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Apparent Gmail for Android 4.2 leak shows off pinch-to-zoom, swipe features
If you've been desperate for new Gmail on your Android, a leaked APK obtained by Android Police -- that may or may not have come from one of those LG E960 Mako (alleged) Nexus phones that it seems everyone has -- is sporting some fresh tweaks. As seen in this demo video, the update adds pinch-to-zoom on individual messages, as well as swipe to delete or archive. The app itself is labeled as version 4.2, and while the APK isn't widely available, the site reports that if it is released you'll need to be rooted and running Android 4.0 or higher to get an early taste of the future.
Logitech Harmony Touch remote officially announced, brings swipe, scroll and tap LCD for $249
The cat is already well out of the bag, but we finally have some official information about the new Logitech Harmony Touch universal remote. Its first addition to the line in a while, Logitech is pushing its center-mounted 2.4-inch color touchscreen with support for control by tapping, swiping or scrolling through up to 50 channel icons as a way to "unprecedented control" of your home entertainment system. We're still not entirely sure about the transport controls being placed so far up top or the usefulness of a screen focused on direct live channel access in the DVR and streaming age (check out our thoughts on this week's podcast), but it does bring the usual control of up to 15 devices and backlit keys. Just as we saw in the stores, the price is set at $249 and it controls only via IR, not RF like the pricier Harmony 900. Check out more info in the press release after the break (along with quick demo and how-to setup videos) or on Logitech's blog, fans of the new device should be able to find them released widely in the US and Europe this month.
Logitech Harmony Touch remote pops up unannounced at Best Buy (Update: Pictures)
It's been a long time since we've seen any new blood refreshing Logitech's line of universal remotes, but after indications of new devices on the way in an earnings call earlier this year tipster Andrew spotted this brand new Harmony Touch on store shelves. Arriving at Best Buy unheralded by any official announcement or specs so far, the box shots and list of features show the ability to control 15 different devices and (of course) that center mounted touchscreen. There's no mention of it on the Logitech site either, however one leaked blog post we spotted referred to this device and a Harmony Plus. As our friends at Tech of the Hub note, the Touch clearly draws a lot of its heritage from the Harmony One and 1100 touchscreen remotes although to have ditched the dedicated Activity button for "one touch" control. The touchscreen itself supports both taps and swipes as well as up to 50 customizable channel icons, and the box lists both online setup and on-remote customization as features. According to Andrew it's rocking a price tag of $249 -- $50 above the current price of the Harmony One but $100 shy of the RF-equipped Harmony 900 -- hopefully we'll find out soon if what Logitech has added this time around makes it worth the wait. Update: Another one of our readers, Zachary also saw it at Best Buy and bought one, check out a few out of the box pics in the gallery below, and drop any questions about its capabilities in the comments. He's digging it so far, saying that the touchscreen is responsive and it found icons for his area quickly, with options to change background, LCD brightness and screen timeout. There does not appear to be any RF support however, so it's IR control only. [Thanks, Andrew]
Facebook Messenger 2.0 for iPhone brings new design to conversations, swipe left for friends list
Facebook debuted the new look of its dedicated Messenger app on Android last week and and just as promised, now it's available on the iPhone as well. Facebook Messenger 2.0 brings a new SMS-style bubble layout to conversations, a swipe left gesture to reveal one's friends list and the ability to push the friends you message most to the top of the list. As mentioned along with the Android update this is a part of a new release schedule cycle that should see updates arriving every 4 - 8 weeks. That means you can mark your calendar for the next refresh if this is your social network of choice, but for now just grab the latest version from iTunes.
