True to its promise, French developer Gameloft today unleashed a massive content update to the fourth installment of its popular wartime shooter franchise, Modern Combat. The ‘Meltdown’ content pack, as they’re calling it, is of course free to players who’ve previously purchased the game.

The download brings with it three new maps, two new weapons – the portable 40mm Thor GLP grenade launcher and the SFS CTK-12 sniper rifle - two new game modes, a brand new Demolition specialization and a whole host of goodies aimed at balancing the gameplay…

Check out a quick trailer below.

The update packs quite a punch, per release notes:

3 new maps
- Fracture: Barcelona Train Station
- Extraction: Antarctica Research Facility
- Backfire: Barcelona Streets

New Demolition specialization with 7 new perks
- Ammo Pack: Carry 50% more ammunition
- Dedication: Dying from explosions doesn’t reset your streak
- Readied Shot: Crouch to boost accuracy
- One Last Thing: Drop a grenade whenever you die
- Gun Expert: Increase reload speed
- Sentry: Place sinister traps
- Paragon Destroyer: Trigger deadly explosions when shooting machinery

2 new weapons
- SFS CTK-12 – Charbtek Special Forces Sniper Rifle
- 40mm Thor GLP – Grenade Launcher Pistol

2 new team multiplayer modes
- Bomb Squad: Attackers must plant a bomb and make sure it goes off before the defenders can defuse it
- Destruction: Attackers must sabotage a series of devices while the defenders must stop them cold

Other improvements
- Edit your signature to display your clan prefix
- Random quick match: Play a ranked game in the first mode available
- Turkish language support
- Many balancing changes

Download the massive 1.58GB Meltdown update free from the App Store.

This content pack is coming “very soon” to Android.

If you don’t care about Modern Combat 4, keep your eyes peeled for Modern Combat 5, due later this year.

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Apple on Tuesday announced that users can now stream ESPN and HBO to their television through the $99 Apple TV set-top box. Available as a free software update for the second and third-generation Apple TV, the just-released Apple TV software version 5.3 enables the popular iOS apps, WatchESPN and HBO GO, on your Apple TV, as well as an additional three content providers, UK’s Sky News, anime site Crunchyroll and music concert streaming service Qello…

According to Apple’s media release, iTunes viewers are  ow purchasing over 800,000 TV episodes and 350,000 movies each day. As for Apple’s online-only content store, it is home to 60,000 movies and over 230,000 TV episodes.

Apple quotes its SVP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy cue, as saying:

HBO GO and WatchESPN are some of the most popular iOS apps and are sure to be huge hits on Apple TV. We continue to offer Apple TV users great new programming options, combined with access to all of the incredible content they can purchase from the iTunes Store.

The software update, per Apple’s support document, also includes “improves reliability of signing in to the iTunes Store and playing purchased content”.

Availability of the five new content providers varies by country and may require account subscriptions. For example, HBO GO requires a subscription to HBO through participating television providers.

HBO GO users get unlimited access to their favorite HBO shows, including HBO original programming, hit movies, sports, documentaries, comedy specials and more. This includes full seasons of the best of HBO, plus bonus features and special behind-the-scenes extras.

This is a major development which greatly enhances Apple TV’s usability.

The Apple TV also supports free and paid streaming content from the Wall Street Journal, YouTube, Vimeo,  Hulu Plus, Netflix, as well as live sports from MLB, NBA and NHL.

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Apple again is flexing its muscle in classrooms. Every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District will receive an iPad, a contract worth $30 million. Apple has received the nod from the nation’s second-largest school district as students and teachers overruled Microsoft, which argued its tablets better prepared school kids for the workplace.

In a unanimous vote, the LA school district board approved the contract to pay $678 per Apple tablet, one member telling The Los Angeles Times newspaper that the deal is “as big as they come.” The contract is just the latest sign schools with tight budgets are opting for less-expensive tablets over traditional PCs for the classroom…

The iPads will arrive with educational software preloaded.

The contract is a defeat for Microsoft, which suggested the school district should not limit students’ choices to Apple, particularly since Windows is used by most businesses. However, LA school district staff declared “Apple’s iPad the superior product,” according to The Los Angeles Times.

In 2012, one analyst said Apple’s iPad was “cannibalizing” PC sales for the classroom.

While PC sales fell 13.9 percent between the June 2012 quarter and the same period in 2011, demand for Apple’s tablet rose by nearly 1 million units, according to Charlie Wolf of Needham Company.

That assessment was confirmed earlier this year, as we reported eight million iPads were sold into educational settings worldwide.

