LAS VEGAS--Vlingo, the virtual assistant app for all major mobile platforms, today announced that it's making its way into televisions.

Not just a voice-controlled remote for changing channels and volume, "Vlingo for Smarter TVs" can help you browse and discover new content by simply talking into your mobile device. For instance, you could ask Vlingo something like, "what comedies are playing tonight?" Then, the app would trigger your TV to pull up a listing using the database of programming made available by cable providers. Or, you could simply tell Vlingo, "watch 'The Price is Right.'" And you can guess what would happen next.

Also, according to Vlingo's reps, the app can even understand commands to record programs, rent or buy movies, and update Facebook.

For now, getting the Virtual Assistant onto your TV looks like it'll take a partnership between Vlingo and your cable provider. Once that happens, you can download the app onto your mobile device, and use it as a voice input for controlling your TV. In the future, I'd love to see the Virtual Assistant makes its way onto televisions via media centers like the Roku box or Google TV, but for now Vlingo has no imminent plans to develop such applications.

As yet, we haven't gotten any specific launch details for the Vlingo Virtual Assistant for Smarter TVs, but according to Vlingo President and CEO Dave Grannan, we can e... [Read more]

Cut the Rope is now available as an HTML5 Web app thanks to Microsoft.

LAS VEGAS--The final Microsoft keynote at CES features a choir that belted out soulful tweets, a veritable hugfest on-stage, and Ryan Seacrest palling around with Steve Ballmer in front of several thousand people. And crammed onto the end of the Windows 8 announcements in the middle of the event, Microsoft's chief marketing officer for Windows Tami Reller took a moment to play a quick round of Cut the Rope in Internet Explorer.

While Google has been getting the lion's share of press for porting popular mobile game apps to HTML5, most notably with Angry Birds, they're not the only company pushing the limits of the future-Web tech. To play the game, simply go to CutTheRope.ie. It ought to work in any browser that supports HTML5, although apparently in Firefox Microsoft has shifted the audio components to Flash.

The Internet Explorer developers noted on their behind-the-scenes site that some Google Chrom... [Read more]

A popular TV show and movie discovery app just got a major update during CES that adds social components to its already full-featured cable listing arsenal.

If you want a general overview of what's on, check the listings under 'Just for You.'

Peel Personal TV Show Guide (free) is an app that changes the way you watch TV by gathering your personal preferences and giving you recommendations on your iPhone based on the data.

The polished interface of Peel asks you a few questions upon launch so it can deliver the type of shows you'll want to watch and tell you when they will show in your area. On first setup, the app has you choose your cable service, and then lists out several categories like Drama, Comedy, and Kids, and asks you to reorder the list by your personal preference with your favorites at the top. You'll then reorder a list of sports in the same fashion. When you're finished, you'll see the main interface of the app, with recommended shows that are currently playing in your area based on your preferences.

What we really like about Peel is how it lays out movies and shows by category so you can browse based on your mood at the moment. A swipeable wheel at the top lets you select by categories like comedy and s... [Read more]

A Microsoft Windows update today fixes a weakness in the protocols used to secure e-commerce sites, which was first exposed by researchers using a tool they dubbed "BEAST."

Microsoft planned to release the BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS)-related patch last month, but had to pull it because it created compatibility issues with SAP software. Researchers had demonstrated the vulnerability using BEAST in September, prompting fears that attackers would use the tool to snoop on protected Internet sessions in what is called a "man-in-the-middle" attack. MS12-006 patches a hole in the Secure Sockets Layer and Transport Layer Security protocols.

Related stories

• Microsoft fixes Duqu hole, but not BEAST problem
• Browsers tackle the 'BEAST' Web security problem

The seven bulletins in Microsoft's Patch Tuesday release fix eight vulnerabilities and only one bulletin is rated "critical" -- MS12-004. It plugs two holes in Windows Media Player that could allow an attacker to take over a computer by sending a maliciou... [Read more]

Mozilla has embarked on its plan to build its Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox, an edition that stands comparatively still while the ordinary version of the browser changes every six weeks.

Mozilla proposed the ESR version of Firefox last year after encountering serious resistance to its rapid-release development cycle.

The fast releases let Mozilla bring new Firefox features to the world sooner, and Mozilla remains committed to the approach. But it doesn't work so well for companies or other organizations that need to test their software carefully or make sure custom add-ons don't break frequently.

The initial ESR proposal called for a new version every five releases, or 30 weeks, with support for each version lasting seven cycles, or 42 weeks. But Mozilla dialed that back down in the months of discussion since it debuted the ESR idea.

"Releases of the ESR will occur once a year, providing these organizations with a version of Firefox that receives security updates but does not make changes to the Web or Firefox add-ons platform," Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of products, said in a ... [Read more]

New Vimeo app for Android

LAS VEGAS--Online video fanatics, the wait is over, as Vimeo's free mobile app is now available on Android devices (including the Amazon Kindle Fire) and Windows Phone devices.

