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Twitter comes to Nokia Series 40 feature phones, lets you hashtag with the best of them
Got a Nokia Series 40 handset and a bad case of Twitter-envy (twenvy?)? Fear not, the service announced today that it's bringing its micro-blogging magic to the feature phones, promising a zippy native experience. You can download Twitter for Nokia right now from the Nokia Store for free, to sign up, tweet, follow and generally get your Twitter on.
Distro Issue 40: the battle for smartphone dominance continues and we go hands-on at CTIA 2012
Having trouble with the barrage of smartphone news in recent weeks? Don't worry, we've got you covered in this Friday's edition of our e-publication. The focus this week is the on-going quest for the ultimate smartphone champion. In our search, we take a look at the recently outted Samsung Galaxy S III while putting both the AT&T HTC One X and the Sprint Galaxy Nexus through their paces. While he's a fan of their thin frames, Darren Murph demands better battery life in new laptops and his editorial offers some thoughts on the matter. Our hands-on section is all CTIA this week, as we look back at a handful of gadgets that caught our eye. Smartphone reviews just not doing the trick this week? Well, we take the Jawbone Big Jambox for a spin in this week's issue as well. Yes, all the regulars are here -- including Reaction Time with a word on The Avengers and Call of Duty. Stat takes a look at phone profits, Switched On tackles smartplayers, IRL takes another peek in our backpacks, Square's CTO Bob Lee gets cozy with the Q&A and Dustin Harbin offers the Last Word on excessive texters. So, grab a seat in your favorite reading chair and hit the download link of your choice to get your copy of our tablet mag. Distro Issue 40 PDF Distro in the iTunes App Store Distro in the Google Play Store Distro APK (For sideloading) Like Distro on Facebook Follow Distro on Twitter
World's largest indoor photograph shows off fancy old Czech library
If you think Google's seven-gigapixel renderings of world famous art museums are impressive, get a load of this: a guy named Jeffrey Martin just produced a record breaking panoramic photo of a reading room in Prague's Strahov monastery library, and it's got the internet giant's Art Project beat by more than 30,000 megapixels. Not that Google's pictures are anything to scoff at, but the 40-gigapixel, 360 degree, 283GB image is something of a digital masterwork. According to Wired, the photograph, taken in February on a GigaPanBot-mounted Canon 550D, is comprised of 2,947 unique images that took a computer program more than four days to stitch together. If you're a fan of 18th century European literature, Franz Anton Maulbertsch's trompe l'oeil paintings, or just ridiculously detailed digital photography, you can peep the image in its entirety at the source link.
Sony's Google TV screen sizes and prices leak?
While its controller may have a button layout that only an Atari Jaguar apologist could love (...), Sony's Google TV set itself is still something intriguing, if only because of the missing pieces of the puzzle set to be revealed October 12th. Or now, perhaps, if this Sony Insider leak proves true. According to the site, four models will initially be introduced: NSX-24GT1, NSX-32GT1, NSX-40GT1, and NSX-46GT1 -- which, as you may have surmised, correspond to 24-, 32-, 40-, and 46-inch sets. While no price is known for the littlest of the quartet, the others are reportedly equipped with respective $1299.99, $1499.99, and $1899.99 price tags. The lowest of those three is about $300 more than BRAVIA EX710, the most expensive Sony 32-incher right now. Three Benjamins could also net you the Logitech Revue and the freedom to hook it up to any TV you wanted, so if these prices are true, let's hope there's some wiggle room for the retailer.
Konami celebrates 40th birthday
Before you blow out the candles on your cake, take a deep breath first. There's 40 of them, after all. Storied publisher Konami celebrates four decades of whip-cracking this month. The company's secret behind its youthful good looks? Konami's European president Kunio Neo tells MCV, "Consistency plays a major part in everything Konami does." Well there's that, and eating piping hot plates of wall-turkey at every opportunity. Neo also notes that Konami already has big plans for the future, with "a wealth of other new titles in development." Now, after all this excitement, we're going to go lay down. I feel asleep.
