The uber popular live music recognition app Shazam has received a major update today. The most noticeable change is a new mapping feature. Now users can explore a map and see what songs are being tagged in what areas of the world. Another major change is that Shazam is now a universal app. Previously there was Shazam for iPhone and Shazam for iPad, but now both apps have been rolled into one.

The iPad side of the new Shazam app has seen significant upgrades as well. Users are now greeted with a beautiful new home screen that allows them to flip through Continue reading →

Popular email client Mailbox is now available for iPad. Previously Mailbox was iPhone-only, but today’s version 1.3 update makes it a universal app that runs on all iOS devices. The iPad version of Mailbox comes less than a month after the developers announced plans that they were working on it and other (yet to be seen) desktop versions of the app. Mailbox has received rave reviews for its sleek design and unique approach to email management by supporting features that are usually only found in separate task management apps.

Mailbox is a free download.

Mailbox for iPad now available originally appeared on TUAW Continue reading →

HP has a lot of laptops these days, and they all have their own unique look, but the company never really has had a signature style these past few years. However, they refreshed their line of desktops and laptops today for 2013, and while school just let out for the summer, it’s never to late to begin shopping for a college laptop for the fall.

One of the most notable new products arriving for the summer is the Envy 14 TouchSmart Ultrabook, which comes with a 14-inch display at 1366×768 by default, but can be immediately upgraded to a more feasible 1600×900. Continue reading →

Google’s consumer version of Glass will use Samsung OLED displays, reports out of South Korea have claimed, with the possibility of flexible panels being used for the futuristic wearable. The deal follows Google CEO Larry Page recently visiting a Samsung Display OLED production line, The Korea Times reports, and heavy-handed hints by the screen division’s CEO that wearables would figure highly in flexible OLED’s future.

“OLED on silicon may be used for glasses-type, augmented-reality devices much like the Google Glass” CEO Kim Ki-nam said during a SID keynote this past week. “The wearable market will be a major beneficiary of the free-form Continue reading →

NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience isn’t a baby anymore – several months in and 2.5 million downloads since this system’s introduction and eventual public beta release, this game optimizing control center will replace the company’s “NVIDIA Update” system as the standard. In each driver package included with a GeForce graphics card, the GeForce Experience will be packaged, starting this week with the R320 GeForce GTX 780 launch driver.

The NVIDIA GeForce Experience will be released in version 1.5 this week as well, bumping the number of games supported to 70 and ushering in support for the newest graphics hardware on the market with the Continue reading →

In a move that most gamers will instantly see as a battle up against FRAPS, NVIDIA has this week shown off ShadowPlay, a screen capture feature for the future of the GeForce Experience. Before you get too excited, it’s important to note that ShadowPlay will not be implemented until later this summer with an update to the GeForce Experience – for now you’ll have to wait and wish for this optimized setup.

ShadowPlay will be a feature inside the NVIDIA GeForce Experience that’ll be working with all Kepler GPUs inside Summer 2013. NVIDIA has made this system out to be a system Continue reading →

As NVIDIA continues its journey down the gaming road with software specifics such as the GeForce Experience, so too do they continue to tweak and empower their graphics cards – like the GeForce GTX 780, for instance. This week the GTX 780 has been revealed with much of the same hardware delivered in the GeForce GTX TITAN, but with slight differences that make it just a little bit less expensive and, as NVIDIA has informed us, “more of a pure gaming focus card than TITAN.”

The GeForce GTX 780 works with the same GK110 GPU used in the GeForce GTX TITAN. Inside Continue reading →

Well, here’s something I thought we would never see — a minor update for Twitter for Mac, which finally brings Notification Center support to the client. You know, it only took just shy of 10 months after the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion for that to happen. The 2.2.1 update also fixes Growl notifications in Lion and Mountain Lion and squashes several other bugs. But reviews are already coming in saying that the Growl fix doesn’t work.

Yes, Twitter for Mac was updated in April, but it languished for a couple years (Twitter for Mac 2.1 was released in May Continue reading →

Plans to launch the HTC First “Facebook phone” in the UK have been axed, with Facebook now focusing on finessing Home instead. A poor reception to the Android handset in the US, where carrier AT&T unexpectedly slashed the cost from $99.99 to $0.99 on contract after just a few weeks of sales, has been blamed for the decision, which is said to have come from Facebook rather than either HTC or the network. Update: EE has confirmed the First won’t be launching in the UK; more details after the cut.

EE had been named the Facebook phone’s initial exclusive partner in the Continue reading →

Google has acquired an innovative wind power generator company, Makani Power, bringing the team into the same Google X “moonshot” lab responsible for Glass and Google’s self-driving cars. Makani Power, which Google had already been partly funding as part of the Google.org “Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal” (RE<C) initiative, puts its generator turbines not on the ground, but on fixed-wing aircraft tethered to the ground but sent up to soar in stronger, more consistent airflow at high-altitude or above deeper water.

The acquisition comes a week after Mankani Power’s first fully-autonomous test flight, with an Airborne Wind Turbine taking off, hovering, generating Continue reading →