Bcstevieb

Facebook just added hashtag support, allowing you to type hashtags into posts, search for a hashtag from the search bar, and click on hashtags to see other similar posts. You can read more about it here.

Netflix users have been clamoring for better solutions when it comes to sharing an account with family and friends, and the streaming service is finally set to deliver one soon. Yahoo News reports that Netflix will roll out individual user profiles by the end of the summer — likely sometime in August — enabling subscribers to keep their own recommendations isolated from (and uninfluenced by) the viewing habits of anyone else using their account. Once enabled, the profiles will allow users to select their own avatar, which will appear across Netflix's various apps. As for how many people will be able to share a single "family" account, it seems that's still up in the air; Yahoo News says company executives are still deciding between...

Continue reading…

Being the driving force behind change is never easy, but it's especially difficult when powerful industry players do everything in their power to crush you. Such has been the story of Pandora, which added an interesting twist to its tale this week. Pandora, a pioneer in Internet radio, bought a terrestrial radio station in South Dakota on Tuesday. The move seems curious on the surface, obviously, but Pandora's assistant general counsel Christopher Harrison penned a piece on The Hill Tuesday to explain the brilliant maneuver.

Continue reading...

Samsung is taking the wraps off its new Galaxy S4 Zoom variant today, the latest in a series of spinoffs for its flagship handset. The phone features a 10x optical zoom lens in front of its 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, with a Xenon flash for adding some extra light to your images.

Like we'd heard last week, the newest S4 has a 4.3-inch qHD (960x540) Super Amoled display and 1.5GHz dual-core processor, runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and supports LTE. Predictably, it's big and heavy, at 208 grams and 15.4 millimeters thick — nearly double the thickness of the original Galaxy S4. It is, however, measurably slimmer than last year's Galaxy Camera, Samsung's first crack at adding an Android interface to a consumer point-and-shoot....

Continue reading…

Michael sez, "The Greek government forcibly shut down transmissions of all TV and radio stations operated by the state-owned broadcaster ERT, with police ejecting journalists and other employees who were occupying the buildings."

A few hours ago, the Greek government announced that state television and radio channels would be silenced at midnight. No public debate, no debate in Parliament, no warning. Nothing. ERT, the Greek version of the BBC, will simply fold its tent and steal into the night. As probably the only Greek commentator to have been blacklisted by ERT over the past two years, I feel I have the moral authority to cry out against ERT’s passing. To shout from the rooftops that its murder by our troika-led government is a crime against public media that all civilised people, the world over, should rise up against.

ERT (Greek state tv-radio) is dead: A blacklisted person’s lament

#ert twitpic.com/cwqjtk

— maria (@mouzakiti) June 11, 2013

Simdi neden kardesiz anladik mi? Canim Atina'm ~ “@polyfimos: Χιλιάδες κόσμος στο προαύλιο της #ERT. #rbnews twitter.com/Polyfimos/stat…”

— Vlado Sestakof (@VSestakof) June 12, 2013

Thousands of people outside #ert. twitter.com/Cyberela/statu…

— Cyberella (@Cyberela) June 11, 2013

Live blogging #ert enet.gr/369225 youtu.be/1p1GVSAOpRA?a

— enetgr (@enetgr) June 11, 2013

now (03:35) outside #ert headquarters RT @alepouda: #ert τωρα twitter.com/alepouda/statu…

— spyros gkelis (@northaura) June 12, 2013

With only three weeks remaining before Google Reader disappears for good, Feedly has completed its transition away from the dying service and onto its own backend cloud. Feedly has been among a host of third-party Reader clients searching for a new way to handle their users' RSS feeds, which have long been loaded and synced over Google's servers. Now that Feedly is officially supported by its own backend, the service can continue to work after Reader shuts down on July 1st, and give users what should be a seamless transition away from Google.

A number of different companies have committed to building a Reader alternative, and with today's transition, Feedly is among the first out of the gate — and it's the most promising option so...

