DirecTV for iPad Gives You Bigger Schedules and On the Go Recording [Apps]

DirecTV has just released an iPad app that lets you browse and search their schedule (up to 2 weeks out), set recordings on the go and even check sports scores to see if the game is worth watching. Free. [iTunes] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PdAwXTyNMfs/directv-for-ipad-gives-you-bigger-schedules-and-on-the-go-recording

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Xeno Defense is a fantastic tower defense Time Waster

117,944 - that's my final score in Xeno Defense. I think this is the first Time Waster I found addictive enough to actually play all the way to the end. It is a casual game - you don't have to finish it to enjoy it. But it was easy enough, and definitely addictive enough, for me to just finish. It took me about half an hour, I think.

There's a story line, but it's not very important. The gist of it is that you're a scientist stranded in an outpost, and there's an alien invasion. Your encampment is all the way to the right side of the screen, with swarms of aliens coming in from the left and trying to invade. Your job is to shoot them and defend your turf.

As the game evolves, you gain experience points. At the end of each level you go to the store and choose what you want to spend your points on: new buildings, new weapons, upgrade existing weapons, or invest in repairing your base.

The final goal is to build a weapon that's advanced enough to use against the alien mothership. This is done by building enough research buildings - but you must balance the buildings you buy with your weapons upgrades, because each swarm of aliens is stronger than the last.

I finished the game with two days to spare; what was your score?

Xeno Defense is a fantastic tower defense Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/02/xeno-defense-is-a-fantastic-tower-defense-time-waster/

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Shot Shot Pirate is a fun, simple physics game

Shot Shot Pirate is very satisfying, because each level is short and to the point. You know what you have to do and you just do it.

As you may have gathered from the name, you're cast in the role of a pirate. Your goal is to shoot at a diamond and make it fall off a tower of bricks. The height of the tower changes as you progress through the levels. It's not enough to just make the diamond fall off the tower of bricks - it has to fall below a certain line (drawn on the screen) for the level to be completed.

There are also different kinds of bricks, with some heavier than others, and different kinds of ammo. You only get a certain amount of ammo for each level, and when it's gone, you lose. But don't worry! If you don't make it on the first try, it's very easy to restart the level and just give it another shot (or three).

All in all it's a cute game. I've seen similar games with better graphics and music, but the game delivers on its main promise - a few minutes of pure time wasting!

Shot Shot Pirate is a fun, simple physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/24/shot-shot-pirate-is-a-fun-simple-physics-game/

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'Windows On Speed': A comprehensive guide on speeding up your OS

MakeUseOf has just published yet another excellent guide, this time on the topic of keeping your Windows installation lean, mean and fighting fit. It's available as a free download (PDF), or online (Scribd).

The guide is impressively comprehensive -- it covers everything from partitioning your hard drive to installing more RAM -- but some Download Squad readers will probably find it a bit too simplistic. Having said that, it managed to teach us a couple of new things about Windows 7, so it can't be that simple.

We should also note that the guide offers a few bits of advice that we don't agree with: 20GB really isn't enough for a Windows 7 partition; something like 40GB would be more sensible -- with 1TB drives costing just a fistful of dollars, it's much better to overestimate your OS's requirements. The guide also suggests moving My Documents to a separate partition -- which is fine enough -- but it then goes on to suggest moving "all folders within your user profile" to a separate partition, which can cause issues with applying patches, service packs, and updating installed software.

In conclusion, the guide is a great resource but we're simply not sure of its target audience. It may be a bit overly-technical to send to your friends and family, and most geeks will already have their own preferred methods for keeping a Windows installation running smoothly.

Download Windows On Speed by MakeUseOf (PDF)

'Windows On Speed': A comprehensive guide on speeding up your OS originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/17/windows-on-speed-a-comprehensive-guide-on-speeding-up-your-os/

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Fujitsu's Stylistic Q550 Windows 7 tablet: orders kick off tomorrow starting at ?699

Expanding on some tidbits fleshed out last week, Fujitsu has dropped all the details on its Oak Trail-based Stylistic Q550 Windows 7 tablet here at CeBIT this week. Along with your choice of 30GB or 64GB SSDs, you'll be able to select Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional atop a 10.1-inch WXGA IPS display capable of four-finger multitouch with stylus input, 2GB of RAM, and an optional Gobi radio that'll push 14.4Mbps down and 5.76Mbps up over HSPA. Pricing will vary by market, but it's starting at €699 (roughly $966) here in Europe when it goes on sale tomorrow. Follow the break for the full press release.

