Join the Engadget HD Podcast live on Ustream at 9:15PM ET
It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for the Engadget HD Podcast and we hope you’ll join us for the live recording at 9:15PM. Aereo is in the news again, so we’ll lead off with that news tonight, as well as the next chapter in Dish’s spectrum grab, Chromecast developments, and more speculation about DirecTV and Verizon. There’s always plenty of streaming news too and a few other home theater related items. If you’ll be joining us, take a peek at the topics after the break and then get ready to participate in the live chat.
Department of Justice comes out against Aereo’s TV streaming in Supreme Court case
Aereo’s internet TV service in Denver and Salt Lake City shuts down today
Aereo’s not for sale … not now, anyway
Dish wins all the wireless spectrum in the FCC’s latest auction
Vudu will soon let you send movies to your Chromecast
Chrome beta for Android lets you send web videos to your Chromecast
Apple TV update hides unwatched channels with ease
Jacksonville Jaguars get the world’s biggest LED-lit HD displays, little else
Sharp’s near-4K TVs are now available, starting at $2,500
Verizon and DirecTV’s internet TV hopes perk up thanks to Dish, Disney
‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ TV series is a Netflix original — but only outside the US
BBC makes popular TV channel ‘online only’ to cut costs
Got Comcast? You can watch House of Cards without a Netflix subscription
Netflix reportedly reaches another Comcast-style agreement, but with a Norwegian ISP
Amazon Prime Instant Video adds Orphan Black as a streaming exclusive
Cosmos debuts tonight with a special message from Barack Obama
Must See HDTV for the week of March 10th: Cosmos, Vice, F1 and Titanfall
Filed under: HD
Xbox Live problems keep many Xbox One owners from calling in their Titan
Just as the Xbox One’s biggest game release arrives, network problems are keeping many owners from signing in. The Xbox Support Twitter account reported an issue around 5PM ET, and according to the service’s dashboard it’s still ongoing. While many players who already setup their consoles and logged in to the game (including some of our editors) are able to connect and play Titanfall — although the game’s cloud seems to be holding up, if not Xbox Live in general — or other games without an issue, others are unable to sign in, particularly brand-new Xbox One purchasers who can’t get much of anything going. The support team’s message has been promising updates every 30 minutes or so, but so far there’s no ETA on a fix. Steam appears to have just come back online after downtime of its own — perhaps we could suggest some Dark Souls II on PC in the meantime?
Unable to sign in to Xbox Live on Xbox One? We’re on the case to get this issue fixed as soon as possible! http://t.co/99xfLNeme4 ^PC
– Xbox Support (1-5) (@XboxSupport) March 11, 2014
Via: Joystiq
Source: Xbox Live Status
An Introduction to the English Language through an ESL Academy
Businesses today are rapidly growing on a national level with competitors seeking to take their product to new and diverse clientele. Studies show that this globalization will continue to increase over the next several years. Part of preparing to enter or compete in such a diverse global economy calls for companies to hire individuals who have an understanding or awareness of the most commonly spoken languages around the world. English has become an increasingly universal language with more people from foreign countries taking the time to develop communication skills in this language in order to effectively do business with others. Fortunately, students can begin their training from the onset of their careers through taking comprehensive courses at an accredited ESL academy.
Structured Courses
Every single course that is offered has been tailored to meet the needs of students who desire to learn English as a second language. The creators realize that learning to read and write another language can be difficult and time consuming. With these constraints in mind, each program was designed to optimize performance of students while allowing them to gain a comprehensive understanding of English. An variety of courses are available including intensive, academic, and business structured options. The intensive English program allows students an introduction into the language while providing critical information about speaking and writing. Academic classes focus more on the writing and literature parts to assist students in becoming efficient at communicating in writing as well. Finally, business courses take a unique perspective to allow pupils to understand the importance of being able to communicate on an interpersonal level with business associates worldwide.
Credible Instructors
Part of a student’s ability to learn and comprehend the material he is being taught hinges on an instructor’s ability to provide meaningful material and professional assistance. Each teacher that is brought on staff has been interviewed to ensure that past teaching experience has been had. Students who make an active effort to communicate with their instructors on an interpersonal level will often find their insight to be exceptionally helpful. Additionally, such communication may enable one to gain opportunities that may have been hard to come by in another environment. Instructors work hard to facilitate understanding by providing comprehensive materials, taking time to communicate with each student, and answering questions to ensure mastery of the material.
