IT Magazine - Technology News

Tumblr Android App Updated With New User Interface And Speed Tweaks

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:08:02 +0000

Tumblr for Android has received a new update which has brought with it a brand new user interface for users. Which includes new buttons and color scheme providing a cleaner easier to use interface for the service.

Another new additions provided by the new update include improvements to the applications speed whilst browsing photos, as well as when loading blogs and interacting with them.

Now the Android application has been updated with the new slick user interface, its left the iOS version looking a little dated and sorry for itself. So lets hope there is an update incoming for iOS users soon as well.

Toshiba to make quad-core Android 4.0 tablets in 7, 10, and 13 inch sizes

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:56:47 +0000

Toshiba is launching a new line of tablets running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in May and June, the company announced Tuesday. The "Excite" tablet family will come in 7.7-inch, 10-inch, and 13-inch sizes, and all will have Tegra 3 quad-core processors.

The WiFi-only Excite tablets will all have 1GB of RAM, 5-megapixel rear cameras, and 2-megapixel front-facing cameras. The 0.4-inch thick, 2.2-pound Excite 13 will have a 1600x900 resolution display and 13 hours of battery life. The smaller 0.35-inch thick, 1.32-pound Excite 10 will have a 12800x800 screen and get 10 hours of battery life. The two larger tablets will both have SD card slots, while the smallest will have a microSD slot.

Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:50:47 +0000

Even though it's planning to launch its IPO later this year, that isn't stopping Facebook from making a truly monster deal. Today the company announced it would be acquiring Instagram, the company behind the popular photo editing and sharing app for iOS and Android devices, for a huge $1 billion price tag. The acquisition will be a combination of cash and Facebook stock and will officially close by the end of the second quarter.

Instagram launched on October 2010 for the iOS platform. The Android version was launched just last week. Instagram says it now has about 30 million registered users.

Google+ still alive Visits Up 27% according to Experian Hitwise

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:26:46 +0000

It's time to check in on Google+! New numbers from Experian Hitwise suggest the number of visits to Google+ is up 27 percent between February and March, reaching a total of more than 61 million visits.

The new statistic comes just days after Google CEO Larry Page mentioned that Google+ is home to more than 100 million active users — whatever the company technically defines as an "active user." And that figure is up ten million users since Page last commented on Google+ active users in January.

In contrast, Experian Hitwise reports that the Google+ competitor Facebook is down 1.3 billion visits between July of 2011 and March of 2012 — a 15-percent drop. But that still puts Facebook at a grand total of approximately 7 billion visits for March, or just over 114 times the traffic of Google+.

Look to the skies: Is it time to stop worrying and love the drone?

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:11:20 +0000

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere) have driven the rapid development over the past decade of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—robotic planes flown by some combination of remote “pilot” operators, software, and GPS navigation. Ranging in size from that of a flying model kit to full-sized aircraft, UAVs, also referred to as unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), have done everything from spotting roadside bombs to bombing alleged Al-Qaeda hideouts—and now they’re ready for civilian jobs.

As war efforts wind down, the military is preparing to bring home the over 7,500 UAVs deployed overseas—and the companies that build them are looking to create a domestic market for the technology.

Google Gazes Into the Looking Glass

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 22:17:07 +0000

A while back we started hearing rumors about some kind of secret project Google was working on involving eyeglasses -- smart eyeglasses.

You'd wear them like a normal pair of specs, but they'd somehow be connected to the Web, possibly through the Android phone in your pocket. And the lenses would display all kinds of information -- text and images relating to whatever it is you're looking at.

So if you were standing on a sidewalk downtown, for instance, your vision would be overlayed with info about shops, restaurants, transportation, directions to where you're going, any kind of info you'd otherwise have to find out by messing around with your phone.

Instagram for Android update adds support for tablets, WiFi handsets and SD card installs

kingaaly@gmail.com (Super User) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:59:40 +0000

It's only been three days since Instagram launched on Android and the only thing that seems to match the influx of new users is the pace at which the company is pushing out updates to enhance support and tweak a few glitches.

The latest one to hit today (1.0.3) promises expanded support for tablets and WiFi handsets, app installation on the SD card for storage-limited users and fixing an audio mute bug during capture.