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    Mountain Lion now available on the Mac App Store

    The newest Mac OS X, Mountain Lion (10.8), is now available on the Mac App Store. The new OS X includes over 200 new features, such as iCloud integration, the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring and Game Center.

    “People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.”

    Some of the changes that Mountain Lion has made include complete iCloud integration, so you can sync your files across several devices; Messages, which allows you to send messages seamlessly to other iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch users; an updated Notifications Center, which streamlines the presentation of notifications and provides easy access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps, and system-wide sharing, to make it easy to share links, photos, videos and other files quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo.

    The Mountain Lion OS X is available for US$19.99, or approximately Php 850, and can be downloaded here.

    Swedish listing for Surface tablet suggest $1,000 starting price

    Thinking of buying Microsoft’s Surface tablet? Well, prepare to shell out big bucks. A Swedish website has posted prices of all four variants of the tablet and it’s not looking good price-wise. When converted into dollars, the cheapest surface tablet comes out at around $1001 (Php 42 161) which is far beyond the starting price of their main rival, the new iPad. Microsoft has said during the official unveil of the Surface that they would price the RT version of the tablet competitively against other ARM tablets floating in the market today. Hopefully Microsoft clears the air with their official word or else the Surface tablet is dead before it even begins to gain traction.

    Source: WPCentral

    Razer outs Ouroboros, fully customizable ambidextrous gaming mouse

    Tired of gaming mice that just doesn’t get you? Fear not – Razer has just released their fully customizable gaming mouse, the Ouroboros. The Ouroboros joins the ranks of mice like the Rat7 by allowing users to completely customize their mouse to their hand size. The Ouroboros has two interchangeable side panels for altering the footprint of the mouse to suit claw, palm or hybrid grip styles, and it has an adjustable back tilt angle to ensure palm support for gaming comfort and endurance. The adjustable palm rest is capable of moving up to 0.9 in. (20 mm), which makes the Ouroboros capable of accommodating any size hand. The Ouroboros is powered by Razer’s enhanced sensor technology and is capable of up to 8200 dpi, and has a dedicated, built-in dpi clutch trigger button. This particular gaming mouse should be hitting stores in Q4, and will be priced at $129.99 (Php 5430). No word on Philippine pricing or availability yet.

    [album: https://gadgetsmagazine.com.ph/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/[email protected]/Razer_Ouroboros/]

    Epic Meal Time: The Game

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    Fans of the YouTube series Epic Meal Time will now be pleased to know that there is now a game for it in the Apple Store. For only $1.99 (around Php 85), you can devour unhealthy food. However, you have to avoid healthy foods, such as carrots, which mimics the game’s theme of making food with extremely unhealthy but tasty ingredients such as bacon. The premise of the game is simple: just get a high score, or in this case, consume as many grams of fat and calories as possible. Although it’s not really something incredibly groundbreaking, it’s still a worthy enough distraction when you have some time to kill.

    Discover how musical acts are interrelated with TuneGlue

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    Remember our recent post about the Internet Map, an online map that shows you the interconnectivity of sites on the web? Well, this time we’ll be sharing something similar to the Internet Map, only that it shows the relationship of musicians, not websites.

    TuneGlue has been on the web for a while now, but only few have knowledge of this nifty site. The developers from Onyro.com started working on it in 2006 and since then, the site has quietly made its way up the web with little popularity. Basically, TuneGlue is an interactive map that lets you explore the relationships between musical acts. By entering the name of a solo act or a band, you will be able to see singers and bands that sound like the one you keyed in, or groups that are comprised of the members of the band you entered. It’s a really handy site if you’re looking for new music to listen to, and you have a certain sound in mind based on another artist.

    You can also view news updates and album releases of a certain artist. TuneGlue gets all it data from Last.fm and Amazon.

    To view all the related artists, all you have to do is click on the dot on the map next to the artist’s name, and click Expand. This will reveal a web of acts related to the artist you keyed in. What’s awesome about it is you can expand these related acts as well. This will give you a cool visualization of how several artists are interrelated. Just look at how far I got when I keyed in The Gaslight Anthem!

     

    Asus quietly launches Eee Pad MeMo 171 in the Philippines, Php 19,995 without Bluetooth accessory

    Don’t have enough scratch for Asus’ recently unveiled tablet devices? Fret not – the company also revealed today that they’re releasing their 7-inch, 3G enabled Eee Pad MeMo 171 in the Philippines. The device will be sold for only Php 19,995, which means it’s currently the cheapest Android tablet in Asus’ inventory today. Prospective buyers will need to hit up PC Express for the small tablet, as it will only be sold by them. Interested in what this little device can do? Well, you can hit up our hands-on of it here, as well as the official announcement here.

