Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review Amazon officially enters the tablet Wars learn to live with facebook timeline console quality gaming comes to the iPad and get ready to kiss your texting plan goodbye it's all coming up right now hi everyone I'm Molly wood and welcome to the cnet tech review where we collect our hottest videos of the week and tell you what's good and what's bad in the world of tech plus offer our own unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's start with the good amazon held an event in New York City this week to announce its revised kindle lineup including the company's much-anticipated entry into the tablet market the kindle fire here's Bridget Carey with all the details hi I'm Bridget Carey with cnet TV here at the new york amazon press conference we're not only that amazon just announced a whole new line of e ink readers we also got a look at the amazon tablets it's called kindle fire it's a color 7-inch tablet that is at a really low price point two hundred dollars it's a big difference from that barnes & noble nook which is forty dollars more kindle touch 3g kindle touch and kindle when it comes to the e-ink readers amazon really dropped their prices not only is a non-touch version now available for $79 but there is also one touch screen for $99 also much cheaper than the barnes and noble version of its nook touch amazon also has a 3g version of its new touchscreen e-ink reader it's a hundred fifty dollars and they're going to be available for holiday but the one that you can have order now and ship now is the non touch version for $79 amazon also unveiled a few new features that really are important to the new kindle fire tablet you're looking at whispersync that not only does books but also automatically syncs the kind of movies TV shows so essentially you could take a show you're watching on your tablet stop it and playback on your TV and amazon says that worried about backing up your data is the thing of the past everything that you download is going to be stored in there amazon cloud should be accessed at any time and deleted from the hard drive space anytime but that hard drive is only eight gigabytes of course that's why they're really pushing that amazon cloud so essentially you have all the space you want in the cloud to store things and Amazon introduced a new mobile browser to its Kindle Fire it's called Amazon silk and it's supposed to make things really a lot faster to load than traditional mobile browsers not only are these new candles a lot smaller a lot lighter but they're also a lot cheaper expect them to be a big holiday seller christina TV in New York I'm Bridget Carey $79 for a kindle that's just like a little more than a couple of hardcover books from your local bookstore oh wait we don't really have those anymore stick around for more kindle fire details coming up later in the show last week we showed you some of the new features Facebook is working on including the new timeline which will dominate your profile page while the timeline started rolling out to the public this week and Sharon Vaknin is here with a twofer of how to videos to help you get started customizing your profile and also hiding some of those skeletons from your Facebook past hey everyone I'm Sharon Vaknin frisina com here to walk you through the new facebook profiles now known as your timeline timelines are completely different than your profile and they start with a new edition called the cover photo for my profile I picked this photo of myself but it can be whatever you want like a photo of your dog or your favorite city to change it hover over your photo select change cover and choose a photo from your facebook albums or upload one from your drive just blow your cover photo you'll see all of your info on the left and other profile items like friends apps and photos on the right to edit or change the privacy settings for any of these items click on the item this works for your info photos friends and other modules you can also decide which boxes show up at the top click the arrow to expand hover over a box and click the pencil there is an option to swap the box with something else or remove it entirely there is a new app called maps which is a geographical version of your timeline it plots points where you've tagged a location in any of your posts it's pretty cool but if you think it's creepy hover over the box and remove it now comes the fun and kind of scary part your timeline all of your Facebook activity is now viewable to you and your friends in chronological order going all the way back to the day joined facebook in the very beginning you'll see an empty section for the day you were born the idea is that facebook wants you to fill in events that happen throughout your life even before Facebook to add an event hover over the point in the timeline where it happened and click the grey line you have the option to add a status update photo location you visited or type of life event for example maybe you learned a new language broke a bone bought a new car or graduated there are about 20 different suggested events but if you want to add something of your own just click other life events once you fill in the information the story will be added to your time line and it'll show up in your recent activity at the top but what if you want to hide some events from your timeline you might be embarrassed or regretful about things you post it in the past but luckily you can hide them the easiest way to hide old posts is by going to view activity at the top here you'll see a simplified version of your timeline which you can filter by type once you find the post you want to remove click the arrow next to the story and you'll see many privacy options you can hide it from your timeline change the privacy settings or delete the post entirely which means it's never coming back if you have a lot of old pose you would rather hide this process might take a while but at least you only have to do it once once you've added and removed posts from your timeline you can start featuring