Google has opened up its Google+ API to Flipboard, which will allow users of the popular mobile app to browse, publish and comment on Google+ posts.
The move is part of a larger effort to make Google+ more mobile-friendly, explains Bradley Horowitz, Google VP of product management in charge of Google+.
During a presentation at LeWeb in London, Horowitz demonstrated a Flipboard prototype running on an iPad, bringing “its familiar page-turning experience to Google+ text and photos,” reports CNET.
“The quick demo showed Flipboard’s typical interface, with its design of virtual pages that people can flip from one subject to another. One page showed various photos from a particular user, another textual comments, and a third a combination of some text with a large photos. He also showed a basic interface for posting a comment to Google+,” notes the post, adding that it looked more polished than the iPhone version.
Horowitz also suggested that Google+ tablet apps are in development. “We’re dramatically investing in mobile,” he said. “For us, mobile usage is not a problem. It doesn’t impact our business model. It’s a good thing for us,” perhaps giving rival Facebook a jab.
The Engadget editorial team offers some interesting comments in an extensive post that takes a close look at Windows Phone 8 and its possibilities. The following are some of the highlights:
“Rather tragically, there’s no upgrade path from any current Windows Phone device (the 7.8 stopgap notwithstanding). Your hot new cerulean blue Lumia 900? It’ll be obsolete this fall.”
“None of the handsets sold between today and the release of WP8 (this fall) will be upgraded, and none of the devices sold between now and then will run Windows Phone 8 apps… That may be the right thing to do for the platform’s future, but it’s sure going to sting for current users who, it must be said, are left feeling a bit like beta testers.”
“Microsoft ran down my list of complaints about Windows Phone and put a big red line through each of them. High-res screens, multi-core support, more homescreen customization and a seriously modern browser. All-in-all, Windows Phone 8 is shaping up to be a beastly update to the most visually appealing mobile OS on the block.”
“It’s common knowledge at this point that the availability of quality apps plays a huge part in the failure or success of a mobile platform, and the ‘Shared Windows Core’ provides just what’s needed to get more devs cooking up apps for WP8.”
“Unfortunately for Microsoft, balking a bit at the business space allowed Android and iOS time to offer up their own solutions. But Redmond’s got a long history of enterprise support to fall back on, and this slew of new features certainly looks promising with regards to Window Phone’s place in the business space.”
“Because of Windows’ momentum and massive market share, there will be plenty of people writing software for Windows 8, and with WP8, Microsoft just turned every one of those folks into developers for its mobile platform. In short, this, at the very least, should help Microsoft close the app gap, and it has the potential to eventually vault Windows Phone Marketplace ahead of its competition from Cupertino and Mountain View — and that bodes well for Windows Phone’s future.”
Microsoft announced ambitious plans for its Windows Phone 8 operating system at a sneak peek event on Wednesday.
The biggest take-away is that for the first time there will be one software platform — Windows 8 — across desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Developers will be able to create apps that run across platforms, reports Engadget.
Windows 8 phones will support multi-core processors (up to 64), three screen resolutions (800 x 480, 1280 x 720 [16:9], and 1280 x 768), NFC for payments and SD cards. Nokia Maps is built in and includes use offline.
Unfortunately, current phones running Windows Phone will not be able to run Windows Phone 8. However, according to AllThingsD: “Microsoft is planning an update for existing devices that will bring one key feature of Windows Phone 8 — the more customizable Start screen. That update, known as Windows Phone 7.8, will be available for the current crop of Windows Phones from Nokia, HTC and Samsung.”
Microsoft is also promising enterprise-level support and security including encryption, secure booting, and the ability to deploy and manage apps.
The average person receives 63,000 words of information daily (about the length of a novel) from emails, tweets, Facebook updates and other assorted avenues.
Cue, formerly named Greplin, is an iPhone app that seeks to manage that data flow so you don’t have to remember where you saw something important or manually pull together related information.
The vision of its co-founders “is for Cue to be the first thing you check in the morning and the app you return to throughout the day to ‘find out what’s next,’ as the tagline puts it,” reports Businessweek.
