Category: News

Ever since Google has introduced the “Street View” function to its Maps service, there have been all kinds of discoveries and finds by users all over the globe. So much so, in fact, a multitude of publications–this one included–have leveraged these finds for content. A great example of this is the StreetViewFun blog, which, as the name implies, catalogs some of these moments.

Well, if the Reddit thread where the following image comes from is accurate, we may have another find for the Street View Hall of Fame; or, it just may be a young lady cleaning out her car. Observe:

Click for full size

What say you? Is that the scene from a dramatic, “get your shit and get out” breakup, or is she just cleaning up? As you can imagine, the Reddit comments had a field day with this, and the most upvoted comment gets straight to the point:

With her floormats on the street I’m going to go ahead and say this is just a girl cleaning out her car and OP is a filthy liar.

It should be noted the user who submitted it used the following title: “Google Streetview captures the glorious moment when my buddy kicks his now ex-gf out of his house.” Now, there’s really no way to be sure what is going on unless the person in the image steps up and clears the air. That being said, the user who submitted the image in question did post the following response:

A little backstory: this picture was taken a couple years ago since they have been broken up for a while now. My buddy no longer lives in the same town as me but I became aware of this recently by his brother who is currently my coworker…

So, did the Reddit user who netted this high karma submission submit a random find under the guise of his buddy getting dumped or is it the real deal? Let us know what you think.

Hilary Duff seems to be enjoying motherhood, but admits to OMG Yahoo that it’s hard to be a mother when being followed by the paparazzi. Duff explains that it’s hard to take a baby out, while being followed by photographers.

“I haven’t had to explain it to my son yet, what’s going on. For the most part they respect me and they respect my space, but it’s tough to always be photographed.”

Along with the paparazzi, Duff has run into more normal problems with motherhood, namely losing the weight put on from carrying a human being around in your belly for nine months. She hired a trainer, and with a strict diet and exercise regimen, she was able to reach her goal of burning the 50 lbs. She shared her journey towards weight loss on her Instagram account.

Duff is looking to try and work some more, while balancing her time with her son. Recently, she appeared on the season finale of Two and a Half Men. She explains she was able to take the work, because it fit in with her schedule, and left her plenty of time with her son.

She’s hoping to keep the work going, looking to get back into the studio to make music. Of course, the balance act of taking care of her son and work will continue. Not to mention the paparazzi influence. No one said it would ever be easy, right?

I’m a big believer that the future of the web is taking the information and relationships that we currently have online and making them part of our real lives. Not through putting screens in more places, but by bringing the digital life seamlessly into our real ones.

That’s why the augmented reality platform by a startup called Atheer is so interesting. It purports to overlay the internet onto your real world, and lets you call up and view online information using natural gestures or spoken commands. The startup showed off a pair of glasses running the platform at the D11 conference Thursday. Atheer co-founder and chief executive Soulaiman Itani explains in the article in Phys:

“This is like putting the Xbox and the Kinect and the Internet in your pocket running on a battery.”

The glasses and the technology that Atheer is using could be complimentary or the next iteration of what Google  is trying to do with Glass. Yes, that interaction is still more oriented at delivering information via a screen, as opposed to making information fit with the world around you. Google Goggles, the service that let you use your smartphone camera and Google’s computer vision to find out information about landmarks and places, might be a better example of how the Atheer system is supposed to work.

Regardless, such systems are coming, and developers and designers need to start thinking about how we convey information. Think about how long it took for people to recognize the shift in web design from the desktop and laptop to mobile. With wearables we open that entire field up to a greater degree.

Instead of just thinking about screen size, context will take a greater role. Not just based on location and device, but on the information itself that users need. Why should you ever get the weather on a screen if you could instead have a shelf in your closet slide out with the appropriate gear for the day’s forecast? Why send a calendar reminder to a screen on a phone, when making a wristband vibrate or making your car honk (I personally need this to make it to meetings on time) might be more effective?

