if they’re turned off at the time). It also works for bookmarks and content in Reading List, though not if you’re viewing a page with Private Browsing turned on. The Reading List also now supports offline access, caching pages for reading when you might not have a connection, and it cleverly recognizes articles spread across multiple pages and makes sure to grab each page rather than just the first one.

Privacy and security have been given a polish, with new support for the incipient “Do Not Track” privacy system. That works as a global Private Browsing setting of sorts, requesting compliant websites that they not track you (though not preventing your own browser from keeping a history record of where you’ve visited). And, if you’ve ever forgotten a password, the new feature in Password AutoFill which – after you type in your system password – shows a list of all the saved credentials Safari is holding, could save your from running through frustrating “Forgot my password” recovery tools.

Behind the scenes, there’s now hardware acceleration for the entire webpage, using your Mac’s GPU to speed up text and graphics rendering, and to provide smoother scrolling. The jerkiness that could previously surface while Safari rendered other pages or your Mac was otherwise busy has now all but disappeared.

Gaming and Entertainment

Mac ownership isn’t all social networking and productivity, and so Apple has brought Game Center across from the iPhone and iPad and integrated it into a cross-platform gaming system. All of the same gaming invitations, friend discovery, leaderboards and achievements are supported – albeit scaled up to suit the average Mac display – and you can play against other gamers no matter what device they’re using. We can expect to see more games in the Mac App Store tie into Game Center, too, as developers take advantage of Mountain Lion’s new gaming APIs to hook into the system.

Meanwhile there’s AirPlay Mirroring, linking your Mac with the $99 Apple TV. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display may have an HDMI output now, but any Mountain Lion Mac will be able to wirelessly send a high-definition picture – complete with sound – to their HDTV. It’s a painless process, too: when your Mac catches an Apple TV on the same wireless network, it automatically shows an AirPlay Mirroring menu item. AirPlay mirroring works on mid-2011 forward Macs (sandy bridge).

One click, and your computer screen show up on your TV. The resolution is automatically matched, up to 1080p, and we had no problems with judder or skipping with a MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion and a Full HD sample clip from iTunes. It’s also possible to route just the audio through your TV speakers (or whatever sound system you have hooked up) through the System Preferences. It’s great for communal consumption of slideshows in iPhoto or putting together a group playlist in apps like iTunes or Spotify.

Security and more

As OS X grows even more popular, so its profile among malware authors rises, and Apple has moved to protect its reputation for security with Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion. A digital signing system for developers distributing their software through channels other than the Mac App Store, Gateway can use the Developer ID to check that the app you’re about to install is indeed just as the coder responsible intended it, as well as blocking installation of any app from a blacklisted developer.

By default, Gatekeeper permits only Mac App Store apps and those with a valid, signed Developer ID to be installed. Unsigned apps flag up a warning message (which users can override on a one-time basis), or Gatekeeper can be instructed to allow apps from anywhere. It’s worth noting that Gatekeeper is only effective for apps downloaded from the internet; if you’re side-loading them from USB or CD/DVD then they won’t be checked. At the other extreme – and ideal for malware-prone parents – Gatekeeper can be set to only allow software that comes through the Mac App Store.

Meanwhile, Mountain Lion now automatically checks for important security updates daily – rolling OS X and Mac App Store app updates together into a single install process – and can now optionally encrypt Time Capsule backups. There’s also a new App Sandbox, where each piece of software runs in its own safe little silo: if it proves compromised by malware, it can’t access other apps, user data, or the underlying Mac infrastructure.

Then there are the new features for Chinese users. With sales of Apple products in China up 300-percent in the most recent quarter, it’s little surprise that the company has given some thought to how it could tailor Mountain Lion to suit users there.

So, Mountain Lion gets streamlined Simplified Chines and Traditional Chinese text input, with the promise of more accurate and appropriate auto-suggestions pulled from dynamically updated dictionaries that keep pace with common usage trends (and sync any user-added words or phrases across multiple devices via iCloud). Pinyin auto correction and the ability to mix English and Chinese in the same body of text, as well as handwriting support for nearly 30,000 Chinese characters, are also included. Meanwhile, there’s Sina Weibo, Youku and Tudou sharing options in the new Share menu, and streamlined setup for mail providers QQ Mail, 126 and 163.

