Moto X+1 Leak Shows Front Speakers, New Camera

Notorious tech leakster Evan Blass, better known as evleaks, may have “retired” from the game, but he made sure to go out on a high note. In a tweet that reads “My retirement gift to you,” evleaks shows off some pretty convincing images of what could be Motorola’s upcoming Moto X+1 smartphone.

The new photos showcase black and white variations of the purported Moto X+1. The black version sports a matte black rear panel while the white variation sports a wood finish, though we assume you’ll be able to customize the phone’s paneling using Motorola’s online Moto Maker shopping tool. 

MORE: 12 Surprising Things Your Android Phone Can Do

The most noticeable design change from last year’s Moto X is in the X+1's rear camera lens, which now appears to have a ring of silver around it. That outer ring sports what could be two small flash LED sensors, instead of the large single flash that lies under the Moto X’s 10-MP camera. The Moto X’s rear-facing speaker looks like it’s moved to the front for the X+1. 

Droid Life recently uncovered what could be the Moto X+1's final specs, which include Android 4.4.4, a 5.2-inch, 1920 x 1080 display, a Qualcomm Adreno 330 processor with 1.8GB of RAM and a 12-MP camera. The original Moto X sported a 4.7-inch, 1280 x 720 display, so the jump to a bigger, full HD display would be welcome. 

Motorola is holding a press event in Chicago on Sept. 4, and based on its hint-heavy invitation, we expect to see the Moto X+1, the Moto 360 smartwatch, a new Moto G phone, and possibly another wearable device. We’ll be on the ground for the big showcase, so stay tuned. 

Sources: evleaks, Droid Life

A devout gamer and tech enthusiast, Mike Andronico joined the Laptop team in July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College and experience at GameNGuide, Examiner and 2D-X, Mike tackles everything from iPhone rumors to in-depth hardware reviews.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Prototype Allegedly Leaks, Shows Sharper Design

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Allegedly Leaked iPad 5 Photo Shows iPad mini-Like Design

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Review: 64-bit Adobe Preview Handler shows PDF thumbnails in Windows/File Explorer

When I upgraded to Windows 8 64-bit a few months back, a strange thing happened. The thumbnails for all of my PDF files disappeared. Normally, when I view an Explorer folder, I have the PDF files on "view large icons" (as it then gives me a preview of what the first page of the file looks like).  But Windows 8 wiped all of that. I couldn't even get the standard Adobe PDF logo. So I did my usual and went Googling for answers and ended up with a free program called 64-bit Adobe Preview Handler.

The app itself is just a simple box which can be closed, once you click the "apply fix" button.

This small app (which weighs in at a measly 1MB) makes a small Windows registry fix that brings your PDF thumbnails back. The issue of disappearing thumbnails doesn't seem to be confined to just Windows 8 though. Anyone with either Vista or Windows 7 64-bit may also experience this problem, and 64-bit Adobe Preview Handler is here to save the day.

Simply do the usual download and install and when you start it up, you will see a small window. There is pretty much nothing to configure–no options or anything. Click "apply fix" and then restart Windows Explorer.  If it still doesn't work, you may also have to clear your thumbnail cache, but don't worry, this is very easy to do. Simply run Disk Cleanup, select the C drive, put a tick in the Thumbnails checkbox, and then click OK. The system will do the rest.

Check back again on Windows Explorer, and you should see your PDF thumbnails appear again.

You have to bear in mind that this is not an official fix by Adobe, and according to the developer of this fix, Adobe doesn't seem to be in much of a rush to make an official fix.  So until they can be bothered (which might well be never), this unofficial fix by Leo Davidson is more than sufficient.  And if you like the fix, then support the developer by sending him a PayPal donation.  This will encourage him to continue the unofficial work that he is doing on Adobe's behalf.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
More by Mark O'Neill

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Google Shows Windows Phone Some Love, Stops Redirecting Maps

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ASUS Shows Off Windows 8-Powered Vivo Tab and Vivo Tab RT Tablets

Today at IFA Berlin, ASUS unveiled updated and renamed versions of the ASUS Tablet 810 and Tablet 600 Windows 8 slates that it first announced at Computex Taipei in June. Now dubbed the ASUS Vivo Tab and Vivo Tab RT respectively, the two tablets offer a host of appealing features, including keyboard docks, scratch-proof Corning Fit Glass screens and SonicMaster audio technology.

