Movies Games and Tech

StableBit DrivePool finally coming out of beta?

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

StableBit DrivePool finally coming out of beta?

After many many months and a huge number of beta builds, it looks like StableBit DrivePool is finally coming out of beta!

This is what the old page now says:

The DrivePool BETA is coming to an end.

DrivePool now has a new home on http://stablebit.com/DrivePool

Thank you everyone for testing the BETA. Information on a DrivePool discount for existing BETA testers will be available soon.

Have you used it yet? Tell us what you think!

Here is how CoveCube describes this application:

Combine all your hard drives into one big storage pool (except the system drive with the OS).
Add and remove drives from the pool at any time without re-partitioning or manually moving folders.
Create duplicated folders on the storage drive pool that are protected against single drive failure. If a drive fails on which a duplicated file was stored, the contents of that file will remain readable even without the drive.
All your data is stored in standard NTFS files. You can always access your files even if the Windows Home Server completely crashes or this add-in can’t be used.

Download the latest Stablebit Drivepool beta from here

ARCHOS roll out Ice Cream Sandwich to its G9 tablet range

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

ARCHOS roll out Ice Cream Sandwich to its G9 tablet range

ARCHOS has released the latest version of the Android platform for its G9 tablet range – Android 4.0.3 also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

Starting today, the over-the-air (OTA) upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich will begin rolling out to G9 owner’s worldwide. Just look for the notification “A” in the lower right hand corner of your device – click it, download it and begin your Ice Cream Sandwich experience.
Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — faster web browsing, easy multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and enhanced social media integration. In addition, Ice Cream Sandwich adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing with improved text input and spell checking, a dynamic voice input engine, enhanced imaging capabilities and a redesigned Gallery app with photo editor.

Unique ARCHOS add-ons for Ice Cream Sandwich include full 1080p support for most video codecs, movies and TV shows description and subtitles automatic download, wireless content sharing between your device and any computer or DNLA compatible TV’ and 3D video support for MKV3D files. Additional features include an optimized File Manager with full drag and drop support, Ethernet USB dongle support and the ARCHOS remote control application that allows your tablet to be controlled by any Android device.

With full Google certification, the ARCHOS G9 range will continue to benefit from all the Google Apps (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, etc.) and full access to the Android Marketwith over 450,000 apps.

Raspberry Pi hit with manufacturing hiccup

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

1

Raspberry Pi hit with manufacturing hiccup

After the pre-orders started last week everyone has been sitting patiently waiting for their Pi to arrive, now they are reporting a manufacturing hiccup so there will be a slight delay.

This is what they posted:

It’s inevitable, isn’t it – you’re freewheeling along perfectly happily and then you get a puncture.

As you’ll have noticed, there’s been a bit of a delay in shipping the first batch of Raspberry Pis out to people. This is because of a hardware parts substitution that was made in the factory by accident: specifically, where we’d specified jacks with integrated magnetics in the BOM and schematics, the factory soldered in non-magnetic jacks. No magnetics means no network connection. We’ve known about this for four days now, but we haven’t been able to tell you about it because it meant we had to do some further tests to make sure that nothing else was affected

Happily, it’s a very minor problem to fix (desolder the dud jack/solder on a new one), and the factory is nearly done working on replacing them on the first set of boards. This means that the first tranche of boards should still go out to customers as we were expecting. There may now be a slight delay in later batches if there’s a problem sourcing enough magnetic jacks (we’ve got teams hunting them down already); all the stock of jacks we believed we had in place and ready to turn into the ethernet ports on your Raspberry Pis turn out not to be the correct part, so we’re having to start again and move through the negotiating/ordering/delivery cycle as fast as we can. Our partners at Element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Components are working hard to help us cater for this, and to expedite supply of the Raspberry Pi.

We are very, very sorry. We know you want your Raspberry Pi as soon as possible (and many of you are being inhumanly patient, having followed us since we launched this website eight months ago). We’ll keep you updated with how manufacture is moving; this is, in the scheme of things, a minor problem, but it’s still a bump in the road and we know that we rely on your goodwill to keep things moving forward.

Did you order one? I did and my current estimated delivery is the middle of May. Tell us when yours is.

Remote App from Apple updated to version 2.3

Apple
News

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

Remote App from Apple updated to version 2.3

Apple has released a lot of updates to it’s software over the last 24 hours including updating it’s Remote app.

Control iTunes and Apple TV using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over your Wi-Fi network. Choose playlists, songs, and albums as if you were in front of your computer or Apple TV. Or play them from iCloud with iTunes Match on Apple TV. From anywhere in your home, you can change a song, pick a playlist, or browse your entire library. With a flick of your finger, you can control the Apple TV interface. Use your iOS device’s keyboard to quickly tap out a title instead of clicking letters on the Apple TV screen. Then keep tapping to play, fast-forward, rewind, and pause to your finger’s content. Remote is fully optimized for the stunning Retina display in iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and is designed to take advantage of the large Multi-Touch display on iPad.

