If you are using the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you might need some help with some keyboard shortcuts.
Dr. Doris Chen is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft for the Western region of the United States and has published a list of keyboard shortcuts that might help you!
Check out the Windows 8 Cheat Sheet here
Motorola Mobility UK Ltd. last week expanded the Motorola XOOM 2 family in the UK with the addition of 3G and Wi-Fi capable Motorola XOOM 2 and XOOM 2 Media Edition tablets.
| The full range of XOOM 2 tablets, including Wi-Fi only variants, are available both online and in-store at the Carphone Warehouse starting from just £299.99.
“Tablets are quickly becoming a must-have tool for staying connected, getting work done and having fun at home and on the road,” said Victoria McManus, UK and Nordics marketing director, Motorola Mobility. “We are very excited about the latest additions to our tablet portfolio that builds on the success of the original Motorola XOOM and the XOOM 2 Wi-Fi variants to deliver even more choice when it comes to tablet experiences in the UK.” Motorola XOOM 2 and Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition both feature Android™ 3.2, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, brilliant displays with scratch resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass and a splashguard coating for a go anywhere, do everything attitude. In addition, all Motorola XOOM 2 tablets include Motorola’s MotoCast™1 app that lets you stream all your music, photos, videos and documents between your computer and tablet without any media tools, apps, or cords. Motorola XOOM 2: Lighter and Brighter Motorola XOOM 2 sports a 10.1-inch widescreen HD display and Android 3.2 Honeycomb like its predecessor, but the similarities end there. The display is brighter and more vibrant than before with color enhancement, and the edges have been strategically designed to make the tablet more comfortable to use. Motorola XOOM 2 is loaded with Business Ready2 features like Virtual Private Network (VPN) support and data encryption. Approximately 100 grams lighter than the original Motorola XOOM, the Motorola XOOM 2 makes it even easier to take on the road, and with a battery delivering more than 10 hours of video playback it will be always be ready when you are3. Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition: Beat your Boredom Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition is easy to hold with one hand thanks to its 8.2-inch display, and easy to take with you wherever you go, weighing less than the best-selling paperback you’ve been carrying around. Optimised for entertainment, it has a wide, 178 degree viewing angle. Hold it up to someone across the room, or share it with someone sitting next to you, and everyone gets a brilliant view. Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition also has a 20 percent improvement in graphics performance over the original Motorola XOOM for smoother gaming, featuring adaptive virtual surround sound with booming bass that’ll delight your ears and make you stand out from the crowd with one of the fastest multi-tasking in its class. It can even be a universal remote control for home entertainment equipment with the personalized, custom remote control app pre-loaded on the tablet. Accessories to connect to your life easier, from anywhere With the Work and Play kit, plug your tablet into the HD Multimedia Station to connect to your HDTV, speakers and other peripherals for large-screen entertainment. Get more done, faster with the included keyboard and mouse with Bluetooth® technology. Technical Details
Pricing and Availability Both 3G and Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi only variants of both the Motorola XOOM 2 and Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition are available from today at Carphone Warehouse.
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Bethesda have just released update 1.5 for Skyrim bringing with it various updates and fixes.
The Nokia Music app for Windows Phone has been updated to version 2.1.
Discover a world of music and local gigs with Nokia Music.
With hours of online listening choose mixes from our music experts, recommendations based on artists you love, or created from your personal music DNA. You can even choose mixes to listen to offline.
Play your own music, download new mp3s or find the latest gigs nearby.
The changes in version 2.1 are:
The guys over at the BYOB podcast, including our very own Tim Daleo have just released episode 82.
Here is what is included in this weeks show:
[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]nVida GTX680, AMD Opteron, and a whole bunch off SSD talk on this weeks BYOB Podcast[/box]
As usual you can listen to the show from here.
Xtreamer has released firmware version 3.5 for its Xtreamer Prodigy, Prodigy Silver, Prodigy Black devices.
This is what Xtreamer said:
Xtreamer Prodigy Ver 3.5 firmware is a result of a massive effort being done by our R&D teams and our community for the past 4 months. We built and optimized an entirely new Engine that will allow you to navigate your media collection on a movie info and poster based system. We believe that once you will try it you will be able to experience a new level of synergy of HD & Internet content. Very much the same way it is done on HTPC environment, on ver 3.5 you get a faster, simpler and more elegant user experience without all the headache of pre-processing your media on a computer.
What’s included in the update:
Apple has just released a Digital Camera Raw Compatibility update – version 3.12 – that adds RAW image compatibility for the Canon EOS 5D Mark III for both Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11.
Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.12
This update adds RAW image compatibility for the following camera to Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11:
• Canon EOS 5D Mark III
It’s a small download so go update now!
Apple has just released a Java for OS X 2012-002 security update just days after 001.
Java for OS X 2012-002 delivers improved compatibility, security, and reliability by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_31.
You really should update immediately if you have Java running on your Mac.
