Scribd To Switch Millions of Old Embeds Over to HTML5, iOS Devices Rejoice

Social document sharing service Scribd has made a major announcement today: they’re in the process of switching millions of old Flash-based embeds scattered around the web over to the new HTML5 layout they started implementing last year. The conversion process will be automatic, shouldn’t break anything for publishers and website owners and, most of all, will dramatically increase the quality and speed of Scribd embeds.

As Scribd swaps Flash with HTML5 on old document embeds, iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad will benefit from the change: the HTML5 tool developed by Scribd is fully compatible with iOS’ Mobile Safari and now every webpage containing a new or old Scribd document will be perfectly viewable on Apple’s phones and tablets.

When Scribd launched its HTML5 reading platform last summer, they said user engagement with the Scribd experience “surged”. The conversion of 20 million embeds to HTML5 should definitely make things even better for Scribd.

Kickstarter Project - Hanfree: A Handsfree iPad Stand

We’re spotlighting yet another Kickstarter project. Why? Because we love to see handy, unique creations come to life. This one is an iPad accessory called the Hanfree. It makes the iPad handsfree, thus the name, for anytime you’re in bed, sitting down on your couch, in the kitchen using a cooking app, or anywhere you can find a place to use it; all without holding the device on your lap or in your hands.

Video after break. Read more

Flickr Improves Slideshows for iPad

With a note on the official company blog posted earlier today, photo sharing Flickr has announced improved compatibility of slideshows for the iPad’s Mobile Safari browser. By taking advantage of the device’s touch interface, you can now tap on a photo to view at a larger size in the lightbox, and browse through photos with a single swipe. The lightbox displays photos on a clean, dark background and you also have options to mark an item as favorite or quickly go back to the standard photostream.

Flickr also offers a native app for the iPhone, available for free in the App Store, which was recently updated with Retina Display support and sharing to Twitter through the flic.kr shortener. [via Daring Fireball]

#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday

Happy St. Paddy’s Day all over the world and Happy National Unity Day in Italy! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

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The New York Times Will Use Apple’s iOS Subscriptions

With the June 30 deadline approaching for publishers willing to implement recurring subscriptions in their iOS apps, Apple just got the first big name on board with the new iTunes subscription system: the New York Times will comply to Apple’s terms and offer in-app subscriptions by June 30 to give iPhone and iPad users to subscribe to the NYT with the one-click option touted by Apple.

As reported by All Things Digital, the New York Times decided to play Apple’s game rather than pull their iOS apps from the App Store. The New York Times will give 30% of revenue from subscriptions away to Apple, and give up on customers’ data as Apple’s subscriptions are based on opt-in sharing of personal info with the publisher. Read more

Firemint: Flight Control for iPhone Hits 4 Million Downloads, $2 Million Budget for Real Racing 2

Developer Firemint has always been one of the biggest “players” in the iOS gaming scene with hugely popular games and Apple Design Awards won at the WWDC, and they’ve been under the press spotlight again recently thanks to the release of Real Racing 2 HD – a version of their successful racing game specifically optimized for the iPad 2 improved graphics, processor and gyroscopic controls. With more updates on the way and a brand new iOS game announced last month, Agent Squeak, Firemint has become one of the top names in the App Store for iPhone and iPad games.

In an interview with Pocketful of Megabytes, Firemint’s Logan Booker has answered some interesting questions about what’s going on behind the scenes of Real Racing and their other game franchise, Flight Control. As revealed by Booker, Flight Control, released in 2009, recently surpassed 4 million downloads for iPhone, and it keeps growing. The game was the result of weeks of sketching and prototyping back in 2008 and early 2009, when the App Store was a relatively new platform and no one really knew whether or not Apple (and third-party developers) could turn a profit out of it. Read more

Angry Birds HD Updated: 15 New Levels→

Angry Birds HD Updated: 15 New Levels

Just in time for the release of the iPad 2, Rovio updated (again) Angry Birds HD last night to include 15 new levels and continue “the adventures in the frontier badlands”. A new golden egg has been included in version 1.5.3 as well.

Looking at early iTunes reviews, it sounds like Rovio also changed something in the “pause” screen of the app, putting a news section (some people say ads) in there and forcing users to wait for the animation to finish before resuming the game. If you’ve noticed this too, please let us know in the comments below.

Angry Birds HD is available here.

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iPad 2 Gets “Real” Photo Booth with IncrediBooth Update

Apple’s Photo Booth software that comes pre-installed in the iPad 2 is great and offers lots of fun, but if you’ve been looking for an actual photo booth app with the vintage look of photo strips to virtually print with your friends and loved ones (who hasn’t done that at least once), then you should consider re-downloading IncrediBooth for iOS, which has been updated to natively support the iPad 2.

I was one of those that bought IncrediBooth last year but never really used it because the iPhone’s screen was too small to have fun with my friends in front of the camera. But on the iPad? Should be much better. As usual, you can take photos with 4 different effects, share to Facebook or email, save to the camera roll. In this update, a new photo setting has been introduced: Betsy X.

Combined with Apple’s Photo Booth, IncrediBooth is one of those apps that will grant you hours of fun and picture taking. Go get it in the App Store at $0.99.

A Backup Dream: WD My Book Studio Edition II Goes 6 TB, Time Machine-ready

I’m a proud owner of a WD My Book 750 GB edition with FireWire 800 – a trusted system when it comes to storing my media and using a second partition for Time Machine – but I guess I’ll be making the switch to the newly announced My Book Studio Edition II pretty soon. Western Digital has, in fact, revealed this new My Book product that goes straight to 6 TB of storage in RAID, has a quad interface, and it’s compatible with Mac and Windows. The best part? Western Digital touts the model as “Mac-ready” with HFS filesystem out of the box and full Time Machine compatibility.

The My Book Studio Edition II comes with the usual FireWire 400, FireWire 800, eSATA and USB 2.0 connections – no, there’s no Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 here. Still, you should get pretty decent transfer times with FireWire 800 – I truly recommend you consider FireWire for your next Time Machine or SuperDuper backups.

The My Book Studio Edition II can be yours for “just” $550. You could get a new iPad for that price, I know, but if you’re serious about backups and external media storage (hello, iTunes) you should consider this. Press release below. [via Gizmodo] Read more