Twitter acquires Clutch.io, service essentially getting open sourced

Clutch.io is a service that allows iOS and mobile developers to easily and quickly do app testing, which helps them track just how customers use their apps. The service has been helpful in the past for a number of app developers and their products, but Clutch has now flipped over to just one client: The company has been acquired by Twitter. Clutch says it will work on the same type of work at Twitter, aiming to grow the company on a worldwide scale.

As for developers using Clutch now, there's both good and bad news. The bad news is that the service is getting shut down -- it will be supported until November 1, and after that Clutch's servers will no longer work. But the good news is that Clutch is basically open sourcing the whole thing. The company says it will release all of the necessary documentation and software for devs to continue to run the testing service on their own servers. And any currently running tests are designed to "fail gracefully" should Clutch's servers go down, so there shouldn't be any issues with end users at all.

All in all, it sounds like a good move for Clutch, and that developers who might be affected will at least have a way to deal with that. As for us Twitter users, I'm curious to see how this affects Twitter's mobile experience going forward. Twitter's one of my most-used services, so anything that makes it even better sounds good to me.

[Source: TUAW]

Google+ appeases audiophiles with new Studio Mode for Hangouts on Air

Since May, Google+ users have been able to show the world just how exciting their lives are via the Hangouts On Air feature. That works perfectly well for broadcasting your e-cooking lessons and all, but Mountain View has higher standards when it comes to live-streaming music. The just-announced Studio Mode for Hangouts On Air optimizes audio for music rather than speech, resulting in richer, clearer sound than what you'll get with the standard Voice Mode. Musicians simply select Studio Mode under settings -- other members of the hangout don't have to do anything. Check out a demo of the new feature below the break.

[Source: Engadget]

Google+ offers custom URLs for verified accounts, other profiles to come 'over time'

Do you happen to be David Beckham or Toyota? Well, congratulations -- you now have a Google+ vanity URL. The rest of us looking for the football star or car manufacturer need only type "google.com/+davidbeckham" or "google.com/+toyota" to reach those respective pages, enabling easy access to that must-see picture in front of a private jet, or a vehicle recall notice. Sadly, you're probably not eligible for a custom shortcut of your own -- here's the word from Google:

At first, we're introducing custom URLs to a limited number of verified profiles and pages. But over time we plan to offer custom URLs to many more brands and individuals, so please stay tuned!

So, for now, you better get comfy with "plus.google.com/108326689306432447266," or whatever the good Goog has granted.

[Source: Engadget]

Samsung's defense against Apple patents begins with DiamondTouch table, LiveTile UI prior art

Samsung may have convinced Judge Koh to toss a few international handsets out of Apple's lawsuit, but the Korean firm still has Cupertino's patent licensing accusations to contend with. Their tactic? Convince the court that Apple's claim to the inventions are invalid, and that the technology was developed prior to the disputed patent's filing. It's called showing "prior art," and Sammy's done it before -- famously showing a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in an attempt to put Apple's iPad design claims to rest. Today's examples were more grounded in reality, focusing on debunking Cupertino's claim to the "bounce back" effect that happens when a user reaches the end of a page and common multitouch zoom / navigation gestures.

Samsung pitted the famous "bounce back" feature against an old PocketPC interface called LaunchTile, which allowed users to navigate through 36 applications by zooming in and out and a panning across a grid-like "world view" of said apps. Movement between grids snap to each zone, marking the end of a page. Apple shot back, noting that LiveTile's snapping navigation didn't work on diagonals, and cited other differences as well. Samsung wasn't deterred, however, and brought out DiamondTouch, a projector based multitouch table that utilized both one touch scrolling and pinch-based zoom gestures. The table even takes aim at the aforementioned bounce-back patent with a technology called TableCloth, which bounces back images that are pulled off screen. DiamondTouch's creator, Adam Bogue, told the court that he had demoed the technology to Apple privately back in 2003, noting that it was also available to anyone who visited the Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories' lobby.

If the jury takes to Samsung's claims of prior art, it could severely cut Apple's claims against it. Even so, Cupertino's lawyers aren't going down without a fight, and still have a number of navigation and design claims that Samsung hasn't addressed. The two parties are expected to keep up the fight for about a week, we'll keep you posted on the inevitable revelations as they come.

