Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts

Sunday 13 April 2014

Here, there and everywhere: Google Keep reminds you at the right time

Notes are a good way to keep track of all you have to do, but most of us need a little nudge now and then. Google Keep can remind you of important tasks and errands at just the right time and place. For example, Keep works with Google Now to remind you of your grocery list when you walk into your favorite grocery store, and nudges you on Thursday night to take out the trash.

To get started, select the “Remind me” button from the bottom of any note and choose the type of reminder you want to add. You can add time-based reminders for a specific date and time, or a more general time of day, like tomorrow morning. Adding a location reminder is incredibly easy too—as soon as you start typing Google Keep suggests places nearby.


 
Of course, sometimes plans change. If you get a reminder you’re not ready to deal with, simply snooze it to a time or place that’s better for you.



 

It’s now even easier to get to all of your notes using the new navigation drawer, which includes a way to view all of your upcoming reminders in one place. And for people who want more separation between their home and work lives, the drawer also lets you easily switch between your accounts. 


And finally, we've made it easier to add your existing photos to a Google Keep note on Android. When you tap the camera icon you can choose between taking a new photo or adding one you already have from Gallery.

The new update is gradually rolling out in Google Play, and available now on the web at http://drive.google.com/keep and in the Chrome App.

Saturday 12 April 2014

Chromebooks compared: New and upcoming Chrome OS laptops

Sarah Tew/CNET
With a small but growing slice of the PC market, Chromebooks are finally a viable choice for anyone looking to buy a secondary or travel laptop. Unlike the similarly priced netbooks of old, these systems, running Google's Chrome OS instead of Windows, tend to focus on doing one thing and doing it well -- giving you low-cost access to online tools and services.
But with myriad models available from Acer, HP, Toshiba, and even Google -- many with annoyingly similar names -- which is the Chromebook to beat?
Compare our hands-on reviews and impressions of the major Chromebook entrants below. These models are all still widely available to buy (the ambitious Samsung Chromebook 2 will be out in April 2014), and offer largely similar onboard storage, low-power CPUs, and basic plastic bodies.
The differences come in around the edges: the touch screen on the Acer C720P makes it our all-around favorite; the 1080p 13-inch display on the upcoming Samsung Chromebook 2 is better for HD video and long typing sessions; the latest HP models add some serious design flair.
If Chrome OS continues to capture market share (some say it could hit 17 percent of the total PC market in 2014), we'll likely see more variations on screen size, features, and design, giving PC buyers even more options for skipping Windows and OS X.

Dan Ackerman/CNET
Samsung Chromebook 2
Samsung says the answer to Chromebook uniformity is its next-gen version, called Chromebook 2. These new models, in 11.6-inch and 13-inch versions, make some notable tweaks both outside and in, including a faux-leather outer finish with a soft-touch feel and "stitches" molded into the outer edge, and a full 1,920x1,080 display on the 13-inch model. Note that both are powered by Samsung's home-grown Exynos 5 Octa chip, rather than an Intel chip.
Read more about the Samsung Chromebook 2.

Sarah Tew/CNET
Acer Chromebook C720P
Though this may be the best Chromebook we've ever seen, that doesn't change what it really is: a touch-enabled update to the Acer Chromebook C720 that's been around for a few months. But battery improvements, Chrome OS improvements, and a combination of extra storage and a touch screen make this Chromebook package a lot more palatable than its predecessors.
Read the full review of the Acer Chromebook C720P.

Josh Goldman/CNET
Toshiba Chromebook
If you buy into the Chromebook argument, that of a system that lives 90-plus percent of its useful life online, running Web-based in-browser apps and using cloud-based storage, the 13-inch Toshiba Chromebook offers a bit more functionality than rock-bottom 11-inch versions, for only a little more money. 
Read the full review of the Toshiba Chromebook.