You use Cue’s calendar to see what’s next in your schedule. The app pulls info from up to 26 data sources including email, Facebook, Salesforce, Yammer, and others to gather information on, for example, your meeting attendees’ contact information, Facebook updates from them, tweets they posted, addresses, etc.
The app can get smarter over time. It recognizes flight reservations, movie ticket confirmations and package deliveries so that it can automatically enter them on your calendar.
Interestingly, Robby Walker, co-founder and CTO of Greplin, feels that one day they may have to listen in on your conversations so they can catalog them for searching.
A new update to the My Xbox Live app allows users to control their Xbox 360 gaming console using an iPhone.
Although the iOS app is available for the iPod touch and iPad, this specific feature only works on the iPhone.
To access the feature, users must connect their Xbox 360 and iPhone to the same Wi-Fi network. Users must then connect their iPhone to the Xbox 360 via the Console Settings menu.
Once connected, the app allows users to “navigate through the Xbox menu using the onscreen buttons on your iPhone,” reports CNET. “Functionality really doesn’t go beyond that, but it might be easier to scroll through the Xbox’s various media apps and content delivery portals this way.”
The post includes step-by-step instructions and a video tutorial. Once the video plays through, a second video report offers additional details regarding the My Xbox Live app.
Spotify’s new app update allows users to access Spotify Radio on iOS devices for free. Previously, the recommendation-based application was only available on mobile for Spotify Premium subscribers.
Spotify Radio is similar to Pandora and Slacker in that it allows users to “pick a song, album, artist, or playlist, and build a radio station using it.” Spotify then “makes recommendations based on millions of hours of user data combined with data based on playlists users create — since playlists are already places where users organize similar content,” reports The Verge.
The app will employ a thumbs up and thumbs down rating service. The ratings will not apply to all playlists, but rather the currently playing playlist only, since “people often create playlists for specific moods.”
Inter-device functionality allows users to start a playlist on an iPad and continue listening on an iPhone. Social functionality enables songs and playlists to integrate with friends’ Facebook streams.
The updated app will be available in the next few days for all users in the United States, and to Premium subscribers internationally.
It is not yet available on Android, but according to Spotify: “we think it’s core to the mobile experience, and we’re looking to bring it to all of the major platforms in due time.”
Speaking at the TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco last week, Roku CEO Anthony Wood predicted Blu-ray player sales would peak this year or next and then decline.
“Will people use Blu-ray players in four years? I don’t think so,” he suggested.
While admitting that most video streaming takes place on game consoles today, Wood doesn’t expect we’ll see much growth in that area. “New customers don’t go out and buy game consoles to stream video,” he said.
“Wood sees momentum shifting to streaming players like the current-generation Roku boxes, as well as Smart TVs,” reports GigaOM. According to Wood, his company’s “goal is to be the dominant platform in those two segments.”
Roku’s streaming stick is scheduled to launch later this year and Wood sees it as an initial step into the Smart TV space for Roku.
“Wood also shared some new numbers about his company’s performance: He said that Roku made $100 million in sales last year, and that the number of devices sold tripled year-over-year,” notes the post. “However, he didn’t mention that the company missed its projected sales goal by 500,000 units.”
Online video is evolving from an entertainment medium geared toward viewers with short attention spans to a legitimate platform featuring programs running 30 minutes or more.
Long-form content is finding a home online thanks in part to YouTube’s made-for-Web initiative, services such as Netflix and Hulu, and the cord-cutting trend.
“I think our creators always wanted to make longer content — we’re just reaching a certain point in the lifecycle of online video where people have the command over the audience and the budget to make longer video,” says YouTube Next Lab director Tim Shey. “More creators are building huge audiences on YouTube, and once you build a loyal audience online, they all tend to want more.”
Producers are experimenting with more full-length content, and research suggests that consumers are responding, with retention rates of more than 75 percent reported for some archived programs.
GigaOM lists a number of early success stories including Wil Wheaton’s “Tabletop” on YouTube and Wilson Cleveland’s “Leap Year” on Hulu.
“What’s encouraging to me is that the platforms are becoming networks funding their own original series,” says actor/producer Cleveland. “These series are on-par with the broadcast and cable fare audiences have already been comfortably consuming on these same platforms for years. THAT’s the marriage of TV and digital programming realized.”
