COMPUTER TRICKS &TECHNOLOGY :)

Apple Mac OS X Lion goes on sale today

2011-07-20T19:45:00.000+05:30

SHINY TOY MAKER Apple is set to release its much-awaited Mac OS X 10.7 codenamed Lion within the next few hours.

The seventh update to Apple's Mac OS X operating system will bring many new features borrowed from the world of tablet computing, as well as retiring a few older ones that allowed users to run older hardware and software with the operating system.

Lion will be the first in the OS X family to be available exclusively as a digital download via Apple's Itunes App Store, for an upgrade price of $29.99 in the US. The UK price is yet to be disclosed, but the usual 1:1 ratio is expected. This will also be the first Apple product that will play down the relevance of the Apple Stores, and will definitely not generate queues of faithful trying to score copies of the OS upgrade.

In the real world, though, some fundamental changes to OS X 10.7 Lion will sever the ties with its software and hardware legacy. Rosetta says goodbye and so does 32-bit processor support. This means that no more PowerPC apps will run on the new OS and neither will it support any 32-bit Intel processors such as the Core Duo and Core Solo.

Most changes to this version of OS X reflect advances in the user interaction with hardware, as well as chipset and CPU features. These include things such as Ipad-like touch interfaces, improved virtualization, direct file sharing and hardware disk encryption, amongst others. Like in some PC notebooks, the OS X Lion installation will create a recovery partition from which you can restore your operating system in case of a critical error. Apple has also discovered the wonders of "auto-save", and has tweaked Aqua GUI refinements and general interaction, but to a lesser extent.

Lion also adds TRIM support, vital for SSDs, which, considering the popularity of that storage technology and its increasing relevance in Apple's product portfolio, becomes absolutely necessary to avoid performance degradation over time.

Together with the OS launch, a product refresh is expected as newer computers and accessories are launched to match and take advantage of the new OS X features. Amongst these are the Thunderbolt driven Apple displays that leaked for a few hours last week and a refresh of Macbook Air products, which stand to make the most out of the OS. One could even speculate, given the new features in OS X Lion, whether a touch-based Imac is in the works.

Steve Jobs dismisses rumors of his successor

2011-07-20T19:43:00.001+05:30

Steve Jobs dismisses rumors of his successor

Apple CEO and cancer survivor Steve Jobs is not keen on discussing speculation about who will replace him when the inevitable happens.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company's board of directors have been discussing plans about who will take over the position that has been held by Jobs since the late 1990s, and perhaps the title that some will always bestow upon Jobs and Jobs alone, once the man is no longer able to hold the position himself.

The Journal said it had credible information that the board has already been meeting with headhunters and "at least one head of a high-profile technology company."

It said the discussions have been casual and gave no indication that Jobs's condition has recently worsened, however this is a rather new development. Even though the tech community is unanimous in understanding that the days are numbered for Jobs, very few have posited on who would replace him at the helm of the company he has embodied arguably more than any other company CEO has managed to do.

But before anything happens, as long as Jobs is still around and kicking - and presenting the newest iPads or iPods himself - he will always have the last word.

And so he e-mailed the Wall Street Journal, saying of its story on his successor, "I think it is hogwash."

Jobs has managed to defy the odds time and time again, so we're not sure what to think at this point. Every time we think he's down for the count, he pops back up and is at least able to maintain the impression of a man who is fully capable and as excited about Apple as ever.

His day will come, but is it so soon that there's a need to pick a new CEO now? Given his amazing track record, probably not.

Hooray! Google+ Is Now 2.4% Of Facebook!

2011-07-20T18:38:00.001+05:30

Hooray! Google+ Is Now 2.4% Of Facebook!

Technologist Paul Allen, who uses statistical methods to track the growth of Google+, says it's going to pass 18 million users today.

That's an impressive milestone for a still-technically-invite-only service that only recently launched.

At the same time, that's only about 2.4% of Facebook's 750 million users.

And that shows the difficulty of evaluating Google+'s success.

On the bullish side, the product is very well received and generates a lot of attention, which is new for Google, which is often thought not to "get" social. And what matters to long term success isn't the absolute number of users but the growth rate, which is certainly impressive.

On the bearish side, given Google's reach and how much it is pushing the service, including it in a bar that appears at the top of every Google search, what would be shocking would be if any well-designed social product didn't get many millions of users from the get-go.

Samsung unveils new Galaxy tab to take on iPad

2011-07-20T18:11:00.001+05:30

Samsung unveils new Galaxy tab to take on iPad

SEOUL — South Korea's Samsung Electronics launched a new version of its Galaxy Tab in its home market Wednesday in a bid to lure consumers away from Apple's iPad.

The release comes as the South Korean firm is in embroiled in a patent dispute with US giant Apple, which has seen both sides file infringement claims against the other.

Samsung, the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, also said it would in August launch an updated version of its Galaxy S smartphone in the US market, which is dominated by Apple's iPhone.

The company has already released its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in five overseas countries including the United States.

The tab, powered by Android's Honeycomb 3.1 developed for tablet PCs, features a 10.1-inch (25.6 cm) touchscreen display rather than the seven-inch display for the previous model.

It is the world's thinnest tablet, measuring 8.6 millimetres, Samsung said. The price will start at 671,000 won ($634) in the home market.

Samsung said the seven-inch tab was optimised for portability, while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was best suited for multimedia consumption and web browsing.

"It is very thin... and weighs just as much as a cup of takeout coffee," the company said in a statement.

The patent tussle between Samsung and Apple began in April when Apple filed a suit accusing South Korean firm of copying its smartphones and tablet computers. Samsung responded with a claim in Seoul alleging five patent infringements by Apple.

The California-based firm last month lodged a second lawsuit against Samsung with a district court in Seoul, asking for a sales ban on Samsung's latest products.

The US company escalated the row this month by asking the US International Trade Commission to block imports to the United States of some of the Samsung's smartphones and tablet computers.

HTC ChaCha launched in India @ Rs 15,990

2011-07-20T18:05:00.001+05:30

HTC ChaCha launched in India @ Rs 15,990

NEW DELHI: Taiwan-based HTC Corp and Tata DOCOMO have launched HTC ChaCha in India. HTC ChaCha runs on Android operating system and boasts of a 2.6-inch screen. The 480 x 320 resolution touchscreen comes with a full QWERTY keypad.

The smartphone features a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera for video calling.

HTC ChaCha is the company's rumoured 'Facebook phone'. Featuring a dedicated Facebook key it gives users one-touch access to the social network.

As a part of the offer, 3G prepaid customers get 3GB free data valid for a period of 90 days. Postpaid customers get 1GB free every month valid for 90 days. All 3G customers will also get 3 hour of free Mobile TV this includes data access charges valid for 90 days.

For 2G prepaid customers, the offer has 3GB free data and 300 Tata to Tata local calls free. The smartphone is priced at Rs 15,990.

Download Game Booster 2.4 For Free + Serial Number

2011-07-18T19:19:00.000+05:30

Download Game Booster 2.4 For Free + Serial Number

.Overview and Description of GameBoost

GameBoost will optimize your computer performance and internet connection to speed up web surfing and make your games run faster immediately. GameBoost is the combination of our two products GameGain and Throttle, offering both internet acceleration and gaming acceleration this all-in-one product can quickly enhance your computing experience with a single click of a button.

With GameBoost your internet connection will be upgraded to allow you to download music, movies and files much faster; your computer will also be optimized to run games faster, changes made to Windows will help improve frames per second, memory utilization, foreground application CPU priority and hard disk access speed. GameBoost works by making permanent modifications to the Windows system registry and system files, these changes affect how your internet connection and gaming hardware interacts with all the games you have installed on your computer. No patches or modifications are made to the games and no anti-cheat detection software can detect that GameBoost has increased the performance of your computer to give you an edge over your online competitors.

By improving your internet speed and gaming performance you can reduce lag within games, increase how smooth the game performs both online and offline and enjoy games on your computer without having to upgrade your computer hardware.

Serial : 44814-D56A7-A585F-873B2

DownLoad

Download Winrar 2011 For Free

2011-07-18T19:16:00.000+05:30

Download Winrar 2011 For Free

..:WinRaR Introduce :..

