A new version of the Gmail Android application arrived last night for Android 2.2 to 2.3.3 that provides enhanced notification and sync options. If you're like me and use filters and labels to keep your inbox free of clutter, then you'll certainly appreciate version 2.3.5 of Gmail. On its surface it might not look much different, but under the hood there are plenty of new options.

For starters, rather than grabbing anything and everything in the inbox, you now can sync specific labels and set individual notifications. Not only does this provide peace of mind, but it helps to conserve battery life on your device.

Related links
• Your complete guide to Google+
• 5 little-known Gmail tips and tricks
• Android 3.2 coming to a tablet near you

What's more, it's now possible to identify who sent you that e-mail just by listening to the notification tone. This is a feature that many users have come to depend on for text messages, so it only makes sense in Gmail. Additional performance enhancements in the new Gmail client include setting preferences to always display pictures from specific senders, and Priority Inbox sync.

Honeycomb tablet owners might be left out in the cold for the Gmail app, but they'll be happy to know that they get first crack at a new Google search experience. Beginning today and continuing over the next week, Android 3.1-and-over tablets and iPads around the world will see a new Google search results page.

Keeping in line with the new Gmail desktop experience and the aesthetics in Google+, the results page presents a clean interface with larger, more pronounced buttons and links. Additionally, there will be new buttons displayed below the search bar that help to quickly filter results. Google Images search also gets a few extra enhancements in the form of faster loading of thumbnails, continuous scrolling, and larger image previews.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

The weekend is all about downtime. Well, maybe not for everybody, but we certainly hope you get a little time to yourself. In any case, it's always good to have some great time-wasters on your iPhone for whenever you get a break in the action. Fortunately, some excellent games came out recently (and one went on sale) that you really should check out.

This week's iOS apps are all top-shelf titles that are perfect for taking a break. The first is a popular console remake with tons of content that has hit its lowest price to date. The second is a very well-designed platformer that's skyrocketing up the iTunes app charts. The third app takes zombie destruction to a whole new level--way up in a machine-gun-equipped airplane.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars ($2.99) is the mobile version of the mega-popular franchise of console games from Rockstar. The game cost $9.99 initially, but is now at its lowest price ever at $2.99 (until Sunday)--perfect for those who skipped over the game when it came out.

We should start by saying this is not a family game! Gratuitous violence, bad language, drugs, theft, and murder are all commonplace in Chinatown Wars--in other words, we strongly suggest you don't buy it for your kid's iPod Touch.

With that disclaimer out of the way, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a huge sandbox game with tons of content and an interesting storyline. You play as young Huang Lee who only recently arrived in Liberty City. Your first contact is with Huang's uncle Kenny, a drug lord who is going through a rough patch, requiring you to take on various missions to improve his gangster image. As in all of the GTA games, you'll be sent on missions to steal cars, take out rival gangsters, and perform other nefarious activities. You view the action from a top-down (yet 3D) perspective with a control system involving an onscreen joystick and onscreen buttons for driving, shooting, punching, and kicking.

On top of the well-written storyline and challenging missions, what makes this game even more entertaining is the clever use of the iPhone's touch screen. Little things like spinning your finger to take the screws out of a panel to hot-wire a car or swiping your finger to move trash bags out of a dumpster to reveal a hidden gun add to this game's charm. Though some of the actions get kind of repetitive, it's fun to discover the various ways Rockstar utilized the touch screen.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has been out for quite some time, but if you were holding out for a sale price, this is the weekend to grab this fun and challenging sandbox-style game.

Blobster (99 cents) is new and extremely well-made cartoonlike platformer that offers smooth, cute graphics, 40 well-designed levels, and unique touch-screen controls. You play as a little red blob named Blobster, and your mission is to clean up pollution left by the Big and Powerful Corporation (Hello BP!) run by evil boss Blobzilla. Move Blobster by either touching the sides of the screen for direction or using tilt controls. To jump, you touch and grab Blobster and pull, kind of like an Angry Birds sling shot.

Blobster has you jumping around obstacles, picking up power-ups, and gathering collectables to try to get 100 percent on each level, just like many games, but it's in the presentation that Blobster truly shines. The game's graphics are incredibly smooth and everything from the Blobster character to the enemies and even the obstacles is well-designed to make you feel you are entering a strange fantasy world as you play the game. All the sounds are appropriately cute as well to tie the whole experience together.

Overall, Blobster is an excellent time-waster with plenty of fun levels, unique challenges, and an overall aesthetic that has to be seen to be appreciated. Anyone looking for a fun family platformer should grab this game.

Zombie Gunship (99 cents) takes a different angle from most zombie-shooting games by having you play as a gunner in an AC-130 ground assault plane.

High above the landscape, you look through a night vision display as you protect a bunker from an endless assault by the undead. You'll need to be careful, though, because there are also civilians trying to escape to the bunker, and if you hit too many your game will end. The control system involves moving your sights by swiping the right side of the screen, changing the zoom and switching your weapons with buttons in the upper right, and shooting your selected gun with a button in the lower left.

Zombie Gunship is an upgradable game (like so many these days), so while your initial download is 99 cents, there is plenty of incentive to spend more money via in-app purchases to upgrade your weapons, radar, and other bonuses to make it easier to last as long as possible. Especially in the early rounds, you'll wish you had better guns because your starting machine gun isn't very accurate, requiring you to spend a lot of ammo to kill only a few zombies. It's frustrating, but if you're patient, you'll be able to slowly upgrade your weapons and other tech to have more success.