A few weeks ago, Sony released the PlayStation Vita, the follow-on product to the PSP and PSP Go. I bought a 3G(AT&T)/WiFi US unit and I’ve been putting it through its paces…read on for details!
We told you about the Vita here, back when Sony was calling this product the Next Gen Portable (NGP) system. Sony’s goal here was to introduce a gaming system with top-notch graphics to appeal to hard-core gamers who want a mobile gaming option. Did they succeed? We’ll give you our impressions!
Sony put a beautiful 5 inch OLED screen in the Vita, as well as dual analog sticks and a rear touch pad. The screen is touch enabled as well. Here are the complete specs for the US AT&T 3G model.
| CPU | ARM® Cortex™- A9 core (4 core) |
| GPU | SGX543MP4+ |
| External Dimensions | Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection) |
| Screen (Touch Screen) | 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED Multi touch screen (capacitive type) |
| Rear Touch Pad | Multi touch pad (capacitive type) |
| Cameras | Front camera, Rear camera |
| Sound | Built-in stereo speakers Built-in microphone |
| Sensors | Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), Three-axis electronic compass |
| Location | Built-in GPS Wi-Fi location service support |
| Keys / Switches | PS button Power button Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left) Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square) Shoulder buttons (Right/Left) Right stick, Left stick START button, SELECT button Volume buttons (+/-) |
| Wireless Communications | Mobile network connectivity (3G) IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1×1)(Wi-Fi)(Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode) Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR (A2DP/AVRCP/HSP) |
The Vita is a well-executed piece of hardware. It feels solid in the hand, and the 5” screen that is the heart of the unit is beautiful. The layout of the controls is similar to the PSP, but have been updated. In particular, the addition of dual analog sticks is a welcome change from the PSP.
This is not a small unit…it feels heavy. Since it is built like a tank, it is a bit heavier than the PSP, but it is much more capable.
The PS Vita uses proprietary memory cards, which are at least double the cost of SD format cards. You must purchase a memory card to use with your unit…I purchased an 8 GB and a 16GB card to use with mine. While I understand why they wanted a proprietary format, I wish that they had priced the cards a bit more reasonably. If you plan on loading videos or downloading full games to the Vita, go with the largest memory card that you can afford.
The operating system is a customized version of Android. Sony engineers worked hard to deliver a differentiated experience; this feels consistent with Sony and you can’t tell that it is running Android.
Here is the lock screen that you see when you start the PS Vita.
Did you notice the dog eared edge in the top right hand corner? That is where you open up the lock screen to log into your Vita. Just swipe from the top right hand corner down towards the bottom left corner and that opens up the lock screen to allow you to enter your access code. This is how you close all apps on the Vita. The lock screen looks like this:
Google have just updated it’s Google+ app for iOS devices.
![G_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thum[2]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/G_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thum2.jpg?ssl=1 "G_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thum[2]")
– Hashtag support in posts
– Bugfixes and performance improvements
Go get it now from the Apple App Store.
Introduction – Why do I want try something that will more than likely make my computer unusable?
Since the days of Windows 95 when Microsoft has released Beta Operating System’s to be tried out by the General Public (Translated, Try at your own Risk) we the user population would have to hope and pray that if we installed the most likely Non Stable Volatile OS that Microsoft currently had to offer to try on our own Personal Computer that It would not blow up in our faces (Not literally but it sure felt that way). So why would we allow ourselves to do this? To try something on our perfectly good machines when we know there was over a fifty percent chance that it may cost us the user lots of time and work? This is because we wanted to see the new Features that Microsoft had to bring into their new OS that they were releasing and would it work for what we needed it to work for. So here we are almost 20 years later, The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been released and once again we contemplate the same question; “Do I really want to screw up my perfectly working PC to try out Microsoft’s new OS ?” However, there is now a solution that was never readably there before and that solution is Virtualization. In this article I will be going over how to successfully obtain the necessary prerequisites and resources to configure your choice of Virtual Appliance to run Windows 8 consumer Preview on your Home PC or Laptop.
Before getting started let’s check to make sure we have everything we need to make this work…
I have a friend who strongly believes in that before starting any computer related task that you should have a frosty cold one at your side in the ready position, this of course is optional and can be substituted for something with just a little bit more carbonation in it instead.
Now first and foremost is we need to make sure that the PC (Desktop or Laptop) will be able to host the virtualized OS (In this case Windows 8 Consumer Preview), so the following host PC should have the following as a Bare Minimum in Hardware specs. Most PC’s that were made in the last 4 to 5 years should be able to meet those specifications…
· Intel Pentium Dual Core or AMD Athlon2 XII equivalent with 64 bit architecture that supports Virtualization Technologies.
· 2GB (Preferably 3GB) of System RAM.
