Hasta La Gadget!

Last summer the AOL HD app launched on the Boxee, Roku, Yahoo Connected TV and DivX platforms, and now it’s moving to 2.0 as well as changing names, to AOL On. Rolling out now to the Samsung Smart TV, Roku, and Sony platforms, with TiVo Premiere DVR access due “in the coming weeks” after a beta test ends, it’s a free ad-supported app that pulls from a library of 380,000 or so videos, including some from Engadget (you may have noticed the logo in the corner). v2.0 brings a refreshed UI and videos from not only AOL sites like this one, Moviefone and TechCrunch, but also other sources like Reuters, AP, CNET and BBC. We gave the new channel a shot on Roku and were able to browse around easily enough although the most recent episode of The Engadget Show hadn’t popped up yet — we’ll get someone on that. There’s another screenshot and press release after the break, or you can just check the channel store of your nearest set-top box or connected HDTV to see if it’s popped up there yet.

Continue reading AOL HD connected TV app is now AOL On for Samsung, Roku and Sony; TiVo coming soon

Filed under: Home Entertainment

AOL HD connected TV app is now AOL On for Samsung, Roku and Sony; TiVo coming soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Think it’s nifty when your carrier deigns to provide your smartphone with that long awaited OTA update? That’s nothing. Over the weekend, NASA’s Curiosity rover will be receiving its first long-distance OTA update — all the way out there on Mars. The goal is to transition both redundant main computers from software suited for landing the vehicle to software optimized for surface exploration — such as driving, obstacle avoidance and using the robotic arm. NASA calls it a “brain transplant” and points out that the software was actually uploaded during the flight from Earth. Now can someone please enable OTA downloads for the human brain? We’d really like to know kung fu. PR after the break.

Continue reading NASA’s Curiosity rover receives long-distance OTA update, ‘brain transplant’ on Mars

Filed under: Transportation, Science

NASA’s Curiosity rover receives long-distance OTA update, ‘brain transplant’ on Mars originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The HTC One X shipped with Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, but the company has finally gotten around to updating Android to version 4.0.4. An OTA update will be rolling out to the international version of the HTC One X starting today, which includes several new features and overall tweaks to the operating system. In addition, HTC will be tweaking Sense, most notably the remapping of the multitasking key.

HTC has listened to user feedback and changed the behaviour of one of the three capacitive keys found at the bottom of the handset. The recent apps button will now open context menus within apps instead of pulling up the multitasking grid in Sense. Now users will have to perform a long press of the recent apps key in order to pull up the multitasking menu.

In addition, HTC says that tab management in the browser has been improved thanks to the addition of a dedicated tab switching button. Camera white balance and autofocus has also been tweaked, and HTC says that the operating system should be a bit more stable overall thanks to some memory and platform tweaks.

Finally, HTC has added a Single Sign-On feature for Facebook that will allow access to Facebook information across multuple apps and browsers, and the company has also improved the Beats Audio functions. Developers see a nice little addition too, with expanded SDK support for the Media Link HD, plus a new framework that should help improve quality in video calling apps.

HTC One X 4.0.4 update rolling out today is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While the WatchESPN app for iOS got an update that opened up mobile streams for Comcast cable customers back in May, it’s taken until now for Android devices to enjoy the same access. Along with unspecified bug fixes, version 1.6.0 worked on the Nexus 7 and Galaxy S II we tried it on, although we did need to log out and log in again with our account credentials to get the streams working the first time. The video streams we were able to pull in didn’t seem to be quite as high res as those accessed on the iPad however, although all those with the right combination of services and hardware can grab the free app at the source link below and try it out themselves.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software

WatchESPN Android app update finally brings access for Comcast subscribers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 03:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today with the Google Translate app for your Android smartphone or tablet you’ll be able to use your camera to translate text from the real world. All you’ve got to do is open it up, point it at a sign, bit of text, or writing on a chalkboard, and highlight the text as Google sees it. With this app, you’ll be able to get this text not only in text format (if you want to share it from there) but translated to whatever language you want as well.

Google’s translation services are ever-expanding, and with this mobile-based update to their system of Google Translate iterations, you’ve got the whole world at your fingertips. You can translate text between 64 languages, translate with voice input or typing (with 17 language support for speaking), and you can now take a photo and “brush text” as they’re calling it for translations as well.

The following languages are supported for basic translations:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish

Yes, Yiddish, our favorite! This newest upgrade works with devices running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and above only. You can grab the app date from the Google Play app store right this second – and it’s all free! Be sure to try it out in full screen mode and to check out the dictionary results for each and every word you translate as well!

Google Translate adds photo support to Android is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.