News

Google has announced that it has temporarily disabled its Realtime search feature.

“We’ve temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We’re exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned,”

“Since October of 2009, we have had an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results through a special feed, and that agreement expired on July 2,” a Google representative told SearchEngineLand. “While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google.”

When Realtime returns, it will feature content from a variety of sources, not just Google+, the company’s recently unveiled social network, Google told SearchEngineLand.

Google has updated the ‘look’ of Gmail’s interface. Google said ” This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products. The changes are not going to happen all at once.”

Google have started with two new themes “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” selectable in the Themes tab in Gmail Settings.

To get the new themes, sign in to Gmail and go to Mail settings. Next, go to the “Themes” tab and you’ll see a two new themes, “Preview” and “Preview (dense).” Select one, and your inbox will be change to a cleaner, more refined look.

Google Calendar is also getting a new look in the next few days

More info: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/preview-of-gmails-new-look.html

Google has announced a new social networking website. Google+ allows the sharing of photos, messages and comments and integrates the company’s maps and images into the new service.

features include:
Circles – a functionality that allows individuals to place friends into groups, allowing users to share different forms of content with targeted clusters of friends

Hangouts – live multi-user video conferencing that permits friends to drop in and out of live group conversations

Huddle – group instant messaging

Sparks – a feature that connects individuals on the network to others with common interests.

The current version of Google+ has only been released to a small number of users so far.

Google+ project: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

Review: http://www.macworld.com/article/160816/2011/06/google_plus.html

Wyse have announced that its PocketCloud products for iOS and Android have been downloaded over a million times.

PocketCloud Pro for iPhone and iPad (US$14.99) delivers both local connectivity and a Google App Engine locator service for remote machines. You can install the desktop client on your Mac or PC, authenticate with your Google account, and operate all your active computers as though you were sitting in front of them.

With a $0.99 monthly in-app purchase, you can also get file browser/file transfer access to your PCs, AirPrint printing, video streaming from the remote RDP server or VMware View service, slimmed-down browser mode (including Flash and audio) and more.

There is also an ad-supported free version.

www.wyse.com/products/software/pocketcloud/index.asp

Logitech Alert is a complete home video security system that you can set up yourself – with software that provides motion alerts and a live view from an internet-connected computer, your smartphone or Google TV™ The system allows the creation of a do-it-yourself indoor or outdoor video security system from iPhone or iPod touch.

You can use the app to access the camera at any time, and you can also have emails sent to you when motion sensors are activated. Logitech Alert cameras can be used Indoors or out, they can detect motion, stream video, send alerts and record video and audio without a PC This app supports Logitech Alert cameras.

Each camera comes with its own HomePlug AV networking kit, which uses existing electrical wiring and outlets to connect the camera to your home network. The security cameras require broadband Internet and a home network for setup. The Alert Commander camera software works on Windows or Mac computer syatems.

Download app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/logitech-alert/id382715264?mt=8

More info: http://www.logitech.com/en-us/video-security-systems

Goggle is dropping it’s Google Health and Google PowerMeter services due to a lack of intrest.

Launched in May 2008, Google Health was the company’s effort to help people access their personal health records online, it will be closed Jan. 1, 2012, though users may download their health data through Jan. 1, 2013.

Launched in February 2009, Google PowerMeter is a Google project to help consumers track their daily home energy usage.

Brian X. Chen writing on Wired has posted an interesting article “From iCloud to Dropbox: 5 Cloud Services Compared.”

The article compares Apple’s iCloud, Amazon’s Cloud Drive, Google’s “cloud” suite, Microsoft Windows Live and Dropbox.

“The general idea of the “cloud” is to store your media on the internet so you can access it from any device anywhere, as opposed to leaving it on a hard drive. Now with cloud services, we can juggle around our data between multiple gadgets.”

Read full article: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/cloud-services-compared/

Press Release – Mitsubishi have announced the RDT233WX-Z 23-inch Diamondcrysta monitor featuring a pair of HDMI ports, DVI-D, mini D-Sub, and the Japanese D5 jack. And a matte coating.