Sarah Tew/CNET
HP Chromebook 11
The HP Chromebook 11 isn't much more than a redesigned variant on the hardware already in other Chromebooks -- an ARM processor, similar battery life, and a low-res non-touch display. But, the new HP version looks a lot better. Rather than seeming like a cast-off Netbook with a Chrome OS brain-swap, the Chromebook 11 is cute, compact, simple, and attractive.
Read the full review of the HP Chromebook 11.

HP Chromebook 14 (Fall 2013)
James Martin/CNET
HP Chromebook 14
The second-gen 14-inch model from HP steps it up in the design department. The newer Chromebook 14 comes in three cool-looking colors: snow white, ocean turquoise, and coral peach. It also includes 200MB of 3G data/month for two years. Surprisingly, HP doesn't sleep on ports. The Chromebook 14 seats two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, HDMI, and one full-size SD card slot.
Read more about the HP Chromebook 14.

Sarah Tew/CNET
Samsung Chromebook Series
The classic first-gen Samsung Chromebook is still available from $199 to $249, depending on where you look. Remember that Samsung's Chromebook uses a low-power processor, Samsung's own Exynos 5 Dual, which is built on ARM's dual-core system-on-a-chip Cortex A15 design. That's good for battery life, but don't expect zippy performance.
Read the full review of the Samsung Chromebook Series.

Josh Miller/CNET
Google Chromebook Pixel
This is the first Google-designed laptop -- not one farmed out to a partner like Acer or Samsung. And Google has upped the ante, adding a high-res touch screen -- with a pixel density greater than that of Apple's vaunted Retina screens -- and a real Intel Core i5 processor. Even a year after its initial release, the Pixel is still $1,299. 

Wednesday 9 April 2014

3play is a Bluetooth audio dongle that begs to be misused

We think it's fair to say that Grace Digital has a colorful catalog of products. Everything it makes seems to have a quirk or a twist that, at the very least, stops us ever getting bored hearing about them. The 3play Bluetooth audio receiver is a fine example, and something we'd categorize under "widget" (that's a compliment by the way). What does it do? Well, if you go by the marketing material, it "connects up to three devices to your stereo," it'll also turn any HiFi or portable speaker into a Bluetooth capable one. The selling point here is that up to three different devices can connect to the 3play at any one time (it remembers up to seven) so you and two friends can play tunes from your own phones, without having to pause, disconnect, reconnect and, basically, kill the party vibe cold. But there's more than that on offer here.
Before you all ask, yes it's battery powered (it claims 10 hours, though you may want to plug it in for prolonged sessions), and yes it supports Bluetooth 4.0, aptX, AAC, SBC and all that other goodness. We tested it out (incidentally) on a Bluetooth speaker of our own, and it does exactly what it claims. We hooked up a few phones, and were able to battle it out for the airwaves. You can't get multiple tracks running over each other, so if you were having visions of fierce DJ sets, then sadly no dice. You can, however, engage in some "tune fi tune" style selecta sessions. There are three LEDs along the bottom edge of the 3play that let you know how many devices are connected, and playing media on any one of those will barge the currently playing song out of the way, and take center stage.
The reality is that it doesn't always work that smoothly, with the result being sometimes, confusingly, pausing the music on one phone causes the other to start, as if the play/stop signals have gotten themselves in a bit of a twist. Essentially, though, it does this core task pretty well, and if this is solving a problem that you have, you'll be more than happy to overlook this minor bug.
What we really like about the 3play is its potential for other use cases. We know it's not unique to this device, but by thinking of the 3play as a Bluetooth dongle (or a virtual cable from your phone's audio out), you can get creative with it. For example, we hooked it up to the 3.5mm microphone connection on our DSLR, played music through the phone while we recorded video, and hey presto -- quick and dirty wireless video soundtracks. In fact, there's a bunch of different ways you could use this that go beyond its basic reason for being. That's a good thing, too, as at $99 (though you can find it for a bit less if you look around), it's not exactly the cheapest widget on the market. But, it is one that will likely appeal to a very particular audience. We just wonder if it was a conscious branding decision not to offer a four-device version?

