Reseize

Enable GMail Priority on your mobile device?

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:22:00 +0000

Want access to Gmail's fancy new Priority Inbox sorting on your portable browser?
You can view the messages you've trained Gmail to consider Priority through a simple email search.
Its very easy:
Go to your mobile Gmail and search within Gmail for "label:important in:inbox".
You will now see your important emails from your inbox.
Now, just bookmark it.
You can further customize it - example add "is:unread" to your search and you will only get the unread messages.

Periodic Table of the Elements (html 5 elements ;-))

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:48:00 +0000

How to Root your Nexus One or other Froyo 2.2 Device the Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:20:00 +0000

When you try to find a way to root your Nexus One or similar devices with Froyo 2.2 and Android version 2.2 FRF91 you will find a lot of complicated guides and walk trough manuals but all look rather scary and complicated. Is does not have to be this way.
Just download Easy Root from the Android Market or directly from here (because it sometimes was off the Market)..
This little app roots your phone in just one click.
Easy Root works with many devices. If you want to know if your device is supported download the "Easy Root Compatibility Test" from the market and perform the test.

If you want root access but also want to keep your stock OTA and upgrades from your provider it is also capable of un-rooting your phone again. It cant get more fail-proof then this. Just enjoy.
If you want to customize your phone with 3rd party roms just follow the various instructions. For CyanogenMod this one, else look at the xda developers site.

Robots That Develop Emotions in Interaction with Humans

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:47:00 +0000

The first prototype robots capable of developing emotions as they interact with their human caregivers and expressing a whole range of emotions have been finalised by researchers.

The first prototype robots capable of developing emotions as they interact with their human caregivers and expressing a whole range of emotions have been finalised by researchers.
Led by Dr. Lola Cañamero at the University of Hertfordshire, and in collaboration with a consortium of universities and robotic companies across Europe, these robots differ from others in the way that they form attachments, interact and express emotion through bodily expression.
Developed as part of the interdisciplinary project FEELIX GROWING (Feel, Interact, eXpress: a Global approach to development with Interdisciplinary Grounding), funded by the European Commission and coordinated by Dr. Cañamero, the robots have been developed so that they learn to interact with and respond to humans in a similar way as children learn to do it, and use the same types of expressive and behavioural cues that babies use to learn to interact socially and emotionally with others.
The robots have been created through modelling the early attachment process that human and chimpanzee infants undergo with their caregivers when they develop a preference for a primary caregiver.
They are programmed to learn to adapt to the actions and mood of their human caregivers, and to become particularly attached to an individual who interacts with the robot in a way that is particularly suited to its personality profile and learning needs. The more they interact, and are given the appropriate feedback and level of engagement from the human caregiver, the stronger the bond developed and the amount learned.
The robots are capable of expressing anger, fear, sadness, happiness, excitement and pride and will demonstrate very visible distress if the caregiver fails to provide them comfort when confronted by a stressful situation that they cannot cope with or to interact with them when they need it.
"This behaviour is modelled on what a young child does," said Dr Cañamero. “This is also very similar to the way chimpanzees and other non-human primates develop affective bonds with their caregivers.”
This is the first time that early attachment models of human and non-human primates have been used to program robots that develop emotions in interaction with humans.

This was seized from University of Herfordshire

Play Pong with Browser Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:14:00 +0000

A new version of (the good old times classic) Pong game.

Play it with browser Windows.

Only requirement is to disable your pop up blocker for this side.

Go her to enjoy!

Reverend Wade Watts and Johnny (the Ku Klux Klan Kid)

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:54:00 +0000

Animated Pixel Art Landscapes Programmed Entirely In HTML5

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:43:00 +0000

In addition to being gorgeous backdrops for your parlour, bedroom or other stress-relieving living space, these moving pixelated scenes from artist Mark Ferrari were designed and coded with the limitations of 8-bit computers and game consoles firmly in mind. While it would be impossible to create something of this nature on, say, an original Nintendo Entertainment System (the NES displays graphics in tiles with extremely limited palette data), these lush landscapes gain their zen-like qualities without exceeding the 256 color limit of most 8-bit processors.

Go here to see the images in their full animated glory, and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

The moving images are powered by an HTML5 routine that cycles colors in and out of the palette, making it appear as if certain objects are moving, when in reality the pixels are merely changing colors at a framerate of ~40fps. It also allows control over the animation speed and shows the color palette cycling in real-time. There are over a dozen scenes available, from jungle waterfalls to mountain vistas and sleepy seaside towns, all accompanied by soothing audible ambience.

Slowly but surely, HTML5 is changing the way we access video and interactive content on the web. Check here for a few more examples of how programmers are using this new lightweight web standard to great effect.

Major US Newspaper Chain Goes Open Source

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:32:00 +0000

The argument over the utility of open source has one more voter in the yes camp. This time, it's the Journal Register Company, a U.S. newspaper chain with 170 publications. Calling it the Ben Franklin Project, the company tried open source for a month. Things went so well it decided to make it permanent and company-wide for its 18 daily newspapers and their websites.

From the press release: Journal Register Company, a leading local news and information company, declared its independence from proprietary publishing systems this weekend by producing the Company's 18 daily websites and newspapers using only free web-based tools.
"In the process, we have declared our independence from not only old proprietary systems but the old way of thinking as well and opened up new opportunities for this Company to grow and continue its mission of providing compelling journalism to the communities we serve," Chief Executive Officer John Paton said. The Ben Franklin Project not only proves that websites and newspapers can be freed from the restraints of legacy, proprietary publishing systems, but also heralds the potential of an open and transparent newsgathering process.

"The collaborative nature of the Ben Franklin Project has provided opportunities for innovation and created an environment where the best ideas will win out. Journal Register's employees have developed new low-cost solutions to long-standing, legacy issues," said Mr. Cooper. These include using free, open-source desktop publishing tools and combining software programs that could serve as models for future development of billing and ad tracking interfaces. The Company will continue to expand on this ground-breaking experiment and will continue to share -- through blogs and social media -- lessons learned from the Ben Franklin Project with others in the industry.

Newspapers have seen a sustained drop in readership, and therefore in revenues, over the last half-decade. The ability to cut cost on something as elemental as production, by dropping expensive proprietary software, is exciting. But so is watching a company in an allegedly change-resistant sector see the light bulb go off over its head.

"The Ben Franklin Project not only proves that websites and newspapers can be freed from the restraints of legacy, proprietary publishing systems, but also heralds the potential of an open and transparent news-gathering process. The Project allowed audience members to help shape editorial story budgets through crowd sourcing."

