Tuesday, November 29, 2011

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A New Google Bar: Black Is Out, Google Search Across Products Is In Top
Screen shot 2011-11-29 at 4.12.32 PMOver the last six months, Google has been doing a full house clean -- or maybe it's been shedding an old skin. On the one hand, that's meant sunsetting products that just aren't cutting it anymore, like in September when it announced plans to shutter Aardvark, Desktop, Notebook, and Fast Flip, etc. and then last week it continued with saying au revoir (officially) to Wave, Knol, Friend Connect, and more. Then, on the other hand, Google has been updating its look, well, its design. Today, Google announced on its blog that it's "ready for the next stage" of its redesign, which apparently includes a new Google bar that will enable users to quickly switch between each of its products, and share easily with Robert Scoble (er, Google+ users). That means arrivederci to the black bar.
 
Restored Polaroid SX70s, With Designer Accents – For A Price Top
sx70An original Polaroid SX70 camera would be a dream for many an analog photography lover. But not only are they difficult to find in good condidion, they're also maddeningly expensive when they show up. Today is no exception, but they're rare enough that to find 50 restored cameras ready for sale is an event worth shouting from the rooftops. These SX70s have been restored by The Impossible Project, which if you have been following along for the last few years, has taken it upon themselves to manufacture Polaroid film cartridges and fix up some of the old cameras. They show up in small batches on Impossible's site and others, but quickly sell out. And starting on December 5th there will be 50 available for purchase at boutique design site colette (caution: autoplaying music).
 
Snap Interactive Says Facebook's New Mobile Channels Are Boosting Its Traffic And Revenue Top
snap_logo_thumb1Facebook launched a new set of social channels for apps to reach mobile users last month, including notifications, search, news feed stories and bookmarks in its mobile web and iPhone apps. We haven't heard too much about the results from developers But here's a little bit of interesting new data from Snap Interactive, a publicly-traded company that has a popular cross-platform app called Are You Interested. After Facebook rolled out the new features in mid-October, the company said its mobile traffic to that app got a significant boost (although it's not providing specific numbers). The number of average daily logins on its AreYouInterested iPhone app (here) increased by 70 percent between the 30 days before the October 10th Facebook integration and the 30 days after.
 
Aviary's Tools Are Powering One Million Edited Photos Per Week On Mobile Alone Top
aviary-lets-developers-add-cool-photo-editing-features-to-their-iphone-android-appsIf apps like Instagram have proven one thing, it's that photos and mobile phones are an extremely popular (and powerful) combination. And photos on the web are obviously immensely popular as well. A year ago NYC-based startup Aviary decided to capitalize on these trends by launching developer-facing APIs, which allow third-party apps to bake in image editing with a minimal amount of work required. Today, the company is announcing some stats that indicate that its strategy is working: it's now powering image editing in some 300+ websites and mobile applications, and over one million photos are being edited per week on mobile alone. For most of its history Aviary has offered a suite of web-based image editing tools — if you want to edit an image but don't have Photoshop handy, for example, it's a great free alternative. Then last year, it opened the doors to third-party developers with a new HTML5-based web API, and it followed that up with its iOS and Android SDKs this past September. Aviary says that on average, it takes a mobile developer only fifteen minutes to bake this functionality into their apps.
 
Judge Applies SOPA-Esque Solution To Hundreds Of Counterfeit Goods Sites Top
chanel_rogerThe much-maligned SOPA bill is facing a lot of heat as much of the tech industry sets its weight against it. But while the legislation is being discussed, its extreme solutions to criminal online sites are already being adopted. A judge in Nevada has ordered that 228 websites be seized, their domain names transferred, and their listings removed from search engines. There are several serious problems with this ruling, and law blogger Venkat Balasubramani sums them up well. Essentially it is unclear how and why this Nevada judge purports to exert powers over hundreds of separate defendants and order relief from parties only tangentially related to the case, such as search engines. The jurisdiction, evidence, and punitive actions all seem to be have had their scope exaggerated.
 
Market For Mobile Health Apps Projected To Quadruple To $400 Million By 2016 Top
health-techThe latest healthtech research shows that the forecast is looking good for mobile health solutions, especially for those companies buying into mobile apps. ABI Research recently released a report which predicts that the sports and health mobile app market is on pace to hit $400 million in revenues by 2016. That's up from $120 million in 2010, meaning the market could quadruple over the next four years. ABI's report projects that the majority of that $400 million will come from sports, fitness, and wellness apps, which have begun to see heavy adoption over the least year. The increase of available health data and the growing adoption of health-related apps is owed largely to the development of increasingly wearable, portable, and non-invasive devices and their sensors that can effectively measure and transmit biometric data.
 
