I have a confession to make: I’m completely and utterly addicted to browser tabs. It’s a sickness. I might have 15 or 20 or more open in each window at any given time. That’s why I love Chrome. The ability to pin tabs is a life-saver by way of being a space-saver. But there’s always been one big downside.
When you pin a tab in Chrome, all you see is the favion. That means you lose the title of the tab itself. Normally, this isn’t a big deal, but for apps like Gmail, Twitter, and Tumblr that show unread counts in this area, it’s actually an annoyance. As a result, I’ve had to install extensions just to be able to see when I have new messages. Not anymore. → Read More
Earlier today, a strange message appeared on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fan page. It read as follows:
Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011
Who wrote such an odd and seemingly drunken message? Well, if you believe the page, Zuckerberg himself did. Shortly after posting, the post had over 1,800 likes and nearly 500 comments.
Obviously, Zuckerberg didn’t actually write it. Or at least, we’re pretty sure he didn’t. Instead, it would appear that his fan page was hacked. Facebook has now taken down the page — but not before we grabbed a screenshot. → Read More
With billions of dollars flowing into today’s social economy, betaworks CEO John Borthwick sees the social economy radically changing not only media, but all 21st century industries. It’s 1998 all over again, he told me when we met last week in New York City – thus arguing that today’s social boom still has at least a couple of years of innovation left in it.
But while Borthwick – whose betaworks portfolio includes bit.ly, TweetDeck, SocialFlow and Chartbeat – is bullish about the future of social media, he isn’t quite as bullish about Google. Suggesting that social isn’t in Google’s DNA, Borthwick, who used to run technology strategy at Time Warner, believes that the web now not only needs social search but that today’s social media companies – Twitter, Facebook et al – are much more strategically positioned to build a social search engine than Google.
Video ahead. → Read More
Very clever, this. It’s a t-shirt that “detects” pollution by way of changing color when it comes into contact with high carbon monoxide levels. It was designed by two NYU graduate students, who are now famous forever. → Read More
Ben Heck, the engineering whiz who makes genuinely useful stuff for the lot of us, has a new device that may interest you Android fans in the crowd. It’s a mobile phone charger that works using the mighty power of kinetic energy, the energy of motion. What a pleasant man this Ben Heck is. → Read More
Today at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco, Inside Network’s Justin Smith sat down for a discussion with Facebook CTO Bret Taylor. The two talked about a wide range of issues including the company’s 2010 (when they cut spam by 95 percent, Taylor said). But there was a particular focus on 2011 and the ecosystem. So what’s next for Facebook’s Platform?
Taylor made it very clear that mobile was the big area of focus for the Platform in 2011. But at a higher level Taylor talked a bit about “streamlining things” with regard to all the different ways Facebook is used. → Read More
Audi was once known as the German car that came with all-wheel-drive. That notoriety is changing and Audi is becoming a huge player in the tech game; their interfaces are fantastic and run with exceptional speed and style. And now, they are bringing the internet to their navigations systems: the Google maps of navs, if you will. → Read More
What’ll it be, then? TouchSlate? TouchCanvas? DuoPad? That’s what HP is thinking about calling its new slate line. They’re probably reserving those names for their best and brightest WebOS and Win7 devices. → Read More
As Yahoo announces its second round of layoffs in two months, Google is announcing that it will be embarking on a hiring spree this year. We first heard this morning from soon to be former CEO Eric Schmidt that the company will be adding 1,000 new employees in Europe. And Google’s SVP Engineering and Research Alan Eustace just published a post on the company’s website announcing that the search giant will ramp up hiring to record levels in 2011.
Eustace writes “I love Google because of our people. It’s inspiring to be part of the team. And that’s why I am excited about 2011—because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history. We’re looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves.” → Read More
Here at Inside Mobile Apps conference, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor talked about how mobile will be Facebook’s primary focus in 2011, mainly because “mobile devices are inherently social,” he said. Currently Facebook has 1/3 of its almost 600M user base (200M) on mobile devices and Taylor says that Facebook mobile users are 2x as active as Facebook web users.
