Software & Apps - Page 106

Dropbox fans rejoice, Dropbox 2.0 for Android is now here. If you want some cloud storage for your Android-based device, you're in luck. Version 2.0 of the app includes new features and a totally revamped layout. A little arrow can be found to the right of each file in the app, which then leads you to a pop-out menu.

From the pop-up menu, you can share, delete, and favorite, which is a brand new feature to Dropbox. When in the main menu, you'll have three taps up top including Dropbox, Uploads and the new addition, Favorites. From Dropbox, you can put files into your cloud-based storage, which then puts them across all of your devices, and once a file is favorited, you can access it even without an Internet connection because it'll be stored locally on the device itself.

Dropbox also includes the ability to rename files directly from the app, as well as uploading files in bulk. If you like to upload from and export to local storage, you're in luck: you can now do this from the Uploads tab. Ice Cream Sandwich support has been baked in, as well as various bug fixes.

Earlier this week, Mozilla renewed their agreement with Google to be their default search engine in Firefox for another three years. Google Chrome engineer, Peter Kasting, has said: "Google is funding a partner," not a competitor. And its a great way of putting it, more revenue streams and people coming to your search engine, are better than none.

Kasting adds:

Password management and security is something that confuses a lot of people, and Microsoft are hoping to change that. A new feature that will be included in their next OS will allow users to put an unlimited number of individual passwords behind one master password, and then sync them across all other Windows 8-based machines they use.

The Live ID password is all you'll need, so for the multiple websites you use, you can set very complicated passwords for them, in the case you get hacked and your credentials are stolen, your entire digital life isn't ripped away from you. Windows 8 will automatically enter your login information when visiting a saved website.

There are similar services and apps available that do this, examples are 1Password and LastPass, but being built into the OS is a much better option. What if your Windows Live ID is stolen or lost somehow? That's fine. Microsoft are including a bunch of safety features into Windows 8 that are designed to detect compromise and limit account usage until you can recover it.

RightWare, who are behind BrowserMark and the very popular Basemark ES 2.0, have announced the latest in their smartphone testing software: Basemark Halti, an OpenGL ES 3.0 benchmark.

Basemark Halti contains two primary benchmarking scenes, in the same fashion that Basemark ES 2.0 had two scenes. This time they're named Rush and Car Race. The two tests will have triangle counts of roughly 100,000 triangles per frame, and be rendered front to back where possible.

First up, Rush is an action scene based on a city rooftop and its aim is to bring PC-quality game rendering. Character animation with skinning and bones, dynamic shadows and reflections, per-pixel lighting with 3 point lights, depth of field, light bloom, and SSAO are all featured in Rush.

"Siri, what is your competition?" "Nothing, I'm the best thing out," says Siri. Well, not for long. Google's response to Apple's voice assistant looked to be codenamed Majel, which stems from Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who is better known as the voice of the Federation Computer from Star Trek.

Google already have Voice Actions, and Majel would be an evolution of this with the addition of natural language processing. Voice Actions require voice prompts such as "sent text to..." or "navigate to..." Majel will allow you to perform actions in your natural language, similar to how Siri functions.

At the initial launch, Majel will only be able to do Google search enquiries, which could see the light of day in 2011. Google X engineers are reportedly working around the clock on finishing the first release, as the NYTime has reported previously that at least one product would make it out of the Google X labs before the end of the year.

AMD have released two new drivers, the AMD Catalyst 11.12 and the AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview drivers. Highlights of the Catalyst 11.12 driver are: AMD OpenGL 4.2 production support, where it includes official support for the OpenGL 4.2 specification. Enhancements for Eyefinity are included, with support for AMD HD3D technology when using 3x1 Landscape Eyefinity display group, on supported DisplayPort 3D monitors.

Also included is AMD Vision Engine Control Center enhancements for Dual Graphics, where AMD have implemented to better facilitate the enabling and control of the Dual Graphics within the Vision Engine Control Center. Next up, we have the gem that is the AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview, which includes multiple improvements and new features such as:

AMD HD3D technology support enhancement

Microsoft have unveiled SkyDrive for both Windows Phone and iPhone today, with Microsoft releasing it as people are increasingly needing access to their files on-the-go. Microsoft's Mike Torres has said:

Windows Phone's latest update, Mango, has deep integration with SkyDrive through its hubs Pictures and Office, which allows sharing of text, e-mail or IM. Users, as always, wanted more. Torres adds:

AMD have had quite the trouble lately with drivers, a botched RAGE driver, no CrossFire support in Battlefield 3 without micro-stuttering for most users, and Skyrim took nearly a month to get going for HD 5000-Series owners with CrossFire.

