Pint-sized Raspberry Pi PC launches its own app store

Raspberry Pi's new app store could help encourage programmers, young and old, to keep learning and experimenting.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just launched a store for programmers to sell software, games, tools, and applications designed for the foundation’s tiny computers. For those unfamiliar, Raspberry Pi is a computer the size of a credit card that the founders want to use for teaching kids programming. The computer is little more than a USB port, RAM chip, and ports for video, audio, and HDMI. Just hook up a keyboard, mouse, and montior and you’re off.

The founders of the foundation, members of the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, realized that compared with the dot-com age of the 1990s, students in the 2000s were unlikely to have serious programming knowledge as computers got more advanced and more expensive. They wanted to create an inexpensive PC that could boot into a programming environment easily and wouldn’t break the bank. Raspberry Pi now has two models, one that costs just $25 and one that costs $35. 

According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, ”the Pi Store will, we hope, become a one-stop shop for all your Raspberry Pi needs; it’s also an easier way into the Raspberry Pi experience for total beginners, who will find everything they need to get going in one place, for free.” IndiCity and Velocix assisted with the Pi Store, which is offering 23 free titles at launch. 

There is an active programmer community that has grown up around Raspberry Pi, and the charity’s leaders said they hope the Pi Store will offer a place for those people to share their creations with a broad audience. In fact, they are encouraging the winners of the Summer Programming Contest to put their creations up on the store to earn a little pocket change. Developers can put their work up for free or as paid downloads, but even the free works will have a tip jar where fans of a particular piece can give a donation to the creator. The store could also make it easier for new programmers to dive into using the pint-sized computer. 

Image via Gijsbert Peijs

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Amazon launches Friends & Family Gifting for tracking and buying presents

Amazon launched its own social gift giving feature, which recommends you birthday or holiday gifts for your Facebook friends.

Amazon has announced Friends & Family Gifting just in time for the holidays, a feature that tracks gift giving occasions like birthdays and holidays. The app also integrates with Facebook for gift recommendations. 

Friends & Family Gifting is built on top of the popular Amazon Wish Lists feature, which enables users to build a wish list of Amazon products that anyone could purchase for them. The app uses Facebook and your Amazon account to track friend’s birthdays (or add one if the birthday is unlisted), and elect to send these friends a gift. Of course the impetus to launch such a feature on Amazon’s part is to try and get you to use its platform for buying and sending gifts rather than Facebooks recently launched Gifts feature. 

“Friends & Family Gifting on Amazon makes gift-giving fun and easy,” Amazon Sr. Manager of Wish List and Gifting Andy Rosenbaum said in a statement. “You will never forget a birthday and will have great gift ideas ready for this holiday season and special occasions year-round.”

Amazon’s Friends & Family Gifting is far more robust than Facebook Gifts, and uses your Facebook information in a superior way. For instance, Amazon recommends the types of gifts that recipients may prefer based on their Facebook likes of music titles, movies, and books. It takes some of the guessing out trying to figure out what type of gift they’d appreciate. With Facebook, you’re generally rotating through a list of the same options for sending gifts. There is little personalization and variety.

Of course Amazon’s tools for finding the perfect gift aren’t fool proof. Recommendations are meaningless if you happen to purchase your friend a book that they don’t like or already have.

While users of this feature can corroborate their list with mutual friends or your friend’s family by sharing the list of products you’ve selected for your friend on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and email, we still prefer the way Facebook executes gift giving. Through Facebook Gifts, once you’ve selected a gift the recipient can enter in their home address, and even exchange the gift for one of equal or lower value. Amazon’s Friends & Family Gifting doesn’t address both of these problems. Then again you could argue that the best part about receiving a gift is the surprise – and certainly, Amazon’s database of options is a huge benefit to its product. 

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Microsoft’s Outlook email client reaches 25 million user milestone, launches new features and Android app

Microsoft is celebrating the 25 million active user landmark for its Outlook email client by launching additional features and an Android app.

Today Microsoft announced that Outlook reached its 25 million active user milestone, an achievement worth celebrating especially when Microsoft claims that four out of five Gmail users “would” switch to Outlook. And Microsoft isn’t slowing down: It will introduce a slew of new features for Outlook in the coming weeks.

