MIPS based Ainovo Novo7 Android 4.0 tablet is now out in the Asian market and will soon hit the  US market in the coming months. Folks at MIPS Technologies are offering the first Ice Cream Sandwich Android tablet at a cheap price of $99. The tablet is manufactured originally by Ainol Electron HK, which came to US under Ainovo branding.

the Ainovo Novo7 comes with a 1GHz single-core MIPS processor coupled with a powerful Vivante GC860 GPU chip, Wi-Fi and 3G (external) capability, front and back-facing cameras, a 7-inch capacitive multitouch touchscreen display, and of course best of all – Android’s 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. It also boasted a 300 hour stand by battery life and ability to play demanding gameloft games like Spiderman Total Mayhem which comes in bundled with the unit.

“I’m thrilled to see the entrance of MIPS-Based Android 4.0 tablets into the market,” Said Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile, in a statement today.

Ainol created a buzz in the Android tablet market when it introduced the Novo 7 tablets, particularly the Novo 7 Advanced version (which I ordered and will receive the unit any time soon – watch out for my review soon here in Pinoy Live). The Ainovo Novo7 was also speculated in the Android community to be a rebranded Ainol Novo 7 Basic with ICS.  The Novo7 is available now in China, and IDG reports it will hit shelves in the US and Europe over the next few months, likely under brand names such as Leader International and OMG Electronics.

It’s all over the news and currently trending that apparently an iPhone 4 exploded and spontaneously combusted on a flight from Lismore to Sydney. The hottest gadget in the market literally became too hot to handle for one passenger aboard Australian flight Regional Express ZL319 on Friday.  According to a Regional Express statement, the iPhone 4 (not the latest iPhone 4s model) suddenly started “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow,”. The flight attendant immediately carried out emergency and recovery actions and the red glow was extinguished successfully. The plane was in the midst of landing when the incident occured.

iPhone 4 Explodes Midflight (credit: ABC News)

There are no official statement yet on what specifically caused the iPhone to combust but investigations are underway. In the past, most phone and gadget explosions were battery related, particularly Lithium Ion batteries overheating. In 2009, the European Union launched an investigation after multiple instances of explosions or catching fire midflight happened to iPhones and iPod touches in France, Holland, Sweden and the U.K. Similarly, in 2005 and 2006, Apple also recalled its first generation iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 due to battery overheating.

Apple Chairman and former CEO Steve Jobs is dead. The Apple co-founder who made personal computers, smartphones, tablets, multimedia and digital animation mass-market products passed away today October 5th, 2011 after a long bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. He was just 56 years old.

Steve Jobs has been suffering from many health issues as well after he was diagnosed and had surgery in August of 2004. Apple this year announced in January about his indefinite medical leave and eventually stepped down from his CEO role late August.

He also had a liver transplant in April 2009 while on a six-month leave of absence that year. He still worked for a year and a half after that before he announced himself stepping down as Apple CEO last August. ”I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.” Jobs told his employees.

A legendary businessman in American history and technology icon in the global computing industry, Jobs has  transformed computers not just as machines that not only anyone could use, but something that we would enjoy using. He made them something that would be part of our lives. And he did that again and again with the Mac, the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Apple and personal computing originated with the launch of the Apple I in 1976. Together with Steve Wozniak, they started and formed Apple Computer in a garage. He continued developing the Mac which up to now continued to enjoy rapid market share.  In the early 2000s, legal digital music recordings were brought into the mainstream with the iPod and iTunes, then iPhone blew-up and revolutionize the  mobile phone industry in 2007. Jobs played an instrumental role in the development of all three, and still managed to find time to transform the best computer-generated movie studio Pixar. Pixar’s films were innovative and it pushed the boundaries of CGI to such an extent that even today its early films still look great.