Features
• Control iTunes and Apple TV from anywhere in your home
• Browse, listen to, and control your iTunes Match library on Apple TV
• Pause, rewind, fast-forward, shuffle, and adjust the volume from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
• View album, movie, and TV show artwork
• Create and update iTunes playlists, including Genius playlists
• Search your entire iTunes library
• Control iTunes to send music to AirPlay speakers
• Control the volume on each speaker independently
• Use simple gestures to control Apple TV
• Enter text with the keyboard
• Control shared libraries on iTunes and the new Apple TV

What’s New in Version 2.3

• Support for iTunes Match on Apple TV
• Support for Retina display on iPad

Download now from the App Store

Media Browser 2.5.3 (Apollo SP1) Released

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

Media Browser 2.5.3 (Apollo SP1) Released

The latest version of Media Browser, version 2.5.3, codename Apollo SP1 has been released.

Highlights:

Much faster RAL loading in most instances
Faster performance with the Music plug-in in most instances
Improvements to the default theme for Music items
RAL should eliminate dups in situations where you have multiple children of a top item pointing to the same items
Unavailable content should be handled much better. Now it will just skip the validation of the specific items that are not available and allow everything else to refresh.
Support for logos, art and thumbs at the core level (so all themes can take advantage of them).
Implemented non-english metadata retrieval from tmdb
Indicators are shown for premium plugins in the More Plugins window of the Configurator and you can limit the list of plugins to only free ones.
Screensavers can now kick in from the details screen
Jump in List fixes with non-english character sets
Much better Jump in List when not sorted by name. See: Search by NAME when sorted by DATE
3D Movies can now be recognized by Media Browser
Added mk3d media type for external players
Change in xml provider to look for movie.xml primarily instead of mymovies.xml. For more details see Important Notes.
Default theme improvements and fixes

Not much in the way of features in this release but some important bug fixes including:

Fix for last added lists containing TV outside of the normal file structure
Podcasts now show in last added lists properly
JIL and sorting should now work better with non-alpha characters and indexes
Fix for some memory leaks in the service
You can now index a folder by the official certification (MPAA rating)

You can download it from here

The Digital Lifestyle Show #344 – Beeb@30

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

The Digital Lifestyle Show #344 – Beeb@30

This weeks Digital Lifestyle Show has just been released – and it’s show 344.

Here’s what Ian says about this week show:

This week we have a special guest joining us, Simon Hewitt from Beeb@30 joins us to talk about the anniversary celebrations of the BBC Micro and the Computer Literacy Project that kicked off a generation of programmers. They have an exciting event planned with guests from the original Acorn team and Simon has all the details. Filling in for Garry and Andrew is TDL Mobile’s Jason Coombes , he joins me to chat with Simon and talk over the weeks news including new versions of My Movies for iPad and Android with movie downloading, Windows 8 impressions, Kindle app for Windows 8, Amulet’s Kinect app, Handbrake working with WTV and our first thoughts of the new iPad and Apple TV.

You can listen to or download the show from here.

Toshiba Show Off New Tablet Concepts

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

This week at Toshiba’s 2012 Product Preview, there were two new tablet concepts on display.

These were concept devices which may or may not ever see the light of day.

7.7” Tablet Concept

This 7.7” inch tablet concept looked and felt really nice. The first thing I thought when I saw it sitting there was that I wanted one.

It has an OLED panel and runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It has both front and rear cameras, along with Micro SD and Micro USB ports.

It was very light weight and very responsive.

13.3” Tablet Concept

Now we come to the 13.3” tablet concept and it’s big, probably too big for a tablet! It has the usual ports and camera’s on it that you would expect.

The interesting thing about this concept was that it was only a shell – it didn’t actually work. I’m not convinced how many people would want a 13.3” tablet, although I could see some business benefits.

No word on when or if either would be released, or any details on the specs, or prices, so watch this space.

Would you be interested in either of these? Let us know.

Apple Updates iBooks to version 2.1

Apple
News

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

Apple has just updated it’s iBooks app to version 2.1, bringing it with updated that include support for the new iPad’s Retina display.

This is what Apple said about iBooks 2 when it launched:

iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don’t weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore℠ with most priced at $14.99 or less, and with the new iBooks Author, a free authoring tool available today, anyone with a Mac® can create stunning iBooks textbooks.

