Imagine when you are browsing a very interesting web page in your favorite web browser Google Chrome, you got an urgent message and you had to leave at once. Now what you are going to do for the web page you were browsing? Of course you can bookmark it. Thanks to Chrome sync you can access the bookmark anywhere, may be in another Chrome browser in a different computer.
But for that you have to wait till you go to another computer. Not so impressive. But there is a tool you can use to push the web page to your android phone and even open it automatically in android browser. There you can browse the page on the go without interruption. This comes with the name Chrome to Phone and developed by Google itself.
In order to activate this facility you have to install “Chrome to Phone” extension for your browser and install Android application in your Smartphone.
How to Setup Chrome to Phone?
On Your Browser
Go to Chrome to Phone page in Chrome web store.
Click on add to chrome and complete the installation process.
Then you will be able to see Chrome to phone icon in Browser toolbar.
Click on that and click Sign in.
Then you have to grant necessary permission to the extension to access your Google account.
Now it’s all set. You have to install the Android app to compete the setup.
On Your Android Phone
Go to Chrome to Phone page in Google play and Install the application on your Smartphone.
Open the application and setup wizard will take you on a step by step tour to configure it properly.
You have to select the Google account to work with and grant required permissions.
Then you will be having two options. Automatically launch links and Let me launch linksmanually. First one would be the optimum one for most of the people.
Finally click finish and you are done.
Since all the configurations are done you are just one click away. When you are browsing a web page and you want to push that to your android phone, click on Chrome to Phone icon in browser tool bar. The page will be automatically opened on your android phone with default browser.
If you haven’t selected the option ‘automatically launch links’, a notification will be displayed in notification area. By clicking on that you can visit the web page. Every time you push a web page to android phone it will notify you with default sound.
With Chrome to Phone you will be able to have uninterrupted web experience even if you have to move away from your computer. This will come in handy for many people who are spending busy lives. Configure Chrome to Phone in your browsing environment, feel the magic and share your experience with NOG community.
If I ask you the question what is the most popular online Map service, your quick response would be Google Maps. Of course there are many other map services but so far nothing is offering you detailed maps and comprehensive features as Google Maps.
Smartphone users know that it’s more fun to use Google Maps on mobile rather than on web interface. There is a specially designed Smartphone application for Google maps for different mobile platforms offering unique features such as Navigation, Maps Indoor and 3D view.
The main problem with Google Maps is whenever you want to use it you must connect your Smartphone to data network. Even after all the optimization it consumes lots of data for its operation. Mobile broadband is an expensive service in most of the countries. Due to this using Google Maps has become expensive though it comes for free.
Recently news went viral saying Google is planning to offer an offline map service. But this is nothing new and most of the offline features were there in Google maps for a while. They will be very useful for you to save your mobile broadband bandwidth and lots of money. Let’s take a closer look.
Automatic Caching
This is the easiest way for you to use Google maps offline. Before you start using this, you have to do some configuration. Go to Settings -> Cache and enable automatic caching. There you have the option to select cache only using wi-fi or use mobile networks as well. It’s recommended to go with both.
Below that it will show you the space consumed by Google map cache. If you face any problem with storage space, you can clear cache anytime.
After enabling this when you are browsing through the Google map all map details will be cached automatically. Whenever you open the same area in the map it would not re-download the map. Instead it will retrieve the details from cache.
PreCache Map Area
This is a Google Maps lab feature. Before you start using it, you have to enable it at your own risk. For that you have to go to settings -> Labs and enable it by checking it in. Now you are ready to preCache a map area.
Go to required location and tap and hold the place you want to cache. It will pop up the address of the location or other relevant information. Click on that and it will take you to an option menu. There you can find option to precache map area. It will show you a pop up with a progress bar saying its caching map within 10 miles around the given location. If the area is already cached with automatic caching, the process will take lesser time.
