Jan 17

Amazon launched its Android video converter Appstore at the beginning of this year. Amazon’s Appstore was the first real alternative to Google’s own Android Market.

Amazon_Appstore

Amazon knew that attracting Android users to its own Appstore was a huge task. While, the Appstore may not have gained as much success as the company would have hoped for, its samsung app converter mac of the Day section and lowered prices for some popular apps has definitely kept the traffic flowing.

One major factor limiting users to Amazon’s Appstore was it being available only to Android users in the U.S.

Now, it looks like Amazon has finally opened the gates of its Appstore to at least one country, India. While I have no news about the Appstore being available in other countries, I am pretty sure the Appstore is now available in more regions of the world.

Head over to this link to dvd ripper for mac download the Amazon Appstore APK. Indian users should keep in mind that they would still need to enter their Credit Card details, even if they want to download a Free video converter app. So, majority of the Android users in India without any credit card are out of luck.

Via Labnol

Jan 17

Most of the Android Smartphone Video Converter users, does not like the official Facebook video converter app for Android due to a number of reasons. The guys at Facebook are working hard and trying their best to make the application more useful. Facebook for Android does not allow us to tag friends and places in posts, but the latest update of Facebook for Android completely solves this problem. It also comes with a new design for profile and group walls, improved photo browsing and sharing, improved messages and notifications, etc. Check out the complete changelog, after the break.

facebook for android update

Changelog:

  • Made it easier to share with who you want
  • Improved the sharing tool to add privacy controls on posts and match your settings on the free download web video site
  • Added the ability to tag friends and places in posts
  • Added new design for Profile and Group Walls
  • Improved photo browsing with swiping
  • Added the ability to tag your friends in swf to photos
  • Improved Messages and Notifications
  • Fixed a number of crashes and performance issues

The Facebook for Android app is available for Free video converter on the Android Market. You will get a notification to update this app. If you don’t get an notification, then just head over to Android Market from your handset, go to My Apps and update all the apps. To download the Foursquare for Android app from web version of Android Market, head over to this page.

Jan 17

Motorola recently announced the Android powered Motorola Electrify smartphone. The design and features of this handset is similar to the recently launched Motorola Photon 4G Video Converter for Sprint customers. Motorola Electrify runs on the latest Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) Operating System and it comes with a 4.3 inch qHD display, 1 GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel dvd creator for camera video with HD video converter (720p) video recording and so on. This handset will be exclusively available for the US Cellular customers.

The ELECTRIFY is more than a ‘smart’ phone,said Edward Perez, vice president of sales and marketing operations for U.S. Cellular. Its multi-tasking capabilities make it the perfect personal assistant for customers who depend on their Smartphone Video Converter to meet the ever-changing needs of their busy lifestyles. Our commitment to providing a variety of devices converter for mac that enhance customers’ lives is one of the reasons consumers who switch to U.S. Cellular join the happiest customers in wireless.a€?

motorola electrify

Motorola Electrify Specifications:

  • 4.3 inch qHD display
  • 480 x 854 pixels resolution
  • 1 GHz dual-core processor
  • Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) OS video converter
  • 8 megapixel camera
  • HD (720p) video recording and playback
  • FM Radio
  • USB 2.0
  • HDMI
  • 1GB RAM
  • 16 GB eMMC
  • microSD card slot
  • 32 GB expandable memory
  • 3.5mm headset jack
  • GPS with A-GPS
  • Up to 10 hours talk-time
  • Up to 8.3 days stand-by time
  • 1700 mAh battery

The 1 GHz dual-core processor on the Motorola Electrify smartphone offers up to 70 percent faster overall performance and 75 percent faster browsing, compared to other single core smartphones. This handset will be available for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a 2 year service agreement. The release date of this handset will be announced soon.

Jan 17

Along with the Samsung Focus S Video Converter, AT&T and Samsung video converter also announced the Focus Flash. The Focus Flash is a smaller and cheaper sibling of the Focus S. The Focus Flash comes with a 3.7-inch Super-AMOLED screen with WVGA (480×800) resolution.

