Comcast Xfinity Platinum offers 305 Mbps for $299.95 per month

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Corporate News, Internet,

If you thought Comcast would let Verizon make them look bad with those 300 Mbps FiOS Quantum speeds, you've got another thing coming, as the company has just announced Xfinity Platinum. Boasting speeds of 305 Mbps down and 65 Mbps up, the new offering will only be available to Comcast customers living in the northeast region, with no details on if it will be deployed elsewhere.

In addition, customers on the lower-speed Xfinity Blast! tier will see their speeds increased from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps, and Extreme tier customers get bumped from 50 Mbps to 105 Mbps with no price increase. Now, two pieces of bad news. First, the 305 Mbps service will cost $299.95 per month, which is $95 more than FiOS Quantum. Second, if you're a Comcast customer who doesn't live in Boston, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Hartford, Wilmington, Richmond, New Jersey, Baltimore, or Washington, D.C., then you don't get any speed bumps.

Read More | Comcast

Carbon Copy Cloner updated with Mountain Lion, Retina display support

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Software,

With the rumor that Mountain Lion will launch tomorrow, a bunch of developers have been released Mountain Lion compatable software updates recently, and we can now add the excellent Carbon Copy Cloner to the list. Carbon Copy Cloner allows you to automatically make backups of your data using a simple-yet-powerful interface. CCC 3.5 requires Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, while 3.4.x will continue to run on Tiger and Leopard. As a nice bonus, Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5 also includes support for the Retina display. Here's the full changelog:

• This version of CCC requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, and is fully qualified on each of those OSes. We will continue to provide user support and bug fixes for Tiger and Leopard users on CCC 3.4.x for a while longer.
• Recovery HD support has been overhauled to better support the concept of "one Recovery HD partition per volume", rather than one per disk. If you have multiple backup volumes with different OSes (e.g. Lion and Mountain Lion), CCC can associate a Recovery HD with each one and apply the appropriate OS to each Recovery HD partition.
• We have leveraged code signing within CCC for nearly five years. For GateKeeper compliance on Mountain Lion, however, CCC is now signed with an Apple Developer Certificate.
• Most of the binaries in the CCC bundle are now 32/64-bit Intel-only binaries.
• Fixed an issue that appeared in 10.7.4, specific to Macs running Lion with a 64-bit kernel, in which the /Volumes folder on the destination volume would be locked rather than hidden. This resulted in external volumes being unmountable when booted from the backup volume.
• Performance of deleting scheduled tasks is much improved.
• CCC previously encountered some performance problems when simultaneously saving very large numbers of scheduled tasks (e.g. > 29). These problems should now be resolved. This is most applicable when updating CCC, or when CCC has been moved and all tasks must be re-saved at the same time.
• Updated graphics for High Resolution support on the new MacBook Pro (Retina).

You can get the new update now.

Read More | Carbon Copy Cloner

Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion to be released tomorrow?

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Rumors, Software,

Apple will be reporting its third-quarter fiscal year 2012 earnings call later today, and many are speculating that part of that call will be the announcement of the OS X Mountain Lion release date. In fact, last year Lion's release date was announced during the earnings call, and it debuted the following day. Apple has promised that Mountain Lion would be released this month, and we've got a week left. If we had to bet, we'll see Apple's next major operating system launch tomorrow. Mountain Lion will be available on the Mac App Store for $19.99, and the Golden Master was released to developers recently.

The 16GB Google Nexus 7 is officially sold out

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Google, Handhelds,

It looks like the Google Nexus 7 tablet has become a runaway success, catching even Google and Asus off-guard. In fact, Google has suspended sales of the 16GB Nexus 7 in its Google Play store due to the massive backorder. Oddly, the cheaper $199 8GB model was the one that the masses have snapped up. Instead, the $249 model has been flying off the virtual shelves. Orders that were placed through last week will arrive on schedule, and we suspect that as soon as stock is replenished, Google will get the 16GB Nexus 7 back on sale. If you really want one of the Jelly Bean-powered 16GB tablets, there are plenty on eBay.

Read More | 16GB Nexus 7 on eBay

TotalFinder 1.3.5 updated with Mountain Lion support

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,

TotalFinder has become essential Mac software here at Gear Live. If you're unfamiliar, TotalFinder is an add-on for the Apple OS X Finder that provides a tabbed interface. That means that you can have multiple Finder instances open in one window, and you an even have multiple tabbed windows as well. Much easier to work with the Finder when you've got TotalFinder running. Version 1.3.5 brings OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.7.5 Lion compatability, as well as Gatekeeper support. Full changelog available after the break.

Click to continue reading TotalFinder 1.3.5 updated with Mountain Lion support

Read More | TotalFinder

Tweetbot for Mac alpha 3 now available

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,

Tapbots is iterating quickly on its Tweetbot for Mac alpha software. The original alpha was released just 13 days ago, and the second update (Alpha 3) is already available for download. Tweetbot for Mac alpha 3 addresses the new tweet window/hashtag popover bug that's been causing crashes, while alpha 2 addressed many more issues that were present in the initial release. You can find the full alpha 2 changelog after the break.

Click to continue reading Tweetbot for Mac alpha 3 now available

Next generation iPhone will sport new, smaller dock connector

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Design, Rumors,

Apple is set to do away with its ten-year-old 30 pin dock connector in favor of a smaller, more compact version on the next-generation iPhone that's set to launch this fall. The new 19-pin connector will take up less space, allowing the headphone jack to be moved to the bottom of the device as well.

The move is controversial and will surely upset many owners of third-party dock connector accessories. On the flip-side though, this shows how nimble Apple is willing to be in order to spur progress with its devices. Thankfully, the company will purportedly be offering an 19-to-30 pin adapter to ease the transition.

Read More | Reuters

How Ford measures space in the new Ford Escape using ping pong balls

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Design, Transportation,

This week Ford unveiled its unique approach to measuring the interior space of its new Escape vehicle. The company didn't do away with the more conventional methods, as the ping pong measurement accompanied high-tech laser-scanned CAD renderings as well.

So, why ping pong balls? As vehicle interiors have become more modern, there are a lot more curves and swooping areas in a vehicle. Umbrella holders tucked away in the door, for example, make it more difficult to use the traditional tape measure. So the Vehicle Architecture team headed by Eric Jackson came up with the unorthodox approach.

Click to continue reading How Ford measures space in the new Ford Escape using ping pong balls

ChargeCard: The iPhone charger that fits in your wallet

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, Design,

How many times have you been in a situation where your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad was on the verge of death and you didn't have a charge cable with you to charge it up? It's happened to us more times than we'd like to admit, and that's where the ChargeCard comes in.

The ChargeCard has the standard 30-pin Apple dock connector on one side, and a slim USB connector on the other. It folds up to just about the size of a credit card for easy storage in your wallet. End result? You always have an iPhone charger on you. As long as you have a USB port to plug into, you are good.

ChargeCard is currently a Kickstarter project. They've got 37 more days to reach the goal of $50,000, and it's already at $38,456. If you want a chance to get one of your own, you can pledge $20 to pre-order. If the campaign is successful (and it looks like it definitely will be) you'll receive your ChargeCard when it ships in September.

Read More | ChargeCard

Google just bought Sparrow and killed it

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Google, Software,

The ultra-popular Sparrow mail client is now dead. This morning, Google announced that it had acquired the company and team behind what many called the best Mac and iOS Gmail client. It's great for Google, and well-deserved for the Sparrow team, but as a user, it's disappointing. The company was set to release Sparrow for iPad very shortly, but today Google confirmed that there will be no new updates to the Sparrow apps, nor will it be released for any new platforms. We assume that this means the iPad client is now off the table.

We suspect that the crew behind Sparrow will be rolled into the Gmail team, and we'd even bet that we will see the official Gmail apps for Android and iOS become rebranded and fully-integrated versions of what Sparrow was. If you missed out on Sparrow, you can still get it on the App Store for the time being.

Click to continue reading Google just bought Sparrow and killed it