19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Cut-price iPads “To Be Launched In The UK” [TNW Apple]
- Nokia C2-01 And Nokia X2-01 Get Official Launches [TNW Mobile]
- Kinect Hack Unleashes Unofficial Lightsaber Action [TNW Microsoft]
- Ten out of Ten : iOS apps for education [TNW Apple]
- It’s Secret, it’s new, it’s Glitch and we’re playing [TNW Canada]
- Chinese Government ‘harmonises’ tech. firms’ feud. [TNW Asia]
- China bloggers’ meeting cancelled after government pressure [TNW Asia]
- Video: Watch A Robotic Arm Play Chess [TNW Europe]
- Kazakhstan beats India and China in startup awards [TNW Asia]
- 5 Best Smartphones With Physical Keyboards [TNW Gadgets]
- Try This: Put Things Off. An easy-to-use, wonderfully designed, iPhone task manager [TNW Apps]
- Kiss your install goodbye: The paradigm shift of applications is here. [TNW Apps]
- This is the best Justin Bieber parody every recorded – well, if you like Starcraft [TNW Shareables]
- How low can your Logo? [TNW Shareables]
- The clever new Facebook app that is the only way to import your Google contacts [TNW Apps]
- Google Celebrates Lebananese Independance Day [TNW Middle East]
- Snap Bird helps find old tweets and messages by going where Twitter Search can’t: months back [TNW Social Media]
- Weekend Rewind: Watch Steve Ballmer Pitch Windows 1.0 At 135 Decibels [TNW Microsoft]
- How to: Build a social media dashboard [TNW Lifehacks]
- A Personal Appeal From Steve Jobs [TNW Shareables]
| Cut-price iPads “To Be Launched In The UK” [TNW Apple] Posted: 22 Nov 2010 03:29 AM PST
Marketing Week reports that the companies will sell the Apple tablets from its online shops and retail stores, it is expected that the two operators will offer iPad’s for as little as £200 when coupled with a 18-month or 24-month contract. It’s an initiative that retailers championed when Samsung’s Galaxy Tab launched, a tablet that actually came in more expensive that its larger and more established iPad rival. Retailers were offering commitment free monthly plans for the device with operators heavily subsiding the device in time for the Christmas period with the expectation that tablet devices would be this years must have gifts. A formal announcement is expected to be made later today, the first time the iPad has been offered on a subsidised contract in the UK. As always, we will keep you updated with pricing and availability.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]     | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nokia C2-01 And Nokia X2-01 Get Official Launches [TNW Mobile] Posted: 22 Nov 2010 02:42 AM PST
The Nokia C2-01 sports a candybar design and is geared towards younger users with an emphasis on music, it is Nokia’s most inexpensive 3G-enabled mobile phone. The Nokia X2-01 has a QWERTY keyboard and focuses more on social networking but only supports GPRS/Edge, both devices have more than capable cameras to help users snap on the go. Nokia C2-01Running the Series 40 operating system, the Nokia C2-01 (as mentioned above) brings 3G connectivity to those who may not have had it before. The candybar device has a traditional keypad, 3.2-megapixel camera and a 2-inch screen. Focusing on music, the device supports FM radio, Bluetooth and allows for 16GB of external memory. The C2-01 supports most Ovi services, utilising Nokia Messaging for email and IM, as well as the Ovi Store and Ovi Music. Weighing just 89g, the Nokia C2-01 will go on sales in Q1 2011 and will cost around €70. Nokia X2-01Featuring a full QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia X2-01 is aimed primarily at serial text-messagers and social networking addicts. The device has a new “Communities” app that brings Facebook to the device, displaying updates on the homescreen and allowing the easy posting of statuses and photos also. The X2-01 also enjoys rich music features, allowing one-click access to a users music, a built-in media player, FM radio and Ovi Music. There is also support for the Ovi Store. The screen on the X2-01 is a 2.4-inch QVGA display with a VGA camera on the back. Weighing 108g, the X2-01 allows for 8GB of external storage but does not support WiFi. The device will go on sale before the end of the year and is set to cost around €80. Nokia knows these devices will sell, it sold over 364 million of them in the past year. Bringing features to users in emerging countries, the Finnish mobile giant is hoping to keep hold of its place as the world’s number one mobile manufacturer as it goes back to basics to redevelop its high-end line of smartphones to claw back the market share it has lost, especially in North America.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kinect Hack Unleashes Unofficial Lightsaber Action [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 22 Nov 2010 01:40 AM PST