WinRAR is a powerful compression tool with many integrated additional functions to help you organize your compressed archives.
WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression. By consistently creating smaller archives, WinRAR is often faster than the competition. This will save you disc space, transmission costs AND valuable working time as well.
WinRAR supports all popular compression formats (RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip).
WinRAR is ideal for multimedia files. WinRAR automatically recognizes and selects the best compression method. The special compression algorithm compresses multimedia files, executables and object libraries particularly well.
WinRAR allows you to split archives into separate volumes easily, making it possible to save them on several disks for example.
WinRAR is also ideal, if you are sending data through the web. Its 128 bit password encryption and its authenticated signature technology will give you the peace of mind you have been looking for.
WinRAR is shareware, meaning you have the chance to thoroughly test it. The program can be used absolutely free of charge for 40 days!
WinRAR licenses are valid for all available language and platform versions. If you have purchased several licenses, you can even mix versions to meet your own personal needs

DowNLoaD

Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free

2011-07-18T19:11:00.000+05:30

Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free

Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free

RealPlayer 2011 for Free

RealPlayer has always enabled you to play RealAudio (*.ra) and RealMedia (*.ram) files.

-Download videos from thousands of Web sites with just one click
-Build your own video library and playlists
-Play all major audio and video formats
-Flash Video support
-DVD, SVCD, VCD burning and video recording

RealPlayer for personal use includes audio CD burning capabilities, DVR-style playback buffering, multimedia search, Internet radio, a jukebox-style file library, an embedded web browser (using Microsoft Internet Explorer), and the ability to transfer media to a number of portable devices, including Apple’s iPod, MP3 players, and Windows Media devices.

DowNLoaD
Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free Download RealPlayer 2011 For Free RealPlayer 2011 for Free RealPlayer has always enabled you to play RealAudio (*.ra) and RealMedia (*.ram) files. -Download videos from thousands of Web sites with just one click -Build your own video library and playlists -Play all major audio and video formats -Flash Video support -DVD, SVCD, VCD burning and video recording RealPlayer for personal use includes audio CD burning capabilities, DVR-style playback buffering, multimedia search, Internet radio, a jukebox-style file library, an embedded web browser (using Microsoft Internet Explorer), and the ability to transfer media to a number of portable devices, including Apple’s iPod, MP3 players, and Windows Media devices. DowNLoaD

How to Check your Pending Friend Requests on Facebook

2011-07-18T17:43:00.000+05:30

How to Check your Pending Friend Requests on Facebook

hi friends!! want to see your pending friends request?? just try this :)

http://apps.facebook.com/friendrequests

Dell Laptop models and features

2011-07-17T11:02:00.000+05:30

Dell Laptops models and features

Dell offers a broad range of laptops from systems exclusively designed for small businesses to fully certified mobile workstations to specialized form factors like tablet and ruggedized laptops to fit your needs and budget enabling you to get all your systems from a single vendor and reduce complexity. Dell has global capabilities and can deliver a business class service in 130 countries, 24/7.

Dell laptop computers come in three product lines, Vostro, Inspiron and Latitude. Dell Inspiron notebooks are consumer-oriented, offering the latest features at the best possible price. Dell Latitude laptops are built for businesses and are generally more reliable and stable.

Dell Vostro laptops are specially designed for small businesses to simplify the technology challenges facing them. Vostro laptops deliver reliable performance backed by exceptional Dell support - all at a great value.

Browse through the latest Dell Laptop computers range to know the specifications, pricing and all other information you need to choose a laptop that fits your requirements.

Top Selling Dell Laptops

Dell Inspiron Mini Range

Dell Inspiron Mini 9

CPU:	Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
LCD Panel:	Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)
Memory:	512MB DDR2 at 533MHz
Hard Drive:	4GB Solid State Drive
Video:	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
Sound:	Base LCD Assembly
Wireless:	Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
Battery:	32WHr Battery (4 cell)
System Color Option:	Alpine White
Service:	1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Camera:	None

Dell Inspiron Mini 12

CPU:	Intel®Atom®Processor Z520 (1.33GHz/533MHz FSB/512K Cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	12.1" widescreen TrueLife; Display (1280x800)
Memory:	1GB3 DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (onboard)
Hard Drive:	40GB PATA Hard Drive (4200 RPM)
Video Card:	Intel®Graphics Media Accelerator 500
WWAN:	Base LCD Assembly
Wireless Networking Cards:	Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
Battery Options:	24WHr Lithium-Ion Battery (3-cell)
System Color:	Obsidian Black
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Camera:	None

Dell Inspiron 13

CPU:	Intel® PentiumT Dual Core T3200 (2.0GHz/667Mhz FSB/1MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
Display and Camera:	Glossy, widescreen 13.3" LCD (1280x800)
Combo or DVD+RW Drive:	8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive)
Memory:	2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Hard Drives:	Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Video Card:	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card
Battery Options:	37Whr Lithium Ion Battery (4 cell)
System Color:	Pacific Blue
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Camera:	None

Dell Studio Range

Dell Studio 15

CPU:	Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Combo or DVD+RW Drive:	8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
Memory:	2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2
Hard Drive:	160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Video Card:	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Sound Card:	High Definition Audio 2.0
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell 1397 Wireless-G Card
Battery Options:	56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
System Color:	Jet Black
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Camera:	None

Dell Studio 17

CPU:	Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T3200 (2.0GHz/667Mhz FSB/1MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	Glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440x900)
Combo or DVD+RW Drive:	8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
Memory:	2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz
Hard Drive:	160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Video Card:	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Sound Card:	High Definition Audio 2.0
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell Wireless 1397 802.11g Half Mini-Card
Battery Options:	56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
System Color:	Jet Black, Midnight Blue
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
Camera:	None

Dell XPS & Gaming Range

Dell XPS M1330

CPU:	Intel® CoreT 2 Duo T5800 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
Optical Drive:	CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Memory:	3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Hard Drive:	Size: 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Video Card:	Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Sound Card:	High Definition Audio 2.0
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
Battery Options:	37Whr Lithium Ion Battery (4 cell)
System Color:	Tuxedo Black, Alpine White, Red
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
Camera:	2.0 Megapixel Webcam

Dell XPS M1530

CPU:	Intel® CoreT 2 Duo T5800 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP Camera
Combo or DVD+RW Drive:	Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD/CD read/write)
Memory:	3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
Hard Drive:	Size: 250GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Video Card:	128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
Sound Card:	High Definition Audio 2.0
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
Battery Options:	56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
System Color:	Tuxedo Black
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
Camera:	2.0 Megapixel Webcam

Dell XPS M1730

CPU:	Intel® CoreT 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
Operating System:	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
LCD Panel:	17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA
Combo or DVD+RW Drive:	CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Memory:	2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Hard Drive:	Speed: 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive Free Fall Sensor
Video Card:	NVIDIA®GeForce®8700M GT graphics with 256MB GDDR3 Memory
Sound Card:	Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition
Wireless Networking Cards:	Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
Battery Options:	85 WHr Lithium Ion Battery (9-cell)
System Color:	Sapphire Blue, Crimson Blue, and Bone White
Hardware Support Services:	1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service
Camera:	2.0 Megapixel Webcam

MOBILE MODELS - ALL BRANDS- 2011

2011-07-17T10:14:00.000+05:30

MOBILE MODELS - ALL BRANDS- 2011

APPLE

Apple iPhone 4 16 GB (Officially Unlocked) (Black)

34,214

Apple iPhone 4 32 GB (Officially Unlocked) (Black)

~~41,183~~ 39,957

ACER

Acer beTouch E130 + 2 GB Memory Card Free (Black)

~~15,000~~ 10,464

Acer Liquid mini E310 + Free 2 GB Card (Black)

~~12,212~~ 11,694

Acer neoTouch P400 (Black)

18,000

Acer Liquid S100 + 2 GB Memory Card (Red)

~~25,000~~ 20,048

Acer neoTouch S200 (Black)

32,500

DELL

Dell XCD35 (Black)

~~16,990~~ 10,300

Dell Aero + Free 2 GB Card (Black)

~~16,990~~ 11,735

Dell Venue + 4 GB Memory Card Free (Black)

~~29,990~~ 26,187

HTC

HTC Wildfire S + Free 2 GB Card (Black)

~~15,990~~ 14,077

HTC Salsa C510e + Free 2GB MicroSD Card (Brown)

~~24,500~~ 20,908

HTC Incredible S + Free 8GB Memory Card (Black)

~~31,490~~ 26,905

HTC Sensation (Black)

~~34,990~~ 30,400

LG T325 + Free 2 GB Memory Card (Black)

~~7,500~~ 6,312

LG Optimus Me P350 (Black)

~~9,100~~ 7,757

LG Optimus One P500 (Black)

~~13,410~~ 9,699

LG BL40 New Chocolate (Black)

~~27,787~~ 13,880

LG Optimus Black P970 (Black)

~~21,900~~ 19,310

LG Optimus 2X P990 (Black)

