Three months after launching in beta, TechStars grad Bondsy is releasing its self-titled iPhone app to the public with the goal of helping friends “trade things you can’t put a price on.”

Bondsy first made its debut on stage last year during TechStars NY’s demo day. At the time, the startup was pitched as “the social network of things” — a highly vague, but also quite accurate description. You’ll see why shortly.

Like submitting an item to Craigslist, Bondsy lets you sell, trade or give away just about anything. The key difference, of course, is that with Bondsy, you’re dealing solely with friends. Aside from making the entire process significantly less uncomfortable, trading with friends opens up an entire world of opportunities.

Founder Diego Zambrano says he’s seen everything from apartment rentals for cash to playdates with fernando the dog in exchange for ice cream. Everything from services to like-new, used and found items are fair game. And without restrictions, Bondsy becomes an entertaining way to foster deeper connections with the people you know.

As Zambrano puts it, “when you aren’t forced to pay with money, things get a lot more interesting.” If your interest is piqued, try out the app for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

➤ Bondsy

Nextdoor, a private social networks for neighborhoods, has launched an iOS app for its service. In doing so, the company is giving the 12,000-plus communities that are currently on the service more flexibility and options.

Previously only available through the browser, Nextdoor has been growing quite rapidly since its founding. According to the company, in its first year, it had signed up residents in 176 neighborhoods across 26 states in the US. In February, there were more than 8,000 in all 50 states. Now, it is available in more than 12,600 neighborhoods. The five cities where Nextdoor is used the most are San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, San Diego, and Dallas.

A mobile app had been one of the most popular requests from users, CEO and co-founder Nirav Tolia told TNW. Indeed, already 30 percent of traffic comes from mobile devices, which Tolia says, is proof enough of the need for a native app.

Nextdoor functions as a way for people to reconnect with their neighbors. Perhaps akin to a virtual neighborhood watch program, residents can sign up and share their experiences, problems, and advice with those that live right down the street from them. Each user is limited to interacting with those in their legally defined neighborhood, which makes sense because those people share a common bond with that area and are most affected by things that happen there.

Fundamentally, Nextdoor’s iOS app is its Web version optimized for the mobile device in a way that users are accustomed to using it. It has a clean design and performs all the same functions as its browser counterpart. Users can share updates about what’s happening in their neighborhood right from within the app while also posting photos using the device’s camera.

The app also comes with notifications and real-time alerts. These alerts are useful in times of emergency, whether it’s dangerous weather, police advisories, or something really important. When one is sent, it is delivered both as a notification and by SMS to ensure that it is seen.

Cities can also pair their law enforcement agencies with Nextdoor to share important information — cities like San Diego and Dallas already have done so.

While the 12,600 neighborhoods Nextdoor extols is a fascinating statistic, what the company won’t reveal is the number of actual users. After all, if a neighborhood has signed up, how many people within the community are actually using it. All the company well say is that there are “hundreds of thousands” of users.

So what’s next after releasing its iOS app? Tolia says his company will release an Android app.

What’s more, Nextdoor is looking to grow its business internationally later this year. We’re told that English-speaking countries will be targeted first, including Canada, South Africa, and the UK.

In 2014, more countries will be added like Brazil, Japan, and Singapore. Many of these countries are ones where there is a lot of citizen demand or the government is heavily interested in implementing the service.

Nextdoor has raised $40.2 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Shasta Ventures, and Bezos Expeditions, with $18.6 million from its Series A in 2012 and $21.6 million coming from its Series B last February.

➤ Nextdoor for iOS

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.

Today Mailbox, the quite popular email client that landed first on iPhone, announced the release of an iPad version of its app.

The move is hardly surprising, but it does continue the Mailbox story, one that saw the firm launch to mass impact, and then exit to Dropbox for a reportedly nine-figure sum.

TNW met with Mailbox at its new home in the Dropbox offices – try the bacon, it’s excellent – to see the new app. What will become immediately apparent to you provided that you are familiar with the iPhone version of the service is that the iPad build is remarkably similar.

For reference, here’s Mailbox on your phone:

And here is the iPad application:

It’s the same app, with a reading screen appended to the right side. Other visual effects present in the iPhone version persist in the iPad edition, such as swiping to sort emails, and the color scheme.

Frankly, it’s a great move. The core reason that Mailbox took off as it did was that its design, and user experience were incredible. Those success are repeated in the iPad app by not changing them. In testing, it takes under a minute to become fully comfortable on the new app if you are already a Mailbox user.

It is in fact so stripped down, that you cannot use it in any view but landscape. I suspect the app will be both well received, and highly used.

Mailbox: What’s Next

While I had their ear, I walked with Mailbox’s co-founder Gentry Underwood about its future plans, current growth, and the move to Dropbox. Regarding when it will arrive on the Android platform, the company demurred to comment, stating that it doesn’t comment on release schedules. Though the line was delivered with a knowing smile; they have heard that question before.

How has growth been since it was acquired? The service says that it is “excited” by the rate that new people are singing up, and by “the frequency that they stick around.” No hard numbers, however, it will share.

The reason is actually somewhat interesting: Underwood told me that it doesn’t want to get into a position in which it is optimizing for user numbers, and not user experience. The company, instead of trumpeting user levels, merely wants to “build a great user experience,” and then “get that to as many people as possible.”

If you are a fan of priority inbox, or Gmail’s labels, the company knows that you want that support inside of its product. When? No comment. Underwood did inform me that it is not complete; more, at some point, is coming.

How well has Mailbox fit into the Dropbox family? The fair analogy it seems is that Mailbox fits inside of Dropbox as Instagram has slotted into Facebook. Not too much product pressure, but instead a focus on keeping up what made the service so popular to begin with.

In Underwood’s words, both Dropbox and Mailbox both want to “take the friction out of work.”

Finally, and just for fun: Mailbox brought a mere 14 people to Dropbox. It’s core team is now 16. Now you know.

Top Image Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

There’s no shortage of third-party alarm clock apps for iPhone, there’s Suno and Rise for starters. But another one has just hit our radar that may be worth your $1.99.

Wakey wakey

Wake has been beautifully designed, with flips, slaps, swipes and shakes very much the order of the day.

When you first launch the app, you’ll see a simple circle with the current time in the middle. You then run your finger around the perimeter of the circle, and the time moves up, or down. You can also tap the ‘hour’ or ‘ minute’ component to increase/decrease each one individually so that you don’t have to scroll all the way through the 24-hour clock.

With your desired time set, you then swipe up from the bottom of the screen to select your desired days (including recurring), and preferred wake-up sounds, then click the ‘tick’ button to confirm.

You can add up to eight alarms, each accessible by pulling down from the top of the screen – to activate one, you pull it down quickly and it will light up. To delete an alarm altogether, long-press it and then click the little ‘x’. There’s also a night-mode, which you can activate by swiping in from the left.

Now, there’s three separate ‘Alarm Styles’ to choose from: ‘Slap & Flip’, ‘Shake’ and ‘Swipe’, each of which can be accessed by swiping from the right on your screen.

