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D-Link’s new Wi-Fi Smart Plug offers full iPhone control over electronics w/ energy monitoring & thermal safety features

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX8FE8q-Bjw

D-Link has just launched its new Wi-Fi Smart Plug designed to offer users full control over their electrical outlets via the free mobile apps. The small adapters communicate with any existing WiFi network and plug into any electrical outlet. The user can then control power to any of the devices plugged into the adapter.

They come with a few handy features along with basic on/off control. You can create custom schedules for particular outlets and monitor your energy use on connected devices.

You can set device schedules so that you walk into a brightly-lit home every day after work with your favorite song playing and the AC exactly where you want it.

The system also includes a thermal protection system that allows you to manually shut down power on an outlet and includes a thermal sensor that will automatically turn off over heating appliances.

The D-Link Wi-Fi Smart Plug comes in at a slightly lower price tag than the popular $60 WeMo options from Belkin. D-Link is launching its smart plug at $49.99 right now (temporarily out of stock on Amazon) and the mydlink Smart Plug apps for iOS and Android can both be downloaded for free via the App Store and Google Play.

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Microsoft updates OneNote for iPhone & Mac w/ top requested features

Following updates to the Office apps for iPad yesterday that introduced printing support, Microsoft announced today that it’s updating the OneNote apps for iPhone and Mac with the top requested features from users. Included in the new features for iPhone users is the ability to create new notebook and sections, a revamped look that fits in more with iOS 7, and the Office Lens feature that was already available to iPad users. 

We’ve built Office Lens into OneNote for iPhone. Similar to Office Lens on OneNote for iPad, this popular feature turns your iPhone into a pocket scanner so you can use it to take pictures of things like receipts or whiteboard notes. Then, with Office Lens you can trim, enhance and make pictures more readable. Best thing is, images are automatically synced to OneNote, and if your picture includes printed text, OneNote can recognize the text with optical character recognition (OCR) so you can search for words in the image.

The Mac app gets improved printing, drag and drop images from the web, and much more:

1. Print notes: You can now print out your lecture notes, travel itineraries or recipes by simply navigating to the page of your choice and bringing up the standard system print dialog from the menu. In addition, you can save the page as a PDF file through the Print dialog.
2. Drag and drop images: Yes, this is as easy as it sounds! If you are browsing the web for ideas for a remodeling project and find some pictures you want to capture, you can easily drag and drop those into OneNote. If you have an album on your local machine, you can simply drag and drop multiple photos from Finder into OneNote. Additionally, this update also adds image formatting tools so you can restore the size of the picture if it’s been modified from its original state, or rotate pictures as desired.
3. Format Painter: You may recognize this option from other Office applications. Format Painter is a handy tool to quickly apply the same text formatting throughout your notes. For example, if you copy and paste content from different sources with different formats, you can easily apply the same consistent format across all the content in a couple clicks. WARNING: this tool is highly addictive. Once you start using it, you won’t be able to stop.
4. Copy and paste formatted content: When using OneNote for project management, class research or travel planning, capturing content from other places into OneNote is essential. Whether it’s formatted text from a Word document, tables from Excel or webpages, you can easily capture rich content and place it in your notes so it looks the same as it did in Word, Excel or on the webpage.
5. Hyperlinks: Sometimes links can be long, unwieldy and aren’t always self-explanatory. You can now keep your notes organized by adding a display name for links in your notes.

The OneNote for Mac and OneNote for iPhone apps are available on the App Store now.

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• iOS
• iPhone
• App Store
• update

Yahoo Mail iPhone app adds weather, web search, news, scores & more (for better or worse)

Yahoo released an interesting update to its Yahoo Mail app for iPhone today. In version 3.0, Yahoo is integrating many of its other services including weather, sports scores, stocks, images, news, and web search directly into the mail app. The goal is to provide users one easy place to access all their content from Yahoo, but it’s unclear what that means for the future of Yahoo’s other iOS apps for each of the services. The feature is currently only available to iPhone users running iOS 7 and up.

When you’re finished reading and replying to your email, see what’s happening in the world by tapping on the News icon. From celebrity gossip to the latest political news, you’ll find it in your personalized, visually rich news stream.

Let’s head over to the Today icon. Here’s where you’ll find a snapshot of the information you care about most every day and search — from your local weather to a news digest to the latest stock quotes and sports scores you care about.

