Software & Apps News - Page 159

BGR have gotten their dirty mits on "what is said to be" Apple's iOS 5.1 GM, which should hit users over-the-air (OTA) around March 9th or so, and BGR have thus confirmed two changes that have been baked into iOS 5.1.

First off, we have the lock screen for iOS 5.1 sporting a fixed camera button which is found next to the slide-to-unlock button, and instead of tapping on said button to launch the camera, in iOS 5.1 all you do is drag the entire unlock section up to reveal the camera finder - nifty.

Siri has also taken a trip to learn a new language: Japanese. BGR have confirmed this in the picture below where you can clearly see Siri now sports Japanese. BGR have learnt that there "are no roadblocks" and this is a release candidate that should hit in a few weeks time.

Just a few minutes ago we reported of the AMD Catalyst 12.1 pre-certified drivers, but the good news didn't stop there. AMD were also kind enough to release the Catalyst Application Profiles 12.1 CAP 3 which includes a bunch of profiles for some newly-released games.

First up we have Alan Wake, which gets "improves CrossFire performance", Syndicate which receives both single-GPU and CrossFire performance improvements, Darkness 2 gets just improved CrossFire performance. Lastly, we have Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which gets improved CrossFire performance for the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series to avoid negative scaling at low resolution and finally, Natural Selection 2, where the 12.1 CAP 3 fixes shadow map flickering issues that are seen when CrossFire is enabled.

You can get all dirty with the Catalyst Application Profiles 12.1 CAP 3, here.

For those of you who don't want to dilly-dally waiting for the WHQL-certified drivers from AMD, you can jump on these newly-released drivers. They come in the form of the Catalyst 12.1 pre-certified drivers, and support the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, HD 4000, HD 5000, HD 6000, and HD 7000 Series cards.

They include quite the handful of support, features and enhancements, as listed below:

Windows 7 and Windows Vista support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

Android 4.0 arrived with quite the hard thud late last year, whilst it looks pretty cool, the Android-based smartphones and tablets just did not adapt quick enough. Most smartphone and tablet makers really dragged their feet, with even flagship products such as the phone that rocks along in my pocket, the Samsung Galaxy S II, not receiving it yet.

But, this could all [hopefully] change with the release of Android 5.0 "Jelly Bean". Google know that 2012 spells stronger competition in the OS market, with Microsoft releasing Windows 8 this year, and Apple will surely announce iOS 6 with the iPhone 5 (that's my guess, anyway). All of this is "according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers", thanks, DigiTimes.

Android 5.0 is said to be further optimized for tablet PCs, as well as having Chrome integration system functions to push dual-operating system designs. What does sound amazing, is that brand vendors can choose to adopt just Android 5.0 or add Android 5.0 to Windows 8 devices, allowing the ability to switch between the two OSes without the need to shut the device down. Take that, Apple.

Apple have just announced they've released a developer preview of their upcoming OS, Mountain Lion. Touted as the ninth major release of the 'world's most advanced operating system', Mountain Lion will introduce popular apps from the iPad to the Mac, such as Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay Mirroring.

On top of these iPad-related features, OS X Mountain Lion will sport iCloud, which allows for easy setup and integration with said apps. The developer preview of Mountain Lion also intros Gatekeeper. What is Gatekeeper? It's a 'revolutionary' security feature that helps keep you safe from malicious software by giving you complete control over what apps are allowed to be installed on your Mac.

Because Mountain View includes Messages, this means that iChat is now gone. Messages will continue to support services such as AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. If you want to try it out on your Lion-based Mac, you can download the beta of Messages, here.

Leaked images have floated onto the surface of the waves of the Internet in the past 24 or so hours of Research in Motion's next-generation BlackBerry 10 Operating System, and boy do they look nice. BlackBerry 10 OS will sport home screen "widgets" which will allow you to call up apps and mini-apps, video chat capability, improvements to the e-mail clients design, just to name a few.

CrackBerry.com are behind the images, where they've reported they received a 14-page presentation featuring BlackBerry 10-powered BlackBerry's from "a tipster". Of course, we have to question whether these images are indeed legit, but they do seem to be. BB 10 OS is shaping up to look quite swish, and it seems RIM have worked hard at this latest OS.

RIM aren't just dressing to impress, either, it seems they are baking in some useful features such as a clock icon that continues to show the time of the day, but also what time the alarm will go off. It is the detail in the little things that make it stand out. Another feature showed off in a screenshot is RIM's Universal Inbox, which is thanks to The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) which RIM acquired back in 2010.

It was only a few weeks ago that a 'hack' was made available for VLC that allowed the program to have Blu-ray compatibility, where it could playback encrypted Blu-ray images. Now we have the first release candidate (RC) of VLC 2.0.

VLC 2.0 has some big changes, the biggest of which is the OS X version that sports a new user interface that does look quite swish indeed, as well as Blu-ray playback support. Windows doesn't get missed out, which now features a 64-bit version, as well as support for multiple video files found inside RAR archives.

Apple doesn't officially support Blu-ray, as they have no Blu-ray hardware in any form, and the software support is not that great, if applicable at all. Blu-ray discs are encrypted, so you can't just download a program and away you go. Because Apple don't support Blu-ray, Blu-ray on OS X has been barely existant, but there have still been work arounds. MKV files, as well as the ability to rip and encode video with the OS X version of MakeMKV.

Google have just updated YouTube for Google TV, where they say it is "making it faster and easier to find great content". By doing so, they've added YouTube channel pages, which gives you more control of your experience.

The update is available on the Android Market, and after its updated, you should see some pretty big improvements. First up, the app works faster with smoother navigation, which goes toward that 'better experience' they want you to have. Secondly, Google have added a new feature called "Discover". Discover lets you browse YouTube channels by categories.

This means you could be looking for a comedy, cooking content, or the latest news, making it easier to search through categories versus running a search and hoping for the best. Google have also updated the YouTube app with new channel pages. Now you can navigate through playlists and videos in your favorite channels, as well as having the ability to subscribe to channels directly from the YouTube app with just a simple click.

Google have been hard at work, where they've released Google Chrome for Android Beta for Android 4.0-based devices, as well as a few other cool announcements, today brings the latest stable build of Chrome, Chrome 17.

Chrome 17 includes a serious speed bump, if it wasn't already fast enough. Google reckons you'll be surfing quicker than ever before with a new feature that lets pages start loading in the background before you've even finished typing a URL into the Omnibox. If the URL auto-completes to an address you'll most likely visit, Chrome will begin prerendering the page. Nifty, huh?

Security-wise, Chrome 17 includes a new security feature. Chrome 17 now runs executables through additional reputation checks that ensures that you're safe. This means that if you attempt to download a Windows installation file (EXE or MSI) that isn't on a whitelist, Google analyzes the file to determine its reputation and trustworthiness based on files previously seen from the same publisher, and site.

Google have released Chrome for Android Beta, exclusive (for now) for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Exactly like the desktop-based Chrome, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but also sports seamless sign-in and sync, so you can take your personalized web browsing experience anywhere you go.

Chrome for Android Beta is built for speed, so when searching, your top search results are loaded in the background as you type so that pages appear to load instantaneously. Chrome for Android is built from the ground up for mobile devices, where Google have reimagined tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen smartphone, as they do on the larger-screen tablet.

Privacy is a big deal for Chrome, and Chrome with Android Beta is no different. Chrome for Android Beta includes the famous incognito mode for private browsing as well as fine-grained privacy options.