Once this is completed you can access this map area without any data connection. For that you have to go to settings -> Cache -> Precached maps. There you can access them, edit name and delete them if they are no longer needed. Once you access Precached map, it will show in black color outline.
Forthcoming Google Maps Offline
There is a news stating that Google is about to release an offline version of Maps for Android Smartphone. This feature is nothing but the PreCached maps from Labs. This is not a new thing for Google products. You may remember sometime ago Gmail didn’t have the ‘Star’ option. But it came in as a Lab feature, and then it became an official feature. Here it’s happening again. Soon you will be able to enjoy offline Google maps as an official feature.
LG is the company who introduced dual core Smartphones to the world with LG Optimus 2X back in 2010 December. It changed the whole Smartphone industry and lots of manufactures came up with dual core processors powered products. This hardware improvement helped the world most popular mobile OS, Android to expand itself as well.
And now they have done it again! LG Optimus 4X HD, a Quad Core Smartphone. This was announced in 2012 February and will be coming to market soon. The appearance of this mobile giant on Mobile World Congress 2012 attracted everyone’s attention.
Special Features
Processor
The hook in this Smartphone is of course its processor. It’s powered with 1.5 GHz, Cortex A9 Quad Core processor running on Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset while GeForce GPU is there to accelerate graphics. There is no much improvement in RAM which is still 1GB.
This setup not only gives this device amazing performance but also efficient power consumption due its latest 4-PLUS-1 Quad Core Architecture.
This will give the users a more fluid Android experience like never before. Not only that, it will open new opportunities for application developers and various other advanced multimedia applications.
Storage
The device is coming with internal 16 GB storage. However it’s not clear what type of expandable storage this device is having. I will update this article once the confirmed information comes.
Operating System
LG Optimus 4X HD is one of the very first devices that come with latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Therefore the device will inherit all the cool futures of ICS and power of massive application store.
Display
LG Optimus 4X HD is coming with true HD display. It’s having 4.7 inches LCD capacitive touch screen with 720 x 1280 pixel resolution. The sharpness of the display is an amazing 312 ppi.
The creative possibilities of this kind of screen are unlimited. It’s a perfect platform to run any kind of portable multimedia application, especially movie playback. The sharpness of the display will deliver a better web experience as well as turn this device in to an effective eBook reader.
Multimedia
The device comes with 8MP rear camera and 1.3MP front facing camera. This will let you to shoot photos with 3264×2448 pixels. If you want to shoot photos in low light conditions there is a LED flash.
When it comes to video recording, it’s capable of capturing 1080p full HD videos at 30FPS. There are unique features in video player such as playback speed selector and zoom the video while payback which adds extra color to this device.
Other than these it’s equipped with all the general features in any Smartphone such as TV out, DivX playback, flash video playback etc.
Web Browsing
Web browsing is one of the critical success factors in any Smartphone. Since this device is having an amazingly fast processor and super sharp display, nothing stops it by giving great browsing experience to users with 3G connectivity.
According to most of the reviews at MWC 2012 this device is having super fast web page rendering and fluid performance unlike any previous Android device.
Since it comes with ICS you can install Google Chrome on this device as well.
Final Wrap Up
No doubt that this device is a monster. It’s a great achievement for LG as well as Android Mobile OS. Further it will give a good competitive advantage to LG to fight with Samsung in Smartphone world since Samsung doesn’t have any quad core android phone yet. (Smartphone world is dominated by South Korea, Hats off for that!)
Recently I talked about Ubuntu-Android Friendship which let you to carry a desktop CPU in your pants pockets. Hardware muscle in LG Optimus 4X HD will accelerate that trend for sure.
The device will come to market probably after April 2012. There is no confirmed information about the pricing yet. I’m sure it will come with competitive price and probably take away a significant market share from Samsung. The Smartphone war is on!
Frequently we are using either a webcam in our computer or Laptop for video calling. But there could be more creative usage of a webcam. Previously you got to know how to set up a Video alarm system using the conventional webcam. Today I am going to introduce another innovative usage.
