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| Samsung Launch Details: Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 | |  Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 was the first of the company's tablets announced to arrive running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. A little bit later on, we learned about plans for a larger 10.1-inch version. While we've had a good amount of technical data on both tablets, the picture of their eventual release has been a little less clear. First it looked like there might be an international launch late last month, but those plans fizzled. Today Samsung has some news for us about the tablets' release plans, revealing just how they'll be making their way to Android fans in the States. The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will be the first to arrive, with pre-orders opening in just a couple days, on April 12. Even then, the wait for the tablet to arrive won't be long at all, and retail availability will start later this month on April 22. There's a bit of a longer wait for the Tab 2 10.1, though it's still going to get here relatively soon. Pre-orders for this model will kick-off on May 4, with the actual tablet showing-up on May 13. The seven-inch Tab 2 will run you just about $250, which could see it steal some customers away from the Kindle Fire. The ten-incher is going to sell for nearly $400, matching the pricing we'd already seen. Source: Samsung Via: BGR |
| PhoneSoap Lets You Clean Your Phone While You Charge [VIDEO] | |  A new project called PhoneSoap is attempting to "start a clean phone revolution" with a device that both charges and simultaneously sanitizes your phone. PhoneSoap does its cleaning using UV-C light. UV-C is a type of ultraviolet light that's used in hospitals, and penetrates the cell walls of bacteria, disrupting its DNA and effectively killing it. Our phones often travel with us everywhere. Whether you're pulling out your handset on a crowded subway in the morning to catch up on news, laying it on the counter of your favorite restaurant while you order lunch, or accidentally dropping it on the floor at your office -- your phone is going to pick up more than just a few germs along the way. Some research indicates that the average cellphone has 18 times more harmful bacteria on it than a handle on a public male toilet, and that 1 in every 6 cellphones actually has fecal matter on it. During the cleaning process a UV-C light shines on your phone from the bottom and top of the box, surrounding it in light and killing any present bacteria. The UV-C light is only on for 3-5 minutes, so you don't run the risk of damaging your phone while you're getting your clean on. While you're cleaning your phone, the box also charges your handsets via either an Apple connector or Micro USB cable. So, "When your alarm goes off in the morning, your phone won't only be charged, but it will also be clean." PhoneSoap is currently a KickStarter project. The project is currently at a little over $13k, with a total of $18k needed before the project closes in 20 days to make the cleaning charging box a reality. Would you use PhoneSoap to clean and sanitize your smartphone? Let us know in the comments. |
| iPhone-Friendly Watch Gets $500,000 Kickstarter Funding in a Day | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 11:34 PM | Chris Taylor |
|  Hey iPhone users: how many times a day do you take your beloved device out of your pocket just to check the time, change the tune, check email or see who's calling? What if we wore some kind of notification device on our wrists -- let's call them watches -- that could connect to your iPhone to do all of the above and more? And what if it didn't cost an arm and a leg? Smart watches aren't exactly a new notion. In the past year we've seen and reviewed several: the InPulse, the WiMM One and the oddly-named I'm Watch. But they were all powered by Android, or connected to Android smartphones only. iPhone owners were out of luck -- until Wednesday, when a new smart watch by the guy behind InPulse (Eric Migicovsky, above) hit funding site Kickstarter. Dubbed the Pebble, it's the first smart watch that can form a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with your iOS device, as well as Android. And it's nothing if not popular. The Kickstarter campaign asked for $100,000 in funding; it got that in the first two hours. By day's end, the device had more than $500,000 in pledges. What's so smart about the Pebble? Well, for starters, it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Other smart watches offer color screens as if they're trying to be a mini-smartphone. The Pebble lets your iPhone do all the heavy lifting. Its simple e-paper display -- much like the original Kindle -- is viewable even in direct sunlight, which is pretty necessary for a watch. It is also releasing its software kit to developers, so they can create their own iPhone app-linking apps. Out of the box, you'll be able to see incoming emails and calls, track your run and your bike ride via your phone's GPS, as well as use your watch as a remote for the music app on your phone. That feature alone seems worth the asking price -- which, by the way, will be $149. Check out the video below for more, and let us know in the comments: would you wear this? |
