Hasta La Gadget!

New Yorkers are notoriously proud of their city, and what better way to show hometown love than with a .nyc address? According to Mayor Bloomberg’s official Twitter account, that will soon be possible for Big Apple residents. The just-launched website for the “ultimate New York City address” (har, har) says the top-level domain will help local businesses’ visibility in search results, in addition to eliminating all doubt as to where you reside. “Businesses, organizations and residents” will be eligible for the TLD, with registration beginning in late 2013. When it launches, .nyc will be the first city in the United States to receive a geography-based domain. Did you think New York would settle for anything less?

Filed under: Internet

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Source: .NYC, @MikeBloomberg

While the non-final build of Opera’s new browser for PC and Mac was simply called “Next,” today it’s chosen the more formal title of Opera 15 for its official release. There aren’t any features of note that we hadn’t seen in the desktop preview of the WebKit-based software (or should we call it Blink-based?), but to jog your memory, it sports a fresh design, a Discover feature for catching up on the latest news and a tweaked Speed Dial menu for quick access to your favorite corners of the internet. Also, the web-clipping Stash feature, predictive address-cum-search bar, new download manager and “Off-Road mode” for extra compression on lousy connections are all included in the final version. We ran a quick SunSpider benchmark on the Mac build of Opera 15, in which it scored 167ms, compared with 171ms in Chrome. If you’re not already allied to one of the many competing browsers and feel like giving Opera 15 a try, head to the source below for the download links.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Internet, Software

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Via: SlashGear

Source: Opera (1) (download), (2)

Here’s a nice little feature for those of us who love to post images on the internet. Bing has added the ability to refine image results by license. The addition’s simple enough to use — just do a search and pull the appropriate license from a drop down on the top of the results page, alongside options for date, size and color. Selections include public domain and options like “free to modify, share and use,” based on the Creative Commons licensing system, so there’s no doubt as to precisely how you can incorporate them into your own posts. Google’s had a similar option on its own search engine for some time — albeit one’s that’s a bit less prominently displayed.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Microsoft

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Source: Bing Blog

Facebook’s now out of beta and ready for primetime on Windows Phone 8, Microsoft announced today. It’s known as Facebook 5.0 and, aside from exiting beta, the latest version of Facebook for Windows Phone adds a revamped UI, as well as, “improved navigation, support for high-res pictures, post sharing, Facebook Timeline view, and more.” Should you wish to continue living just ahead of the rest of Facebook’s Windows Phone 8 userbase, a beta version of Facebook will remain in the Windows Phone store — it promises a look at “pre-release software.” We also wouldn’t be too surprised if this is a good look into what that upcoming Windows 8 app will look like. In any event, as you might expect, Facebook 5.0 for Windows Phone 8 is free and available now at the source link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Internet, Software, Mobile, Microsoft, Facebook

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Source: Windows Store, Microsoft, Windows Store (Facebook beta)

Not satisfied with simply locking down your discount mountain-climbing lessons and hot stone massages, Groupon announced Groupon Reserve this morning, which aims to bundle time-based discounts with restaurant reservations. Groupon’s tapping Savored.com’s reservation tech to handle the heavy-lifting behind the scenes — the service is already live in 10 markets, including New York City and Los Angeles, and seemingly goes after OpenTable head-on.

Of course, Groupon Reserve isn’t quite the same service as OpenTable. With Reserve, you plug in a time, party size, date and city, and you’re offered a variety of restaurant options with discounts, whereas with OpenTable you’re simply plugging in the aforementioned info and looking for a spot. Though Groupon Reserve only handles restaurant reservations thus far, the plan is for “spas, salons and hotels” in the coming months; ambiguous options from “top beauty, product, travel and entertainment brands” are also in the cards. Groupon Reserve will reach international shores and even more US cities “by the end of 2013.” Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re arranging a more affordable date at Butter. We’re pretty fancy.

Filed under: Internet, Software

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