The former lets you ‘snooze’ your alarm by hitting your phone, like an old-school alarm clock. Alternatively, you can flip it over to turn it off. On this mode, you can actually also use the ‘Swipe’ feature to snooze or dismiss it, which is also available as a standalone ‘Alarm Style’, sans ‘Slap & Flip’. This is actually a little confusing, as both ‘Slap & Flip’ and ‘Swipe’ look identical when the alarms are activated.

For ‘Shake’, you can set how vigorous your wrist-movements need to be to turn the alarm off. And the more you shake, the closer you get to achieving your goal, with a color-change slowly engulfing your screen until the offending noise disappears. This may be particularly appealing to heavy-sleepers.

It’s worth noting here that Wake won’t work in the background, so you must have the app open before you go to sleep. It will, however, still work while your phone is in silent mode, which is definitely a good thing,

Wake is the handiwork of Toronto-based design agency Tiny Hearts, the same folks behind another app we covered a couple of years ago called Pocket Zoo.

“A few months back we set out to create a simpler more beautiful alarm clock for ourselves,” explains Tiny Hearts founder Robleh Jama. “Our goal was to modernize the alarm for iOS, taking inspiration from minimal interfaces like the original iPod click wheel, the Nest thermostat, Clear for iPhone and the iconic Braun alarm clocks designed by Dieter Rams.

“Along the way, we started experimenting with a more intuitive and natural user interface, one that went beyond touch to the point where it was invisible. That brings us to today. After 6 months of hard work, obsessing over countless tiny details and over a hundred builds we’re proud to share Wake with the world.”

Wake is available to download from the App Store now, costing $1.99. Meanwhile, check out the Wake promo video below.

➤ Wake Alarm | iOS

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

Shazam, the music discovery and tagging service, has rolled out a major new update to its iOS app, introducing a single universal app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as a slew of other new features specifically for the tablet version.

Shazam has become one of the most well-known music-tagging apps, letting users identify the name of a song or artist that’s playing in the background, simply by activating the app on their smartphone. These tags are stored on a user’s device, and lets them stream or download the song elsewhere when they find the time.

Shazam 6.0

In addition to the new universal app, Shazam for iPad now features auto-tagging which means it will recognize and tag music that’s playing around you. So, you no longer have to hit the big Shazam button, you simply tap ‘Auto Tagging’ in the top-right of the screen, and it will work even when the app is minimized.

Moreover, if you don’t want to auto-tag, the Shazam button is now available on each screen so you don’t have to navigate back ‘home’ to tag. You’ll see the button at the bottom right of each screen you’re on.

Another significant addition here is interactive maps, which lets you see the most tagged tracks where you live.

Shazam has gone the extra mile with this feature, as it also lets you scroll a map of the world and zoom in and see what’s popular not only by country…

…but by city too. Above, you could click on any country and see what’s hot, and below you can see how I’ve zoomed in on Krakow, Poland for a closer look.

Other updates include a dynamic new home screen that lets you browse real-time updates of what’s being tagged on TV just now, though this is available for US-users only at the moment.

Changes for Shazam

These are significant updates for Shazam – when the auto-tagging feature is activated, and when you’re in a place with lots of music playing that you’d like to ‘record’ to check out later, you now can do. You’ll see the ‘Shazam (Recording)’ message at the top of your screen.

Whilst Shazam is perhaps best known for its music discovery technology, Shazam’s expansion into television has opened the door to new opportunities for the company, letting viewers engage with TV shows and ads for additional content and exclusive offers.

Following a hook-up with American Idol last year, Shazam lined up a landmark deal with British broadcaster ITV, promising to let viewers snap up products they like during ad breaks, using nothing but their smartphone and Shazam’s mobile app. The first of these ads featured during the Britain’s Got Talent grand finale last May.

Indeed, Shazam has continued to iterate its product, eking out new ways to monetize through deals and partnerships. Earlier this month, it introduced its Rdio integration to all its active markets following its US launch last year, which works in addition to the Spotify integration.

“We have seen amazing growth and expansion in both the number of people who use Shazam on iPad as well as their level of engagement,” explains Rich Riley, Shazam CEO.  “With more than 300 million Shazamers globally who use the app more than ten million times each day, we have created an exciting and engaging new iPad experience for existing and new users.”

Riley adds that over the past year, they’ve seen “triple-digit growth” in terms of iPad app downloads. “[The] iPad offers an ideal way to experience more on the second screen as people watch television (the first screen), giving them more space to engage in additional content,” he says. “Our new app gives our fans the most efficient way to experience more of the media around them whether they are in their home or anywhere throughout the world.”

While these latest feature updates are iPad only for now, it’s safe to assume they’ll arrive on the iPhone/iPod touch incarnation, and its other mobile platforms including Android.

➤ Shazam | iOS

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service

Palo Alto, California-based imo.im, which offers a comprehensive communication and social discovery platform with the same name, has raised $13 million in a round of funding led by co-founder and very early Googler Georges Harik.

The imo.im service basically offers a unified dashboard for a wide range of messaging applications, including the most popular ones built by the likes of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.

In conjunction with the funding announcement, the company is today announcing a new feature called ‘Broadcasts’ for its Android and iOS smartphone apps.

With Broadcasts, imo.im essentially wants to connect users of its native apps with others who have similar interests.

It builds upon the company’s imo Network, a real-time sharing and discussion network that made its debut on the Web last year, and has now been redesigned with mobile platforms in mind.

‘Broadcasts’ is a key part of the imo Network. It’s basically a channel where imo.im users can easily discover people, information, news and topics they care about. The company says it has developed a sophisticated proprietary algorithm to power the system, but we haven’t gotten the chance to actually test-drive the apps yet.

“Social discovery is an important feature,” said Ralph Harik, CEO of imo.im. “We want users to find relevant and useful information, people, news and other content that will make their lives better. imo broadcasts is a platform to achieve that.”

Starting today, users will also be able to upload and share photos directly to the Broadcasts feed.

The imo.im apps are free and have been downloaded more than 7 million times to date, according to the company, with 750,000 unique daily visitors sending 50 million messages per day on average.

➤ imo.im for Android, iPhone and iPad

Image credit: Thinkstock

Rdio on Wednesday announced it has updated its native Android and iOS apps with user interface changes and new features. You can download the latest versions now directly from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

First and foremost, the new “Find People” feature (available on the side navigation) gives you a curated list of recommended friends and their music taste, based on your connected Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as hand-picked artists and influencers. If you use Rdio for music discovery, this will definitely appeal to you.

Next up are the new label Pages. Just like on Rdio’s Web and desktop apps, you can now search for a record label and find its top albums and artists.

Last but not least, Rdio has updated the side navigation panel in its app. It now shows blurred background and a cleaner interface, which Rdio says makes it easier “to access your profile, sort through playlists, and more.”

