Is Google Now coming to the iPhone?

By Chris Gayomali

A leaked video suggests Siri may soon face some stiff competition

Google’s quiet invasion of iOS is kind of brilliant if you think about it.

Google’s dedicated apps for Maps, Chrome, and Gmail are superior to any of the iPhone’s native counterparts, and have become hugely (and for Tim Cook and Co., embarrassingly) popular in Apple’s App Store. Plus, not only do these Google apps beam valuable consumer data back to the Mountain View mothership, but they simultaneously throttle Apple’s connection to its customers. It’s two birds with one stone; a software-powered one-two punch.


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Sundance Institute to host summer film festival in Los Angeles

by Hillary Busis

The good news: Sundance is holding a second film festival this year. The better news: For once, attendees can leave their fashionable parkas at home.

The Sundance Institute announced today that it will be hosting a four-day summer film festival called Next Weekend in Los Angeles this August. Next Weekend will be an extension of Sundance proper’s “Next” section, which launched in 2010 and features “stylistically adventurous films that take a bold approach to storytelling,” such as Zal Batmanglij’s sound of my voice and Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk With Me.

Next Weekend will run Aug. 8-11 and includes screenings of eight features, a shorts program, a panel discussion, and ShortsLab: Los Angeles, the Institute’s annual short-filmmaking workshop. “The best part of independent filmmaking is the freedom to tell your stories your own way, to take risks and not be beholden to convention of any kind,” Sundance president and founder Robert Redford said in a statement. “At the core of Next Weekend are artists that are taking risks and pushing boundaries. As such, it’s fitting that Sundance Cinemas will be the home for this festival and these films.”

The mini-fest’s schedule will be announced this summer.

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Huawei reveals ‘fastest smartphone in the world’

By PETER SVENSSON

BARCELONA, Spain —

Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world’s third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product “the fastest smartphone in the world” and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand.

Parts of the presentation of the phone at a press conference Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that the company has some way to go in polishing its pitch for a global audience.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group said the new phone can be programmed to display more than 100 different “themes,” or looks. This is important because “ladies like flowers, colorful things,” Yu said.


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Oscars 2013: Life of Pi wins 4 Oscars, Argo takes 3 including Best Picture

Best motion picture
• Argo, Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Producers

Achievement in directing
• Life of Pi, Ang Lee

Performance by an actor in a leading role
• Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln

Performance by an actress in a leading role
• Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
• Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
• Anne Hathaway, in Les Misérables
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DC Entertainment pairing up Batman and Superman

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — DC Entertainment says it will unveil a new ongoing series focusing on Superman and Batman, two of the publisher’s best-known and revered heroes.

“Batman/Superman” is set to debut in June and will be written Greg Pak and illustrated by Jae Lee. It will focus on how the two iconic heroes first met in the publisher’s relaunched universe, dubbed The New 52.

Pak says DC is giving he and Lee “some real leeway to do some really important storytelling” in the series that will give readers the opportunity to delve deep into the characters, their interaction and the effects on the wider New 52 universe.

The two characters have been a part of DC since the late 1930s.

Online: http://www.dccomics.com

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Internet advertisers kill text-based CAPTCHA

If you’ve submitted a comment, signed up for a newsletter, or uploaded a photo to the Internet at any point in the past five years, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the CAPTCHA system. CAPTCHAs are the annoying little verification windows that pop up, asking you to decipher a nearly unrecognizable series of letters or words, and Web users have hated them for years.
But if these silly security systems make you want to bust your keyboard in half, you’ll be happy to hear that we may very well be seeing the last days of the obnoxious, text-based CAPTCHA system, and the next verification system you see online may make you happy to view advertisements for the first time ever.

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Sony unveils PlayStation 4 game console with shoot-’em-up game

The new console faces stiff competition from casual gamers who play games on their cell phones and online, as well as criticism from those who say video game violence is the cause of massacres such as the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Sony unveiled the long-awaited update of PlayStation Wednesday — by ignoring critics of video game violence and touting the latest glitz and graphics of the shoot-’em-up classic “Killzone.”

The company unwrapped PlayStation 4, the first revamp of the popular gaming machine in seven years, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown.

“The stakes are high for what we are about to show you,” said Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.

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Outlook.com dumps “Preview” tag, preps for mass Hotmail migration

Hotmail users will be getting a new outlook on email before long. Late Monday, Microsoft announced that the preview phase for Outlook.com, the software giant’s new and improved Webmail service, is over after being used by more than 60 million people in its six months of existence. Now that’s it’s ready for prime time, Microsoft plans to migrate current Hotmail users over to the new interface by the time summer rolls around. Fear not; the transition shouldn’t be too painful, as your mail, contacts, and current account settings will come along for the ride.

There’s a lot to love about the Outlook.com migration if you’re a Hotmail user. First of all, you get a Webmail service with a clean, modern interface that is much easier on the eyes than the crowded 90’s-style look of Hotmail. Microsoft’s new Webmail service also integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so you can see social updates from your contacts right in your e-mail window. If you already integrated these accounts with Windows Live, these settings should also come with you.

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Apple Is Said To Be Developing a Curved-Glass Smart Watch

Disruptions: Where Apple and Dick Tracy May Converge
By NICK BILTON

Dick Tracy had one. As did Inspector Gadget and James Bond. A watch that doubled as a computer, two-way radio, mapping device or television.

Though such a device has been lost to science fiction comics and spy movies of the era before smartphones, the smart watch might soon become a reality, in the form of a curved glass device made by Apple.

In its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., Apple is experimenting with wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass, according to people familiar with the company’s explorations, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they are not allowed to publicly discuss unreleased products.

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PlayStation 4 may not be the gaming powerhouse we’ve been expecting

Sony (SNE) is scheduled to announce its next-generation PlayStation 4 console at a press conference in New York City on February 20th. Recent rumors have pegged the system as a gaming powerhouse with 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and 1080p HD resolution in 3D at 60 fps, however this may not be what the company is aiming for. According to a report from the Nikkei, Sony hopes the Playstation 4 will act more as a home entertainment “nerve center” than a dedicated gaming system. An unnamed company executive reportedly said that the console’s main selling point won’t be its high-end specs, but rather the new styles of play it will introduce and its ability to connect and share to mobile devices. The PlayStation 4 is rumored to launch in October and could cost more than $400.

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