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Alexis Philippides

Website: https://www.stuff-review.com

Email: alexis@stuff-review.com

Profile: Alexis is the founder of Stuff-Review and the primary editor. He's a blogger, an engineer and a web entrepreneur. Alexis has been building and managing websites for over 12 years. An eternal sufferer from gadget lust, he tries to keep his passion in check by writing overly lengthy pieces on technology and consumer electronics. Soft spots include digital cameras, high-end audio separates and portable devices. At times, his electrical engineering background peers out in technically convoluted articles, but otherwise he provides down-to-earth reporting.

Latest posts by Alexis Philippides:

The iPad goes to school: iBooks 2 app brings interactive textbooks for $14.99 or less

News

  • January 19, 2012 at 3:51 pm

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iBooks 2 Textbooks on iPad

Apple has just vowed to reinvent textbooks, and of course the perfect delivery vehicle is the iPad. The big unveiling at today’s education and eBook related event in New York City was iBooks 2 for iOS. The latest version of the app now gives access to interactive textbooks. iBooks textbooks make things more exciting than you typical paperback with interactive 3D models, video and audio. You now also have the ability to pinch for the table of contents, and of course you still have all the typical multitouch navigation gestures.

Besides saving you from lugging big blocks of wood, electronic iBooks textbooks allow you to quickly search for content, highlight text, take notes and even turn them to virtual study cards. Textbooks are rather competitively priced at $14.99 or less, and publishers on-board for the launch include McGraw Hill, Pearson, DK Publishing and Mifflin Harcourt.
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Amazon.com redesigned website launch imminent?

News

  • January 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm

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Amazon website redesign

Amazon has been testing a redesigned website for a while now and judging by the fact that it’s now randomly appearing more and more regularly over the old website, we would incline to say that a launch could be imminent.

The new website offers cleaner design and bigger navigational objects. The iconic blue and orange bar has disappeared and in its place you get a simple white and grey design.

Everything from the search box, to the Cart and Wish List buttons have become bigger. It’s apparent that the new design is touch and tablet-optimized. Obviously tablets are quickly becoming the future’s shop windows and Amazon is no stranger to the trend with the Kindle Fire.
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iBooks Author hands-on: how anyone can now publish interactive books to the iPad

Reviews

  • January 19, 2012 at 12:45 pm

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iBook Author: template chooser

Apple has just announced the free iBooks Author Mac OS X application, which allows anyone to create and publish eBooks to Apple’s iBooks platform for the iPad. I went ahead and downloaded the free app from the Mac App Store, which only took a couple of minutes, and fired it up to for a first test.

First impressions are really good, the key to the application is simplicity. If you’ve ever used Blurb to publish a book, the experience is similar but faster and more accurate. On launch, you get a choice from six existing templates, or you can start from scratch. The six templates are OK for a start but relatively limited.

After that it’s a matter of putting down the text, either writing it directly or dropping a document on the page (you have full control on the typography and colors of course), and other content. Dropping images works very smoothly and you can easily move, resize, bring to front or send back. Things auto-align nicely and text boxes can snap to the end of other boxes automatically. While you are moving objects, guides pop-up to show you the margins between other objects and the page ends.
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iBooks Author is a free Mac app that brings drag and drop simplicity to publishing books on the iPad

News

  • January 19, 2012 at 11:57 am

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Apple iBooks Author Mac OS X app

Apple’s education and iBook related event in now underway at New York City’s Guggenheim museum. The company just unveiled iBooks 2 for the iPad which now includes textbooks, but that’s hardly the only important announcement for today. In a bid to make every person a book publisher, Apple has just unveiled a free Mac OS X application, names iBooks Author, that will allow anyone to design and publish their own books on the iBooks platform.

iBooks Author can be downloaded now from the Mac App Store, as we’ve said for free, and the idea behind it is that it brings drag and drop simplicity to authoring multi-touch eBooks. The application comes with a host of templates to get you started though you can completely customize the look of your book. You can enter your text directly to your book’s pages and you can drag and drop photos, videos and even Pages and Microsoft Word documents directly into your book. You also have the option of making your iBook interactive and for that you have the widgets. Widgets add multi-touch interactivity and include photo galleries, 3D objects, animations and Keynote presentations. You can also add your own Javascript or HTML if you are feeling more adventurous.
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Motorola getting tougher with Defy+ JCB Edition 3.7-inch Android handset

News

  • January 18, 2012 at 5:43 pm

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Motorola Defy+ JCB edition back and front

We really liked the Motorola Defy+ when we reviewed it because it offers some degree of ruggedization without being ugly or unwieldy. It’s also good value for money, with around £240 ($370) (contract free) buying you an Android handset with a 3.7-inch Gorilla Glass LCD 854×480 (265ppi) display, 1GHz single-core TI OMAP3620 SoC, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of built-in storage and a 5-megapixel rear camera.

