Technology

Thursday, November 29, 2012

iTunes 11 hands-on: a faster, cleaner, more connected version of Apple's jukebox

While it's a good deal later than we originally anticipated, Apple's iTunes 11 is finally available for OS X and Windows. The new release isn't fundamentally different than previous versions — iTunes 11 still organizes all of your music files along with movies, TV shows, podcasts, iBooks, and iOS apps. However, the UI has received a great deal of visual polish and the app uses its space much more efficiently.

Upon opening the app, you'll immediately notice that the iTunes sidebar — which served as an access point for music and video libraries, the iTunes Store, playlists, and any connected iPads, iPods, or iPhones — is gone. In its place is a bar at the top of your library with a drop-down for swapping between different media...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3707502/itunes-11-hands-on

NYU mailing list blunder results in 'reply all' messages reaching nearly 40,000 students

What began as an innocent email blast from the NYU bursar's office to students quickly devolved into inbox chaos after it was discovered that "reply all' responses were being sent to 39,979 members of the student body. Appropriately referred to as "Replyallcalypse," the unplanned campus-wide discussion broke out Monday night when Max Wiseltier attempted to forward along the original message to his mother, but instead wound up responding to its sender — along with thousands of his fellow students.

NYU Local, a campus blog, reports that his fateful error resulted in an evening full of cat GIFs, photos of Nicolas Cage, and questions like, "would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses, or 1 horse sized duck?" Some used the rare...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3707252/nyu-mailing-list-error-reply-all-40000-students

NASA dashes hopes for Curiosity discovery, says there is no 'definitive evidence' of life on Mars

Today NASA announced that the swirling speculation around the Mars rover Curiosity's recent soil tests is incorrect: the agency will not have any major new findings to reveal at its upcoming press conference. Several days ago NASA began toning down the hype surrounding the tests, which had been touted as a discovery that would be "one for the history books." Though the December 3rd press conference will still focus on Curiosity's first successful soil analysis, NASA says that "the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics." While the news may come as a crushing disappointment for those hoping for a game-changing revelation, the Curiosity rover itself remains breathlessly optimistic.

Turn...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3707122/nasa-mars-rover-curiosity-press-conference-no-organics

30 million users strong, Kik Messenger reinvents MMS to take on WhatsApp

Kik Interactive today announced the launch of Kik Messenger 6.0 for iPhone and Android. The new app looks much the same, but forgoes conventional media attachments and pasting in URLS in favor of letting you embed YouTube videos, images from the web, and doodles using downloadable "Cards." The company also announced some usage numbers: 30 million people have downloaded Kik, and 100,000 people have signed up each day for the last several months. While CEO and Founder Ted Livingston declined to provide daily or monthly usage numbers, he made clear that the battle for messaging in the United States is only between Kik and Whatsapp — which seems to be in the lead given its recent user numbers and consistently high ranking in the App Store.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3706962/kik-messenger-30-million-users-cards

Your guide to the New World Order: what the UN’s latest internet talks actually mean

The future of the web will be decided in a dark room by UN politicians and authoritarian governments — at least according to Google and some other opponents of the International Telecommunication Union’s plan to reform its 25-year-old guidelines. Leaked documents have shown that ITU members are interested in adding more internet regulations to the ITU’s mostly telecommunications-focused rules, something critics worry will let countries justify repressive filtering of the internet or upset the current balance of power by pushing more regulation. Supporters, meanwhile, hope it will help internationalize the internet, counterbalancing the more US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which currently...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3706352/un-itu-talks-dubai-guide

THQ's Humble Bundle lets you pay what you want for AAA, Steam-only games

The long running, pay-what-you-want Humble Bundle is back, but this time it looks a little different than what you're used to. Instead of a collection of notable indie games, the bundle has partnered with publisher THQ to offer AAA titles like Company of Heroes (and its two expansions), Metro 2033, Darksiders, and Red Faction: Armageddon for as little as $1. And if you pay above the average price — currently hovering just above $10 — you'll also get a copy of Saints Row The Third.

It's definitely a great deal, though it also marks a curious change for the Humble Bundle. Not only does this iteration focus entirely on AAA games from a single publisher, it also does away with the notions of DRM-free and multi-platform releases. Each...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3707094/thq-humble-bundle-windows-steam-only

New smartphone accessories analyze your body to keep the doctor away

Going to the doctor is a pain in the neck for most people. Especially if you are going to just have routine checkups. According to Forbes , Scanadu (not to be confused with Xanadu, the Olivia Newton-John fantasy musical romp from 1980) hopes to lessen the number of times you have to make a trek to the doctor's office with its new smartphone accessories. Scanadu's new devices read vital signs on your body and then transmit them to a smartphone, where they can be analyzed by the company's app in real time.

The company has three such devices in the works: the Scanadu Scout (pictured), which reads vital signs from a person's temples; Project ScanaFlo that can analyze urine; and Project ScanaFlu, which can test a person's saliva for cold or...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/29/3706750/smartphone-accessories-scanadu-scout-scanaflu-scanaflo