Google, Motorola challenging Apple, Samsung with 'X phone'

Google is in the midst of designing a brand new smartphone that is said to "rival" anything coming from mobile giants Apple and Samsung, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In a report on Friday, engineers at now Google-owned Motorola Mobility are developing what is being referred internally to as the "X phone."

Based on information from "people familiar with the matter," Google's strategy for Motorola Mobility appears to revolve around the following points:

The X phone is intended to be a "marquee handset," and it will "stand apart from existing phones."
Motorola is primarily developing mobile phones for Verizon Wireless (mostly for the Droid brand).
Motorola will follow up with new "X tablet" later.

However, the WSJ did also note that the Motorola team is running into some major obstacles before anything can be officially announced -- let alone released.

Here's an example:

For the X phone, an initiative being led by former Google product manager Lior Ron who specialized in mapping, Motorola wanted top-notch features for the phone's camera and photo software, such as better color saturation and the ability to take panoramic shots, two people familiar with the situation said. But some of the features were found to drain battery life or already have been incorporated into popular new devices, such as the iPhone 5 that launched earlier this year, they added.

Motorola also ran into difficulties when it looked into using a bendable screen and materials such as ceramics that would allow the company to make the X Phone more stress resistant, use more colors and mold into different shapes, these people said.

Nevertheless, these moves (if true) are made even more interesting (not to mention complicated) given that Samsung is a major OEM partner within the Android ecosystem. Google has also partnered directly with Samsung on past mobile devices, such as the Galaxy Nexus.

When Google originally made its $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility, there was some skepticism and worry from analysts and manufacturers about how this would affect the OEM partnerships.

Google has tried to downplay any fears, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Google is obviously going to direct most of its resources and innovation towards Motorola over other OEM partners -- even one as powerful and important as Samsung.

-zdnet.com

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What Is The Difference?

Today, Facebook launched a new mobile app called Poke. It’s strikingly similar to a new photo-sharing app that’s taken the blogosphere by storm, called Snapchat.
Both Snapchat and Poke let you send pictures or videos which are then destroyed within a matter of seconds.

But the social network has officially launched its competitor, and the differences are few but important.

The biggest difference between Snapchat and Poke may come down to Terms Of Service, which is fitting with the Instagram conversation still burning.
It’s unclear whether or not Poke keeps the images on Facebook’s servers or not. We’ve reached out to Facebook and are waiting to see what Facebook puts on the now-empty Poke support page.
If it’s in keeping with the Facebook Terms Of Service, Facebook likely gets to hold on to that content for a period of time before it’s deleted. This is what Facebook’s TOS say about your content when it’s destroyed:

When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

The social network may have to develop some new language for this app, as opposed to having all of Facebook’s products fall under the same terms of service. In fact, Josh Constine has learned that Facebook may actually be completely deleting photos from its servers or is at least making them completely inaccessible to users and employees. We’ll wait fo confirmation on that.
In either case, Facebook gives users the option to clear their inbox so any unread messages are instantly destroyed.

Snapchat’s method is to delete the image from its servers as soon as the recipient has seen it.
A second, and important, difference is the way Snapchat and Poke connect you to friends.

Snapchat uses Facebook to find friends, and obviously Poke does the same, so Poke has a leg up in terms of auto-integration. Still, Snapchat may help you actually find more friends with the app, as you can search by phone number or user name to add friends.

It’s also worth considering Snapchat’s username customization. The app has a loyal base of users with chosen screen names. That could be one of the bigger differences between Snapchat and Facebook Poke.
When you download Poke on a mobile device, you instantly log in with your Facebook Profile, relegating you to the name you use on Facebook and the friends you have there.
Though I don’t believe in the slightest that Snapchat is used primarily for sexting, I do think that there may be some users who enjoy snapping with randos (as evidenced by Twitter) that would like to keep their anonymous user name.

Poke also has two extra forms of interaction: text-only messages and “pokes.”
Both let you overlay text onto photos, and both let you draw over photos in a selection of colors (if we’re getting picky, Snapchat has more color options for drawing).

After you’ve taken your picture (or video) and added your text and artwork, both apps let you set a limit on how long the content will be viewable to the recipient. On Poke, the second limit is a choice between 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds, whereas Snapchat lets you choose anywhere between 1 and 10 seconds.

