usability
Apple Store now selling Nest Learning Thermostat for $249.95
www.theverge.com
It turns out the rumors were true: Apple has begun selling the Nest Learning Thermostat in its online store for $249.95. It's the second large retail expansion for Nest in the past 24 hours, with the company announcing Canadian availability of the next-gen thermostat just yesterday. Apple is offering...
Office for iPad spied in the wild, tipped for App Store submission soon
thenextweb.com
The iPad-customized version of Microsoft’s Office software suite could soon be heading to Apple’s App Store approval team, after The Daily managed to spend some hands-on time with the new application and snap a photo of it running on an Apple device. It was the News Corp. owned publication that...
CoFounder TV: A curated collection of the best entrepreneurial videos the Web has to offer
thenextweb.com
CoFounder TV is a new site bringing together the best that the Web has to offer in entrepreneurial videos. Launched by Dubai-based Rony El-Nashar, who also happens to be the founder of startup incubator SeedStartup, the site is a “handpicked collection of the highest quality, most educational entrepreneurship videos from...
Why Your Next iPhone Should Be Prepaid
www.cultofmac.com
Earlier this week, we did the math and declared prepaid carrier Cricket Mobile to be the best iPhone deal around, but today’s announcement that Sprint’s Virgin Mobile will also be offering the iPhone 4S starting on June 24th changes the math substantially, and Cricket’s no longer looking like such...
Flipboard Planning To Release Android Beta For Everyone Who Doesn’t Have A Galaxy S III
techcrunch.com
One of the nice little surprises at Samsung’s Galaxy S III unveiling in London was that the device would be preloaded with the fabled Android version of the Flipboard social magazine app. The news came from out of the blue — while the iOS version has garned plenty of acclaim...
Toshiba Intros World’s Thinnest And Lightest 10″ Tablet: The Excite X10 LE
techcrunch.com
When Toshiba first entered the tablet space, they specifically told us “we’re not focusing on thin and light, we’re focusing on usability.” This was true — both the Thrive and Thrive 7″ have a host of ports and the big guy even has a removable battery. But it would seem...
How Microsoft plans to teach the world to use Windows 8
www.theverge.com
Microsoft announced the RTM milestone of its Windows 8 development earlier this week, but as users await the final bits on August 15th, one blogger has managed to install and document a tutorial process for the new Metro Start Screen. In the final version shipping to PC makers, Microsoft...
★ Let's Try to Think This iPad Mini Thing All the Way Through
daringfireball.net
We’re Talking About a Smaller iPad, Not a Bigger iPod Touch I’ve seen a fair bit of speculation that, if Apple produces a 7-inch iOS device, then maybe it would be a bigger iPod Touch, not a smaller iPad. One aspect of this line of thinking is that rather than...
Inside the Open Data white paper: what does it all mean?
www.guardian.co.uk
The government's open data white paper is published today. But what does it actually include? Get the verdict• Get the data• Data journalism and data visualisations from the GuardianDoes anyone disagree with more open data? It's a huge part of the coalition government's transparency strategy, championed by Francis Maude in...
Microsoft PM “Resigns” Via Video, Joins Justin Kan’s New Startup Exec
techcrunch.com
Exec, the new TaskRabbit competitor from Justin.tv’s co-founder, Justin Kan, has just hired a new designer it seems. Or so she sings. In a video posted to YouTube by one Karen X. Cheng, she sings and strums – rather nicely, in fact – to the tune of “Bye, Bye Miss American...
From Nuance, Siri in your next car
reviews.cnet.com
Nuance's Dragon Drive enables automotive manufacturers to offer natural language voice commands for vehicle telematics, which will enhance usability and could reduce distracted driving. [Read more]...
Microsoft rebrands Hotmail as Outlook, adds fresh Metro design & Skype calling
venturebeat.com
Microsoft’s Hotmail service is still popular with more than 325 million monthly active users, but the company has decided the Hotmail brand must die in favor of something without as many negative connotations. Here comes Outlook. First up, you’re probably wondering, “Outlook, like the e-mail client I’ve used at...
Unofficial Google concept video teases new features for Calendar, Contacts, and Maps
www.theverge.com
Last year's rollout of a refreshed UI across Google's essential suite of web apps proved that the company isn't afraid to experiment with design. Now, a group of Russian designers have offered up a video containing some additional changes they'd like to see at some point in the future....
Telenav unveils ‘Scout for Apps’ voice-guided navigation service for developers
www.bgr.com
Telenav on Tuesday announced the company’s “Scout for Apps” HTML5 voice-guided GPS navigation service. The service is being offered to developers who are looking for a free, turn-by-turn, voice-guided GPS navigation solution that can be built directly into their apps or websites, and the first mobile apps to incorporate...
Why the U.S. State Department is paying Amazon $16.5 million for 2,500 Kindles
paidcontent.org
The U.S. State Department has signed a no-bid, $16.5 million one-year contract with Amazon to provide Kindle Touches– 2,500 of them to start, preloaded with 50 titles each — for its overseas language-education programs. So why has the government decided the Kindle is the best e-reader? In a document justifying...