If you’re familiar with the Bing It On Challenge – sponsored by Microsoft – then its recent findings about Outlook will feel familiar. Results based on a study from a Microsoft hired research firm that gauged the sentiments of Gmail users about Outlook found that users preferred Outlook’s design, filters, and document sharing features. Seeing as how there isn’t an independent study at hand aside from the one commissioned by Microsoft, we’re going to justify our opinion of Outlook based on our hands on with the email client - and ultimately, we were pretty impressed. 

While Outlook has a good thing going with its streamlined interface, unlike the increasingly cluttered and chaotic Gmail, Microsoft plans on adding additional features to Outlook. “We continue to listen to feedback on what enthusiasts want next – including making the switch from Gmail even easier – and build those features,” said David Law, Windows Live product marketing manager, in a blog post. 

Users can archive messages with the click of the “Archive” button and store the messages in any folder on Outlook.

People love keyboard shortcuts. By typing “?” when you’re in your inbox, a window with all (and new) keyboard shortcuts will open up.

More color themes have been added.

 iPhone and Windows Phone users already have their own apps but now Android users will be as lucky. Exchange ActiveSync wasn’t supported natively on the Android OS. But now Microsoft is offering an Outlook Android app, which you can download directly from the Google Play store. The app is free to download and supports the following Android versions: 2.1 – 2.3.3 and 4.0 – 4.1.

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How’s your Surface? Microsoft launches owner feedback program

Keen to learn what it's done wrong and what it's done right with its first attempt at a tablet, Microsoft is inviting Surface owners to enroll in a feedback program.

If you spent time carefully examining all the tablets on the market and opted for Microsoft’s Surface RT device, are you happy with the choice you made? Or is there something about it that’s bugging you? Whatever it is – whether it’s the lack of apps, the lousy cameras, or its failure to function as an effective mode of transport as demonstrated by Microsoft’s former head of Windows Steven Sinofsky before he was given the boot, the Redmond-based computer giant wants to hear from you.

Microsoft is inviting anyone with its new tablet to enroll in the Surface Owner Feedback Program, hosted for the company by consumer research firm Gfk. All you need to do is fill out a short online form with a few personal details together with your device’s 12-digit serial number (located on the back of the Surface’s box or on the back of the device itself).

In a couple of weeks, you’ll receive an email from Microsoft inviting you to tell them about your experiences with its tablet, giving you the perfect opportunity to totally let rip on why things really aren’t working out, or gush with gratitude over how it has changed your life and made you a better person.

While the company has no doubt been monitoring blogs and forums to gauge the response to its new mobile offering, its feedback program will allow it to better organize and evaluate the collected data, enabling it to better understand what it’s done right and where it’s messed up.

The launch of the Surface in October marked the computer company’s first attempt at making its own branded computing device as it tries to play catch-up in an increasingly crowded market. Check out DT’s in-depth review of the Surface here.

Oh, and anyone in two minds about enrolling in Microsoft’s feedback program might be interested to know that the company will enter everyone who signs up into a draw. The prize? A bunch of accessories for your tablet worth $200. Your Surface tablet, that is.

[Windows Observer via TNW]

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Samsung Galaxy Axiom launches on US Cellular, provides S3 Mini looks with 4G LTE for $80

The Samsung Galaxy Axiom is the latest Android phone to launch on U.S. Cellular, and although it bears a distinct resemblance to the Galaxy S3 Mini, there are some subtle alterations internally.

Looking for some budget 4G Android thrills? U.S. Cellular has announced a phone which could be of interest: The Samsung Galaxy Axiom. Leaked earlier this month, the new Galaxy device has now been made official by the network, although it may look familiar to mobile fans with an eye for design.

Here’s what it’s all about. The Galaxy Axiom has a 4-inch display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, and it runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich; not the very latest version, but still acceptable enough. Inside is a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, while on the outside is a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 1.3-megapixel secondary video-call lens too.

There’s 4GB of storage memory built-in and a microSD card slot to boost this by up to 32GB, plus a variety of other features such as NFC support, a 2100mAh battery, DLNA and Wi-Fi, plus the aforementioned 4G LTE connectivity. Some of Samsung’s software goodies are present, with U.S. Cellular specifically mentioning S Beam and S Voice, and Google Wallet is also standard too.