The updated app provides new three new tabs along the bottom—  Mail, News, and Today— with Mail bringing you to your inbox, News providing a stream of all stories from Yahoo, and Today providing an overview of weather, trending content, scores, and access to web search. While I have a feeling that some might not be too happy about their Mail app being bombarded with all this new content, Yahoo has done a pretty good job of keeping it out of the way if you only ever want to see your inbox.

Yahoo Mail version 3.0 is available on the App Store now.

What’s New in Version 3.0

– Feature updates for iPhone iOS7+. Your Yahoo Mail app is now enhanced with news, search, and snapshots of the weather, sports scores, stocks, and News Digest. Access the info you need, all in one app.
– Performance improvements
– Bug fixes

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSjEMBLANjw]

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Apple updates App Store content ratings system with new descriptions and market-specific ratings

Apple has made some changes to the way it handles content ratings in the App Store, as outlined in an email (included below) sent to developers today. These ratings aren’t the five-star reviews that users assign apps, but the age-based restrictions assigned to each app based on the type of content in the app. While most apps are rated 4+ (the lowest), some that contain violent or potentially offensive content may have higher ratings (as seen above).

Starting today, developers will be able to assign a few new content descriptions to their apps in order to help better determine what age group the software is appropriate for. These new descriptions include “Medical/Treatment Information, Gambling and Contests, and Unrestricted Web Access.” That last one is good news for many developers previously forced to use a 17+ rating just because their app included a web browser that could be used to accesss anything on the web.

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Square Enix brings Hitman to iOS w/ new turn-based strategy game

Today Square Enix Montreal released a mobile version of the popular Hitman franchise responsible for a handful of critically acclaimed releases on consoles and PCs over the last decade. The iOS spin-off called Hitman Go sees players taking control of the franchise’s main character, hitman Agent 47, but the gameplay is a completely new twist on what we’ve seen from Hitman games in the past.

In the mobile game, you’ll still have to sneak your way through environments using disguises, distractions, and find secret areas and hiding spots to get to your target and complete a hit, but this time you’ll be doing so with turned-based puzzle/strategy gameplay on your iPhone or iPad.  

With Hitman GO, you’ll experience:

• Challenging puzzles that put your assassination skills to the test
• Beautiful scale model-style visuals
• Environments with secret passageways and off-limit areas
• Agent 47’s tools of the trade: Distractions, disguises, hiding spots, sniper rifles and even the iconic Silverballers
• Different enemy types with unique and deadly behaviours
• Different ways of completing each level, silently or forcefully

Hitman Go is available for $4.99 on the App Store now.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9kJxrLSwHU]

• Apps & Updates
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Pandora adds alarm clock feature for iPad, new app for Pebble users

After introducing a new alarm clock feature for iPhone users back in December, streaming music service Pandora today updated its iPad app with the same functionality. The app already let users fall asleep to music using a Sleep Timer feature, and with today’s update to version 5.3 iPad users will now be able to set song or artist stations as alarm clocks.

The alarm clock feature also packs in the usual snooze feature and can be configured from Settings inside the Pandora app. The update also includes “other improvements and bug fixes” for both iPhone and iPad users. 

Also available starting today is a Pandora app for Pebble smartwatch users available through the app store within the Pebble Smartwatch app for iOS. Pandora announced the new feature on its blog today and noted Pebble is the first wearable platform that Pandora is debuting on:

Using the Pebble, you can view and change stations, thumb songs up and down, skip, play and pause tracks – all from your wrist!   If you already have a Pebble that is paired to your mobile device, you should get a notification that you can install Pandora, or you can start the install process at any time from the Pebble Settings Page.

Pandora version 5.3 is available on the App Store now.

What’s New in Version 5.3

Start waking up to music you love – the Pandora alarm clock is now available for iPad
• Pick your your favorite station to play as your alarm
• Not ready to wake up? Adjust the snooze time to catch more zzz’s
• Use with the sleep timer to hear your music morning and night

Other improvements and bug fixes to give you the best listening experience

• Apps & Updates
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• update

Readdle’s Calendar apps get new iPad UI, custom reminders on iPhone, & more

Readdle, the developer behind popular Calendar apps for iPhone and iPad, today updated both its free Calendars by Readdle and the $2.99 Calendars 5 with a number of notable new features.

