Hasta La Gadget!

It’s time for Instagram to bring the full square photo experience to the web, starting today, with one very important missing feature: photo uploads. While the public has been able to view browser-based profiles of Instagram users for a few months now, the ability of a user to view their own feed (including all of their Instagram friends) has only been made real today. To see your Instagram feed, simply head to Instagram.com and log in – it’s just that simple!

With this new user interface for Instagram you’ll be able to see all of your own uploaded photos alongside the photos taken by the people you’re connected with through the service. At the moment this means you’re seeing the same feed that you’d otherwise only be able to see on your mobile device inside the Instagram app. With this interface you’re able to “like” photos with the little heart icon below each photo, connect to “photo pages”, and leave comments.

Each user name inside this iteration of Instagram connects to that user’s profile page on the web. Each profile is exactly the same sort of page we saw with the release of web-based profile pages several months ago, and each “photo page” is also essentially the same as it was back when Instagram arrived on the scene, these pages otherwise able to be linked to via Twitter. If you decide you’d like to connect to someone’s Twitter profile, you’re in for a treat: the “@” symbol doesn’t connect to Twitter profiles, it connects to Instagram profiles instead.

Of course your Tweets via Instagram will still be connecting to “@” profiles if you include said text, so you’re once again getting an ever-so-slightly different experience with hot-linking depending on where your content is published. The fun never ends! From your Instagram feed in the web browser you’re also able to delete photos and comments – but that’s it!

For the real total full Instagram experience you’re still going to have to head to the Instagram app on your respective iOS or Android machine – or Windows Phone machine or BlackBerry machine if you’re reading this post in the future. Have at it!

Web-based Instagram feed gets public hands-on: the limits continue! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It would appear that Microsoft is aiming to pull in the masses of 20 or 30-somethings that started their web experience with a 1990′s-themed advertisement for exactly the same browser the company wants them to now use again: Internet Explorer. This advertisement does, we must admit, strike more than one chord in the nostalgic banjoes in our heads, and like any good SuperBowl commercial, only gets to the product in the last few seconds of the video. That said, whether you’re all about IE or you hate its guts, you’re probably going to enjoy this advertisement thoroughly.

What you’re going to see is a hashtag “childofthe90s” sort of spot that Microsoft is hoping will draw you in like a Club Kid moth to the rave, if you know what I mean. More like a 90′s kid to a fishtank full of 25-cent milk caps. Or perhaps a young lover of basketball in the 90′s to a pair of Reebok Pumps. You’ll find yourself entranced if you’re anywhere near the age of your humble narrator, that’s for sure.

With the “new” Internet Explorer that this advertisement shows, you’ll be working largely in a Windows 8 universe. While you do not need Windows 8 to access the future of this browser, you’ll be drawn in with its ever-so-slight aesthetic tips toward that environment. If you are using Windows 8, you’ll find Internet Explorer to be a full-screen masterpiece (so to speak) ready for the touchy amongst you.

In the end it’s irrelevant what Internet Explorer looks like here in this advertisement because the aim is brand awareness. If we see a collection of video spots that make us enjoy ourselves and they just so happen to be supporting a product, we being consumers of this 2013 environment will inevitably feel drawn to that product. It just works – see if your impression of Internet Explorer improves by the time the commercial above is done.

Internet Explorer 90′s ad aims to reconnect with your youth is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Opera Software have given the world a glimpse of their next big (and yet tiny) production: Opera Ice, a mobile web browser to out-simplify every competitor. The mobile version of this browser is the first in a set of browsers that’ll also be out for desktop machines and – if you’re lucky – in-between machines as well. The aim of this browser is to take what Opera has learned over the past few years about the tendencies of the public to do only a limited number of tasks in a web browser on a mobile device and turn those tendencies into efficiency.

What you’re going to be seeing here is a demonstration filmed by Opera in their own den of developers and passed on to the folks at Pocket Lint. The demonstration of this Webkit-based browsser is done on an iPad, but the Opera team promises it’ll be revealed for iOS, Android, and desktop machines in the near future. It is at Mobile World Congress 2013 that we’ll get our chance to work with the mobile version first – tablets and smartphones all at once.

The first major difference between this web browser and the whole rest of the universe is the ability to swipe back and forth instead of tapping or clicking back and forward buttons. While we’ve got similar functionality with gestures in some environments, no browser until now takes out the buttons from the onset – Opera is confident that you’ll get used to swiping right out of the box.

This environment uses a collection of apps (or shortcuts to webpages) right at the start not unlike Chrome and Chrome OS. One big difference is the tiny bar at the bottom of your page wherever you roam inside an app, this button bringing you back out to the main collection of apps. At the moment we’re not sure if this button is meant to remain in every app or if it’s just being used as a demonstration.

You’ll be working with a set of apps right from the outset, searching then for additional apps with the front and center search bar at the top of your display when you want more. Searching brings up a “visual experience” not unlike instantly appearing app icons, but here you’re seeing sized-down previews of webpages the same aspect ratio as the iPad (or perhaps whatever device you happen to be using.) Each of these icons leads to a webpage or, eventually, an app associated with a webpage.

Once you’ve visited a webpage this way and you want to back out, you hit the bar at the bottom of the page and it’ll minimize, turning then into an icon which you can then add to your collection. Simple and smooth! Can’t wait to see the real deal up close and personal at Barcelona’s own MWC 2013!

Opera Ice makes mobile web browsing ultra-minimalistic is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s latest browser update landed today with little fanfare from Mountain View — just a tiny blog post proclaiming a faster, more stable Chrome. Diving into the build’s change notes, however, reveal Flash updates, bug fixes and support for MathML. Not a lot in the way of consumer facing features — though Bookmarks are now searchable, via the Chrome omnibox. Not as fancy as the last release, but we never to scoff at stability and speed. Check it out at the source link below.

Filed under: Google

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Google (1), (2), (3)

It’s time to get busy with Sony’s vast collection of content for multiple different platforms with the first appearance of their browser-based PlayStation Store. This store is set to sell TV and movie content as well as PlayStation games galore, but at the moment isn’t quite perfectly synced up for all media that’s offered across the platforms it serves. In other words you should certainly check it out, but you won’t be able to see everything your PlayStation sees.

This online store will eventually allow you to download content to your Sony account, this connecting with your PlayStation as well as your PlayStation Vita and your Sony Tablets running Android. What’s happening right this minute is that the company is going through sort of a live test-run with limited content to make sure everything is up-to-spec for a more vast release. It’s not that you’re not going to get the content you purchase now, it’s just that you might not have the full store experience.

In the near future you’ll be able to easily purchase content from the web-based store and have it sent to your devices one-by-one. This is a method that the Google Play store uses for your many connected Android devices and relatively similar to what iTunes does with purchases through their app as well – everyone is owned by you through your account, not just on your device.

According to a comment made by official PlayStation Blog SCEE Blog Manager Fred Dutton, the store is set to be launched in a larger way soon:

“Regarding [the lack of a major announcement] – we are testing a new web store, which we look forward to announcing and launching to the PlayStation/Sony community shortly.” – Dutton

Have a peek at the timeline below to get more info on recent events surrounding the PlayStation Store and device connected to it, and get pumped up about a wider release as soon as this afternoon!

[via EuroGamer]

PlayStation Store hits the web under the radar is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.