Your Daily IT News |
- Facebook Says No To Google – No Friends Import!
- Faster WordPress 3.2 Looks Set To Shatter All Records
- Amazon Offers 4th of July Sale
- Google Will Not Provide English Language Search in China
- Koprol introduces revamped sites, plans to monetize further through stamps
- [Guest Post] UX: Introduction
- (Updated) Bouncity reaches 16 thousand users, 325 thousand activities completed
- Google Is Leading the Way to a Voice Activated Future
- Facebook Videocalling – Call your Friends for Conversations
- Steve Ballmer: Windows 8 Will be The Real Star
| Facebook Says No To Google – No Friends Import! Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:47 AM PDT This was bound to happen sooner or later; Facebook it seems doesn't like the advance of Google's new social network, Google+. According to some users, Facebook has disabled the capability that lets them import their friends into Google+. Many are speculating that Facebook doesn't want to encourage it's users to take up the new service by Google, but such an explicit effort to It would help Facebook to remember too, that when it comes to social networking and web-interaction in general, people's loyalties are spread. Most people for example have an email address with both Yahoo and Gmail. But this move by Facebook raises a much larger concern: "Are my friends on Facebook, mine or are they Facebook's?" I would have thought what I do with my friends is completely up to me. If Facebook, or any other social network for that matter is going to unilaterally decide what I can do with my contacts, I am not having it. This tug of war between these two giants will continue for sure; one just hopes we don't all become casualties of the war. Watch the video below for quick look inside Google’s new weapon against Facebook.
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| Faster WordPress 3.2 Looks Set To Shatter All Records Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT WordPress comes out with updates fairly regularly, but no update has been as anticipated as the latest release. Dubbed "Gershwin", in honor of the legendary American composer, George Gershwin, WordPress 3.2 boasts both design and speed improvements. In the first 24 hours of it's release, it's been downloaded over 330,000 times, and at that pace, it is sure to surpass the 15 million downloads record held by it's predecessor, WordPress 3.1. According to developers, the aim of version 3.2 was always a faster, more elegant user experience, and judging from the reception, it has hit the mark on all counts. But the biggest addition to the latest release is what's dubbed, "Distraction Free Writing" or DFW. This new feature replaces the full screen mode from the previous version and allows for writing without the distraction or clutter usually found on the screen. With just one click of the mouse, DFW can be initiated, causing the dashboard to melt gracefully into the background. One user cited that this "zen mode" actually brought tears to her eyes. Tears of joy I must add. Other improvements include the revamped default theme, now called "Twenty Eleven". The new theme is fully HTML5 compatible and should give developers the confidence to invest in a WordPress installation, knowing their site will be keeping pace with the latest web technologies. I expect more and more people to join the WordPress bandwagon with this latest release, and it's fair to say to the future of web development looks bright. Watch the video below to see the great features of WordPress 3.2.
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| Amazon Offers 4th of July Sale Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT Amazon celebrates the 4th of July holiday by offering a Buy One, Get One Free on video games and several accessories. The sale will be from July 4 to July 9. There are hundreds of games and accessories to choose from. The buyer simply adds both items to the cart and proceeds to checkout. That means consumers can get two game titles for the price of one. But be sure to check the titles as soon as you can. The good ones are already sold out and there are not a lot of them in the list. Most of the games are crappy. So be sure to pick a good one. There are around 300 titles from various platforms such as PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. Amazon lists a maximum of 28 items a page and the company notes that you have to place items on the cart separately if they're not on the same page. In case the game you're looking for is not on sale from Amazon, you might want to check out Steam's summer sale as well. These are just some of the offers to celebrate America's independence. |
| Google Will Not Provide English Language Search in China Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT Google will be facing a big challenge in China when two of its rivals join forces to provide English-language search service in the country. Baidu is China's largest search engine while Microsoft is Google's main rival stateside. It is announced that Microsoft will start providing English language results from its own Bing search engine on Baidu. This news comes in a time when Google's market share in China is declining and Baidu is using it to its advantage to control the market. Baidu said that around 10 million English language searches are made on Baidu daily. These come from university students and professionals in China. Through its partnership deal with Microsoft, Baidu can provide the best search experience for its users. Baidu leads in online searches in China but it is behind Google when it comes to English language searches. This will be solved with its deal with Microsoft. Analysts in China say that this will also mean trouble for Google. The cooperation deal with Microsoft will strengthen Baidu's position in the Chinese search market. Microsoft will benefit from the incoming traffic from Baidu to promote itself in the region. At present, Chinese users account for 8.6 percent of Bing users. |
| Koprol introduces revamped sites, plans to monetize further through stamps Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT Koprol's belated anniversary press conference today hashed out several announcements regarding new features and enhancements to both the mobile site and the desktop site. While not as dramatic as Facebook's event held last night in Palo Alto, Koprol's event emphasizes the direction it's taking in terms of growth and user engagement. Yahoo! Indonesia country manager Pontus Sonnerstedt said on a statement, "Koprol… delivers digital experiences that engages people's passions and interests. With the internet being an integral part of our lives, we have made it a priority to enhance the service offerings on Koprol to make it easier for users to socialize on our platform."