Daily iPad App: Say Anything lets you get somebody's attention without saying a thing
Sometimes you need to get a person's attention without saying a word. You can wave your hand wildly at them, but all that vigorous movement may scare them away. A better way to get someone's attention is to pull out your iPad and fire up a banner app like Say Anything from Appy Inc. Say Anything is a simple banner app that lets you type in text and scroll it across your iPad's display just like a ticker tape. It has a swipe-based interface that uses both vertical and horizontal swiping gestures. A horizontal swipe sets your banner in motion and controls the speed, while a vertical swipe lets you scroll among your messages. Speaking of messages, your messages can have unlimited characters and you can save them for later use. You can save an unlimited number of preset messages (99-cent in-app purchase required) and use a favorites list to make it easy to find your most used messages. Unlike the paper banners of yore, you can jazz up your messages on the fly by changing the background color and adjusting the font color and face. There's also a mirror mode that's available as a 99-cent in-app purchase. Your message and its background are fully customizable, but, like mirror mode and unlimited presets, these changes come with a cost. If you want to adjust the size of the text, add more fonts or swap out the background for an image or a texture, you have to activate those features via an in-app purchase. Each feature costs 99-cents, but you can save yourself some cash and buy all five features (fonts, scaling, background, mirror and unlimited preset messages) for a reasonable US$1.99. What sets Say Anything apart from its competition is its ease of use and quality design. It's a fast, responsive app with a clean UI that lets you get your message across to someone in just a few seconds. I've been using it off and on for the past few weeks and am pleased with its performance. The developers are also responsive to problems and committed to producing a quality app. Say Anything is available for free from the iOS App Store, so you can try the basic features of the app without spending any money. If you like the app, then you should spend the $1.99 to unlock all five features and get rid of those pop-ups that appear every time you click on a paid feature that you haven't bought yet. You'll be glad you did.
Square gets a few more Chinese clones, Jack Dorsey may or may not be flattered
Never mind what PayPal has just unveiled today -- look at these mobile phone credit card readers from China instead. If you ask Square CEO Jack Dorsey, we're sure he'll have to a thing or two to say about these familiar-looking dongles (and not to mention the various weibo microblogging services that were inspired by Jack's Twitter platform). Coincidentally, all three of these pictures above showed up on Sina Weibo earlier today, albeit from different accounts with very little detail in each post -- we'd like to think they're trying to make a point one after the other. So who's behind these little plastic bricks from the Far East?Starting from the left (courtesy of Xiaomi Vice President Li Wanqiang) we have Lakala, a well-known Chinese payment service provider whose POS terminals are featured in major supermarkets and convenience stores. We spoke to the company's CEO Sun Taoran who assured us that this is a booming business in China, as credit cards are more popular than you'd expect these days (most large eateries, supermarkets and even karaoke bars in domestic cities will happily accept them); and of course, he'd certainly want a slice of that massive smartphone pie over there. The Beijing-based company also said its dongle will function even without a phone client installed, but it wouldn't further elaborate at this point. Expect to see Lakala's product launch in May.
Twitter's Android and iOS app get updates; out on Kindle Fire now, Nook soon
The official Twitter app has just received an update on iOS and Android, bringing new features to both platforms, plus an "optimized" Ice Cream Sandwich experience as seen above. The app is also currently available on Amazon's Appstore for the Kindle Fire now, and the company says it will pop up in the Barnes & Noble Nook Store February 23rd. For both Android and IOS the app has brought back / added a swipe gesture to reply to, reweet or favorite something without leaving your timeline, plus a notification on the Find Friends feature that it will be uploading their address book to Twitter's server -- a welcome change after the Path fiasco. The iOS-specific changes are the return of copy and paste, more options to share or save links in tweets, a mark all read for DMs and configurable font sizes. While it is optimized for ICS, on our CyanogenMod 9 tablet, the layout still looked reminiscent of the Gingerbread version instead of the iPad's richer layout. Hit the source links below to give it a look yourself and let us know if it's beating out your favorite mobile app yet.
