Author: Serkadis

The popular Windows Mobile SMS Sync application has been updated to version 2.0. The new release contains a number of features that make backing up your text messages, or transferring them to a new phone, much easier and quicker – especially for non-technical users.Here are three key new features or areas of improvement in the update:

1.       User Interface
The first thing that you will notice about this new release is that the user interface has been completely overhauled.  The new interface makes backing up your text messages or restoring them extremely straightforward.

2.       Online Backup Storage
The most impressive new feature to the application is the new “Online Backup Storage” option.  This free service allows you to save your text message backup on SynergeTech Solutions’ secure server.  If you select this as your backup location, you simply login (or create) your account and the application takes care of the rest.  You can just as easily choose the “Online Backup Storage” as the location to restore text messages from.  With this feature, you could transfer your text messages to a new Windows Mobile phone without ever having to copy/email a file to the new device!

3.       Compatibility
The third area of the application to be addressed in this release is compatibility.  Windows Mobile SMS Sync 2.0 has been thoroughly tested on almost every device type and every version of Windows Mobile.  International languages are supported more universally in this release as well.  The restore functionality now makes sure to copy all the message properties – this way when you restore your messages, either after a hard reset or to a new phone, they are exactly as they had been before.

The application costs £9.99 and is available by visiting the SynergeTech Solutions’ website at www.synergetechsolutions.com/mobilesmssync.

This post was submitted by Brian Hamachek.

It’s about time that TiVo outs some new hardware and it looks like it might be sooner than later. The TiVo HD and HD XL have been sitting atop the companies mast unchanged for sometime now, while other DVRs like the Moxi keeps the updates rolling. But a little manual mix-up might show what TiVo is prepping to launch.

The story goes that Patrick McCarron upgraded to a TiVo HD and discovered that his box included a TiVo Premiere and Premiere XL setup guide. Now that’s a little interesting because as far as anyone knows, those products don’t exist. But from what we can make it, the info on the unannounced products seem to follow a evolutionary path from the current models.

Really the only info shown in the guides are a pic of the back panel. The front-facing dual Cable Card slots (one single stream, one multi-stream) have been replaced by one slot in the rear, which we can only assume is of a multi-stream type. Also, the S-Video port has been dropped along with the RJ-11 phone jack. Thankfully it appears the ATSC tuner made the cut and is still included. Hopefully this time around though, the included eSATA port is opened up to more devices than TiVo branded units. (not likely)

But this is what everyone would expect next-gen TiVo HD would look like: less legacy ports, a single, multi-stream Cable Card slot, in a smaller device. It’s the hopefully revamped UI that comes with it we’re dying to see. The one thing the MoxiHD DVR has going for it is that the interface is gorgeous compared to the old TiVo GUI. As long as TiVo followed the design cues in theBeta Search though, it should be good looking indeed.

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It’s almost January 1st, 2010 and we’ve been mulling over our favorites of 2009 – and the previous decade. Here we present another installment in our “Of the Decade” lists.

Winner: Resident Evil 4 (GameCube, 2004)

This decade saw a lot of “big” games, but how many of those games were any good? How many do you think you’ll even consider replaying in five or 10 years? If there’s one, and only one, game of the decade it has to be Resident Evil 4. The game resurrected a waning franchise, justified your purchase of a GameCube, and was actually fun to play. How rare. The lackluster Resident Evil 5 only reinforced how well made Resident Evil 4 was: perfect controls, probably the best graphics ever to grace the GameCube, and, yes, the best single-player mode of the decade make this the game of the decade. It’s pretty much non-stop fun, which is really all you can ask a video game to do.

Runners Up

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2, 2003)

You can almost consider Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to be the same game three times, but Vice City wins because it’s our favorite setting of the series so far. Is it fun to go around and blowing up anything that moves? Yes, but it’s actually more fun to appreciate the time and effort Rockstar put into crafting a pretty enjoyable cast of characters and reasonably OK story for our entertainment. Plus, how many game in the 2000s have completely ripped off the GTA franchise?

