This might not be the world’s largest QR code, but it’s probably the tastiest. Chinese Internet giant Tencent celebrated the New Year in style with a 3-ton QR code cake, as documented by state news agency Xinhua.
The installation was composed with 20,000 slices. It took up 36
square meters and required 750kg of evaporated milk, 730kg of cheese,
390kg of butter, 245 kg of chocolate and 600kg of “egg mixture”.
It took
25 bakers 10 hours to complete. All this effort will likely pay off, as
the cake is believed to have secured a Guinness world record for the
largest QR code in cake form. Fancy that.
The resulting code was fully scannable and pointed customers to Tencent’s news client.
So, we have heard that Polaroid looks set to open up retail stores
later this year, and one thing’s for sure – these brick-and-mortar
stores are definitely going to have their fair share of hardware on
parade. In fact, the famous photography company is about to jump aboard
the Android-powered bandwagon with a 7” tablet in the works. Adults
would want to steer clear of this $149.99 tablet though, as it has been
specially designed for kids. The tablet itself will be accompanied by a
suite of apps which were specially programmed for kids, among them
include Kids Cam, Music Studio and Draw, which allows your little ones
to remain occupied while expending their creative powers by snapping
photos, composing music and drawing out their imagination.
The Polaroid kids tablet know exactly just which target market it
caters for, which is why it comes with innovative side bumpers that help
offer adequate amounts of protection, coupled with parental controls
that will ensure added protection for the little ones. Dr. Seuss titles
will also be pre-loaded to get your little ones hooked on reading, now
how about that? Hardware specifications include a 7” screen with WVGA
resolution, a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, 8GB of internal memory, a
microSD memory card slot, and a 2-megapixel camera at the back, running
on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with a 3500mAh battery in tow.
If you receive a message purporting to be from Facebook with the subject "LEGAL NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION" -- don't worry, it's legitimate.
Facebook is sending proposed settlement notices to members of a
class-action lawsuit against the company's use of Sponsored Stories.
Facebook's offer of $20 million to settle the case was granted preliminary approval by the courts in December.
An email detailing the reason behind the lawsuit as well as the terms
of the settlement was sent to users it believes are class members of
the lawsuit, "according to available records."
The lawsuit was initially filed on behalf of Facebook users objecting
to the use of their names and pictures in Sponsored Stories, ads which
turn a user's Likes into ads appearing in friends' news feeds. The
lawsuit argues the ads are a violation of privacy, as they turn users
into spokespeople and endorsers without their direct approval.
The terms of the settlement state that users who file a claim can receive up to $10 from Facebook.
According to the document:
The amount, if any, paid to each claimant depends
upon the number of claims made and other factors detailed in the
Settlement. No one knows in advance how much each claimant will receive,
or whether any money will be paid directly to claimants. If the
number of claims made renders it economically infeasible to pay money to
persons who make a timely and valid claim, payment will be made to the
not-for-profit organizations identified on the Settlement website at www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com.
Class members have until May 2, 2013, to submit a claim, exclude
themselves from the settlement (in order to file an individual lawsuit
over the legal claims), or tell the court why they object to the
settlement. A Fairness Hearing over the matter will be held on June 28,
2013.
For users that do not submit a claim, they will not receive payment
at all, but may be eligible for the non-monetary benefits of the
settlement.
What do you think about the Sponsored Stories settlement? Is Facebook doing enough? Let us know in the comments.
Microsoft has been attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo video
game-based trade show, better known as E3, since it started in the
mid-1990s. This year's E3 will officially be held on June 11-13 in Los Angeles but typically Microsoft holds a pre-E3 press conference in LA the day before the trade show officially starts.
Today, the Major Nelson website, run by Microsoft's Larry Hryb, did something that it has never done before. It posted a countdown clock that will reach zero when E3 2013 begins. Hryb's only statement on the post was, "And it’s on…"
Already many commentators on the post are speculating that Hryb went
ahead and posted the countdown clock so early as a tease that Microsoft
has some extra-special planned for E3 2013. Unless all the Internet
rumors and leaks prove to be bogus, it's likely that Microsoft could use
E3 as the first place to show off the third generation Xbox game
console.
Some rumors, including one report in one of the last print issues of Xbox World in November,
claimed that the next Xbox would in fact be revealed well before E3
2013. However, we suspect that may not be correct as Microsoft still has
a number of major Xbox 360 first and third party games that are due to
be released before June, including Gears of War Judgement in March. We
don't think Microsoft would risk revealing the next Xbox before all of
those games ship to stores.
We have now hit the new year and many Samsung Galaxy smartphone owners
are excited about what is to come next from the company in 2013. CES
2013 and MWC 2013 are also fast approaching and all eyes are naturally
focused on whether or not we’ll see a next-generation Samsung Galaxy S4
announced within the next couple of months. Samsung are staying quiet
for now, but we do have a snippet of fresh information to bring you
related to the elusive device – the first a confirmation of what the
model number of the device should be, and then a look at specs within an
impressive concept design to get you warmed up for its eventual
official reveal.