Here we are trying to use webcam as a face recognition device to verify user logins in your computer. The piece of software we’ll be talking about today, which let all those happen, is called Blink. It’s developed by Luxand, Inc a well known company researching on artificial intelligence and biometric identification technologies. The current version of software is 2.4 and it comes as a trial version which let you use it only for 20 times.
Installation
Click Here to go to download page
Click on the button Get Yours Now to start download
Run the installation wizard and complete the installation
As the last step of installation it will ask you to Configure the application. You may carry out as explained in the Next section or click on Configure later
Installation is done and you can access the application in Start menu
Configuration
The application installation will prompt you to configure it at the end of installation. Even if you skip it you can access the previously mentioned configuration window by clicking on the button Remember.
Once you get the configuration window click Next to proceed
Then the software will explain you how you should show your face to webcam using an animation
Click Next and show your face to webcam as explain in the previous step. You have to turn your head from left to right slowly.
Once that’s done, in the next step you have to enter the password of the current user account.
Voila! Configuration is done. Restart the computer to see the result.
On the login screen you will see a new window and the view of webcam will be reflected there.
Show your face to webcam for instant login.
If by any chance Blink could not recognize your face, you can always go back to the conventional way, enter Password!
Advanced Configuration
Through the main window of application you can access an array of configuration options as mentioned below.
You can Enable or Disable face authentication login
Delete existing face template
Select a webcam if you have many connected to your computer
Help file
You can choose not to run the application on startup
History which will show you a picture log of people who logged in to the computer. There you can save shots of logged in people or clear history
Finally there are two options for High Security and High Convenience. If you select High Security, it will take longer time to identify the face but it will be highly accurate. With the option High Convenience it will identify you in a blink, yet subject to identification errors.
Special Feature
Blink is capable of identifying your face even if you have a new hair cut or wearing your new aviators. Luxand’s advance biometric identification algorithm is ready to filter out your face with any personal appearance change.
The history section keeps photos of every login attempt. Therefore you can easily identify who logged in to the system and whether there is any unauthorized access.
I was talking about advantages of having a Strong Password and how to remember it easily. With blink you don’t have to worry about that in Windows login. Still you have to follow the same rules for your online accounts.
Currently application supports only Windows Vista and 7. Try out the application and if you like it or want to use it continuously you have to buy it from Here for $29.95.
Sometime when you Google for some content, specially a product that just released, probably you won’t be able to find good content about that. The content that you really need is in the future. That means you will have to Google for it may be after a week.
If you want to get latest news about your favorite Music Band, again you will have to keep searching the web periodically and check whether there are any new storied listed.
In these kinds of cases you will have to monitor the search result till the required content gets listed. If you have to do it manually, of course it will consume a lot of time. And sometimes there is a chance for you to miss some important content as well.
However, there is a Google product that saves all the trouble for you which is named as Google Alerts. It monitors search results under a given keyword and update you about the latest content via email.
How to Set an Alert
Go to Google Alerts.
Once you go there it will open up the windows where you can configure an Alert.
Set the search query, result type, how often and how many updates you need and what is the email address that you need search result to be delivered.
When you are typing the search query you will be able to see real time updating search result in the right panel.
Finally hit Create Alert.
You will get an email update as you configured contain updates of the matching search result to the given search query.
Manage Alerts
Go to Manage Alerts. You can access it by pressing Manage your alerts button.
There you will see a list of alerts you have already created.
You can change the configuration of an alert by pressing the Edit button.
If you want to delete an alert check it and press the Delete button.
By pressing the button Switch to text emails you can receive plain text email instead of default HTML version. You can change it other way round as well by pressing the same button.
You can export all your alerts as CSV file by pressing the Export Alerts button.
That’s how it works and you have to pay attention to set a specific narrow downed search query to get the optimum results.
