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Android BlackBerry, Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta, MacBook Pro benchmarks: US Update
New MacBook Pro benchmarks are off the chart
Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Plants vs Zombies coming to Windows Phone 7
Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta lands mid-April: you decide the levels!
Evidence of Android apps running on BlackBerry devices
Space shuttle Discovery makes one last reach for the stars
OS X Lion gestures hint at upcoming touchscreen Mac [video]
Apple’s longest serving employee: It’s not Steve Jobs
New MacBook Pro, Elder Scrolls 5 trailer and Motorola Xoom review roundup: Teatime Tech
Best iPad apps of the week

Android BlackBerry, Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta, MacBook Pro benchmarks: US Update

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 06:09 PM PST

Whoa nelly, we've got the goods this morning. In today's daily dose of tech, better known as the US Update, we cover the final voyage of the space shuttle Discovery, present new evidence confirming Android apps running on BlackBerry OS, unveil the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta release date and more.

After four postponements, space shuttle Discovery made her countdown. The ship and its crew of six astronauts took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:50pm local time. ShopSavvy, a popular shopping application for Android and iOS, is reporting that a BlackBerry 8300, 8600 and 8520 have all been recorded using the Android version of their application.

Gears of War 3 public multiplayer beta will be released this April. Epic Games and Microsoft confirmed the news at the Xbox February Showcase event today. In related Microsoft news, Windows Phone 7 is landing some serious launch titles in April: Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Plants vs Zombies, Hydro Thunder Go, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 and geoDefense.

Last up this morning are benchmarks for the new MacBook Pros. After last year's Core i7 built-to-order used a dual-core processor with four threads, this year's Sandy Bridge model uses four cores and eight threads. The results speak for themselves. Anyone else ready to upgrade?

That wraps up the best in tech news this fine morning. As always, I'm Nick Marshall and I'll see you again tomorrow.

New MacBook Pro benchmarks are off the chart

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 05:42 PM PST

The day has finally come when MacBook Pros beat the top of the line iMac benchmark. GeekBench, the most popular of Mac benchmarking tools, has just been flooded with MacBookPro8,3 systems, all powered by the new Intel Core i7-2720QM 2.2 GHz processor

The numbers speak for themselves. The new MacBook Pros are consistently scoring in the high 9000s with GeekBench 32-bit and the low 10,000s with GeekBench 64-bit. These type of scores are generally only seen on the Mac Pro towers or the high-end iMacs.

To put the new MacBook Pros Geekbench scores into perspective, I'm currently using a built-to-order iMac 27-inch (mid 2010) core i7 870 running at 2.93 GHz with 8 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 memory. Using the latest build of Geekbench 64-bit I score 10,688. An impressive score and up until today only the Mac Pros offered higher scores.

Last year's MacBook Pros scored in the high 4000s to mid-5000s, representing a 100 percent improvement. The combination of the faster DDR3 memory and the new Sandy Bridge chips with four cores (instead of two) and eight threads is clearly paying off. We can't wait to get our review units in so that we can put the new MacBook Pro through its paces. It might finally be time to leave the desktop world and return the a laptop. What do you think?

via 9to5Mac

Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Plants vs Zombies coming to Windows Phone 7

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 04:36 PM PST

Windows Phone 7 is ramping up their gaming library with some heavy hitters this April. Microsoft has unveiled the new spring line up and at the top of the list is the infamous Angry Birds. A title well deserve I might add, heck some of us even make cakes inspired by the game.

The Windows Phone 7 spring line up includes: Doodle Jump, Plants vs Zombies, Hydro Thunder Go, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 and geoDefense. The six games will be launched starting April 6 and they are all Xbox LIVE friendly. This means achievements, leaderboards and all of the gaming glitz and glamour you'd expect.

It is shaping up to be a great Spring Showcase for Microsoft in San Francisco today. First they drop the Gears of War 3 public multiplayer beta release date and now six new gaming titles coming to Windows Phone 7. Is it just me or is Redmond making a comeback?

via Windows Phone Blog

Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta lands mid-April: you decide the levels!

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 04:18 PM PST

Yesterday we dropped the scoop on Gears of War 3's September 20 worldwide release date. Today, we have news on the upcoming public multiplayer beta launch. At Microsoft's Xbox February Showcase event today, Microsoft made several key announcements.