Update: We just snapped a few glamor shots of Fujitsu Technology Solutions CEO Rolf Schwirz showing off the Q550 here at the company's CeBIT press conference -- see 'em below!

Gallery: Fujitsu's Stylistic Q550 Windows 7 tablet: orders start tomorrow for ?699

Continue reading Fujitsu's Stylistic Q550 Windows 7 tablet: orders kick off tomorrow starting at ?699

Fujitsu's Stylistic Q550 Windows 7 tablet: orders kick off tomorrow starting at ?699 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/fujitsus-stylistic-q550-windows-7-tablet-orders-start-tomorrow/

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Hyundai Sonata Hybrid was delayed into 2011... by 'virtual engine sound' system

Remember how at the end of last year the US legislature decided to make it mandatory for EVs to churn out an audible noise while in motion? It was all in the name of saving pesky pedestrians from getting in the way of your gliding electro-car, but the new law itself has managed to create a bump in the road for at least one company. Hyundai's Sonata Hybrid was all set to launch in late 2010, equipped with a "virtual engine sound" system that the user could toggle on and off, however the government's request that it be kept permanently on required modifications to the vehicle's wiring harnesses, UI software and user manuals, delaying its debut into late January. These tweaks had to be done "amazingly late in the process," according to Hyundai America CEO John Krafcik, but the delay will at least ensure that all of Hyundai's Sonatas will sound the same. Which is something, we guess.

Hyundai Sonata Hybrid was delayed into 2011... by 'virtual engine sound' system originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/5zbptBEcQ2E/

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Man builds machine to push phone buttons from half a world away (video)

If your ambition was to travel the world, and your job to push the buttons of three cellphones located in South Korea, you might go insane. That seems to be what happened to Mok Young Bak, at least, when he invented the crazy contraption depicted in the video above. Called the Caduceus, it's a telepresence machine that does just one thing -- it controls every single button on each of those three phones with a series of servo motors and actuator cables, and moves a pendulum-like webcam so he can clearly see each screen from wherever he happens to be. That way, he can enjoy tourism while leaving his livelihood within reach, at least so long as concerned neighbors don't assume the terrible din is, say, a killer robot assembly line, and insist that police investigate.

Man builds machine to push phone buttons from half a world away (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Feb 2011 11:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/eIU7uX2LvIU/

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Chrome OS "panels" and Google Talk Chrome Web app go cross-platform

Back when we had the chance to play with some more mature builds of Chromium OS, one feature we particularly liked was its slick, panelized Google Talk funcationality. It later disappeared, replaced by a Gtalk app in the Chrome Web Store -- but while Google talks about 'the same platform everywhere,' the Gtalk Web app only worked on Chrome and Chromium OS.

What about all us Windows, Mac, and Linux users? Well, now we can get in on the action, too, even though the Chrome Web Store loudly proclaims ** THIS APP REQUIRES A CHROME NOTEBOOK **!

While that's not totally true anymore, you do need panel functionality, which your version of Chrome probably doesn't offer yet. However, if you have a recent Chromium build you can add the command line switch --enable-panels to enable basic panel functionality. There's no about:flags entry for this yet, so you'll have to use the switch for now. If you need help, just check our tutorial on how to add command line switches to Chrome.