First up, both apps get an updated iPad UI that includes a number of tweaks for improved navigation and layout. For iPhone users, version 5.4 of the apps brings the ability to create custom reminders, while both iPhone and iPad users gain Smart Input support in new languages including Italian, French, and Spanish. Those new features are in addition to a handful of other improvements and fixes that you’ll notice throughout both apps.

Calendars by Readdle is available for free on the App Store, while the more feature filled Calendars 5 sells for $2.99.

Yesterday Readdle’s popular Print Pro for iPhone app went free for 24 hours and quickly became the #1 free app in 15 countries.

What’s New in Version 5.4

– updated iPad UI
– Smart Input now supports French, Italian, and Spanish.
– custom reminders on the iPhone
– lots of minor improvements

• AAPL Company
• iOS
• Apple TV
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• iTunes

OpenTV and Nagravision file patent lawsuit against Apple over video-related technology

Suing Apple seems to be the thing to do these days. While the company is locked into a furious, seemingly-unending battle with Samsung, another suit has been announced today by two Swiss sister companies called OpenTV and Nagravision.

According to a press release by the The Kudelski Group, the parent company of the two filing suit, OpenTV focuses on software that includes “advanced program guides, video-on-demand, personal video recording, interactive and addressable advertising and a variety of enhanced television applications,” while Nagravision “provides security and multiscreen user experience solutions for the monetization of digital media.”

While the five patents in question aren’t specifically named in the press release, it’s safe to assume that they are related to video playback technologies included in OS X and iOS (both of which are named as infringing in the press release). iAds, iTunes, the App Store, and the Apple TV are also listed.

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Amazon updates Instant Video iOS app with iOS 7 inspired redesign

Amazon has just updated its Amazon Instant Video app, which provides access to its catalogue of over 40k movies and TV shows, with a redesign of the entire UI inspired by iOS 7.

Amazon isn’t listing any new features in the iTunes release notes other than bug fixes and stability improvements, but you’ll also find a new icon and some UI tweaks that come as part of the new redesign. The overall navigation of the app remains the same but buttons and icons within have been flattened along with streamlining of other UI elements to make the app fit in with Apple’s iOS 7 redesign.

The redesign isn’t just for iPhone users, as the iPad version has been given a similar facelift:

The updated Amazon Instant Video app version 2.4 is available now on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

• Apps & Updates
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Vine adds private video messaging, profile theming in latest update

 

Vine has just released its ‘biggest update yet’ to the App Store, bringing one-on-one video messaging to the service for the first time. Analogous with Twitter DM’s, Vine’s VM’s work in the same way — hosting private conversations outside of the main stream. As you might expect, conversations can include short video clips as well as text messages.

You can start a conversation directly to a recipient, or bounce off a public Vine for inspiration. Just share the Vine to as many as friends as you want to start a message. It’s important to note you cannot have group conversations (yet). If you share a Vine to more than one person, a separate thread is created for each recipient.

Version 2 also adds some new customization options for your Vine profile. In Settings, you can theme your profile with a specific color which then shows to all other Vine users.

Vine can be downloaded on the App Store, for free.

• Apps & Updates
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IFTTT app update brings support for push notifications, new iPad version

If This Then That (IFTTT), the popular web service that allows users to automate tasks from a long list of other mobile apps and web services, is today announcing an update to its iOS app that also introduces full support for iPad and new features for the iPhone version (via TNW).

The most notable new feature is push notification support, allowing any IFTTT “recipe” to result in a push notification to your iPhone or iPad. While you could already get push notifications to show up in a recipe from many apps that send out their own, this will bring universal support for the feature allowing a push notification for any recipe you can think of.

IFTTT allows users to setup “If this then that” recipes that act as rules for when a certain app or web service should begin automating a task. For example, users could setup a recipe that automatically uploads photos posted to Instagram by a certain user directly to Dropbox. With today’s update, users can now setup recipes that end in a push notification being sent to their iPhone or iPad.

The iPad app introduces a new take on the IFTTT mobile UI and the updated app also brings a new Recipe Collections feature that highlights a curated selection of recipes grouped by category. 

The updated IFTTT app is available now in the App Store as a free universal download for iPhone and iPad.