The new Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone was built as an open source project from Microsoft, providing developers with a speed dial for easily connecting and integrating Windows Phone applications with AWS (S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services). Application developers interested in delivering cloud-connected mobile software are also looking for choice and for the possibility to reuse assets and skills. Developers familiar with AWS will be able to take full advantage of the new SDK, when it comes to porting to Windows Phone applications built for Android, iOS or any other platform. “Our approach with AWS is to provide developers with choice and flexibility to build applications the way they want and give them unlimited storage, bandwidth and computing resources, while paying only for what they use,” Terry Wise, director of business development for Amazon Web Services, notes “We welcome Windows Phone developers to the AWS community and look forward to providing customers with new ways to build and deploy Windows Phone applications,” he continues. Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability strategy at Microsoft, explains that the Windows Phone platform was meant to be a Cloud-friendly solution, and that the release of this new SDK is another proof of that. “The release of the AWS SDK for Windows Phone Beta proves that Microsoft’s goal of building a Cloud-friendly phone is true across vendor boundaries,” he says. “It literally takes minutes to create a Cloud-ready application in C# with this SDK. We look forward to this SDK eventually resulting in many more great apps in the rapidly growing Windows Phone marketplace.” The new Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone was released under the Apache license, the same as the complete source code for it. Those interested in learning more on what it could offer should head over to the Windows Phone Interoperability Bridges website. Download the Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone | ||
Friday, February 3, 2012
Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone Arrives in Beta
Microsoft Gives 20 Free Windows Phones to Android Users
Earlier this week, the company announced that it chose to deliver no less than 20 free Windows Phones to Android users who have been affected by malware that slipped in the Android Market. On Monday, Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph announced on Twitter that he had 20 smartphones to give to those who had been affected by issues with the operating system. “This week the internet was buzzing about how upwards of 5 million Android users have phones infected with annoying adware,” Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph noted in a blog post. “To help out, we offered up 20 free Windows Phones to people who shared their story about their frustrations with their Android phone, and why a Windows Phone would be a welcome upgrade. “I got nearly 1000 responses since we kicked things off (thanks to everyone who sent in a story!), and out of those, here are our 20 winners.” The said post on Microsoft’s blog explains more on the matter. In the meantime, we should note that this is not the first time Microsoft makes such a move. Last year, the company offered some more free Windows Phones to Android users who got infected. Moreover, Ben was on the floor at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he offered $100 to any user who could prove his/her phone was faster than a Windows Phone. There were not too many devices that managed to prove faster than Ben’s Windows Phone, which demonstrated that Microsoft’s mobile platform does have a lot to offer to users, even if it did not register the sales one might have wanted it to. | ||
IE9 Is Fast, Secure and Reliable on Windows 7
| |||||
| |||||
Microsoft Now Testing Skype Beta for Windows Phone Internally
Today, however, we learn that it might not be long before the beta flavor of the application is released. Apparently, the Redmond-based company has started dogfooding Skype Beta for Windows Phone. Basically, the software giant is pushing the application to its employees that own Windows Phones, asking them to take it for a spin and to provide feedback on it. With the dogfooding process started, any major bugs that might be present with the beta release should be resolved, which would make the app fit for public use. According to wp7lab, a source in the know confirmed that Skype for Windows Phone would hit devices in the near future, and that the beta testing was well underway. The application will be pushed to the Windows Phone Marketplace soon, yet we should expect for Microsoft to have it integrated in future versions of the mobile operating system. For the time being, however, specific info on what Skype for Windows Phone will have to offer hasn’t emerged, though wp7lab suggests that it should not be too long before screenshots with the application emerge. When released on Windows Phone, Skype will be able to take full advantage of the front cameras on the latest devices out there, to provide users with video calling capabilities. Android users can already benefit from this capability on their devices, as the popular VoIP application has been available for them for quite some time now. Thus, it was only natural for Microsoft to have it on Windows Phone as well, since it owns Skype. | ||
Adobe Flash Player 11
What is Flash Player?
Adobe® Flash® Player is a cross-platform, browser-based application runtime that provides uncompromised viewing of expressive applications, content, and videos across browsers and operating systems.