~~29,000~~ 25,100

LG KC910 Renoir (Black)

36,000

MOTOROLA

Motorola Zeppelin Lite XT5 xt502 (Black)

~~15,990~~ 9,788

Motorola Backflip (Black)

~~21,186~~ 14,605

Motorola Defy (Black)

~~21,990~~ 14,913

Motorola Milestone Tablet Xt720 (Black)

~~29,797~~ 21,575

NOKIA

Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type (Black)

~~8,839~~ 7,729

Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type (Blue)

~~8,839~~ 7,729

Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type (White)

~~8,839~~ 7,729

Nokia C3 Touch and Type (Grey)

~~9,389~~ 8,363

Nokia C5-03 (Black)

~~9,991~~ 8,824

Nokia C6 (Black)

~~17,390~~ 12,243

Nokia E6 (Black)

~~17,999~~ 17,550

Nokia E6 (Silver)

~~17,999~~ 17,550

Nokia E6 (White)

~~17,999~~ 17,550

Nokia X7 (Black)

~~22,829~~ 21,318

Nokia X7 (Silver)

~~22,829~~ 21,318

SAMSUNG

Samsung S5620 Monte (Black)

~~12,390~~ 7,385

Samsung S5333 + 2GB Memory Card Free (Black)

~~8,993~~ 8,168

Samsung Wave 575 S5753 + 2GB Memory Card Free (Black)

~~8,697~~ 8,264

Samsung Galaxy Pop S5570 (Black)

~~9,854~~ 8,494

Samsung Wave S7233 (Black)

~~14,489~~ 10,999

Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830 + 2 GB Memory Card Free (Black)

~~18,290~~ 14,799

Samsung Galaxy S LCD I9003 (Black)

~~25,000~~ 19,360

Samsung Nexus S (Black)

~~27,500~~ 19,990

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S (Black)

~~29,100~~ 22,736

Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 + leather cover (Black)

~~27,483~~ 25,181

Samsung Galaxy S2 I9100 (Black)

~~32,990~~ 30,599

Samsung Galaxy Fit S5670 (Black)

~~12,860~~ 10,198

SONYERICSSON

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini Pro (Black)

~~17,865~~ 13,129

Sony Ericsson Aino Classic (Black)

~~19,000~~ 15,938

Sony Ericsson U5i Vivaz (Black)

~~25,695~~ 17,475

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (Black)

~~35,795~~ 22,344

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (Black)

~~30,999~~ 30,610

Coming soon: make your phone your wallet

2011-07-15T22:15:00.000+05:30

Coming soon: make your phone your wallet

Today in our New York City office, along with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint, we gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.

Google Wallet is a key part of our ongoing effort to improve shopping for both businesses and consumers. It’s aimed at making it easier for you to pay for and save on the goods you want, while giving merchants more ways to offer coupons and loyalty programs to customers, as well as bridging the gap between online and offline commerce.

Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You'll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.

At first, Google Wallet will support both Citi MasterCard and a Google Prepaid Card, which you’ll be able to fund with almost any payment card. From the outset, you’ll be able to tap your phone to pay wherever MasterCard PayPass is accepted. Google Wallet will also sync your Google Offers, which you’ll be able to redeem via NFC at participating SingleTap™ merchants, or by showing the barcode as you check out. Many merchants are working to integrate their offers and loyalty programs with Google Wallet.

With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.

To learn more please visit our Google Wallet website at www.google.com/wallet.

This is just the start of what has already been a great adventure towards the future of mobile shopping. We’re incredibly excited and hope you are, too.

Finding great deals is easier with Google Shopper 2.0

2011-07-15T22:12:00.000+05:30

Finding great deals is easier with Google Shopper 2.0

Today we’re announcing a new set of features in Google Shopper for Android to make it even easier to research products and find great value deals when you’re on-the-go.

First, we’ve moved features around a bit to help you perform common tasks more quickly. For example, the ‘Starred’ and ‘History’ buttons are now at the top of the page. We’ve also added new tabs to the bottom of the screen for fast navigation to Google Shopper’s newest features.

With Google Shopper, you can now find, save and redeem offers at nearby businesses through three tabs:

Today’s Offer: part of the Google Offers beta program, this tab displays a single offer for discounted goods or services in your area. Today's Offer is currently available in Portland, Oregon, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, with other cities to follow.
Nearby Offers: when you click this tab, you'll see offers in the 'Eat' and 'Play' categories which nearby businesses have submitted through Google Places.
My Offers: for those of us who occasionally misplace coupons or gloss over expiration dates, Google Shopper makes it easy to stay organized. When you come across an offer you like you can save it for later. Your saved and purchased offers appear on this tab and you can see which offers are close to expiring. To take advantage of an offer, just navigate to ‘My Offers,’ select the one you’d like, and click ‘Redeem’. In the future you’ll also be able to access and redeem your saved offers using Google Wallet.

Visit Android Market to download Google Shopper 2.0, currently available for Android 2.1 and higher devices in the US and UK. If you already have the app installed you’ll automatically receive a notification to update it.

A new Android Market for phones, with books and movies

2011-07-15T22:09:00.000+05:30

A new Android Market for phones, with books and movies

Recently, we’ve been hard at work improving Android Market to give you new ways to find great applications and games, purchase books, and rent movies. Today, we’re releasing a new version of Android Market which makes all of these available on phones (Android 2.2 and higher).

In the U.S., you’ll be able to rent thousands of movies, starting at $1.99, right from Android Market on your phone. With the Videos app, available in Android Market, there’s no more waiting for downloads, syncing, or worrying about storage space. Simply sign into Android Market with your Google account, and you can rent movies from anywhere – the web, or your Android phone or tablet – and start watching instantly. You can also download movies to your device so they’re available for viewing when you don’t have an internet connection.

Also in the U.S., you can now purchase books from Android Market on your phone. Like movie rentals, books are linked to your Google account, so they’re instantly available across all of your devices – computer, phone, or tablet – without the need for wires or downloads.
You’ll be delighted to find we’ve overhauled Android Market to make it faster, easier, and more fun to discover great apps, movies, and books. We’ve created more space to feature some of the most interesting content of the week on the home page. We’ve added more top charts, with newer, more relevant items, and we’ve made it easy to swipe through these charts as you browse the store. We’ve also introduced new collections of great content, like staff picks and Editors’ Choice apps.

The new Android Market will be rolling out in the coming weeks to Android 2.2 and higher phones around the world. You don’t need to do anything - the update is automatic on supported phones. If you’re in the U.S., you’ll also be able to download the Videos app, rent movies, and buy books once you receive the new Android Market.

Your phone is about to get a lot more interesting! Enjoy the new Android Market.

New ways to discover great apps on Android Market

2011-07-15T22:04:00.000+05:30

New ways to discover great apps on Android Market

We’ve seen tremendous growth in Android Market lately. With over 200,000 apps supporting over 300 Android devices, we’ve had 4.5 billion applications installed to date. But with so many apps available, how do you find the ones you really want? Whether you’re looking for the most popular apps, hot new apps, or just the very best apps available, we want to help make sure that you find what you’re looking for.

Today, we’re excited to announce 5 new features for Android Market focused on helping you find apps you’ll love.

New top app charts - We’ve revamped our top app charts to be fresher and country-specific, so you get the most current, relevant results. We’ve also added top new free, top new paid, and top grossing lists, all right on the Android Market home page.

Add caption

Editors’ Choice - <editors’ choice="">These are some of the very best apps available for Android, as chosen by the Android Market staff. They span everything from games to productivity and beyond. </editors’>

Top Developers - We’re also recognizing those developers creating the highest quality, most popular, and most notable apps available on Android Market. They’ll get a special icon on our Android Market website, appearing wherever the developer name is shown, starting today for an initial set of over 150 developers.

Better related apps - On the left side of an app page, you’ll now see two groups of related apps: apps frequently browsed by people who viewed this app, and apps that people tend to install alongside this app. For example, people who view Score Mobile, my favorite sports score app, often also view other sports score apps, while those who install Score Mobile tend to also install apps for specific sports leagues or teams. We’ll also show you related apps once you decide to install an app.

Trending apps - Finally, we’ve added a new section to the Android Market homepage showing trending apps – those apps that are quickly growing in daily installs. Look here to stay ahead of the curve and find new apps as they get hot.