| Animator Creates Incredible Musical Painting With $5 iPad App [VIDEO] | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 11:22 PM | Christine Erickson |
|  Thanks to tablet technology, creating a music video has become as simple as swiping a finger -- well, sort of. Art Decade, a band consisting of duo Ben Talmi and Binod Singh Jr., recently debuted its music video, Western Sunrise, which was made almost entirely using Procreate, a $5 iPad app. "I really recommend it to anyone who does storyboards, concept art and animators, filmmakers, producers, whatever -- this is the future," says the video's lead animator and director, Alexander Whitney. (You can see the full making-of here.) The band hired Whitney to infuse as much visual art as possible. The process, which was mostly done on an iPad 2, took four months, but the result was strikingly vibrant. "The four-month process was arduous. I had all of the character animation assets complete, and then the rest -- backgrounds, effects animation and color correction -- was up to me," says Whitney. Although creation relied heavily on the iPad 2, Whitney also used the iMac keyboard. The artist had to invest in orthopedic gloves to protect his fingers -- eight to 12 hours per day of pounding away at the keys can cause some fatigue. Aside from ProCreate, Whitney used other programs, like Adobe After Effects and Mocha. "I used After Effects to compose all of the elements, and also to create elements like the water, mist, clouds, as well as the final paint filter called Video Gogh," says Whitney. "Mocha was used to track the position of the character." Art Decade's singer/songwriter Ben Talmi says he had a very clear vision of Impressionism in motion for this video. "Whitney actually ended up surpassing what I thought was even possible," says Talmi. Do you think this is the future for art direction? Let us know in the comments. |
| Tablets Siphoning Away Time With Desktops and Traditional Media [STUDY] | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 10:46 PM | Lauren Indvik |
|  As many iPad and Kindle Fire owners know, when you get a tablet, your habits change. Some start reading their email or doing most of their shopping on their tablets instead of their desktops; others begin buying more ebooks than printed books. Those changes were highlighted in a recent Forrester survey. The research firm found that after purchasing a tablet, owners are far less likely to engage with more traditional devices and media. About a third of respondents say they use personal computers and read books less frequently. About one in four claim to read print magazines and newspapers less often, and one in five reach for their MP3 players on fewer occasions. The big exception is TV. Surprisingly, only 12% say they watch TV less frequently. That's because tablets and TVs complement each other: 85% of tablet owners say they use their tablets while watching TV, according to a prior Forrester survey. In fact, Nielsen discovered that 30% of tablet usage occurs while watching TV. That's not to suggest that no one is watching TV content on their tablet devices -- rather, those devices are causing one in five owners to watch more video. More than half say they watch some kind of video on their tablets, and 23% say they watch TV shows on apps developed by their DVR or cable provider (i.e. Comcast Xfinity, HBO Go). Many more access video content on their tablets through iTunes, Netflix and YouTube. Tablet ownership isn't just changing the amount of time people spend with different devices and media, it's also significantly affecting their purchases in those categories. After purchasing a tablet, 45% of respondents say they are less likely to buy an ebook reader. About a third say they are less likely to buy a portable gaming player, small TV (24" or smaller) or MP3 player. A quarter claim they are less likely to purchase a desktop computer. Potential purchases of other devices including laptops, smartphones and large TVs, appear to be largely unaffected by tablet ownership. Are you a tablet owner? If so, how have your habits and purchases shifted since buying your device? |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 2: Solid Tablet, Won't Do Much for iPad Envy [REVIEW] | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 8:29 PM | Pete Pachal |