Wedoist Introduces Real-Time Contemporary Project Management

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:36:00 +0000

Amir Salihefendic, the mastermind of Todoist has introduced another -ist with Wedoist.
Wedoist is a real-time project management tool - think along Basecamp lines. Amir has folded into the system a number of tech trends, hoping to point the product into the future.
Wedoist offers the following features:

Real-time updates on everything
Status updates
Task manager
Group chat

Following extensions are in the pipeline:

File uploading
Group chat
API
Mobile version (smart phone version)

WeDoist reminds a lot of ToDoist. It is also a very easy simplistic web application (above a screenshot from the corresponding Mac application). As Amir says in his blog "The road to Wedoist has been bumpy. The initial idea was add collaboration to Todoist, but unfortunately this was much harder than I anticipated. About 6 months ago I dumped this idea and started from scratch with Wedoist."
"I think one of the most interesting things about Wedoist is the technology stack, which uses Comet for all updates" said Wedoist's developer Amir Salihefendic. "This means that each change gets broad-casted to everyone in a team instantly."
In tackling online project management, Amir and friends are entering a crowded field. Aside from Basecamp, there is the well-established Zoho, PBWorks, LiquidPlanner, Huddle, Clarizen and ActiveCollab.
Perhaps the real-time features will keep it in the field, but will they allow it to stand out?

Most of the content for this entry was reseized from ReadWriteWeb

Gmail will get many HTML5 features (this is a first round up)

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:20:00 +0000

In keeping with Google's enthusiasm for the emerging HTML5 standard, many upcoming features of the company's Gmail Web-based e-mail service will be rendered in HTML5, said Adam de Boor, a staff software engineer working on the service. "We have things that we can do much more efficiently in HTML5," said De Boor, speaking Thursday at the Usenix WebApps '10 in Boston. "HTML5 is exciting to me insofar as to how many browser makers are adopting it," he said, adding, "I have high hopes for IE9." One of the chief benefits he pointed to is how the standard could speed the loading and execution time of Gmail. Google's current goal is to get Gmail to load in under a second. "Speed is a feature," he said.
Early tests have proved promising. For instance, Gmail looks for those browsers that can work with version 3 of the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a standard closely related to HTML5. If the browser supports CSS3, Gmail will render the pages using these specifications, rather than its traditional approach of using the Document Object Model (DOM). The company has found that using CSS3 can speed the rendering time by 12 percent.
HTML5 will also help in building new features. One feature that the Gmail design team is now working on is the ability to drag files from the desktop into the browser. This feature will be important in that it will bring Web applications even closer in feature functionality to desktop applications, de Boor said. Gmail will also make use of HTML5's database standards. Now, the e-mail service uses Google Gears to store mail for offline reading, but over time that will migrate to the HTML5 standards.
De Boor also talked about adding new features that couldn't be rendered using HTML5. One will be the ability to drag files from the browser window onto the desktop. To do this, his team is working on a new data transfer protocol, called "downloadurl." "We tried to get this in HTML5," but were unable to do so. He jokingly said that Google will have to lobby to have some of the functionality needed to make that happen added into HTML6, which, as of today, does not exist in any form. Instead of rendering it into a standard, the company will "encourage other browsers to use it," he said.
He noted that the company doesn't wasn't to revisit the "browser wars" of the last decade. "We tried to learn from history and be much more cooperative to the other browser makers," he said.
Another new feature he talked about was something called "Magic iFrame," which would allow a user to take part of a Web page, rendered in a frame, and pull it out and make it its own full Web page in a new browser window.

This was reseized from Computerworld

SoundHound - A better alternative to Shazam?

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:23:00 +0000

SoundHound announced the launch of a new, free version of its mobile application on the Android Market. The free application offers unlimited voice and text searches, unlimited lyrics, and five free music recognition searches every month. The premium version of SoundHound, which offers unlimited music recognition searches is n available as SoundHound Infinity. SoundHound makes it easy and fast for fans to search, discover and share music. Features in both SoundHound and SoundHound Infinity include:

Blazing fast music recognition. Fans can identify music playing from a speaker (radio, TV, films) in as little as four seconds.
Hum music recognition. If the user can carry a tune, SoundHound can identify it.
Voice-directed search. The fan simply speaks a Title or Artist to explore, and get results instantly, including links to video, discography, artist info and more.
Instant sharing with integrated and customizable email and Twitter options.
Lyrics, videos and other rich content.
Buy links for easy purchase of songs and related content, including Amazon MP3

Thumbs up for SoundHound lyrics and the humming support. Humming seems really to work but the app will cost you $ 4.99 if you want to use it more then 5 times a month.
Shazam is free but you have to live with the ads and humming is not working.
SoundHound is available for Android, iPhone and iPad.

Which app would you prefer?

Google Adds OCR for PDF Files and Images

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:29:00 +0000

When you upload files to Google Docs, you'll notice a new option that tells Google to convert the text from PDF and image files to Google Docs documents. The feature has been released last year as an experiment, so Google had enough time to improve the accuracy of the results.

I've tried to convert an excerpt from the book Rework and the result wasn't great. About 10% of the text has been incorrectly converted and the formatting hasn't been preserved.

"This document contains text automatically extracted from a PDF or image file. Formatting may have been lost and not all text may have been recognized," explained Google in a note included in the document.

To be fair, ABBYY Online wasn't able to produce much better results:

Originally posted by Alex Chitu at Google Operating System

Swype Versus iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:55:00 +0000

Printing in a Smartphone Age - Printers to get Email Addresses

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:36:00 +0000

On Monday, HP will announce there latest attack on the printing market — which will center on printers built for the smartphone age.

Mr. Joshi from HP has spent years disputing the notion that people will print less as they do more on their hand-held devices. This week, he will see his ideas put into action as H.P. introduces a fleet of printers with Web access, their own e-mail addresses and touch screens. These products should open up new ways for people to print from Web

services like Google Docs, and from smartphones and devices like the iPad from Apple.

The new printers — which build on a limited experiment last year — will range in price from $99 to about $400. Every one will come with what H.P. executives billed as a breakthrough feature — its very own e-mail address.

H.P.’s engineers hit on the e-mail address as an easy, familiar way for people to send print jobs to the Web-ready printers. You can, for example, take a photo with a phone, e-mail it to your printer’s address and have the printout waiting for you at home. Or, you can share the printer’s e-mail address with family and friends. This means that someone can buy Grandma a Web-ready printer and have it pump out photos of the grandchildren without Grandma having to do much of anything. (Except buy that pricey ink.)

H.P. is also lining up partners for a Web site, the ePrintCenter, which the company envisions as the kind of app store that Apple, Google and others have for their smartphones. The idea is that the partners — so far, H.P. has lined up 40 — can build software and services for its Web printers. For example, children, and their parents, could print out coloring books from Crayola, and Dora the Explorer birthday activity packs from Nickelodeon. “Now that H.P. is going mass-market with this technology, we will more actively program to it,” said Steve Youngwood, an executive vice president at Nickelodeon.

