Posts in news

Bing for iPad Gets New “Lasso” Search Feature

Originally released in April and quickly acclaimed by the press as one of Microsoft’s best examples of innovation in user experience in the past months, the official Bing app for the iPad has managed to capture the attention of both regular Bing users and the blogosphere thanks to its compelling set of features that turned a rather simple activity like searching the web into a visually rich experience that combined local information, images, weather data and search trends to lay out beautiful search results based upon an intuitive interface and fast animations.

Today, Microsoft is announcing the release of Bing for iPad 1.1 which, among some interface optimizations and various bug fixes, brings a new search functionality called Lasso that, according to the company, should allow users to search for any keyword on the web by simply drawing a circle around it. Lasso sounds like a very innovative project and it looks good from Microsoft’s own promo video that you can check out here, but on my two iPads running the stable iOS 4.3.3 and the iOS 5 beta, I could only get it to work a couple of times in all my tests. When it did work, Lasso indeed matched the keyword I marked with a circle with a search result on Bing. As usual, the Bing app for iPad comes with an elegant design that makes it easy to swipe between searches and webpages, or jump to smart results like weather info and movie theater showtimes which, in this version, can be viewed with multiple days and theaters at once.

Microsoft writes on its blog:

In this release we made some improvements that you asked for and are excited to introduce a new feature called Lasso. Designed for touch-friendly devices, Lasso is a new way to search with the touch of a finger.

From our research, we know that many searches are inspired by things people see on the web. Today, it can be somewhat painful to search on a tablet when you’re engaged in reading something; just copying and pasting pieces of text from a webpage to a search box can take up to nine steps on the iPad. With Lasso you can circle and search in just two steps.

Microsoft keeps innovating with its Bing apps for iOS and I’m sure the issues I’ve stumbled into when testing the new Lasso capture tool can be easily fixed with an update. You can find the Bing app for iPad on the App Store. Check out more screenshots of the app after the break. Read more

Skype 5.2 Released, Brings Group Video Calls, Screen And Document Sharing

Just a little while ago, Skype 5.2 for Mac was made available and makes further improvements upon version 5.1, which had tried to appease complaints from the version 5 Skype relaunch that saw significant backlash from users. With this new version, group video calls are now out of beta and available for the general public and users can share their screens or documents in a group call. Unfortunately, group video calling, screen sharing as well as document sharing all require a Skype Premium subscription, which costs between $4.49 and $8.99 per month.

While screen sharing is already available for free on a one-to-one Skype call, group screen sharing makes communication and collaboration on group calls even richer by enabling people to view presentations, photos and documents on a participant’s screen, perfect for presenting a document to colleagues knowing they can’t skip slides in advance or for sharing holiday photos with friends and family.

There are also some UI modifications, for example in the sidebar there is now a ‘Recents’ region, which displays a list of the most active conversations, a history section also shows less active users. The call control bar now also features a video feed so that when you are multi-tasking during a video call you can still see the person as well as mute or hang up directly from that bar.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been any movement on the release of the Skype iPad app, which had been expected to launch last week. However, Skype will apparently be making its way into some kind of Facebook video chat service which is rumoured to launch this week.

You can download Skype 5.2 for Mac OS X here.

[Via TechCrunch]

Reports: Pegatron Receives 15 Million iPhone 5 Orders, 5 Million iPad 2 Shipments In July

According to a report in DigiTimes today, Pegatron Technology has landed an order from Apple for 15 million iPhone 5s, for a September launch. According to the upstream sources that revealed the information to DigiTimes, the iPhone 5 “does not seem to [be a] major update from [the] iPhone 4”. Component supplies are currently making their way to the Pegatron plant in Shaghai, with more hiring also underway.

Pegatron’s supposed involvement in the production of the iPhone 5 comes after they worked with Apple to satisfy an order of 10 million CDMA (Verizon) iPhone 4s. Because sales have been significantly less, roughly 4 million, Pegatron has been under some financial strain. As a result, Pegatron has apparently been aggressive in getting iPad and MacBook orders from Apple – although so far they haven’t had any luck.

In another report out today, DigiTimes notes that five million touch sensors of the iPad 2 will be shipped this month. TPK Holding and Wintek will supply the majority (roughly 1.5 million each) with the remaining produced by Cando, Sintek Photronic and Chimei Innolux.