How to get Mountain Lion

Like Lion before it, Apple will be distributing Mountain Lion via the Mac App Store rather than in boxed form. Priced at $19.99 – though that covers all of your personal Macs registered to the same iTunes account – you’ll need to be running Lion or the latest version of Snow Leopard.

Not all Macs will be able to upgrade, however, due to the technical requirements of Mountain Lion. You’ll need to have one from the following list in order to qualify:

  • iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

However, if you bought a new Mac anytime since June 11, you’ll qualify for a free update to Mountain Lion under Apple’s Up-to-Date program. You’ll have thirty days from Mountain Lion’s release to apply for a free update using the form here (http://www.apple.com/osx/uptodate/).

Wrap-Up

If there’s a one sentence summary of OS X Mountain Lion, it’s probably “You’re getting a whole lot for twenty bucks.” Apple weaves together elements from desktop, smartphone and tablet in a way that not only makes stepping over from iOS to OS X more straightforward, but which further refines the company’s ecosystem promise: it simply makes more sense to pair a MacBook with an iPhone and/or an iPad, because they play so nicely together.

“Running Mountain Lion OS X on a MacBook Pro Retina display is worth its weight in gold”

Where Lion’s evolution toward that same goal proved jarring in places, Mountain Lion’s polish rescues it. The three core advantages of iCloud, Notifications and Sharing are just as useful on the desktop as their counterparts are in iOS: they combine to iron out workflow annoyances in daily use. Like the best services, features like Power Nap blend seamlessly into the background: invisible in their operation but clearly bringing a benefit to the overall user experience.

Apple’s obvious competition is Windows 8, due to arrive in a few months time. Microsoft takes a different approach with its desktop platform, but from what we’ve seen so far it lacks the comprehensively integrated ecosystem that Apple delivers. iCloud is the glue that makes iPhone, iPad and, now with Mountain Lion, Mac, each act as an extension of the same holistic whole. If you love your Mac, OS X Mountain Lion is a no-brainer upgrade.


Apple OS X Mountain Lion Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core tops the benchmark charts [Hands-on]

Qualcomm‘s been hard at work with their new quad-core chipset for mobile devices, and we’ve got one in our hands. Their brand new Snapdragon APQ8064 S4 Pro SoC packs quite the punch and we’ve just started taking it through it’s paces. Announced and available starting earlier today, this developer device isn’t for average users, but is a clear indication of what we can expect from Qualcomm later this year.

Without getting too technical here the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 developer tablet kit contains a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and is running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. This 10.1-inch display running a 1366 x 768 resolution is going to be put through its paces but for now here’s a quick glance at a few of the popular Android benchmark apps. Quadrant blew through the roof posting numbers nearing 8000, and AnTuTu clearly was ahead of the other quad-core options available today.

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Being a developer based platform this tablet isn’t something any consumer will see, but we’ll still give a quick input on performance. Usual tasks such as browsing the web, scrolling through webpages, heading to the Google Play Store and more are all extremely buttery smooth. Android 4.0 ICS is on board, instead of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but performance is still quite swift.

With popular tests such as Quadrant and AnTuTu we clearly see some extremely impressive results. Boasting nearly 8k in Quadrant was plenty exciting, considering most devices are lucky to break 5000 — those of which are all running Qualdcomm’s dual-core S4 processor. Anything older isn’t quite as lucky, and that includes some other quad-core options on the market. Vellamo, Qualcomm’s own in-house benchmark suite that focuses on web browsing also takes charge and scores well with their new quad-core. Results aren’t as chart topping as the others, but certainly shows some real progress.

While this is just a MDP device geared at developers, it’s already clearly beating the Nexus 7, and Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad powered Galaxy S III easily. These devices don’t give us an idea of battery life so that is still up in the air, but Qualcomm promises “all-day battery life.” For now take a quick glance at the results below. We’ll continue to update with additional screenshots and more tests, but Qualcomm has another winner here to top the charts. We can expect to see the new S4 pro quad-core arriving in devices later this year.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core tops the benchmark charts [Hands-on] is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) MDP benchmarks blow away the competition (update: video)

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MDP benchmarks blow away the competition

As mentioned earlier, we’ve just gotten our hands on Qualcomm’s latest development platform to see how its first quad core chipset fares. And boy, that APQ8064 really doesn’t disappoint, but it should be no surprise — we’ve already seen how the top dual core S4 chipsets already beat their quad core competitors in certain aspects, so it’s only natural for the quad core S4 Pro to annihilate them. As you can see in our chart after the break, the APQ8064-based MDP easily beat the Tegra 3-based One X and Nexus 7, as well as the Exynos 4412-based Galaxy S III. And partly thanks to the Adreno 320 graphics core, the MDP even scored an astonishing 132fps in our GLBenchmark test, while the quad core Galaxy S III with Mali-400 graphics came second with 99fps, with the remaining devices lingering around 60fps only.