The graphics in Zombie Gunship aren't terribly complex, because the game is not about the details with a vantage point so high in the air. There also aren't many colors because you're looking through a heat-sensing scope, but that adds to the ambiance. The sound design in the game is exceptional and really gives you the feeling that you're working with other soldiers to keep the bunker safe. Our one gripe with the game is that you're always flying in circles around the same landscape, but maybe later versions of the game will add more environments.

Overall, Zombie Gunship is in a league by itself in the zombie-game genre and is plenty of fun as you fire high-powered weapons at the shambling undead from high in the sky.

Got a better new (or new to us) game for wasting time? Let us know in the comments!

Updated at 1 p.m. PT to correct price of Zombie Gunship.

Skype has released the latest update to its online calling software for Windows, offering more options for Facebook users.

Officially out of beta since Wednesday, the latest Skype 5.5 for Windows lets you check which of your Facebook friends are online and available to chat, all without having to leave Skype. Simply clicking on the View menu in the Skype software and then choosing Facebook Friends shows you the list.

By clicking on and then closing the Skype Home screen, you can also update your Facebook status and scroll down to view your entire Facebook wall.

Beyond the Facebook integration, Skype says that its latest version offers improved controls for video and group calls for Windows, better call reliability, and various design changes in the interface.

For some reason, I was unable to directly update my current version of Skype (5.3) to 5.5. Clicking on the "Check for Updates" link in the Help menu told me I was already running the latest version. I had to manually download and install the 5.5 version to get the new update.

But once it was installed, I was able to use Skype 5.5 to view my online Facebook friends, access my wall, and post status updates just as easily as I could in Facebook.

Originally posted at News - Digital Media

Twelve organizations have concluded that Google's VP8 video encoding technology violates their patents, according to a group called MPEG LA that's considering offering a license to those patents.

"Patents owned by 12 different patent holders have already been found to be essential to VP8," MPEG LA said in a statement to CNET yesterday.

This is a concrete data point in a debate that's lasted more than a year so far about how safe Google's technology is to use without fear of infringement litigation. Previously, MPEG LA had only offered the more limited statement that it believed VP8 violated others' video patents. MPEG LA declined to name the companies or patents involved.

VP8 is a codec--technology used to encode and decode streams of data such as video and audio--that Google released in 2010 as an open-source, royalty-free product that could be built into software such as Web browsers and hardware such as mobile phone processors. Google obtained VP8 through its $123 million acquisition of On2 Technologies in 2010; when paired with the Vorbis audio codec it forms the WebM video technology with which Google hopes to liberate Web video from the patent-encumbered incumbent called H.264 or AVC.

In particular, Google wants to find a royalty-free codec that can be used in conjunction with the HTML5 video technology, a move that could help advance Web video to make it as straightforward to use on a Web site as a JPEG graphic is today.

MPEG LA is in the business of licensing collections of patents relating to H.264 and to several earlier video codecs. These patent pools are actually owned by numerous companies, universities, and research institutes that set MPEG LA's licensing terms, collect some of the revenues, and choose to sue parties believed to infringe the patents. MPEG LA argues that it merely provides a one-stop mechanism to license intellectual property that's much more convenient than licensing patents from a multitude of individual organizations, but Google wants VP8 to steer clear of patent licensing restrictions altogether.

Earlier this year, MPEG LA issued a formal call for organizations to come forward if they believed VP8 violated their patents. Twelve now have done so, but it's not yet clear whether MPEG LA will offer a VP8 patent pool license or how the licensing costs might compare with those for H.264.

"A principal consideration for essential patent holders in determining whether to form a patent pool is whether offering a pool license alternative--a license to essential patent rights owned by multiple patent holders under a single license as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses with each--would be of benefit and convenience to the market," MPEG LA said. "MPEG LA is currently facilitating that discussion among them."

The Streaming Media blog reported the emergence of the 12 patent holders earlier this week.

Google is working to form a program called the Community Cross-License to allay fears of VP8 patent infringement suits. Through it, each member of the group "grants to the other members a patent license for any patents that may be essential to WebM," Mike Jazayeri, Google's director of product management for WebM, said in an earlier interview.

In a statement today, Google reiterated its hope to create a royalty-free Web video technology:

MPEG LA has alluded to a VP8 pool since WebM launched--this is nothing new. The Web succeeds with open, community-developed innovation, and the WebM Project brings the same principles to web video. The vast majority of the industry supports free and open development, which is why we formed the WebM CCL enabling member organizations to license patents they may have that are essential to WebM technologies to other members of the CCL. We are firmly committed to the project and establishing an open codec for HTML5 video.

Google has felt confident enough in the intellectual property purity of VP8 to ship it in its Chrome browser and offer it as an option on YouTube. It has attracted a number of allies, too: Mozilla includes WebM support in the Firefox browser, and Nvidia's Tegra 2 mobile processor has hardware support for VP8 encoding and decoding.

Patent lawsuits are generally expensive, protracted ordeals uncommon in the technology industry, but many parties, including Google, have been swept up in a spate of such lawsuits involving the hotly competitive mobile phone market. It's not just competitors suing one other: so-called non-practicing entities whose sole business is licensing patents have been suing as well. Because such entities don't make or sell tech products of their own, they can't be countersued for infringement when they file suit.

Just having a patent isn't enough to win a lawsuit, though. Defendants often challenge a patent's validity, sometimes successfully, and companies often argue their own products don't infringe in the first place.

Updated 3:17 p.m. PT with comment from Google.

Originally posted at Deep Tech