Hasta La Gadget!

Cobra’s taking a step back from its usual array of radar detectors to make a showing down in Orlando, and as such, today’s announcements are all about mobile. The company’s Cobra Tag system — which popped up initially back at CES — has just been given a price and release date. The Bluetooth tagging system will be keeping track of your car keys (and other miscellaneous items) starting in July, with a Bluetooth key fob linking up with a smartphone app in order to constantly monitor the position of anything it’s connected to. All’s that required from you is a BlackBerry or Android smartphone, $59.99 and a mindful personality. In related news, the outfit’s also making available the previously announced iRadar application for Android, which is used to link your smartphone and radar detector, as well as the PhoneLynx for Android, which enables users to use a landline handset while tapping into Android voice minutes. Hit the source links if you’re hungry for more.

Cobra Tag Bluetooth key tagging system to ship in July, iRadar and PhoneLynx coming to Android originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on March 01, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Ubuntu 10.04 Adds Native iPhone & iPod touch Support
Some forum users are reporting that Ubuntu 10.04, due for release in April, will support both the iPhone and iPod touch out-of-the-box. There is some concern that Apple may try to “break” this compatibility because of what happened with the Palm Pre, but that was a different situation. Palm was trying to make it possible for their customers to use iTunes to sync with the Pre, whereas Ubuntu is bypassing iTunes all together and trying to sync with Apple’s own products. So it would be hard for them to break the compatibility without issuing software updates for the iPhone and/or iPod touch.

Gmail Labs Graduations and Retirements
Google has decided to incorporate the functionality of six Gmail Labs experiments into the default Gmail interface, and they will also be retiring five others. Some of the ones getting promoted are search autocompletion, forgotten attachment detector, YouTube previews, and vacation away messages. The five being retired are really nothing to worry about, and judging by the people I talk to those five never seemed to gain any traction.

–News in Brief–

Nexus One Coming to Verizon March 23rd
Some sources are reporting that the Verizon-compatible Nexus One will be available as soon as March 23rd.

Palm webOS 1.4 Software Update
Palm’s new software update lets you capture, edit, and share videos from your phone.

Windows Mobile 6.5 = Windows Phone Starter
Microsoft will be rebranding the existing mobile operating system as Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition.

Refine Google Searches by Location
Google now offers options to filter your search results according to geographic locations.

End of Support Coming for Windows 2000, Vista RTM, and XP SP2
Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 2000 and XP SP2 on July 13th, and Vista RTM (prior to SP1) on April 13th.

iTunes Hits 10 Billion Downloads
Over the last 7 years iTunes has served up over 10 billion media downloads.

YouTube Killing IE6 Support on March 13th
In a bold move YouTube will be leaving IE6 behind beginning on March 13th. The site should remain functional for the most part, but some newer features may not work.

Wal-Mart Buys Vudu Streaming Video Service
It’s been confirmed that Wal-Mart has purchased Vudu for upwards of $100 million.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Mozilla Provides GPU Acceleration in Firefox Nightly Builds
Mozilla has quietly provided some “hidden” settings that can be enabled to disperse some processing between your CPU and graphics card. Right now the technology uses two DirectX 11 features called DirectWrite and Direct2D, but OpenGL versions (for Mac/Linux users) will hopefully be available later on. In the meantime if you’re running Vista or Windows 7 go ahead and enable the new feature.

Inbox2 Provides a Unified Social Network & Email Hub
With all the social networks these days it can get hard to manage all the messages you receive. Inbox2 strives to make things a bit easier by aggregating all of the data into one central location. It can pull in content from Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several other services. All of your emails, contacts, and messages can then be found in one simple location.

–Tips in Brief–

Lifehacker’s Top 10 Android Apps
A great list of useful and must-have Google Android applications.

Top 10 Torrent Sites Sorted by Traffic Stats
A look at some of the top torrent sites available according to the amount of traffic they receive.

Mastering Multiple Firefox Profiles
Learn some tricks to setting up and managing multiple Firefox profiles for different purposes.

Other Ways to Visualize iPhone Free Space
Clicking on the capacity bar in iTunes will display the remaining free space on your iPhone in different measurements.

Most Accurate & Highest Resolution Earth Photo Yet
NASA has released some very high quality Earth imagery that will surely look great on your desktop.

Rooting and Tethering a Nexus One
Boing Boing explains how to root and tether your Android-based Google Nexus One phone.

Autohide the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox
This Firefox extension will let you automatically hide the bookmarks toolbar when it’s not in use.

Disable Aero Snap in Windows 7
You can easily disable the Aero Snap functionality in Windows 7 if you find that it is more annoying than useful.

25 Dangerous Programming Errors
This guide (freely available in PDF form as well) explains 25 programming pitfalls that could lead to vulnerabilities, and provides steps you can take to prevent them from occuring.

HTML5 Plugin for Internet Explorer
Microsoft hasn’t announced whether full HTML5 support will be included in IE9, but at least while we wait you can get the HTML5 video functionality in your current version of Internet Explorer.  