Official support of a Star Wars game is almost a certainty but developers didn’t want to wait that long to get their Lightsaber fix. A YouTube user, going by the name Ankeyan, utilised the newly created OpenKinect drivers, added some image processing, tracking and rendering using OpenCV and managed to output a real-time Lightsaber effect using just his PC. Programming the Kinect to monitor his position and the wooden stick in his hands, Ankeyan was able to adapt his image processing software to render a Lightsaber effect over the stick and leave YouTube viewers suitably impressed. Also included for your viewing pleasure is a video of the Lightsaber hack in action: The video follows an interesting iRobot style demonstration by an MIT student and the news that Microsoft has reportedly already sold 1.3 million Kinect units since launch. Whilst Microsoft and LucasArts might be a little annoyed at the Star Wars party starting before they got the chance to release offerings, all that hacks like this can do is increase demand for such games, surely?UberGizmo, Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ten out of Ten : iOS apps for education [TNW Apple] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 11:21 PM PST In October this year, not long before I joined The Next Web as Asia editor, I posted the following round-up of iOS apps for education on my own website, Edexpat. The content is still relevant today, so here is the complete round-up with minor changes posted in full, with the author’s permission… There’s no denying that the Apple iPad has caused quite a stir since it’s initial launch in April 2010. In this article I want to focus on some of the applications available for children of all abilities and ages. While I’ve arranged the featured apps by approximate age group, they are by no means limited to those age groupings. Sometimes apps targeted at younger kids are ideal for older kids with learning difficulties and, indeed, many are fun for adults as well. Pre-school/KindergartenFor preschool kids, the iPad has a huge advantage, all of the apps here can be used over and over again, repeating the same tasks as many times as needed or as your child wants to. No need for the continual erasing of work or wasteful reprinting of pages required by the more traditional tools. Of course, with all apps for this age group, an adult should work with the child at all times to guide and assist with the learning process. It’s therefore a distinct advantage if the app is a least a little bit entertaining. 1: abc PocketPhonics : My 4 year old daughter loves this app. Even with the limited lite version that I used when preparing this article, she would repeat the exercises over and over. Since upgrading to the full version, she still comes back, over and over, of her own accord to play with this. A good educational app should not only teach kids, it should be fun and engaging as well. This app checks all the boxes.
3: Alphabet Fun : Alphabet fun, is in some ways an extension of abc PocketPhonics. While it provides similar writing practice, it extends the learning scope to whole words, numbers and colours. Once again, in a very kid friendly and fun environment. Primary/ElementaryThe kids have made it to Primary/Elementary school, they know their alphabet and they can count reasonably well and will be able to write a few key words. Now the work starts and they have to learn what to do with these words and numbers. The apps covered here allow parents or teachers to set up some quizzes and tests of varying degrees of difficulty that the children can then work on, in their own time or maybe against the clock. 4: Mathboard : Mathboard is pretty well known having been featured in the iPad is Delicious tv ad. The app does a very good job in it’s rendition of a traditional chalkboard which I’m sure will hold some nostalgic appeal to parents buying the app for their kids. I’m not entirely sure of the relevance of that user interface to modern education where electronic whiteboards are the norm. However, regardless of interface choices, the functionality of Mathboard. Covering kindergarten all the way through primary/elementary ages, the quizzes can be tuned to suit each level from simple addition and subtraction of small numbers for the younger kids, adding bigger numbers and multiplication and division as the kids grow older. 5: Spellboard : From the same stable as Mathboard comes Spellboard, attempting to do the same for word skills as the former does for arithmetic. Spellboard allows a teacher to set up spelling tests, complete with recorded pronunciation examples in any language and share them with students using iTunes file sharing. The students can then practice spelling and writing the words in preparation, for example, for their weekly test. As with Mathboard, the user interface is well thought out, using a cork board metaphor. Although 6: Create a Car : Create a Car is a little bit of fun to add to the more academic apps covered so far. Targeted from age 3+, kids can build unique cars from a selection of nearly 70 parts. They can then store these creations in their garage. A great application for developing creative skills and imagination. SecondaryAnd so we hit Secondary school age. It all becomes a bit more serious here. There are exams to pass after all. At this age, not only do the kids have to learn, they have to learn how to learn. Every child learns differently so it’s beneficial for kids to work with tools that fit their preferred style of learning. Any apps that the kids use have to compete against the many distractions on offer to this age group. Games, social networks, games on social networks. 7: GrammarUp : GrammarUp provides a multiple choice quiz system testing English grammar with nearly 2000 questions across 20 grammar categories. In the international school context where a high proportion of the pupils are not native English speakers, or, indeed, for any English language learner, whetever the age, this is a powerful tool.
