Google provides a look at Android's highly customized future with App Inventor
For anyone with an Android phone and a great idea for an app but no experience with writing code, Google has announced the ultimate solution.
Today, Google began the beta phase of App Inventor, a graphical tool in Google Labs for designing custom Android applications. Users of the tool do not need to know anything about programming to be able to create an app, package it, and upload it to their USB-connected Android phone.
Android gaming to get big boost from popular OpenFeint social platform
Android's unabated growth has been a hot topic recently, and comScore's smartphone market share breakdown released today shows that from February to May 2010, it was actually the ONLY major mobile platform to experience positive growth.
Among this growth, a complaint about the Android platform has persisted: it has no good games. While this may be a bit of an overstatement, users frequently compare the Android platform with Apple's iOS in terms of functionality, features, and apps; and iOS simply has more high quality games.
Testing YouTube's automated closed captioning beta
Back in March, YouTube gave users the ability to run an automated closed captioning feature which uses speech-to-text technology to convert a video's audio track into live subtitles. This feature was in development for more than two years, and was in private beta testing since November 2009.
The Auto-captioning feature combines some of the speech-to-text algorithms found in Google's Voice Search, and automatically generate video captions when requested by a viewer. The video owner can also download the auto-generated captions, correct the mistakes, and then upload the corrected version. Viewers can even choose an option to translate those captions into any one of 50 different languages.
Facebook begins pushing updates to photos application, tagging first
Facebook realizes that its photo application is sometimes cumbersome to use, and promised late Thursday that it is working to make things better.
The impetus behind making one of the most commonly-used features of Facebook better seems to be Facebook's acquisition of photo sharing site Divvyshot in April. In fact, the social networking site turned to Divvyshot co-founder Sam Odio -- now a product manager at Facebook -- to introduce the first enhancement: facial recognition.
Simple tutorial creation app iorad opens in beta, automatically turns walkthroughs into annotated slides
When a new piece of software is released, companies frequently include a video of someone walking through the features of the software, explaining how it works. Unfortunately, videos like this lack the basic interaction of a step-by-step tutorial.
Now, a Web app called iorad has opened in beta, which lets developers create interactive instructions for their software completely within the browser.
Hulu finally comes to the TV with new $9.99 monthly subscription service
True to last week's rumors, Hulu today unveiled a new subscription tier called Hulu Plus which allows users access to Hulu across a broader spectrum of devices, not just limiting consumption to PC screens.
Select Samsung Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players can download a Hulu Plus application from the Samsung app store and start streaming Hulu Plus today, and iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, and iPad users can download the Hulu Plus app to stream content over 3G or Wi-Fi as well.
Google Voice is now open to everyone, no invites required
Google Voice, the popular and often controversial VoIP, voicemail, and messaging service from Mountain View search giant Google is now open for anyone in the U.S. to use.
Previously, you could only open a Google Voice account if you received an invitation from a user already participating in the program.
Google announces open app store for 'Installable Web apps'
Google has announced the upcoming availability of the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace similar to the Android Market or iTunes App Store that deals exclusively in Web Apps.
This store doesn't exist yet, but will open both to developers and to users "later this year."
Google opens Wave to all, adds new features for developers
Google today began pushing its Wave collaboration tool again, hoping to attract both users and developers with new features.
Firstly, for users, Google is dropping the "invitation-only" velvet rope from the collaboration tool, and now anybody can sign up just by going to wave.google.com and logging in with their gmail or Google account.
New Hotmail lets you add bigger attachments, organize your inbox, edit documents
I'm constantly reminded how slow email actually is.
On the homescreen of one of my smartphones, I've got the official Twitter widget and the official Facebook widget which are pretty much constantly refreshing. Likewise, my email inbox is set to refresh just as frequently. Every day, when someone sends me a message in Facebook or replies to a Tweet, the widgets tell me first, and then five minutes later I get the email alerting me again. Because of this, I have an email account just for social network updates that is overflowing with unread messages.
YouTube, now a cultural phenomenon, streams 2 billion videos every day
On its five year anniversary, popular video streaming site YouTube announced it streams two billion videos every day.
"What started as a site for bedroom vloggers and viral videos has evolved into a global platform that supports HD and 3D, broadcasts entire sports seasons live to 200+ countries," it said in the official YouTube Blog on Sunday. "We bring feature films from Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers to far-flung audiences. Activists document social unrest seeking to transform societies, and leading civic and political figures stream interviews to the world."
Hello? Facebook login! Hello? Where are my piggies?
In an astonishing statistic released this morning, Web analytics service Experian Hitwise reported that of all the Web searches performed in the United States on the top three search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing during the first four weeks of March, about two percent on average are for the word facebook. For Yahoo and Bing, Another one percent is for facebook.com, and just less than one percent is for facebook login.
Coupled with statistics for the same month from analytics service comScore, Experian's findings suggest that, from March 1 through March 27, searches for a way to get to Facebook other than through typing the address or clicking on a bookmark, accounted for as many as 175.84 million Google searches in the US, over 78.9 million Yahoo searches, and over 80 million Bing searches.
With Microsoft's and Google's help, Facebook assembles, like, a platform
At its f8 developers' conference in San Francisco this morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg presented his vision of a cross-site social platform whose developmental state may already be quite far along. Essentially, he sees a kind of online social sphere wherein anything one communicates that he likes, gets channeled to Facebook, where that like becomes a public fact.
"Today, the Web exists mostly as a series of unstructured links between pages. And this has been a powerful model, but it's really just the start," said Zuckerberg. "The Open Graph puts people at the center of the Web. It means that the Web can become a set of personally and semantically meaningful connections between people and things. I am friends with you. I am attending this event. I like this band. These connections aren't just happening on Facebook, they're happening all over the Web. And today, with the Open Graph, we're going to bring all of these together."
Another service named 'Buzz?' What gives?
Today, AT&T Interactive launched Buzz.com in beta, the company's answer to entertainment search and recommendation site Yelp. If you think you've seen it before...well, you haven't -- not this, anyway.
The word "Buzz" was employed liberally throughout the 1990's to describe successful alternative rock groups. Pretty much any non-pop band that sold 500,000 albums in that era was classified as a "buzz bin" artist by MTV. By 2004, it was worn out.
New Facebook 'Connections' may expose users' likes, filter likes from profiles
Facebook's privacy policy, like its services, is an evolving organism. Recently, that evolution has been reactive rather than pro-active. Another reaction may be in the works after today's announcement of a new Facebook feature that enables users to subscribe to personal interests or "likes," officially called "Connections," the way they connect to other users.
The company said today there's a new way for a Facebook user to block others, including friends, from seeing one's "connections" -- the list of pages that represent things one likes to do (e.g., snowboarding) or to partake in (e.g., classical music), or people they may enjoy who may not be represented by their own Facebook pages (e.g., Bertrand Russell, Elvis Presley). But someone who's perusing the page for people or things that Facebook users vote that they "Like" (which replaces "Become a Fan Of" today) may still see the list of everyone who has voted she likes something, the company also said -- indicating that one's likes may never be completely private.
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