Rdio says these new apps unify the service’s experience regardless of platform, thanks to various user interface improvements and new features. In fact, the Rdio for Android and Rdio for iOS changelogs are identical:

• Find People. The new feature makes following friends and artists easier than ever.
• Labels. Search for a record label to find its top albums and artists.
• Various minor bug fixes and UI improvements, including a new, cleaner look for sliding side navigation.

Rdio is facing increased competition from the likes of Spotify and most recently Google. The company’s latest attempt to differentiate itself has been a video service by the clever name of Vdio.

See also – Rdio launches Vdio social movie and TV service with an iPad app coming later today and $25 credit for Rdio subscribers and Rdio launches free music streaming internationally, unlimited listening for 6 months in 15 countries

Top Image Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.

Tripping has carved a sizable niche for itself in the online accommodation-booking space, and now offers more than 850,000 rentals in 36,000 cities around the world.

Founded in 2010 by veterans from Expedia, Travelzoo and StubHub, Tripping has evolved as an online travel site and is now what you’d call a MetaSearch engine, or an aggregator. Indeed, it trawls the likes of HomeAway, Wimdu and Flipkey to pull in listings and compare by price, reviews, ratings and location. So, if one property is listed for a cheaper price on one platform over another (which does happen), Tripping will tell you. You could call it a Kayak for home rentals and, indeed, many have.

Instant karma

Now, Tripping is integrating ZenRentals vacation rental software for its new Instabook platform, letting property-owners list directly on Tripping, and guests book instantly without having to wait for confirmation. Ultimately, it’s designed to narrow the gap between online hotel and private vacation rentals.

ZenRentals originally specialized in hotel booking software, but it seems they were inundated with requests by property owners and managers asking if they could tweak the software for vacation rentals. This is what they did. And result of this ‘tweaking’ has enabled Tripping to spread its proverbial wings.

While the likes of Airbnb is synonymous with this type of booking, founder and CEO Jen O’Neal says that Tripping’s new feature is instant, with property managers contractually obliged to give any booking made through Tripping priority. Indeed, with many properties on Airbnb you could be waiting up to 24 hours to get a response from the owner, only to discover that they’ve already listed it on another site and, well, it’s not available. However, it is worth adding that Airbnb does actually offer Instant Book for some of its properties too.

Also, Tripping manually approves its Instabook properties prior to listing, to ensure everything is above board. The one obvious downside to this, however, is that it will take time for Tripping to gain a sufficient number of Instabook-enabled properties. But given this is an add-on service for users, any search that is carried out will still throw up all the usual alternatives from the likes of HomeAway.

An Instabook rental can be clearly identified by the label emblazoned across the main photo as you can see here.

At launch, Tripping will only host a handful of Instabook properties, however 700 hosts are signed up who have thousands of properties between them. Plus, ZenRentals will be distributing its own properties on Tripping, so there should be thousands available shortly.

It’s also worth noting it will only be available in private beta for select hosts in the US, but it will be rolling out further afield in the next few months. So this is still very much a work-in-progress from a content and availability perspective.

“The vacation rentals industry is years behind hotels online, so we wanted to find a way we could work together and bridge that gap,” says O’Neal. “We wanted to make vacation rentals more like hotels from a booking perspective. So by using existing software, and integrating it into Tripping, anyone could make a vacation rental instantly.”

In addition, Tripping is also launching a guest verification service, which is essentially a safety check that taps national and international crime and fraud databases to verify would-be guests are of a sound disposition. We’re told it takes seconds to carry out during the booking process.

So, Tripping is trying to make the short-term property booking process instant and seamless, which could see it appeal to the lucrative last-minute market. Though it will obviously need to ramp up its catalogue of properties to gain a reputation for this over its contemporaries.

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

Just a day after releasing Chrome 27 on the desktop, Google on Wednesday announced the release of Chrome 27 for Android, adding fullscreen support on phones and a tab history option on tablets. You can download the latest version now directly from Google Play.

The device-type features are fairly straightforward. To access the new fullscreen function on an Android phone, just scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear (sidenote: full screen support for iOS arrived Chrome 26 stable). When you scroll back up, the toolbar returns automatically.

To use the new tab history on tablets, long press the browser back button to view what you’ve been browsing. This is one of those features that should have been in Chrome from the start, but as Android tablets become more popular, Google has finally been forced to add it.

Next up, we have “simpler searching.” Google is referring to a change regarding how its search engine (and possibly other search engines) work in Chrome. The company has been experimenting with leaving the search query in the omnibox, removing the need for a second search box on the results page, since December 2012.

So far, however, only beta and other test versions of Chrome have seen the change. Chrome for Android is thus the first stable release of Google’s browser to get the feature.

The full Chrome 27.0.1453.90 for Android changelog is as follows:

• Fullscreen on phones – Scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear.
• Simpler searching – Searching from the omnibox will keep your search query visible in the omnibox, making it easier to edit, and show more on your search result page.
• Client-side certificate support – You can now access sites that require you to use a certificate and Chrome will allow you to select an installed certificate.
• Tab history on tablets – Long press the browser back button to view your tab history.
• And a ton of stability and performance fixes.

As you can see, Chrome also now has client-side certificate support. Most users won’t be using it on mobile but its addition does show Google’s dedication to having a full-blown browser on its mobile platform.

Top Image Credit: Half Cut

Google on Wednesday announced the release of a revamped Drive app for Android to make creating and accessing files on-the-go easier, via a new card-style grid view and added features such as document scanning. You can grab the new version now directly from Google Play.

First and foremost, Drive files in the Android app are now displayed in a card-style grid view. You can swipe between files as well as glance at large previews to quickly check out their contents.

Here’s a screenshot of the swiping in action on an Android tablet:

While Drive is still very much a cloud storage service, the app now lets you download a copy of your files for offline access (check the actions menu inside settings). This feature is only available on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) and up, in addition to the desktop version of course.

Next up is the addition of a way to keep track of your paper documents like receipts, letters, and billing statements. The app has gained a scanning option (Add New => Scan), which lets you snap a photo of your document, have Drive run its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on it so you can search for it later, and turn it into a PDF for safekeeping.

Here’s the feature in action on an Android phone:

Last but not least, the editing experience in Google Sheets has been improved: you can now adjust font types and sizes for a spreadsheet and tweak the cell text colors and cell alignment right from the app.

The full Google Drive 1.2.182.25 for Android changelog is as follows:

• New grid view makes it easier to find your files.
• New quick preview lets you view photos and other files from within the app.
• Scan documents, receipts and letters for safe keeping in Drive; then search by contents once uploaded.
• Download a copy of files to your local device (Honeycomb+).
• Spreadsheet editor now supports changing fonts, colors and cell alignment.
• View properties of files from within the editors.
• Bug fixes and visual improvements.

This is a big update both in terms of design and new features. We’ll be looking closely to see if similar changes are made for Google Drive’s iOS app as well.

Top Image Credit: Pawel Kryj

Functionality is only part of what makes a great app – the importance of good design can’t be overstated. That’s why Boxes might just be worth your time.