Jobs attended Reed College in Oregon but dropped out after a year. He had a brief stint with Atari then spent some time in India furthering his interest in Buddhism. Back in California, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple in 1976. By 1985, Apple CEO John Sculley whom he convinced to leave Pepsi and Joined Apple, removed Jobs from his position leading the Mac team. Jobs later on resigned from Apple. He founded NeXT which would later on be the development model for Apple’s software operating systems. He married Laurene Powell in 1991,  a Stanford MBA student whom he met on an entrepreneurialism speech Jobs gave in 1989. They had three children, Reed born in 1991, Erin in 1995, and Eve born in 1998. Jobs also had another daughter named Lisa whom he refused to acknowledge for the first few years but eventually reconciled with her and her mother Chris-Ann Brennan,  who was his girlfriend during high-school. In 1996, Jobs returned to Apple which is in shambles and losing money at the time. He immediately brought back glitter, buzz and profitability to the company making Apple today the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world surpassing ExxonMobil’s market capitalization in August.

n 2005, he inspirationally remarked in his transcript of speech to Stanford students: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Later, in 2007, Jobs and rival Bill Gates appeared together in a lengthy interview at the D: All Things Digital conference exchanging mutual praise with each other and prophetically quoting the Beatles: “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.”

Jobs leaves behind his wife, four children, two sisters, and 49,000 Apple employees. We will surely miss him. Computing industry and technology will never be the same without him.

As a small tribute, you may want to download and use this simple wallpaper that we made for him. Goodbye Mr. Jobs. Job well done.

Steve Jobs wallpaper tribute. Click on image to download wallpaper.

Search giant Google, Inc. launches today its new music discovery site Magnifier where you can find new music, create your own collection and add free songs to them.

According to Google Music Beta product manager Paul Joyce, Magnifier is a step further from Google Music Beta which is a service that allows users to upload personal music collection to the cloud and listen to them via Web or from their Android phones or tablets.

“(Magnifier is) a new music discovery site that will keep your collection growing. Magnifier will feature great music and the people who make it, including videos of live performances, interviews with artists, explorations of different musical genres and free songs that you can add to your Music Beta collection,” Joyce said in a post at Google’s official blog.

Magnifier will feature new artists weekly. You can also watch videos, live performances, artist interviews, music tracks and more.

You will be needing a Music Beta account to get free tracks. You can request for an invitation if you don’t have one.

Indie Rock bank My Morning is the first artist to debut in Magnifier. You can head on to Magnifier if you want to get a free taste of their two free music tracks.

Microsoft recently launched a new blog and Twitter account to chronicle the development of their next operating system, Windows 8.

“Building Windows 8″ blog welcome post (also known as B8) was written by Windows President Steven Sinofsky explaining the team’s objective with the blog:

“Blogging allows us to have a two-way dialog with you about design choices, real-world data and usage, and new opportunities that are part of Windows 8. Together, we will start the unique adventure of bringing a major product to market. We’re genuinely excited to talk about the development of Windows 8 and to engage thoughtfully with the community of passionate end-users, developers, and information professionals.”

Sinofsky and Windows SVP Jon DeVaan hosted a similar blog during Windows 7 development period called “Engineering Windows 7″ blog (also known as E7).

“We started the Engineering Windows 7 blog in 2008 in recognition of the need to re-engage the community and rebuild trust relative to the engineering and design of Windows. While engineering Windows 7, we learned some great lessons and renewed our sense of responsibility to the community,” wrote Sinofsky.

Microsoft’s development team plans to make the blog available to a wider range of readers by offering “B8″ posts in several other languages within 48 hours of the English language posts. Blog posts will also come from many members of the development team instead of just two admins.

B8 Twitter account @BuildWindows8 will also be updated regularly with notifications about recent developments and blog posts.

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced that the new USB 3.0 standard will soon have enough current to power and charge devices like notebook PCs, external hard drives, monitors, desk lamps and many other electronic devices.

