Category: Software
Twinkle: Twitter for iPhone with Locate Me for geo-action
I can’t see the appeal of Twitter. I really don’t want people knowing exactly what I’m doing all the time, either out of shame or embarrassment that I’m spending yet more of my life just staring at a computer screen again.
But if you’re self-centred enough to think that everyone needs to know what you’re doing and thinking RIGHT NOW and ALL OF THE TIME because your life is JUST ONE BIG CRAZY PARTY OF FUN, perhaps Twinkle might be for you – it’s a very fancy new Twitter app…
Adobe joins the media player battle with… Adobe Media Player
Yesterday Adobe launched Adobe Media Player 1.0, the software company’s attempt to break into the hard fought media player market. It is free to download and compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux…
Microsoft develops MySong "instant backing band" software
Two techies at Microsoft’s research lab have developed software which can automatically generate a musical backing track to anything sung at it.
MySong allows “creative but musically untrained individuals [to] get a taste of song writing and music creation,” according to co-creator Dan Morris.
The software first generates a file containing the sequence of sung notes using pitch tracking, and then computes a suitable musical backing using “chord probability computation”…
Windows 7 arriving "sometime in the next year" says Gates, "The hell it is" says the rest of Microsoft
A slightly off-hand comment from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates managed to set the blogosphere alight with a wave of excited speculation over the weekend. Answering a question about Vista, Gates told the audience at the annual meeting in Miami of the Inter-American Development Bank on Friday:
“Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version [of Windows].”…
Microsoft to retire Windows XP at end of June
Microsoft has announced that from June 30, 2008 Windows XP will no longer be available in the shops. Thankfully, the Redmond giant is not withdrawing all its support for the aging operating system – mainstream technical support will continue until April next year and Microsoft won’t actually start saying X-what? until April 2014…
Yahoo announces upgrade to OneSearch 2.0 voice-recognition mobile search software
More news from CTIA over in Las Vegas, this time from the Yahoo camp, who certainly isn’t letting bully-boy Microsoft get in the way of their new innovations.
Unveiled yesterday was their voice-enabled search function for mobile phones, OneSearch 2.0, created in partnership with voice-recognition firm Vlingo. It’s been in existence since early 2007, with 29 mobile network carriers offering the service.
Simply by speaking…
The LiMo Foundation announces Platform Release 1, available at end of 2008
We haven’t heard much about the LiMo Foundation in recent weeks, it appears the Mobile World Congress sparked a few stories regarding Linux-based software platform, then all went quiet on the western front.
Until today, when news reached me claiming the Foundation has announced the LiMo Platform Release 1, which has been tested in handsets available commercially. It will be available later this…
Microsoft sniffs around iPhone SDK, finds double-edged sword
For the past week or so, Microsoft bods have been poking around in the recently launched iPhone Software Development Kit to see what they can find. They have two compelling reasons to do so: iPhone is an obvious competitor to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile technologies, and Microsoft also shares software interests with Apple – Mac Office being one example…
Mozilla CEO lashes out at Apple's sly Safari tactics
On Friday, word came in that Apple was slipping a little Safari install into its latest automatic Apple Software Update. Needless to say, the weekend witnessed an explosion of discussion, complaint, defence and lament – pretty much like when Apple does anything else. Ever.
But the most interesting of all the fiery backlashes comes from Mozilla CEO, John Lilly. On his personal blog, he broadly criticises Apple’s move…
Apple pushes Safari to Windows users
According to AppleInsider, Apple is somewhat stealthily trying to get a bigger share of the Windows web browser market by leveraging its huge iTunes user base and recommending that they install Safari.
Apple’s Software Update, installed on Windows machines with ITunes, has been used to deliver updates to both iTunes and Quicktime, but it now seems that Apple is happy to push other Windows-friendly products via the mechanism too…
