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Posts Tagged ‘Direction’

Paid app upgrades coming to App Store?

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Developer Fraser Speirs came across an unexpected iTunes dialog earlier today that could be a hint of a new, long-sought App Store feature: the ability to offer for-fee upgrades to apps, complete with discounts for those who bought older versions.

Up until now, App Store vendors have worked around the lack of a paid upgrade feature by offering different “versions” of their apps, but this has also meant there’s been no ability to offer discounts to loyal purchasers of the previous version of the app, short of applying a temporary price discount to everyone and raising the price later on. Assuming this dialog box isn’t a simple error (notice that it asks you to click OK, even though the button says Buy) and is an indication of the future direction of App Store purchases, it’s indicative of far greater pricing flexibility for App Store vendors, and it could also mean the App Store won’t be cluttered with old versions of apps that are no longer updated. Developers have been asking for an option like this since the beginning of the App Store — it looks like Apple might finally be listening.

TUAWPaid app upgrades coming to App Store? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yoshi Akai’s Wireless Catcher senses nearby wireless waves, makes music (video)

What’s cute, cuddly, and makes all sorts of bizarro noises when it senses wireless waves? Yoshi Akai’s Wireless Catcher, of course! This analog synth contraption is simplistic in nature and complex in design, utilizing an onboard antenna to sense WiFi signals and then alter the sounds being outputted depending on signal strength and direction. It’s not exactly the symphony that Bach forgot to write, but it’s certainly beautiful in its own nerdy way. Have a look at the video past the break, won’t you?

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Yoshi Akai’s Wireless Catcher senses nearby wireless waves, makes music (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mercedes-Benz F800 Style teases us with fuel cells, aggressive new look

Mercedes has just announced its latest “research vehicle,” the F800 Style, and as concepts are wont to do, it intersperses some extremely ambitious goals with plenty of viable and forthcoming improvements. The two powertrain options touted by the company represent this best. On the one hand, there’s a perfectly reasonable PHEV setup that will generate north of 400bhp combined grunt and offer an 18-mile range when abstaining from gas power. On the other, there’s an electric drive with fuel cells system that will get you a spectacular 375-mile cruising range — if only it’d make it to real products, which seems highly unlikely right now. All the same, as the company’s premium sedan concept, the F800 Style represents the direction of Mercedes’ future designs, both in its external styling and in the internal focus on becoming friendlier to the environment. We can find little reason to object to either. Check out a couple more pics after the break, then hit Autoblog for more details.

Continue reading Mercedes-Benz F800 Style teases us with fuel cells, aggressive new look

Mercedes-Benz F800 Style teases us with fuel cells, aggressive new look originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2 Live Crew with kids in the room: Airdrive heaphones review

Many headphones seek to make their mark by cutting you off from the rest of the world. Canalphones block out ambient noise and allow you to focus purely on the sounds you’re hearing from your laptop, iPod, or other music device. The Airdrives go in a different direction, bringing you the sound from your device while allowing you to continue to hear what’s going on around you.

It’s an intriguing concept for runners or parents who need—or simply want—to listen to something no one else can hear while still paying attention to ambient sounds. Right now I’m watching Blade Runner on my laptop and listening to the dialog while writing this; my son just asked for popcorn to go along with the kids’ viewing of The Last Mimzy. I’m starting to see the draw here.

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FreeAllMusic inks 2nd major in free, DRM-less music venture

EMI has become the second music label to sign onto ad-supported music startup FreeAllMusic.com, after Universal Music Group signed on last week. The site, which takes ad-supported music in a different direction than most, has not yet launched, but could have a strong launch if it has major artists from EMI and UMG on board.

FreeAllMusic doesn’t restrict music to the browser (or an otherwise Internet-connected client) like streaming services such as Last.fm or Pandora. Instead, it plans to let users download DRM-free MP3s of songs—legit, legal versions of the songs—that are paid by advertisers. The catch is that users must watch a commercial for each download, and downloads will be restricted to 20 per month (with a cap of five per week, starting every Tuesday).

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Olympus’ $1,100 PEN E-P2 up for pre-order, played with early

Olympus’ PEN E-P2 is destined to be a fine product, we’re sure. What we aren’t sure of, however, is how exactly the company came up with the nearly laughable MSRP. The second-ever Micro Four Thirds offering from the outfit is up for pre-order right now at Amazon, though the $1,099.99 asking price is just far too lofty for us to recommend snagging a place in line. That said, you’re still probably interested in learning more about the device, so we’ll be pointing you in Gadling’s direction for that; the crew over at our favorite travel blog managed to snag one of these buggers early, and exterior color aside, we’re told that it looks practically “identical to the E-P1.” Hit up the links below for a closer look — just keep your credit card far, far away until we see a full review.

[Thanks, Misael]

Olympus’ $1,100 PEN E-P2 up for pre-order, played with early originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Launches Building Maker: Makes Adding 3D Buildings to Google Earth Easy

For some locations, Google already shows 3D buildings in Google Earth though it wasn’t very easy for users to add their own buildings to these maps. Today, however, Google released Building Maker, which takes an almost game-like approach to crowdsourcing the production of these 3D buildings. Users simply pick a building in any of the 50 cities worldwide where this project is currently active, pick a building you would like to model, and Google will present you with aerial images of this building. All the user has to do is align a 3D wireframe model of the building with these images and a textured 3D model of the building is automatically saved in the Google Sketchup 3D warehouse. Once approved, the model will be added to Google Earth’s building layer.

Sponsor

Just yesterday, we wrote about how Google is starting to crowdsource more of its map making process and this is clearly yet another step in this direction. Google Sketchup made making new buildings for Google Earth pretty easy, but the new Building Maker, which is completely browser-based an makes use of the Google Earth browser plugin, takes this to a completely new level. To test the product out, we just picked a random building and the new model was ready in less than 5 minutes.

Once you have created your model, it has to go through an approval process and, if accepted, will be added to Google Earth. Sadly, there is no way to see if another model of the same building already exists except for loading up Google Earth, but even then, you can’t be sure that somebody else’s model isn’t already waiting for approval.

Overall, this looks like a very smart way for Google to enhance the 3D experience in Google Earth and it will be interesting to see if Google will also build more services on top of these 3D-rendered cities at a later point.

It also shows that Google has access to a vast repository of aerial photography of all of these locations. Microsoft’s Bing Maps highlights this feature in its bird’s eye mode, but Google doesn’t surface any of these images yet.

Discuss

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HTC’s HD2 gets sized up to the competition

We’ve already seen (and written) plenty on the HD2, and we’ve enjoyed our initial experiences with the device — but now someone has finally sized up the massive, Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone with its touchscreen contemporaries… and the differences are downright shocking. Just take a look at this beast next to Apple’s iPod touch (above) or the company’s own Hero — the displays on the older devices seem dwarfed by the HD2’s 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 WVGA screen. There are lots of other revealing pictures in the writeup, but it’s the side-by-side shots that seem most telling to us — this is certainly the direction we’re headed in for mobile devices. Hit the read link and take a full look for yourself.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Cellphones

HTC’s HD2 gets sized up to the competition originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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