Koprol introduced its revamped user interface along with a number of enhanced features including "Onboarding" that makes it easier for new users to check in and understand the site, "People Finder" to connect with people nearby, "Hovercard" to display people's profiles without having to go to their individual pages, "Hot Tags" which are hashtags promoting the most popular topics being discussed on the site, as well as "Koprol Stamp" which rewards users for being social. As we mentioned previously, Koprol's new layout is still not the default interface that people get when they login to Koprol, instead, members have to direct their browsers manually to http://new.koprol.com to experience the latest version. You can see from our earlier post that new site implements a design that would not look out of place on a tablet or other touch oriented device. It has large buttons and controls, adopted a look that is consistent with its Android app as well as having the same feel as Yahoo! Messenger for iOS. Business profiles Koprol co-founder Satya Witoelar showed that since maintaining an account at Koprol, RockTo has experienced a 50% rise in traffic to its website and gained a larger group of more engaged readers. AHA Broadband, Telkomsel, Nexian, and Burger King are among the early companies that adopt Koprol for Business. Stamps Each Koprol member gets a number of points that gets deducted for every time they post or perform activities on the site. According to SiKodok, a site dedicated to covering all things Koprol, posting an image, posting a new post, and reviewing a place deduct the most points and therefore the most encouraged activities to perform if one were inclined to unlock stamps. The entire idea may sound trivial but in the two days that it's been implemented, Witoelar revealed to DailySocial that there had been 5,000 stamps generated by the system and 3,500 awarded to members. It also opens a possibility for Koprol to monetize the site by working out deals with brands to generate their own stamps for those who, for example, frequent their establishments or mention specific keywords which could tie in nicely with a new feature that was also recently added, and that is hashtags. How hashtags work in Koprol is the same as it does on Twitter, so those who use both sites would not need to learn anything new. Transition period When clicking on a location link for example, it still takes you to the old site rather than keeping you inside the new environment. Additionally, if you're accessing it from a low speed connection (around 100Kbps or less), the site simply won't load, whereas the older site does open, albeit slowly, as you would expect. While Koprol maintains two versions of the site, insiders are calling this the transition period as they are working to stamp out issues in the new version before it phases out the old version. The mobile site on the other hand has fully switched to the new design although stamps are yet to be introduced on the mobile site. As for Koprol's mobile apps, the Android app has been available directly from Koprol for the past several weeks though it's yet to be published on the Android Market. At the press conference earlier this morning, Witoelar said that Yahoo! is open to publishing Koprol apps on all platforms and is studying each one carefully. The iPhone app is still under development and no time frame was given to its availability. Commenting on the acquisition by Yahoo! in May last year, Witoelar said, "Koprol has greatly benefitted from Yahoo!s proprietary technology and insights to deliver unique content and experiences for both consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. We are focused on delivering both business and consumer success stories to make every Indonesian proud of Koprol." |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT Editor's Note: This is part of series about User Experience (UX) which is essential part of product introduction to its user. Qonita M. Shahab as UX researcher try to explain what is UX all about and the importance of UX for a prototype, product or application. UX (User Experience) is a new field that emerged from the relationship between human and technology. In the beginning, this relationship was studied under the name HCI (Human Computer Interaction). HCI experts study the ability of computers (general: technology products) in interacting with human, while the human ability is studied by Cognitive Psychology experts, also Human Factors experts coming from Industrial Engineering field. These fields of knowledge combine into a new field called Interaction Design (IxD), where interaction between human and technology is defined in a design before the product is implemented. The Design knowledge emphasizes the importance of a system to be tested with expected users from its simple form (low fidelity prototype). The result of interaction between test-users and the prototype is taken into account for the purpose of developing the system further up to the final form (working prototype). The evaluation process with expected users can be performed several times (iterative) until an appropriate design is decided. The software engineering field acknowledges a pre-release version called beta version, which can be considered the working prototype. If a prototype can be developed quickly, easily, and with low cost, then directly testing a working prototype with users can also be pursued. The advantage of internet-based application is the quick and easy deployment of testing an application with many people. The example of using a working prototype is the method used by Facebook, where the interaction between users and the system is used as an input to continually developing the system. While users complain about the changes that happen once in a while, an IxD expert sees this as an attempt to develop the system until it appropriately meets the needs and comfort of users. IxD is closely related to Usability field, which studies the usability of a technology product in presenting its functions to its users. For example, the game Angry Birds is focused on smartphone applications, because the "throwing birds" function is easy to be performed using finger slides on the screen (imagine using a mouse in the desktop version?). Usability completes IxD by analyzing ease of use and possibility of each interaction. The combination of IxD and Marketing and Communication field results in the UX field. Before a technology is launched, expected users need to be appropriately informed so that they are motivated to use the system. And when a technology is final and ready to be launched, it doesn't mean users would only utilize the functions according to the pre-defined design that is believed to be appropriately meeting the needs and comfort in general. Every user or group of users can evolve with their own interaction means as the time goes. UX studies motivation, meaning, fun, also trusts from users on a technology product. It starts from users being attracted to use, trying to use, invests some money to have the product, continues to use the product, and even expecting to get a future version (loyalty). Therefore, the context of use needs to be understood before starting to develop a product prototype. For example, the users are smartphone users; or the users dislike emails; or the users are prioritizing their existing contacts in a certain social media; etc. Planning a technology product from the UX aspect means we avoid the assumptions on users, e.g. "it's easy, they would understand this"; or "this is similar to Facebook, they would get it"; or "this is a new technology, so it's better"; or "don't bother about other systems that are similar to this"; or "this product would be liked by everyone." Know your users, start from the simplest prototype, launch and observe the evolution of users in interacting with the system, and develop the product until you can refine the functions that would create possibility of specific meaning for each user. Qonita Shahab, a researcher in UX who used to work in IT. Her interest in music and photography helps her in designing interactive system prototypes. Since she started research in the field of persuasive technology, Qonita studied more about social psychology and the communal use of technology. Follow her on Twitter @uxqonita. |
| (Updated) Bouncity reaches 16 thousand users, 325 thousand activities completed Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:46 AM PDT Brand new location-based social game Bouncity is about to enter its first month of operation following its limited launch on June 8 with a BlackBerry application. Why BlackBerry? It's the most prominent smartphone in Indonesia and its owners are among the most active users of social media. In less than 30 days, Bouncity has apparently gained 16 thousand users with more than If projected, that growth would put Bouncity at 96 thousand users by the end of the year. However, the company is working on making Bouncity available on iPhone and Android by the end of July, though word has it that the iPhone app will be released sooner. With availability in additional platforms, it's reasonable to expect bigger growth compared to the current adoption rate. Agusetiawan also notes that they are tracking roughly 20% of users from outside of Indonesia including Singapore and the Netherlands. While the app is usable internationally, the company is planning to properly expand Bouncity to the rest of Southeast Asia shortly. The other new local player in this space is Yotomo which is still in limited beta and has yet to reveal much about its development. Koprol, the country's earliest location-based service had just beta'd its new interface for mobile and desktop and will have a press conference tomorrow morning. DailySocial will be there to ask uncomfortable questions to the team at Yahoo! Indonesia. Updated: The number of activities given to us by Wenas Agusetiawan was in error, the actual number prior to the publication was around 325,000, not 500,000. We have made the correction and adjusted the article accordingly. |
| Google Is Leading the Way to a Voice Activated Future Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:37 AM PDT
The answer is that speech technology is a tough business. Not only does a machine have to recognize words, but it has to process accents, sentence structure, grammar, language, noise and other factors that help a machine distinguish "pain" from "pane" and a television from a human being. That's changing, though, thanks in no small part to Google's efforts in developing voice recognition tech. Since 2008, Google has been steadily releasing products that turn voice into text and voice into action. It started with Google Search by Voice for Android, but most recently debuted as an alternative way to search for content on the desktop. Mashable spoke with Google Research Scientist Vincent Vanhoucke about the challenges of voice recognition, the impact of voice technology on mobile and what's next for speech recognition technology. Starting with Mobile
In February 2009, Google introduced Google Search by Voice for Android. This was back when Android ran on the T-Mobile G1, a device with only 192 MB of RAM and Android 1.6. And while Google Search by Voice was far from perfect in those early days, it was still a technological leap for voice recognition. Here was a handheld that could dial and search by voice, something never successfully done at scale before. Google's speech recognition technology really took off though with the introduction of Google Voice Actions. "It was a transformative moment for us," Vanhoucke says. Voice Actions gave users the ability to send texts, make calls, send emails, get directions and play songs without ever having to type. While it took years for Google to get voice recognition good enough for voice-activated commands, it's paying off. Vanhoucke says that there has been a sixfold increase in voice traffic as the microphone button has gained more ubiquity across Google's Android devices. The challenge of perfecting voice search on mobile wouldn't even compare to the difficulties Vanhoucke and the speech recognition team faced with desktop voice search, though. The Difficulties of Voice Recognition on Desktops