9: Idea Sketch : A hot issue for this age group is also planning. More and more schools are realising that they need to help kids with their organisational abilities. Essays need planned, assignments need planned, science experiments need planned. Idea Sketch is a useful tool to assist with this planning process. Students can start by drawing a mind map or a flow chart which can be converted to a structured list or saved to the Photos app and can even be uploaded to Facebook for collaborating on team projects. University and on…Finding apps suitable for University students has been a real challenge. It’s not that they don’t exist. I thought about Headspace, but that’s basically another mind mapping tool. I though about Inkiness which ties in nicely with the final part of this article but, in the end, I’ve decided on an app that is built in to every iPad, iPod touch and iPhone… 10: The App Store. : You’ve made it this far, you know what you like and you know what tools work for you. Have a search through the app store, try a few lite versions and build a toolset that suits you, your learning style and your life and have fun in the process. And finally, an honourable mention has to go to Evernote. I’ve been an occasional user of the free PC and Mac versions of Evernote for a long time but I’ve never managed to get into the habit of using it. It wasn’t until I downloaded the iPad version that I suddenly got it. Here was a cross platform tool where I could save all kinds of information in a searchable (even within images) format. As a proof of concept, all of the research for this article was pasted into Evernote notes. The article itself was written within a note. Yes, I could have saved webpages to file and written this in word or notepad, Evernote enabled me to have all of the information to hand in a single app, available no matter what machine I was working on. So, as an honourable mention we have… 10(b): Evernote. : Enjoy.Edexpat, image, image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| It’s Secret, it’s new, it’s Glitch and we’re playing [TNW Canada] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 10:40 PM PST
So you might be right, as well, in thinking that Stuart really just getting back to his roots. Maybe even getting back to what he wanted to build in the first place. So like the NYT said today, invites went out recently to about 5,000 people to start playing the game… and I got one. I wasn’t able to try it out until this evening, so I missed the 74 hour time the game was open. Which is fine, because according to the agreement to be in the alpha group, I couldn’t show you or tell you much anyway. While you all begin to wonder what the game might be like, and work on how and who you’ll beg for invites (don’t look at me, I don’t have any), let’s think about social games. Farmville (which I freely admit I haven’t played and have no interest in) took Facebook by storm and has made Zynga a rather goodly sum of money. So, we like games and more than that I think we like games we can all play together. “Social gaming” is what the NYT calls it, but it’s just like in the early days of BBSes and and MUDs. We can’t always get people to come over and play gin or bridge, but grabbing some time at home (or work) to play a game…well that’s a horse of a different color, isn’t it? So while I wait for Glitch to open for play again (I’m sure it will be tomorrow sometime), I’ll see if I can buy Stuart a coffee next time I’m in Gastown. Until then… Well I’ll just keep you posted.NYT [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese Government ‘harmonises’ tech. firms’ feud. [TNW Asia] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 10:01 PM PST
The dispute between the two companies over alleged privacy infringements and blocking of each other’s products has been running for over a month and has been widely reported in the mainstream and tech. press world wide. According to Tencent, quoted on 10th November, it was affecting at least five million instant messaging users. Matters came to a head on Sunday when the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered both firms to end their dispute and publicly apologise to their users. Both companies subsequently issued letters of apology on Sunday evening.