The actual feature differences are slight, but it’ll be interesting to watch this space take off now that Facebook has thrown its towel in the ring.



-http://techcrunch.com

Mobile Photo Editor Snapseed Arrives on Android

Popular iOS mobile photo editing app Snapseed has finally made its way to Android.

Snapseed, the creation of 17-year-old Nik software, launched on iOS a little over a year ago. During the past year, the app has seen a whopping 9.5 million downloads and the company was acquired by Google.

“Before we released Snapseed we were primarily focused on [software for] professionals or advanced amateur photographers -– the folks that are buying digital SLRs,” Josh Haftel, product manager at Google, and previously Nik Software, told Mashable. “The application has been really successful for us.”

Along with the launch of the Android application Thursday, Google is knocking the price of the iOS version down from $4.99 to free.

Nik announced it was working on Snapseed for Android in January of this year at CES. Originally slated to launch on a limited number of devices (specifically NVIDA tablets), Nik's acquisition by Google delayed the launch a bit, but also made it so the app will be compatible with more phones and tablets. Thursday’s release is compatible with all phones and tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean.

“Our goal was to take a lot of the technologies that professionals around the world have relied on, and make them accessible to anybody,” says Haftel.

Not your average mobile photo editor, the app includes a number of filters and features you won’t find in other photo editing apps. Edits can each be customized to meet your own personal needs. So, you can apply just the right amount of that “Vintage Filter,” or adjust the center point for a particular effect.

“Our goal was to make a tool that would enable you to come up with a creative and customized enhancement,” says Haftel. “Whereas some of the competitive applications out there might just have some predesigned enhancements that you would only be able to do with a single click and not modify it, or conversely have pretty much every tool in the world shoved into a tablet device or a phone, we tried to pick a path in the middle.”

Snapseed has a number of different built-in enhancement options that let you do everything from crop and straighten an image to adjust the focus, many offering choices you might expect to find in a professional photo editor. The Black and White tool, for instance, is the same tool used in Nik’s professional photo editing software. Adjustments are made by simply sliding your finger across the screen to add more or less of whatever you might be working with.

“It’s very simple and straightforward, and also very powerful,” says Haftel. Each enhancement you select can be fine-tuned to the photo you’re working with. So, for instance, if you’re editing a photo of a friend who has a shadow on his face from wearing a baseball cap, you can brighten just his face in the photo rather than the entire image.

When you’re done editing a photo you can save it to the camera roll on your phone, or share it via Google+, Email, Facebook, or Twitter.

“We really love the application,” says Haftel. “We’re really happy to see it getting out there on the Android platform."

Snapseed for Android will be available Thursday in Google Play. Let us know what you think about the photo editor in the comments.

-http://mashable.com

Google+ communities arrive

Vic Gundotra, Google's senior VP of engineering, announced on December 6th that Google has started adding Google+ communities—online Google+ groups devoted to a specific topic such as a work project, a football team, Guild Wars 2 play, whatever—to Google+'s social-network offerings.

Gundotra said, “We started Google+ in the first place to make online sharing as meaningful as the real thing. Too often, our online tools miss the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions, and Google+ aims to fix this. Fortunately we've got a vibrant community to guide us."

He continued, "What’s been missing, however, are more permanent homes for all the stuff you love: the wonderful, the weird, and yes, even the things that are waaay out there.”

Google+ Communities  promises to be “a gathering place for your passions,” Gundotra said, supporting:

• Public or private membership for all kinds of communities with similar interests, whether a shared topic (such as photography) to local neighborhoods to regular poker nights.
• Discussion categories to make it easier for G+ members to find the conversations they care about
• The option to start hangouts and plan events with community members
• Features to share with a community from any +1 button across the Web

I am glad to see this community launch. Google+ circles should have made it easy for people with a particular interest – in Linux, writing science fiction, chess – to talk together. That functionality was never built into Circles, though.

Circles are good at other things, such as sharing and keeping track of friends, family, or co-workers and, to a far lesser extent, keeping in touch with people with similar interests. But they don’t let you focus on a topic; you just get a stream from a person.

For example, I have many people in my Linux circles and other have me in their Linux circles. But none of us always writes about Linux.

