BGR.com
In an effort to edge in on MetroPCS and Sprint-owned Boost and Virgin Mobile, Verizon Wireless will introduce a brand new $50 monthly prepaid this week that includes unlimited text, talk and web. The new plan, which first launched back in April as “Unleashed” in limited markets, will be available to customers in Verizon stores, Walmart, Target and Best Buy.
Apple and Starbucks on Tuesday relaunched the partnership that saw the companies bring “Song of the Week” to customers. However, this new program is even bigger.
Dubbed “Pick of the Week,” the new program will include all types of content from iTunes, including including music, apps, TV episodes and books. Launching today is extended sample of Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus,” the first book to be featured in the program.
The book is available at all US Starbucks locations via free cards with download codes redeemable on the iBookstore.
This is my next:
However, fan noise is very noticeable, as is the heat coming out of the top vent
Somebody is being punked right?
Erica Sadun for TUAW.com
The briefing reportedly told the sales team that Sprint will begin offering the iPhone 4 in October 2011 (next month) with standard Sprint data plans; they will include a $10 data smartphone premium that is not specific to iPhone.
Note that this is the iPhone 4, not the iPhone 5. The Sprint person said the iPhone 5 wouldn’t be coming until next year. Seems strange to me.
Apple has posted MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.1. The update is specifically for “mid-2011”-era MacBook Air models equipped with Thunderbolt high-speed I/O ports.
This update includes fixes that enhance the stability of Lion Recovery from an Internet connection, and resolve issues with Apple Thunderbolt Display compatibility and Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode performance
If you’re running a different MacBook Air model, then you don’t need this update (and the installer won’t work anyway).
Philadelphia Media Network has announced an offer to customers interested in getting a digital subscription to the Phildelphia Inquirer: a deeply discounted tablet computer made by Arnova. The deal starts today and is limited to the first 5,000 subscribers, on a first-come, first-served basis.
The tablet is $99 for customers who sign up for a two-year digital subscription to the Inquirer and Daily News, which costs $9.99 per month. Customers who choose a one-year subscription – which costs $12.99 per month – can get the tablet for $129 instead.
Amazing the sounds you can get out of an iPad with AmpKit.
Madfinger Games announced Tuesday that Shadowgun is slated for a September 28 release. The game is a third-person tactical combat shooter featuring remarkable console-quality graphics.
Shadowgun was developed using the Unity 3D game engine, which has its roots on the Mac, but is used to create games for other platforms including iOS, PC, consoles and the Web. The game has been previewed at major game shows like E3 and Gamescom.
Fortune:
Game over.
The Globe and Mail:
Starting this week, 14-year-old Lexi Peters will be stick handling past men twice her size as she plays in the starting lineup for the Buffalo Sabres. Or the Vancouver Canucks. Or any NHL team the 90-pound left-winger chooses.Because when video game publisher Electronic Arts releases the latest edition of its popular NHL series on Tuesday, Lexi will be the first female in its virtual hockey roster.
The teenager wrote EA at the urging of her father to complain about the lack of a female option in the custom character creation mode. EA agreed, and went a step further: with her family’s permission, Lexi is now the default female character.
The report notes that while NHL is still purely a men’s league, women and girls have been a huge growth market for amateur hockey over the past 20 years – from 5,000 in 1990 to an estimated 100,000 today.
John Paczkowski:
Apple’s decision to make China top priority in its global expansion is proving increasingly prescient. The company’s four Chinese outlets are already among the most heavily trafficked Apple stores in the world. And they generate blockbuster sales and profits. For the first three quarters of fiscal 2011, Apple’s revenue in greater China topped out at $8.8 billion, a six-time multiple over a year earlier.
Building on the POD brand, Line 6 on Monday unveiled the Mobile POD app for iPhone and iPad, and the Mobile In Adapter that lets you plug your guitar into Apple’s devices. The Mobile POD app will be a free download from the App Store.
The Mobile POD app is Line 6’s amp and effects modeling software and includes the company’s familiar technology, just in a mobile form factor.
The software includes 64 models of modern, vintage and boutique guitar gear including amps, cabinets, stompboxes and rack effects. Amps in the package include the 1964 Fender Deluxe Reverb, 1968 Marshall Plexi (100 watt), 1985 Mesa/Boogie Mark IIc+ (Drive Channel), and the 1989 Soldano SLO Super Lead Overdrive, among many others.
You can build and save your own presets using any of the amps, cabs and effects. If you’d rather use the built-in presets, Line 6 includes 10,000 presets for free.
Mobile In digital input plugs into the 30-pin connector on the bottom of the iOS device. This digital connection enables the adaptor to offer pro-quality audio specs for guitar tones. Mobile In supports up to 24-bit/48 kHz digital audio. The Guitar input features 110 dB dynamic range.
Mobile POD app will be free. Pricing for the Mobile In Adapter has not been announced.
Many thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.
Pixelmator is the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X that has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. With tons of new features and improvements, the next generation of Pixelmator—codenamed Chameleon—is clearly the best Pixelmator ever built. Even more, Pixelmator 2 will be available later this month via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store.