[Source: Engadget]

Telenav's Scout gives iOS users offline navigation in exchange for ten bucks

We know that iOS 6 will bless iPhone users with some in-house-made mapping, but that hasn't stopped Telenav from bettering its own Scout navigation offering for Apple's favorite handsets. Scout now does offline navigation by letting users download maps of the west, central or eastern United States over WiFi only. Plus, Scout now takes voice commands, so on your next road trip you can tell it to find the nearest Whataburger whether you have cell signal or not. Interested parties can head on over to the App Store to get their download on, but you'll pay for the privilege -- offline navigation costs $9.99 a year or $2.99 a month, though the free, data-dependant version of Scout for iPhone still includes speech recognition. Still not sold? Perhaps the video after the break will persuade you.

[Source: Engadget]

Xbox 720 in the next 18 months, job listing divulges

The next Xbox has been pegged to go on sale next Christmas by a revealing Microsoft job listing.

The job details, which were spotted by PCWorld and have since been deleted, explain that "over the next 18 months Microsoft will release new versions of all of our most significant products," going on to list "Windows (Client, Server, Phone and Azure), Office and Xbox." We already know about the new Windows gubbins -- that's Windows 8 of course. But so far Microsoft has remained tight-lipped regarding a new games console.

18 months would see a new system released early in 2014 at the latest, though it's far more likely that Microsoft would try and get the new Xbox -- reportedly codenamed Durango -- on sale in the run up to Christmas next year, giving cash-addled parents the opportunity to stuff their offsprings' stockings with a brand-new console.Microsoft has already stated that there would be no new console out this year, ruling out a surprise 2012 unveiling. Not much is known about what Microsoft's follow-up to the popular Xbox 360 will look like, though rumours tip it to feature a Blu-ray drive and to require a constant web connection in order to play games.

If we're talking about excluding gamers who don't have an Internet connection, then perhaps we could also see Microsoft ditching physical media altogether and having games accessed solely through downloads. Another recent Microsoft job ad spied by Techradar suggests that the company responsible for Clippy is already working on a second round of Surface tablets.

[Source: cnet]

Sky Movies on YouView as Now TV arrives with 30 days free

Cut-price dish-free Sky channels are now available on YouView -- for free. You can watch Sky's online service Now TV on your YouView set-top box, bringing Sky Movies to your goggle box without coughing up for a Sky subscription.

Now TV is free for the first month -- so that's 30 days of movies from Sky's film channels, long before they reach other TV channels or online services.

With Now TV, you can watch Sky programmes on your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and selected Android smart phones -- not the Samsung Galaxy S3 or any Ice Cream Sandwich phones, though. You can currently watch Sky Movies from Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Warner, Universal and more, on demand or as part of a £15 monthly contract. Classic films cost 99p to rent and newer releases are £3.50.

Sky Sports is set to follow shortly for Premier League, Test cricket, and Formula One action.

When you sign up to Now TV, you can watch on two devices, such as your YouView box and a phone or tablet. I can understand why the folks at Sky would limit the number of devices -- they don't want you logging in on your friends' phones for free films all round -- but two is a bit tight. If you own a TV, a computer and a phone, you're stuck, let alone if you have a tablet or a laptop as well.

[Source: cnet]

London 2012 closing ceremony celebrated with Google doodle

It's the last day of a two-week run of Olympics-themed Google doodles. And fittingly, today's marks the closing ceremony of what has been a triumphant games.

We've seen plenty of playable games during the run, including piloting a canoe through a slalom course, a basketball shootout and the hurdles.

Today's shows a party in full swing, as all the stars of the doodles over the last two weeks celebrate around the word Google. There's the archery woman who kicked everything off (that's another string to her bow, ahem). There's the man kicking the football at the goal in the playable penalty shootout. The synchronised swimming team, fencer, pole vaulter and all the others are there too.

The doodles started the day of the opening ceremony, then it wasn't long before we had some playable games to waste time with. Hurdles was first on 7 August, then basketball the next day, slalom canoe the day after and then football.

The closing ceremony will start tonight at 9pm. It's not too late to get tickets either. Once the set has been moved into place, between 200 and 1,000 seats will go up for sale online. No fewer than 3,500 performers will take part in the Olympic stadium. There's also talk of an extra special musical guest making a performance, to show the world we've got more rabbit than Sainsbury's. Please, Seb Coe, make it so.