So, yes, if you follow Linus Torvalds, you'll read a lot about Linux, but you'll also read a lot about his thoughts on scuba-diving. If you follow me, you'll read my Linux-related posts, but you'll also see a link to the new Star Trek Into Darkness trailer. Perhaps you don’t mind that – how many Linux fans wouldn’t care about Star Trek? – but you might prefer to hear from me only when it’s on a subject you care about intensely.
communities2Creating a Google+ Community is child's play.

To create a Google+ community, take the following steps:

1. Go to https://plus.google.com/communities and click create community.
2. Choose whether yours should be a public or private community.
3. Give it a name.
4. Decide if you want to approve new members who want to join.

-zdnet.com

4Free Video Converter

Easy-to-use video converter to convert various video/audio files.

4Free Video Converter supports converting nearly all popular HD/SD video formats for watching them on PSP, PS3, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox, mobile phone, PMP, and other multimedia devices. It can also extract transform between audio files and extract audios from videos for making any music suitable for digital devices. Aside from these, you can extract pictures from videos and create video from photos as well.

New features:
1.New interface
2.Add Flip Fuctions, Add Blind Functions
3.Video Converter is now powered with NVIDIA® CUDA™ 5X faster in conversion time
4.Added video profiles supported by the newest iPhone 4.

Key features:
1.Support converting nearly all video and audio formats for PSP, PS3, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox, BlackBerry, 3GP phone, PMP, Windows Mobile, etc.
2.Allows transfer the converted files to iPod, iPhone and PSP directly.
3.Capture pictures in batches from video; create a video from pictures.
4.Process each task on multi-core CPU, and provide higher speed if there're more CPU cores.
5.Support multithreading and Batch process.
6.Split a single file into several files by choosing an appropriate split mode.
7.Lots of video, audio, tag and expert parameters are adjustable: video codec, audio codec, video/audio quality, bit rate, resolution, sample rate, etc.
8.Set multiple output formats for one source file at one time and get them converted within one click.
9.Offer a BitRate Calculator tool to calculate the video bit rate for customizing the output file size exactly.
10.Run the software in the background.
12.Multiple product languages: English, Chinese, German, Japanese,Spanish,Italian and French.

-brothersoft.com

Applications for Baby Monitoring

Baby monitoring is no doutly very essential and important for every parent. And luckily, many advanced baby monitoring devices such as the iPhone can help parents a lot. An iPhone can actually monitor their child from a different room and even over 3G anywhere in the world with many of special apps.

1 Video Babymonitor

Video Babymonitor lets you view your baby while on the same Wi-Fi network. You can even view the video stream on your computer. There is a noise indicator which allows you to visually see noise in the room. The stream is password protected, which is a nice added protection if you have Wi-Fi thieves.

2 BabySight

BabySight works in conjunction with a Mac app. The benefit here is your Mac will be less likely to run out of battery life. The downside is you need a Mac and often the Mac will be harder to position. There is a night mode, which basically cranks up your Mac’s display to see in the dark.

3 My Baby Monitor

This app captures both photo and sound level from one Iphone and transfer them to the other iPhone(iPod Touch). This allows you to see wherever you are around the house if your baby is awake and crying. The application works through either Wifi connection for further distance or Bluetooth.

4 Baby Monitor HD

Baby Monitor HD lets you have up to four different live video streams. Instead of using an iPhone you must use the Y-Cam cameras, which cost around $300. The technology is really solid and works really well.

-http://news.brothersoft.com

Save files to Google Drive with Chrome

This Chrome extension is particularly useful for Chromebook users and anyone who uses Google Drive to store their files more so than their hard drive. If either of these profiles describes you, then I would urge you to give Save to Drive a try. It's dead simple to use and provides useful functionality for storing any image you stumble across in Chrome, along with HTML5 video and audio files.



When you spot such a file you'd like to keep, right-click it. With Save to Drive installed, you'll see a line -- Save image to Google Drive -- has been added to your right-click menu. Choose it and after two status windows, the file gets added to your Google Drive account.

That's it -- dead simple in operation, no? There are, however, a few things Save to Drive does not let you do, perhaps as a result of the extension's simplicity. First, you can't specify a particular folder for files; they are added to My Drive. Secondly, when you click to open a file obtained via Save to Drive, you will not see a preview -- just a download link. Lastly, it does not support Flash.

