70% ue wireless to connect printers, smartphones

A massive 70 percent of   home users are using wireless technology to connect devices other than desktop PCs and laptops.

Half of all respondents to a poll on our sister site PC Advisor poll said that they use wireless to connect a lot of their gadgets and computing hardware, and a further 20 percent said they had done so in the past.

When asked 'Aside from a computer/laptop, do you connect different gadgets in your home together wirelessly?', 50 percent of readers responded with 'Yes, I wirelessly connect a lot of my technology'. The next most popular answer was 'Yes, I've tried it once or twice', with one fifth of the vote.

The least popular answer among readers was 'No, I don't have wireless', with only 2 percent of the vote. A similarly paltry 10 percent said 'No, I don't really know how to' - a perhaps unsurprising result from a poll of readers of a technical advice website. Four percent of respondents said they were not interested in wireless, and 14 percent responded with 'No, I don't have much wireless-enabled tech'.

The popularity of wireless is unsurprising -- it’s ubiquitous, and multifunctional. Around 19 million households in the UK have fixed internet access, and more than 90 percent of those have Wi-Fi-enabled broadband connections. Outside of the home, according to the Office For National Statistics the use of wireless hotspots almost doubled to 4.9 million users in the 12 months to August 2011. This has led to an explosion in the number of portable and household devices that utilise wireless connectivity.

Around 45 percent of internet users use a mobile device to connect to the internet, for instance. And with a connected PC and the right printer, it's now possible to print from anywhere in the house using a straightforward Wi-Fi connection, or anywhere in the world with a mobile device and wireless connectivity.

Once downloaded, you open the app, select a picture and hit send, and the app fires over the picture to the printer that's connected to your wireless network. With simplicity such as this, it’s easy to see why wireless gadgets are so popular.

See the full poll results here.

Google's Ice Cream Sandwich OS to launch before December

Android fans should expect to see Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Google's mobile operating system, in October or November, according to Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt.

"We have a new [Android] operating system, internally known as Ice Cream Sandwich...which is being released in October/November," Schmidt said during a talk at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Schmidt's comments were first reported by Android and Me.

Google has already said that Ice Cream Sandwich would debut during the fourth quarter of 2011, but Schmidt's comments suggest the release might come earlier than later during the last three months of the year.

Then again, it's not as if Schmidt gave a specific date or time frame for the release such as the last week of October or mid-November. So Schmidt's vague "October/November" statement may have simply been a general reference to the fourth quarter.

Waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich

Ice Cream Sandwich is an anticipated Android release largely because it will unify the Android OS from Gingerbread for phones and Honeycomb for tablets into one OS for all devices. That basically means smartphones will get some of the features first released for tablets in Honeycomb such as sliding widgets, the new task launcher and multitasking interface.

In August, leaked screenshots purportedly showed Ice Cream Sandwich running on a Nexus S device. The reports said the Android update had some previously undisclosed features such as a revamped Gmail interface, panorama mode for device cameras, and a new notification bar.

One of the first phones expected to run Ice Cream Sandwich could be the rumored Nexus Prime handset manufactured by Samsung. Like previous Nexus devices such as HTC's Nexus One and Samsung's Nexus S, the Prime will reportedly be a pure Android experience with no manufacturer overlays or carrier bloatware. The device is expected to have a large, Super AMOLED display with 1280-by-768 resolution, a dual-core processor, and a 5 megapixel camera.

Google has yet to officially announce when Ice Cream Sandwich will debut, but if you're thinking of buying a new Android phone, you might want to hold off for a few months to see what the initial Ice Cream Sandwich lineup will have to offer.

Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone gets an update

PopCap has announced that the iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies has got a big new update. The update adds nine new minigames taken from the computer versions of the game; a new microgame; and new Game Center achievements.

The 9 new minigames come in packs of 3 and can be purchased either using coins acquired in game or by paying £0.69 per pack to unlock them instantly. The first of the three packs includes Walnut Bowling, Seeing Stars and Bobsled Bonanza. The second includes Invisi-Ghoul, Last Stand and ZomBotany 2. The final pack includes Beghouled Twist, Pogo Party and Zombie Nimble Zombie Quick.

The update also includes a "Race to China" microgame challenging players to dig their way to China as quickly as possible with the promise of Game Center achievements for the victorious.

Update your copy of Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone today to get hold of the new content.

Adobe releases second free beta of Edge HTML5 animation tool

Adobe has released a second free beta version of its new Edge software for creating animated web pages and elements such as ads in HTML5. It's available from the Adobe Labs site.

Here's the skinny from the Labs site as to what's in the new version:

Smart guides — Precision guide and dimension markers are displayed when an object on the stage is moved/resized, helping to align objects in relation to others.

Specify semantic tags on managed elements — Change the tag type of each shape, image and text in Edge to reflect appearance in the HTML document object model (DOM).

Copy and paste elements — You can now copy and paste elements in Edge, to easily duplicate shapes, images or text. Duplicate images will refer to the same underlying asset.

Align and distribute elements — Select multiple elements, and align and distribute them via new options in the Modify menu.

Drag and drop z-index manipulation — In the elements panel, you can now control the z-order of shapes, text and images created in Edge.

Playhead time editing — You can now type into the timeline’s counter to move the playhead to a specific location, or by dragging the numeric value up or down with your mouse.

Windows 7 update — An error on the Windows version causing Edge to crash on startup is resolved, no longer requiring users to change the display bit depth from 32-bit to 16-bit.

jQuery update — Edge’s animation framework now works with the latest jQuery 1.6.2.

Further updates are expected soon.

Photograph 'taken on iPhone 5' emerges

What is claimed to be a photograph taken with the iPhone 5 has been circulated online.

The Pocket Now website has published the image which it says was shot by an Apple engineer eating his lunch at work.

The EXIF data of the image, which is of a rather appetising plate of sushi, shows that the original image was taken at a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels, which is just under 8MP.

However, the image has been cropped to 2235 x 2291, which is just over 5MP. But the EXIF data also shows the lens to be a 4.3mm f/2.4, whereas the iPhone 4 has a 3.85 f/2.8 lens.

The ThisIsMyNext website has further analysed the image and claims that the device that took the picture can be seen in the reflection from the edge of the plate. However, it's difficult to make anything out from the image, except for a person holding a something between two outstretched hands.

8MP camera for iPhone 5 evidence strengthens

"Is this the first incredibly indistinct picture of the iPhone 5?" the site asks. We're not so sure - after all, the EXIF data could easily have been faked.

Lion compatibility is music to Sonos customers' ears

Lion users who found that they could no longer stream music to their Sonos speakers after upgrading from Snow Leopard are in luck: As promised, the company has released an update to its Sonos Controller app that corrects the issue; choose Check for Updates from the Sonos menu to get the latest version.

Back in July, Sonos wrote on its official blog:

At Sonos, one of our goals is to to provide you with uninterrupted access to all the music on earth. Earlier this week, we failed to deliver on this goal for many of our Mac OS X customers. We realize that our communication on the issue was tardy and did not provide the exemplary customer service we strive to provide. We're incredibly sorry for any inconvenience our error caused.

The company said that "a file-sharing bug that is inherent to the OS" caused the extended delay in releasing the software update, which, at the time, it said would be available "in the next few weeks." In a since-removed forum post, Sonos explained that Lion employs a new, proprietary implementation of the SMB protocol, not the open-source Samba implementation that Sonos previously relied upon.

The update is free, and of course recommended for all Sonos customers running Lion.

iPhone 5 assembly has begun - report

Apple manufacturers have begun assembling the iPhone 5 in preparation for an October launch, it has been claimed.

According to Macotakara, a Chinese source has reported that Foxconn and Pegatron have begun assembling the iPhone 5 in preparation for an early October launch in the US and a late October launch for Asia. Timescales for other territories are not mentioned.

The report also claims that the units, once assembled, are not being boxed up. This is because Apple is not ready to install iOS 5 on them yet, so presumably this will happen at a later date.

Lost iPhone 5 prototype and other rumours

We heard back in early August that Apple had ordered 10 million iPhone 5s from Pegatron and that the company would begin shipping them to Apple in September, which fits in with the latest reports. A photograph taken at a plant belonging to Wintek in mid-August was claimed to show an iPhone 5 production line.

Components for the iPhone 5 went into production in July , Digitimes reported, and since then there have been several mystery components that could be for the iPhone 5 or perhaps an iPhone 4S spotted in circulation.