Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive
When Amazon Appstore for Android launched last week, one of its primary features -- Test Drive -- was disabled just a few minutes after it opened. With no try-before-you-buy, no refund process, and 1-Click purchasing ready to strike at any moment, this caused some problems. Anyway, don't despair: Test Drive is now enabled.

Before you get your hopes up, Test Drive doesn't work with every app. The IMDb app works fine -- you can even watch movie trailers on it! -- but the Angry Birds games are sadly not enabled. Some games work surprisingly well, though, like Bubble Buster. There's very little latency, and the framerate is really rather good. The Test Drive experience is so true to life that you even get ads; how cool is that?

Continue reading Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/amazon-appstore-for-android-test-drive-hands-on-surprisingly-co/

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Tasty Planet is a fun flash game where you eat everything in sight

tastyplanet
So this professor comes up with a new toilet cleaner that works by "eating" the dirt; or so he thinks. That's how the plot starts for Tasty Planet. You play the role of the toilet cleaner, but you're not really a toilet cleaner after all -- you're a blob of gray goo that can eat anything that's smaller than yourself.

As you chomp away, you grow -- and as you grow, you can eat bigger and bigger stuff. The first level pits you against microscopic particles; by the time I stopped playing, I got all the way to eating cats and dogs. I know that sounds disturbing, but it's a really cute game, and there's no gore or anything like that.

Supposedly you keep growing and growing until you're able to eat whole planets (hence the name). The challenge factor comes when you realize you can't touch any critter larger than yourself - you'll get "bitten" and become smaller. In the beginning you're so small, that a single touch can kill you. Later on, you're big enough that touching larger animals doesn't kill you on the spot, but it does reduce your size. Each level is timed, so if you're not large enough by the time your clock runs out, you need to start again. As long as you don't touch the larger animals, you should be fine.

All in all, a fun, addictive little game. It's available for iOS, too.

Tasty Planet is a fun flash game where you eat everything in sight originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/08/tasty-planet-is-a-fun-flash-game-where-you-eat-everything-in-sight/

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Security firm RSA attacked using Excel-Flash one-two sucker punch

RSA attacked using Flash vulnerability
It has emerged that the underlying cause of RSA's SecurID gaffe was the recently-reported zero-day vulnerability found in Adobe's Flash Player.

The exploit, which used specially-crafted Flash embedding in Excel spreadsheets, was first reported on March 15 and has since been fixed. RSA was hacked sometime in the first half of March when an employee was successfully spear phished and opened an infected spreadsheet. As soon as the spreadsheet was opened, an advanced persistent threat (APT) -- a backdoor Trojan -- called Poison Ivy was installed. From there, the attackers basically had free reign of RSA's internal network, which led to the eventual dissemination of data pertaining to RSA's two-factor authenticators.

The attack is reminiscent of the APTs used in the China vs. Google attacks from last year -- and indeed, Uri Rivner, the head of new technologies at RSA is quick to point out that that other big companies are being attacked, too: "The number of enterprises hit by APTs grows by the month; and the range of APT targets includes just about every industry. Unofficial tallies number dozens of mega corporations attacked [...] These companies deploy any imaginable combination of state-of-the-art perimeter and end-point security controls, and use all imaginable combinations of security operations and security controls. Yet still the determined attackers find their way in."

What we'd like to know, though, is whether the attack on RSA was caused by Adobe's lackadaisical approach to patching Flash -- or was it the other way around? Was it the RSA attack that first brought the zero-day vulnerability to Adobe's attention?

Security firm RSA attacked using Excel-Flash one-two sucker punch originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 06:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/security-firm-rsa-attacked-using-excel-flash-one-two-sucker-punc/

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Fenix TK70 Flashlight Review

I have reviewed many fancy flashlights on The Gadgeteer, most of them relatively small, compact and for their size, pretty bright. Well, this time I am reviewing the Fenix TK70 courtesy of Fenix Outfitters. The TK70 is neither small nor lightweight but is supposed to be brighter than all my other flashlights combined….car light on [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/09/14/fenix-tk70-flashlight-review/

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Game Review: Angry Birds HD

Bored to death? Get up! Play the latest craze that hit the town while grabbing an Ipad, and be energized by playing the multi-nominated and award winning video game created and maintained by Rovio Mobile Ltd., which received its 250 million downloads last June 2011. And its statistics has steadily been on the rise since its first release in December 2009. In such a short span of time, its popularity has been phenomenal! Now, who wouldn?t be drawn to it, [...]

