eFun Nextbook Next4 and Next6 hands-on

Believe it or not, the tablet world hasn't all turned into a Honeycomb / Tegra 2 monopoly. Some manufacturers, like industry newbie eFun here, are sticking with ye olde Froyo and looking to conquer a slice of the thrifty consumer market. The Nextbook Next4 is a 10-inch panel aping the iPad in offering a 1024 x 768 resolution and what will be a brushed aluminum back (ours was made out of plastic, but it was just a display prototype). Unfortunately, that's pretty much where the similarities end, as this device's software really wasn't up to scratch. It's almost stock Android 2.2, by the looks of it, but eFun opted to take the familiar Android soft keys into software, leaving the only capacitive touch for the panel. The biggest problem for us, aside from some instabilities and a random reboot, was lag when navigating through menus and an atypically long load time to get Angry Birds running. Performance might be an issue, in spite of the 1GHz Cortex A8 processor inside, but price likely won't be. The Next4 is launching in the first quarter of the year with a price somewhere around $350.

Its 7-inch sibling, the Nextbook Next6, is also joining it in Q1 and also eschews Android keys for a software implementation. Its designed primarily for reading ebooks and has a pair of physical keys on the side for flipping pages, which worked well. It had similar issues, however, to its bigger brother, but maybe its target audience will be more forgiving of its lack of immediate responsiveness than we are. It'll be a Home Shopping Network exclusive for a week when it launches, with an MSRP of $300 that will likely be discounted to $250. Hit up the gallery for the hands-on action!


eFun Nextbook Next4 and Next6 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/efun-nextbook-next4-and-next6-hands-on/

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Opera browser for Android tablets breaks cover in a brief video

In case you've managed to steer clear of all CES 2011 news so far, it's shaping up to be a veritable flood of tablet demos. New hardware often means new software, of course, and Opera has offered an early sneak peek at a new tablet-specific version of their Android browser.

You won't see a heck of a lot in the 30 second clip -- apart from some flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, which does look very smooth. The interface appears only slightly different from the Android smartphone version, with the main toolbar being moved to the top of the window. As you'd expect, Opera's trademark speed dial appears when the browser opens.

We're hoping to get some hands-on time at CES with the new browser, but in the meantime you can check out the official video after the break.

Continue reading Opera browser for Android tablets breaks cover in a brief video

Opera browser for Android tablets breaks cover in a brief video originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/03/opera-browser-for-android-tablets-breaks-cover-in-a-brief-video/

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Hours After Launch, Lackluster Apps Inspire A ?Worst Of? The Mac App Store

If you're as chained to Apple products as we are, you probably spent a couple hours this morning exploring the nascent Mac App Store or as I like to call it, the Productivity Toilet. And you are not alone, hours after launch some industrious (and foul mouthed) UI enthusiast has created "Read the fucking HIG," a Tumblr compilation of terribly designed Mac Apps. While we found it on Twitter of course, we hear this has been making the rounds at Apple all afternoon, "I can't stop laughing. Every post is quotable" one employee told us. True.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-hH8Ju9lgUo/

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Easeus Todo Backup for Windows gets much better in version 2.0

We told you recently about the update to Easeus Partition Master and the company has now delivered version 2.0 of its free Windows backup program, Easeus Todo Backup. The new version sports a totally new interface and offers several new features.

Two of the biggest additions in Todo Backup 2.0 are incremental backups and support for scheduling jobs. Backups can be scheduled to run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis -- or you can choose to run them when a specific event occurs, such as start-up, shutdown, log on or log off. The incremental backup option is particularly handy with large amounts of data, since it backs up only the individual bits which have changed since your previous backup.

There's also an improved backup manager for administering your jobs, and Todo Backup 2.0 now allows you to select individual files and folders. If you'd like an offsite copy of your data, there's also an option which uploads to an FTP server. Todo Backup also has a slick new recovery feature up its sleeve. Using the backup manager, you can easily convert your saved images to virtual hard disk formats -- both VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC are supported.


Easeus Todo Backup for Windows gets much better in version 2.0 originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/02/easeus-todo-backup-for-windows-gets-much-better-in-version-2-0/

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How to recognize an email scam or phishing attempt

Email scams, or phishing, aren't going to disappear any time soon. As much as we'd like to think that people we know aren't taken in by messages like the one in the screenshot above, chances are good that you know of someone who has taken the bait. It's easy enough to recognize a scammy email message if you know what to look for, so let's break it down. Take the jump and we'll dissect this message!