Continue reading…

When Google unveiled its Nexus 7 tablet with respectable specs and a $199 price tag, it opened up the Android tablet market to a whole new group of users. 7-inch tablets and other smaller-sized slates have since exploded in popularity, and even Apple felt the heat enough to launch its own iPad mini. The $199 price point made tablets a much more reasonable purchase for many people, but in 2013 Android slates could become an impulse buy. According to Digitimes' sources within unnamed manufacturers in the Far East, several Android tablet vendors could begin selling $99 Android tablets as soon as the third quarter this year. The report notes that Asus already offers a tablet for $129 and Acer's Iconia B1 retails for just $149, but the next wave of 7-inch slates could undercut these already affordable options.

Then and now

Our first public beta was released on June 13 a year ago. It had an ugly icon and default Bootstrap theme, but it was ok. At least, our friends said so. Looking back, I can’t believe what we have actually achieved in a year, and I absolutely can’t believe the amount of things that need to be done. The scale of things is also kind of scary.

One of our users suggested that we update our blog more often, another one posted the picture below, so we decided to write more regular updates of what we are up to. And even though The Old Reader is our free time project, we usually spend time on it every day.

Google Reader is due to be closed in less than a month, and our team can feel things heating up: new web-based RSS readers seem to be launching every week; we got some new code contributors aboard; and we started getting more and more questions about API and mobile apps.

Well, API is being cooked, and it is getting there. It is about 70% done, and I can already have first The Old Reader in-app experience (basic and painful, but still!). We really hope we can completely finish it in July, and it remains our top priority. I already have a mailing list for developers (thank you for your input on REST vs Google Reader API) and everyone else who expressed their interest in this topic, so the moment it’s ready we’ll spread the news as much as we can.

Besides working in API, we’ve been quite busy with other stuff during last couple of months: improved our feed refresh intervals significantly, fixed a number of nasty bugs that duplicated user posts in some cases, improved monitoring, and answered what feels like several thousands of emails, forum messages, and tweets.

We have also recently enjoyed crossing another milestone in user count – 2¹⁸ – and sorted some legal issues that seemed actually more difficult than all our technical challenges combined.

We also launched several new servers so that we could fit new users, and our hosting cost increased even more. So we will kindly remind you of that Flattr button (hopefully it won’t be there for too long).

Next planned post will be about our future plans, making The Old Reader sustainable, and probably some announcements.

(image from our Trending section which never fails to amuse)

In The New Republic, Molly Redden writes about how energy companies are exploiting the fact that the Amish religion and culture rely on a strict interpretation of the Christian bible to prohibit the use of the courts in settling disputes. No lawsuits.

Home to the largest Amish community in the world, Eastern Ohio sits squarely on top of the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations, which contain billions in oil and gas recoverable through advances in hydraulic fracturing technology, or fracking. From the portions of the Utica Shale play that underlie Ohio alone, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has estimated that companies may be able to extract up to 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has estimated the value of the Utica’s resources at $500 billion.

More here. An excellent investigative long-read.

This morning we sent the following letter to the offices of the Attorney General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Read the full text below. -Ed.

Dear Attorney General Holder and Director Mueller

Google has worked tremendously hard over the past fifteen years to earn our users’ trust. For example, we offer encryption across our services; we have hired some of the best security engineers in the world; and we have consistently pushed back on overly broad government requests for our users’ data.

We have always made clear that we comply with valid legal requests. And last week, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that service providers have received Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests.

Assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users’ data are simply untrue. However, government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation.

We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope. Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made. Google has nothing to hide.

Google appreciates that you authorized the recent disclosure of general numbers for national security letters. There have been no adverse consequences arising from their publication, and in fact more companies are receiving your approval to do so as a result of Google’s initiative. Transparency here will likewise serve the public interest without harming national security.

We will be making this letter public and await your response.

David Drummond
Chief Legal Officer

Vine has already clarified just how quickly its userbase is growing, with the announcement that the app had hit 13 million downloads by the time Twitter launched it on Android. This was all just a week ago. Today, however, we’ve learned that Vine has climbed to the top of the charts on Android as the top social app and the No. 4 free app on Google Play. Instagram is No. 5.