Motorola hot on the heals of the success of the Defy+ has introduced the Defy+ JCB Edition. Those unfamiliar with JCB, it’s a construction equipment and heavy machinery manufacturer. Compared to the standard Defy+, the JCB edition wraps the device with a visco-elastic protective sleeve for a stronger exterior, which should handle drops and pressure better. Apparently the skin automatically stiffens on impact and remains flexible in normal use. The special edition also includes a number of apps targeted to builders, engineers and DIY enthusiasts. The apps include a theodolite, spirit level, torch and decibel meter.
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Best of anti-SOPA day

News

  • January 18, 2012 at 12:21 pm

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Fredo & Pid'jin Sopaman! comic strip

Today is anti-SOPA day, as we are sure many of you are aware. In our minds, the best way to protest against such a ridiculous bill as SOPA is to make real good fun of it, and then take it with your members of Congress.

First off above you’ve got a hilarious Fredo & Pid’jin comic strip about Sopaman!!! Below, a lovely ballad titled “The Day The LOLcats Died”, with some scary subliminal messages, uh-oh!
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How to access Wikipedia on stop SOPA day

News

  • January 18, 2012 at 12:07 pm

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Wikipedia stop SOPA day blackout

If you’ve tried accessing the English version of Wikipedia today on any computer, you’ll be greeted with the above. Wikipedia and a bunch of other websites have decided to black-out their webpages in protest against two very controversial bills, SOPA and PIPA. In short the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and “Protect IP Act”, while aiming to stop piracy from foreign web sites will destroy online freedom of speech. Whatever your background might be, we urge you to read and learn more on the proposed bills.

In the meantime many of you might need urgent access to the wealth of information contained within the Wikipedia website. Well there are a number of simple ways you can go about this until the end of the 24 hour blackout at midnight January 19th Eastern Time.
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Sony releases Micro Vault MACH USB 3.0 flash drive, gives it the Cylon treatment

News

  • January 18, 2012 at 3:28 am

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Sony Micro Vault MACH USB 3.0 drive next to computer

We’ve got to give it Sony, as it really knows about style. The company’s latest line of flash drives has just been announced and besides their good looks you’ll find a speedy USB 3.0 device inside. The Micro Vault MACH USB 3.0 flash drive comes in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB varieties and claim read speeds of 60MB/s for the 8GB and 120MB/s for the rest of the line. Write speeds can shoot up to 90MB/s, busting what most USB 2.0 drives can achieve.
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First rumored specs for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera: Micro Four Thirds, EVF and weather sealed body

News

  • January 17, 2012 at 5:06 pm

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Olympus OM-2 camera

We finally had a name for Olympus’s latest compact interchangeable lens camera this week. The Olympus OM-D was confirmed after the Japanese camera maker registered the trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Olympus has also began an ‘Om My Goodness’ teaser campaign. However, we are still mostly in the dark as to what we can expect from the new OM-series digital camera.

A Japanese website, Digicame-info, is now claiming to have received reliable information on some specs for the Olympus OM-D. The camera will be a mirrorless Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system camera with key differentiating factors to Olympus’s PEN MFT cameras being the built-in EVF and weather sealed body:
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Samsung promises full day battery life for 2012 smartphones; hallelujah!

News

  • January 17, 2012 at 1:56 pm

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 battery indicator close-up

We’re glad that Samsung is finally on the same page as us. The Korean giant has committed to improving the battery of its handsets during 2012 and has set a goal that smartphones released during 2012 should last at least a whole day under moderate use — though that can be interpreted in many ways.

Battery life is an issue we’ve covered again and again here at Stuff-Review. The short version is that devices now pack big screens and fast processors which quickly eat up battery, while the opposing trend of making devices super-thin means that the included battery is always too small. It’s sort of sadistic to create devices with big beautiful screens and then force people to keep use to a minimum and brightness down to save on battery.
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Rumor: Apple preparing for an iPad 3 and iOS 5.1 event in February? What to expect

News

  • January 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

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Apple iBooks on iPad

One of most anticipated hardware launches of the year is none other than the third iteration of the world’s most successful tablet. The iPad, which made tablets relevant, has transformed the way we consume content on the go, and even how we create it. The iPad 2 and iOS 4.3 were announced at a special Apple event on March 2nd 2011 and released on March 11th.