the ones you want to highlight find the post you want to feature hover over it and click the star to make it full with two unfit just click the star again when you've tweaked your profile to your liking click the Settings button here at the top and select view as then enter any friends named to see what it looks like to them or click public to see what your timeline looks like to everyone including people who aren't your friends I know this is a big change so if you have any questions feel free to ask me on Twitter or of course my facebook page for a/c nut I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs hey everyone I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com here to guide you through all the big privacy changes on facebook when Facebook announced timeline the new profile design many people were worried about a change in the facebook apps policies now apps only need to ask for permission once before sharing your activity whenever they want you can't change the new policy but you can decide which friends get to see your activity or hide the activity entirely without deleting the app go to privacy settings then head to apps and websites and click Edit settings on the right then click Edit settings again first take a look at the list and remove any apps you no longer use then find the app you want to adjust permissions for and click Edit some apps like Spotify let you remove specific permissions like posting to Facebook as you so go ahead and remove to your liking for app activity privacy pick the people who can see your activity from the pop-up list if you don't want anyone to see it click customize then only me back in the privacy center check your settings for how tags work and how you connect to make sure you're connecting with the right people once you configure those settings head to your timeline and tweak some important privacy settings there every time you do small things like add a friend right on someone's wall change your info or add a life event facebook logs it in your recent activity if you think that's too intrusive hover over any story and click the X and select hide all do this for every type of activity you want to hide to unhide them just click the pencil select hidden activity and click the X next to things you want to unhide at this point your privacy is already a little more secure but Facebook buried even more settings we need to adjust at the top of your timeline you'll see your general info on the left and some boxes on the right to change the privacy of your information click it hit edit for any module and use the drop-down menu next to each item to pick who gets to see it for the boxes like friends and photos you have options to to hide your friends list click on the box and adjust the privacy settings at the top for photos click the box to see all of your albums and adjust privacy settings for each one now back at your profile info you saw an option for hiding your mobile number weirdly enough if you make it visible to only me it still doesn't guarantee your privacy go to account settings then mobile and uncheck the box next to share my phone number with friends now your phone number is private once again facebook always makes us do more work than we should have to once you've got all of your privacy settings sorted out head back to your profile and click the Settings button then view ask to see what your profile looks like to other users enter a friend's name to see what info you're sharing with them or click the public link at the top to see what your profile looks like to the rest of the internet if you have any other privacy or timeline related questions leave me a comment on my facebook page of course or hit me up on Twitter for cnet I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs so broke a bone had surgery and overcame an illness are all default life event options oh maybe next time I go to the doctor I can just refer them to my profile instead of filling out the medical history form haha if you can't see the timeline on your profile page just yet don't worry it's comin soon whether you like it or not in this week's top 5 Brian Cooley is not only counting down the best free SMS apps but he's also offering some shocking statistics about your text habits oh hi texting is huge in case you haven't noticed the average American cell phone owner now sends and receives over 41 text messages a day that's more than 1200 a month try that on one of those 500 texts for ten dollar plans and the overages are going to just about double your monthly bill now of course you can get an unlimited text plan but I might have some better options I'm Brian Cooley with the top five SMS texting apps that are both cheaper and more fun to use they rely on your data plan and don't lean on your SMS count we're going to rank them by their feature set number five is google voice that's right google voice this app may have the least features of any i'm going to show you but it does something unique it assigns you a separate google voice phone number that means you can also text people who are not on smartphones and don't have a data plan and you still won't be charged for SMS on your end pretty neat trick huh it doesn't quite make up though for other things it can't do like sending pictures number four is kick if you're a real heavy texter with like five SMS threads going at once and you'd read that day when a sluggish text app is going to trip you up and cause you to sex to photo to the boss instead of the boyfriend kick is your huckleberry super responsive and fast it's also got a cool single letter interface these little call-outs on the bubbles to let you know if a text has been sent delivered or read rate for the obsessively impatient number three is called live profile it's interesting and that it connects you to your texting account via an email address instead of a fixed phone number makes it great if you use as many phones as you send texts like some people do you log in to whatever device you've got via your email address on any of them and your messages and contacts follow you