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BetaNews.Com (8 non lus)

Minutely brings a unique approach to weather on Android, iPhone

Publié: août 5, 2013, 9:45pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

"I have a good weather app. It's called...looking out the window". That is what my colleague Brian Fagioli told me when I said I was testing Minutely, a new mobile weather service. Still, despite that rather true comment, we all still want to look up those possibly inaccurate forecasts, and this latest offering provides a better way to do it -- or at least a better looking way.

The name is derived from the app's promise to provide real time details right down to the minute - the rain slider feature allows you to travel in time and watch the rain move across your location. Minutely will let you know if it will be raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting in any location you choose down to the minute for the next 2 hours.

However, the service also uses a gaming engine to render 3D images of the weather maps to display 3D radar in real-time, provides Twitter and Facebook sharing, allows users to easily correct the information, helping the app be as accurate as possible through crowdsourcing (very much like Waze does for traffic) and adds Sunrise and Sunset times, 9-day forecasts, moon phase timeline, full day forecast descriptions, day and night mode, an activity feed, and the ability to win achievements and rewards.

The app has just been released, and is free for users. It will require those customers to make it really work, just as Waze does, but that is really half the fun with these crowd-sourced services. My colleague, Wayne Williams, tested it out from his base in the UK and claims the app works quite well there as well.

The app is live now in the iTunes Store and will soon be open to Android customers as well.

[Update] Minutely is now in the Google Play store.
Nokia parodies iPhone 5 advert, shows off the quality of Lumia 925's camera

Publié: août 5, 2013, 8:44pm CEST par Wayne Williams

Nokia has released a new video comparing the quality of the Lumia 925’s camera with that of the Apple iPhone 5. You don’t need to be a genius to guess which device comes out the clear winner.

Headed "Better Photos Every Day" the video might seem more than a little familiar on first viewing as it parodies Apple's iPhone 5 commercial and starts with a voiceover informing viewers that "every day more photos are taken on the iPhone than any other phone" before stating "at Nokia we prefer to build for quality not just quantity".

The video then goes on to show both the Nokia and Apple cameras in action, comparing shots taken with the two devices side by side. The Lumia 925 does exciting action shots, with and without motion blur, while the iPhone 5 manages boring rather drab images. Shots taken using the flash on Nokia’s smartphone look natural, on Apple’s device they are washed out.

The video also includes scenes which are very close to those in the original iPhone 5 ad -- people taking pictures of windows and their feet. Even the start of the advert is remarkably similar.

It’s a clever ad, which does a good job of showcasing the quality of the Lumia 925’s camera (even if, slightly unfairly, it's comparing a new phone with a year old model), and finishes with the line, "Everyday better photos are taken with Nokia Lumias than with any other mobile".

See what you think below. For comparison you can watch the Apple original afterwards.
Linux Kernel 3.10 gets long-term support

Publié: août 5, 2013, 7:01pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

A common misconception is that Linux is an operating system. While it is easier to think of it this way, in reality, Linux is a kernel that operating systems (or distributions) use. For example, Ubuntu and Android are operating systems that utilize the Linux kernel. And so, this kernel is extremely important, as it impacts many users on many different operating systems.

Since the Linux Kernel can change very rapidly, there is a need by some (usually companies) to have a long-term support version; supported for 2 years.

Yesterday, Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced that Kernel 3.10 has been given the "LTS" moniker. "I’m picking this kernel after spending a lot of time talking about kernel releases, and product releases and development schedules from a large range of companies and development groups. I couldn't please everyone, but I think that the 3.10 kernel fits the largest common set of groups that rely on the longterm [sic] kernel releases", says Greg.

The developer further explains that "...the 3.10-stable kernel releases are not slowing down at all, and there are plenty of pending patches already lined up for the next few releases, I figured it was a good time to let everyone know now that I’m picking the 3.10 kernel release as the next longterm [sic] kernel, so they can start planning things around it if needed".

While this is great news for companies with specific needs, the average home user will still likely seek the newest stable kernel for the latest features and hardware support.