The next version of Android could be truly business-friendly

Google campus sign with Android looming in the background
Android has a lot of market share, but it doesn't have a big footprint in the corporate world; outside of special efforts like Samsung's Knox, the OS isn't well-suited to businessdemands. All that may change in the near future, though, as The Information's sourcesclaim that the next major Android release will place a much stronger emphasis on office-grade security. The new OS will reportedly allow apps that require their own authentication (including biometrics), as well as data storage on secure chips. It should also offer better remote management controls. If the rumor is accurate, we may not have long to wait to see these suit-and-tie features -- Google could unveil them at its I/O conference in late June.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Encouraging the next generation of journalists: Google Journalism Fellowship Winners 2014

The Google Journalism Fellowship connects students interested in using technology to tell stories in new ways to the organizations that are pushing the boundaries of newsgathering and reporting. Over 10 weeks, Fellows work on projects ranging from building interactive news apps to researching stories, finding data and writing code. In this post, one of last year’s Fellows, Jan Lauren Boyles, shares her perspective on the benefits of the program and what this year’s Fellows stand to get out of it. -Ed.

At first, I thought it was just my imagination.

In the middle of my exams for my doctorate at American University last year, I got a call from the Pew Research Center offering me a Google Journalism Fellowship. Low on sleep, my first thought: "Was this offer all just a reverie, rendered by my foggy mind?"

In some ways, it turned out that that call really was the beginning of a dream.

I had applied for the Fellowship because I wanted to work with the brightest minds in media research and broaden my understanding of the intersections between journalism and technology. I was thrilled to work with leading experts at Pew Research to collect and analyze data that examined how social media is transforming the way Americans consume and share news. I also had a chance to learn from Google’s own mapping and data visualization specialists. But I never imagined we’d also shadow an editorial meeting at The Miami Herald, discuss the future of news with Knight Foundation staff, talk directly with news startup leaders and take part in a design sprint at a CIR/Google conference around data and the news.
The 2013 Google Journalism Fellows. The author is third from the right.

Many of the inaugural class of Google Fellows has gone on to carve out careers in the newsrooms of the 21st century. The Fellowship helped me land a full-time position at the Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project as a research associate—a dream job, where I’ll use various research methods—from surveys to content analysis to good ol' reporting—to help examine how news and information functions today. One key project that I’ll work on this year will be a deep examination of the flow of local news in society today.

Now a new class of Google Fellows gets a chance to fulfill their own dreams. These 11 students are people to watch—young scholars, computer scientists and practitioners who will likely create new journalism products and platforms that will change our engagement with news in the digital age.

This year’s organizations and Fellows are:

  • Center for Investigative Reporting - Emmanuel Martinez, University of Southern California and Suyeon Son, Northwestern University
  • Committee to Protect Journalists - Rachael Levy, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
  • Investigative Reporters & Editors - Aram Chung, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
  • Nieman Journalism Lab - Liam Andrew, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Pew Research Journalism Project - Alex T. Williams, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
  • Poynter - Benjamin Mullin, California State University, Chico
  • PRI.org - David Conrad, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
  • ProPublica - Yue Qiu, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
  • Sunlight Foundation - Stan Oklobdzija, UC San Diego
  • Texas Tribune - Jessica Hamel, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Sunday 6 April 2014