Accredited School
Upon successful completion of the course, a student should expect to receive a formal notification of her hard work. Since each student has often gone to great lengths to plan and execute an education, it is critical that they only work with an accredited school. Proper accreditation means the school is legally allowed to operate and is credible and reliable. Working with an accredited school means that upon a student’s successful completion of all course materials, he can be confident that his hard work will be rewarded with a legitimate showing of completion.
As technology is enabling businesses to work on a national level in an ever increasing fast-paced environment, knowledge of the English language is becoming more of an extreme advantage. With the assistance of a qualified ESL academy, students everywhere can have access to the instructions they need to become proficient in communicating in this nearly universal language.
iOS 7.1 Adoption at 6% 24 Hours After Release
Though it was only released yesterday morning, iOS 7.1 has already been installed on 5.9 percent of iOS devices in North America, according to a new report from analytics firm Chitika. To get its numbers, Chitika measured ad impressions from tens of millions of iOS-based devices in the U.S. and Canada from March 9 to March 11, 2014.
The adoption rates are similar to those of iOS 7.0.6, which offered a critical security fix and was installed on 13.3 percent of iOS devices 48 hours after release and 25 percent of devices after four days.
As with most minor version updates, iOS 7.1 adoption rates have been less dramatic than those of its major-version counterparts. In the 24 hours following the operating system’s public release, iOS 7.1 users generated 5.9% of total North American iOS Web traffic.
iOS 7.1 offers CarPlay support, Touch ID improvements, bug fixes, and several visual tweaks for iOS, including revamped shift and caps locks keys for the keyboard, refined icons for the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages apps, and a redesign for several aspects of the Phone dialer and shutdown screen.
Beyond iOS 7.1, iOS 7 users generated more than 80 percent of all iOS web traffic over the three days Chitika measured, a number that has remained steady since the company’s previous February 26 study.
Chitika’s overall iOS 7 usage numbers in North America are in line with reports from Apple’s App Store support page for developers, which indicates 83 percent of all iOS devices have iOS 7 installed as of March 9, 2014.
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Apple Gets Final Go Ahead for New San Francisco Flagship Store
Apple has received final approval for its upcoming Union Square Apple Store from the San Francisco Planning Commission and the city’s Board of Supervisors, reports Re/code. With the go ahead from the city, Apple can begin construction on the new store, which is located approximately three blocks away from its existing San Francisco store.
A model of the San Francisco Apple Store courtesy of ifoAppleStore
“We are thrilled that the city of San Francisco has given its final approval to begin work on our new store and public plaza, which will make a wonderful addition to Union Square and create hundreds of local jobs,” Apple spokeswoman Amy Bessette told Re/code. “Our Stockton Street store has been incredibly popular, welcoming over 13 million customers since it opened nine years ago, and we look forward to making a new home on Union Square.”
Apple first earned final approval from the planning commission in February and it received a necessary zoning concession from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week after agreeing to revise its initial building plans. Apple’s original plan, which received some criticism, called for the removal of the historical Ruth Asawa fountain at the location and the installation of an 80-foot wide wall along a key pedestrian and transit corridor.
The company filed a revised plan back in August, pledging to move the fountain to a nearby location, add an eight-foot wide window for visual interest, and move the glass wall of the store back by four feet.
Apple’s new Union Square store will be located in the former Levi’s building at the corner of Post and Stockton streets. Renderings of the location have suggested it will have massive 44-foot tall sliding glass panels at the entry way, with an Apple representative calling the location “more iconic” than the company’s well-known Fifth Avenue store in New York City.
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Kick off this year’s Philly Tech Week with a gigantic game of Tetris
There’s a few reasons why Tetris is one of gaming’s most enduring classics: it’s easy to pick up, hard to master and can be played on just about any platform — including the sides of a building. Drexel University students are rigging the city of brotherly love’s Cira Centre with LEDs to play Tetris on a massive scale for the kick-off of this year’s Philly Tech Week. The school did something similar in 2013 with a giant version of Pong (video below), but the difference is that this time two sides of the 29-story Cira Centre will be used instead of just one. This will cover more than 100,000 square feet of the building’s façade and, according to the university, it should be visible from just about anywhere in Philadelphia. Should the installation go off without a hitch, Drexel will set another Guinness World Record for largest architectural video game display. If you want to show off your block-dropping skills on a massive scale come April 4th, there’s a sign-up at the source.