The Chinese authorities are normally associated with more negative harmonisations, for once, they seem to have stepped in with actions that will be welcomed by the majority of Chinese netizens.Reuters, image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| China bloggers’ meeting cancelled after government pressure [TNW Asia] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 09:13 PM PST
The two day event, due to be held in an office building near Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University had to be called off after both its primary and back-up venues were forced to withdraw their support. Co-founded in Shanghai in 2005 by blogger, venture capitalist and software architcect, Isaac Mao, the conference has had to move to a different city each year in a cat and mouse game with the authorities. Last year, it was held in a remote cave in Guangdong Province. Unfortunately, with it’s success, numbers have grown and it has been increasingly difficult to keep it ‘under the radar’.
The cancellation comes at a sensitive time for social media in China. Twitter and Facebook, the most popular social networks in the rest of the world are still blocked by China’s Great Firewall, although, savvy netizens have few difficulties by-passing the restrictions, plus, only last week news broke that a Chinese woman had been sentenced to a year in a labour camp for re-tweeting a satirical tweet.Sino Daily, China Realtime Report (WSJ), image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Video: Watch A Robotic Arm Play Chess [TNW Europe] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 08:54 PM PST Basically since computers were invented, one of the yardsticks that computer scientists have used to gauge how advanced the system is, was to have it play chess against a human being. Eventually, it was finally proven that a computer could beat even the greatest chess that’s ever lived, when IBM’s Big Blue defeated Gary Kasparov. Of course, the computers played the game on a computer screen and didn’t physically move the pieces if a real chess was used – until now. The “Chess Terminator” – really, what else would someone call this thing? – was thought up by Konstantin Kosteniuk, the father of Alexandra Kosteniuk, who just happens to be the women’s world chess champion. The robot isn’t a particularly powerful opponent, but it should be able to play for 24 hours a day for three years straight – so that’s something! In the video below you can watch the Chess Terminator play against ex-world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, with the match ending in a draw (though when Kramnik offers his hand for a draw the Terminator seemingly ignores it and keeps on playing!). Right now, this is seemingly the only one of its kind, but assuming the arm has its circuits bent on ending humanity (what self-respecting chess-playing robotic arm wouldn’t right?) expect to see many more of these in the future at a park near you: GizMag, NY Post, Chess in Translation [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kazakhstan beats India and China in startup awards [TNW Asia] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 07:32 PM PST
We thought, however, that it would be interesting to correlate the number of winning companies against the population of their home countries so see which countries are producing the most successful start-ups per head of population. The following, decidedly unscientific, table, based on the results shows a completely different picture.
It’s notable that the acknowledged tech. hotspots in the region, Singapore and Hong Kong, hold the top two places with Singapore a clear winner having almost three times the number of winning startups per million population (according to the awards) than it’s nearest rival Hong Kong. And who would have thought that even Kazakhstan would best the mighty combination of India and China?image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 Best Smartphones With Physical Keyboards [TNW Gadgets] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 07:14 PM PST A couple of days ago, you may have caught our list of the best smartphones with big screens. Well, we wanted to continue with our 'Top 5 Smartphones' series, this time focusing on devices that rock physical QWERTY keyboards. Yes, full touchscreen smartphones might be the trend right now but that doesn't mean text and email maniacs aren't still looking for ways to get their fix. Fortunately, there are some great devices that are available on a host of different providers. So, if you're in the market for a smartphone, and you feel it necessary that you device has a full QWERTY keyboard, take a look at this list of the our top 5 devices with physical keyboards on the market today. Again, as usual, they are listed in no particular order. Carrier: AT&T It was an extremely tough call between the BlackBerry Torch and the BlackBerry Bold 9780 but the Torch wins out here because it includes both a slide out QWERTY keyboard as well as a touchscreen. However, if you don't want to get on AT&T, and we don't blame a lot of you, the Bold 9780 is available on a plethora of carriers and is worth a peek. If you're ok with Ma Bell, here's what the Torch is all about. It's rocking BlackBerry OS 6, the latest and greatest mobile software from RIM, it also has an optical trackpad, WebKit Browser, Wi-Fi support, GPS and a lot more. Best of all, it's cheap. You can get it through Amazon for a mere penny, with a new contract of course. So, if you're a BlackBerry keyboard homer, then the Torch is certainly a great call.