Continue reading How to recognize an email scam or phishing attempt

How to recognize an email scam or phishing attempt originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/31/how-to-recognize-an-email-scam-or-phishing-attempt/

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Adam Lambert's 'Whole Lotta Love': The Story Behind The Cover

Glam rocker tackled the legendary 1970 Led Zeppelin song for 'American Idol' rock night.
By Gil Kaufman


Adam Lambert performs "Whole Lotta Love" on "American Idol" on Tuesday
Photo: R. Mickshaw/Getty Images/ Fox

Imagine a freight train speeding toward you at midnight. Or a rockslide barreling down a hill as you try to outrace it. That's the feeling of the ominous, chugging Jimmy Page riff that kicks off Led Zeppelin's 1970 Stonehenge of rock, "Whole Lotta Love." And that's before singer Robert Plant leans into one of the nastiest, ecstatic rock screams this side of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again."

That's the song Adam Lambert chose to sing on "American Idol" rock night Tuesday (May 5), and, needless to say, it was a challenge that the eyeliner-loving Los Angeles stage veteran was more than up for, hitting a series of high notes and rock screams that would have made Plant proud. It was a risky maneuver that paid off for Lambert, who chose a tune that came in at #75 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

The legendary British rock act recorded the tribute to Chicago blues icon Willie Dixon during their second U.S. tour after working it out in their live show, including it on their 1969 classic album Led Zeppelin II. Like many of the songs Zeppelin performed early in their career, "Love" was a blues standard turned on its head with a heavy dose of crunching psychedelic guitar and thundering drums, courtesy of late drummer John Bonham. The song was based on a 1962 tune by another blues forefather, Muddy Waters, called "You Need Love," which was penned by Dixon.

For Zeppelin's version, Plant customized the lyrics by adding some lyrical quotes from a few other songs Dixon wrote for Howlin' Wolf, "Back Door Man" and "Shake For Me," nailing the tricky vocal in a single take. It was also inspired by 1966's "You Need Loving" from the British rock group the Small Faces, for whom Zeppelin had great affection, but they also did not credit Dixon for his part in writing the original lyrics. The song became Zeppelin's first U.S. single and their only U.S. top 10 hit. Though their manager would not let them release singles in the U.K. because he thought it cannibalized album sales, the song was finally released as the band's only British single in 1997.

Dixon sued Zeppelin over the song in 1985, claiming it borrowed too heavily from his "You Need Love," and Zeppelin reached an agreement with him, with Dixon using the money he received to set up a program that provided musical instruments for schools. A cornerstone of heavy rock, the tune -- which was the theme song for the long-running British countdown show "Top of the Pops" in the 1970s and '80s -- has been covered by dozens of artists over the years, from Tina Turner and Ben Harper to Prince, Slash, Leona Lewis, Train's Pat Monahan, the London Symphony Orchestra and Jane's Addiction.

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

Related Videos Related Photos Related Artists

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1610709/adam-lamberts-whole-lotta-love-story-behind-cover.jhtml

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Chumby 8 announced: like a Chumby, but more normal (hands-on with video!)

The original plush Chumby will always hold a special place in our hearts, but let's be real: the average human doesn't know what to do with a plush, huggable touchscreen that runs Flash Lite. The new Chumby 8 -- leaked not long ago -- is now official, featuring a revamped user interface that allows you to access music from the home screen, manage apps without using the web-based portal, and use internet radio stations as alarm sounds. Where does the "8" in the name come from, exactly? That'd be the 8-inch 800 x 600 resistive touchscreen, a heck of a lot bigger than the 3.5 inches on that Chumby One you've got kicking around.

The core of the Chumby 8, of course, remains the Flash Lite-based apps, and those remain unchanged and totally compatible so that you've got access to the existing lineup of 1,500-plus options. You've got a pair of USB ports, a stereo headset jack, and both CF and SD slots for powering your little desk-dwelling sidekick with media of your choosing. No word on pricing or availability, but it looks like Chumby will be offering these to third parties looking to customize and deploy or resell them -- so our dream of an Engadget-branded photo frame might yet become a reality. Follow the break for our video hands-on!

Continue reading Chumby 8 announced: like a Chumby, but more normal (hands-on with video!)

Chumby 8 announced: like a Chumby, but more normal (hands-on with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/_rokGgO3354/

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Best Wallpapers for Android helps you get some holiday cheer on your home screen

bestwallpapers
Swiss Codemonkeys are best known as the guys behind the awesome AppBrain website/Android application, which is the de-facto Market for Android (since Google doesn't maintain a Market you can access from the PC). So when I noticed Swiss Codemonkeys has an app called Best Wallpapers, I felt compelled to give it a shot.

It's a very straightforward app; you get a list of categories, including Recently Popular, All Time Popular, Nature, Babes (yes, it has babes, but they appear to be mostly clothed) and a whole bunch of other categories.

At this time of year, the Recently Popular category is chock full of Christmas goodness, which is where the "holiday cheer" comes in. If you're looking for great Christmas wallpapers for your Android device, you've just hit the jackpot.

Once you click into a wallpaper, you can either set it as you current wallpaper or just Favorite it. Favoriting a wallpaper downloads it onto your SD card, and you can then easily access your favorites and set a wallpaper instantly. This basically means you can trawl the gallery at your leisure, building your own catalog of wallpapers which you can then quickly flick between when you get tired of one.

Bottom line: Simple and well-made. And I like my new wallpaper with the cute puppet (top-left in the screenshot).

Best Wallpapers for Android helps you get some holiday cheer on your home screen originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/17/best-wallpapers-for-android-helps-you-get-some-holiday-cheer-on-homescreen/

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Mozilla slips up and posts old user database online, but you should be OK

Mozilla logoOn December 17, a partial database of addons.mozilla.org (AMO) user accounts was found on a public Mozilla server. Mozilla was quickly notified by a security researcher via the Bug Bounty program, and the database was quickly removed. Don't panic, though: you should be OK.

The file only contained inactive user accounts that were encrypted using older, no-longer-secure MD5 password hashes. All current AMO accounts are encrypted much more securely, and those accounts remain uncompromised. Mozilla is also fairly certain that they can account for every download of the database file, so there is likely little or no risk to the users involved -- but just in case, if you use your AMO password on other sites, you may want to change it. Incidentally, if you were one of the 44,000 people on the list, Mozilla should have sent you an email detailing the breach.

As always, it's vital that you use different passwords for every service you use; that way, if one database is breached, you are still relatively safe. KeePass is excellent, as is LastPass.

There's a little more information on the Sophos Naked Security blog, but really, there isn't much else to it. We're now left to wonder how a database of names and passwords was left on a public server...

Mozilla slips up and posts old user database online, but you should be OK originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/28/mozilla-slips-up-and-posts-old-user-database-online-but-you-sho/

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The Engadget Podcast Show 002: CES 2011 Part 2 - 01.06.2011

I gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night. And when I say "tonight" I mean this, the second edition of the Engadget Podcast Show. And when I saw "night" I mean podcast show. There was so much news yesterday that we almost decided to just roll over and call it quits but lucky for you we ate a bunch of Emergen-C and powered through the news of day in a way only we can do. It's a juicy one -- promise!


Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: I Gotta Feeling

00:04:41 - Live from Sony's CES 2011 press event
00:09:05 - Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc announced, we go hands-on (update: video!)
00:11:24 - Kaz Hirai non-confirms the PlayStation Phone and tablet
00:12:55 - Sony adds three new Bloggie models, including the 1080p Bloggie 3D (update: hands-on video!)
00:14:15 - BlackBerry PlayBook preview
00:22:33 - BlackBerry 4G PlayBook coming to Sprint network this summer, obviously 4G compatible
00:24:30 - AT&T: both HSPA+ and LTE are '4G,' 20 such devices planned for this year
00:26:12 - HTC Inspire 4G goes official on AT&T
00:27:55 - Samsung Infuse 4G for AT&T eyes-on (Update: video)
00:29:10 - Live from Motorola's CES 2011 press event!
00:29:49 - Motorola Droid Bionic hands-on
00:29:55 - Motorola launches CLIQ 2 on T-Mobile
00:32:00 - Motorola's dual-core Atrix 4G announced for AT&T
00:32:50 - Motorola Atrix 4G's Laptop Dock and Webtop app turn your phone into a smartbook
00:35:55 - Motorola accessorizes Xoom tablet with docks, cases and keyboards
00:41:15 - Google shows off Android 3.0, the 'Entirely for Tablet' Honeycomb (video)
00:43:00 - Motorola Xoom first hands-on! (update: video!)
00:45:30 - T-Mobile G-Slate announced: 4G, Android 3.0, made by LG
00:51:35 - Live from Microsoft's CES 2011 keynote
00:52:00 - 8 million Kinect sensors sold in first 60 days
00:53:00 - Netflix and Hulu Plus with Kinect coming this spring to Xbox 360
01:03:13 - Microsoft confirms ARM support is coming in Windows, will play nice with SoCs too
01:19:09 - Notion Ink Adam hands-on preview (video)

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The Engadget Podcast Show 002: CES 2011 Part 2 - 01.06.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/NoQTrHUWJm4/

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