Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘New Release’

New Google Chrome Release Adds Support For 1,500+ Extensions, Bookmark Sync

PC users, rejoice, for Google has just announced that there’s a fresh, stable release of Google Chrome for Windows, with added extensions and bookmark sync features.

You can check for the new version manually if you’re already using Google Chrome for Windows (go to Settings > About Google Chrome), or you can wait for the new release to be automatically updated within the next week.

Google previously launched extensions on the beta channel, and says over 1,500 have now made their way to the extensions gallery. The other new feature baked into the Chrome browser for Windows, Bookmark sync, is particularly useful if you use more than one computer, as it enables you synchronize your browser bookmarks on all of your machines.

To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel only for now. As for Google Chrome for Mac, the search giant requests you keep hanging tight: extensions, bookmark sync and more should make their way to the beta ’soon’. Or, you could use the dev version of Chrome for Mac, which already supports extensions.

Web developers and designers might want to dive into the new features of this Chrome release on the Chromium Blog, as it includes a number of fresh HTML and JavaScript APIs.

If you’re using a version of Chrome with extensions support, also make sure to install the TechCrunch one. It works like a charm.

Read the whole story…

Navigation App Waze Makes Crowdsourced Map-Building a Game

The latest edition of mobile navigation app Waze has just launched in the iTunes App Store and on the Android Market Place with the Symbian and Windows Mobile versions available on the Waze website. In this updated version, the company has added even more features to their already popular “munching” game which sends a Pac-Man like character loose on the roads to help build the company’s mapping database and validate the roads already in place.

Unlike other mobile navigation apps, Waze “crowdsources” its map-making process, reliant on its users to switch the app on when driving around town. Then, using the phone’s built-in GPS capabilities, Waze uses the information sent back to create base maps and determine traffic patterns in order to warn other users of traffic jams ahead.

Sponsor

Although Waze is an application dependent on critical mass to become successful, they’ve already had good results since their original launch in Israel. In less than a year’s time, Waze was able to map 91% of the country thanks to user involvement. The company believes they will have similar results here in the U.S. with highly populated urban areas being mapped first with the rest of the country following over the coming months.

Making Maps is Just a Game

To encourage users to contribute to the map-building process, the company came up with an idea to make it more of a game. Originally, the Waze character would appear and munch dots on the screen when you ventured onto a road that didn’t previously exist in the company’s database.

Now, with Waze 2.0, the gaming elements have been enhanced even further. Users will now munch on other goodies like cherries, hammers, and small gift packages which generate bonus points. The extra goodies will be placed on locations where the map has issues with the higher-point items on maps with the most issues.

To kick off this new release, the company is also hosting a contest dubbed the “Holiday High Points Challenge” which runs from November 25th through December 9th. During this time, which includes the busy traveling period of the Thanksgiving holidays, Waze hopes to tap into the high number of drivers who will be trekking around town and across the country to visit relatives. The top three users who earn the most points during this period will win Amazon gift cards in the amounts of $500, $300 and $200, for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places respectively.

Crowdsourcing: Better Maps, Faster

The Waze application was one of the more innovative companies to appear at the most recent DEMO conference where they launched their turn-by-turn directions feature. Because they’re not using map data from Tele Atlas or Navteq – the two big names that license map data to other companies for use in applications – Waze saves money while also being able to sell their own data to other companies at reduced rates. The company also claims that their crowdsourced method has dramatically shortened the months-long update cycle for maps.

While Waze may not be ready to replace your in-dash GPS just yet, it gets closer every day as more roads are mapped and more users join the service. Early adopters who want to contribute to the project can download the mobile application from the company’s homepage here.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Vrooooom! Start your car (and more) from your iPhone or iPod touch

Filed under: Accessories, iPhone, Holidays, iPod touch

TUAW reader Ethan pointed us in the direction of something new, cool, and available only for iPhone and iPod touch (take that, Palm Pre and Android phones!)