According to Microsoft and Epic Games, Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta “will give fans a chance to experience three new Versus multiplayer modes on four new maps". Even better, fans of the game will get a chance to help decide which maps appear in the beta by voting at the Gears Facebook page.

In related news, Halo fans will be happy to note that on March 15, Halo:Reach "Defiant Map Pack" will go on sale. The map pack will introduce new players and three new battlefields, “Set in the heat of the legendary Battle of Reach, the three new warfronts–Condemned, Highlands, and Unearthed–are primed for nonstop action in Firefight and all competitive multiplayer modes.”

Before we go, Microsoft also confirmed the March 22 release of Crysis 2 3D. Overall it looks like 2011 will be quite the year for Xbox 360 gamers. Gears, Halo and Crysis sounds like a winning combination if you ask me. Anyone else counting the days?

via Cnet

Evidence of Android apps running on BlackBerry devices

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 03:50 PM PST

Rumors the BlackBerry Playbook would be able to run Android apps is nothing new. However, what has been lacking up until today is cold hard evidence. This all changed thanks to server logs from ShopSavvy, a popular shopping application for Android and iOS. Apparently someone in Waterloo, Ontario has been running ShopSavvy for Android on various BlackBerry devices.

According to ShopSavvy logs, a BlackBerry 8300 ran ShopSavvy on January 31, 2011, a BlackBerry 8600 on January 17 and 24 and a BlackBerry 8520 on February 7. Three different models, all running ShopSavvy for Android. Is this coincidence or are we looking at the future of the BlackBerry + Android platform?

At this point in the app game, iOS and Android have become the most attractive and lucrative business opportunities for developers. The rumor that BlackBerry devices, specifically the BlackBerry PlayBook, would be able to run native Android apps is a breath of fresh air. Rather than combat Android and continue with a lackluster application library, embrace the competition and allow your loyal users access to fresh games.

In the grand scheme of things, losing out on the revenue made by selling the applications and games may hurt short term goals, but in the long run you leave BlackBerry users without reason to change platforms. This my friends is a win.

via ShopSavvy | BGR

Space shuttle Discovery makes one last reach for the stars

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 02:15 PM PST

After four postponements, space shuttle Discovery made her countdown. The ship and its crew of six astronauts took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:50pm local time. At a blistering 3000 miles per hour, NASA made history and the first of three final launches was complete.

Onboard the shuttle was an Italian-built cargo carrier re-engineered to provide extra storage space on the International Space Station, five tons of supplies and Robonaut 2. After winning a Reader's Choice Award from Engadget, Robonaut 2 is believed to become a humanoid helpmate for future space-station crews.

Live broadcasts of the lift off were seen on HDNet and also on NASA's website. As an American, the successful launch of Discovery really hit home. NASA is moving in a new direction, handing off the responsibility of delivering goods and US astronauts to and from the state station to private launch companies.

We'll be watching the flight of space shuttle Discovery as the final voyage continues. We've just passed the 13 minute mark, but so everything looks a-okay for now.

via NASA

OS X Lion gestures hint at upcoming touchscreen Mac [video]

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:57 PM PST

Is Apple working on a fully-fledged touchscreen Mac? Only a select few in Cupertino’s inner sanctum know for certain, but the gestures inside today’s newly-released OS X Lion preview give a pretty solid hint that the answer is a big, fat YES!

See, the scrolling action used on current MacBooks works as you’d expect a trackpad to function: Scroll two fingers down, and the screen scrolls down. On a touchscreen though, that action is reversed, since you’re “moving” the screen upwards to “scroll” down. Is that why OS X Lion has these actions mysteriously reversed by default? It’s the only explanation we can come up with.

Has Apple unwittingly let slip a demonstration of the first truly touchscreen Mac OS X feature? See it in action in a video after the break.

Video via 9to5Mac

Apple’s longest serving employee: It’s not Steve Jobs

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 11:00 AM PST

Update: Chris Espinosa has been in touch to let us know he’s no longer on the Apple Xcode team, but teases: “I can't tell you what I AM doing ”… judging by his previous contributions to Apple, it’ll be amazing. Chris, we’re expecting big things…

Steve Jobs has been at Apple since day one, right? Wrong. While the company's charismatic co-founder is officially Apple's "employee number zero" (having argued with fellow founder Steve Wozniak about being branded "number two") several extended absences, and an unfortunate firing incident in May 1985, mean he's actually put in fewer days of employment than one other man: Meet Chris Espinosa. The most loyal employee Apple has ever had.