Five Tips for Buzz Users
Google provides some tips to help Buzz users get the most out of the service.

–Downloads–

• CCleaner 2.29.1111 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Cobian Backup 10.0.0.349 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Dropbox 0.7.110 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.3.2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Flash Player 10.1.51.95 ^{Beta 3} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Foobar2000 1.0.1 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 5.0.335.1 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Notepad++ 5.6.7 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org Portable 3.2.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Opera 10.50.3273 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Paint.NET 3.5.4 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• PeaZip 3.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Picasa 3.6.105.41 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• RSSOwl 2.04 ^{RC 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Security Essentials 1.0.1961 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Skype 4.2.0.152 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• SMPlayer 0.6.9 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Thunderbird 3.0.2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• TightVNC 2.0 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS AvailableUbuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft ReleasedWrapUp: Installing KDE 4.1 on Ubuntu, iPhone Tethering, and MoreCyberNotes: Share a Firefox Profile Between Ubuntu and WindowsWrapUp: Hulu in HD, Better Gmail 2 Updated, and More

You’ve heard that it was en route, and you’ve seen the preview. Now, it’s time to enter the wild, wacky world of Android 3.0 for yourself. Honeycomb’s SDK is now available for all developers to download, with the API’s being deemed final and able to withstand new apps that will target the fresh platform. We’d bother spilling the beans on the added features, but we know you’ve already torn your left click button off in a frantic race to the source link. Simmer down, son — the URL ain’t going anywhere.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb SDK now available to all, API level literally cranked to 11 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Putting Pathpartner and Ittiam right beside one another may not have been the best idea if these two were hot-headed, but shockingly, they were treating each other with a great deal of respect within Texas Instruments’ MWC booth. All jesting aside, the former’s 720p HD videocalling solution is aimed at an entirely different market than that of the latter. Rather than arranging for a four-way video conference, Pathpartner has concocted an Android app that enables 720p video calling over Skype — you know, that VoIP application that you’re already obsessed with. Currently, the company’s working with Skype in hopes of getting it ‘Skype-certified,’ and like Ittiam, it’s also chatting with a number of handset makers in hopes of getting it embedded on the phone’s software stack from the get-go.

Alexy Mathew Joseph, the company’s senior technical lead, was on hand to showcase a demo running on a pair of OMAP 4-based development boxes, and the low-bitrate technology that he has helped create enabled smooth, high-def streaming of the call. We should mention that this particular demo was done over an Ethernet network, but he affirmed that it would operate on 3G and 4G networks as well. Also of note, the new software is capable on running on more than just TI equipment, though he wouldn’t elaborate other than saying that NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 was a platform he hasn’t tested on just yet. Just think — 720p Skype videocalls could be hitting your phone prior to the dawn of 2012, and the carrier’s have to be weeping at the mere mention. Vid’s past the break, per usual.

Continue reading Pathpartner demos 720p HD Skype videocalling using Android and OMAP 4 (video)

Pathpartner demos 720p HD Skype videocalling using Android and OMAP 4 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There may not be a native LTE network live in Barcelona yet, but that didn’t stop Big Red from hauling a 700MHz demonstration to Spain for the purposes of gloating at Mobile World Congress. We heard just days ago that the LG Revolution would be one of the first phones to support voice over LTE (VoLTE) on Verizon, and today we were given quite a bit of extra information about the rollout. For starters, Verizon’s hoping that other carriers adopt their VoLTE platform, even going so far as to encourage it. It’s sort of comical to hear the company that once crippled Bluetooth on dumbphones and still makes you buy a month of data just to activate a tablet talk about “openness” when it comes to communications, but we suppose the tables are turned somewhat when it’s VZW that stands to gain. At any rate, VoLTE essentially acts as a VoIP lane, giving a specific amount of bandwidth to the call (which ensures call quality, unlike Skype, which is at the mercy of shared applications that are using the same bandwidth) and also enabling the phone to use data whilst the call it ongoing.

The Revolution, which is slated to launch in March, will eventually gain VoLTE support, though VZW’s not expecting the feature to go live in America until next year. Bilal Wahid, Verizon Wireless’ Associate Director of Product Development, told us that at least initially, you may see VoLTE voice and videocalling available on Android smartphones, but there’s no reason that the same apps couldn’t be developed for other platforms. The call quality was on par with some of the high-bandwidth VoIP calls we’ve encountered, and the videocalling was particularly impressive. The resolution was tremendous, and there was essentially no lag whatsoever. Of course, this all happened over a locked, modular LTE network, so results will almost certainly vary out in the real world; regardless, it’s a beautiful start, and it certainly makes the wait to 2012 that much more difficult. Hop on past the break for a demonstration as well as a lengthy explanation of the technology, where it’s going, and when it’ll be implemented.

Continue reading Verizon VoLTE voice and video call demo at MWC 2011 (video)

Verizon VoLTE voice and video call demo at MWC 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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