According to Google, the top requested features for Google Currents were international availability and quicker syncing, and with today's jump to version 1.1, Google has made these requested features a reality.

First, Google Currents is now available globally. This means that no matter where you are, if you can download an app through Google Play or the iTunes App Store, you can download Google Currents. What's more, readers can also add their favorite local blogs to Currents, giving them a truly international experience.

Second, Google Translate is now seamlessly integrated with Currents, which perfectly complements the new international availability of the app. While you're reading any edition, you can press the globe icon to automatically translate it into one of 38 supported languages.

Finally, Currents now features dynamic sync, which works as soon as you open an edition. This ensures that you have the newest content right in front of you, at all times. Along with this feature, you can also choose to make any editions available for offline reading. While you'll obviously be limited by the storage space on your device, it is a great feature for frequent travelers who may not always get a data connection on planes or trains.

Google Currents (Android | ... [Read more]

Swipe across multiple trolls for huge combos, but watch out for bombs.

Skylanders Cloud Patrol (99 cents) is a target-shooting game unlike any other at the App Store, with just the right mix of cute graphics and addictive gameplay to keep you coming back for more.

The concept is simple: Tap to fire your weapon or touch-and-slide across evil little trolls to create combos as you complete short quick levels. The game is based around the super popular Skylanders franchise -- toys and videogames about a group of little monster heroes who defend the skies from darkness.

In the game, you move quickly through levels by clearing floating platforms of trolls. They'll pop up from behind rocks, fly in using jetpacks, and jump in from off screen as you frantically try to shoot them by tapping. Touching and dragging across several trolls targets them all in a combo, giving you more coins to add to your total.

But there are also bombs that will pop up or fly around screen and if you pass your finger through a bomb, your game is over. So while it's a shooting game at its heart, Skylanders Cloud Patrol is also about going for your top score in trying to clear as many levels as possible.

You'll also encounter ra... [Read more]

Chrome now offers Other Devices for tab syncing.

Google has started to warm up Chrome with features designed to make it interact more smoothly with Android and other computers, as the summer's Google I/O conference and a possible final street-ready version of Native Client wait in the wings.

Google Chrome 19 beta for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame landed today, updated with Other Device support. The new feature lets you access your Chrome tabs from other computers, and includes Chrome for Android if you've got an Ice Cream Sandwich device. The Other Devices option is available at the bottom of the New Tab page, next to the Recently Closed drop-down menu. Along with syncing open tabs, it also syncs that particular tab's history, so you can navigate forward and back when you open it on a new device.

Today also saw the arrival of the ... [Read more]

It seems like almost immediately after news broke of Instagram getting gobbled up by Facebook, the hip photo-based social app became just a little less cool. Droves of Instagram users cried bloody murder, and many went on the hunt for a new photo app to crown the coolest.

Dramatics aside, the reality is that Instagram is not irreplaceable. We Android users should know, since until a couple of weeks ago, we were perfectly fine without it. As I said in my review, it is anything but a powerhouse shooter, and it's filters are getting a bit stale. What Instagram does have, though, is powerful sharing, both to outside social networks and to its own internal network of users. That's why I jumped on board. And that's why I'm staying on for now.

But for those users who aren't so keen to stay on the Facebookstagram ship, there are at least a handful of other photo apps for Android, that can share just as powerfully. Here are three of my favorites. While none of them can boast 30 million users like Instagram can, they all have strengths that are worth a look.

... [Read more]

The Flashback malware for OS X has been one of the largest attacks to date on OS X, which at its peak on April 6 affected an estimated 600,000 systems running OS X. While developments regarding this malware's mode of infection and the scope of the problem have been concerning, efforts by those in the Mac community are underway to tackle and remove the problem. So far, these efforts have cut the number of infected systems in half in just under five days.

This effort has stemmed from the availability of instructions on how to manually detect and remove the malware, detailed analysis of the problem by F-Secure and others, and detection tools made available by security firm Dr. Web and even by those in the Apple community discussions. There have also been extensive efforts by those on the Apple Discussion forums to help people remove the malware from their systems.

When the tool is run, it will notify you of the status of any Flas... [Read more]

Bump, an app normally associated with transferring contact info and photos by physically bumping devices together, is also capable of transferring photos between your Android device or iPhone with your computer. The process is simple, free, and only takes a few minutes to set up.

1. Begin by installing the app (Android | iPhone). After you have installed the app and set up your contact card (optional), swipe to the right to view your photos.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)

2. Begin selecting the photos you would like to transfer to your computer. Once you're happy with your selection, set your device aside and open up the browser on your computer.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET)

3. Navigate to photos.bu.mp and grant the Web site access to your location. Make sure your computer and phone are on the same network, then Bump your device on your space bar.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET)

4. If done correctly, (the accelerometer comes into play to ensure the device has indeed been bumped. You can't press the space bar while your device sites idle on your desk), you should then be prompted both in th... [Read more]

The high-profile piece of malware that's been estimated to have infected more than 600,000 users of Apple's Mac OS X worldwide, is in considerably fewer machines now, according to a major security firm.

