Jul 25
Jul 25
Mark Zuckerberg ruffled some feathers when he said the iPad “isn’t mobile” enough to deserve a dedicated Facebook app. But now it’s U-turn time. TechCrunch just revealed that not only has Facebook created a fully-fledged iPad app, they’ve even released it — albeit in secret. The code lies buried in yesterday’s update to the iPhone app and it’s entirely executable on jailbroken tablets. What’s the software like? Well, TechCrunch reckons the left-sided navigation system and use of overlay menus is “great,” as is the ability to chat with buddies while simultaneously doing other Facebook tasks in landscape mode. There’s also a ton of screen grabs at the source link which tell much of the story. However, it surely won’t be long before we can make our own minds up.
Facebook just released a dedicated iPad app, except it didn’t originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jul 23
Google acquires PittPatt, wants to know you on a face-to-face basis
Posted in: Google, Today's Chili, YouTube
Google’s quietly pitter-pattering its acquisitive ways back into the controversial realm of facial recognition technology. To do that, the company busted out its oversized wallet to fold Pittsburgh-based PittPatt into the Mountain View borg. Founded by a trio of PhD’s from Carnegie Mellon University, this three-man strong outfit specializes in the sort of object recognition software you’ve come to know as “tagging.” Is this a reversal of the Do No Evil tech giant’s prior waffling on the dubious visioning tech, or just another massive weapon in its social networking crusade against Facebook? We’d err on the side of both, although the company’s new employees aren’t exactly playing their cards for us to see. A brief statement on the triumvirate’s site makes vague mention of “computer vision technology” being core to Google’s products and points to the tech’s planned integration in photo, video and mobile applications. So, basically, expect to see Picasa, Goggles, YouTube and Google+ watch you as you flaunt your internet celebrity ways to that front-facing camera.
Google acquires PittPatt, wants to know you on a face-to-face basis originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 22
HTC Status review
Posted in: Android, att, gingerbread, Google, hspa, HTC, htc sense, HtcSense, keyboard, qualcomm, qwerty, review, sense, smartphone, Smartphones, Today's Chili
For many smartphone users, a quality keyboard is the only feature that truly matters. These passionate devotees will proudly live and die with their thumbs blazing, and for of all RIM’s recent troubles, it’s currently floating on a life preserver: a compelling handset with a portrait QWERTY keyboard doesn’t exist for Android. The HTC Status ($50 on contract) attempts to succeed where others have failed, and — if it’s any good — could entice many BlackBerry-toting teens that want a new handheld fixation. They rarely bother with email, as text messages and Facebook reign supreme for communication. To that end, the Status promotes itself as the perfect phone for Facebook users, but is the integration truly useful, or simply a chintzy add-on? More so, can HTC successfully marry Gingerbread with an upright keyboard? Join us after the break to learn whether we “Like” the HTC Status.
Gallery: HTC Status review
Continue reading HTC Status review
HTC Status review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 22
Gizmodo reader Tal Ater agreed that Facebook’s new chat system is a clusterzuck of confusion, so he created a little program to fix it! It will take off the list anyone who’s offline. Here’s how to do it: More »
Jul 19
Japan Mobile Marketing Round-Up Part 5
Posted in: MARKETING IDEAS, mobile, Smartphones, Today's Chili, twitterAlready this series has been examining the growth of Facebook in Japan, the issues it faces and its efforts to combat its initial stagnation.
There’s no getting around the social networking site’s global success. Nielsen figures for May indicate that its usership increased 18% and it will likely secure a 17.7% share of the U.S. online advertising market for 2011, overtaking Yahoo’s 13.1%.
Internet surveys by Mobile Marketing Data Labo. and Metaphase have revealed fairly clear local trends. In particular, users in their twenties and thirties are rapidly increasing, and businesses are starting to see returns on the “like” functions on their official Facebook pages.
MMD’s April survey of 152 — admittedly, not a vast number — SNS users found that Twitter had by far the most success with consumers following corporate accounts (55.9%). Facebook came second with 35.5%. Meanwhile, separate year-long tracking of Twitter and Facebook among 1,300 social media users revealed large gains in Twitter usage for users in their twenties and thirties, but a slight dip among teenagers. More decisively, Facebook saw zero movement among teenagers in the same period but massive jumps of 30% and 40% for users in their twenties and thirties respectively.
The Metaphase June survey of 300 users found that over 60% of users who log in to Facebook at least 3 times a month were clicking “like” on official corporate Facebook pages, and thus sharing brand content with their friends. Over a third of these users recognized that Facebook offered unique information and content on these pages and over 30% of users who “liked” a company’s page also actually purchased their services.