Samsung_Focus_Flash

Like the Focus S, the Focus Flash is also powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon (MSM8255T) processor, along with an Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB of RAM. The back of the phone converter for mac sports a 5MP camera, with a VGA dvd creator for camera video in the front accompanying it.

The Focus Flash will run on the latest version of Windows Phone Video Converter a.k.a WP7.5, which is also known as Mango. The press release from AT&T does not mention anything whether the Focus Flash will support its upcoming 4G network or not. AT&T did not mention anything about the internal memory capacity of the Flash as well.

Along with the Focus S and Focus Flash, AT&T also announced that it will be among the first operators to roll out the WP7.5 a.k.a Mango update for its current-gen WP7 based phones like HTC Surround, HD7S and the Samsung Focus. The Mango update will be hit these devices converter for mac sometime in fall.

The Focus Flash will be available sometime in Q4 this year.

Mar 15

audioexpress.png

I noticed last fall that the developers of AudioExpress by Real Mac Software decided to discontinue work on the project so they can devote more time to RapidWeaver. Dan posted this:

‘I just wanted to make everyone aware that we are no longer distributing or selling AudioExpress and ButtonBuilder.

We really loved these apps, but feel we just can’t devote enough time to keep them up-to-date. For anyone who has already purchased either app, we will of course continue to offer help & support until the end of the year.’

The good news is I saw in their forum they have decided to release the serial number for AudioExpress and allow people to use the app for free. And we all like the smell of free don’t we?

AudioExpress is a dead simple sound recorder for Mac that allows you to record via the built-in mic or an iSight. It does what it was designed to do quite well and interfaces nicely with iTunes or your iPod.

audioexpress is a simple sound recorder

Anyways I figured someone out there could use the serial code and download link as they are not published anywhere obvious. Download AudioExpress. Happily plug in the free serial:

Serial Number: ADOXPRS000-300E-B7C4-9E1G-2QNA-0649

Enjoy ;)

Mar 15

iTunes LogoFiles today are constantly getting bigger and your iTunes Library is no exception. Ever since the introduction of videos to the iTunes Store, people's hard drives are getting filled with full length feature films, Television Shows, and Video Podcasts. Not to mention getting your DVD stash onto your Apple TV or iPod. If you are running out of space on your computer's hard drive, this is the article for you. All you need is a FireWire hard drive and some time to import movies.

Step 1: Finding the right hard drive

Videos encoded for iPods take up about 300 MB per hour. Not to mention the space it takes for full quality on your Apple TV. If you plan on running your iTunes Library off of an external drive, firewire is definitely required. A 250GB hard drive can hold around 560 videos in iPod format if each of your videos were around an hour and a half. The more videos you have, the bigger the hard drive and price tag.

Step 2: Moving your already imported videos and music to your hard drive

First, open up iTunes and go to the iTunes menu, then Preferences. Traverse to the Advanced tab and locate the section titled “iTunes Music folder location?. This is the path iTunes uses to save and organize your library. The default path is (Macintosh HD/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music). Using the Finder, navigate to your iTunes folder. Once there, go to the iTunes Music folder, then the Movies folder. Here is where your already encoded videos are stored. Get back into the iTunes Preferences window with the Advanced tab highlighted. Click the “Change? button. Locate your external hard drive and create a new folder in its main directory. This can be called anything but we’ll call it “iTunes?. Hit the “Choose? button and press okay to the up-and-coming dialog box asking you if you would like to keep your Library organized. Relaunch iTunes. Don't worry, your library isn't gone. iTunes is just focusing toward your external hard drive.

Switch back into the finder and find your movies folder which we located earlier. Select all of you movies (Apple + A) and drag them onto the “Movies? section of iTunes located in the top left corner. Once iTunes has finished importing your videos, feel free to import your music library as well. iTunes organizes your music in folders with the names of the artists. Import your music by dragging your files in and organizing them into playlists. Right now you are just making a copy of your library on your external hard drive. Once you have it just the way you like it, move on to the next step to learn how to import your DVD collection.