Source: http://tabletbuzzblog.com/game-review-angry-birds-hd/

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I Was Unprepared for How Terrifying These Cakes Are [Food]

Scott Hove is a scary scary man. His latest series, "Deadly Desserts", is all about cakes with fangs and tongues and... *shudder*. I feel like I'm staring into the maw of a great pink hellbeast. So delicious. So evil. [Hi Fructose via Neatorama] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/8lVFT_W8MhE/

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Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features

opera 11.10 battery power
Just recently, the Opera 11.10 release candidate was made available for download. It brought a handful of important feature additions -- like HTML5 File API support and IMAP enhancements -- and loads of bugfixes. Nestled in amongst the other details in the Opera team's announcement is one more interesting tidbit: Opera 11.10 offers improved battery optimizations.

The timing here is certainly interesting, what with Microsoft's recent report on how much power the top five Web browsers consume. In its findings, Opera 11 was fairly low in the standings. While we've not seen any new benchmarks yet, we're curious to know whether the Opera 11.10 RC offers any significant gains.

If you're running Opera 11.10 on a laptop, let us know if you're seeing an improvement in your battery life while browsing!

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/opera-11-10-includes-improved-power-saving-features/

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4G Samsung Galaxy S II X coming to Telus, still as Herculean as ever

It looks like the Samsung Hercules name won't live on in mobile infamy, after all. Canadian carrier Telus is now the second (and last) company to shed the Greek God title in favor of the more traditional Galaxy S II moniker -- albeit with its own unique twist, of course. The company's got an official page up for its forthcoming flagship, dubbed the "4G Samsung Galaxy S II X." Talk about a mouthful, right? The device mirrors T-Mobile's version rather closely, improving upon the original model with a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, HSPA+ download speeds of up to 42Mbps and -- here's where it gets interesting -- a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU. We're still unsure of the chipmaker responsible for supporting the AWS 4G radio, but our money's on the Qualcomm APQ8060. The ever-frustrating "coming soon" is attached to the page, which seems to be fairly common practice with new phones lately; regardless, we imagine enough people will be willing to forgive and forget once their future toy decides to show up.

4G Samsung Galaxy S II X coming to Telus, still as Herculean as ever originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/16/4g-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-x-coming-to-telus-still-as-herculean-as/

VIEWSONIC VERISIGN VERIFONE HOLDINGS VEECO INSTRUMENTS

Wireless Keyboard Sports Slick Face, Retractable Keys

At rest, the Levitatr looks like a shiny, expensive glass rectangle in an aluminum chassis. Press the activation key, and up springs a backlit full-size 77 key Bluetooth keyboard. Designer James Stumpf came up with the concept after becoming frustrated with typing on the virtual keyboard on his iPad. He imagined how great it would be [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/09/wireless-keyboard-retract/

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Hello Expense is a simple, reliable expense tracker for Android

helloexpense
A good mobile application is a fine balance between simplicity and functionality. You're using it on the go, so you don't have a lot of time to sit there and fumble with the phone to figure it all out. But you also need it to be powerful enough to let you do whatever it is you're trying to get done.

Hello Expense is one mobile app that gets it right. It's an expense tracker that lets you use your Android-powered phone to quickly log the money you spend and then analyze it and see where it all went.

I recently had the chance to use it in a real-life situation - a road trip that took a few days and involved quite a few expenses. Logging each expense took seconds, and at the end of each day I could get a great overview of how much money I spent on each category so far.

Categories and tags are user-configurable; the app also sports its own number pad to make number entry easy, regardless of what keyboard you're using.

Hello Expense is a simple, reliable expense tracker for Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/29/hello-expense-is-a-simple-reliable-expense-tracker-for-android/

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