This may seem a bit far-fetched, but the challenge of Google Glass isn’t just about privacy or distracted driving, but understanding what information fits best in the context of glasses. We may think we want it all, but a little restraint and thoughtful design is going to make the integration of technology into more of our devices and deeper into our lives more than a tech gimmick, but something we can’t understand how we lived without.

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When you look up the words “Nicki Minaj” and “feud,” you rarely find anything about peace being brokered between the pop star and those she’s at odds with. While the Nicki/Mariah hubbub predominated the topic, there were other feuds connected to the American Idol judge(?). Well, it appears as if she can cross one of these beefs off of her list, thanks to “clear the air” meeting with Hot 97 DJ, Peter Rosenberg.

The feud started last summer, when, during the Hot 97 Summer Jam, Rosenberg said Minaj’s music wasn’t “real” hip-hop. From there, the two took to the social media airwaves to talk poorly about one another. Well, mainly Nicki, but social media was involved. Fast forward to 2013, and Minaj agreed to appear on Rosenberg’s show to officially put the spat to bed. Naturally, the radio station videotaped the entire thing and put it up on YouTube.

Of course, the “peace pipe offering” mood of this particular meeting did not stop Minaj from taking an additional stab at Rosenberg by saying, “I just don’t know your resume. I never found you funny, I never found you entertaining, I never found you smart. I just found you annoying.” With that in mind, it’s doubtful Rosenberg and Minaj will be singing “Kumbaya” together anytime soon.

Sarah Palin recently denied comment when she was approached by a reporter wearing Google Glass, and he suspects that all the controversy surrounding the state-of-the-art eyewear is behind it.

Nilay Patel wore the glasses to cover the Indy 500 and ran into Palin and her husband at the Woodford Reserve Hotel the night before. When he approached the couple, he says Palin refused to take a picture with him or even talk to him. Since the technology was all the rage at the gathering–with several curious people approaching Patel to ask about them and take photos with him–he asked Palin if she wanted to try them out.

“What’s in it for us?” her husband Todd said. “We don’t know what company you’re with.”

Patel assured them he wasn’t looking for an edorsement, but Todd Palin asked him to leave anyway.

It’s no secret that many are concerned about privacy when it comes to Google Glass; in fact, a petition has been started to ban the technology from being used until clear boundaries are put in place surrounding them.

“Google Glass is a new twist on technology which hasn’t had clearly stated limits on the locations in US communities where it can and cannot be used. In order to protect our communities we need limitations to prevent indecent public surveillance of our friends, children, and families,” the petition states. “It is hard to prevent it because the hardware gives no notification that it is recording an individual at any given time.”

Even Patel brings up an interesting point; when he was covering the race, he ducked into a men’s bathroom, forgetting he still had the glasses on. When he got some dirty looks, he quickly remembered and took them off.

For now, there seem to be many kinks to be worked out when it comes to Glass and when and where the technology should be used, and that includes around celebrities and political figures.

Image: The Verge

On Thursday, music discovery service Shazam released an update for its Windows Phone app which introduces support for the latest version of the tiled operating system. In addition to finally playing well with Windows Phone 8, the app also comes with a refreshed UI (User Interface) and a couple of new features and improvements.

“We are incredibly excited about this launch as it brings so many of Shazam’s key features to Windows Phone 8 fans”, says Shazam’s Daniel Danker. “Windows Phone 8 users now have access to a great smartphone experience, from faster tagging and a new interactive map, where users can discover the music people are listening to around them. This is more than just the music that’s already popular; these are often songs people are discovering for the first time”.

On top of identifying songs, Shazam now allows Windows Phone 8 users to buy recognized tunes from Xbox Music and Nokia Music (the latter option is only available on Lumia devices) and discover new ones.

Shazam for Windows Phone 8 also adds the ability to tag TV shows and advertisements. The new feature is meant to differentiate the service from popular competitors like SoundHound which only allow users to only identify songs.

The latest iteration of the app offers new live tiles available in all three sizes, speedier tagging, lockscreen background support (cover art or tag charts can be set as the wallpaper) and localization for 16 languages.

