RIM has taken an axe to the prices it charges for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the UK - again.
You can now pick up the 16GB version of just £169. It was priced at £399 at launch, and yesterday would have set you back £249. That's roughly a third off in 24 hours.
The 32GB now costs £199, the 64GB tablet £249, down from £479 and £559, respectively.
A variety of retailers, including Carphone Warehouse and Dixons, have just applied the new prices.
RIM knocked £150 off the original prices in October 2011 in a bid to boost demand for the 7in tablets. Punters have not taken to the machine.
It didn't do much good, and just as October's cut followed a big price reduction in the States, so this latest round of reductions comes after RIM discounted again over there.
Did you survive your 24 hours without Wikipedia? Admittedly, for those trying to find information on the Web, it is certainly more challenging without the site, which went dark to protest the SOPA / PIPA bills in the House and Senate, respectively. The site is now back, but adds, "we're not done yet."
[If you now realize how much you rely on Wikipedia, you might consider donating to the site. Just a hint. It's a non-profit, after all.]
What exactly Wikipedia means by not being done yet is unclear. Hopefully it doesn't mean another SOPA / PIPA blackout.
According to Wikipedia, more than 162 million people saw the site's SOPA / PIPA blackout on Wednesday. Wikipedia noted that while Twitter didn't go dark, there were some interesting Twitter trends on Wednesday: #factswithoutwikipedia, #SOPAstrike, and #wikipediablackout.
More than 12,000 comments were made on a blog post announcing the blackout. A “breathtaking majority” supported the blackout, Wikipedia added.
Part of Wikipedia's protest involved a tool that allowed users to find their Senate and House legislators. Approximately eight million visitors used that tool to look up their elected representatives’ contact information.
The site said:
“You shut down Congress's switchboards. You melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet.
"SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. What’s happened in the last 24 hours, though, is extraordinary. The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine, and as Wikipedia went dark, you've directed your energy to protecting it.
"We’re turning the lights back on. Help us keep them shining brightly."
Critics of the SOPA (House, Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Senate, Protect IP Act) legislation are concerned that the bills, which are largely designed to reduce online piracy of television shows and movies, may give content providers and the government too much power in terms of the ability to close down sites they believe to be copyright infringers.
Even search engines would be affected, forced to remove links to sites from their search results, and payment providers would be forced to block the flow of money to such sites.
One other interesting note about Wikipedia's protest: despite Wikipedia being blacked out, it actually saw a rise in traffic. Comparing Wikipedia's traffic at midday Wednesday with its traffic the previous Tuesday, the number of unique visitors was noticeably increased, while overall the site saw slightly more total Web transactions.
CNG stations in Sindh including Karachi reopened on Saturday at 9 am after 24-hour closure, Geo News reported.
All the gas filling stations in Sindh region were closed following the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) announcement of CNG closure for 24 hours in Karachi and interior Sindh. The supply was suspended from 09:00am on Friday 13th January to 09:00 am on Saturday 14th January.
Long queues of vehicles were witnessed Saturday morning before the stations were opened due to which office-goers faced difficulty in reaching offices on time.
Tara Reid that moves quickly. The American Pie actress was engaged and married within 24 hours. Reid was married to Danish businessman Michael Lilleund in Greece on Saturday. When Reid became engaged, she went to her Twitter account to inform her supporters. She tweeted: "I just got engaged!" A few hours later, she told fans that she had just married. She tweeted, "Just married in Greece. I love being a wife. " American Pie actress Tara Reid is now a married woman. Reid was married to Michael Small Lund, a Danish businessman, in Greece on Saturday."
Reid, 35, decided to break the news himself via his Twitter account, writing, "Just married in Greece I love being a wife." That same night, Reid also broke the news that she was engaged. "I'm engaged!" Has she tweeted, followed by "married Greece!" Short and sweet, as their involvement. "I'm engaged!" Has she tweeted, followed by "married Greece!" Short and sweet, as their involvement. The couple met in Saint-Tropez in November.
The actor met Lilleund in November in Saint-Tropez. This is Reid first marriage, but she has been engaged twice before.
Google has released a new version of its Videos app, which the official video player for Android Market movie rentals. The new version finally works with Android smartphones as well as the previously supported Honeycomb tablets.
However, the Videos app will require at least Froyo or Gingerbread (Android 2.2, 2.3).
Just as with the earlier version, the updated Videos app allows users to either stream movies over wi-fi or "pin" them, which allows a user to download a movie to the handset for offline viewing. Movies can be rented for 30 days, but once you start viewing a movie, you have only 24 hours to finish viewing it.
Users can also use the app to watch their own personal videos. You must also have the latest version of the Android Market on your phone in order to rent movies, but it is possible to rent from the online Android Market via your Web browser.
Google has released a new version of its Videos app, which the official video player for Android Market movie rentals. The new version finally works with Android smartphones as well as the previously supported Honeycomb tablets.
However, the Videos app will require at least Froyo or Gingerbread (Android 2.2, 2.3).
Just as with the earlier version, the updated Videos app allows users to either stream movies over wi-fi or "pin" them, which allows a user to download a movie to the handset for offline viewing. Movies can be rented for 30 days, but once you start viewing a movie, you have only 24 hours to finish viewing it.
