Software & Apps - Page 96

Microsoft may have released Zune which failed to really take off or compete with Apple's iTunes, but it looks like Microsoft is back yet again with a new competitor for Apple: Xbox Music.

Xbox Music is an all-in-one digital music service that will throw the 30 million tracks available to users through the Xbox 360 gaming console to Microsoft PCs, tablets and smartphones running the Redmond-based company's Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems.

There are three parts of this new venture, the first is a free streaming service that will be ad-supported and limited to a certain number of hours after six months. A premium, unlimited, ad-free streaming option is also available at around $10 a month, and consumers will also have the option to simply purchase and download any track from the catalogue.

Windows 8 is nearly here, folks - are you excited? It's going to be a mammoth launch from Microsoft, who are reportedly spending $1 billion or more on a huge marketing campaign stretching the globe. We're looking at the Surface tablet, Microsoft's iPad competitor, a new operating system, a smart device OS (Windows RT, Windows Phone 8) and more.

What should you be looking forward to? Well, a lot! I've compiled a list of five things I think you should be excited for - and as usual, this list is just a personal opinion.

1.) Proper touchscreen support in a Windows OS. Yes, there have been previous versions of Windows that support touchscreens, but Windows 8 has been built with touchscreens in mind.

Developers of Android applications will be pleased to hear that Google has heard your complaints and updated the Android developer console to make it easier to use. As the system stands, there are some significant difficulties seeing whether or not an app is published and is generally confusing to use.

"At its core, the Developer Console is how you put your app in front of hundreds of millions of Android users around the world, and track how your app is doing," the company said in a blog post. "We hope that with a streamlined publishing flow, new language options, and new user ratings statistics, you'll have better tools for delivering great Android apps that delight users."

Like most updates offered by companies, the new version is faster, sleeker, and easier to use, or so Google says. By the looks of it, this is true, though I'm no Android developer. The new version features loads of new analytics with charts and graphs everywhere. Developers can see data by device, country, language, carrier, Android version, or app version.

I was laying in bed last night and grabbed my Nexus 7 that I have on my bedside table, I turned it on and hit the Google Play store to have a look around. I noticed that the menu looked different, so I looked closer and noticed that "Magazines" now appeared - finally, the Australian Play Store has magazines!

Cool, I thought, I'll check it out and purchase a magazine to see how it is. I download the app, purchase a magazine from an Australian technology magazine "PC & Tech Authority", lay down and proceed to enjoy reading it. Well, I couldn't because Google Play Magazines doesn't quite work yet.

The app itself doesn't open, and requires an update, which you can't tap the option to do so. You can see in the picture above, just below where it says "GOOGLE INC.", there should be an "Update", and "Open" tab, but there is not. So I have now wasted $4.99 on a magazine that I can't read. I'm sure it'll work soon enough, but it's disappointing to see Google launch a new section of their Play store, and have it fail on day one.

In a continuing effort to make Google Chrome more secure, Google enters the browser into hacking competitions. One of the hacking competitions stopped requiring participants to fully disclose how an exploit was performed, so Google decided to start hosting their own. Known as Pwnium competition, Google hands out awards from $20,000 to $60,000 depending on the exploit.

In this case, a hacker managed to win $60,000, the highest award amount, for exploiting a security hole in Chrome on Tuesday. "We're happy to confirm that we received a valid exploit from returning pwner Pinkie Pie," Google announced in a Chromium blog. "This pwn relies on a WebKit Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) compromise to exploit the renderer process and a second bug in the IPC layer to escape the Chrome sandbox. Since this exploit depends entirely on bugs within Chrome to achieve code execution, it qualifies for our highest award level as a 'full Chrome exploit,' a $60,000 prize and free Chromebook."

Of course, Google's team immediately started patching the exploit as soon as it was discovered and had a patch pushed out in just 10 hours. The hacker who performed this exploit also picked up $60,000 in the first competition that was held earlier this year. If Pinkie Pie can keep this up, he could support himself nicely with this income.

Samsung has submitted a new "flash-friendly" file system to the Linux Kernel tree thanks to their codesmith Jaegeuk Kim. The new file system has been dubbed F2FS (flash-friendly file system) and is an open source design, and is the results of the South Korean company's efforts to our modern day flash storage tech.

The most used "universal" file systems are FAT16 and FAT32, but are getting quite old now, so old that they predate huge, rewriteable flash-based devices. Most file systems don't actually suit flash media, which is where Samsung has entered the game, offering up a new file system for a new breed of devices.

