[MyAppleMenu] Dec 17, 2010

applesurf at myapplemenu.com applesurf at myapplemenu.com
Fri Dec 17 18:59:01 EST 2010

MyAppleMenu
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**** Real Racing 2 <http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/12/review-real-racing-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AppAdvice+%28AppAdvice%29>
Trevor Sheridan, AppAdvice

Real Racing is simply the most technologically advanced game for iOS. It offers the best racing experience around with such deluxe career, challenging races, and the difficulty balance. Real Racing 2 could go toe to toe with any game on any other mobile platform, and is an amazing accomplishment on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

**** Pocket God: Journey To Uranus <http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/12/review-pocket-god-journey-uranus/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AppAdvice+%28AppAdvice%29>
Trevor Sheridan, AppAdvice

Pocket God: Journey To Uranus has a great pedigree, and goes a whole new way on the iPad from the iPhone version. It offers three enjoyable games, but sadly none of the interactions the iPhone game is known for. The game is wonderfully designed in most regards, and the only real downfall is the lack of content in comparison to the amazingly value packed iPhone version while costing five times as much.

**** Apple Releases Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.5 <http://www.macworld.com/article/156466/2010/12/digital_raw_update_35.html?lsrc=rss_main>
Serenity Caldwel, Macworld

Apple on Thursday released an update for Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11 to add raw image support for certain Canon, Leica, Nikon, and Panasonic cameras.

**** Online Apple Store Adds One-click "Popular Configurations" Option <http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/16/online-apple-store-adds-one-click-popular-configurations-optio/>
Michael Rose, TUAW

The new one-click buttons let you prefill the most popular options for your custom config, including such favorites as "more RAM," "faster hard drive," the matte screen for the 15" MBP and pre-installed versions of iWork or Microsoft Office.

**** Airfoil 4 Brings Web Video Support, More <http://www.macworld.com/article/156454/2010/12/airfoil4.html?lsrc=rss_main>
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

First released in 2005 as a way to send audio from any application to an AirPort Express, Airfoil has grown to support audio streaming to the Apple TV, iOS devices, and other computers within your local network. The latest version, released Thursday morning, brings an interface redesign, improved audio reception, and major updates to both of Airfoil’s companion applications: Airfoil Speakers and Airfoil Video Player.

**** Apple Releases Time Capsule And AirPort Base Station Firmware Update To Fix AirPlay Issues <http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/16/apple-releases-time-capsule-and-airport-base-station-firmware-up/>
Michael Grothaus, TUAW

The update "fixes some issues with AirPlay streaming."

**** Bing For iPhone Gets Major Overhaul, Minor Tweaks For Android <http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/12/bing-for-iphone-gets-major-overhaul-minor-tweaks-for-android.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss>
Emil Protalinski, Ars Technica

Microsoft has updated its Bing for Mobile apps for iPhone and Android with a bigger focus on streamlining how mobile users discover relevant local information. Separately, the software giant has updated m.bing.com with "the latest HTML5 technologies."

**** Surprise, Apple’s Premium Rechargeable Batteries Give Little Bang For The Buck <http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/16/surprise-apples-premium-rechargeable-batteries-give-little-bang-for-the-buck/>
Devin Coldewey, CrunchGear

**** Dropbox 1.0 Available With Performance Enhancements, Selective Sync <http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/17/dropbox-1-0-available-with-performance-enhancements-selective-s/>
Chris Rawson, TUAW

Dropbox reaching 1.0 is more than a numerical milestone for its developers. They've also made hundreds of bug fixes, reduced resource usage (memory usage in particular has been reduced by 50 percent), and made tweaks to the interface to make it more user-friendly. The most intriguing new feature is Selective Sync, which allows users to choose which of your Dropbox folders to sync to their devices, which the developers say will come in handy on netbooks or other devices with limited storage space.

**** BIAS SoundSaver <http://www.macworld.com/reviews/product/739697/review/soundsaver.html?expand=true&lsrc=rss_main>
Christopher Breen, Macworld

Frustrated though I am with SoundSaver’s enforced window size, it has a lot going for it. The workflow is logical. The ability to clean up tracks as one step of the process is welcome. Just as welcome is the ability to auto-tag tracks. And while a lot of people will never have the need to encode a 78 RPM record, I very much appreciate that BIAS included the option. My hope is that in a future update the auto-define feature becomes more accurate, but again, I’ve yet to find the perfect solution in a product offered at this price.

**** Word Lens: Instantly Translate Any Text, Using Your iPhone’s Camera <http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/12/word-lens-instantly-translate-text-iphones-camera/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AppAdvice+%28AppAdvice%29>
Joe White, AppAdvice

Word Lens is a new iOS app that uses the power of “augmented reality” to instantly translate text viewed via the iPhone’s camera.

**** A Desktop Folder Mystery <http://www.macworld.com/article/156479/2010/12/desktop_folder_mystery.html?lsrc=rss_main>
Ted Landau, Macworld

**** On Why Open Source Developers Run Mac OS X <http://www.sharms.org/blog/2010/12/on-why-open-source-developers-run-mac-os-x/>
Steven Harms



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Reading Strauss In Beijing <http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/79747/reading-leo-strauss-in-beijing-china-marx?passthru=M2M4ZmE0MTA4YmQwM2QwZWFmMDMwZDg1OTk1NGE4NzM>
Mark Lilla, The New Republic

Strauss and Schmitt are at the center of intellectual debate, but they are being read by everyone, whatever their partisan leanings; as a liberal journalist in Shanghai told me as we took a stroll one day, “no one will take you seriously if you have nothing to say about these two men and their ideas.” And the interest has little to do with nationalism in the nineteenth-century sense of the term. It is a response to crisis—a widely shared belief that the millennia-long continuity of Chinese history has been broken and that everything, politically and intellectually, is now up for grabs.

**** Funny Guys, Serious Business <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/books/17book.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss>
Heather Havrilesky, New York Times

In his new book, “The War for Late Night,” Bill Carter, a television reporter for The New York Times, demonstrates that the flanking maneuvers made by crucial warriors on the late-night battlefield were far more complicated and far less malevolent than onlookers assumed. Through exhaustive research and interviews with the major players in this battle Mr. Carter demonstrates that, while the usual oversize Hollywood egos were forming secret alliances and stockpiling armaments, it was NBC that fired the shots that sank the Lusitania.

**** Is Science Fiction Dying? <http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/feature/2010/12/16/21st_century_science_fiction>
Paul Di Fillippo, Salon

The genre set the groundwork for our current century, but is it on the decline?

**** How Dickens And Doré Forecast Our Winter Of Discontent <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/dec/17/dickens-dore-winter-discontent?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fbooks%2Frss+%28Books%29>
Jonathan Jones, Guardian

When the scale and nature of the coalition government's spending cuts became known this autumn, critics reached for images from Victorian Britain, comparing the social consequences to some scene engraved by Gustave Doré. This was unfair – on the Victorians.

**** In A Nutshell <http://www.slate.com/id/2278069/>
Noreen Malone, Slate

A brief history of nutcrackers.



SingaporeSurf
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**** Opposition Offers Take On Four Issues <http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC101217-0000283/Opposition-offers-take-on-four-issues>
Cheow Xin Yi, Today

Housing, income inequality, the Internal Security Act and National Service issues were the order of the day at a political forum where a number of possible opposition election candidates aired their views.

**** Ruling PAP A No-show At Major Political Forum <http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/12/17/ruling-pap-a-no-show-at-major-political-forum/>
Faris, Yahoo!

Before the forum began, moderator Mr Choo Zheng Xi, 25, addressed the “elephant in the room” and said, “We did actually invite the PAP. We sent an email to the Secretary-general of the PAP, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, and reached out to an MP who said was keen to come. He asked for clearance but did not get it.”

Yahoo! SEA understands the MP in question was Mr Zaqy Mohamad, who is Vice-Chairman of the young PAP and head of the party’s media subcommittee and new media engagement.

**** Face To Face: An Awkward Family Reunion <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/12/face-to-face-report-an-awkward-family-reunion/>
Khairulanwar Zaini, The Online Citizen

**** MDA Hacks Away At Rule Of Law <http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/mda-hacks-away-at-rule-of-law/>
Yawning Bread

With the Films Act, the root of the problem lies in the hegemonic impulses of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). Over the years, we can observe how its behaviour fits a certain pattern — that of arming itself with sweeping laws so that it will always have something at hand to bludgeon dissenters with whenever it feels a need to.

Every so often, as the current example of Amy Chua’s letter in the Straits Times indicates, arbitrariness is shown to be the order of the day. In this particular case they had a law that sought to prevent political parties from using film and video to spread its message, put in when opposition parties were contemplating doing so, but now that the ruling party itself is beginning to exploit this medium, it has become inconvenient to exercise the law. When pressed by Martyn See, Chua grants to herself the discretion when to do her job and when to ignore it. It cannot be otherwise, as it would displease her minister.

**** Fewer S'pore Citizenship, Permanent Residency Granted: Report <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1099803/1/.html>
Joanne Chan, Channel NewsAsia

Fewer immigrants were granted permanent residency and citizenship this year, according to the first Singapore Public Sector Outcomes Review which outlines challenges for the government.

**** 新加坡鲜为人知的世界第一 <http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/10/12/17/n3115670.htm>
黄一鸣, 大纪元

作为南洋的一个弹丸小国，当许多新加坡人津津有味的谈论着这个国家除了官员的薪水之外还有几项指标在全世界的排行榜上名列第一的时候，却不知道新加坡已经成为中国大陆之外唯一一个迫害法轮功学员的民主国家！这11年来，被新加坡遣返出境的外籍法轮功学员，已经不下百人。遣返法轮功学员的次数与人数，新加坡排名世界第一；这11年来，新加坡共计发生了九次针对法轮功学员的诬告案，诬告法轮功学员的次数，除中国大陆之外，新加坡排名世界第一！不过这两项世界第一不是新加坡的荣誉，而是新加坡永远无法磨灭的耻辱！

**** Singapore Exports Slow But Point To Normal Pace Next Year <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395204576024740319408446.html>
Gaurav Raghuvanshi, Wall Street Journal

Growth in Singapore's key non-oil exports slowed sharply in November after shipments to the city-state's most important markets declined, but analysts said the moderation was expected and points to a more sustainable pace of growth next year.

Analysts say the decline isn't too worrying, as it comes after higher-than-expected growth the previous month.

**** Sheriff Of The Cowboy Town <http://blogs.straitstimes.com/2010/12/17/sheriff-of-the-cowboy-town>
Ng Tze Yong, Straits Times

What’s TR’s loss will only be TOC’s gain - in credibility, audience size and influence, online and offline. It has its work cut out, but at least TOC appears to be seeing some success in an area where political parties and the mainsteam media, both local and global, are continuing to struggle.

What played out on Thursday night, while awkward to some in the audience, was a mere extension of TOC’s approach to engagement in the online space.




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