[Via DigiTimes]

IM+ Developer Acquires ‘fone’, New IM+ Video App Coming Soon

As noted by TechCrunch this morning, the developer behind the very popular iOS messaging application, IM+, has agreed to acquire CrispApp - Hong Kong developers of the ‘fone’ app. You may recall that we reviewed fone back in February when it was known as Facebook Messenger, it was a well done app that brought a good Facebook chat experience to iOS and also implemented a free VoIP offering between Facebook users.

As a consequence of this deal, the developer of IM+, SHAPE Services says it will launch, within ten days, a new iOS app called IM+ Video. It will leverage upon the method in which fone allowed VoIP calls through Facebook but will instead offer users the ability to chat amongst their friends - whether they are on a desktop or mobile. The service will be provided free of charge and users of fone will be able to continue to use the service, as the app will continue to exist alongside IM+ Video.

There are currently roughly 12.5 million registered IM+ users, and SHAPE’s system process about 1.7 billion messages and 750 million ad impressions per month.

[Via TechCrunch]

New Mineral Discovery Will Ease Component Supply Pressures For Consumer Electronics

As the market for consumers electronics continues to grow, there is one problematic question that faces the industry - can supply keep up with demand? More specifically, there are a number of “rare earth” minerals that are crucial in creating electrical components for an array of consumer electronics that include the iPhone and iPad but also more generally in LCD TVs and laptops, but have been very hard to locate in large quantities.

The concern about supplying such rare earth minerals may be quelled, however, with Japanese scientists discovering huge deposits of these rare earth minerals on the floor of the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii. more promising is that the deposits are of a heavy concentration with just “one square kilometer (0.4sq miles) of deposits [from the region] able to serve one-fifth of the current global consumption”. The discovery was made by a team from the University of Tokyo, led by Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science.

He estimated rare earths contained in the deposits amounted to 80bn to 100bn tonnes – compared to global reserves currently confirmed by the US Geological Survey of just 110m tonnes that have been found mainly in China, Russia and other former Soviet Union countries, and the US.

The news has been met with positivity by consumer electronics companies and has seen a boost in share prices of non-Chinese mining companies that specialise in rare earth mineral mining. It comes after consumer electronics companies last year faced uncertainty when China last year slashed rare earth exports. The move, primarily in trade of the minerals of tantalum and yttrium, was frowned upon because China currently produces 97% of the global supply.

Sony said at the time that the move was a hindrance to free trade. Japan, which accounts for a third of global demand, has been stung badly, and has been looking to diversify its supply sources, particularly of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium used in magnets.

[Via The Guardian]

PhotoForge 2 Update: iPad Version and iOS 5 Fixes

Back in May I covered the release of PhotoForge 2, the successor of a popular image editor for iOS that, with the point-upgrade, gained a completely redesigned user interface, as well as a broader set of options aimed at turning the application into the most powerful image editing software for iPhone and iPod touch. Released as a standalone app (as the App Store doesn’t allow for paid upgrades) and sporting revamped social sharing functionalities with an OS X-like dock UI, PhotoForge had an incredibly successful launch – but one piece was missing: the iPad version. The developer teased the app ahead of the launch as a universal application for iPhone and iPad, yet in May users only got the “smaller” iPhone counterpart that, due to the limitations of the device, couldn’t fully take advantage of real screen estate for image editing.

Released today as the promised universal update, PhotoForge 2 now runs on the iPad as well and it’s available for download right now at $1.99. The iPad version of PhotoForge 2 doesn’t surprise, but it’s better than the iPhone version: whereas most of the times I’d despise an iPad porting that only makes the iPhone UI bigger, this time the conversion seems appropriate for PhotoForge: controls are made bigger but don’t get in the way because of the iPad’s large screen, toolbars provide a nice minimal frame around the photo you’re editing. And because the iPad 2 comes with cameras, this means you’ll be able to edit and improve photos shot with your device. Furthermore, the new PhotoForge 2.0 fixes several bugs reported by developers running iOS 5. The same features of the iPhone version have been ported over: layers, exposure control, brightness and contrast, or standard RGB levels are all there. The app comes with a selection of effects similar to those seen in Instagram and Camera+ that you can apply to your files in real time, in seconds. As also tested on the iPhone’s original version, the app has full layer management capabilities with handy controls on the side, a detailed info panel to check metadata of an image, and various sliders and menus to tweak the appearance of a file with levels, curves, brightness and noise regulation, or noise reduction. There’s a lot to explore and play with in PhotoForge 2, and I like I said the iPad’s screen makes the whole experience ultimately better when it comes to tapping, sliding and moving your finger around to edit an image.