For those of you who don’t like smartphones, GIFs or general merriment, Vine is a new app released by Twitter in January of this year. The app works a bit like an Instagram for video, letting you shoot creatively edited, six-second looping videos to share with your friends on social networks, etc.

The app has seen some incredible growth in the short time it’s been available, hitting No. 1 on App Store charts in just a matter of days. A week later, we learned that Vine had already grown to be about twice as popular as SocialCam and other competing video-sharing apps.

The team has been iterating ever since, adding the ability to use both front- and rear-facing cameras and working out some kinks. And it’s clearly paid off.

Nick Bilton of the NYT noticed just a few days ago that there seem to be more Vine shares on Twitter than Instagram for the first time ever, thanks to a handy graph from Topsy Analytics.

This could have something to do with the fact that Instagram pulled Twitter Card integration to direct more traffic to Instagram.com, but I’m not convinced that that’s a conscious thought running through the minds of Instagrammers as they’re deciding where to share.

What’s more likely is that Vine users want to share on Twitter because the Vine ecosystem is still growing, and those users want to ensure that their creation gets as many views from friends as possible. Then add to it the fact that Vine launched on Android just around the time that Vine.co shares surpassed Instagram.com shares, and it’s clear that Vine simply has a growing group of people interested in using the service.

Vine is available now in both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

This weekend the tech world was abuzz with rumors that Google had purchased Israeli mapping and navigation software maker Waze for a sum of over a billion dollars. Today Google has made it official, thanks to a post on the company blog from the VP of Geo, Brian McClendon. While Google declined to mention exactly how much it spent on Waze, it's a safe bet that it was a lot, since both Apple and Facebook had previously expressed interest.

Current Waze users will be glad to know that Google doesn't plan on shutting down the Waze app, at least in the short term:

• Report: Google Set To Buy Collaborative GPS Navigation Company Waze For $1.3 Billion
• New Google Navigation For Android Utilizes Traffic For Routing
• [I/O 2013] Google Unveils New Version Of Maps App For Android w/ New Navigation UI, Looks Absolutely Gorgeous
• Google Maps Adds Live Traffic Coverage For 13 European Countries

Google Makes Its Waze Acquisition Official, Mapping Apps To Remain Separate For Now was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Americans watch about 40 hours of television every single week. Even in the Internet Age, television remains a cultural force, a unifying voice and quite possibly our chief storyteller. Do not view this as bad. A number of television programs over the decades have not only been great, but inspirational for viewers to become that which was once mocked: geeks. Several, in fact, have inspired our nation's children to liberate their inner geekiness and dare to change the world.

Here are the 10 television shows that I think have most inspired generations of geeks. Not all are about computers or rockets, nor space travel or science. But all possess a common theme. Being smart, passionate, dedicated, hands-on and driven are qualities to be celebrated. 

10. Lost in Space

From the opening notes of the show's theme song, it was clear: danger and adventure was at hand. Lost in Space was campy, no doubt, and laughably wrong about so much. All its faults can be forgiven, however. It's best qualities were the stuff of dreams: traveling the galaxy was the norm, interacting with aliens to be expected, working alongside robots a part of everyday life. Even better: mom and dad and all the children were super-smart and highly capable. It went off the air before most of you were even alive.

9. Top Gear

Exceedingly British, preternaturally opposed to even great America cars, and their are many, Top Gear celebrates automobiles, engines, and learning by doing - in the most audacious, outrageous and ballsy challenges imaginable.

8. The X-Files

The truth is out there. Now go find it. This smart mystery-science fiction-thriller series never pandered, even while hunting down alien life forms in middle America. The X-Files spawned intense, volumnious online discussions, a decade-plus before Twitter arrived.

7. Futurama

The show that refuses to die - like Star Trek, which inspired it. Futurama taught America, once again, that animated shows can be smart, clever, provocative and fun. Space, time travel, genetic mutations, immortality, parallel universes - all topics for dissection. Your children love this. 