|  Samsung just officially launched its Galaxy Tab 2 products, the latest additions to the company's line of multi-sized Android tablets. The new line includes 7- and 10.1-inch models and competes aggressively on price. The new 7-inch Galaxy Tab costs just $249.99 for 8GB of storage. Looking at similarly sized competitors, the 8GB Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet goes for $199, and the BlackBerry PlayBook is $50 more, at $299 -- although a temporary price drop to $199 appears to be slowly becoming permanent. Amazon's Kindle Fire set the low bar when it debuted, and is still priced at $199. In the large size, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (yep, that's the official name) is just $399.99, or virtually the same price as the iPad 2. The new Galaxy Tabs run the latest version of Android, "Ice Cream Sandwich," and boast a few novel features. First and foremost is a built-in remote control. Each Tab 2 is equipped with an infrared emitter to control your TV, Blu-ray player and other electronics. In addition to operating your gear, the Smart Remote app also integrates TV listings from your cable or satellite provider (or over-the-air if that's your bag). It's a great idea in theory, but emphasizing content has a price in control. After getting our Galaxy Tab 7.0 to pair with one of Mashable's Sony TVs, we found that it didn't do a very good job of replicating all of the TV's abilities, for example widgets and web browsing. That's ironic, since our Sony set is actually a Google TV device -- the same company that makes Android. SEE ALSO: Samsung Ships 5 Million Galaxy Notes in 5 Months The Samsung secret sauce doesn't stop there, though. If you happen to have a newer Samsung TV, the Tab 2 can actually take whatever's playing on the TV and mirror it on your tablet. That's potentially an extremely useful feature. It could, for example, let someone cooking in the kitchen watch the same media (TV broadcast, cable show or Blu-ray movie) that people in the living room are watching -- without any installation. Much appreciated, but again, only Samsung TV owners need apply. On top of the remote goodness, you also get access to the Samsung Media Hub for buying music and videos with the widget front and center on your home screen (you can get rid of it fairly easily). Plus, there's built-in integration with AllShare, the company's media-sharing (soon to be cloud) service that lets you easily move and copy your photos and movies between Samsung devices. Who's excited? Right. Nobody. That could be part of the reason Samsung is partnering with Dropbox -- a cloud storage and sharing service that a large audience actually uses -- to offer 50GB of free storage (said to be a $99 value) for one year to anyone who buys a Galaxy Tab 2. The 7.0 version has a 1,024 x 600-pixel screen, while the 10.1 is 1,280 x 800. Both models pack a 1GHz dual-core processor. Samsung, as ever, makes strange choices in skinning Android. Why, for example, are the "see all apps" icon and status indicators (like the time and Wi-Fi strength) in opposite places than on other Android devices, even Samsung ones like the Galaxy Note? That's probably a matter of taste, though, and it doesn't stop the Galaxy Tab 2 from being a very capable device. The 12-ounce weight feels perfect in your hands (easy to carry but not so light that it feels cheap), and games, photos and video look decent on the 7.0 screen -- although it's a far cry from the new iPad's retina display. The dual-core processor does a good job of keeping up with the graphics, rendering rapid-fire videos and games with fluid precision. It performed well in benchmarks, outperforming many of its ancestors, the original Galaxy Tab, the Galaxy Nexus and the Samsung Nexus S. Overall, the Galaxy Tab 2 is a solid 7-inch tablet, although the display (arguably a tablet's primary feature) is unimpressive. We like the idea of the remote-control abilities, and the TV-mirroring is a great addition if you have the right gear. If you don't have any use for those, however, Samsung's new Tabs probably won't do much for your iPad envy. |
| First Look: Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 8:00 PM | Samantha Murphy |
|  The new Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 looks strikingly similar to an Android smartphone, but the device is actually the latest media player to grace the growing category. The good news, however, is that it can even make calls and send text messages via Bluetooth. The device -- which runs on Gingerbread 2.3.6 -- is like many media players on the market today, with solid audio quality and a collection of apps. But what's especially interesting about the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 is that it can be tethered to a phone with Bluetooth 3.0 to send and receive calls. This feature might be appealing for those that want to avoid paying for another phone and adding to monthly bills. To make use of this feature, you'll have to turn to an alternative service such as Google Voice and be connected via Wi-Fi at the same time. From a design perspective, the device boasts a plastic body, 3.6-inch screen, 480 x 320 resolution display and a single-core Cortex A8 1GHz processor. Weighing in at 3.9 ounces, it is 0.3 ounces heavier than a classic iPod Touch yet feels less sturdy. The $149 device is also less expensive than the iPod Touch ($199), but the plastic body -- compared to the iPod Touch's stainless steel casing -- makes it not surprising that it's listed at a lower price point. However, the interface is easy to navigate and it's also laid out intuitively. Sound quality is also crisp and clean. Sound is also crisp and clean. Other features include a rear-facing camera lens and a whole collection of apps, including FM radio, maps, Gmail, Google search and Social Hub. The Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 is available now at Best Buy. Do you think there is still a need for media players or should all phones incorporate these types of capabilities? Let us know in the comments. |