Users can also use the app to watch their own personal videos. You must also have the latest version of the Android Market on your phone in order to rent movies, but it is possible to rent from the online Android Market via your Web browser.
It is, however, only a tethered jailbreak. That means that anytime you need to reboot the device, you have to tether it to a computer that has iTunes installed. That's because you essentially have to jailbreak the device every time it reboots.
This is often the case with new hardware or a new iOS ... hackers can achieve a tethered jailbreak, and then must work on the untethered version.
MuscleNerd says that the exploit used to jailbreak the beta will work on the final version of the platform, as well. Interestingly, he used limera1n, an existing jailbreak, to jailbreak iOS 5 beta.
The evidence is clear via the iSSH and Cydia icons in his screenshots. While obviously the jailbreak will need polishing and a final release against the final version iOS 5, this news seems to indicate that an iOS 5 jailbreak will be available very quickly this fall.
Jailbreaking allows end users to install apps that Apple would otherwise not allow. Examples would include a "useful" lock screen, and multitasking (before Apple unveiled its own version with iOS 4). Rooting is the analogous procedure on Android. Android users can go still further, however, and install custom ROMs on many devices, as long as the bootloader is not locked.
When speaking about where printer manufacturers make their money, it's all about the consumables. In other words, it has to do with ink and toner, and not so much the printer hardware. This, of course, is why OEMs dislike generic ink and toner.
Given that, most would love to reduce their ink and toner costs, and a (now) free Windows utility aims to do just that.
It's called PretonSaver Home. It purports to reduce on consumable costs by removing overlapping pixels from a printed page. And the company says it's compatible with virtually all printers and software.
Preton's utility originally sold for $39.95, and then later for $19.95. Now, it's free for home use, at least for a limited time. It supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.
If you visit their website, you can get a free activation code. The code has to be used within the first 24 hours (by installing the software, available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and entering the code) or it will become invalid. It's unclear how long the free offer will last.
Does it work? It seems to. Testing on our laser and inkjet printers seem to show little effect on the output, unless you look very, very carefully. That said our driver software indicated we were definitely saving ink and toner.
The software can automatically omit pictures and graphics, and users can also set the "aggressiveness" of the software in terms of savings (and also, naturally, the effect it has on quality). Give it a try. As noted, it's free!
On the same day that Google unveiled its new Cloud-based music service, it also advanced its Android Market further into iTunes territory: movie rentals.
In order to play movies from the new service, you need to have the new Movies App (coming to Honeycomb in Android 3.1 to Motorola Xooms, starting today, and to Android 2.2+ smartphones in the next few weeks) will be the optimal way to view the movies, said Google. Alternatively, you can use a web browser.
However, with the App, a user can use a feature called Pins. Pins allows users to automatically download a rental in the background on their Android device. They will later be able to watch the movie offline, rather than using the default streaming video method.
Movies start as low as $1.99, but current movies, as usual, cost $3.99. Once rented, a user has 30 days to start viewing the movie, and 24 hours once they start playing it to complete viewing the movie. [It's the same rental period as offered on YouTube's just-launched video rental service and on iTunes.]
As is typical of Android and apps (or whatever), any movie you rent will be available on all your supported devices at once.
If you're an AT&T Android user, and you're perturbed about the fact that you can't download anything from the Android-based Amazon Appstore, because that requires sideloading, and that's something AT&T has completely shut off from its Android devices, you're not alone, and that's something AT&T will have to fix. However, if you're concerned about missing out on the freebies that are announced daily in the Android Market, you are not totally out of luck.
Each day Amazon.com has a free app in the Amazon Appstore. On Tuesday, it was Rovio's Angry Birds Rio, exclusive to the Amazon Appstore. Wednesday, it was World Series of Poker: Hold'em Legend, and on Thursday, it was "Doodle Jump." With the exception of Angry Birds Rio, which is still free for a "limited time," after 24 hours, those apps go back to paid.
Thus, AT&T users are losing out on any opportunity to get those apps gratis. Ah, but there's an app for that.
In fact, it's Amazon.com's Appstore app itself. If you go to the Amazon Appstore page you can request an email or SMS that will give you a link to download it. However, what good is that when that app must be sideloaded?
If you click on the link and download the app in your browser, you'll be able to pull it out of the browser's download folder, and email it to an account you can access through your desktop. At that point, you can then sideload the app via the Sideload Wonder Machine.
Once you've done that (and honestly, it's somewhat painful), enter your Amazon account information and from that point on you will be able to order items on the Amazon Appstore with a click of your desktop browser mouse.
Once again, what good is that? Simply stated, those "purchases" can be installed anytime. Once AT&T fixes the issue (and they have admitted it's an issue), you will be able to download those apps on your AT&T device.
Unfortunately, you can't use the Sideload Wonder Machine to install those purchases as you need access to the APK on your computer. You must, however, at least sideload the Amazon Appstore app before you can make purchases via your desktop browser, as otherwise it will just keep asking you to download and install the app via the SMS or email.
Admittedly, it won't do you any real good in terms of being able to actually install, but at least you will not have missed out on any freebies you may have wanted to download.
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