Continue reading Chrome OS "panels" and Google Talk Chrome Web app go cross-platform

Chrome OS "panels" and Google Talk Chrome Web app go cross-platform originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/26/chrome-os-panels-and-google-talk-app-go-cross-platform/

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What ?The Social Network? Won (Three Awards, But Not Best Picture) #Oscars

Despite losing Best Picture to The King's Speech, Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher's epic Facebook creation myth The Social Network did pick up three Oscars tonight, more than any film about nerds has ever garnered, unless you count A Beautiful Mind. The Social Network won Best Film Editing (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter), Best Original Score (Trent Reznor) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin) at tonight's 83rd Academy Awards Ceremony. The film, which picked up four awards including Best Picture at the Golden Globes and was nominated for eight Oscars, was definitely the Twitter and tech crowd favorite but apparently not the Academy's.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QLFU-Xng4hs/

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Effing Meteors is a cataclysmic world-destroying physics Time Waster

Remember Effing Hail? Well, Effing Meteors belongs to the same genre, but with a couple of interesting twists.

You're looking at a side-view of a planet, complete with its layers of atmosphere. Above the planet, in space, there are meteors. These are hurtling towards the planet, but they're often not large enough to survive entering through the atmosphere, so they burn along the way.

Your job is to destroy the planet; or more specifically, destroy all living organisms on a given planet. You can do this because your cursor generates a gravity field. So you click one meteorite and hold; soon, that single meteorite starts attracting other meteorites in its vicinity and grows into something larger - a planetoid. Now when you smash that into the planet's surface, it does survive the atmosphere and generates quite a shock - perhaps even enough to destroy the population of that planet.

Once you destroy a planet, it simply "revolves", revealing a new planet. Each planet is different: Some planets shoot back; and there's a planet with dinosaurs that run away from you, and then flying saucers enter the picture and it all gets a bit hard to explain.

Bottom line: This is a really fun game, with innovative graphics. And sometimes you can win a level by simply doing nothing!

Effing Meteors is a cataclysmic world-destroying physics Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/31/effing-meteors-is-a-cataclysmic-world-destroying-physics-time-waster/

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What?s The Real Deal With AngelList?

Editor?s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable There's lots of discussion out there about a new and much-loved service called AngelList that connects entrepreneurs to angel investors. I was reluctant to write about AngelList because the debate on pros / cons is pretty nuanced. But with some heat flying I felt it worthwhile to give anybody on the sidelines a better understanding of the issues.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dA-iF01np-g/

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WinZip releases new System Utilities Suite, we go hands-on

Most people know WinZip for its compression products, but with more and more people using Windows's built-in file compression utilities, WinZip is expanding into previously unexplored territory with the new System Utilities Suite. The system optimization tool, debuting today, packs 20 separate utilities, each with its own UI, own Start Menu entry, etc, though the Suite fortunately pulls everything together into an easily accessible 'master utility' that I explore in the video below.

The master utility serves as a desktop or start screen for the package's complete tool set, and offers quick access to a three-click process that optimizes the registry, removes temporary ("junk") files, scans and updates drivers, and more. This would be the first thing new users would run, and once that's done, they could use each of the other tools as needed (or according to their comfort level) to optimize specific aspects of their Windows PC. System Utilities is aimed both at novice users and more advanced nerds; it leans more towards the "advanced" end of the spectrum, as the sheer wealth of tools it offers may appear daunting. There's a tool for just about every purpose, starting with a Duplicate File Remover, through a Registry Cleaner and Optimizer (packaged as two tools), all the way to a Secure Encryptor for sensitive files. There's even a 'Game Optimizer,' which is a full-fledged virtual machine (a "computer in a computer") running your game as its single application, with support for custom keymaps and other goodies. Some of this may sound similar to what CCleaner offers, but as you can see, System Utilities is far more comprehensive.

As you may have noticed, System Utilities uses short, descriptive names, so that even non-expert users would be able to find the right tool at the right time. This is a step in the right direction, but I think for many users, just seeing so many Start Menu entries could be quite confusing.

For $39.95, System Utilities is good value for money, but only for users who are not afraid to dive into the wealth of different tools and find out what each does. For novice users who want to take things to the next level, it's a good gateway from a trusted company. Advanced users who like to keep their PC in tip-top shape could certainly cobble up a collection of loose freeware utilities, but they might also enjoy the cohesive feel of one well-built suite. I know I do.

You can watch me taking my first steps with System Utilities after the jump.

Note: We're going to be running a 10-license giveaway of WinZip System Utilities later on today, so keep your eyes peeled and your RSS reader open!