| Could Military Mind Control Get Out of Hand? [VIDEO] | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 6:09 PM | Kate Freeman |
|  The United States military is using technology to its advantage, and now, the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience might also provide the government with weaponry and gear that taps into the human brain. However, fiddling with such developments has the potential to do great harm. A recent article in U.S. News & World Report detailed advances in neuroscience that could possibly be used by the military: "tanks controlled from half a world away, memory erasures that could prevent PTSD, and 'brain fingerprinting' that could be used to extract secrets from enemies." Jonathan Moreno, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century, wrote an essay published in PLoS Biology about ethical questions of utilizing mind-altering developments in warfare. When Albert Einstein discovered his special theory of relativity he didn't know that one day that technology would be used to build nuclear weapons, he says. "Neuroscientists may not consider how their work contributes to warfare," added Moreno. Moreno and others are asking the government to consider the ethical boundaries of developing and utilizing such a technology to be used in warfare. The military has already invested in neuroscience technologies. In 2008, the military put $4 million towards the development of "thought helmets." Other emerging areas of neuroscience might also prove useful to the military include the ability to make soldiers that can eat grass, feel no fear and possess superhuman abilities to climb walls. It is no secret that the military likes utilizing technology to gain warfare advantages. This year alone, various branches of the Department of Defense have signed multi-million dollar contracts for the purchase of robots for use in tactical operations. Most of the robots are small in size, but most recently DARPA imagined humanoid-sized robots. Do you think developments in neuroscience should be used by the military? Tell us in the comments. ?Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, ktsimage ? |
| Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse With 'Map of the Dead' | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 5:35 PM | Pete Pachal |
|  When the dead come back to life to feast on the living, will you be prepared? Will you have guns? Food? A map? Didn't think so. Thankfully, a new digital service aims to help you navigate the zombie-infested streets should such a nightmare scenario occur. "Map of the Dead," created by the digital agency Doejo, quickly shows survivors services that would be most helpful should the dead start to rise, such as gun stores, supermarkets and radio towers (to call for help). The site mines Google's map data to come up with an array of color-coded icons to aid the living. "All the data's through Google," says Jeff Merrick, the Doejo designer behind the project. "First, I used the places API. They have pre-set place types for things like hospitals and campgrounds. The second method is through keyword searches for things they don't have categories for, like gun stores." Besides the obvious services, the map also points out places to avoid, like hospitals and police stations, which are likely to be overrun with zombies. The map even color-codes regions as safe or dangerous, though the definition is pretty broad: If a region has any man-made structures, it's a danger zone. "If it's marked as a man-made structure it's red," says Merrick. "I'm not sure how they actually define that. It just looks cool. That also results in some weirdness in Alaska. If you look at the lower part of Alaska, it's a big red area." SEE ALSO: The Zombie Apocalypse Is Happening in a U.K. Shopping Mall/a> Originally, Merrick says he wanted to overlay real population density data, to emphasize the increased danger of zombies in places with more people, but he found it unworkable. "I had trouble finding good data on that to use," he says. "But I got basically the same effect by using the man-made structures." This isn't the first time a clever developer has used Google Maps data to enhance the narrative of a Zombie Apocalypse. A couple of years ago, someone put the events of The Walking Dead comic book series into a special Google Map. What do you think of the Map of the Dead? And how could it be improved? Share your thoughts in the comments. |
| How Steve Jobs Got Apple Into Trouble Over Ebooks | | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 4:29 PM | Lance Ulanoff |