We recommend you read Chris Espinosa’s story from the beginning, but if you want to skip ahead just use the links below:

It all began in the garage
Extra curricular Apple activities
A lifelong career at Apple
Competition from the "other" Steve
The friendly face of Apple history
The root of Apple's secrecy
Out-lasting all others
Early Apple employees

It all began in the garage

Officially employee number 8, Chris Espinosa joined Apple at the age of fourteen in 1976. At the time, the company, although not properly founded, was operating from Jobs' parents' garage.

At the time both Jobs, then 21 years old, and Espinosa were friends united by a passion for technology. They attended the same Homebrew Computer Club, and sat at the back with other employees of an embryonic Apple, including fellow co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Espinosa's mother drove him to the Computer Club, where many of the world's first home computers were hatched. She sat reading, while her son soaked up the skills that would help propel Apple for the next 35 years. Later, Espinosa's mother would join Apple herself, and work there for ten years, running the training programme for Apple's word processing software. Espinosa's defining moment in Apple's history, however, came when he moved away to university.

Extra curricular Apple activities

"When the company formed in 1977 I was one of the first employees," says Espinosa. "I went off to Berkeley [university] in 1978… I wasn’t going to be able to work the hours that I had been previously. So [Jef Raskin, who had just joined Apple as Manager of Publications] gave me a long-term task: he gave me what had [been] assembled as the mini-manual for the Apple II, which was basically the product of a series of nightly forays into people’s desk drawers for anything typed, or handwritten, in a few cases… None of it was written consciously for an audience, and Jef said, “We need a technical manual for the Apple II… I want you to write a real manual out of this.”

What Espinosa held in his hands was the now notorious Apple II "Red Book": a manual hastily concocted by other Apple employees. It was jam packed with technical information, which he would need to decode and translate for the average user to understand.

Espinosa went to Berkeley and continued his role as an Apple employee while studying. He worked 20 to 30 hours each week on the Apple manual throughout his freshman college year and finished the project during Christmas break, at times sleeping in a local park, "sneaking into closed dormitories", rather than return home to his family's house.

"I was literally working in the computer lab for 20 of the 24 hours of the day that they were open; when they shut the machines down for backup and maintenance between 2 and 6 in the morning, that’s when I slept.

"I had taught myself typesetting, I had written a 200+ page manual, and that was Apple’s first published technical manual for the Apple II. I still don’t know how I did it, and I managed to pass my classes, too."

A lifelong career at Apple

In the early days of Apple, Espinosa helped to write the preliminary Macintosh Business Plan, laying the ground for the company's computing bedrock. Describing the document, he says: "For a business plan written when the hardware was a wire-wrapped board and the software was three demos on a graphics substrate, it was pretty close."

During his time at Apple, Espinosa has worked on almost all of the company's high profile products, and certainly its most technical ones, including Mac OS, A/UX, HyperCard, Taligent, Kaleida Labs, AppleScript, and Mac OS X. Today, he works as a development engineering manager on the Xcode team, responsible for Apple’s programming tools.

That job title might not sound glamorous, but Espinosa has more Apple experience than almost anyone else. In total, he's served 35 years as an employee. Steve Jobs, meanwhile, can only claim 24 years with his name on the Cupertino payroll, due to an 11 year absence between 1985 and 1996, when he returned to Apple after it bought his company, NeXT.

Competition from the "other" Steve

Take into account Jobs' absences on medical leave, and the gap widens even more. But there's one more contender for the prize of Apple's longest-serving employee: Co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Officially, Wozniak stopped working at Apple on February 6th, 1987, after clocking up 12 years' continuous service. He no longer contributes to Apple product development, but remains an Apple employee on paper. He still receives a pay cheque, and holds shares in the company.

Does that make him a longer serving employee than Espinosa? It depends how you measure his contributions. Woz, as he is affectionately known to the tech community, remains an Apple cheerleader, and acts as a sort of unofficial spokesman on all matters of Apple history.

The friendly face of Apple history

Meanwhile, Espinosa is very much the public face of Apple's hardcore employee base and able to comment on more current company endeavours. He's often called upon to demonstrate Apple's internal coding expertise, speaking regularly at conferences, including Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, and communicating with the Apple developer community regularly through Apple's mailing lists.