<editors’ choice="">We hope you find these features helpful as you explore the many greats apps available on Android Market. These new features are available now on http://market.android.com, and will be coming soon to Android Market on phones and tablets.</editors’>
<editors’ choice="">
</editors’>
<editors’ choice="">Posted by Fernando Delgado, Product Manager, Android Marke</editors’>

Hide your IP Address

2011-07-15T21:45:00.000+05:30

Hide your IP Address

Your IP is exposed when ever you visit a website,when your Ip gets exposed it becomes easy to trace you and find out your personal information,Hackers can use your Ip to gain access to your personal files and documents and even can get into your paypal,alert etc accounts,Hide the Ip is a Software which masks your IP with one click and you can surf web anonymously,on the other hand Hackers can use this software to hide theiridentity and not get caught,its benificial for all and i recommend that every Pc should have this software installed

Hide the IP to be the best one. It’s ease of use, reliability, wide range of options, speed and unmatchable price were on top when compared to that of the remaining IP Hising softwares on the market.

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You decide which country will be indicated as your origin by simply choosing from a country list. We have hundreds, hourly updated, IP addresses available for use.

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You are protected from hackers who will be tricked by your fake IP instead of your real. They will never be able to find any information about you by tracing the fake IP.
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Surf websites which are restricted for your country. Surf in forums on which you were banned.

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So what are you waiting for? Download the free trial and test Hide the IP on your computer now! For more information on Hide the IP visit the following link.

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks

2011-07-10T16:42:00.000+05:30

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks

1. How To Place Facebook Chat On Firefox Sidebar

If you are using Firefox, you can place the Facebook Chat at the sidebar.

2. How To Download Facebook Photo Albums

FacePAD: Facebook Photo Album Downloader allows you to download your friends’ facebook albums, Events albums, and Group Albums, en masse, with the click of a button.

3. How To Share Flickr Photos To Facebook

Flickr2Facebook is an unofficial Flickr to Facebook uploader (bookmarklet) which allows you upload photos to Facebook from Flickr.

4. How To Update Facebook Without Using Facebook

hellotxt and Ping.fm both introduced features that let Facebook administrators update Facebook Pages.

5. How To Schedule Facebook Messages

Sendible lets you schedule Facebook messages ahead of time so you can send messages to your friends, customers or colleagues in the future.

6. How To "Friend" Someone On Facebook & Hide It From Your Status Updates

A short tutorial on Makeuseof to guide you how to hide Facebook status updates and keep that fact confined to your closer friends.

7. How To Create A Photo Collage Using Pictures Of Your Facebook Friends

Click on Friends tab. Proceed to More tab. From "Choose an option" dropdown, choose any of the dashes "—" . Your Facebook friends collage is right on your computer screen.

8. How To Know When Facebook Friends Secretly Delete Or Block You

This service has been discontinued. X-Friends is a unique tool for tracking friends that disappear from Facebook.

9. How To Display Selected Pictures Only On Your Facebook Profile Page

A little-known feature in Facebook that lets you decide who shows up in that Friends box. Click that "edit" pencil in your Friends box and type the names of your best friends in the box that says "Always show these friends"

10. How To Remove Facebook Advertisements

This Greasemonkey script – Facebook: Cleaner removes many of the annoying ads and updates that unavoidably appear on your Facebook pages.

11. How To Syncs Photos Of Facebook Friends With Contacts In Microsoft Outlook

OutSync is a free Windows application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to select which contacts are updated. So you can update all contacts at once or just a few at a time.

12. How To Display Facebook Statuses On WordPress Blog

The following method make use of Facebook status feed and WordPress RSS widget to display Facebook Statuses on WordPress blog.. It will also work for self-host WordPress blogs.

13. How To Post Your Blog Posts To Your Facebook Wall Automatically

Wordbook allows you to cross-post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook “Boxes” tab will show your most recent blog posts.

14. How To Access Facebook Chat On Desktop

Gabtastik and digsby let you keep Facebook chat sessions open on your Windows desktop outside of your regular web browser, using minimal screen real estate and system memory.

15. How To Create Quiz On Facebook Easily

LOLapps provides quiz creator that can be employed to conjure up these popular personality quizzes that are so widespread in Facebook.

16. How To Hide Your Online Status On Facebook Chat From Select Contacts

Facebook has integrated friends list with Chat and you can also choose which of these list members get to see you online.

17. How To Get Facebook Updates On Email

NutshellMail consolidates your Facebook accounts through the inbox you use the most.

18. How To Update Facebook Status From Firefox

FireStatus is a status update utility for multiple social networks, including FaceBook.

19. How To Get Facebook On Your Desktop

Seesmic Desktop, Facebooker, Xobni, Facebook Sidebar Gadget, Scrapboy and Facebook AIR application are desktop applications that allows you interact with your stream just as you would on Facebook, but without the browser.

20. How To Delete, Cancel And Terminate Facebook Account And Profile

A simple guide to terminate, delete or cancel Facebook account, together with the Facebook profile easily.

10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

2011-07-10T16:12:00.000+05:30

10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

Facebook statistics show that it has 250 million active users each with an average 120 friends. More than 1 billion photos are uploaded every month by its users, over 70% of whom use applications like games and quizzes in Facebook. Unfortunately, most users don’t know the implications of entering personal information, making friends, and playing games on Facebook.
This guide will show what you can (and cannot) do to safeguard your Facebook privacy.

1. Organize Friends in Lists

What do you do when your boss, mother-in-law, or a casual web acquaintance sends you a friend request on Facebook? Use Friend Lists. Friend Lists are the foundation of your Facebook privacy settings. Select Friends from the top menu, and use the Create link to create friend lists like Co-workers, Family, College Friends, etc. Your friends can’t see your lists, so you can name them whatever you like.

Tip: On your left sidebar, all your friend lists may not show up by default. Click More to see all of them, and drag and drop those you want above the separator.
2. Customize Profile Privacy

Click Settings > Privacy Settings > Profile. Select which parts of your profile will be seen by whom.

If you choose Customize in the drop down, you can be more specific. This is where the Friend Lists you created before become really useful.

Also go to the Contact Information tab and choose how you want your contact information to be shared on the Internet.
3. Set Facebook Privacy Level of Photo Albums

On the Photos tab of your profile page, click Album Privacy. Here again, you can use your Friend Lists to set the privacy for each photo album.

Note that your profile pictures go into a special album that is always visible to ALL your friends.
4. Restrict Search Visibility

Click Privacy > Search to set your visibility when someone searches Facebook for people. This is an important way to safeguard your Facebook privacy. You can also select what will be visible in the search results.

5. Control Automatic Wall Posts and News Feed Updates

Your actions in Facebook such as comments, likes, appear as highlights on ALL your friends’ home pages. You cannot use friend lists here, only turn them on or off.

Go to Privacy > News Feed and Wall and choose whether you want your boss or ex-girlfriend to know that you’re in a relationship.
6. Set Facebook Wall Privacy

Go to your profile page, click Options > Settings under the status box.

Here you can control whether your friends can post to your Wall, and who can see the posts made by your friends.
7. Avoid Appearing in Advertisements

Facebook has two types of advertisements: third-party and Facebook. Third-party advertisements are currently not allowed to use your pictures, but there is a setting to disallow it if it is allowed in the future. Go to Privacy > News Feed and Wall > Facebook Ads tab to turn this off.

The Facebook ads shown to your friends are about “˜social actions’ like becoming a fan of something. You can turn this off at the bottom of the page.
8. Protect Yourself from Friends’ Applications

Go to Privacy > Applications, and click the Settings tab and uncheck all the boxes. These settings control what information about you is visible to applications installed by your friends. By default, these are set to visible. This means that your religious, sexual, and political preferences, pictures, etc. are readily available to one of the million worldwide Facebook application developers, each time any of your friends takes a quiz, plays a game, or runs any other Facebook app. This is obviously a Facebook privacy issue.

This is the most commonly misunderstood aspect of Facebook privacy. These settings control what applications installed by your friends can see about you, even if you don’t install the application yourself.
Why is this important? Because these settings will not change anything about what you are sharing with the applications you install yourself. For that, go to the next step.
9. Privacy from Your Applications

There is no way to control what applications see about you; it is an all-or-nothing affair. Take this quiz developed by the American Civil Liberties Union to check what anonymous application developers can know about you and your friends each time you take a quiz.
The Burton Group’s Identity Blog features the Facebook Privacy Mirror, an application that you can use to find out what applications know about you and your friends. If you really want to see exactly what profile data of each of your friends is visible to application developers, Privacy Mirror shows it in detail.
The only thing you can do is to authorize only those applications you require and trust. Go to Settings > Application Settings from the top menu. Change the drop-down fromRecently Used to Authorized. Here you can see all the applications you have authorized to get access to ALL your profile information. Remove the ones you no longer need.