H.P. plans to offer a few of these new printers to consumers this month, and then a few more of the products to small businesses in September. It expects to sell more than 15 million of the Web printers by next year. The hardest part may be convincing consumers to change their behavior and adopt the new tools. People who once printed out directions now have their own navigational devices, and things like boarding passes and tickets are starting to give way to their digital equivalents on smartphones. Analysts add that recessions tend to condition people to print less.

Still, Mr. Joshi is optimistic. “We think by next year more printing will be done from the Web than from word-processing applications,” he said. The e-mail address approach removes a major barrier to use in the mobile era: a cable, as well as the installation of the often-irksome software that makes the printer and PC work together. This type of technology could make finding and using a printer at an airport, hotel or office easier as well. H.P.’s approach has caught the attention of Google, and the companies have formed a partnership so that people can send jobs from things like Google Docs and Calendar to H.P.’s Web printers.

Originally written by ASHLEE VANCE - Published: June 6, 2010 - A version of this article appeared in print on June 7, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition

DeaDBeeF - Ultimate Music Player For GNU/Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:16:00 +0000

DeaDBeeF (as in 0xDEADBEEF) is an audio player for GNU/Linux systems. It is mainly written by Alexey Yakovenko, with contributions from a lot of different people. It is distributed under the terms of General Public License version 2.

DeadBeef is a fully-featured music player which uses very few system resources (around 9 mb of RAM on my system) and comes with a clean and nice user interface and a lot of plugin. (It seems inspired by Foobar.) From my point of vie the best music player and music libary manager out there. It is simple and efficient.

Whilst the following RAM comparison isn’t by any means perfect – it does show that it is a lightweight choice for any user:

Banshee : 58.6MiB
DeaDBeeF: 11.8 MiB
Clementine: 54.2MiB
Rhythmbox: 59.8MiB

About the name: 0xDEADBEEF ("dead beef") is a magical number used by IBM RS/6000 systems, Mac OS on 32-bit PowerPC processors and the Commodore Amiga as a magic debug value. On Sun Microsystems' Solaris, it marks freed kernel memory.

Main features (the list is most likely far from complete):

mp3, ogg vorbis, flac, ape, wv, wav, m4a, mpc, cd audio (and many more)
sid, nsf and lots of other popular chiptune formats
ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, APEv2, xing/info tags support
character set detection for non-unicode id3 tags - supports cp1251 and iso8859-1
unicode tags are fully supported as well (both utf8 and ucs2)
cuesheet (.cue files) support, with charset detection (utf8/cp1251/iso8859-1)
tracker modules like mod, s3m, it, xm, etc
HVSC song length database support for sid
gtk2 interface with efficient custom widgets
no GNOME or KDE dependencies
minimize to tray, with scrollwheel volume control
drag and drop, both inside of playlist, and from filemanagers and such
control playback from command line
global hotkeys
multiple playlists
album artwork display
18-band graphical equalizer
metadata editor
user-customizable groups in playlists
user-customizable columns with flexible title formatting
radio and podcast support for ogg vorbis, mp3 and aac streams
gapless playback
plugin support; bundled with lots of plugins, such as global hotkeys and last.fm scrobbler; sdk is included
duration calculation is as precise as possible for vbr mp3 files (with and without xing/info tags)
was tested and works on x86, x86_64 and ppc64 architectures. should work on most modern platforms

Goverment Gone Google

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:38:00 +0000

An ad which reads: “Over 60% of the U.S. state governments have gone Google.”

Does this mean that we’ve now handed the majority of our state governments’ operational data to a single privately-controlled company which has well-publicized partnerships with other governments such as China?

To find out more, I contacted Google’s press department. A representative promptly got back to me with more information:

“The reference to Going Google refers to US state governments using one or more of Google’s enterprise products…With regard to data hosting, Google Apps is a cloud computing solution meaning Google hosts the data in our data centers, relieving the customer or gov agency of the burden of managing their own servers in house.”

In other words, according to Google, United States state governments have literally handed over our public data to be held and managed by a private company which has well-publicized partnerships with other governments such as China. The data is physically stored in Google’s buildings, on Google’s servers, managed by Google’s employees. This means Google now controls our government’s access to it’s own data.

Google declined to make their list of state government customers public, so instead I checked to see which states had active Google Apps login pages for their domains. There are 19 states that have active Google Apps login pages (plus Washington D.C.) These include:

Alaska
Connecticut
Washington,DC
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Utah

Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Montana
North Dakota
Nebraska

New Hampshire
Ohio
Oklahoma
Minnesota
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Wisconsin

In September, Google announced its plans to create a major government data hosting operation for the United States. “Today, we’re excited to announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments…”

Moving the data itself offsite is a BIG change, and one that comes at a BIG price. This effectively places state governments’ data outside the direct control of our government. If Google (or an ISP) were to decide for whatever reason– economic, political– to cut us off from our data, governments using their services would be, well, Scroogled.

To me, this is an unacceptable level of control for a single private company to have over federal, state or local government. When you reach a point where the government cannot operate without a private company, then the private company has effectively gained control of the government.

With Google physically housing and managing state government operational data, they literally gain control of our government’s operations. What’s more, Google also has access to data mine the information. Would this be legal? Hopefully not, depending on the contract that our governments have signed. Would it be technologically possible? Of course.

In another twist, state governments’ moves to outsource their data could also open their information to far greater access by intelligence agencies. It might be legal under homeland security rules for federal intelligence agencies to force Google to turn over information from state and local governments, perhaps without even notifying them. For issues where state laws are in direct conflict with federal laws, the implications for states’ rights are serious. For example, several states maintain lists of registered medical marijuana patients. Could a federal agency force or coerce Google to turn over lists of names without permission from the state?

Google is extremely good at managing its own public image (it undeniably has a leg up due to the fact that it controls news sources and search engine returns). However, it is still a for-profit corporation and ultimately works for the good of its owners, not the public. The fact that Google is working to host a large percentage of U.S. government data should set off alarm bells. How can the U.S. government effectively manage its own security and the interests of the people when large corporations have it by the balls?

The long-term, hard-to-quantify risks of moving the United States’ operational data to a private company are easy to ignore when you look at the short-term technological benefits and shiny flashy features. No one can deny that Google enables government entities to operate with a level of sophistication that would inconceivable if all operations were done in-house. Governments typically suffer the same problems as many midsize companies with underfunded IT departments and political complexities that make it difficult to centralize and streamline operations. It doesn’t really make sense for every state and local government to reinvent the wheel with respect to IT. With no “public option” for scalable, government-sponsored IT services, it’s understandable that state and local governments would outsource to the private sector.

That said, the practice of outsourcing government IT management is risky and deserves careful scrutiny and regulation. It’s funny that we’re chasing after “terrorists” in our airports, and at the same time our state governments have moved fundamental operations data over to a private company which is not controlled by the public and has strong ties to foreign governments.