Shazam is available to download from the Windows Phone Store.

Camel brand cigarettes are coming under fire from several health groups for placing ads in magazines marketed for teens.

The cigarettes, called Camel Crush, feature a small capsule inside the filter which, when pushed, releases a menthol flavor. The novelty appeal of the new sticks mixed with advertising placed in media targeted towards young people are a bad combo, according to the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, among others.

In 2010–the most recent year data was available–Camel increased its market share to people aged 12-17 by 20%, and the Crush variety is being blamed. In fact, menthol cigarettes have been under fire for quite a while for their popularity among young people, and a ban on them has already been proposed by the FDA.

Camel has seen its share of controversy over the years for aiming at a youthful audience; in 2007, when Camel No. 9 cigarettes were introduced, the company gave away lip gloss and purses and, not surprisingly, they were enormously popular with teen girls. The company’s mascot, Joe Camel, was discontinued after several groups argued that a cartoon camel only marketed the cigarettes to kids and teens even more.

The most recent uproar over Camel Crush suggests that the company may be in violation of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which says that no tobacco company may market their products to children. Camel is accused of placing ads in at least 24 different magazines that appeal to a young audience.

Image: CigReviews.com

An interview with Jonah Berger, Wharton School professor and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

Download this podcast

A written transcript will be available by June 6.

The power of cloud-based analytics is indisputable, given its potential for simplicity and scalable computing power. But reality falls short of the “pie in the sky” promises of moving all data and all analytics to an open and public cloud. In a recent blog post, Teradata’s Scott Gnau describes analytics in the cloud, in a way that sidesteps the cloud’s “not so silver lining” of concerns around security, privacy, downtime, data loss and latency issues.

He shares his recommendations using use cases of both public and private cloud deployments. Two examples he shares are BevMo! and Meredith.

BevMo!, a large West Coast retailer, built an integrated and managed data warehouse in the public cloud using Teradata Cloud Services. By accessing analytics hardware, software, managed services and customer services in the cloud, BevMo! was able to get flexible, secure and scalable analytics on a subscription basis.

BevMo! runs advanced analytic for things like SKU management, regulatory compliance, invoice error reduction and sophisticated pricing analytics that involve product, cost, location and other variables.

Meanwhile, media giant Meredith turned to Teradata for a private cloud solution to leverage its sizable data assets. For the publisher of major brands like Better Homes and Gardens, the private cloud delivers immediate and relevant messaging to consumers in near real-time. This has helped the company improve reach and reduce subscriber loss. Meredith can now run 600 campaigns a month instead of 300, and the company has slashed segment analysis time from 24 hours to less than one.

Earlier in May, HTC was rumored to be entering the Microsoft Windows RT tablet market and now, just a few weeks later, those plans are over. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported HTC’s change in course on Thursday due to weak demand for Windows RT. Instead, the company is expected to move forward on a 7-inch Android tablet.

I didn’t like the idea of an HTC Windows RT slate for several reasons. First, while the Windows RT product does suit some people’s needs very well, there’s no indication it’s a big seller or that there’s a huge market for such a device. Part of the problem is the cost: For about the same price, consumers can buy a full Windows 8 tablet with similar battery life.

And HTC simply doesn’t have the experience with Windows to engineer a hit right now. In 2007, the company created a Windows hybrid, the HTC Shift, that flopped outside of geek circles. (Sadly, I’m in those circles!)

I realize HTC is trying to diversify its product line. It did just that, albeit in a small way, earlier today with a “Nexus Experience” version of the HTC One. But Windows RT isn’t yet a horse I’d back in this race if I were HTC. A few weeks ago I said:

“A better idea for HTC might be to get its smartphone house in order. It’s definitely on the right path with the HTC One; it’s a top-notch Android smartphone. If the phone is successful, I supposed the company could re-invest profits into designing a Windows tablet or two, but it might be better to continue improving the smartphone line first.”

