Software & Apps - Page 88

Snapchat seems to be doing very well for itself. It has experienced massive growth and is a major player in the mobile app market, despite Facebook's attempt to kill the app with Poke. The app boats 200 million "snaps" daily, meaning it's pushing quite a bit of data. For right now, the app doesn't seem to have a way to make money, so seed funding is important.

The company has confirmed that it raised $60 million in funding and saw itself garner an $800 million pre-money valuation. If you'll recall, Facebook bought Instagram for not much more than that. The company has raised a total of around $75 million since it debuted back in September 2011.

At this morning's press event held by Facebook, the company announced that Instagram is getting a video sharing feature similar to its image sharing service. Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom took the stage to show off the company's new feature and spent about 20 minutes talking about the Instagram Video's new features.

Since Instagram was released, the service has seen more than 16 billion photos shared from a community of over 130 million active users. At the moment, images shared on Instagram see an average of one billion likes daily. Instagram attributes this success to the inherent human want to create and store memories. Realizing this, the company knew that the next step was to include video in their memory sharing service.

The new video feature will allow users to create and share 15 second video clips similar to how Twitter's Vine app handles things. The similarities end there though as Instagram has enabled users to chain together clips to form a longer more informative video. Additionally, in true Instagram form, users can customize each clip or video with its own filter. The company says that it developed 13 new custom filters just for video to allow users to create a more beautiful memory.

Crittercism has just launched their new Fathom Mobile Command Center, which can help companies in many ways. With the growing digital lifestyles that not only consumers live in, but businesses have to build to sustain those consumers, the behind-the-scenes app development and maintenance headaches also grow.

This is where Crittercism is here to help with their new platform that will improve companies' mobile app strategy for the long-term. Fathom is the first solution that is capable of monitoring and reporting how third-party services and network conditions affect the performance of iOS and Android. In order to help companies manage the performance of their iOS- or Android-based apps, Fathom provides powerful tools that allow these companies to not only understand, but address these performance issues within any consumer, business-to-business or employee-facing application.

Crittercism's new Fathom Mobile Command Center will show each factor affecting app performance for each individual app session where an issue is encountered. This provides, as you can imagine, a huge understanding to mobile teams and developers who are looking to improve to overall app experience - be it consumers, or business partners, or both. Mobile teams can then use Fathom to monitor app performance in real-time, which is a nice touch.

Apple has released an update for Java 6 on Mac OS X. This update brings with it important security updates, reliability improvements and compatibility improvements. This Java 6 update is available from Apple, while the newer Java 7 is available directly from the developers at Oracle.

Apple details the improvements to Java 6:

CPU-Z is now available for Android, a tool that has been used for many years by people like myself and other enthusiasts to get information on their systems and to check their latest overclock and what not. The app is now available for Android, which is a refreshing change.

CPU-Z for Android provides a slew of information about the internals of your Android-powered device that you can use for debugging, optimizing or tweaking, just like you would on your Windows-powered PC. There are different tabs for your SoC, system build information, battery stats and live sensor data. There are obviously other apps that provide users with a similar experience, but this is CPU-Z, something that has been a long time companion of PC tweakers and enthusiasts.

I'll be installing this on my phone this afternoon for a tweak or two! You can grab it, here.

I really thought that last week with Computex was busy, but I didn't quite prepare myself for the onslaught of data that would be slamming into my face via websites, Facebook, Feedly, our own website and e-mail. E3 and WWDC at the same time? Stahp!

Anyway, iOS 7 has been unveiled to the world and I'm liking what I see. It definitely is a huge departure to the previous iterations of iOS which is great because iOS was becoming very stale for me, and a lot of others. iOS 7 now features a 'flat' design, which is gorgeous and you really need to check out videos on it to get an appreciation for just how much work Apple have put into their next-generation mobile OS.

The icons that are on the home screen move too, so if you move your iPhone from side-to-side, the icons kind of move - allowing you to see "behind" them, which is a nice trick. Multi-tasking on iOS 7 is heavily borrowed from Android, which is a great thing as multi-tasking on iOS until now has been pretty slow and clunky - but now, Apple have it done very well.

