THOUGHTS & POSTS of Gandalthewhite

'Minecraft' bumps 'Black Ops' down the chart

A refreshing change swept through Xbox LIVE’s most-played list today when Minecraft claimed second place, bumping Call of Duty: Black Ops down to third place for the first time since the game’s release.

Call of Duty: Black Ops held the No. 1 spot on the charts from the moment of its release in 2010 and was only bumped down to No. 2 when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 came out. While the rest of the chart has fluctuated from week to week, those two games have held onto the top spots the entire time.

The most-played list is determined by the number of unique users, worldwide, who are playing the game while connected to Xbox LIVE.

Minecraft also came in first in the most-played Xbox LIVE Arcade titles, beating Trials Evolution and The…

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Motorola releases official demo videos of its new Android 4.0 skin

Motorola recently promised that both the RAZR and the RAZR Maxx would get Ice Cream Sandwich sometime this quarter, and now the company has released several video walkthroughs of the company’s new Android 4.0 skin. Leaked versions of the ROM have been floating around for months, but now we’re getting our first official look at what should be the version that will be released to phones in the coming weeks. While Motorola has indeed skinned Ice Cream Sandwich, we’re glad to report that the company has shown some restraint. Almost all the icons have been changed and a few things have been moved around a bit, but the skin shouldn’t provoke too much ire from the fans of vanilla Android.

The lock screen now has four shortcuts — messaging and…

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Remains of the Day: LimeWire's $72 Trillion "Fine" [For What It's Worth]

SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully captured by the International Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon capsule has just been successfully “captured” by the International Space Station. This marks the first time a commercial craft has ever landed at the ISS, as well as a huge step forward for private space flight. A few minutes ago, the capsule was grappled to the Station by a robotic arm; it will remain unopened until a routine air inspection can be performed. Over the course of the next two weeks, about 1,000 pounds of food and supplies will be unloaded, and the capsule will be refilled. After that, it will disengage from the Station and return to Earth, landing hundreds of miles from the California coast.

It has been a little over three days since the Dragon was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in…

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Absinthe 2.0 hits the download wire, jailbreaks all iOS 5.1.1 devices but the 32nm iPad 2

Absinthe’s “so-easy-your-grandma-could-do-it” jailbreak tool just got an update to version 2.0, enabling support for a handful of Apple portables running iOS 5.1.1. Absinthe 2.0, which was developed by the “Jailbreak Dream Team” (Chronic-Dev and iPhone Dev) joins Redsn0w’s tool, and will support all iPhone and iPad versions, with the exception of iPad2,4 — the most recent iPad 2 variant, shipping with a 32nm A5 chip. The jailbreak tool can also be installed on iPod3,1 and 4,1 models. Assuming your iOS device is up and running with firmware 5.1.1, you can hit up the source link after the break to get your download on.

Absinthe 2.0 hits the download wire, jailbreaks all iOS 5.1.1 devices but the 32nm iPad 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 May 2012 09:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Vlingo Labs Brings Voice-Activated SMS, Dialing, and More Siri-Like Features to Ice Cream Sandwich Phones [Android Downloads]

Exclusive: HP's webOS Enyo team is going to Google

The HP team responsible for Enyo — webOS’s HTML5-based application framework that debuted on the TouchPad — will be leaving the company and starting at Google shortly, The Verge has learned. What this means for the future of Open webOS is unclear; Enyo and the developers supporting it are central to HP’s open source strategy for the operating system going forward, and it’s hard to say whether this move will have any effect on the planned late 2012 release for version 1.0.

What the Enyo team will do at Google is unknown at this point, but there are several logical landing spots. Android would obviously be an option — regardless of its commercial success (or lack thereof), few would argue that webOS is an innovative platform that…

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Nvidia Reveals Kai, the Blueprint For a $199, Kindle Fire-Killing Tablet

Nvidia has packed a quad-core processor into a very inexpensive Android tablet. At an annual meeting for company investors, Nvidia VP Rob Csonger unveiled Kai, a $199 Android tablet reference design powered by the company’s quad-core Tegra 3 chip.

from Wired Top Stories http://bit.ly/JVeRov

Jury: Google did not infringe Oracle patents with Android

Over a week after it began deliberations, the jury has returned a verdict in the patent infringement case between Oracle and Google, finding that the search giant did not infringe upon Oracle’s patents with Android. In play were infringement counts on eight different claims across two separate patents: RE38,104 and 6,061,520. Given the decision, there will be no need for a damages phase in connection with the patent claims, and with the recent agreement by Google and Oracle to postpone any damages hearings related to copyright infringement, the jury has now been dismissed from the proceedings altogether. Judge William Alsup thanked the jurors for their hard work before they left the courtroom, noting that “this is the longest trial,…

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