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PES 2013 demo now available on XBL and PSN
Anyone else think it's weird that as faithful as Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 (known in Asia as World Soccer: Winning Eleven) is to the world's most popular sport, it's still called "Soccer" instead of "Football"? But that's neither here nor there: The hardcore football simulation is getting its latest entry this fall, and the demo for the new game is now available for download on Xbox Live and PSN. You can see new mechanics like PES FullControl, play with eight fully-licensed teams, or check out cover athlete Cristiano Ronaldo in the game, running at any difficulty level. Go, download, and enjoy yourself some brand new Pro Evolution Footb-- sorry, Soccer.
Apple reports 3 million Mountain Lion downloads in four days, 'most successful OS X release'
We heard some rumblings ahead of the weekend from third-party sources, and like clockwork, Apple has kicked the week off with its weekend box office returns. According to Cupertino's numbers, the latest version of OS X hit 3 million downloads in four days, making for "the most successful OS X release in Apple's history." Price has surely played a role in Mountain Lion's speedy success, running $20 for 200-plus features, according to Apple's numbers. That list includes big additions like Notification Center and AirPlay Mirroring and a selection of smaller tweaks to the decade-old operating system. More information can be found in the customarily self-congratulatory press release, after the break.
The Humble Bundle tries something different, lets you name your price for albums from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, and more
The Humble Bundle may have gone mobile on Android earlier this year, but that's proven to be a relatively small jump compared to the organization's latest expansion. It's now rolled out its first Humble Music Bundle, a collection of six albums that, as always, you can name your price for. Those include an album of rarities from They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton's Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs), an exclusive MC Frontalot collection, Christopher Tin's Calling All Dawns, and game composer Hitoshi Sakimoto's Best of the Valkyria Chronicles -- plus OK Go's Twelve Remixes of Four Songs if you pay above the current average price. Naturally, all of the albums are DRM-free and available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and you're able to choose what percentage of your payment goes to the artists, charities (Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Humble Bundle organization itself. You can get a taste of what's in store in the video after the break, or get previews of each album before you buy at the link below.
Twitter's cooking up a way for you to archive your old tweets, relive your Bieber fever again and again
Frustrated by a lack of access to your thoughts and feelings about world events and sandwiches circa 2008? Twitter's working on a way to let users export and download old tweets into a file, according to CEO Dick Costolo. As far a service for search all users, the exec doesn't see such a solution coming any time soon, telling reporters, "It's a different way of architecting search, going through all tweets of all time. You can't just put three engineers on it."
Poll: Are you having problems downloading Mountain Lion?
We've been fielding a number of tips this morning from eager Apple users who have been experiencing issues downloading Apple's latest operating system update. There's the usual round of server errors that come with major software upgrades and some issues with those download codes provided for folks who recently picked up a new Mac. We confirmed the issue with Apple support, who told us to try again in about an hour. Have your Mountain Lion dreams been temporarily put on hold? Let us know in the poll below, and please sound off in the comments.%Poll-76685%
Mountain Lion hits the Mac App Store, is one $20 credit card deduction away
You've read (or closely skimmed) the review, you've watched the video -- now it's time to fire up your downloading finger and see for yourself. The latest version of Apple OS X just hit the Mac App Store, carrying a a modest $20 price tag. Of course, this round is download-only, so if you want to get your grubby paws on the desktop version of AirPlay Monitoring, Messages, Share Sheets and the rest of those 200+ features, this is the only way to do it. Update: Looks like the big cat is "Temporarily Unavailable" for download. We'll let you know when that's not the case. Update: Everything seems to be fine now. Download away.
OneNote MX Metro-styled app for Windows 8 now available for download
Yesterday saw Microsoft publicly unpack Office 15. Part of the deal was the forthcoming dedicated OneNote MX Metro-styled app. While we knew it was coming, it was one of the few things we didn't manage to get much time with. It looks like we might not have to wait that long though, as it's the first of new gang to be up for grabs. It's available to download now, from the Windows Store in Windows 8 Release Preview, just set a final reminder in your current note taking app to go get it.
Canadian Supreme Court rules no separate copyright fee for iTunes previews, game downloads
The Canadian Supreme court ruled on two copyright cases that affect music previews in iTunes and video game downloads. According to a report in Paid Content, the Court upheld the Copyright Board's decision that the 30- to 90-second audio previews in iTunes do not constitute a public performance and do not require a copyright payment to the music industry. The Court also reversed a Copyright Board decision that a game download was a public performance of the music in the game and required a separate copyright payment. The Court chastised the music industry for trying to double-dip as game makers already pay fees to include the music in the game. You can read both the iTunes and the video game download descisions on the Supreme Court of Canada's website.