Mozilla, the developers behind Firefox, are planning a major design overhaul for the popular web browser. The changes will appear in Firefox 25 which is slated to arrive in October. Those who wish to preview the changes are in luck as Mozilla has set up a special Nightly UX channel for Firefox 25. (Source #2)

For those of you who just want to know the differences, keep reading. The new look is awfully similar to the current user interface for Google's Chrome browser. The tabs have been rounded over, and Firefox is ditched the top left settings drop-down in favor of a more Chrome-like menu icon at the right hand side of the URL bar which is affectionately known as the "hot dog icon."

Other features include:

Computex Taipei 2013 - ROCCAT have unveiled something they're calling a first in the history of PC gaming with their new Power-Grid technology. Power-Grid allows you to use your smartphone to control both your games, and your computer, and is free to get you started.

ROCCAT's Power-Grid will allow you to connect, monitor and control your game and PC in real-time, with the app featuring four control displays, or "grids". There are four grids at play, with the first three preloaded with a bunch of essential gaming tools while ROCCAT have left the fourth one completely customizable. The three grids are made up of the "Incoming Center", "Stats Control", "Sound Control" while the fourth is free.

Incoming Center routes all outside voice and text communication - be it Skype, Facebook or TeamSpeak - to your smartphone for easy viewing. This way, gamers can continue to get their game on, without their PC disturbing them with updates, which they can quickly check on their smartphone.

We first saw Spotify's Discover service back in December and now the music streaming giant has began rolling out the music discovery page to its users. The new page allows users to "Discover and Sample" new music, something that was previously hard to do.

"With the Discover page, we're making good on our promise of helping you choose what to listen to when faced with millions of songs," Spotify Chief Product Officer Gustav Söderström said in a statement. "We've made your listening experience more personal, more social, and more current."

The new Discover Page will include the following features:

A Plex refresh for Android has been in the works for sometime now. The popular media streaming application gets an entirely new look for Android while the 3.2 version for iOS gets some bug fixes.

The refresh provides a much more polished and elegant interface while improving access times to larger libraries. The initial 3.0 release had a bug forced the app to require a MyPlex account as well not allowing the remote control widget to function properly. iOS users have had Plex 3.0 for some time now and the 3.2 update brings forth some tangeable improvements including speedier media access, fixes for Plex Sync. Other improvements include letting the iOS app serve as a remote playback target for other Plex equipped devices.

As a user of Plex for some time now, this update is a most welcome one. I love Plex's ease of setup and use and the ability to not only stream content hosted on local servers, but the ability to watch web based content from hundreds of free sources such as Revision3. I will be covering how to set up Plex in an upcoming how to article in which we will build a small form factor home media server, so stay tuned to TweekTown for that.

Today Amazon.com announced that its Appstore is now available in nearly 200 countries worldwide, and features apps for Macs, PC's and Android based devices such as Amazon's Kindle Fire. Alongside this announcement, Amazon said that the Kindle Fire will release to over 170 new countries in June.

"We are thrilled to be expanding the reach of our global app distribution to nearly 200 countries. We think our customers will love the app selection we have to offer and also find features such as Free App of the Day and personalized recommendations very helpful as they discover and explore new apps and games," said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. "By further expanding the distribution of apps to millions of customers around the world, we are continuing to make it easy for customers to enjoy their Amazon apps on Kindle Fire and any Android device."

To celebrate this expansion, the Amazon Appstore is bringing back one of its most popular Free Apps of the Day, "Fruit Ninja," along with "Cut the Rope: Experiments." These will be available, for free, on May 23 and May 24. For those not in the know, the "Free App of the Day," is a program in which Amazon offers a paid app for free every day.

We can expect Microsoft to include WebGL support in Internet Explorer 11. Microsoft teased that the new web technology would be supported through a Vine video released earlier today. Internet Explorer is expected to release alongside the upcoming Windows 8.1 update that will make its first public debut in June alongside Microsoft's BUILD conference.

WebGL allows web browsers to display 3D graphics, which is becoming increasingly important as Google pushes for Chrome OS and more and more software is becoming web-based. Opera, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox all currently offer some support for WebGL. Epic Citadel, a tech demo, was recently released that demonstrates just what WebGL is capable of.

