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VLC returns to iOS after two-year hiatus, brings AirPlay and Dropbox integration
VideoLAN's original VLC for iOS had a brief and rocky history: open source licensing quirks led to the media player being pulled from the App Store just months after launch. More than two years later, it's back with a compatible license -- and it's bringing a slew of new features in return for the wait. VLC 2.0 supports all the file formats of its desktop counterpart while throwing in AirPlay, background audio, network streaming and numerous smaller tweaks. It's also better suited to sharing with support for Dropbox, the iOS sharing prompt, web downloads and WiFi uploads. The revived VLC app is gradually rolling out now, and its source code should be available for tinkering by July 19th.
VLC media player returns to the App Store
After a two and a half year absence, multi-format video player VLC is set to return to iOS. The new VLC app has already gone live in some regions, but should be in all stores, including the US store, by 11PM EST. Once the app goes live, you can download it here. A version of VLC was removed from the App Store in January of 2011 because of complaints from one of VLC's lead contributors who alleged that version of VLC for iOS violated the GPL license. The new version of VLC, released today, is licensed under Mozilla Public License v2, which is applicable to apps distributed on the App Store. Here's some of VLC iOS features: Wi-Fi Upload: Allows users to upload files directly to the iOS version of VLC through a web browser on the PC or Mac. Dropbox Integration: Play media directly from Dropbox or download it for offline playback. Download from Web: Download files from any web server for offline playback Network Streams: Play any network streams support by VLC media player for desktop operating systems 3rd-Party App Integration: Any app with a 'share' dialog can use VLC for iOS for media playback Video Filters: Video playback can be modified for brightness, contrast, hue, saturation or gamma in real time. VLC 2.0 for iOs is a free download.
T-Mobile Poland to ship Firefox OS-powered Alcatel One Touch Fire starting tomorrow
We knew good and well it was coming, and now we've both a date and a launch partner to hone in on: that's "tomorrow" and "T-Mobile Poland," respectively. After going big (as opposed to home) at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Mozilla has just announced that the Firefox OS-powered Alcatel One Touch Fire will ship tomorrow in Poland for 1 zloty (practically free, for those curious) in combination with "a very attractive tariff." Market launches in additional European countries will follow in the fall, with German handsets to be marketed via Deutsche Telekom's second brand congstar. DT's subsidiaries in Hungary (Magyar Telekom) and Greece (COSMOTE) will also initiate sales of the handset this fall, but pricing in those regions has yet to be revealed. As for word on a US release via Sprint? Still waiting, sadly.
Linux kernel 3.10 arrives with ARM big.LITTLE support
Thanks to Linus Torvalds' figurative stroke of the pen, the Linux kernel 3.10 is now final -- paving the way for its inclusion in a bevy of Linux distributions, and even offshoots such as Android and Chrome OS. The fresh kernel brings a good number of changes, such as timerless multitasking, a new caching implementation and support for the ARM big.LITTLE architecture. In simplistic terms, the new multitasking method should help improve performance and latency by firing the system timer only once per second -- rather than 1,000 times -- when tasks are running. Meanwhile, users with both traditional hard drives and SSDs will find performance benefits from bcache, which brings writeback caching and a filesystem agnostic approach to leveraging the SSD for caching operations. Also of significance, Linux kernel 3.10 enhances ARM support by including the big.LITTLE architecture, which combines multiple cores of different types -- commonly the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 -- that focus on either power savings or performance. The full list of improvements is rather lengthy, but if you feel like nerding out with the changelog, just grab a caffeinated beverage and get to it.
CompuLab MintBox 2 unveiled with four times the power, same Linux Mint flavor
Now that Linux Mint 15 is available, it's only fair that we get a new MintBox to match. The CompuLab and Linux Mint teams won't disappoint us on that front: they've just previewed the MintBox 2, a big upgrade to their open source mini PC. The new version drops AMD processors in favor of an Intel Core i5 that's reportedly four times faster than the AMD T56 in the MintBox Pro. The refresh also doubles the storage to 500GB while adding a second gigabit Ethernet jack for server duties. CompuLab and Linux Mint haven't said how soon they expect the MintBox 2 to ship, but they're expecting a $599 price at Amazon.