Along with the LA school district pact, Apple is also credited with helping Idaho schools removing 20,000 paper copies per month – in just one school. Other districts include Illinois and Maine, which publicly shared its contract with Apple as an example for other schools.

What’s left for Apple and the iPad’s entry into schools?

Texas would be a crowning achievement.

The state’s legislature earlier this year approved the use of tablets in the schoolroom.

The Eanes school district in January became one of the first districts in the Lone Star state to provide an iPad 2 to every student in K-12, a contract with Apple worth $1.2 million.

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You may want to reconsider using a default password iOS provides for hotspot functionality as researchers at a German university warn of the weaknesses that let attackers crack any default iOS hotspot password in under a minute. Although Windows Phone uses even weaker passwords and some Android vendors weaken their device’s security by modifying the Wi-Fi-related components, Apple’s problem is that iOS generates “random” hotspot passwords using a dictionary of only 1,842 different entries…

Michael Lee, writing for ZDNet, points to the disturbing findings by researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany who found iOS creates default hotspot passwords using a dictionary of 52,500 words from the Scrabble game.

Although Apple appends randomly generated numbers to the words from this dictionary, this isn’t stopping attackers from cracking the weak passwords.

The researchers explain:

This list consists of around 52,500 entries, and was originated from an open-source Scrabble crossword game. Using this unofficial Scrabble word list within offline dictionary attacks, we already had a 100 percent success rate of cracking any arbitrary iOS hotspot default password.

Cracking those passwords requires some serious oomph: the researchers used a GPU cluster consisting of four AMD Radeon HD 7970s. After capturing the Wi-Fi connection handshake, the researchers used the AMD hardware to iterate over all items in the list, including the permutations of additional numbers..

This hardware can crack default iOS hotspot passwords in under just 50 seconds.

It isn’t helping that Apple appears to be using only 1,842 words from the scrabble dictionary.

“Consequently, any default password used within an arbitrary iOS mobile hotspot is based on one of these 1,842 different words,” the research note explains.

It’s even worse on Windows Phone and Android, with the latter generating default hotspot passwords that consist of only eight-digit numbers. And even though Android generates strong passwords, “some vendors modified the Wi-Fi-related components utilised in their devices and weakened the algorithm of generating default passwords”.

The issue fuels serious security concerns, especially when users connect their MacBook, iPad or other device to a hotspot created on an iOS device.

In order to strengthen your security and prevent any potential eavesdropping, you’re advised not to accept default hotspot passwords iOS randomly generates.

Instead, use Settings Personal Hotspot to replace the default password with your own uniquely generated strong password that should not contain birthday dates, spouse names and other commonly used and easily guessed terms.

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Following Google’s disappointing announcement that its Reader service will be retired on July 1, after running for eight straight years, Feedly back in May announced work had started on a clone of Google’s RSS API to help user transition from Google Reader to Feedly.

Today, the startup shed more light on the subject by announcing a new Application Programming Interface (API) along with a lineup of first third-party apps that will leverage the Feedly Cloud platform. In addition, they’ve opened the Feedly RSS web app to everyone…

According to a blog post, Feedly as of end of May signed up an astounding twelve million users after adding four million users since March’s news of Google Reader’s impending demise. They are now processing about 25 million feeds each day and crunching through billions of articles published on a daily basis.

A number of third-party apps have implemented support for the Feedly cloud platform, including IFTTT, Evernote, Sprout Social, Nextgen Reader, Press, gReader, Newsify, Pure News Widget and Meneré, with more due in the coming months.

The web app, pictured top of post, is available at cloud.feedly.com, with no plugins or extensions needed. It can be accessed using any standard web browser, like Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Opera, and lets you import your Google Reader feeds with a single click.

Feedly also has a nice iOS client which has been recently upgraded with support for the Feedly cloud platform. Like Feedly, news aggregator Digg is launching its own Google Reader replacement on June 26 along with an API for third-party app makers.

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After sparking its long-running patent war with Samsung, Apple’s intellectual property chief has left to head a similar job at a French media company. Boris Teksler, who in 2012 testified Samsung was copying iPhone technology, left his job of four years Wednesday.

Teksler had no immediate comment on why he left to become president of the Technology Group for Technicolor, a media and entertainment company based in France.

Technicolor’s CEO said the former Apple IP chief was well-suited to the firm’s plans for expanding use of patents…

“Boris Teksler is a skilled executive with a unique combination of skills including protecting intellectual assets and driving focused innovation to commercial success,” Technicolor CEO Frederick Rose said in a press release.

The move was confirmed on Teksler’s LinkedIn profile.