Also check the list of applications Allowed to Post and Granted Additional Permissionsto remove unwanted ones.
10. Quitting Facebook? Delete, Don’t Just De-Activate Your Account
You can easily deactivate your account in Facebook from the Settings page. But deactivation will retain all your profile information within Facebook, including pictures, friends, etc. If you want to permanently delete your Facebook account, click here to submit a deletion request. Note that:
1. There is an unspecified delay between submitting your delete request and actual deletion.
2. If you login to Facebook, your deletion request is automatically cancelled.
3. There doesn’t seem to be any way to confirm that your request was completed.
4. Even after permanent deletion, Facebook says that copies of your photos may remain on their servers for technical reasons.
Also, note that once in a while, there is news of a Facebook hack or leak that can expose your information on the Internet. It is better to be safe than sorry by avoiding using Facebook for anything that may embarrass you.
I hope this article gives you a better understanding and insight into Facebook’s privacy. Have any questions or concerns? Liked the post? Please tell us in the comments!

Google+ invite here: join Plus project circle

2011-07-08T22:19:00.000+05:30

Google+ invite here: join Plus project circle

Hey, you. Yes, you. Did you want this Google+ invite? Well I've got your back. Read on for an invitation to join the (cough) "elite" (cough) circle of Google Plus users...
In order to secure your Google+ invite, simply do both these things:
First, share the love with your friends – post me your mail id by commenting below the post. And post this link to facebooks and make your friends to connect you to a G+ world.

Important: I'm able to send a limited number of invitations each day, so hurry: it's first come, first served.
Those unlucky not to be able to be invited today will be invited the next day, so you won't lose out. I'll make reasonable efforts to invite people in order. Your details will be protected per the standard Computerworld privacy policy. Not responsible for non-receipt of email. Your mileage may vary. May contain nuts.

Still here? What are you waiting for? Get clicking, and don't forget to email me, or I won't be able to invite you.

Google plus project

2011-07-08T22:00:00.000+05:30

Google plus project

Google’s long expected second shot at taking on Facebook in the social networking space has arrived in the form of the Google+ Project. It has some interesting twists on the social networking model but is far from a Facebook-killer.

That Name

The terrible name is a bad start. Google+? Google+! I can’t even question or exclaim about the bad name without it looking bad in writing.
Pronounced “Google Plus,” the product is officially written as Google+ — making placing any punctuation after the name fairly awkward.
Seriously, I’m cursing whoever made the final decision to go with Google+ as a name. Wasn’t the Google +1 sharing service bad enough?
Now we have Google+, which in turn allows you to +1 things that you’ve Google+’d. My head hurts from writing that.
In this article, I’ll generally stick with the Google+ name except where Google Plus is more legible, due to punctuation.

The Google+ Project

What about the product itself? Google dubs Google+ as a “project” rather than a product, stressing it’s part of making Google itself more social rather than being a standalone social network to take on Facebook.
“It’s ‘Plus’ because it takes products from Google and makes them better and ‘project’ because it’s an ongoing set of products,” said Vic Gundotra, the senior vice president who oversees Google’s social products.
But is it Facebook competitor, I asked in a follow-up question. Google emailed back:
No. We realize that today people are increasingly connecting with one another on the web. But the ways in which we connect online are limited and don’t mimic our real-life relationships. The Google+ project is our attempt to make online sharing even better. We aren’t trying to replace what’s currently available, we just want to introduce a new way to connect online with the people that matter to you.
OK, but as the saying goes, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. And Google+ looks like and quacks like Facebook in several ways.

Circles

Most important, Google+ is a social network of your friends, family and other contacts, a way to connect to these people, just like Facebook.
Unlike Facebook, Google+ is built from the ground up around the concept of sharing material with groups of people, called “Circles.” Here’s an example of how they look:

The idea is that you can easily drag-and-drop people into different types of Circles, which you can then use for sharing different types of things.
For example, you can create a “Family” circle where you might chose to share things only with family members in it, while another “Work” circle might contain work colleagues who only see what you share to that.

Google+ Circles Vs Facebook Lists & Groups

While Facebook might not have been built from the beginning with a Circles-like sharing concept, Facebook does currently have two features that are similar: Friend Lists & Groups.
Added in December 2007, Friend Lists allow you to share some of your Facebook information with specific groups of friends (or other selected contacts) that you create. They’re also supposed to allow you to group message people in a list, though I couldn’t get this to work, when I tested it today.
Friend Lists don’t allow for selective sharing. But the updated Facebook Groups feature thatcame out last October does provide this, a way to share what you want with whom you want.
How does Circles weight up against these? I can’t say first hand. The Google+ product wasn’t live for me to test when I wrote this (our hands-on review will come later today).
Friend Lists are nice in that if you pick one person, such as below where I selected Facebook communications chief Elliott Schrage, you get relevant suggestions that appear (other Facebook execs who’ve friended me on Facebook):

But that list can’t be used, as best I can tell, to start an associated group to share just to these people. Instead, when I tested today, I was still forced to make a group, then pick people individually to add to that.
So, the drag-and-drop interface of Circles looks appealing. Then again, if you have hundreds of “friends,” it still might turn into too much organization. Maybe people will use it to create some select groups that they really want (family, close friends, those in a club, etc.). But if it turns into a wonderful tool, it’s hard to imagine that Facebook couldn’t easily match it.

Who’s In Your Circle?

There’s no limit to the number of circles you can create. But where do the people come from who will be in your circles?
First, any contacts you’ve stored through the Google Contacts service will be available. If you have no contacts, you can import them through the CSV format, which many contact services will export out to.
Google also said that it is looking into ways to directly important contacts from Yahoo and Microsoft. Facebook wasn’t mentioned.
That’s not surprising. Facebook hasn’t allowed the export of friends’ email addresses, except to … Yahoo and Microsoft. The stories below explains more about this:
• Facebook: You’ve No Right To Export Email Addresses (Unless It’s To Yahoo & Microsoft)
• Facebook Messages: Export Of Facebook.com Addresses OK
What’s all this mean in practical terms? Everyone in Google+ will effectively be starting from scratch.
If you already use things like Gmail, you probably have Google Contacts that give you email addresses of your social network. If you don’t, you can import — and Yahoo and Microsoft may serve as go-betweens to help you bring information from Facebook into Google Plus.

From Email To Virtual Person

The bigger issue is that your contacts — be that from within Google or imported from Facebook — are basically just email addresses. The won’t have any social connection information with them.
Google Contacts won’t know that a particular person whose email address you have is friends with other people you know. A Facebook import won’t turn email addresses gathered from there into links with other people who use Facebook.
Instead, what will really jump start Google+ is if a significant number of people come into the system and start claiming profiles within it, effectively turning those email addresses into virtual people who have connections within Google Plus.
That’s a big if. If you’re already happy using Facebook, you may have no more incentive to use Google’s new social network than someone already happy using Google has to switch over to Bing. What you’re using is doing the job just fine.

Buzz Off Google Buzz

When people do get into the system, that does open up another way to add contacts. You’ll be able to search through other members who have registered.
But here’s the crazy thing. Those connections you may have already formed using Google Buzz? Remember, Google’s last attempt to take on Facebook from February 2010? None of that is being used for Google Plus. The two products are being kept completely separate.
I suspect Google’s trying to be as cautious as possible, in the wake of its settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (see Google Settles FTC Charges Over Buzz, Agrees To 20 Years Of Privacy Audits). Buzz seems tainted, so keeping Google+ isolated from that may be deemed the most prudent course.
And what’s the future for Buzz, with Google+ coming out? Google told me in a follow-up email:
The short answer is it won’t have any major impact on Buzz at launch. Buzz users will still see a Buzz tab on their Google profile, and Buzz will continue working as it always has. Google+ users can also be Buzz users or can decide to just share their content using one of the products. Over time, we’ll determine what makes the most sense in terms of integrating the products.

