Ars Technica Is Blocked In Iran→

Ars Technica Is Blocked In Iran

The block began following our second piece of coverage about the Stuxnet malware that allegedly targeted an Iranian power plant. That was published on September 27, the last day in which Iranian readers could access the site.

The point of the ban isn’t clear, but it definitely highlights how easy it is for governments to start cracking down on whatever sites they like once they have the proper tools in place and have centralized all Internet links leaving/entering the country.

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DeNA Acquires Ngmoco For $400 Million, Expands to Android Devices

The rumor was going around since a few weeks, now it’s official: popular “iFunded” iPhone game developer ngmoco has been acquired by Japanese mobile giant DeNA. The deal was closed at around $400 million which, if I’m not mistaken, should be the biggest deal ever involving an iPhone developer. DeNA is Japan’s biggest and most successful “mobile social games” company, and from now on it’ll lead (e.g. pay for) the efforts of ngmoco in the western market. Read more

Apple Posts Ping Guidelines for Artists

Remember Ping? Apple sure does: it’s the “social network” for music discovery and sharing they embedded right into iTunes 10, together with a new icon (the one you love) and a refined UI. I’m not a big fan of Ping (I think it’s useless and far from being a “social network”) but Apple surely believes in it. After all, it’s a way to drive more downloaded to the iTunes Store, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ping extending to movies, TV shows and apps in the near future. Read more

Lighty, Simple Flashlight App for iPhone. 10 Codes Up for Grabs

Sometimes you don’t need a full-featured app to accomplish a simple purpose. Hell, you just need a simple app that does one thing and does it exceptionally well. You don’t want to pay for stuff you don’t need. That’s a very basic App Store rule.

Lighty does just that. Amongst the crowded panorama of flashlight apps for iPhone, Lighty is a well designed, minimal app that lets you turn the iPhone’s light on and off. It’s clean and it’s got a huge button in the middle of the screen. What else can I say? It comes at $0.99 in the App Store. If you’re looking for a minimal flashlight for your iPhone, we have 10 codes to give away. Just leave a comment below, and that’s it.

Winners will be announced tomorrow. Good luck! Read more

Life Web Browser 1.5 Introduces iPhone Version and…Pull To Refresh?

Life is an alternative web browser for iPad I reviewed back in June. The app was quite nice, but I ended up uninstalling it due to its numerous bugs. The feature set was interesting, though:

Life Web Browser tries a different approach, and it does so by telling us that we don’t need tabs and pages, we need to swipe.

Aseid Ghaffari and his team found out that users don’t find Safari’s behavior with new links exactly comfortable. Apple’s Safari forces you to go back and forth between a dashboard with thumbnails of pages, and another take on the subject such as iCab’s desktop-like tabs didn’t impress Ghaffari either. If it’s not about copying the desktop and it’s not about changing pages, then it definitely must be about gestures – the developers thought. So there you have it, you horizontally swipe between “windows”.

The latest 1.5 update, approved and released a few days ago, introduces iPhone support (the app is now Universal) and a couple of new options such as “Open sites” and pull to refresh for webpages. What, really? Read more

Brian Chen: “Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic”→

Brian Chen: “Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic”

The OS is going to be the same with the same features on every handset so, as a consumer, your decision-making will boil down to the hardware’s look, weight and size. Compare that to the experience of buying an Android phone, which could be running a different version depending on the handset you buy: Donut, Eclair, Froyo, blueberry pie, neopolitan or whatever Google chooses to call it eventually. You won’t have to ask yourself, “Am I going to get X on this phone or do I have to get another one?” because they’re all running the same OS with a few variations in hardware.

The inevitable question that arises is what Windows Phone 7 means as a competitor to iOS. It’s tough to say.

This morning I drove to the Three store to see what Android devices were available. I’m a curious guy. All of them had different specs, features and UIs. On the other hand, the Windows Phone 7 platform looks solid and consistent - but is it enough to gain decent market share after years of Windows Mobile failures? I don’t know. What’s for sure, though, is that Microsoft is doing many things right now.

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Monitor and Geotag Your iPhone Data Usage with DataMan

If you have an iPhone and a contract with your carrier (of course you guys in the US do), then I guess you’re obsessed with data usage tracking: how many messages can you send per month? What’s the threshold for mobile internet access? How much have you consumed this week? Depending on the country and carrier, the experience can be terrible. Fortunately, I have a pretty good plan with 3 Italia over here (4 GB internet / month, 400 SMS, 800 minutes voice) so I haven’t really worried about keeping track of my usage - I understand, though, that this is a problem for many.

DataMan by XVision is probably the most complete app to monitor and even geotag your daily, monthly and week data usage on your iPhone. Read more