FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- Video: BumpTop 1.2 with multitouch support available now
- Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books
- Oh, Mom, you have so much to learn
- Brightkite About To Go 2.0…And Asynchronous (Screenshots)
- MG Goes Gaga Over Google Wave On TV
- Windows 7 party pack fittingly arrives on party-filled Cayman Islands
- NHL 10 predicts the Pittsburgh Penguins as Stanley Cup champs
- Happy Birthday, CDs
- Android 1.6 update now official for T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G
- Sony says Nazi PS3 ad is a "mock campaign" and not real
| Video: BumpTop 1.2 with multitouch support available now Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:44 PM PDT
 BumpTop 1.2 is now available, adding multitouch support to the already impressive list of features available for the 3D desktop. Check out the free download and you’ll soon be introduced to a host of new gestures, including the scrunch (where you can grab a handful of items and pull ‘em into a pile), wall focus and rotate, and some quick and easy photo editing. As always, you can download the free version to get started, but if you want to take advantage of stuff like un-watermarked image previews and unlimited sticky notes, you’ll have to shell out $29 for the pro version. Sorry, Mac and Linux users — this is still a Windows-only affair. But we do have a video for you! You know where to find it — after the break, of course. Continue reading Video: BumpTop 1.2 with multitouch support available now Filed under: Desktops, Laptops Video: BumpTop 1.2 with multitouch support available now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:27 PM PDT  Amazon might have been extremely contrite about remotely deleting 1984 from Kindles, but a Jeff Bezos apology and an offer to restore the book doesn’t necessarily add up to a meaningful change in policy. As part of the settlement with that student who sued over the 1984 situation, Amazon’s had to clarify its remote-deletion guidelines, and they’re pretty much the same as ever: they’ll hit the kill switch if you ask for a refund or if your credit card is declined, if a judge orders them to, or if they need to protect the Kindle or the network from malware. Sounds simple, right? Well, sort of — saying they’ll delete content at the behest of judicial or regulatory decree pretty much leaves the door open to exactly the same situation as the 1984 debacle, just a couple procedural steps down the line and with less blame placed on Amazon. If you’ll recall, 1984 was deleted after the publisher was sued for not having the proper rights, and Amazon took the proactive step of deleting the content — and although Amazon won’t do that on its own anymore, all it takes now is one strongly-worded motion before a sympathetic judge and we’re back at square one. That’s pretty troubling — no judge can order a physical bookseller to come into your house and retrieve a book they’ve sold you, and saying things are different for the Kindle raises some interesting questions about what Amazon thinks “ownership” means. We’ll see how this one plays out in practice, though — we’re hoping Amazon never has to pull that switch again. Filed under: Handhelds Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Oh, Mom, you have so much to learn Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:20 PM PDT
Here is the original post:
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| Brightkite About To Go 2.0…And Asynchronous (Screenshots) Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:18 PM PDT
It’s not entirely clear when Brightkite 2.0 will launch, but indications are that it will be soon. Users have been receiving notices about it. We’ve obtained a whole bunch of screenshots purported to be of the new version. We’ve reached out to the company to verify these, but they definitely look legitimate. So what’s new? The first thing you’ll notice is that the whole look and feel of the site has been revamped. Gone is a lot of the clutter that distracts from the main location feed. This has been replaced by a revamped top toolbar, and a new bottom toolbar (think: Facebook).
Filters are a key part of Brightkite now. Rather than having three different main streams (Me & My Friends, Around Me, Universe), there is now one with a few different filters. There are also new filters to sort through people using the service by factors like location, sex, and age. Checking-in has been simplified, as has adding a new place. And Brightkite 2.0 promises simplified privacy settings so you can more easily set where to send you updates (to the public, or just your friends — to Twitter and/or Facebook). Also new is the ability to “like” other people’s updates. Obviously, this is similar to the functionality found on FriendFeed and Facebook. But the biggest change to Brightkite is that it is going asynchronous. That is to say, rather than forcing you to accept a friend request to enable other people to see you updates, those people can now simply follow you without any confirmation needed, like on Twitter. They will become your “Fans” while people you also follow back are your “Friends”. This is an interesting move since Brightkite is a location-based service, and privacy remains the main issue for why all services, like Facebook, don’t switch to this model. Below, find more screenshots.
Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Excerpt from:
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| MG Goes Gaga Over Google Wave On TV Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:08 PM PDT
The much awaited release of Google Wave is now taking place; with 100,000 lucky users getting invites to use the ambitious online communication and collaboration platform. Wave was first unveiled at Google I/O back in May, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin telling us that the product “will set a new benchmark for interactivity.” Our very own MG Siegler appeared yesterday on G4’s Attack of the Show to explain what’s so special about Wave and how it could change the web. MG says that Wave can best be characterized as email, plus instant messaging, plus real-time collaboration wrapped up in one package. One of the key components of Wave is its open-source platform, which encourages developers to build games, messaging, and other types of applications on top of Google Wave. But it’s still yet to be determined whether Wave will take off; it could face backlash. Watch the video above for more. Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Read the original:
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| Windows 7 party pack fittingly arrives on party-filled Cayman Islands Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:08 PM PDT
 Well, would you look at that? With the launch of Microsoft’s next operating system merely 21 days away (give or take a few hours based on time zone), the Redmond giant seems to be proactively sending out Win7 Launch Party packs already. The first “unboxing” we’ve seen comes to us from a most unusual spot, one that Microsoft wasn’t actually equipped to ship to when the program first started. After a stern email or two sent over several bodies of water and through countless Stimulus-inspired road construction hang-ups, the bundle you see laid out above landed in the beautiful Cayman Islands. Within was a Steve Ballmer Signature Edition of Win7 (so, we’re up to seven versions now?), a pack of Win7 playing cards, a poster, some napkins (to wipe the drool from your friends’ faces after they experience Aero Shake for the first time) and even a puzzle. So, should we book a flight to Grand Cayman, Little Cayman or Cayman Brac? This is one shindig we definitely won’t miss. [Thanks, Jared] Filed under: Software Windows 7 party pack fittingly arrives on party-filled Cayman Islands originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| NHL 10 predicts the Pittsburgh Penguins as Stanley Cup champs Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:00 PM PDT
Hockey is often referred to as the sweet science, but that has nothing to do with this here post. Well, sorta. You know how every year you hear about how Video Game has predicted Team A will "the big game"? Add the Pittsburgh Penguins to that list. Yup, EA Sports’ NHL 10—I think the last hockey game I played was NHL ‘96 for the Sega Genesis—has predicted that the Pittsburgh Penguins will win this season’s Stanley Cup. So says an e-mail I just got from EA. Pittsburgh is the second largest city in the state of Pennsylvania, and was founded in 1758. It’s named after the British Secretary of State William Pitt, the Elder. The city also recently hosted the G20 conference, which accomplished nothing. See the original post here:
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| Posted: 01 Oct 2009 12:00 PM PDT
27 years ago, today, marks when the first commercial CD players hit the market. Sure it was in Japan, but they always get the good tech first. The CDP-101 was hardly affordable either: $2,200 if you wanted one, so that you could listen to any one of the mere 113 albums available at release. Then those were another $40 a piece, don’t forget. But that didn’t stop Sony from moving 20,000 of these units in a single year. So today, we can set aside the hate of the music industry (might be hard, considering there isn’t one anymore) and say Happy Birthday to one of the greatest data mediums of all time. Read more from the original source:
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| Android 1.6 update now official for T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G Posted: 01 Oct 2009 11:49 AM PDT
 Donuts for everyone! Well, not everyone — but as we’d heard, at least some G1 and myTouch 3G owners on T-Mobile USA are now being blessed with an official Android 1.6 build over the air. The carrier says it has “begun delivery,” which we take means it’s not all happening at once; that’s the way the 1.5 rollout was handled, so it really doesn’t come as a surprise. Keep checking for that update notification, folks. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds Android 1.6 update now official for T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Sony says Nazi PS3 ad is a "mock campaign" and not real Posted: 01 Oct 2009 11:31 AM PDT
 We can’t say this was unexpected, but Sony just pinged us to say that that Nazi PS3 ad is “totally fake” and was made without their approval — here’s the statement from the executive president of BBDO Chile, which made the ads:
Settles that, we suppose — although we’re guessing BBDO Chile isn’t going to be Sony’s agency of record very much longer. Filed under: Gaming Sony says Nazi PS3 ad is a “mock campaign” and not real originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Brightkite
The Compact Disc was quite a revolution when it came out. With a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and a 16 bit rate, CDs marked the shift to digital music. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen from being the playback medium of choice. These days, people either buy vinyl records because “they sound better” (especially when played on your | You are subscribed to email updates from FocuSoft Tech Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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