Google+ Stream

Now let’s talk about how you see what’s being shared by those in your network, as well as what you can specifically share.
Information appears in your “Stream,” which is akin to Facebook’s news feed. At the top of your stream is a sharing box. Actually, two sharing boxes:

In the new black navigation bar that began showing up for some people this week, there’s a “Share” area to the right side. That bar, by the way, has been dubbed the “One Google” bar, Google told me. No matter where you are on Google, you’ll have the ability to share something out to Google Plus.
In the Stream itself, there’s a longer box, where you can enter a status update or use icons to upload and share photo and videos. You can also share links or your location, if you’ve allowed Google to track that for you. On mobile devices, you can select from a drop-down of nearby places to check-in.
The check-in feature also raises questions about Google Latitude — does it get absorbed into Google+ eventually? What about HotPot?
What do you see from others? Here’s an example:

In this screenshot, the person is viewing what’s been shared only by people in their “Bike Geeks” groups, as highlighted on the left side. By selecting another circle that’s listed, they would see only information being shared by that group.
Friends, Followers & Off-Network Friends
As with Twitter (or with Facebook, when it comes to fan pages), it’s possible with Google+ to follow other people on the network, even if they don’t reciprocate and follow you or friend you back.
Google says that if you follow someone this way, you’ll only see what they choose to share with everyone publicly. If they share some things more restrictively, with particular circles, for example, those outside of those circles won’t see that.
Somewhat related, you can be friends with people who aren’t formally part of Google Plus. If they’re an email-only contact and never formally join the service, you can still add them to circles and share with them.
When you do this, they’ll apparently be sent an email with whatever you wanted to share, a picture, an update and so on.
The downside is that if they’re not on Google Plus, they’ll get a notification anytime you share anything. So if you’re a big sharer, potentially you might hit some of your friends with a lot of email.

Where’s +1?

In the stream example above, there was a +1 button at the bottom of the photo. Yes, anything you like within Google+ can be +1′d, in the way that anything you like on Facebook can be liked with Facebook Like buttons.
If you do that, do your friends on Google+ see that action, in the way that friends on Facebook may see what you like? Nope. Not to my understanding,
Further more, all those Google +1 buttons that are now starting to appear on Google search worldwide? Those Google +1 buttons that publishers have diligently been adding to their sites since they were released earlier this month? Nothing from those button clicks flows back into Google Plus.
It’s crazy. It makes no sense. It’s as if Facebook launched its Like buttons but forgot to hook them up to flow information back into Facebook.
Right now, it remains the case that if you want to see what someone has +1′d, then you have to remember to go to their Google Profile page on a regular basis, then hope they’ve enabled the +1 tab on that profile, then rinse and repeat for other people.
Google told me that it would be “logical” to see +1 flow into Google+ and that “one could guess eventually” it will happen. So, I’m pretty sure we will see this happen. But when it will launch is unclear, and it really feels like an incredible mistake that it’s not part of the launch.

Google Sparks: Tips On What To Share

Time for more features. What if you started a social network and no one knew what to share? That’s a problem that Google Sparks is intended to solve.
Think of it like Google Alerts made to flow into Google Plus. Google Sparks lets you follow topics of interest:

You can browse suggestions or set up your own keyword-based searches. Then when you select a “Sparks” link, you’ll get a feed of search results that you might wish to share. Here’s an example of what Sparks might show for a fashion topic:

The relevancy is supposed to be tweaked to find especially sharable content that people are already clicking on, things that are very visual with photo and pictures.
I got a brief demo trying two searches, and the results didn’t thrill me. They were OK, but they didn’t feel particularly shareable. Still, the feature will probably be useful to some, and I can’t really assess the relevancy either way on such limited testing.

Hangouts: Group Video Chat

Google seems to be hanging most of its hopes that Google+ will attract people from Facebook on two main features, I’d say. One is the aforementioned Circles sharing feature. The other is the Hangout video chat feature.
With Hangouts, up to 10 people at a time can all interact through video:

The demo I saw of the system was compelling. As one participant spoke, the main image automatically changed to that person. You can also play video that everyone watches.
Gundotra spent some time talking with me about how Google has examined the social dynamics of video chat, to get people more comfortable participating. The key is to get several people all involved casually, rather than to barge in with a solitary invite.
He used a “talking to your neighbor” analogy to explain more. You’re probably are hesitant to knock a neighbor’s door and disturb them just because you want to talk. But if you saw them outside on their porch, Gundotra said, you’d probably feel better saying “Hi” when passing by. If two neighbors were sitting and talking, you’d probably feel rude not also stopping and chatting.
Hence the Hangouts name. When someone launches a Hangout, this shows up on the feed that goes out to their friends. As more people join, the notifications get updated to show the number participating. As that number rises, Google says even more people are compelled to take part.
The party ends at 10, however. No more can participate for scale reasons and also because the group dynamics get too hard, Gundotra said. If someone leaves, others can come in.
The puzzling thing to me is that Google’s not made it possible for anyone to stream the chat out to non-participants. If you have a group of friends, and not all can take part at once, others might be interested just to listen in.
Beyond that, Hangouts seems like a pretty awesome tool for those who wanted to record video shows. But there’s no way to save what happens.

Huddle: Group Text Chat

Somewhat related to Hangouts is Huddle, a group text chat service. I can’t really tell you more than that. Google didn’t cover this during my talk with them about Google Plus last week, so I’ve only got a screenshot for you and a promise will cover it more in our coming hands-on piece:

Instant Upload
The last major feature of Google+ is called “Instant Upload.”

For those with Android phones, you can have any picture you take be uploaded to a centralized — and private — photo album area.
Google tells me they hope to bring it to other phones, as well.

Getting Google+

Want to try the service? Right now, it’s strictly invite only. Some press are being allowed in, along with others that Google hand picks. There’s no ETA on when wider invites will be available.
Unusually, this isn’t being called a beta test or an experiment but rather a “field trial” that’s meant to finally gather some feedback from outside Google itself.
The limited test is probably wise. It’ll give Google more time to discover things it might not have anticipated being problems, as was the case with Buzz.
As for a wider release, and possible success, it’s anyone’s guess. As I said earlier, if you’re happy using Facebook, there seems relatively little to make you want to switch over to Google Plus, at the moment.
Perhaps with further Google +1 integration, that might change. Perhaps if there are people who want a Facebook alternative, Google’s now got a core to build on for them. At least the guessing about what Google might be doing is over.

Google’s Secret Social Initiative Delayed Until Spring 2011 [EXCLUSIVE]

2011-07-08T21:34:00.000+05:30

Google’s Secret Social Initiative Delayed Until Spring 2011 [EXCLUSIVE]

Google’s big social initiative, once thought to be a full-fledged social network named “Google Me,” is experiencing delays that have pushed back the launch until spring 2011.
Mashable has learned that Google’s big social play could debut in March or April, a far cry from earlier rumors that pegged a 2010 launch date.
The project is a top-secret affair, even within the company. It is being led by Vic Gundotra, one of the company’s public faces and a VP of engineering.
“We’re always experimenting with new ways to improve our products, and we have already confirmed that we are focused on incorporating social elements across Google,” a Google spokesperson told us when reached for comment. “But we have nothing new to announce at this time.”
The rumors were running wild earlier this year about Google Me. According to chatter, at the time, it was going to be a “full, first-class social network” designed as a direct competitor to Facebook. A few months later though, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that the company is actually building social components into Google’s core products.
“If you think about it, it’s obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better,” Schmidt said at the time.
So what is causing the delay? The likely culprit is disagreement on the design, purpose and execution of the project. One of our sources told us that he/she has heard “tales of disorganization and too many different teams working parallel or in conflict.”
Google’s social initiative was sparked by the threat Facebook presented to its domination of the web.Facebook’s growth has spooked Google’s leadership. When Facebook learned of the search giant’s plans, it responded by entering “lockdown” for 60 days, where the company focused on completing new features likeFacebook Messages, Facebook Places and Facebook Groups.
Beyond YouTube, Google has a poor track record in social, part of the reason why it acquired Slide and Ångströ. The delay of Google’s big social initiative is yet another black eye for the company and another win for a certain social network based out of Palo Alto.

First Look at the Google+ social network: The Top Secret Demo

2011-07-08T21:29:00.000+05:30

First Look at the Google+ social network: The Top Secret Demo

FACEBOOK | GOOGLE | GOOGLE PLUS | SOCIAL NETWORKING | TWITTER

One thing that’s clear about Google is that they’ve mastered the art of subterfuge.

At a time when leaks about product launches, acquisitions and potential hires are rife, Google resorted to extraordinary measures to ensure that word of its new social network, Google+, did not slip out ahead of Tuesday’s official announcement.

The company reached out to Reuters late on Friday about a special briefing related to some undisclosed YouTube news, even tasking a YouTube PR-man with a curious sartorial style to coordinate the meeting, to complete the red-herring.

So it was surprising to discover a grinning Vic Gundotra, Google’s head of social, and VP of Product Management Bradley Horowitz, in the meeting room at Google’s headquarters.

Clearly we weren’t here to talk about a new YouTube media partnership.

The pair quickly revealed what they had up their sleeve and proceeded to give a tour of a new social networking service that’s been one year in the making.

