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Google Wave Invites Delayed Until Later Today

googlewavenotyet.jpgMashable reports that, according to a tweet by Stephanie Hannon, who is the product manager for Google Wave, invites have been delayed until “late in the day US time on Sept 30” because the Wave team is based in Sydney, Australia, where it is currently five in the morning and they want to be awake to handle any problems that may arise. To be sure, it would have been nice to have been informed of this earlier so that we wouldn’t have had to obsessively refresh our e-mails waiting for an invite.

Meanwhile, people are trying to sell Wave invites on eBay, but it looks like they are now being removed.

[Original image from flickr.com/photos/sooey]

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By Antoniu – September 30, 2009

Want a Google Wave Invite? They Don’t Come Cheap: One Auction at $157.50

googlewaveauction.pngPredictably enough, people have begun to sell Google Wave invites on sites such as eBay, where one auction is currently at $157.50. Google will be releasing 100,000 invites sometime today, but that is hardly enough to fill the demand for invites, especially when these invites will be split amongst several groups, including developers that have been active in the developer preview, the first users who signed up for an invite at wave.google.com and offered to give feedback and some Google Apps users. Similar to the Gmail auctions seen when that service was invite-only and every member received only five invites, Google Wave invites are now being sold for quite a high price.

Rather than buy one of these invites, it would be a better idea to wait until Google begins to send out invites itself to see if you receive one, as it has not done so yet.

Update: The auction has now been removed.

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By Antoniu – September 30, 2009

Dropbox Comes to the iPhone

dropboxiphone.jpgDropbox allows you to remotely back up important files so that they are not lost in case of a problem with your computer. It continuously runs in the background and whenever you add a file, remove a file or make changes to a file in your “Dropbox” folder, it syncs that file with Dropbox’s remote servers. Synced files can also be accessed from their website, even from a computer that does not have the program installed.

Dropbox now has an iPhone app [iTunes link] that allows you to browse the files you have synced from your computer. You can access files that the iPhone supports, such as PDF files, Word documents, images and music files. In addition, images and videos can be uploaded from the iPhone, which will then be automatically synced and uploaded to your desktop computer.

Dropbox comes with 2GB of storage for free, which may be enough to store your most important files, but also has a 50GB package for $9.99 per month and a 100GB package for $19.99 per month.

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By Antoniu – September 30, 2009

Alex Maghen Appointed CTO of MySpace

alexmaghen.jpgMySpace announced that Alex Maghen has been appointed as the company’s chief technology officer. Maghen will be responsible for managing the technological operations of MySpace, as well as core platform development and data hosting infrastructure at the company. Previously, Maghen was the CTO for MySpace Music and prior to his joining MySpace, he served as CTO for Yahoo Entertainment and before that, as CTO for MTV Networks.

He succeeds Aber Whitcomb, who is leaving MySpace.

[Image from CrunchBase]

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By Antoniu – September 29, 2009

Android 1.6 NDK Released

androidrl.jpgThe Andriod 1.6 NDK has been released. It complements the SDK by allowing developers to use native-code languages, such as C and C++, to make their Android applications. Doing so can increase the performance of some applications and is useful for heavy computations, digital processing and porting existing code to the Android OS.

The update includes:  

  • “The ability to use OpenGL ES 1.1 headers and libraries;
  • The ability to target either Android 1.5 or 1.6 devices;
  • The ability to put your native sources under your application’s project tree;
  • Many fixes to the NDK’s build scripts.”

The NDK can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the Android developer site.
[Image from flickr.com/photos/secretlondon – CC BY-SA 2.0]

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By Antoniu – September 29, 2009

TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone Priced at $120

tomtomiphonekit.gifTomTom announced that its car kit for the iPhone, which will complement the TomTom iPhone app, will be priced at $119.95 or €99.99. The kit will hold the iPhone in position, as in the picture above. It will also include a GPS chip for more accurate positioning, a microphone and speaker so that directions will be clearer and louder and a charger for the iPhone. It will also include an audio output port to allow users to hear directions and music through their car speakers. As CNET points out, most of these features just duplicate and improve upon the iPhone’s features.

