Monday, June 27, 2011

Starbucks: Pay for your coffee with Android

Starbucks: Pay for your coffee with Android: "Coffee drinkers can use the app to pay for drinks, find stores and check on rewards."
Posted by at No comments:

Hotmail is on a Roll with Updates

Hotmail is on a Roll with Updates: "

While we gasped at the awesomeness of the relaunched SkyDrive earlier this week, most of us have failed to notice the slew of updates to another product by the same business division at Microsoft. Hotmail has been releasing updates all through the month of June, some of which haven’t been even announced officially.Hotmail

While some of these have been feature additions, others have been nice user interface tweaks. The evident speed improvements are a result of some clever HTML5 programming. The team has clearly been inspired by Outlook and brings many features from Outlook/Outlook Web Access to Hotmail.

Navigation

Since a couple of weeks, the header on the Hotmail has changed to a header similar to SkyDrive. It has a consolidated menu for SkyDrive instead of the Photos and Office links.

Based on the user feedback, the Hotmail team has adjusted the Back button so that it now works more effectively, and attachments now get saved to email drafts. Also, users can recover some lost email through a new link in the Deleted folder.

Kip from liveside.net has also spotted a quick view Calendar in the left navigation pane. I haven’t had this update on my account as yet, and neither did most people that I checked with at the time of writing this post.

Right-click Menus

Hotmail has added more right-click action options this week inspired by Outlook. When you right-click a message in your inbox, a new menu appears allowing you to Reply, Reply all, or Forward the message. Hotmail already supports right-click actions like Mark as unread, Delete, Junk, Move, and View message source. This is a definite speed-booster for the daily email tasks.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Hotmail supports several keyboard shortcuts familiar to the Outlook users, such as Ctrl+N for a new message, and Ctrl+Enter to send a message. It also provides keyboard shortcuts that users who have switched from Gmail and Yahoo! Mail are already used to with the previous email service.

Personalization

While you could always customize individual email messages, now Hotmail allows you to set a set a default font and personal signature for all your email messages.

Message Pre-loading

Last week, an option appeared in Hotmail to allow message pre-loading that pre-loads messages and folders in order to make them load faster and speed up reading. The feature needs to be activated from the Hotmail options.

 

While most of these additions increase speed and productivity while using Hotmail, a few features on my wish-list still remain to be struck off.

  • If you’ve pinned Hotmail to your Windows 7 Taskbar, you receive a notification of a new mail. Unfortunately, there is no Messenger notification. While Facebook and Gmail change the browser title to notify a user of an incoming chat message, Hotmail has no such feature.
  • While Outlook saves conversation history from communicator, Hotmail doesn’t do that for Messenger. This is one Outlook feature I would really want to see come to this side.
  • More right-click options? Yay! However, I still find it natural to expect right-click action options on folders in the left navigation pane.
  • This is not a personal wish, but asking for no advertisements on Hotmail finds resonance across the web. The latest refresh of SkyDrive does away with ads, so there is hope.

Hotmail is on a Roll with Updates originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Abhishek Baxi on Friday 24th June 2011 08:45:54 PM under Microsoft. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:

Skype iPad App Coming Soon

Skype iPad App Coming Soon: "

It appears that the incredibly popular video chatting application Skype is finally making its way to the iPad. While that news isn’t very surprising, the fact that Skype confirmed it to TUAW is.

After a video of the upcoming Skype iPad App leaked out earlier today, the Apple bloggers began digging and speculating on what it meant. Some rightly questions the legitimacy of the the video, while others began questioning the team at Skype. TUAW got ahold of Rick Osterloh, the VP of Consumer Product Design at Skype, to ask him about the pending app.

According to the post, the feature list for the Skype iPad app is pretty complete when compared to the PC/Mac app, with a few exceptions. The most notable missing feature is file sharing, which reportedly wasn’t feasible to implement at this time.

It has been speculated since the announcement of the iPad 2, with its built in cameras, that Skype would release an app designed specifically for the tablet. If the video is legitimate, then what they have at this point it absolutely stunning.

Skype iPad App Coming Soon

There is no official word on a release date for the app, but we will certainly post when that information becomes available. As of now, the rumors are that Apple is due to approve the Skype app anytime. Expect to see it in the App Store very soon.


Skype iPad App Coming Soon originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Tony Price on Friday 24th June 2011 08:00:50 PM under Upcoming. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:

Nokia’s Windows Phone – Sea Ray, Leaked On Video

Nokia’s Windows Phone – Sea Ray, Leaked On Video: "

Just about 48 hours ago Nokia unveiled Nokia N9 – the first and only Meego powered device to hit the market. Surprisingly, Nokia N9 generated enough positive reviews that Nokia might have felt the heat about their February 11 decision.

Nokia-Windows-Phone-1

Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, showcased a fully baked Nokia Windows Phone handset at a keynote. Elop asked the crowd to put away their camera as he was about to unveil “super confidential” handset codenamed “Sea Ray” and he did not want the handset to appear on the Blogosphere. Of course, people present at the keynote recorded the entire keynote and guys at technet.hu managed to upload the video on YouTube for us.

The device is identical to Nokia N9 but comes with an additional Hardware button on the sides probably for shutter release. Besides that, the different LED placement also indicates it’s not the same device as the Nokia N9.