Gizmodo:
BlackBerry sales have been in the toilet, so RIM has been scrambling to get their much-anticipated first QNX-based phones to market. Very smart. But they may be pushing them out without BES/BIS email/calendar calendar support. That would be unfathomably stupid.
Is there no limit to the stupid at RIM?
AllThingsD:
He was replaced by longtime TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld.The company’s statement said that the high-profile blogger had “decided” to move on, which was adecided understatement, given the negotiations between the pair sometimes approximated a cage match.
“You can’t fire me! I quit!”
Detroit Free Press:
“It’s probably the best delivery system ever invented, but the industry gave up a lot of quality to have that system,” [Seger manager Ed ‘Punch’] Andrews said. “At some point, if this is what everybody is accepting, we know we have to keep current. But if we were going to do this, we needed to make sure it was as great as we could make it.”
Now where’s AC/DC and Tool?
Geoffrey A. Fowler And Yukari Iwatani Kane for WSJ:
Nintendo Co.’s website shows gamers “what Wii is all about.” As far back as 1984, Apple Inc. said in a commercial that it would “introduce Macintosh.” Today, an Apple video enthuses: “There’s never been anything like iPad.”Mignon Fogarty, who writes under the pen name Grammar Girl, has given up being outraged by marketing grammar, including missing articles.It’s hard, she says, to make the case that bad grammar is wrong when someone like Mr. Jobs announces that the new iPod is the “funnest” ever, she says. “How can you tell your kids, you won’t get anywhere in life if you use that language?”
Greg Price on Waves Live:
Today, I want to share with you the first steps I take in all projects I start. My first go-to tools are the Q10 Paragraphic EQ, SSL 4000 Collection, and the Renaissance plugins. These tools work for me on any type of DAW, console, Pro Tools session, or live mix that I am building. It is very important to realize that the Waves tools I use for my live show projects, translate to all my other media mixes. That said, let’s take a deeper look at the SSL 4000 Collection.
I’ve known Greg for a number of years and have spent time with him at several Ozzy concerts. He is one of the nicest, most professional people I have ever met in the business. I take every word he says to heart when I approach a mix.
Smashing Magazine:
We meet people who think very much like we do and most probably struggle with similar problems; and perhaps they’ve found a solution which can inspire others. We learn how our colleagues work and what they have experienced; we can exchange our thoughts and ideas directly — something that we might struggle finding time for on Twitter or via email.
Feral Interactive has announced plans to publish a Macintosh-native version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s coming during this winter.
All this takes place within a backdrop of futuristic real-world cityscapes in places like Detroit and Montreal, with a game outcome that changes depending on the actions you take.
Feral plans to announce pricing and system requirements later this year, closer to the game’s actual release on the Mac.
Smartphone Boss:
“Without this merger, AT&T will continue to experience capacity constraints, millions of customers will be deprived of faster and higher quality service, and innovation and infrastructure will be stunted. If this transaction does not close due to Plaintiff’s lawsuit, wireless consumers will, as the FCC Chairman predicts, increasingly face higher prices and lower quality.”
Hollywood Reporter:
CBSNews.com has severed its relationship with the host of a web show who sent out an erroneous Tweet yesterday saying that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had died.The offending Tweet was sent from the Twitter account of What’s Trending, a web series independently produced by Disrupt Group and anchored by Disrupt co-founder Shira Lazar.
What’s Trending tried to apologize for the gaff after the fact, but it had already started to bounce around the Twitterverse – the damage was done. What’s unclear is why What’s Trending thought Jobs had died to begin with.
Bloomberg News found itself in a similar pickle in 2008 after it accidentally published Jobs’ obituary. Celebrity obituaries are routinely produced pre-mortem.
BlackBerry App World:
This web page uses ActiveX controls that work only in Microsoft Internet Explorer. To ensure that BlackBerry App World is correctly downloaded to your BlackBerry, this site is not designed to work with any other Internet browsers. If you cannot use Internet Explorer, you may be able to download the software directly to your BlackBerry smartphone.
So there’s this new thing called HTML5…
Apple on Friday released Security Update 2011-005 for Snow Leopard and Lion (as well as Server versions). The update is available for download through the Software Update system preference and from the Apple Web site.
The update is described as a “Certificate Trust Policy” issue:
An attacker with a privileged network position may intercept user credentials or other sensitive information.
Specifically, the update removes DigiNotar from the list of trusted root certificates.
Fraudulent certificates were issued by multiple certificate authorities operated by DigiNotar. This issue is addressed by removing DigiNotar from the list of trusted root certificates, from the list of Extended Validation (EV) certificate authorities, and by configuring default system trust settings so that DigiNotar’s certificates, including those issued by other authorities, are not trusted.
Adobe used this week’s IBC conference in Amsterdam to introduce Flash Media Server 4.5. Most notable in the new Flash Media Server release is the ability to stream Flash video to iOS devices, including the iPad and iPhone.
It’s important to understand that this is a mechanism for delivering Flash video to iOS devices, not Flash applications, such as games. Some confusing headlines and sloppy reporting from some tech blogs seem to conflate the two.
Benefits include integrated content protection, for ad-funded video, as well as on-demand stream packaging, according to Adobe – businesses can use one set of source video to deliver to different devices, depending on their capabilities.