Step 3: Importing your DVD collection

There are multiple ways to do this however I found that the most effective way to do this is to use MediaFork. MediaFork is designed for importing your DVDs into QuickTime files. You can find MediaFork here. Once you have MediaFork in your Applications folder (or wherever you put it), Open it up and insert your first DVD. Choose to access your DVD and not a folder. Wait until MediaFork scans your DVD for the titles and tracks.

MediaFork automatically finds the longest title and selects it with all of the chapters included. The longest title is usually your feature length film. Under this section is the Destination section. Here you can tell MediaFork were to put your video. To make things easier, export it into a new folder in the root directory of your external hard drive. Simply exporting and encoding to your “Movies? folder doesn't work. Once you've named and chosen a location for your movie, go down to the Output Settings section. Make sure the File format is “MP4 file?. This goes a lot quicker however, it takes up more space. Codecs should be set to “MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio?. Now comes the part where you have to decide whether you are importing your video for your iPod, or importing your video for your Apple TV.

mediafork-screen-shot2.png

Importing Videos to your iPod

If you are importing your DVD to your iPod, make sure the Average bit rate is between 400 and 700. To find out if it is or not, click on the “Video? tab and go to the “Quality? section. The higher the bit rate, the better looking your video, but the longer it takes to encode. Also make sure that the Encoder is “FFmpeg?.

Click on the “Picture Settings? button. If you plan on using your iPod to show video on a television, check the “Keep aspect ration? box and change the width to 720. If you are just going to watch the video on the iPod's screen, check he “Keep aspect ratio? button and make the width 320. All that's left to do is click the big “Rip? button.

Importing Videos to your Apple TV

To import videos for the Apple TV, you do the same exact thing except this time you probably want to make the video at least 720 by 400. A smaller video will end up even more pixelated and unwatchable. Apple TV does support the 720p high-definition standard however there isn't any video available at the moment.

Once you've imported your videos, simply drag them onto the “Movies? section in the top left corner.

Tada! Now you can sync your iPod/Apple TV and get rid of the previous library freeing tons of space on your internal hard drive.

Mar 15

Xtorrent LogoDave Watanabe has just announced the v40 update to his popular torrent client Xtorrent, including hints at a bundle of features to be released down the road. As of this version, Xtorrent Pro includes support for per-torrent bandwidth limits and the Azureus/utorrent compatible peer exchange – which should apparently help increase some transfer speeds.

Watanabe has also announced a bounty of features to be released in future versions: selective file downloading, encryption, and torrentcast auto-downloading (I’d like to point out Xtorrent can already subscribe to RSS feeds, just not auto-download yet). These featured were announced on the basis of absolutely on track for future releases, so we’ll just have to wait.

Xtorrent

You can grab the new release from the main Xtorrent site.

Mar 15

transmissionAlthough we reported today on the new XTorrent release, I just noticed their main competition Transmission quietly launched a new site design along with a fresh 0.7 release. It has been nearly a year since the latest update and the app also gets a shiny new speed inducing icon for your dock. Nice eh?

You can check out the official release note but the features that stand out for me are: Automatic port mapping (NAT-PMP and UPnP IGD), Peer exchange (PEX) compatible with Azureus and uTorrent, Multitracker support, Automatic tracker scraping, Cache connected peers, Individual torrent bandwidth limits, and a Filter and Search bar. Still no encryption for guys like me who’s ISP throttles P2P packets? Coming soon I hope.

If you’re not familiar with Transmission, from their website: ‘Transmission has been designed to be a versatile and multi-platform BitTorrent client, focusing on being lightweight, yet feature-filled.‘ It does a really good job of this, and it’s free to boot.

Grab Transmission 0.7 and give it a test drive today.

Mar 15

Buried today in the iOS 4.3 release is an unmentioned, but very interesting update for the Apple TV: access to both MLB.tv and NBA League Pass. Yes, the live sports are coming to the Apple TV!