The job of the Technology Group is “extending our licensing growth and Teksler’s experience in mobile licensing makes him well suited for the position.”

In 2012, Teksler warned the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs and then operations chief Tim Cook about what he saw as Samsung’s infringing upon iPhone patents. Later in court, Teksler testified he didn’t understand “how a trusted partner would build a copycat product like that.”

According to the company’s website, Technicolor holds at least 40,000 patents on technology ranging from digital decoders to interactive TV systems and display techniques.

Technicolor, credited with “colorizing” classic black-and-white movies, such as The Wizard of Oz, is also known as a patent troll, a firm that uses its patent portfolio to exact licensing fees from product manufacturers.

Just as we awaited the release of the iPhone 5 last year, so was Technicolor in hunt for a patent payoff, according to Bloomberg.

“When Apple’s next iPhone hits store shelves, Technicolor ’s engineers will rush to get the handset — not to make calls or play games, but to rip it apart,” the news service reported last year.

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Eagle-eyed readers will remember Readdle back in March released a free version of its awesome Calendars+ application on the App Store. Naturally, the free download omits several major features present in the more advanced paid version.

For example, multiple event reminders, recurring appointments, event invitations and a few other biggies meant for power users remain the exclusive realm of the paid Calendars+ app.

If you wanted to take the plunge but were put off by the app’s high asking price of seven bucks, good news: Readdle has decided to drop the premium Calendars+ app to zero bucks. The promotion runs over the next 48 hours only so download Calendars+ now before the price goes up back again…

Billed as “the most elegant and easy to use calendar application available on the App Store,” the software supports both Google and iOS accounts, syncs really fast and includes tasks, SMS reminders, recurring events, invitations and much more.

It also does a few tricks not found in other apps.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the key capabilities targeted at heavy calendar users.

Drag Drop for events
You can move and change the duration of your events in a Day, Week or Month view with Drag Drop. Just tap and hold on the event to activate it.

Special Keyboards
Appointment time, repeat schedule and reminders can be defined twice faster than in the built-in iOS calendar, all thanks to custom keyboards.

The fastest Sync
Sync with Google Calendar works really fast and keeps your schedule thoroughly.

Manage your calendars online and offline
You can create, edit and delete events and calendars at any time. All changes will be synced back to your account once you are online.

Invite people
Add attendees to new and existing events. Save time with history list, inviting the same people again.

Get SMS reminders
Calendars allows you to set SMS reminders for all events, you just need to add your phone info to the Google Calendar settings. It’s much better than Push notifications!

Day, Week, Month and List view
Depending on your needs you can overview the events for any particular day, week or month. In the List view all events are shown chronologically.

Repeating events
Calendars+ supports repeating events. This is exactly what you need to remember birthdays and anniversaries.

Search
You can search for events by name in the List view. Tapping on the status bar will show you a search field.

Now, I normally use Apple’s stock Calendar app on my MacBook Air and iOS devices and have no need for an advanced third-party calendar app.

That’s not saying I passed on this one, quite the contrary – free is free.

What’s your favorite calendar client on iOS?

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This is quite interesting. It appears that ATT has begun installing charging stations in parks throughout New York to help keep smartphones and other mobile devices up and running. The stations are solar-powered and capable of charging a wide range of gadgets.

The carrier says that the new Street Charge project was born out of its work during the recovery from Superstorm Sandy. After the hurricane ripped through most of the eastern US, ATT setup charging stations in the blacked out areas. And now it’s expanding on the idea…

The project is still in the trial phase, but ATT has already constructed 25 of the 10-foot-tall steel structures. The stations are free-standing, with no external wires, and offer built-in Micro USB cables, 30-pin cables, Lightning cables, and USB ports for charging other devices.

Packed full of batteries, one station is designed to provide 3-4 days of continuous juicing on a full charge. With its three-pronged tower of solar panels, it only takes each structure about 4 hours to reach a full charge, and CNET says they can even absorb rays on cloudy days.

Perhaps the coolest thing about Street Charge is that ATT is footing the bill for everything, which means no costs for users or tax payers. The carrier says it will track usage on its current stations and then look at expanding the project to other cities. I can’t wait until it lands here.

What do you think of the Street Charge project?

[CNET]

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A rare, never-before-seen footage has been uncovered on the Interwebs, dating as far back as 1994. In it, a young Steve Jobs talks about his legacy. It’s peculiar in how back then Jobs thought he would be forgotten by history (go figure).

And who could blame him: the interview was conducted during Jobs’s wilderness years, at a time when he’d been running NeXT, his other startup. The clip amusingly shows us a young Jobs wearing a beard without looking like an axe murderer…

It was posted to YouTube channel EverySteveJobsVideo, as first noted by The Loop.