Guitar Hero (PS2/PS3/Xbox 360, 2005)

Our original game here was Super Smash Bros. Melee because it was, and I quote, “the ultimate party game.” Upon further reflection, that title actually belongs to Guitar Hero if only because you couldn’t attend a party attended by non-gamers between the game’s release and today without running into people banging on the strumming a plastic guitar. This is especially true if you visited certain gentrified sections of Brooklyn. The game was everywhere, so clearly it must have done something right. Publishers may have since shot themselves in the foot by releasing 800 versions of the game in a two-year window, but you can’t blame the game itself for publishers’ greed. It’s fun, and it represents the peak of the music game genre that, in a very real sense, defined the decade in gaming.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2005)

This is our arthouse pick, yes, but for all the hullabaloo of “please re-make Final Fantasy VII for the PS3,” we say: no! Instead, re-make Shadow of the Colossus for it pushed the PS2 as far as the little guy could go. The game was like playing art. Rarely has a sense of scale been so raw in as it was here. A terrific soundtrack, a unique setting, and an unmatched sense of “oh man, we’re going on an adventure” means that youre sure to impress your “games as art” buddies .

Our Take

Devin: I want to throw Final Fantasy XII on here. A lot of people dismissed it because of its cipher of a main character and weird MMO-style combat. But the fact is it was a hugely deep, very interesting, and strikingly beautiful game. I loved it from start to finish, although the final boss was a bit corny.

Matt: You can’t tell me that any of these games above are more fun — I mean LOL, smile-on-your-face, gets-better-as-you-drink fun — than Super Smash Bros. Melee. Yet it probably isn’t the best game from the last 10 years. But it’s still damn fun.

Greg: I’m going to pull a Nicholas here and proclaim that this is all a bunch of nonsense. It’s impossible to claim that any one game of this decade was the most definitive (especially not RE4, dumb dumbs), considering how many games changed the horizon. Guitar Hero and Smash Bros made busting out a video game at a party okay. The Lego Star Wars/Indie/etc. series proved to girlfriends around the world that gaming with your boyfriend can be a fun experience. GTA taught the world to hate linear gameplay. Call Of Duty and Halo taught millions of console gamers the joys and frustrations of well made competitive first-person-shooters whilst simultaneously increasing the average weight of adolescents around the world. WoW brought MMOs into the mainstream. Shadow of the Colossus destroyed our sense of scale, while Katamari Damacy proved that games can be abstract and still sell well. There is no one answer to this question, because the games of this decade were simply too good.

Doug: Wii Sports — hear me out! As most people’s introduction to the Wii, the bundled Wii Sports game serves as the ambassador to a new way of thinking about video games. How many video games from the past ten years will you find people of all generations playing? Nobody’s really playing Halo in nursing homes or senior centers. The simple control scheme and 1:1 movement in Wii Sports made Nintendo’s latest console a hit with people outside the core demographic of gamers, something Sony and Microsoft are still scrambling to replicate.

David Diaz: I think Halo: Combat Evolved should have made this list. It became the benchmark for all console FPS and sparked the beginning of one of the most dominant franchises in console history.

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According to a report released today [PDF] by Reporters Sans Frontières, the number of bloggers around the world arrested because of their online work jumped from 59 to 151 between 2008 and 2009, an increase of 155%. Additionally, one blogger died in prison and 61 were physically assaulted. The most infamous cases perhaps occurred during the violent unrest in Iran following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection. But RSF said the number of overall arrests and attacks can actually be traced to crackdowns in at least 10 countries.

“The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next – a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online,” said Lucie Morillon, head of the group’s Internet and Freedoms Desk.

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The report is a profoundly depressing read. As tech journalists writing from the soft comfort of our homes, it’s easy to forget that in many places of the world, the simple act of posting something to a blog has lethal repercussions.

Elections, politics and the economy were the primary reasons bloggers ended up in jail. While China is the worst, Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan also frequently monitor or block websites and blogs.

From the report:

“Two Azerbaijani bloggers, who were sentenced to two years in prison for making a film mocking the political elite.The Turkmen Internet remains under total state control. Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is still in jail, while the famous Burmese comedian Zarganar still has 34 years of his prison sentence to serve. Victims of Internet policing also include such leading figures in the defence of online free expression as China’s Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo and Vietnam’s Nguyen Trung and Dieu Cay.

“In South Korea, a blogger was wrongfully detained for commenting on the country’s disastrous economic situation. Around six netizens in Thailand were arrested or harassed just for making a connection between the king’s health and a fall in the Bangkok stock exchange.”

In March, Reporters Sans Frontières will launch what it’s calling the Enemies of the Internet campaign to highlight the countries affected by online intimidation and censorship.

Photo by Amir Darafsheh, Tehran, Iran.