Samsung posts kernel source code for Galaxy S4 Active on AT&T, Galaxy Note 8.0 with LTE
Samsung may have been busy this past week with the launches of the Galaxy S4 Active and Galaxy Note 8.0, but it hasn't forgotten its duties to Android programmers. It just posted the kernel source code for both the AT&T variant of the GS4 Active (the SGH-i537) as well as the LTE-equipped Note 8.0 in its American and Canadian forms (SGH-i467 and i467M). As with past releases, the source material gives developers a better understanding of the hardware; it also gives tinkerers an easier time when modifying the firmware or creating fully functional custom ROMs. Whichever camp you're in, the kernel code awaits at the links below.
EMW kick-starts JuiceBox, a $99 Level 2 DIY charging station
Electric vehicle charging stations aren't cheap: one of the most affordable Level 2 (240V) units sells for $450 and only supplies 16A. Electric Motor Works (EMW) -- which is best known for its electric conversion kits -- wants to change this with JuiceBox, a 15kW Level 2 EV charger that costs just $99 in kit form (plus $10 shipping). The device, which is launching on Kickstarter today, supplies up to 62A and operates on both 120V and 240V. It's built around an Arduino microcontroller and EMW is making both the hardware and software open source. But wait, there's more! The company is also crowdfunding a Premium Edition of JuiceBox ($199 in kit form) which adds time-of-day charging, a color LCD, ground-fault plus output protection (for outdoor use) and a unique enclosure (hopefully as funky as the one in the picture above). While the DIY kits only require basic assembly and soldering skills, you'll be able to buy fully assembled versions for $100 more. At $329 (shipped), a ready-to-use JuiceBox Premium Edition undercuts other similar charging stations by several hundred dollars. The catch? You'll have to supply your own cables (or buy them separately from EMW), including one with a standard J1772 EV connector. Hit the source link below to check out the campaign, and take a look at the PR after the break.
Paranoid Android's HALO does Chat Heads-inspired multitasking, goes open source
It's been a couple months since we first saw the fruits of team Paranoid Android's labor around in-app pop-up window multitasking, and it looks like Paul Henschel and co. are finally sharing the finished product. HALO, as it's called, loosely combines the ideas behind Samsung's Multi Window and FaceBook's Chat Heads into a slick multitasking interface. The feature is activated from the notification tray. It places an icon -- or halo -- on the display, which can be moved around very much like Chat Heads, or dismissed by double-tapping and dragging it towards the red X at the top. Swiping sideways from the halo shows a series of white lines and text bubbles that match and highlight the notifications in the status bar. Releasing your finger is like tapping on the selected notification, but instead of launching full-screen, the app opens in a pop-up window on top of whatever's already running, just like Multi Window. The background app continues to run while you interact with the foreground app -- to dismiss the pop-up window, simply tap outside of it. Other cool functionality includes swiping up to dismiss the last notification and the ability to pin apps permanently to the halo. But what's really most exciting is that team Paranoid Android's decided to make HALO open source so anyone can be involved. Check out the awesome demo video after the break.
Sony brings Android Open Source Project to Xperia Tablet Z (video)
Sony gifted its flagship Xperia Z smartphone with an Android Open Source Project (AOSP) build just last month, and now the stock operating system has made its way to the device's tablet counterpart, too. AOSP is now available for the Xperia Tablet Z -- it'll live on GitHub, along with instructions and other resources. Community Manager Marcus Hansson dropped by YouTube to demo AOSP. You'll find that Jelly Bean (4.2.2) walkthrough posted after the break, along with a warning to non devs: "The software is not intended for everyday use, and therefore does not include all apps and services usually expected in ordinary software." That could always change in the future, but if you're expecting a seamless stock experience for personal use, you probably won't find it here.
Google's updated security roadmap details increased friction, reliance on hardware
A lot has changed in the security realm since 2008 -- remember Alicia Keys' recent attempt to convince us her Twitter account was hacked, when we all know she still uses an iPhone even as BlackBerry's Creative Director? Pranks aside, the consumer world alone has been overrun with mass data hackings -- everyone from Evernote to Microsoft to Sony to RSA has felt the wrath. To combat all of this, Google is revamping its five-year security plan, which calls for a complex authentication code replacing the conventional password in due time; in other words, Google is going to make it harder to access your accounts when initially setting up a device, but hopes you'll deal. Eric Sachs, group product manager for identity at Google, put it as such: "We will change sign-in to a once-per-device action and make it higher friction, not lower friction, for all users. We don't mind making it painful for users to sign into their device if they only have to do it once." The documents also suggest that two-step verification may soon become less of an option, and more of a mandate. Sachs straight-up confesses that Google didn't predict the current level of smartphone adoption back in 2008, but now realizes that utilizing mobile hardware and apps as friction points for logging in makes a lot more sense. A huge swath of Google users are already carrying around a product that could be used as a verification token, so the obvious solution is to make use of that. We're also told that learnings from Android will be carried over to Chrome, and further into the world of web apps. No specific ETAs are given, but trust us -- half a decade goes by quickly when you're having fun.