For the moment, Android is both hurting and helping HTC. It helps because it allowed the company to stand out a few years ago as an early Android adopter. But now, Samsung’s Android strategy is sucking most of the profits from this smartphone market, no matter how good the HTC One is. A 7-inch Android tablet might not be a standout product either — we already have the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire and others — but at least the Android tablet market has a big lead on market for the Windows RT slates.

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It was only time before the specs for Samsung’s impending two devices in the Galaxy S4 Zoom and Galaxy S4 Active were to become available. Here’s what you can expect with the S4 Zoom:

• 4.3” 540x960px Super AMOLED display
• 1.6 GHz dual-core CPU, no LTE support
• Android Jelly Bean OS
• 8 GB of built-in memory, micro-SD support
• 1.9mpx fron facing camera
• 16 megapixel main camera, with 10x Optical Zoom
• Bluetooth 4.0LE, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, A-GPS
• 1900 mAh battery

As for the waterproof Galaxy S4 Active:

• 5” Super AMOLED Full HD display
• Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 CPU
• Adreno 320 GPU
• 2GB of RAM
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS
• LTE support
• 16GB of built-in memory, microSD support
• Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC, IR blaster
• 2600 mAh battery

While the Zoom looks more like a watered down S4 with a better camera, the Active is more or less the same as the S4 but will have a more “rugged” outer shell and will be waterproof. No news yet on which US carriers will sell these devices, but I’m sure we’ll know more sometime next month.

source: Hi-Tech

Come comment on this article: Specs for Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and waterproof Galaxy S4 Active leaked

Below is a special feature from Christa Botha of the BlackBerry PR team in South Africa — Donny

The youth of South Africa has once again independently voted BlackBerry as the ‘Coolest Brand Overall’ in the Sunday Times Generation Next 2013 Brand Survey Awards. Young voters also named BlackBerry the ‘Coolest Cellphone’ and voted BBM™ as the ‘Coolest Cellphone App’ for the third year running.

BlackBerry 10 launch

These accolades are a remarkable achievement for the BlackBerry team in South Africa, and shows there is plenty of momentum as we transition to BlackBerry 10.

Even in the face of growing competition, we’re still number one in South Africa. In fact, we have been the leading smartphone brand in South Africa for over 28 months, according to GfK Retail & Technology (March 2013).

Though BlackBerry 7 remains popular among the youth, we are seeing many of our young customers aspire to the new BlackBerry 10 platform. BlackBerry 10 is not only providing a whole new experience, but more choice for South African customers. We’re expecting the upcoming launch of the BlackBerry Q5 to be very popular in South Africa.

BlackBerry 10 builds on many of the strengths that made earlier BlackBerry platforms so popular with the youth .For example, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), which enables users to share text and voice messages, pictures and video clips – provides an even richer experience on BlackBerry 10 as it includes video chat, and introduces the ability to share your screen with other BlackBerry 10 contacts.

Engaging the youth

Alexandra Zagury, Managing Director for South and Southern Africa at BlackBerry says:

“We are delighted that BlackBerry is the coolest brand for the third year in a row and sincerely thank our young fans for their loyalty and support. Smartphones are a lifestyle choice in the youth market, so BlackBerry focuses on designing cool and stylish handhelds that are also packed with excellent features that keep young people engaged and connected, such as BlackBerry Messenger, social networking and plenty of apps.”

“Success in the youth market is not about selling products, it’s about sincere engagement with your audience. Young people want a relationship with the brands that they love and BlackBerry gives South Africa’s mobile and hyper-connected youth the tools to communicate and co-create with the world around them.”

Pictured above: BlackBerry® Youth Campus event

Best Buddies

We have invested in building a genuine relationship with the youth market in South Africa – for example, we launched the BlackBerry Buddies campaign in 2012 to help South African BlackBerry customers to get the most from their smartphones.

We also focus on direct engagement with the youth through campus events, campus ambassadors, secret gigs, extensive advertising and competitions.