Nokia-Windows-Phone-2

The device has no three hardware buttons (Home, Search and Back) only three buttons on the side.

Nokia-Windows-Phone-3

 

Nokia Sea Ray will run on Microsoft’s newly released Windows Phone version – Mango. This, of course, is not a leak but Stephen Elop just wanted to push out the news that Nokia is almost ready with their first Windows Phone handset.

Check out the video where Stephen Elop unveils Nokia Sea Ray:


Nokia’s Windows Phone – Sea Ray, Leaked On Video originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Apurva Chaudhary on Thursday 23rd June 2011 09:34:20 AM under Mobile News. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:

IE Team Sends Mozilla a Cake Again for Firefox 5 Launch

IE Team Sends Mozilla a Cake Again for Firefox 5 Launch: "

The web browser teams at Mozilla, Microsoft, Google and might definitely hate each other secretly, but there are times when all of these come together to set standards or further the future of the web.

Microsoft and Mozilla have had a love hate relationship for a while now. After all, was the web browser which turned the browser industry on its head and gave the dominant Internet Explorer a run for it’s money.

IE Congratulates Mozilla for Firefox 5 Launch Cake

Lot has changed since then, but one thing continues to remain common including Microsoft sending cakes with the IE logo to Mozilla on a product launch. The last time I remember them sending a cake was for the launch of Firefox 3, and with the launch of Firefox 5 today they have repeated the act.

The cake had a similar message from the earlier one which said:

Congratulations on Shipping! Love, the IE Team

The image was posted by @damons, who is the VP of Engineering at Mozilla. This definitely makes for some good rivalry. Here is wishing the Mozilla team a great launch and look forward to some exciting new features in Firefox 6 and beyond.


IE Team Sends Mozilla a Cake Again for Firefox 5 Launch originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Keith Dsouza on Tuesday 21st June 2011 05:37:06 PM under Tech News. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:

Nokia N9 Lookalike Caught Running Android

Nokia N9 Lookalike Caught Running Android: "

How do you kill a platform and a handset, even before it’s launched? You make the same handset, albeit with a subtle changes, to run a competing OS. Nokia did the same thing when it announced the N9 running MeeGo, and then at the same event previewed an identical handset running WP7, its future smartphone OS.

Now, as if all this was not enough, an image of a N9 look-alike running Android has popped up on the Internet. This image comes from the same folks who leaked the ‘Sea Ray’, way back in May itself. It is still not confirm whether this image is genuine or not. From the image, the N9 lookalike is running a stock Android 2.3 Gingerbread build.

Nokia_Android

However, if true, this image clearly shows that Nokia tried all the available options (WP7, Android, and MeeGo) before deciding on WP7, as their future smartphone OS. Who knows, if Nokia and Microsoft partnership fails, the Finnish giant might consider moving to Android.

What this does mean though is that, once the N9 is available to the general public, except developers to port WP7 and Android to the handset.

Via – Engadget


Nokia N9 Lookalike Caught Running Android originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Rajesh Pandey on Friday 24th June 2011 12:20:06 PM under Mobile News. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:

Wikipedia Introduces WikiLove – Send Virtual Cats and Beers

Wikipedia Introduces WikiLove – Send Virtual Cats and Beers: "

Wikipedia – the online source of information, announced a new feature called WikiLove button for its English version of the online encyclopedia. Wikipedia calls the initiative “a simple experiment in appreciation” and the objective behind this is to encourage and cheer up more users to edit and contribute to the site with more articles.

According the the blog post by WikiMedia Foundation -

“The act of expressing appreciation for other users, by contrast, is a largely manual effort. Whether it’s welcoming new users, inviting users to participate in specific topics or discussions, recognizing effort using barnstars and trophies, or just sending a whimsical note, expressing appreciation is not an activity that is facilitated by the software – in spite of its known importance for people’s likelihood to want to edit.”

WikiLove Button

Wikipedia conducted a survey to determine what encouraged editors to edit articles more frequently. The survey results showed that 78% of editors would love to edit more frequently if they received complements and appreciation.

Wikipedia

The WikiLove Button is live on the Wikipedia test site and will go live site-wide on June 29th. You can try the new feature on Wikipedia’s prototype site by creating a test page. Don’t forget to check the “remember me for 30-days” box – Some sort of a bug!

What exactly does WikiLove do?

This feature is something similar to Facebook’s “like” button. If a user wants to appreciate an editor, he/she can hit the WikiLove button which in turn will send (virtual) stars, cats and beers as a token of appreciation. An update appears on the editors talk page with your feedback and photos of “A beer for you!” or “A kitten for you!”.

WikiLove

You can, however, disable the WikiLove feature if you do not like it. Go to My Preferences → Editing → Labs Features and uncheck the box that is labeled “Enable showing appreciation for other users with the WikiLove tab (experimental)”

Wikimedia Foundation developer Ryan Kaldari is the man behind this tool. He developed this feature as a small gadget and the editor engagement team at Wikimedia Foundation developed it into a full feature. Wikipedia stated that it will be tracking the feature to determine its frequency of use and whether it actually increases editor involvement or not.

Its good to appreciate someone for their good work. You can start with WikiLove.


Wikipedia Introduces WikiLove – Send Virtual Cats and Beers originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Joel Fernandes on Saturday 25th June 2011 02:51:10 PM under Tech News. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.



"
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)