6. Mythbusters

Is there anything more 'geek' than proving common wisdom wrong? Mythbusters gleefully takes on sacred cows and forces them up against the unwavering, un-feeling hegemony that is science. Plus, they blow stuff up.

5. Doctor Who

I'm American. I don't get Dr. Who. And, honestly, Daleks seem ridiculous. Nonetheless, scientists, computer geeks and all the smartest kids have found awe and inspiration from this long-running British science fiction and fantasy series. It's about time travel, space travel, aliens - and that rather deep reservoir of cleverness and mechanical aptitude that Brits seem to possess. 

4. Prisoners of Gravity

This ultra-low-budget Canadian television show may be the most geeky of all. Frustrated with the world, a man builds his own rocket, takes refuge on a orbiting satellite and spends all his time interviewing the most extraordinarily talented men and women of science... fiction and comics. "Dr. Rick" celebrates the creators, the visionaries, the builders of worlds - those who light a path to our future. 

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Building on the vision of the original Star Trek, ST:TNG otherwise boldly went where no one had gone before, its super-smart, exceedingly brave crew of men, women and children traversing solar systems, visiting alien worlds, fighting Borg, sacrificing their lives for their ideals and always always always putting their computer and engineering skills to the ultimate test. Space may not be the final frontier, but it absolutely inspires the best in all of us.

2. The Big Bang Theory

The most popular show on the list - and the most un-geek, truth be told. If not for the great geek shows of the past, however, the very shows which challenged us every week to think big and dream bigger, this comedy about misfit scientists trapped on present-day Earth likely never would have seen the light of day.

1. Star Trek

Could it possibly be any other show? Kirk. Spock. Scotty. Bones. Uhura. Chekov. Sulu. You know them and they matter deeply to you. More than any other television program, possibly more than any other work of fiction, Star Trek inspired you to believe in yourself, believe in a greater good, a better future, and work toward making it so.

Would there be iPhones without tricorders? SETI without Starfleet? Space shuttles without Gene Roddenberry? Star Trek has not simply inspired a generation of geeks, but several generations.

There were many great programs that did not make it into my list of ten. The Office, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight Zone, Lost and many more. Add your suggestions in the comments section below.

Following High Court orders, six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to several of the world’s largest torrent sites.

The blocking orders are intended to deter online piracy and were requested by the music industry group BPI on behalf of a variety of major labels. Thus far they’ve managed to block access to The Pirate Bay, Kat.ph, H33T and Fenopy, and preparations are being made to add many others.

The effectiveness of these initial measures has been called into doubt, as they are relatively easy to bypass. For example, in response to the blockades hundreds of proxy sites popped up, allowing subscribers to reach the prohibited sites via a detour.

However, as of this week these proxies are also covered by the same blocklist they aim to circumvent, without a new court ruling.

The High Court orders give music industry group BPI the authority to add sites to the blocklist without oversight. Until now some small changes have been made, mostly in response to The Pirate Bay’s domain hopping endeavors, but with the latest blocklist update a whole new range of websites is being targeted.

Last week we reported that Sky had started blocking access to several torrent site proxies, and yesterday it became apparent that this was not an isolated incident. TorrentFreak has received numerous emails form Virgin and BT subscribers who are now unable to access many popular proxies, an indication that these are now covered under the BPI’s list of prohibited sites.

Proxies now blocked as well

Although the results may not be the same for all providers, the following sites appear to be blocked (in part) now. All sites in this list provide access to at least one of the torrent sites previously blocked by court order.

- Fp.kleisauke.nl
- Fenopy.5gg.biz
- H33tunblock.info
- H33t.uk.to
- H33tproxy.co
- H33tmirror.co
- Katunblock.com
- Katproxy.com
- Kat.dashitz.com
- Kat.kleisauke.nl
- Katmirror.com
- Kat.5gg.biz
- Kickassunblock.info
- Kickassproxy.info
- Pirateproxy.net
- Proxybay.net
- Malaysiabay.org
- Piratereverse.info
- Pirateproxy.net
- Campeche.zapto.org
- Tpb.rubenstadman.com
- Piratebay.interflective.com
- Dashitz.com
- Tpb.evrl.com

TorrentFreak talked to Drastik, the operator of the most visited Pirate Bay proxy Pirateproxy.net, who says he’s determined to find a good workaround to make his site accessible again in the UK.