Top new features in Flash Player | More |
Stage 3D accelerated graphics rendering*
Explore a new architecture for high-performance 2D/3D GPU hardware accelerated graphics rendering by Adobe, which provides low-level Stage3D APIs for advanced rendering in apps and gives framework developers classes of interactive experiences.
*Initial support for personal computers.
Native 64-bit support
Flash Player can now take advantage of native support for 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit web browsers on Linux®, Mac OS, and Windows®.
H.264/AVC software encoding for cameras
Stream beautiful video from your computer's camera with higher compression efficiency and industry-wide support, enabling both high-quality real-time communications (such as video chat and video conferencing) and live video broadcasts.
Protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS)
Protect streaming video across devices without the complexity of a license server.
First Intel Micro-Server Atom Chip Detailed
Looks like Intel is not lagging in its development of micro-server central processing units, having just started sample shipments of its first Atom-based system-on-chip.
Anyone wondering what exactly Intel was working on besides the recently benchmarked Core i7 3770K high-end Ivy Bridge CPU (and its family) now have their answer.
Right to the point, the Santa Clara, California-based company has begun shipping samples of its first system-on-chip devices based on the Atom micro-architecture.
It is aimed at so-called micro-servers, a market segment where ARM also wants to establish a presence as soon as possible.
When speaking of the chip, Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s data center group, said that the newcomer was “at a performance, power and cost level we like.”
The man also said that they already had an idea of what to offer with the successor of this processor.
“In 2013 we plan a part an order of magnitude above it,” the general manager said.
Operating on 10W of energy, the new chip is based on the Cedarview micro-architecture (constructed on the 32nm process technology) and has two cores.
Furthermore, it boasts 64-bit support, virtualization technology, error-correcting code and the PCI Express interface, plus Hyper-Threading.
SeaMicro and Habey are just two of the companies that will design products based on it (the other server players haven't been specifically mentioned).
“We take nothing for granted and expect ARM licensees to be formidable competitors,” said Andrew Feldman, founder and chief executive of SeaMicro.
“With 90 percent server market share, the ball’s in Intel’s court to be best in class, and we will use processors customers are demanding.”
Intel has an advantage in the fact that there are no 64-bit ARM chips on the market yet, but this situation isn't going to last for long. Now we can only wait and see how the Atom SoC and Xeon units coexist with rivals.
Anyone wondering what exactly Intel was working on besides the recently benchmarked Core i7 3770K high-end Ivy Bridge CPU (and its family) now have their answer.
Right to the point, the Santa Clara, California-based company has begun shipping samples of its first system-on-chip devices based on the Atom micro-architecture.
It is aimed at so-called micro-servers, a market segment where ARM also wants to establish a presence as soon as possible.
When speaking of the chip, Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s data center group, said that the newcomer was “at a performance, power and cost level we like.”
The man also said that they already had an idea of what to offer with the successor of this processor.
“In 2013 we plan a part an order of magnitude above it,” the general manager said.
Operating on 10W of energy, the new chip is based on the Cedarview micro-architecture (constructed on the 32nm process technology) and has two cores.
Furthermore, it boasts 64-bit support, virtualization technology, error-correcting code and the PCI Express interface, plus Hyper-Threading.
SeaMicro and Habey are just two of the companies that will design products based on it (the other server players haven't been specifically mentioned).
“We take nothing for granted and expect ARM licensees to be formidable competitors,” said Andrew Feldman, founder and chief executive of SeaMicro.
“With 90 percent server market share, the ball’s in Intel’s court to be best in class, and we will use processors customers are demanding.”
Intel has an advantage in the fact that there are no 64-bit ARM chips on the market yet, but this situation isn't going to last for long. Now we can only wait and see how the Atom SoC and Xeon units coexist with rivals.