“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”

The new iBooks 2 app is available today as a free download from the App Store. With support for great new features including gorgeous, full screen books, interactive 3D objects, diagrams, videos and photos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the solar system or the physics of a skyscraper with amazing new interactive textbooks that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger. With its fast, fluid navigation, easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards, the new iBooks 2 app lets students study and learn in more efficient and effective ways than ever before.

What’s New in Version 2.1

• Read books more easily with sharply detailed text on the new iPad’s amazing Retina display
• See page numbers that correspond to the printed edition of select titles
• Search for a page number to jump to a desired page with a single tap
• Use your finger as a highlighter when swiping over text
• This version also includes a number of important stability and performance improvements

iBooks 2 is available now for free in the App Store

Google Updates it’s Search App for Windows 7.5 phones

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

Google Updates it’s Search App for Windows 7.5 phones

Google has updated it’s official Search app for Windows phones.

Features include:

Google Autocomplete: As you type in your search, our autocomplete feature offers search predictions that often match your intended search term making search entry easier and faster.
Voice Search: With our voice feature, you can avoid typing all together. Simply press the microphone and begin speaking your query.
My Location: With your permission, Google can use your device location to provide nearby results easily and accurately. For instance, a search for “coffee shops” quickly displays the nearest places you can go to for a cup of coffee.

You can download the app from the Windows Marketplace and try it for yourself. It’s available worldwide in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Apple Updates iTunes U to version 1.1

Apple
News

Andrew Edney

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Mar 8, 2012

0

Apple also updated iTunes U today to version 1.1 bringing with it enhancements for the Retina display of the new iPad.

Free courses in a wide array of subjects:
• Take free courses created and taught by instructors from leading universities and other schools
• See all assignments and updates from the instructor in one place, and check off assignments as you complete them
• Take notes and highlight text in iBooks and see them consolidated for easy reviewing in the iTunes U app
• Access course materials, including audio, video, books, documents & presentations, apps, and new iBooks textbooks for iPad

What’s New in Version 1.1

iTunes U 1.1 is now designed for the spectacular Retina display on the all new iPad. This version also includes a number of performance improvements.

QNAP Announces New Intel Based NAS Units

Jim McCarthy

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Mar 8, 2012

0

QNAP announced a new range of Intel-based NAS units today…read on for details.

QNAP announced several Intel-based NAS units today. Here is the press release with the details:

Los Angeles, CA, March 7, 2012–QNAP^®, Inc. today officially launched the next generation of its extremely popular and award-winning Turbo NAS server lineup, the TS-x69 Pro series, and showcased the new NAS Firmware 3.6 and the latest VioStor NVR video surveillance systems.

New TS-x69 Pro Turbo NAS: 220+ MB/s throughput, virtualization ready, USB 3.0 support

The new TS-x69 Pro series, available in 2, 4, 5, 6, or 8-drive versions, are powered by a high performance dual-core Intel^® Atom^™ processor D2700, equipped with 1GB DDR3 RAM, and support SATA 6Gb/s 2.5” and 3.5” HDD, to provide the levels of performance required by SMB users. All models have 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports. “The QNAP lab test statistics reveal that both writing and reading speeds in a Windows environment exceed 220 MB/sec in network trunking mode,” commented Laurent Chang, product manager of QNAP.

The TS-x69 Pro series provides the perfect blend of performance, business-ready features and value that make QNAP the ideal networked storage choice for small and medium-sized businesses. The built-in USB 3.0 ports provide flexibility to attach external storage devices for high speed data backup or immediate storage expansion.

The TS-x69 Pro series can simultaneously provide storage solutions for IP-SAN (iSCSI) and NAS implementations. Being VMware^® Ready^™, Citrix^® XenServer Ready^™, and Windows^® Hyper-V^™compliant, it is ideal for providing network shared storage for virtual server environments.

“Shared network storage is becoming an essential infrastructure for businesses. Incorporating the Intel^® Atom^™ 2.13GHz Dual-core processor, the new Turbo NAS series delivers great performance and high reliability with very low power consumption,” said Meiji Chang, the general manager of QNAP.

Managing the growing amounts of digital information has become a top concern for small-and-medium businesses. Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides a centralized, protected solution to share and access data across small and medium businesses. “Intel technologies are at the core of these NAS solutions, providing protection for critical business information”, said David Tuhy, General Manager, Intel Storage Group.

