Splashtop offers apps for iOS and Android that let you remote control a Mac or Windows computer from your phone or tablet. Want to surf the web using the full version of Firefox? Splashtop lets you login to your PC and do that from your iPad. Want to play PC games on your Android phone? You can do that too.
While Splashtop is hardly the only company to offer this sort of remote desktop solution, it does offer one of the more popular options. And today the company is rolling out a new feature that can make controlling a PC from a mobile device much easier.
There’s a new Configurable Shortcuts & Gamepad add-on that lets you add your own on-screen shortcuts for special key strokes so you don’t have to bring up an on-screen keyboard and punch in complicated instructions for common functions.
You can also use the on-screen gamepad with directional controls and gaming buttons to navigate PC games as if you were using a computer with a dedicated game controller (assuming your game controller was a touchscreen without tactile feedback).
There’s a catch though. Splashtop itself is available as a free download from the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store. But the shortcuts & gamepad add-on is only available if you pony up a subscription fee using an in-app purchase.
You can pay $0.99 per month or $9.99 per year for the privilege of adding the gamepad and shortcuts.
This isn’t the first subscription-based add-on for Splashtop. While the free version of the software lets you log into any PC or Mac computer on your home network, Splashtop charges a subscription fee for the “Anywhere Access Pack” which lets you login to your computer over 3G, through a firewall, or under other conditions.
That’ll set you back $1.99 per month or $16.99 per year.
via Engadget
Splashtop adds configurable gamepad, shortcuts to remote desktop app for Android, iOS… for a fee is a post from: Liliputing
Acer’s Iconia Tab W510 is a Windows 8 tablet with a 10.1 inch display, an Intel Atom Clover Trail processor and 2GB of RAM. It’s not a Windows RT tablet which runs a stripped down version of Microsoft’s latest operating system, but a full Windows 8 device which can run both tablet-friendly apps and traditional Windows software.
Prices normally run about $550 and up, but TigerDirect is currently offering the Iconia W510 for $500. For that price you get a model with 32GB of storage.
There’s also a 64GB mdoel available, but if you’re going that route, you should probably check out Amazon, where you can pick one up for $580, which is a little lower than the price TigerDirect charges.
Note that these prices don’t include the optional keyboard docking station.
Here are some of the day’s best deals on mobile devices and accessories.
You can find more bargains in our daily deals section.
Deals of the Day (1-31-2013) is a post from: Liliputing
A team of independent developers is getting ready to release a tool for jailbreaking an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 6.0 or iOS 6.1. It’s called evasi0n, and according to one of the developers, it could be ready to launch within a week.
You can keep tabs on the progress at the evasi0n website. The goal is to release tools that let you use a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer to jailbreak your device.
You can also keep up on the progress by following the evad3rs team on Twitter.
Technically, it’s already possible to jailbreak a device running iOS 6.0 or later — but the only tools that are publicly available are for performing a tethered jailbreak. That means if you need to reboot your phone or tablet, you’ll need to plug it into your computer and run the software again.
Evasi0n is an untethered jailbreak, which means your device will remain jailbroken even after a reboot. The only way you’ll lose your jailbreak is if you restore from a backup or install a future software update from Apple.
Jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to run code that’s not officially supported by Apple, including third party apps that aren’t available from the App Store and software that can change the look and feel or other core functions of the operating system.
In order to jailbreak a device, hackers have to find a security hole in the software that they can exploit to shoehorn unsigned code onto the device. The evad3rs team of hackers had already found a hole in Apple’s latest versions of iOS a while ago, but they were waiting until iOS 6.1 was officially released before launching their tools — to make sure Apple didn’t have a chance to patch the security vulnerability before evasi0n was released.
Evasi0n iOS 6.x jailbreak could launch within the week is a post from: Liliputing
Recentemente, EFF está trabalhando com TOS;DR para hospedar uma hackathon na Campus Party Brasil, no Centro de Convenções do Parque Anhembi em São Paulo, Brasil. Novidades sobre o conteúdo, inscrição e agenda estão disponíveis no site oficial do evento. Abaixo algumas fotos do evento.
Você está na Campus Party Brasil? Então mande um e-mail para o Pedro Markun pedro@markun.com.br para participar de nossa hackathon.
Nossa hackathon foi desenvolvida para melhorar o TOSBack, o software livre que automaticamente monitora os termos de uso dos sites mais populares. Você pode participar submetendo novas regras (veja o guia em Português aqui) ou ajudando no re-design.
