Tag: Tech Updates

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News

Adobe Acquires Typekit

Adode has recently acquired Typekit, the company that has innovated a great deal when it came to web typography. They have done a lot of new and creative things when it has come to web fonts removing the need to embed customized text in the form of images or even flash.

Typekit has some very prestigious clients like New York Times, New Yorker, The Gawker network, Zynga and Twitter.

When Typekit started, using web fonts was a new concept. Today Typekit serves up over 3 billion fonts per month across over a million websites.

Having Typekit in its kitty will be a big deal for Adobe.

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What will Typekit gain?

Typekit does mention that they will be able to serve up fonts faster via cloud storage thanks to Adobe. We might see integration with Photoshop which would be hugely useful for web designers.

Other new improvements that could be beneficial for Adobe is that Typekit already has a big presence in serving up fonts on browsers and mobile gadgets. The future of web browsing might be with mobile or tablet browser and I guess Typekit acquisition makes Adobe well positioned to serve in that expanding niche.

Some concerns on the acquisition

There are a few concerns about Adobe buying a company like Typekit. Mainly Typekit users are worried about pricing issues now that Typekit is an Adobe product.

Adobe is known to have notoriously high pricing for any licences they sell.  It would be interesting to see developments and how exactly Adobe handles Typekit.

What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

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News

Microsoft Tags Chrome as ‘Malware’: Honest Mistake or Playing Dirty?

I like using Microsoft Security Essentials – mainly because it is a good enough anti-virus and added incentive is that it is free.

Recently, Microsoft Security Essentials had started ‘mistakenly’ identifying Google Chrome as ‘Malware’.

This meant some users with Microsoft Security Essentials, got a rude shock with their Chrome browser being removed.

Did Microsoft Play Dirty with Chrome?

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A short answer to this question is ‘No’. Apparently Chrome browser was tagged malware after an update from Microsoft Security Essentials. This might have happened because Chrome does download small updates automatically, which might have been picked up by the update as ‘Malware’.

To Microsoft’s credit, they did fix the issue and newer update of Security Essentials should fix the issue.

Unfortunately, people affected with this will have to uninstall and reinstall their Chrome browser.

Microsoft’s second goof up of the year

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Previously Bing was accused of copying search results from Google. This turned out to be true but not as dramatic as it was being made out to be by Google. The search results were picked up from third party add ons which tracked search usage and sent them back. It is something both Bing and Google do, but Bing ended up getting the bad publicity.

Similarly this time a goof up by Microsoft will surely start people suggesting that they did this on purpose to hit Chrome growth story which is coming pretty much at the cost of Internet Explorer.

What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

Source: Chrome Blog

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News

Delicious Makes a Great Comeback!

In December 2010, Yahoo announced it was going to shut down Delicious – the popular bookmarking service. This led to a bit of an outrage from people who used Delicious. Probably to avoid further PR disaster, Yahoo declared it will not shut down Delicous but sell it off. Sure enough, rumours started flying around of Stumble Upon buying Delicious; but they were wrong.

Then Delicious was sold to the guys who founded YouTube and ever since, there have been expectations on a revival.

And Delicious has been revived with some neat new features and design changes.

The New Delicious

  • After Delicious was bought by AVOS, it decided to start afresh. This included doing away with Yahoo accounts and getting people to migrate to new accounts. If you had an old delicious account, chances are it is gone now.
  • A new feature called ‘Stacks’ which allow adding links on similar topics and created a grouping of those links. These links behave like a playlist of links.
  • Also the design and structure of Delicious seems to have changed focus from being a place where only stored links to a place where people shared links.
  • There are still some issues with managing tags, in the sense it would be nice to explore tags by alphabetical order which is not available at the moment.

Here is a video introducing the new Delicious features:

I like the new Delicious and have started using it. I had moved my bookmarks from Delicious to Google Bookmarks thanks to an online tool; but if Delicious stays the course with its improvement I might need to search for a new online tool that does the reverse. 🙂

Do try out the new Delicious and let me know your views through comments.

Link: Delicious

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News

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is Permanently Banned in Germany

Samsung is now banned from selling their Galaxy Tabs 10.1 in Germany. Samsung had initially introduced its new Galaxy Tab 7.7 in Berlin, which they had to remove from an exhibition, following a court order.

Apple has taken Samsung to court suggesting that, Galaxy Tab infringes on their design of iPad 2.

Today courts in Germany, have banned Samsung from selling Galaxy Tabs 10.1 in Germany and Samsung Germany is banned from selling them anywhere in Europe.

Is Apple fighting fair?

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On the face of it, I think the answer to that question is ‘No’. This seems like a loose interpretation of design rights. I mean Apple is not exactly suing Samsung for copying their code or their hardware design but is suggesting Samsung copied their style.

Even Google, whose Android OS might be hit because of these cases, have expressed that these a lot of these patents owned by Apple and Microsoft could be misused to thwart competition.

I am reminded of a quote from the film ‘Social Network’ where the character of Mark Zuckerberg defends himself saying “A guy who makes a nice chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair”

So if Apple gets away with this, will other tablet producers be also sued? What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

Thanks to Nishant Soni for the tip.

