The online whiteboard of Kristofer Palmvik
Google Squared is the latest product to come out of the Google labs and the supposed answer to Wolfram Alpha. It’s a spin-off from Google’s core search engine and apparently aims to take the masses of unstructured data and return search results that are neatly organised for you, the user.
They call it "left-of-the-url functionality" and it works like this: Whenever you want to share or bookmark a page, you prepend "smub.it/" to the left of the URL in question in your browser’s address bar. This works on any browser, so it’s a truly universal, cross-platform technique that doesn’t require any kind of download or plugin to use. Right now, it’s a lot easier than pretty much any of the alternatives I’ve seen, including copy & paste.
With the help of Opera Unite users can share photos, videos, music and documents. They can build full blown web sites and even collaborative web applications, like discussion boards and chat rooms, collectively called Opera Unite services. The important aspect here is that these services are not hosted by any third party, but instead run locally, on the users’ web servers, embedded into the Opera browser.
As an experiment I decided to set-up a new Twitter account which I will use ONLY to reply to users. My personal account is @Boris and my ‘reply’ account is @BorisReplies. My strategy is going to be to reply to every reply or retweet to @Boris on @BorisReplies.
Layar is a new ‘Augmented Reality Browser’ for Android phones. Forget everything you’re used to about searching the internet, Layar throws that all away. By holding your phone in front of you and looking through its camera lens you can actually see the world ‘through the eyes of the internet’.
WTF?? – The Next Web
"People will be able to bring their Facebook friends onto the iPlayer so they can share what they are listening to or watching with each other more easily."
Soluto is directed at the crowd that would normally leave their PC problems to a friend. Installation is straightforward and simple, without too many questions. Once installed, you’ll get your first glance of the Soluto UI, which is as beautiful as it is functional. A quick reboot and you’re ready to start ending frustration.
Newspapers are in trouble and paywalls have (so far) been a flop. While some people say this heralds the end of ‘real journalism’, maybe newspaper websites just need a rethink. Perhaps they could really learn something from blogs.
But with Facebook Places, in its current iteration, I either blast out my location to everybody in my 500+ person network (and rely on Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm to determine which of my FB friends actually care), or I reach for another network like Foursquare, whose graph has been built specifically from the ground up for these kinds of updates.
The move will allow users to SMS, call and video call Facebook friends from Skype and is reportedly to arrive with Skype’s newest version, 5.0, to be released in a few weeks.
TvTak is an iPhone app that allows you take a picture of your TV screen. Within one second, it will work out exactly the show or ad that you are watching. From there, users will be able to share details of the show they’re viewing via Twitter or Facebook, with a comment attached.
Once you have logged into the app it looks to all intents and purposes that you are using an excel spreadsheet and carrying out serious work. All your Facebook status updates and messages from your friends display within the columns and you can even flick between the wall, chat and the news feed.
There are other similar apps out there, but Jump is beautifully designed, and should go down well with commuters and visitors alike. (via Jump: A slick, Real-Time Bus-Tracker for London-Dwellers)
Users can access WixHotels through the platform’s app market and then install it onto their primary dashboards. It frees up the need to know how to code with a built-in system that allows you to add your room inventory.
I don’t think it’s sensationalist [to say that developers are depressed]," Tiago Braun, developer at digital consultancy 5 Star Lives, argues." We all know the geek stereotype and that it’s difficult to socialize, but that’s only one problem. Our work is done individually, so we might end up spending hours without communicating with other co-workers. It’s something that really annoys me, personally.
Waze will have access to specific information about drivers — including makes and models of cars to help arrange carpools, Google Account location history to track commute patterns and last reported location, and timing to create events in a user’s Google Calendar. [...] Here’s a short list of all the things Google and Waze can do with all of their shiny new ridesharing data
Despite its sudden popularity, flat design is not just some fly-by-night trend. It’s a substantial approach to Web design that’s rooted in practicality, and necessity.
Perhaps it’s a measure to prevent pages looking like a mess like back in the days of Myspace?
When it comes to app design, 2015 is the Year of the Card. Screen-size cards are everywhere, from websites to native apps and are designed to look like their physical counterparts. It’s an easy way for you to shuffle through a series of digital...