This is the Modem World: Who’s driving this thing?

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

This is the Modem World Who's driving this thing

I was never a fan of push notifications. The only alerts I wanted to get while my phone was sleeping included calls, texts and super-important reminders. I didn’t need to know if someone liked the photo that I shared. I didn’t want to be notified if I hadn’t played a particular game in a few days. I’d get around to it. I’d find out on my own.

But lately, mobile operating system makers are pushing the push, rallying to turn their home screens into notification centers that cull all your social, entertainment and organizational information to allegedly make our lives easier. And, to be fair, the more information we consume, the more home screens filled with notifications and push messages are beginning to make sense: show me what’s up so I don’t have to go find it. I get it now.

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Gmail updated for Jelly Bean – notifications pulldown reply activated

It’s time to get minimal with Google’s newest update for the Gmail app for your Android 4.1+ Jelly Bean devices – complete with notification pull-down menu buttons for reply and archive! This update shows the message (as you’re seeing in the first image here) in extremely short form along with Archive and Reply buttons, this giving you super-quick access to your mail and a way to bust out of viewing every single message as you’d have to otherwise. This update works for devices working with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or newer and there’s been no comment as yet on similar features being pushed to iOS.

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With the iPhone you’ve got the ability to tap a notification of a Gmail email and get into that email in full form, but a quick reply or archive are not presently up for grabs. The Android update coming your way today also adds some advanced search functions for “faster search and better search suggestions” for greater ease in finding messages both online and when you’re nowhere near a web connection.

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This update also allows you to work with existing notification features so you can tell your Android device which messages should be popping up for you as a notification and which shouldn’t. According to Google:

So if you filter and label all the messages from your mom, you could set a ringtone to let you know you received a new mail from her and then quickly reply (because we know what can happen when you ignore your mother!).

Listen to your mother! And reply to her quickly with a notifications pull-down tap with this newest update today. You can head to the Google Play app store for the Gmail update right this minute or simply wait until you’re notified of an impending update automatically – whichever you choose.

[via Google Gmail Blog]


Gmail updated for Jelly Bean – notifications pulldown reply activated is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

BlackBerry 10 Peek finesses notifications

Today RIM and BlackBerry is showing off their new and improved mobile operating system in BlackBerry 10 — better known as BB10. Today at BlackBerry Jam (yes that’s the name) they’ve been sharing all sorts of details about a better and faster system, seamless user experiences and more. One feature that was surely worth mentioning was “peek” where you simply slide up from the bottom bezel to get a peek at your entire BlackBerry Hub.

We’ve seen bits and pieces of BB10 leak out over the past few months, but today they’ll be showing plenty of new features off to developers and fans alike as BBJam continues. With their new “peek” feature you simply can see any and all notifications — everything that is important to you — with one seamless gesture all with one hand. While on the go simply slide up with your thumb from the bottom of the screen and walla. From their wherever you are, whatever window you’re in, zooms out into a full notification peek.

It’s here in this “peek” they are calling BlackBerry Peek where you’ll see every notification from your BlackBerry Hub. Now what is BlackBerry Hub? One centralized locations for your Email, Gmail, Twitter, FaceBook, BB Messenger, Text messages and more. The image above shows all the notifications in one after you’ve gestured up to reveal peek mode. From there you can simply slide to the side to enter the Hub — from anywhere in the OS.

In general RIM is calling this BlackBerry Flow. The entire user interface and UX flows with ease. They want the experience to be as seamless and as natural as possible, predicting what you’re about to do next. They’ll be showing tons on the predictive text of their keyboard, browser speeds and more so stay tuned.

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BlackBerry 10 Peek finesses notifications is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring

Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring

There’s plenty of sensor gear around for hobbyists to play with, but not so many polished products for the monitoring-obsessed. Cao Gadgets is attempting to fill that niche with its functionally named Wireless Sensor Tags — small devices which monitor movement and temperature, notifying you if anything’s amiss. A magnetometer registers movement by changes in its orientation, and can inform you of door openings or similar disturbances, while the temperature triggers are based on upper or lower thresholds. The $15 sensors (or $12 if you want three or more) have a battery life that should last several years depending on their setup, but there is one catch — you also need the Tag Manager hub ($50), which plugs into your router via Ethernet. It keeps in frequent contact with any subordinates in its 200-foot range, and if after several attempts it finds one MIA, a warning can be sent in case any of your home guards have walked or fallen asleep. The tags also have inbuilt beepers which can be pinged to track down any rogue possessions they’re partnered with, like your keys.

A lot of thought has been put into micromanaging the tags, which are customizable through web-based, Android or iOS apps, and will send out alerts via email, Twitter, or push notifications on slates and phones (text-to-speech is available if you’re too lazy to read). If you’re into your data, you can also access trigger statistics from the software, complete with graphs. The home monitoring kit is available now, and instead of crashing your browser with too many embeds, we’ve decided to point you to the source below for the half-dozen demo vids.

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Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter for Windows Phone adds push notifications

Windows Phone has had an official Twitter client since launch, but several features have been missing from the app. Chief among them was push notifications, which has been curiously absent from the client even though Microsoft implemented push across the platform via Toast quite some time ago. WPCentral has noticed that the Twitter client has finally received an update to support push notifications.

Version 1.5 in the Windows Phone Marketplace finally grants the app the ability to notify you on certain Twitter interactions. The options include Mentions, Favourited tweets, Retweets, Direct Messages, and New Followers. There are some granular controls too, so you can opt to receive notifications only from people you follow or from everyone. Naturally, you can turn them off if they get too annoying.

The Live Tile for the app doesn’t show a notification counter, but it does flip over to reveal any recent interactions such as mentions. So what are you waiting for, Windows Phone fans? If you’re using the Twitter client, head on over to the Marketplace to grab the update now.


Twitter for Windows Phone adds push notifications is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.