F2FS is a log-based system, which is set to go down a different path than current file systems, as explained below:

Android 4.2 rumors are really building up, with all of the news that there's an impending LG-built Nexus-branded phone that is meant to drop later this month and be available next month.

Android 4.2 is beginning to pop up on some logs that are running on current Nexus-branded devices. The new smartphone is reportedly running with a codename of "Occam", with the new tablet codenamed "Manta".

The new Android 4.2-powered devices will have the ability to stream even more content from the Google Play store as well as including a new Customization Cente, which will let users customize both the look and feel of their stock Android device. Out of the rumored features, the one I'm most excited for is something called Project Roadrunner.

We reported yesterday that Google would be coming out with Street View for it's mobile web-based Maps application. There was some debate as to whether or not it would be today that we saw the fruit of Google's labor, and it turns out that iOS6 users don't have to wait any longer to get access to one of the most popular Google Maps features.

While Street View is now available on iOS 6, the system is a bit laggy due to it being web-based. That said, it is still the only way to see a destination before arriving there. I'm sure most users will be overjoyed at getting the feature back. It will at least work as a stop-gap measure until Google releases a native Maps app for iOS.

While they haven't said they are working on one, it's highly unlikely that Google would take a miss on the large user database they could have for gaining traffic information and other information. Google explains how to use Street View on their web app:

AMD love to push out their beta versions of Catalyst drivers, with the release of the Catalyst 12.9 beta drivers now available. This release is a bit different to the usual beta releases, as it includes support for AMD's Enduro technology.

Enduro is AMD's version of NVIDIA Optimus, which will allow dynamic switching between a system's integrated, and discrete graphics which will in turn provide better battery life. AMD have also added an Optimus-like application profile set within the Catalyst Control Center, where users can select which applications run on either integrated, or discrete graphics.

The Catalyst 12.9 beta drivers also offer improved performance in Lost Planet 2 - with an up to 10% increase in performance on single-GPU setups. There are also some Catalyst application profiles included:

Facebook has gone ahead and updated Instagram to be compatible with the larger screen on the iPhone 5 and to make the app more compatible with iOS6. The new update brings with it several changes, most notably the removal of live filters for the iPhone 5. Older iPhones, such as the 4S seem to have retained the feature.

Along with no more live filters for the iPhone 5, Instagram has a new registration page that allows users to pull in their information from Facebook--go figure. However, the option to log-in with Facebook is curiously absent from the app. One would think that this would be a feature that Facebook would want to implement.

Moving back to the live filters, it appears that they will soon be removed from older devices. Their absence has been acknowledged on Instagram's "known issues" page and the acknowledgement seems to indicate that they will be removed from the older phones soon:

Right now, Dropbox and Google+ apps sport the ability to automatically upload your photos to their respective cloud-based storage spaces after you've snapped your latest picture, with Facebook looking like they're playing around with the same feature.

Facebook are soon to rollout the feature to a few select users that will let them take pictures, and get uploaded automatically to a private photo album on their account. The social networking site has said that the feature will roll out to a very select few, which is how Facebook operates when testing out new features.

I'm a huge Facebook user, and I like the idea of this happening - but it does chew through your mobile data if you're not connected to WiFi. I'd love to see some features built-in where you can choose options of times when it can upload the photos. I'd love to be able to select a time like "upload between 1AM-6AM", when I'm sleeping. This way, my phone is next to me when I'm in bed, secondly it's connected to my home WiFi and not using my mobile data, thirdly it doesn't impact the speed of my Internet use on the device if its thrashing itself uploading pictures to Facebook.

Here is a full list of official changes and additions by Apple as presented in the update process in iTunes.

Have fun with the new update!

It seems as though Google has decided to come to the "Do Not Track" party with Google Chrome. The latest test build of the popular browser now includes a "Do Not Track" option, which allows users to opt-out of being tracked by cookies for advertising and other purposes. It's becoming more and more popular.

Advertisers are, of course, worried about these changes due to the fact that they will be less able to target ads at web-surfers. A Google Spokesperson:

Since Apple is removing the stock YouTube app from iOS 6, Google has been hard at work producing a new app to replace it with. Since Apple is expected to unveil the new iPhone tomorrow, which is expected to come with iOS 6, Google wanted to make sure they had a new app ready in case Apple releases iOS 6 to everyone tomorrow.