Running one minute and 48 seconds long, the segment is taken from Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur, a 60-minute documentary built around a 20-minute interview of Steve Jobs that was conducted in 1994 by the Silicon Valley Historical Association.

“All the work that I have done in my life will be obsolete by the time I’m 50,” Steve quips.

Check out the clip embedded right below.

Here’s the full quote:

By the time I’m 50, everything I’ve done up until now will be obsolete. This is a field where one does not write a principia which holds up for two hundred years.

This is not a field where one paints a painting that people look at for centuries, or build a church that will be admired and looked at in admiration for centuries.

As pointed by John Paczkowski of AllThingsD, that’s one Steve Jobs prediction “that was a little off”.

The entire Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur documentary has Jobs giving advice to young entrepreneurs and talking about risk and the willingness to fail and his life philosophy.

According to the Silicon Valley Historical Association:

Nolan Bushnell (founder, Atari) talks about Jobs and Woz working at Atari. Woz and Mike Markkula (founders, Apple) discuss starting Apple. Company founders of Oracle, Adobe, and Sun Microsystems discuss Steve Jobs’ impact on their lives and businesses.

Here’s a trailer for the documentary.

The uncut 1994 Steve Jobs interview is available here as a QuickTime digital file, costing ten bucks. Note that much of this footage has been incorporated into the documentary.

Speaking of which, Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur is available from the Silicon Valley Historical Association as a $14.99 download, a $24.99 DVD or a $4.99 audio track (put it on iTunes and we can talk).

Steve of course famously had an ego larger than life so it’s kinda funny he thought he would be forgotten for his work.

“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?” is one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes.

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Micro video sharing has become a huge hit with the launch of Twitter’s popular video app Vine. While Twitter is not the first company to come up with such technology, it certainly made it famous.

Lightt is a video upload app that turns mini movies into a social experience. You can make stop motion animation shorts similar to the features of Vine, or you can make a one-minute unedited movie to share with others…

Design

The app has a simple design. When you first open it, you’ll see a short clip from the app’s creator, explaining how it works and what it is for. Then, you can begin creating your Lightt videos. You can create one-minute extended shot videos, 10-second stop motion clips, or anything in between.

In addition to making your own micro movies, you can explore clips that others have uploaded. When you visit the discovery section, you can watch extended streaming videos that are all connected together. There are different channels with different themes. For example, you could select the “Animals” channel and watch a stream of about a dozen Lightt micro movies that have been added to the animal channel.

The key to having the most fun in Lightt is connecting with friends and family, so when you first sign up, you’ll be asked multiple times to invite people from your device’s contacts and your Facebook contacts. You can skip this process, but you will be asked more than once.

When you make videos, you can either share them on your connected social networking sites, only show it on Lightt’s public page, or keep it completely private. If you want to keep videos private, be sure to select the lock icon on the share page. The app’s default setting is public.

App Use

Similar to Vine, users create micro movies by touching and holding the Record button. When you want to pause the recording, let go of the button. You can take as many shots as can fit into one whole minute. If you want to make a stop motion animation, you can take quick shots and move your subject in between them. If you want to have a minute-long movie that includes audio, hold the Record button down for longer periods of time.

You can trim your clips, scene-by-scene in the editing section. If your actress giggled at the end of a line or you accidentally kept recording after a jump, you can cut out the fat by trimming off of the front or back of the video. If the entire scene is unusable, tap the Delete button to remove it from the movie.

You can also mute your mini movie so that there won’t be any audio. This is a great feature for making stop motion animation shorts. You may have accidentally captured audio that is distracting to the shot and the mute feature allows you to make the entire clip silent.

If you want to add a bit of hip imagery to your micro movie, select from seven different filters, including black-and-white, sepia, saturation, and more.

Once you’ve trimmed, edited, and filtered your video clip, you can then upload it to Lightt. If you have the micro movie set to public, you can share it on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, in addition to sharing it to the public Lightt channel. You can also email the video directly to someone. If you prefer to keep the video completely private so that only you can see it, tap the arrow button that sits right above the keyboard. This will bring up the public or private options. Select “Private (only you)” to ensure that no one else can see the video.

If you change your mind after you’ve made the video private, you can unlock it to make it public by tapping the screen and then tapping the Share icon when it pops up. You can toggle between public and private as often as you like.

To see Lightts from others, tap the discovery icon. You will see a list of channels, including Featured, Food, Nature, Arts, and more. The very last section is the Lightt Tips section, which includes micro movies from the app’s creator that shows you how to use the editing tools.

If you find an interesting video, you can “like” it by tapping the heart next to its title. You can leave comments on videos, see who else liked it, and follow other users. When you follow other users, you will receive notifications whenever they like, comment on, or upload a video.

The Good

This is a useful way to capture micro movies and one-minute stop motion animations. You can trim or delete scenes, add filters, and share your videos on a variety of social networking sites. Even better, you can choose to keep your clips private.

Unlike Vine, there are no 6-second clips of pornographic material, so you won’t accidentally stumble upon something you wouldn’t want your kids to see. That’s not to say those videos don’t exist in Lightt. However, I never saw anything that even came close to inappropriate.

The Bad

Unlike Vine, the uploaded public videos are not particularly interesting at all. The users of this app don’t seem to have the same level of creativity as they do in Vine. Not to put Lightt users down, but some Vine users are really, really good.

The discovery section is not very intuitive. There is no way to browse all public clips or see what has been recently added. If you know the subject you are interested in, you can search for it, but there is no main public feed.

Value

As a free app, the value is great. You can create micro movies or stop motion animations and edit them before finalizing your creation. You can make your videos private or share them to a variety of social networking sites. You can even send them directly through email. As you can see, this app offers quite a few additional features above Vine, although it doesn’t have the same social standing as Twitter’s social video app.

Verdict

What it comes down to is this: if you like making video clips, micro movies, or stop motion animations, this app is exactly what you need to express your creativity with useful editing features. If you use social video apps like Vine because you like watching funny, interesting, and creative clips, but don’t really have the knack for doing it yourself, stick with what you already have. Lightt is great for making micro movies, but not great for watching them. You can download Lightt in the App Store today.

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I was going to write this post when everything was raw, soon after the news had developed and the internet was awash with people seemingly frothing at the mouth. Frothing, apparently, for one of two reasons.

Firstly, we had the people frothing because “ZOMG, 20 dollars for an iPad game!!!!.” Apparently anything the wrong side of free is just about the developers trying to squeeze money out of their hard work. Because, well, it’s their living.

Then secondly, there were the polar opposites. People screaming back, apparently oblivious to the fact they were wasting their time, claiming that developers deserve to be paid and that free to play games have ruined the App Store, caused world hunger and possibly even kicked a kitten once.

The truth though, as is so often the case, is somewhere in-between…

So assuming you bothered to click the little ‘Read More’ button, I’ve still got your attention. Right now the chances are you’re either sharpening your pitchfork or genuinely confused at the rather meandering narrative of this opinion piece. Either works for me, so let’s continue.

First, a little back story.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was originally a PC game way back in the 90s, back when Apple sucked and Google didn’t even exist. Then, last year, the game got what all time honored classics get: re-imagined.

Now according to popular belief, unlike most re-imaginings, this one was actually pretty good. Xbox 360, PS3 and PC releases later and we now stand on the verge of a new platform for the title to branch onto. Apple’s iOS, be it iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

The title itself remains largely unchanged from its big brothers, which is worth remembering for later on. It’s had touch-based fanciness added here and there, but it’s the same game you’d play on a PC. It’s even the same game I’ve got sat on a shelf in a brand new Xbox 360 box. I’ve never gotten around to playing it. But I digress.

Back story all fleshed out, the 20th of this month sees that aforementioned title reach iOS. Its price? $20, or £14 if you use proper money or all kinds of denominations if you’re from one of the other umpteen App Store territories. Regardless, it’ll be a lot.

Or will it?

Let’s get back to that first group of people I told you about earlier. The ZOMG crew, let’s call them. The band of miseries took to their Twitter accounts, Facebook feeds and blog comment sections to denounce publisher 2K for having the audacity to charge so much for a mobile game. $20 when the App Store is literally littered with a myriad of free games. At a push, people will pay a couple of dollars. Maybe $5 if it’s got EA plastered on it somewhere. More than that? You’ve got to be kidding!?

Well, no, not really.

The reason for the ‘high’ price tag, as I alluded to earlier, is that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a direct port of the console and PC game. It’s, for want of a better phrase, a proper game. It’s not watered down, it’s not been bastardized to work on a tablet or smartphone beyond having the touch-based magic sprinkled on top.

It’s also $40 currently via Amazon should you want to play the same game on PC. Or $33 on Xbox 360 or PS3. That’s double, or at best over 50% more than the iOS version, depending on your platform of choice.

So, it’s at this point that this almost indecipherable rant would have ended, probably with a line telling everyone to stop being so damn cheap and to cough up $20 for what by all accounts is a pretty fine title.

But this is 48 hours later, and I’ve slept since then. I’ve had time to think about about it since then, and I’ve contemplated my own buying decision given the fact that I’m actually rather excited about the game. I’d likely actually get around to playing it on iOS, especially thanks to 2K’s cloud save functionality that keeps your game in sync no matter which device you are using. But there’s a problem.

I find myself straddling the two groups of people we spoke about at the beginning of this growing collection of words. I’m fully apologetic of the price, and agree that it’s no doubt entirely worth $20 of anybody’s money. But I won’t be buying it.

I just can’t bring myself to do it, and I don’t know why. There’s a mental block of some sort. It feels like it should be cheaper, even if it shouldn’t. It’s the curse of the App Store and its incessant race to the bottom. In a bid to make cheaper and cheaper games, developers have conditioned us to expect them, regardless of quality. XCOM: Enemy Unknown can be the best game ever to grace an iPad. It can be the game we’ve all been waiting for. But are we ready for it?

Perhaps the real question is this: is Apple’s own App Store standing in the way of iOS becoming a real gaming platform to rival the likes of Nintendo and Sony? And if so what does Apple do about it?

What can it do about it?

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Since Apple unveiled its next generation mobile operating system, iOS 7, it seems like that’s all anyone can talk about. Some folks love it, and think it’s a step in the right direction. And others dislike it so much that they’re considering switching to Android.

For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, and are feeling left out of the conversation, we’ve come across something that may help. The folks over at Recumbo have put together an interactive demo of iOS 7 that lets you play with the software update without a dev account…

First spotted by 9to5Mac, Recumbo’s interactive iOS 7 demo is quite impressive. These are the same guys who came up with that interactive iOS 7 concept we saw a week before WWDC, and this one is just as good. Just click the iPhone’s Power button to start.

As before, practically everything you see in the demo is clickable. You can launch any app you see on the Home screen, and once opened, each app provides various degrees of usability. For example, you can actually enter text into the Messages app and press ‘Send.’

All of the new iOS 7 features are here as well. Clicking on the status bar rolls down the redesigned Notification Center, and clicking the bottom of the screen brings up the new Control Center. And Spotlight search? It’s here too, just click and drag up on the Home screen.

Sure, for the most part these are just a bunch of screen shots strung together. But nevertheless, this is probably the closest you’re going to come to using iOS 7—outside of our in-depth coverage, obviously—without actually installing the beta software on one of your devices.

To try it out, click here on your desktop or mobile device.

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I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve used a QR Code reader over the years. The fact that such functionality isn’t built into iOS pretty much ensures that this tech will always be dead to me. Yet, a new jailbreak tweak is trying to change that by incorporating the ability to scan QR Codes directly from the stock Camera app. NativeQR is the name of the tweak, and not only will it allow you to scan QR codes, it also allows you to share contacts using QR codes as well.

Once the tweak is installed, you can find its on/off toggle within the Camera app’s options panel — that’s the same panel where you’ll find things like Panorama mode and grid lines. After you enable NativeQR, using it is as simple as holding your viewfinder over a QR code. It only takes a second for NativeQR to recognize a code, and it responds with a dialogue that allows you to copy the link of the website corresponding to the code, or open the browser to go directly to the website.

NativeQR’s ability to share contacts is impressive. Once the tweak is installed, you’ll find a new QR Code option next to the traditional share options. Sharing works pretty much exactly as you would expect, scan the code, and the traditional “add to contacts” page appears.

NativeQR features no additional settings or options to configure. It’s a wonderful alternative to 3rd party QR code readers, and if you’re anything like me, it’ll increase the probability of you actually taking the time to scan a code when you come across one.

For $1.99 on Cydia’s BigBoss repo, NativeQR can be yours. Share your thoughts and comments about NativeQR and QR Codes below.

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Facebook has updated its iOS app this afternoon with a handful of new features and other improvements. The new version, which the social network identifies as 6.2, adds the ability to add icons to your status updates, and several UI enhancements to make sharing easier. As usual, we have the full change log after the fold…

Full 6.2 change log:

What’s New in Version 6.2

• Add icons to status updates to show what you’re feeling, reading, watching and more (English only)
• Easily change who can see something you’ve shared
• Start a new conversation with photos you receive in messages
• Bug fixes

The ‘icons’ it mentions are really just emoticons, but there are a wide range of them to choose from. For example, if you’re playing Xbox or basketball, instead of typing that, you can simply select the corresponding emoticon from the list. It’s actually kind of handy, and sure to help spruce up your otherwise boring status updates.

