New Xbox 360 dashboard update starts rolling out today

Many of you have been involved in the 2012 Xbox LIVE Update Public Beta and have been busy getting an early look at the latest Xbox LIVE features. Today we’re starting to roll out the official release of the update to Xbox LIVE subscribers around the world. To ensure a stable release, this will be a gradual deployment across subscribers and regions over the course of the next week. Our initial deployment will reach approximately three million consoles worldwide, with additional users being updated over the course of a couple weeks. Don’t panic if you don’t see an immediate update, just keep checking back in.

In this update, you will see the following features.

• Refreshed Xbox 360 Dashboard. We’ve updated the UI with a few things, including an updated layout with more tiles, a combined TV & Movies channel and, in the US, a Sports destination.
• Internet Explorer for Xbox. With Internet Explorer on Xbox, you can easily find and view internet content on the biggest screen in the house, including HTML5 videos.
• Recommendations and Ratings. Recommendations will allow you to discover new favorites, generated based on a number of variables including the content you previously viewed, what your friends are consuming and what is most relevant and popular with our Xbox community. You can now rate content yourself and also see Rotten Tomatoes ratings.
• Pinning. Pinning lets you personalize the dashboard by saving your favorite movies, TV shows, games, music, videos and websites right to the home screen. It’s as easy as opening an app or a favorite movie and clicking “pin.”
• Xbox Video. Formerly called Zune Video Marketplace, Xbox Video offers hundreds of thousands of TV shows and movies for buying or renting in instant HD streaming.
• Recent. Previously called Quick Play, the Recent view gives you a list of movies, games, apps or other types of content that you most recently accessed on the console.
• Enhanced Search. The last Xbox LIVE update brought Bing voice search to Xbox so you could use voice to search for movies, TV shows, actors, directors and artists. This year we added genre search to the list, so now you can search for action, comedy, romance, drama or sci-fi. Bing voice search now includes results for video across the Web, including YouTube.
• International Expansion of Voice Search. We’ve expanded our Kinect voice search capabilities to 9 new countries – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Ireland.

What about Xbox SmartGlass? That’s coming too, but not until Windows 8 launches on October 26th. When the Xbox SmartGlass app launches on tablets, PCs and smartphones, it will include key foundational experiences for interacting with your Xbox 360, such as dashboard and app navigation and Internet Explorer control, like text input, scrolling and pinch and zoom.

Yesterday, we shared all the details about Xbox Music, our brand new digital music service. Xbox Music begins rolling out today on Xbox 360, it will launch with free streaming on all Windows 8 PCs and tablets on October 26th and Windows Phone 8 as devices arrive in market. Xbox Music combines all the different ways people love to enjoy music, creating the ultimate all-in-one music service.

For all the details on Xbox Music, check out the Microsoft News Center.

The 2012 Xbox LIVE update is beginning its rollout today and we expect all Xbox LIVE subscribers to have access to the update in the coming days.

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Microsoft Surface RT Priced: 32GB For $499 Without Touch Cover, $599 With; 64GB For $699

Microsoft today detailed pricing for its Surface tablets, at least those running the scaled down RT version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system designed for use on low-power processors. The Surface starts at $499 for an entry-level 32GB version without the Touch Cover with integrated touch-sensitive keyboard, while one with the cover runs $599. At the top of the line, a 64GB version with the touch cover included costs $699.

Microsoft had originally said that its Surface pricing would be roughly in line with the competition, with the RT devices matching tablets and the regular, more powerful Windows 8 varieties coming in at prices more comparable to other notebooks and ultrabooks out there. This pricing is in line with Apple’s iPad, which starts at $499 and ranges up to $699 for the Wi-Fi-only versions. Surface will be available beginning October 26, following a kick-off event for media October 25, and Microsoft looks to be ready to open pre-orders soon. The touch cover adds $119.99 to the price of the tablet when added as an accessory, and the type cover, with hardware keys, adds $129.99.

Earlier, the WSJ reported that Microsoft anticipated selling as many as 3 to 5 million of these tablets in Q4, which is ambitious, but at least they’re not overpriced for the category. It’s worth noting that in Microsoft’s own words, “Surface with Windows RT works exclusively with apps from the Windows Store,” meaning it’ll be like the iPad in more ways than form factor similarity. We’ll have to see whether users think there’s as much value there in Microsoft’s untested tablet as there is in Apple’s established lineup.