But, 2012 is a new year, and AMD have their Graphics Core Next (GCN) debuting, which is their first architectural change since the R600 (2900XT). With it, AMD have added some herbs and spices to their drivers, to not propel the new series of GPUs, but to revamp their old ones, too.

AnandTech really cover the Preview drivers well, but a rundown is that they're heavily modified, and have tonnes of new features baked in that should impress pretty much everyone. One thing most people are going to love: custom application profiles. Hooray! This new feature allows users to create new application profiles and to modify the application profiles that are distributed through drivers and CAP updates.

AllThingsD have some live coverage from a just-held Microsoft event, where they talked about their upcoming Windows Store that features in their next OS, Windows 8. Windows President Steven Sinofsky was on hand, as well as Windows Web Services VP Antoine Leblond.

Both took the stage and talked up the Windows Store, where a fair amount of information was unleashed onto the public. First off, Microsoft are promising the best economics of any app store by saying "we're going to give you a bigger bite of the apple". I don't know if that could be put in better words, but I love it.

Leblond recapped that Microsoft is proud to have Windows 8 working on ARM and x86 chips, small and big computers, with "it's the biggest and most significant developer opportunity ever", he promised. Windows Store is set to offer some differences to what the Apple App Store and Google Android Market offer, by giving free trial versions of apps, Leblond says "the best advertisement for your app will be the app itself," and I totally agree.

The Next Web claims that sources close to Microsoft have said that we should expect the pubic Windows 8 beta sometime in late February 2012. Windows 8 is expected in 2H 2012, but an exact date for release is currently unknown.

But, knowing the release date of the public beta paints a better picture of when to expect the RTM copy of Windows 8. If we use Windows 7's release milestones, we should expect Windows 8 hit the released to manufacturers (RTM) release in June. If this happens, Microsoft could enjoy a very, very good 2H of 2012, by selling its new OS, pushing tablets powered with the OS and pre-built systems with Windows 8 baked in.

What is unknown about the Windows 8 beta is what exactly will be included in the beta itself. No feature set is known, but we should find some information closer to release. I'm incredibly excited myself.

Freemium music subscription service, Spotify, has revealed a "new direction" that they are going in. A new API that will allow developers to create apps that are powered by Spotify.

These apps will be coded in HTML5, and will live inside the Spotify app, which means users don't need to install any other standalone pgrams in order to use them, and developers can build the apps with "an easy to use Javascript API."

Spotify users can use these apps whether they pay for Spotify or not, and right now Spotify developer partners do not share in Spotify's revenue, but Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has said that these are still "early days" for the platform.

It is a great time for AMD graphics card owners, with releases of new drivers for what seems every few days. Today AMD have released the Catalyst 11.11c performance drivers.

The new Catalyst 11.11c drivers include AMD CrossFireX performance scaling for the AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The drivers include everything the Catalyst 11.11b did, with a list of features below:

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim:

Google's Android dev team have just released Android 4.0.1/Ice Cream Sandwich for x86 chipsets, which has been a promise of theirs to open Android up to both Intel and AMD-based systems.

Of course, with any new release, its not fully stable with many bits missing such as sound, camera, ethernet, and hardware acceleration for Intel chips. Included and working however is, Wi-Fi, sound, and hardware acceleration for AMD chipsets. If you'd like the instructions on how to download the source code, check below [or over the page]:

Hi all, The ics-x86 branch based on Android 4.0.1 is ready.

As always, the MSDN blog has a long, but interesting read on large disks and large sectors in Windows 8 and goes into lengthy detail of how the upcoming OS will handle such things.

I will note, that in the article, they state that from a recent IDC market research report, that they estimate the maximum capacity of a single hard disk will reach 8TB in 2015. But, does this take into consideration the flooding in Thailand? I don't know. Impressive to think though, 8TB in a single disk. Imagine losing all that data. Eep.