“I never thought the BPI would go this far. I have already started setting up new servers for the blocks. However, I think educating people about alternate methods will be better. I have compiled a list of some good methods on a dedicated page,” Drastik says.

“I will continue to move the site to new servers to keep it accessible,” he adds.

Since the High Court order clearly states that ISPs have to disable access to the torrent sites in question (and the proxies provide this), the recent addition of the proxy sites to the list is not necessarily the main concern.

The problem lies with the fact that these changes are being made in secret without any form of oversight. There appears to be no valid reason to keep the list of prohibited sites away from the public eye, but yet the ISPs nor the BPI are prepared to be open about it.

TorrentFreak reached out to the BPI and some of the ISPs for a comment but we have yet to receive a response.

Update: BPI responded after publication and noted that proxies do indeed fall under the court order. The group does not intent to make the list of blocked website public.

“The court orders obtained in relation to The Pirate Bay cover not only the site itself, but also sites which have the sole or predominant purpose of providing access to The Pirate Bay. It would not be right to allow proxy sites flagrantly to circumvent blocks ordered by the High Court. We do not publish the names of proxies and it would not be appropriate for us to do so,” a BPI spokesperson said.

Source: UK ISPs Secretly Start Blocking Torrent Site Proxies

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151422242688204

Appears to have a few new scenes.

It turns out that a majority of Americans actually don’t mind the NSA spying on them. Or at least that’s the case when its sweeping intelligence gathering programs are described as an invasion of privacy. A new study from the Pew Research Center finds that 56 percent of Americans think the NSA’s blanket compilation of their telephone metadata is an acceptable way to investigate terrorist threats, while only 41 percent find it unacceptable.

Continue reading…

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.

Featured App

Tiny Token Empires

Today's roundup is presented by Tiny Token Empires from HeroCraft. This game has an interesting mix of genres: the city and empire building is reminiscent of a Civilization-style game set in 2000 B.C.

• [Best Of 2011] 50 Awesome Games From 2011, Part 2: Action & Adventure
• Mystery Manor Promises Never Ending Puzzle Fun, Oh And Don't Forget The Mystery
• [New Game] Namco Releases Isaac Newton's Gravity 2 With Even More Physics Fun Than The Original
• [Bonus Round] Ku: Shroud Of The Morrigan, Battle Bears Gold, And World War Z

28 Best New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (5/29/13 - 6/10/13) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The users iTunes library is one of the default destinations for the new mediaGalleries API in Chrome

The mediaGalleries API is what Chrome and Chrome OS use to access images, videos and audio that is stored locally on the device. This means your media can be treated the same way online media is by Chrome apps, making them available for your viewing and listening pleasure right inside the Chrome browser.

A quick posting on Google+ from François Beaufort, everyone's favorite Chromium Evangelist, let everyone know that recent code changes mean that your iTunes library is one of the APIs default locations (your iTunes folder has a system-wide variable so it can be found by any program), meaning that music and other media you've stored there will show up automatically after a local media scan from Chrome -- with your permission, of course.

Why is this important? Imagine the Google Music website web app, redesigned so that you can play local music files as well. Or the Google Movies and TV Chrome app, or the upcoming image viewer. All your current media could be easily made available right inside these web apps from Google, or other third party extensions and Chrome apps. We're confident that Google knows that Chromebooks need at least a little bit of ability to play offline content, and building it into an API means that desktop Chrome users can benefit as well, with access to a possibly hefty iTunes library full of DRM-free "stuff".

You can check out an example of what they're doing currently if you're running Canary by loading up this Chrome app from Google's github.

Source: Chromium.org; Via +François Beaufort

As expected and widely reported ahead of today's keynote, Apple introduced a completely revamped iOS at WWDC. Not only did they ditch the skeuomorphic design scheme in favor of something a little more colorful and fun, the company added a handful of neat new features—some old, some new. But as with any major update to the mobile OS, there are a handful of features that won't be coming to older generation iOS devices. (Hint: It's because Apple wants you to upgrade.)