Other changes in this release include:

  • Mask painting has been dramatically improved. Painting is now incredibly fast even on super large images.
  • New composition mode while mask painting allows you to see the layers below, making masking the easiest way to selectively apply filters and effects to your photos.
  • Cropping handles have been redesigned and implemented making cropping much easier to control than before.
  • The rotation gesture in the cropping tool has been removed and replaced with 1 degree rotation buttons.
  • Added ability to save photos back to the documents directory. Making it very easy to get your images back onto your computer.
  • Can now save images in JPEG, PNG and TIFF. PNG and TIFF will maintain any transparency in your images. (Not all upload locations support all image formats).
  • Can now control compression quality of JPEG.

PhotoForge 2 was the image editor to have on the iPhone, and the universal update is simply a must-have at this point. You can download PhotoForge 2 at $1.99 on the App Store. Check out more screenshots of the app after the break. Read more

OS X Lion GM Now Available

Apple has just released the GM seed for OS X Lion. It’s available now for registered developers in the Mac Dev Center. Build number is 11A511, and Lion is expected to be released publicly later this month. A GM seed is usually seeded to developers a few weeks ahead of the final release. At the WWDC ‘11, Apple announced that the upcoming version of OS X would be released exclusively on the Mac App Store as a digital download priced at $29.99. The company said Lion would come out in July, without specifying an exact release date. With over 250 new features including the Launchpad – a new way to launch and manage apps in iOS-style – Mission Control, new Mail and extensive usage of multitouch gestures, Lion is set to refine the desktop OS adding elements and user interactions heavily borrowed from Apple’s success on the iPhone and iPad.

Apple has already detailed the Lion upgrade process for businesses and education, and confirmed that new Macs bought after June 6 will be capable of getting Lion for free through a request within 30 days of Lion’s release.

In addition to the OS X Lion Golden Master, Apple has also released Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 7 and OS X Lion Server GM seed. Both GM seeds of Lion need to be redeemed in the Mac App Store with a redemption code – previously, Apple had made available builds both through the Dev Center and Software Update for minor changes to the developer preview code. Read more

The New York Times Enables In-App Subscriptions For Their iPad And iPhone Apps

The New York Times has today released an update for their iPad and iPhone apps that now enables users to purchase in-app subscriptions for their content that is behind a paywall. There are three subscriptions available for the content, the first is $15 for website plus iPhone access, then $20 for website plus iPad and finally all digital access (website, iPad and iPhone) for $35 – all of which are charged on a monthly basis.

The implementation of Apple’s subscription service comes the day after the rumored deadline that was imposed by Apple. Although that deadline was made somewhat easier for content providers after Apple backed down on certain requirements of the subscription guidelines. Most notably is that they are no longer forced to offer in-app purchases or subscriptions for content and that they can offer the content at a different price to what they offer on their websites.

However, one rule that didn’t change was that if an app offered In-App purchases or subscriptions, they cannot offer users an external link to purchase content from outside the Apple ecosystem. The New York Times seems to have played nice with this rule, but has offered existing subscribers an easy way to gain access to the content for free – as is permitted by Apple. Today’s implementation comes after they first implemented their paywall for the iPad app in April of this year and nearly four months after they first promised that they would implement iOS subscriptions. It also follows the adoption of iOS subscriptions by other publications such as Wired Magazine, The Daily, The Telegraph and Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek.

Read more

Report: iPhone 5 Components Being Prepared For October Release, iPad 3 Too?

DigiTimes is today reporting that the supply chain for the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 is beginning to prepare materials for production of the two devices. According to DigiTimes’ sources, both devices are expected to make their debuts in September and launch to the market in October.

According to the sources, production of both the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 will begin in August with volume starting to pick up in September and October as they launch. The sources also note that roughly 6-7 million units of the iPhone 5 will be produced in the third quarter, in addition to continued production of the iPhone 4.

Upstream component makers including Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), which is in charge of assembling the devices; Simplo Technologies and Dynapack International Technology, in charge of manufacturing batteries; TPK Holding and Wintek, in charge of touch panel modules; Catcher, in charge of chassis; and Largan Precision, in charge of webcams, are all expected to benefit from the orders.

Whilst this report affirms previous rumors and analyst expectations of an imminent start of iPhone 5 production, this reports claim of an iPad 3 in October is somewhat questionable. DigiTimes has somewhat of a hit-and-miss record of Apple related rumors, although it should be pointed out that the timeline of an iPad 3 release date is a bit murky. Earlier this year there were rumors of two iPad releases this year, but then more recently DigiTimes itself claimed Apple is beginning their component certification process with a 2012 release time frame for the iPad 3.

[Via DigiTimes]