Last time we wrote about Notifo, we called it a “ simple mobile notifications platform for anything ” — and really, that’s probably the best way to describe it. You take your iPhone, install the Notifo app, hook it up to your favorite services (like Twitter, or GitHub) or any of the “Projects” (read: plugins, like Growl alert forwarding, or Chrome-to-Notifo ), and bam! You’ve got push notifications coming down to your iPhone from just about anything you could imagine. All that notification sending takes two things: users to send the messages to, and a message pushing backend to handle all the heavy lifting — the same two things, as it just so happens, that one would need to create a basic instant messaging service. And so they have. In an update to their iPhone app that went live this afternoon, Notifo launched a service they’ve had in the making for about four months: free text and picture messaging. Alas, it’s only built for messages from Notifo…

Read more mobilecrunch

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I’ve always wondered why some people absolutely loathe touch screen devices, but now I realize that it was insensitive to not even consider that physical limitations play a role in that hate.

Of course, Wolverine can’t really claim that his claws are the reason for his hate all the time. [Agent X]

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Steve Jobs was surprisingly candid with All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher yesterday — he reportedly told her that both Facebook and Apple had spoken about integrating more closely with the new iTunes social network Ping, but Facebook asked for “onerous terms that we could not agree to” regarding Facebook friends connecting on Ping.

He didn’t elaborate, obviously, but you can see in Facebook’s public documentation that Apple probably wouldn’t have appreciated handing any more of its network over to Facebook than it did. All Ping seems to be at this point is a system of “liking” certain content (specifically on the iTunes Store, to the frustration of many of us who want to do it directly from our personal library of music), and if Facebook required that all of the “like” buttons went their way, you can see why Jobs wouldn’t agree.

Turns out that even after Ping’s launch, things got even more fractious between the two companies — Apple did kick off Ping with the option to add friends with Facebook Connect, but Facebook blocked access when it was discovered that Apple wasn’t playing by the rules. It’s actually an open service, unless Facebook decides that it isn’t, and apparently Apple’s Ping network was an unwelcome guest with a lot of traffic since Apple didn’t come to terms with FB ahead of time. Apple removed the service from Ping, but you’ll still see some notes around suggesting you can bring in friends from Facebook.

So. Looks like Ping is already making a splash with much larger social networks. If Apple can build up its network without using Facebook’s services, it seems much less likely that they’ll find a way to share users in the future. As you can see above, Facebook is still implemented on iTunes, in the form of sharing albums and songs that you like, but it’s completely separate from what’s been built for Ping.

Despite the sour start to the social mixup between Ping and FB, Engadget suggests that conversations between the two companies are still ongoing. It may not be long before all this is a hearty laugh between friends.

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Big Avatar fan? Bought a 3D-capable TV just so you could watch it again in all its glory? Well, you might want to sit down. Panasonic and 20th Century Fox have arrived at a deal whereby the upcoming 3D Blu-ray version of the film will only be sold to people buying new Panasonic displays. It’d be for a limited time, of course, but no dates were mentioned. A spokesman for Panasonic said they were also trying to “do the right thing” and let people who had recently bought Panasonic sets to get the disc. He wouldn’t say whether the disc would be included in Blu-ray player bundles, either. Sounds like they didn’t really think this through. Why not just say “ Avatar is getting its Blu-ray release on such and such a date, but if you buy a new Panasonic TV or Blu-ray player, you get it a month early!”

Read more crunchgear

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Big Avatar fan? Bought a 3D-capable TV just so you could watch it again in all its glory? Well, you might want to sit down. Panasonic and 20th Century Fox have arrived at a deal whereby the upcoming 3D Blu-ray version of the film will only be sold to people buying new Panasonic displays. It’d be for a limited time, of course, but no dates were mentioned. A spokesman for Panasonic said they were also trying to “do the right thing” and let people who had recently bought Panasonic sets to get the disc. He wouldn’t say whether the disc would be included in Blu-ray player bundles, either. Sounds like they didn’t really think this through. Why not just say “ Avatar is getting its Blu-ray release on such and such a date, but if you buy a new Panasonic TV or Blu-ray player, you

Read more crunchgear

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Now that the Galaxy Tab was on prominent display at IFA, it is going to be quite a cool thing.

Apparently, a Samsung head of product planning named WP Hong is already making the next model. This new one is apparently being called the Honeycomb, but that could refer to the operating system which it uses.

After all, Android 2.2 is known as Froyo, and Android 3.0 is Gingerbread. By the way, the Tab is going to get an update to Gingerbread.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more on this later.

Source

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Now that the Galaxy Tab was on prominent display at IFA, it is going to be quite a cool thing.

Apparently, a Samsung head of product planning named WP Hong is already making the next model. This new one is apparently being called the Honeycomb, but that could refer to the operating system which it uses.

After all, Android 2.2 is known as Froyo, and Android 3.0 is Gingerbread. By the way, the Tab is going to get an update to Gingerbread.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more on this later.

Source

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Samsung just grew its Bada line with a low-end foil to the original Wave, the so-called Wave 723 — and we just happened to catch it hanging out tucked away in a distributor’s booth at IFA this week. Though the leather-grain flip cover is a classy touch, make no mistake that this one is destined for the bottom bits of the full-touch featurephone market segment thanks to a middle-of-the-road TFT LCD that looks pretty washed out and low-res compared to the Wave’s Super AMOLED (interestingly, the 723 is the first Bada phone to use version 1.1 of the platform, whose major addition is support for auto-scaling between multiple resolutions). We were also surprised at how poorly responsive the screen was to touches and swipes; we even thought for a moment that it might be resistive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Then again, 802.11n support ain’t bad, and Samsung certainly seems as committed to Bada as ever, so we imagine they’ll sell a few. Hit up the gallery!

source

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Samsung just grew its Bada line with a low-end foil to the original Wave, the so-called Wave 723 — and we just happened to catch it hanging out tucked away in a distributor’s booth at IFA this week. Though the leather-grain flip cover is a classy touch, make no mistake that this one is destined for the bottom bits of the full-touch featurephone market segment thanks to a middle-of-the-road TFT LCD that looks pretty washed out and low-res compared to the Wave’s Super AMOLED (interestingly, the 723 is the first Bada phone to use version 1.1 of the platform, whose major addition is support for auto-scaling between multiple resolutions). We were also surprised at how poorly responsive the screen was to touches and swipes; we even thought for a moment that it might be resistive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Then again, 802.11n support ain’t bad, and Samsung certainly seems as committed to Bada as ever, so we imagine they’ll sell a few. Hit up the gallery!

source

Related posts:

1. Samsung Wave 723 flaunts Bada, little else at IFA
2. Vodafone UK ships the world’s first Bada phone, the Samsung Wave
3. Bada-boom: we’ve got info and pictures of the Samsung S8500

We suppose if you’ve tried all sorts of expensive methods to heal that ache in your back with no success, then you’re probably entitled to have hope that this

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