Obviously, the question remains how big of a trade-off there is on battery life in exchange for those two extra cores and the more powerful graphics chip. That said, we have a feeling that Snapdragon’s Krait architecture and asynchronously clocked cores will again prove that Tegra 3’s 4-PLUS-1 design isn’t the best solution for battery efficiency — as many of you might already know. We shall see when APQ8064-based products become available later this year. For now, take a gander at our numbers and photos.

Update: Hit the break for our hands-on video with the MDP. Also, we had a chance play with the 13-megapixel autofocus camera in the worst possible lighting conditions, and it acquitted itself rather well considering the circumstances. Check out the sample gallery below.

Myriam Joire contributed to this mind-blowing hands-on.

Continue reading Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) MDP benchmarks blow away the competition (update: video)

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Samsung Music Hub beta release hands-on

This week the folks at Samsung have allowed a select few to get a hands-on experience with their brand new Music Hub, an application which will at first only be available on the Samsung Galaxy S III. This application is at first glance a mix between each of the greater streaming music applications out there: Google Music and Spotify seeming particularly comparable. When you get in deep, though, you’ll find that it’s not only the nicer bits of each of the top brass music apps on the market, it’s got a pretty nice overall feel as well.

This application will open up to a grid of selectable sections for you on your smartphone – there’s no tablet version yet, but we’re hoping in the near future this app will be blasted to all Samsung devices. You’ll need to sign in with your Samsung account (the same you use for your Media Hub) and, if you want, your 7digital music account as well.

The grid consists of 12 different options:

• My Music
• Catalog
• Radio
• Recommended
• Search
• Tagged
• Recent
• Downloads
• Account
• Settings
• Help
• About

This menu brings you not only streaming access to songs you’ve uploaded from your desktop of laptop via Samsung’s servers, it will play music that’s currently housed on your phone as well. You can also get streaming tunes from Samsung’s catalog with 7digital, add these tracks to an offline playlist if you’ve got a premium account, or download albums for a fee. You can also access a massive amount of internet radio stations. If you’re unsure of what you want to work with, start by browsing the Catalog.

There you’ll see a selection of musical genres, one of which you must choose. Inside each genre you’ll see the music split up by Artist, Album, and Song. Some songs are playable all the way through while some, like Hugh Laurie’s tunes, are limited to 30 seconds unless you opt to purchase.

In My Music you’ll find all of the tunes you’ve got on your device, streaming from your Samsung account, and music you’ve purchased – as well as music you’ve added to your streaming collection via 7digital. In other words, you’ve got music from so many places you wont know what to do with it all. Here you’ll have tunes split up by Albums, Artists, Playlists, and of course you’ll have “All Songs” as well.

These albums are split up by name or, if you’re looking at an album list, by name and album cover – where applicable. You can access this music also from the Music Hub website that Samsung will be launching alongside the app. From the site you’ll also be able to upload music to Samsung’s servers. In this way you’ll find this application ecosystem to be very similar to Google Music.

Music uploaded to the site (and subsequently accessible by you from your Galaxy S III) automatically has formatting for albums and brings up album covers where Samsung is able to detect them. You can also add album covers and do some arranging here if Samsung wasn’t able to go the mile you wanted.

You can tag you music, you can see recent tunes in the app, you can track your downloads, do some basic equalizing, search for tunes (both in the catalog and in your own library at once) and you can adjust your settings galore. The best part of the whole show is the actual Currently Playing screen. Why? Because it looks great and you can switch back and forth from track to track with a swipe of your finger, just like Spotify but looking just a little bit more like iTunes – and all of it in the end looks pretty darn good together.

This app, subscriptions, premium accounts, the website, and everything else will be available to Samsung Galaxy S III users SOON. Until then, think about how long it’ll take you to transfer everything over from Google Music. It might be worth the time spent!