The suggestion is that the young digital native generation is still preoccupied with localized sites, but slightly more mature users are perhaps starting to turn away from the typical Japanese need for anonymity on SNS. In particular, no doubt upwardly mobile and entrepreneurial types see great benefits to Facebook and to utilization of the media as a promotional tool, as opposed to merely for viewing blogs about cats and meals. (Roughly 98.7% of all Japanese online content revolves around those two themes. Probably.)
Of course, anonymity has been one of the key differences between Facebook and mixi, but, perhaps aware that Facebook is at last making some inroads here, mixi has just recently introduced display changes so that your friends’ full names are visible. This is not necessarily a sign that mixi is abandoning its protection of user privacy, as previously it has flirted with this kind of change, only to back down following member hostility.
Bijin Tokei Goes National
Bijin-Tokei, the website clock service that features ordinary beautiful girls (”bijn”) on the street holding up boards with the time, has been a favorite of this blog for some time, and is no stranger to product collaborations, numerous spin-offs and imitators, and even updates on the state of Tokyo’s power supply.
In late June the site re-launched, now offering you simultaneously perusal of the ladies from different regions and, temptingly, even a voting function now. The girls with the most votes graduate to SUPER bijin-tokei, which offers a kind of crowd-sourced Japanese version of the “Beauty Map” study by the dubious British eugenicist Francis Galton.
3D game apps on Gree
Remember all the hype last year about 3D TVs that did not require glasses? The trend is still plodding along and now appears to be spreading to mobile gaming. Gree has started offering smartphone 3D apps using Unity, an American game development tool. Among the first titles there is CosmoLightning for iOS and Billiards by Gree for the Android.
CosmoLightning features a light ball that can be slid around the screen by your fingers, whereas Billiards by Gree is of course a version of billiards, but with 3D visuals and sound. Both games are free for registered Gree users. Neither sounds particularly exciting to this blogger but often the simplest of games win the most hearts.
This is the latest in a series of blogs based on newsletters provided by our local research partner, INterRIDE Inc.
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Jul 19
Facebook, Why Did You Screw Your Chat System?
Posted in: Today's Chili, top, ui
By now you’re probably one of the 500 million people who have noticed the new Facebook chat. Which means that one or more of these three words may be in your mind: Sucks. Stupid. Facebookassclowns. Here’s the lightning review: More »
Jul 15
The Facebook Phone Review: Let’s Just Pretend This Isn’t It
Posted in: Android, gingerbread, HTC, review, Smartphones, Today's Chili, top
The FACEBOOK PHONE is here. As it turns out, it’s a lot like a non-Facebook phone—a small Android phone with an astoundingly excellent keyboard. It just happens to have a Facebook button! Does this matter? Not much, no. More »
Jul 15
Microsoft leaks Tulalip internal project, planning to launch social search… thing?
Posted in: Google, leak, Microsoft, search, social networking, SocialNetworking, Today's Chili, twitter, web
Google’s Social Search may have to make room for an extra guest at the table, now that Microsoft has leaked the homepage for what looks like a new social service — of some sort. Fusible first discovered the page sitting at socl.com, a domain that MS recently purchased. Known as Tulalip (also the name of a group of Native American tribes near Redmond), the project promises to help users “find what you need and share what you know easier than ever” — which, at this early stage, is pretty difficult to do, considering that the page’s search field is non-functioning. The platform also features sign-in buttons for Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which leads to an authorization page explaining that Tulalip is an “experimental app,” and that it will be able to “update your profile” and “post tweets for you” (see the screenshot, after the break). It’s too early, of course, to say whether or not the service will launch as a direct competitor to Social Search, or if it’ll even get off the ground, though Microsoft insists that it didn’t mean to tip its hand so early. The Socl.com welcome page now reads: “Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft’s research teams which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest.”
[Thanks, Brian]
Continue reading Microsoft leaks Tulalip internal project, planning to launch social search… thing?
Microsoft leaks Tulalip internal project, planning to launch social search… thing? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 14
Page: growth on Google+ has been great, over one billion items shared
Posted in: breaking news, Google, network, social networking, SocialNetworking, Today's Chili
Wondering why Google+ ran out of disk space? Looks like it might be a casualty of growth: in today’s earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page revealed that since its launch, more than ten million people have joined Google+, sharing some one billion items every day. Those numbers not big enough for you? Then chew on this: that little +1 button? It gets clicked 2.3 billion times per day in its own right. It’s still a far cry from the 750 million users actively addicted to Facebook, but still, that’s a heck of a start.
Page: growth on Google+ has been great, over one billion items shared originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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