LG announces LSM-100 Scanner Mouse, saves valuable desk space
You may recall, back at CES, we got our hands on LG's LSM-100 mouse scanner and were able to try it out for ourselves. Well it appears that you may have that same opportunity soon. The company has announced that it will be "opening a new era for scanners" at IFA in a few days with its mouse that boasts a built-in scanner. Simply by holding the Smart Scan button, you'll be able to save or drag and drop scanned images as large as A3 paper size in a variety of formats -- PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and PDF, just to name a few -- by swiping the mouse over it. If that wasn't enough to entice you, the peripheral also features Optical Character Recognition that converts text from said images into an editable Word document. Perhaps lost in all this is the fully functioning mouse bit... which you'll probably need as well. No word yet on pricing or availability, but hopefully soon, you'll have room on your desk for one of these. Update: Apparently this bad boy is already available the UK for £89.98 (around $148), via the coverage link below. Also, we added a promo video from the folks at LG showing the peripheral in action -- which you can check out after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Square app update lets iOS users buy cookies on credit, sans signature
Heads up, card swipers, because Square has just issued an update to its iOS credit card app. Version 2.1 brings enhanced transaction speeds and a streamlined tipping interface to iPhone and iPad users, along with added support for $0.00 price points. Plus, any purchases below $25 will no longer require a signature, meaning you can safely buy that latte while keeping human interaction to a bare minimum. If you're interested in making the jump, hit up the source link below. [Thanks, Chris]
Nokia's N9 official: a luscious slab of MeeGo coming later this year
Stephen Elop said that Nokia would unveil its first MeeGo device this year, and he just made good on his word with the N9 (also known as Lankku). Just as we spotted earlier, the N9 is a solid slab of 3.9-inch AMOLED screen (854 x 480) sans a keyboard or physical switches of any kind (well, aside from that oh-so-necessary volume rocker and camera button). The phone comes with 16GB or 64GB of onboard memory and 1GB of RAM wrapped in a polycarbonate shell that's colored all the way through, so dings and scratches won't show -- unless the wounds run deep, of course. An OMAP3630 1 Ghz processor does the computing while a PowerVR SGX530 GPU is around for graphical grunt work. Connectivity comes courtesy of quad-band GSM and penta-band WCDMA radios, plus Bluetooth 2.1, NFC, and GPS. There is also a dedicated camera button for the 8 megapixel wide-angle shooter, which is capable of aperture F2.2 for low light picture taking and true 16:9 720p video recording. Oh, and it's an AF shooter, not EDoF. The entire thing measures 116.45- x 61.2- x 7.6-12.1mm and weighs 135 grams, with a battery capable of lasting up to 50 hours (music), 4.5 hours (720p video), or between seven and 11 hours (GSM yappin'). You'll also get gratis turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance in Maps, a dedicated Drive app, proximity sensor and a choice of hue: black, cyan, and magenta. Other hardware specs include 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, an ambient light sensor, compass, orientation sensor, a micro SIM slot, tethering support and a 3.5mm "AV connector." It'll be humming along on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, with apps being compliant with Qt 4.7 and HTML5 support bundled in. As for software? Aside from Angry Birds Magic, Galaxy on Fire 2, Real Golf 2011 and OpenGL ES 2.0, those who take the plunge will be greeted with a Webkit2-based browser, pinch-to-zoom support, unified notifications for Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds in the Events view as well as social networking profiles and status updates merged into phone contacts. MeeGo touts a user interface simplified to three home views -- events, applications and open apps -- with a swipe gesture able to take you back to the home view. For those looking to expand upon what's loaded from the factory, Ovi Store access is included, but we've no idea what kind of pricing will be affixed. We'll be getting a fair bit of hands-on time with this guy in just a few hours, so keep it locked here for our first impressions! %Gallery-126768%
Mutewatch now in production, set to silently manage your day by July (video)
We first caught wind of Mutewatch AB's eponymous sort of anti-watch -- a personal vibrating time management wristband, equipped with a hidden touch-activated LED display -- when it became available for pre-order back in August. It seemed unique, but back then we had no idea of how it looked in action or when we might finally get one strapped onto our wrists. It's a mystery no more, as the Swedish suite has just released a heavily stylized (and totally rendered) video showcasing the Mutewatch's various touch-enabled functions. Also in tow, a press release announcing retail availability in July. Although our cellphones can do pretty much the same thing as this spendy $259 timepiece, we can't hide our geeky (and guilty) lust for one. You can check out the video for yourself past the break, but be warned: a moderate case of GAS -- Gadget Acquisition Syndrome -- may occur after viewing.
