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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Fring Group Video goes live, enables four-way mobile video calls for free

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/27/fring-group-video-goes-live-enables-four-way-mobile-video-calls/

If you missed the opportunity to get your hands on Fring's limited Group Video beta, fret not, because the free service has just gone live for everyone on this planet. What this means is that all Fringsters on compatible iOS 4.x and Android 1.5+ devices (1GHz and above recommended) can now have up to three friends on one video call, and as before, you can do so over either WiFi, 3G, or 4G. Hit your nearest app market for the software update to join the fun, and head past the break to see how Group Video works.

Continue reading Fring Group Video goes live, enables four-way mobile video calls for free

Fring Group Video goes live, enables four-way mobile video calls for free originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Diagramly Is a Quick Online Diagram, Mind Map, and Flow Chart Creator [Webapp]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5795870/diagramly-is-a-quick-online-diagram-mind-map-and-flow-chart-creator

There are plenty of apps for creating flow charts, mind maps, and other types of diagrams, but Diagramly is ready to go the minute you visit the site. It's remarkably similar to Microsoft Visio, but it's accessible from pretty much any web browser and doesn't even require signing up.

If you've ever used Microsoft Visio, or pretty much any diagram-creating software, Diagramly should feel pretty familiar. Your shapes, text, and icons onto your grid, name them, and connect them with arrows. While there are plenty of webapps that rival desktop software, a lot of the graphics-based apps have a bit of lag. Diagramly is, fortunately, very responsive. It saves out to several image formats and allows you to print directly from the app. It's actually a really solid replacement to desktop diagraming software.

Diagramly is available for free, and all you have to do is go visit the site to get started.

Diagramly | via MakeUseOf

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook. If you'd like to contact him, Twitter is the most effective means of doing so.

Ditch Your Laptop While Photographing with Photosmith [Apps]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5795910/ditch-your-laptop-while-photographing-with-photosmith

Convergence! Its the best, right? My phone replaced my camera, GPS, and the need to throw birds at pigs in real life. Ditching superfluous gear is great. Photosmith will lighten your photographic load, iPad-loading pics straight from your camera.

One major caveat: Photosmith only works with Adobe Lightroom, so if you're an Aperture fan, this one isn't for you. Otherwise, it seems pretty neat—with a camera connector, email, or Eye-Fi card, push all the photos you want onto your iPad and get to work organizing, tagging, and sharing your work. Photosmith supports all the usual formats, including RAW files. An iPad is still a piece of gear, but it'll save you some poundage to be lugged around while on a shoot. [iTunes via Wired]

Coalition of companies creates WebM Community Cross License initiative

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/26/coalition-of-companies-creates-webm-community-cross-license-init/

When Google unveiled its WebM open source media format and declared it to be the one codec to rule all others, there were those who decried its usefulness and felt that H.264 should inherit the earth. WebM's power converted some of those staunch detractors, and to rally more to to the VP8 / Vorbis cause, 17 companies have now formed the WebM Community Cross-License (CCL) initiative by inter-mingling their WebM-related IP resources. The initiative was founded so that all may use El Goog's preferred multimedia codec free from the threat of patent litigation, and the CCL superfriends will welcome more members to bolster their legal might -- but those wishing to join must grant a royalty-free license to any of their patents that cover WebM technology. A passion for streamlining web standards and a willingness to spread the word about WebM couldn't hurt, either -- new formats don't sell themselves, y'know.

Coalition of companies creates WebM Community Cross License initiative originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Apr 2011 05:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG licenses ARM Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 graphics, starts scheming up mobile processors of its own

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/26/lg-licenses-arm-cortex-a15-and-mali-t604-graphics-starts-schemi/

Some of LG's brightest attractions at the moment are the dual-core Optimus 2X and Optimus 3D smartphones and similarly equipped Optimus Pad tablet. The only problem with them? Those multicore chips are produced by NVIDIA for the 2X and Pad and Texas Instruments for the Optimus 3D, leaving LG a clear step behind its arch-nemesis Samsung who is producing its own dual-core system-on-chip. So what else could LG possibly do but buy its own ARM license -- specifically for the Cortex-A9 design that is dominating today and the Cortex-A15 with Mali-T604 graphics that promises to rule the mobile world from 2012 onwards -- and start churning out its own processors? The Korean company certainly has the budget, if not the manufacturing facilities, to produce such chips at volume, and we're all for seeing another competitor enter the ARM arena. This licensing deal also reminds us that the last fresh licensee to ARM's blueprints was Microsoft -- so we can now look forward to two industry giants bringing their technical expertise to this rapidly growing marketplace. See LG's full press release after the break.

Continue reading LG licenses ARM Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 graphics, starts scheming up mobile processors of its own

LG licenses ARM Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 graphics, starts scheming up mobile processors of its own originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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