That’s great news for Apple TV owners, but such functionality has actually been available for some time on the rival boxes by Roku. Still, the ramifications of this are potentially huge because the lack of sports content has been the one point used over and over again in arguments against these new wave of Internet-powered set-top boxes killing cable. Between this, Roku, and Xbox Live getting ESPN content, we’re definitely getting closer to a full-on cable revolt.

The one element still missing from these boxes is the crown jewel: NFL content. The moment NFL Sunday Ticket launches on one of these boxes — and eventually, it will — you’ll hear screams of pure terror emanating from the headquarters of each of the cable companies. I can’t wait.

But with regard to today’s Apple TV update specifically, there’s something else interesting going on. While Apple still isn’t quick to talk about it, Apple TV does run a variation of iOS. And that has led everyone to wonder when there will be apps on the Apple TV?

The truth is that there already are apps! That’s exactly what MLB.tv and NBA League Pass are. And it’s what Netflix on the device was before that. And YouTube before that. They may not look like iPhone or ipad apps, but they’re apps. The main difference is that they’re made by Apple (with the help of the companies involved).

What peopler really want, of course, is the ability to run third-party apps on the device. And today’s new apps have some worrying that Apple plans to keep the Apple TV platform completely closed — as in, only they can make apps, even with third-party content.

My hunch is that this isn’t the case. I have no knowledge about this either way, but just think about it: the Apple TV running third-party apps has the potential to be absolutely huge. The next big thing after the iPhone and iPad. Why would Apple not embrace that?

Also, Google is gearing up to launch their apps marketplace for Google TV. So far, that device hasn’t been a threat to devices like the Apple TV. But then again, Apple TV hasn’t yet been a true threat to cable. There’s a much bigger picture for all of this. And while sports is one key, apps are the real game-changer. Again, why would Apple not embrace that?

They will. For more proof, see what they’ve doing with the iPad. Alongside the iPad 2, Apple announced two important things: the opening of AirPlay to third-party apps and an HDMI accessory to hook up the iPad to your HDTV. With the former, apps can now stream any and all video content to your Apple TV to play on your television. With the latter, you can run any app on your TV.

Naturally, these apps run through the iPad won’t be optimized for the television, but the fact that not only is Apple allowing you to do it, but providing tools and accessories for it, shows they’re not against apps and apps’ content on the TV. The full-on push is likely just a matter of building out a robust SDK for the Apple TV, similar to what they did for the iPhone and iPad.

There are other challenges in this space since it’s not just a matter of scaling up existing apps 2x, because televisions come in all shapes and sizes. But they’ll figure it out.

And when they do, cable is in big, big trouble.

Mar 15

A few weeks ago, Readability got word that their iPhone app was rejected by Apple. While obviously, that’s never good news, this was especially hard to take because the reason for the rejection was that they were offering a subscription service without offering Apple’s new in-app subscription layer. They were dumbfounded and pissed off by this rejection because they didn’t see it coming and it didn’t seem to make sense. But rather than dwell on it, they went right back to the drawing board.

The result of that and two weeks of fast-paced work is a full-on HTML5 version of their app, which Readability is releasing today. The web app is specifically designed for both mobile and tablets, using some of the more advanced aspects of HTML5, including offline storage support.

And as you can see in the image above, thanks to HTML5, it will work on a lot more than just Apple devices. Because Apple rejected them, Android is getting some love too. “It’s an update and a statement of sorts,” co-founder Richard Ziade says.

But Readability also hasn’t fully given up on Apple just yet. As we noted a couple weeks ago, they re-submitted their app to try again after hearing talk from no less than Steve Jobs saying the in-app subscription rules were just meant for publishers, and not SaaS apps (which Readability considers itself to be).

They have yet to hear back from Apple on the issue. But perhaps it’s a good sign that they weren’t rejected right away once again.

For now though, it’s HTML5-only for Readability — which, by the way, is exactly what Apple has been suggesting rejected app makers create to work on the iPhone.