Bigmouthmedia Search Engine News: /usability/

Spotify announces 12 new applications

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:37:00 GMT

Spotify have announced 12 new applications which will provide further channels upon which users can discover music.

Boasting some of the music industries major labels like Matador Records or Sony, some of the apps give Spotify the ability to link with social media platforms. Users can personalise playlists according to their Facebook 'likes' and explore the most popular artists and songs on Twitter.

"Today we're excited to present the latest, greatest batch of hot new apps. A total of 12 fantastic apps, brought to you from music labels including Universal, Sony, Warner LEGACY, Def Jam, Domino, Matador, PIAS and X5," Spotify's Diego Planas Rego wrote on the company blog.

"Want to check out complete album booklets? Personalise playlists based on your Facebook likes? Delve more deeply into the history of legendary artists? Listen to the most popular songs being talked about on Twitter? All this and much, much more is coming to Spotify."

The new apps give users the opportunity to browse lyrics and rich images, create music charts from twitter, browse classical composers, read biographies and assemble playlists, among other things. It is yet to be seen how Spotify compare to Apple and Facebook, who have thousands of applications across many platforms.

Currently a 10-million-user strong organisation, Spotify launched in 2008 and is accessible using a number of devices including desktop computers, as well as iPhone, Android and Blackberry mobile devices.

Users can browse by album, artist, song, genre and other keywords, and are given a listening limit of ten hours per month once the free trial period ends with the option to purchase Spotify Premium. The Premium service cuts out advertisements and gives the user access to a higher streaming data rate.

There is also the facility to integrate Spotify accounts with social media sites so users can share what they are listening to and access their friend's playlists too. The music streaming service believes these newly revealed apps will bring them into line with competitors.

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Twitter can now tweet from right-to-left

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:12:00 GMT

Twitter has made another step forward in its quest for world domination of 140-character thoughts, launching right-to-left-hand language versions of its site.

Twitter officially announced this week that its micro-blogging services would now be available in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu.

The company put out a call for translators on its Twitter Translation Centre in January, and ultimately used a group of 13,000 international volunteers to help make the site more accessible worldwide. The translators dedicated their time to translate menu options and support pages.

"These 13,000 volunteers are a vibrant and diverse group," Twitter wrote in an official blog post.

"Among those who donated their time and translation skills to make right-to-left languages a reality on Twitter: a Saudi blogger, Egyptian college students, a journalist at the BBC, IT professionals in Iran and Pakistan, and Israeli schoolteacher, the co-founders of the grassroots LetsTweetInArabic hashtag campaign, academics specializing in linguistics, and teenagers in Lebanon.

"Some of these volunteers live in regions where Twitter is officially blocked. Their efforts speak volumes about the lengths people will go to make Twitter accessible and understandable in their communities."

The little blue bird now tweets in 28 different languages, but getting there was not without its technical difficulties. Multilingualism was a unique challenge to overcome, particularly in posts that included both right-to-left and left-to-right content.

Twitter added: "To solve this, our engineering team built a new set of special tools to ensure these Tweets, hashtags and numbers all look and behave correctly."

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Google pays users to give up their privacy

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:36:00 GMT

Google will pay you to give up your online privacy.

In a new project called Screenwise, Google is offering to pay users up to $25 (£15) to share their search history.

People who sign up to be Screenwise panellists will receive a $5 (£3) Amazon voucher for installing the Google Screenwise browser extension. Participants will then earn an additional $5 (£3) for every three months of participation up to one year.

Though, the fine print on the Screenwise landing page states that gift amounts for participating longer than a year will be reviewed.

The search giant hasn't been overly specific about the details that members of the panel will share, but did state: "As a panellist, you'll add a browser extension that will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them."

The company also said of its goals, "What we learn from you, and others like you, will help us improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone.

In an official statement about the programme, a Google spokesperson stated: "Like many other web and media companies, we do panel research to help better serve our users by learning more about people's media use, on the web and elsewhere.

"This panel is one such small project that started near the beginning of the year. Of course, this is completely optional to join.

"People can choose to participate if it's of interest (or if the gift appeals) and everyone who does participate has complete transparency and control over what Internet use is being included in the panel. People can stay on the panel as long as they'd like, or leave at any time."