Pandora and Facebook have had a very friendly relationship for years now and now both companies are taking it to a new level with a purpose built app for Facebook's Timeline. The new app will let users share what they are listening to on their timeline, similar to how Spotify handles things.

The new functionality is being integrated into Pandora's iOS and Android apps as well as Pandora.com and will let users automatically publish their listening habits to their Facebook Timeline. Pandora users will be able to specify which stations they share on the social network, as well as which artists and tracks they would like to appear on the wall.

In a statement, Pandora's Tim Conrad, had the following to say:

Futuremark announced the next version of the PCMark benchmarking software this morning. The new PCMark 8 has long been anticipated in the custom PC world, and Futuremark did not let us down. The new benchmark includes several long awaited features such as battery life and native application testing.

This marks the first time Futuremark has combined battery life testing with performance testing in PCMark. The new test can measure power consumption during benchmarks and estimate battery life, or testers can use the Battery Life Loop Mode to loop a test until the battery is almost dead, for more accurate results.

PCMark is known for its tests that are based on common use scenarios such as web browsing, photo editing, video chat and gaming. PCMark 8 steps this game up considerably by now featuring new testing based on productivity and creativity apps from Adobe and Microsoft.

Microsoft announced today that Rovio has brought the classic Angry Birds Rio to the Windows Phone platform. The app has been available on iOS and Android for a long time, but it has finally jumped over to the fledgling Windows Phone platform. Microsoft needs popular iOS apps to continue coming to Windows Phone to encourage users to jump on the platform.

The price remains unchanged at $0.99, which seems to be the ultimate price point for apps and games. One bonus about the Windows Phone app: Xbox Live achievements and leaderboards. The app is available for both Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.5.

Google isn't happy with Microsoft over its recently released YouTube app. The app, which was released by Microsoft just over a week ago, is a much-improved YouTube app that Google apparently didn't know was coming. According to a copy of the cease and desist letter sent to Microsoft, Google is demanding Microsoft "immediately withdraw this application from the Windows Phone Store and disable existing downloads of the application by Wednesday, May 22, 2013."

The main issue with the app, which makes use of Google's API for YouTube, is it's blocking of ads. Both YouTube and the content creators rely on Google's AdSense for revenue. Without these ads, Google can't pay for the hosting and serving of videos and content creators can't monetize their content.

Thanks to a licensing deal with Qualcomm, makers of the mobile Snapdragon processors, Kaspersky security software will now come pre-installed on Android systems powered by a Snapdragon processor. This will, theoretically, help with Kaspersky's market share and hopefully help Kaspersky become a household name for Android security.

By itself, Kaspersky's apps normally retail for $15 and $20 for the smartphone and tablet version, respectively. Users are gaining this software for free, though some may not like the idea of more pre-loaded apps on devices that already have limited storage space.

Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Labs:

Microsoft may have sold 100 million licenses of Windows 8, but this doesn't mean that those licenses are all installed onto consumers' PCs. ComputerWorld talked with Patrick Moorhead, a principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, who estimates that the actual number of Windows 8 devices being used is closer to 59 million.

This is according to the most recent data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 is being used on around 4.2% of all Windows PCs. There are over 70 million PCs in the wild still running Windows Vista, which is a number that needs to change.

There's a glitch to the discreet hookup app 'Bang With Friends', that lets you see which of your Facebook friends are looking for a bang. The big, huge, gaping hole of a problem here is that Bang With Friends is pushed as a silent, untraceable way of looking for a hookup.

Well, not for now - as there's a huge glitch letting you find out which friends are using the app. I used the glitch myself and thankfully, there's only one person on my Facebook list using the app, but there are many of you who might find this an interesting look, and maybe spread the word about the glitch so people know and can remove their accounts from BWF.

You can use this link here to find out which of your Facebook friends are using Bang With Friends. Remember, what is seen cannot be unseen.

Google has announced that Chrome and Chrome OS are getting Google Cloud Messaging. Cloud Messaging is Google's implementation of push notifications and allows notifications, updates, news, and other alerts to be sent to an app even when running in the background. It pushes the update rather than the app having to go out and check for updates.

Push notifications are commonplace in the mobile app world. It looks like they are finally crossing the divide and will start showing up in Chrome apps.