Ubuntu 13.04 available Thursday, brings a streamlined footprint to the forefront (update)
From an end user's perspective, it's always nice to see developers take a step back and focus on streamlining their code, rather than simply piling on new features. Apple used the strategy to great success with Snow Leopard, and now Canonical is set to follow suit with Raring Ringtail, also known as Ubuntu 13.04. The latest version of the popular Linux distro is set for general availability tomorrow, which follows a beta release and a controversial amount of secrecy. Raring Ringtail is characterized as "the fastest and most visually polished Ubuntu experience to date," with a particular emphasis on a smaller memory footprint and greater responsiveness. Much of the streamlining effort was in preparation for Ubuntu's future life in mobile, and to coincide with that effort, developers will find a preview SDK for app development and the ability to test apps within the MIR display server. The release is now a mere hours away, and yes, it'll be a good day. [Image credit: WebUpd8] Update: Aaaaaand, it's live!
BeagleBone Black packs 1GHz ARM CPU, 512MB RAM for just $45 (video)
The BeagleBone might be just the piece of kit for the DIY set itching to boot Linux in 10 seconds, but the freshly unveiled BeagleBone Black packs an even greater punch -- and the same speedy start times -- at just half the price of its predecessor. The $45 credit card-sized package totes a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 3D graphics accelerator, a pair of PRU 32-bit RISC CPUs, 2GB of built-in storage, a microSD slot and 512MB of RAM. Connectivity-wise, the canine-themed board carries support for USB, Ethernet, micro-HDMI and two 46 pin headers. Those pining for hardware flexibility can make use of the platform's existing "cape" hardware add-ons. Though it ships from Texas Instruments with Angstrom Linux on board, it's also tuned to support Android and Ubuntu, and arrives pre-loaded with the Cloud9 IDE. BeagleBone Black is already up for grabs in limited quantities, but it's expected to ship en masse by the end of May. Hit the second source link to start ordering, or head past the break for a video tour of the pint-sized computer.
OUYA shows up at the FCC, has its guts splayed for the world to see
It was only a matter of time, we suppose, before OUYA found itself on Uncle Sam's table, and the day has finally come, as the open source console has made its way through the FCC. As we've steadily uncovered all of OUYA's secrets since its inception, there's not much new revealed by the government's testing. That said, the flayed OUYA appears to be a founding backer edition, with the names of the chosen 11 inscribed on one side, but it's exchanged the opaque power button on top for a clear unit -- indicating that perhaps retail OUYA's will make it easier for owners to tell when the thing's on. Want to see the full monty for yourself? Theres's plenty of pictures of the OUYA's insides at the source link below.
Liveblog: Google's Eric Schmidt at Dive Into Mobile 2013
Fresh off of a trip to North Korea, Google's executive chairman has found himself on stage here in New York City. Eric Schmidt is kicking off the second day of D: Dive Into Mobile 2013 here in the Big Apple, and we're just a few feet away -- you know, so we can liveblog every last word of it. And, to ogle his fashionable sneakers. For those looking for a glimpse into yesteryear, you can relive our liveblog from Schmidt's D9 keynote in 2011 right here. Head on past the break for today's interview!
NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source code gets early 3D support
It's a given that NVIDIA's Tegra 3 can handle 3D -- unless you've been crafting a fully open source project around the chip, at which point you've been stuck in a flat world. Fresh contributions from Avionic Design's Thierry Reding have brought that extra dimension back, albeit in limited form. His early patches for the Linux kernel enable support for 3D when using the Tegra Direct Rendering Manager driver. There's also a matching Gallium3D driver for us regular users, although it's still young: it can run reference 3D code as of a recent check, but can't produce visible imagery. While it may take some months before everything falls into place, the officially-backed work should make the (slightly aging) chip that much more useful beyond the realms of Android and Windows RT.