For starters, iOS 7 will be compatible with the following devices, so anything baked into the OS, like Find My iPhone, will be included:

Now, according to Apple "features are subject to change" and "not all features are available on all devices." Here's what you're getting and not getting based on each device. (And in some instances some services will be limited to 10 devices.)

AirDrop (which requires an iCloud account): iPhone 5, iPad(4th generation), iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation)

Siri: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad (Retina and newer), iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation)

Panorama: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Square and video formats and swipe to capture: iPhone 4 and newer, iPad 3rd generation and newer, iPad mini, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Filters in Camera: iPhone 5, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Filters in Photos: iPhone 4 and up, iPad (3rd generation and newer)

iTunes Radio: See supported iOS 7 device list above

Last summer it seemed like the subscription video segment in Scandinavia was heating up, as both Netflix and HBO announced plans to make their services available in that market. Now, less than a year later, Amazon-owned LOVEFiLM is pulling out of the region, the company has confirmed.

According to local press, LOVEFiLM Sweden sent emails to users alerting them of the service’s planned shutdown there. It will cease services and shutting down its website within the next 30 days, and has asked users to return DVDs to the company.

LOVEFiLM, which started out as a sort of European Netflix, began offering DVDs by mail and eventually streaming video services in the U.K., Germany, and Scandinavia. The company was acquired by Amazon about two-and-a-half years ago, operating as a wholly owned subsidiary in those markets.

The company said it will close down operations in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway by August 11, after concluding a regulatory period of negotiation with employment unions for its employees. The company said that other Amazon services, including online retail and Kindle services, will not be affected by the LOVEFiLM shutdown.

That retreat comes in contrast to two other streaming competitors’ plans for the market: Last summer, both Netflix and HBO announced they would go after the Scandinavian market, by rolling out streaming video offerings in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

LOVEFiLM issued the following statement about its operations in the region:

LOVEFiLM has concluded a regulatory period of negotiation with employment unions on behalf of its employees in Sweden.

Staff at its Swedish offices – responsible for running LOVEFiLM’s Scandinavian service in Sweden, Norway and Demark – have been informed that the company will close its operations by August 11, 2013.

LOVEFiLM customers will be informed in good time of closing dates and provided with final payment details, guidance on streaming availability, and any other necessary information.

The closure of LOVEFiLM will not affect the availability of other Amazon services (e.g. online retail, Kindle Fire) to customers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

The reason that Apple has invested a good deal of resources into creating its own iOS Maps application is pretty straightforward: It wasn't to control, and earn money from, all aspects of the iOS user experience and doesn't want Google to become entrenched as the dominant application developer for iPhone users. However, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple's efforts to nudge its users away from Google-made apps such as YouTube and Maps have so far been failures as new data show that iPhone users are relying on Google apps more than ever before.

Continue reading...

In an odd, throwaway line, Apple’s Eddy Cue mentioned that Siri, the voice control app for iOS 7, will let you search directly in “Bing.” In fact, the absence of Google was quite noticeable, reduced to a mention in the iWork portion of the event that the new web apps would work with Chrome.

Apple has been weaning itself off of Google for years now and with this release – and this pointed note regarding Bing – shows how deep the disaggregation has gone.

Earlier, the company shut down Google’s mapping app by creating its own (arguably sub par) solution. With this version of iOS the rejection of Google seems to be complete. While many will argue that the entire OS is wildly reminiscent of Android in the aggregate, this seems to be a catch-up effort that allows iOS to stack up to similarly outfitted devices from Google and Microsoft. Most important, however, it shows who Apple sees as its only – and most dangerous – competitor.

Apple’s top brass has been busy these past two hours or so showing off OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a dramatically revamped iOS 7, and the gorgeous new Mac Pro, and the company has your back in case you missed watching the events unfold for yourself. As is now customary for Apple, the full 2 hour WWDC keynote address is now available on Apple’s events page for your perusal.

