Mobile software

Opera to sing WebKit's tune on mobile -- report

The Opera Browser will be rebuilding its mobile browsers using WebKit and a new interface that nearly entirely ditches the traditional browser buttons called Opera Ice, according to a leaked video acquired by Pocket-Lint.com.

Ice is not Opera's first dalliance with WebKit, as its current iOS offerings are also built with the WebKit engine. However, the current iOS Opera runs its server-side compression with Opera's Presto engine. It's not clear that that will continue with Ice, which apparently will debut at Mobile World Congress in February.

The video shows off Opera Ice, a browser that looks … Read more

RIM launches final BlackBerry 10 'Portathon' event

Research In Motion will hold its apparently final BlackBerry 10 "Portathon" this weekend.

Running from 9 a.m. PT today to 8:59 p.m. PT tomorrow, the event will allow developers to port their applications available on other mobile platforms to BlackBerry 10. Each approved app will net the developers $100, up to a maximum of 20 applications. To sweeten the pot even more, RIM will enter all developers who submit five or more apps into a drawing for a free BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

RIM has been running Portathon events for the last several weeks … Read more

Shaq Versus Evil Mutant Zombies

Are you tired of the whole zombie craze yet? What if those zombies happen to be mutants in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? What if the hero protagonist in all this mess was, oh, I don't know, 7'1'', 325-lb former NBA Superstar Shaquille O'Neal?

Yes, someone on this earth not only conceived of this, but managed to produce it, even going so far as getting the man of steel himself to lend his voice.

ShaqDown (Android, iOS) is One Spear Entertainment's first outing. Their business model apparently consists of building mobile games around celebrities, and we'll see … Read more

Avoid zombies (and dystentery) on the Organ Trail

Oregon Trail is a classic educational PC game from the 1970s (revamped in the 1990s) that still haunts those students who tried to make it from Independence, Missouri to Oregon's Willamette Valley, hunting bison and bear and losing party members to cholera . Some say Pong or Tetris launched video gaming into the mainstream--but neither Pong nor Tetris had you struggling to control an internal tantrum in the middle of math class when you lose your wagon while fording a river.

Originally a Flash game and Facebook app, Organ Trail garnered so many positive reviews that the developers launched a … Read more

New Firefox Aurora can record your cam, mic

As the browser becomes the driving engine behind several operating systems, extensive hardware controls are landing as built-in HTML5. The latest developer's build of Firefox Aurora can now record by default video from your camera and audio from your microphone.

Firefox 20 Aurora (download for Windows, for Mac, for Linux, and for Android) has the new hardware API getUserMedia enabled by default, which means that you won't have to use a plugin to record directly from your local camera or mic. In her blog post announcing the update, Maire Reavy, Firefox's product lead on media, provided an … Read more

Delete yourself from the Web by iPhone

Sometimes, there is truth in advertising. Today's case-in-point: Abine's DeleteMe Mobile, which, as the name suggests, vigorously petitions Internet data brokers to remove personally identifying information from their databases.

Previously only available as a Web service, the app debuts on iOS with an Android version in the works. As CNET reported last year, DeleteMe is a partially human-powered service where Abine employees take on the onerous duty of contacting data brokers on your behalf. That's an important step because many of them have been known to add your data again, just months after removing it, according to … Read more

BlackBerry 10 nets 15,000 apps in under two days

Research In Motion's BlackBerry 10 application marketplace will have thousands of more programs, thanks to two events the company ran over the weekend.

The events saw RIM net 15,000 app submissions for BlackBerry 10 within a period of 37.5 hours, according to Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations. The events were called Portathons, with one focusing on the BlackBerry 10 Community and the other on Android developers. In both cases, developers were urged to port their previously developed applications to BlackBerry 10.

RIM has held similar events in the past. The company does so to get … Read more

Software makes a showing at CES 2013, but underwhelms

LAS VEGAS--While the presence of software and apps at CES has certainly grown over the past few years, the fact remains that downloads still sit in the shadows of home theater components, gaming equipment, mobile devices, and other hardware at the annual show. At this point, we're beginning to think that software may never take center stage at CES. From an economic standpoint, it might not make much sense for a company to double down on an expensive booth to showcase a straightforward, downloadable app when the show continues to gravitate toward colorful plastics and shiny metals.

Rather, we … Read more

Math wins the Mobile App Showdown at CES 2013

LAS VEGAS--Every year at CES, the Mobile Apps Showdown pits dozens of downloads against one another to see which mobile app emerges as the best. This year's event was the biggest yet, and based on the excitement we saw there, we think it will only continue to grow.

Here's how it works: a panel of judges first narrows the pool of entrants down to 10 finalists. The developers of the finalists are then invited to present their apps to a live audience at the Mobile Apps Showdown here in Las Vegas, and the app that receives the loudest … Read more