The team behind Popcorn Time has posted this week that someone is trying to trademark the name "Popcorn Time," and it isn't them.
In fact, a quick search of Trademarks411 shows that a Canadian man by the name of David Lemarier filed on June 5th.
Reads the Popcorn Time blog post:
It doesn't matter that under 5 percent of households have moved to 4K TVs or monitors, because Dell has a new 5K monitor ready to roll.
The UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K monitor is the first in the world with the 5,120 x 2,880 resolution, boasting 218 PPI.
In addition to the huge resolution, the monitor features Dells' own PremierColor tech and anti-smudge/anti-reflection edge-to-edge glass. Dell has integrated "immersive acoustics" Harmon Kardon 16W speakers and connectivity should not be a problem with six USB ports and a card reader.
"Dell is continuing to emphasize a customer promise to create the most secure and manageable environments," said Patrick Moorhead, founder, president and principal analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy, in Dell's press release. "Each of these areas is a critical component for any IT department, but so is the need to satisfy the user. Dell has wrapped its core IT strengths with new thoughtfully designed and attractive products geared for enhanced productivity in a variety of customer use cases."
The UltraSharp 27 Ultra will debut in the Q4 for $2500.
'Destiny' is finally here.
Bungie's new epic 'Destiny' is finally here, with its launch set for Tuesday on the PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One.
If you buy the blockbuster game for one of last generation's consoles, Bungie is giving you a free "digital upgrade" to migrate to the Xxox One or the PS4, at least for the next few months. Keep in mind the deal only works from Sony to Sony and Microsoft to Microsoft, so no Xbox 360 to PS4, for example.
Everything will migrate, including season passes, DLC, game saves, etc. You'll be able to start off on the new console right where you left off on the old console.
The voucher is good until January 15th, 2015.
Alleged Silk Road creator and operator Ross Ulbricht is still facing trial for running the dark web site, and the FBI may have just rebuffed his biggest argument.
Ulbricht had been claiming that the FBI was able to find the Silk Road's location through illegal means, therefore making all the agency's evidence illegal to use in the case. The FBI says that is simply not true.
In their court filing, the FBI says the IP address of the server was "'leaking' from the site due to an apparent misconfiguration of the user login interface by the site administrator." The agency then exploited this bug to obtain the server's location.
The FBI found a way to use that login page to produce an IP address that was not hidden by TOR standards, and then used that IP on a regular browser. That IP then produced some code from the login page, confirming that it was in fact the true location of the Silk Road.
If the court agrees with the FBI's claim, the alleged Silk Road operator may have a tougher time defending his case.
Getty Images has sued Microsoft this week over the launch of their new "Bing Image Widget," a piece of software that the company claims leads to "massive infringement" of copyrighted images.
The Widget lets publishers create an easy to use panel on their sites or blogs that can show off images that are supplied through Microsoft's Bing image search.
Getty claims that Bing's engine does not only just take pictures from a pool of licensed digital images, but rather from the billions of images that can be searched for online, copyrighted or not.
"In effect, defendant has turned the entirety of the world's online images into little more than a vast, unlicensed 'clip art' collection for the benefit of those website publishers who implement the Bing Image Widget, all without seeking permission from the owners of copyrights in those images," the lawsuit claimed.
Getty is asking for an immediate injunction and monetary damages and appears to have a strong case.
Google has confirmed that its Nexus smartphone screen replacement policy has been tweaked, with service representatives able to make more "exceptions" for accidental damage.
Until now, the consumer had to pay to replace the screen for accidental damage (water, cracked screen) at a cost of about $150. This was certainly expensive given that a new Nexus 5, for example, costs $299. The new policy would get you a replacement, for free.
Google has released some guidelines for the new exceptions policy, via TC:
Google has confirmed that its Android Wear operating system will be getting a significant update in the coming months.
Among the new features are the addition of offline music playback and GPS support. The GPS support is great as you an track your distance and your speed right from your watch, even if you leave your phone at home. If you want to take your watch to the gym and listen to music and leave the phone at home, as well, offline music playback is great via Bluetooth headphones and most Android Wear watches have at least 2GB of internal storage.
The next update will also allow for downloadable watch faces, allowing you to customize your home screen and your most used apps.
"Our goal with Wear is to build technology that helps you connect with others and get stuff done. So often, technology can become something that gets in the way of everything else. But we want to build devices that you can use when you need and forget about when you don't--technology that's built for your sake, rather than its own sake. Coming throughout the rest of this year, we're making some updates to Wear that will help you get even more out of your watch--and the rest of your life, too," says Google.
Garmin has unveiled their second-generation fitness tracker, the vívosmart, a significant upgrade to their original vívofit.
The new device is a bit more than just a fitness and activity tracker (sleep, steps, calories), as it also notifies of you of your smartphone alerts.
Featuring a touch-sensitive OLED, you will receive viewable notifications for your synced smartphone, including vibrations for texts, emails, calls, calendar reminders, etc.
The smart wearable has a November release date with a price tag of $169 or $199 if you want to bundle a Garmin heart rate sensor.
Twitpic is officially shutting down, meaning millions of your photo links on Twitter will soon go dark.
The service, once the most popular way to post images to Twitter, says they will be shutting down on September 25th. A photo exporting tool will be made available next week.
In their parting post, Twitpic says Twitter has been pressuring the company over their name for some time, even demanding that they drop their pending application to trademark the Twitpic name. The filing was made in 2009. The company says Twitter threatened to cut Twitpic's acess to the Twitter API, effectively killing the service anyway.
"Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours," Twitpic founder Noah Everett wrote. Rather than try to fight the multi-billion company, Everett and the company will shut down instead.