Betting on Apple’s one year update cycle, we would expect the iPad 3 to be announced around the same period this year. But what do we know about the iPad 3? Well, Apple devices have generally been going in one direction. With each iteration, they usually get faster, thinner, with better battery life and a better screen. It’s almost certain that the iPad 3 will feature a faster chipset, probably an Apple A6 quad-core processor and better graphics. One of the longest standing rumors has been that the next generation iPad will have a high resolution display; most rumors point to a 2048 x 1536, which is effectively double that of the current iPad 2 on each axis. The improved A6 graphic processing unit (GPU) is claimed to be able to handle the quadruple pixels.
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CyanogenMod 9 Music app available as standalone application, Android 4.0 still needed

News

  • January 17, 2012 at 5:53 am

1

CyanogenMod 9 Music Player

CyanogenMod’s popularity lies in the fact that the ROM brings to Android a level of customization never seen before. The CyanogenMod team already let us know that they will be releasing individual parts of their upcoming Android Ice Cream Sandwich based CyanogenMod 9 ROM. First the CM9 launcher titled Trebuchet was made available as an APK file, and today you can download the CyanogenMod 9 Music app as a standalone application.

The Music app is extremely customizable; using a theme engine, designers can change every UI element in the app. If you’d rather have the familiar Android Ice Cream Sandwich look, you can download the ‘Google Music’ theme which is based on the latest version of the Google Music app. Within the application you can share what you are listening via social, set songs as ring tones, delete tracks and search. There is a drag-and-drop queue and playlist, a custom lockscreen, and shake and flip actions — you can pause your music by flipping the device face down, and you can customize the shake action to skip tracks for example. The app also comes with a number of custom widgets.
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Why we love tech: David Hockney’s ‘A Bigger Picture’ is contemporary art done on an iPad

News

  • January 16, 2012 at 5:29 pm

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The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, in 2011. iPad drawing printed on paper by David Hockney

David Hockney is one of the most influential contemporary British artists. Born in 1937, with a career spanning more than 50 years, he has relentlessly acquired mastery in a number of media. David Hockney has made paintings, drawings, lithographic and etching prints, designed stage sets and worked with photography and photocollage. In his long, and successful, career he has also always embraced new technologies. David Hockney’s latest exhibition, titled ‘A Bigger Picture’ and running between January 21st and April 9th 2012 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is a testament to this.

The exhibition is devoted to landscapes and includes more than 150 works by the artist, most of which were created in the last decade while many are massive in size. The vivid works were inspired by Hockney’s native Yorkshire. After Hockney’s 30 year long stay in California and Los Angeles, where he created his famous paintings portraying alluring poolside scenes he returned to his home country and has been based in Bridlington, a small seaside town in east Yorkshire, around 65 miles from Bradford where the artist was born. The exhibition includes oil paintings, watercolors and more than 50 drawings created on an iPad and then printed onto paper. There are also a number of videos created for the exhibition.
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Rumor: Samsung Galaxy Note could be heading to Verizon and Sprint as the Galaxy Journal

News

  • January 16, 2012 at 3:36 pm

0

Samsung Galaxy Note, taking notes

Take this with a grain of salt: an LA industry analyst is claiming that Samsung’s oversized smartphone will be heading to Verizon and Sprint, probably under the name Galaxy Journal. The 5.3-inch stylus-friendly Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone/tablet finally made it to North American shores last week with a big appearance at CES. The device is now confirmed to be released soon on AT&T, though no information was given on availability on other carriers.

The Galaxy Note is currently GSM only, so an initial AT&T release makes sense, but a CDMA/LTE version could be in the works so that the device can be launched on both Verizon and Sprint. Despite being the largest smartphone to date, Samsung had shipped over one million Galaxy Note units last year.

The Galaxy Note has 5.3-inch Super AMOLED 720p HD screen with a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor powered by a decently sized 2,500mAh battery. The device does indeed challenge anyone’s perception of a phone, it is a really big device weighing 178g (6.3 oz). To convert people to believers, Samsung has included a Wacom-designed pressure sensitive S Pen stylus, an 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front and other nice features like GLONASS support.
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