For some, the change of the season is marked not by calendars or climate changes, but by the beat of sports fandom. Rest easy, baseball fans: spring is finally here. Naturally, Major League Baseball is heralding in the weather by updating its MLB At Bat app for 2013 spring training, touting new features for Android and iOS users alike. The apps updated team pages, retooled navigation and classic games library are universally available to both Android and iOS users, but the iPhone will score an enhanced and searchable video library and an exclusive home screen customization feature. MLB promises to pipe in more functionality before the season opens, however -- including mobile access for BlackBerry 10 users. What hasn't changed? The price, of course: Android subscribers will need to pony up $20 for the year, while iOS retains its $3 monthly subscription plan. Slide past the break for the official press release.
Kids have it all these days -- tailor-made gadgets, their own little corners in mobile platforms, and of course, loads and loads of content. The latest to hit the wires is the Nick app for the iPad, offering a slew of Nickelodeon programming wrapped in a swipe-driven, tyke-friendly interface. The goodies include animated shorts, videos, games, the ability to mark favorites, plus a smorgasbord of funny interactive elements and a "Do Not Touch" button that promises disruptive fun. Full episodes of the current shows can also be accessed if you've subscribed to Nickelodeon's TV package via any one of eight providers. Seems like a swell way to keep those tech-savvy rug rats occupied between outdoor adventures and some DIY action. The 45MB payload is waiting at the source link, yours for the hard-to-argue cost of free.
Via Licensing is amassing quite a deep well of patents from which its members able to pull. All in the name of keeping standards-essential LTE technology accessible to those willing to play ball. Now China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom are joining the ranks of industry giants like AT&T and NTT DoCoMo in an effort to guard themselves against litigation and ease the act of licensing each other's patents. Others have tried and failed where Via Licensing seems to be succeeding in building a coalition around sharing standard-essential patents. Though, while plenty of big names have signed on, there are still quite a few notable holdouts.
Science! A team of bioengineers and physicians over at Cornell University recently detailed their work to 3D print lifelike ears that may be used to treat birth defects like microtia and assist those who have lost or damaged an ear due to an accident or cancer. The product, which is, "practically identical to the human ear," according to the school, was created using 3D printing and gels made from living cells -- collagen was gathered from rat tails and cartilage cells were taken from cow's ears. The whole process is quite quick, according to associate professor Lawrence Bonassar, who co-authored the report on the matter,
"It takes half a day to design the mold, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later. We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted."
The team is looking to implant the first ear in around three years, if all goes well.
First things first: We still haven't seen the PlayStation 4. That said, if you'd like to see someone other than a Sony rep or developer putting their hands all over that DualShock 4 with touchpad and share button -- we asked, but apparently network TV still trumps internet -- then say no more. Managing Director of Guerilla Games Hermen Hulst came by the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show with a prototype unit (not shown) loaded up with the Killzone: Shadow Fall demo we saw at the press conference. Jimmy and guest Anthony Anderson played a bit, with varying degrees of success and were predictably impressed by the new system, due to release by the end of this year. Unfortunately, there's no new information to be had, unless you wanted to know what the ceilings in the game look like (clearly, Anderson prefers to play shooters inverted). Watch the video embedded after the break, we're going to doublecheck ?uestlove's Instagram to see if he got any backstage or setup shots of the system behind the curtain.
In just a few days, visitors to North Korea will be able to surf the web from 3G-enabled devices. According to the Associated Press, customers of telecom company Koryolink living in Pyongyang received word that the firm will launch a 3G internet service exclusively for foreigners no later than March 1st. While citizens of North Korea have access to things including MMS, video calls, and a subscription to the state-run newspaper over 3G, a connection to the global internet will remain exclusive to a small, approved slice of the population using broadband. Foreigners will be able to purchase a monthly service plan for use with a USB modem or their very own SIM card. It's hard to say if Eric Schmidt's trip nudged the country and the service provider to change their tune, but in any case we're hoping Señor Schmidt will consider visiting Cuba as well.
[Image credit: (stephan), Flickr]
Phishing emails often pose as being sent by major league sites rather than princes from far-flung countries, but Twitter's implemented a new measure to stamp out phonies that borrow its name. Costolo and Co. announced that, earlier this month, they began leveraging a tech called DMARC that establishes a way for email providers to authenticate senders and reject messages penned by impostors. While the DMARC specification does need support from e-mail services, outfits including AOL (which happens to be our parent company), Gmail, Hotmail / Outlook and Yahoo already make use of it. According to Twitter, it's now "extremely unlikely" that the majority of their users will receive emails masquerading as being sent from a Twitter.com address. We're sorry to disappoint, but it looks like you'll have to get your fix of foreign lottery notices from somewhere else.
After whetting our appetite at CES, Samsung's updated Series 7 Chronos is slowly squeaking its way into US retailers. Spotted at Best Buy for $1,200, this 21mm dynamo packs a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 3635QM CPU and an AMD Radeon HD 8870M GPU along with a 15.6-inch touchscreen. While this lean, mean, Windows 8 machine's streamlined design and spec sheet are impressive, such adornment comes at a price. Absent from the Chronos' fine engineering is room for an optical drive, so DVD and Blu-ray enthusiasts be warned. However, should this caveat not apply to you, then by all means you have our blessings to check out Sammy's new up and comer.
[Thanks, Noah]
Global flavors of LTE bands can be a hassle for travelers and firms making multiple versions of the same device, but Qualcomm says its solved that quandary with a new radio chipset. Dubbed the RF360, the silicon is hailed as the world's first mobile chip that packs support for global LTE, which translates to connectivity for LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, WCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM / EDGE -- breaking down the barriers separating roughly 40 different LTE bands. Not only does it lend globetrotters a hand, but Qualcomm claims the component carries a few other "world's first" features that allow manufacturers to build thinner products with improved antenna performance, battery life and connection reliability. The outfit also unveiled the WTR1625L chip, which stakes claim to an industry first by sporting carrier aggregation alongside international LTE compatibility. Hardware made with the RF360 isn't expected to arrive on shelves until the latter half of 2013, but for now you can mosey past the break for the nitty gritty details and a video to walk you through them.