If you’re looking at the Axiom and thinking, “My, you look familiar,” it’s because the phone is visually almost identical to the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. However, while it may look the same, the Axiom’s spec is slightly different. It’s swings and roundabouts too, as the S3 Mini has Android 4.1 Jelly Bean installed, plus the option of 8GB or 16GB of built-in storage, but lacks 4G LTE connectivity.

The processor inside the S3 Mini is a dual-core, 1GHz ST Ericsson NovaThor chip, but the Axiom has been given a 1.2GHz processor, which according to GSMArena is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. It probably won’t make much difference, but it’s worth knowing.

U.S. Cellular has priced the Galaxy Axiom at $80 with a two-year contract, or for those wishing to avoid such a lengthy commitment, it’s available SIM-free for $400, and is ready and waiting for you on the network’s website now.

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Simon & Schuster launches vanity press POD line

Technology's democratization of media continues apace, with traditional publisher Simon & Schuster getting in on the act by creating its own self-publishing service in the form of Archway Publishing.

Consider it the practical mixing of metaphors that sounds very impressive upon first blush, but really doesn’t make any sense the more you actually think about it: Publishing house Simon & Schuster has launched a new portal designed to take advantage of the self-publishing phenomenon that produced this year’s publishing story of the year (50 Shades of Grey and related sequels, by EL James) by providing authors tools to edit, design and market their work, while reassuring them that this doesn’t mean that they’re, you know, actually being published by Simon & Schuster.

The new offshoot is called Archway Publishing (The full name of the company, judging by the logo, appears to actually be “Archway Publishing From Simon & Schuster), and is actually a partnership between Simon & Schuster and Author Solutions, a self-publishing company purchased by Penguin parent company Pearson earlier this year. It describes itself as offering “a specialized approach to help every author reach his or her desired audience” by making available “the highest quality design, formatting, editorial, and marketing services provided by a team of specialists” using guidelines provided by Simon & Schuster. The publisher has also provided “certain unique self-publishing services [and] packages tailored to meet specific author objectives” as well as guidance in the development of the program.

Of course, such services don’t come cheap. Archway is offering four specific “packages” targeted at different types of books – Fiction, Non-Fiction, Business and Children’s – with each of those packages being available in multiple formats with increasing prices dependent on the services being offered. Basic packages (or “Foundation” packages, as they’re called by Archway) start at $1,999, with authors receiving paperback and digital copies of their work in addition to copy reviews, ISBN and Library of Congress number registration and distribution to booksellers, but authors could opt for more expensive packages like the “Visibility” package ($5,999, and offering “author reception at Book Expo America”) or the top-of-the-range “Connection” package ($14,999), which includes social media promotion and book trailer video.

Archway’s FAQs are very clear that it is neither an imprint of Simon & Schuster, nor does it mean that you would be published via Simon & Schuster. That doesn’t mean that there’s no value for the publisher in setting up the line in the first place, however; Simon & Schuster is described by Archway as “keep[ing] an eye out for titles that perform well in the marketplace,” noting that “Simon & Schuster is always on the lookout for fresh, new voices and they recognize a wealth of talent in Archway authors.” Translation: If you sign up for our services, you’ll become much more visible for a real publisher like Simon & Schuster. Whether that’ll be enough to convince newcomers to spend thousands of dollars, however, remains to be seen.

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Acer officially launches the Iconia Tab A110, with Tegra 3 and Jelly Bean

The Acer Iconia Tab A110 first debuted back at Computex, in June. Back then, the 7-inch device was running Android 4.0, propelled along by its Tegra 3 processor. Slated for a Q3 release, we heard following the show that the A110 would in fact be bumped up to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean before it hit the shelves. True to their word, it's Q3 -- just, the device has been bumped to Jelly Bean, and a formal release has been announced. 

The A110 is already up for pre-order with at least one UK based retailer, priced at £180. For the money we get -- besides Jelly Bean and Tegra 3 of course -- 8GB on board storage, expandable via microSD card, 1GB of RAM, a 1024x600 display, a 3420mAh battery, HDMI out and a 2MP front facing camera. 

The A110 will of course be going toe-to-toe with Google's own, Nexus 7. Both tablets have key features which could win over the crowds. The Nexus 7 of course will receive it's updates directly from Google, has a better screen, and is cheaper for the comparable model. The A110 has a microSD card slot, which on its own may be enough to sway some towards the Acer offering. 