Google forks WebKit with Blink, a new web engine for Chromium and Chrome (update)
You could call WebKit the glue that binds the modern web: the rendering engine powers Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and many mobile browsers past and present. Things are about to unstick a little. Google believes that Chromium's multi-process approach has added too much complexity for both the browser and WebKit itself, so it's creating a separate, simpler fork named Blink. Although the new engine will be much the same as WebKit at the start, it's expected to differ over time as Google strips out unnecessary code and tweaks the underlying platform. We'd also expect it to spread, as the company has confirmed to us that both Chrome and Chrome OS will be using Blink in the future. We're safely distant from the Bad Old Days of wildly incompatible web engines, but the shift may prove a mixed blessing -- it could lead to more advancements on the web, but it also gives developers that much more code to support. Update: The Next Web has confirmed that Opera, which recently ditched its Presto engine for Webkit, will indeed be using Blink as it's already hitching its proverbial wagon to Chromium.
AMD offers open-source Linux driver for hardware video decoding
AMD's Unified Decoder has been the object of envy in the open-source community for some time. The silicon, which ships on the company's Radeon graphics cards, offers hardware-accelerated video decoding -- but thanks to legal and DRM issues, couldn't be used on Linux machines. AMD, however, has somehow scythed through the red tape to offer a driver that'll let those same Linux users access to the golden chalice of video decoding. The new patch allows for hardware accelerated playback of H.264, VC-1 and MPEG file formats on which Radeon HD 4000 - 7000 series card is jammed into your HTPC, although we should offer the usual warning that as there's no public documentation, you might have to do some tinkering to make it work.
XYZbot's Fritz offers a cheaper robot head, free trips to the uncanny valley (video)
It's been relatively easy to get your hands on an expressive robot face... if you're rich or a scientist, that is. XYZbot would like to give the rest of us a shot by crowdfunding Fritz, an Arduino-powered robot head. The build-it-yourself (and eerily human-proportioned) construction can react to pre-programmed actions, text-to-speech conversion or live control, ranging from basics like the eyes and jaw to the eyelids, eyebrows, lips and neck of an Advanced Fritz. Windows users should have relatively simple control through an app if they just want to play, but where Fritz may shine is its open source nature: the code and hardware schematics will be available for extending support, changing the look or building a larger robot where Fritz is just one part. The $125 minimum pledge required to set aside a Fritz ($199 for an Advanced Fritz) isn't trivial, but it could be a relative bargain if XYZbot makes its $25,000 goal -- and one of the quickest routes to not-quite-lifelike robotics outside of a research grant.
Google pledges not to sue open-source devs and users
Google has always been pretty firm in its stance that "open systems win." Now its going so far as to publicly pledge that it will "not sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked." The Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, as the company is calling it, is the latest effort to back open-source software which Mountain View contends is one of the driving sources of innovation in cloud-computing and the internet. The first set of patents that are part of the initiative are related to MapReduce, which is used to process large data sets, though the company will eventually expand it to cover other technologies. The pledge is similar to Twitter's Innovators Patent Agreement which it announced in April of last year. There wont be any immediate benefit to end users, but anything that encourages innovation and minimizes litigation seems like a net positive in our book. For more details hit up the source link.
BBC details iPlayer's open source TV Application Layer
The modern challenge for any content distributor is maximizing its reach. That means doing everything -- within reason -- to get your content in front of those who might want it. That's easier said than done, no doubt, and the BBC's plan is to do whatever it takes to get iPlayer on every connected device you own. To that end it's created the TV Application Layer (TAL), which uses the latest web technologies, like HTML5, to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible for would-be hardware makers. The TAL provides a layer of abstraction that takes care of any difference in devices capabilities or controls, so that software built using it will continue to run on anything added to the BBC's certified list without the need for a new version. This in and of itself is admirable, but the BBC has taken it one step further and put the source code out there for all to see and use. The hope is that this will motivate others to contribute to the Layer, help other content owners reach their viewers, and increase the return on investment of all those TV taxes. The BBC currently uses the TAL for its iPlayer, BBC News and BBC Sport apps, as well as new connected Red Button experiences. The code is live at the source link below if you'd like to take a look.