Credit: Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

How to embed background music into flash album?

Do you like music? Do you want to create a digital flash album with beautiful background music? Album to Flash Magazine can do this for you. Music is the most beautiful sound in the world. It is really a surprise to hear melody when open the online digital album. You are able to import sound file in MP3 format by using the Album to Flash Magazine.

1. launch Album to Flash Magazine and design your flash pages;

2. click “Publish” icon to open the Template Setting window;

3. find “Sound” item in the left design setting panel. Choose “Enable” for “Enable Sound” bar; import a MP3 file in “Sound File” bar; define the play count in “Sound Loops” bar;

4. finally, don’t forget to click “Apply Change” to save the setting. And you can find a “Sound” icon in the toolbar.

-downloadatoz.com

WeVideo Launches New Cloud-Based Video Editor, Integrates With Facebook

It seems like nearly everyone shoots video these days, mostly on their mobile phones, as consumers now have mini video cameras with them at all times. The problem comes in making those videos presentable so that other people will want to watch them. There have been a few attempts at changing this, such as automatic video editing from the likes of Magisto and Animoto, but few actual human editing tools make things easy for users to do their own videos.

WeVideo launched to the public earlier this year, after previously offering its cloud-based video editor to YouTube users. Now the startup is releasing a new update to the video editing product that is aimed at providing easy-to-use themes and drag-and-drop functionality for users.

The new editor provides two modes of operating: There’s the beginner Storyboard mode, which lets them drag and drop assets next to one another and have them instantly stitched together. There’s also a Timeline mode, which provides more advanced editing features, as users become, uh, more advanced as editors. Users can also instantly spruce up their videos quickly by choosing from a dozen or so professionally designed themes.

In addition to launching new features that make editing easier for novice users, the startup has hooked up with a number of services where users already share their videos and photos. By integrating with Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Flickr, and Google Drive, users will be able to easily import their existing media content where it lives on the Internet, rather than having to upload it all over again.

The new features should make WeVideo more accessible to users who generally don’t care much about editing or know how to actually do the editing thing. In a survey of its users, nearly 80 percent of its users reported they had little to no editing experience prior to using its platform. The new WeVideo platform is available on YouTube and also through the Chrome Web Store.

-http://techcrunch.com

Android and iOS Gets Updated, Comes to the UK

Barnes & Noble has updated its Android and iOS Nook app and made it available for download in the UK, the company has announced.

The new features on both platforms include support for British English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

The iOS app has been optimized for the iPhone 5; it now also supports Apple’s screen magnification and VoiceOver features. The only new feature of note in the Android app is a name change, which will now be “NOOK” instead of (“B&N NOOK”) in your app tray.

Of course, the most important change for both apps is their availability in the UK, which comes weeks after B&N launched its Nook devices in that country.

You can get the iOS version of the app here and the Android one is available here.

-Mashable

Update Galaxy S3 to Android 4.2

Google release the latest system, android 4.2. Do you think it's a good news for many android users? In fact, to get android 4.2 on your android phone, lots of samsung galaxy s3 user are looking for the way to update galaxy s3 to android 4.2, if you're using galaxy s3, do you know how to upgrade galaxy s3 to jelly bean 4.2? Don't worry at all, here is provide you an instruction to the quick way to update galaxy s3 with android 4.2 just using Thunderbolt Custom ROM Firmware. Keeping reading this guide, you'll learn more from here.

Before Updating Galxy S3 to Android 4.2, you should do these:

Galaxy-S3-Jelly-Bean.jpg

Step 1: Backup your galaxy s3 data, because you have to wipe the system.

Step 2: Start to save the contacts, messages and call logs, and then backup the EFS.

Step 3: Download Thunderbolt Custom ROM, this is a beta android 4.1.2 update. To install this firmware on your phone, you need to root your galaxy s3.

Step 4: Restore the warranty but only update with an official firmware released by samsung,or downgrade galaxy s3 to the stock ROM, then the bootloader will be relocked and the rootaccess revoked.

Step 5: Install a custom recovery image for your galaxy s3.

Step 6: Make sure that you can access a computer using usb cable.

