AJay Damier

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20 something. Creative. Titan. Focus. Device Enthusiast. Mac. PC. Adventurous. Rooted in Affairs of the Heart = Politics. Dreamer. Philantropist. Lover of all things beautiful. “By Perserverance the snail reached the ark”, Charles Haddon Spurgeon … Always looking to make new and everlasting connections. Walk with me on the journey.

via AJay Damier.

Major new app store to take on Apple, others

AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and others to create app store to rival Apple’s
Store was announced Monday at the GSM World conference in Barcelona, Spain
Store would sell apps for iPhones and for smartphones like BlackBerry, Google Android
Until now, Apple has had control of all apps that go on the iPhone
(CNN) — Some of the world’s largest telecommunications companies have teamed up to create an apps store of sorts that they say will rival Apple’s and those of other smartphone makers.

AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and 24 other companies have formed what they’re calling the Wholesale Applications Community, they announced Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The store will be designed to encourage developers to create mobile and online applications for all smartphones and operating systems, according to a written release from the GSM (Global System for Mobile) Association, which hosts the conference.

The group aims to create an open platform.

“For customers this means a broader choice of innovative applications and services available on a wider choice of devices than ever before,” the group said on its Web site, which was online Monday morning.

Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics also are part of the group.

The groups said their site will give app developers a simple route to publishing and marketing, and will offer smartphone customers new apps quicker and a wider selection than anyone else.

“This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyse the development of a range of innovative, cross-device, cross-operator applications,” said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association.

As of now, Apple has had control over all apps that officially run on its iPhones, offering them through the company’s official online store. Users with the ability are able to “jailbreak” the phones to run other apps, but the overwhelming majority of them come through Apple’s store.

By creating a new platform, the Wholesale Applications Community would theoretically let developers write programs that would be usable on multiple smartphones instead of just one.

Currently, Apple apps must be written specically for the iPhone, making them unusable by other phones.

Many application developers have complained that Apple is sometimes slow to approve their work and has rejected apps for what they call arbitrary and confusing reasons.

Systems like Google’s Android have been more open, but the project by the mobile companies will be the biggest push yet to lure developers away from official outlets to a third-party distributor of apps.

Other global companies in the group include China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone and Wind.

The group says that combined, the companies have access to more than 3 billion customers worldwide.

There was no word Monday on how long it will be before applications become available from the consortium. But it’s expected to take a while.

Source: CNN

PwnageTool for iPhone 3.1.3

PwnageTool for iPhone OS 3.1.3 released for the version obsessed

While the list of tweaks is absurdly small in the latest iPhone OS update, we know that some of you simply have to run the latest and greatest OS at all times regardless of risk. Fortunately for you, the Dev-Team has stepped to with a new version of PwnageTool (v3.1.5 for Mac OS X) that handles the update to iPhone OS 3.1.3 with aplomb while preserving your device’s ultrasn0w unlock and jailbroken state. As usual, there’s a litany of precautions depending upon the device you own so hit the source link and read the dev-team’s words carefully before proceeding. With a little luck, patience, and undue stress, improved accuracy of your device’s reported battery level can be yours — Huzzah?

Craigslist App for Blackberry

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If you’re a hardcore Craiglist user and a BlackBerry fan you’ll be happy to know that the craiglist mobile app for BlackBerry was finally approved into App World today (we first caught a glimpse of it back in November – check out that post for video). This full-featured app is the “official craigslist app” and was built for craigslist by Movela/Pyxis Mobile. That being the case, the bad news here is that the app carries a price tag of $4.99. It definitely provides a smoother and faster experience than running the mobile website, that’s for sure, but may not be worth the $ for those who just check out craiglist from time to time.

Save those cracked lips pleaseeeee with Rosebud Salve

Care for your dry lips, skin, and the occasional burn with Rosebud Salve ($6). Made from cotton seed oil, aromol, and essential oils blended into a special petroleum base, this reddish salve helps sooth dry lips, can condition and moisturize dry, cracking elbows and knees, and as an added bonus also doubles — or is that triples? — as a diaper rash remedy.

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Rainy Tuesday… try this

Garb: Rainy Tuesday

Now that the snow is gone for a while, it seems about time for a good rain to drop by and mess up your week. Get ready with this all-weather, belt-less, cotton/nylon trench.

