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Skullcandy unveils its first true wireless earbuds
Skullcandy is hopping aboard the bandwagon for all-wireless earbuds. It's releasing Push, a Bluetooth earbud set that aims to liberate you from cords without paying as much as you would for the usual alternatives. They offer six hours of listening by themselves, and another six through the included charging case. They should also stay reasonably secure in your ears thanks to their gels, and you can control basic functions (including invoking your preferred voice assistant) without reaching for your phone.
Ableton Live 10 will remember your riffs if you forget to press record
Ableton Live is popular with computer musicians thanks to its flexibility. As the name suggests, it enables live performance of electronic music, but it's also a robust music making tool in its own right. Fans of Live are long overdue an update, as the last full release (Live 9) was four years ago. Today Ableton revealed Live 10, which promises to make it even easier to translate ideas into anthems.
'Robotic fingers' make your dumb appliances smarter
Naran, a South Korean startup, has developed a series novel devices that transforms analog, push-button devices into internet-connected tools for your smart home. The devices, dubbed "Microbot Push" are low-power Bluetooth gadgets that pull commands from an internet hub and physically push analog buttons on, say, your old blender or the toaster oven. That's a radically different functionality than conventional "wall wart" IoT-enablers -- like the Brio or Nyrius -- which simply control the electrical circuits that power your appliances. Additionally, the Microbots can either be manually activated through the associated smartphone app or be automated in much the same way that IFTTT works. Naran plans to launch an Indiegogo campaign for the devices on November 9th.
BBC's Sport apps now deliver real-time F1 notifications
It's been almost six months since the BBC updated its iOS and Android Sport apps to deliver real-time football notifications, giving fans the ability to receive goal updates while on the move. However, football isn't the only sport the Beeb allocates a huge amount of resources to: it also shares live Formula 1 coverage with Sky. In an new update today, the BBC Sport team is giving F1 fans some mobile love by extending push notifications to cover practice, qualifying and results for the remaining F1 races of the 2014 season. Out for the day for the final double-point race in Abu Dhabi at the end of the month? The BBC now has you covered.
Push band offers wearable insight for your strength training regimen
There are plenty of activity trackers on the market that measure things like steps, distance and more. But what about offering useful feedback for those gym sessions? That's what Push aims to do with its wearable. The gadget measures power and velocity in order to gauge just how well you're doing with bench press, squats and more during each rep. Those metrics are used to determine where intensity or weight could be increased, beaming the collected data to a companion app. From there, you can monitor progress, set goals and get recommendations for improving -- on top of sending your numbers to a coach or personal trainer. Push is also continually adding new exercises for the tracker to keep the stats collection as complete as possible. And athletes have already taken notice. Strength and conditioning coaches for the Dallas Stars, St. Louis Cardinals, East Tennessee State University and others have used the wearable to gauge weight room performance. After a successful crowdfunding campaign and nabbing 2,000 pre-orders, the Push band is on sale now for $189.
Skype's new tweaks will sync all your devices and notify you quicker
One of the downsides of owning a smartphone, tablet and a computer, is that you can miss important messages if they only land on one of that trio. That's the thinking behind the latest Skype update, which will now sync your chats across all of your devices. The tweaks also bring push notifications, alerting you to new messages and, perhaps best of all, delivery receipts, so you'll always know exactly when your missives have been read -- or ignored.
Vine updates Android app with push notifications and more sharing options
It's the freakin' weekend, baby, and Vine has an app update for its most loyal Android users. (Actually, any Android user that has access to v4.0 or higher.) Semantics aside, the outfit's app has just been updated with push notifications and more sharing options... or so says its Twitter account. The Google Play link is still showing a prior description, but we're guessing the new build will percolate through momentarily. Update: The refreshed version has arrived on Google Play, and mentions the sharing enhancements include the ability to share any public post to Twitter or Facebook.
Boomerang gets pushy with Gmail notifications, multi-message selection
Boomerang's latest update adds tweaked functionality, moving it from one-trick unicorn territory to a possible Gmail app-replacement. Developer Baydin's improvements include Google Cloud Messaging-based push notifications, the ability to "send from" and multi-message selection for bulk mailbox organizing. If you're a fan of the email giant's new tabbed inbox, you're out of luck for now -- everything here is still lumped into one list. If you ask politely enough though, we're sure the dev will consider supporting it; version 0.8's shiny features were community suggested, after all.