Powered by an Intel Atom processor, the Vivo Tab’s stand-out feature is its 11.6-inch display which supports 10-point multitouch and comes with a stylus and a Wacom digitizer that supports 1024 levels of  pressure sensitivity. Although the display is a pedestrian 1366 x 768 resolution, it features Super IPS+ technology that should provide superior viewing angles and even the possibility of outdoor visibility. 

The .34-inch thick, 1.48-pound Vivo Tab’s other key features include an 8-MP rear camera with LED flash, a 2-MP front camera for video chats and an NFC-sensor that should enable the tablet to sync with other NFC devices such as smartphones. Considering that it runs full Windows 8, the slate offers a very modest 2GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage.

The Vivo Tab’s keyboard dock sports a trackpad, dual USB ports and a battery that will allow the slate to last even longer on a charge. There’s no word yet on estimated battery life, however. 

Powered by Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor, the Vivo Tab RT runs Windows 8 RT, a special version of Windows 8 that’s designed for ARM-based devices. At just 1.14 pounds and .32 inches thick, this 10.1-inch slate is even lighter than its Atom-powered sibling. 

Like the Vivo Tab, the Vivo Tab RT’s 1366 x 768  display uses Super IPS+ technology for superior brightness and viewing angles. However, the Vivo Tab RT’s screen does not feature a Wacom digitizer and does not come with a stylus. 

Also like its sibling, the Vivo Tab RT has 8-MP and 2-MP cameras, SonicMaster audio, and an NFC sensor. Its keyboard dock also has a trackpad and a built-in battery, but only has one USB port.

We look forward to getting a closer look at both devices soon so stay tuned.

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Intel Shows Off Cove Point Tablet-Ultrabook Hybrid Running Windows 8

Is this the future of Windows notebooks? At IDF 2012 in Beijing, Intel showed off an Ultrabook hybrid running a Consumer Preview of Windows 8. This laptop-tablet hybrid, dubbed Cove Point by Intel, features an Ivy Bridge processor as well as a 12.5-inch touchscreen, HDMI output and two USB 3.0 ports.

At first blush, the device looks more like a tablet than a clamshell laptop – when closed, the touchscreen lies flush against the back of the device, facing upward. Pushing the screen forward and up reveals the keyboard beneath and transforms the device from a tablet to a laptop.

Although a release date for the Cove Point Ultrabook-hybrid hasn’t been set, the device is rumored to cost as much as $1,000.

via Wired

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Add Slide Shows to WordPress Sites With SlideDeck

According to usability guru Jakob Nielsen, when someone visits your website, you have 10 seconds to capture their attention before they decide to move on. Having a fresh slide show lets you combine images, animations, and bold typography to catch a visitor's eye and get them to click deeper into your site. SlideDeck (starting at $79 for a single site) is a sophisticated WordPress plug-in that lets you create high-quality, customizable slide shows that can pull in content from all over the Web, including Google+ Images, Instagram photos, Twitter timelines, Vimeo videos, and much more.

SlideDeck's configuration interface uses vertical tabs and has numerous options.Once you install SlideDeck, it shows up as part of the WordPress admin interface with a dedicated menu entry leading to an elegant configuration system. The system matches the general WordPress look, but adds its own visual flair with embossed icons and typography.

SlideDeck makes it easy to pull in Google+ image albums.Creating a new SlideDeck slide show is easy. SlideDeck offers five presets: ImageDeck, for showcasing images; SocialDeck, for showing Google+ public posts, Instagram posts, or tweets; PostDeck, for showing your own WordPress posts, an RSS feed, or Google+ public posts (again); VideoDeck, for showing YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, or other kinds of online video; and FeedDeck, for pulling in RSS feeds and Google+ posts. The number of duplicates on this list is confusing, but you can also just switch directly to the Sources list and pick the source you want to create a SlideDeck for. Being able to pull in content from almost any conceivable service means you can use your online presence elsewhere to bolster your website, making the content you create do more.

SlideDeck ships with several skins or "lenses," suitable for different content sources.Once you pick a data source, it's time to decide what your slide show should look like. SlideDeck ships with eight skins, or "lenses," each compatible with a number of content sources. For example, the Proto Video lens works only with video sources, while the O-Town one works with just about all sources. Each skin has numerous configuration options, split into vertical tabs. You can decide whether or not to randomize the order of content shown, what colors to use, whether to use a light or dark variant of the skin, and more. If the numerous configuration options still don't give you the look you're going for, and you know HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and CSS, you can even create a copy of any lens and customize it further--at least in theory.

Once you create a SlideDeck slide show, it is easy to embed it into a WordPress post or page.I also had some trouble embedding the beautiful slide show I created on my test WordPress website, which used a relatively narrow theme. I was able to make the slide show narrow enough, but it would not render correctly. Switching themes fixed the problem, which means it is not inherent to SlideDeck, but was caused by some conflict between SlideDeck and the original theme I was using. That's the flip side of the coin to SlideDeck using standard technologies rather than Flash: CSS and JavaScript conflicts can happen.

Despite these technical glitches, I came away impressed with SlideDeck 2. You can debug any theming conflicts relatively easily with any modern browser that has an Inspect Element function, or in Firefox with the excellent Firebug add-on. SlideDeck's appealing admin interface, the great variety of possible sources, and the beautiful and detailed lenses that ship with the plug-in convinced me: This is one high-quality way to set up a slide show for your WordPress website.

--Erez Zukerman

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PlayLater Lets You Watch Your Shows on the Web--And In Your Own Sweet Time

What do you get if you cross Hulu with TiVo? This may sound like the start of a joke, but the answer is PlayLater, an online DVR that's definitely not a punch line. At $40 per year (currently discounted to $20 per year), it's certainly cheaper than a cable package.

PlayLater's neat and clean interface makes it easy to find shows to record and to play back your recordings.PlayLater is the latest application from MediaMall Technologies, the company behind PlayOn, a piece of software that lets you place-shift online video. With PlayOn, you can watch video from Hulu, Netflix, or several other sources, on devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Wii, Roku, and more. Where PlayOn focuses on place-shifting, PlayLater is all about time shifting: This handy PC-focused application lets you record online video for watching later. PCWorld last reviewed PlayLater when in was in beta.

When you launch PlayLater on your Windows PC, it displays its Guide screen, which shows you all of the online video sources you can use. PlayLater has access to all of PlayOn's video sources, which include Amazon Video on Demand, CBS, Nick, PBS Kids, TBS, and more, in addition to the already-mentioned Hulu and Netflix. From the Guide, you can select a video source or channel, and then browse through or search for available shows. PlayLater is neatly laid out and makes it a cinch to find the shows you want. Once you locate the show you'd like to record, you can click it to initiate the recording. You can initiate recordings from within the PlayLater app only; you cannot go to a third-party video site and request to record a video from there. The folks at PlayLater say this capability may be added in the future, in the form of a toolbar you install.

And then PlayLater goes to work in the background. The application fires up its own browser window, which is invisible to you, and plays the requested video, capturing it as it plays. The video in question is not actually downloaded, but recorded and saved as an encrypted video file. Recording a video takes exactly as long as it does to play it, and the recording captures the entire video as it would play in browser, any ads included.

You can only record one video at a time, but you can queue up multiple videos to record in succession. The company says it may lift this restriction in the future, but notes that the video recording process can be taxing on your system, so you may not want to record multiple videos at once, anyway. I noticed no performance issues on my two-year-old Windows 7 PC when testing PlayLater.

You cannot watch the video while it is recording, and you can't start the playback until the recording is complete. PlayLater doesn't play back the video in its own application, but instead does so in Windows Media Player. The company says the decision to use Windows Media Player instead of a custom-built player was made because the application is Windows-only, and every Windows PC comes with the software installed.

