Former Googlers launch Stamped, a new recommendation app for iOS

Jake Smith

Former Googlers Robby Stein and Kevin Palms have launched a new iOS app called Stamped. Stamped is backed by Google Ventures, among other investors, and allows users to check-in to locations in a very simple way. Instead of whether you didn’t like the location, thought it was just ‘meh’, or totally loved it, Stamped uses a five star only recommendation system. If you like something you simply ‘stamp’ it. But get this — you only get a limited number of stamps to use, and earn more as your friends like your recommendations.

Stamped joins other check-in and ranking apps like the new Oink, Foursquare, and more. The ability to rank only what you only enjoy seems like a very smart idea, and throwing in the limited number of rankings makes it even better. Like any social network it’s about where your friends are, but being backed by Google this app has the chances of taking off.

Stamped is currently available on the iOS App Store for free. An Android version is also currently in development, and should hit the Android Market fairly soon. Check out a few more screenshots after the break.

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Google Search iOS app updated with overhauled iPad UI and full-screen mode for iPhone

Jordan Kahn

Google has just released an update to their Google Search iOS app bringing with it a brand new design for iPad and full-screen mode for search results and pages on iPhone.

The new iPad interface is noticeably inspired by the design recently rolled out across the majority of Google’s web services. The main search page now has four grey icons as shortcuts to History, Applications, Voice Search, and Goggles, while a new side-by-side view allows you to browse webpages and search results simultaneously. Also included in the update in a full-screen browsing mode for images and a new visual UI for history allowing you to  thumb through results as pages. Instant Previews and Google Instant are now also baked into the iPad version.

As for the iPhone, the update only lists the usual minor bug fixes along with the full-screen mode mentioned above. As always, you can grab the updated Google Search app as a universal download now (iTunes link).  More screenshots below:
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Galaxy S III to run Samsung’s upcoming quad-core Exynos 4412 chip?

9to5 Staff

Samsung is thought to be at work developing a quad-core chip to power the Galaxy S III, an addition to the Galaxy smartphone family expected to be unveiled at Mobile World Congress which runs February 27-March 1 in Barcelona, Spain. According to PocketNow, based on the source code at kernel.org, the new chip will be marketed as the Exynos 4412 and will feature four processing cores.

Samsung recently launched the 32-nanomenter Exynos 4212 chip with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processing core clocked at 1.5GHz and ARM’s quad-core Mali-400 GPU. Like Apple’s upcoming A6 chip (said to be manufactured by Samsung) and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 silicon, the rumored Exynos 4412 chip should take advantage of the four cores of the Cortex-A9 processor from ARM Holdings. Its closes competitor, however, will be a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core beast allegedly debuting early next year in the HTC Zeta smartphone.

Unlike the Tegra 3 chip which employs Nvidia’s own GeForce graphics processor or Apple’s A6 that is likely to tap Imagination Technologies’ next-generation PowerVR GPU, the Exynos 4412 could use the recently introduced Mali-T658 graphics unit which delivers up to ten times the graphics performance of the Mali-400 GPU and four times the GPU compute performance of the Mali-T604 GPU.

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Nook Tablet gets iFixit teardown, reveals storage limitations and more

Jordan Kahn

The guys and gals over at iFixit are once again tearing down our favorite electronic devices, this time the new Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble. The end result is a repairability score of 6 out of 10 and a few interesting findings, especially in comparison to the Kindle Fire. Today we also get our first root for the device, allowing the Android Market to run with some minor limitations. Liliputing (via SlashGear) has compiled a complete guide using tips from various posters on Xda-developers.

A few noteworthy findings that you may have previously be unaware of include:

Storage– While Barnes & Noble advertises 16GB of onboard internal storage (saying the 6GB included in Amazon’s Kindle Fire makes it “deficient for a media tablet”), the truth is only 1GB is available for content other than B&N content. iFixit says only 12GB of the 16GB is actually available to the user, while only 1GB of that 12 is available for content other than that downloaded from the B&N app store. Looks like the majority of your content (other than content purchased from B&N) will have to be stored mostly on microSD.

We also get a nice comparison of the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire. iFixit explains:
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Adobe confirms Flash development for Android ends after Ice Cream Sandwich

Jordan Kahn

Following Adobe’s decision to kill development of mobile Flash and willingness to admit HTML5 is the future of content on mobile devices, we’re now starting to find out exactly what this means for Android.

According to Pocket-lint, Adobe has confirmed that a version of Flash is currently in development for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is slated for release before the end of this year. However, beyond ICS, Adobe has no plans to continue Flash development for Android. Here’s what they had to say:
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ChangeWave: Better than one in five to buy a Kindle Fire this holidays

9to5 Staff

ChangeWave Research in a new survey polled 3,043 consumers on consumer tablet demand for the holidays, including a close-up look at demand for the Amazon Kindle Fire vs. the Apple iPad. Overall, tablets are big this holidays as sales in the United States increase an estimated 130 percent.

Everybody wants a tablet, it seems. A total of 14 percent of respondents plan on buying a tablet in the next 90 days, an eight percentage points increase over an August ChangeWave survey and more than triple the level of a year ago. However, nowadays shoppers no longer have to pick between an iPad or an array of same-looking Android tablets because Amazon is now the second most-popular tablet brand (people clearly want an Amazon tablet).

According to ChangeWave:

The Amazon Kindle Fire is going to leapfrog the competition and become the number two product in the tablet market, as long as it can provide a quality user experience. But the Amazon surge may also contain a silver lining for Apple, by damaging the tablet market hopes of the remaining competitors in the field.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) plan on buying an iPad, or two out of three tablet buyers. People are loving their iPads and it shows in satisfaction ratings. A total of 74 percent of all iPad owners are Very Satisfied versus 49 percent for all other tablet manufacturers combined.

More than one in five, or 22 percent, eye an Amazon tablet and just four percent plan on buying a Galaxy Tab from Samsung. Apple’s score is in line with iPad’s IDC-estimated 68 percent share of the tablet market. In addition, Canalys projected Apple will overtake Hewlett-Packard to become the #1 PC maker globally on the heels of iPad 3 release, although not everybody is down with counting iPad as a computer. More tidbits and charts after the break.

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