Taylor thinks of Facebook as a horizontal platform (easily accessible) and revealed that a huge goal for Facebook was reducing friction on mobile and extending Facebook engagement to all devices, mentioning the PS3, the iPhone and customized devices as examples. As an example of a frictionless solution, Taylor brought up Facebook Single Sign On and mentioned that social movie site Flixster had a 300% increase in usage after it implemented the feature. → Read More
In honor of the excellent new program, Portlandia, I present to you this special, sustainable, Vegan-grown, humane leather bike-mounted can cage, a mere $45 from Etsy. → Read More
You’re now looking at a pair of Nike Air Force 1 sneakers. But these are special in that they have the classic PlayStation logo on them. You’ll be the coolest kid in Long Island City, the new new Williamsburg. → Read More
Google has just acquired voice messaging startup SayNow, according to a blog post on SayNow’s homepage.
SayNow’s platform allows voice messaging, one-on-one conversations, and group calls to be integrated into Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Android, or iPhone applications. The startup has built a number of applications, which have over 15 million users, with this capabilities, including SayNow Phone, SayNow Broadcast, Big Call and Chit Chat. → Read More
Today at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco, Inside Network’s Justin Smith sat down with Facebook CTO Bret Taylor. The two talked about a bunch of things going on with the company. But to kick things off, Taylor offered up a bit of an overview about how 2010 went with regard to the Platform.
In 2010, Facebook’s focus was on user experience, Taylor said. He noted that while everything we growing “like gangbusters”, they had to do some things that weren’t taken as purely positive from a developer perspective. One big thing there is obviously the removal of what Facebook considers to be spam. “There was a lot of spam,” Taylor noted. But this past year they were able to cut spam by 95 percent. → Read More
Verizon’s still being pretty hush-hush about when they’ll be launching the HTC Thunderbolt, outside of the totally non-specific “sometime in the first half of the year” window they gave us at CES. While it’s by no means concrete, the above listing for some Thunderbolt accessories pulled from Best Buy’s inventory system (as obtained by DroidLife) might narrow that window a bit. According to the inventory, the Thunderbolt accessories should start rolling in around February 19th. Accessories have a tendency of showing up a bit before the actual handsets, but not by too much. The rumor mill’s currently pinning the Thunderbolt launch at the end of February — throw this evidence in, and that’s looking more likely than ever. In the mean time, check out our video demo of the Thunderbolt here. → Read More
Sure, it kind of looks fun, but to quote one commenter, Bullett00th: i’m a fan of MTG and this looks awesome, but i don’t think i’ll be getting it. for me MTG has always been about a round table, a company of friends and a ton of laughs → Read More
3D overkill: If you thought Toshiba’s 20-inch naked-eye 3D TV is cool, think again: Japan’s NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) has developed a projector system [JP] that makes it possible to produce 200-inch 3D pictures that can be viewed without having to wear 3D glasses. → Read More
PeopleBrowsr’s recently launched Twitter analytics and search platform ReSearch.ly is debuting a new feature today: the ability to search from 1,000 days of Twitter data.
ReSearch.ly is essentially a high-powered Twitter search and analytics platform that allows users drill down by keyword, demographic, location, and more. ReSearch.ly also sorts Tweets by sentiment, and by community (i.e. Mommy Bloggers, Reporters). For the past four years, PeopleBrowser has indexed Twitter for social search and as mapped social connections, and today is launching the fruit of these efforts. → Read More
Our Notion Ink Adam pre-order is nowhere to be seen. But that’s okay. I have the Internet and so do you!
Notion Ink’s first tablet started shipping last week and is slowly making its way to anxious owners. Notion Ink curiously curated a crazed following of fans with nothing more than constant blogging from the CEO coupled with swanky user interface screenshots. The company managed to sell out of its first round of pre-orders without even showing a picture of the final product. The first live demo hit days after sales started. Well, those who bought-up the first batch are just getting their tablet now receiving their units and posting their impressions to fan sites and forums. Spoiler: It’s mostly bad news bears. → Read More
Google’s $6 billion bid for Groupon didn’t work out, but it wasting no time preparing its own competing Google Offers local advertising product. The first hints of Google Offers came out last week. Google confirmed it, calling it a “test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program,” but offered no further details.
Well, we have further details, courtesy of Google’s very own search engine. (When PR fails, just Google it). There is a very simple way to get a list of active Google Offers coupons. It is kind of a back door, but if you do a search for “coupons site:maps.google.com intitle:Google Offers,” you can see almost 42,000 results, most of which link to individual active coupons. For example, here is one for a free yoga class in Chicago (Groupon’s home turf) or another one for 50 percent off lunch at a vegetarian restaurant in Watertown, Massachusetts. You can also add an Offers gadget to your iGoogle home page which shows offers near you. → Read More
