As of April 30th, several of Yahoo’s products will be shuttered as part of their initiative to consolidate focus and resources around their core services. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you’re probably not using any of them. You probably didn’t even know some of them existed.
As you may or may not know, cars these days are getting fancier and fancier with technology by the year. Remember when automatic windows and a CD player were considered amazing car technologies?
Now you can talk to your car, have GPS built in, and see exactly where you are when backing up, without having to turn around! I compiled 5 more features we will see in the future of cars...
As you may or may not know, cars these days are getting fancier and fancier with technology by the year. Remember when automatic windows and a CD player were considered amazing car technologies?
Now you can talk to your car, have GPS built in, and see exactly where you are when backing up, without having to turn around! I compiled 5 more features we will see in the future of cars...
Twitter put months of speculation to rest this morning when it launched its own music-focused service for iOS and the Web. Twitter #Music is a standalone app for discovering, following and listening to artists that draws its intelligence from Twitter's own user activity data. At first glance, it's a win for artists, but the value it adds for fans remains to be seen.
First and foremost, Twitter #Music is undoubtedly good for Twitter. The app takes something that is hugely popular among consumers — music — and intimately ties it to its own service. It also integrates with Spotify and Rdio so tracks can be streamed in their entirety from within Twitter #Music. That feature, the company is betting, will keep listeners glued to the app, where much of what they do is tied to Twitter's core functionality: tweeting songs and following artists.
Sometimes the coolest part of a piece of software isn't even advertised.
Let's take a look at some of the hidden abilities and Easter eggs in some popular Mac applications (that you probably already own).
Mobile magazine Flipboard revealed today that over half a million personalized magazines have been created on its platform since the launch of the new feature just two weeks prior. During this time, the company also added 3 million new users to its service, bringing its total user base to now 53 million.
In late March, the startup introduced a way for its users to something else besides search, discover, read and share to social networks – it essentially turned its entire audience into magazine editors. With a “flip it” option now accompanying every story from Flipboard’s collection of content from publishers around the world, anyone is able to now create personalized, topical magazines which other readers can subscribe to directly in the iOS or Android application...
Microsoft is investing in TV in a big way with its next Xbox console as part of a fight for the living room. Multiple sources familiar with the company's Xbox plans have revealed to The Verge that Microsoft will introduce a feature that lets its next-generation console take over a TV and set-top box in a similar way to Google TV. We understand that the next Xbox will require an online connection to use the entertainment services, allowing them to be always-on for streaming and access to TV signals.
The functionality will work by taking a cable box signal and passing it through to the Xbox via HDMI, allowing Microsoft's console to overlay a UI and features on top of an existing TV channel or set-top box. We're told that this is a key part of the next-generation Xbox and that it will go a step further than Google's TV implementation thanks to Microsoft's partnerships with content providers. Extended support for various cable services will be rolled out gradually, but the basic functionality will be available at launch.
Facebook Home isn't a Facebook Phone, nor is it really "a bunch of apps," or a new operating system. It's an admission: Facebook means a lot to me, and is an interesting view of my life—and I want to look at it all the time, everywhere I go. If that sounds like you, Home is where your heart should be. If not, your phone will become something you hate.
Facebook Home doesn't do much because it's designed to not do very much. When you tap most Android phones to life, you trigger the information equivalent of someone shouting directly into your face, replete with spit flecks. Depending on your setup, you'll see a clock, clouds, weather, emails, news, IMs—a frothing info stew. And that's the point! Android lets you jam as much as you want into it.
Facebook announced Thursday its big mobile plans for Android: Facebook Home. Although it will initially be available only on a few models, Facebook Home represents how Facebook wants to exist on Android phones.
If you're confused by Facebook Home or just want to get a better understanding of everything the new interface entails, we've got you covered.
The PlayStation 4's new DualShock 4 controller can be charged even while the PlayStation 4 is turned off. The PlayStation 4's new Eye motion camera has a tilt sensor so it can tell players when its facing the wrong direction or if it's fallen off your TV stand. The PlayStation 4's Blu-ray disc drive is three times as fast as the PlayStation 3's. In case it weren't clear, Sony's PlayStation 4 panel at this week's Game Developers Conference wasn't chock full of major revelations, but it did provide plenty of interesting little details about the PlayStation 4 and its various hardware companions.
Those of you that follow the tech world closely enough might already think tablets are so last year. It’s not impressive when they get a power upgrade, as those upgrades are expected, and the industry norm of iterative upgrades don’t raise the specs enough to warrant a raised eyebrow. The future of the tablet seems to just be a stronger tablet, but what if that future involved getting rid of batteries and processors? A new patent aims to do just that.
A recently published patent application, that happens to list Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as an inventor, describes a device similar to tablets that is essentially just a remote display. Imagine a tablet, but then you rip out all of its guttyworks — battery, processor, etc. — and leave the Retina-class display. What do you have? Perhaps the future of tablets, if this patent application ever becomes reality, at least. The tablet would work with the help of — you guessed it — cloud computing. A central box would handle all of the processing and beam it over to the device, and more amazingly, would also wirelessly power the device. (See: How wireless charging works.)
eBay is reinvigorating its core market with a host of new experiments—many of them aimed at bringing in more goods for sale.