Motorola Handset With 4.8-Inch 720p Display Leaks, Possibly Droid Fighter?
techcrunch.com
Motorola has really been stepping up lately. If you would have asked me six months ago to choose between a Samsung handset and a Motorola phone, I probably would have chosen Samsung hands-down. But as Motorola evolves its design language and nails down some of our most necessary features —...
Is Surface Microsoft's confession that Windows 8 isn't really cut out for tablets?
arstechnica.com
If any device were built for Windows 8, it's Surface. Surface is the standard bearer for Windows 8. It's the benchmark that Microsoft hopes will inspire the OEMs to produce a range of highly desirable Windows devices. It's the machine against which all other Windows 8 machines will be compared....
Windows 8 Release Preview is here a day early
arstechnica.com
Windows 8 "Release Preview" is out now. Originally planned for the first week of June, it looks like Microsoft couldn't wait that long, and so has shipped the software a day early. The Release Preview is the third in Microsoft's trio of Windows 8 pre-releases. The first was the Developer...
WordPress completely dominates top 100 blogs with 49% majority
thenextweb.com
While for a moment Tumblr gave WordPress a run for its money, WordPress now powers nearly 73 million blogs (Tumblr has 51 million), and continues to expand its massive reach. But aside from new blogs popping up all over the place, a closer look at Technorati’s top 100 list reveals how...
Awesome Inventory Management Startup Stitch Labs Nabs $1M From True Ventures
techcrunch.com
Small business inventory management startup Stitch Labs is announcing a $1 million seed investment this morning led by True Ventures. In the same space as Bizelo and Ordoro, Stitch Labs allows design-focused small businesses to organize their CRM, product orders and inventory with custom tailored features like Etsy and Shopify integration....
Why is Diablo III still a work in progress?
arstechnica.com
If only all of Diablo III's game-breaking issues were this easy to spot. If you were one of the 6.5 million purchasers that made Diablo III the fastest-selling PC game of all time last week, you should know that Blizzard now admits the game you were playing was broken...
ClickTale Brings Its Visitor Tracking Tools To The Mobile Web
techcrunch.com
Israeli company ClickTale promises customers a better understanding of what visitors are actually doing on their websites, through tools like visitor recordings and heatmaps showing mouse movements and clicks. Today, it’s launching a mobile product in private beta. ClickTale’s senior technology evangelist Shmuli Goldberg says that on a conceptual level,...
New Design & Features Come To iPhone Google Search: Version 2.0
searchengineland.com
Google has announced a new version of the Google Search iPhone app. The new version is version 2.0 and was completely redesigned focusing on speed, usability, new features and making it beautiful. Here are the main new changes you will find in version 2.0: Complete App Redesign Full Screen Mode......
How to reclaim your Android UI from OEM skins like TouchWiz, Sense, and Blur
www.extremetech.com
There are a scant few Android devices on the market that ship with the stock user interface Google designed. In the distant past, that was a good thing. Android really needed that help back in 2009, and even into the early part of 2010. However, OEMs have continued to skin...
SkyDrive updated to include 300MB browser uploads, short URLs for Windows Phone images, and ODF support
www.theverge.com
Microsoft announced several changes to its SkyDrive cloud storage service today, introducing features that improve the usability for its web and Windows Phone-based users. SkyDrive now supports the Open Document Format (ODF), an XML-based file format supported in a number of word processing apps including Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and...
SkyDrive updated to include 300MB browser uploads, short URLs for Windows Phone images, and ODF support
Adobe Connect Adds SiteCatalyst Integration, Collaboration Features For Tablets And Smartphones
techcrunch.com
Adobe has announced that it is improving its cloud collaboration and web conferencing software, with the launch of Adobe Connect 9. The new version of the software, which is expected to be available in the third quarter, will include integration with Adobe CQ and SiteCatalyst, and also adds more robust...
Does it matter that Windows Phone has 100k apps now?
gigaom.com
Microsoft unlocked a new achievement this month, surpassing 100,000 apps for its Windows Phone mobile platform. The data comes from All About Windows Phone, which tracks the app data and has a treasure trove of detailed information about the software ranging from price points to countries with the most apps...
Hands-on with the brand new Samsung Galaxy S III [pics]
thenextweb.com
Our very own Matt Brian was on the ground in London as Samsung unveiled its brand new Galaxy S III, and I have to say that it’s quite beautiful. The phone sounds like a powerhouse, as expected, with some impressive specs: The phone features a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen, measures...
Google's new search algorithm to crack down on "black hat webspam"
arstechnica.com
Nefarious search engine optimizers be warned. Google is coming for you-again. Following previous changes to Google's ranking and page layout algorithms, the search giant is pushing yet another update to its algorithm this week with the hopes of curbing "black hat webspam" from creeping into search results. The change...
The one question Apple needs an answer to before it will release a smaller iPad
thenextweb.com
Recent rumors of Apple releasing a 7.85″ iPad have been compounded by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, stating yesterday that he knew Apple had a working prototype of such a device in its labs. We found this to be relatively unsurprising, but it does raise some interesting questions about when we...
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