By Cynthia Herbert :: 3:19 PM
With the next iteration of Galaxy handsets due to be unveiled tonight, Amazon has placed the current version, the Galaxy S III on sale temporarily.
The online retailer has cut the price for the Galaxy S III for Verizon
On Verizon and Sprint carriers, the handset has dropped from $69.99 to just one cent, in blue and white on both carriers, and black as an option for Verizon.
For customers new to AT&T, the S III is now $49.99 – down from $79.99 – and available in blue, white and red.
The Galaxy Note II is $69.99, down $30 for Sprint, and on AT&T, it’s $149.99.
Samsung will unveil the successor to the S III, the Galaxy S4 tonight in an event in New York City.
By: Gilbert Falso :: 2:41 PM
Social sharing website Digg announced this afternoon that it will build an RSS reader platform to fill the void left after Google sunsets its Google Reader product later this year.
“We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting,” the company said in a blog post.
Digg’s goal is to have the news reader ready to go by the time Google pulls the plug on Google Reader – set for July 1, 2013. The company had planned to build a reader product in the second half of 2013, but the impending Google Reader shutdown date has moved that deadline up several months.
In order to complete a reader product in a short window of time, Digg is asking the Internet community to get involved in the project. “We need your input on what you want to see in a reader. What problems should it solve for you? What’s useful? What isn’t? What do you wish it could do that it can’t today?” they ask.
Not only is Digg looking for user input, they’re also looking for development assistance, and pointed to their jobs website where there are openings posted for an engineer and an Android developer.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:08 PM
As the new version of Electronic Arts’ SimCity game continues to come under fire for its need to be tethered to the online service to play, an avid gamer who goes by the name UKAzzer claims to have found a workaround that allows continuous offline gameplay.
UKAzzer posted a video on YouTube (see below), and made comments on Reddit that discuss his success with circumventing the online connection requirements.
“You can edit the highways ANYWHERE – even outside of your city boundary,” he explains, “and even if you quit the game and log back in later, it’s all saved safely on the server.
He was able to disable the disconnection timer in the software, which will kick players out of the game after 20 minutes without a connection to an Electronic Arts server. By bypassing the timer, unlimited offline gameplay is possible.Access to
Access to the region features of SimCity is not possible during offline mode, and if a user wants to save the game, they still need to reconnect, but the successful disabling of the timer shows that a more sophisticated hack may lead a more stable offline mode of play.
Electronic Arts has not responded publicly to the news of this hack.
By Paul Thomson :: 1:08 AM
Yesterday, Twitter announced that there is a native version of their client available for Windows 8 and RT.
The new app, available in the Windows Store, give functionality to the Twitter client that takes advantage of of the tile interface of Windows 8.
Some elements of the app design will be close to the current Twitter.com interface and other Twitter apps, the specially tailored Windows 8 version has some features that are only available on the new Microsoft platform.
With Snap View, Twitter client users can “snap” the application onto the side of the screen and start another application. The app’s size can also be adjusted to one-third of the screen, two-thirds of the screen, or full-screen.
Images are available in landscape view, which allows for a larger version of the photo, and users can swipe across the photos to view multiple images.
With the Share charm, content from any other app is easily sharable on Twitter just by swiping across of the right edge.
Making use of Windows 8’s live tiles features, Twitter has tied notifications into these live tiles, where @ mentions and direct messages will show on the Start screen.
The app is available in 22 different languages.
By Gilbert Falso :: 9:03 PM
Earlier this evening, Google announced on their blog that they would be discontinuing a number of products because they were outside of their core business focus area. One of those products was Google Reader, a web-based RSS reader.
We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.
Google Reader users took to Twitter in droves shortly after the announcement was made, voicing their displeasure with the search giant’s plans to shutter their beloved RSS reader platform.
Within just a few hours, a number of petitions have been created, and websites set up dedicated to saving the Reader platform.
One such petition was started by Daniel Lewis, Director of New Media Communications at Sesame Street, who uses the service daily. “It’s still a core part of my Internet use. And of the many, many others who are signed below,” he writes on the petition summary. As of 9 PM, the petition has amassed some 920 signatures – up from just 500 in a half hour.
An added bonus – this GIF of a priceless reaction to the loss of Google Reader.