    Asus Transformer Pad TF300 and Transformer Infinity TF700 launched, priced

    It’s finally official – Asus Philippines has officially launched the Transformer Pad TF300 and the Transformer Pad Infinity TF700. And about time too, yeah? The first full-HD display Android tablet will land in the Philippines and will carry a SRP of Php 37,995 for the 64GB version. Most of you would probably saying that’s a heck of a lot of change for an Android tablet, you need to remember that this particular slate is bringing NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor to the fore (with the one in the Infinity clocked at 1.6GHz), a full HD 1920×1280 display with 600 nits brightness protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The Transformer Pad Infinity is powered by Android 4.0 (ICS). The Transformer Pad Infinity will not be sold without a dock.

     The Transformer Pad TF300 is the cheaper version of the Transformer Prime. The specifications are extremely similar – and to be honest, the real, actual change from the Transformer Prime is the cheaper, plastic body. Internally, you’re still looking at an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 10.1-inch WXGA(1280 X 800) display, as well as 16GB worth of storage. The Transformer Pad TF300 will be sold for Php 24,995 with the keyboard dock. The Transformer Pad Infinity is powered by Android 4.1 (ICS). Like the Transformer Pad Infinity, the Transformer Pad TF300 will not be sold without a keyboard dock.

     

     

    Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064) benchmarked, absolutely steamrolls NVIDIA’s Tegra 3

    Engadget has managed to get their hands on Qualcomm’s upcoming S4 Pro quad-core processor today, and as expected, the technology outfit has run it through the requisite amount of benchmarks to see what it’s capable of. If it wasn’t obvious on their picture above, let us put it in terms that most people can understand: Qualcomm’s newest quad-core processor absolutely steamrolls the current market leader in mobile quad-core processors, NVIDIA’s Tegra 3. Seriously, it’s like watching an adult beat the crap out of a kid – in Quadrant, the S4 Pro MDP (APQ8064) posted a score of 7,698, while the Tegra 3 powered Nexus 7 only posted 3,501. Samsung’s Exynos 4412 equipped Galaxy S III fared a bit better, posting a score of 4,454, while the Tegra 3 powered HTC One X posted a score of 4,906. We’re not sure how much battery life this particular processor will consume when it makes its way to devices later this year, but we’re hoping it’s not going to be much. Check out Engadget’s full report below to get their full benchmarks.

    Source: Engadget

    Map of the internet shows you how big and interconnected websites are

    We stumbled onto something cool today. What you’re seeing on the picture above is a snapshot of how huge the internet currently is, and how each website in existence is dependent on each other. From what we can tell, this particular map was created by Positive Communications, a Russian tech firm. The firm has provided documentation on what data they used to construct this map, unfortunately it’s all in Russian, but Reddit user weasel707 has provided a neat translation of the text:

    “The Internet Map is a snapshot of the global network in its state at the end of 2011. It captures more than 350,000 sites from 196 countries. Information regarding over 2 million connections between sites unites them into thematic clusters. As expected, the largest clusters are formed from national sites, i.e. sites belonging to one particular country. For convenience, sites corresponding to a given country are shown in the same colour. For example, the red area is Russia, Yellow is Chinese, Violet is Japan, the large light-blue central area is American, and so on.

    It’s important to note that clusters have a semantic relationship, i.e. they are united or grouped by their content. For example, one can see an extensive cluster of porno-sites between Japan and Brazil, as well as many small clusters uniting sites of one industry or field.”

    For those itching to try it out, the bar on the upper left is a search bar where you can look for a specific site. As expected, Google, Facebook and YouTube are all massive sites and dominate the map. And for those who are wondering, yes, Reddit is far bigger than 9Gag.

    Source: internet-map.net via Reddit

    Apple posts Q3 results – $35 billion revenue, soft demand for iPhones, iPads still selling like hotcakes

    Apple’s 3rd quarter results are out, and while the company has unsurprisingly posted a strong, $35 billion revenue, some analysts are saying that this Q3 is a rare misstep for the hardware giant. Street expectations for Apple’s Q3 revenue was around $37.1 billion, which was not the case this time around. As a result, Apple’s stock came down 5% in after hours trading, and is currently at $567.80 a share. The missed earnings target was attributed to soft demand for the company’s iPhone, as users are now bracing for the announcement of the newest iteration of the device, rumored to come out later this year. Apple’s iPad sales are still going strong though, and Tim Cook has announced that the company has sold 17 million iPads this quarter – an 84 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

    “We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.”

