The Verge - All Posts

India looking for new manufacturers of its low-price Aakash tablet

2012-02-22T21:02:40Z

It's been less than five months since the world's cheapest tablet launched in India, but its manufacturer DataWind is already at risk of losing the contract to build it. The Aakash tablet went on sale in early January and racked up over 1 million pre-orders in two weeks, but to date DataWind has only been able to ship a paltry 10,000 units. Though there's reasonably high demand, test users have complained about poor screen response, battery life, and overall usability — not surprising when you consider the weak specs of the device.

The combination of slow shipping and poor test response has led the Indian government to re-open a bid to manufacturer the tablet, despite the fact that DataWind had a contract to manufacture up to 100,000...

Pinterest's uneasy relationship with copyright law: what happens next

2012-02-22T20:13:01Z

Pinterest is unquestionably among today's hottest new startups — the social networking service lets users "pin" images they like on the web to boards they can share with friends and publish to the world at large. You can see what your friends are pinning, re-pin things they've liked, and generally look at a bunch of neat things on the internet. It's phenomenally successful, especially among women, and it's reportedly driving tons of traffic to retailers, who are all rushing to establish themselves on it.

But any popular new startup faces pointed questions about its business, and Pinterest is caught up in a wave of discussion about its relationship to copyright law: almost all of the images posted by its users were copied from other...

Bing's new Linked Pages Facebook feature lets you tag content related to you

2012-02-22T20:01:32Z

Microsoft has introduced a new feature that lets you manage your presence in Bing search results. Linked Pages, as it's called, lets you choose which search results are actually related to you — whether it's a personal site, your workplace, or even sites you just happen to like — and then link them so that they will show up when you're searched in Bing. In order to access the feature (which is only available in the US at the moment) you'll need to log in with your Facebook account, and then search for yourself and tag appropriate pages with a "link to me" button. Linked Pages also lets you add links for friends, who will in turn receive a Facebook post requesting approval. This isn't the first time the two have worked together on...

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack Review - Secret of the ooze

2012-02-22T20:00:45Z

When you roll into the PlayStation Store with your new Vita, the number of games to gobble up is going to be overwhelming at first. But don’t panic. Just take them in one at a time, absorbing them until your gelatinous sphere of a body has grown large enough to swallow the large cork keeping you from the drain that leads to the next stage (just watch out for lasers!) and then you —

Ahem.

Begging your pardon, but I lost the plot of my helpful Vita buying advice at some point there and just started talking about Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack.

But I can’t help it. Drinkbox Studios’ follow up to last year’s About A Blob isn’t just the most charmingly malleable facet of the PlayStation Vita launch, it may just be the...

Mozilla Marketplace HTML5 app store opens for developer submissions at MWC next week

2012-02-22T19:52:01Z

Mozilla's plan to launch the Mozilla Marketplace, a web app store, to compete with Google's Chrome Web Store is drawing close to readiness — the company announced that it will begin accepting submissions from app developers at Mobile World Congress next week. Using a combination of HTML5 and some "Mozilla-proposed APIs," developers will be able to build web apps that you can buy once and run across any HTML5-compatible platform. While developers will be able to submit apps next week, the store won't be open for consumers until "later this year." Hopefully Mozilla will roll this store out sooner than later — Google's Chrome Web Store will have more than a year's head-start on the Mozilla Marketplace by the time it launches, and Chrome...

Google Docs for Android updated with live edits, rich text, enhanced navigation

2012-02-22T19:47:22Z

Google Docs for Android phones and tablets has just received a much-needed update. While the search giant sated many by launching a native app last year (and by adding offline access earlier this month), it was really just an enhanced version of the mobile web app. This update most notably introduces live updates to mobile, just like the fully-fledged web app for PCs. This means that if you are collaborating with a colleague on a report, you'll be able to see their edits as they make them. Another major improvement is that rich text has finally made its way to the app, so you can do the oh-so-simple but oh-so-needed things, like bolding, italicizing, and underlining text. Editing has also been given a huge overhaul — it's now more than...

LinkedIn acquires Rapportive, a social network-enhanced Gmail add-on

2012-02-22T19:28:04Z

Rapportive, a small company that offers a free, enhanced contact information add-on for Gmail has just been snapped up by "professional" social network LinkedIn. If you're not familiar with Rapportive for Gmail, it's quite a bit like the popular Xobni for Outlook: it adds a sidebar to your Gmail interface in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox and attractively displays contact information with the added benefit of social network integration — your contact's Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Skype information is all built-in and viewable at a glance. While neither Rapportive nor LinkedIn have yet revealed what's in store, the former promises that it'll continue to support the popular add-on while working on its next project — whatever it may...

Samsung develops faster DRAM chips for next-gen mobile devices

2012-02-22T19:25:03Z

Samsung has announced that it has developed a 4Gb LPDDR3 dynamic RAM chip for mobile devices that is 1.5 times faster than its predecessor and consumes 20 percent less power. The chips use 30 nanometer process technology to transfer data at up to 1,600 megabits per second — compared to 1,066 mbps for the LPDDR2 — and will be in the hands of "key" smartphone and tablet manufacturers starting in the second quarter of 2012. The chips are designed to support high-res displays, 3D visuals, and faster processors, and Samsung expects the technology to see widespread adoption once the next-generation of mobile devices start to come out in 2013. It will be "readying the market" by mass producing the chips this year in order to encourage...

Apple TV stock low, UK retailer PC World halts customer orders

2012-02-22T19:04:02Z

It looks like Apple is getting ready to replace its $99 Apple TV media streamer — while Apple.com still lists the device as available for next-day shipping, a reliable source told us that UK retailer PC World has informed its employees that they have no more units in stock and have no idea when more will arrive. Additionally, employees are also not supposed to order Apple TV units for customers who request them — typically PC World puts no time limit on fulfillment of customer orders, so it sounds like the retailer won't have them available again. Our tipster also let us know that PC World only typically does this when a new replacement product is on the way.

Further corroborating this evidence is the fact that major electronics...

Folk Lore: How Johann Sebastian Joust is defining a new gaming genre

2012-02-22T19:00:18Z

Round one

My roommate and I have been friends since childhood, and in all the time we've known one another, no act of physical aggression has ever passed between us. That's why I'm so shocked when he throws a furious barrage of jabs and swipes at me in the living room of our apartment.

In his defense, it isn't against the rules.

We're testing an alpha build of Die Gute Fabrik's Johann Sebastian Joust with the only two Move controllers I own. It's meant for more players than that, but the amateur-duelist vibe is working for me.

We quickly learn that there are many things that aren't against the rules. I attempt to knock him out of the game by launching a throw pillow at his vulnerable, controller-holding hand. He protests, but again,...