Discuss

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A packaging mixup may have revealed the next DVR coming from TiVo. Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to be the Series4 we were looking for, but the “TiVo Premiere” (or Premiere XL) instructions sent along with a new TiVo HD to self-described Chicagoland geek Patrick McCarron show a slimmed down box with one (multistream only) CableCARD slot instead two and no S-video or phone jack. The prevailing speculation is this is a lower cost revision of the existing Series3 hardware that could be on shelves very soon, but we’re still hoping for updated internals and UI to make TiVo fresh for the next decade. The full instructions are scanned and posted over at Infinite Shamrock, for confirmation and any real details on what’s next we’ll probably be waiting until next week in Las Vegas.

TiVo planning a new “Premiere” DVR? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Erik Gates, who guest-starred as an Amateur Rocket Expert on the popular Discovery Channel show MythBusters, died in a freak accident Dec. 20. He was 47.

Gates was doing electrical work on a roof at a building in Newbury Park, California when he fell 30 feet from a skylight. Gates was an owner of Gateco Electric, which was employed at the site.

“He was a good guy,” Steve DeGennaro, who co-founded Xirrus’ with Gates’ brother, Dirk, tells The Ventura County Star. “He survived cancer, he jumps with parachutes, he base jumps. He’s an active guy who was used to taking precautions. This was a freak accident that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Team MB wishes to express our deepest sympathies on the passing of our beloved rocket expert, Erik,” followed by “You were an honorary MythBuster and will be sorely missed,” MythBusters Tweeted this week.

Filed under: Cool tools, Hacks, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK

When it comes to the iPhone, Augmented Reality refers to applications that integrate live camera feeds with data generated either directly from those camera images or from related data linked to the user’s real world location. Over the past year, we’ve seen a number of augmented reality applications appear on App Store and in the Cydia store, offering a way to connect real world visuals with enhanced data presentations.

On the recent Augmented Reality front, Sudoku Grab [iTunes Link] developer Chris Greening has been inspired by Apple’s recent decision to allow calls to UIGetScreenImage(), the computer function that allows iPhone developers to copy an image directly from the iPhone screen. By relenting on this issue, Apple has allowed programmers to pull live data from the iPhone camera, and process that data in real time. That opens the door to immediate image processing and visual presentation of data on top of that image stream.

The above video demonstrates this ability by scanning for Sudoku boards. When it detects one, the numbers in question turn green. So how useful in general is this new SDK feature? Chris says, “It’s a bit horrible to do anything really useful, you haven’t got a direct feed from the camera so you have to do a bit of jiggery pokery if you want to draw on top of the camera preview and still have something usable.” As you can tell from the video, his “jiggery pokery” is pretty well done. His real time scanning and enhancement of raw image data allows his detection routine to work with the camera’s live feed to acquire new Sudoku boards.

It’s still early days on the augmented reality front. Greening’s work represents just the start of where this technology can go. With faster processors and better screen access routines (UIGetScreenImage is a very slow call compared to the iPhone’s non-public CoreSurface routines), real world integration is just going to get better and better.

TUAWFound Footage: Sudoku Grab goes Augmented Reality originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I actually had decently high hopes for Vevo, the partnership between Universal Music and YouTube to create a website for official music videos (currently from three of the four major record labels). I mean, I always figured that eventually the labels would screw stuff up, but I thought it actually had a shot at maybe being useful. The fact that Universal put Rio Caraeff in charge seemed like a good sign as well, since Caraeff seemed like the sort of music industry exec who understood the new marketplace for music, and wasn’t encumbered with the “old ways” of doing things. But rather than a useful site, Vevo has basically been a cookie cutter version of what you would do if the record labels created their own YouTube. That is, it took none of the good parts of YouTube. Hell, it didn’t even take the ability to handle a lot of traffic. For the first few days after it launched, Vevo just didn’t work at all.

Its latest screwup was that it didn’t include its preroll ads in the YouTube API, meaning that others who used the API could access and repurpose Vevo content without the ads, and even show the content outside the US (which Vevo currently does not allow). It didn’t take long for one enterprising startup, Muziic, to do exactly that. Muziic has received some attention for basically using the YouTube API to create an iTunes-like experience out of YouTube videos (it also gets attention for being founded by a 16-year old). Muziic sent out an announcement this week about how it was using the YouTube API to add Vevo content, meaning you could access Vevo videos without the preroll ads and outside the US.