|  So Apple and a group of major publishers stand accused of ebook price fixing. But before we have them drawn and quartered, let's consider the facts. First of all, Apple never tried to hide what it was doing with ebooks. Steve Jobs wanted his new iPad and iBooks platform to compete in the exploding ereader market. As ever, Jobs wanted to do so on his own terms. So he told publishers how it was going to be. Publishers agreed to his "Agency Model" (publishers set the price, Apple gets 30% of the profits, and publishers cannot allow lower prices on a competing service). The fortunes of Apple, publishers, authors and even Amazon, improved as a result. Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography outlines Apple's plans in stark detail. In the book, Isaacson describes a conversation he had with the late Apple CEO the day after the iPad launched in 2010: "Amazon screwed it up. It paid the wholesale price for some books, but started selling them below cost at $9.99. Publishers hated that -- they thought it would trash their ability to sell hardcover books at $28. So before Apple even got on the scene, some booksellers were starting to withhold books from Amazon. So we told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway.' "But we also asked for a guarantee that if anybody else is selling the books cheaper than we are, then we can sell them at the lower price too. So they went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books.' ... "We were not the first people in the books business. Given the situation that existed, what was best for us was to do this akido move and end up with the agency model. And we pulled it off." There it is, in all its glory: the heart of the Department of Justice's case against Apple and the publishers. I'm no lawyer, but this does sound a lot like price-fixing between Apple and publishers -- especially since Amazon was not given a seat at the negotiating table. The fact that publishers went along with it is a clear indication of just how desperate they were to break the stranglehold Amazon had on the ebook business. You see, Amazon was doing its own bit of price-fixing. It bought the books from publishers and then set super-low prices -- $9.99 for everything from a three-year-old-book to the latest best seller. The whole discount-over-time model was thrown out the window. Clearly, Amazon was selling books at a loss, but I doubt CEO Jeff Bezos cared. He wanted to build market share, fast, and knew the quickest way to do that was through consumer's wallets. They'd be much more likely to adopt Amazon's Kindle ereaders if they thought they could find new books for much less than they could by 1) buying Amazon's own hardcovers or 2) shopping at the local bookseller (think retail discounter and current ebook competitor Barnes and Noble). This plan worked and by 2010, ebooks were outselling traditional books on Amazon. Over the years I spoke to numerous people in the publishing industry who were somewhat shocked and not necessarily happy with this turn of events. Best-selling author James Patterson, whom I once met briefly on an airplane, wondered if movie makers would be as happy if their first run-movies were also available on DVD for $1.99 on the day films hit theaters. Patterson's books have long been on ereaders, but back then he was clearly feeling the pinch of lost royalties as his bestsellers which once sold for over $20 at Barnes and Noble and were now selling for $9.99. Was it any wonder he was riding coach? SEE ALSO: Apple iBooks Author App Lets You Make Your Own Books, Free Amazon tried to smooth things out with publishers prior to the iPad launch by raising publisher royalties to 70% -- effectively matching Apple -- as long as publishers followed Amazon's rules for pricing and allowing text-to-speech on their books. Amazon's $9.99 pricing insistence did not sit so well with government types, either. Back in 2010, the Connecticut Attorney General called Amazon's $9.99 pricing scheme potentially anti-competitive. Certainly, undercutting brick and mortar competitors by more than half on new hardcovers made it difficult for anyone else to compete in the ebooks space. Amazon was doing something few others could at the time: swallowing significant revenue losses until the scale of the business caught up. I'm not saying what Steve Jobs and publishers did back in 2009 and 2010 was right. But it was right there in front of everyone's face. Only Steve Jobs could be so bold and, like it or not, what he did probably saved or improved more than one business. Without Apple to force Amazon to rethink its pricing model, book publishers might have had to resort to draconian measures to stay afloat and deliver product (for all I know, they did anyway). Authors might have seen their publishing and sales platform opportunities shrink as fewer publishers took risks on unknown or no-name authors. Oh, and surely Amazon would be making less money on ebooks than it is today. What good will come of this DOJ investigation? Not much, I suspect. Maybe the DOJ casts out the Apple pricing rule: "No one shall price below us!" There will be fines imposed on the publishers and, likely, Apple. We know Apple can afford to pay and I doubt that the DOJ will seek to destroy the publishers through exorbitant penalties. Ultimately, this whole drama is just another little piece of Steve Job's legacy laid bare. He was a hard-nosed business man who knew how to win -- at almost any cost. Do we judge Apple or him more harshly for it? |
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