Shifting Perspectives: Bear and resto druid changes ahead for patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we look at the patch 4.1 PTR and, when so inclined, drink heavily. Hail, druids. We've got another exciting patch coming up, and this week I wanted to take a look at the changes currently in store for both bear and tree druids (with a few notes that inevitably touch on cats as well, as some feral changes are pretty general). And far be it from me to omit the most important change: Zarhym Prowl has a new icon. source Well, thank God for that.
Nokia C7 has NFC capability, won't say what it's for -- yet
We like us a little intrigue in our handsets, and we'd say this definitely qualifies: Nokia has apparently quietly slipped NFC circuitry into its just-launched C7 without bothering to mention it in any of the phone's literature. What does that mean? Well, Nokia's not saying, curiously -- but the company has experimented with using NFC for a variety of things over the years, and cashless transactions and contact information exchange are obviously two of the biggies. This actually dovetails nicely with that teaser for the Swipe payment and receipt management system that Nokia put out not long ago, so we wouldn't be surprised if it ultimately had something to do with that; they're saying there'll be an announcement eventually, but for now, all we can do is let the theories run rampant.
Nokia teases Swipe NFC payment system for digital receipts, warm eco-friendly feeling
Now that Nokia's gone all-in with NFC and announced that it'll be blanketing its entire smartphone line with the technology next year, it's gotta do something cool with it -- after all, simply turning a phone into a digital wallet is so 2009! That seems to be where Swipe comes into play, a new software stack Espoo is teasing this week that integrates NFC payments with instant digital receipt uploads to your phone -- instead of getting a printed copy -- which boosts your treehugger street cred by leaps and bounds. Perhaps even cooler, though, the system reads the receipt once it's back on your phone and makes a note of the product's return period so that it can remind you when time's running out, perfect for getting maximum usage out of that N8 before flipping it back from whence it came. If we had to guess, this might be unveiled in full at Nokia World, which just happens to kick off tomorrow -- and we're on the scene for all the unexpectedly drama-packed action, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, follow the break for the full teaser video.
Shifting Perspectives: Answers to questions nobody asked
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we get a beta key, and maybe a little sloshed. After getting a beta key, it was my intent to hit the servers and write an FAQ/reader mailbag-type column, but I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to answer my questions, not yours. I don't care about any of you. Well, that's not true. I do care. But I've been in the beta for less than a week and: Half the stuff we've read about has been scrapped or just hasn't been implemented. The other half is a writhing mass of angry, toxic bugs. The servers crash like that drunk buddy who swore he'd only be on your couch for a few days but is still there weeks later and you poke him with a stick every morning to make sure he's alive and unfortunately he is. About the most I could do without pulling several consecutive all-nighters was level a worgen and troll druid to level 13 as quickly as I could. Oh, and wipe a Blackwing Caverns group several times over. Readers beware: while I may not answer any useful questions past the cut, there are still a few serious spoilers here.
The Queue: I want a siege tank IRL
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's edition of The Queue is brought to you by my bruised ego after a half-dozen rounds of crushing defeats in StarCraft II. Seriously? Twenty mutalisks in my base while I'm still trying to figure out where my dragoon buddies went? I hate everyone and everything. Yes, even you. Especially you, Taylor. You know who you are. Tethra asked... "Any idea when we're going to get our Olympics pets, other than 'soon'?"
