Archives for July 2011

Chrome Update on Mac OS X Gets Backwards Gestures

Apple launched Mac OS X Lion last week and when it was launched, the way gestures worked was changed quite a bit. Scrolling up and down a page was reversed meaning that you now drag two fingers down to scroll up as though you are grabbing the page on the screen.

One of the gestures that broke was for the Google Chrome browser. Chrome used a 3 finger side swipe to flick between pages but as you’ll notice on the image below, Apple has made a default 3 finger side swipe to switch between apps. This caused this function in Chrome to break.

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Microsoft Windows Phone Mango Gets RTM

Microsoft has announced on the Windows Phone Blog that the Windows Phone development team have now released to manufacturing the latest version of WP7 called Mango. What the RTM phase means is that the code is now handed out to smartphone manufacturers so they can begin testing on new hardware and prepare their smartphones for launch on to various networks around the world.

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Five Million Samsung Galaxy S2 Smartphones Sold

Samsung has seen great success with the Galaxy range of smartphones over the last year. When the Galaxy S2 was launched, we expected to see some good numbers and the sales reports haven’t disappointed.

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Ultra-Thin Apple MacBook Pro Could Arrive This Year

Some rumours have started today indicating that Apple will be launching a range of Ultra-Thin MacBook Pros in time for Christmas this year. The first report comes from MacRumors that suggest Apple will be launching a 15 inch model which will be very slim, perhaps approaching that of the MacBook Air although it will retain features of the MacBook Pro.

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Photo Booth Gets Updated with OS X Lion

Amongst the various (250+) updates that OS X Lion brings to the Mac, one of the apps that got updated was Photo Booth. This particular program makes use of your iSight camera and is capable of manipulating images in real time to make some interesting effects. Changes include the ability to use Photo Booth in full screen mode which adds a more graphically rich interface (such as curtains around the sides of the screen).

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Qualcomm to Integrate Gesture Technology in to Snapdragon Chips

Qualcomm has announced that it has aquired various intellectual properties from the GestureTek company. GestureTek has been implementing gesture based technology for 25 years and by Qualcomm acquiring certain interlectual properties, it will allow them to add this technology to the Snapdragon line of processors which are generally used in many smartphones, tablets and other entertainment devices.

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Amazon Tablet Likely to Use Two-Finger Touchscreen Technology

Amazon could be using two-finger touch technology when it launches its first tablet devices. The reasons for this are due to cost savings. Both the iPad and various Honeycomb tablets each use 10 finger touch technology allowing for more interaction with the tablets, but Amazon may have decided that two is enough to use most functions on the device.

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Dell UltraSharp U2412M with IPS Technology Launches

Dell has launched a new 24 inch widescreen monitor that uses IPS technology and has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. The screen is the UltraSharp U2412M and retails for a surprisingly low $399. The widescreen format is in a 16:10 ratio. The screen is backlit by LED and with it being IPS it also has a wide viewing angle.

Dell also tout the monitor to be flexible in that it can tilt, swivel and pivot in a number of angles.

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Kindle for iPad and iPhone Updated – Kindle Store Button Removed

Amazon has updated the Kindle app for the iPhone and iPad today. The new update brings a few new features but also takes one away. The feature removed is the Kindle store button that takes users directly from the app to the store to buy books. This has been met by a bit of frustration by regular Kindle app users:

by GLutenFreeMel
You can no longer go to buy books or get samples directly from the app. Apple made them remove the store feature, but I can’t see myself using my kindle app on my phone or IPad anymore.

Another said the app has now just become unappealing.

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iPhone 5 Release Date Rumoured to be September 5 (US)

Apple broke the yearly release cycle tradition by not announcing the iPhone 5 in June this year. Instead, they delayed it a little till sometime in September. We now understand that the iPhone 5 release date could be on September 5 of this year (2011). This information doesn’t come from Apple direct (who have confirmed a product launch in September), but actually comes from Swisscom who said the phone would be launching on October 5 which is 1 month after the US launch (giving us a rough estimate of September 5 although it will likely fall sometime in that week, perhaps a Friday).

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OS X Lion 10.7.2 To Bring iCloud to the Desktop

Apple launched OS X Lion last week to the world and we now see that they have begun seeding 10.7.2 to developers. The changes that 10.7.2 brings to OS X Lion is support for iCloud. Until now, only iOS developers have had access to iCloud on the iPad, iPod touch and the iPhone. With the release of this new Beta 5 of Lion, it gives developers the opportunity to test iCloud between mobile and desktop devices.

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iOS 5 Beta 3 Rolled Out to Developers – New Gestures Added

Apple has rolled out a new version of iOS 5 to developers. The latest version is beta 3 which brings iOS 5 a step closer to being launched as a final product. The new version brings a number of new features such as more in-depth gestures for accessibility purposes.

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