· Running at least Microsoft Windows XP SP2 (32 Bit or 64 bit) Operating Systems or Higher Versions (For Both VMware Player and Virtual Box). For Mac users most versions of OS X (Virtual Box Only)
Second, we need to download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview from Microsoft. You will be given a choice of either 32 bit or 64 bit versions of Windows 8, I recommend choosing the 32 bit version for your virtual evaluation so you can save on the host system resources. The only real difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions is how much RAM you will be able to use and for evaluating the Operating System 4GB is more than enough. When you get ready to download the ISO Image File try to download it on a T1 or Cable ISP for faster download times, while you can still use Broadband or DSL due to the size of the ISO Image it could take at least 1 to 2 hours to download.
Lastly, you will need to download your choice of Virtualization Appliance and install on your Host PC. This topic will be covered in the next section of this article.
Earlier this week we told you about the CE issue around the Raspberry Pi boards – now there is some good news on the situation.
This is what has been posted on the Raspberry Pi blog tonight:
Good news! We just received confirmation that the Raspberry Pi has passed EMC testing without requiring any hardware modifications.
As you may know, we’ve had periods booked in a testing chamber at Panasonic’s facility in South Wales for the whole week. Jimmy and Craig from Gainspeed, our EMC consultants (with occasional assistance/hampering from Eben and the aid of many Asda sausage sandwiches), have been working into the evenings, and lost their Good Friday holiday to get all the testing finished. There is still a mountain of paperwork for us to sign, and that then has to be looked over by RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell; but that’s a piece of cake compared to what we’ve been doing all week. Given that we’ve had the chamber for the whole week, we’ve used the time to make sure that alongside the CE requirements, the Raspberry Pi also complies with FCC regulations (USA) as well as CTick (Australia) and what we’ve been calling “that Canadian thing”.
The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It’s a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu.
A cute story. Radiated immunity testing involves hitting the Raspberry Pi hard with narrow-band EM radiation, while checking (amongst many other things) that the device is still able to send Ethernet frames to a hub. The first time the team did this, the light on the hub stopped blinking: no frames were making it through. They did it again: still nothing. Finally, they discovered that the hub (which, I should point out, gave every appearance of being CE marked, so it should have been able to get through these tests itself) was being knocked out every time somebody pressed the button. Jimmy used a longer cable, put the hub outside the field, and found that the Raspberry Pi got through its immunity tests with no problems at all.
Finally, there’s small change to the legal gubbins. I know some of you felt like I did about the paragraph in our trademark rules which said that in products and websites, the words “Raspberry Pi” should only be used as an adjective to avoid genericisation – namely that it was a bloody stupid idea. This thing’s called a Raspberry Pi, not a Raspberry Pi computer. We at the Foundation call the computer a Raspberry Pi in conversation. So does everybody we’ve spoken to about it. We don’t abbreviate it to Raspicomp, but to Raspi or RP; none of the mountains of press coverage we’ve had have used Raspberry Pi adjectivally. So we had a chat about it; reminded ourselves that advice we get from our legal team is just that: advice, not binding instruction; and we’ve removed the paragraph from the trademark rules.
I can’t wait to get mine now!
Check out our write up of the Beeb@30 event including a video of Eben talking Raspberry Pi
Dave at the guys at the Home Server Show have released episode 178.
Here’s what Dave has to say about this weeks show:
Download or listen to show 178 from hereWe have two servers to talk about. The Lacie 5big Network 2 and the HP Microserver N40L. Lots of other hardware to talk about and I’ve got a deal for you on Raxco’s PerfectDisk for Windows Home Server 2011 and version 1. I’ll also show you how to transfer photos from your iOS device directly to your Windows server or PC workstation.
The Spotify app on Boxee has been updated, bringing with it a number of improvements.
This is what Boxee posted on their blog:
Today we are excited to roll out an update to the Spotify app on Boxee, delivering the experience users have asked for and making Boxee the only set top box to bring these features to your TV!
For those who don’t know, a Spotify Premium subscription lets you stream all your favorite tunes from Spotify’s endless music catalogue right on your Boxee Box. With its recent Facebook integration, which makes it even easier to discover and share music with your friends, Spotify’s awesome service is quickly becoming the world’s social music center.
For current users, we listened to you. We’ve improved the app with:
Search
With access to Spotify’s full search built-in, now you can easily find and play any track, artist or album, even if it’s not in one of your playlists. Listen to whatever you want from Spotify’s millions of tracks.
Updated Inbox
Just like Spotify on your desktop, now you’ll know instantly when friends share a song, album or playlist with you. You’ll even see a notification icon whenever you have something new along with who it’s from.
Shuffle
The new shuffle feature lets you sit back and relax while Spotify does the DJ work with your tracks.
For those of you who have already been rocking out non-stop to Spotify’s music catalogue, you’ve got a few more reasons to bust a move. If you still haven’t checked out Spotify, try it for free here. Sign up for a Premium subscription to bring Spotify to your big screen with Boxee.
Have you tried Spotify on Boxee yet?