Of course, the usual caveats still apply. Apple still doesn’t seem very fond of third-party browsers, so attempting to watch the replay in anything other than Safari (or on a second or third generation Apple TV) may prove problematic. And if you decide that trying to get the stream working in your browser/platform of choice is just too much trouble, you may want to check out our full WWDC keynote coverage here.

At WWDC 2013, Apple unveiled iOS in the Car, a new platform that mirrors your iPhone on your in-car display. The company has been working with numerous car makers to get Siri into automobiles but iOS in the Car takes "integration to a whole other level" by letting you access your Maps, messages, and other services without having to take your eyes off the wheel. Honda, Mercedes, Nissan, Ferrari, Chevrolet, Kia, Hyundai, Volvo, Jaguar, and a number of other manufacturers are on board, incorporating it in their new car models in 2014.

Continue reading…

No more fumbling around with the App Store each morning to get the latest updates — in iOS 7, all apps will automatically update without users having to take any actions at all. The iOS App Store has never been the fastest app to work with, and not having to jump into it a few times a day should help to mitigate that annoyance. But more importantly, Apple is helping developers stem fragmentation in a major way. Less tech-savvy users who aren't familiar with the App Store may let apps sit around out of date, but starting in iOS 7, that should no longer be a problem.

Continue reading…

10 Nefarious Conspiracies Proven True

Robin sez,

I'm one of the campaigns managers at 38 Degrees (the UK's largest online campaign organisation). One of our members has recently started a petition calling on the UK government to update their web technology. When I saw it I immediately thought of boing boing and wondered if you could help spread the word.

To claim Disability Living Allowance or Attendance Allowance in the UK people are being asked to use Internet Explorer 5 or 6 and other systems that are so out of date they are available on less than 2% of computers. If you want to claim online you will need to take a step back to the 1990s and hunt through second hand shops for an old PC that you can power up.

It's a crazy situation.

Update Online DLA Claim System (Thanks, Robin!)

Five years ago, almost nobody knew what the heck an infographic was. (I sure didn’t, and I was a graphic design major in college at the time.)

Now that the infographic craze has saturated us with new visual knowledge (and marketing gimmicks), something interesting has happened: The creation of infographics has become democratized. No longer is the act of creating a visual data story confined to professional designers using professional tools like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Now anyone with a data set can build an infographic.

(See also 5 Business & Design Tools Every Tech Freelancer Should Learn.)

Trust me when I say that with these tools, you don’t have to be a designer to create a high-quality, effective infographic. Does this mean there’s no place for professional designers and data? Not at all. Uniqueness and customization will always carry a premium (as Column Five can attest), but there are plenty of instances where a prefab or low-cost alternative can be mighty useful.

With that in mind, I’ve cobbled together a list of five services/methods that even non-designers can use to create or commission great infographics.

Infogr.am: All The Bells And Whistles

Infogr.am is free, and free is good. It’s a popular platform that has seen more than 800,000 infographics created to-date. Infogr.am is nice and simple, but the features it does have are power-packed. For instance, you can make more than 30 different types of charts (compared to 11 in Excel). Speaking of Excel, Infogr.am’s built-in spreadsheet editor makes editing data easy and enables importing of XLS and CSV files.

One of its best features is the ability to download files in PNG or PDF format. This is perfect for including the infographic in a presentation or emailing itto a colleague. Many people will like the fact that you can publish your infographic online, which makes it sharable and embeddable. If your data is sensitive, give it a password and a private link.

Infogr.am is far and away my favorite online infographics editor.

InfoActive: Interactive, Live And Mobile-Friendly

Of all the infographic tools that claim to make data “fun,” (there are more than you’d think), InfoActive – now in beta testing - probably comes closest to delivering on the promise. It’s unique features – including interactivity and live data - make it seem more “up-to-date” than the competition.

The platform lets you visualize data that isn’t just static - a big plus in today’s environment where people want to become part of the story. The addition of embedding live data is important given how quickly information can become outdated. The InfoActive website phrases it like this: “Hitting ‘publish’ isn’t the end of the story; it’s just the beginning.”