Step 7: Uninstall both galaxy s3 and pc.

Step 8: Check the battery status of your galaxy s3, if there is less than 50% power left go and charge it. The CM10 and AOKP jelly bean software will be stopped.

Step 9: Enable the usb debugging option on your handset.

Android 4.2: More Powerful Android Phone

Google release the latest system, android 4.2. Do you think it's a good news for many android users? In fact, to get android 4.2 on your android phone, lots of samsung galaxy s3 user are looking for the way to update galaxy s3 to android 4.2, if you're using galaxy s3, do you know how to upgrade galaxy s3 to jelly bean 4.2? Don't worry at all, here is provide you an instruction to the quick way to update galaxy s3 with android 4.2 just using Thunderbolt Custom ROM Firmware. Keeping reading this guide, you'll learn more from here.

Step 1: Backup your galaxy s3 data, because you have to wipe the system.
Step 2: Start to save the contacts, messages and call logs, and then backup the EFS.
Step 3: Download Thunderbolt Custom ROM, this is a beta android 4.1.2 update. To install this firmware on your phone, you need to root your galaxy s3.
Step 4: Restore the warranty but only update with an official firmware released by samsung,or downgrade galaxy s3 to the stock ROM, then the bootloader will be relocked and the rootaccess revoked.
Step 5: Install a custom recovery image for your galaxy s3.
Step 6: Make sure that you can access a computer using usb cable.
Step 7: Uninstall both galaxy s3 and pc.
Step 8: Check the battery status of your galaxy s3, if there is less than 50% power left go and charge it. The CM10 and AOKP jelly bean software will be stopped.
Step 9: Enable the usb debugging option on your handset.

Update Galaxy S3 with Android 4.2 Thunderbolt Custom ROM Firmware

Step 1: Download the update file.
Step 2: Save the file on your pc.
Step 3: Connect the device with pc using usb cable.
Step 4: Select ROM from your computer and copy, paste it, or drag and drop to the phone'ssd card.
Step 5: Disconnect the galaxy s3 from the computer.
Step 6: Turn off galaxy s3 and reboot into recovery mode.
Step 7: Enter into recovery mode by pressing volume up and the home key and power button simultaneously.
Step 8: Once you enter into recovery mode, start the update operation.
Step 9: Select"wipe data factory reset" and "wipe cache partition". You have to backup galaxy s3 first to avoid losing your personal info.
Step 10: Select "+++go back+++" and return to the main menu.
Step 11: Select "install zip from sd card" and "choose zip from sd card"
Step 12: You can get and apply the ROM, just pick the downloaded file and start the flashing procedure.
Step 13: This installation process will cost a few minutes, don't press anyting.
Step 14: Select "+++go back+++" from the recovery menu follow by "reboot system".

-downloadatoz.com

How to make Windows 8 bootable DVD

Microsoft has released the Windows 8 Pro recently. Moreover， Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available for free download. The new features of Windows 8 are available here:

1. With faster boot time and better system optimization.
2. Memory Usage efficiency has been optimized.
3. Use the USB 3.0, greatly increased the transmission speed.
4. With more powerful Anti-Malware to ensure the security of the computer.
5. Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch.

Before you installing Windows 8, you should know the system requirements:

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Here we will show you how to create Windows 8 bootable DVD with WinISO step by step.

1. Firstly, Free Download WinISO. Install and run it.

2. There are three ways to open Windows 8 ISO image file.

I. Please run WinISO. Click the "Open File" button on the menu


II. Click "File" menu, and choose “open file…” or you can directly use the shortcut “ctrl+o”.

III. You can also drag the Windows 8 ISO file into WinISO.

3. Select the “Burn Image..."option. Or you can click “Burn” on the toolbar. After that, the “Burn” dialogue will be pop-up. Press the “…” then choos the Windows 8 ISO file to burn it into your DVD. After the progress is finished, you will get the Windows 8 bootable DVD.

4. Insert the Windows 8 bootable DVD into your DVD driver and don't forget to change the startup sequence of your computer. Following the instructions on the Startup menu in the BIOS Setup Utility, set the CD-ROM drive to start first.

All of the preparation is OK. The last step is: restart your computer.