The car kit will be available in October, though an exact date is not given. It will be compatible with the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, although the TomTom iPhone app is only compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The car kit will be sold separately from the TomTom iPhone app (which is priced at $99.99), so it will cost a total of $220 for both.

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By Antoniu – September 29, 2009

Dell Latitude Z Charges Wirelessly, Features Wireless Docking Station and includes Latitude ON

The Latitude Z, Dell’s upcoming business laptop, will be the first laptop that will be able to charge wirelessly. For an additional $199, a laptop stand with an inductive charging pad is included that can charge the laptop without any wires. According to Dell, charging via the pad is as effective as charging via cables and will take about the same amount of time.

The Latitude Z will also include a wireless docking station for $199, which includes USB connectors, a DVI video connector and audio jacks, which it can connect to when it is within nine feet.

It will be Dell’s Latitude ON, which is a second motherboard that runs Linux with an ARM processor, a graphics card and a Wi-Fi chip. It allows users to access e-mail and browse the Web without having to boot into Windows, allowing access to those services very quickly.

The Latitude Z will cost $1,999 and it will cost an additional $400 to get the wireless charging pad and the docking station. The release date has not been announced.

[via Computerworld]

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By Antoniu – September 29, 2009

Google to Send Out 100,000 Wave Invites Tomorrow

googlewaveinside.jpgGoogle has confirmed what it announced in July, that it will send out 100,000 Google Wave invites tomorrow, 30 September. The invites will go to developers that have been active in the developer preview, the first users who signed up for an invite at wave.google.com and offered to give feedback and some Google Apps users. Those that receive invites will then be able to invite others to join.

In its post, Google calls this a “preview” of Google Wave because the product is not yet complete: some features have not yet been implemented, the service sees occasional downtime and there are other bugs. However, it also mentions that, despite this, Google Wave is already a solid product in its current state and that it can make communication and collaboration more efficient. Google mentions specific cases in which Google Wave can be used, ranging from a scientist who uses it to collaborate on academic papers to a journalist working on a column to a filmmaker using it to assist in the movie-making process.

[Image from flickr.com/photos/sooey]

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By Antoniu – September 29, 2009

webOS 1.2 for the Palm Pre Released

pre.jpgAfter having been delayed earlier this month, Palm has now released webOS version 1.2 for the Pre. A comprehensive changelog for the update has been posted, however many of the features were already known due to the update having been leaked earlier this month before being quickly pulled.

One anticipated feature was not included: the ability to sync the Pre with an iTunes library. Much to Apple’s consternation, Palm has programmed the Pre to pose as an iPod in iTunes, allowing it to be synced. Apple temporarily broke this feature in iTunes 8.2.1 in July, but Palm was able to circumvent the patch by having the Pre pose as an iPod manufactured by Apple. iTunes 9, released earlier this month, broke the feature once again. webOS 1.2 was originally scheduled to be released on 8 September, but was delayed, causing some people to speculate that the update was delayed to allow the developers to fix iTunes syncing. It now looks like the update does not fix iTunes syncing, according to PreCentral. It is not known whether Palm tried and failed to circumvent Apple’s latest patch or if it did not attempt to do so.

The update is available right now via the Pre update app.

[Image from PreCentral]

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By Antoniu – September 28, 2009

Newegg Prepares for IPO

newegg.pngNewegg is preparing for an IPO in which it hopes to raise up to $175 million, according to a filing it made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to the filing, Newegg, which sells all sorts of merchandise online but is most known for selling computer hardware and software, has been profitable every year since it was founded in 2001 and it generated $2.1 billion in sales last year. The filing also mentions that Newegg expects to see greater competition from other e-commerce websites, specifically mentioning Circuit City, which went bankrupt but is still selling merchandise online.

The goal of the IPO is to help Newegg raise funds to compete in the Canadian market and the emerging market in China. The filing did not set a date for the IPO.

[via Reuters]
[Image from Newegg.com]

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By Antoniu – September 28, 2009