Tiny Wings update brings iPad version, new modes
Tiny Wings 2.0 is now available on the New Zealand App Store, and is currently making its way around the world, to be available here in PDT around midnight or so. We heard about the game last week, but it turns out it's not a full game -- it's just an update to the incredibly popular iOS app, along with a separate new HD version for iPad. The iPad version (available for $2.99) is called Tiny Wings HD and includes iCloud support, which a lot of Tiny Wings players will surely appreciate. There's also a new mode called Flight School in both apps, which features four different Tiny Wings birds flying across the landscape, trying to reach a goal first. And there's also a two-player same screen multiplayer mode, where two players touch on either side of the same screen. Creator Andreas Illiger agrees he probably could have released the update as a second app, but he says he instead wanted to give it away for free, "as a big thank you to all my fans for changing my life." That's a nice sentiment (though if you want to play the game at native resolution on iPad, you'll need to buy it again anyway). The Tiny Wings update for iPhone, version 2.0, should be available on the App Store near you soon.
Apple reportedly shutting down unauthorized third-party beta sales, restricts iOS 6 to licensed devs
Apple has been arguably more generous when it comes to software sneak peeks than it has been with hardware, but while dues-paying developers are given the go-ahead to download operating systems ahead of their release, consumers have had to sit tight until after each iteration hits GM status. Some internet entrepreneurs have taken it upon themselves to game Apple's system, however, which until recently appeared to have been loosely guarded, with third parties selling beta access for years without intervention. iOS 6 is shaping up to be the end of the line -- Apple has reportedly begun targeting businesses selling early access, citing copyright infringement and contacting hosting providers to shut down sales sites. The operations can be quite profitable, with income approaching six figures for iOS 6 alone, so it's likely that we'll see businesses open up shop under different domains in an attempt to continue to collect. Still, if you're running such an operation of your own, it may be worth your while to peruse Apple's non-disclosure agreement in full -- a site shut down could be but the beginning of the company's actions to control OS releases, and prevent third parties from illegally capitalizing on Cupertino's creations.
RIM marks three billion BlackBerry app downloads, wants to set the record straight about App World
Not all of the numbers are bad around RIM headquarters. The company's celebrating the big three billion -- that's the number of app downloads it's seen since the launch of App World. According to RIM, that number amounts to 2.5 million downloads a day -- certainly nothing to sneeze at. Naturally, Research in Motion is using the opportunity to do some "myth busting," regarding the perceived lack of selection for BlackBerry handsets and the PlayBook tablet. At present, there are 90,000 apps "up for sale" through the mobile app market.
EU court rules it's legal to resell digital games, software
Buying and reselling any form of digital software is perfectly legal, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled. Software authors – or in the gaming world, publishers – can not stop customers from reselling their games, even if the publisher attaches an End User License Agreement prohibiting resale."The exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence is exhausted on its first sale," the court has found.This ruling covers customers in European Union member states, and games bought through services such as Steam or Origin. The initial purchaser is now entitled to sell the license of a game and allow someone else to download it directly from the publisher's website. The tricky part now is selling the actual license, since there is no system in place for any such transaction. The initial buyer would need a code for a game's license and upon selling it, he would no longer be able to access that game on his account.The ruling applies to the broader scope of software, covering items such as Windows and Adobe downloads. There is no word yet on whether game distributors will change policies or services to enable a license-selling process, but that would make Steam sales much more interesting in the EU.
iPhoto auto-downloads expired MobileMe galleries
They've hung out the 'Closed' sign on our old friend MobileMe, but Apple is still giving you the opportunity to download iDisk files and stored pictures for a limited time. In fact, if your iPhoto library is linked to your MobileMe account, iPhoto will take care of copying your galleries for you. Just launch iPhoto (version 9.2.2 or later) and the dialog box above will pop in. If you click Learn More, you'll end up at Apple's tech note; don't worry, you can come back and get the files later by relaunching iPhoto or by clicking the MobileMe entry in your iPhoto source list. When you do, iPhoto will download all your galleries into a "From MobileMe" folder. Handy! Note that if you're slightly behind on iPhoto versions (before 9.3), you won't get your Aperture-uploaded galleries this way. Of course, Apple's Photo Stream sharing can ease the galleries pain a bit; there are also many online photo options, including the free Pixi.me and freemium services like ThisLife, Flickr, Smugmug & Shutterfly. You may want to be a little selective with your photo site choices; as we've seen, company size is no bulwark against obsolescence or business shifts. ZangZing recently announced it is going dark (only months after encouraging MobileMe users to switch over), as did Picnik and Kodak Gallery before it. (Ars Technica has a great post up about the Kodak to Shutterfly migration in progress.) With iDisk's archives still accessible for a bit, you can still download your MobileMe websites if needed and rehost them elsewhere. Companies like LifeYo and MacMate will happily host your site for you, although you may lose some features like legacy comments. MacMate just added a Galleries feature to match up better with the late MobileMe hosting package. For a nice video rundown on the farewell to MobileMe, check out TidBITS' session from a couple of weeks back.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean preview download is live, probably won't work on your Galaxy Nexus -- yet (Update)
Google has opted to deliver Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as an OTA update to the ICS already on the Nexus phones and tablets it just handed everyone at I/O 2012, and there's a manual download link available too. As Android Police notes, only GSM phones running the IMM330D firmware will take the update (which you probably don't have, although a fresh phone from the initial Google Play run might work.) With this release already in the wild it's surely only a matter of time before various third parties open it up to a wider variety of hardware. As always with early and somewhat untested software YMMV, keep an eye on those XDA Developers threads for the latest updates. Update: Just that quickly, an SDK port has already popped up for the HTC One X. Of course, it's described as unstable and the author has no plans to try to fix the numerous problems but if you're desperate to see Jelly Bean you can, you just probably shouldn't. Update 2: And almost as quickly, a rooted version for ClockWorkMod Recovery and ROM Manager has appeared. Check the latest thread for all the details.