In a blog post today, software maker and security firm Symantec said that there are now fewer than half that number of machines with the infection, and that the number of active infections is on a downward trend.

"This figure has decreased significantly since then and from our sinkhole data, we have estimated that the number of computers infected with this threat in the last 24 hours is in the region of 270,000, down from 380,000," the company said, adding that it will be monitoring infection levels for the next few weeks.

Flashback infections worldwide as of today.

According to Symantec, most of the infections remain in the United States, followed distantly by Canada and the United Kingdom.

Flashback is a form of malware designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their Web browser and other applications. A user typically mistakes it for a legitimate browser plug-in while visiting a malicious Web site. At that point, the software installs code designed to gather personal information and send it back to remote servers. In i... [Read more]

Tumblr, arguably the hippest blogging platform on the Web these days, just unveiled version 3.0 of its Android mobile app, which not only looks better, but also loads faster than before.

First thing you should notice about the fully refreshed Tumblr app is its brand-new interface. The new Post screen, with its large, colorful icons, is sexier, there's improved photo browsing and animated gif support when you tap an image, and notifications for multiple blogs now show up all in one place. Tumblr fans will be happy to know that the updated app also comes with Tumblr Radar, the staff-curated feed of featured posts on the network.

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Overall, it looks like the refreshed mobile app has made the Tumblr experience on Android more similar to the full experience on the Web. The look and feel are certainly there, and the feature set is slowly closing the g... [Read more]

For those who use Apple's Final Cut Pro X video and movie production suite, an update is available that addresses the program's performance and image quality of broadcast monitoring when using PCI-express and Thunderbolt devices. The update also addresses syncing performance when using multicam setups, and adds localization support for Simplified Chinese.

The update is available through the Mac App Store application, so if you have Final Cut Pro X installed, you can find this latest release in the Updates section within the program. Note that this update is for the latest Final Cut Pro X version of the program only, and not prior versions. When Apple released Final Cut Pro X a number of users complained about the changes, so Apple has maintained availability and support for both the latest and prior versions.

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Despite these changes and performance tw... [Read more]

CloudOn's MS Office iPad app can now display PDFs.

With its latest update, CloudOn's free MS Office app for the iPad just keeps getting better.

Designed as a tablet-friendly version of Microsoft Office, CloudOn includes full-featured mobile editions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You can create new documents, edit existing ones, and store your files online for easy access. I use the app quite often to open and edit several documents stored through my DropBox account.

Version 2 adds the ability to open Adobe PDFs, a nice addition for me as I house a lot of PDFs online to use as reference material. A toolbar at the top of the viewer lets you move to specific pages, zoom in or out, search for specific content, and even copy and paste content into another application. I was able to easily copy an image from a PDF to a Word document using CloudOn's virtual keyboard.

You also also add comments and enter text into PDFs specifically saved as forms. You can view other file types, including Photoshop PSD images, a surprising but welcome bonus not usually found in file viewers. Other supported image files include PNG, JPEG, TIF, and GIF.

CloudOn 2.0 gives you a way to share your documents via e-mail. Tapping on a toolbar button at the top of an open file lets you send ... [Read more]

Adidas' tracking technology will be in use at the MLS All-Star Game.

Adidas' miCoach service, which is essentially its answer to Nike+, will be playing a major role in the Major League Soccer All-Star Game in July.

According to the company, the MLS game will be the world's "first smart soccer match," allowing coaches to track player performance on the pitch. Adidas hasn't revealed too many details on how the service will work, but it appears that coaches will be able to access real-time player statistics, including speed, acceleration, and power output, from a tablet. The software also provides alerts coaches might need to consider.

Although Adidas calls its player-tracking software the "next step in player performance analysis technology," it might make some sport purists take a step back. The kind of information to be made available to the MLS All-Star Game coaches is unlike anything they've had before. And that kind of data could make the game more reliant upon raw data than instinctual decision-making -- a key aspect of soccer since its inception.

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Yesterday, Google appeared to have scrapped a software project to dramatically speed up browser-based games and apps on mobile devices -- but it turns out the project is still alive.

The software in question is called Native Client, and it lets programmers adapt software they've already written so it can be packaged up as a Web app -- one that runs nearly as fast as a regular native app, in Google's aspiration. Native Client today works on personal computers using x86 chips from Intel and AMD, but the company is adapting it to devices using ARM processors -- in other words, just about every tablet and smartphone on the market today.

And then just yesterday Google seemed to have pulled the plug on the ARM effort, marking it with a "won't fix" label and saying "other approaches are being used."

But the Native Client on ARM work continues, spokeswoman Lily Lin said today. "It's definitely not dead," she said.

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• ... [Read more]