Apple reportedly acquires photo app developer SnappyLabs

Apple has acquired photo technology startup SnappyLabs, the one-man developer behind the SnappyCam app, according to a TechCrunch report.

The popular iPhone app, which recently vanished from Apple's iTunes app store, allows the smartphone to capture full-resolution images at 20 to 30 frames per second. The app sold for $1 at iTunes and had reportedly been a top seller in several countries.

The company, which was founded and run by John Papandriopoulos, attracted acquisition interest "from most of the usual players," sources told TechCrunch. The company's Web site was recently taken down and its Twitter accounts were locked down from public view.

Terms of the deal were not revealed. CNET has contacted Apple and SnappyLabs for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Papandriopoulos had told Fairfax Media in September that he had been in talks with several companies about acquiring the app, and Apple was understood to be among that group.

"In terms of commercial interest in SnappyCam, there's been quite a bit actually, which has been great in many ways," Papandriopoulos reportedly told Fairfax Media, adding that there was a "spectrum" of Bay Area companies showing interest. "There are a lot of big ones, Internet giants as you like to say, and I've spoken to several of those as well as some smaller companies."

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Qualcomm Ultra Sound NotePad: paper to tablet transfer in realtime

This upcoming week at CES 2014, Qualcomm is planning on demonstrating their Snapdragon 805 proccessor abilities out with several new technologies, one of which is Ultra Sound NotePad. Using this processor's abilities tied to this unique tablet (a developer test tablet, for the moment), ultrasonic sounds created by a digital pen are able to be picked up and transferred to replications of drawings done on a piece of paper directly down to an app. You might have to see this to understand what it's all about.

While previous solutions relied on the pen's ability to record, then transfer to an app at a later time, this solution transfers data in realtime. No longer will you have to write on the tablet itself or wait for your drawings to be processed from the pen to access them. Here you'll be able to make a drawing - or series of notes - on a piece of paper and have them instantly appear on the tablet nearby.

This will make an extremely interesting set of use-cases available to artists in the near future, that's for certain. Where before now the only solution for creating real paper-and-pen art visible on the computer was to scan your finalized work of art after it was made, this solution makes an instant double.

One perfect use-case for this technology will be for comic artists who otherwise have relied on multiple step processes to transfer their works from paper to the web. Many artists still rely on the sensations and quality delivered by working with real ink delivery to a piece of paper rather than moving in to a whole new world with digital stylus-to-screen bits like Samsung's S Pen technology (as seen in the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 most recently) or NVIDIA's newer Tegra Note Stylus technology - as seen most recently in the EVGA Tegra Note 7.
For a full-on delivery of how this Qualcomm technology works, we'll be heading to CES 2014 for an up-close experience. Stay tuned for our full CES 2014 coverage starting this weekend, Qualcomm included!





VIA: Android Central

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Moto X benchmarks leak specifications in black

Right here a the start of another week of Moto X leaks leading up to the official August 1st device reveal comes Motorola’s next hero phone spilling essentially in full, complete with specifications, benchmarks, and all. The device is captured by a leakster who has decided to photograph the phone with benchmarks running hot, 3DMark and AnTuTu included. BONUS: The FCC has been so kind as to drop some additional details on this machine here as well, dimensions galore!

The Moto X has been all but confirmed here by the FCC to be working with a body thats 128.5mm by 65mm large, this containing what’s almost certainly a non-removable battery that’s 2200 mAh space-wise. The FCC has spilled the full-on next-generation abilities of this machine to go 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-fi full-speed-ahead!

The iteration of this device appearing through this leak appears to be the GSM version – that being one of the basics that’ll be sold directly through Motorola complete with customizations on its outer hardware. This exact model likely has slightly less-than-final software aboard, but we can tell from here that it’s essentially running the newest version of Android available: 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

That means that the final device will either be running this newest Android as it exists on the Nexus 4 and Google Play editions of the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One, or it’s simply a tester (it really is, don’t fool yourself) that’ll eventually get an upgrade to a newer Android, 4.3 more likely.