So what is Google+ like? And why would you want to invest the time and effort to create another social network if you’re already using Facebook and Twitter?

Google is betting that its approach to privacy and extensive controls over who you share information with on the network will set Google Plus apart.

The service revolves around a concept of “circles,” (presumably not the same circles that Dante visited). You can create as many circles as you like, for whatever categories you want: for example family, co-workers or biking friends. Above the circles are a slew of thumbnail images of friends and contacts which Google suggests you might want in your social network. To add a person to one of your groups, drag the name into a circle.

If you decide to remove someone from a circle, you simply drag their image out of the circle, at which point the image will explode into a cloud of smoke – one of several whimsical touches in Google+.
To use Google+ you need to create a Google profile. At the very minimum, Google requires that you use your real name and include a photo. Beyond that, you can furnish the profile with as much, or as little, detail about yourself as you want.

You can control how much of your profile is visible to other folks on the network: your name and occupation for some folks; relationship status for others. Type a person’s name into a box, and you can see what your profile looks like through their eyes.

In a sense, Google+ combines the Facebook and Twitter models of social networking: You can have friends in your social network with whom you share information, and you can also simply follow certain people, say a movie critic who you don’ t know personally, a la Twitter.

Nearly all Google websites, such as its flagship Google.com search engine and the Google maps site, will have a special toolbar running across the top of the page. The toolbar has an icon of your face alongside your name in the top left, to remind you that you are currently logged on to the Google+ network. Click on your name and you can quickly log off the network, or switch to incognito mode.

Google is also weaving video conferencing into social networking with Google+. You can let people in specific circles know that you’re available for a video conference (that you’re available to “hang out” in Google+ parlance) by clicking on a button. Up to ten people can join a video conference.

While social networking is all about real people sharing information, such as interesting news articles and videos, Google believes there’s room for its algorithmic muscle in the social world too. A feature called “Sparks” serves up Web content on various topics, say sports or fashion, which Google’s technology has determined are popular. You can subscribe to categories of interest, or create your own custom category, and you’ll receive links to the latest content in your news feed.

Google is also releasing mobile apps of Google+ for Android smartphones and iPhone, with special features like group messaging and cloud-based photo storage.

Google is referring to its new service as the Google+ Project, to make clear that’s what’s available now is only the first installment of several more features it says it has in the pipeline.

Despite a checkered history in social (see Google Wave, Google Buzz and to some extent Orkut), Google has not given up on trying to conquer the social networking market.

Right now the service is only available as a “field trial” to a limited number of people. Since social networking success depends on critical mass, it seems likely that Google will open the service up to more people sooner rather than later.

So in the coming months we could have a better indication as to whether Google has finally cracked the code for success in the social networking market.
(Screenshots from Google Works)

How to Add Google +1 to your website

2011-07-08T21:04:00.000+05:30

How to Add Google +1 to your website

It has taken some time but finally Google has rolled out their +1 button for websites, it was leaked early and it hasn’t been a well-kept secret but its already starting to cause concern among both bloggers, webmasters and SEOs on what it all means for them. The obvious big point for bloggers is that it offers you one extra way that people can show their appreciation for your blog or article by voting it +1 but will it dilute the clicks you previously attracted to your other social buttons?
Webmasters are likely the biggest losers in this game as they are the ones that have to work out how to implement it dynamically quickly but also ensure that it matches with their social media strategy plans and their designers don’t have a breakdown when they see how the button destroy their carefully balanced world. SEOs are probably the most cautious about the new button and I haven’t heard of many who are happily clicking the +1 button linked to their Google account just yet… it’s going to be a massive trust issue to give their social media graph to Google on a silver platter.

Early Issues with +1 Button

Tech Crunch shows how it’s going to be a nightmare for webdevelopers who will have to look at changing their websites to accommodate the extra button but also make sure it plays nice with all the other buttons. The other issue is also trying to get the button centred it seems to have a preference for ignoring the code and choosing to be left justified. You can see below that until you elect to like that particular page or website you will be presented with a shitty visual experience that because it’s an iFrame you don’t have too much control over at this point. Much of the button chaos was previously solved by ADDTHIS which was an easy way to add in multiple buttons or use a combination or image and buttons but recently it’s fallen out of favour as website narrow down the number of social media services they really care about and choose to focus on just one or two.

WordStream has also highlighted the issues with websites now having to deal with half a dozen buttons which all have different actions, sizes and even purposes. The confusion of the consumer is likely and it seems early installations of the button is showing issues of the button vanishing even with users are opted into the +1 experiment and logged into their Google account. Early bugs and issues might shake the confidence of the launch partner websites as it seems a number of them have not bothered to roll it out just yet. They have got some free publicity by promising to roll it out in the near future but also have time to sit back and evaluate how extensively they will roll it out and when that might happen.

The big issue I can see is that the style of the button doesn’t really fit in and it will take a fair bit of good will to get publishers to start promoting it as heavily as they do with Twitter or Facebook. If you visit HuffingtonPost you are greeted with a popup requesting you should connect with Facebook, I struggle to think how long it will take for publishers to have that same popup saying Why don’t you login via your Google Accounts. The Connect with Facebook platform and message works well with consumers the login via Google Accounts just doesn’t have the same appeal to most users.

Ray of Sunshine from Mashable?

The only ray of sunshine is from Mashable who are very heavily promoting the +1 feature below its Mashable share widget, while the article is possible skewed in asking for a response there are 10 times the number of +1 than there is Facebook likes. The only thing that is not clear is if the placement of the button by Meghan Peters in the middle of the article got a majority of the +1 votes, but Linkedin got 25% more shares than +1 and Twitter got almost 3 times the amount of shares as +1. So it’s interesting that the Mashable story was more popular to share via Twitter and Linkedin than it was via Facebook or even +1 buttons the article was focus on, but it makes sense as what is the current benefit of +1 is not yet visible.
The article about the +1 button launch over at TechCrunch got a massive number of votes and again around 10 times the number of Facebook likes and had the button in the standard spot with the rest of them, but Twitter didn’t fare as well so maybe the platform is more suited to Technology blogs than the social media types that Mashable attract.

Should Facebook be worried?

Based on these two articles it’s likely the biggest loser in this social media war might actually be Facebook in the short-term, but I would prefer to allow people to easily share my content with 600,000,000 Facebook users at this stage. The only loser I can see at this point is the number of blogs willing to also include the Facebook “Send” button once they add the Google +1 button, but until Google rolls out some analytics around the impact of the button to match Facebook’s analytics it’s going to be a tough call to make either way.

Social Button overload?

Following on from Twitters Tweet button there is now the one-click Follow button which does now offer the ability to keep users within your website rather than sending them away to Twitter, it also means that you know need to consider offering two buttons on your website just for Twitter. The benefit of the Tweet button is that it promotes sharing of content even amongst your existing followers where the follow button just increases your followers who may share your content at some point in time. It should be fairly easy for twitter to follow Facebook’s lead and use an iFrame and sense if you are an existing follower and then only show you the Tweet button but if you are not following them you get first shown the Follow button. It is a big step beyond using third-party platforms like ShareThis or AddThis but it’s a very much a stop-gap solution but it’s also likely to be used differently in a site such as next to the article authors replacing the previously used hyperlink.
If you want to add the one-click follow button you can find the resource here but the downside you don’t get any Twitter analytics but you can easily tag up the button with web analytics. I’ve tried to change some of the settings such as the colour background to be used and if it should show the follower count but it really seem to do what it wanted and appeared to alternate between showing and not showing a follower account.

Social Sharing Widgets are dead?

It will be interesting how AddThis and ShareThis integrate the new Google +1 button as it’s a much smarter solution than having to decide which button you are going to keep just in case people want to click it and which button is going to get used by your visitors. It might be the case that they actually grow their market share as it’s going to be much easier to replace the chaos that see above with a simple widget so don’t discount them just yet.

Facebook Share better

Facebook has long had the monopoly of Like buttons that have spread across the web but the recent addition of the “Send” button seems almost redundant as when you select to like something you can share it on your wall but the use of the share button works on the expansion of Facebook’s messaging platform. Instead of just sharing within the Facebook platform you are able to share to an email address which moves beyond Google +1′s limit audience of those logged into their Google account. As not many people yet understand the potential of the button or even how to use it there is a relatively low-level of adoption and even big sites are still struggling to see its benefits over just having the “like” buttons.
WordPress.com blogs left out
Again as with many scripts you try to a widget WordPress.com automatically strips out of the code, it’s moves like this that will slow the adoption of the +1 button across the massive WordPress.com blog network. It might be in time that WordPress rolls out an official feature you can enable Google buttons on your blog as they did with the Twitter share button.