For those interested in joining the Screenwise panel, they must be 13 years or older, have a Google Account (or sign up for one) and be willing to use the Google Chrome browser.

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Google introduces Chrome for Android

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:01:00 GMT

Google has introduced two of its most successful products to one another - Chrome and Android - releasing its Chrome Browser App for Android users.

Available in the Android Market for smartphones fitted with Ice Cream Sandwich, the new Chrome app is 'focused on speed and simplicity' and features many of the same features as the desktop version.

"Today, we're introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you've come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet," Chrome and Apps Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai wrote on the Google blog.

"Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign in and sync so you can take your personalised web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices."

The new mobile Chrome features 'reimagined tabs' designed specifically to fit on a mobile browser, and makes use of gesture-based controls to move across tabs.

"You can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you're holding a deck of cards in the palm of your hands, each one a new window to the web," Pichai said.

Users can also sync their mobile and desktop bookmarks, making it easy to access sites across different devices. Syncing also extends to autocomplete suggestions - for example, a site visited or searched regularly at home will also appear as an autocomplete suggestion on the mobile browser.

This, according to Pichai, allows users to 'bring your personalised Chrome experience with you'.
"When searching, your top search results are loaded in the background as you type so pages appear instantly," he said. "And of course, both search and navigation can all be done quickly from the Chrome omnibox."

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Apple warns appayola-using app-makers

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:37:00 GMT

App Store competition can be tough, but Apple has warned the consequences of trying to game the system are tougher.

Apple is reminding app-makers that using appayola services - paying to artificially inflate an app's chart ranking - will lead to them being stripped of their ability to release apps in the App Store.

In a post on Apple's Developer website, the company said: "Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts.

"Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership."

The reminder appears to have come in response to a recent conversation on the forum for the mobile games site Touch Arcade. In the forum posting, an independent developer claimed to have been contacted by an ad network charging $5,000 (£3,200) for a guaranteed spot in the App Store's Top 25 placement listing for free apps.

The developer also alleged that the company claimed to use a bot farm to automatically download apps and drive up their rankings, as well as implicating eight free apps currently in the Top 25 listing as using the unnamed bot farm's services.

Making the Top 25 is a coveted position in the App Store, and the potential revenue rewards for download popularity are certainly alluring. However, analysts are quick to point out that long-term business models cannot be built on the artificial use of bot farms.

For example, a really bad game in the App Store may just make it into the Top 25 by using appayola firms, but once "real human" users start playing, the rankings can sink very quickly.

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Deleted photos live on in Facebook servers

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:24:00 GMT

Old Facebook photos may still be accessible for months - or even years - after being deleted, living on in the depths of the social network's servers.

First revealed in 2009 by Ars Technica, the firm recently queried Facebook again after discovering backup copies - that could potentially be accessed by users - still existed some three years later.

"Users who might have had second thoughts about posting a photo could certainly remove the image from Facebook's main user interface, but as long as someone had a direct link to the JPEG file in question, the photo would remain accessible for an indefinite amount of time," the company said in a blog post.

According to Facebook, a poorly-functioning legacy system is the culprit, but a new system is on its way to ensure deleted photos can no longer be accessed.

"We are in the process of migrating these photos to the newer system to ensure proper deletion, but until this migration is complete, CDN URLs from deleted photos stored on this legacy system may still be accessible," Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens told CNET.

Under the new system, Facebook photos that have been removed from the social networking site will be deleted - permanently - within 45 days, and according to Facebook, only a very small percentage of photos are still accessible on the company's old servers.

"The process is nearly complete and there is only a very small percentage of user photos (fewer than 3 per cent) still on the old system awaiting migration," Wolens said.

"We expect this process to be completed within the next month or two, at which point we will verify the migration is complete and we will disable all the old content."

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Apple co-founder wishes iPhones were like Androids

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:24:00 GMT

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has admitted his Android-powered smartphone out muscles his iPhone much of the time.

"My primary phone is the iPhone," Wozniak said. "I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do."

Though still a big fan of the iPhone, Wozniak argues Android has a better built-in navigation, and that voice commands work better on the Google-made operating system than its Cupertino counterpart.

"I used to ask Siri, 'What are the five biggest lakes in California?' and it would come back with the answer," he said.

"Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listing. I used to ask, 'What are the prime numbers greater than 87?' and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate."

