December, 2011

CaterwaulJS is a JavaScript recompiler that allows changing semantics of functions.

Caterwaul comes with a modular decompiler, macroexpander, and a compiler; these components allow editing code in a first-class way.

Caterwaul offers several ideas (and macros) completely foreign to JavaScript.

The library is something of a conceptual solution, and the developer himself points it out in the documentation:

[After describing that the learning curve is an overhang]

It’s not actually quite this bad. It took me about two weeks to understand
how to use Caterwaul after I wrote it.

There’s an integrated shell in the homepage that allows you to toy around with caterwaul.

It goes without saying that Angry Birds is by far the most popular game on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. For long it has been the top grossing paid and free game on the iTunes App Store. Time and again Rovio, the parent company behind Angry Birds has updated its flagship game. Now they’ve released a major update, Angry Birds 2.0 is now available for download on your iOS device.

What’s New In Angry Birds 2.0:

Angry Birds 2.0 is essentially marking the successful two years of this insanely popular game franchise. The Angry Birds are celebrating their 2nd birthday, but the pigs are crashing the party and it’s up to you to save it! As a birthday gift Rovio has unlocked all episodes in Angry Birds 2.0. This means that you do not have to clear a previous episode to advance to the next one. Simply pick whatever episode you’d like to play and start flinging those birds away!

Angry Birds 2.0 now allows you to play 300 fully unlocked levels of Angry Birds. Apart from that, there are 15 special birthday cake levels that can also be played.

In essence, Angry Birds is an amazing physics-oriented game. The game play is so easy that even toddlers can play it without any difficulties. The object of Angry Birds is to fling, for lack of a better word, the wide variety of birds at pigs and destroy their defences. As we previously mentioned, Angry Birds can become a global phenomena ever since it first came out for the iPhone and since then it is available for a wide variety of platforms which include both desktop and mobile devices.

You can download Angry Birds 2.0 from the iTunes App Store right now using the link given below. All you need is an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 firmware or any later version. Be advised that Angry Birds 2.0 is priced at $0.99.

Download Angry Birds 2.0 For iPhone, iPad And iPod Touch [iTunes App Store Link]

By now you already know that the iPhone 4S happens to be Apple’s fastest selling iPhone to date. Regardless of the fact that it wasn’t a major upgrade over iPhone 4, it is still selling faster than the iPhone 4 did back in its day. So who wouldn’t, in the USA, like a discount on an iPhone 4S and iPhone 4? RadioShack is currently running a promotion in which it is offering $25 discount on both of the smartphones.

BGR initially received a tip about RadioShack’s promotion and sure enough, the image posted above clearly shows the discounted prices for both iPhone 4S and iPhone 4.

Regardless of this amazing promotion, there’s a little catch. This promotion is only valid for AT&T locked iPhones and does not apply to factory unlocked iPhones. Meaning that when you pick up an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S at these discounted prices, you’ll be signing a two-year contract with AT&T. The promotion is valid with effect from December 11, 2011 and will be running for an unknown period of time.

Both the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 4 models are on sale for $69.99 with a two year contract instead of the usual $99 price. Whereas the 32GB iPhone 4 model costs $169.99. The 16GB iPhone 4S is on sale for $169.99, 32GB iPhone 4S model is now priced at $269.99 and the 64GB iPhone 4 model is going to go for $369.99 during the course of this promotion.

Multiple RadioShack outlets have confirmed that they have all of these models in stock right now. It is possible that RadioShack will keep this promotion running throughout Christmas up to the New Year. So if you’re not worried about getting an iPhone on two year contract basis from AT&T, now is the perfect time to get your favourite iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S model at a discounted price from RadioShack.

Stitches is a next-gen open source web application for generating sprites with ease.

Stitches generates a neat sprite file and a stylesheet you can use in place of numerous separate images.

This is a must-have bookmark, as sprite making is a rather painful process (especially for non-designing types), and Stitches does the job really well, employing libraries such as Modernzr, Dropfile and Flashcanvas to make using this application as easy as ever.

TagCanvas is a standalone library (also available as a jQuery plugin) for creating a tag cloud with the canvas element.

As Flash seemed to dominate the “tag-cloud market”, its retreat due to losing its place in the new web, has paved way for features like canvas for creating games, interactive websites, and also tag clouds like these.

TagCanvas is a fully-animated tag cloud that also supports images as elements. What’s more, it’s supported even in IE<8, hence it employs the explorercanvas library.

Apple released the iPhone 4S earlier this year in October and already it has proved to be the best selling iPhone of all time. Apple promised to release its latest smartphone to over 80 countries around the world by the end of 2011 and one major market it has been consistent in is China. Finally, the iPhone 4S has been granted a Network Access License, meaning that the device is now cleared for official retail in the Republic of China.

Currently, the iPhone 4S is available for purchase from the grey markets in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai however these units are lucratively priced, some going for as much as $1200 a piece, nearly a $550 increase over the original $649 price of a factory unlocked iPhone 4S. Regardless of that, the grey market is flooded with iPhone 4S units coming in from far fledged countries like the UK, USA, China, Australia etc primarily because consumers in China are still buying iPhone 4S for themselves even when they’re being heavily ripped off.

Reportedly on December 6 China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology or MIIT granted a Network Access License to the iPhone 4S. Since the permit has been granted, state-owned carrier China Unicom is now prepping up for the official iPhone 4S launch in China which is likely to take place around Christmas or the New Year.

China has tough regulations when it comes to allowing operations of new devices in their country. The MIIT after a stringent testing phase has finally granted a three-year valid Radio Transmission Equipment Type Approval Certificate to the iPhone 4S. The other main carrier China Mobile has currently no plans of officially selling iPhone 4S as it too was waiting on this very permit. On the other hand, China Mobile has started all the necessary preparations required for a successful official iPhone 4S launch in China.

An unlocked 16GB iPhone 4S in China will reportedly be priced around 4,999 CNY, that is approximately equivalent to $786. It’s ironic to see that a product that’s manufactured in hell-like factories by cheap manual Chinese labour in China itself is priced more than the normal $649 price of the iPhone 4S.