BestBuy has an exclusive on the new Viper SmartStart System, which can do a number of things for your wheels:

• Start your car with virtually unlimited range
• Warm your car in winter; cool your car in summer
• Unlock your car or truck
• Arm the alarm to protect your car
• Activate panic alarm to protect yourself
• Receive push-button status notifications

It uses a free iPhone app [iTunes link] to give you that remote love, like when you are visiting friends overseas and want to scare people by starting your car up while it’s sitting by itself in the airport parking lot. The developers also note that in the near future, a new release of the app will give you push notification if your car alarm goes off.

There are two versions available: a module (SmartStart VSM100 Module, US$299.99) for cars that are already equipped with compatible Viper starting systems, and a fully loaded package (SmartStart VSM4000 System, US$499.99) for the rest of us.

Some of the app reviewers have noted that you’re not only paying for the system and your iPhone bill, but there’s also a US$29 monthly GSM service bill that you’ll have to pay. However, if the money isn’t an object and you’re already clueless about what to get a loved one for Christmas, this might be an idea to consider.

TUAWVrooooom! Start your car (and more) from your iPhone or iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Read the whole story…

AVG launches free antivirus suite as Microsoft crashes its party

AVG Technologies has made itself into a familiar name on the Internet by giving users antivirus software at a pretty good price: free. That’s how it got 85 million users. Today, the company is announcing that the ninth version of its AVG antivirus software will be available in mid-October.

AVG’s newest product runs 50 percent faster than its previous version. And it offers a new way to protect against identity theft, a problem that has been mushrooming in recent years.

“We’ve made it faster and easier to install,” said J.R. Smith, chief executive of the company.

Now the software takes about 11 mouse clicks to install, compared to 22 before. It’s the little innovations like this that have helped the company snag 40 percent of the worldwide free antivirus software market.

The new release can’t come soon enough, though, since Microsoft announced last week that it was going to launch its own free antivirus software, Microsoft Security Essentials. While Microsoft is offering bare bones protection for free, AVG has added a lot of protection over the years through the acquisition of startups.

The question will be who can reach the most people with a free product, and whose works better. Microsoft product has gotten good reviews so far, though it doesn’t catch everything out there. And while AVG has 27 percent brand recognition among Internet users, Microsoft has a brand that everyone recognizes because of Windows. Fortunately for AVG, Microsoft can’t bundle its free antivirus with its operating system software. Those tactics, which Microsoft used to defeat browser rival Netscape, are now considered anticompetitive. Microsoft can, however, distribute its free antivirus software separately.

The new suite of software has basic antivirus protection. But it also includes layers of protections such as a firewall, anti-spyware, and Link Scanner. The latter examines the search results in your Internet searches and tells you whether those links are safe to click. LinkScanner frequently updates its scans of a link; that’s important now because many sites are hijacked and what was a safe site yesterday could be a dangerous site today.

The firewall now works faster because it often acts on its own, rather than asking users if they really want to use a software program that they just clicked upon.

After AVG looks for known threats, it enlists help from the cloud, where it taps “behavioral” technology that figures out if a new file or link is behaving in a suspicious way. With such technology, AVG can block a new virus even if that virus isn’t in the known library of viruses.

AVG is including identity theft protection, dubbed Identity Guard in the new free version of the software. Victims of identity theft can find help through the AVG software’s security toolbar, which can direct them to identity theft experts, who are available by phone. Those AVG experts can help users obtain credit reports and monitor their accounts. AVG will provide the identity theft recovery process at no cost.

The company makes money by selling a paid version of its software starting at $34.99. With that, you get customer support, protection from infections via instant messenger chat, and a “root kit” that can protect against hidden threats. Future expansion areas include offering protection for cell phones and Mac computers. AVG was founded more than 18 years ago. In 2006, the company received $52 million in private equity investments from Intel and Enterprise Investors. Benson Oak Capital also owns about 35 percent of the company. Smith joined in 2007 and the company has managed to fend off challengers and grow its users base 7 percent a year. It now has 550 employees.