A new iOS app that has just launched in private beta, Boxes promises to help you make the most of the stuff you own, through organizing everything in one place. While this concept may appeal more to the OCD among you – it will surely take a mind-bogglingly long amount of time to catalogue all your belongings – the design and usability of Boxes reveals a lot attention to detail. It’s a treat to use.

Also, it’s not just about organizing your stuff, it’s vying for the e-commerce market too, making it easy to buy and sell stuff.

How it works, how it looks

Firstly, you sign up via email, and then you can connect with Facebook, Twitter or the contact in your address book – to get the full benefits of Boxes you are of course encouraged to connect your social profiles.

To start cataloging, simply click ‘Add Item’ from the main menu, and you’re invited to take a photo, which you can apply filters to. Why not, right?

Once you’ve added a price (if you’re selling), description, location and so on, you’re good to go. You can also search for items using keywords and hashtags.

Given that Boxes is still in private beta, the checkout process is not currently enabled within the app, but when this launches properly in a couple of weeks, it will feature a full-scale marketplace with integrated checkout.

It’s worth noting here that Boxes isn’t all about buying and selling stuff, it pitches itself as something like a photo-based social network for ‘things’ – one that just happens to have e-commerce built in to the core. If that sounds confusing, well, it’s about as close as we can get to hitting the nail on the head with this app.

You can followe other users, and message them directly within the app, asking and answering questions, and over time you will build – unsurprisingly – a collection of boxes with all your things in it.

Certainly, one potential use-case could be for someone who knows they’re moving house in the near future and needs a clear-out. They can snap all the stuff they need to get shot off and, well, create a sort of virtual car-boot sale.

“People use Boxes for all sorts of things,” says Solomon Engel, Founder and CEO of Boxes. “It’s a great tool for collectors to organize their collections, artists can show off their work, brands can promote their products and increase their sales, it makes moving from place-to-place a lot easier, and what’s best, whenever they’re ready to sell something, they can list an item for sale with just a few taps.”

Boxes is a quirky and interesting idea underpinned by a genuinely well-designed app, and it will be interesting to see what kind of traction this gains when the doors open. “Boxes closes the loop for folks looking to reach a wider audience,” adds Engel. “With a community of people that share the same interests, you’re far more likely to have success promoting or selling your products as individuals, brands, or retailers.”

How you use Boxes is entirely up to you, given you can add, organize, buy, sell, and search for stuff. “Our clear goal was to create a world-class experience that would not only be fun and easy to use, but would also open up opportunities for others and help make them successful,” continues Engel.

Given this is still in private beta, you won’t be able to sign up quite yet – unless, of course, you’re quick off the mark and get one of 100 promo codes Engel is giving out to TNW readers. Simply email this address – tnw@box.es – and ask for a code. Then head to Box.es to get started.

Meanwhile, check out the official promo video below.

➤ Boxes

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

Foursquare has updated its iOS and Android apps today with a revamped filtering system that allows users to set additional parameters, such as price and number of previous check-ins, for all of their search queries.

In the previous version of the app, tapping the search bar at the top of the screen would trigger a number of different choices, such as location type (shopping, sights, food, etc.) as well as a number of additional options such as ‘Saved’ and ‘Haven’t Been’.

These were particularly useful for finding places that were suitable to your tastes; you might have been taking your girlfriend out for a romantic dinner, but wanted to make sure you reserved a table somewhere neither of you had been before. Likewise, tapping ‘Open Now’ ensured that the five-star bar you traipsed off to afterwards was actually open.

Combining these with search queries, however, was difficult. The updated iOS app now includes a new ‘Filter’ area which can be accessed from the top right-hand corner of the screen at any time. It means that the user can set multiple filters simultaneously; both before and after submitting a search query.

The area is a little boring and unintuitive – it looks remarkably similar to a spreadsheet or online booking form – but means that users can filter results based on whether they have or haven’t been there before, whether their friends have checked-in already, as well as whether their open and offering specials.

Results can also be sorted by best match or distance, the latter of which is particularly useful if you’re stuck outside in the cold and want to find somewhere suitable pronto.

Setting the parameters within the app is straight-forward, however, requiring a single tap to highlight it with a clear green tick. Tap ‘Done’ at the bottom and you’re away.

These features might sound small, but its impact on finding new and suitable places to go is profound. Foursquare thrives on being a service that is quick and simple to use; if it takes more than a few minutes to make a decision, the likelihood is that user will simply give up and just try the place closest to their current location.

Foursquare gave its iOS app a major facelift in April, placing its search bar front and center and merging it together with the friends tab. The location filters announced today were also added to the Foursquare website earlier this month in advance of a wider rollout on its various mobile apps.

➤ Foursquare | iOS | Android

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service. 

Google Search trends is arguably the most effective way of learning what the world is thinking about, and Google Trends, with Google’s annual Zeitgeist, has always done a fairly decent job of illustrating this.

The World Ranked

Today, Google releases a new and improved version of the product with new charts, updated monthly, of the most-searched people, places and things in more than 40 categories with the ability to filter by 11 countries. PR companies and their customers now have another metric to be highly aware of. Everything from business people through to cars are ranked for the world to see. Each category goes back to 2004.

How is Michael Jordan still the most searched for athlete month-on-month in 2013?

Built on top of Knowledge Graph, the data is accurate beyond simply keywords. Google understands the difference between “The Next Web”, “TNW” and “TNW Conference” for example, and therefore the charts are an accurate representation of what is being searched for in both broad and specific terms.

Trending Searches Visualised

In addition to Top Charts, Google has added a neat customizable visual way to illustrate trending searches *as they happen*. You can view an example below which illustrates current trending searches in the US. What’s not clear is how anyone can embed these in their own site or blog post. We’ve had to copy and paste the html itself from the announcement post to include this in our own. What’s more, there doesn’t appear to be much scope for customization here. For better customization and embedding options visit here where you can embed lists of current hot search trends.

Image Credit: DANIEL ROLAND/Stringer / Getty

Music apps and services often feel overbearing because they try to offer a multitude of features simultaneously. On-demand streaming, Pandora-style Internet radio stations, collaborative playlists, social hooks and so on and so forth.

In the photography space, Instagram has proven to be incredibly popular because it strips away much of this noise and focuses on a quick, stress-free way of shooting and sharing images.

Yap, a startup that launched a second screen television app for iOS devices back in 2010, is launching a new iPhone app today called Yap Music, which aims to streamline the process of following artists and discovering new music.

How it works

It’s worth getting Yap Music’s fatal flaw out of the way first; the service is almost completely dependent on Facebook.

Users connect to the app through their existing Facebook account, after which the app then pulls in all of the existing bands and artists that they’ve chosen to follow or ‘like’ on the social network.

Avid music fans will have a diverse stream of content to browse from the get-go, but those who make an effort to avoid Facebook will need to build up a list of artists from scratch. Yap Music does a pretty good job of accelerating this process, however, with an area for artists that users’ friends are following, as well as dedicated sections for specific music genres, such as rock, pop or country.

The experience

The home screen then offers up three choices; the user’s curated feed, a global stream for specific music genres and a discovery feature called ‘Search & Discover.’