Annual Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona introduced many unbelievable Smartphones to the world. The leading manufactures were HTC, Samsung, LG etc. Out of the entire introduced products the Smartphone with strongest hardware muscle was HTC One X. Not only hardware, it came with lots of other innovative software improvement and accessories which make it an overall performer.
HTC is one of the very first companies that came in to Smartphone market. Their history goes back to few decades. They are not only producing handsets for Android OS, but for Windows Mobile OS as well. In the last year they were behind the other competitors such as LG and Samsung. With HTC One X they are back in the game.
Spotlight Features
Processor and Storage
HTC One X comes with 1.5 GHz Quad Core processer running on latest Nvidia Tegra3 chipset with 4-PLUS-1 technology. This chipset is a very popular choice of many Smartphone manufactures. It comes with ULP GeForce GPU which will give superb gaming performance.
The device comes with 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. However, according to many reports only 26 GB is available for user. Major drawback is that it doesn’t have any expandable memory option.
Display
The display is massive 4.7 inches with resolution 720 X 1280 pixels which make the pixel density 312 ppi. This is a true 720p HD display and would be great for HD video playback and gaming. The display technology used here is Super LCD 2. This is expected to be good competition to AMOLED display used in most of Samsung devices.
However If you consider the technological aspect AMOLED displays will always be better than LCD displays. They can show you the true deep black color with high contrast colors and saving power as well. The display technology used in HTC One X could be a minus point for this device in the market.
Operating System
Operating system is Android Ice Cream sandwich with HTC sense UI. If you compare HTC sense UI with Samsung TouchWiz UI you will definitely notice that HTC Sense is clearer, streamlined and performance optimized. So this will be a competitive advantage for this device.
HTC Media Link
This is the most attractive feature that comes with HTC One X. Using Wi-Fi device called HTC Media Link you can mirror the display with an externally attached display. To activate video mirroring there is a specific 3 finger gesture as well. This is a DLNA certified device so you should be able to couple this with other Android devices as well.
Wrap Up
HTC One X is of course a great device with powerful hardware, latest technology and Android ICS. Currently in the market there is no device that can compete with this. In addition HTC media link adds extra color to the device enabling lots of professional and gaming usage. HTC Sense UI is very popular among users and user experience would be amazing.
However, Samsung didn’t show their colors in the Mobile World Congress completely. That means they will come up with lot cooler Smartphones and Tablets soon in a Samsung Event. There are rumors about Samsung Galaxy S II as well. HTC One X will have to compete with them in the market, especially with advanced Samsung display which is the hook in any touch device.
No matter what HTC One X is ready for competition this year. With this specification and accessories there is a greater chance that it could be the “Best Smartphone in 2012” and take the crown away from Samsung Galaxy series.
Apple Inc. has called for a special media event on March 7 at San Francisco. It’s believed to be the release of new Apple iPad 3. In their promotional marital they said that “We have something you really have to see. And touch”
However, there is no official release of specification yet, still we have some strong clues about the shape of iPad 3. As usual there are millions of rumors spreading too about the forthcoming features.
Here, I’m trying to discuss about the expected features in Applie iPad 3 which it should have in order to stand out in this “Tablet War”.
Expected Features
Processor
The main thing I expect in any tablet would be its processing power and RAM. However Apple devices managed to give unbelievable fluid performance even with very low hardware configuration in their iPhone. So I don’t expect it to have very fast processor which kills the battery fast.
So my expectation is 1.2 GHz Quad Core processor, probably A6 with 1GB RAM. This would be more than enough for iPad 3 to give a solid competition to all the other tablets.
Operating System
When it comes to iOS 5 I have no many things to demand for. However it must be optimized for higher resolution display.
Siri beta version is coming with iPhone 4S. I expect the Apple developers to include more updated and powerful version on iPad.
Display
Increased display size won’t help unless it’s having increased resolution. That is the main problem with any kind of display. Previous iPad 2 was having 9.7 inches display with resolution 1024 X 768 which make the pixel density 132 ppi.