The new product is compatible with full HD ? 1 with 120Hz LCD panel driving schemes IPS, velocity interpolation “clear picture speed,” a condensed and super-resolution technology and high-definition technology, “Giga clear engine ?” by built-in , smooth fast moving images to display vivid images and crisp with a natural sense of resolution.

? 1 Full HD: 1920 × 1080 pixels display

Wide LCD 23 “Diamondcrysta WIDE” RDT233WX new-Z (BK)

RDT233WX-Z (BK)
View larger picture
New Features
1. The velocity interpolation scheme and the LCD panel IPS, displayed on the smooth fast-motion
· The IPS mode LCD panel driving 120Hz, can display images in vivid colors when viewed from an angle
· “Clear picture speed” of 60 frames per second image interpolation to be displayed at 120 frames per second smooth
2. Super-resolution technology “Giga clear engine ?” on-board display in a natural sense of resolution high definition video
· “Giga Clear engine ?” The displays high quality images and crisp with a natural sense of resolution
· Automatically detects the locations prone to flicker, flicker can prevent the super-resolution processing
· “Giga Clear Window” by super-resolution techniques can be applied only to specified areas
3. PinP function of parent-child screens, comfortable two-enabled digital screen
· ? 2 PinP function compatible with digital display 2 can be viewed on a PC screen images and video footage parents
· In the application of resolution enhancement techniques to screen the child can watch the video and crisp even in computer work
? 2 PinP: Picture in Picture. And HDMI2 HDMI1, pin mini D-Show and D5 PinP combines non-SUB15 pin

Dropbox has confirmed that for some time yesterday, any users account was accessible without a password. The glitch was a programming error related to a code update and accounts were only vulnerable from around 1:54 pm PST to 5:46pm PST, reports Cnet.

A statement was issued by Dropbox explaining the issue:
Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions.

For those 4 hours, anyone who was aware of the glitch could have accessed your data stored on the Dropbox servers without restriction. Dropbox Co-Founder Arash Ferdowsi said:

“We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.”

Read morr: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20072755-281/dropbox-confirms-security-glitch-no-password-required/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Mike Isaac writing on Wired has posted a review of the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook and how it works in a browser based environment.

“Samsung’s Series 5 notebook is the mere physical vehicle for Google’s cloud-based vision of the future. It’s a world where users aren’t bogged down by needless accoutrements like cumbersome operating systems, optical drives or high-capacity local storage.”

Read full article: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/06/samsung-chromebook/

The new Samsung Series 5 ChromeBook laptop running Google’s Chrome operating system has gone on sale in the United States.

The Samsung Series 5 is a 12.1-inch netbook powered by an Intel Atom N570 dual-core CPU, and has 2GB of RAM and a 16GB solid-state drive.

The Chromebook is available in WiFi only and WiFi and 3G models for $429 (£266) and $499 (£310) respectively.

It is expected to sell for between £349 and £399 when launched in the UK in August.

Ruper Goodwins from ZDNet said: “For all the things that are on the web browser, this works really well – better than anything else. But for all the stuff you do on the desktop, it doesn’t do very well at all.

“The idea that this doesn’t matter – that you’re always connected and always online – isn’t quite true yet. The idea is very good but it’s a little premature.”

A second Chromebook, made by Acer is due to start shipping soon

FRONTLINESMS ALLOWS YOU TO TEXT MESSAGE WITH LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE ANYWHERE THERE IS A MOBILE SIGNAL

FrontlineSMS is award-winning free, open source software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones. What you communicate is up to you, making FrontlineSMS useful in many different ways.

It does not require an Internet connection.

Attach a phone and SIM card, and pay your local operator per SMS as usual.

It stores all phone numbers and records all incoming and outgoing messages.

All data lives on your computer, not on servers controlled by someone else.
You can send messages to individuals or large groups, and reply individually – useful for fieldwork or during surveys.

It is easy to install and requires little or no training to use.

Developers can freely take the source code and add their own features.

It can be used anywhere in the world simply by switching the SIM card.

The current version of FrontlineSMS (1.6) comes with on-screen language support for English, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili and Chinese

www.frontlinesms.com