Convert Your HTC One (M8) to a Google Play Edition

To many, the HTC One (M8) is the ideal device. After all, it offers class-leading build quality, absolutely stunning aesthetics, powerful specifications, and a near perfect screen. However, there are those who don’t really care for the stock HTC Sense experience. Luckily, there’s a Google Play edition variant of the device, which gives you all of the hardware goodies of the M8, but with the Pure Google software we all know and love.
However, not everyone is willing (or able) to shell $700 for an unlocked phone direct from Google. Instead, most users purchase devices with a heavy carrier subsidy on contract. But now thanks to XDA Forum Moderator graffixnyc, you can get the GPe software experience on your standard M8.
The conversion process comes in a couple flavors. The first to be made available was a Nandroid backup image that can be restored using Phil’s CWM. After that, graffixnyc made it a little easier to install by providing this ROM as a recovery-flashable update.zip. Both builds are purely stock + root, as to give the authentic software experience. Finally, graffixnyc also ripped the stock GPe recovery, which can then be flashed through fastboot.
If you’d like to try out the GPe software on your M8, head over to the ROM thread. If you’re a developer looking for the stock Boot.img and System.img from the GPe device or if you’re an end-user looking for the CWM Nandroid, head over here. Finally, if you’d like to install the GPe recovery on your M8, check out this thread.Convert Your HTC One (M8) to a Google Play Edition

Saturday 5 April 2014

Microsoft’s Cortana hands on: The best of Google Now and Siri combined

CortanaMicrosoft has been active in speech recognition research for decades, so it isn’t surprising that it has introduced a voice-based personal digital assistant — only that it took them so long to do so! Named Cortana, the application is a hybrid of local and cloud functionality that will be built into Windows Phone 8.1. I had a chance to try it out this week at Microsoft’s Build 2014 conference. For the most part I was quite impressed, although the code’s beta designation is certainly still appropriate.

Cortana combines elements of Siri and Google Now

The core of Cortana is a Siri-like speech recognition capability, coupled with enough intelligence to put some context around your commands and questions. Added to that is a card-based proactive display of what it thinks might be important to you based on your calendar, contacts, and interests — similar to the cards that Google Now pops up. Microsoft’s real claims to innovation in Cortana is its personalization and extensibility.
Cortana starts off by trying to get to know a little bit about you — what you like to do in your spare time, who is important in your life, what sports teams you follow, etc. It uses that information to begin preparing tidbits of information it can show you first thing in the morning, or when it thinks you might need them. It also learns about your habits and becomes more personal over time. Obviously that’s hard to test in a short demo session, so we’ll need to wait until it ships to see how powerful the learning capability is in real life. The other really exciting feature of Cortana is that it is completely extensible. Microsoft has documented how third parties can integrate with Cortana, and demonstrated integration with Flixster during the show.
Windows Phone 8.1: Cortana
Windows Phone 8.1: Cortana

Cortana can almost converse

Cortana has a reasonably sophisticated conversational model. You can follow-up a question with another related question, and it knows how to link them together. For example, you can ask it for nearby restaurants and then ask something like “which of them take reservations?” and it will know to filter the restaurant list. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know how to further link to sites like OpenTable to actually help you make them.
Cortana seems much better at complex commands than Siri or Google Now. For example, you can tell it, “the next time I talk to my wife, remind me to let her know that I spend too much time talking to my phone.” It will identify the contact entry for your wife, and in fact remind you the next time you call or text her contact that you have something you want to say. Like Google Now and Siri, Cortana leverages search technology — in this case Microsoft’s Bing. Besides relying on Bing for search and custom vocabularies (like lists of movies and restaurants), it also benefits from any personalization you’ve done in Bing.
Joe Belfiore introduces Cortana digital assistant
Joe Belfiore introduces Cortana digital assistant
Several of the Microsoft demoers had trouble with Cortana recognizing some of their speech, but when I tried it out it was nearly perfect in recognizing everything I said — except for names of some foreign countries and cities. However, I did find that Cortana’s seemingly magical understanding of reminders and restaurants didn’t extend to other similar tasks you might delegate to an assistant. It had no idea how to find me a taxi, for example, or where the nearest bus stop was. Microsoft is quick to point out that Cortana is still in early beta (it won’t be publicly available until Windows Phone 8.1 ships later this spring), and it will be adding additional smarts to the system during that time of course.
The designers behind Cortana have worked really hard to have it work the way you’d like a personal digital assistant to — they interviewed human assistants to build a model of common tasks. For example, if you start speaking to it, it will reply with voice. But if you type at it, it will assume you don’t want to be using audio, and it will reply in text. It can also do some clever, if seemingly obvious, tasks like search your email (with your permission) for meetings and airline flights you might want to track or add to your calendar. All in all, Cortana is an exciting addition to the Windows Phone platform, and I suspect we’ll see more of it (her?) in future versions of Windows for the desktop and for tablets as well. It’ll be a while before Cortana is as intelligent as her Halo character namesake, though.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