Update: The link appears to be broken now, with Microsoft maybe having lifted the curtain too soon. Below is a screenshot of how the site appeared this morning:

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Samsung Introduces GALAXY S III mini, a Compact yet Powerful Smartphone

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today unveiled the GALAXY S III mini, a compact version of the flagship smartphone GALAXY S III. The GALAXY S III mini brings the high performance, intuitive ease-of-use and nature-inspired design of the GALAXY S III to an elegant, compact smartphone with a 4.0-inch screen. It can be an optimal choice for consumers who are looking for more practical smartphones. 

“The GALAXY S III introduced a new concept of smartphone that has proven hugely popular around the world. We’re now delighted to bring its revolutionary design, intuitive usability and intelligence to the GALAXY S III mini in a more compact form,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “We continue to make every effort to provide extraordinary mobile experiences to meet a wide variety of user needs.”

The GALAXY S III mini is powered by Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), the latest version of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system. Jelly Bean has fast, fluid and smooth graphics along with a new Google Search™ experience featuring Google Now™, which brings you just the right information, before you even ask.

Stylish and compact, the GALAXY S III mini shares the GALAXY S III’s breakthrough design and simple elegance. Its ultra-minimal curved frame delivers a rich natural feel, which is also reflected on its nature-inspired home screen, wallpapers and ringtones. Its beautiful 4.0-inch Super AMOLED display offers a generous viewing experience that lets you view multimedia and Web content in brilliant color and clarity. Its compact size gives users a comfortable grip and allows a convenient one-hand operation. 

The GALAXY S III mini is packed with intelligent technology designed to make interacting with the phone incredibly natural and intuitive. S Voice, Samsung’s advanced natural language recognition software, lets you use your voice to unlock the phone with simple customized commands, or to play your favorite songs, turn the volume up or down, organize your schedule, or automatically launch the camera and start taking photos.  

The GALAXY S III mini also understands your gestures to make using your phone easier and more natural: With Smart Stay, the phone’s camera tracks your eyes and keeps the screen lit as long as you are looking at it. When reading a text message from a friend, Direct Call enables you to automatically dial a call simply by lifting the phone to your ear; and Smart Alert conveniently alerts you to missed calls or messages as soon as you pick up your phone. 

Content sharing is easy and fast on the GALAXY S III mini: Its S Beam feature lets you share a 10MB music file in just two seconds by simply tapping on another S Beam-enabled device including GALAXY S III or GALAXY Note II, even without a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. The ‘Buddy photo share’ function also allows photos to be easily and simultaneously shared with all your friends pictured in an image directly from the camera or the photo gallery.

Note to Editors

GALAXY S III mini Product Specifications



Network	HSPA 14.4/5.76 900/1900/2100 EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
Display	4.0” WVGA Super AMOLED
Chipset	Dual Core 1GHz
OS	Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Camera	5MP AF ＋ LED Flash / VGA Front
Video	H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, VC-1, SorensonSpark, WMV7, WMV8 Recording/ Playback : 720p
Audio	MP3, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC＋/eAAC＋,  WMA, OGG(Vorbis), FLAC
Additional Features	Game/Video/ Readers/Music Hub
	Kies, KiesAir
	FM Radio (RDS)
	TouchWiz
Google™ Mobile Services	Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Latitude Google Play Store, Google Play Books, Google Play Movies Google Plus, YouTube, Google Talk, Google Places, Google Navigation, Google Downloads
Connectivity	WiFi a/b/g/n, WiFi HT40 GPS/GLONASS NFC Bluetooth® 4.0(LE)
Sensor	Accelerometer, Digital compass, Proximity, Gyro
Memory	8/16GB ROM＋ 8Gb RAM, microSDup to 32GB
Dimension	121.55 x 63 x 9.85 mm, 111.5 g
Battery	1,500 mAh



＊ All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.

＊ Android, Google, Android Beam, Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Latitude, Google Play Store, Google Play Books, Google Play Movies, Google Plus, YouTube, Google Talk, Google Places, Google Navigation, Google Downloads are trademarks of Google Inc.

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New in the mobile app: support for Google+ pages

Today we're rolling out v3.2 of the Google+ app to Android and iOS; both versions include one of our most highly-requested features: support for Google+ pages. This gives page owners the ability to post, comment, and interact with their followers directly from their mobile device.

Additionally:
- The Android version includes an updated widget, and a new 'Find People' experience.
- The iOS version adds iPhone 5 and iOS 6 support, and the ability to edit your posts.

The new app is available now from Google Play (http://goo.gl/xaxMx) and the App Store (http://goo.gl/RVv2S), so give it a spin and let us know what you think!



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Our tests find 'purple haze' effect isn't limited just to the iPhone 5

When our testers oriented the iPhone 4S at a particular angle, it displayed the same purple haze many testing websites have claimed is more prominent on the iPhone 5.

The Apple iPhone 5, which our Ratings reveal is a standout camera, is no more prone to purple hazing on photos shot into a bright light source than its predecessor or than several Android phones with fine cameras, according to special Consumer Reports tests.
We carried out our tests in response to reports, including those from PCMag.com and DPReview.com, that theiPhone 5 had a tendency to display a distracting purple color over parts of certain shots and videos. In our tests, the phone's camera did indeed display such a haze when we shot into a bright light source in our labs.
But it didn't do so in any more pronounced a fashion than did the iPhone 4S or two Android-based smart phones, the Samsung Galaxy S III and Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, when we tested those under the same conditions. In the course of our tests, the haze was sometimes purple, but sometimes another color or even a rainbow.
All camera lenses, even those made for expensive SLRs, can yield lens flare, which is produced by scattered reflections inside the lens from a bright light source. How much flare appears in an image depends on how you orient the lens.
For example, lens flare often occurs on bright, cloudless sunny days, when you include the sun itself in the image or, if the sun isn't in the image, strong sunlight shines into the lens from an angle. Some expensive advanced cameras, and even many point-and-shoots, have special lens coatings that can limit or eliminate such flare, and possibly associated colored haze. So can attaching a shading hood around the lens's edge. But smart phones' cameras are designed differently, so it's typically more difficult for manufacturers to minimize flare in them.
Although this problem can be annoying, it's one that will probably not affect most of your photos, since it occurs only when a bright light source, such as the sun appears in the frame of the photo or just outside it. It's also pretty easy to minimize by using your hand to shield your phone's lens from the sunlight. You can avoid it altogether by reframing your photo or video whenever a bright light source appears in or near the frame


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Android 4.1.2 For Nexus 7 Rolling Out Now, Features Bug Fixes And Landscape Orientation Mode For Home Launcher

There’s been plenty of talk centered around iOS and Windows Phone 8 of late, but today seems to be the turn of Google and their fabulous Android OS as the Android Open SourceProject is seeing the release of 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. The 4.1.2 incremental update is only a minor improvement over the previous 4.1.1 release, but will definitely bring some notable improvements to Nexus 7 owners.

Some owners of the Nexus 7 tablet have already started seeing the Jelly Bean 4.1.2 update hitting their devices with an over-the-air update being available. The official changelog that accompanies the 4.1.2 build on the Nexus 7 isn’t exactly informative, but does state that it brings performance stability and fixes bugs as well as offering landscape orientation abilities to the home screen launcher of the device.

The rolling out of the update has been confirmed by a number of corners in the Androidcommunity with the expected download size coming in at approximately 32MB and contains nothing more than the minor changes mentioned above. The last few days and weeks have been bringing a number of rumors that have been centered around a possible LG Nexus device that was spotted running Android 4.1.2, but it looks like Android fans will need to wait until the release of Android 4.2 before anything like that comes to fruition.

The exact same build number that is associated with this 4.1.2 update has already been spotted in server logs in the last few days and as well as the Google Nexus 7 tablet, but has also been seen running on the Motorola Xoom, Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S devices. Before getting too excited, there isn’t any official announcement that Jelly Bean 4.1.2 will be coming to those devices, but it is a good indication that those gadgets will be getting the same treatment in the coming days or weeks.

Google’s chief release engineer, Jean-Baptiste Queru, has also offered a few words of advice to moderators who maintain community builds of Android for the Nexus 7, advising them to update those builds to 4.1.2 as soon as possible. He has also been active on the official Google Group page and stated that there is currently no official estimated time of arrival for any future builds of the Android OS. If you have a Nexus 7 tablet then make sure to keep checking for the 4.1.2 update.

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Star Wars invades Angry Birds

Those wacky Angry Birds, created by Rovio Entertainment, have already been cast into space. Now they are joining forces with the cast of a beloved space saga.

In Angry Birds Star Wars, a totally new edition of the game out Nov. 8 for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle Fire, Mac, PC, Windows Phone and Windows 8, the birds and pigs alike will take on the personalities of characters from the Star Wars saga.

"They are not Angry Birds dressed up as Star Warscharacters," says Paul Southern, vice president of licensing and consumer products marketing for Lucasfilm Ltd. "They are characters in their own right."