In iPad 3 they might try to increase pixel density to make it a retina display. Therefore they will have to double the resolution of previous iPad at least. It will result in 9.7 inches display with 2048 X 1536 resolution with ~263 ppi.
Pixel Density Calculation
[Sqrt (Width px^2 + Height px^2)]/ display size in inches = pixel density in pixel per inch (ppi)
Camera
iPads were always having poor camera compared to most of other tablet devices. Therefore I expect them to break it this time with 8 MP rear camera and at least 1.2 MP front facing camera. In addition to still images 1080p video recording also would add an extra color.
Connectivity
Same as the camera apple products are way behind when it comes to connectivity compared to competitors. I expect a change in there as well. In order to hit this problem hard they should make iPad 3 LTE enabled.
Wrap Up
If you take a look at last Mobile World Congress there were amazingly powerful Android Tablet Devices with more than 1.5 GHz Quad Core Processors, 8MP cameras, 10 point muti-touch displays and LTE connectivity from various manufacturers such as Asus, Huawei etc.
In order to compete with them iPad 3 also should bring something solid in to the table which is going beyond traditional features such as touch screen. Probably they will focus more in software upgrades and optimization to give a good user experience rather than keep upgrading hardware.
The competition is tight and we have to wait till 7th March with fingers crossed to see how exactly it’s going to look like.
Every item of commercial software produced is the result of a sustained and expensive development process and yet it is sold in a volatile market in which the sales window may be measured in months. Customers demand upgrades and enhancements and competitors are ever-willing to encroach on market share. In no time at all, software products can become obsolete. But does it have to be that way?
All software designers are keens to future-proof their products as much as possible but they all recognize the difficulty of predicting the future. There are very many possible futures and building in future-proofing can also mean backing the wrong one. And the costs involved in making the product adaptable, capable of evolution in the market and responsive to changing customer demands, can mean that the product life has to be greatly extended to recoup the investment through sales.
The technical problem is one of abstraction. How can we separate out those aspects of the product which are likely to change frequently, perhaps in substantial ways in response to customer and market needs, from those which can be kept stable and unchanging during the longer life of the product?
Building software using a framework in which components can be placed to meet changing customer needs is far from a new idea. Component technology has been around for decades but it has always failed to live up to its promises. Components inevitably need to interact and the coupling we end up with often compromises those beautifully modular designs.
So even building on a framework is no guarantee of a simple solution to the problem of obsolescence. The framework itself suffers from obsolescence pressure. Libraries and collections of components evolve as the problem domains are better understood and the technologies are fine-tuned to be better performing, and there is a significant cost even in maintaining a stable application framework.
And the frameworks themselves also have to undergo changes often in response to the capabilities of new hardware. Sometimes it is the manufacturers of the frameworks themselves who drive the change. The various incarnations of the .NET platform and the attempts to preserve interoperability with previous generations of code, have led to substantially increased complexity.
By modifying the existing architecture and code, we will meet current customer needs but at the expense of gradually increased complexity. Despite the good intentions, constant re-factoring of the underlying code is not a commercial reality and so there is an understandable tendency to add rather than substitute. Interfaces proliferate, additional components appear, supplementary functionality is introduced.
Brian Foote and Josef Joder described (from a suggestion by Brian Marick) such a system as a “big ball of mud” showing how with the best will in the world, constant updates and fixes can obscure an elegant design under layers of coding which eventually make it impossible to repair and develop further.
But there are some strategies which can reduce the risk of a system becoming a big ball of mud.
Evolving Architecture
We might think that a complex piece of software has to have a clear, well-defined design on which the functionality can rest and to a point that is true. But it is a mistake to think that the architecture is somehow immune from the process of change.