How to Manage Your Internet Reputation

The best way to gain and preserve a positive Internet reputation is to offer exceptional product and service. However, this still is not enough to protect your business from false accusations or angry complaints online. You need to know what is being said about your company name, work on damage control and fight negative views with positive content.

Get a Snapshot

It’s easy to discover what is being said about your brand name. Enter your name into your favorite search engine to see what information pops up. Set up email alerts with Google Bing, Yahoo or any other search engines that your customers use so you can quickly discover any future praises or complaints about your business.

Utilize an online company snapshot tool or dashboard to keep track of your brand’s online reputation. Snapshots are word cloud charts where the bigger the word, the more often it’s being used to describe your company. If you decide to hire an online reputation management service, opt for snapshots to be made up on a regular basis, such as once a week.

Participate in Social Networks

It’s not enough to just have accounts on the most popular social networking sites like Twittter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You have to participate in these sites, too. Double check your privacy settings on these public sites to avoid future problems. Regularly post valuable content on these sites relating not just to your business but any information your customers may want.

For example, if your business is selling pet care products, you could ask customers to post pictures of their pets, post news about the pet industry or any medical studies that show a link between owning pets and living a healthier, happier life. You can also hold contests or special offers just for customers who use a particular social network website.

Invest in Your Domain Name

Look at your website’s domain name. Does it include your company’s name or highlights what product or service your company provides? If not, you should change the domain name so that somebody else doesn’t take it. Consider buying a few domain names in order to best protect your online reputation. -bytechip.com

Google to challenge Apple with 'open' AirPlay

Google is working on an open alternative to Apple's AirPlay wireless streaming technology, which the company wants to use to link Android devices to Google TV devices.

One of the strengths of Apple's iOS devices is AirPlay, a technology that enables the wireless streaming of audio, video, and photos between devices. Now Google has its eyes on this market, and is working on an open alternative to Apple's proprietary protocol.

Speaking to GigaOM, Google product manager Timbo Drayson admitted that Google has its sights set on the space and plans to pursue it aggressively.

"We really want to move the whole industry forward," said Drayson, before going on to say that Google is "actively working with other companies" to make this into an open standard that could be used on a number of platforms.

Google's primary motivation for developing this protocol is likely to be to enable content sharing between Android smartphones, tablets and Google TV devices.

But Google's plans go beyond simply streaming content. According to Drayson, the protocol that Google is working on allows for data to flow in both directions, which would "enable developers to build second-screen experiences that correspond to what’s happening on live TV" and for the "beaming content from your laptop to your TV screen".

While Apple's AirPlay is the best-known wireless streaming technology, it wasn't the first. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a collaborative established by Sony in 2003 that enable the sharing of media such as music, photos and videos between devices such as computers, TVs, printers, cameras, and cell phones.

-Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (zdnet)

Firefox and Facebook Messenger can now be BFFs

If you're a Facebook addict with a Firefox craving, or the other way around, a new feature in Firefox will have you salivating. We show you how to use the new Facebook Messenger integration in Firefox.

With Facebook, that means that your Messenger sidebar -- the status updates and friends online -- will be persistent across any site you visit. It's easy to set up and if you know how to use Facebook, you practically know how to use the sidebar, too.

First, make sure you're running at least Firefox 17, log in to Facebook, then go to Facebook's Messenger for Firefox site.

Click the green "turn on" button in the middle of the page, and you'll instantly see the Facebook Messenger sidebar appear. It looks like you're in Facebook, with friends' status updates at the top and friends online below it, but the feature also introduces four buttons to the right of your navigation bar. These let you control the Facebook Messenger integration, including removing it.

The first button links to your profile, as well as letting you hide the sidebar and desktop notifications. This lets you hide either one, or both, to keep distractions to a minimum. You can also disconnect the integration entirely by clicking Remove from Firefox.

The next three buttons will be familiar to Facebook users, and perform the same functions as they do there. The silhouette button lets you accept Friend requests without having to go to your Facebook page, while the dialogue box icon pulls up a list of your recent messages and the globe shows recent notifications.