The new specification dramatically raises USB 3.0′s old input and output power to more than twenty times its old capacity. USB 3.0 ports were introduced with high data transfer rate of up to 5Gb/s with a maximum power output of 4.5W maintaining currents and voltages of up to 900mA at 5V. This is already about twice the maximum power output that USB 2.0 offers but would still struggle to power most plugged in devices like external hard drives.

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group also announced that the new 3.0 standard will be ready for evaluation by end of this year and will be released to manufacturers early 2012.

While the overall mobile device market is growing, smart phones and tablets running Google Android platform is fast gaining market share against close competitors like Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerrys according to the latest study by market research firm ComScore.

With Android’s popularity and huge base of users, its apps and games library continue to grow big as well. The Android software market also contains tons of free apps and games. So today we gathered ten of the best, most popular and must have Android games that you can install and play for free. So if you’re looking for the best way to kill free time and have fun with your Android mobile device, you came to the right place.

1. Angry Birds Rio

Angry Birds Rio basically has the same catapult gameplay with the original and popular Angry Birds. It is upgraded with different interface and parallax scrolling added giving the game more visual depth. It also includes 60 well designed game levels. Angry Birds Rio story revolves around main characters Blu and Jewel. With their friends kidnapped and taken to Rio, they set out to save them from their captors. In Rio’s first world, you need to break fellow birds instead of pigs. In the second world you need to defeat monkeys, and in the 60th level you get a boss fight. If you enjoyed playing the original Angry Birds, you’ll surely have a good time with this one.

2. Paradise Island

This is a new simulation game from Cooper Media Corp. Paradise Island lets you build your own island empire all the way up. You basically need to get people go to your island and keep them happy with their stay. Paradise Island has a lot of depth in it and you’ll enjoy playing it keeping you engaged for several days. It has cool graphics, smooth gameplay and controls are superb.

3. Bonsai Blast

Bonsai Blast is an award-winning game that has similar gameplay with the ever popular and addictive casual puzzle game Zuma. It borrows the same matching of three or more colored marbles snaking along a conga line with a few additional features like the ability to change or switch location of your ball-shooter and the levels where you can bounce your marbles off solid walls. Graphics is great, touch screen control is very responsive and the 90 level Zen Garden is beautifully rendered to provide you many hours of fun and pure marble blasting bliss.

4. Jewels

Jewels for Android is very familiar to many who have played the popular and addictive Bejeweled game from Popcap Games. It has the same game objective of lining up three or more jewels to get points. It offers four kinds of game modes: arcade, timed, quick and infinite . Graphics and sound is almost very identical to the original Bejeweled game. If you missed playing Bejeweled and want to play it for free on your Android device, or if you simply want to kill time with your mobile device, this game might be for you.

5. Tank Hero

Tank Hero’s gameplay itself is very addictive and fun to play with. It’s very reminiscent of the classic Battle City Nintendo game. With Tank Hero, you take out your enemies using a variety of tank weapons like cannons, heat seekers, and howitzers. If features OpenGL 3D graphics, 2 game modes: campaign and Survival with 40 levels each, 5 types of AI tanks to battle with, multi-touch and trackball control system. Tank Hero is one awesome first-person 3D tank fighting game you surely don’t want to miss.

6. NinJump

Ninjump for Android is a simple game of agility and test of reflexes which is similar to another Ninja game Ninjatown: Trees of Doom wherein you’re scaling both sides of the screen, swinging and slicing up anything along the path as a ninja warrior. The main objective of this game is to run up the walls while you fight off ravenous birds, hyper squirrels and deadly ninjas collecting as much points as you can to beat your highest score. One cool thing about Ninjump is that you can attack and destroy three of the same thing in a row and you get powered up of some sort, absorb their abilities and plow your way through your enemies. Overall this game is great and guaranteed to give you hours of fun.

7. Cordy

Help Cordy the robot power up his world in this free Android game released by SilverTree Media. You help Corby by collecting objects in each level opening up doors to the next level. You will encounter different obstacles with each level but certain instructions and objects will be provided to overcome these obstacles. Overall, this game is definitely worth it with its unique gameplay and stunning 3D graphics. The free version is currently available with limited number of levels. If you want to play more, you may want to spend a little for the paid version.

8. Ant Smasher

Best, Cool and Fun Games’ Ant Smasher is one great way to kill time and ants. It is one of the most popular mobile device game around which is simple yet addictive. Share your ant smashing scores globally with its Facebook and Twitter integration.

9. Rocket Bunnies

Rocket Bunnies from Chillingo has been around for quite a while now and enjoying popularity in the Android and iPhone gaming market with millions of downloads from the app store. Rocket Bunnies is an action puzzle type of game that will keep you engaged for long hours. Slingshot a rocket-propelled bunny around the universe from planet to planet helping your hungry rabbit friends along the way while avoiding various cosmic obstacles in a 60 wicked levels of fun packed with hare raising moments. Rocket Bunnies is the best space rabbit simulator game you’ll ever played with for free.

10. Aliens Invasion

Aliens Invasion from iTreeGamer is a fun and exciting shooting game. You’re a cowboy and an alien invasion survivor that must fight aliens to survive. You start off with only an ax and a pistol then you’ll get a chance to acquire twelve different kinds of weapons as you go along, destroy aliens and collect money which you will use to buy arms. See how long you will survive in this alien infested gaming world in this free and fun filled action shooting game.

Google+ is the latest foray of Google into social networking arena. It has been enjoying phenomenal viral growth hitting the 10-million-user mark on July 12, exactly two weeks after its beta version was launched on June 28 in an invite-only field testing phase. And if you’re one of the early adopters enjoying Google Plus right now, but seems to encounter some minor problems, functionality gaps or want it to be a bit faster with improvements without waiting for the official and more improved Google Plus model, you can try these 12 most useful Google Chrome extensions for a better Google+ experience. We would also like you to share in your comments if you’ve found other useful Chrome extensions for Google+.

1. +Everything

Currently, Google+ notifications bar only shows up when your on any Google service or app. +Everything is an extension for Chrome that lets you add the Google+ bar at the top of all websites you visit.
Click here to download and install

2. G+ Extended

This extension gives you additional shortcuts for Google+, including +1, shares, and expanded comments like pressing “+” for +1-ing a post and “-” for removing your +1.
Click here to download and install

3. Facebook Friend Exporter

Having trouble convincing your Facebook friends to join you in Google+? Get all your data contacts in Facebook (whether they want it or not) to Google Contacts or CSV format with this Chrome extension.
Click here to download and install

4. Google+Facebook

This is another great extension that will help your transition from Facebook to Google+.  Google+Facebook is a multi-browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) extension that streams your Facebook news feed into your Google+ profile. Facebook also gets its own tab in your Google+ navigation bar.
Click here to download and install

5. Helper for Google+

This extension gives you search function and lets you share to Twitter. It also gives you desktop notifications for new Google+ posts plus a translate button that lets you translate posts.
Click here to download and install

6. Extended Share for Google+

A very handy Chrome extension that allows you to share easily posts to Twitter, Facebook or Linkdln by clicking an add on “Share” button on your Google+ posts.
Click here to download and install

7. +Comment Toggle

If your stream has become cluttered with long list of comments, this extension will save you some scrolling time. +Comment Toggle allows you to hide and expand comment tally on posts in your Google+ stream.
Click here to download and install

8. Plus One Anything

A very useful Chrome extension that lets you +1 almost any web page (won’t work on private pages) allowing you to share its content on your Google+. It adds a +1 button on your browser’s toolbar.
Click here to download and install

9. Start G+

Start G+ is allows you to put your Facebook and Twitter streams on your Google+ stream and vice versa. It also adds a Gmail inbox notifier at the top bar of your browser and lets you access your Gmail directly inside Google+.
Click here to download and install

10. G+Fix

G+Fix will help you reduce scrolling time accessing Google+ menu bar by making it sticky and visible all the time.
Click here to download and install

11. Usability Boost for Google+

Improve your Google+ readability with this helpful extension. Usability Boost for Google+ allows you to make small CSS changes that will arrange your content and separate posts and comments.
Click here to download and install

12. +Photo Zoom

+Photo Zoom is a very simple extension that lets ou hover over an image within your Google+ stream allowing to zoom them fast and easy.
Click here to download and install

Spotify has been trending the Internet news lately mainly due to its recent US debut. Spotify could be the best free music service around but unfortunately, Spotify is only available in US and European countries, and the free version is invite-only.

