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New Video and Cinema Features on Instagram

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June 20, 2013, Instagram announced that video will now be added to the app, along with something they call Cinema. So many of us love taking pictures and sharing it on Instagram, and now we are able to record short video to share as well.

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Cinema is a video stabilizing feature that was made with the help of leading Video Scientists to avoid the shakiness we all know. They demonstrated with a few clips on how running can ruin a video, but with Cinema, you can stabilize it as if it was professionally made.

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Instagram is free on the App Store, Google Play, and Instagram.com.

 

 

 

Google Launches Music Subscription Service

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Google play Music

Google has recently launched a music subscription service, “Google Play Music, All Access“. The launch followed it’s initial announcement at Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco. The service currently comes in two flavors, Standard and All Access. The Standard edition let’s you store up to  20,000 of your songs, have sync-free access to your music from anywhere, and of course you can always buy music from the Google Play library. The All Access option has all of the aforementioned features but also includes an unlimited online radio mode which you can customize to your liking.

The standard option is free. The All Access option will cost $9.99/ month unless you sign up before 6/30, then you can get in for $7.99 / month.

So, Google has a music subscription service now, what’s the big deal? We have seen this before, it’s nothing ground breaking right? Well, the short answer is no but it’s not really about pushing limits, it’s about getting into the game and Google has a big advantage by being deeply integrated to the Android market. That’s a lot of exposure and a lot of potential subscribers. Not to mention that Google will undoubtedly find a way to make things more appealing over time.

 

Microsoft Wants Nook Content for $1 Billion

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nookHD

Microsoft is reportedly looking to acquire the digital portion of Nook Media LLC and they are offering up $1 Billion for the deal. This move, if made, could help boost Microsoft in the e-book market along with a stronger presence in education, an area that Microsoft could use some help. It’s important to note that it doesn’t appear that Microsoft has any interest the hardware that Nook has, just it’s “digital assets”.

Nook hasn’t really seen great sales as of late and struggles to get any significant traction among similar hardware. This acquisition by Microsoft could prove to be beneficial for everyone involved but it’s still unclear whether or not a deal like this will go through.

3DMark Wants to Benchmark Everything

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3dmark logo3DMark, the go-to benchmarking software, is not only improving it’s Windows based tests but it’s also moving onto other types of hardware besides the PC. Apple iOS, Android, and Windows RT are all fair game when it comes to being benchmarked by 3DMark.

I must admit that I never really thought about benchmarking my smartphone, it’s kind of interesting idea. We read the specs on our tablets and smartphones and we know how much memory we have  and what our screen resolution is but do we really know just how much power we have to work with ?

When it comes to performance in multitasking, surfing the web, or gaming we really don’t think of measuring it all, at least not as often as we should. For the most part we download our apps and they run, but can they run better? How far can we push the hardware, what are the limitations, and how does it stand up against the competition?  These are all great questions that can be answered by a trusted benchmark tool that provides a standard to go by.

The new benchmarks are visually, much improved and a leap ahead from previous iterations. There are three benchmarks, FireStrike for Windows gaming PC’s, CloudGate for Windows Notebooks and home PC’s, and Ice Storm for Android, iOS and Windows mobile. This is great for enthusiasts who really want to get a clearer picture of what’s going on under the hood of their favorite non-PC devices.

To make things even better, the basic version is free and can be found at 3DMark along with complete details on the benchmarking software.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 is on It’s Way (Video)

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Yes, it’s actually going be be here. Thanks to this funny video poking fun at how long it has taken for PopCap to create the sequel to the original, we now have a time frame for the release date.

It looks like Plants vs Zombies 2 will be available sometime in July and the official title will be, Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time.  The video doesn’t provide us with much else besides a bit of humor, we will just need to hang in there a bit longer for some gameplay footage or screenshots.