In addition to this feature, Facebook has also made it easier to change who can see something you’ve shared. Lets say you share something better suited for your college buddies, rather than your aunt Martha, changing who can view the post is now just a two tap process. Also, the usual bug fixes and UI improvements are here.

As always, you can find the latest version of Facebook in the App Store, for both the iPhone and iPad, for free.

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Sometimes, one just feels like life isn’t worth living anymore. Maybe you’ve been trying too hard for too long or life hasn’t been treating you fairly?

Perhaps love of your life has suddenly dumped you? Or, it could be the economy. Whatever the reason, far too many people are having suicidal thoughts these days.

And who could blame them – we’re living in a time when the entire world is increasingly becoming a Prozac nation. When desperation sets in, suicide prevention centers step in to save lives. But those considering committing suicide are often way too depressed to even seek professional help on their own.

Apple feels their pain, too. In a recent server-side update, the company’s digital assistant has gained ability to help individuals in suicidal crisis reach out to National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by automatically placing that potentially life-saving phone call for you…

Previously, Siri would simply list the nearby suicide prevention centers rather than actually call one.

On devices incapable of placing phone calls over cellular networks, such as iPads and iPod touches, Siri still reads off the NSPL phone number. But instead of offering to call one, it will search the web for any suicide prevention center in your vicinity.

According to multiple reports, the change is observed on devices running iOS 6 or iOS 7.

Each year, about a million people commit suicide globally, with nearly 40,000 suicides in the United States alone. Whatever help Apple can offer to the individuals thinking about committing suicide out of despair is more than welcome.

When Apple lets iOS 7 out of the gate come this Fall, Siri will be able to do lots more things, like change your settings, toggle your iPhone’s flashlight, search Google or Bing and read out Twitter and Wikipedia content, to name just a few.

Oh, if you’re feeling kinda nothing, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdoZEmiNXJY

rock balad may help.

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Last week, Facebook started sending out mysterious invitations to press members via snail mail for a June 20th event. At the time, no one knew what it was planning to unveil at the presser, since it’s already taken the wraps off its Home project.

Today, though, it looks like we finally have our answer. According to a new report from AllThingsD, the rumors are true—Instagram has been working on a new video sharing service. And Facebook is going to show it off during Thursday’s event…

AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac reports:

“Instagram plans to release a video product this Thursday at a press event at Facebook’s headquarters, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, marking the first time the robust, 100-million user network will stray from being strictly a photo-sharing app and dive head first into the world of moving pictures.”

Isaac says that while details of the product have been kept under wraps, his sources have said that Facebook is seeking to differentiate itself from Vine. Twitter’s video sharing network has managed to gain considerable traction in the video space.

As we wrote earlier in a report on today’s update to the Vine app, the 6-second video creator has become extremely popular with users. The company says there are over 13 million people using the app, which continues to sit atop App Store lists.

So what, if anything, could Instagram do differentiate itself? Unlike before, ‘add filters’ doesn’t seem to be the answer here. Does it make the limit on clips longer than 6 seconds? Shorter than 6 seconds? Or do they just leave it all up to the user?

I’m also wondering if Instagram’s new video service will have a standalone app, or just be built into the current one. I guess we’ll find out all of this and more on Thursday. The event will be held at Facebook’s Menlo Park, California headquarters.

Coincidentally, the Vine team just posted this ‘Thank You’ video:

So, what do you think about the idea of an Instagram-run video sharing service?

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Coincidentally or not, Twitter has just teased the upcoming Vine features just as the blogosphere lit up with a confirmation that Facebook will be releasing an Instagram video product on Thursday.

According to Twitter, they will be introducing “some exciting new parts of Vine” over the next few weeks. The rather cryptic and unusual announcement was accompanied by a rather clever Twitter-made video posted to – you guessed right – Vine…

“Over the next few weeks, we’ll be introducing some exciting new parts of Vine,” the team said. “As always, we’ll share details on updates as we release them.”

Twitter also shared this creative video on the Vine blog.

The service claimed thirteen million users on the iPhone as of June 3, when it also launched an Android version on Google’s Play store.

Fans of short videos, pay notice – Facebook could soon have an Instagram video product in store for you. As you know, the social networking giant is hosting a press event on Thursday to introduce a new product.

“A small team has been working on a big idea”, the invite graphics teases.

TechCrunch thinks it has something to do with a rumored Instagram Video service, speculating Facebook counts on Instagram’s popularity to give users the ability to post and share short videos up to three minutes long. By comparison, Vine limits you to just six seconds.