In a reversal of its long-standing opposition to selling subscriptions through Apple, Time Inc. has announced plans to offer all of its magazines through the newsstand section of Apple’s App Store.
The Apple newsstand, which currently lists more than 5,000 magazines and newspapers, has softened some of its initial restrictions in order to better compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. The imposed restrictions are what drew concern from Time.
“For a magazine or brand like People or Time, a tablet will become an increasingly important part of the experience,” says Time CEO Laura Lang. “Our goal is to offer content where our consumers want to read it.”
“The agreement also moves Apple further along in its strategy of expanding its App Store beyond popular games like ‘Angry Birds’ and making it more of a destination for news, information and videos,” reports The New York Times.
The article also notes that Time Inc. has been struggling with a decline in print advertising revenue (about 30 percent in the last five years), joining the ranks of others in the print publishing business looking to a digital transition for change.
The Huffington Post is a prime example of how digital media continues to impact the magazine and newspaper businesses.
Last week, it introduced a sleek new digital magazine for the iPad called Huffington and it is moving aggressively into online video.
“Huffington is a particularly acute reminder of how much things have changed,” writes David Carr for The New York Times. “Last year, The Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315 million, less than a year after Newsweek was sold for a dollar, and in April the site won its first Pulitzer, for David Wood’s 10-part series about wounded veterans.”
“More unique Web visitors now go to The Huffington Post each month than The New York Times, according to the research company comScore,” writes Carr.
Meanwhile, traditional media is being dragged reluctantly into the digital era. Time Inc., for example, just agreed to Apple’s terms so it can sell its digital magazines on iTunes. And local newspapers continue to struggle. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, for example, is undergoing a big layoff.
“It’s true that legacy media brands still have juice and powerful assets at their disposal,” notes Carr. “No purely digital media product has kicked up anywhere near the profits that beleaguered traditional brands still do. But smart minds will figure that out. As his lawman uncle told the sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones in ‘No Country for Old Men,’ ‘You can’t stop what’s coming.'”
Vizio, known primarily for its LCD TVs and home entertainment products, has announced it will start selling a variety of PCs this summer, including a pair of all-in-one PCs, a 15.6-inch laptop, and two ultrabooks.
“In a market that’s already crowded with competition from the likes of Apple, HP and Dell, Vizio is hoping that it can lure new customers by offering products that combine high performance and stylish design,” reports AllThingsD.
The all-in-one PCs come in 24-inch and 27-inch versions, both with a 1080p HD display, wireless keyboard and touchpad with multi-touch support. “Surround sound audio is also onboard, as well as dual HDMI ports, so you can connect your cable box, Blu-ray player or gaming console and turn it into a mini entertainment hub,” notes the article.
The company’s Thin + Light ultrabook series tout HD displays, a slim aluminum unibody design, 4GB of memory, SRS Premium Sound, 1.3-megapixel 720p camera, and HDMI and USB 3.0 ports.
The Vizio notebook features a 15.6-inch HD display and although not as thin and light as the ultrabook offerings, runs a more powerful graphics processor for users concerned with multimedia.
“All of Vizio’s laptops and all-in-one PCs feature Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors and ship with the Signature Edition of Windows 7, which means you won’t get any bloatware or unnecessary applications,” adds AllThingsD.
Microsoft has long been a software company, creating programs to run on other company’s machines. However, “the company will make its biggest-ever break from that tradition” when it launches “its own brand of tablets as part of an effort to reinsert itself into the market,” reports AllThingsD.
While Microsoft is not entirely new to hardware, it has experienced more misses (Kin, Zune) than hits (Xbox 360). And similar to how the Zune music player had to compete with Apple’s iPod, Microsoft’s Surface tablet will attempt to challenge the tremendously popular iPad.
Microsoft does bring assets to this battle, including Windows and Office. “The company also has its Xbox gaming abilities, plenty of licensing deals with Hollywood and the music labels, as well as the Barnes & Noble partnership it stuck when settling a legal battle earlier this year,” notes AllThingsD.
