Apple's iTunes Christmas Giveaway!

iTunes customers in Europe will be be able to download music, movies, TV programmes and apps for free over the 12 days of Christmas. This offer will run from Sunday, December 26th 2010 until Thursday, January 6th 2011. An app is available in the App Store which will alert you to the free offers with push notifications.


No word yet on whether US iTunes users will get a similar deal.

Google Latitude available in iTunes

Google has just released a new app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Latitude is an app which allows you to track the location of your friends. It uses iOS4 multitasking to run in the background and constantly broadcast your location to all your friends. I'm not sure many people would be keen on this app and while it would be really useful sometimes, such as when you're meeting friends, a lot of the time it could be seen as a simple invasion of privacy. There are options to hide your location and also manually set a location which could lead to some interesting suprises...

iPad alternatives

The Apple iPad is widely accepted as the first successful tablet computer. It has sold 7.5 million as of 30 September 2010 according to Wikipedia. This figure is well above any of it's competitors. The iPad built upon the success of the iPhone and uses the same iOS operating system. It is only recently that there has been any real threat to the iPad's dominance and the release of the iPad 2 may seal the iPad's dominance in the tablet computer market.


But are there any real alternatives?




1. Samsung Galaxy Tab
This 7 inch Android powered tablet is currently the iPad's strongest competitor. It has many of the same features as the iPad and is around the same price. It's a well designed, professionally built tablet featuring, Wifi, 3G connectivity and a very responsive touchscreen. However it is powered by Android, an operating system created for much smaller devices. It also has very few apps that run on it as many Android developers have not embraced it. Although it is better than the iPad in some ways (it's smaller and lighter and has a micro SD card slot) it hasn't seen anything like the success of the iPad.

2. RIM BlackBerry PlayBook
Research in Motion (RIM) are a company which has seen little success in the touchscreen phone market. They seem very attached to the physical qwerty keyboard when all other manufacturers are moving to newer technology. Despite this fact they have decided to produce a touchscreen tablet known as the BlackBerry PlayBook. The PlayBook have joined Samsung in creating a 7 inch tablet which is also significantly smaller and lighter than the iPad. The PlayBook has front and rear facing cameras, a big advantage over Apple; on the other hand it will not feature 3G connectivity. The PlayBook is due to be shipped in early 2011.

3. Motorola Honeycomb Tablet

This tablet, which will be powered by the forthcoming Android Honeycomb, has just been announced. The name of this this tablet has not been announced by there are 3 possibilites: Stingray, Everest or Trygon. The hardware on this tablet will include a decent 32GB of flash memory and  a 1GHz Tegra 2 T20 processor. This is a real iPad competitor as it will be the first tablet to use a version of Android created specifically for tablet computer.s

 HP Slate.

There are other tablets on the market but they simply aren't up to the standard of these tablets. While the Galaxy Tab is a great product, it is ahead of Google and the operating system it's using just isnt suited to the larger screen size. The release of the PlayBook and the Android Honeycomb next year will cause some major shifts in the Tablet computing market.

Android Honeycomb to be released in 2011

So far Google's Android has been a mobile operating system entirely for phones. This will all change in 2011 with the release of Honeycomb, the successor of Gingerbread. Honeycomb will be a version of Android specifically for tablets.There's not much detail so far but you can be sure that this will change the tablet market place significantly.

First news of Windows 8, Codename Wind

The next version of Windows is reported to have two user interfaces. The main one is currently codenamed "Wind", will only be available on 64 bit systems and will have full 3D capabilities. This user interface will adjust and customise itself to the user, adding and removing icons, and will autosave all documents and hibernate in less than 6 seconds. Betas are predicted to be released in 2011 and the full retail version in 2012.


Source: WinRumours.

HP enables 6 more printers for AirPrint

Today HP has enabled AirPrint functionality on 6 more of its printers. Steve Jobs said, in an email, that there were lots more printers coming to join the 12 that were originally enabled. 18 printers is an improvement but if the technology is going to take off there's got to be some major increases in number.