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Samsung Music Hub beta release hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


SlashGear Android App of the Week: Auralux with Tegra-exclusive expansion

The NVIDIA TegraZone has brought on many next-level shooters, racing games, and graphic-heavy beasts that show the power of Tegra processors plainly – with Auralux, it’s not quite so simple to see. What you’ve got here developed by Wardrum Studios is not a shooting game with rippling puddles of blood, nor is it a water shooting game where you put out realistic looking fires – instead its the most minimalistic vision of what Warcraft addicts fell in love with back in the 1990s with strategy and troop controls, but this time it’s in space. And it’s fought with bubbles.

This game is an instant buy for anyone who loves the game Osmos in that it requires you to look at your physics-heavy blob-controlling situation from a bird’s eye view – though you’re in space, so it’s more of a gods-eye-view. Everything is flat, but you’ve got hovering bodies living around planets which produce these bodies. These bodies – or bubbles – are your troops. The object of the game is to reduce your enemies to nothingness.

To defeat your enemies, you’ve got to control your troops by selecting them with your finger – this done by creating a circle around them – then commanding them to attack. But you don’t tell them to attack as you would a normal war-like game, you tell them to advance. You can tell your troops to move to a certain area on the screen, or you can tell them to make their way into one of the planets.

The planets are either controlled by you or one of your enemies, or they can be neutral. Depending on the setup of each level, you and your enemies will have different positions amongst different amounts of planets which can be taken over by your troops. To take over a planet, you’ve got to sacrifice an amount of troops to it.

Once you’ve activated a planet with enough troops, the planet will begin producing troops. The smallest planet size produces troops the slowest, the largest produces the quickest. Each dormant/gray planet has a limit to how large it can get, with the most challenging environments having only a collection of the smallest planets. The larger you make a planet, the harder it is for an enemy to take it, as well.

This game is played at a relatively slow pace, but you can purchase a Speed Mode from the Google Play store that allows you to rock and roll at what I just hate to call “blazing” speeds. There are also levels galore you can buy with an NVIDIA Tegra exclusive pack hiding near the end of the list – it’s the best!

This game is a home run for mobile devices, and on a Tegra-toting device it’s a powerful punch for tablet and smartphone gamers alike. Auralux sits somewhere between a rather involved game and a casual game, making it really great for lots of different types of people looking to make great use of their touchscreen interfaces on all manner of devices. This game has rather quickly become a first-install for all of the devices I’ll be reviewing in the near future – count on it.

You can download Auralux from the Google Play Store or catch it on the NVIDIA TegraZone starting this week as well. What are you waiting for?!

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SlashGear Android App of the Week: Auralux with Tegra-exclusive expansion is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Panasonic LUMIX G5, FZ200 and LX7 Hands-on

Not everybody wants a full DSLR and not everybody is content with the camera on their smartphone. That’s a difficult segment to fill, but Panasonic believes it has the line-up necessary with its latest range of cameras. The LUMIX G5, FZ200 and LX7 each target different users with different needs, but they also all share a commonality of feel and function that we’ve come to expect from Panasonic. Read on for our hands-on first impressions.

Promising most flexibility is the Panasonic LUMIX G5, the company’s latest Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens camera. The G5 debuts a new 16.05-megapixel Live MOS sensor hooked up to Panasonic’s reworked Venus Engine, in a chunkier chassis than the smaller GF-Series we’re big fans of here at SlashGear. That mini-DSLR styling makes for a camera that’s easy to hold in both regular and portrait orientations, and there’s a new function lever that falls neatly under your shutter finger and allows easy zoom, exposure or aperture control during shooting.

Panasonic LUMIX G5

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It also comes into play when you’re navigating through the menus or reviewing shots, though there’s also a turn-and-push dial on the back panel next to the tilting, swiveling 920k dot LCD display. The bigger-than-GF-Series body also leaves room for a live viewfinder, though, which increases the resolution to 1.44m dots and almost 100-percent field of view. It’s a great addition to a Micro Four Thirds model, and helps the G5 feel like a “grown-up” DSLR when framing shots, but Panasonic also uses it for its clever Eye Sensor Auto Focus system.

Panasonic LUMIX G5 sample shots

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We had no real problems getting the G5 to lock focus swiftly, but in Eye Sensor AF mode the camera automatically starts focusing on likely subjects when it senses your eye is at the viewfinder. It’s a quiet shooter, too, thanks to a new Electronic Shutter mode borrowed from some regular DSLRs, though unlike the majority of those cameras there’s a range of integrated effects and even help tutorials for the more advanced features.