Tapping the first option will create a stream which looks and feels like Instagram. There’s a simple, vertical stream offering images and videos uploaded by artists through Facebook. There’s a small area for the band’s profile image, as well any accompanying status update and the option to share and ‘like’ it over on Facebook.

As users scroll up and down through their feed, a small playback icon is shown in the top right-hand corner. It offers a link to the relevant iTunes page, either for the song in question or a recent track if the artist is posted about something inapplicable; a photograph from the studio, a festival date, etc.

To add new artists to the feed, users hit the ‘Search & Discover’ option from the home screen. Here listeners can search for an individual artist, browse by genre or look up what their friends are following on Facebook. It’s not particularly innovative, but the interface is functional and works well for the most part.

Venturing into the ‘Genres’ section is arguably the most interesting and powerful part of the Yap Music app. Here users can scroll up and down numerous vertical streams for different music types. A scroll bar along the top offers a new genre with a single swipe and all of the content shown below is for artists featured outside of your network.

Here, users can choose to add these artists to their curated feed, as well as access their iTunes page if they feel compelled to make a purchase. I often found myself absently flicking up and down these streams while I had some free time, but stumbling across an interesting video or image that resulted in a new artist I wanted to check out. It’s simple, but rather like Instagram – just works.

The bottom line

Yap Music will both live and die on its Facebook dependency. By leaning on another social network, the app already has a wealth of content to serve up to its users. The problem is that if users aren’t too keen on Facebook, or don’t have many friends who engage with it either, the service is far less compelling.

Integration with other services is pivotal. Twitter seems like an obvious addition, but Google+ wouldn’t go amiss either. The ability to source tracks from other music apps too, such as Rdio or Spotify, would also improve the experience no end.

Regardless, Yap Music offers a new, if familiar experience for discovering and following musicians. There’s a lot to be iterated upon, but as a first version it’s a decent effort.

➤ Yap Music | iOS

Image Credit: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

There were somewhere in the region of 45 billion minutes of audio-only conference calls in North America in 2012, a stat that bodes well for the future of Speek.

Work started on the Web app back in March 2012, and after a while in beta which has seen a couple of hundred thousand users join, Speek officially opens the doors to the public today. So we thought we’d take a look at what it’s all about.

Speek easy

Speek essentially offers an easy way to set up and join a conference call – no downloads or setting up required. The call initiator (i.e. those who wish to organize a conference call) set themselves up with an account and secure their own username, which subsequently serves as a unique link for all future conference calls – this would look like: speek.com/YourName.

They then send that link to everyone who they wish to join in the call – this could be by email, instant message, text message or even verbally – and the recipient is given direct access to the virtual conference call room.

Now, the call participants don’t need to have an account – in fact, they don’t need anything other than a telephone. No conference ID or PIN is required. They enter their own telephone number (this could even be a Skype number), click ‘Join this call’ and their phone will ring.

At the time of writing, this will only work with US telephone numbers, which is obviously a big drawback, but it will be opening to international telephone numbers within the next couple of months.

But for the launch today, Speek is also rolling out a WebRTC-enabled VoIP feature which gives access to conference calls through Chrome – this feature remains in beta for now, but is open to anyone around the world.

For the uninitiated, WebRTC is an open source project that gives Internet users the ability to communicate in real-time through voice and video, simply by using a Real-Time Communications (RTC) compatible browser.

Google first started trialing WebRTC for Chrome almost two years ago, and it’s now at a stage to enable pretty flawless real-time communications. Firefox is also currently in the process of implementing the technology, and is expected to be made widely available soon.

So, if you’re using Chrome, you can bypass your telephone altogether by plugging your headphones in and clicking ‘Join through your computer’.

I trialled the service with Speek co-founder and CTO Danny Boice yesterday, and it worked fairly well throughout. It’s a very visual-based platform, with all participants visible on-screen, regardless of whether they’re talking through the browser or through their phone.

You can also ‘see’ who’s talking at any given point, as their box-shaped avatar lights up when they speak around the virtual table.

Money, money, money

As things stand, Speek is free to use for up to 5 people in each call. For $10/month, you get unlimited participants, and the added ability to share files during the call. You can also record your calls and access the audio transcripts later, a feature that’s sorely missing from the likes of Skype, a similar VoIP service you may have heard of.

To share a file, you drag it to the middle and it then appears on-screen for others to download, rather than it being sent to each individual user, though it would be better if these were displayed as larger icons, with file-previews and so on. You can also add text-based comments to the ‘room’, which appear in the bottom right.

The table metaphor will only last as long as the number of participants remains manageable – if there’s 30 people on a call, it would be difficult to crowd them around. So, as more people join, the table eventually morphs into a grid-like view with lines of people.

Oh, and you can add anyone to the call simply by clicking the ‘Add a caller’ button during the meeting. Similarly, you can choose to mute someone if they’re slurping on a particularly noisy frappuccino.

The verdict

It’s early days still, but it’s difficult not to see a future for Speek, even though it operates in an increasingly crowded market. In addition to the likes of heavyweights such as WebEx (which also offers screen-sharing) and newcomers such as MeetingBurner, there’s a slew of companies vying for the $22.3 billion audio-only conference call market. And that’s just North America. But Speek brings more than enough to the table to make a dent.

More or less all existing services require dial-in instructions, with PINs and other codes the order of the day. Speek really is about as easy as it gets, but that isn’t without its flaws. As things stand, there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping anyone joining a call – if you know the username of the CEO in a rival company, you can invite yourself into any call.

However, given this is a visual-based system, you can see who’s on the call at any given time. Plus, there are plans to roll-out a ‘lock’ feature shortly, which means as soon as everyone you want is on a call, you close it off to new entries.

Although Speek is very much targeting the conference call market, there’s nothing to stop anyone using this as yet another VoIP client, a la Skype. Speek has an iOS app (US only for now), and a Windows Phone app, and is in the process of building an Android app, so there’s nothing stopping you using this as another (free) mobile VoIP client.

“My co-founder (CEO John Bracken) and I started Speek because we are part of the 90% who are dissatisfied with the current conference call experience,” explains CTO Boice. “Both John and I have spent decades dialing into conference bridges, not knowing who is on, not knowing who is talking, listening to some participant eat their lunch on the call without the ability to mute them, and the list goes on. It was a miserable experience that had not changed in 30 years.”

Bracken is actually the co-founder of Evite, a social-planning site launched in 1998, and he lead the development of AOL Instant Messenger for the best part of a decade before jumping on board with Speek.

To date, Boice says Speek is being used by thousands of firm across the business spectrum, including law firm, venture capital companies, technology firms and more.

Speek is open for everyone to use now, though the primary feature is only open to US-based telephone numbers for now.

➤ Speek

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

In the week that Tumblr has been acquired by Yahoo, it’s interesting to see that Urturn, a service with a similar focus on user-generated content being shared by a youthful audience, has announced a $13.4 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Balderton Capital and coincides with the launch of Urturn’s mobile app for iOS.