Patch 3.3 PTR: Undocumented druid changes
Our esteemed colleague Boubouille has datamined some undocumented changes to druids on the patch 3.3 PTR, so while I'm waiting for it to download (53 more minutes.../sigh), let's take a look:BALANCENATURE'S GRACE: Now procs from non-periodic spell criticals (old: all spell criticals).So direct-damage spells (e.g. Wrath, Starfire, Moonfire's initial hit) or direct-healing spells (e.g. Regrowth's initial heal, Nourish) will be the only ones that can trigger the 20% haste effect from 3/3 Nature's Grace. This is definitely a nerf for Balance concerning Starfall and Hurricane crits, but it's also a nerf concerning specific gear sets. Moonfire's DoT component can crit if you're using Balance 2-piece Tier 9, and a Restoration druid rocking 4-piece Tier 9 gains the ability for Rejuvenation to crit.For Balance's AoE situations and Starfall cooldowns, it's an out-and-out nerf, albeit a limited one given Starfall's cooldown and the unlikelihood of Hurricane playing a major role in any given boss fight. Otherwise, it's also a nerf directed at Tier 9 bonuses, unless Blizzard's planning on future tier bonuses (or class changes) that will make periodic damage and/or healing crits a routine thing. Stay tuned.
Shifting Perspectives: Leveling 51-60
Every week, Shifting Perspectives examines issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, we haul ourselves to Outland and are shocked to discover that +spellpower sometimes comes on leather.The above video is the result of an idle question I was asked recently by a friend: "So how much damage would you guys do in caster form meleeing?" I started to answer and then realized I had no idea. The notion of actually hitting something with a weapon is utterly foreign to the class. We have claws and a can of celestial pain for that nonsense if provoked, but still, the question was pretty interesting, particularly because after seeing Prinnygod's comment from last week I started to wonder about all the different ways you could level as a Druid if you deliberately avoided Cat and Moonkin. Sure, you'd be a gibbering wreck at the level cap, but that's beside the point. Blizzard once had a talent called Weapon Balance in the Balance tree that improved our melee damage with weapons by 10% -- they were expecting us to hit things. I wondered how that would have worked out if Druid talent trees had never been overhauled.So I took my main to the mobs outside the Argent Tournament and smacked stuff while running a stopwatch. What you'll see here is a level 79 Frostbrood Whelp with 12,600 health which took me 34.4 seconds to kill, with two global cooldowns devoted to casting a Rejuvenation and then a Lifebloom. I'm currently on a Feral (Bear) spec and thus wearing gear that does help one's melee damage, mind you, but that still works out to a godawful 366.28 DPS. The moral of our little story can be found at the end of the video. Master of Arms is going to be a real trip.
Patch 3.2 Druid changes
3.2 approaches! Sort of. The PTR itself isn't up yet (at least, not as I write this), but nonetheless, 3.2 approaches on little cat feet.I'm going to examine the 3.2 PTR patch notes line by relevant line, just because there are several changes that impact Druids while not being class-specific. If you want a quick summary without being massively spoiled, Balance is getting a huge and welcome change to the functionality of Eclipse, Cats are getting bonked by the nerfbat, and PvP-Restos are really getting bonked by the nerfbat. Bears, well...not much is going to happen to bears this patch, which is a little demoralizing given the improvements being made to Pally tanks, but that's OK. We still have our, uh, amazing Tier 8 set bonuses and...um...the best -- sort of -- tanking cooldowns in, uh, the...uh......Oh, screw it, just stack the hell out of stamina and pray to the gods of RNG if your guild's dumb enough to try Ulduar on hard-mode. Congratulations; you have now done all you can possibly do to prepare yourself for modern tanking.Sad lolbare is sad. But cough syrup for everybody! Is nise! Now let's take a look:
Gorilla Thunderstomp ability given to all tenacity pets
If you've been reading WoW Insider for a while, you probably remember Big Red Kitty's meditations on the Gorilladin. With judicious use of the Gorilla Hunter pet's Thunderstomp skill, you could grind multiple mobs at once and bring Hunter leveling and farming to a whole new level -- enough that Blizzard's had Gorillas under the microscope for a while. Now the word has come down: No more monkey business in 3.1. Gorillas are losing Thunderstomp as a unique pet family ability. That doesn't mean, however, that Thunderstomp is going away. Rather, it means that all tenacity pets are getting it.