AMD Reference Notebook Design from Compal Exposed
It so happens that, in addition to AMD itself, Compal also made a revelation, or it might be more accurate to say that AMD revealed something made by Compal. Put simply, the item in the pictures provided byEngadget is the reference notebook design based on AMD's Trinity APUs. Advanced Micro Devices spent the past few years offering little, if anything, in terms of mobile PC CPU technology. Though discrete GPUs have never been in short supply, the Sunnyvale, California-based company didn't make many mobile CPUs. Now, though, the rise of tablets and the steady change of focus from desktops to notebooks is, one might say, forcing AMD's hand. The Trinity APUs is the company's answer to this trend, and this laptop from Compal is one of the coveted design wins. 18 mm thick (0.70 inches), the notebook has a low-voltage quad-core APU (Piledriver cores, Radeon HD 7000M graphics). There is also an HDMI port, USB 3.0 and a mini-DisplayPort.LightningBolt may or may not be present as well. Compal means for final products to be priced at $500-$600 (380-456 Euro) and will start shipping this reference design to its OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners soon. That way, the latter will know what architecture, features and performance they should seek when creating the laptops. For those who want to know what plans the company has made for the long term, Advanced Micro Devices is accelerating the“true” fusion of x86 and GPU. By 2014, APUs will be able to decide on their own whether to use the x86 cores or the stream processors of the Radeon GPU. The company has also decided to cancel the 10-core and 20-core Opteron units, overall slowing down the platform progression on the server market.
| ||||||
10-Core Intel Ivy Bridge-EP CPU Tested, Has 20 Threads
The engineering sample of the Ivy Bridge-EP CPU that got put through its paces not long ago is the sort of thing that will leave onlookers starry-eyed. Intel probably didn't mean for this chip to land in the hands of someone so eager to publish the results for all to see. Nevertheless, a person in Taiwan did get a hold of it somehow and has big and clear screenshots to prove it (CPU-Z, Windows 8 task manager, the works). Quite simply, nothing on the consumer CPU market has even come close to the sort of performance that this thing is bound to demonstrate. Of course, it was obvious that an Ivy Bridge-EP CPU would blow even the best Ivy Bridge units out of the water, but the magnitude of it all wasn't exactly apparent. The Ivy Bridge-EP/EX engineering sample has 10 physical cores, but its Hyper-Threading technology allows for 20 logical cores to be enabled at the same time. In other words, the operating system may as well be working with 20 CPUs at once, for all it knows. Spec-wise, the processor has a clock speed of 2.8 GHz, 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 256 KB L2 cache per core. A WPrime test returned a score of 1,024M in 158.5 seconds, while Fritz Chess scored 41.78X relative speed.
Of course, there are no programs or games that can use so many cores, except, perhaps, video conversion and other professional applications. People shouldn't start raving just yet, of course. After all, Intel hasn't even launched the “regular” Ivy Bridge LGA1155 chips (they are scheduled for April, 2012). | |||
Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Android Review
Now, as a testament to how much technology, not just games, has progressed since then, Rockstar has released a special Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition onto mobile platforms like the iOS (including iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad) as well as Android (including various mobile phones and tablets). We have had the chance to try out the title on the Asus Transformer tablet, powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 technology, and see just how the game looks after more than 10 years since its initial release. So, does this re-release honor the classic game or should it be thrown into the trunk of a car and crashed through Liberty City? Let’s find out.
In case you’re among the few people in the world who don’t know what GTA III is, here’s a brief description of the game. It’s an open world title, with its action taking place in Liberty City, although it’s not the one from GTA IV, however. This copy of 1990s New York is constituted of several island neighborhoods connected by various bridges and filled with all sorts of characters and criminal organizations. You play as Claude, a silent protagonist that’s just been part of a prison break, who needs to make a name for himself by doing all sorts of various jobs for all sorts of various criminal organizations, from the mob to the Yakuza. The missions usually consists of some mix between driving and shooting, but you can also engage in a variety of side missions, like driving Liberty City residents by taxi, saving them with an ambulance or making the streets a safer place through Vigilante activities. This is what made GTA III such an impressive game, that after you got over the open world, the great third person shooting or driving, not to mention the graphics that were stunning at that time, you could still do all sorts of things and not get bored during your adventures in Liberty City. While the original game is still here and as glorious as ever, it’s time to talk about the 10 Year Anniversary Edition and how it actually feels on a tablet, instead of regular gaming devices like consoles or the PC. This is where things go awry, however, as the touchscreen input generates some mixed results, largely because Rockstar didn’t really try to adapt the controls to the special needs of a phone or tablet. Instead of rethinking some actions, the studio just threw on the screen a variety of buttons that are clunky, to say the least. | ||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)