Often no-one knows the correct architecture for a large-scale application until a substantial amount of code is working. Only when the problem domain is already very well-understood will there be that knowledge of architectures that work, so in many cases it is premature to settle on a fixed architecture in a novel environment.
So architectures will change and the design of the architecture of the initial development should permit that. High cohesion and low coupling between modules will assist this process. In the early stages, complexity is the enemy because although highly skilled engineers can create complexity rapidly, they generally do not have time to explain it.
Where the architecture is expected to evolve, it has to be simple enough for this process to be managed.
Layering to Represent Abstraction
Abstraction is used to remove the specific in order to focus more effectively on the general and in software that means hiding more and more specific aspects of the system. The user interface should not care about the machine’s processor or even ideally, the operating system.
By abstracting the details away from the higher levels of the software, any machine or OS-specific details are insulated from the upper levels of functionality. This has the significant benefit that changes in user requirements can often be implemented at the higher levels without changing the lower levels.
A layered approach to software development has been common for many years but frequently the demands of performance and usability have required compromises. The promises of cross-platform development have often been tempered with the real-world needs to gain performance advantage by tapping into the native OS functionality. True platform independence has still not been reached even with the much-vaunted .NET framework and the Java language.
Hardware-induced Obsolescence
Advances in hardware design such as touch-screen technology, drive changing user expectations. Users expect to be able to use very different methods for controlling software, and expect it to run in on a variety of devices. Their paradigms of computer control shift noticeably from year to year so frameworks have to be portable and so must the functionality.
By abstracting the framework on which applications rest from the applications themselves, portability is made easier but this imposes constraints as well on the underlying code.
A framework has been able to call on uniform facilities from the underlying operating system and these will change rapidly with developing technology. We therefore see a repetition of the same problem: how do we prevent the underlying frameworks from experiencing obsolescence as well?
The layering and abstraction which temporarily solved application software’s problem, is now also essential for the underlying frameworks.
Break Away from the Hardware
With Web 2.0 and the increasing use of cloud computing, we see a separation of the services provided to applications from the platform on which they run. A small device can run an application making use of the prodigious power of a large collection of other machines, all delivering their services on demand.
Does this mean that the localized, computer application is condemned to obsolescence? Probably not, because there will always be a need for high performance local applications able to work independently of any connectivity. But it does mean that the necessarily rapid response to user demands is more likely to come from distributed computing, and the provision of services from remote sources.
The abstraction which led to layering in application architecture has reached the hardware level as well, in what may seem almost like a full circle. Fifty years ago it was common for a dumb terminal to connect to a mainframe computer which would provide all of the processing power. Now a simple but reasonably powerful handheld device can connect to an abstract cloud of processing resources.
Obsolescence in software may be kept at bay by the adoption of new ways of delivering functionality, the abstractions not simply being the separation of layers of software, but of lifting them now onto a cloud of disparate platforms in different locations. Platform independence might yet become a reality.
About The Writer
Henrik Larsson owner of a new application that enables users to install additional Facebook Emoticons writes. Emoinstaller enables users to use additional Facebook chat emoticons.
HP WebOS is popular operating system which is specially designed for mobile devices including smart phones, PDAs and Tablet PCs. Additionally it is used in high end printers as well. It’s developed by HP improving previous PalmOS. The current version of WebOS is version 3.0 and this came to the stage and attracted public spot light with latest release of Hp TouchPad. The WebOS is having many brand new concepts, cool user friendly interfaces and much more advanced functionality. Hence, after the release of HP TouchPad most of the people started talking about its uniqueness and became a one of the most discussed topic in the world media.
Bit of History
Sometimes ago there was huge trend for palm top computer and at that time mobile devices were only used for voice calls and SMS. Most of the professionals and businessman used palm top computers to access internet on the go and manage their busy life. PalmOS was the most popular mobile operation system in that time.
It started as PalmOS back in 2002 and then bought by a Japanese company after noticing its potentiality. It was getting popular and was there in many Palm top devices. After identifying its success HP bough it and started developing it. The result was WobOS. They transform it to a multipurpose platform from previous Palm Top device operation system.