The Kindle Fire Bests The iPad At BestBuy.com, Becomes The Retailer's Best Selling Tablet Online Top
kindle-fireBe careful, the Kindle Fire is hot. Burning up you might say. Get it? Because it's the Fire? Never mind... Amazon's first foray into the tablet world seems to be a runaway success. The Fire has occupied the top spot on Amazon's best sellers list for weeks even prior to the device shipping. Now, at Best Buy, the $199 Fire sits higher the 16GB iPad as the top selling tablet on the retailer's website. Yep, it's safe to say that Amazon is well on its way to officially winning the Android tablet wars. Amazon's first color tablet had a banner Black Friday weekend. The retail previously stated that it moved four times more Kindles this year than last (although hard numbers were not given). Consumers are seemingly eating up the Fire.
 
Carrier IQ Video Shows Alarming Capabilities Of Mobile Tracking Software Top
ciqYou may be aware of the growing controversy surrounding Carrier IQ, a piece of software found pre-installed on Sprint phones that, according to developers who have investigated, is capable of detecting, recording, and transmitting various user actions and inputs. Among the data CIQ potentially has access to are location, SMS, apps, and key presses. News of the software has been percolating for months on development forums, but when Trevor Eckhart recently summarized his findings, he found himself facing a cease and desist while Sprint vigorously denied the charges, saying "We do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool." The C&D was quickly retracted, but Eckhart has now released a video that seems to give the lie to both Sprint and Carrier IQ's assurances.
 
(Founder Stories) Mayor Bloomberg On Success: If "Having Access To The Best & The Brightest Is The Difference, This Is The Place To Be." Top
Bloomberg Show 2.movIn episode II of Mayor Bloomberg's interview with Founder Stories host Chris Dixon, the two start off by discussing Mayor Bloomberg's desire to strengthen the economic foundation of New York City by attracting top scholars in applied sciences. While many universities can secure the funds necessary to make it work in NYC, the high cost of living poses greater challenges for founders of more modest means. Addressing the issue Mayor Bloomberg notes, if "low rent and low taxes is the difference between you being successful or not successful, you don't have a business. If the having access to the best and the brightest is the difference, this is the place to be."
 
Review: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Is Just Right Top
Screen Shot 2011-11-28 at 6.33.53 PMShort Version The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is a nearly perfect size and weight and, thanks to a few user experience updates, is an excellent vehicle for Android Honeycomb 3.1. In many cases the dreaded Android lag is gone and 8.9 screen size is, like the baby bear's porridge, just right.
 
Galaxy Nexus Gets The iFixit Teardown Treatment Top
galaxy-nexus-internalsI've spent what seems like months obsessing over every little bit of Galaxy Nexus minutiae that's crossed the wire, and what better to celebrate its (hopefully) impending launch than to watch one get torn apart? That's right folks -- iFixit is at it yet again, and this time it's the GSM Galaxy Nexus that's going under the knife.
 
Parenting Fills Facebook's Most Shared Articles of 2011 List Top
mediaArticles about natural disasters and parenting advice from CNN, Yahoo! News, the New York Times, and Huffington Post topped Facebook's new list of the most shared articles in the US for 2011. Facebook measured which articles were Liked, Shared, or copy and pasted into the social network and found that subjects such as "Parents, don't dress your girls like tramps" and "What teachers really want to tell parents" were the most popular, along with news about the Japan tsunami and rumored changes to zodiac sign arrangements. The list provides insight into Facebook's user base, which skews more towards middle-aged parents than most expect. Unfortunately, it also illuminates the United States' attraction to tragedy and aversion to real issues -- only one article in the top 20 dealt with the financial crisis.
 
SublimeVideo's Cloud-Based HTML5 Player Goes Freemium Top
SublimeVideo - HomeJilion, the makers of the cloud-based HTML5 video player SublimeVideo, are today making the product more accessible through the introduction of a freemium offering. When the service launched earlier this spring, commercial plans were available, starting at the relatively affordable rate of under $10 per month. But when it comes to user adoption, nothing beats "free."
 