Along with Steve Jobs, Espinosa is the only employee remaining on the Cupertino campus who began his career in the Jobs family garage. But while Jobs is a notoriously private individual, Espinosa is more outgoing, bucking the secretive company culture and maintaining a public blog since 2008.

Espinosa tweets frequently too, and although his blog is entirely devoid of Apple mentions, his Twitter biography states he is "#8", an obvious reference to his Apple employee number, and is littered with mentions of his Xcode work and commentary on Apple news. He's even been known to poke fun at the competition.

Add to this Espinosa's adoption of Twitter culture, taking part in hashtag memes, and talking to his followers with direct replies, he's very much the friendly face of Apple. Compared to the company's corporate use of Twitter, it's a world away. And, yes, he tweets from an iPhone, of course.

The root of Apple's secrecy

But despite his open attitude to fans, developers and the Apple community as a whole, Espinosa's history includes the origins of Apple's notorious secrecy. After the release of the Apple II, Espinosa held the role of Marketing Manager. "[I] spoke to user groups formally," he says. "I had to be very careful with them, because user groups wielded an immense amount of purchasing power through their rumor dissemination; and if word in the user groups was, 'Don’t buy product X, because product Y is coming out at time Z and it’s going to be better,' sales would suffer. Everybody at that point was paranoid of the Osborne syndrome."

The "Osborne syndrome" refers to Adam Osborne, another pioneer of early computers, who announced to his customers that a better machine would ship, before finishing sales of his existing product. When his new products inevitably hit delays, it caused cash flow problems because his old stock wouldn't sell.

"The fan club user groups love getting inside information, and having a scoop or a secret, and many of them didn’t understand how that could be detrimental to the company," explains Espinosa. "Once I really started working at Apple and being in on new products, I couldn’t spend much time at user group meetings."

Out-lasting all others

The key to Espinosa's out-lasting of all other Apple employees? He clearly has a deep-seated love for the company, and one that transcends financial gain. In the early days of Apple, others invested heavily in the company. Far more so than Espinosa.

That's not to say he hasn't accrued stock options, and by now is wealthy by any measure you'd choose to apply. But check out the list below, and you'll see Espinosa, the quiet worker bee of Apple, has out-lasted those eager for high-profile positions and corporate glory, financial pay-offs, and even its co-founders. If we were in charge at Apple, we'd be naming things after him by now.

Early Apple employees

Apple’s earliest employees are listed by Owen M. Linzmayer in Apple Confidential 2.0: The definitive history of the world’s most colorful company. Espinosa says the single digit number gives him plenty of kudos within the company today: in an interview back in 2000, he said: “The reason I’m number 8 is that Mike Scott wanted number 8; everybody else just drew what they got…I knew who the first ten were, in order, but no one really paid attention to it after that. Today, the single digit badge gets me status because all the other badges are five digits!”

1. Steve Wozniak
Wozniak and Jobs formed Apple Computer on 1 April 1976. Although he stopped active employment in February 1987 technically, he is still an employee. He continues to hold shares in the company and receives a pay cheque.
Years of service: 12

2. Steve Jobs
While Jobs jumped on the chance to be employee number zero, for business purposes he is still number two. Jobs was ousted from the company he founded in 1985, but returned in late 1996 as interim, and then permanent CEO. The rest is history.
Years of service: 24 (Not including medical leaves of absence)

3. Mike Markulla
An angel investor and former Intel employee, Markulla gave Apple one of its first influxes of cash in the early years, and later served as CEO. He served on the board until he was pushed out in a reshuffle in 1997.
Years of service: 20

4. Bill Fernandez
On paper at least, Fernandez the first Apple employee rather than founder or investor, joining in 1977. He worked on the Apple 1, Apple II, Macintosh and other projects, eventually leading the charge for Apple’s user interface design. He later moved to roles at other Silicon Valley companies, before going solo as a consultant.
Years of service: 16

5. Rod Holt
Vice president of engineering during the early years of Apple, Holt was much older than his colleagues, born in 1934. He worked on the Macintosh, but left around the time of its release in 1984. According to Holt, he was pushed by the new management team of the time.
Years of service: 8

6. Randy Wigginton
Wigginton, like Espinosa, was another young starter at Apple. He was on hand with Steve Wozniak to reveal the first ever Apple 1, and became the company’s first programmer. He left in 1981, and went on to work at, amongst others, eBay, PayPal and Google. The latter from which he was reported to have been given the boot after leaking news of a Christmas bonus.
Years of service: 5