Corroborating the report, AllThingsD just chimed in saying Thursday will see Instagram “dive head first into the world of moving pictures.”

In other Vine news, Twitter earlier today pushed a Vine update has which added a new Share button underneath posts on your feed, along with “other interface improvements and bug fixes”.

Vine is a free download from the App Store and Google’s Play store.

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In a somewhat surprising move, Apple is allegedly asking select Cupertino locals for feedback on the interface changes in iOS 7. Specifically, the firm is thought to be holding campus sessions where they challenge cherry-picked Cupertino residents to weigh in on iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks.

Additionally, the company is said to be polling its retail store employees by seeding the initial preview of OS X Mavericks to Genius Bar and on-floor Apple Retail employees, the practice seemingly in line with Apple’s previous major software updates…

Apple’s invitation to participate in the pre-release OS X Mavericks seed program is apparently completely voluntary and entails “your personal computer” and on your personal time.

“Apple will provide you with ways to submit feedback on your experiences with OS X Mavericks, should you choose to do so,” the message reads, adding that the responses from prior seed programs “have been overwhelmingly positive”.

Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5Mac:

In addition to Retail employees, we understand that Apple has already seeded OS X Mavericks to its outside AppleSeed testing group. This seeding to AppleSeed is fairly early in comparison to initial OS X Mountain Lion and OS X Lion seeds in previous years.

Gurman also learned that Apple is readying initial betas of OS X 10.8.5, a bug fix update for Mountain Lion.

And in testing iOS 7 beyond developers, Gurman speculates that Cupertino locals that have been asked to provide feedback on iOS 7 probably are “family members of Apple employees, according to two people”.

While Apple in the past has similarly gauged feedback from Retail, rarely did the company “hold such previews for whole major operating system releases,” he explains.

Indeed, Apple is going back to its California roots.

Our non-U.S. readers may confuse the OS X Mavericks name to a Presidential campaign when John McCain earned a media reputation as a ‘maverick’ for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues.

That couldn’t be farther from truth.

According to Apple’s iOS and OS X boss, Craig Fecerighi, ‘Mavericks’ is a reference to Apple’s California roots and actually is a surfing location in Northern California – hence the default ‘waves’ OS backdrop, as seen above.

“We didn’t want to be the first operating system to run out of cat names,” he joked during the unveiling at WWDC. Future OS X releases will also adopt names based on California locations, Federighi said.

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Looking for a minimalistic battery indicator, yet don’t want to fool with any WinterBoard themes? If so, then you just got a brand new option. Vox is a recently released jailbreak tweak that reimagines the stock battery indicator for something a bit more subtle and minimalistic.

The tweak outright forgoes the numerical percentage, and eschews the skeuomorphic battery indicator for something a bit more abstract. Have a look at our video walkthrough for more details…

Vox replaces the battery icon with a circle, and as your battery life decreases the fill within the circle becomes smaller and smaller. When your battery life drops below 20%, the circle turns red to provide you with additional warning. Conversely, the battery is green to denote a full charge. Charging your battery yields a simple lightning bolt icon.

If you’re someone who needs to know the exact percentage of the battery, then don’t worry, Vox has you covered. Just swipe down on the status bar to reveal Notification Center, and you’ll be greeted with the standard Vox battery icon with the percentage superimposed. It’s a quick and easy way to check the exact percentage without the numerical reading always littering your status bar.

Vox is a great looking jailbreak tweak, and a nice alternative to the boring old battery icon. Let me know if you plan on trying it out in the comments below.

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Alan Yip, the creator of Tap to Widgets and Overview, is back with a brand new free tweak on Cydia. His tweak, Entitled DoubleTap, is a release that allows users to use three-finger double tap gestures to execute certain actions.

The included actions are a brightness toggle, volume up/down, and an orientation lock toggle. Although the under-the-hood mechanics are no-doubt deeper than what meets the eye, DoubleTap is a fairly simple tweak in usage. Full video walkthrough inside.

The orientation toggle is easily invoked using a simple double tap with three fingers gesture. The other two actions — brightness and volume adjustment — use the same gesture, but they are a bit trickier to execute at first. That’s because the gestures for volume and brightness require you to continue holding after the second tap of the double tap motion, and then move your fingers up or down to correspond to an increase or decrease of volume or brightness.

The tweak’s preferences feature a kill switch for the orientation tap gestures, and an option to switch between brightness or volume for the additional gesture. You also have the ability to hide the volume HUD when using the volume adjustment gesture.

Again, DoubleTap is a free jailbreak tweak, and it’s available right now on Cydia’s BigBoss repo. If you decide to take it for a go, let us know what you experience.

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