Microsoft see two challenges that require attention with large disk sizes, first, ensuring that the entire available capacity is addressable, second, support the hard disk drive vendors in their effort to deliver more efficiently managed physical disks - 4K (large) sector sizes.

NVIDIA have just released the GeForce 290.36 drivers that are set to offer some improvements to a bunch of games, as well as adding support for some new BenQ 3D Vision-capable monitors.

First up we have some new SLI profiles for Crysis 2, Heroes and Generals, Inversion, Stronghold 3, and Syndicate. PhysX has been updated to 9.11.11.07 which includes the best PhysX experience for Batman: Arkham City. For a full rundown on what 290.36 offers, check it out below:

NVIDIA Ambient Occlusion:

AMD have obviously been very hard at work between gaming and working on new video cards, with the release of another driver in the form of Catalyst 11.11b performance driver.

This driver brings some Crossfire performance scaling to Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as well as a bunch of improvements to other gamers such as Batman: Arkham City, RAGE, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Battlefield 3. A full list of improvements is below:

Elder Scrolls Skyrim:

Crytek GmbH have in the last few days announced that they closed a licensing deal for CryENGINE 3, its proprietary real-time development solution, with Crystal CG, a world-leading digital image service provider.

Crystal CG is dedicated to providing customized solutions that use 3D digital visualization technologies and have worked on a few widely-recognized projects such as the "Grand opening ceremony of Beijing 2008 Olympics" as well as the "London 2012 Olympics mascot promotional film" as well as a number of various visual communication projects.

Crystal CG have tapped the CryENGINE 3 for their upcoming projects, which they will use to further enhance their production values and achieve even better outcomes in a significantly shorter amount of time.

There is a huge post on the MSDN blog about Windows 8, and how they are improving the setup experience. Microsoft are really working hard on perfecting Windows 8 and after reading the blog I'm 100-percent confident they are on the road to success.

They've got some big challenges ahead of them, and are committed to get more PCs working with Windows 8 than any previous version of Windows was capable of. With more than 450 millin PCs that will be Windows 8-capable, Microsoft expect that many systems that are currently rocking along with Windows Vista and even Windows XP will be eligible.

Windows 8 will also now be offered through an online installation, with a "pre-key" inside the setup image that is downloaded to a unique user, this means that you won't even need to enter the 25-digit product key during installation. In pre-installation, Windows 8 will scan your PC to determine compatibility, resulting in a summary report that shows what programs and devices on your system will/won't work, and what items require your attention.

One thing that really irks me with Windows (and even OS X) is updating and the requirement of restarting. I've never understood how operating systems have come this far with everything happening behind the scenes, yet it requires user intervention to do simple things like "when would you like to restart, I've just done updates, come on!".

Microsoft are working on this for Windows 8, which will see Windows Update consolidate all the restarts in a month, synchronizing with the monthly security release. This means that your PC will only restart when security updates are installed and actually require a restart. Security updates are released in a single batch on the second Tuesday of every month, where this will keep the system secure, in a timely manner, reduces restarts and makes restarts more predictable.

Now, Windows Update will notify you of any upcoming automatic restarts. If Windows Update has already detected, downloaded and installed security updates and requires a restart, Windows Update will notify you of an upcoming automatic restart through a message on the login screen that will persist for three days. This gives you an option of "Update and shutdown", or "Update and restart" at the login screen. You can still kick it old school and go to Windows Update in Control Panel, or do it like I do and search for "Update" in the start bar.

We are really letting loose now with our Intel X79 Express content and next up is another GIGABYTE video related to said product and this time it's another software feature called 3D Power and it's included with GIGABYTE's full range of X79 motherboards that should be online at many places as of now.

3D is obviously a big theme with GIGABYTE's X79 range of products and while there is little "3D" as we know about GIGABYTE's new software utility, 3D Power, we do like the insane level of control it gives you over your brand spanking new motherboard.

3D Power gets its name for its 3-way digital engine which allows you to control digital CPU power as well as both digital memory power controllers. This is all made possible since GIGABYTE's full range of X79 motherboards use an all digital power system with added controllers which give you the ability to fine tune power related options and settings down to a level we've never really seen before.