A Visual History of Google Algorithm Changes [Infographic]

In the beginning, Google's search engine really wasn't all that good. This was back in the late 90s/early 00s, when search engines were little more than keyword-matching and link-counting machines. Ranking high in search results could be accomplished by essentially using a simple, two-step procedure:
  • Step 1: Stuff your keyword phrase into your page/website as many times as possible.
  • Step 2: Get as many gosh-darn inbound links as you possibly could.
For those early "SEO gurus" who gamed the system -- achieving high rankings while adding little value for actual searchers -- the fun wouldn't last. Every time Google found a weakness in its ability to deliver relevant, high-quality search results, it made fixes to address it. Starting in 2003 with "Boston," major changes to its algorithm are adorned with names and made regularly.
To give you a snapshot of all of the algorithm changes that have been implemented over the years, we teamed up with Moz to create the infographic below.
visual_history_of_google_algorithm_updates_feature2

Thursday 27 March 2014

Google I/O 2014 tickets sold through lottery

Google Nexus 5 review
Google, like any other tech company, wants to shake this up a little. So, the search giant is now doing a random lottery system this year to see who gets to go to its annual development conference.
Over the last two years the pattern of sale of tickets for its I/O developer conference has been more or less constant. Back in 2012, all tickets were sold out in under 30 minutes. Last year they sold out in under 50 minutes.
It is rumoured this year that the new successor to Android KitKat will be revealed at the I/O 2014 conference and the company could reveal more information about the new Android Wear OS.
The Google Nexus 8 might also be revealed at the event, although we have to say it's unlikely given the focus on software at I/O.
Likewise, the Nexus 5's successor is not expected until the second half of the year, according to Google's Sundar Pichai.
Interested in attending? The requirements involved are only that you have a Google+ account and a card that won't reject the $900 registration fee. Of course, there's also the plane ticket to San Francisco.