Google is outside our system of checks and balances. They are quickly becoming absolutely necessary for our government to function, but their operations are not transparent and are outside the control of the American people.

Here are a few related press materials published by Google:

District of Colombia

Virtual Alabama

City of Los Angeles

This was was written by Sherri Davidoff and seized at the philosecurity blog

Goverment Gone Google

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Recently I saw an ad which read:

“Over 60% of the U.S. state governments have gone Google.”

To find out more, I contacted Google’s press department. A representative promptly got back to me with more information:

Alaska
Connecticut
Washington, DC
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky

Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Montana
North Dakota
Nebraska

New Hampshire
Ohio
Oklahoma
Minnesota
Pennsylvania
South Dakota

Utah
Wisconsin

Here are a few related press materials published by Google:

District of Colombia

Virtual Alabama

City of Los Angeles

This was was written by Sherri Davidoff and seized at the philosecurity blog

AddressBook (Best Mobile App from DEMO 09 Asurion's Social Adress Book)

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:12:00 +0000

Asurion introduced their new open mobile address book called simply "AddressBook." at the DEMO 09 conference Although the name may not be all that flashy, the app itself is. With this mobile address book, you can add social elements to your contact list including Flickr photos, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. This may remind you of the upcoming Palm Pre's address book which will deliver similar functionality with its Facebook integration, however Asurion's solution does even more. And thanks to the app's open framework, it's not limited to the social add-ons it ships with - developers can extend it any way they like.

Android-Only (For Now)

At the moment, AddressBook is available only on Android phones, and it takes advantage of the phone's open nature to access the address book details stored on the device. An iPhone version may or may not be in the works as the company seems more focused on selling their solution as something that could be integrated into handsets before time of purchase. Asurion already has relationships with several major carriers in the U.S. and Canada thanks to past software deals, so it's reasonable to assume they'll leverage those connections once again to sell their new application.

For the end user, the AddressBook is more than just a fun way to see a contact's social information - it also lets you return a phone call via email, IM, or even a status update. Other updates like messages or photo sharing can be sent out to groups you create in the application. This makes it easy to share with multiple people at once - like sending a photo to all your friends or family.

The end user experience is entirely customizable since consumers can pick and choose which social elements, known as "mix-ins," are integrated. These mix-ins can include things like email, messaging, social networks, media sharing, mapping, interactive games, and anything else a developer can envision.

Another interesting element to the Asurion AddressBook is the idea of a "Smart Contact." This is a contact that isn't representative of a person, but rather functions as a service. For example, a preferred airline Smart Contact delivers up-to-date travel information, provides access to reservations, frequent flyer miles, and more. That's only one example, but it's easy to imagine how brands could take advantage of this feature to further integrate themselves into customers' lives.

Perhaps the best thing about the Asurion application is that it provides a way to access the information which is most important to you without having to jump from application to application. You can now do more with the personal contacts you're the closest to - the ones who you care enough about to enter into your phone.

If you want to get in on the Asurion Mobile AddressBook beta, you can sign up here:Asurion AdressBook Beta.

This was seized 4 u at ReadWriteWeb and was written by Sarah Perez

The Google Wave Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Today has been dominated by news and excitement surrounding Google Wave ,Google’s new real-time communication platform that will launch to the public on September 30th. In fact, there’s been so much buzz that you might just not have enough time to read the thousands of articles being released on Google’s biggest product launch in recent memory.

To make sense of it all, we have compiled key information, definitions, and links related to the launch of Google Wave. This in-depth guide provides an overview of Google Wave, discusses the terminology associated with it, details information on Google Wave applications, (i.e. the Twitter Wave appTwave), and goes over ways to keep yourself informed. We know you’re excited about Google Wave, so here’s what we think you should know:

What is Google Wave?

While we suggest reading our article on the launch of Google Wave for more detailed information, here’s the sum of it: Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.

Google Wave has a lot of innovative features, but here are just a few:

- Real-time: In most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
- Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website.
- Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook application or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves. They can be anything from bots to complex real-time games.
- Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Google Wave can be edited by anyone else, because all conversations within the platform are shared. Thus, you can correct information, append information, or add your own commentary within a developing conversation.
- Open source: The Google Wave code will be open source, to foster innovation and adoption amongst developers.
- Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said.
- Natural language: Google Wave can autocorrect your spelling, even going as far as knowing the difference between similar words, like “been” and “bean.” It can also auto-translate on-the-fly.
- Drag-and-drop file sharing: No attachments; just drag your file and drop it inside Google Wave and everyone will have access.

While these are only a few of the many features of Google Wave, it’s easy to see why people are extremely excited.

Google Wave was the brainchild of a team based out of Sydney, Australia. The core team members are two brothers, Jens and Lars Rasmussen, and lead project manager Stephanie Hannon, all of whom were involved in Google Maps previously. Google Wave was announced today at Google’s I/O Developer conference, although the product will not be available to the public for several months.

We detail even more of these features in our article The Top 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave.

Terminology

Google Wave actually has its own lingo – yes, you have to learn a few definitions if you’re going to really understand this new communication platform. Having knowledge of these terms will help you understand more about Google’s newest project.

- Wave: A wave, specifically, refers to a specific threaded conversation. It can include just one person, or it can include a group of users or even robots (explained below). The best comparison I can make is that it’s like your entire instant messaging (IM) history with someone. Anything you’ve ever discussed in a single chat or conversation is a wave.
- Wavelet: A wavelet is also a threaded conversation, but only a subset of a larger conversation (or a wave). It’s like a single IM conversation – a small part of a larger conversation and a larger history. Wavelets, though, can be created and managed separately from a wave.
- Blip: Even smaller than a Wavelet, a Blip is a single, individual message. It’s like a single line of an IM conversation. Blips can have other blips attached to them, called children. In addition, blips can either be published or unpublished (once again, it’s sort of like typing out an IM message but not yet sending it).
- Document: A document actually refers to the content within a blip. This seems to refer to the actual characters, words, and files associated with a blip.
- Extension: An extension is a mini-application that works within a wave. So these are the apps you can play with while using Wave. There are two main types of extenisons: Gadgets and Robots
- Gadgets: A gadget is an application users can participate with, many of which are built on Google’s OpenSocial platform. A good comparison would be iGoogle gadgets or Facebook applications.
- Robots: Robots are an automated participant within a wave. They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e.Twitter) or they can check content within a wave and perform actions based on them (i.e. provide you a stock quote if a stock name is mentioned).
- Embeded Wave: An embeded wave is a way to take a Google Wave and the conversation within it and place it on your website. Users could use this as a chatroom, as a way to contact you, or for something more.

Wave Gadgets

A Wave Gadget is one of two types of Google Wave extensions. Gadgets are fully-functional applications. According to Google, gadgets are primarily for changing the look and feel of waves, although this seems to only scratch the surface of the potential of a wave gadget.