7. Michael Scott
Mike Markulla persuaded Scott to join Apple from National Semiconductor as the company’s first CEO, since Wozniak and Jobs had little business experience. He served in the role until 1981 when he was demoted after a mass sacking, known by Apple employees as “Black Wednesday“, and then resigned soon after.
Years of service: 4

8. Chris Espinosa
Espinosa has worked tirelessly for Apple since he was 14 years old, witnessing it evolve from a garage start up to the most valuable technology company in the world. He is still an employee and actively contributes to its products.
Years of service: 35

Think you can match Espinosa’s performance alongside Jobs and Co? Why not get a job at Apple, and prove it? Our guide to the Apple hiring process should get you off to a good start!

Images via Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist of Apple, Mac-History.net, Flickr user WallyG and Apple Confidential 2.0 / Michael Swaine.

Additional research and reporting by Ben Sillis

New MacBook Pro, Elder Scrolls 5 trailer and Motorola Xoom review roundup: Teatime Tech

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:57 AM PST

It’s the end of another day – and what a day it’s been, complete with the official arrival of the new MacBook Pro family. That wasn’t all though – read on for the rest in our teatime tech roundup.

There was no avoiding it: as expected, Apple unleashed a new MacBook Pro line, and while some rumours, like SSDs and a larger trackpad, didn’t materialise, others, like Thunderbolt transfer tech did. Find out all about it here, and check out all the new MacBook Pro photos too.

That wasn’t all Apple related however: we rounded up the best iPad apps of the week, and noticed that MobileMe has all but vanished from Apple’s online store. What does that mean, ahead of an iPad 2 unveiling next week?

Finally, in gaming, we checked out the stunning Elder Scrolls 5 gameplay trailer, and the not so stunning Nintendo launch event for a new Kirby game, while in tabletry, we pulled together the experts’ verdicts in our Motorola Xoom review roundup.

Still want more news? Click on through to the homepage and help yourself to it all as it breaks!

Best iPad apps of the week

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:24 AM PST

The week's best iPad apps are once again here for your delectation: five slices of fried gold for your Apple-made tablet. So if you've got an iPad that's hankerin' for some scintillating new software, or are about to buy the iPad 2, look no further – read on, downloading finger at the ready…

National Geographic Traveler Magazine
£Free | iTunes
Shamefully, the UK App Store isn't getting the new National Geographic Magazine app just yet – but this tourist-targeting spin-off isn't to be sniffed at. Download the app and you get the previous issue for free, which includes everything from the print edition plus additional photos, videos and audio, animated maps and stuff from the archives. You'll need a Zinio account if you want to start purchasing issues after your freebie, mind.

BBC iPlayer
£Free | iTunes
We're pretty sure you already know what BBC iPlayer is, but for those of you that have been dwelling sub-rock for the past several years, it's a catch-up service for BBC telly that includes a lovely side order of live TV and radio. And it's now on your iPad! For free! Features over 400 hours of programming from the previous seven days – and the ability to bookmark your favourite shows and have them available to watch as soon as the next episode is available. It’s certainly more convenient than hitting it up through the browser, as you had to previously on the iPad.

World Fact Vault
£0.59 | iTunes
Are you the sort of person that loves to amaze/bore your friends with obscure – yet entirely accurate – facts and figures concerning countries? You are? Well, son (let's face it, you're probably male), this is quite possible the best iPad app you will ever own. Packed to the pixellated gills with info and maps concerning over 250 nations and territories, it's regularly updated to ensure you're always up to speed.

Battery Plus for iPad
£1.19 | iTunes
Want to keep a track of your iPad's battery that goes beyond a simple percentage or bar? Not only does this app tell you the remaining capacity of your tablet's power plant, it also gives you the remaining time for audio playback, video playback and web use. It tells you how long it'll take to recharge the battery to full capacity, and even the number of battery cycles your iPad has been through. One of the very best iPad apps for daily power users.

Falling Fred
£0.59 | iTunes
A game in the "how far can you get" mould of Paper Glider, Canabalt and DoodleJump, Falling Fred has you use your iPad's motion sensors to guide the eponymous dropper down what looks like a lift shaft, avoiding deadly obstacles – spikes, circular saws etc. – for as long as possible before succumbing to them in gory, blackly comic fashion. Also available on iPhone and iPod touch.