Image Credit: Kjpargeter / Shutterstock
Find images quickly with Google Search by Image

Publié: août 5, 2013, 6:54pm CEST par Nick Peers

And Google decreed, "Let there be image search, a tool whereby mortals may search for images by providing a source image". And it looked, and the tool was rather useful in its own way, but horribly awkward to use at times when you had to right-click the image, choose to copy its URL to the clipboard, switch to Google Image Search, paste the URL into the correct box and so on.

So Google said, "I can’t be faffing about like this", and its bods developed a browser extension to make the process much simpler. And so Google Search by Image for Chrome 1.5.0 and Google Search by Image for Firefox 1.1.2, were born.

Google Search by Image does one thing, and one thing only: it adds an option to the context menu that appears when you right-click an image. Select this option -- handily titled Search Google with this image -- and a new tab will appear.

Chrome users get the best deal here, as you not get to choose to look for other instances of the same image at different sizes, or browse similar images to that chosen, but it also attempts to identify the image and provide a general web search based on its content too.

Select Tools > Settings > Extensions and click Options next to the extension’s entry and you get to make it possible to initiate a search simply by hovering your mouse over an image and then clicking the camera icon that will appear. Chrome users once again get a better deal, with an additional option allowing you to ignore images below a certain size (45×45 by default).

Version 1.5 of the Chrome extension has just been released -- a minor tweak that sees the extension’s behavior altered so it doesn’t inject the camera icon into a webpage’s DOM until absolutely necessary.

Google Search by Image for Chrome 1.5.0 and Google Search by Image for Firefox 1.1.2 are both available as freeware downloads for users of the Chrome and Firefox browsers respectively.
Choose which Flash content to see with FlashControl for Chrome

Publié: août 5, 2013, 6:50pm CEST par Mike Williams

While there are plenty of irritations to be found online, few are quite as annoying as Flash ads. Distracting animations, irritating music, applets expanding over content you’re trying to read -- it’s really no surprise that many people install ad blockers on a new PC before they do anything else.

Some ads will still penetrate your defenses, of course. And legitimate Flash content may occasionally be just as annoying as the worst adverts. To fully protect yourself, then, you’ll need a more general content filter, like the Chrome extension FlashControl.

Install the extension and Flash content will by default be blocked, just a square black placeholder where the applet used to be. This is obviously rather drastic, but if you decide you want to access a particular app, just clicking the placeholder should activate it.

An omnibox menu offers more options. If there are several applets you’d like to use on the current page, say, there’s no need to click each one in turn: selecting "Allow This Page" on the menu will activate all Flash content.

Alternatively, "Block This Page" turns Flash content off, while "+Whitelist" and "+Blacklist" options allow you to always allow (or block) Flash at particular pages.

And if you’re not quite happy with any of this, then a detailed Settings box provides plenty of useful configuration options. You can have the extension allow Flash by default, say; enable or disable the omnibox menu; highlight blocked Flash content in various ways, and even block Flash if the computer hasn’t been used for a while (perhaps useful in extending battery life).

Getting all this set up does require a little work, of course. FlashControl does its best to help, though, allowing you to sync its settings with your Google account, and import or export filters. And in general we found it lived up to its name, giving you significantly more control over the Flash content you’ll see on your favorite sites.
Could Twitter's verified accounts be the answer to stopping tweet threats?

Publié: août 5, 2013, 5:56pm CEST par Mark Wilson

We've talked about Twitter and the subject of policing the Internet quite a bit recently. It's not just us. Countless websites, newspapers, blogs and TV news channels have debated just what can be done to stop the problem of online abuse.

Part of the problem is that Twitter is -- as is the case with much of the Internet -- largely anonymous; or at least that's what most users think. They must think that, or they would not behave so stupidly and recklessly online. The reality is that, unless someone has taken measures to cover their tracks through proxy servers or other masking techniques, it's not really all that difficult to link an online message to, if not an individual person, at least an individual machine -- with the help of ISPs and other parties.