First: almost any iGoogle or OpenSocial gadget can run within Google Wave. That means thousands of applications that have been already created will work in Google Wave. Second: a gadget built within Google Wave can take advantage of live interaction with multiple users. This means something like a live online game with active participation from all users. In that way, it has similarities to Facebook orMySpace applications, which take advantage of your friend network to make games, quizzes, and applications more meaningufl and useful.

Gadgets are specific to individual waves, rather than to specific users. Thus, it’s not like having a Facebook app on your profile – the gadget belongs to everyone within the wave. They also do not have titles, to better integrate with the actual conversation. Some of the gadgets already built include a Sudoku gadget, Bidder (which turns your wave into an auction), and Maps (which allows for collaboration on a Google Map).

For a more technical explanation, be sure to check out Google’s Wave Gadgets Tutorial.

Wave Robots

Robots are the other type of Google Wave extension. Robots are like having another person within a Google Wave conversation, except that they’re automated. They’re a lot like the old IM bots of the past, although far more robust. Robots can modify information in waves, interact with users, communicate with others waves, and pull information from outside sources.

Because it acts like a user, you can define its behavior based on what happens in the chat. You could build one as simple as “change the word dog to the word cat” or one as complex as a fully-functional debugger. We’ll probably start seeming some very advanced robots in the near future.

Some of the robots already in service include Debuggy (an in-wave debugger), Stocky (which pulls stock prices based on stock quote mentions), and Tweety (the Twave robot, which displays tweets inside of a wave).

A more advanced explanation is available at Google’s Wave Robots Overview. We also have an inside look at Google Wave extensions and robots.

Wave Embeds

Wave embeds are a little more complex than embedding a YouTube video onto your blog, yet in the end, that’s really what Google Wave Embeds are: a way to take Google Waves onto a third party website. Embedded Waves support many of the functions of the actual Google Wave client, including dragging-and-dropping files.

While the Wave Embeds is still very early stage, Google has already built two: YouTube Playlist Discuss and Multiple Extensions Embed. The former allows you to discuss a YouTube video via a wave and the latter allows for interaction with multiple waves on the same page.

One possibility: Google Wave Embeds may be a real-time replacement to static comments. If Google perfects wave embeds, you could even see YouTube.com comments replaced with waves, although it is way too early to make any calls on the potential of this.

Google’s Wave Embed Developer’s Guide has more advanced information embedding waves.

Furthering your Google Wave education

Still can’t get enough of Google Wave? This collection of links and articles will help you understand this new product even better:

- Mashable’s Google Wave Coverage: We highly suggest bookmarking our Google Wave coverage and checking Mashable consistently for the latest information on Google Wave.
- Google Wave Federation Protocol: Google has provided some community principles, architecture information, and more detailed definitions on their Wave protocol webpage.
- Google Wave API: For developers interested in building applications for Google Wave, be sure to check out the Wave API website.
- Google Wave Updates: Haven’t signed up for Google Wave yet? Here’s the sign-up form.

This post was seized at Mashable

Google Wave First Look

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Google Wave First Look By Gina Trapani, 9:00 AM on Wed Sep 30 2009,

If you're not one of the 100,000 lucky users who gets an invitation to Google Wave today, don't fret. You can check out Google Wave right here.

But first, ground rules. Click on all images in this post to see it full size. Uppercase "Wave" refers to the entire Google Wave product. Lowercase "wave" refers to an individual message or document. Think of a lowercase wave like an email or a Google Doc that you're collaborating on with other people. The screenshots in this post are from the Wave developer preview, not wave.google.com, invites to which are going out today. We'll update this post with anything significantly new in the non-preview version when we get our grubby little paws on the proper server invitation.

Ready? Let's go.

Inside Google Wave

When you log into Wave, the default view is a three-column, 4-module layout. From left to right, the first column includes Navigation on top (think of this as your Inbox, Sent, and labels in Gmail) and Contacts below (think of this as your GTalk buddy list). The second column is the list of active waves in your Inbox, and the third column is where you can start a new wave or open a wave.

Here's what it looks like. (Click to enlarge.)

When someone updates a wave in your inbox, it turns bold and moves to the top of your inbox—just like email. If a contact of yours is online, a little green dot appears on on his or her icon.

All the modules are collapsible and dock themselves in the upper part of the screen. If you've collapsed your inbox and a new wave gets updated, it flashes green. Here I've clicked on new wave and minimized all the other modules to expand my workspace. (Click to enlarge.)

You can add all sorts of rich content to your wave, like a YouTube video, Google Map, image, links, or anything that a gadget enables. (More on gadgets below.) Here I've added some colored text and embedded a video clip in my wave. (Click to enlarge.)

When I finish typing and click the Done button on my wave, Wave pops up the "Add participants" module so I can share my wave with anyone on my contacts list. You can search for a contact by name, or just drag and drop anyone to the wave you choose. (Click to enlarge.)

Once you've shared a wave, the magic starts to happen. At first you'll swoon over the ability to watch your co-waver type in real-time. It's weird in a good, we're-living-in-the-future way to see another person's cursor hard at work outputting characters, key by key on your own screen. But you get over that novelty pretty quickly. (Most likely your IM client can do that; anyone who's used collaborative editors like SubEthaEdit have seen this as well.)

You can reply to an entire wave like an IM or an email by clicking the reply button on a wave's toolbar. But what's most cool is the ability to reply to bits of a message inline. This lets you and your collaborators annotate the wave as you go.

For example, I gave a talk about Wave here in San Diego, and prepared my talk notes in a wave. At the beginning, I did an audience survey to gauge the level of experience with Wave-like technology. I was able to insert replies to the questions in Wave as I went. (Even better would have been to have a co-presenter or note-taker do that for me.)

You can collapse or expand inline comments easily. Here's what the talk wave looks like with comments collapsed. Notice the small talk bubbles on the top Audience survey section. (Click to enlarge.)

Here's what that same wave looks like with inline comments expanded. (Click to enlarge.)

Your replies inside or to a wave can also be marked as private; so if Jack and Jill and I are collaborating on a wave and Jill wants to tell me something about Jack in-wave that Jack shouldn't see, she can click on the drop-down on the upper right of a wave and choose "Private Reply" as shown.

Once you've entered your private reply, Wave prompts you to add participants to just that reply. That's because every reply is a wave in and of itself. You can create a new wave from any reply or copy a wave to a new wave, too.

Besides real-time updates, other "holy crap" feature of Google Wave is wave revision playback. If someone adds you to a wave late in the game, after lots of conversation and annotation has already happened, you can click on the playback button to see how it was constructed over time. Think of this like a slideshow through Wikipedia page revisions. Here's a quick video clip of what playback looks like on a wave I was in on this morning.