Foursquare Adds Scoutmob To Its Growing List Of Deal Providers Top
scoutmob_logoOver the last year, Foursquare has been actively buddying up with the daily deal players. Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City, AT&T Interactive, BuyWithMe and Zozi all provide their daily deals to Foursquare. And today, Atlanta-based Scoutmob joins the ranks of deal sites partnering with the check-in champion, as Foursquare will today begin offering Scoutmob's 50 percent-plus discounted deals in 13 U.S. cities from the within Foursquare's mobile apps. Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley has said before that he thinks daily deal companies are version 1.0 of the tools merchants will eventually use to drive foot traffic to their stores. But, while daily deals are hot and companies are adopting them, there's obviously no use in resisting. The more daily deal sites that Foursquare partners with, the more localized and nearby deals it can display to its mobile users.
 
Reports: Zynga Launches Dog And Pony Show Ahead Of Mid-December IPO Top
Screen Shot 2011-11-29 at 11.31.58 AMTop social game developer Zynga has been widely expected to go public anytime... for months. But now we have a date range -- mid-December, according to DealBook. That follows up on an earlier report today by Fortune that Zynga is starting a "road show" to prospective public investors on Monday to stir up interest ahead of the offering. An amended S-1 is also expected that day detailing the number and price of shares, as Inside Mobile Apps also hears. Finally, after months of media scrutiny about Zynga's business and traffic (that the company has been legally prevented from responding to), and many a cancelled conference appearance by Zynga executives, public investors will get to decide what they really think. If Zynga is going to go public as it had said it intended to in its original S-1 filing this past June, the time is now. Macroeconomic conditions are especially uncertain due to big questions around how Europe is going to get out of its ongoing financial crisis. If the eurozone falls apart within the next few weeks or months (or days), investors are likely to have even less interest in a new-fangled type of tech company. Larger fears could be contributing to the poor recent performance of other recent tech IPOs, like Groupon, and Zynga now has to convince the world that it's different in a good way. And obviously, how Zynga does could shape the perception around the forthcoming IPO of its main platform provider, Facebook.
 
The Little Printer Puts Your Customized Digital Content On A Slip Of Paper Top
Little PrinterOur collective trajectory these days seems to be a migration from print to digital. Books, calendars, to-do lists, and newspapers are all victims of the digital revolution, at least in paper form. But not everyone's down with the death of paper. Meet the Little Printer, the latest gizmo out of Berg Cloud. Cute, right? When it's not smiling up at you from your desk, the Little Printer pops out receipt-sized slips of paper loaded with your custom info, news, and friendly gossip.
 
Report: Microsoft To Bring Office To iPad In 2012 Top
ipad2_straightThe iPad hasn't been much of a revenue stream for Microsoft, which has been focusing on developing its own competing tablet ecosystem. But as a software company, it can't ignore the scores of millions of Apple devices out there for long. Sure, it has a few things in the App Store, but one of its biggest earners, Office, is entirely absent. The Daily reports that this is likely to change shortly, as Microsoft is planning to debut an iPad version of their productivity suite next year.
 
CyanogenMod 7 Hacked Onto The Kindle Fire, Let The Modding Madness Begin! Top
cm7-fireThe $199 Kindle Fire just took one step closer to instant fame. XDA-Dev member, JackpotClavin, managed to flash CM7 onto the Fire using ClockworkMod. The result is a Fire running a custom build of Android and a whole lot of excited fanboys.
 
Microsoft Builds A Browser-Based Windows Phone 7 Simulator To Woo iPhone/Android Users Top
WP7 Sim 2While the features that Windows Phone 7 can call "exclusive" are few and far between, there's at least one aspect of it that is absolutely, undeniably original: the user interface. Called "Metro", the UI is so unique that it's almost polarizing — you'll know whether you love it or hate it within a few seconds. Microsoft is counting on finding a few more lovers in the crowd, it seems: they've just launched a browser-based WP7 simulator, seemingly tailored solely to sing Metro's siren song to the wandering iPhone/Android user.
 
In Response To FTC Privacy Settlement, Facebook Splits The Chief Privacy Officer Role In Two Top
Screen Shot 2011-11-29 at 10.57.42 AMIn a blog post regarding today's FTC settlement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced that the company has officially split the Chief Privacy Officer role into two parts, to be filled by existing Facebook employees Erin Egan and Michael Richter. Richter, who will be taking the CPO -- Product role, was Facebook's Chief Privacy Counsel on its legal team and now will be focused on the product side of Facebook's privacy policy, serving as a key figure in Facebook's internal privacy review program.
 

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