With this, the Nexus 7, and Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD, the 7-inch tablet space is really beginning to heat up. There is no concrete release date provided by Acer for the A110's availability, but you can catch the full press release after the break. 

Acer presents the new ICONIA TAB A110 – Better mobility meets stylish and compact design

Bioggio, Switzerland: If you are looking for a tablet that you can easily hold in one hand and still lets you enjoy web browsing, multimedia, or even work if you need to, you have found your dream tablet. The new Acer ICONIA TAB A110, with a 7” display and less than 390 g of weight, is compact to carry and comfortable to browse, taking your mobile experience to the next level.

Easy to slip in your pocket or handbag, the ICONIA TAB A110 is just perfect to carry with you at all times to read, to browse, to play games or to plan your day.

It features Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which enables easy access to your favorite apps and brings resizable widgets that automatically resizes to the space available on the screen. The widget content refreshes as the size changes according to the widget size and could display larger, richer graphics or additional functionality or options.

Plus, it’s preloaded with full set of Google Mobile Service: Gmail, Google+, Maps, Messenger, Play Store, Talk, YouTube and more. Everything you need to enjoy a rich experience wherever you go is at your fingertips.

And, for a reading experience not to be missed, the ICONIA TAB A110 comes with Google Currents, a smart mobile app that lets you browse hundreds of free online magazines and top blogs all in one place. You can enjoy easy-to-read magazine-like editions for high speed and offline reading.

To top off the rich entertainment experience, the ICONIA TAB A110 comes with a 2MP front-facing camera to engage in live chats with your friends. The camera can also be used to lock and unlock the tablet thanks to face recognition, enhancing the security of the device and making it truly yours. And it’s also more fun to use!

What’s more, the compact size goes hand in hand with a powerful performance. Powered by NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 quad-core processor, the ICONIA TAB A110 allows faster and smoother web surfing, better multitasking, console-quality gaming and HD video watching.

The tablet also lets you bring your videos on a bigger screen for greater fun thanks to the HDMI ports. It can be connected to other devices, such as camera, keyboard, mouse or gamepad via the Micro USB port. While the Micro-SD card slot extends memory up to 32 G, guaranteeing even more room to your digital life.

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Google launches 'experiment' to bring AOSP vanilla Android to Sony Xperia S

More interesting news for open-source geeks this morning, as it's emerged Android Open-Source Project head Jean-Baptiste Queru has kicked off an “experiment” to bring AOSP support to Sony’s Xperia S. Previously, the only official AOSP target devices have been Nexus phones and certain “Google Experience” products like the Motorola Xoom. So the fact that work is underway to bring this kind of support to the Xperia S, which ships with a skinned UI and a bunch of proprietary Sony tech, is a fairly big deal, even if it is just an experiment for the time being.

In selecting the Xperia S, JBQ notes that it’s a powerful GSM device with an unlockable bootloader, and said that Sony had been “very friendly” towards AOSP. On that last point, Sony has long contributed code back to AOSP, and it’s even helped out amateur devs like the FreeXperia team working on CyanogenMod support for Xperia phones, giving them AOSP-friendly proprietary code for certain devices. The manufacturer has also released alpha and beta builds of some major software updates ahead of time, and actively sought feedback from advanced users. So despite its comparatively small market share, Sony seems a good for for this kind of project.

In his message to the Android Building mailing list, Queru encourages community developers to get involved with the project, but to do so while staying on the right side of the rules when it comes to handling proprietary binaries. As far as we’re aware, AOSP-friendly propertiary code will have to be released by Sony in order for this experiment to progress towards fully-functional builds, just as was the case with FreeXperia and CM. The camera firmware, for instance, is packed with proprietary Sony tech, so an entirely new binary might have to be created for this project.

Aside from the technical challenges ahead -- and there are more than a few -- it’s certainly cool to see the AOSP brass playing around with open-source Android on one of the more dev-friendly Android devices. We're a long, long way off having easily-flashable Google-approved AOSP available for certain devices alongside the manufacturer’s own ROM -- in fact, we’ll go on record and say that probably won’t ever happen. However, if this little experiment is a success, it could open the door to other non-Nexus phones being initiated into AOSP, and that can only be a good thing. We can't help but wonder what Google's long play might be in this respect.

We’ve reached out to Sony Mobile for comment on this experimental project, and we’ll keep you posted with any information they have to share.

Source: Android Building Group, via: The Verge

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