Today it continuously evolves as a proprietary product of HP. It’s used in many Tablet devices, smartphones and in printers very successfully introducing many brand new concepts to the mobile device world.
Cool Features
‘Card’ Interface
One of the major and brand new features in WebOS is its card interface. It could be identified as a major competition for popular Windows based interface which was there for long time. It’s mimicking organization deck of card. You can go through cards, select one and make it full screen, if you don’t want one any more flick it away to the top.
Interface normally gives you icon dock at the bottom for you to open a card. One card represents one open application. If there are many application opened, they will displayed in the main window once you hit the hardware button available in the device. You can use touch screen to go through cards. Tap on the card will make it full screen and you can use the application. To close an application, you can flick the card to top in the all card view. There is a gesture area at the bottom of the display. Using that you can use few touch gestures to control the behavior of the applications that are opened including ‘Go Back’ and ‘Go Forward’
I see this as really cool and convenient lay out for mobile devices with relatively smaller screen than desktop computers. You can easily manage your ‘Cards’ and go though them even in a smaller screen very easily. And the way they have designed to close a card impressed me without wasting extra screen area and making it very user friendly. With the combination of touch and gestures it make pretty solid and streamlined way to interact with the device.
Multitasking
Multitasking is ignored as an important feature by some competitive operation systems for a long time. However, WebOS provide multitasking to the application platform utilizing devices hardware to the optimum level. With the aid of ‘Card’ interface you can easily manage applications that are opened simultaneously. Whenever there is a notification, it will be displayed in the bottom line of the screen. So you can switch to the required application very easily without closing the current one. This comes in handy when you are dealing with SMS and emails.
Other than communication application this will be useful to run multimedia application. You can listen to your song while you surf. In the case you need to switch to another open application, all you have to do it, hit the phone main hardware button, flip the card and tap the one you want.
Searching
Searching is one of my favorite feature in WebOS. It allows you to search ‘Everything’ on the phone in one search application. This reminds me new searching in Windows 7. Most of the other operation systems use separate search for each items like contact, SMS and Email. In WebOS it’s really convenient to search whatever you want and also see the related other items to the search term in the same interface. If you search for email sent by ‘Malinda’ at the same time you will be able to see the Malinda’s contact details as well.
Communication Management
When it comes to calling and SMS WebOS provide very user-friendly interfaces to get the work done with minimum steps. However, nowadays calling and SMS has became the least important feature in a mobile device with the latest web surfing and social media. However, WebOS has put extra effort to make SMS, IMs and Emails more readable. They are arranged in a threaded discussion way, so that you can get a very clear idea about what you are discussing very easily by looking at previous messages in the thread.
Synergy
Synergy is another feature that attracted me a lot. It crawls through all the types of data in the device and prepare a index. Using that index it could display personal data related to individual in once single card which is really smart. This comes in handy when you need find some ones email address, SMS number, Web address and Facebook profile at the same time. Synergy will collect entire data from your activities and present to you in once single card.
It Goes Online
WebOS is having a browser named ‘Web’ and its providing entire facilities required to surf web in a easy and fast way. Its main page allows you to keep some quick launch icons. Other than browsing WebOS having facility to synchronize your files to a online space which will be very useful for professionals and businessman. It could be used as a global access point as well as a backup mechanism. The built in service is called as ‘Hotsync’ and it keep your files online in a cloud based service.
Application Development
One of the major contributing factors to any mobile operation system would be its third party application support. That was the main reason to iPhone and Android to be popular. As long as there are many applications user won’t get bored with the device. Every day they can try out something new.
Having the objective of giving the maximum support to WebOS application developer, HP has come up with HP Palm Developer program. They provide all the required development tools, emulators to test application in the development environment and support documentation. They allow you to develop application using standard HTML, CSS and JS as well as C/C++. As a result there are many applications out there for WebOS, yet it’s not much as iPhone and Android as it seems.