Vevo’s first response? To send a cease and desist. At the very least, it wasn’t a legal nastygram, but a more friendly cease & desist sent by Caraeff himself. But “cease” what? Muziic was using the API as designed, and even though Caraeff admits that Vevo is quickly scrambling to change the API, he still says Muziic needs to cease from using the Vevo logo or referencing the company’s name. But Muziic used the name in an accurate and descriptive manner. It accurately noted that it was now offering Vevo content — without ads and outside the US — all legally via the use of the API provided by YouTube/Vevo itself.

Muziic’s co-founder responded to Caraeff’s email over at Hypebot, saying that he “was as shocked as anyone when I realized there were not yet any “pre-roll” advertisements for Vevo content in the API,” but since it was how the company set up the API, it seems perfectly reasonable to use it that way. He also notes that he had reached out to Vevo prior to this to try to work out an arrangement with the company and got no response.

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WETA / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

In the film “Avatar,” Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) teaches the Na’vi language to Jake (Sam Worthington), a “dreamwalker” who is mind-linked to a human controller.

Ayftozä lefpom ayngaru nìwotx! That’s “Happy Holidays to You All” in Na’vi, the language that was created for the sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar.” The professor who made up that phrase as well as all the alien dialogue in the movie hopes Na’vi does as well as Klingon, another fictional alien tongue that has taken on a life of its own. But for now, that’s out of his hands.

…(read more)

The debut album from pop newcomer Ke$ha has been circulating the Interwebs for a couple days now — and for good reason — Ke$ha currently holds the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with her record-breaking first single “Tik Tok.”

“Tik Tok” sold 440,000 downloads over the Christmas holiday — a 175% increase of the week before — setting a new record on the Billboard charts for the “Most Ever Digital Single Sales for a Female Artist.” The smash hit has sold a massive 610,000 downloads since its iTunes debut earlier this month.

Filed under: Car Buying, Etc.

Kelley Blue Book (KBB) strained the data from its voluminous cache to come up with the year’s 20 most researched cars, and the five brands that got the most attention. This will probably come as a surprise to precisely none of our readers, but Honda and Toyota dominated the upper reaches of the list. Together they made up all of the top five and nine of the top ten — Nissan‘s Altima squeezed into ninth.

The secondary ten provided more model mix, with three Fords and two Chevrolets making up the domestic squad. Midsize cars also made a return to buyers’ attentions, after last year’s list was overrun by fuel sippers. You can read KBB’s press release on the data after the jump, and see a high-res gallery of the twenty leaders below.

[Source: Kelley Blue Book]

Continue reading KBB lists its “most researched” new cars and trucks in 2009

KBB lists its “most researched” new cars and trucks in 2009 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: 2010 Audi R8 5.2 FSI V10 reminds us we’re in the wrong tax bracket

Is it the penultimate everyday supercar or a defanged Lambo for two-thirds the price? We put the R8 V10 through the wringer for a week to find out if it deserves a top spot on our lottery list.

Video: Our Audi R8 5.2 FSI V10 cameos on The Smoking Tire

The Smoking Tire’s Matt Farah broke his leg while hooning in the snow. So who could possibly replace the one-legged wonder for the latest episode? One Dr. Lieberman, with a bad jacket and worse facial hair.

Spy Shots: First look at 2012 Hyundai Veloster?

Spies catch a camo’d hatch testing on the track. Could it be the all-new Hyundai Veloster? We think so and so do a few well placed sources.

Also of interest:

• Quebec drivers face hefty fine if they don’t drive on snow tires
• Ford dealers say Kuga should be named Escape in U.S. – Do you agree? [w/POLL]
• No 2010 Kia Borrego, model’s future uncertain
• Video: 2011 Volvo S60 is one shapely Swede
• GM reportedly extends bidding deadline for Saab, production to restart?

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 12.30.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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California is poised to meet its lofty renewable energy goals — at least on paper. Right now, 200 renewable energy products totaling 70 gigawatts of energy are under consideration in the state. Not all of them will pass muster — but their equivalent will need to be built in order to make the grade. That’s more than eight times the current 8,000 megawatts of renewable generation already in the works. Here’s the full list of projects that have been pitched so far.

Utilities are already scrambling to meet Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mandate, requiring them to generate one-third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. And not all the usual suspects qualify as renewable. For example, hydropower — accounting for 11.7 percent of California’s energy production — will not count toward these goals due to silting and environmental problems caused by damming rivers.

By the end of 2010, about 53 projects are expected to break ground — out of a pool of 250 that applied for grants under the U.S. stimulus package. The largest of this group is a 1,000-megawatt solar thermal development in Riverside County, Calif. Out of the top ten largest projects receiving government packing, eight are solar — indicative of the state’s preference for therm and photovoltaic solar generation. Only a handful of the 53 are wind plants, and only one is geothermal.

