Amazon sells 34 apps from its Appstore in the last year

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App downloads in the Appstore have grown more than 500 percent over the previous year.

All Amazon says in its press release is that they have grown 500 percent. Typical of the way they do business, they refuse to release actual numbers.

So, I’m guessing it’s 34 apps. Amazon hasn’t said anything to prove me wrong, so that’s what I’m going with. It’s a lot of fun to play loosey goosey with numbers isn’t it Amazon?

Top Gear: Stunt School Revolution 2.0 on the App Store

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Want to balloon hop a motor home to clear the Grand Canyon? Use your sports car and escape Alcatraz by leaping as far as you can and landing on a barge? Speed through a roller-coaster on a New York skyscraper with a cow on your pickup? You can do all this and more in Top Gear: Stunt School Revolution.

T-RackS Custom Shop

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IK Multimedia is proud to announce the release of T-RackS® Custom Shop, the updated version 4.0 of its world-class mixing and mastering suite for Mac and PC. The new T-RackS CS offers five brand-new, must-have analog-modeled and digital processors, and it integrates the Custom Shop, IK’s exclusive online gear shop, which allows users to purchase gear models à la carte from within the T-RackS software itself, and much more.

It’s good to see IK bring more of its software to the Custom Shop.

Tim Cook hints at Apple’s next big thing

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Tim Cook:

“When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,” Cook told Williams. “It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.”

What Tim didn’t say is that Apple would be making their own television. His comments could be directed towards the content on the TV or how we interact with the device.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II grosses $1 billion in 15 days

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Activision Blizzard, Inc., announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales, according to Chart-Track retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates. Illustrating the strong appeal of interactive entertainment to audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 15 days after its launch on November 13, 2012. Last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare3 reached $1 billion in retail sales in 16 days. The box office record set for feature films in 2009 by “Avatar” was $1 billion in 17 days.

That’s one popular franchise.

Surface sales suck

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If Microsoft is being coy about revealing Surface sales data, it may be for good reason. Early demand for the company’s first tablet is lousy. How lousy? Put it this way: If Microsoft really did manufacture three million to five million Surface tablets to sell in the fourth quarter, it’s going to have between two million and four million left over at quarter’s end.

Estimates from the analyst are 500,000-600,000 for the quarter.

Amplified: That’s Just The Heineken Tweeting

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Jim and Dan discuss Microsoft’s failure to solve a problem with the Surface, Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, BBEdit 10.5, the Das Keyboard, the shuttering of The Daily, The Flashback X4 Delay, and more.

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Why magazine apps suck

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MG Siegler made a lot of great points here. It’s definitely worth a read, but many of you won’t be surprised by the ultimate conclusion — traditional publishers just don’t get it.

Socl

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Microsoft officials have described Socl as a kind of mash-up of social-networking and search that is designed to get the learning communities to start thinking about how to use collaboration technologies in new ways. And according to the Softies and contrary to popular rumors, Socl is not an attempt to take on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler or Pinterest.

I don’t get it.

Sidecar 2.0

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Sidecar is an advanced messenger and calling app. Now, in one elegant, seamless environment, you can text, send voice notes, make voice and video calls, and send photos, videos, contacts and locations. Unlike other apps, you can even share and call friends who don’t have Sidecar yet if they’re in the U.S. or Canada.

Microsoft forgot to solve a problem

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I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the Microsoft Surface over the past few weeks, in an effort to figure out what the company is trying to accomplish. While I have given Microsoft kudos for not blindly copying Apple’s tablet strategy, what they released doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. […]

Adobe turns 30

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Adobe turns 30 this week and the company posted some stories from employees.

Apple updates iWork for iOS and Mac

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Apple on Tuesday released iWork updates for both its iOS and Mac versions of the software. The iOS versions are now listed as 1.7 and iWork 9.3 is available for the Mac. You can check software update on the App Store in iTunes and the Mac App Store to download them.

More information on the Mac update is available on Apple’s Support Web site.

Serial Innovation

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This is a very interesting site done by Brendan Steidle. He doesn’t just point out problems with a company or industries, he tries to offer solutions too. One of his articles is about Grocery shopping another about Microsoft and a third about Twitter. It’s good to see people thinking.

Facebook’s staggering mistake

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Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition.

Review: Flashback X4 Delay

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I have a love/hate relationship with delay pedals. I love how they can sound, but trying to get that perfect delay results in failure more times than I ever see success. […]