Conclusion
WebOS is pretty solid looking stuff, and probably it will give tight competition to iOS and Android in the near future. As the same time it has good hardware support as well with HP’s most advance technology. As a big plus points they have really cool brand new features like ‘Card’ interface and Synergy. I believe these will take the WebOS to a significant market share in near future.
Google Buzz is a newly introduced social media component for Gmail by Google Inc. it’s providing similar functionalities as Twitter where we can update our status message as text. In addition to that in buzz you can share hypermedia as well. And your “Buzz” going to be share among your Google contacts and with the people who follow you. There is a facility to import external status updates to buzz using RSS, twitter and many other sites you follow.
Getting Started
Add to Gmail
To add Google buzz in to your Gmail account you can follow this link. And there may be an introduction page for Google Buzz when you open G mail. By clicking “Try Buzz in G mail” you can activate Buzz. Once you finish that step there will be a new section in your G mail account named Buzz. There you can see the status updates of your Friends and you can update your status as well.
Configuration
Once you click on the Buzz section in your G mail it will open Buzz main interface. At the top there is a Text box to enter your Status update and publish it. Next to that there is a link to update your Google Profile which is tightly coupled with your Buzz account. Then next link there is very important, using that you can import your status in other applications. Once you click on that it will give you some suggestions where you update your status including twitter, G talk, YouTube, Picasa, Flicker and all the other sites you follow using Google Friend Connect. You can add sites to buzz and the status you update in those sites will be added to Buzz time line. Next link will display the list of your followers. If you wish to follow or un-follow people, there are text links to do those in front of each contact. Just below the text editor, there are link to following people and find people. Using find people link you can include more people in your buzz time line. In each buzz there is a link to comment on it, mark it as “like” and Email the one who buzzed.
Functionalities
Same as Twitter you can update your contacts by a status message using Buzz. But in Buzz you can share hypermedia. Once you share a link with some images or Videos, Buzz will identify them automatically and add them below the Buzz Text. And you can do the same with RSS feed as well. Simply buzz is a combination of Status updates, photos, videos and RSS feeds. And it uses your Gmail friend list, so you don’t have to worry about creating new contacts for Buzz. The facility of connecting other sites to Buzz makes it easier to follow them right inside of your Gmail box. Especially in Twitter we may miss our friend’s Tweets, because there are mixed with so many other Tweets. In here you can clearly indentify that there are new updates.
The best and unique feature here is you can comment on Status. Here buzz is one step ahead from Twitter. And once someone posts a comment on your Buzz, it will generate an Email, so you won’t miss any of the comment. In the case you need to send an Email explicitly to someone about your comment you can use very popular @ and the desired ones Email address.
Buzz works with your Smart phone and in there you can connect it with Google Latitude. Using that you can see your friend shared location through Buzz and update yours automatically.
What’s Next
Google are dominating all the Cyberspace in an exponential rate. Practically according to the current situation there can’t be a cyberspace without Google. But the main Internet concept they couldn’t dominate is Social networking. The most popular Social network is Facebook and twitter is also competing with its new concept which is micro blogging. Through Google Buzz and many of their products like Google Friend connect, they are trying to dominate Social networking concept.
But so far Google didn’t show decent result in this subject. Even with the Buzz I cannot indentify a strong hook to get the market away from the Facebook and Twitter to Google Buzz. It’s true that there are some interesting features like commenting and Location sharing. But still it doesn’t giving the classic feeling like in Facebook with so many Hypermedia and total online life sharing. And Google Buzz is not giving the awesomely simple user experience like in twitter.
The main point is, behind the screen Google is weaving a web to launch massive social networking product though they are still behind compared to other products in market. Google buzz may be an introductory and experimental product. I feel like there are so many things yet to come. All we can do is waiting and watch what the Google going to do.
