Want to watch the World Series online? Sorry. Fox Broadcasting seems to have made that impossible (or just illegal) in 2012. But have no fear: when you're away from your TV, you can still listen to or follow the MLB championship games easily with a few choice Android apps.

Listen to the World Series live on your Android device

If you've sprung for a subscription from MLB At Bat, you're already covered. Those of us on the the cheap can get our World Series broadcast on our Android phones for free with the ESPN Radio Android app. ESPN Radio has all the MLB playoff radio rights and thankfully has a progressive policy on streaming it to mobile phones (there's an iPhone app as well, of course).

The app is simple to install and runs on pretty much any Android device (2.1+). Along with the main radio channel, there are 30-40 other local, Spanish language and specialty radio stations (though most of them echo the primary broadcast). Podcasts and audio clips are available for download and offline listening, and the "Create a Station" personalization feature lets you enter players, teams, or keywords, then serves up a menu of streamable or downloadable aud... [Read more]

A look at Windows 8.

Windows 8 resources

• Windows 8: The full review
• Win 8 buying guide
• How to use Windows 8
• What's a hybrid? What's a convertible? A field guide to Win 8 hardware
• Windows 8: All the new PCs
• Microsoft Surface: The full review
• Microsoft Surface and its rivals: The first wave of Windows RT tablets
• Just what is Windows RT, anyway? (FAQ)
• 7 reasons why Windows RT works
• ... [Read more]
  
  

(Credit: SwiftKey)

Looks like Android's top-selling keyboard app, SwiftKey, has a sibling in the works, in the form of a new program called SwiftKey Flow. Officially announced today, SwiftKey Flow takes a page out of competitor Swype's book, by letting its users input text via continuous gliding gestures.

What differentiates SwiftKey Flow, however, is the underlying natural-language technology that's been migrated over from the original SwiftKey keyboard app. This means that users of the new Flow will get not only the flexibility of choosing between a traditional tapping style and a Swype-like gliding style of typing, but also the uniquely "intelligent" word corrections and predictions that SwiftKey has been known for.

Related stories

• SwiftKey 3 Beta: The best Android keyboard I've seen
• How to install the new Swype beta on Android
• Now you can Swype Ice Cream Sandwich
[Read more]

Screenshots absolutely don't do Solar Walk justice. See that blue dot? It's the Hubble telescope. And you can zoom in to watch it fly over the Earth. In real time.

Do you dream of traveling to the stars? Unless you've got $20 million and change for a ticket to orbit, Vito Technology's Solar Walk is about as close as you're going to get.

This jaw-dropping iOS app provides a wholly interactive 3D model of our solar system, one that's had me hooked for days. It's the kind of thing you can imagine a science teacher using in the classroom of the future -- except that we don't have to wait.

Solar Walk works like an outer-space edition of Google Earth, letting you rotate, zoom, and circle around our little blue orb. You also get to see various satellites and their trajectories; tap any one of them to zoom in, see a close-up rendering, and learn all about it.

Had enough of Earth? Zoom out and tap any planet or moon to catapult right to it. Or use the search option, which lets you pick a planet, satellite, star, or geographic area to visit. (Wolf 359, anyone?) For any given item, a tap of the information button brings up all sorts of interesting data -- sometimes just raw figures, but... [Read more]

Capture One Pro 7 lets photographers edit the properties of specific colors.

DxO Labs and Phase One updated their image-editing programs this week, aiming to improve image quality and editing controls in an attempt to fend off market heavyweights Adobe Systems and Apple.

DxO Optics Pro 8 and Phase One Capture One Pro 7, like Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, are designed in particular to handle raw photos from higher-end cameras, photos taken directly from the image sensor for higher quality, greater flexibility, but more hassle.

Among DxO Optics Pro's new features announced during the PhotoPlus Expo show in New York:

• A "Smart Lighting" control designed to automate exposure adjustment while improving details in highlight and shadow areas.

• Selective tone controls for applying changes only to shadows, highlights, or midtones.

• Technology to protect details in areas where color is highly saturated.

• Support for Apple's Retina displays, a user interface revamped to be more efficient, and faster display of thumbnail and full-size images.

DxO Optics Pro 8 adds a "smart lighting" feature designed to simpl... [Read more]

The Nikon D600, a hot camera at Photokina, pushed the price of Nikon's full-frame SLR cameras down to $2,100.

Apple issued an OS X update today that lets iPhoto, Aperture, and other Mac software use raw photos taken by the Nikon D600 and several other cameras that arrived last month at the Photokina trade show in September.

The Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 4.01 enables use of raw photos from the following cameras:

• Canon EOS M

• Canon PowerShot G15

• Canon PowerShot S110

• Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

• Nikon D600

• Nikon 1 J2

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ200

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G5

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX7

• Sony Alpha NEX-F3

• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100

Supporting new cameras is a constant effort for software makers such as Apple and Adobe Systems, since each new camera comes with a new proprietary format. There's a race to support each new camera, too, so new customers can make use of raw images as soon as possible.

Related stories

• ... [Read more]
  
  

The Nikon D600, a hot camera at Photokina, pushed the price of Nikon's full-frame SLR cameras down to $2,100.

Apple issued an OS X update today that lets iPhoto, Aperture, and other Mac software use raw photos taken by the Nikon D600 and several other cameras that arrived last month at the Photokina trade show in September.

The Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 4.01 enables use of raw photos from the following cameras:

• Canon EOS M

• Canon PowerShot G15

• Canon PowerShot S110

• Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

• Nikon D600

• Nikon 1 J2

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ200

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G5

• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX7

• Sony Alpha NEX-F3

• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100

Supporting new cameras is a constant effort for software makers such as Apple and Adobe Systems, since each new camera comes with a new proprietary format. There's a race to support each new camera, too, so new customers can make use of raw images as soon as possible.

In that race, Apple beat Adobe for support of three interesting Canon PowerShot models, the higher-end G... [Read more]