Key specifications of the new models:

TS-869 Pro–8-drive tower unit, Dual-core Intel Atom Processor D2700 (2.13 GHz), 1GB DDR3 RAM, 2X Gigabit LAN ports; hard drives hot-swappable;

TS-669 Pro – 6-drive tower unit, Dual-core Intel Atom Processor D2700 (2.13 GHz), 1GB DDR3 RAM, 2X Gigabit LAN ports; hard drives hot-swappable;

TS-569 Pro – 5-drive tower unit, Dual-core Intel Atom Processor D2700 (2.13 GHz), 1GB DDR3 RAM, 2X Gigabit LAN ports; hard drives hot-swappable;

TS-469 Pro – 4-drive tower unit, Dual-core Intel Atom Processor D2700 (2.13 GHz), 1GB DDR3 RAM, 2X Gigabit LAN ports; hard drives hot-swappable;

TS-269 Pro – 2-drive tower unit, Dual-core Intel Atom Processor D2700 (2.13 GHz), 1GB DDR3 RAM, 2X Gigabit LAN ports; hard drives hot-swappable.

New NAS V3.6 Firmware

QNAP also demonstrated its latest V3.6 NAS management firmware. It provides highly anticipated features including VPN Server, LDAP Server, Proxy Server, cloud music and photo sharing via a web browser, enhanced backup features, a new version of MyCloudNAS 1.2, QPKG center, and an increased range of compatible IP camera and UPnP routers.

New VioStor NVR Video Surveillance Systems

Capture HD video with robust and reliable storage from QNAP Security. The 48-channel VS-8148 Pro+ provides real-time audio-video monitoring, simultaneous playback of multiple network cameras and megapixel recording at up to 10-megapixel resolution. Store up to 24 TB of footage, or 3 TB per hard drive, with hot-swappable RAID for data redundancy. The VS-8148 Pro+ supports H.264, MxPEG, MPEG-4, and M-JPEG recording from up to 48 network cameras.

About QNAP Systems, Inc.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2004 and is dedicated to bringing world class NAS storage, professional NVR video surveillance, and network video players to consumer, small/medium business, and entry level enterprise market segments. QNAP leverages not only hardware design but also a growing core competency in software engineering that is precisely focused on bringing to market products that offer the highest available performance coupled with outstanding reliability, scalability, and ease of installation and use. QNAP is a multi-national company with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and subsidiary offices in China and the United States.

I recently upgraded to the TurboNAS 3.6 firmware and have been testing out several of the new features…look for my article on that soon.

Apple TV Updated to version 5.0

Apple
News

Andrew Edney

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Mar 7, 2012

0

Along with the iOS 5.1 updates for the iPhone and iPad, Apple have also updated the existing Apple TV’s to version 5.0.

This update brings all the new features mentioned for the new Apple TV announced tonight (but without the 1080p playback).

You an update directly from the Apple TV.

And Firecore are advising you to steer clear of the update if you want to jailbreak.

Nokia Lumia 800 New Software Update Rolling Out Now

Andrew Edney

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Mar 7, 2012

1

Nokia have announced today the Nokia Lumia 800 PR 1.2 1600.2487.8107.12070 update is rolling out.

The fixes include:

• Enhanced battery standby and talk time performance
• Battery capacity icon instead of question mark on top right of screen
• Improved bass in audio performance
• Soft-key illumination at all brightness levels
• Fixes for device performance issues including self-reboots, freezes and call-ending

Do you have a Lumia 800? What do you think of it?

Apple Releases iTunes Version 10.6

Andrew Edney

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Mar 7, 2012

0

Apple has today released iTunes version 10.6 with updates for playback of 1080p movies and more.

With iTunes in the Cloud, the music, apps, and books you purchase automatically appear on all your devices. Or you can download only the stuff you want — including movies and TV shows — to just the devices you want. It’s all part of iCloud and iTunes 10.6.

iTunes 10.6 adds the ability to play 1080p HD movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store.

This release also includes many improvements for iTunes Match, including:

• Improved song matching

• Improved album artwork handling, downloading, and display

• Addresses an issue where songs may skip when playing from iCloud

You can download the new version or update your existing version now.

MOVIES, GAMES AND TECHMOVIES, GAMES AND TECH

MOVIES, GAMES AND TECHFashion Trends and Culture

StableBit DrivePool finally coming out of beta?

ARCHOS roll out Ice Cream Sandwich to its G9 tablet range

Raspberry Pi hit with manufacturing hiccup

Remote App from Apple updated to version 2.3

What’s New in Version 2.3

Media Browser 2.5.3 (Apollo SP1) Released

Highlights:

The Digital Lifestyle Show #344 – Beeb@30

Toshiba Show Off New Tablet Concepts

7.7” Tablet Concept

13.3” Tablet Concept

Apple Updates iBooks to version 2.1

What’s New in Version 2.1

Google Updates it’s Search App for Windows 7.5 phones

Apple Updates iTunes U to version 1.1

What’s New in Version 1.1

QNAP Announces New Intel Based NAS Units

Apple TV Updated to version 5.0

Nokia Lumia 800 New Software Update Rolling Out Now

Apple Releases iTunes Version 10.6