For example, Red Bird will be transformed into Luke Skywalker as an X-Wing pilot in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. "They've got personalities which are kind of similar," he says.

Other birds provide takes on Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the game, which will likely have free and paid versions. And, of course, Darth Vader and the dark side of the Force will be represented. "You will see a pig-esque Vader and pig-esque stormtroopers," Southern says.

Players have already downloaded 1 billion Angry Birds games. And the Star Wars game will likely propel the franchise to new heights. "We wanted this to feel like one of the biggest, if not the biggest, entertainment launches of the year," says Rovio's Andrew Stalbow.

The Lucasfilm collaboration was a natural after having teamed up with NASA for Angry Birds Space, released in March, and last year's Angry Birds Rio, a mashup celebrating the animated film Rio from Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that distributes Star Wars.

The gravitational physics used in the Space game will come into play in the new entry. Well-known environments from Star Wars films – from Luke's home world of Tatooine to the ice planet of Hoth – will serve as settings for intergalactic bird-pig showdowns. Even John Williams' seminal soundtrack music will be reflected. "Let's just say there's some really fun music in there," says Stalbow, who serves as the Finland-based Rovio's executive vice president of strategic partnerships. "It is very magical."

Angry Birds continues its ascent. Just two weeks ago, Rovio launched Bad Piggies, a game starring the grunting green pigs. The game is the top-ranked paid app in the Apple iTunes Store and, in the Android Market, it tops the free apps list.

And Angry Birds merchandise is already a hit. The plush toys have topped $25 million in sales.

With Angry Birds Star Wars, merchandise sales will likely kick into hyperdrive. Clothing, toys and action figures will appear in stores about a week before the game becomes available.

There's big-screen potential for the franchise, too. A series of animated shorts will be released by year's end, but Stalbow had no update on a rumored film, saying only that "Hollywood is very hot for Angry Birds."

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One Billion People on Facebook

By Mark Zuckerberg

This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month.

If you're reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.

Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.

I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.

---

[FACT SHEET]


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Lockitron Lets You Unlock the Door With Your iPhone [VIDEO]

Apigy just made its Lockitron keyless entry technology smarter, letting you unlock your door from anywhere in the world — or having it automatically unlock when you walk up to it.

This $149 device installs on top of your existing deadbolt lever, and it works best if you have a Bluetooth 4 or NFC-equipped smartphone. That lets it sense your presence, magically unlocking the door without you even having to say “open sesame.”

Lockitron is equally helpful if you’re away from home, where you can use its new iPhone app to manually and remotely unlock the door for friends using a smartphone app. And you can give them their own access by entering their email address and phone number — then Lockitron gives them access using their smartphones.

It’s even smarter than that: Lockitron lets you know if someone has knocked on your door, and it can sense if your door has been unlocked, dutifully notifying you immediately.

If you’re using a cellphone, you’re not going to feel left out: using the SMS system, it lets you send text commands to the Lockitron website that will remotely unlock the door. And, if the unit’s batteries have worn out after a year, you can still use your key to open the door the old-fashioned way.

We’ve had the first version of Lockitron installed in our San Francisco offices since last year. On the whole, it’s a convenient device that works nearly all of the time, but it’s not 100% dependable — and has on occasion refused to work, leaving staff members locked out. Let’s hope this one improves on that score.

One obvious improvement: The first version of Lockitron cost $295, almost double the price of the new version.

Now available for preorder, Lockitron’s creators used a Kickstarter like process to fund this revised version, raising $715,500 from 4,770 eager backers so far, with 29 days left to go. Apigy is saying the first batch will be shipped in March, 2013. Apparently there are a lot of people who are interested in keyless entry controlled by a smartphone.

Would it be worth $149 to be able to walk up like a boss and have your door automatically unlocked for you? Let us know in the comments.

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What's inside the new PlayStation 3?

A complete guide to disassembling the new PlayStation 3 "Super Slim" has been posted to YouTube, giving us some firm answers about the revisions Sony has made to the basic design of its veteran console.

Posted by YouTube user "K0st3yr", it's the third and final video in the series that offers up the most interesting insights into the construction of the new console. A key element in reducing the cost of a games console comes down to fabricating the core silicon - the most expensive elements in this case being the Cell CPU and the RSX graphics core. Microsoft's approach with its 2010 360S revision was to integrate these two components into a single part, reducing costs significantly - not just in terms of the silicon, but also with the attendant cooling set-up. This approach is nothing new - Sony did the same with the PlayStation 2, integrating the Graphics Synthesizer and Emotion Engine into one chip - but the additional complexity of current-gen parts makes this a major engineering challenge.

