Hasta La Gadget!

Having a big, 1280 x 800 10.1-inch screen is just no good if your favorite old Android apps haven’t been updated to use it. Ideally all devs would tweak their products to properly light up those pixels, but that’s not always possible. Google’s stepping in, adding another display option on “a near-future release of Honeycomb” that will simply zoom the app to fit the screen. This is separate from the current stretching option, which sometimes look bad or doesn’t work. When this mode is enabled the app will be rendered at approximately 320 x 480 and that image blown up to fit. Pretty looking results? Unlikely, but a little Vaseline on the lens can only boost the confidence of these aging apps.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Google introducing ‘zoom to fill screen’ option on a ‘near-future’ version of Honeycomb originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad is not childproof. It’s fragile and expensive and we can’t imagine why you’d want to hand it over willy nilly to your kids. That said, if you’ve got money to burn and don’t mind letting small hands tool around with high-end consumer products, then this should tickle your parental fancy. Announced as a collaboration between Griffin Technology and Crayola, the Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad matches a marker-shaped digital stylus — the inventively titled iMarker — with your child’s LCD-colored imagination. The chunky, kid-friendly stylus mocks the tip of a pen, crayon, marker or paintbrush as your doe-eyed youngin’ swipes along 30 plus animated pages — all while sitting too close to the screen. If free is the key to your heart, go ahead and grab this now on the App Store — it’s the marker clone that’ll set you back 30 bills. That said, it’s a small price to pay for your child’s happiness. Also, digital Burnt Sienna — need we say any more?

Update: Turns out our friends at TUAW have already had the chance to sample one of these in the wild. Check out their impressions.

Continue reading Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad swipes its way to your child’s heart

Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad swipes its way to your child’s heart originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re one of the proud and the brave who have sampled the latest wares of the crew behind JailbreakMe on your iPad, you’d be well advised to not update your TWCable TV app. We received the above screenshot from the latest version of said software, an update that apparently serves no purpose other than to prevents it running on jailbroken tablets. What do to? Well, you could restore your device to “factory defaults” — or you could watch a little Netflix or Hulu instead and use this as yet another reason to “cut the cable.”

Update: Time Warner has posted a full rundown of what’s new in Version 2.0 of TWCable TV. This is the version we’d heard about a few weeks ago, which does indeed add quite a bit of functionality. Channel listings have been expanded to 100, users can now tune their cable boxes from within the app, and Remove DVR Manager has been added to let you schedule things whilst away. All useful additions if you’re still rocking stock iOS. If not, you can see what it really looks like in the image below.

Update 2: Well, that didn’t take long! Here’s a bypass for you troublemakers.

[Thanks, Chris]

Continue reading Time Warner Cable iPad app hates jailbreaks, loves gratuitous quotes (updated)

Time Warner Cable iPad app hates jailbreaks, loves gratuitous quotes (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It ain’t the first time Mark Zuckerberg has taken the stage to announce… something, but today’s shindig is resulting in “something” that’s a bit more exciting for the average user. As rumored, the world’s most notable VoIP service is set to become exceedingly integrated with the world’s most notable social network. Skype has just thrown up a teaser page for v5.3 for Windows (and v5.5 Beta), noting that Skype and Facebook will aim to provide “the best of both worlds.”

Zuck is primarily announcing three main things today: group chat, a new way to chat (“an easier way to find someone who is online”) and Skype-enabled video chat. Oh, and the tiny, tiny fact that there’s now 750 million Facebook members. What’s notable is just how easy it is to fire up a group chat (or send transcripts to group members who miss out) and get a video call going using your existing Skype contact list. A single click is all it takes, and we’re told that it’ll be rolled out to everyone “over the next few weeks” in 70 different languages. The new chat design will be scalable based on your browser size, and the company made a point to mention that it’ll be listening closely to user input in order to iterate as it moves forward.

Tony Bates stepped up to the plate, and noted that over 300 million videocall minutes a month are going through Skype, and at peak times, over half of its traffic is video. He also noted that the technology behind it was “tough” to construct, but somehow it managed to hammer this whole thing out in around six months via joint development. There’s also talk about future “paid products” in due time, and it’s strikingly clear that this partnership isn’t going to fade anytime soon. If you’re looking to take a dive yourself, hit up the source links below for the Windows applications, and wear that F5 button out over at Facebook’s homepage if you’re more of the “in-browser” type.

Oh, and if you’re curious about mobile — video chat isn’t active on that front yet, and Mark’s not spilling any details on “when.” To quote him on a question of time tables: “We’ll see.”

Update: Those on the web can get started right now. Of note, this forces open the familiar chat bar, so it doesn’t much look like you can hide from “those people” while attempting to find folks on Skype. Sadly, we’re also seeing that doing so can add loads of Facebook contacts to your Skype program, and there’s no real way to see that it’s happening until it’s too late. Clever, Mark.

Update 2: We’ve spent a little time with both of the new options, and you can read up on our impressions here!

Skype comes to Facebook, and Facebook comes to Skype (update: available now!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whereas Android users were able to get their hands on a Google+ app as soon as the social network launched, iOS users have thus far been left out in the cold, with nary a soul to “hang out” with. Fortunately for them, though, their arduous, week-long wait may be coming to an end, now that Google+ has applied for App Store citizenship. The confirmation came yesterday from Erica Joy, a Mountain View employee who shared the news on her Google+ profile. According to Joy, the app has already been submitted for approval, leaving it up to Apple’s council of elders to give the yea or nay. Joy didn’t specify the exact date on which Google applied for iOS entry (saying only that it happened prior to yesterday’s post), nor did she speculate as to when the app may be ratified. But unless it’s laced with political rhetoric or packing a dictionary, Google+ should sail through the approval process… maybe.

Google+ iOS app already submitted for Apple’s approval, employee says originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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