Friday 21 March 2014

How Facebook and Google are changing the future of Intel’s CPUs

Google datacenter
There’s a transformation in CPU design taking place just below the surface of the market. In the long run, it could prove every bit as important as the shift from single-core to multi-core processors, or the transformation of the x86 architecture from a me-too product for personal PCs into a market-spanning titan. Intel’s CPUs aren’t just being designed by Intel anymore. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are now playing a direct role in hardware design.
To understand the significance of this change, we need to revisit how CPU design has evolved over the past few decades.
Intel business
In the mid-1980s, Intel rapidly devoured the desktop market. In the mid-1990s, it ate the datacenter. Obviously these market gains were driven by close customer partnerships, but the late 1990s saw the debut of RDRAM, Itanium, and the P4 (Netburst) architecture — technologies arguably designed to benefit Intel’s bottom line far more than the customers that purchased them.
Competition from AMD, concerted pushback from the DRAM industry, and the failure of Dennard scaling sank these initiatives and forced Intel to consider new alternatives in the form of multi-core products and what we’ve previously called “More than Moore” scaling. More-than-Moore (MtM) is defined by the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) as addressing “an emerging category of devices that incorporate functionalities that do not necessarily scale according to Moore’s Law, but provide additional value to the end customer in different ways.”
More than Moore scaling
Working with major datacenter partners is becoming a critical way to find and identify new opportunities that go beyond simply scaling parts to lower power consumptions and hitting higher performance targets. It’s not that HP, Dell, and IBM are no longer important to the server business, but rather that Facebook, Amazon, and Google now do huge business volumes as direct customers with custom projects and specific needs.
The exact degree of customization that Intel does for these companies is still unclear. It’s easy to imagine Intel offering high-clock SKUs with correspondingly higher TDPs, or working to develop low-power products, but a recent report indicates that the collaborationgoes much deeper. According to Frank Frankovsky, head designer of hardware for Facebook, the company works with Intel quite closely.
“The more insight we can give our technology suppliers about what makes our software work the best, the more we’re able to influence their design roadmaps,” Frankovsky says. “We do influence their roadmaps — way upstream — but then they are able to bring these changes out to all of their customers.”
This could be seen as an outgrowth of the “dark silicon” phenomenon. One of the problems with the phrase “Moore’s law” is that it’s historically been used in two very different ways. The original version of Moore’s law states that transistor density doubles every 18-24 months. Later, this was expanded to include the phenomenon known as Dennard scaling. Dennard scaling was the observation that as transistors got smaller, the power used by each transistor shrank.
Moore’s law — the increasing density of transistors over time — still holds true. Dennard scaling doesn’t. As a result, it’s increasingly difficult to turn all the transistors in a CPU on at the same time while remaining within a given thermal envelope. This is a problem that’s only getting worse over time. There’s no single solution at this point, but low-density specialized silicon for implementing certain capabilities in hardware is one method of addressing the problem. Intel’s NTV (Near Threshold Voltage) research and the shift towards heterogeneous computing are both approaches that focus on utilizing dark or dim silicon to improve performance without sabotaging power consumption.
Intel Atom features
AMD has said it also handles some semi-custom work, but I’m betting the company’s hands are generally full of PS4, Xbox, and Wii U-related work at this juncture. TSMC and GlobalFoundries will happily build Facebook a custom core, but don’t maintain full design houses to create such a product from scratch. For now, this is a fairly potent Intel advantage. Looking at the list of new features in Intel’s 22nm Atom, it’s impossible to tell which ones are the result of close collaboration with Intel’s new partners, but we’d bet at least a few of them are.
Facebook’s comments imply that while it’s working with Intel to implement new capabilities, not all the features are explicitly exclusive. Intel, in other words, might have added AES-NI instructions to Atom because certain customers wanted those capabilities, but it’s scarcely hiding the fact. For now, none of the companies involved want to give specifics. Once you understand the problem, the idea of Intel doing custom work for a new type of customer makes far more sense.
The standard server OEMs still have an important role to play in distributing general computing hardware, but for Intel, working with Facebook, Google, or Amazon gives the company long-term visibility into its customers’ needs. It also helps reduce the chance of a sudden ARM coup. While we haven’t seen the text of any agreement between Intel and these new customers, it’s safe to assume that the major companies are contributing to the customization work and have committed to using the final product.

Yes, Flappy Bird Will Return To The App Store


I hope you enjoyed your life over the past month and a half; Flappy Bird is coming back to the App Store after its removal earlier this year, according to the game’s developer Dong Nguyen. Gawker spotted the dev’s tweeted response to a question about whether or not it would ever return, which is an unequivocal “Yes.”

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Nexus 5 and 7 now available from Google Play in several new countries

Nexus  5 and Nexus 7

20 countries now have access to both of the latest Nexus devices


Along with the expansion of the Chromecast to a handful of new countries and Google Play Music and Movies coming to dozens of new countries, even more people can now also get their hands on the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 directly from Google Play. The latest Nexus phone is now available in Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Sweden, taking the total number of countries where it is available up to 20.
For the Nexus 7, folks in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden can now get their hands on the 7-inch device. That means the Nexus 5 and 7 are both available in the same group of countries, although the LTE-enabled Nexus 7 is still available in a subset of 12 countries out of those 20.
Prices are varying across the different countries, naturally, but we see 349€ for the 16GB and 399€ for the 32GB Nexus 5, with the Nexus 7 at 269€ for 16GB and 299€ for 32GB in the European countries.