Until January this year, Urturn went by the name of Webdoc and it initially developed an audience by allowing users to share multimedia collages encompassing images, videos, text and audio. The rebranding as Urturn saw the Switzerland-based startup focus on templates that added some direction to users as to what they could create. The templates also make sense when it comes to marketing partnerships, allowing users to create, say, their own personalised version of a musician’s album cover as a form of viral, meme-based promotion.

Indeed, music is one area that Urturn, and Webdoc before it has done well in. Acts such as One Direction, 50 Cent, Ellie Goulding and Alicia Keys have run campaigns in the past and recent sign-ups have included Snoop Lion and Will.i.am.

The iOS app, to be complemented by an Android version soon, is essentially a compact, portable version of the Urturn web app, complete with the tools needed to create and share template-based creations on the go. Quite why I decided to create an image called ‘I believe in the power of Rupert the Bear’, I don’t know but a few people ‘liked’ it, so I’m happy enough.

The Tumblr-esque nature of Urturn is particularly apparent when you start following people. Instantly, your feed screen fills with user-generated, meme-style creations that you can ‘like’ and ‘reshare’.

Interestingly, Urturn says that it isn’t charging for the marketing campaigns run on its platform at the moment. “We’re not charging for the promotional campaigns just as Twitter and Facebook are not charging for tweets or posts,” says co-founder and CEO, Stelio Tzonis. “Today, musicians don’t get promoted or do any monetzation on Urturn. But it has been really encouraging to get such a positive response from the music industry and we’re excited to see how other industries such as fashion will use it to engage with the user community.”

The funding will be used to continue to grow the business and develop the product. Balderton contributed 10.7 million, while the remaining $2.7 million comes from the private equity arm of Debiopharm Group.

➤ Urturn

Remember Raining.fm, the Web app that streams the sound of rain and, erm, that’s about it?

Well, rather than being a quirky one-off, Raining.fm has now gone mobile – that’s right, you can now listen to repetitious rain loops on the move.

Raining.fm streams on to mobile

Now, I love the sound of rain as much as the next guy – there’s something very soothing about the pitter patter. But I just never in a million years imagined such an app would prove to be a viable product. However, Raining.fm notched up 100,000 unique visitors last month alone, which isn’t bad all things considering.

“One of the best things about Raining.fm for me is receiving emails from people around the world telling me how the site has helped them,” explains the founder, who goes by the name of ‘Neil’. “From military personnel and professors, to students and executives, Raining.fm can make anyone’s day, including my own.”

Costing $1.99, the mobile app – available for Android and iOS – is actually very nicely designed, featuring a rolling rain track with a volume control, and three different weather extremities.

It would’ve been a nice touch to include an animated GIF of falling raindrops, but we’ll have to make do with a revolving carousel of rain-related stills. You can choose from the original slideshow as seen on Raining.fm, plus a separate slideshow from a Facebook photo contest that was launched last year. The choice is yours.

Interestingly, you can also create your own custom rain mix, with individual volume controls for each element.

Now, you also have two timers at your disposal, one that fades and counts down to turning off – say, if you want to go to bed. And one that counts down to turning on, say, if you want to take a break.

“There has been an overwhelming demand for a Raining.fm mobile app, but we didn’t want to just rush out a bug-filled, bad quality app,” explains Neil. “We have taken the time to polish and refine our new app to make sure it is fun and easy to use just like our site. We are really excited to share the new app with everyone, and hope they love it as much as I do.”

An utterly simple and bonkers app you’ll no doubt agree, but if you love rain, you’ll love this. Raining.fm is available to download now, costing $1.99 (yup), which is a little cheaper than the likes of Rainy Mood.

➤ Raining.fm – Android | iOS

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

Tempo, a smart calendar mobile app, has released an update bringing improved controls around event scheduling and communication to its users. With this release, people can now invite attendees to meetings, share events with their contacts, and communicate using the Gmail app for iOS instead of the native Mail client app on the device.

A useful tool to help people prepare for their next meeting, Tempo was created at SRI International, the non-profit research institute in Silicon Valley — the same one that introduced the world to Siri and her travel-related sibling Desti. The concept behind the app is that it’s a calendar. It takes all your meetings and events and provides you with the necessary information to help you be more productive with your time.

Tempo takes details inputted by users and enhances it by curating data through services connected to it, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. The app will dig through emails, look at the location to pinpoint driving directions, and more.

With today’s release, users can now invite attendees to their events. Tempo will access your phone’s contact list and emails to find people that it thinks should be included. Anyone can be added to the event — similar to what is possible with both Google and Outlook’s calendar.

Additionally, users can now share events with people. This is different than the above new feature because when an event is shared, the recipient is not added as an attendee.

How this could come in handy is if you meet a friend and want to invite them to an event, say The Next Web Conference, they don’t need to scrounge online to find the details — through Tempo, you can forward the event details to them.

Finding the share option is a bit tricky.  It’s actually under the “Message” option when viewing the details of a specific event. And it’s not a polished execution as you might expect. When sharing, the details will be embedded into the body of an email and be delivered to the recipient through the use of the iOS’s default Mail app.

But while sending emails through the Mail app might be normal for some, there are those who would rather it be sent through a cloud-based service like Gmail. Today, Tempo is giving users an option to send communications right from the Gmail for iOS app.

Tempo is available for free, and competes with Fantastical, Sunrise, and other smart calendar apps. It recently became available in its first international country: Canada.

➤ Tempo for iOS

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.

Raleigh, North Carolina-based startup WedPics has raised $1.1 million to further the growth of its photo sharing app for weddings. The company calls itself a “personalized, private social network for weddings.”

This new round of funding, which includes investments from former Redhat CEO Bob Young and Reverbnation co-founder Jed Carlson, will be used to boost WedPics’ marketing and user acquisition plans as it eyes monetization strategies.

WedPics followed an interesting path to get where it is today; after receiving attention from local press, the startup faced eviction for running a 13-person business inside of WedPics founder Justin Miller’s home. That setback turned out to be a blessing, as TechCrunch reported — it led the local startup community to establish a new coworking space and helped WedPics land a $250,000 investment. To date, the company has raised $1.35 million.

WedPics has so far registered 36,000 couples, is adding more than 1,400 users per day, serves more than 1200 weddings per weekend and its users share more than 100,000 photos weekly.

For the most part, photo sharing apps have been done to death — very few have received major traction since Instagram first exploded onto the scene. WedPics, however, is positioning itself firmly in its Wedding niche, and will have to compete with apps like WeddingParty in order to succeed in the long-run.

➤ WedPics

For more on startups in the wedding space, check out our review of Loverly’s new iPhone app.

Image credit: MARK RALSTON / Getty Images

Google on Tuesday released Chrome version 27 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The new version features a big boost to page loads (now 5 percent faster on average) as well as significant updates for developers. You can update to the latest release now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.

The speed improvement is thanks to the introduction of “smarter behind-the-scenes resource scheduling,” according to Google. At first, Web content appearing on the screen 5 percent faster on average may not seem like a huge difference, but when you realize how quickly pages load on Chrome already, it’s a big jump. Starting with this release, the scheduler more aggressively uses an idle connection and demotes the priority of preloaded resources so that they don’t interfere with critical assets.