Quero agradecer especialmente ao Pedro Markun (@Markun), Guilherme Otero (@GuiOtero), Cecilia Tanaka (@Cecilia_Tanaka), Jimm Stout (@JimmStout) e Hugo Roy @HugoRoyD) por tornar esse evento possível e um sucesso.
Right now, EFF is working with TOS;DR to host a hackathon at Campus Party Brazil at the Anhembi Parque Convention Center in Sao Paulo - Brazil. Updates about the content, registration and agenda are available on the official website. Below are some photos from the event.
Are you at Campus Party Brazil? If so, please email Pedro Markun pedro@markun.com.br to get involved with our hackathon.
Our hackathon is designed to improve TOSBack, free software that automatically tracks the terms of service of many popular websites. You can get involved by submitting new rules (see Portuguese guide here) or by helping with the redesign.
Special thanks to Pedro Markun (@Markun), Guilherme Otero (@GuiOtero), and Cecilia Tanaka (@Cecilia_Tanaka), Jimm Stout (@JimmStout) and Hugo Roy @HugoRoyD) for helping to make this event successful.
Our hackathon.
The server room at Campus Party.
A close up of the server room.
Pedro Markun, a free software advocate who organized the event from Brazil.
An larger view of Campus Party and the server room.
EFF staff on hand at the hackathon.
EFF's Rainey Reitman.
A panorama of Campus Party from the VIP room.
Hard at work.
Google Android lets developers create apps that behave differently on phones and tablets. For instance the default Gmail app has a two-column view on a tablet, but if you use the exact same app on a phone, you only see one column. Some apps, such as personal finance tracker Mint or photo editing app Photoshop Elements offer more features and more powerful views on tablets than phones.
But if you have a rooted phone with a high resolution display, it’s possible to run many apps in tablet mode on your Android smartphone — and you can do it on a per-app basis, which means you don’t have to use the full tablet user interface on your phone just to get a two-column view in your email app.
All you need to do is change the DPI settings associated with each app so that the software thinks you’re using a tablet instead of a phone.
This is a feature that comes baked into the Paranoid Android custom ROM for many smartphones. But you don’t need to wipe your phone’s software and install Paranoid Android to change per-app DPI settings.
You can also install the Xposed Framework and the Xposed App Settings plug-in. The apps should work on many Android phones that have been rooted.
Xda-developers forum member xperiacle has posted details on the process, as well as step-by-step instructions and a few examples for how to your settings to enable tablet mode for various apps including the camera, Play Store, and phone dialer.
But in a nutshell, all you have to do is install the framework and plugin, launch it once to grant it root permissions, reboot your device, and then start playing with the available settings.
It’s also a good idea to backup your device first in case anything goes horribly wrong. Note that adjusting some of these settings can lead apps to look awful — or for text to be too tiny to comfortably read on your mobile device. You may have to play around with the settings for a while before you find the best options for each app.
via reddit
Change DPI settings for Android apps to enable tablet apps on a phone (root only) is a post from: Liliputing
Google Now is a service that automatically notifies you of relevant information based on your location, the time of day, or other cues. For instance, your phone can bring up a traffic report when you’re on the way to work, a weather forecast when you’re traveling, or sports schedules and scores before or after the next game.
So far Google Now has only been available on Android devices, but there’s evidence that it’s coming to the Chrome web browser (and Chrome OS computers). Now it looks like Google is paving the way by including support for rich notifications in the latest pre-release builds of the browser.
Developer François Beaufort noticed that the latest build of Chromium (the open source version of Chrome) has a flag that lets you “enable rich notifications.” All you have to do is type chrome://flags into the location bar and then switch the toggle for rich notifications.
Some Chrome web apps such as Google Calendar already support notifications — as long as the app is open, notifications will appear in a small box when an appointment is coming up, for instance.
The new rich notifications option could make it possible for far more apps to support notifications — and Beaufort imagines the update is also an important step toward adding Google Now functionality to Chrome.
In the future your Chrome web browser could show pop-up notifications for appointments, weather forecasts, package deliveries, birthdays, and other important information based on your search history, location, time, and other cues.
While this could be useful if you leave the Chrome web browser open for most of the workday on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, it could be even more powerful on a Chromebook since a Chrome OS laptop would be able to show notifications 100% of the time that the device is turned on.
via TNW
Enhanced notifications coming to Google Chrome, could pave way for Google Now is a post from: Liliputing