Now, users of these mobile platforms can browse, watch, like, comment on, and add videos, just as they would on Vimeo.com. Plus, the new apps come with Vimeo's upload manager, which makes it easy to continue an interrupted upload without having to start over.

So far, I like the design of the new apps. Vimeo for Android (download) is clean, and has much of the charm and polished feel of the Vimeo site itself. Meanwhile, the Windows Phone version was surprisingly smooth, with a nice shooting, uploading, and sharing experience. It's also great that the actual Vimeo video player has made its way onto both platforms, which is more than I can say for the iPhone version.

New Vimeo app for Windows Phone

Vimeo is available for free download now in the Android Market and the Windows Phone Marketplace.

LAS VEGAS--Slacker Radio, a popular alternative to Pandora, announced a few valuable new partnerships here at CES, one of which should have sports fans foaming at the mouth.

Thanks to Slacker's new partnership with ESPN Audio, users can now listen to live streams of ESPN shows and sporting events on the Web through Slacker.com. And according to the company's representatives, the new live content will be coming to Slacker's mobile apps soon as well--though no date was given. While all Slacker listeners will get access to the interactive ESPN Radio station, the live programming will only be available to Slacker Radio Plus and Premium subscribers.

Also announced was Slacker's new partnership with The Weather Channel, which brings customizable national, regional, and local weather forecasts to Slacker listeners. The new feature is coming "sometime in early 2012" both on the Web and to mobile devices.

Finally, American Public Media has also partnered with Slacker to bring popular public radio programming to the fast-growing Internet radio service. APM's Marketplace gives Slacker a new source of business and economic news programs while The Current brings a non-commercial Triple A music station into the fold.

Slacker appears to be beefing up its catalog of content, which should fuel what will likely be an exciting year of showdowns between all o... [Read more]

Run Android apps in Windows with BlueStacks

LAS VEGAS--BlueStacks isn't a household name, but it's about to become arguably one of the most useful pieces of preinstalled software on Windows 8 computers.

At the 2012 Consumer Electronic Show here today, BlueStacks revealed a functional demo that runs Android apps of all kinds on Windows 8. This follows last year's debut of the software and release as a rough alpha for Windows 7, but it comes with a piece of unexpected news. The software maker has been in talks with hardware manufacturers to ship the program preinstalled on Windows 8. A beta of the Windows 7 version was also cagily given a release date of sometime before the second quarter of 2012.

BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma, spoke confidently about the impact that his software will have. "The Metro UI is beautiful, but the number one thing Windows 8 is missing is apps," he said. "This changes all that." BlueStacks claimed in the press release for the announcement that its software "makes creating mobile apps for the Windows 8 platform unnecessary," a gutsy claim for a program that has yet to have even one stable version on the market.

As you can see in our First Look video above or in the ... [Read more]

The Kinect for Windows retail box, as seen on Amazon.com

When Microsoft's mega-hit Kinect motion controller for the Xbox was released in 2010, its closed nature inspired a hefty bounty to hack it and come up with open-source drivers.

But now that Microsoft has released an official version of Kinect for Windows, the team that offered that payout is wondering whether they might have to do it again.

Microsoft eventually realized that there was an insatiable thirst for developing open-source Kinect projects and released a software development kit of its own. But now the folks at open-source hardware purveyors Adafruit are wondering if the new Kinect for Windows platform will reject any projects made using open tools.

"There was a time when Microsoft would not even consider a Kinect for Windows, but the open-source community created so many amazing projects (and products) a new effort was started to Window-ize and SDK-ize the Kinect to be part of all of this. And now Microsoft is selling the Kinect for Windows," ... [Read more]

Lightroom 4, now in beta testing, lets people edit video with presets--even an old-style sepia tone look if they want. (Click to enlarge.)

No longer is video such a second-class citizen with Adobe Systems' release of the first beta version of Photoshop Lightroom 4.

Today's Lightroom 3 understands videos in the same way a typical baseball fan understands cricket: poorly. Lightroom 4 advances several steps with video, but stops well short of taking over as a full-fledged video editor.

The new beta, downloadable from Adobe Labs, also has a host of other features, according to Tom Hogarty, principal program manager for the software:

• New editing controls to better balance changes to highlights and shadows. • The ability to geotag photos by using a Google Maps interface or by procesing GPS track logs. • The ability to design and print photo books through a partnership with Blurb.

Expect Lightroom 4 to be out sometime in the spring. Its code name follows the "S" theme of its predecessors, "Shadowland," "Silvertone," "Strangelove," and now "Sprockets."

Better video support Lightroom, like Apple's competing Aperture, began its life as a tool for editing ... [Read more]