Just like Gmail, Google Wave offers powerful advanced search operators, wave tagging, file uploads (though those are wonky for me in the dev preview), and saved searches. In addition to tags, Wave also offers folder. Folders! The interface is completely drag-and-drop: you can grab any wave and drag it to the trash or a folder.

Wave Extensions: Gadgets and Robots

Wave is a completely extensible platform, like Firefox. Wave extensions come in two flavors: gadgets and robots.

A gadget is a piece of rich content that you can add to a wave. A few example gadgets are available in the Gadget gallery.

Click on the puzzle piece on a wave's toolbar to add a gadget to the wave. One useful gadget is the "Who is Coming?" gadget that lets you invite folks to an event and get RSVPs quickly and easily.

The most useful gadget I've seen so far is the Ribbit conference call gadget. Add it to a wave, and everyone adds their phone number to it. (You only see your own number, not everyone else's.) Click the "Start Conference" button, and everyone's phone rings—and you're on the phone, while you collaborate on a wave.

For more on the Ribbit Wave gadget, check out Rafe Needleman's review.

Robots are email addresses that you add to your contact list. Then, when you are in need of their services, you add a bot to a wave so they can perform some action on its contents. A robot can modify the contents of a wave, and several already exist that do silly to useful actions.

For example, Eliza the Robot Shrink (elizarobot@appspot.com) will chat with you about anything—useful when you're the only one of your friends who has a Wave invite and you've no one to talk to.

More usefully, the Bloggy bot (blog-wave@appspot.com) will publish a wave onto a Blogger blog for you. For example, I have Bloggy in my contacts, and added it to my Wave talk wave as shown here. Notice the "Bloggy published this wave here" message in yellow at the top of the wave. (Click to enlarge.)

Click on the "here" link and you go to my test Wave blog, which gets the contents of that wave on it. (Click to enlarge.)

If another Wave user happens upon that blog post, s/he can comment on it in-blog, and those new updates will show up in my Wave client. Right now, you have to be logged into Wave to see blogged content; but that won't always be the case. Google is working on making published Wave content read-only for all users, even those not logged into Wave.

Polly the Pollster (polly-wave@appspot.com) is another extremely useful bot which lets you create and distribute polls to survey wave collaborators quickly.

Other bots do things like automatically link Twitter usernames to their Twitter page, clean up empty replies (which proliferate quickly for some reason), and insert stock quotes. I expect we'll see tons more gadgets and bots bloom over the next year. Here are some more featured Wave extensions, courtesy of Google.

But What Will We Use Google Wave For?

The most frequent question I get about Google Wave is: "But what would I use it for?" Personally I can't wait to use it to take meeting minutes collaboratively and to co-write documents like blog posts and articles online with my editors and co-conspirators. Instead of using something like Campfire or IRC to chat with my fellow Lifehacker editors, I could see using Wave as group chat—but with inline and private replies, which are key.

Right now, like all collaboration tools, Wave is only as good as how many of the people you work (and play) with have it. Even though I was one of the developers touched by an angel, with access to the preview, I didn't actually use Wave very much because almost zero of my actual friends and co-workers were on it. So as far as I can see, uses for Wave in your life will open up as the product itself opens up to more users who care enough to wrap their heads around it and start putting valuable information in it.

If you're more of a moving-pictures learner, Google's new Wave overview video nicely illustrates some of the features I've highlighted above.

Use Google Docs to Convert Images to Text

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Google Docs can now perform OCR on digital images. You can upload an image containing typewritten or printed text (like a fax document or a scanned newspaper clipping) to your Google Docs account and it will turn that image into editable text.

In the following example, Google Docs successfully extracted all the text from a scanned book page and converted it into an editable document.

The OCR feature in Google Docs is not part of the standard UI yet but you can use this sample form to upload scanned images to your Google Account and the server will automatically try to extract text from these images provided the image resolution is good and that the text inside images is written using Latin character sets.

The OCR feature can also extract text from noisy images as well (like this WSJ clipping) though the recognized text is not very accurate and the document formatting is lost (seeconversion results).

If you are a developer, you can add the ocr=true parameter to your upload request and Google Docs will automatically scan that image for text patterns. You can also upload images to Google Docs without the OCR parameter but in that case, the image will be converted into a new Word document sans OCR.

Like Google Docs, Google Search too includes OCR features but the difference is that while Google Docs can extract text from images, the OCR in Google Search works only with scanned PDF files.

Google Real Time Search

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Google's built-in options let you filter your searches to show "Recent" or "Past 24 hours" results, but a quick URL tweak can give searchers near-real-time results.

The URL trick itself isn't quite an easily memorable string. At the tail end of any time-restricted Google search, you'll see parameters that look like:

https://google.com ...1tbs=qdr:d

The little bit after the qdr: is the time restriction.

Type in a number after

"s" for seconds,

"n" for minutes,

"h" for hour,

"d" for day,"

and so forth,

and you can get Google to limit its findings just about any way you want.

The screenshot shows a search for "afghanistan" for results from the last 5 minutes.

(I changed the "d" at the end of the string to "n5".)

It's not hard to pull off with a little address bar tweaking.

Happy searching!