Microsoft unveiled its new tablet at an event in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon. Surface features a 10.6-inch screen and will run a forthcoming variation of Windows 8. “The tablet has a built-in ‘kickstand’ that will allow users to prop it up for watching movies, and a detachable cover that will serve double duty as a keyboard,” reports The New York Times. Pricing and availability have yet to be announced.
There could be a great deal at stake for Microsoft. Consumer expectations regarding the marriage of hardware and software have been impacted by the iPad — and Apple’s tablet is becoming more popular with business customers, a market that Microsoft has dominated in the past.
“We’re no longer talking about a peripheral, but rather the future of computing and the core of Microsoft’s business,” suggests AllThingsD.
In the wake of recent security breaches, experts have been discussing the importance of including non-alphanumeric characters in passwords.
“Adding a symbol eliminates the possibility of a straight dictionary attack (using, literally, words from a dictionary), notes ITworld. “Adding a symbol, especially an unusual one, makes it much harder to crack even using rainbow tables (collections of alphanumeric combinations, only some of which include symbols).”
Based on GRC’s Interactive Brute Force Password “Search Space” Calculator by Steve Gibson, the article examines the number of possible combinations based on passwords of six and 10 characters (comprised of letters and numbers, no upper- or lower-case and no symbols) and estimates how long it would take a computer to crack a password.
It then compares the results to those calculated by adding a symbol to the passwords, making “the crack several orders of magnitude more difficult.”
For example, 2.25 billion possible combinations result from a six character password without a symbol, whereas there are 7.6 trillion possible combinations when the same password includes a symbol. Check out the post to see how long it would take to crack the password online via a Web app, offline with high-powered servers or desktops, and offline using massively parallel multiprocessing clusters or grid.
“Take Steve’s advice: go for 10 characters, then add a symbol,” recommends the article.
Poptip is a real-time tweet polling client that offers management tools for Twitter users. The brainchild of 22-year-old Kelsey Falter, Poptip is the latest start-up to emerge from the TechStars New York program and has already raised $640,000 in funding.
“Poptip’s simple premise — it lets brands conduct and analyze instant polls on Twitter and, soon, on Facebook — lines up very nicely with the recent heat around anything and everything that has to do with social media marketing,” reports AllThingsD.
Digital Trends places Poptip above its competition, including Klout, which it describes as “more or less a social network popularity contest.”
“There are other Twitter analytics tools of course, like TweetStats and Foller.me, but they don’t specifically pinpoint the efficacy of asking questions and getting answers on Twitter,” notes Digital Trends. “For that, you turn to poll stat clients, like GoPollGo or TwitPolls, or you start paying for enterprise CRM products — but the experience isn’t as woven into Twitter as many would like.”
Poptip’s dashboard tracks a user’s questions and corresponding answers with a simple, clear interface. It should prove useful for end-users, but Falter is targeting big brands for customer engagement purposes.
The AllThingsD post includes a 2-minute video demo.
In the face of new competition from Google Drive, file sharing and cloud hosting service Dropbox has announced new mobile and Web updates.
According to a Dropbox forum post and a follow-up developers announcement, Public folders will be phased out in favor of a new quick-link sharing feature.
“In April, we launched the ability to share any file or folder in your Dropbox with a simple link. This new sharing mechanism is a more generalized, scalable way to support many of the same use cases as the Public folder,” explains Dropbox. “After July 31, we will no longer create Public folders in any new Dropbox accounts.”
Initial response on the developer forum has been largely negative. The post notes that the new sharing feature adds a step on both ends of the folder sharing process.
“Power users who have virtually turned Dropbox into a server on their own system are naturally frustrated by the choice, but the casual or light Dropbox file and folder sharers out there likely won’t be very affected by the change,” suggests Digital Trends. “Dropbox is doing this because it’s a more scalable solution on its end — which is something worth considering, given that it has 50+ million users.”
On the mobile front, the latest Dropbox iOS app now has automatic photo and video upload capability over Wi-Fi and cellular. Additionally, users who give Dropbox permission to auto-log their camera rolls will be rewarded with 3GB of extra storage.
Google has opened up its Google+ API to Flipboard, which will allow users of the popular mobile app to browse, publish and comment on Google+ posts.