The Sync FileSystem API is a new offline storage application programming interface for Chrome packaged apps which automatically synchronizes stored data across clients via Google Drive. The files are stored in private sandboxes and can be manipulated with the HTML5 File API and FileSystem API (sample app).

Google also notes a few other enhancements in this release: improved ranking of predictions, improved spell correction, and numerous fundamental improvements for Omnibox predictions. If you’re worried about the company tracking your information, you’ll want to read Logging policies for Chrome Instant.

As in previous releases, Google also included the usual bug fixes, a new version of V8, and so on in Chrome version 27.0.1453.93. For more details, you can check out the full SVN revision log.

Last but certainly not least, Chrome 27 also addresses 14 security holes (11 rated High, two marked Medium, and one considered Low):

• [$1000] [235638] High CVE-2013-2837: Use-after-free in SVG. Credit to Sławomir Błażek.
• [$500] [235311] Medium CVE-2013-2838: Out-of-bounds read in v8. Credit to Christian Holler.
• [$1500] [230176] High CVE-2013-2839: Bad cast in clipboard handling. Credit to Jon of MWR InfoSecurity.
• [$1000] [230117] High CVE-2013-2840: Use-after-free in media loader. Credit to Nils of MWR InfoSecurity.
• [$1000] [227350] High CVE-2013-2841: Use-after-free in Pepper resource handling. Credit to Chamal de Silva.
• [$2000] [226696] High CVE-2013-2842: Use-after-free in widget handling. Credit to Cyril Cattiaux.
• [$1000] [222000] High CVE-2013-2843: Use-after-free in speech handling. Credit to Khalil Zhani.
• [$1000] [196393] High CVE-2013-2844: Use-after-free in style resolution. Credit to Sachin Shinde (@cons0ul).
• [$3133.7] [188092] [179522] [222136] [188092] High CVE-2013-2845: Memory safety issues in Web Audio. Credit to Atte Kettunen of OUSPG.
• [$1000] [177620] High CVE-2013-2846: Use-after-free in media loader. Credit to Chamal de Silva.
• [$1000] [176692] High CVE-2013-2847: Use-after-free race condition with workers. Credit to Collin Payne.
• [$500] [176137] Medium CVE-2013-2848: Possible data extraction with XSS Auditor. Credit to Egor Homakov.
• [171392] Low CVE-2013-2849: Possible XSS with drag+drop or copy+paste. Credit to Mario Heiderich.
• [241595] High CVE-2013-2836: Various fixes from internal audits, fuzzing and other initiatives.

Google thus spent a whopping $14,633.70 in bug bounties this release and fixed three more security bugs compared to the previous Chrome release. These fixes alone should push Chrome users to upgrade as soon as possible.

Top Image credit: casasroger/Flickr

Smart assistant service EasilyDo today released an Android version of its app, making it accessible to more users. With this version, users can have the app better track what’s happening in their social lives and enable them to be more productive. It also includes two features specific to Android devices: a widget feature and event listing.

The Android app comes as EasilyDo also revealed that since its launch six months ago, it has identified 14 million tasks and completed more than five million actions, which it says equates to six years of saved time.

As a productivity app, EasilyDo bills itself as being a tool that will help streamline our social lives and help juggle the multiple things that people need to do. Users can have the app remind them of specific things by integrating it with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Evernote, OpenTable, their calendar, and a variety of email accounts, such as Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and others.

EasilyDo is currently set to predict and automate 36 tasks, which it labels as ‘Do Its’. With its Android app, the company says that users will have access to 22 of the 36 ‘Do Its’, with one new action will be added automatically each week without needing an app update. Users can program the app to focus on birthday greetings, monitoring friend updates, RSVP for events, display time-to-leave alerts, file receipts, bookmark boarding passes, and more.

Company CEO and co-founder Mikael Berner says that being on Android will “more than double the time we save users, and we look forward to delivering new automated tasks on both platforms every week.”

Android app users will find that this version comes with two “exclusive” features. The first is that it offers a widget capability, enabling users to insert their EasilyDo feed right on their home screen — something iOS devices currently do not allow. In addition, EasilyDo for Android has a Next Calendar Events List, which will display all calendar events for the next seven days in a scroll view.

While EasilyDo for Android will leverage all the pre-established actions, users can also take advantage of the company’s EasilyDo Builder to improve their experience. Launched last March, this tool is designed to allow users to create their own tasks through a Web-based service to teach EasilyDo how to handle automated tasks. Tasks created through the Builder are intended to be “instantly activated” for use on the mobile app.

EasilyDo was created by Berner, the former CEO of BeVocal, and Hetal Pandya, a former Director at Nuance. It has raised $4.3 million in funding from US Venture Partners and Mayfield Partners.

➤ EasilyDo for Google Play

Photo credit: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

It’s less than 24 hours until we find out what Microsoft’s next video game console is, but that doesn’t mean the Xbox 360 has been relegated to the scrap-heap. On-demand music streaming service Deezer announced its first app for the system today, giving users a new way to discover and listen to music.

The interface will feel familiar to anyone that has used the current iteration of the Xbox Music or Last.fm app. The main interface uses a large menu bar along the top of the screen, denoting the usual key sections such as Search, My Music and Radio.

A mini-player sits at the very bottom, displaying the artist and track name, running time and cover art, alongside four colored buttons that convey the functionality of the traditional Xbox 360 controller.

The center of the screen uses a large grid to show the various options and selections available to the listener. Deezer has done this as part of a conscious effort to support Kinect, the peripheral from Microsoft that enables motion controls and voice-commands, because it makes it easier to selecting various options with the hand. It’s a novel way of navigating the various menus and is clearly geared towards social settings, such as a house party or family gathering.

The large targets are therefore welcome, and are bolstered by the usual array of colorful album artwork. As with Last.fm, Deezer is pushing its curated radio stations in a big way. Users can simply select a particular music genre, and the app will quickly create an endless playlist of suitable artists and tracks.

Expanding the audio player shows a list of tracks down the right-hand side of the screen, contrasted with the cover art and playback controls on the left. It’s not particularly innovative, or visual compared to Last.fm’s latest update, but the interface looks clean and intuitive.

The Xbox 360 app also supports up to three Deezer accounts. Only one Xbox 360 account needs to be signed in from the dashboard, but the Connection tab along the top of the screen offers a quick means of switching between users. The functionality should give listeners easier access to personal playlists and preferences, without having to exit the app or tinker with the Xbox 360’s settings.

Deezer is available to European Xbox 360 owners right now, although listeners will need a Premium+ subscription, priced at £9.99 per month, to gain access to unlimited streaming. It’s the same strategy deployed by Microsoft with its Xbox Music service, whereby users are encouraged to pay for wider device access and functionality.