You lose a little of the pocketable convenience to fit all that in – along with a stereo microphone and Full HD video recording, no less – and the G5 probably isn’t the camera to take along on a night out, but it’s already shaping up to be an excellent compromise between the size (and sizable price) of a full DSLR and the sort of performance you’d only hope to coax out of a compact camera.

Still, while the G5 is the obvious photographer’s choice, that’s not to say we weren’t swayed some by the Panasonic LUMIX FZ200. At first glance, the two look surprisingly similar, but where the G5 allows for some lens swapping, the FX200 settles on a single lens with a huge 24x optical zoom. It’s paired up with a 12.1-megapixel High-Sensitivity MOS sensor and can deliver a consistent f2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range.

Panasonic LUMIX FZ200

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Now, the FZ200′s Live View Finder is – at 1.312m dots – slightly lower resolution than that of the G5 (though still near 100-percent coverage) it does still have a folding, twisting display, and the creative potential of the optical zoom is not to be underestimated. The unit we were testing was pre-production, so we won’t take too much from the (already excellent) sample shots, but it’s clear to see that Panasonic’s engineers have been working particularly hard on cutting down camera shake when you’re at the higher limits of the zoom.

Panasonic LUMIX FZ200 sample shots

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These photos were taken using a pre-production camera model and does not reflect final picture quality

There’s both optical and digital image stabilization, and they do an impressive job of keeping things level even when you’re super-close to your subject. In the two shots of the Audi TT, for instance, each of which were taken at full 24x zoom, the crispness of the images belie the fact that we were some distance away. It’s easy to fit a huge zoom to a camera and call it a day; it’s far harder to deliver a finessed balance of zoom and picture stability, and we’re already hugely excited to get our hands on a final production FZ200 to see just what sort of shots we can coax out.

Finally, there’s the Panasonic LUMIX LX7, looking for all the world like the original LUMIX GF1 but with a fixed 3.8x optical zoom lens. The most pocketable of the three – both in terms of bulk and price – it’s also our favorite design; we were big fans of the GF1 (and were a little disappointed that Panasonic gradually diluted the industrial aesthetic down for subsequent models) and a lot of that appeal has been carried over.

Panasonic LUMIX LX7

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There are a sizable number of physical controls and dedicated buttons, given this is a compact camera. You get a proper mode wheel (when even the current GF3 uses a virtual selection carousel) and an AF/AE Lock key on the back as well as shortcuts for ISO and white balance. The camera as a whole nestles neatly into the hand; it’s easy to keep stable and, while there’s no Live View Finder, the 3-inch 920k dot LCD is bright enough for outdoor use. You don’t get a tilt/swivel hinge, but we’re content to trade that given how easy it is to slip the LX7 into a pocket; more missed is the touchscreen introduced on the GF2, which makes for very easy touch-to-focus control.

Sample video (make sure to select and watch 1080p HD)

In practice, it’s a great camera to pull out and grab an impromptu frame, though it does have its foibles. As with most compacts it loves light, and low-light shots – especially when there’s a section of brighter light, such as through an open door or window – can end up murky and grainy. Scenes with less disparity in lighting, though, are captured with good color accuracy, though whites could sometimes come out with a slight blueish tinge.

Panasonic LUMIX LX7 sample shots

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Outdoors, the LX7 is in its element, and we particularly appreciated its macro abilities, with some beautifully delicate focusing possible on close-up subjects like flowers. The optical zoom obviously falls well short of the capabilities of the FZ200, but it’s a solid compromise between bulk and ability, and it shifts swiftly in response to the toggle that surrounds the shutter release. Interestingly, Panasonic’s iAuto mode doesn’t earn itself a dedicated button on the top panel; we’re pleased to see the LX7 prioritizes a dedicated video recording trigger. Footage is recorded at up to 1080p Full HD, and we were impressed by the quality the LX7 could pump out.

So, three very different cameras, for three relatively distinct segments of the marketplace. The LUMIX G5 is undoubtedly the most flexible option, but it’s tough to argue with the optical zoom capabilities of the LZ200 – outfitting the G5 with a Micro Four Thirds zoom of similar capabilities would make for an expensive package overall. Then there’s the LX7, which we could easily see those with regular DSLRs opting to drop into a pocket for more casual photography.


Panasonic LUMIX G5, FZ200 and LX7 Hands-on is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.