According to the Google Blog post, "The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience." The new app is sure to be better than the old stock one because they now can do more of what they want and don't need Apple to sign off on all the changes. With the new app comes the following features:

Of course, there are more changes than just that, but Google wants to tease you and says just this. They then let you know it's free to download on the Apple App store. Google also notes that they are working on an iPad optimized version, which should be ready in the coming months. Of course, you'll find out about that new app first here on TweakTown.

Valve's first real big push into gamers' lounge rooms is with "Big Picture" mode, which makes Steam much more TV and controller friendly. Valve are known to not really agree, or like the state of PC hardware and console technology, where they've even been rumored to be working on their own console, Steam Box.

Big Picture is looking to compete on the TV with consoles, with Valve's attempt to make their Steam UI look great on the big screen. Big Picture is designed for your PC to be connected to your TV, you can still use the new mode with your keyboard and mouse. At the moment, Big Picture mode is only available on the PC version of Steam, with the Mac-based version coming soon. In order to enable Big Picture mode, you'll have to go into Settings:

Opt-in to the beta, and update your client:

Fans of Instagram and Windows Phone rejoice, the app will be coming to the new Windows Phone 8 platform. According to The Verge's sources, Instagram will be made available on Windows Phone 8. A slip-up in a promotional video tipped them off, though the video could possibly be showing a Vimeo live tile.

The Verge then went and independently verified that Instagram is indeed coming to the platform. As you can see in the video above, at 0:52, the tile on the right, second from the top appears to be Instagram likes and comments. An image is provided below for your viewing pleasure.

Now, you no longer have to make a decision on buying a phone based on needing Instagram as it should make its way onto Windows Phone 8 before the end of 2012. Now you can use Nokia's PureView camera to take even better grainy 600x600 sunset or meal pictures. Won't all your friends be impressed?

It looks as though Apple may be lessening some of its restrictions on apps, if the addition of Conttrol to the App Store is anything to go by. Conttrol is an app that allows the remote control of uTorrent running on a PC, so while the app doesn't itself torrent, it controls a program which does, thus enabling torrenting.

Transmission RPC, a similar app in function to Conttrol, was also approved a few months ago. It's important to note that neither of these apps torrent on the device itself, so this is possibly how they managed to get through the checkpoint. It could also be that they slipped up and accidentally let them through and will ban them as soon as they notice.

"Currently the app supports connections to uTorrent & BitTorrent clients but there are future plans to support Transmission on the Mac, as well as planned development of a native iPad version," Conttrol developer Craig Donnelly said.

Yesterday we heard rumors that Sprint would be pushing out Android 4.1 Jelly Bean updates to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S 4G, where today this news has been confirmed. The updates should already be hitting handsets, or will any minute now.

Jelly Bean updates will provide a bunch of new features such as Google Now, which is a Siri-like assistant, an improved notification and voice search system, offline dictation, and more. One of the better features of Jelly Bean is 'Project Butter', which makes the entire OS' UI move at 60fps.

I've been using Jelly Bean for only two days now on my recently-acquired Nexus 7, and it truly is beautiful. If you're a Sprint-based Galaxy Nexus, or Nexus S 4G owner, keep checking your phone for that JB update!

Microsoft have just outed Windows Server 2012, which is offering simplified licensing. The new server OS comes in four different versions, Datacenter, Standard, Essentials, and Foundation, all aimed at different markets and customers.

The new server offerings include training on the new features baked into the OS, as well as a 90-day trial period running on Microsoft's Azure cloud-based service. Microsoft's Windows Server general marketing manager, Mike Schutz, says:

Spotify has been my favorite app for a while now, but I've always wondered just how much an artist makes per song streamed to me, or anyone else using the streaming, subscription-based music system. The system is called 'stream rental', and Josh Davison of Centro shared some numbers regarding streaming revenue earned from his baned Parks and Gardens, on both Spotify, and iTunes Match.

Apple's iTunes Match pays one-third of a cent, and Spotify is significantly more sitting at just under one cent per streamed track. But, having the song on iTunes Match means that the customer has already acquired the track somehow, be it legally, or pirated and then synced to iTunes Match. Spotify seems like the go, here.

Now we have some numbers thanks to web developer Scott Buscemi, showing popular services such as Spotify, Spotify Free, iTunes Match and Rhapsody from his client, HoneyBoy Dupree: