If you want to contribute toward the pixelated glory of the species, look away from Foursquare, Uber, Snapchat, Temple Run, “Path,” or whatever the hell else. These are sideshows and baubles. Chipotle’s first update since 2009 is why tech matters. More »
A year ago this week, the Android Market sloughed its cocoon, emerging triumphant and sassy as a Google Play butterfly. To celebrate the metamorphosis, Google’s giving stuff away, for free, all week. More »
Tablets are reinventing how students access and interact with educational material, and how teachers assess and monitor students’ performance at a time when many schools are understaffed and many classrooms overcrowded.
NTT Docomo has what it calls a health service called “i Bodymo” – a smartphone app that tracks the movement of your body – counts the number of steps you take all day, the calories you burn, the time and distance of exercise such as jogging, and can track the food and calories you burn.
They have announced that they have added 2 fun new features:
“Pikukyara” – a function that shows a character in the app based on your picture that will act according to …
As Google continues to work on improving Chrome for Android, today’s update for the company’s beta build of its browser appears to be a step in the right direction. Aside from the usual stability improvements and bug fixes, version 26.0.1410.26 adds two major additions. Lurking within this new software update is a data compression feature powered by Chrome for Android’s recently uncovered SPDY-powered proxy boost. When enabled, this feature optimizes HTTP traffic over an SSL connection and transcodes images to Google’s homegrown WebP format to reduce file sizes. In addition to turning your browser into a speed demon, this optional setting also uses Safe Browsing, which checks the sites you’re visiting against a list of potential threats for malware and phishing.
Further focusing on efficiency, this new update adds the ability to sync autofill and saved passwords across mobile devices. Google says it will deploy this new feature “in the coming days” and notes that you’ll also need the latest version of Chrome’s desktop beta in order to successfully sync your account. So, with that said, we suggest you wait at least a day or two before using your smartphone to go on a shopping spree, because those online checkout forms can be downright tortuous.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Google (1), (2)
I had a little bit of time to play with the Chromebook Pixel today and I’m a regular user of the Acer C7, a $199 machine that is wildly underpowered but good enough on a bad day. I really like the concept and I really like ChromeOS – it’s a solid way to get a little browsing done, say, in a cyber cafe or hotel bar. It isn’t, however, an OS.
As Linus Torvalds notes, the Pixel is an amazing piece of hardware and it makes you wonder just what other laptop manufacturers are thinking. It’s pricey, sure, but the touchscreen works well, the display is striking, and the styling is on par with the MacBook. Even MG (the G stands for Grumpy) liked it, and he doesn’t like anything.
But then there’s the problem of apps. Torvalds writes:
The creator of Linux, the paragon of pure computing, wants to install a “real distro.”
Ouch.
What the Chomebooks can’t yet do is run real applications. I’m currently dual-booting my C7 so I can install Skype on Ubuntu and you get this sense, once you’re in a real environment, that ChromeOS is like one of those “pre-OSes” that they used to stick on laptops so you could browse the web and watch movies without booting into Windows. It’s not all there.
That’s fairly easy to fix: allow vendors to create real apps for the platform. After all, Google is the “open” company, right? There should be a way for me to jackhammer Skype and Audacity into the ChromeOS environment. After all, a beautiful big screen is useless when all you open on it is Gmail.
Apps matter. As much as everyone clamors that Windows Phone and BB10 will thrive, they can’t do it without lots and lots and lots of apps. They can’t win without a dedicated developer base and groups of users who go out of their way to learn programming just to program for their favorite platform. While web-based apps are fun, in theory, we’re just not there yet in terms of real value. In the uncanny valley of application programming, HTML5 and attendant technologies are too stiff and jerky, like the humans in the first Toy Story movie. We need a few more years to bake them into real usability.
Until then, we’re stuck turning silk purses into sow’s ears (or, depending on your opinion of Linux, silk purses into penguins). I can’t, for example, recommend that my Mom pick up a Chromebook because she’ll immediately hit a brick wall when she wants to, say, Skype my in-laws. We can regress the argument down to “Well, they can use Google Hangouts” but that doesn’t solve the problem. In human-computer interaction, there should be more than one way to do something. That way, I’m sad to say, is through the introduction of a full SDK.
Google Maps on iOS has been updated with a new cocktail button. Eat your heart out Apple Maps.
There was a time when you’d shop for things in person as opposed to online. Convenient. Which then made shopping in person pretty boring because, well, it’s all the same crap everywhere you go. Then the same thing happened to the Internet save for a few “indie” sellers on Etsy and some hipsters on Kickstarter. More »
Google Maps for iOS received its first major update today. Google Contacts are now integrated into the app, so it’ll now show your contacts’ addresses on the map when you search for their name. Plus, local search results have been improved, allowing users to narrow down options by choosing from categories like restaurants, etc.
What’s perhaps the best part about the new Google Contacts feature is that Google Maps will import your contacts’ addresses from your Google account, so there’s no need to keep the addresses stored on your iPhone. However, you will have to be signed into Google when using Google Maps in order for that particular feature to work.
The improved local search options include a section called “Nearby Places” where you can browse and discover new places that are near you. Categories consist of restaurants, bars, hotels, post offices, gas stations, and more. It can certainly be helpful in your hometown, but it can be an asset if you’re roaming around in unfamiliar territory.
Google Maps made its return to iOS back in December by releasing a completely native app. This came after Apple ditched Google Maps in favor of their own mapping solution when they released iOS 6 back in September. YouTube was also ditched, but Google quickly released their own YouTube app to make up for the loss.
Google Maps for iOS updates with Google Contacts, local search improvements is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Google Maps for iOS debuted this past December, exceeding 10 million downloads in its first 24 hours of being available. Three months after its initial release, Google is announcing a big update for its popular mapping application.
Today’s update will introduce new search icons to make it easier to find local businesses such as restaurants, coffee shops, bars and additional local businesses. All you’ll need to do is tap on one of the icons and a number of businesses local to you will begin to populate your Google Maps search.
Google Maps for iOS will also introduce Google Contacts integration which allows you to navigate to friends and family that are saved in your Google Contacts by searching for their name, which will result in their address appearing, as long as you saved their address to your contacts database in the first place. Google may be trying to rule the world with its ability to know everything, but your friend’s address isn’t one of those things they’d know.
The Google Maps update should now be available for you to download on the App Store.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New iPad And iPhone 5S Pegged For April And August Release [Rumor], iOS 6 Jailbreak Evasi0n Installed On Over 14 Million Devices,
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