Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re ready for 2012 Election Day here in the United States, you’re more than likely fooling yourself – that’s why Google has prepared a lovely online voter guide for us all. This guide takes us back to the original presidential nomination convention in 1832 and brings the original sense of democracy back to the common online citizen with a history lesson that eventually leads to your understanding of how to get in on the fun. Google is also providing both the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention with live video streams and social networking so you can stay involved from start to finish.

This Google involvement in the presidential nominations for both of the top two camps as well as the eventual coverage of the final Election Day later this year will have the big G on-the-ground all the way up to your phone. You’ll want to start with the Google Politics and Elections site for up-to-date Google News, YouTube videos and live feeds, and Google+ social networking content on the election process.

Also be sure to see Google’s Live Election Hub for your collection of both national political conventions as well as content between there and the end of the show. You’ll be able to watch debates there as well, and the election night itself will be covered by Google in real time. This interface works from your desktop computer in a web browser of from your mobile device – tablets and smartphone toting a web browser too, that is.

If you’re wondering who you might want to vote for, Google has an Online Voter Guide for you to peruse. There’s a specific place for those of you voting in special situations like military or overseas for whatever reason. This set of sections will lead you straight to information about your different rules and deadlines as well.

Google is also currently in the process of developing new ways for voters to interact with campaigns and the political and public heads between here and final election day. Be sure to stay tuned to SlashGear as well to keep up to day on big drops!

[via Google]

Google live election hub streams DNC and RNC action is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google has snatched up ex-Rdio software engineer Ian McKellar to bolster its growing Google Glass wearable computing team, as the company readies its first “Explorer Edition” hardware for developers in early 2013. McKellar formerly worked on the API for streaming music service Rdio, but has a history in developing social-integrated browsers and for Danger, supporting the Sidekick smartphone later acquired by Microsoft.

At Danger, McKellar was responsible for a webpage server that “transcoded web pages to Danger’s hiptop smartphones” among other things, helping trim the bandwidth fat from sites and make sure they’d display correctly on the handsets themselves. That experience could well be of interest to the Glass team, since regular webpages are likely to require some reformatting to suit the wearable eyepiece of the Google headset.

Eyes-on reports from those who have tried out Google’s current prototypes suggest the user-experience as it stands sees floating iconography and other information superimposed at the top of the wearer’s line-of-sight. Glass will not only need a way to parse online data to suit that minimized display segment, but to trim the information fat so as to avoid lag or huge tethering bills.

One way around that could be heavy server-side processing, crunching the data for each individual user – whether alerts, Twitter or Google+ pings, messenger requests or websites – and then squirting it over to their eyepiece. That would reduce the amount of processing power the Glass wearable itself would require, thus cutting down on power consumption.

McKellar also worked on the Flock social networking and media sharing browser, which had heavy integration   with Facebook and other services. Google is likely to focus on Google+ integration in Glass initially, but is unlikely to ignore Facebook, Twitter and other third-party services in the long term.

The first Google Glass Explorer Edition units went on sale to developers at Google IO, and are expected to be shipped out early in the new year. A consumer version is planned for within a year of that point.

Google Glass team grabs ex-Rdio and Danger engineer is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Against all odds App.Net met its funding goal, which has allowed the fledgling social network to shift its focus to the next phase of its founding. That means putting together all those essential documents that will govern its operation, including a terms of service and privacy policy. Creator Dalton Caldwell has posted first drafts of several docs and asked his backers for feedback, offering them an attempt to shape the rules that will guide how the site is run. Those policy documents are also going to be subjected to a quarterly review, which should allow the service to remain nimble if some rules turn out to be controversial or cumbersome. For more info, check out the source link.

Filed under: Internet

App.Net posts terms of service, asks for feedback originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were wondering what features would be on the way after Facebook ditched pre-Froyo Android support for its app your questions have been answered. This revision lets users easily create events from their mobiles, share photos quicker and annoy their friends across platforms thanks to the kind of emoji iOS users have been annoying each other with for ages. In the screenshot above you see the new event creation pages and messaging screen where friends can toss in the icons or a picture while chatting privately, although updating to v1.9.8 will require a manual approval since it also seeks permission to obtain your location via coarse network-based methods. Assuming you’re already down with Facebook’s Open Graph-enabled tendrils snaking their way throughout your digital life (and, as an existing user already allowed it access to precise GPS-based location data) that’s probably not too much of an issue, hit the Google Play link below to upgrade.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Facebook for Android app updated with messaging emoji, easy event creation and a bit more originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Aug 2012 01:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook has given developers that link to the social network with Open Graph a new way let let users play tag with their friends — while also increasing exposure to their app. It’s called mention tagging, and allows a user to link a friend in the text body of a message, and is not to be confused with action tagging, an existing feature which references friends only in story text. The option requires a deliberate action by the user, so the developer must implement a way to clearly show how to do that with an icon (as shown above for Foursquare) or drop-down menu, for instance. Apps must also distinguish between action and mention tags, and are not allowed to pre-fill them in the message — that can only be done by the user. Though no privacy changes are needed, Facebook requires apps using the feature to request user approval before any action can be taken. All that would increase tagging and app visibility significantly — so developers will likely be all over it.

Filed under: Internet

Facebook adds mention tagging to Open Graph for more efficient name-dropping originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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