I'm not typically a fan of Windows Media Player--I prefer the excellent VLC media player--but it didn't bother me when using PlayLater. Maybe I was so excited about the fact that I could amass my own offline-accessible library of online shows. I don't have to worry about Hulu pushing my favorite episodes out for newer ones, and as long as I have a PlayLater subscription, I don't have to stress when I want to watch online videos when I'm traveling and without an Internet connection. PlayLater has solved all of these problems by creating the software application I had no idea I always wanted.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

-- Liane Cassavoy

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Clik Shows Off CrowdTube, Tracks and Ethershock Apps at SXSW 2012 [Video]

Remember Clik, that cool little app that let you throw video onto any screen with a browser? Well, they’re here at SXSW, exclusively demoing three new apps for attendees — CrowdTube, Tracks and Ethershock — at their very own tent in downtown Austin. We were lucky enough to check them out with Ted Livingston, Founder and CEO of Clik, and get some hands-on time with each.

The first app, CrowdTube, is based on an already-familiar use of the app — crowdsourcing YouTube videos on a big screen. But now they’ve added a new twist: voting. “We wanted to let people DJ South by Southwest,” Livingston said.

So Clik set up a ridiculous 10 x 17-foot screen on the street right outside the convention center. Users (and would-be DJs) can scan in and vote their favorite videos up or down to choose the next clip that plays on the massive display. Once the song that’s currently on finishes playing, the video with the highest number of votes starts up and the queue resets. We tried it ourselves, and it’s awesomely fun. (Plus we can’t wait to see people enjoying CrowdTube after it gets dark!) Check out our video at the end of our post to see the app in action.

The next app, rightly called Tracks, leverages 8tracks.com’s deep database of tunes to let Clik users control song mixes right on their phones. Clik in to a display using your smartphone, browse to a playlist you like (it’s prepopulated from the 8tracks app for now) and tap to start it up. Then walk away, start cooking, do whatever you like. Imagine: Tracks now makes it unnecessary to bring along your speakers on a trip. You can just throw the app onto that screen in your hotel room and enjoy your custom playlist from there.

Finally Ethershock, which enjoys the stature of being the first game for the Clik platform, runs just like the classic Space Invaders. But now you control things with your smartphone, while gameplay is on the big screen—no separate console and controller needed.

Though originally touted as an app itself, it’s worth remembering that Clik is actually first and foremost a platform for smaller programs. It’s a technology that enables unlimited users to “Clik in” and share in the fun of an activity — whether that’s crowdsourcing the next video that comes up on the big screen at a party, or jumping in on a multiplayer game that’s set up with the app. Livingston says it’s incredibly easy to develop for Clik, too—in fact, he says, the three concept apps they brought along to SXSW were each cobbled together by his developers in a matter of days.

The beauty of it all is that the only thing you need is a smartphone with a data plan. And really—who doesn’t have that by now? Clik only pushes commands to your browser while all the heavy lifting is done using your Internet connection, so the action is almost instantaneous—and the app’s potential, almost endless.

“We like to think of Clik as the remote of the future,” Livingston said to me. “Imagine walking into a party with your smartphone—something you have on you, anyway—and being able to control everything with it. It’s great.”

Clik is available on iOS and Android right now. There’s also more information on the project at their official website.

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ASUS Shows Off PadFone: Phone, Tablet, Netbook Combo Coming In April

After nearly a year’s worth of anticipation, and several early showings, ASUS at last showed off the final version of its PadFone. The device combines the power of a phone, tablet and netbook in one product. At its heart the PadFone is a 4.3-inch smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon S4 1.5-Ghz dual-core processor. The Android Ice Cream Sandwich device is available with 16GB/32GB/64GB of memory and 1GB of RAM.

Upfront the phone features a Super AMOLEDqHD display with a 960 x 540 resolution. Seated above the display is the PadFone’s front-facing camera, a standard VGA model, and opposite that, on the rear of the device, is its 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. ASUS says the PadFone will initially launch as an HSPA+ model, however, an LTE version is due out in Q3 2012.