Carrier: Verizon While the Motorola Droid 2 is currently available for a penny over at Amazon, you probably want to hold off on purchasing it because the recently announced Motorola Droid 2 Global. It has the same beautiful keyboard as the original Droid 2 plus Global capabilities. If you've handled an original Droid, then you have a good idea about what the Droid 2's keyboard is all about. There are some subtle differences though. It has larger shift, spacebar and enter keys and it has navigation keys instead of a navigation pad. Besides the slide out QWERTY, the Droid 2, at least the Global version, packs a 1.2GHz processor and a 5MP camera. It also has Android 2.2 aka Froyo. If you need the global capabilities, prepare to fork over $199.99 if not, hurry and snag the original Droid 2 for a penny. They are both solid choices.
Carrier: T-Mobile T-Mobile's G2 was T-Mobile's first device to support their 4G HSPA+ network and it's also, arguably, their best smartphone. And guess what? It happens to have a physical keyboard. The G2's keyboard has raised keys that don't disappoint. Great spacing, great feedback, just an all around awesome keyboard experience. And that's not all that's awesome about the G2. It has a blazing fast, vanilla version of Android Froyo and again, it's one of only two phones that currently support T-Mobile's high speed HSPA+ service, the other being the myTouch 4G. If you have T-Mobile and want a great smartphone with a physical keyboard, considering the G2 is a no-brainer. Carrier: Verizon The BlackBerry Droid. That honestly should be the nickname of the Motorola Droid Pro which just recently came out on Verizon. While it's marketed toward businessmen and women, don't be fooled, because the Droid Pro might have the best QWERTY keyboard on Verizon. That's because Motorola essentially cloned the BlackBerry experience, threw it on a candy bar form factored device, and called it a Droid. It even has a programmable application key on the right side and those good old ALT and Shift keys that BlackBerry owners are familiar with. While the Droid Pro wows with the keyboard and form factor, you'll have to look past some flaws with the display, specifically screen resolution which checks in at 480×320. However, in the world of smartphones with physical QWERTY's, the Droid Pro is up there with the best. And if you act fast, you can get one for cheap through Amazon if you head here. Carrier: Sprint Sprint's Samsung Galaxy S device, the Epic 4G, is definitely a candidate for best smartphone with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Consumer Reports has it ranked as the best phone on Sprint (the HTC EVO 4G gives it a run for its money) and for those looking to get in on the 4G WiMax action with a physical keyboard, there is only one place to go. While it doesn't have Android 2.2 yet, it's coming soon, it does have a gorgeous 4 inch Super AMOLED screen, a 1GHz processor and you guessed it, a wonderful physical QWERTY. The keys are raised, they are beautifully spaced, and they are just plain comfortable to use. And guess what? You can get it for only $99.99 right now. That's a pretty amazing deal for such an amazing phone. So, there are our top 5 smartphones with physical QWERTY keyboards. If you feel like something is missing or you happen to love one of the phones on the list, feel free to let us know in the comments.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Try This: Put Things Off. An easy-to-use, wonderfully designed, iPhone task manager [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 05:30 PM PST
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kiss your install goodbye: The paradigm shift of applications is here. [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 05:16 PM PST  The discussion has come up time and again, but it only really struck me because of a roundabout fashion. I was having a talk the other day about the success of Call of Duty‘s newest release, Black Ops. It struck me as strange that the game would use the older Infinity Ward engine, but the more that I thought about it the more that it made sense. Not only for the profitability of the game but also as a testament to the apps ecosystem as a whole. It wasn’t long ago that we’d have to upgrade our computer to run the newest software or games. When Quake 3 came out, I expressly remember setting aside not only the $65 for the game but extra money for the inevitable hardware upgrade that it would require. That same game, now, can be run in a browser. The market has shifted. It’s not just in a shift, the shift has already happened. We’re in a market now where installations are passe and cloud-based is king. It’s a not-too-distant memory of having to spend the better part of an hour installing and updating a brand new piece of office software, only to have it freeze on me when I actually loaded the thing. No longer, however, do we have to put up with these frustrations. At least for the most part. While cloud-based isn’t perfect, it’s getting a lot closer every day. Only a couple of years ago, we’d have choked at the idea of the newest MacBook Air as an underpowered pig. A netbook would have been seen as a joke. Now, these lower-powered computers are serving their purpose because what we’re doing on them doesn’t tend to require as much horsepower.
