Hard sell: Motorola $ 800 Tablet Xoom, no Flash support

Xoom Motorola Tablet is seen by many as the first big iPad competitor, but its steep $ 800 price and lack of support for Adobe Flash suggest otherwise.

The forthcoming Motorola Xoom fell at the first hurdle in the fight against the dominance of Apple's iPad? After Motorola announced that its contestant iPad will cost more than a promo to iPad, Verizon discovered that Xoom doesn't support Adobe's Flash technology up sometime this spring.

Support for Adobe Flash technology has been a topic for the operating system Android because Apple's CEO Steve Jobs famously said that Flash is a dying technology and that it will not make up iOS devices for several reasons. Flash support in Android appeared with version 2.2 and Google even ostentatious as a killer feature for tablets running honeycomb (3.0), how the Motorola Xoom.

But it seems that Adobe and/or Google have yet to put the finishing touches on the implementation of Flash on Android 3.0. An advertisement for the Verizon website Xoom says (in section 6 below) that support Adobe Flash on Xoom is expected in the spring of 2011, which means that this feature will not be available at launch of the first tablet Honeycomb on 24 February. Considering how carriers and manufacturers are slow when it comes to software updates, this 2011 spring update could mean more like late spring 2011 ETA.

Meanwhile, Adobe said last week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that is still working on Flash 10.1 for Smartphones and tablets running Android. The company promised users dual core tablets and phones will benefit of HD Flash video, and up to 30 frames per second performance. Flash 10.1 for Windows and Mac was released earlier this month, but Adobe gave no clear indication when the mobile version of the plug-in will actually be available to users.

So far, despite initial positive responses from reviewers, the Motorola Xoom doesn't have two tests against iPad. Despite better specifications of Xoom, the Tablet is still the most expensive iPad matching. IPad 32 GB 3 G costs $ 729, while the equivalent of Xoom is $ 800, plus any contracts which may need to sign up with Verizon. Add that to the fact that the Flash will initially support, a feature is missing in the war against iPad, and do not accumulate possibility of Xoom to be suddenly a great success, that's okay.

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Apple updates Digital Camera RAW support for 6 new cameras

Apple has released an update for Digital Camera RAW which adds support for six new cameras. This compatibility update, version 3.6, affects users of Aperture and iPhoto.

There are five of DSLR cameras, including Canon just released additions to its line of rebel, and T3, T3i. The Olympus E-3 is now supported, as are two cameras Pentax DSLR, K-r and K-5. All cameras Olympus and Pentax were released in September 2010. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-100, a megazoom compact camera with raw capability, shooting rounds off the list.

The update fixes also problems of processing without name for Nikon DSLR, the Nikon Coolpix D7000 P7000 advanced point-and-shoot and cameras Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF 1 and GH2 Micro Four Thirds.

To download the update 6,45 MB, run Software Update on your computer or go to the download page on the Apple support site. This update is compatible with Mac OS X or OS X 10.5.8 or later version 10.6.5.

You can see a complete list of all supported cameras from Digital Camera RAW on this page on the Apple support site.

For other Macintosh computing news, visit Macworld. Story copyright © 2010 Mac Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

Roadmap wp7: CDMA support, IE9, SkyDrive, Twitter, multitasking

The big news last week was that Nokia was the transition to Windows phone as its primary smartphone platform. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, however, Microsoft had much more to share regarding the future of WP7. Here are several new features and features coming this year: first important update: a free account will be made available for all Windows phones in the first two weeks of March, which includes new features like copy & paste and the performance of your application faster.Availability on CDMA Networks: with the addition of support for networks CDMA phone Windows will also be available for multiple customers on mobile operators such as Verizon and Sprint in the first half of 2011. Twitter integration Hub people: the popular social networking service Twitter will be integrated into the hub people in the second half of 2011. storage in the cloud Office document: document sharing and archiving in the cloud via Windows Live SkyDrive to Windows phone will be added in the second half of 2011. Next generation browsing with Internet Explorer 9: Windows phone, you will add a browser of Internet Explorer 9 greatly improved in the second half of 2011. It will feature the same support standards (HTML5, etc.) and hardware accelerated graphics as the PC version.More Multitasking: we will add the ability to quickly switch between applications, run apps in the background (like listening to music), with a number of other features in the second half of 2011. Developers will learn much more about this during the MIX conference in April.

Microsoft also has the opportunity to announce that now has over 30,000 registered Windows Phone developers. They have built 8000 apps for date, adding approximately 100 new titles every day.

In the video above you can see how multitasking will work on WP7. Below, the image on the left shows how integrating SkyDrive will appear while the image on the right shows an obvious IE9 mobile performs GPU acceleration demonstration.

A spokesperson for Microsoft, "was only a year ago that we unveiled Windows Phone 7 in the world for the first time," he said in the statement. "Was more than the launch of a new product. Windows Phone 7 represents the best from Microsoft including Xbox LIVE, Office, Bing, Hotmail and Windows Live, adding that deep integration of third-party experiences more like Facebook, as well as thousands of developers. For consumers, we set out to make Windows easier to use and most delicious phones in the market. With the Windows phone, our priority was to build phones that people love. Our phones are diversified so that are designed and how that experiences are beautifully integrated and seamless. This focus on smart design makes it easier and faster to get the information you care about. And with Windows phone Hubs, we organize information, applications and services in one place. "

IT support to become a social affair? Service-now certainly hopes so

Service-winter version of Now its on demand software is going to be an interesting experiment in the world of Social Affairs. The general theme: use social networking tools to make support easier and more productive.

The release of the winter was officially available on Wednesday, but was in the hands of some customers from Feb. 4. Key elements include:

Chat functionality so that users can more easily communicate with it. " Groups can also create chat rooms. Hey, get ready for enterprise IT groups "we are fed up with IE6 and XP dammit!".

Service-now Live much like Facebook and Twitter. Users can post things on the wall of IT support. The idea is that users may be able to resolve their problems.

Flows of information that can be tracked with hash tags. IT support and users can follow these streams. Service-now call these flows-the very first zeitgeist IT. "

Add it and this winter release becomes part of the service-now it 3.0 rap, which revolves around making IT service and support business "people-centric".

It is an intriguing idea and one that makes me a little chuckle because I know how many people would rather duck IT support when users are stupid questions. Now those stupid questions can become part of your IT support wall.

We caught up with Director Craig Mr McDonogh, Service-now of product management, to get some other points. Here's the summary:

What gain productivity here? Mr McDonogh noticed that it supports worker can handle requests chat three and five at a time than a call. There will be any distractions? "You could have a situation in which a worker is easily distracted, but I disagree with that," he said. "The benefits are tangible and productivity far outweigh any negative impact".Users will flock to these tools? Mr McDonogh said that the winter version is not a generic collaboration tool. Social tools are specific to the IT Department.What is the biggest victory here? Mr McDonogh said that these social tools can allow users to resolve their problems. "Business users know as much about the technology they are using as your IT Department. We are providing a tool to support peer-to-peer and capture the information in a Knowledge base, "he said. "The community of users has grown dramatically over the past 10-15 years".

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic.