Internet & Websites News - Page 76

"The web is evolving and so should the JavaScript benchmarks that measure its performance," says the Google blog announcing Octane, a new JavaScript benchmark. Due to this, Google has ditched the traditional method of making a benchmark--artificial tests designed to test one feature at a time--and opted to use common web apps and JavaScript libraries.

Since they are based on web apps that are used everyday, this real world scenario allows the benchmark's numbers to be better. Google claims that "a high score in the new benchmarks directly translates to better and smoother performance in similar web applications" since it is based off of real applications.

Google has provided us with an overview of the tests:

Facebook are looking to go a bit exotic with their new backup plans, with their upcoming backup looking to tap some low-power deep-storage hardware that'll be housed in a 62,000 square-foot building in Prineville, Oregon.

This is situated near their Beaver State data center, with the new back up referred to "Sub-Zero". Sub-Zero will store a copy of Facebook's data in case the social network's primary servers need to be restored in the case of an emergency. Instead of continuously powering HDDs that are only occasionally used, Sub-Zero can conserve energy by lighting-up drives only when they're actually needed.

Just a single of Facebook's existing server racks chews up around 4.5 kilowatts, whilst the ones that will be found at Sub-Zero will only consume approximately 1.5 kilowatts when they're running, which is quite the power conservation. Facebook's vice president of site operations, Tom Furlong, talked to Wired that there are talks of a similar structure to be built next to the social network's North Carolina-based data center.

I still remember getting a Nintendo 64 for Christmas as a young gamer, I was unbelievably excited. Gaming back in the 90s was just another thing compared to gaming now, and it seems that a brand new Nintendo 64 emulator has been developed by Paul Holden.

Holden's new emulator uses JavaScript and is still in its early stages, as it only works with a handful of titles, one of which is Super Mario 64. If you want to use the emulator, you'll need to be rocking Google Chrome or a Firefox Nightly build, as they are the only browsers that have the features required to run the emulator. You'll also need to have your own ROMs on hand.

The video above shows off the emulator, and of course whilst not perfect, it runs. Early days yet, and you can see it runs pretty slow, but that's probably because of a software issue, as today's computers have enough horsepower to run something from the mid-90s without a problem.

Retina MacBook Pro owners might not be enjoying that high-res display as much as they could. This is because if apps don't support the native 2880x1800 resolution, the apps are displayed as a blurry, pixel-doubled app. But, there are plenty of Retina-made apps right now, but they're not easy to find.

Even with Apple's Mac App Store, the apps aren't easy to find, which is why RetinaMacApps.com has stepped in, bringing a list of Retina-compatible apps. The website looks quite simple, lacking any form of search function, as it just sports a drop-down menu on the left that lets you look through the most recent submissions, category or name.

If you don't want to check through the whole site, you can just hook yourself up to a weekly e-mail that will be sent out to you with a list of submitted apps from the week just gone. Retina-powered apps won't automatically appear in this listing, though, as developers will need to submit their apps manually, which means there'll only be a few apps out there that meet these requirements, but won't jump up onto the listing.

Microsoft's new Outlook.com looks to be a success. In the first 24 hours of it being live, Outlook.com saw 1 million users sign up for the newest webmail service on the block. Now, Microsoft is reporting that the service has seen 10 million users sign up and starting using Outlook.com since its launch just two weeks ago.

This stat was released alongside an announcement about the updated SkyDrive updates. The number could be slightly inflated by users grabbing vanity e-mails, but even still it is an impressive feat. In other news, SkyDrive has been revamped by Microsoft to feature a new, modern design and will soon be getting an Android app:

Since we launched the Outlook.com preview two weeks ago, we have been truly humbled by the reception. We've received hundreds of great comments, participated in thousands of threads on @reddit, @gizmodo, @neowin and are excited to share that, as of today, more than 10 million people have signed up and started using Outlook.com.

Multi-lingual users will like this news, with Google announcing that they've introduced a new text input tool that lets you type in Russian, Chinese and Hindi within their Google Docs product.

Normally other languages require special characters which aren't available on US keyboard configurations, but here is what the Google Drive team had to say about it:

Depending on the language you're typing in, the tool will allow you to input text using the phonetic spelling of a word or using a virtual keyboard that mirrors your physical keyboard.

It would appear that Google has partially caved to the music and movie industry. An update to the way search results are ranked will see pirate sites and other illegitimate content sources showing up lower in the results. As you may or may not know, Google looks at around 200 different signals to rank pages and the newest one is directly tied to piracy.

The latest signal to be used in ranking pages will be directly related to "the number of valid copyright removal notices" received for a given site. This means that sites which receive a large number of valid removal notices may appear lower in Google's search results. Google explains why this is a good thing:

This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily-whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.

Facebook is trying out a new feature that allows users to send a postcard with one of your pictures on it to a friend. The new feature is powered by Sincerely and allows you to mail a physical postcard to a friend. You can even add a message that will be sent to the friend with the card or send prints of their pictures.

Of course, Facebook isn't doing this for free. The sender is charged a fee, right now at varying price points for the people who have access to the trial, and the card goes out in the mail through Sincerely's service. Sincerely is the company behind Postagram, the service that does basically the same thing for Instagram pictures.

This feature came about from a Hackathon project. If successful, and instituted, the new service could garner Facebook some more earnings through increased interaction with pictures (higher advertising value) and through a possible small profit from the selling of the postcards and prints.

Google needs your help so that they can better help you. Earlier this year, Google launched a stock image library as part of its Google Drive product. Thanks to lots of positive feedback, they are now planning on expanding that library with images that are selected by the people who use the product. That's why they've enlisted your help.

Want to help decide what goes in? It's a simple task, really. Just head over to ThinkStock.com, select up to 10 images to nominate, and fill out Google's nomination form with the information they require. Easy, and you have helped make Google, and the Internet, a better place. Not to mention you should then be able to use these photos in your Google Drive docs.

Google explains the process in a bit more detail:

Today, Google has been doing a lot of talking. They debuted their exclusive field trial of integrating Gmail emails with searches and they've been talking about the future of search. But, how can you look towards the future without knowing the present? You can't and that's why Google has provided us with some incredible numbers about the current state of search.

To make an average day, Google crawls an incredible 20 billion pages. However, to put that number in perspective, there are about 30 trillion URLs on the Internet. An average month is made up of serving 100 billion searches. Google's current Knowledge Graph is composed of 500 million items and that is just a baby step towards the future of search.

Google's vision of the future of search: