Meetup Feels The Wrath Of The Crowd After Radical Changes

Meetup, a long time go-to place to create local online groups, has undergone a major re-launch in the past day. However, it may have missed a trick: not consulting the meetup organizers who pay through the nose for the service. There now appears to be something of a revolt going on amongst some organisers, who are vociferously protesting about the changes. The reaction of annoyed organisers and members has turned into two, count-em, Twitter hashtags: #newmeetup and #meetuporganizersunite. Alternatives to Meetup like BigTent are being touted, as is GroupSpaces ? a startup which last year raised $1.3 million from the likes of Index Ventures and Angels like Dave McClure and Chris Sacca. It is is already gunning for ?FormerMeetupOrganizers? with its own group and a blog post on the subject.

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Geolocation app appeals to your inner good samaritan, makes you an amateur EMT

When you go into cardiac arrest, you've got about ten minutes to live if you don't receive medical attention, and the average emergency response time is seven minutes after you dial 911. In an effort to get folks help more quickly and leverage the iPhone's life saving abilities, the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District in California has created the FireDepartment app to enlist the help of the citizenry in fighting the (unfortunate) results of a lifetime of eating tacos. The iPhone app -- Android and BlackBerry versions are currently in the works -- allows emergency dispatchers to notify users via text of a nearby crisis. For those feeling heroic, the app displays a map with the victim's location and any nearby automatic electronic defibrillators, and provides "resuscitation reminders" in case you're the CPR teddy-toting type. For now, the service only works in San Ramon but there are plans to port it for use elsewhere. That means we can look forward to a nation of amateur EMTs, which makes us thankful that mouth-to-mouth is no longer a part of CPR. Check the video after the break to see the app in action.

Continue reading Geolocation app appeals to your inner good samaritan, makes you an amateur EMT

Geolocation app appeals to your inner good samaritan, makes you an amateur EMT originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/zXfmVeN6Mxc/

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Apple job posts point to built-in NFC capabilities for iPad / iPhone

Ladies and gentlemen of the, ahem, jury, we intend to show -- through rumors and circumstantial evidence -- that Apple might very well be building Nexus S-like NFC capabilities into next-generation iPhones and iPads. We present for your consideration exhibits A, B, and C: three Apple job posts, seeking two managers of global payment platforms and one test engineer for iPhone hardware. According to the original post, the right engineer possesses a background in both ICT (information and communication technology) and RFID (radio frequency identification), which forms the basis for NFC. Suspiciously, Apple removed the "ID" in "RFID" sometime in the past 24 hours. Still not convinced of Apple's NFC involvement? Consider this: Apple's manager of global payment platforms is tasked with contributing "to the analysis and development of new payment types and processes." Okay, so there's not a smoking gun in sight, but a little innocent conjecture never hurt anybody.

Apple job posts point to built-in NFC capabilities for iPad / iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/apple-job-posts-point-to-built-in-nfc-capabilities-for-ipad-ip/

Anna Kournikova INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES EMC APPLE COMPUTER April Scott

Kongregate Arcade returns to the Android Market with some minor changes

After being removed from the Android Market for breaking the rules, the Kongregate Arcade app is back! Yet again can you enjoy easy access to the best source of Flash games on the Web.

Kongregate Arcade was originally pulled because it itself acted as a marketplace for apps -- or at least, it appeared to. In actual fact, the app was just a portal to all of the Flash games on the Kongregate site. The original app hid the browser's address bar (why is this possible?), which made it look like everything was occurring in-app.

The changes to the app make it more obvious that the app simply links to Web pages with Flash games, rather than appearing to play games from within the app. The Arcade will now also use the browser's cache to store temporary Flash files, rather than "explicitly downloading and managing games on the SD card."

A QR code to install the app is after the break.

Continue reading Kongregate Arcade returns to the Android Market with some minor changes

Kongregate Arcade returns to the Android Market with some minor changes originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/26/kongregate-arcade-returns-to-the-android-market-with-some-minor-changes/

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SMS to Swype for Android adds your common words to Swype's dictionary

Earlier, Erez covered Swype's excellent word-learning abilities. Not only is its built-in dictionary comprehensive, but it also learns names from your address book. There's still one stumbling block to switching to Swype, though: all of your custom words and phrases that you've already added to the dictionary. Depending on where you live, and your circle of friends, you probably use very different 'txtspk', and adding them manually to Swype is a pain in the ass.

SMS to Swype, however, is a tiny app that simply adds every unique word in your SMSes to your Swype dictionary. It takes just two or three clicks and, if you have a wealth of SMSes on your phone, you won't ever have to run it again. It's free, and available from the Android Market, AppBrain, or use the QR code after the break.

Continue reading SMS to Swype for Android adds your common words to Swype's dictionary

SMS to Swype for Android adds your common words to Swype's dictionary originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/24/sms-to-swype-android-dictionary/

ASUSTEK COMPUTER Ana Beatriz Barros Chandra West Amber Valletta Bar Refaeli

Choqok, the Twitter and Identi.ca client for Linux, adds loads of new features in v1.0

Choqok -- a fantastic, full-featured Twitter and StatusNet client for Linux -- has finally reached version 1.0. The new release adds support for a number of new sharing services, including Flickr, Posterous, YFrog, and Twitpic as well as a number of new URL shortening services. Choqok 1.0 also shows inline thumbnail previews of images and videos.

Want more? Choqok is also fully extensible thanks to its plug-in system, and a handful of very useful ones are included from the get-go. Tops among them: update filtering. So long, check-ins, now playings, and annoying prepubescent male vocalists! While we're on the subject, Choqok itself can tap into several Linux music players in case you want to share your tunes with the world. It'll also push your updates to supported IM clients as well, for automated status changes.

Choqok, the Twitter and Identi.ca client for Linux, adds loads of new features in v1.0 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/28/choqok-the-twitter-and-identi-ca-client-for-linux-adds-loads-o/

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Firefox 4 beta 9 now available to download

Firefox logoMozilla has just released the latest version of Firefox 4 Beta. As we're now into the closing stretch, there aren't any new or exciting features with this release -- just tweaks and bug fixes. The bookmarks and history code has been overhauled, which will improve browser startup and bookmarking speed (was bookmarking ever slow?). Per-compartment garbage collection has also been enabled, which improves the efficiency of complex animations.

As we reported earlier this week, Firefox 4 is hopefully on target for an end-of-February release. There's still one more beta to pump out, though, and then a release candidate or two. A little bird tells me that the final build of Internet Explorer 9 might also appear around the same time, too...

For more details, check the full Firefox 4 beta 9 release notes.

Firefox 4 beta 9 now available to download originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/14/firefox-4-beta-9-now-available-to-download/

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Gravity Guy is a fun one-button platformer -- Time Waster

gravityguy
Every once in a while, I like to write about a game that doesn't have a complicated set of controls. To be honest, most time wasters don't tend to be very complicated, perhaps except for those that require using both the mouse and the keyboard at the same time. But there's a category of time wasters that manage to hit the simplest UI possible, and still remain playable: The "one-button" games.

Gravity Guy is one such game; all you need is the SPACE key or the left mouse button. When the level starts, your little guy starts running across the screen, left to right. The level scrolls along, and pretty soon your guy is going to hit a step. In a normal platformer, you would just jump. But here there's no jumping - hitting space reverses gravity itself, and you find your guy suddenly running across the ceiling, full-speed ahead.

Now, just because it's a single-button game doesn't mean you don't have to stay alert: Hitting a step isn't the worst thing that can happen; just as often, the platform you're running on simply ends, and you fall into the abyss of space.

It's an intense game, but those who don't mind restarting a level over and over again will find it lots of fun.

Gravity Guy is a fun one-button platformer -- Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/10/gravity-guy-is-a-fun-one-button-platformer-time-waster/

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CorelDRAW video tutorial: Make a Polaroid-like image in five minutes

CorelDRAW
When most people hear the words "vector graphics", the first thing that comes to mind is Adobe Illustrator. While Illustrator is a wonderful application, it's certainly not the only game in town: I've been using CorelDRAW for several years now, and I just love it.

I'm not a graphics pro by any stretch of the imagination, but I do need to turn out a few pretty pixels here and there for my day job. If you're just thinking about getting into vector graphics, or if you've tried Illustrator and it proved too daunting, CorelDRAW might be just what you need.

Rather than just talk about CorelDRAW or write a tutorial, I figured it would be best to show it off in a short video. I took an image of my awesome cat, Ivan, and made it into a Polaroid-like snapshot. It took me less than five minutes, without any templates or saved settings. To see how I did it, hit Play after the fold.

By the way, this is the first of four CorelDRAW tutorials to be published in the next few weeks. If you'd like to see specific aspects of CorelDRAW in action, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Continue reading CorelDRAW video tutorial: Make a Polaroid-like image in five minutes

CorelDRAW video tutorial: Make a Polaroid-like image in five minutes originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/18/coreldraw-video-tutorial-make-a-polaroid-like-image-in-five-minutes/

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