Software & Apps - Page 85

Google has released a credit/debit style card for Google Wallet. It does not include NFC, but you will be able to use your Google Wallet card at an ATM. It will also come in handy when you want to use your Google Wallet, but the retailer you're at doesn't have a NFC enabled paying system. Google Wallets can now allow users to transfer money to other users and access it quickly. The app will also notify you of your card activity.

Google has spent $300 million on making Google Wallets and it hasn't been extremely popular, maybe the ability to use an actual card might bring more users in. The card will have a $5,000 24-hour limit. The Google Wallet card is free to account holders and can be ordered through their Wallet account or on the release of the updated app. It is available to order now and should take 10-12 business days to ship. The Android app update will be available this week.

Google spokesperson speaking with Mashable: "The app will be rolling out to Android users this week, which has the option to order the card or users can order the card directly in their Wallet account now."

Coin is made by a company that is based in San Francisco. It looks like a credit card but can store up to eight different cards that can either be debit, credit, gift or even membership cards. Coin uses an app and a card reader adapter for your smartphone to input all your cards into one. It uses a magnetic strip on the back much like a regular card but with a press of a button it can cycle through your cards and change the strip. Coin detects if you get certain distance away from it and will tell your smartphone with an alert sound if you accidently leave it behind. It does this using Bluetooth Low Energy, which is the same thing used in most smartwatches and fitness tracking devices. The device does not have a changeable or rechargeable battery, but the battery in the Coin lasts two years and at that point you replace the unit.

Coin isn't available yet, but you can get your hands on one next summer. The company has started a campaign through their site and is looking to raise $50,000. At launch it'll be available for $100 but early backers can get them for $50.

I admit it: I used to be a huge Facebook Messenger user, but I've converted over to Hangouts for most of my chat now. I still use Messenger for chatting with people I can't chat with on Hangouts, but Messenger has just received a new update, and it looks swish.

It was previously only made available for a limited number of users, but now it has rolled out to the public, with an all-new design and fresh new features. We have a nice white and light blue design, as well as improved performance, and new chat features. The new chat features include the ability to message people with just their phone number, which is a nice touch.

You can grab the latest version of Facebook Messenger from the Google Play Store, if your device hasn't auto-updated already.

Facebook has just launched a new version of its Messenger app for Android and iOS. The newly update app has been completely redesigned from the ground up and appears to have removed many of the stylings it shares with Facebook itself. The new Messenger (note that its not Facebook Messenger anymore) app features a much lighter color pallet and the chat screens are less like the messenger used in the Facebook App.

The new styling is intentional and is part of Facebook's master plan to infiltrate the every growing market of instant messaging apps. At the moment, the messaging ecosystem is dominated by WhatsApp and iMessenger, but it appears that Facebook is looking to hit them head on and the newly updated app proves that by adding in a host of new features. One of the most prevalent new features is that the Messenger app now has the capabilities of identifying users based on their phone numbers, something WhatsApp has been doing since the beginning.

Facebook is testing the new version of Messenger with select users on Android and iOS and will be rolling out the new update over the course of the next few weeks. Have you gotten the update yet? If so, post some images and your thoughts on our Facebook page as we would love to see and hear them!

It seems like operating systems have been the talk of the techworld over the last month or so. First Steam announced its all new Linux-based Steam OS that is focused on gaming. Then Microsoft released an updated version of Windows 8 that is said to fix most of the issues users had with the previous version. Not to be left out, Apple has just released the latest version of its desktop operating system as well.

OS X Mavericks was launched today during Apples fall launch event. Unlike the recent offering from Microsoft however, Apple has decided to give away OS X Mavericks at the "revolutionary" price of FREE! OS X Mavericks was first introduced at Apple's developers conference back in June, and promised a new way the system handles memory. Mavericks can now adjust system memory allocation based on the task at hand, which means more memory for graphic or processor intensive task, and less when the system is at idle or low resource usage periods.

OS X Mavericks also includes a new version of the iBook app that lets photos and graphics "pop out" of the textbook being read. Additionally, OS X Mavericks includes the new iCloud Keychain app that lets users sync payment information across all Apple devices for quick and easy online purchasing. What do you think about the new OS X Mavericks? Let us know in the comments below.

Linux is definitely getting into the headlines more lately, with the huge push that Valve is making with SteamOS but now we have DICE's Creative Director, Lars Gustavsson saying that DICE would love to get into Linux.

During an interview with Polygon, Gustavsson said "We strongly want to get into Linux for a reason. It took Halo for the first Xbox to kick off and go crazy - usually, it takes one killer app or game and then people are more than willing [to adopt it] - it is not hard to get your hands on Linux, for example, it only takes one game that motivates you to go there."

He added "I think, even then, customers are getting more and more convenient, so you really need to convince them how can they marry it into their daily lives and make an integral part of their lives," he explained, sharing that the studio has used Linux servers because it was a "superior operating system to do so."