BlackBerry introduces OTA service for automakers, brings push expertise to vehicle telematics
With more and more vehicles featuring telematics and built-in wireless connectivity, it's no surprise that we're seeing a new ecosystem emerge around the technology, with M2M specialists providing everything from radios to apps. BlackBerry wants a piece of this pie, and today at the Telematics Detroit conference, the company is showing a new OTA (Over The Air) service for automakers. The solution lets car manufacturers manage and deploy software updates to vehicles in the field and takes advantage of BlackBerry's push expertise and secure infrastructure. Other remote capabilities include installing apps on a car's infotainment system and getting status information on vehicle components. Let's just hope there's no service outage in the middle of that ECU update, okay? PR after the break.
Ableton Push review: a dedicated controller for the Live faithful
MIDI might be a little long in the tooth as protocols go, but it's been the prevailing standard for getting music hardware and software to play nice pretty much since its inception. As such, the MIDI controller is a fairly established staple in professional and bedroom studios alike. The problem is they're generic by nature. They come in all shapes and sizes, but to be profitable, they need to appeal to a broad range of applications. Ableton clearly didn't think this arrangement was up to snuff, though, so it created Push -- a software controller built entirely for the latest version of its popular Live production software. While there have been Live-specific controllers before -- some even officially endorsed by Ableton -- Push is a whole new beast. It's one that hopes to unite hardware and software in a way that an all-purpose controller never could. Ableton also has lofty musical ambitions for Push: it claims it designed the hardware as an instrument in and of itself; something that lets you close the lid of the laptop and use to make music with, while not looking like you are checking your email. And, given that Ableton makes the software that it's building Push for, integration is understandably expected to be airtight. But how well does it work? Is it an instrument? Will it replace all your other controllers? Do you want one? Is it worth the $599 pre-order price? Will it blend? We've pushed ourselves to explore the device fully in an effort to find out (apart from that last question, of course).%Gallery-183384%
Early iOS 6 adopters report problems getting Exchange push email: are you affected?
We all know about the central issue surrounding iOS 6. For the suits and ties among us, however, there's a potentially more glaring problem with Exchange support. Some users quick to upgrade to Apple's latest mobile OS report losing automatic push delivery of their email, requiring that they check for themselves to get any fresh messages. The issue isn't carrier- or device-specific, and attempts to reboot, reconfigure or restore devices are at best temporary fixes: what flows smoothly at first runs dry several hours later. Apple technicians are aware that the flaw exists, but it's tough to know if and when engineers will have a fix -- the company typically waits until it has a solution in hand before it goes on the record. We've reached out to Apple for a possible comment all the same. In the meantime, let us know if your Exchange access (or push data as a whole) is going awry. [Thanks, Daniel] %Poll-78044%
Twitter for Windows Phone gets pushy, adds Notifications support
Starting this week, Windows Phone users with a Twitter fixation will have a much easier time feeding the little, blue, bird-shaped beast. The latest update to the app features long-awaited Notifications support. Downloading version 1.5 will deliver such important Twitter info as retweets, mentions, direct messages, new followers and favorited tweets to the forefront where they belong. You can download the app in the source link below and then tell all your friends through the microblogging service of your choice, whatever that might be. Fair warning in the meantime -- a number of folks are reporting issues with the update, and we've had some difficulty getting it up an running on our own handsets. Feel free to sound off in the comments below -- since you may have some trouble doing so on Twitter.
Sparrow mail app for iOS hits version 1.1, Push support to follow 'with or without Apple'
Good news today for Sparrow iOS users. As expected, the company has updated its splendid lil' email app to version 1.1 and loaded it with a few hotly anticipated features. Among some bug fixes, you can now make use of a built-in browser, "Send and Archive" messages, filter specific folders and labels, clear your spam and trash bins and even set which accounts you'd like to show or hide dock badges for. While the app is still sorely lacking Push support, Sparrow believes that Apple may change the privacy guidelines for its Push API, which the company plans to include in version 1.2. That said, it's partnered with folks outside of Cupertino's walled-garden, so that it can bring the feature to fruition "with or without Apple." Furthermore, that future version's other features have been detailed -- it'll include landscape support, vertical swiping through messages and localization for an additional nine countries. In related news, version 1.6 of Sparrow for Mac OS X is being readied for release, and it'll pack support for POP email accounts. You can glide on down to the source link for further details.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Carrying Dominion games
One of the best things about League of Legends' Dominion mode is that individual bad players can't ruin games quite as much as they can on Summoner's Rift. It's true that a bad player is still not going to be as valuable as a good player, but in Classic, a single bad player is often worse than an AFK. It's never fun to lose a game when there's absolutely nothing you can do about Tryndamere feeding the top lane. In Dominion, single players don't contribute quite as much, in general. However, there is an exception: the bottom lane. You'll be hearing me talk about the bottom lane in Dominion a lot. In most games, it's the most important element of the entire map. One player generally holds and controls the lane solo, and his ability to do this job well has more of an outcome on the game than any other individual's skill. A team that wins the bottom lane usually wins the game.