If you're thinking that this looks a lot like socially-focused alternative browsers like Rockmelt, you'd be right. But that doesn't make it a bad feature for browsers to include by default, especially since so much of what we do in the browser is tied to social networking. -Cnet

Axialis Icon Workshop

Windows lets you customize its look in lots of ways, and one of the coolest is the ability to change almost any icon to suit your style or to create themes. While there's no shortage of icons available online, why not make your own? It's much easier than you might think, especially with the help of Axialis IconWorkshop. True to its name, it handles just about every aspect of the job, from creating, extracting, and converting icons to managing whole libraries of them.

The full-featured IconWorkshop is free to use for 30 days. The latest release has tons of updates and new features, tops among them the ability to create Android and iPhone icons. But it also has many new Object packs, more image formats, bitmap editing, enhanced batch processing, and Windows 8, Mac OS X, and Photoshop plug-in compatibility.

Setting up IconWorkshop includes choosing icon file associations, with an option to automatically repair incorrect associations (something we'd like to see in other programs, too). We could also choose a Mac OS option. IconWorkshop lets you open, modify, and save Mac OS-compatible icons as well as convert them to BinHex and Windows ICO. Clearly, this is a program that takes icons seriously! That impression was strengthened by well-configured user interface that follows the popular Explorer-style layout, with a Web-style toolbar, a tree view/navigation sidebar to the left of the main window, and palettes and tools on the right.

We clicked Windows Icon under Create New Projects on IconWorkshop's comprehensive Start Screen. A detailed wizard screen started us off on what proved a remarkably easy process, considering the dizzying array of choices. Anyone who has used photo or graphics editors, drawing programs, and similar tools won't have any trouble with IconWorkshop's layout or features, but a top-quality Help file and manual is a click away.

Google’s Android is eating Apple’s lunch

Smartphones and tablets powered by Google’s Android software are devouring the mobile gadget market, eating into Apple’s turf by feeding appetites for innovation and low prices, analysts say.

The Android operating system powered nearly three out of four smartphones shipped worldwide in the recently ended quarter as the mobile platform dominated the market, according to industry trackers at IDC.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 smartphone is powered by Android.
“Android has been one of the primary growth engines of the smartphone market since it was launched in 2008,” said IDC’s mobile phones research manager Ramon Llamas.

“In every year since then, Android has effectively outpaced the market and taken market share from the competition.”

In tablets, Apple’s market share has fallen to just over 50 per cent from 65 per cent in the second quarter as Android devices gain ground, according to IDC figures.

“Having a lot of people building a lot of things covering a lot of price points with multiple brands in multiple places makes a big difference,” said NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker.

“Variety is strength when it comes to moving units.”

Android smartphones shipments surged to 136 million, topping those in the same three-month period last year by slightly more than 90 per cent, IDC reported.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 overtook Apple’s iPhone 4S in the third quarter to give the South Korean firm the world’s best-selling smartphone model for the first time ever, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

“The pace of innovation in Android is faster than Apple,” said Gartner vice-president of mobile computing Ken Dulaney. “They are just trying harder; Apple is way behind in that area.”

Android is benefiting from being an “open-source” platform that gadget makers use free of charge and improve as they deem fit, providing Google with insights along the way.

Apple tightly controls its products from the software to the hardware and even the online shop for music, books, games or other content.

“What you get with Android is this incredible feedback loop with developers, equipment makers, customers, and designers,” Dulaney said.

“At Apple, as long as they have a great vision internally it is fine but they don’t have the feedback Android does.”

Having thousands of different Android devices vying for consumers’ cash is a strength when it comes to market share but puts hardware makers into a fiercely competitive arena, Baker noted.

“Other than Samsung, I don’t know if other Android guys are making money,” the analyst said.

Google gives Android away free, but the platform is crafted to make it easy for people to use the California Internet titan’s money-making services such as search and maps, and get content at its online Google Play shop.

Forrester analyst Charles Golvin said that forces powering Android momentum include changing demographics of smartphone buyers.

Early adopters of smartphones focused more on new technology than on price, but the devices have gone mainstream with cost increasingly important to shoppers, according to Golvin.

“People are more inclined towards the Android platform because there is more choice and most of that choice is low price,” Golvin said.

The open nature of Android and the myriad models offered by gadget makers serve as a “double-edged sword,” warned the analyst.

Apple pushes annual updates of iOS mobile operating system out to its devices, while new versions of Android hit more often but must get through hardware makers and telecom services to get onto people’s handsets.