If you don't have one of these printers then you can still enable AirPrint. Follow the instructions in this article on how to enable AirPrint.

iPad 2 to feature rear-facing camera

While this has been an expected feature of the second generation iPad, having been anticipated with the leaked case pictures, Reuters has today been the first high profile news outlet to confirm a second camera. They had a total of 3 sources, one of which also indicated that the iPad would be thinner and have a higher resolution screen (another two pretty likely improvements).

Thanks to MacRumours for the news.

How to enable Game Center for iPhone 3g on 4.2.1

Game Center is one of the many features that Apple decided, in its infinite wisdom to withhold from the iPhone 3g. There's not really any reason for this (other than to make us upgrade) and so you can enable it with this method:

iPad 2 to feature FaceTime camera and SD card slot?

Its pretty much a given right now that the next gen iPad, coming out in Ferbruary next year, will have a front facing camera for FaceTime. It is, however less certain that it will have a rear facing camera. An SD card slot seems far-fetched really. An image from Shenzhen MacTop Electronics shows supposedly a case for the next gen iPad with both a hole for a rear facing camera and a gap for an SD card.

Infinity Blade released on App Store

This stunning, long awaited game for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has finally been released in the US App Store. Currently priced at $5.99 its one of the more expensive games and also one of the largest at 318Mb. The graphics, however look truly stunning and I can't wait for it to come to the UK.

View it in the iTunes store here.

How to enable AirPrint for any printer

AirPrint was a much publicised feature of iOS 4.2 however what we've actually ended up with is disappointing to say the least. AirPrint currently only works with a handful of HP ePrint enabled printers. As pretty much no one has got one of these its a pretty useless feature. While its expected that things will change in a future update why wait? AirPrint has already been enabled for any printer hooked up to a windows PC.


For AirPrint to work you must first ensure you've got iTunes 10.1 installed. The printer must also be shared on your local network and your iOS device must have joined the same wifi network.

Soon you will be able to downgrade iPhone Baseband

MuscleNerd has recently announced on Twitter, in addition to the recent developments, that you will soon be able to downgrade basebands. This is primarily for people who have upgraded to the 06.15.00 (iPad) baseband and want to restore to stock firmware. It may also enable accidental baseband updates to be undone so people stuck on basebands not supported by ultrasn0w can downgrade.

How to enable/fix multitasking in 4.2.1

Since updating to 4.2.1 you may have found that enabling multitasking in redsn0w seems to work at first but has problems. Whenever you try to switch between apps using the multitasking bar springboard crashes. This is a problem on the iPhone 3g and the iPod Touch 2g (the only devices you would enable multitasking on).


A solution to this problem has now been found although it is not perfect:

iOS 4.2.1 untethered jailbreak coming this year

iPhone hacker Comex has announced through Twitter that there will be an untethered jailbreak for 4.2.1 before Christmas. These were all the details he gave but as he has already created JailbreakMe and Spirit jailbreaks he is a trusted source.

In addition MuscleNerd, of the iPhone Dev Team, has announced that he has a backup way to untether the 4.2.1 jailbreak. He proves this in the video here:

iPad 2 released by Feburary 2011

The iPad 2 will beginning shipping by the end of February next year, less than 100 days away. It's testing period has apparently been extended, possibly due to the antenna problems of the iPhone 4 and possibly due to firmware problems.


There has been much speculation over the hardware features of the new iPad but it is almost certain to have a front-facing FaceTime camera (and possibly a rear-facing one as well but this seems less likely), a gyroscope (like the iPhone 4), improved screen and battery life and a thinner lighter design.

Google Chrome

Well there's been a few announcements today from Google, particularly about their Chrome operating system. Today Google has unveiled the first Chrome notebook: the wonderfully named Cr-48. This 12" notebook will be distributed purely for a public testing of Chrome and in terms of looks and hardware isnt anything particularly special.