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News

[Rumour] Yahoo Up For Sale After Firing Their CEO!

The Yahoo Empire might have crashed or shrunk from $100 Billion to $20 Billion. Somewhere the board of directors for Yahoo, have woken up to this fact and decided to fire their CEO Carol Bartz.

Carol Bartz confirmed being fired via a short message to all Yahoo employees.

To all,

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I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Now, according to Business Insider, Yahoo has decided to take an even bigger radical step. The step involved putting Yahoo up for sale.

In other words, this is the end game for Yahoo and chances are we might see it being bought by some of the larger tech companies.

It also is a terrible time for Yahoo’s new CEO Tim Morse, as I am sure it would be difficult to get things done, knowing that the company is up for sale and seeing employees leave the company in large numbers.

What are your views on Yahoo being up for sale? Which company should bid for it? Do drop in your comments.

Thanks to Himadri for the tip.

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News

[iGone] Amul’s Take on Steve Jobs Leaving Apple as CEO

Amul has built up a interesting advertising campaign over the years by introducing a humorous take on current events. These issues ranged from politics to sports and even the economy.

The latest Advertisement from Amul, comments on Steve Jobs leaving Apple as CEO.

Image Credit

The image shows a half eaten Apple with the word’s “iGone” suggesting Apple has lost its core with Steve Jobs.

Do you agree with Amul that Apple has lost its core. Do drop in your comments.

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Reviews

Gmail in Offline Mode Returns as a Chrome App

My favourite feature with Gmail was its Offline mode. With Google Gears, it allowed people to compose and draft emails from the browser even if the user was offline and not connected to the internet. This was useful to people who connected online for a limited time or if they did not have very good connectivity.

As Google dropped support for Google Gears, Gmail in Offline mode was also not available with Chrome browser. Thankfully Offline Google Mail App for Chrome browser solves the problem.

How to Use Gmail in Offline Mode

  • Install the Offline App on your Chrome browser from here.
  • Start using Gmail in offline mode. It allows searching, editing mails along with composing emails.
  • Once connected to the net, it will download all your email and also send all outgoing emails.

Do try out Gmail Offline App if you are a Chrome user and drop in your comments.

Link: Offline Google Mail Chrome App

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Tips

Enable Gmail’s New Re-Designed Login Page

The Google+ effect is spread across the board with Gmail. The new login page for Gmail will also start complying with new design, Google is introducing across all its products and services.

So do not be surprised if you come across this login screen for Gmail in the near future.

The difference is with the nice bold button asking visitors to create an account. It also shows links to their Blog, Twitter, Facebook and Buzz profiles.

The new design seems to conform with Google new unified design theory and brings in more uniformity across its products.

If you go the current login page for Gmail, you will see a link at the bottom which will load the new design as preview.

Do look it up and let me know your views through your comments.

Link: New Gmail Preview

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News

Get Weather Reports Along with Google Maps

I am sure when you visit a new city or a try to look for directions before visiting an unfamiliar place, you look up Google Maps. Now there is a new added layer on Google Maps which will allow people to see how the weather is in a particular place.

If you are looking at cities on a map, all you have to do is hover the mouse over to the top right hand corner of the map and we see a new ‘weather’ option added.

Clicking on it adds a weather layer on the maps showing users the temperatures and weather conditions.

Another feature is if you zoom into a city, Google Maps also shows a 5 day weather forecast of that city on the left hand panel.

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Here is a video that explains the workings of Google Maps Weather feature.

How Google manages to show ‘weather’ results?

Google is collaborating with weather.com, a website which shows weather forecasts. The new layer on Google Maps takes data from this website for its weather predictions.

I guess this new addition on Google Maps makes sense, considering so many people plan their trips with Google Maps. What are your views? Do drop in your comments.

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News

[Survey] Top 10 Android Apps Hog 43% of Time Spent in Apps

Let me first start by a disclaimer. I do not own an Android phone, and hence have no real experience with Android Apps. But I have friends who swear by their Android phones and the App marketplace for Android. I guess Android being open-sourced, has a big developer community around it. Over 250,000 Android Apps are available for users, but things are not as rosy as they seem.

According to a survey by Nielsen, only a handful of Android Apps are actually used and the rest are just making up the numbers.

There are 250,000 Android Apps, but the top 10 are used 43% of the time. The top 50 Android Apps are used for over 60% of the time by users.

This means an incredible 0.02 % of Android Apps are actually used while the rest just are making up numbers.

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Why is this scary for Android App Developers?

If you are an Android App developer and your app is not ranked in the top 50, it means you are competing with so many apps for such a small part of the user pie for Android.

Figures like these, could actually demoralise the app developer community. I have not come across a similar survey done for iPhone or iPad Apps, so no way to know if these trends are Android specific or generic trends with every platform.

Not sure but with the acquisition of Motorola, Google might be able to push forward better Android features with hardware support and that might have a trickle down effect on the Apps market too.

What are your views on so few Apps, hogging such a large chunk of time spent on Android? Does it show that Android is stagnant? Do drop in your comments.