“You have this lengthy chain of intermediaries who are delaying the delivery of that new software and its innovations to existing devices in the market,” Golvin said.

He backed his point by noting that many Android devices in use still run on generations-old versions of the operating system.

Android gadget variety can also make it tough to design accessories or even “apps” that can be used across the array of devices.

For its part, Google has done an excellent job of improving the “ecosystem” of music, films, apps, books and more available for Android-powered devices, according to analysts.

In the red-hot tablet market effectively created by the iPad, strong growth is being seen by Android rivals including Amazon’s popular Kindle Fire and Nook devices from Barnes & Noble, which run custom versions of the software.

Analysts believe that the Google-backed operating system is likely to spread to typically “dumb” gizmos like appliances.

“These platforms are becoming the molecule elements for building all kinds of hybrid devices,” Dulaney said. — AFP-Relaxnews

Amazon : The Unlocked Galaxy S III Mini

The Galaxy S Mini didn’t make a splash hitting U.S. shelves, but the teacup version of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III has in fact arrived stateside.

Right now, we’ve noticed that Amazon is selling the handset for 409.95 unlocked. That’s actually relatively cheap for an unlocked device, meaning you aren’t tied down to any contracts.

The handset will be compatible with both AT&T and T-Mobile’s network, though don’t expect any LTE in your life. A SIM card from either carrier will work just fine, but you’ll be limited to 3G on AT&T’s network and even more limited 3G from T-Mobile, considering they’ve only rolled out HSPA+ on the 1900MHz band recently.

If you recall, the Galaxy S III mini has a 4-inch Super AMOLED 480×800 display, a 1GHz dual-core chip, 1GB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of internal memory, NFC, and a 1,500mAh battery. You’ll also find a 5-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera, along with microSD support for expandable memory.

And best of all, you’ll enjoy Android 4.1 Jelly Bean from day one, which could be the phone’s biggest selling point.

Incidentally, if you choose to go with Amazon, move quick. There are only ten left in stock at the time of publishing. -techcrunch

Top Black Friday apps for iOS

Get the best deals on Black Friday with these iOS apps that are perfect for braving the biggest shopping day of the year.

Black Friday Survival Guide

This simple app shows you the latest deals from major stores so you can map out your shopping attack plan. Rather than flipping through circulars, this app has all the deals listed out for you, and you can save the best deals to a favorites list so you can refer back to it when you're out in the trenches on Black Friday.

The app has just four buttons across the bottom for navigation. The News button gives you up-to-the-minute deal announcements. The Stores button lists out all the stores with deals, and touching a store breaks down the discounted items into Doorbusters (deals that people will physically line up for) and online (deals you can get simply by shopping at the store's Web site). A Categories button breaks down the deals into common categories -- great if you know the item you want and don't want to sift through all the deals. Finally, a Shopping List button shows your favorite deals you have already selected, so you can use this list as your main page if you decide to hit the stores.

Zappos Mobile

The online store that got famous for shoes (and fantastic service) is not just for shoes anymore. So if you want to avoid the crowds and inevitable traffic, Zappos has one of the most intuitive shopping apps available.

The easy-to-understand interface lets you drill down through categories, like shoes, clothing, housewares and more. Then you can swipe to scroll through items to narrow your search.

When you touch an item, you get a product page where you can choose colors and sizes, read the details, and read reviews. But the best part is the way Zappos handles previewing the item, with a swipeable image at the top that shows all sides of the product to help you decide if you want it.

Shop Savvy

Though there are many bar code scanners in the App Store, Shop Savvy offers fast scanning and unique added features to make it a handy shopping companion on Black Friday. Shop Savvy lets you use your iPhone camera to "scan" a bar code, then view the item and prices from various locations, and you can scan QR codes at the touch of a button. The interface is set up to be as simple as possible, but it offers nice touches such as the ability to initiate a scan by swiping upward on the product display screen.

After a bar code scan, you're presented with an image of the item and given places to shop for it online or at nearby stores (Shop Savvy uses your GPS location), online reviews of the product, and the ability to share your findings via e-mail, Twitter, or Facebook. You also can categorize your items in lists that are neatly arranged in folders you create. -Cnet