Of the projects not applying for recovery act funds, almost all of them are proposed to be build on land controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Historically, the BLM has fewer regulations than other land management agencies. This could mean that more of these projects will actually get built, rather than getting bogged down in permitting disputes. Fortunately, this batch includes most of the larger projects, approaching a gigawatt in size.

Based on the sheer volume of proposals, and the impetus provided by state policy, it looks like California is getting ready for a big wave of renewable development in 2010. As the 2020 mandate looms, more projects will probably be pushed through that wouldn’t have typically made it by regulators.

As it stands, many utilities are looking to make power purchase agreements with out-of-state energy providers. In the next few years, this trend should shift — especially as well-funded solar projects spring up in California’s Central Valley and desert regions.

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It’s a little known fact — the Earth’s geothermal resources could satisfy the world population’s power needs many times over. So why is it only generating little over 10 gigawatts of power globally? The prime reason: Few companies have figured out how to make the capital-intensive plants economically feasible. But geothermal conglomerate Ram Power may have found an answer with its new development in Nicaragua.

The company, based in Reno, Nev., is embarking on a 72-megawatt geothermal project in the Central American country (PDF) — a big leap forward considering that it has only built a 10-megawatt facility in the past (also in Nicaragua). The new plant, expected to come online in the start of 2012, will be broken into phases to help shoulder the enormous cost.

To pay for the first phase, which will build 46 megawatts of capacity, Ram has closed a $77 million credit facility provided by a gaggle of lenders, including the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, Cordiant Capital and Export Development Canada. It adds this sum to an undisclosed amount of equity it raised previously. This segment of the project is slated to complete by April 2011.

The second phase, kicked off soon thereafter, will expand the plant’s capacity to the full 72 megawatts. This should be completed by the end of 2011. Both phases will be using flash Fuji Turbine Generators. If the first phase of the plan proves successful, Ram believes that financing the second should come easier.

Also helping Ram’s case is that its basically a consortium of to-tier geothermal companies. In October this year, Ram Power, Polaris Geothermal, Western GeoPower and GTO Resources decided to join forces. As a single unit, it also has plans to buy or build another 50 to 100 megawatts of generation within the next year or so.

Utilities are already taking notice. Ram has scored power purchase agreements with Southern California Edison for up to 400 megawatts of future geothermal generation.

As an industry, geothermal power has been growing by 3 percent every year on average, since 2005. The largest obstacles are still economic. Capital costs for a cutting-edge geothermal facility run above $4 million per megawatt installed.

Once capital is raised though, the energy itself costs about a nickel per kilowatt-hour — even cheaper than nuclear power. Geothermal also produces less waste and is better for the surrounding environment than a lot of other sources of renewable energy. This makes it seem like a bargain.

of course, this bargain is predicated on the presence of readily-available geothermal energy. To date, the overwhelming majority of the Earth is not well-suited to this tpe of generation. It’s either too expensive or the terrain isn’t appropriate. Going forward, it will be up to innovative organizations like Ram to overcome these obstacles and fully tap geothermal’s potential.

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When we profiled three-year-old startup EcoFactor in November the company said it was in the process of raising its Series A round. Well, today the company filed a document with the SEC that says it is in the process of raising $4.5 million, and has already raised $2.39 million partly from Claremont Creek Ventures (CCV’s […]

Although temperatures have risen throughout the globe, they’ve gone up most dramatically in the Arctic. Past warm periods indicate that deciduous tree expansion into the Arctic is a common occurrence when the region warms up, so a new study has looked into the impact trees could have on the regional climate. As expected, the increase of the leafy trees would result in less reflective ground, but the study suggests they could also induce more cloud cover and an increasingly warm surface and ocean that have more turbulent weather patterns.

Studies of climate change suggest that deciduous trees will eventually expand into the Arctic region, a notion that is supported by paleontological studies of the region’s past warm periods. The currently forested parts don’t change from evergreen to deciduous—rather, deciduous trees expand into areas that currently lack other vegetation. The authors of the new paper estimate that the Arctic region could be warm enough to support a substantial population of deciduous trees within the next 10 years.

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Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart are expecting a baby girl according to PEOPLE. Despite stepping out with an obvious baby bump in September, “The Noxzema Girl” and “Dr. McSteamy” had not formally announced the pregnancy until now. The couple has been married since 2004.