[Engadget]

The first 'proper' laptops that will run Chrome can be expected mid 2011.

In addition the Chrome Web Store has been showcased, featuring general UI improvements, and some of the web apps are already available:  NPR, The New York Times, Amazon Windowshop.

Nexus S announced

Google has announced that the second Nexus phone, known as the Nexus S, will be manufactured by Samsung and will be the first phone to use the Anroid 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS.

The Nexus S has a 4" Super AMOLED screen, a 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor and 16GB of flash memory.

We'll have to wait till the 16th in the US and the 20th in the UK to see whether its a real match for other smartphones but on paper it certainly looks good.

More details here.

The Future of Gaming?

Apple have, for some time now, experienced great success in the mobile gaming market. Games on iOS devices have proved hugely popular and the recent launch of Game Center has only improved the experience. There is however, one last iOS device that hasn't had a slice of this gaming action yet. The Apple TV. When you think about it, this is the device which is suited to gaming above all others - with the biggest screen in the house and an  iPhone or iPod Touch to use as a remote it certainly has a lot of potential.


There are however some limitations to the Apple TV which make this vision less likely to become a reality. The poor specs of the little box mean that it could only run fairly basic games, nothing like its would be competitors the Xbox 360 and the PS3. A second problem is storage space - the Apple TV has no optical or USB drive - with only 8GB of flash storage available, not really suitable for serious gaming.


But with the Vice President of EA Games suggesting that Apple joins the console market maybe there is merit in the idea...


The move by Apple away from storage in the living room and towards streamed content could be taken further than music and video. A game streaming service called OnLive has recently started in the US. This service enables the most outdated and basic computers to play the very latest games as all of the heavy CPU usage is done at the server. The only real requirements are a broadband connection a screen and a controller. And the Apple TV seems to be able to provide all of these.


I really have no idea how likely this is to happen but with the App Store rumoured to be catering for the Apple TV soon it would be a step closer. I think if Apple chose to go for this service it could produce a really incredible service and it could well be the future of gaming...

EA want Apple to join the console market

EA vice president Eric Soderlund has said that Apple is one of the only companies who could take a big chunk out of the console gaming market. iOS devices have proved to be very successful gaming devices while not being heavily marketed for this purpose. Apple has recently encouraged this with its Game Center service so it is possible that they are taking gaming more seriously and realising the potential of their devices.

Springboard Rotation brought to iOS 4.2

SBRotator, a new Cydia tweak enables rotation of the the springboard (iOS home screen) and some other applications. Custom layouts are available and the multitasking bar is also rotated. The native rotation used on the iPad has been used to create this tweak.

Enable streaming pictures and videos from camera roll by Airplay

A new cydia tweak has just been released to enable pictures and video shot on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to be streamed directly to your Apple TV without needing to be synced with iTunes first. The tweak, found at the BigBoss repository, is called 'Air Home Video' and costs $0.99.

[Redmond Pie]

When combined with AirVideoEnabler (another tweak available on Cydia) airplay can now stream almost all video and photos viewable on iOS devices.


This functionality is predicted to be available to non-jailbreakers with iOS 4.3 update coming out early next year.


iPhone 3g users, left out of Airplay in 4.2.1, still have no way of enabling it.

Chrome OS Event

Chrome, Google's upcoming open source, netbook operating system will have an event, possibly an unveiling on Tuesday 7th December.

More details on Engadget.

Japan promises 3D holograms for the world cup... but loses the bid.

Well somehow Qatar won the 2022 world cup. While I don't really know anything about their bid what I do know is Japan offered to project 3D holograms live to countries across the globe! I have no idea how this offer could be declined but somehow Qatar won the FA over... a big shame for many people around the world im sure...


Here's a video Japan's bid:

First post

Well this is my first post from the blog. From now I hope to regularly update this with the latest news from the world of tech.


Lets see how this goes...