Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style

For what seems like an eternity, Download Squad readers have reacted to news of security exploits targeting Adobe Reader with a common sentiment: why doesn't Microsoft build its own secure PDF reader into Windows? Apparently the Windows 8 team agrees, and they're working away at an application called Modern Reader which is exactly that.

From the handful of screenshots Paul Thurrott has shared, it's clear that Modern Reader has been built with Metro in mind. You can see the Reader back button in the top-left corner of the yellow image and the minimal page navigation bar on the right. We've posted some larger images we managed to scrape from Google's cache after the break.

Thurrott also mentions that Modern Reader is the first program spotted which is built using AppX -- a packaging technology that may allow developers to roll a single build to both Windows 8 desktops and Windows Phone 8 mobile devices.

Continue reading Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style

Windows 8 getting a built-in PDF reader, Metro-style originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/windows-8-getting-a-built-in-pdf-reader-finally/

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The Full Sexual Fumblings That Got HP CEO Mark Hurd Fired [Scandal]

It's only been a little over a year since former HP CEO Mark Hurd resigned in a hailstorm of innuendo and disgrace, but—with HP having had two CEOs and a webOS saga since then—it already feels like ancient history. So this, er, blow by blow of sexual harassment charges dug up by AllThingsD? Strictly for you lovers of antiquities. And late night hotel room propositions. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/-uMLFk9xCAA/the-full-awkward-sexual-fumblings-that-got-hp-ceo-mark-hurd-fired

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Facebook launches unified mobile site, announces 250 million mobile users

Facebook has announced that its two mobile sites -- m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com -- have been unified, bringing a simpler mobile experience to Facebook users. And there are a lot of those -- a quarter billion, according to Facebook.

Smartphone users won't be losing any functionality because of the consolidation. If your phone supported the enhacned features offered by touch.facebook.com, the new site will automatically flip the switch when you visit.

Rolling the sites together helps simplify things for Facebook's developer team. Now changes can be pushed to a single site instead of two separate sites, which makes it easier to ensure that all mobile users receive a nearly identical experience regardless of the device they're using.

The new Facebook mobile can also check to see if your phone supports geolocation. If it doesn't, you won't be seeing much of Facebook Places -- which obviously relies heavily on geolocation. Images can also be optimized on the fly to keep page performance from suffering on less powerful devices. You can see the three different versions of the share button below, courtesy our friends at TechCrunch.

Facebook launches unified mobile site, announces 250 million mobile users originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/facebook-launches-unified-mobile-site-announces-250-million-mob/

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Verizon backs down from convenience fee, values your two cents

The people (and government) have spoken and Verizon has listened -- and issued a press release. The carrier has officially backed off of the "single payment fee" that drew almost universal ire amongst subscribers and nabbed the attention of the FCC. Says Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead, "we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time." Looks like the company's gonna have to get a couple of bucks from you another way. No word yet on whether the FCC plans to investigate Sprint's similar long-standing fee. Official statement after the break.

Continue reading Verizon backs down from convenience fee, values your two cents

Verizon backs down from convenience fee, values your two cents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/fLlj7JwRoOc/

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Firefox 4 rockets to 5% global usage share, IE9 wallows at 1.5%

Firefox 4 usage share graph
Using some early numbers from both StatCounter and Net Applications, Mozilla's noisiest hominid, Asa Dotzler, has illustrated Firefox 4's meteoric rise to around 5% of Web browser global usage share. Internet Explorer 9, which launched two weeks ago, seems to be enjoying a much more casual stroll in the park with just 1.5% of the global Web usage share.

Interestingly, we can see IE9 dipping between March 20 and 21, just before the 'Important' Windows Update rolled out. It's hard to say whether IE9 is only growing because of the installed-by-default Windows Update, but that small dip definitely sticks out -- did excitement peter out? Did people download IE9, try it out, and summarily uninstall it? Perhaps, given their close proximity, the stats show an attention shift from Microsoft to Mozilla?

Numbers-wise, if the bottom left corner of the graph shows 2.3 million downloads for IE9, we can guesstimate that that it has now been downloaded 5 million times. Firefox is clocking in at 37 million downloads after five days of public availability.

We wonder whether Microsoft knew its release schedule would coincide so closely with Firefox 4. Internet Explorer 9 -- a great browser by almost every metric -- was never going to do well against anything emanating from the maws of Mozilla. The main thing, though, is that Microsoft has now shown that it's serious when it comes to the Open Web. If Internet Explorer 10 is good, and 11 and 12, then we might finally see it compete with the zealous Mozillan horde.

Firefox 4 rockets to 5% global usage share, IE9 wallows at 1.5% originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/firefox-4-rockets-to-5-global-usage-share-ie9-wallows-at-1-5/

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Engadget Distro's 2011 Year In Review is here!

As yet another year of spectacular technological gains and enormous losses comes to a close, we present to you our best attempt at a comprehensive look back: Engadget Distro's Year In Review. In "Technology_In_2011.zip" we'll provide a compressed month-by-month timeline of just a few of the year's standout stories and announcements. We'll also bring you the year in corporate mudslinging with a collection of the most outrageous "CE-Oh No He Didn't" moments and present "The Top 10 Crappiest Crapgadgets of 2011," as selected by our readers. Looking ahead, we have our predictions of what's to come at CES 2012, TechnoBuffalo's Jon Rettinger gives us some insight into his distaste for OS wars in "Q&A" and Don Melanson offers up his list of the year's must-reads. So, in the interest of retrospection, hit that download link and let's reflect.

Distro Issue 20 PDF
Distro on the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Android Market
Distro APK (for sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
Follow Distro on Twitter

Engadget Distro's 2011 Year In Review is here! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/XQJivWgWuiI/

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BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game

battlepaint
In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you're not even a cube -- just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That's important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place.

The "baddies" are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. If that doesn't sound very emotionally deep, it's because it isn't. But it's fun!

After you shoot a baddy, it splashes paint as it disappears. You need to skate across this blob of paint and "eat it up" to get points. This game is fast. It clocked in at around 60-70 FPS on my system, and was loads of fun to play. It does tend to insult you when you die, though, but don't be offended -- I don't think it's personal.

BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/09/battlepaint-is-an-addictive-geometric-shooter-game/

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Plantronics Marque M155 Bluetooth Headset Review

Plantronics recently added a number of Bluetooth headsets to their lineup. I am familiar with Plantronics from my call center days. They make very nice headsets. I also owned a Calisto Pro at home that I only very recently retired in favor of my VTech cordless phone system. Two of their new headsets are designed to work with a [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/12/30/plantronics-marque-m155-bluetooth-headset-review/

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Motorola Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR & Atrix 2 Fastboot files now available - Bring your device back to life from a soft brick

Motorola Fastboot

If you like to tinker around with your device then chances are you've suffered a soft brick or two in your life, then spent some time looking in the Android Central forums or hitting up Google and eventually finding some magical files to help restore your device back to normal.

Those wonderful little files are the Fastboot recoevery files and they are great to have kicking around just in case things go awry, and while they're often hard to find -- some fine folks have now shared them for a multitude of Motorola devices.

The Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR and Atrix 2 files are now all available for download, In addition to saving your behind from a softbrick, developers can make great use of these files as well so, you'll want to keep your eyes peeled for some new happenings when it comes to development for these devices.

Source: XDA - Bionic, RAZR, Atrix 2

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/wRXZ3KU4yrg/story01.htm

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IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison

Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.

A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.


But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test...

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/ie9-and-firefox-4-post-top-marks-in-pc-power-use-comparison/

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