The entire system has changed. Now, if you want your application to be successful, it needs to be 3 things, at a minimum: light, fast and cheap. As a case in point, I nearly choked the other day when I reviewed an HTML5 typing tutor. While it was very well done and packed full of features, the fact that the developer wanted to charge $30 seemed outlandish to me. But thinking back, the price is right in line with what I’d have paid for Mavis Beacon not so very long ago. The fact of the matter is, the paradigm has already shifted, and those applications which require heavy installs, run like a decrepit pig or cost a small fortune are going to be left in the cold. Need more proof? When was the last time that you first considered Microsoft Office for productivity instead of Google Docs? There’s another point here that, while I’ve mentioned it, I haven’t talked about the why factor. That point is the price. $30 for a typing tutor? You’re on crack. Sure, a trial was offered, but I’m sure that I can find something cheaper. We’re in the world of one, two, five and ten-dollar applications. Those that go above and beyond that mark had best offer something that’s akin to bedroom eyes.
To those of you who understand the new climate of applications, kudos. Do us all a favor and clue in those who don’t. While this isn’t some sort of application-user manifesto, the message has been clearly sent. We love apps, but we as users want them on our terms. Seeing an app that does that, and manages to pay the bills of the developer as well? That’s exciting. Show us more. Post-script: My thanks to Josué from the comments for correcting me on what engine was used. I could have sworn that it was the Unreal engine, but the point remains the same. Even though it’s an updated version of an engine that built Call of Duty, it’s still an older engine, using older technologies. It’s in the creative use of these technologies that the game has proven to look amazing. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This is the best Justin Bieber parody every recorded – well, if you like Starcraft [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 04:33 PM PST
Well, we say best with some trepidation as the video contains a strong flavor of Starcarft 2. If that is something that you find odious, you will probably not enjoy the following video, but if you like the game, the video is gold. We have actually covered Starcraft 2 a shocking 4 times here on TNW (and I didn’t even get fired!), including one rather serious piece on the why Starcraft 2 is so popular in the startup community. Whatever the case, it’s the weekend yet, so watch the following video and have a laugh. Oh, check out or previous coverage of Starcraft 2 for even more fun.Top Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How low can your Logo? [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 04:25 PM PST
You can see all of the submitted works over here. Be sure to read the Brief though, it might remind you of some, if not most, other Briefs. What can you expect? Here are some cool but hidious concepts:
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The clever new Facebook app that is the only way to import your Google contacts [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 03:59 PM PST
Enter Eduardo Fernández, a 26-year-old (the same age as Zuck) coder from Chicago (originally from Madrid) and the founder of Improffice Inc., a suite of Google Apps migration tools. When the media started buzzing about the Facebook-Google conflict, the Google apps hacker said to himself, “Hm, it shouldn’t be hard to use your Gmail contacts on Facebook to check for new friends…” So he and his team spent just 48 hours creating "Gmail Contacts," a Facebook app that navigates around Google’s attempts to put an informationsharing dunce cap on Facebook. The app finds which of your Gmail contacts are on Facebook and then gives you the option to friend them. At first, the app only returned two contacts, with a message that says, “Due to the large number of people using this application, we can only check 50 contacts at a time.” It does give you an easy option to check 50 more contacts, at 10 second intervals. The second time it brought up four more contacts that I was not yet Facebook friends with. If the application becomes more popular, Fernández told Wired that he'll increase his server capacity to remove the 50 name limitation. Also, according to Wired, the app doesn't use Google's API, “so you have to take Fernández at his word that the app doesn't remember your password.” But Fernández says he may integrate the app with Google’s API in the future. “We had already developed a similar technology,” he explains. “We already had part of the code for retrieving your Gmail contacts.” For Fernández, the Facebook app is just a fun, side project that he doesn’t intend to make any money on. His company, Improffice, a 6-month old start-up, offers a suite of products to transfer data between Google Apps accounts like email, contacts, calendars and Google docs. The app, which launched last Friday, November 12th has received only a couple hundred users. Interested? Access the app here.Wired [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Celebrates Lebananese Independance Day [TNW Middle East] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 03:07 PM PST