Massive Attack - Long Division

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:50:00 +0000

Massive Attack's DJ's Robert "3D" Del Naja ("D") and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall ("G") made such a name for themselves early on in their careers that when they started work on their not-quite-titled fifth album they didn't have to scrounge around for guest spots and remixers. They came to them in droves.
Though they couldn't use all of the artists they worked with, the trip hop progenitors have plenty of tricks up their sleeves. In preparation for the album in February, they're releasing their first new material in three years, in the form of a preview remix EP called Splitting the Atom (out October 6th on EMI/Virgin). Lyrically, the title track echoes the former trio's schism shortly after 1998's Mezzanine and during the 100th Window sessions. Splitting the Atom features longtime collaborator Horace Andy, TV on the Radio leader Tunde Adebimpe, Tricky muse Martina Topley-Bird, Elbow's Guy Garvey, and hot remixers, Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid and Christoff Berg.
Speaking from outside of the moody twosome's newly revamped Bristol studio, Marshall had this to say about the theme of the new EP: "Basically it is about looking at things in black and white and the way that we approach things in life, whether it's an argument, something we construct or a conversation; there's always a split in the moment. These are the sorts of things that make up our lives." That's in step with Del Naja's X-Ray-esque cover artwork on Spliting the Atom. (Many may remember his depictions of war artwork from his recent U.K. gallery or his cover for War Stores, the 2007 full-length by fellow U.K. trip hoppers UNKLE).
Over the course of our conversation with the Massive Attack artist we sift through their decision to largely abandon their long love with sampling, politics as usual in England, their tentative plans for releasing "stems" of their tracks, and the fluid meanings behind the words Tunde Adebimpe sings on "Pray For Rain."
So you're in the studio now?
Marshall: Yes, we've been rehearsing for this next record and tour this last month or so. From September onward we'll be touring quite a lot.
It's been reading some of the interviews since 2003's 100th Window and even though it's been seven years you've only had time to work on the fifth album during the last two years. What have you been up to since then?
Well, 2003 doesn't really count and then in 2004 and 2005 we were touring the world. In 2007 we hosted a charity benefit for the Hoping Foundation, a charity for Palestinian children. Then there was the Meltdown Festival last year. We've kept ourselves fairly busy doing artwork, soundtracks and taking care of family. We had the whole album finished a while ago but when we came back from touring we had a change of heart. We just looked at the tracks we had and decided to have another go at it. If you add all that up, yeah, it's been about seven years. We've been working on new material [LP5 and Splitting the Atom EP] for the last six to eight months.
Splitting the Atom EP has many high-profile collaborators attached to it. It's quite an impressive but something we've come to expect from a Massive Attack release. Aside from Guy Garvey and Damon Albarn, how did get together this new group? Did you contact them or did they reach out to you?
We've been in the fortunate position to work with some really great people, like Sinead O'Connor, Sarah Jay, Liz Fraser, and Horace Andy. For these two releases they all approached us while we DJ or at random events. It's been great to have Tunde Adebimpe on board. We love TV on the Radio's stuff. We got him by sending some demos back and forth. Garvey we got because he's just been with us for many years.
In the instance of Guy Garvey did he actually co-write six tracks on the upcoming album?
He's working on four tracks on that one. Martina Topley-Bird's worked with us on two tracks and Damon Albarn worked on at least one. We'll see how it all comes out.
For this upcoming U.K. tour or even your slot at the Bestival this weekend, what visual accompaniment do you have planned? That's always been a big part of the Massive Attack live experience.
We don't want to give that information away right now because information's king, you know? Thanks to D and his crew that gets done. There's not much to say except for there are some fantastic visual effects we have planned. This might be the first time some of these people will experience Massive Attack so we've been looking at tons of possible album covers and videos. It's all about MySpace now. We all have a multimedia psyche now.
Just for clarification's sake, is the name of the forthcoming album really Weather Underground?
[Laughs] No, no. It's always a good thing for people to have names. You need a goal to work towards. It's crazy. There's always an end result. It'll come though.
At what stage is the fifth album at right now? Are you mixing it at this point?
Yeah, we have about 10 tracks we've mixed or are mixing right now. When we have time we work on some more. An album is a big concept to take in and now people want more than the playlist you give them, they want to make their own playlist. People expect more than 45 minutes of music. So, maybe we'll give them away and they can make their own compilation of the tracks that we have.
So, are you saying you might release stems of your recordings from the studio and then fans can screw around with them on their own?
That was the thing that we're talking about. We're working with about 22 tracks from the studio and we'd love for people to remix them. I think more bands should do that with their fans.
I've only spent a little time with Splitting the Atom but did you continue to move away from sample-based songs like you did 100th Window? It seems to sound like this more of a live-in-the-studio looping experiment
It's sort of hard to use that sort of method anymore because so many people have gone and done it. For us, we just get inspired by certain sounds and we take that back into the studio. We're trying to move away from sampling though. Instead of thinking about the different parts of a track it becomes a full piece. I think it's a great art that's sometimes crass and sometimes good. It's great to take a neat riff from some record or that drum break and then it becomes its own thing. I think most bands do that without even "sampling."
As always with a Massive Attack release, I was really struck by the artwork. What did you want that image to convey in regards to the remixes of the forthcoming album tracks?
Basically it is about looking at things in black and white and the way that we approach things, whether it's an argument, something we construct or a conversation; there's always a split in the moment. These are the sorts of things that make up our lives.
Speaking of conversations, when Rob was talking about the Conservative Party stepping in but the conservatives not being drastically different. What are your thoughts on that struggle? Do you see any hope?
Well, it all started in 1981 with Margaret Thatcher. We had all of these strikes and cutbacks of many social programs. Racism was on the rise too. It was really the dark ages for us. Over the years it's gotten better but now it seems like it's all starting again. The Labour Party is in power now and that is basically the same middle-to-right stance we've had in politics, where we thought we would have a more middle-to-left. War's on the rise and racism is on the rise again in England. It's just not a pretty picture anymore. To us it seems like all our hard work was for nothing. In America they've got Obama but it's still getting dark out there.
I'm sure some of that seeped into the new releases. I know you're often pigeonholed as a dark band but sometime it's just a natural reflection of the world.
Sometimes you can't help but do it. Often we veil the political darkness with a beautiful love song. It's more metaphorical than anything else.
Have there been any new additions to the revamped studio in Bristol?
Well, when we toured we used to have two drummers [Neil Davage and Damon Reece] but we now have just one one. His name is Julien Brown [drums for Kylie Minogue, Lyndon David Hall, Mica Paris, Mariah Carey]. We also got some new keyboards and old, authentic analog synthesizers and recording equipment.
I definitely wanted to ask about was the Tunde Adebimpe cut, "Pray For Rain." As far as the lyrics are concerned it seemed like a plea for absolution or cleansing. What thoughts are you trying to wash away?
Yeah, it's also a conversation on war as well. There are a lot of interpretations on it though. We never write anything that about a specific thing.
Some of the collaborations that you've set up for the fifth album or in the past, haven't always translated to a track on a release. I'm thinking of songs with Jhelisa Anderson, Stephanie Dosen, Phantom Limb's Yolanda Quarty, Aku and Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh of Dragons of Zynth, Elizabeth Fraser, Dot Allison, Debbie Clare, Mike Patton, Fredo Viola and Beth Orton. Do collaborators know going in that they have an equal chance of being included or excluded? Do you have any plans to release a rarities compilation?

That's a good question because we have every intention of using everything and making it work somehow. There are a lot of tracks that we really do want to eventually release because if we didn't it would be a waste of time and talent. We may find a a way to get them out there on the Internet.