Update: WordPress has now updated their Twitter widget to allow you to easily enable the Twitter Follow button so it’s again another step ahead of Google & Facebook, only downside is it’s having some teething issues right now so you might just see an error message on the right side of this blog.

Open to Mischief?
The only thing that button does rely on is a trust element as you can specify the URL that is getting the vote so you could take liberty with that and place it elsewhere on any site to gain votes for another site. It’s likely there are some safeguards in the Javascript but it’s likely going to be a fun week for the early adopters who have a bit of technical understanding around the javascript it uses to power the button.

Google Products soon

With the rollout it seems the promised updates to start to show Google Plus One data in your account has not yet materialised so the question is when will this data start to show in your webmaster tools. Also according to the official blog post +1 buttons are apparently been progressively rolled out across Blogger, Google Product Search and YouTube but nothing has been seen just yet….

Will the +1 work on a private URL?

No, the +1 button won’t work. +1′s only work for public URLs

The good, the bad, and the ugly of GooglePlus

2011-07-08T20:50:00.000+05:30

Google Plus is, of course, Google's second attempt at conquering the world of social networking (or third, or fourth, depending on which of Orkut, Buzz, Wave, et al. you count). Google has rightly been dinged in the past for being a over-cocky engineer-driven Johnny-come-lately, without the design sense of Apple or the agility of Facebook. Plus represents a significant change in how they approach and release product, so it's worth stepping back a little to see how it stacks up.

The good

It's instructive to compare and contrast Wave with Google Plus. Wave was a skunkworks run from Australia, they built a separate system to replace email/IM/Docs/etc., they launched with a bang at Google I/O, then discovered nobody could figure out how to drive it. Plus is run from Mountain View, they've built some new stuff but a lot of work has been integration with other teams in Google, and they've soft-launched (as softly as Google can launch anything) outside of a major event, and they've had a UX team working on it headed by Andy Herzfeld of Mac fame. They have learned from experience.

Of course, once you accepted that Wave Was Going To Replace Everything, skunkworks made perfect sense. You can develop a self-contained app or feature in a skunkworks. But every Google service will have a social dimension, so they couldn't build Plus in isolation. The conception of Google Plus as the social infrastructure for every Google service means that it has very different development path, release, and success conditions.

Furthermore, they're learning as they go. They're releasing early (the Google Plus for Android app resets to the home screen every time you switch to another app and then back again; Plus is far from feature-complete; the Photo UI is undercooked) but they're learning from feedback. They have a great feedback mechanism (taking a screenshot from within the browser, letting you highlight and black out regions, so your comments appear in context) and are getting a heap of it. Features are being added and code cut as a result of that feedback.

It's obvious that the Google Plus team are not blindly copying Facebook or Twitter. They've set out to solve the problem that "friend" or "follower" doesn't accurately represent our social relationships and doesn't permit fine-grained sharing. They want to solve problems like: I'll show my kid pictures to my family and friends, but everyone can see the pictures from my visit to the Computer History Museum. Circles and activity streams are how they're tackling the problem: you tag your friends ("put them in a circle") and your posts ("share this post with these circles and individuals"), then see the latest activity from people within a circle.

They were very clever to launch with Hangouts, group video chat. It undermined Skype, Facebook were left flatfooted (cf their rather lame launch of video chat), and well, they're quite cool. Already there are success stories of family hangouts and business use of them.

And finally, they launched with a huge pile of PMs and developers on the product. This feels different: I can hear straight from the horse's mouth what's coming and what they acknowledge is broken. It's more immediate and personal than the product blogs that Google has used in the past. It is, of course, a massive poaching tool for Facebook and other orgs hoping to recruit from Google. I hope that doesn't stop it being used for user-to-developer contact the way it is now.

The bad

On the flip side, though, it's another social network. Like all Google projects, Plus makes an attempt to Not Be Evil: you can export your profile, posts, and circles of contacts thanks to the Data Liberation front. But, at its heart, you're telling Google who you know, what you listen to them about, and what you're interested in. It's a massive advertiser's honeypot.

That is, of course, why Google and Facebook and Twitter are in this business: they make money from advertising. By using their services you're participating in a giant Faustian bargain: you get free photo hosting and the ability to yap away to your mates, but in return they get to use all that information to advertise to you. And, of course, simply by collecting the information it's now available to regular law enforcement, the secret police, lulzsec, and other opportunistic parasites feasting off the corporation's data reserves. And if you make it public, it'll be scraped by credit agencies, the secret police, and everyone else who wants to build a profile of every person on the planet.

You'll notice that none of the social networks have subscription options. Nobody says "pay me $100/yr and I'll keep all your data private and you can have an ad-free experience." My hypothesis is that this is because your data is worth more to Google, Facebook, and Twitter than you can justify paying for it: they don't want $100 from you when they can earn $500 or $1,000 targeting advertising to you as you use their sites. They certainly don't have a federation model.

Nobody's thinking beyond a centralized profit model, either. AdSense made money for small website publishers, who previously didn't have a way to commercialize what they did. Mac App Store has made it so easy to make money from software that people now sell rather than give away. There's no vision in Google Plus to reinvent social networking in a similar platform fashion, creating more value than they capture.

Ok, I'm being melodramatic and ranting. The tl;dr is: Google Plus has not innovated at all in business model.

The ugly

What's ugly about Google Plus? The UX. I was, like everyone else, mesmerized by the Circles UI. "Circles" seemed a great metaphor for my social network, I mean we already talk about "social circles." I spent an OCD-happy morning dropping all my friends into the appropriate circles: New Zealand, tech, O'Reilly, etc.

The problems arose when I started to use the circles. If I post something to a circle (e.g., kid pictures to "Family"), someone can reshare that outside the original circle with two clicks. There has, of course, been considerable debate about whether this is a good thing (after all, some say, they could just copy and paste the picture anyway), but I come down firmly against it. If I'm using circles for privacy, I don't want items to be reshared. Just being able to see my photo doesn't make you the administrator of it.

That "share" button on other people's posts makes for another problem: fragmentation of comments. Let's say Tim posts, asking for places to visit when he's in New Zealand. I see that and realize I know many more people who could contribute to that discussion, so I reshare it. Now people can comment either on Tim's original post or on my reshare of it. This makes more work for Tim when he wants to participate in the comments discussion. Sharing blurs endorsement, amplification, and the invitation to comment. Compare with retweeting, for example, where I know that my audience sees it as coming from the original person via me, and replies go to the original poster.

More fundamentally, though circles are used by readers and by writers and they are not adequate to the task. Writers decide who will be interested in what they write: I'm finding that I have to model the mental state of all my friends — will they care about stories of my kids, pictures of gigs I go to, thoughts on technology, rants on NZ politics? And, of course, I can't model this perfectly: many people in my NZ circle won't care about my political rants. But they can't unsubscribe from my NZ rants, they can only take me out of a circle. Unsubscribe isn't fine-grained enough to be useful.

My classic use case for filters is my good friend James. James tweets about technology and his family, and I want to read those. But he also avidly supports a Canadian ice-hockey team and during games he tweets non-stop about stuff I don't care about. I want to unsubscribe from his #habs tweets. I know friends who don't follow me on Twitter because of the floods that come from me during conferences. Google Plus doesn't deal with these common use cases.

In general, the UI makes it hard to find the stuff I care about. What do I care about? I want to see new things from my friends, I want to see replies to things I've written, I want to monitor comment threads I'm a part of, I want to see the stuff my friends like, and I don't want to see the same stuff again and again. The Google Plus UI mushes all these into a few overlapping streams such that I see the same threads again and again yet can't find the categories of things I do care about. I think they hope that machine learning will promote relevant items to the top, but the results so far do not make me confident that they can deliver a useful service on this approach. My experience is one of noisy irrelevance.

Currently, Facebook and Twitter both offer a more functional user interface to social activity.

Conclusion

Google is rolling out Plus in the right way: starting small and expanding slowly, learning as they go. I don't think they've got the conceptual model and UI right yet, but I'm enjoying watching it change before my eyes. I still can't see substantial benefits to consumers in switching to a different centralized social network: it looks like freedom but we're just leaping out of the Facebook and into the Google. But I'll continue to experiment because of all the Google social efforts so far, this one has the best chance of making something truly great.

Blogger Buzz: Add the +1 Button to Your Blog

2011-07-07T19:59:00.000+05:30

Blogger Buzz: Add the +1 Button to Your Blog