Team GB has won a phenomenal 62 medals, including 28 gold. And it's not over yet, with more medals guaranteed today in the men's boxing. The women's modern pentathlon is still yet to be decided, as is the men's marathon and men's cross-country mountain biking.

[Source: cnet]

Gmail results in Google Search now available to some field trial participants

One of Google's bigger announcements at its search-focused event earlier this week was the integration of personal Gmail content into Google Search — users will soon have the option to see Gmail results integrated right alongside other search results. The feature isn't publicly available yet, but Google began accepting sign-ups for a limited field trial along with the announcement, and now some Gmail members are receiving notifications that the feature has been activated for their account. Several tipster have written in to let us know that Gmail has begun popping up in their searches after receiving an email notification saying the feature was turned on; we've been able to confirm that with a few personal email accounts, as well.

It works just as Google explained a few days ago — search results from Gmail show up in the upper right of the screen, above Google Knowledge Graph content. They're hidden from view by default, but you can click to quickly see a snapshot of your Gmail conversations relevant to the search term. Upon clicking a conversation, it brings up a dedicated view of the whole relevant email thread rather than simply moving the user into Gmail, but there's an option to click and view the messages in the native Gmail interface as well. Strangely enough, this feature doesn't appear to be supported in Safari right now, though it works fine with Chrome and Firefox. If you want to participate in the trial, you can sign up right here.

[Source: The Verge]

Google to downrank sites hit by valid copyright claims

Google has been dogged by claims that it facilitates the piracy of content through its search results pretty much since day one. Starting next week, the web giant will be taking a much more aggressive approach to sites hosting pirated material by downranking frequent offenders. The new results algorithm will take into account the number of valid copyright notices received against a site and penalize them appropriately in the rankings. Google says that this will allow consumers to more readily find legitimate sources of content such as Hulu and Spotify, but it's hard not to see the move as one intended to appease studios, content producers and government officials that routinely threaten to hammer companies like Google with lawsuits and restrictive legislation. Mountain View was also quick to highlight how responsive it's been to industry concerns -- citing the fact that it receives and processes more copyright complaints in a day than it did in all of 2009 combined. For more details, hit up the source link.

Update: The MPAA has issued the following statement from Michael O'Leary, Senior Executive Vice President for Global Policy and External Affairs, in response to Google's move:

We are optimistic that Google's actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other outlaw enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe. We will be watching this development closely – the devil is always in the details – and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves.

[Source: Engadget]

Motorola to cut its workforce by 20 percent, shutter a third of its offices worldwide

When Google acquired Motorola Mobility, Larry Page said the move would help "supercharge the Android ecosystem," but first, the firm needs to reorganize. That seems to be starting -- the company just announced that it will be closing a third of its 94 offices and laying off 20 percent of its workforce, including 40 percent of its vice presidents. The move will scale back its presence in Asia and India, says the New York Times, and will center its operations in Chicago, Sunnyvale and Beijing. The new, smaller Motorola will be working on less devices too, focusing on releasing a few high quality handsets each year as opposed to several dozen. Less phones means less parts, of course, and the firm says it will be dropping some suppliers and will be buying half as many components as a result. We're all for the new Moto's less-is-more approach and the potential it has to breed a new Nexus device, but Google's already made it clear that it isn't playing favorites with OEMs. Either way, it's a start.

[Source: Engadget]

Google Knowledge Graph coming to all English-speaking nations tomorrow, adds lists to results

Google launched its contextual and intelligent search service, Knowledge Graph, only a few months ago. Till now, it's been limited in its availability and, while most nations will still be left out, tomorrow it will be coming to all "English-speaking" countries. The ability to discern your intended search goal and present you with relevant information immediately, as opposed to just a page of links, is the next step in search technology and the secret sauce powering the somewhat creepy Google Now in Jelly Bean. The Graph has also received a few enhancements and tweaks, including the ability to answer queries with collections and lists. So, say you're looking for rides in Disney World, a thumbnail of every attraction will appear at the top in a horizontally scrollable list. How much longer till our Spanish, French or Chinese speaking pals can get in on the action? That's anyone's guess. But, if English is the native tongue of your home, then rest assured your flavor of Google has just gotten a little bit smarter.

[Source: Engadget]