Android and Apple have been going head to head for smartphone supremacy - Apple visionary Steve Jobs famously vowed to destroy Android. In contrast, Wozniak bears no ill-will towards Android, and is a long-time friend of Android project head Andy Rubin.

Still, even though Wozniak likes his Android, he still believes the iPhone is the better smartphone overall.

"The people I recommend for the iPhone 4S are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it's so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don't want to use them," he said.

"The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here's a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do," he said.

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Google+ phases out incoming stream

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:01:00 GMT

Google is set to axe its 'incoming stream' from Google+, in an effort to keep things simple for users.

Engineering Manager Dave Besbris quietly announced the changes in a Google+ post, stating: "The 'incoming' stream was a part of Google+ from the very start and it served an important purpose at the time to help discover others on Google+.

"Since then however we've added a suggested user list, What's Hot, the ability to share circles and in-product search with saved searches."

Through the incoming stream, users could see posts and activity of others who followed them but whom they didn't follow themselves - however, critics argued the feature was too confusing.

The move away from its 'incoming stream' comes in direct response to user frustration, and tweaks to Google+ have incorporated some of the features of the incoming stream to other aspects of the social networking site.

"We've also greatly improved our friend suggestion algorhithms. these changes all serve the same purpose that incoming originally did: connecting people," Besbris said.

"Based on your feedback and our user research, we learned that the "incoming" stream was a very confusing part of Google+. Not surprisingly, this feedback was reflected in very low usage of the "Incoming" stream compared to the rest of Google+, so we decided to remove it and simplify things."

The young social network has been constantly refining its services to make them more user-friendly since its initial launch - tweaking existing features and introducing new ones. And, with Google's latest Search plus Your World updates, activity on Google+ is now even more visible in search results - a move that will likely encourage users to engage with the social network even more.

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New-fangled e-books with Amazon's KF8

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:13:00 GMT

Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing has released new tools for creating e-books using Web technologies, announcing it's ready to receive Kindle Format 8 (KF8) books from publishers.

KF8 is Amazon's next generation file format offering a wide range of features and enhancements - giving rise to a new breed of e-book with high resolution colour and pop-up text through the use of HTML and CSS tools.

According to the ever-expanding online market: "Through the use of HTML5 and CSS3, KF8 allows publishers to create great-looking books in all categories, particularly those that require rich formatting and design, such as technical and engineering books and cookbooks."

The move signifies the growing expansion of e-book capabilities. Where pure text is satisfactory for many books and easily meets the needs of reader apps for mobile phones, graphics are becoming more and more crucial for many markets.

Amazon added: "For those doing more advanced formatting by writing HTML5, using design software or working with a conversion resource, KF8 features such as Kindle Panel Views and Kindle Pop Up enable great fixed layout books like graphic novels, comics, and kids' books."

Kindle Fire users - Amazon's tablet introduced last year - will be the first readers to get their hands on books made with the new formatting tools, downloading them straight to their devices.

"In the coming months KF8 will be rolled out to our latest generation Kindle e-ink devices as well as our free Kindle reading apps," Amazon said. However, the company noted that older book formats will continue to work.

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Mozilla's (intentional) enterprise slow-down

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:49:00 GMT

Mozilla has announced that its proposed Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox is a go.

The open source outfit will be launching an ESR version of Firefox which will update less frequently for use by enterprises, public institutions and other organisations that centrally manage their Firefox deployments.

The release comes in direct response to the criticism Mozilla received over Firefox's rapid-release development cycle.

Corporations and other users had cited concerns that the release schedule didn't allow enough time for them to certify new releases of the products, as well as concerns that the end-of life policy exposes them to considerable security risk if they remain on older Firefox versions.

However, the ESR is an about-face from Mozilla's position six months ago, when its product director Asa Dotzler said, "Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours."

But, it now looks like Firefox will, indeed, be making enterprise a focus.

Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of products, wrote on the company's blog yesterday: "Release of the ESR will occur once a year, providing these organisations with a version of Firefox that receives security updates but does not make changes to the Web or Firefox Add-ons platform.

"We have worked with many organisations to ensure that the ESR balances their need for the latest security updates with the desire to have a lighter application certification burden."

The ESR release will go through a 12-week testing cycle, which Mozilla says will give businesses enough time to test early builds before deploying.

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