While Twitpic was extremely popular when Twitter was smaller, the company was not necessary now. Twitter has its own image posting links, and now even has its own GIF URL ability, which had kept Twitpic relevant over the years.
Twitter, for its part, says they are sad at the outcome, but reiterates that the company was free to use the name as long as they dropped the trademark filing. "We're sad to see Twitpic is shutting down. We encourage developers to build on top of the Twitter service, as Twitpic has done for years, and we made it clear that they could operate using the Twitpic name. Of course, we also have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to the brand," added a Twitter spokesperson.
Although the device is still in its "Explorer" beta, Google has made the Google Glass headset available to all directly from the Google Play Store.
The price will still leave your wallet $1500 lighter, but at least the Glass comes with a free accessory (regular frames or sunglasses frames)
Google has kept the same five colors available: Black, Orange, White, Brown and Blue. As of writing, all models are still fully available and will ship in 1-2 business days.
In addition to the Glass and frames, you get a charger, microfiber pouch and a mono earbud.
There is still no word when Glass will come out of beta, although it seems very unlikely that happens in 2014. At that point, Google is expected to make the glasses available for under $500.
Source:
Google Play
Microsoft has updated popular video chat and messaging service Skype for Xbox One to version 1.8, bringing with it a number of well received features.
The company has touted its new photo viewing features from mobile, updated "Snap" functions and the ability to answer phone calls using a voice command.
First, "Skype 1.8 for Xbox One allows you to view photos sent from mobile phones on Skype for Xbox One. Skype users from Windows Phone and iOS mobile devices can now share pictures with Skype for Xbox One users either in a 1:1 or group chat." If there are more than one photo being sent, you have the option to make a large screen slide show.
In Snap mode, "the frame rate has doubled and the size of the video window has increased" meaning you may be able to actually see your friends and family.
If you are playing a game or using other features of the Xbox One, you will be able to see the Skype call come in and use the voice command "Xbox Answer" to Snap the call without interrupting your current gaming or TV viewing.
Thanks to Chinese site cnBeta, we appear to have full pics of the upcoming iPhone 6 along with the rumored updated Passbook app for mobile payments.
The design looks similar to previous leaks, patents and designs we have seen, showing off the 4.7-inch display, rounded corners and edges, and different volume rocker.
In the software, the Passbook app has been updated with a red stripe that appears to have a credit card, suggesting Apple will be getting into the mobile payments market as expected. In addition, the home screen has a full new row for icons (6 compared to 5) supporting the purported 1334 x 750 resolution.
As far as leaks go, these photos do not seem like obvious fakes we have seen in the past, and the device certainly looks like Apple's purported next flagship.
We will know for sure in just a few days.
In addition to their other higher-profile launches, Motorola also announced the refresh of their popular Moto G mid-range device.
The incredibly cheap yet serviceable device will still sell for $179.99 unlocked, but with improved specs. The phone now has a 5-inch 720p display with Gorilla Glass, a Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, dual SIM capabilities, 8GB internal storage and a microSD slot for 32GB expansion.
Stock Android 4.4 is pre-loaded (with some basic Moto apps that are helpful), and Motorola has already guaranteed an update to Android 5.0 Lemon Meringue Pie.
Dual cameras, double stereo speakers, Bluetooth 4.0 BLE and 720p HD video capture are the rest of the upgrades for the mid-range device. The 2070mAh battery is good for one day of mixed usage, says Motorola.
Available now for $180 unlocked, in the U.S., India, France, the UK, Brazil, Spain and Germany.
Motorola introduced the second-generation Moto X today, a powerful refresh to their popular flagship device.
The company has updated the specs, moving the device to a 1080p 5.2-inch AMOLED display, and slimming down the design to just 144 grams.
Powering the smartphone is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz, a 578MHz Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Base models have 16GB internal storage, and Motorola has added Gorilla Glass protection, and a "splash guard" water-repellent coating.
Like its predecessor, the Moto X will run on almost stock Android 4.4 (to be quickly upgraded to Android Lemon Meringue Pie), with Motorola adding a few of their own features, all of which are well received. The company kept their Migration tool to help you bring over your old contacts, texts and data. Moto Actions, Moto Display and Moto Assist are back and each are extremely helpful. Moto Actions uses new IR sensors which allow you to, for example, snooze your alarm by waving your hand over it. Tapping and swiping to use gestures are the same, as well. Moto Display is a specialized home page that shows three notifications, allowing you to get a quick preview of each. Moto Voice also takes custom phrases, taking voice control to a new level. "Take a selfie" opens the front-facing camera, "Play YouTube" launches the YouTube app, etc, etc. Very cool.
Motorola has released their long-awaited Moto 360 smartwatch, arguably the first smartwatch that is actually comfortably wearable with a suit.
The device, which runs on Android Wear, has already sold out via Motorola and Google Play, and it should be available in Best Buy retailers later this month.
Priced at $249.99, the device is the most expensive Android Wear device to date, and it will set you back $299.99 if you want metal bands when they become available next month. If you really want the watch now, the metal bands cost $79.99 as an accessory.
Making the watch different is its round face with (almost) edge-to-edge display. The display is 1.56-inch with 320×290 resolution, 205ppi, with a total 46mm diameter watchface. Under the hood is a TI OMAP 3, 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM.
The watch has a pedometer, wireless charging support, heart rate monitor, and as expected, a mic for voice controls. To protect your investment, the watch is IP67 dust and water resistant and has a Gorilla Glass protected screen.
Early reviews of the device have been very mixed. While the design has seen universal acclaim, the battery life is atrocious. Most people claim that the battery life is even worse than current Android Wear devices, with moderate wear leading to just 12 hours of battery life, which is unacceptable by any standards.
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