This was reseized from UnderTheRadarMag and written by Kyle Lemmon on Sep 8, 2009

Five Great Reasons to Root Your Android Phone [Android]

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Does your kinda-new Android handset already feel old, slow, and left behind? With a quick hack and a custom ROM, a G1, myTouch, or other Android phone can look and feel fresher and, most importantly, run a bit quicker.
Are you generally averse to messing with a device that delivers sometimes-important phone calls? Let us argue that the process is easy and the rewards are great. For G1 and myTouch owners, especially, there are noticeable stability and speed improvements, a few great backports of software and features from the HTC Hero and Android's 1.6 Donut build, a few unique and new features from the hacker community, and—oh, yeah, did I mention the speed and stability?
Our sibling site Gizmodo took the plunge into 'rooting' an Android phone with one click, and reported back that, yes, it really is just a few clicks and not all that scary to do. The standard disclaimers about the worst-case scenario of a non-functional phone, and T-Mobile/HTC's dislike of you and your warranty, still apply, but this method involves a good backup, no typed commands to misspell, and relatively little time.
How is it done? Last night, I installed 'Recovery Flasher' from the Android Market (while it was still up; if it's not, you can grab it here), downloaded the highly touted CynanogenMod ROM for U.S.-based G1 and myTouch 3G phones, copied the .zip file to my SD card, then hit the two buttons in Recovery Flasher that back up your phone and enable root (i.e. complete and total) access.
After that, it was a quick 'recovery mode' reboot, done by holding the home button and powering on, then hitting the main caveat: hitting the Alt+W option to wipe my system. Your entire phone OS is still backed up, if you wanted to go back to it from this recovery mode, but you'll have to start over with your apps and settings in a new ROM, it appears. That wasn't a huge deal for me, so I did the Alt+W wipe, chose to 'apply any zip from SD' and selected the Cynanogen .zip file, and then my phone was reborn, asking for my Google account credentials and gradually getting back up to speed.
The process is explained in more detail at the Android and Me blog, but it was easier than jailbreaking an iPhone, hacking a Wii, and many of the other "unlocking" capers I've pulled off in my time. The whole process took about 30 minutes, most of it indirect time waiting for a file to download or the phone to reboot—good thing, too, because I was supposed to be dog-sitting at the time.
Here are our five discoveries and suggestions for Android owners considering a root of their phones, and tips for those who already have:

A real performance boost
Android, as an alternative, open-source smartphone OS, is pure geek bait, but the hardware it's been officially released onto so far, in the U.S. at least, has been hard to love. Pushing a button and having to wait even just a second or two for something, anything to happen is a buzz kill; having to wait a second for a virtual keyboard press to show up is just plain aggravating. Using the CynanogenMOD ROM on my G1, it's definitely a better experience—not perfect and instant, but my phone seems to be actively trying to do what I want now. New browser windows snap open, the multi-part home screen doesn't lag when swiping between screens, the top "window shade" and bottom app menu don't hesitate to show me what they've got—I've been using this phone for just a few months, but I could go on and on. Cynanogen's developer himself notes that his ROM actively works the processor, RAM, and memory partitions harder, so you may get (even) less battery longevity from your phone. Having spent a late night and excited morning with this ROM, I will gladly pack a recharging cord and accept the trade-off. Photo by NathanFromDeVryEET.
Easy tethering over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth:
After installing your custom ROM, grab this android-wifi-tether app by heading to that URL directly in your Android browser (or using the Barcode Scanner app to pick up its QR code) and clicking the .apk link. The app will ask for root access to enable and disable itself.
Once it does, that's about all there is to it. Power up your laptop, connect it by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to G1Tether (or your similarly-named ad-hoc phone connection), and you've got a data connection where none might have existed before. It will be slower than you anticipate, useful mainly for text-based email and browsing, and not something you'd want to use heavily, lest you tip off your cellular provider to your creativity. That said, it's not restricted to web traffic only, like previously mentioned PdaNet, and it's easy to use.

A better keyboard
The standard Android keyboard has its issues, and leading Android phone maker HTC knows it. They made their own keyboard for the HTC Hero, and the CynanogenMOD makes it available in any Android phone. Enable it by heading to Settings, Locale & Text, then turning "Touch Input" on and adjusting its spell/suggest/feedback settings.'Better' is this editor's own opinion, though Matt Buchanan from Gizmodo agrees: The keys are 'puffed up' and easier to hit, the 'long press' is faster than reaching for an Alt key, once you're used to it, and the auto suggestions and replacements are, if not subtle, generally helpful. What's definitely better is the responsiveness and snappiness, which is crucial when you're blazing through text and don't want to guess what three letters you last selected.

Multi-touch browsing
It's not as responsive as the iPhone's iconic pinch and expand capabilities, and the browser isn't as good at adjusting the page to meet your rapid zoom demands. That said, most folks would rather press their fingers once to get a bigger view on text than tap once, click + and - buttons to get the right zoom, then re-adjust their screen position. Until Google decides to go ahead and look away from Apple's patents, we can just hope that unofficial multitouch improves from version to version.

Bonus apps and widgets from other builds
G1 users don't get the same built-in apps as myTouch owners, and myTouch fans can't grab all the neat stuff from the HTC Hero, not yet available in the U.S., or the Android Donut build not yet distributed by carriers. That's a strange condition for a phone built on openness. Cynanogen and other custom ROMs cherry-pick those neat exclusives and deliver them to anyone who wants them. The best of the pack, from a phone use standpoint, is the Power Control widget, which turns Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, data syncing, and screen brightness into simple toggles. Those bemoaning the lack of Microsoft Exchange support on G1s should check out Work Email, and anyone needing to do a little doc browsing can get it done with Quickoffice and PDF Viewer. There are other software goodies to geek out over—a full terminal emulator!—but those are the highlights.

This was seized 4 u at Lifehacker

Listen: Google Launches An Audio Search Engine For Android

noreply@blogger.com (Rolli) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:41:00 +0000

Hear that? Google has just unveiled the latest addition to Google Labs, and it’s sure to crowd-pleaser for Android users. Dubbed Google Listen, the new project is an Android application that lets you quickly search through web audio content, which you can then directly download or stream to your phone. The app also acts as a podcast manager, allowing you to subscribe to audio feeds and download new content over the air.
Using the app is simple: you head to the search bar, then enter whatever it is you’re looking for, be it a specific podcast or a more general term like “tech”. Google will pull up the most relevant podcast and audio clips scattered across the web, which you can begin streaming immediately. If you’re interested in multiple matches you can build a queue, and Listen will automatically begin playing from your subscriptions once it reaches the end of the playlist. At this point the app is indexing “thousands” of content sources in English only, but Google intends to expand to other languages. The site’s FAQ also hints that it may index video in the future as well.
Here’s how Google describes Listen in the company’s blog post:

Listen quickly finds podcasts and web audio relevant to your searches, lets you stream over-the-air or download for later, and subscribe to fresh content from your favorite feeds and searches. In short, Listen helps organize the world of audio information and makes it easily accessible anytime, anywhere.

For now, Google Listen is only available on Android. This may be because the app is still early in development, but its omission from the iPhone may also stem from the issues Google has recently had getting its applications approved for the App Store — in the last few months, Apple has rejected a native application of Google Latitude, and also banned all Google Voice apps. Even without the recent controversy, Apple may well have smacked the app down for competing with iTunes’ podcasting functionality (other apps have been rejected for this in the past).Whatever the case, Google has a sense of humor about the devices it plans to support. Oh Newton, we hardly knew ye.This was seized 4 u at Techcrunch