Google has received a lot of press recently for Google Voice Search to the desktop. Like Google Search by Voice for Android, Google picks up what the user says through the microphone, quickly calculates what the user said and feeds it back to the user in a matter of seconds. And this technology was not easy to develop. "In fact, doing voice search on the desktop is a lot more difficult than doing it on mobile. No user would expect that," says Vanhoucke, who leads Google's acoustic modeling effort. He outlines two key differences between mobile and desktop search:
The result is that new algorithms had to be written that accounted for increased ambient noises and decreased voice clarity. It's only compounded by the thousands of languages and approximately 230 billion words Google Search by Voice will eventually have to deal with. Given all of those challenges, it's astounding that voice search works at all. The Broader ImplicationsVoice recognition technology has made some major advances, thanks to Google, but what will that mean for society? For Google, it means the ubiquity of data. "Speech is another part of the accessibility and ubiquity story of being able to input information on any device," Vanhouke argues. He doesn't believe speech will ever replace touchscreens or keyboards, but that it makes it possible to access and input data while on the go (e.g., while driving). Now that voice recognition is available in our pockets, Google's vision of opening up new ways of inputting information and communicating is coming true. Much of what has to be done now, Vanhouke argues, is perfecting the system's accuracy and speed so that it can "deliver on the Star Trek promise of being able to just talk everywhere and anywhere, and we still have a lot of work to do there." As voice recognition gets more accurate, it becomes more useful. One thing to watch out for is Android@Home, the search giant's framework for controlling light switches, alarm clocks and other home appliances through Android devices. The goal is to make the home a smart and connected device. As Google Android already has voice command technology built-in, it's not inconceivable that Google or a third party could add voice commands for home appliances. It may not be long until we say "lights on" and "oven heat up 400 degrees" into our Android devices and assume vocal control over everyday household objects. It might be some time until we're giving voice commands to robot butlers and having philosophical conversations with our computers, but thanks to Google and other technology companies, the voice barrier to a smarter future is being torn down. In its place is a system for voice search and voice commands that, while still far from perfect, is improving faster than ever. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Facebook Videocalling – Call your Friends for Conversations Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:29 AM PDT Video calling is now also become possible with facebook.com/videocalling. Users of Facebook can get free video calling facility, together with Group Chat and a new chat interface design. Now you can see each other's faces while calling after joining with Facebook new feature. Facebook has introduced new video chat features through integration with Skype on 6th July, 2011. Facebook.com/videocalling permits users to start a video chat session with other person by just two clicks. Video calling is built into the company's chat platform. It is one of the easiest ways to get attached with video. During the video calling you can also converse with multiple people. Currently, people think that they should have a Skype application to start video chat on Facebook. But reality is different; they can use video calling service without downloading and installing the Skype application on their computer or laptop. They just need a Skype plug-in that works on Facebook. Facebook video calling service is only working on Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. It is not capable to support on Linux platforms. How to start video calling on Facebook? To start video calling on Facebook, first login in to your Facebook account and visit 'www.facebook.com/videocalling'. Once you open it, click video chat option in client chat icon. You can use video calling service when your friends are online. After that set up video calling to talk with your friend face to face, for this you just need to complete one time set-up. To set up video calling service on your facebook, save Facebook video call set up file and run it on your computer. Once you complete it, you will be able to enjoy your first call as soon as your friends give an answer. For video calling, user must have a webcam. With your video calling features, site also offers new chat features which allow users to chat with multiple users in one conversation. Pros:
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| Steve Ballmer: Windows 8 Will be The Real Star Posted: 07 Jul 2011 06:11 AM PDT  It’s hard to believe, but with the show still six months away, we’re already getting bombarded with CES-related e-mail. We do have one piece of intriguing news to report at this early stage of the game: Steve Ballmer is set to kick off the festivities with the preshow keynote on January 9th and it’s a safe bet the presentation will be loaded with Windows 8 goodness. Now, what exactly we’ll see when the reliably excitable Microsoft CEO takes the stage is still a mystery, but WinRumors‘ little birdies have been whispering about a public beta of the upcoming OS and demos of both Intel- and ARM-based tablets — predictable, but still exciting prospects. Check out the PR after the break. |
dissuade it's user base is hardly going to be effective. Google has cleverly used the tactic of scarcity to build up anticipation for the new service, so clearly people are going to eagerly flock to it in order to see what the fuss is about. If Facebook is indeed the "better social network" then time and ultimately users will tell. After all, Twitter users didn't suddenly abandon their accounts for Google Buzz. The same I suppose will be the case with Google+.
Speech and voice recognition technology have been around for half a century, but it's still far from mainstream. Where are the machines that write down what we say? Where are the appliances that simply work based on voice commands?
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