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Posts Tagged ‘Plays’

feature: How-to: real-world dates with the iPhone SDK

When you’re programming for the iPhone, time plays an important role. The core NSDate class could be refined a little in how it approaches many common tasks. Did two time events happen within the same hour? Does a given date represent a time today, or yesterday? Ars looks at this problem by building out a set of classes inspired by work done on the iPhoneSDK e-mail list by iPhone Developer Bryce Wolfson. Here, we build these ideas out, starting from scratch and pushing the concept even further, to provide a handy set of date methods and properties that you can use in your own application

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Flash 10.1 might just not be a battery hog on Android

Looking to fight an apparent outbreak of FUD, Adobe’s Flash evangelist Mark Doherty has posted some hard numbers (and accompanying video) on the effect Flash 10.1 has on the Nexus One — and put simply, it really doesn’t appear to have much effect at all. To back up his cause, Doherty plays a 17-minute embedded video in the full YouTube site then pops over to Android’s built-in battery use utility, which indicates that only 6 percent of the juice has gone to power the browser (of course, leaving the screen on to watch the video is another story altogether). He says that the company’s tests suggest they can get about three hours of H.264 playback over WiFi, which is theoretically enough to watch a movie or two; obviously the proof is in the pudding here, but this is a promising sign that these guys have taken battery optimization very, very seriously for this mobile push. Video after the break.

Continue reading Flash 10.1 might just not be a battery hog on Android

Flash 10.1 might just not be a battery hog on Android originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Noteput music table plays the notes as you lay them down (video)

Finally we get the chance to literally lay a track down. The Noteput interactive music table was concocted by a pair of German design students back in October of last year, but watching it in action is still a mesmerizing experience. Employing a simple camera beneath the surface, the table can tell what notes you’re placing upon it and play them back — individually when you position them or as a group once you hit the big play button. The coolest feature for us is the ability to loop playback and replace notes on the fly. It’s like being a really old school kind of a DJ. Click past the break to see what we mean.

Continue reading Noteput music table plays the notes as you lay them down (video)

Noteput music table plays the notes as you lay them down (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ioSafe Solo SSD plays with fire, gravity, and the pathway of a tractor

It’s an inevitability, when a product claims to withstand Kryptonian strength, someone out there’s gonna phone up the son of Jor-El himself for a trial run. Today’s entrant is ioSafe’s Solo SSD, which Extreme Tech took for a few rounds to determine its actual survivability. Spoiler alert: the SSD drive is still functional in the end, and it’s really none too surprising when you realize the test site is run by ioSafe itself — who else would have such an appropriate location handy? Still, the journey is what’s interesting here, and there’s plenty of pictures of incineration, falling, and drowning here — and even a video of an intimate encounter with a tractor tread. Jigsaw would be proud. Video after the break.

Continue reading ioSafe Solo SSD plays with fire, gravity, and the pathway of a tractor

ioSafe Solo SSD plays with fire, gravity, and the pathway of a tractor originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PS3 hack plays Blu-ray backups, should send Motorstorm values soaring (video)

Continue reading PS3 hack plays Blu-ray backups, should send Motorstorm values soaring (video)

PS3 hack plays Blu-ray backups, should send Motorstorm values soaring (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cow says mooooo! Zoowawa, an app for toddlers and their parents

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

Zoowawa [US$0.99, iTunes Link] is a cute app targeted for toddlers between the ages of two and three. Your child is presented with a split screen displaying two animals. Tapping on one of the animals plays the sound that the animal makes.

Each half of the screen can be swiped individually to reveal 14 animal pictures per half, or 24 animal pictures in all. The pictures are brightly colored and the app has a very clean look to it. Zoowawa runs on any iPhone or iPod touch using OS 3.1.2 or better.

My daughter is finishing a masters in education and has familiarity with very small children, so I asked her about the appropriateness of this app. My first impression was that along with the sound, the printed name of the animal should be shown. My daughter told me that for most kids in the targeted age range, adding the text would be too complex since reading often doesn’t start until a child is three years old or older.

She did have few problems with the size of the pictures, saying that they may not hold a child’s interest for very long. Kids like big things and dividing the screen to make each animal half of the screen size was probably not the best idea. Even at full size, a picture may not attract the attention of a toddler for too long.

I also had a bit of a problem with the quality of the animal sounds. Most are not digitized animal sounds, but rather a recording of someone making the sound with his voice. Since for many kids this app might be their first introduction to animals, I think that sound accuracy should be important.

Continue reading The cow says mooooo! Zoowawa, an app for toddlers and their parents

TUAWThe cow says mooooo! Zoowawa, an app for toddlers and their parents originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good karma: an in-depth review of Ubuntu 9.10

Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, climbed down from the tree last month with new features and updated software. For five years and eleven releases, the Ubuntu Linux distribution has delivered a capable desktop operating system built largely on open source software. The new version is another important step forward for Ubuntu and its corporate backer Canonical.

The new version offers a user experience that is incrementally better than its predecessors, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Some of the new software introduced in Ubuntu 9.10 feels incomplete and will need a lot more work before it can really shine. This review will take a close look at some of the most significant new features, such as Canonical’s Ubuntu One service and the new Software Center application management tool. We will also examine some of the upstream software from GNOME 2.28 that plays a role in defining key parts of the user experience in Ubuntu 9.10 and give you some technical insight into various architectural components of distro, such as Ubuntu’s unique CouchDB configuration.

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Nokia plays musical execs, moves CFO to new Mobile Phones post
There’s nothing quite like a dismal quarterly report to shake things up, and that’s exactly what Nokia’s doing after losing over $800 million in its most recent three-month period. CFO Rick Simonson is being whisked over to a new post as head of the Mobile Phones group — concentrating on Series 30 and Series 40 handsets — within the Devices division, while Timo Ihamuotila, who currently leads up global sales, will take over for the CFO position being vacated by Simonson. For what it’s worth, the move doesn’t seem like a demotion for Simonson; he’ll be in charge of “strategic sourcing” for the entire Devices division and still sit on the executive board, so we’re sure he’ll be doing alright for himself. All things considered, there’s no way of knowing whether this would’ve all gone down without the quarterly performance, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia plays musical execs, moves CFO to new Mobile Phones post originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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