    Source: Apple

    Do-it-yourself hybrid kit developed

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    The move to hybrid cars was pioneered by the Toyota Prius in the past decade, and although it has sold well, the price point is still a bit out of reach for those who would like an environmentally friendly car. But some engineering students at Middle Tennessee University have fitted a 20-year-old Honda Accord wagon with a retrofit plug-in hybrid system that powers the front wheels using the conventional petrol engine, and a pair of electric hub motors hidden inside the rear wheels,  thus, in essence, making a hybrid car.

    Users are then able to plug the hybrid car into an ordinary power point to charge up a set of lithium-ion batteries mounted in the wagon’s load space. The batteries in turn feed electricity into the hub motors to provide low-speed power that is able to help the conventional petrol engine accelerate – the most fuel-hungry part of driving.

    According to researchers, the in-wheel electric motors provide about 270Nm of torque – the equivalent pulling power of a 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine – and help to slash the car’s fuel bill in half.

    Although the kit costs $3,000, about twice the amount to convert a regular car to run on LPG, the costs could go down thanks to improvements in battery technology, especially now that aerographite is being developed for use in car batteries.

    KISS lets fans go on online scavenger hunt to reveal Monster album art

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    Calling all KISS fans! These face-painted rock legends are letting their fans go on a digital scavenger hunt to unveil the cover of their upcoming album, Monster.

    “We wanted to offer fans a fun way to search and engage with the album art,” says the band’s frontman, Gene Simmons. He adds, “We’re excited that so many great partners jumped at the chance to work with us on this. The Hunt for Monster is on!”

    From today to July 30, a fragment of the album cover will be revealed in each of the promo’s partner sites. You can check the promo calendar to see which sites the pieces of the image will be posted. Just head over to the site of the day, click on the piece of the album art, and it’ll automatically be added to the promo’s Facebook app.

    The hunt kicked off with Mashable posting the first piece, as seen in the photo below.

    Monster will be out in October this year, but you can pre-order a copy right now on Amazon, and via iTunes starting July 31.

    Little Boxes turns your iPad into a hand crank music box

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    Say hello to the “Little Boxes” project—a set of three wooden devices you can hook up to your iPad to make it play music, just like an old-fashioned music box.

    Each of the three devices, varying in size, produces a different tune. Just place the wooden device on your iPad’s screen and crank the lever to produce soothing music. Winding up the lever not only produces music, but also interactive visual effects on the iPad’s screen.

    Designed by Joelle Aeschlimann, these innovative iPad devices are made with those rubber tips they use on tablet stylus pens. According to an article on Mashable, the Adobe Air iOS software “recognizes the rotating mechanical movements and is able to generate music and visual content on the screen”.

    Here’s a video of this awesome project in action:

    Sources: Mashable and TheVerge

    New dock connector coming with the new iPhone 5, Apple will sell a dock adapter

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    There’s a saying that the only constant thing in life is change. That’s true in life and gadgets, we suppose, as rumors are now circulating around the web that Apple’s new iPhone 5 will introduce a brand new dock connector when the new model launches this year. The old, 30 pin dock connector will be replaced using a much smaller one, though sources close to the matter says that Apple will be selling a dock adapter to allow the new iPhone to connect with legacy accessories. The change in dock connector is major news because that means hundreds of thousands of aftermarket products, which range from simple speakers to car audio docks use Apple’s standard 30 pin dock connector. The question is still out if the dock adapter will allow some products to be used, as some aftermarket products currently out in the market simply do not have enough room in them for an iPod/iPhone/iPad AND a dock adapter. This also means that some users might suddenly find that some of their products may not work if they upgrade to the newest iPhone.

    Source: iMore

    “Holy grail” of batteries discovered by German scientists

    German scientists recently discovered a new lighter than air material, aerographite, which is a mesh of opaque black carbon tubes that’s flexible, waterproof, conducts electricity and springs back to its original shape after being squashed.

    “You can hold it,” Dr. Rainer Adelung told the Star. “Although it has almost no gravity.”

    “Our first experiments with lithium ion batteries show we have been able to send quite high currents through the material,” he added.

    Certain types of batteries, such as car batteries, are known for being extremely heavy, and its application towards car batteries could in turn reduce fuel consumption and ultimately improve energy efficiency because the engine would not have to work as hard to keep the car moving.

    Some other applicable uses proposed by Adelung’s team included wearable computing, filtration and insulation, although these have not been fully explored yet. In theory, this can also be used for anything that requires a battery, which could not only drop the weight of these items, but, in the case of the car battery, also save the environment.

    Adelung was so confident in his discovery that he said, “This is holy grail that everyone is looking for: a microbattery. This looks very promising.”