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Facebook Home now available for download on Google Play store

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Software,

Facebook Home

Facebook Home is now available for download on Google Play, as promised last week at the Facebook Home announcement event. If you're the owner of an HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, or Samsung Galaxy Note II, you are good to go and can download and apply Facebook's launcher right away. You can also pick up the HTC First, which ships with Facebook Home built right in. The HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 will also be capable of running Facebook Home.

As a reminder, Facebook Home is a replacement lock screen, home screen, and chat experience for compatible Android smartphones, bringing pictures feeds to the forefront, and the new Chat Heads feature that will allow you to stay manage Facebook messages in a much more efficient way.

Read More | Facebook Home

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Google Play Store 4.0 update begins worldwide rollout

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Software,

Google Play 4.0

The Google Play Store is getting a fresh coat of paint beginning today with the release of the official 4.0 update. What's so great about Google Play 4.0? Well, for starters, the images are larger, making it easier to see what exactly your about to download. Content grouping has also been improved, providing better recommendations of other items you might be interested in, and the checkout process also sees a slight overhaul as well. Google Play 4.0 starts worldwide rollout today, and may take a couple of weeks before hitting your particular device. It'll run on any smartphone or tablet running Android 2.2 or later.

Read More | Android Blog

Giveaway: Cooking Planit spice set

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Site Announcements,

Cooking PlanIt spice giveaway

Layering in different flavors into a dish can turn your food from good to great, and to make it happen, you need the spices to seal the deal--and we've teamed up with Cooking Planit to hook you up with 26 of the most popular spices out there to help put a little more kick into your food. You may be wondering, though, what Cooking Planit is and what do they have to do with making food taste better. Well, Cooking Planit is an app that walks you through the step-by-step process in order to cook an amazing meal. It coaches you through the planning, shopping, and even the cooking process itself, in a GPS-like fashion that ensures everything is ready at the same time. It offers a bunch of pre-built menus that you can use to get started right out of the gate, and if you are using an iOS device, you can even use voice control to avoid getting gunk all over your display.

Want a chance to walk away with this spice rack? All you have to do is enter right here to win. We've made it easy to rack up entries, too, offering multiple ways for you to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Pandora now limiting free mobile users to 40 hours of music per month

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Music,

Pandora 40 hour cap

If you love listening to Pandora when you're on the go, you may have to start paying up. Pandora has announced that it will now be capping mobile users to 40 hours of listening per month. If you reach that cap, the music will stop, and you'll need to pay a fee of $.99 if you'd like to continue listening for the remainder of the month. The reason behind this is the rising costs of the per-track royalty rates that Pandora has to pay.

"Pandora’s per-track royalty rates have increased more than 25% over the last 3 years, including 9% in 2013 alone and are scheduled to increase an additional 16% over the next two years. After a close look at our overall listening, a 40-hour-per-month mobile listening limit allows us to manage these escalating costs with minimal listener disruption."

Pandora says this should only affect about 4% of its users, so it shouldn't be a huge deal. Subscribers to the Pandora One service, which eliminated the ads altogether for $36 per year, are not affected.

Read More | Pandora

Spotify for iPhone gets visual redesign

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Music, App Updates, Free Apps,

Spotify ios 0.6.0

Spotify for iOS has just received a massive overhaul, bringing the UI in line with the look that Android's been sporting for a while. iOS users now get access to features like the swiping method for accessing different areas of the Spotify app (similar to what you can do in the Facebook iOS app.) The "Now Playing" area shows you the artist and track name no matter where you are navigating in the app, right above the play controls. You can swipe here to go to the next or previous track with ease. You also get bug fixes and overall improvements to stability, as well as the Ford SYNC AppLink Spotify feature that we mentioned yesterday. You can grab the update now from the App Store, and peep the full changelog after the break.

Click to continue reading Spotify for iPhone gets visual redesign

Read More | Spotify

Twitter for Windows Phone gets a substantial update

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Microsoft, Software,

Twitter for Windows Phone update

Twitter has finally (finally!) released a substantial update to Twitter for Windows Phone. The new version brings the design of the app in line with what you'd find in the iOS and Android variants, with the Home, Connect, Discover, and Me tabs included in the app. Additionally, Twitter for Windows Phone includes Live Tile support, so you can pin specific Twitter accounts, lists, and searches right to your Start Screen. You can grab the update right now.

Read More | Twitter

Facebook 5.5 for iOS introduces free voice calling, easier sharing

Facebook free voice calls

Facebook 5.5 for iOS has just been released, and with it comes free voice calling for North American users over Wi-Fi and cellular networks. The feature came to Facebook's separate messaging app a couple of weeks ago, and is now baked in to the full-fledged Facebook iOS experience for users across the US and Canada. After updating, simply open your chat pane by tapping the icon on the upper-right, select a friend, and then select "Free Call." As you'd expect, the person on the other end also needs to be located in North America, and also needs to have the latest Facebook app installed. It's a nice way to make voice calls without tapping into your voice minutes--just make sure to keep an eye on your data plan when you're away from Wi-Fi, no need to try to save on voice minutes, only to rack up massive data usage fees, you feel me?


TiVo partners with Flingo, brings hundreds of new content channels to TiVo Premiere

TiVo Flingo Launchpad

TiVo has announced that the Flingo suite of streaming apps is now available on TiVo Premiere boxes. If you're unfamiliar with what this means, Flingo basically provides multiple channels of streaming video content, including programming from A&E, History Channel, TMZ, Showtime, and about 200 other content sources, alongside 70 apps. Flingo will also be creating exclusive content apps specifically for the TiVo Premiere through "Launchpad for TiVo." "People are demanding access to online streaming content from the comfort of their own living room, and TiVo’s offerings has evolved to support that demand," Tara Maitra, SVP and general manager of content and media sales at TiVo Inc., said in a statement.

In a way, this is like turning your TiVo into a Roku set top box. We'll be checking it out later today.

Read More | MarketWire

Kickstarter for iPhone now available

Kickstarter for iPhone

We've often wondered by a site like Kickstarter lacked an official iOS app, but that ends today with the release of Kickstarter for iPhone. The crowdsourcing site's new app allows you to view campaigns, watch the pitch videos that go along with them, and pledge your cash towards one of the reward levels offered. If you've created a campaign, you can track your progress in the app as well. The app is not yet iPad-native, but it does support iPhone 3GS and later, including support for the iPhone 5 4-inch display. Grab Kickstarter for iPhone for free.

Read More | Kickstarter for iPhone

WIth the release of iTunes 11, Apple’s music player enters 64-bit era on OS X

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Software,

iTunes 11 64-bit

iTunes has been one of the last first-party Apple software holdouts stuck at 32-bit over the past few years. Many wondered when Apple would rewrite iTunes to the point where it would be 64-bit like just about all of Apple's other OS X apps, and that day has arrived with the release of iTunes 11. A quick check of Activity Monitor confirms it--iTunes is now a 64-bit Mac app.


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