NVIDIA has its own GeForce Experience software suite, which tweaks your PC and in-game settings to provide you with a 'better' gaming experience, and now the Red Team has announced its own software: Gaming Evolved Control Center, which is still in beta.

AMD teamed up with Rapr to maek the suite, which offers tools for chat, taking screenshots, and tweaking in-game settings for better performance. Gaming Evolved is heavily spun with Rapr's community data, which determines the best configuration for your PC and games. Rapt's rewards system is mixed in, offering beta access to certain games and free DLC for using the service, which is a nice bonus.

Through AMD's new software, you can stream directly to Twitch, with the added ability of simultaneously watching someone else's broadcast while you're blasting around in another game. AMD says that its new software is designed to "make PC gaming as simple to use as consoles" but I disagree. PC gaming is not meant to be "simple," as it takes away the major difference between consoles and PCs.

Today Foursquare released an update to its app for iOS that introduces a completely new UI design. The new design was first released on Android back in August, and has finally began rolling out to iPhone users. Unfortunately, in the beginning only a few thousand users will receive the update while Foursquare works out any bugs that may pop up.

The update features a new recommendation system that that runs continuously in the background, and monitors a user's location to recommend establishments nearby. The system will also recommend popular food and beverage choices once the user checks into the location. These recommendations are made based on previous user's comments and advertising partners.

Foursquare had the following to say in a statement:

Over the past year or so, the buzz surrounding Beats Audio's music streaming service has risen and fallen several times. With the project seeming so volatile, many industry analyst speculated that it may never get off the ground, but today new life appears to have been injected into the service.

During a recent interview with The Next Web, Beats COO Luke Wood, said that the streaming service would launch "within the next few months." He went on to say that the service would be available on the web as well as Android, iOS and Windows 8, with support for the latter arriving later than the previous two.

It also appears that the service will be titled Beats Music, rather than the "Daisy" moniker we have heard tossed around so much over the last 18 months. Wood said that the company is focusing heavily on the playlist side of things, and that the service would differ greatly from traditional streaming services like Pandora and Spotify.

Earlier this morning, Google began pushing out the latest version of Google Chrome, and it is expected to take several days for the process to completely populate to all those who have auto updating turned on in Chrome. The update brings forth a new search by image option for the desktop version of Chrome, while the Android version receives a handful of new touch-based gestures.

On the Android version of Chrome 30, users will now have the ability to horizontally swipe across the top bar to quickly jump from one tab to another. Additionally, dragging down will reveal the entire tab switcher screen. I love this new feature as it allows me to very quickly access all of my tabs at once and makes searching through multiple tabs quick and easy. Users are also able to drag down the settings menu for quick and easy access.

The new "search by image" feature on the desktop version of Chrome 30 is pretty awesome as well. Now users can search for larger sized images simply by right clicking on a web-based image and selecting the new "Search Google for this image" option in the context menu. For those who use Google image search for wallpapers or for content, this feature greatly speeds up the image hunting process.

Oh gosh - I don't believe I'm actually reporting on this, but here we go: a fake Apple ad has been making its way around on social networks, pushing people to "update to iOS 7 to become waterproof."

The ad tries to 'sell' iOS 7 to you, in a salesman type of way, by stating: "In an emergency, a smart-switch will shut off the phone's power supply and corresponding components to prevent any damage to your iPhone's delicate circuitry." Countless people fell for it, destroying their iPhones in the process. I can't help but laugh (please don't take offense if you're on of these people), but one angry person who thought a software update would make their iPhone waterproof said: "Ok whoever said IOS7 is waterproof GO F*** YOURSELF."

I do have a question for these iDiots: if you thought a software update would magically make your iPhone waterproof, can I have the same update for my car? Maybe I can firmware flash my car and have it 10x better on mileage. Maybe I could firmware flash myself and have the ability to fly? Apple fans, officially reaching a new low.

Following Google's lead, Mozilla has decided to deactivate most of the browser plug-ins used in Firefox. In the latest version of Firefox Aurora, almost all of the plug-ins have been disabled with the exception of Adobe Flash. Unlike Chrome's plan to ban plug-ins all together, FireFox will let its users choose which plug-ins they would like to activate.

Firefox says that the decision to disable most plug-ins would not only help speed up the browser, but it will provide a safer environment and remove many of the security vulnerabilities that modern browsers face. At one time, plug-ins were an important tool for development as well as implementing cutting-edge features such as video and animation, but over time web technologies advanced and everything can now be done using new technologies such as WebGL, WebSockets, WebRTC, and asm.js.

The move to disable plug-ins is also driven by the fact that most mobile devices no longer support many of them. Disabling plug-ins by default will help push development into a more mobile-friendly workflow and will allow developers to take the Internet to the next level.

