Their MOTIV platform offers programmers and carriers a new way to add vibrational feedback to phones. For example, instead of a curt buzz when something explodes on screen, you can add special “macro” vibrations that turn the motor on and off at various frequencies, recreating the vibrations associated with an explosion. It’s a bit hard to describe, but think of an audio editor for buzzing motors.
posted Feb 2nd 2011 2:12PM 
Hard to believe that the infamous "fragmentation" term is now being bandied about in the web browser world, but sure enough, it's Microsoft using the term today to describe the brave new realm we're living in. If you'll recall, Google defended its decision to not include H.264 support natively in Chrome, but maintained that WebM plug-ins were coming to Safari and Internet Explorer 9. Today, Microsoft's kinda-sorta returning the favor. Following the outfit's release of a Firefox add-on to bring full H.264 support to Windows machines, the outfit is releasing a plug-in for Chrome (only the Windows version for now) that provides support for H.264. Furthermore, it's committed to supporting third-party WebM video plug-ins; to quote, users "will be able to play WebM video in IE9." It's fairly obvious that Microsoft's taking this golden opportunity to push its browser as one that supports everything (rather than just its own preferred format), but regardless of the motives, we're just happy to see differences put aside and compatibility finding priority. 
Version 2.0 [iTunes link], which appeared in the App Store Friday, allows users to buy and sell on eBay’s flagship auction site, as well as scan product barcodes for comparison shopping. Previously, the latter two capabilities were available only in independent apps, eBay selling [iTunes link] and RedLaser [iTunes link], the latter of which was acquired in June.
Now users can do everything on their iPhones that they could previously do on eBay.com — and then some. The integration of RedLaser’s barcode scanning technology is particularly useful, allowing users to quickly compare eBay’s prices to retail, and to pre-populate information about the items they’re selling (which, admittedly, will only be useful for those few goods that still have their barcodes intact).
For a more comprehensive overview of the new features, check out the video below.