But maybe there is a simpler solution. The way things stand at the moment, it takes moments to sign up for a Twitter account, and there's nothing to stop you from signing up for thirty accounts if you feel the need or desire. Why might you want so many? Well, lots of people use Twitter professionally as well as personally. The person in charge of a company's official Twitter feed is likely to want their own personal account as well, and a lot of companies maintain multiple Twitter accounts for various purposes.

Multiple accounts can also be abused. A seemingly respectable person who uses Twitter to share thoughts and ideas may well have a darker side. There is nothing to stop them from opening up a second "trolling" account that is used for nothing more than stirring up trouble or harassing others.

Twitter already has a system in place that could be adapted to combat the problem: Verified accounts. These badges of authenticity are currently reserved for celebrities, politicians, journalists and other public figures. This does not mean that spoof, parody and out and out fake accounts do not exist, but the presence of the blue tick helps to reassure followers that a tweet from Stephen Fry really is from Stephen Fry. Tweets from me really are from me as well, by the way, although my account is devoid of the tick.

The way things stand at the moment, there is no way to reach out to Twitter and apply for a verified account -- unlike Google+ which allows anyone to request verification (you'll probably get turned down, but there's no harm in asking, eh?). Twitter is not especially open about who gets verified, what level of celebrity is required, and whether being an advertiser has any bearing on things, but one thing is clear: it will contact you, not the other way round.

The number of verified accounts is very small. You can keep an eye on the latest additions to the elite club by following @verified and there are some interesting and surprising accounts in the list. If you feel you or your company is deserving of verification, there's no point in trying to contact Twitter. Save your typing fingers the effort -- it's not worth the time. There are countless websites that claim to offer advice about how to get verified; ignore them. If you have to ask to be verified, you probably don't deserve or need to be.

Perhaps Twitter should consider looking at verified accounts in a completely different way. Rather than using it as a means of helping users to avoid being duped by fake celebrities, maybe it should be a compulsory part of signing up for an account. If you've handed over government issued identification papers during sign-up (driving license, passport etc) to prove who you are, you're significantly less likely to start sending out death threats -- unless you're stupid.

Of course this opens up all manner of privacy concerns. If formal identification was a requirement for creating a Twitter account -- and Twitter would be free to make this compulsory -- it would have be made abundantly clear that personal data such as address and date of birth would only be used when absolutely necessary (so only when tracking down those who have committed crimes or abused other users).

Twitter knowing exactly who each user really is would wipe out many, many problems that exist on the network, but is this getting a little too close to having an online ID card? Maybe, but it's an idea worth considering. It's another idea to throw into the pot and mull over. It's not an ideal solution perhaps, but it's certainly no worse than anything else that’s been suggested.
AnyPerk provides big business-like perks to smaller companies' employees

Publié: août 5, 2013, 4:20pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

In order to boost productivity and satisfaction among employees, big companies are known to provide various benefits ranging from free food during works hours and health care coverage, to team building events and kindergarten programs. The perks reflect the line of work and the image a company wants to project and, as a result, they can become an important factor when attracting and keeping employees.

Big companies that want to (or already do) provide employee benefits, can afford to implement in-house programs. However, the same principle does not usually apply to small businesses or startups, which have other, more pressing priorities to deal with (like staying afloat in the early or even late stages). But at the same time, for employees, receiving perks still matters, quite a lot for some, I might add. The middle-ground solution -- offering benefits without initiating costly, in-house programs -- appears to be dedicated services that allow businesses to enroll their employees, to receive perks, and pay a fee for it. Which is what startup AnyPerk provides.

The idea is quite simple. AnyPerk allows businesses to sign up for its perks service, and enroll their employees afterwards. The startup charges a $5 monthly fee per enrolled employee, paid for by the company.

AnyPerk CEO Taro Fukuyama tells me that the startup is currently focused on the US market and, as a result, the provided employee benefits reflect this centered approach (there are no immediate plans for an European expansion). The partner companies range from top local mobile operators like T-Mobile and Verizon to software recruiting services like Resumator.

The perks mostly include discounts (which depend on the partner company) for services and products (that include entertainment, travel, fitness, shopping and food items, among others), but there are also some freebies available to AnyPerk members. The service is designed with a general focus, and does not target a specific type of employee or company.