For Deezer, launching an app on the Xbox 360 should improve its brand awareness and also show that it’s serious about catering for a wide range of hardware. It follows a Windows 8 app launched last month which again competes with Microsoft’s own Xbox Music service, as well as the likes of Nokia Music+.

Deezer has 26 million users and 3 million subscribers. Today’s launch follows a ‘recharged’ Android app released in beta earlier this year, as well as a new music streaming service released by Google at its I/O developer conference last week – Google Play Music All Access.

As the producer behind hits such as The Ring and Mulholland Drive, Neal Edelstein is now trying his hand at experimental new media, kicking off with Haunting Melissa.

Co-founded as a ‘next generation production’ company by Edelstein, Hooked Digital Media premiered Haunting Melissa last week, and is striving to “reinvent storytelling” for the digital age. In a nutshell, the story centers around a teenage girl called – unsurprisingly – Melissa, who believes her deceased mother has returned to haunt her.

We’re starting to see a slew of content air exclusively online – take Netflix’s Hemlock Grove for starters – but Haunting Melissa goes that extra step by making it available exclusively in-app via your iOS device.

Haunting Melissa

Haunting Melissa follows in the footsteps of the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, in that it tries to adhere to a real-life feel as close as possible – we’re talking shaky cameras here.

You’ll note there are 11 chapters, though you can’t skip ahead, not yet at least.

This isn’t just another 90-minute movie repackaged for the mobile generation – Hooked Digital Media’s platform enables the delivery of content at unpredictable intervals.

Designed to bring more mystery into the media mix, as a viewer progresses, the app serves up fresh twists and reveals new narrative elements through push notifications. At the time of writing, only the first chapter is available, for free, and it offers the subsequent chapter for free too, but only if you help share news of Haunting Melissa on Facebook.

If you don’t, you’ll be invited to pay $1.99 per chapter, or $6.99/$14.99 (HD) to buy a season pass which will give you all chapters when they’re made available.

Haunting Melissa was conceived, directed and produced by Edelstein, and it was written by author Andrew Klavan, the same man who wrote True Crime and Don’t Say A Word.

“Haunting Melissa is a ghost story created to be consumed in a dark corner with headphones on and iPhone or iPad in hand,” said Neal Edelstein. “You never know when the next piece will come or how long that piece will be…it’s a complete surprise.”

I guess a typical scenario could be this – you’re sitting at work, considering whether to go straight home or take a detour to the pub/shops. You then receive a notification that the next chapter is available to watch now and, well, that will influence what you do when you leave work. Alternatively, as this is mobile, you could sneak off to the stationery cupboard and watch it there.

Haunting Melissa is very much about ‘social’ too. Users can sign-in through Facebook, sharing theories with friends and so on, and there is YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram communities too.

“The amazing technology contained in the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has allowed us to present stories in a dramatically different way,” continues Edelstein. “The technology supports story first and foremost. As viewers move further into Melissa’s world, they will understand why this new app technology will change distribution forever.”

It’s certainly an interesting concept, one that positions content that would once have been reserved for cinemas or TV, alongside your emails and tweets. If that makes it sound mundane, it isn’t supposed to – it’s just an interesting way of delivering content, one that could take movie and TV-content delivery in new directions – it’s delivered piece-by-piece, when you’re not expecting it.

That said, cinema has seen off a number of pretenders to its throne over the years, and there’s nothing to suggest here that this will change any time soon with app-only releases. But it certainly hints at where TV could be heading.

Haunting Melissa is available to download for free now, though subsequent chapters beyond the first one will cost you money (or a Facebook share).

Meanwhile, you can watch an official trailer below.

➤ Haunting Melissa | iPad

Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service

Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock

Over the last few months, Google has been working on porting its Chrome OS app launcher to Chrome for the desktop. The majority of the progress has been on Windows, but now it looks like Google is readying the OS X version, at least in Chromium, meaning Apple’s platform will likely get it next, followed by Linux.

The addition was first noted by developer and Google open-source Chromium evangelist François Beaufort. He points to a Chromium code review that changes how long titles for the Mac are being displayed.

Here’s how the feature looks on the Mac:

To see the feature for yourself, you’ll need to get Chromium for Mac. You can turn it on by using the –show-app-list switch.

Google has previously explained the feature is meant to be “the same experience as the app launcher on Chromebooks, but for other platforms.” If you’ve never used a Chromebook, the app launcher is a little window that lists all your apps in one place.

The app launcher will show up only after you install a Chrome packaged app from the Chrome Web Store. For those who don’t know, Chrome packaged apps are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, but launch outside the browser, work offline by default, and access certain APIs not available to Web apps.

The app launcher first showed up in the Chrome dev channel on Windows back in February, though Google said Mac and Linux versions were coming soon. The feature then made it into Chrome 26 beta, again only on Windows, but didn’t make it into the final version 26 release of the browser in March, presumably because the Mac and Linux ports weren’t yet ready.

Chromium is the open source Web browser project that shares much of the same code as Google Chrome, and new features are often added there first. We expect it to show up on the Mac side soon, either at the same time or followed closely by the Linux flavor. Google is likely planning to push the app launcher for all three platforms with Chrome 28 or Chrome 29, both of which will be out in the next few months.

Top Image Credit: m4tik

Just days after Google’s I/O developer conference ended, the company is rolling out an update to its Google+ app for Android which adds new photo and location features, as well as related hashtags to the stream.

The new photos section now includes automatic back-ups, which will save users’ photos safely and privately as they’re taken. This has been available on iOS for sometime, although users had to keep the app running in order to send the images to the cloud.

Google is also bringing over many of its new photo-editing features from the desktop version of Google+, including Auto Enhance, which makes subtle improvements automatically. There’s also Auto Highlight, which creates a selection of shots for the user to look over and share as a separate album. It’s an intriguing solution; most users will be sceptical about trusting Google’s algorithm, but it drastically speeds up the process of creating a respectable album from hundreds of holiday snaps.

Auto Awesome is the final addition, adding the ability to create new, light-hearted versions of existing images – such as animations or panoramas – based on photos in users’ existing libraries.

Location sharing has also been overhauled in the Google+ app to give users a quicker way of seeing where their friends, family and colleagues are. Until now, users’ current whereabouts were only visible from their profile page, provided they had chosen to share it with other people through specific Google+ circles.

This has now been updated with a new ‘Locations’ section, available from the side-menu, which shows the location of users’ friends on a rather handy map. It might be a small feature, but the idea of monitoring where other people are in order to make plans and arrange meet ups sounds awfully similar to Foursquare’s playbook.

In the stream, the Google+ app has also been tweaked to include the new automated hashtags found on the desktop version. They appear at the top-right hand corner of individual posts and tapping on them will produce new streams of related content. Neat.

Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product, Google+, said today: “Photos, location and the stream are only some of the things we’ve improved in today’s update. Notifications are nicer to look at and easier to use. You can edit additional profile fields on the go. And there’s one-tap access to the all new Hangouts app — just to name a few.”

The new Google+ app for Android is rolling out today in the Google Play store.

➤ Google+ | Android

Image Credit: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO for AFP / Getty Images