Apple's Maps app has been plagued with issues since its release, and has often been unfairly compared to Google Maps, which has a development head start of over a decade. Unfortunately, many of the errors Apple Maps has been experiencing are quite fundamental and not simply a misnamed road or missing imagery.

A recent error has popped up that involves the Fairbanks International Airport located in Fairbanks, Alaska. The airport has reported several incidents where iPhone users were using Apple Maps to navigate around the airport and wound up driving on a taxiway and then across an active runway.

"We asked them to disable the map for Fairbanks until they could correct it, thinking it would be better to have nothing show up than to take the chance that one more person would do this," said Melissa Osborn, chief of operations at the airport.

iMessage Chat for Android has arrived, but is it as good as what it sounds like? Well, yes and no. iMessage Chat allows Android users to chat between Android and iOS devices, but there should be caution used.

9to5Mac reports that iMessage Chat is definitely not an Apple app - which should be obvious - and was created by a third-party developed named Daniel Zweigart. iMessage Chat disguises the Android device you're using as a Mac mini, after which it pushes your messages to the Apple iMessage server. This means you'll require an Apple ID to gain access, but this isn't where the problems stop.

The creator of Cydia, Jay Freeman, noticed that iMessage Chat redirects to a server in China, before it forwards the information to Apple. This means that the server acts like a middle man, where it handles the transferring and processing of information between your smartphone and the iMessage server. The scary thing is, we don't know what the Chinese server is doing with your information - where it could be, and probably is storing your Apple IDs and chat logs.

Earlier this afternoon, Google announced that it has began rolling out a newly refreshed "new tabs page" that greatly speeds up searching from within the Chrome browser. The new tab page still features little windows to your most visited sites, but now features the Google search bar front and center.

Google says that at the moment only those who use the "stable channel of Chrome" will have access to the new tab page, and those users must additionally have Google set as the default search engine. Google is not limiting this new tab page to just Google search, and has opened the API to allow any search engine to be integrated into the new tab page.

A statement on Google's Chrome blog said:

Last week we broke the news that Valve was prepping for three big announcements this week surrounding its Steam gaming platform, and today the company released its first announcement by unveiling a new operating system. The new SteamOS is a free, open-source operating system that is designed around steam and built on Linux.

Valve says the new OS is capable of running on "any living room machine" which presumably means custom-built HTPCs, Laptops, and almost certainly the mystical Steam Box many industry insiders expect to be launched during one of the company's next announcements on Wednesday or Friday. Unfortunately Valve did not clue us in on an actual release date, but did say that the new OS would be available for download "soon."

"As we've been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we've come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself," Valve stated. "SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines."

On top of BlackBerry having serious issues, and diving out of the consumer market and letting 4,500 people go, its BBM rollout for Android and iOS has now been put on hold. The Canadian phone maker has said that leaked versions people were using were having "issues" and that they are hard at work to getting it released.

We saw a tease yesterday of the new status bar with gray icons in Android 4.4 KitKat, but now we have another look from 9to5Google, which gives us a closer look at the redesigned stock apps on Android 4.4.

You can see from the images above that we have the Messaging app, and the Dialer app, which both look quite nice in their updated form. Controls for the Messaging app have been shifted to the top right of the app, and the Dialer app gets a much more streamlined look, with a nice blue color scheme. We should expect Android 4.4 KitKat to arrive mid next month on the rumored Nexus 5 handset.

Ever since it has been out, Kamcord has been locked to iOS, until today that is. The game recording app maker has announced that it has an Android beta application out, which you can try out today!

If you were like me, and until very recently didn't know what Kamcord did in the gigantic, never-ending sea of applications did, it allows you to record your gaming moments and share them with the world. Right now, Kamcord has over one million videos that have been uploaded to its site from gamers all across the world. Kamcord is similar to Twitch, but is primarily focused on mobile gaming, which is exploding right now.

Jumping onto the Android bandwagon will see them grow like we have not seen before, thanks to the huge inroads that Google has done in Asian countries with Android. Android has over 60% of the smartphone OS market share in China and Japan, which should see Kamcord benefit greatly from. Kamcord co-founder, Kevin Wang, says: "Technically this represents a huge breakthrough. No one has been able to accomplish this until now because of the difficulties associated with recording performance in the Android environment."

Cyanogen has secured $7 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures, with the main goal of CyanogenMod becoming a major player in the mobile OS arena.

A major player, you ask? Yes: Cyanogen wants to compete directly with the big boys, and wants to overtake Windows Phone and BlackBerry to become the third most used mobile OS in the world. The statement comes directly from Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster, who talked to The Verge, where he said: "There's always been lot of talk around who's going to be the third dominant mobile computing platform. Windows Phone would probably be No. 3 now. If you look at what our actual user base is, we might be equal to or greater than that."

Cyanogen founder Steve Kondik also had something to say: "The mobile devices out there, they're just not meant for anybody to use. They're essentially mobile cash registers. We want to help you get stuff done, and use these things to their fullest potential."