AnyPerk touts more than $0.9 million in savings and in excess of 2,500 business clients (which include popular companies like Hulu, Pandora, Pinterest, Square and Zappos, among others). Mr Fukuyama also tells me that the startup is seeing continuous growth, having achieved those two numbers during the past year and a half.

Photo Credit: Stuart Miles/Shutterstock
6tagram for Windows Phone 8 -- the next best thing to an official Instagram app?

Publié: août 5, 2013, 1:31pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

A common complaint addressed to Windows Phone 8, which is coming from users of the tiled smartphone operating system, the tech media or those who like other platforms, is the lack of an official Instagram app. Even though third-party clients like Instance -- which now has over 330,000 users -- prove that the popular photo and video-sharing network has its fair share of fans on Windows Phone 8, Instagram has yet to be persuaded to build a homebrew app. Let's not even approach the rumors, none of which have yet to bear fruit.

In my opinion, the lack of an official Instagram app for Windows Phone 8 is an issue blown out of proportion. Instance is a competent third-party client and, by the looks of it, the upcoming 6tagram is shaping up to be an ever better offering than any other non-official app available for the tiled smartphone OS. I have been using 6tagram for the past couple of days -- it is still in beta at the moment -- to tell you what you can expect after the public launch.

Development for 6tagram began little over two weeks ago, when developer Rudy Huyn took to Twitter to reveal his plan. And, during this short period of time, he managed to encompass every bit of essential functionality, including the ability to shoot and post videos on Instagram (which I have tested by recording a short part of a train ride).

Users of 6sec (which is also developed by Huyn) should feel right at home with 6tagram. The latter employs a similar look, with a brief tutorial after logging in (new Instagram accounts can also be created), cards for posts which can be swiped to reveal interaction and sharing options, and something that die-hard users of the popular social network will undoubtedly appreciate -- Instagram photo filters.

By contrast, Instance uses its own photo filters which, in my opinion, do not look as well as the ones available through Instagram's offerings on Android and iOS (or 6tagram, for that matter). It remains to be seen whether the popular photo and video-sharing social network will agree with Huyn's decision to implement the same filters in his 6tagram client. As Instagram tells me, the upcoming Windows Phone 8 app will not receive any preferential treatment nor is it set to be bestowed with an official stamp of approval, as a third-party client:

Third-party apps wishing to use our platform must do so within the terms of our public API. We have not selected a third-party developer to build an official or unofficial Windows Phone app.

What else can you expect? Huyn says that he implemented Nokia's Imaging SDK, which was unveiled in mid-July alongside the Lumia 1020, for "image manipulation features". As a result, the camera interface and the available options are well sorted out -- switching between taking stills and recording videos can be done through a single swipe/touch, photos can be grabbed from the gallery for editing, and posting afterwards, and folks can even set to use a three by three grid, which is a nice touch.

Another nice touch is the way users can share posted photos. Instead of asking folks to attach their social network accounts, 6tagram uses the built-in sharing functionality from Windows Phone 8 -- which comes with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter integration. That said, users still have to "sync" their Facebook and Twitter accounts for immediate sharing after posting their own photos, a feature which is similarly implemented in other clients, including the official ones.

There are some features that do not work or exist at the moment, like the ability to receive toast notifications. According to Huyn, this is an issue that cannot be fixed "for the moment" because of the way Instagram's servers send push notifications. Nonetheless, this shouldn't detract from the general experience, which I have found to be very appealing, even from the early beta stage.

And, to answer my own question, I believe that 6tagram is indeed the next best thing to an official Instagram Windows Phone 8 app. The only thing that users of the tiled smartphone OS will be missing is having the name of the popular photo and video-sharing social network attached next to it (that and, maybe, the same or a similar look throughout the interface). We will keep you updated as 6tagram's development continues.

Now this is the part where I usually provide a link to the app, saying that it is available to download from Windows Phone Store. But, at least at the moment, 6tagram can only be installed by approved beta testers -- that said, you can still access its page on the app store, even though only to take a look at the beta changelog.