Sparrow for iPhone released: just a POP and Push away from email perfection
Sparrow's made a name for itself over on the Mac desktop side, and now it's doing its darnedest to do the same on iOS. The email-client-that-could has launched its long-awaited iPhone edition into the App Store today, with $2.99 netting you a highly polished program that integrates a "pane navigation" concept, a unique threading system and full IMAP support. In other words, Gmail, Google Apps, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL and custom email addresses are fine to use here, but there's no support for POP or Push notifications just yet. The latter is apt to put off the power users, but more casual readers may appreciate the unified inbox, direct-attachment feature and plenty of other details that provide for an overall delightful experience. It's available now in the source link (or the App Store, if you're up for a search), and we're told that localization, landscape mode, a built-in browser and 'Send and Archive' will be coming in future builds.Psst... hit the More Coverage link to read Sparrow's explanation of why Push is being left out. If you couldn't guess, it's about privacy.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Get back, get back!
Last week, I said I would avoid doing articles on the situational "soft skills" in League of Legends. Well, this week kind of ruins that already. Today we're going to talk about lane positioning, zoning, and harassment. These things are not something I can just give you blanket tips on. There are a lot of nuances involved in good positioning, and every single matchup is completely different. You do not stand in the same places laning against Cassiopeia as you do against Kennen, and those positions change depending on which character you're playing, too. Even though there is a lot of matchup-specific knowledge involved in lane positioning, there are some general tips I can provide. This week I'm going to only teach you about the basics of lane safety but give you some dirty mindgame tricks that will absolutely ruin your opponents. Interested? Read on!
Fujitsu wants to push out location-based apps, pull them back again
Maybe, just maybe, this wireless technology in development at Fujitsu makes some sense. When you walk within range of an NFC sensor or GPS coordinate, the cloud-based system takes the liberty of pushing location-relevant apps to your phone or tablet. Enter a museum, for example, and you'll automatically receive its tour guide app. Your device could even be made to work as a viral transmitter, spreading the app to other visitors' handsets. Finally, when you leave, all the bloatware just magically disappears. Alternatively, the museum's marketing department conveniently forgets to configure this last step, accidentally signs you up to its newsletter and grabs a donation from your PayPal account while it has the chance. We would obviously find this rather upsetting, unless the museum has dinosaurs.
Facebook 2.0 finally brings push notifications to Windows Phone 7
On the heels of yesterday's release of Mango for the developers out there, Facebook has finally dropped version 2 with support for push notifications -- Toast and Live Tile. For those of you that've been waiting with baited breath, included are notifications for: messages, wall posts, feed comments and replies, photo tags and replies, or in short about everything your addiction requires. We've not had a chance to light our screens up with this just yet, so why not be a dear and give it a go and let us know what you think.
iTunes moves to the iCloud, re-download of purchases now possible
Apple announced iCloud today at WWDC and with it the ability to re-download your previously purchased music. Re-downloading of 256 Kbps AAC tracks is now possible for the first time from iTunes, meaning that you can purchase your music once and download it to every device you own (up to 10 devices total), without any additional charge. Like apps and books, music also doesn't count against your 5 GB iCloud storage space. You simply search through your purchased music in iTunes and hit that cute little cloud icon to initiate the download. What's more, Apple has included Automatic Downloads for iOS in the mix, meaning that free and purchased music will be automatically pushed to any device you have connected to the Internet. Buy it on your iPhone and have it pushed to your iPad. Simple. We'll be going in-depth into the new iTunes Match subscription service in a few minutes.
MobileNotifier: iPhone alerts improved (video)
If you haven't jailbroken your iPhone yet then MobileNotifier might just push you over the edge -- a place you're probably already teetering upon given Apple's pathetic push notification implementation. MobileNotifier beta v3 is a free open-source rewrite of iOS' notifications from Peter Hajas (lead developer) and Kyle Adams (UI and UX). Perhaps the biggest feature of MobileNotifier is the addition of unobtrusive alerts that appear at the top of your existing app. Unlike Apple's interfering popups, MobileNotifier alerts can be ignored, leaving them on the display without inhibiting use of the device. You can also take immediate action on alerts or tap them away for later. Pending alerts can be found in the AlertDashboard -- the previously unused area above the app switcher, accessible with a double-press of the iPhone's home button. Pending alert counts are also displayed as a line item on the Lockscreen. We've been running MobileNotifier for a few hours. While it's not perfect (opaque windows?) we have no plans to remove it either. At least not until we see what Apple has in store for iOS 5 which, with any luck, will be revealed on Wednesday for a summer launch. Another screenshot and demo video can be found after the break.
