February, 2013 - Softonic English

MWC 2013: Samsung announces Samsung Wallet, competes with Apple’s Passbook

Samsung announced today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it is working on a brand new app, Samsung Wallet. The app will allow users to store useful information like tickets, boarding passes, rewards cards, and coupons.

From what we’ve seen, Samsung Wallet bears a striking resemblance to Apple’s Passbook. The interface is sorted by cards for different services. Tapping on a card will bring up information about that event, flight, or movie. Wallet will also offer location-based notifications like Google Now. This means the app can alert you to pull up your boarding pass once it detects you’re at the airport.

What’s missing from Samsung Wallet, as well as Apple’s Passbook, is the ability to use near field communications (NFC) to make payments with your phone. This is something that Google Wallet does. Samsung is currently working with credit card companies for a mobile payment service so it’s safe to assume that mobile payments will eventually make their way into Samsung Wallet.

Wallet is currently only available as a preview for developers. There is an SDK and API for app developers to integrate their services into the app. This is important for Samsung Wallet’s success.

Samsung Wallet will probably be one of many new features that the company will highlight at it’s Galaxy S IV event that will take place on March 14th.

Source: The Verge

Amazon Kindle iOS update deletes entire library from device, company urges users not to update

If you’re an iOS Kindle user, don’t update the app! Amazon has come out and urged users not to update version 3.6.1 as there is a glitch that deletes all of the books you’ve downloaded on your device.

The company has been made aware of this glitch and has urged users not to update to version 3.6.1. A new version, 3.6.2, showed up in the Apple App Store shortly afterward, which contained a fix for this bug. Those who look at the changelog for version 3.6.1 will notice a warning that reads, “Note: There is a known issue with this update. If you are an existing Kindle for iOS user, we recommend you do not install this update at this time.”

For those who have already installed the update, all of your books will be deleted but they’re not gone. The books can still be downloaded from Amazon’s cloud and your place will still be saved since Amazon syncs your progress. It’s just a hassle to have to re-download all of your books, especially if you have a large library.

Version 3.6.2 presumably fixes this glitch and existing users should be fine installing this version.

Source: Mashable

Hide Facebook messages and chats using NQ Vault

Ever wonder what would happen if Facebook messages and chats could be seen by someone else? The thought of it is a little terrifying, right?

If you’re concerned about your privacy when chatting on Facebook Messenger on your phone then make sure you check out the new Facebook message encryption feature within NQ Mobile Vault, which we took a look at when we caught up with NQ Mobile at this week’s Mobile World Congress 2013.

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Photoshop Touch now available for smartphones

Photoshop Touch is now available for Android phones and iPhone/iPod Touch devices, after originally being released for tablets last year. Photoshop Touch is much more advanced than the free Photoshop Express, with features like layers, selection tools, adjustments and filters.

The Scribble Select lets you use your finger to select, save or discard parts of your images. Photoshop Touch also has edge-aware painting, to increase the accuracy of your finger on the touchscreen, tone and color adjustment and a set of interactive tutorials.

On top of this you work with Photoshop compatible formats, and can upload to Adobe Creative Cloud, so you can work on them further on the desktop version.

Download Photoshop Touch for Android and iOS.

Spotify for iOS updated with new interface

Spotify for iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) has been updated to version 0.6.0, and comes with a redesigned interface as well as some bug fixes.

Spotify now features a sidebar, similar to the Facebook app (and already in the Android version). Swipe the screen to see a menu with What’s New, Radio, Playlists, Inbox, Friends and Settings. There’s also an always present Now Playing bar, so wherever you are in the app you can see what’s playing, and change songs by swiping it.

Other notable fixes are the lock screen, which will now display the right track, and Shuffle will now automatically shut off after you’ve used it for an album or playlist.

Download Spotify for iOS

Atooma wins best app prize at Mobile Premier Awards 2013

An app which can automatically post to Facebook, send emails, and change settings on your phone based on certain conditions has won the best app award at the Mobile Premier Awards in Barcelona.