The doodle speaks for itself, where the team from Google Arabia have put together a doodle that almost identically mirrors the Lebanese flag with the cedar tree, red, white, and green. Google’s letters are displayed in a delicious golden shade that probably represents the many ancient ruins the country bares to its visitors in a display of civilizations that goes back thousands of years. That or they had something even deeper in mind. No seriously, I’m sorry if I messed it up Doodle team. Either way, we at The Next Web would like to send out a big celebration hug to our readers from Lebanon. The country that we at TNW ME owe our existence to it being where our own Fawzi Rahal -the founder of The Next Web Middle East- is originally from.Image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 21 Nov 2010 02:42 PM PST Do you have a lot of Twitter followers? Do you receive a ton of messages? Are you a blogger? If you answered yes to any of those questions then probably use Twitter Search on occasion to look up replies, messages or mentions. However, the problem with Twitter Search is that it only allows you to go back 10 days. But what if you want to see what someone wrote to your 3 weeks ago? Or how about 3 months ago? Until now, you probably just searched page after page to find what you were looking for. Well, this is where a little site called Snap Bird comes in to play. Snap Bird is an easy as pie way to search your Twitter history beyond the 10 days that Twitter Search allots you. It also allows you to search only within your friends tweets, within your DM’s and within any user’s favorites. All you have to do is head to Snap Bird’s website, authenticate your Twitter account (it doesn’t do anything but ‘read it’) and bam, you have a multitude of search options at your disposal through that little search tool you see up there in the top left corner. If all you want to do is search a time line or favorites, you don’t even need to authenticate, just go ahead and search as soon as you reach the page. Yes, it sounds too good to be true so skeptics out there are probably wondering if it works as advertised? In a word: yes. In fact, it goes beyond just working properly. It also put everything in chronological order, shows you how many tweets your query matched, how far the search went back, and it also gives you an option to permalink just in case you want to access the info at a later date. It also has no limit to how far it can search back so you can search as far back as you want. Again, not possible with Twitter Search. So if you’re constantly trying to find old messages or you just want to relive something funny that took place on Twitter a few months back, Snap Bird is an efficient and very simple way to satisfy your needs.Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weekend Rewind: Watch Steve Ballmer Pitch Windows 1.0 At 135 Decibels [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 02:11 PM PST
Yes, Ballmer is a living legend when it comes to saying things at top speed and high volume. This is not new. We pulled from the deep archives of YouTube one of our favorite clips of all time: Ballmer pitching Windows 1.0. It’s all Ballmer, despite being so old. In an almost comical infomercial style Steve runs through the amazing powers of Windows 1.0 and asks what you the viewer think that it should cost. After tossing cash into the air, Ballmer drops the real price: $99. If only Microsoft software still retailed for such a lovely low price. Enjoy! [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How to: Build a social media dashboard [TNW Lifehacks] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 12:44 PM PST
Okay I need to stop, just thinking about all the sources I have to keep straight gives me a headache. So before I have to lie down in a dark room, I want to let you in on a little secret. I don’t track everything. Nope. I only track the stuff that’s important to me, but the best part is that the rest of it is never far off. How do I do it? Simple, I build Social Media Dashboards. I’m going to show you four different ways to make a dashboard for yourself (and all are free), but before I do, let me give you the real secret to how all these tools work: Segment your information That’s what all these tools do, they let you put information into easily skimmable groups so you can glance and see if anything is new. First thing is that you should know is that I follow over 6000 accounts on Twitter. Yeah, 6000. Crazy I know. I figured out that I was missing stuff when I was following even just a few hundred folks. I didn’t see important news updates or tweets from friends. That all changed when TweetDeck introduced “Groups” which Twitter later copied and made into “Lists”. So this is the first step: 1. Make Twitter Lists Even if you only want to follow a few people that’s cool because you don’t have to follow a person to add them to a List. Not only that you can follow other people’s public lists (like my News list) and use other people’s work to help you! Twitter lists can be public or private. Public lists are great, but private lists are even cooler. Remember, you don’t have to follow someone to add them to a list! Want to spy on what your competitors are doing? No problem create a private Twitter list for them! The process for creating a Twitter list is simple (and is the same regardless of whether it’s public or private):