So if you don’t live in the US, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands, you would be looking for Spotify like sites offering similar service or free music online. Fret not, we have compiled 10 of the best and most popular free alternatives to Spotify offering free online music accessible wherever you are.

1. last.fm

Last.fm is a music community website offering free music recommendation services. It offers personalized internet radio where you can create your own profile using a recommendation system called “Audioscrobbler”.

Platform: Online, Mac, iPhone, Windows, Linux, Android

2. Grooveshark

Grooveshark offers an easy way to listen to onine free music. It is internationally available with millions of songs to choose from allowing you to search, stream, and upload. All free of charge.

Platform: Online, Mac, iPhone, Windows, Linux, Android, S60, Blackberry

3. iTunes

Apple iTunes is not just for syncing your iPod anymore. iTunes is a proprietary digital media player application from Apple that you can use for playing free streaming audio and organizing digital music and video files.

Platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Windows

4. Jamendo

Jamendo is a community of free, legal and unlimited music published under Creative Commons license or Free Art license. With Jamendo, you can share your music and download your favorite artists. Jamendo allows streaming in either Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format, direct download links, and downloads through BitTorrent.

Platform: Online, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Win Mobile, Android, Blackberry

5. SongZilla

SongZilla is a free online music repository site. It offers very simple no-fuss way of finding, playing and downloading free music straight from your browser without requiring registration.

Platform: Online, Mac, Windows, Linux

6. Libre.fm

Libre.fm is a music community website that aims to provide a Free Software replacement for last.fm. Artists release tracks under free culture license of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license where community members can listen to and download tracks.

Platform: Online

7. Deezer

Deezer is a Paris based free and legal streaming music service were you can create and share playlists, listen to online radio and view your listening profile and history.

Platform: Online, iPhone, iPad, Win Phone 7, Android, Java, Blackberry

8. Jango

Jango is an easy and fun way to listen to free internet radio that plays user-selected artists alongside similar artists where you setup your own radio station based on artists and music you like and let its built-in algorithms discover and recommend you other similar music.

Platform: Online, iPhone, iPad

9. Musicovery

Musicovery is an interactive Internet radio site that presents color-keyed graphic interface where users can select/deselect genre, play (low fidelity free service or high-fidelity premium service) and rate songs.

Platform: Online, iPhone, iPod, S60

10. Live365

Live365 is an online radio network where users can create and listen to their own radio stations or listen to other Live365 broadcast stations. Listeners can choose from a variety of music styles and provides software to upload MP3 files and schedule playlists to play at certain times.

Platform: Online, Mac, iPhone, iPod, Windows, Android

If you have an iPhone and a bunch of SLR-compatible lenses lying around, you can pair both with Photojojo’s iPhone SLR mount and turn your iPhone into a DSLR.

The new must have iPhone accessory is a bit pricey at $249, but considering how it can transform your iPhone’s so-so camera into a thousand dollar optic device might well be worth it.

This new iPhone add-on device funtion as a special iPhone case with UV filter and SLR adapter which you can mount a variety of photo lenses like telephoto, wide angle, macro, or fixed 50mm.

One drawback is your photos will be upside down. This is primarily due to the lack of SLR mirror from iPhone that flips the image automatically right-side.

Folks at Photojojo will have this accessory ready for shipment once you order. iPhone 4 version is priced at $249 while the iPhone 3 variant will only cost you $190.