Scattered Shots: A talent for leveling in Beast Mastery
The Scattered Shots hunter bears his or her teeth and says "RAAAWR!" to the mirror every morning in an uncouth, beastly manner -- thus affirming the beast within, which yearns for a way out to express itself.Which talents you should get as you level up is a tricky question with many different answers, many of which can turn out just fine or absolutely horrible, depending on how you play. Today I'll be taking you along on a journey through the first 40 levels of talent spending, and explaining why I think certain talent choices are better than others.One of the most important things to remember about talents is that, in spite of all their mathematical precision, they are open to poetic interpretation. Some talents give clearly superior advantages, while in other cases it's mostly a matter of opinion as to which one fits your play-style best. Sometimes the talents that look best on paper aren't the ones that will really help you the most when the going gets rough. Likewise, some talents are designed more for endgame use at level 70, even though they appear early on in the talent tree, while others are better for leveling up, and you may wish to drop them later on once you finish leveling.Most of my talent choices today are going to be in the Beast Mastery tree, for instance. Some people may say that they like Marksmanship or Survival best, and certainly that's their right. But from most of the people I've talked to, the general consensus is that Beast Mastery is best for both leveling and early endgame raiding, too. While talking about these talents, I'll list your level and the number of talent points you have at each stage, so that it's easier to keep track of your talent resources.
Flickr Find: 40 Nanos laid out
Aaron bought 40 of the new iPod nanos for a client (all he says is that he had to put content on them), and apparently was struck by how beautiful they were all lined up together, so he got a quick photo shoot set up on Flickr.While I called them stubby and squished before, I have to admit that they look pretty darn elegant in these pics. I'm still not buying one (an iPhone is going to be my next purchase, very soon here), but the design is growing on me a little bit. I still think the scroll wheel looks weird, though-- it balances perfectly on the old iPods, and here it's too small and leaves too much space open on the sides. I'm no Ive, but I know what I like.Thanks, AaronS!
Alternate faction mounts at 40
No, it's not easy, but it is possible now that reputation rewards for quests don't degrade with level. However, questing alone doesn't seem to be enough to get a mount by 40, as explained by goffchick on wow_ladies. The real trick seems to be timing it so you can run (pre-60, it's more likely to be corpse-hop) to as many lunar festival elders as possible. (Yes, for each elder you speak with, you gain 75 reputation for all horde or all alliance factions, depending on your faction, of course.) Anyone else out here who's managed to snag a cross-faction mount at or around level 40? I'd be curious to hear how difficult it was.
Sony @ CEDIA - 52-inch 1080p, 40- & 32-inch 720p BRAVIA LCDs
Remember the 52-inch 1080p and 720p 40- and 32-inch BRAVIA LCDs Sony announced in Japan recently? They have officially announced their US availability prior to CEDIA 2006. First the the big guys, the 1080p 52-incher comes in two flavors, the KDL-52XBR2 and KDL-52XBR3. The XBR3 has the high-gloss piano black bezel we know you love so much while the XBR2 has a silver finish. Both include BRAVIA Engine Pro image processing built around Sony's DRC-MFv2.5 for upconverting lower-res signals, and WCG-CCFL backlighting for better color contrast. They feature a 1,300:1 on-screen contrast ratio (7,000:1 dynamic), 8ms refresh time, with three HDMI and component inputs. Both will ship in November, with MSRPs of $6,800 for the XBR3 and $6,500 for the XBR2. At the lower end Sony has added two S-series LCDs also shown previously in Japan, the 40-inch KDL-40S2400 and 32-inch KDL-32S2400, both featuring a 1366x768 (720p) resolution. They have the same Advanced Contrast Enhancer (ACE) as the 52-inch models, with 1,300:1 contrast ratio (5,000:1 dynamic), plus "invisible" bottom-mounted speakers and will retail for $2,600 (40-inch) and $1,700 (32-inch) when they begin shipping in October. The 52-inch XBRs will have a fight on their hands with the similarly-spec'd Samsung and Sharp models hitting this fall.Update: Added images of KDL-32S2400 & KDL-52XBR2 after the break.
IFA 2006: Samsung introduces LED backlit 40-inch LCD
Samsung is showing off their LED-backlit LCD panel for European markets at IFA 2006. The LE40M91 40-inch 720p LCD has a 146% color gamut, 10,000:1 contrast ratio and 450 cd/m2 brightness rating. LED backlighting has been available in Sony's Qualia line, but remained out of reach for most buyers due to its high price. Although Samsung didn't release any pricing information earlier reports pegged the 40-inch LCD at about $3,000. This TV also features Samsung's 100hz technology, while inserting a frame between other two frames, they claim their motion adaptive technology helps reduce blurring without reducing brightness, clarity or color. They showed off two other new LCDs, a 40- and 46-inch (LE40F7/LE46F7) that don't feature the LED backlighting or 100hz technology, but do have 1080p resolution, 6,000:1 contrast ratio,127% of the NTSC color gamut and 450 cd/m2 brightness, much like the upcoming 52-inch LN-S5296D. All three screens feature Samsung's Wiselink "10-in-3" technology which apparently allows for USB, memory card, printer and dual-HDMI connection.[Via Digitimes]