Pop the Padfone into the PadFone Station and the phone turns into a 10.1-inch tablet. ASUS touts its DynamicDisplay technology as the force behind the way the phone display can be seamlessly transferred to the tablet’s 1280 x 1000 display. The PadFone Station isn’t just a larger display either. It also includes a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, as well as microUSB and microHDMI ports.

The PadFone Station is also available with an optional keyboard dock that turns the entire unit into a 10.1-inch netbook. By itself the PadFone weighs 4.6 ounces and measures just 5 x 2.6 x 0.4 inches. The PadFone Station ups that further, weighing 1.6 pounds and measuring 10.7 x 7 x 0.5 inches.

Rounding out the package is an ASUS’s new PadFone Stylus Headset, a Bluetooth stylus that also doubles as a receiver for the PadFone. So if you are using the unit as a tablet or netbook, and get a phone call you can use the stylus to answer you call, rather than taking the entire setup apart.

Stay tuned for our full hands on of the PadFone.

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Free, Cloud-Based Word Processor Zoho Writer Shows Promise

Zoho Writer is an online (with offline and syncing functionality) word processing application that offers a nice amount of functionality, especially given the limitations of the Web as a platform for productivity tools. After creating a free account with Zoho, you can access Zoho Writer. It looks a lot like most word processors, so if you've used any major program in this category, it will take no more than a few minutes of poking around to learn how to do things. This is good, because the "Help" is in the form of a FAQ, not a tutorial or index of functions.

Zoho Writer offers a clean, user-friendly interface that packs a lot of functionality for a Web app.The interface for Zoho Writer is well designed. Each button serves as both a tab which reveals a toolbar, and as a drop down menu. This is really, really, nice--you can have the Format toolbar showing, then click the "Insert" dropdown and choose a command, without the current toolbar being replace. There is no need to click back to your preferred "main" toolbar. On the other hand, if you prefer switching toolbars, just single-click the appropriate button, and there you go.

Overall, using Zoho Writer was simple and pleasant. I experienced a very slight mushiness or lag when typing, in terms of the time it took between hitting a key and seeing the screen update, as compared to using a non-Web application. The font selection is limited to the usual assortment of Web fonts. The most advanced and complex features of programs like Word, which border on layout/desktop publishing software, are not available, but a number of features that add real utility to document creation, such as the generation of a table of contents, are. Other features are available which would be useful if they worked.

Zoho Writer is listed as a beta, which means it can be forgiven some sins, but the last entry in the blog for Zoho Writer is almost a year old, as compared to other Zoho Apps with newer entries. This is unfortunate, as some useful features are currently broken. For example, footnotes are malformed (appearing with %20 instead of spaces). The ability to set multiple columns for your document is nice, but there are some oddities--you must save or print to see the columns, instead of working with them in the direct editing mode. This isn't too much of a problem, but during my initial tests, the columns did not appear in my saved document. Subsequent tests to confirm what I thought was a bug, though, did produce correctly saved documents. Zoho Writer exports in a variety of formats, including .doc, .docx, LaTeX, and HTML.

As compared to Google Docs, Zoho Writer is close. The Zoho Writer interface is less Spartan, and there are some features (such as columniation, or being able to highlight a word and add it to the table of contents, without styling it as a header) that Google Docs currently lacks. However, the beta state makes me a little hesitant to recommend it unconditionally for those happy with Google Docs. It's certainly worth checking out--it's free--and the offline save and accessibility means the risk of loss is small if you like it and decide to use it. I'd very much like to see Zoho move this product to their front burner and get it debugged and out of beta. I'd like to take a look at it when it's fully baked.

--Ian Harac

Easily share your documents online, with friends on an individual basis and in group. Collaborate on them in real time. ccess and edit existing documents even without an internet connection. Offline document edits will be synchronized when you are online. Make use of Zoho Writer's feature rich WYSIWYG editor for publishing your documents to blog. Upload documents from your desktop, Google Docs or anywhere on the Web. Download and save them to your computer too. Experience the joy of writing documents in a real paper like environment. Edit them the way you wish to see in print. Build your document by picking up from a collection of readymade templates from our template library.

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