it also lets you post your text to Twitter or Facebook but doesn't offer group chat which three of our five do number two is pingchat pingchat does have the group chat that live profiles missing but it also lets you text pictures while sharing your location and integrating your social network status that's great because the stalkers union called and they're demanding and easier workload this is an ad-supported app by the way and no clean paid version is even available as of this moment before I get you to our number one SMS text alternative app let's get a little reality check on this idea that everyone's texting instead of calling nope we're actually doing lots of both the latest numbers from the pew internet and american life survey so that the more you text the more you call but the more a person texts the more they prefer to be contacted that way so take a hint and stop calling me the number one SMS alternative app is Kakao Talk it has just about every major feature going for it you can send pictures send video share audio do lots of appearance customization to keep you phone fetishists from getting nervous that maybe your phone isn't cooler than mine and you can password protect a given conversation like the one between you and mrs. Jones but note that cacao is available on the fewest platforms just iphone and android as of today all the others add either blackberry or Windows support to those two for the full details on today's great text apps check out Nicole cosmas piece at cnet com we've got a link to it at top 5 cnet com I'm Brian Cooley thanks for watching if any of you are texting as much as brian says and I know some of you are then you need one of these apps and you should probably consider giving those thumbs arrest too all right we're going to take a break so if you have any texting to do now would be a good time we'll be right back with more tech review right after this welcome back to the cnet tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV continuing on in the good Angry Birds bejeweled Tiny Tower these mild-mannered games are fine for passing the time but every once in a while it just feels good to blow something up and this week's tap that app jason parker shows us a game that not only fulfills that need it looks good doing it welcome to tap that app i'm jason parker and this is the show will recover the hottest apps in the mobile space at this year's e3 gaming industry conference a certain mobile game quickly got a lot of attention for having console like graphics high frame rates and great-looking gameplay on a mobile device it was so good looking in fact that many people didn't believe it was a real game for iOS this week we're excited to show off shadowgun made using the unity 3d engine and offering a level of graphics not seen before on iOS devices in our hands on time with the game we've been very impressed with the solid controls crystal-clear visuals and mix of tactical combat and third-person action the storyline is fairly run-of-the-mill you play as John Slade a typical tough-talking bounty hunter your job is to infiltrate a mountain fortress in search of one dr. Simon an evil geneticist who has created an army of cyborgs mutants and genetically enhanced humanoids while fantastical in real-world terms most gamers have had their share of chasing crazy scientists bent on world domination shadowgun is no different in this aspect but where shadow can differs from the usual fare are the jaw-dropping visuals and easy-to-use controls on the iOS shadows and ambient lighting give the game unprecedented realism and a constant stream of action keeps you engaged as you make your way deep into the mountain fortress the control system couldn't be easier you move John Slade with a joypad on the left and look around by swiping the screen on the right you get buttons for firing and reloading your weapon on the lower right and you can switch weapons once you find them by touching the gun icon in the upper right but where the control system really shines is in how shadow gun handles cover to get out of harm's way you need only walk up to an object and your character will hunker down automatically hit the fire button to quickly come out of cover and take shots at enemies pulling back makes you return to a standing position and pushing forward makes you jump over the object other games of this type often have you press a button to go into cover mode but we really like the simple way shadow gun handles this tactic as you progress through the game you'll need to operate elevators turn off laser security systems and operate other mechanisms shadowgun keeps it simple by switching your shooting button to an interact but anass econd you walk up to a machine we really like these design decisions that make it easy to keep the game fun without a bunch of unnecessary complexity with all the great things shadowgun does like the graphics too easy to use controls and an engaging if somewhat predictable storyline it does suffer from being a bit repetitive each battle follows a similar pattern bad guys come out you go into cover then you work through killing each enemy one by one enemy in weapon variations somewhat make up for this but you'll still follow this basic pattern throughout the game still shadowgun is a must-have for serious shooter fans offering amazing graphics great level design and endless gun battles all with a heavy metal soundtrack if you like any of these things we heartily recommend you tap this app immediately that's it for this week's show if you have any suggestions send them to tap that app at cnet com i'm jason parker and we'll see you next time 799 is a little pricey compared to most of the apps we tap around here but that's nothing compared to 60 bucks for a console game think about it okay now that we've seen the future of mobile gaming let's revisit the past as we dive into the bad retro gaming fans may enjoy playing classic Atari titles like adventure and break out on their handhelds but they probably missed the classic controls like a joystick and physical buttons as Scott Stein shows