Hasta La Gadget!

Did you empty your piggy bank for a Logitech Revue after the first Honeycomb sighting about a month ago? If not, there’s new fuel for the Google TV set-top box hacking fire… so get your Hamiltons in order. Channel Android’s latest reel showcases a newer, more polished leak of Honeycomb that reflects the preview we spotted running on Sony hardware last week. It’s not without its fair share of bugs, and you’ll need to install the first leak to avoid turning your device into a paperweight (read: brick), so proceed at your own risk. Also of note: apps built specifically for TV have started to pop up in the marketplace — it seems devs have been busy since Google dropped the SDK a while back. For a closer look at the payoff straight from the hive, take a look at the video above or check out a slideshow of some Google TV apps that are in the Market now put together by NewTeeVee.

Logitech Revue gets second Honeycomb leak, TV apps sneak into Market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve most likely heard plenty about NFC-capable smartphones, but little in the way of actual real-world uses for the chip. Well, MasterCard’s looking to change all of that, and throw in a few innovations of its own courtesy of its in-house R&D labs and Google. Shown off at an event today, the company demoed the Google Wallet application we first learned about back in May — which is gearing up for an official launch sometime “soon.” Running on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G — with a planned expansion to multiple devices — users can connect a Citi MasterCard account to the service, and tap-to-pay at any retail location outfitted with a PayPass station. The transactions take place as instantaneously as you’d expect, with spending alerts notated automatically in-app, as well as via text message. If you’re the paranoid type or just a spendthrift, the app offers plenty of options to set spending limits, approve / block purchases via category (i.e. dining, entertainment) and enable alerts for overseas activity. Currently, the Google Wallet service is Android-only, and that’s probably a direct result of the AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile backed mobile payment rival, ISIS.

But the company’s also got one eye fixed squarely on the future — scheming up alternate implementations for payment on-the-go through its MasterCard Labs division. Focusing on its QkR platform (an obvious play on QR codes), these concepts ranged from television audio signals encoded with purchase data, audible to a phone running the QkR app, or fast-food tabletops embedded with NFC and QR codes that’ll allow customers to scan for coupons, order remotely and apply the discount — all without leaving their seats. The most interesting use of the new platform, however, had nothing to do with mobile phone use and everything to do with an Xbox Kinect. Utilizing the gesture recognition tech, items could be selected on-screen by holding your hand over an item and navigating through the checkout process. We know, yet another great proof-of-concept, but tuck away that cynicism for a second — a company representative confided to us that soft-pilot testing of QkR is already underway, with an official announcement slated in the next two weeks. And don’t worry about it being a Google OS-only affair, QkR’s been tested across iOS, Windows Phone Mango and even BlackBerry. Whether or not the innovative payment system’ll launch with all of these mobile OS on-board wasn’t clear, but we were assured there’d be at least two partners on board. Jump past the break to get a close-up view of our hands-on with the future of payment.

Continue reading MasterCard demos Google Wallet, QkR platform for mobile payments

MasterCard demos Google Wallet, QkR platform for mobile payments originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Googles‘ powers of perception have become a little more perspicacious, thanks to a new update for Android users. With version 1.6, tourists can use their smartphones to take a picture of a given area, while Google’s visual search app works in the background to identify any notable landmarks, paintings or other objects. If it picks up on anything of interest, it’ll automatically notify the user, instantly endowing him or her with gooey chunks of knowledge. It seems like a pretty user-friendly refresh, though things will really get interesting if faces ever get involved. Hit up the source link below to download the update for yourself.

Google Goggles Android update makes your vacation photos slightly more interesting originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android Central  |  Google Mobile Blog, Android Market  | Email this | Comments

Seems like we’ve heard this story before — Google buys a bunch of patents to protect its cute little green baby from all the big, bad patent lawsuits. Only this time, instead of buying a hardware manufacturer to expand its patent warchest, team Mountain View merely purchased 1,023 bits of IP from IBM. Covering everything from a method for filling holes in printed wiring boards to a method for file system management, Google seems to have grabbed quite the eclectic collection — one we’re sure Big G will put to work for itself and its buddies in no time. Those looking to see the full results of this latest patent shopping spree can hit the source link below.

Google loads up on IP again, buys 1,000 more patents from IBM originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Google just posted about a new feature that they are offering to webmasters who utilize their Webmaster Central Control Panel that is offered. This new feature shows the other sites that are linking to yours. Actually this tool is pretty awesome because on the main page will list the articles from your site along with how many links are pointing to them.

We have nearly 54,000 links to our homepage and then the list starts in on some of our articles with a whopping 129,000+ links in total. I’m not quite sure how it is organized, but it showed pages with our old URL format that we used very early on with CyberNet.

Each of the link numbers are hyperlinked, and when you click on them it shows all of the URL’s for the sites who link to that specific article. We’ve got 1,934 different articles/pages with links so finding links for a specific article could be a pain, but Google also thought about that. Towards the top you’ll also notice a “Find a page” link that will actually let you enter in a URL from your site and it will retrieve the sites who link to it.

So why did Google implement this feature? Webmasters, including myself, always enjoy knowing where their links are coming from, but Google’s search engine never seems to show all of the links to a specific site. For example, using Google’s “link” operator our site shows 2,830 incoming links…that’s only 126,000 links off . The Google blog post about the new feature says that the link operator returns a “sub-sampled list of backlinks.” I’m not sure why it doesn’t return all of the links, but it probably has something to do with spammers.

Anyone can sign-up for one of the Webmaster accounts to view this information and it doesn’t cost a thing. In fact, their Webmaster Tools offer a lot of useful information including how often Google crawls your site and how many pages it views each day. If you have the urge to know more about the site make sure you head on over to Webmaster Central!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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