Continue reading WinZip releases new System Utilities Suite, we go hands-on

WinZip releases new System Utilities Suite, we go hands-on originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/14/winzip-releases-new-system-utilities-suite-we-go-hands-on/

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How to install non-Market applications on Android

This week's tips series is all about Android, highlighting some the operating system's built-in utilities, and better ways of getting stuff done. For other technology tips, check our Tips index.

When an Android user wants to install a new application, they usually just fire up the Market app, search for it, and install it with a couple of well-aimed button taps.

There are times, however, when you may want to load a non-Market application. For example, a perfectly good application may get banned from the market, but still be available from its original publisher.

By default, Android doesn't let you install non-Market apps due to the security risks involved (not to imply that the Market is entirely devoid of malicious apps...). To tell Android you're a big boy (or girl) and can take care of yourself, do this:

1) Go to Settings > Applications
2) Check the box next to Unknown sources
3) Confirm that you understand the risks

That's it! You are now free to install any application, even if it didn't come from the market. Just be careful!

How to install non-Market applications on Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/27/how-to-enable-non-market-applications-in-android/

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Ubuntu 11.04 Unity keyboard shortcuts have a distinct Windows 7 flavor

Ubuntu's new Unity interface already drew some raised eyebrows because of its looks, which are arguably similar to the Windows 7 taskbar. Now, the Ask Ubuntu site has posted a list of Unity keyboard shortcuts -- and those take a cue from Windows 7 as well.

• The super key, which typically refers to the Windows key on most standard keyboards, invokes the Unity Launcher -- on Windows, this would call up the Start Menu
• Super + 1/2/3, etc. launches the app in that position on the Unity dockbar -- much like the Windows 7 feature
• Super + D minimizes and restores all windows -- a hotkey combo in Windows since XP

So why the similarities? If you're trying to steal away desktop market share from the dominant operating system, it's not going to hurt if you make it easy for power users to get comfortable on your alternative OS. By implementing familiar keyboard shortcuts in Unity, Canonical is no doubt giving Windows users an Eric Idle style nudge in the ribs and saying, "C'mon, give us a try!"

With WUBI making it so easy to install and dual-boot Ubuntu from within Windows and an easy profile data import tool offered during setup, Canonical is doing its best to entice defectors.

Ubuntu 11.04 Unity keyboard shortcuts have a distinct Windows 7 flavor originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/26/ubuntu-11-04-unity-keyboard-shortcuts-have-a-distinct-windows-7/

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Sony indicates all future Alpha models will include translucent mirrors

That satisfying clunk of the mirror swinging up and away, the rapid-fire clatter of DSLRs going into burst mode, could be on its last legs. Well, for Sony Alphas at least. The company has confirmed that its translucent mirror tech, most recently confirmed to be coming to the A77 and earlier shown on the A55 and A33, will be coming to the entire Alpha line. The sensor actually captures light through the mirror itself, which is just reflective enough to allow for real-time focusing even while capturing video. It's something of a bold move in the generally stoic DSLR market, and only time will tell whether it helps to boost Sony's street cred up to Canon and Nikon levels.

Sony indicates all future Alpha models will include translucent mirrors originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/26/sony-indicates-all-future-alpha-models-will-include-translucent/

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RIM, Bank of America partnering up for Mobile Wallet NFC trial

We've known for some time that RIM is going all-in on NFC (isn't everyone?), but we didn't realize they were going retroactive, too. A NFC payment trial coming up involving RIM and Bank of America will allow selected testers to get an NFC-capable back for their Curve 8520 or 8530, Tour 9630, or Bold 9000, 9650, or 9700 -- in other words, most of the company's portrait QWERTY models from the last couple years. You'll also need an active Bank of America account, at which point you'll be able to tap your 'Berry on NFC terminals to get your pay on. The trial starts this spring; no word on when it might be open to everyone.

[Thanks, Dylan]

RIM, Bank of America partnering up for Mobile Wallet NFC trial originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/26/rim-bank-of-america-partnering-up-for-mobile-wallet-nfc-trial/

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