Google reveals Android Wear OS for smartwatches



 
Android Wear, Google's new version of Android aimed specifically for wearables will run on third party devices in the same way as the companies Android OS runs on third-party smartphones.
Part of the appeal of Google Wear will be the integration of Google Now for voice controlled functions while LG and Motorola have already said that devices using Android Wear are on the way.
"We're so excited about wearables - they understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word," said Google's senior vice president of Android, Chrome & Apps, Sundar Pichai in a blog post from the company.
There is already a dedicated Android Wear section of Google's dev site for developers to check out if they want to start building for the platform.
What is interesting is how this will affect Samsung. The Korean giant is easily the most visible Android manufacturer but switched to its own OS - Tizen - for its most recent smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear 2.
So far there's no concrete release date for any smartwatches running Google Wear, but Pichai says the first ones should be appearing later this year.

Dayframe makes Chromecast slideshow free for all users

Dayframe

Prime upgrade $0.99 for a limited time


With version 2.3 of Dayframe, out now in the Google Play Store, we're treated to a couple of new features, but best of all everyone gets Chromecastsupport for free. Free version users will get no time limits or ads interfering with their pictures, but instead will get a small logo on the screen and a "pop-up reminder/nudge" about the Prime upgrade once in a while. The Prime upgrade itself is going down to $0.99 for a limited time as part of the update.
So, what else is new?
  • Can now add multiple Facebook friends at a time
  • Better support for wireless chargers (i.e. the Tylt)
  • Faster and easier to create playlists (as part of Prime)
  • Slideshow lighter makeover
  • Bug fixes

Google unveils the Android Wear platform: Google Now on your wrist

Android Wear takes Google Now's contextual info and voice commands, and puts them on your ...
We knew that Google was cooking up a version of Android designed specifically for wearables, and today the company followed through. Android Wear is a Google Now-centric platform for smartwatches – and, eventually, other wearables as well.

Android Wear delivers what many folks have been waiting for before investing in a smartwatch. It's contextual Google Now information combined with almost-instant Google voice commands.
Like some watches we've already seen, Android Wear watches will support voice messaging, v...
So, much like Google Now for smartphones, it will give you info like traffic for your commute, sports scores, and any upcoming meetings you have. And like the Moto X and the Google Now launcher on the Nexus 5, you'll also be able to trigger voice commands without even touching your device. Just say "OK Google" and Google Wear-powered watches will instantly start listening for your command. That could mean sending or replying to a text, searching Google for a good restaurant, or something like scheduling a meeting.
Android Wear's default screen is basically a scaled-down version of the Google Now we already know from smartphones. You're greeted with the time and weather, but a quick swipe or two can show you things like the detailed forecast or your meetings for the day. Non-Wear-powered watches, like the Galaxy Gear, do some of those things, but Google's platform looks like it combines them in a seamless manner that we haven't seen before.
Hangouts messaging is another key component of Android Wear
Obviously a wearable-focused version of Google Now is the killer feature here, but Google is also opening up Android Wear to third-party developers, who will be able to tie Android Wear functionality to their smartphone apps. So, for example, a fitness app you're running on your Nexus 5 might send a glanceable second-screen version of itself to your Android Wear-powered watch. Look at the smartphone version for the nitty-gritty details, but get quick access to things like your distance and step count on your watch. That's just one simple possibility, but as is always the case with new SDKs, we might not really know what's in store until developers' imaginations have at it.
Calling and confirming a taxi from your watch? That's new
LG and Motorola have already announced watches running Android Wear, and Google says that it's working with HTC, Asus, and Samsung on Wear devices. A Wear Developer Preview is available starting today. And be sure to check out Google's video below for a clearer look at what Android Wear has to offer.


Tuesday 18 March 2014

iOS 8 will focus on fitness, but on what should Apple set its sights?