2. Select “Create a list” 3. Give your list a name, description (that’s optional), choose public or private, and click create To add people to your list, visit a person’s profile and click the little bulleted list icon and check the list you want to add the person to. Yep it’s that simple. Couple of notes on lists. You can only have 500 Twitter IDs per list and 20 lists per account. Sure that’s a lot of people, but it would be nice to have more that 500 people in a list. If you max out the 500 per list, like I have, make another list. I have “Colleagues” and Colleagues 2″ to help with this. If you max out your 20 lists, just start another Twitter account, don’t worry if the list is public you can still get access to it. If it’s private, then you just need to add that account to HootSuite or TweetDeck (just a moment, I’m getting there). Now that you have lists, let’s use them. Now let’s build your first dashboard. 2. TweetDeck & HootSuite as Social Media Dashboards My two favorite tools for building Twitter-centric dashboards are TweetDeck and HootSuite. Both tools let you display Twitter and other information in columns so you can have a column of just news, one just for friends, one just for competitors. Both HootSuite and TweetDeck also let you add Foursquare and Facebook to your screens as well. TweetDeck wins in the battle of getting notifications in front of you, but HootSuite wins in the info-glutton war because you can tabs each with different columns. One tab that you look at for all your Twitter stuff, another for just Facebook, another just LinkedIn. Everything updates in the background so if you just want to catch up on Facebook, click to that column or tab and done. This is just scratching the surface with the power of a multi-column Twitter/Social Network client, believe me there is more to see and do as you play with it. But just having four of my critical lists in sight all the time is huge. Both tools let you add multiple Twitter accounts, so remember the “just create another Twitter account” trick to get more than 20 lists…yeah this is where at can come in handy. If you want to get more out of HootSuite, you might like to read our How To: 6 Easy Tips to Become a HootSuite Ninja post. 3. Netvibes & iGoogle HootSuite and TweetDeck are both great and work for a lot of people, but what about something more like a start page? Something that lets you have more than just social network information in front of you. I’m thinking RSS feeds from sites, news, weather, sports (I hear people like sports), and any other info you need to power your day. If this is you, then Netvibes and iGoogle are your new best friends. I’m going to show Netvibes as an example, but the same ideas apply to Google’s iGoogle homepage too. These start pages work on the idea of embedding information widgets that have the stuff you want to see. Here with this Netvibes example (below) I have Reddit, Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, The Next Web, and Twitter all at an easy glance. Netvibes is a simple service, start by creating an account and you’ll get a default set of widgets. You can create a new tab (which is what I suggest) and click the “Add Content” button to start adding widgets to your page. The default layout is a nice three-column job that let’s you get more than enough on a screen for you to see. You can see I focused on tech information but my iGoogle page looks rather different: Besides Iron Man, I have information that is good to just start my day. Weather, CBC news, that sort of thing. Different take, but same idea: a dashboard that let’s me scan in a moment what is important to me. Building your own dashboard takes only a few minutes and whether it’s more Twitter-Facebook-Foursquare focused (HootSuite & TweetDeck) or news and information focused (Netvibes and iGoogle) the solutions are all free and can save you time and maybe your sanity.Photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Personal Appeal From Steve Jobs [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Nov 2010 11:57 AM PST No idea what this is about? Visit Wikipedia. Unfortunately Jimmy Wales’ appeals are turning into an Internet meme. Created by Steve Streza. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
TNW Quick Hit
Think that there’s no truth in this? Just look at the 
This brings us back to why it makes sense for Call of Duty to use the IW engine. We’re all trying to squeak just a few more months out of aging computers. We’re using things longer, taking better care of them and we’re more conscious of frivolous dollars spent. So if I can run this brand new game on my 3 year old laptop because of how it was built, then that’s $65 that I’ll gladly fork over for entertainment.
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Next Web To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment