Yahoo Announces Livestand, Digital Newsstand For iPad and Android

In an attempt to revitalize its news and content delivery platform and target the new tablet market, today Yahoo announced Livestand, a digital newsstand for iPad and Android devices that will become available in the form of native apps in the first half of 2011. There is no release date and pricing information for now, but a few details about Livestand have been revealed.

Livestand, according to Yahoo, will deliver “a wealth of ever-changing content” from different publishers that will sign up to the project and it will be geared towards a user’s interest and contexts. It sounds like a personalized news platform à la Flipboard, although it isn’t clear at this point whether the information will be real-time, aggregated from social networks and websites, or published at regular intervals from external sources.

With Livestand, we’re using ad formats that evoke the emotion of TV advertising with a highly-visual magazine-like experience.  And they’re combined with the effectiveness of an Internet ad that’s data-rich, actionable, even location aware. It’s all personalized and in context – just like our content.

In the first half of 2011, you’ll see Yahoo!’s vast digital content library come to life through Livestand from Yahoo! – from Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo! Contributor Network – as iPad and Android tablet applications.

This is all Yahoo has announced for now. It sounds fairly interesting and promising – honestly though, I’m really looking forward to what comes next for Flipboard. Sorry, Yahoo.

Advertisers Not Happy About Apple’s iAds?

Months after the introduction of Apple’s iAd advertising platform, it looks like advertisers aren’t happy about the service at all. According to a report posted by TechCrunch, many developers have noticed a massive slowdown in iAd’s fill rates recently, especially after the New Year:

The fill rate—what percentage of the ad inventory is actually filled with an ad—for two separate developers plummeted from 18 percent to 6 percent. And in a few instances for some newer apps, none of the ad slots were getting filled, compared to nearly complete fill rates from other mobile ad networks.

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PropEdit Brings Simple Permission Editing to OS X

PropEdit, a new free app by eosgarden, aims at making the process of editing file and folder permissions on your Mac super-easy. Instead of relying on contextual menus in the Finder or the Terminal to modify owner and group permissions, PropEdit offers a graphical user interface inspired by the Finder’s column view that allows you easily find your way through the system and act on files that need a permission fix.

PropEdit features an additional sidebar that contains all the options you might need to change permissions; instead of chmod in the command line, you can simply check off items to modify a file’s ownership, and so forth. It’s all very simple and strightforward.

Terminal junkies will of course stick to their insane command line skills when it comes to permission editing, but PropEdit is really good. It’s not available in the Mac App Store, but you can download it for free here.

Marathon Man Will “Run” iOS and Android Devices In Tokyo

Joseph Tame truly is one kind of a geek. Last year, he live streamed the Tokyo marathon with an iPhone head-mount. This year, the project is much bigger and involves the iRun, “the world’s most advanced mobile social media machine”. What is that? Well, it’s a complex device that can be wrapped around your body while you’re running and packs several mobile devices like phones, tablets and WiFi routers into a single structure that’s constantly connected to the Internet. Sounds geeky? Read on below.

It features four iPhones on rotatable mounts, an iPad, an Android handset, three mobile wifi routers, a wind turbine (ok, so it’s a kid’s fan that turns around…), a 4-in-one atmospheric monitor, a heart monitor, a plastic doughnut and of course the very important satellite dish for high-speed data connectivity (cunningly crafted from a bird-feeding dish).

It doesn’t end at mobile device integration, though. The iRun will connect to various applications like FaceTime and Skype to stream a live video feed, which will also be processed and broadcasted by a team of 15 people in a production studio. Joseph will send location and hearth rate with Runkeeper on the iPhone, transmit temperature and humidity date with a custom-made Android app and, as he says, look “incredibly cool” as well. That’s one particular outfit for sure.

More information on the project is available here. We think the system Joseph has built is really interesting, and we look forward to seeing everything in action on February 27th. Check out the video below. [via TUAW] Read more

Today Is The Verizon iPhone 4 Launch Day

A reminder that today is the day that the Verizon iPhone goes on sale across the US in Apple, Verizon, Walmart and Best Buy stores and Macworld is reporting of mixed queue lengths around the country. It seems that few stores had more than just a couple of people queuing before the shops opened.

If you are in the US and looking to walk in and grab a Verizon iPhone 4, Macworld is updating their post as they hear information about supplies so have a look over their for some updated information. Apple and Verizon are also selling the Verizon iPhone on their websites to everyone, no longer restricting purchases from non-Verizon customers.

[Via Macworld]

Hipstamatic Update: Faster Photo Organization, Camera Bag

It is no secret that Instagram, the popular image sharing service, has been collecting an incredible user base lately. With more than 2 million active users and commercial brands jumping on board to promote their products through photos, Instagram has become many people’s choice when it comes to applying quick and neat effects to photos snapped with an iPhone, ready to be shared online.

But Hipstamatic, another popular iPhone app that’s been around for years and was featured on publications such as The New York Times, is not standing still. Hipstamatic allows you to apply effects to photos and share them on your favorite social networks, but it’s more geared towards “pro” users with a quite complex interface that’s based on the concept of changing films, lenses and flashes. Unlike Instagram, Hipstamatic really wants to put a vintage camera in your hands, with all the options that come with a real camera. The latest update to the app, which went live in the App Store last night, aims at fixing many of the issues with “complicated UI” by providing faster photo snapping and organization, a camera bag menu to easily sort your virtual camera accessories.

Hipstamatic 2 (the iTunes page says version “200”) adds a Camera Bag system that lets you organize the films, flashes and lenses you want to take with you all the time. It’s a simple list that helps along with getting exactly the items you want in your Hipstamatic. This may come in handy if you’ve always hated the fact that the app presents a long list of accessories that can’t be disabled / rearranged. Now it feels much better and it’s easy to use.

Simplicity was also the main reason why the developers added a “Quicksta Snap film queue system” that processes images in the background as you shoot, allowing you to take 9 images in a row without waiting for each one to finish. iOS 4 is required for this feature. Last, major improvements went into the Hipstamatic market – HipstaMart – which is the store embedded into the app that you can use to acquire new lenses, films and flashes as in-app purchases. New packs are offered, the interface is much cleaner now.

Overall, we’re very satisfied with this Hipstamatic update. The app is faster, easier to use and has more options than ever – yet it doesn’t overwhelm you like before. Check it out here.

fring Update Brings fringOut, Allows Cheap Calls to Landlines and Mobiles

In its latest update, the iPhone app fring which allows instant messaging and VoIP calls between users has added the ability to call people on regular landline or mobile numbers. The new feature, fringOut isn’t free but the rates are fairly competitive starting at 1c a minute for users in the US and UK and users can still call other Fring users at no cost.

Rates vary from country to country so be sure to check out the full list of rates, but the service should work from any country, but be careful to note that calls are charged in one-minute increments. The service also currently does not send SMS messages and calls cannot be made to premium, toll-free or emergency numbers.

For more information visit the fringOut website.

iPhone Exploit Puts Passwords At Risk Within Minutes

German researchers have demonstrated the ability to reveal passwords stored in a locked iPhone in six minutes and without needing to crack the passcode. The attack targets Apple’s password management system known as keychain and is based on existing jailbreak exploits that gives the attacker wide access to the iPhone’s internal data.

Once jailbroken, the researchers installed an SSH server on the iPhone and install a keychain access script. This keychain access script utilizes functions that are built within the phone to access passwords and other data stored in keychain which is then outputted to the attacker. For a demo of the exploit,  jump the break.

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