Read the whole story…

Wikitude Launches User Generated Augmented Reality Browser for Android Users, iPhone Soon

Austrain augmented reality startup Wikitude announced today that it has released the 3.0 version of its software for Android handsets, fully integrating its OpenID-enabled wiki markup of physical locations around the world with a more sophisticated mobile user experience and preparing for the launch of its iPhone version. Unfortunately the company’s content adding site, Wikitude.me, appears to have crashed already.

Wikitude is one of the most high-profile augmented reality services on the market. It’s a market that’s fast growing crowded and everyone wants to know if interoperability will be a priority or if we’re looking at the next browser wars.

Sponsor

Wikitude competes with the more commercially oriented service Layar and an unlaunched brand-centric AR iPhone browser from AcrossAir. Japanese AR firm Tochnidot says it will launch an app similar to Wikitude soon. Will these services become interoperable so users of one AR browser can see the content created on the other systems? That’s the key question.

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology paradigm that puts layers of data on top of a user’s view of the real physical world around them. After years in the labs, AR development is heating up fast this summer. Several AR apps are available for Android and numerous companies are waiting for the next version of the iPhone OS to be released this Fall with support for location (if not marker-based) augmented reality.

Last week what looks like the first AR app to do so snuck into the iPhone app store, yesterday a red hot app for road conditions in major US cities made an appearance and now Wikitude quietly let AR bloggers know today about its new release.

Wikitude’s application appears to be more user-centric than its competitors. By enabling content creators to add points of interest by simply logging in with their Google, Twitter, Yahoo or OpenID accounts there will be a lower barrier to entry than there is to creating a Wikipedia entry for a location with proper location markup that can be viewed through other AR browsers.

Hopefully, just like with desktop and other mobile browsers, we’ll be able to see all the AR content someday through any AR browser. Probably the market leader right now, Layar told us this week that interoperability is something they are big proponents of, though they haven’t done any legal work in that direction yet and seemed to us most interested in their own technology becoming the agreed-upon standard.

Interoperability is a technical, business and legal challenge that’s much easier said than done. That work is being done by data portability, identity and open web advocates on the web at large, but augmented reality appears set to be the new way that people around the world view a web of data. We’ll be watching eagerly for movement towards a single AR web that browser providers compete on by trying to offer the best user experience.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Facebook for iPhone 3.0: Your Little Black Book?

Parties are fun, but a really great party means the morning after is spent untagging photographs on Facebook. You were having a perfectly good time until some amateur lens jockey decided to give you the double chin treatment and then have the gall to tag it. If you’re at all modest (or vain), you might as well start changing your privacy settings now. According to Justin Smith at Inside Facebook, Engineer Joe Hewitt just submitted the official Facebook for iPhone 3.0 app to the App Store for review. The new release will build upon a number of the community’s social features including the ability to create albums, zoom into images, improve photo tagging and add video.

Sponsor

The current Facebook for iPhone application is used by nearly 25% of all iPhone owners or roughly 12 million monthly active users. With the new app’s photo and video features, if you aren’t diligent in your untagging, your work mates might just get an eyeful of your weekend blunders or bathing suit body. Then again, if you’re looking to land a date, this might be a great way to socialize. Facebook for iPhone 3.0 offers a great way to see status updates, rsvp to mixers and parties, and the ability to call contacts directly from the Friends page. With these new features, your social calendar might just fill up and you might end up trading in your little black book for a big blue network.

While Hewitt admits that the Facebook app’s video feature is a last minute incorporation, it will be interesting to see if the decision to add it will cut into the user base of existing Twitter video apps.

To keep an eye on the Facebook for iPhone application process or to discuss the app, follow Joe Hewitt on Twitter (@joehewitt)or check out the Facebook for iPhone page for new photos.

Discuss

Read the whole story…