Inside you’ll find the device-code XT1058 “Ghost”, this pointing toward it possibly being along AT&T’s line of innards. Inside you’ll also find 16GB of internal storage, working with NFC, and sporting two cameras. The front-facing camera comes in at 2.1-megapixels while the back-facing camera comes in at a cool 10.5-megapixels.

This next-generation camera should be encouraging for those guessing that this Motorola smartphone will ONLY be winning out on hardware customizability, not specifications market topping. That said, this machine wont be killing the rest of the market for processing abilities, running here a Qualcomm S4 Pro MSM8960DT 1.7GHz SoC with Adreno 320 GPU.

That’s dual-core and essentially one-upping the Nexus 4 without growing so powerful as the HTC One or Galaxy S 4, each of them working with the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. This Moto X and its S4 Pro hit 18753 in AnTuTu in this tester’s leaks along with a 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme score of 7143 – not half bad!

ALso you’ll find this 4.3-inch display’s processor to be rolling out with 720p – aka 720 x 1184 pixels in this case, with a screen density at 320 dpi. Or at least that’s what AnTuTu says. It’s quite possible the machine’s display is 4.5-inches without on-screen buttons or 4.7 counting said buttons – but it’s all still up in the air until we see the final product!



SOURCE: Android Police

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Moto X benchmarks leak specifications in black

Right here a the start of another week of Moto X leaks leading up to the official August 1st device reveal comes Motorola’s next hero phone spilling essentially in full, complete with specifications, benchmarks, and all. The device is captured by a leakster who has decided to photograph the phone with benchmarks running hot, 3DMark and AnTuTu included. BONUS: The FCC has been so kind as to drop some additional details on this machine here as well, dimensions galore!

The Moto X has been all but confirmed here by the FCC to be working with a body thats 128.5mm by 65mm large, this containing what’s almost certainly a non-removable battery that’s 2200 mAh space-wise. The FCC has spilled the full-on next-generation abilities of this machine to go 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-fi full-speed-ahead!

The iteration of this device appearing through this leak appears to be the GSM version – that being one of the basics that’ll be sold directly through Motorola complete with customizations on its outer hardware. This exact model likely has slightly less-than-final software aboard, but we can tell from here that it’s essentially running the newest version of Android available: 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

That means that the final device will either be running this newest Android as it exists on the Nexus 4 and Google Play editions of the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One, or it’s simply a tester (it really is, don’t fool yourself) that’ll eventually get an upgrade to a newer Android, 4.3 more likely.

Inside you’ll find the device-code XT1058 “Ghost”, this pointing toward it possibly being along AT&T’s line of innards. Inside you’ll also find 16GB of internal storage, working with NFC, and sporting two cameras. The front-facing camera comes in at 2.1-megapixels while the back-facing camera comes in at a cool 10.5-megapixels.

This next-generation camera should be encouraging for those guessing that this Motorola smartphone will ONLY be winning out on hardware customizability, not specifications market topping. That said, this machine wont be killing the rest of the market for processing abilities, running here a Qualcomm S4 Pro MSM8960DT 1.7GHz SoC with Adreno 320 GPU.

That’s dual-core and essentially one-upping the Nexus 4 without growing so powerful as the HTC One or Galaxy S 4, each of them working with the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. This Moto X and its S4 Pro hit 18753 in AnTuTu in this tester’s leaks along with a 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme score of 7143 – not half bad!

ALso you’ll find this 4.3-inch display’s processor to be rolling out with 720p – aka 720 x 1184 pixels in this case, with a screen density at 320 dpi. Or at least that’s what AnTuTu says. It’s quite possible the machine’s display is 4.5-inches without on-screen buttons or 4.7 counting said buttons – but it’s all still up in the air until we see the final product!

SOURCE: Android Police

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