We love looking at concept designs for new and prospective
smartphones, even if the designs shown are nothing like the final
product. iPhone 5 concept designs were extremely popular in the buildup
to the official launch and if you remember, most of the concept designs
shown then were actually pretty spot on from what Apple eventually
produced on stage.
Here’s hoping that the same formula will repeat with the Samsung
Galaxy S4, as this is arguably the most attractive concept that we’ve
seen for the device yet – no sign of the adventurous ‘flexible curved’
display concepts that you’ve probably already seen. We first told you
about this concept before the new year here, with the concept surfacing from Russia and has been compiled based on existing rumors for the device seen so far.
Specs seen in the concept include a 5-inch display, an ultra thin
body and a feature that we’re really pleased to see in the flesh – an
edge to edge display screen. We’re yet to see Samsung make this an
official feature across any of their Galaxy smartphone range and
consumers had really hoped to see it in the Galaxy Note 2. Hopefully
they are taking note in the massive interest for an edge to edge screen
and will finally implement it on the Galaxy S4.
Other areas of interest in the concept include dazzling specs such as
a 2.0Ghz quad-core processor, a 13 megapixel camera, 1080p resolution
and the next major version of Android – thought to be 5.0 Key Lime Pie.
All of these specs are very possible for the S4, although perhaps it may
be a little early to see a quad-core 2.0 chip just yet. For a possible
glance into the future, we also see a lovely feature called the laser
projection keyboard, which will allow users to activate a virtual
keyboard on any surface with a motion swipe in front of the device. It
looks impressive indeed, but we doubt very much that such a feature
would be ready for 2013.
If you pause the video at 0.24, it will bring us onto our next point
nicely – the model name of the device. The concept also uses the model
name of GT-I9505, which corresponds with the same model number that has
been recently confirmed by the guys over at SamMobile for the Galaxy S4 LTE version.
Will this end up being an accurate look at the Samsung Galaxy S4?
We definitely wouldn’t mind if it did as the concept looks fantastic in
our opinion and easily one of the better S4 designs we’ve seen as of
late. Let us know what you think of it and what your expectations of the
Galaxy S4 are in 2013.
If you have been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 regularly since its
release in November, there’s no doubt that you have seen your fair share
of spectacular tomahawk kills, mostly on YouTube or even by yourself if
you have been that lucky. We have one tomahawk kill to show you now
which may trump the lot and features a triple kill right at the start of
the map and fortunately, the theater mode was there to capture every
moment.
We can imagine that most of you have already managed to get a few
decent kills with the tomahawk or combat axe as its now known in Black
Ops 2. How many of you have managed to record your kill though and show
it off on YouTube afterwards for other players to admire? This
particular tomahawk kill is now doing the rounds on YouTube, attracting
over 150,000 views for a cross-map kill which just so happens to
detonate a moving RCXD car and kill three flag-taking soldiers at the
same time.
Of course, this is an incredibly lucky feat to perform and we doubt
that the person responsible would be able to replicate it again if they
tried over and over. Watch how the player launches the axe into the air
and then is awarded with a number of achievements, especially the reward
for getting multiple kills with an RCXD – even though he wasn’t
controlling the car!
We’ve obviously seen a lot of similar cross-map tomahawk kills on the
first Black Ops game, but we felt that this one really needed sharing.
The author of the video is claiming this to be the ‘first’ ever
triple RCXD kill with a combat axe in Black Ops 2, but have you seen
this happen anywhere else? Watch the fantastic footage below and let us
know how good you think it is.
Are these the type of kills that define Call of Duty, or are you
just thinking that you’ve seen this all before and the likes of
Battlefield 3 offers far more than just fancy tomahawk kills? Don’t
forget to watch the whole video so you see the perspective of the enemy
team as well as they are just capturing the map – priceless.
Earlier today we touched on the fact that the iOS 6 Do Not Disturb
problems were not isolated to just New Years day, and we’d heard from a
few of our readers that stated issues continued today with the scheduled
turn off not working. If you are running iOS 6 and are looking for a
fix to the Do Not Disturb problems, then you should know that there’s
nothing you need to do for a long term fix.
Apple has submitted a support document, which confirms the Do Not Disturb mode is staying “on past its scheduled end time“.
They continue to explain that the fix to this problem is simply waiting
until January 7, 2013. After this date everything should work fine on
your iPhone 5, 4S/4, 3GS, and other devices running iOS 6.
Earlier today we touched on the earlier article we published reporting this problem on New Years Day,
and the fact that we also experienced problems with our iPhone 5 and
the Do Not Disturb feature. We had a slightly longer sleep-in on New
Years Day just like thousands of other iOS 6 users.
This article had been followed up with a video
that Apple published on YouTube for New Years Day, which showcased
their new TV ad. The video promoted their Do Not Disturb mode, and also
made some fans laugh considering it had not worked when they woke up
yesterday and today.