In K0st3yr's videos, it's immediately apparent that while the structural design of the new PlayStation is significantly simpler - and thus easier and cheaper to produce - Sony is still relying upon discrete components for its main processors. Curiously, the integrated metallic heatspreader that sat on top of the RSX is now gone and based on size comparisons with the USB port, it appears that the chip remains identical to that found in the existing PlayStation 3 Slim - fabricated at 40nm. We also see that the GPU retains the four GDDR3 memory modules, again a match for the older model.

"The internals suggest a robustly built piece of hardware, significantly scaled down but with Cell and RSX unchanged from the last Slim, suggesting cooler, more power-efficient revisions to come."

Cell itself remains tucked under a heatspreader, so it's difficult to tell if any changes have been made in this regard. However, our feeling is that once again the component is a match for the existing model as the integrated power supply offers peak power output along similar lines to the last Slim, while a smaller component would reduce load significantly. A drop from Cell's current 45nm process chip to 32nm would be the next logical step, but based on the LinkedIn profile of IBM's Elizabeth Gerhard - who "owned delivery" of key console processors at various fabrication nodes - there's a strong suggestion that the chip skips ahead to 22nm at some point in the future instead.

Elsewhere, while the exterior plastics, buttons and slidey lid cover are a step down from premium finish traditionally associated with PS3 build quality, the rest of the innards look reassuringly robust, and the complexity of the construction in general looks more involved than the Xbox 360S (with the original launch 360 looking almost agricultural in comparison). The cooling array looks sufficiently meaty, and just like the existing Slim, the entire top surface of the motherboard is encased in a metallic shield connected directly to the heatsink and fan. The Blu-ray drive appears to be significantly smaller too and overall part-count looks much reduced.

Next up is the 12GB flash PlayStation 3, based on the same chassis. Going forward, this looks to be the most price-competitive model Sony has in the offing, with the firm hinting in a recent Eurogamer interview that we could see some aggressive pricing at retail, along with some intriguing expansion options - including the ability to slot in an existing drive from your current PS3, or upgrade with your own HDD using an inexpensive caddy.

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Update makes the Nokia 808 PureView even better

The Nokia 808 PureView is one of the best camera phones ever made, but now a new software update is set to improve the revolutionary device even further.

This update will enhance the imaging experience on your 808 PureView, and lucky owners will know that it is already pretty fantastic! 

After the update has been installed on your Nokia 808 PureView you will benefit from all these new imaging features: 

• Gallery Grid view when you have the phone in landscape
• Access to more functions when you open your images from the Gallery widget on your home screen – swipe through other images, zoom, share, edit, and send images faster.
• More information about your images, such as image resolution, ISO value, white balance setting, and file size,  and the location. When you are connected online, one click will show you on Nokia Maps where the photo was taken.
• Select and delete multiple photos in Gallery Grid
• New reset button in Creative mode to change all the settings back to default with a single touch

As well as all those imaging enhancements, this software update will also enable you to use these new functions on your phone:

• Updated browser (to version 8.3) with enhanced HTML5 support
• New and significantly faster keyboard
• Nokia Car Mode – easy access to your phone’s key features when you’re driving

Getting the update

This software update is being rolled out globally from today, 2 October. However, there may be regional variations in the precise delivery due to country and operator variants. 

To check if the update is available for you and to install the update, connect the phone to your PC and open Nokia Suite, or alternatively check the Software Update application on your device.

The Nokia 603, Nokia 700 and Nokia 701 will also get an update that includes the features such as the faster browser and Nokia Car Mode.

However, the imaging and gallery enhancements are for the Nokia 808 PureView only.

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Italians Pay The Most, Americans The Least For iPhone 5

The iPhone 5 arrived in 22 more countries and we now have a nice summary as to what Apple’s newest handset will cost depending on where you live. According to Setteb.it, Italians will pay the most for the iPhone 5, while Hong Kong residents will get the best deals overseas. Not surprisingly, Americans get the best deal overall.

Take a look (click to enlarge):

Prices for iPhone 5

Note: Prices are on unsubsidized models and after tax. Currently, €1 is equal to $1.2922.

The iPhone 5 is now available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. On Sept. 21, the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom were the first to receive the handsets.

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