Dragon Age Legends no longer online, but playable offline for free
Dragon Age Legends, as fans will tell you, was one of the more popular Facebook games EA has ever put together -- at least before its untimely death earlier this week. Such is the fate of a freemium promotional game for a much larger console and PC series.But while most online games simply shut down and go gently into that good night, Dragon Age Legends is doing no such thing. As promised, the dev team has re-released the game as a single-player title, available as a free download right now. You won't be able to invite friends (or buy any microtransaction-based items), but you will be able to play the title offline and forever, regardless of EA's server status.The game runs on Adobe Air, so you'll need to download and install that if you haven't yet. And while previous characters and accounts have been locked online for now, the team is working on a way to archive them offline, so they can be used in the single-player game as well. This could set a very nice precedent for popular Facebook titles, that would otherwise face oncoming oblivion thanks to server death.
Dropbox updates iOS app to 1.5, says goodbye to size limitations, hello to automatic uploads
Sick of letting your Android-toting friends lord their slightly fancier Dropbox app over you? Relief has arrived: Dropbox 1.5 is now available for iOS. The latest update brings the app in line with its Android cousin, adding automatic uploads for photos and video over WiFi and cellular connections, the ability to upload files of any size and a new Gallery view. Cloud storage aficionados who take advantage of the new automatic upload feature will score up to 3GB of additional storage space, doled out in 500MB increments as needed. Sound good? Of course it does, check it out for yourself at the iTunes link below.
Daily iPhone App: Catapult King is beautifully destructive
Catapult King lacks innovation on the surface, unfortunately. It looks like an Angry Birds clone in 3D, and that's basically what it is. I say "unfortunately" because I hope that won't keep you from giving it a look anyway. I saw this title for the first time at E3 last week, and while I am not a big fan of Angry Birds, I've really enjoyed Catapult King. It's a Chillingo-published title (as Angry Birds was originally, you'll recall), so it's got all of the polish that Chillingo os known for. The game just looks amazing. The graphics are clear and colorful, and there are a lot of nice touches, like art in the background of each stage that really adds a lot of depth and vision to the proceedings. You obviously control a catapult firing at soldiers on wooden towers, and your job is to bring the soldiers down with as few hits as possible. The game's fun and simple, but those graphics, along with the variety in the various levels, really make this one shine. There are freemium spells you can buy (a little lame, considering that the game also costs 99 cents), but I haven't needed them yet, and I'm having a lot of fun just hurling stones at the soldiers (who will happily gloat at you when you miss). The whole thing could use a bit more guidance, especially when aiming at various elevations, but Catapult King is a fun and cheap title that looks really, really good. It's universal, so you can grab it for iPhone or iPad today.
Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP2 ready to download now
Microsoft's second preview of Windows Embedded Standard 8 is available now. The latest version, typically used outside the standard office and home environs, throws in Kinect for Windows compatibility, as well as some gesture filters for arm-flailing interaction and NFC support. The preview now supports nine languages and requires at least a 1GHz processor, 1GB of system memory (2GB if you're running a 64 bit system), a DVD drive and 7GB of space for the full install. Hit up the source for plenty more detail and the download itself.
Steam remote downloads exit beta, make impatience an option for everyone
That was quick. Just two weeks after Valve posted a new Steam beta that allows remote game downloads, it now has a truly polished release for everyone. Both Mac and Windows gamers can now queue up demos and full games, whether it's from a browser at work or from the Steam mobile app. Appropriately, Valve will let you reinstall games as well as start downloading a purchase as soon as the credit card clears. Either way, it'll guaranteed that your new copy of Bastion or that attempt to relive your Quake nostalgia will be ready when you get home.
E-Onkyo music service becomes first to offer Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio
Looking for something a little more than your average online music store has to offer? Then you may soon want to give Onkyo's somewhat niche e-onkyo service some consideration. It's set to be the first store to offer music in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 -- something that will initially be limited to just 100 albums (heavy on the classical, from the looks of things) and require a compatible Onkyo receiver. Those downloads will also only be available in Japan initially (where they're rolling out on May 30th), but Dolby says they'll be available "elsewhere in the world" sometime this fall. Not surprisingly, that new option will demand a bit of a premium as well, with albums starting at ¥3,000 (or about $35) and singles setting you back ¥400 (or $5).