Apple’s recommendation for an iOS 6 Do Not Disturb fix right now
– for now you’ll need to manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on
and off. This is done by going to Do Not Disturb, which is found under
Settings > Notifications.
Did you notice the Do Not Disturb problem this year?
We’ll check our iPhone 5, 4S, and iPads in the office after January 7
to see if everything is working again. For now it looks like you’ll need
to manually turn the feature on and off.
Records, as they say, are meant to be broken,
and on New Year’s Eve earlier this Monday, WhatsApp claimed that they
processed a whopping 18 billion messages – that would mean an average of
nearly 3 messages for each person on the face of the earth. This amount
is nearly double that of WhatsApp’s 10 billion message record that was
set in August, and we are quite sure that as the world’s population
continues to grow exponentially with more and more folks taking up
smartphones as their primary mobile communications device of choice, the
18 billion mark is set to shatter not too long down the road.
Out of the 18 billion messages processed, around 7 billion messages
were inbound, while 11 billion of them were outbound messages. How many
messages using the WhatsApp platform did you contribute to be part of
this rather historic milestone? Of course if you were to put things in
perspective, Apple mentioned that in October alone, their iMessage text
service delivered approximately 300 billion texts over the course of a
year, averaging out to under a billion a day.
Samsung has disclosed new product additions including a Smart TV upgrade kit before CES starts next week.
The electronics firm began announcing the new product range this
week, all of which will be displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES), taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada from Jan 8 - 11.
Among the line-up is a range of monitors,
built for both professionals and your average consumer. According to
the firm, the Series 7 SC770 Touch Monitor comes optimized for Windows 8
users and is equipped with a multi-touch display, whereas the new
Series 7 SC750 focuses on a "premium" picture quality and slimline
design. The contrast ratio for the SC750 is 5,000:1, several times over a
standard monitor.
Both models will be available in the first quarter of 2013. Samsung
will also be using CES to promote its Series 9 monitor, which utilizes a
PLS (Plane Line Switching) panel and Wide-Quad high-definition
resolution (WQHD), delivering four times more detail than traditional
HD.
In addition, the South Korean firm has kept the news flowing by
mentioning a Smart TV upgrade "Evolution Kit" ahead of the tech show.
Samsung's Evolution Kit,
which was introduced at CES 2012, is a plugin that can transform
Samsung Smart TVs from its 2012 range into models with the latest
features from this year's line. The firm says that each kit can be
plugged into the back of an older television, and includes hardware
enhancements including improvements to CPU and GPU which will give users
faster speeds when surfing the web or using apps.
The Evolution Kit will also bring improvements to the Smart Interaction features, including voice control and motion control.
These kinds of products could mean tapping into an additional revenue
stream within the smart television industry, as the lifespan of
television sets means that consumers do not generally upgrade their kits
every year or so. Commentary provided by Sunny Lee, VP of Visual
Displays Sales & Marketing at Samsung, seems to suggest that the
Evolution Kit may become a permanent product that will upgrade for every
range, making the idea of "transforming" kits rather than replacing
them a potentially lucrative scheme. Lee said:
"Consumers can enjoy the latest features and services every year
without having to purchase a brand new set. Samsung Smart TV users will
enjoy timeless TV that transcends time with [the] Evolution Kit."
December was a good month for Microsoft's new operating system, with
Windows 8's market share leapfrogging Linux to claim the number seven
spot.
Data released by Web metric firm Net Applications shows that over the course of December the Windows 8 market share grew to 1.72 percent, up from 1.09 percent in November.
The leap in market share puts Windows 8 ahead of Linux, but behind
Mac OS X 10.8, OS X 10.7, and OS X 10.6, and far behind Windows 7,
Windows XP, and even Windows Vista.
December wasn't just good for Windows 8, with Windows 7 also seeing a
small bump in market share, up from 44.71 percent to 45.11 percent.
This was to be expected as December is usually a good month for PC sales
thanks to the holiday season.
Microsoft's Windows RT platform, which can be found on tablets such
as the Surface, also makes an appearance in the listing, with a market
share of 0.01 percent.
According to a separate report released by AdDuplex, an ad network
specializing in advertisements for Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT
applications, Microsoft's Surface tablet is the single most popular device running the new platform.
December was also the first month since February 2012 where the
overall Windows market share grew, to 91.74 percent, from 91.45 percent
in November. Coincidentally, it is also the first time since February
2012 that Apple's OS X has seen a decline in market share, which now
stands at 7.07 percent, down from 7.3 percent in November.
Back in November of 2012, a report by Web metrics firm StatCounter suggested that Windows 8 license sales were not yet translating into usage since its Web market share was trailing significantly behind what Windows 7 had achieved one month after launch.
Net Applications data is based on 160 million unique visitors each
month to some 40,000 Web sites which the company monitors for its
clients.
11:05:00 AM
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