Healthbook iOS 8

For a while now, the tech world has been wondering what industry Apple will change next. Leaks and rumors of Apple’s upcoming mobile operating system, iOS 8, have been swirling about for a couple of weeks now, and it appears as though Apple will delve into the world of fitness tracking, but is this the world Apple should shape?
Fitness apps and wearables have become something of a fad, with FitBit and Nike’s FuelBand as the most notable of the wearables. The fitness wearable market isn’t overflowing with money, but it’s doing well enough to spur companies in other sectors — like gaming peripheral maker Razer — to hop aboard. Netbooks would be an accurate analogy to describe the fitness band market — they were easy and cheap to manufacture, and provide a useful service (in the case of the netbook: affordable, basic computing).
While Apple has been iterating on its phones, tablets, and computers, we’ve been waiting for its next big product line. The rumored iWatch has been the top guess for a while now, but thanks to Samsung’s Galaxy gear — a fine piece of hardware — the public has shown that it isn’t thrilled about shelling out cash for a tiny wrist-tablet. Back at Mobile World Congress, Samsung unveiled the Gear Fit, which basically combined a smartwatch and fitness band. The easy thing for Apple to do is release its own fitness band and smartwatch combo, but the very usage of the device — second screen for your phone and pedometer — limits its ceiling.
Samsung Gear Fit, on its side
The Samsung Gear Fit: kind of a smartwatch, kind of a fitness band.
There is nothing wrong with joining the fitness market — even though fitness bands are currently more or less glorified pedometers and aren’t really able to automatically track a proper weight workout. According to various leaks, Apple’s focus on that market — Healthbook — with the upcoming iOS 8 is quite extensive. However, Apple shouldn’t be focusing on me-too devices in an already-saturated market of middling popularity. Instead, it should blow the doors off a hugely popular-but-stagnant market wide open, or create a new market. This is why Apple should either focus on finally releasing a television, or getting a sleek-looking, affordable Google Glass competitor to consumers before Google can.
It’s no question that the television market is stale, with the most recent innovation being Smart TVs. Basically, this is because there’s really not much left to do with them; the realistic progression would be to include game console and media streaming capabilities, removing the need for us to have an entertainment unit full of PlayStations, Xboxes, and Rokus. This doesn’t mean Apple should perfect some kind of WebTV — it didn’t work before, and it especially won’t work now that we do our bed-based web surfing through our phones and tablets. If Apple chose to leave its mark on the TV world, it should simply produce a very pretty Retina-class television in the usual sleek Apple style, include media streaming support for people that don’t want cable but use services like Netflix and HBO, and even include iOS support and a controller for games. It wouldn’t change the face of television, but Apple could offer everyone the best television available.
David Cardinal, sporting a lovely Google Glass
Our own David Cardinal, sporting Google Glass.
On the other end of the spectrum, Apple could skip the wrist-wearable world and go right into Google Glass territory. Thanks to the Pebble and Galaxy Gear, we’ve learned that while interacting with smartwatches are easy enough, the very chassis of the device limits their ceiling — the display is too small, you can’t easily talk into it, you can’t quickly and easily type on it, and so on. It’s more likely that we’re going to be either stuck with smartphones for a while, or move to a convenient style of wearable. Google Glass appears to be that wearable, but we’re nowherenear a consumer release, or the product even being that useful. Voice control is much easier to handle when you don’t have to yell at your wrist all the time, and a Glass-style display is much larger than a watch’s thanks to perspective.
Whatever Apple does, iOS 8 appears to be tackling fitness as its next big thing. If it can’t automatically track weight lifting, then it won’t set itself apart from the already-established market. If Apple is going to make a medium-sized ripple rather than a gigantic splash, it might as well set its sights on a market where it could be the only one making that ripple. A high-quality television that allows me to put some of my devices in the closet — and looks beautiful sitting on my TV stand — would make my already-comfortable room an even nicer place to be. If Apple doesn’t want to remove the (pretty good) LG TV from my TV stand, then it’ll have a much easier time putting a computer on our faces than on our wrists — and only have one competitor, who currently sells a limited (beta) product for $1,500.

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