Shirt ($60) and Trench Coat ($200) by J.Crew. Cap ($80) by Inverallan. Pants ($150) by Acne. Bag ($345) by Billy Kirk. Shoes ($200) by Rokin Footwear.

via: uncrate.com

The Hello Kitty Chainsaw Massacre

When the inevitable police report is filled out, expect all the old cliches. “She seemed so harmless,” the neighbors will say. “We never thought so much evil could be hiding under such a cute little bow.” But we knew better.

The provenance of this Hello Kitty chainsaw, complete with a splatter pattern of purple hearts on the blade, is unknown, and maybe it’s better that way. The less we know, the less likely we are to be dragged in as material witnesses. [Hello Kitty Hell via Make]

Super Bowl Ads 2010

Did you blink during the Super Bowl commercial breaks? Too bad if you did, because it means you may have missed the anemic number of gadget or tech-related commercials worth talking about tomorrow at the water cooler. But! Megan Fox!

Megan Fox is an obvious choice, for obvious reasons (if she’s your thing): She had a Motoblur, and we’re a gadget blog! See? Obvious. Anyway, tweeting from a tub on her new phone, she pondered what would happen if she sent a picture of her bathing out to the world. Hijinks ensued, people were hurt, and even a gay couple somehow got distracted by the fox that is Megan Fox:

And such is the power of Fox that there were scenes that didn’t make the final cut.

Then there was Beyonce, fresh off her Grammy performance, performing again for Vizio. Surrounded by Internet memes and celebrities, Twitter and what appeared to be an army of automobile assembly line robots (hopefully not ones from Toyota), she sang and sold that company’s Via/Internet Apps technology. Think Internet on your HDTV, not because I say so or because that’s exactly what it is, but because that’s the message Vizio assaulted viewers with during the 60-second clip:

Tough love was the story for Intel’s Jeffrey the Robot. The commercial was supposedly for Intel’s Core processor line, but I know the truth: Robot uprising. It 20 years’ time we can all look back at this commercial, when poor Jeffrey was snubbed For The Last Time by his human overlords:

Lastly, there’s one we actually covered yesterday. Google. Its poignant ad about a search-happy boy in love with a French girl aired yesterday, on the Internet, which is probably fitting. We’ll revisit it again here if you missed it tonight:

Sigh.

Personally, for me the ads were a bit stale this year. Even the Bud Light beer ads, which have made me laugh out loud on occasion in years past, felt a little tired. Betty White was a standout though, and there were back-to-back ads depicting grown men in their underwear. Possibly a first there. Also a first: Seeing a two-timing baby talk about eTrade while his “milk-a-holic” girl on the side blew up his shit over a webcam.

The one Bud Light ad I will give props to, however, was their Autotune bit. It’s a stretch including here on Gizmodo, but we have a history with that app (iPhone, anyone?), and we’ll take an opportunity here to thank Budweiser for hopefully killing the tech off for good with this Super Bowl ad:

OK, I admit it, I smiled a bit watching that a second time. Guilty.

The entire crop is over at YouTube in one convenient package (Fox’s is notably absent at the moment, although they appear to be updating throughout the night).

iPhone OS 3.1.3 goes live

Grab your USB to 30-pin dock connector cable kids, Apple has released iPhone OS 3.1.3 to iTunes for your downloading pleasure. It doesn’t look like 3.1.3 is going to knock your socks off, but hey, an update is an update, right? Here is a list of what’s new according to Apple:

• Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
• Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
• Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard

Let us know in the comments if you find any other improvements/changes.

via: boygeniusreport.com

HTC Incredible caught on video rocking Snapdragon, Android 2.1 with Sense UI, and Verizon bands

The verdict’s still out on whether or not it’ll live up to its namesake, but the HTC Incredible is now officially out in the wild and surfing on Verizon’s frequencies. Pocketnow managed to obtain a few details along with a batch of leaked photos and video, so here’s what we’re being told: Snapdragon processor, Android 2.1 with Sense UI, 256MB of RAM, optical mouse pointer, and dual LED flash for the camera. The screen’s about 3.5 or 3.7 inches, WVGA resolution and possibly AMOLED. Traditionally shaky video reveal after the break.

via: engadget.com