Atooma lets you set up conditional events that automatically trigger certain actions on your phone. For example, when it’s a friend’s birthday on Facebook you could automatically post a greeting to their wall, if your battery is running low you could change the screen’s brightness or turn flight mode one, or automatically reply to received tweets on Twitter.

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First Assassin’s Creed 4 screenshot emerges ahead of today’s announcement

Later today Ubisoft are expected to announce Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

We know that the Assassin’s Creed IV will feature a new protagonist and time, but until now we had little idea what they could be. Kotaku have uncovered a poster that seems to confirm a pirate theme for the game, so you can forget about an Assassin’s Creed based on the life of the seminal US hardcore punk rock band.

This follows a Reddit post from earlier in the year, claiming to have seen the game mentioned on a PowerPoint presentation of a passenger on a plane.

Now the first alleged screenshot of the game has emerged, from Examiner writer Nicholas Gigante.

As you can see, it’s very blurry, and it’s pretty hard to say for sure what the character is. We could assume a pirate theme, having seen Black Flag name and the Kotaku story, but it looks pretty inconclusive to me.

We’ll follow up on this story later today when Ubisoft host their Assassin’s Creed event.

Are you excited by a pirate theme for Assassin’s Creed? Are you convinced by the Kotaku or Examiner images?

[The logo is not official, it’s just playing with the logo of the band Black Flag via Arthur van Vliet]

Alternatives to Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger’s demise is nearing, which means Microsoft will push Skype as the native Windows messaging on April 8, 2013. Even though you can import your contacts into Skype, many users are still unhappy about being forced to use Skype because of its limited features compared to Windows Live Messenger.

Many people prefer Windows Live Messenger because it is the default instant messaging client in Windows but there are a lot of good alternatives. Even though Messenger includes features like sharing photos and videos and customization options, the client itself is rather limited. While you can chat with friends on other services, connecting to other services isn’t as streamlined as it could be.

Now with the use of the cloud to collaborate on documents, photo sharing, and productivity, Windows Live Messenger presents itself as something from the past. Nowadays, having a separate client isn’t really necessary as many sites have included chat services and apps that aren’t limited to Windows.

If you still need an instant messaging service to use to communicate with friends, there are a lot of options if you move away from Windows Live Messenger.

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Adobe offers third security patch for Flash Player this month

Another day, another Flash update. Adobe is beginning to push out the latest update to the Flash Player due to security concerns. Mac and Windows users will want to install this update as soon as possible. It’s unusual for an exploit to show up on the Mac platform as a majority of computers are running Windows. This speaks to the severity of the exploit.

The exploit that Adobe is patching with this update has to do with malicious links embedded within Flash content. This particular exploit targets the Firefox browser, but Chrome and Internet Explorer users should update anyway to be safe. Here’s what Adobe had to say about this update:

“These updates address vulnerabilities that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.”

Previously, Adobe issued an emergency patch for the Flash Player on February 8th. This exploit allowed hackers to take over a person’s machine.

Adobe was scheduled to release an update to Flash next week but had to push this emergency update as the vulnerability is quite severe. If you still haven’t received a pushed update, you can get the latest version of Flash here.

Source: ArsTechnica

Twitter for Windows Phone updates to match Android and iOS

Twitter users on Windows Phone can rejoice today as the official Twitter app has been updated with a complete visual overhaul. The app will now look and function like the apps on Android and iOS.

Previously, the Twitter application for Windows Phone featured a row of buttons at the bottom for features like the feed and search. The redesign moves the buttons up top to make the experience consistent across all of Twitter’s mobile apps. There are buttons for Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. This makes your content more easy to find and read. There are also new tweet and search icons so users will be able to start typing a Twitter update or search from anywhere within the app.

The new Twitter app will also support Live Tiles but not in the way you would expect. While apps on Windows Phone and Windows 8 update with new content from the home screen, this Twitter update doesn’t actually support that. Instead, Windows Phone users will gain the ability to pin Twitter accounts, lists, and searches to the home screen for quick access. It would be nice to see Twitter update this app to support Live Tile animations in the future.

To get the latest update, check the Windows Phone Marketplace or click here.

Source: Twitter