The latest, a program called Sell It Forward, literally has people mailing it in. Customers sign up on a website; have a bag with postage prepaid sent to them; and mail in clothes, shoes, and handbags. eBay's partner in the program, the San Francisco Bay Area branch of nonprofit Goodwill Industries, then will attempt to sell the goods.
Flipboard takes the news you want to read and organizes it into a wonderfully designed magazine format. And now, with an update to its iOS apps, it lets you create your own magazines for specific themes, topics, events, and so on.
Want to create a magazine about, say, New York City public transit? It's fairly simple. You just hit the plus button on anything you see in Flipboard—whether it's a story about cab drivers, a photo of abandoned train stations, or a relevant video or sound clip—then select "create magazine" and add a title and description. The process a similar to adding items to a Pinterest board, but the auto-generated design of your Flipboard magazine is so much prettier. Once you're done, anyone can search for and subscribe to your digital 'zine, and you can look for ones that interest you, too.
Facebook today is rolling out two more features for Pages used by brands and businesses and public Profiles for individuals with more than 10,000 followers: it is adding replies and threaded comments. The move — like Graph Search, designed to increase time spent on the site — confirms our report from last week, which we wrote about in detail, and which Facebook also later confirmed for us.
Both replies and threaded comments — which lets the most-commented-on or liked replies and those closest to your network gravitate to the top, while those marked spam sink to the bottom — had been in testing since November 2012, so a few accounts already had them in place. Today’s news means that they will now be rolled out across Facebook for desktop everywhere.
One month after Sony announced the PlayStation 4—an announcement that didn’t actually include showing of the console itself—the next-generation of the video game industry is slowly springing to life. Big game studios and indie developers have been pushing high end game technology on PCs for a few years, but the mainstream commercial industry is revving its engines now with new games like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Thief announced each week.
The much rumored new Xbox from Microsoft, however, remains a mystery. The Durango, Xbox 720, or just plain Xbox as it’s sometimes called has yet to receive any type of official confirmation beyond game developers saying their work is coming to PlayStation 4 and “other next-gen consoles.” As time passes, more and more rumors spring up around the device. A new rumor - based on details from what’s purported to be the console’s software development kit – suggest the next Xbox will require players to install full games from discs to their hard drives.
Apple has updated its much-maligned Podcasts app for iOS with custom iCloud-synced stations that update automatically when new episodes of those podcasts are posted. The new app also allows you to create an on-the-go playlist of podcast episodes, just like iTunes does.
The new stations and on-the-go playlists are just a part of the app’s revamp of syncing though. The new stations are also stored in iCloud and will sync across all of your devices, staying up to date. Any playlists that you sync from iTunes will also now appear in Podcasts, fixing a major problem that heavy podcasts listeners had with the app.
eBay is debuting a new fee structure and incentives for sellers today in an effort to remain the most competitive commerce platform next to e-commerce marketplace Amazon. For the first time, eBay is launching free listings for both non-stores and stores on the platform, as well as simpler pricing.
Non-stores previously had fixed-price listings that charged $0.50 insertion fees, and then various “tranches,” or levels, of final value fees, depending on the amount of the item. Fixed-price, non-store, final-value fee tranches didn’t have a cap, either. Now, non-store pricing has one, flat final-value fee rate of 10 percent capped at $250. So the max that any non-store seller will pay is 10 percent of the transaction. Non-store consumer sellers are also allowed 50 free listings (no insertion fees) if they list auction-only or buy-it-now items. After 50 listings, sellers will be charged $0.30 per listings.
For merchants with storefronts on eBay, listing fees were previously required in addition to the monthly subscription charge. That’s changed with today’s announcement. Sellers get a discount for yearly subscriptions, and they also get up to 2,500 free listings per month with a choice of buy it now or auction depending on store level. Previously there were no free listings available to stores.
Google has been on a bit of a roll with its commercials lately, especially for its gadgets. Today, the company unleashed its latest commercial for the Nexus 10, its iPad killer competitor. The video tells the story of a couple who has just found out that they’re having a baby. Google has woven the Nexus 10 Wi-Fi-only device into the story quaintly.
The feature that Google decided to focus the commercial around? Its multi-user Android one. Yes, Google’s competitive advantage is apparently the fact that you can share the device with someone else. Is that enough? Have a look at the commercial...
Facebook is reportedly working on incorporating the hashtag into the social network.
A Twitter staple, the Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook has plans to bring the hashtag to its service, offering users the ability to index conversations around a particular topic, just as they currently do on Twitter. Sources ”familiar with the matter” told the Journal that while Facebook is working on the feature, it wouldn’t necessarily be released anytime soon.
Android-based gaming console Ouya seems to be coming along nicely and will have multiplayer game support by year's end, reports Forbes.
During a South By Southwest panel in Austin today, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman said the console would have support for streaming audio and video apps, but wouldn't say if big names like Hulu and Netflix were on board. Regardless, she hopes to be able to offer those services at launch.