us Ataris new iPad controller aims to fix that problem but unfortunately it misses the mark m scott Stein senior editor at cnet com and if you're an iPad owner and you're an arcade fetishist well you may want to take a look at the Atari arcade sure you don't have a dedicated arcade joystick for your iPad you have to rely on touching and smudging up your screen but there is a solution the $60 joystick made by Atari docks into your iPad and will allow you to use a joystick and four buttons with Ataris greatest hits arcade app just that app and it docks vertically in portrait mode it can't reorient any other way now that's a trade-off because a couple of months ago we also saw another device the ion icade a giant arcade cabinet for your iPad that used bluetooth now that one use batteries and could work with several other games in addition to Ataris this one only works with Ataris but it doesn't need batteries once you plug that thing into your 30 pin you are set and this thing is small enough that you can tuck it into a backpack if you so choose to take it around and I don't know player k games with your friends some people might prefer to still go with an arcade cabinet though if you're going to take this thing and dock it somewhere on your desk you might as well go full out geeky but with this you kind of get a little bit of both worlds and as a result the joystick and the buttons feel a little bit less arcade perfect if you're going to be a real retro perfectionist compared to something like the icade then again it's a lot better than touching on the screen but if you're going to put in that portrait mode just remember it's going to shrink down those arcade games kind of letterbox them a little bit so unless you're playing a game like centipede here which uses the whole screen in order to play because that was a original arcade game that used that mode most of them are not going to take up nearly that screen real estate and wait a second here if we're going to be arcade perfectionist send pede used a trackball wait a second why are we using a joystick for that in fact a lot of our Tories arcade games centipede breakout and Missile Command ones like that use track balls or paddle so next time Atari how about giving us one of those I'm Scott Simon said look at the Atari arcade joystick doc for the iPad have you tried playin Missile Command with a joystick salima though it is a bit better than playing it on a touchscreen and would it have killed Atari to make the stand also work as a charger to Hannah do I have to think of everything well if that's the case then I think it's time to move along to this week bottom line earlier Bridget Carey showed us the highlights from Wednesday's Amazon announcement but here's David Carr nguoi with a closer look at the kindle fire tablet I'm David cardo and i'm here at the amazon event here in new york city where amazon has introduced a new one hundred ninety nine dollar android tablet the Amazon Kindle Fire doesn't necessarily look like an Android tablet on the surface it's got a nice minimalist simple interface to it that really attempts to tie in all of Amazon's services that includes a kindle ebooks video mp3 audio and Amazon's Cloud Drive the one short coming to the device is that it comes with only eight gigabytes of memory and has no explain to slot for more memory amazon however is touting the fact that you're really going to only store a little bit of content on the device and then delete it and get stuff from their cloud the tablet comes in only one color black and it weighs 14 point 6 ounces amazon wasn't giving a whole lot of specifics on the battery life but i heard from one rep here that it was about seven hours under a worst-case scenario where you're playing video so ok battery life similar to the nook color it has a dual core processor it seems zippy when we saw the demos here amazon wasn't letting anybody handle the device a couple of other key features amazon is touting is the new silk browser it's a mobile browser that's supposed to be a better mobile browser with caching that allows pages to load faster there was some talk of even being able to predict where you were going to surf for instance if you went to the New York Times website and you ended up going to the front page and they knew that you're going to the business section a lot it would preload the business section for you the other feature that Amazon was touting is that whispersync not only is available for work ebooks now like it is on other Kindle devices but it's also available for video and audio so everything syncs wirelessly with this device similar to what's going to happen when iOS 5 comes out with Apple unfortunately you cannot get this today this won't be out till November 15th but Amazon is already accepting pre-orders and expecting a lot of people to do those pre orders and is apparently making millions of these one of the key headlines here is that this device costs only a hundred ninety-nine dollars amazon was expected to come out with a $249 android tablet coming out at 199 obviously makes this even more attractive some people are calling it a new color competitor some people are calling it an ipad competitor and obviously for those people who don't want to spend five to six hundred dollars an ipad this becomes a nice alternative and it's also smaller and more pocketable until then it looks like on the surface at least amazon has really put out a product that a lot of people are going to want this holiday season i'm david carr nguoi and that's the amazon kindle fire the bottom line this week the kindle fire is in Fuego I know it's not even Halloween yet but whatever I hereby predict at the kindle fire and all the new kindles actually will be some of the biggest holiday sellers of the year alright that's going to do it for this time everyone but come back next week for an all-new cnet tech review when we will have all the news from Apple's October fourth iphone event until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cnet TV com I'll see you next time and thank you for watching you