[Image credit: michaelwm25/Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Ph.ly
Court freezes Mt. Gox assets in US, lawyers dig into the case of the missing Bitcoins
A US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has just granted a temporary restraining order to freeze all US assets of Mt. Gox, Tibanne KK and Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles as part of an effort to find out exactly what caused the Japan-based Bitcoin exchange to fall. This follows the news that Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in both Japan and the US, a month or so after the exchange went dark and claims it lost nearly 850,000 Bitcoins (roughly $541 million) due to “weaknesses in the system.” The restraining order was filed by Edelson PC, the firm Gregory Greene hired to press class action charges against Mt. Gox for fraud. As Mt. Gox is based in Japan, it’s unclear what assets there are to actually seize in the US, but the restraining order at least lets Greene’s lawyers start the formal process of getting documents and information from the Bitcoin exchange. Perhaps we’ll then finally uncover the secret behind its downfall; it’ll at least be one Bitcoin mystery solved, anyway.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Flappy Bird could flap again with a “warning,” inspired games coming soon
Flappy Bird has caused quite the commotion over the past month or so after being taken down by its creator, Dong Nguyen.
It prompted people to sell devices with the game on Ebay, discover ways to hacks it and has been used to teach people to code in JavaScript.
According to the story “The Flight of the Birdman: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out” from the March 27 issue of Rolling Stone, Nguyen said he has not ruled out the possibility of bringing Flappy Bird back to Android and iOS, but would only do by updating the game with a “warning” to tell people to “Please take a break.” This would hopefully give some type of way to help people who became “addicted” to the game, which is why it was pulled in the first place.
Nguyen also noted that while he’s not working on a new version of the game, he does have others he’s developing, one which is expected to release this fall, ”Checkonaut,” an action chess game with his familiar style, simplistic play and high difficulty.
If Flappy Bird does ever come out again, hopefully that warning will be enough to help those that have become addicted and stop the sale of devices and insanely high prices.
via RollingStone
The post Flappy Bird could flap again with a “warning,” inspired games coming soon appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Archos 64 Xenon moves buttons to rear
Recently at the Mobile World Congress, French electronics brand Archos released a bunch of new products, and Archos 64 Xenon was part of the release, and it’s a ‘phablet’ of its own kind. It features a huge screen of 6.4-inch, 1GB RAM and a 2,800 mAh battery, which will last for a day on a single charge. Our friends over at Engadget got their hands on 64 Xenon, and they told that LG G2 isn’t the only phone with buttons on the back. The 64 Xenon have power and volume button on the rear side, and they are in a great position. Although, they might be a little awkward to use because people are not used to it.
Engadget is impressed with the performance of the phone, but disappointed by the internal storage. With just 4GB internal memory, it’s surely a ‘con’ but with microSD slot, you will have an alternative to store your content.
The device will be released in April, and we are also looking forward to grab it as well. Do you think ‘rear buttons’ are a good idea? Let us know in the comment box below.
Source: Engadget
The post Archos 64 Xenon moves buttons to rear appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Tip: Add a multitasking button to the LG G Pro 2
The LG G Pro 2 unfortunately has a legacy menu button included on the on-screen navigation keys that you cannot seem to get rid of, but whilst you cannot hide it completely, you can add a dedicated multitasking button alongside it.
LG have enabled the ability to add up to two more buttons and that includes multitasking, QMemo, QSlide, or one that will open up the notification pane.
To add buttons to your G Pro 2, go to Settings>Display>Front touch buttons>Button Combination. From there, you simply drag the buttons into the order you want. You can’t have more than five buttons though, and you’re stuck with the standard back, home, and menu buttons.
There is also an option to change the background colour of the keys which enables you to change it to a black gradient, white, or white gradient, or even transparent if you so wish.
Whilst it would have been great for LG to enable the ability to remove the menu button completely, at least this way you can add a multitasking button to your LG G Pro 2.
The post Tip: Add a multitasking button to the LG G Pro 2 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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