Good news for people who never got a chance to play with Google’s App Inventor for Android. It is back as an MIT maintained project.
Announcing: MIT App Inventor Open Beta Preview
You can find the project itself at: appinventor.mit.edu
App Inventor is a visual programming language to create Android apps.
Microsoft Research’s TouchDevelop is a remarkable tool that lets you write software for Windows Phone right on the phone itself. The news today is that it is now possible to distribute software developed using TouchDevelop (again, this task is done right on the phone) through Microsoft’s own Windows Phone Marketplace.
turn TouchDevelop scripts into apps on the Windows Phone Marketplace
You can learn more about the preparation and submission process here.
You can listen to the podcast discussion I had with Nikolai Tillman (Principal Researcher Software Design Engineer of Microsoft Research) in June 2011 when the tool was named TouchStudio
[CORRECTION]
My old friend Don Sorcinelli (@DPSJ) pointed out a trick to get the Skype for Windows Phone beta to download and install. First, here’s what does not work.
What does work is following the link provided by Skype for the beta from the Windows Phone’s browser itself. This takes you to the app product page (that cannot be found using search within the Marketplace app) where you can install the Skype beta app. Here’s the link:
Skype for Windows Phone beta < - View this blog item in a Windows Phone browser and click on this link. Thanks to Don for pointing out my error. (more…)
Forty-five (45) of the apps for my iPad &/or iPhone were updated in the past week. Apps that do not have comments in the list below indicates that the update is simply a bug fix release.
(more…)
A somewhat unique circumstance has a poorly rated (2 stars out of a possible 5) iPad app at the top of the free apps list. ABC Digital’s free Oscar app only has a two-star rating for both its current and past versions because it reportedly crashes a lot and does not have interestingn information. However, tonight is the night of the Academy Awards presentatins on ABC TV. So, the app shot up to number 1 on the free iPad app list (it is nowhere to be found on the iPhone list despite the fact it works on the phone too). Comments by frustrated users indicate that problems present last year are still not addressed. Maybe next year?
I see a lot of tech rumors on the net. But, it is rare to see real investigative reporting in action. OtterBox, which makes highly protective cases for mobile devices, sent a crack team into action to track down information about the iPad 3 before its announcements and release. Watch the video above to see investigative reporting at its best 🙂