Since it launched in market, BlackBerry has established its brand in the youth market, which is strongly associated with mobile cool. Young BlackBerry customers are important to our business and we continue to work hard to bring services and products that are relevant to young users to market.

With the current announcement of the two “Nexus Experience” devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, many have wondered what that will do to Google’s Nexus device line. Rest assured as Google’s own Sundar Pichai assures us all that the Nexus line will be alive and well. We can most definitely expect Google to continue, after all the sales of these Nexus devices has never been Google’s number one priority, having a pure Google device out there for developers and enthusiasts is why Google releases these phones/tablets in the first place. I truly feel that the Nexus line is essential and vitally important to Android’s ecosystem.

During the All Things Digital conference Pichai was also candid about Samsung’s huge success in the mobile industry due to Android. While some speculate whether Google should be worried about Samsung overshadowing them, Google and Pichai certainly aren’t and is happy with the success the South Korean company is enjoying. While the same can’t be said about the company that Google actually owns in Motorola, I’m sure Google’s plans for the company has still yet to be seen and with the recent announcement of the Moto X, maybe things may change in the near future.

What do you guys think about Google keeping the Nexus line alive and is happy with what it provides to the Android community as a whole?

source: Phandroid

Come comment on this article: Android chief Sundar Pichai reassures us that the Nexus program will stay alive

Regina Dugan of Motorola/Google showed off some pretty neat things today at the D11 conference in California. Apparently the company is working on an electronic tattoo that can be used for authentication purposes. It is being made by a company called MC10, which Motorola is partnering with. Another similar product she talked about was vitamin authentication. Dugan showed off a pill that can be swallowed, battery-powered by stomach acid, and can produce an 18-bit internal signal essentially making the swallower’s body a living, breathing password. And here’s the kicker— the electronic tattoo was actually in use on her own body.

Dugan explained that this isn’t anything that’s going to be shipping anytime soon, and that none of their future products will require this type of technology in order for it to work. Good to know Google won’t be force-feeding us pills and tattooing us all in order to achieve ultimate “Big Brother” status… or will it?

Totally innovative and awesome— if it can be built, why not build it?

Source: All Things D

Come comment on this article: Google’s Regina Dugan shows off electronic tattoos and edible passwords at D11 conference

Back in August, Twitter launched the Twitter Certified Products Program aimed at making it easier for Twitter users to find the “right” Twitter tools. The company announced today that the program is expanding with a handful of new partners.

In fact, there are eleven new products that have earned Twitter Certified status. These are: Brandwatch, BuzzFinder, Curatorr, Engage Manager, Flowics, NTT DATA, Offerpop, Scup, TRUE TELLER SocialDesk, SocialGuide Intelligence, and Wayin.

“Since we introduced the program last summer, our goal has been to help businesses find tools and services that make them more successful on Twitter,” says Twitter Certified Program manager Zach Hofer-Shall. “To date, Certified Products have been largely U.S.-focused; this new group includes companies from Europe, Japan and Latin America –– extending the program’s global footprint and empowering brands and publishers around the world.”

“In reviewing these, you’ll notice another change: we’re simplifying the certification identity by creating a new Product badge, which will include analytics and engagement companies,” he adds. “Our certification program remains 100% focused on products that extend Twitter’s value for businesses, and we see the scope of these reaching beyond traditional definitions of engagement and analytics. As business needs for Twitter functionality evolve, we’re expanding the program to meet these needs. We hope the new badging opens more doors for innovation around business applications.”

Twitter says it will continue to expand the program with small quarterly classes of products. If you have a product you want to be included, you can apply here.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of a movie, there’s one rule you should remember. Well, there are actually plenty of things that would be handy to know, but this one is pretty important. Whatever you do, for the love of all that is holy, do not go into a phone booth.

If you’re in a phone booth, things are going to end poorly. For the younger kids out there wondering what this “phone booth” thing is, it’s a death trap. Plain and simple. Thank the heavens for cellphones.

[via Slacktory]