Simplicity is a core feature here: the InfoActive site boasts that you don’t even need a tutorial to get started. No word yet on what, if anything, InfoActive will cost post-beta.

Piktochart: Drag-And-Drop Templates Galore

For $29 a month, Piktochart gives you access to a WYSIWYG editor that will let you drag and drop elements to create an infographic. Some 300,000 users strong, including clients such as Harvard University, Red Bull and GE, Piktochart has built that following on the back of more than 90 included themes. But from a design standpoint, many of those themes are decent, but others are mundane or downright bad.

As with Infogr.am, you can share your creations via social networks or download print-quality files. If you like the Piktochart editor - which is free to try - you may find the service worth paying for. One nice bonus: In the latest version, Piktochart lets users create search friendly graphics!

Easel.ly: Theme-Based Drag-And-Drop With Objects

Like InfoActive, Easel.ly is currently in beta. Easel.ly also takes a theme-based, drag-and-drop WYSIWYG approach to infographic creation, but it comes loaded with a modest selection of just 10 “vhemes” (visual themes).

Easel.ly sets itself apart by making it easy to insert a selection of objects from categories as varied as people, banners, icons, animals and nature (among others).

While the current theme selection is a bit limited, people who enjoy the platform and interface can completely customize their infographics through the upload feature.

Many Eyes V2: Pre-Made Visualization Filters

While there are no themes in the new (beta) version of IBM’s Many Eyes, there are 11 different ways to visualize data, many of which you won’t find on the other platforms and services listed here. These visualization features let you go beyond pie charts to harness the power of word trees, heat maps, tree maps and yes, the infamous word cloud.

It all starts by uploading a data set (or selecting one from the site, though many are basically useless at the moment) and then simply applying a visualization style. The visualizations can be broken down into three categories: Compare A Set Of Values Track Rises And Falls Over Time See Parts Of A Whole

One of the coolest options is the View In Context visualization, a type of line graph that shows changes in data over a long set of intervals (like time, for example).

Note that the output of Many Eyes might not technically qualify as an infographic all by itself. But it’s a great tool to add variety to other offerings, like Infogr.am.

 

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

Chrome: Incognito mode is a great way to browse the web without leaving a cookie trail of data behind on your computer, but you always have to manually open up a new tab in Chrome to actually use it. If you'd rather just have an easy toggle, Incognito Tab Switch makes it simple.

When you press the Incognito Tab Switch button, it opens up your current tab in an incognito window. Keep pushing the button, and each tab gets added to the new incognito session. If you enable the extension to work in incognito mode, you can also switch those tabs back to normal browser tabs with a click. It's handy for those moments when you want to quickly flip a browser tab over to private session and you don't feel like typing in all your info again.

Incognito Tab Switch | Chrome Web Store via Addictive Tips

Simple UI, Holo design language and ease of use make the BBC Weather app worth checking out

The BBC has released its BBC Weather application on Google Play -- and it's actually one of the better weather apps available for Android. The BBC Weather app keeps things simple, while paying attention to Google's application design guidelines. By default, the app shows you weather conditions wherever you are, based on telemetry from the UK's Met Office, and you can view more places by searching for them. A new-style slide-out menu bar allows you to view conditions everywhere you've searched, and individual entries are easy to re-order and delete.

The main view consists of several scrollable areas that let you change location and view forecasts for hours or even days ahead. UV and pollen levels, if relevant, are shown too, as are sunrise and sunset times, and wind speeds and directions. On the whole, the app is able to shown a great deal of information without becoming cluttered. There's also an attractive 4x2 widget that shows you current conditions and a four-day forecast, along with lock screen widget support. NFC forecast transfers are supported too, and there's even a DashClock plug-in that'll bring the BBC's forecasts to the popular third-party clock widget.

You can find the BBC Weather app for Android at the Google Play link above; it's available for devices running Android 2.2 and above. (Update: Unfortunately for those outside the UK, it looks like this app is limited to British users only.)