Software & Apps - Page 94

One of the best features of Android 4.1 and 4.2 Jelly Bean is Google Now - I loved it in my reviews of the mobile OS, but it has really grown into a powerful tool. I use it on the daily - and it has been updated today with some new and improved features.

First up, Google Now has the ability to tell you the weather at you destination, if you were travelling, before you even step out of the house. Boarding passes will also display automatically when you arrive at the airport - but are exclusive to United Airlines for now, with Google saying they'll be adding more airlines in the future.

The updated Google Now features a list of events that are happening near you when you arrive at your destination, and the final update includes suggestions of websites for you to look at when researching things to do as well as learning about specific pieces while you're out - using Google Goggles. Google have rejigged the Voice Search, where you can now ask "What's this song" and it will try its hardest to find it for you. I tried it with it by saying "What's this song" and all it would come up with is "What is this song" and display results for "this song" - all while I was bopping to Gangnam Style.

It looks like Google have done yet another good thing for business, education and government customers - with their latest update to the Google Play Store that will let you host your own private internal apps directly into Google Play.

All you'll need to do is enable it in the developer console, then applications can be uploaded to the Play Store with users who are signed in with the same domain name will have a new section that will be accessible. This new section will allow the user to browse, download and update internal applications - all without sideloading.

This is perfect for those who want to host a help desk for example, or a bunch of apps that a bigger team need to access, then this is perfect. Google are helping out the enterprise customer, and this is only a good thing.

Google's latest iteration of their mobile OS, Jelly Bean, has enjoyed a good start so far - but just how much of the mobile OS market share has it stolen from its siblings?

In the last thirty days alone, Jelly Bean has had a nice boost in scooping up more market share thanks to people buying Jelly Bean-based devices like the incredible Nexus 4 which comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on-board.

Since November, Jelly Bean has seen a huge 4% jump in market share - reaching 6.7% total. Splitting hairs, 5.9% of those are on Android 4.1 and the remaining 0.8% are on Android 4.2. Ice Cream Sandwich users (Android 4.0) enjoyed an increase of just 1.8% with a total of 27.5%.

It's been a long-time coming for Verizon FiOS customers who have been waiting for the FiOS Mobile iPad application to receive its inevitable live-streaming television update, and this week, the company finally released that very update.

The FiOS Mobile iPad application was promised to have live streaming when it first debuted back in 2010, but it didn't and has gone two years without the ability to stream television programing to iPad owners. With this week's update, FiOS customers can now stream 75 channels of live television to their iPads.

As with the majority of live television streaming applications, there are a number of limitations to the FiOS Mobile app that requires its users to jump through the correct hoops and hurdles in order to get full use of it. First, if you'd like to use live stream television to the application, you need to be a FiOS customer with a valid username and password. You also need to be connected to your home network with a FiOS router and you'll need to be a subscriber to both FiOS' TV and Internet services.

A few users of Android have had to deal with a bug for two and a half years now prompting some to question Google as to why it hasn't been fixed as of yet. Well, all of this questioning has finally made some progress with Google as they have now promised to fix the bug in the next version of Android.

The bug is a very specific and limited bug that only affects a few groups of users. In April 2010, it was discovered and reported that Android wouldn't allow a given device to resolve a hostname to the correct IP address on a local domain. This bug is only really a problem for some university students and IT professionals.

Since it had limited scope, Google wasn't in a rush to fix it as they had more pressing matters to attend to. However, Google has finally stated that a fix for this bug is coming...in the next version of Android. Unfortunately for those experiencing the bug, Google missed putting the fix into Android 4.2, so they'll have to wait for 4.3.

It has nearly been a month since Windows 8 has launched, so just how is Microsoft's Windows Store faring? Well, they've seen 2,000 more apps added to the store, bringing the total to over 20,000 apps.

Better yet, nearly 18,000 of those apps are actually free - an impressive feat. But, are all of those apps worthwhile? That's the real question. Win App Update keeps tracks of the totals, posting on Twitter that the milestone was probably passed on Tuesday. Not all of the apps are available in all regions and languages, with your particular market sporting much less than that 20,000 apps market.

Out of the 20,000 apps, Win App Update says that almost 18,000 of those are free. Breaking them down into locations, the US has nearly 13,000, Canada has almost 14,000 and the UK sits pretty with just 11,000.

And just like that, Mozilla has ended nightly builds of Firefox 64-bit for Windows. The reasoning behind doing so is logical and was laid out by Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg. Only 5 days after his post on the mozilla.dev.planning discussion board, nightly builds were turned off.

Browsing through the discussions, it was clear that a large portion were against disabling the 64-bit version, however, some did agree with him. He then posted "Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread. Given the existing information, I have decided to proceed with disabling windows 64-bit nightly and hourly builds. Please let us consider this discussion closed unless there is critical new information which needs to be presented."

Windows users who would like a 64-bit browser can switch to OS X or Linux, which both have 64-bit Firefox. Windows users can also select from Internet Explorer or Opera as Chrome and Safari do not currently have a 64-bit version available for Windows.

For those of you running the 'yakju' international GSM version of the Galaxy Nexus, you should be receiving the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OTA (over the air) update right about now. If not, the factory Android 4.2 JB image is also available, if that's how you roll.

The only Galaxy Nexus receiving this update is the above-mentioned 'yakju' version, which is the version available in Hong Kong and the UK, the "takju" Galaxy Nexus owners had their updates last week, but at the moment the Verizon or Sprint bound updates are nowhere to be seen.

If you want to download the new update, check out this link courtesy of Android Central, they've also been kind enough to offer up a guide.

Google's Android has suffered a rather embarrassing bug. In the latest version, 4.2, December is conspicuously missing from the date picker. This makes it rather hard--well, impossible--to enter birthdays, appointments, and really anything else that requires use of the date picker. The bug does not affect the calendar.

It's not clear how Google engineers could have made this oversight, but one thing is clear, they are working on fixing it, but have not given a specific time frame. Google made the following post on the Android Google+ feed, which describes the bug and says they will have it fixed "soon":

Rumor has it that the next version of Apple's Mac OS X, 10.9 to be exact, will be called Lynx. The OS X line of operating systems have been named after big cats and Apple is running out of big cats to name the operating system versions after. The current version of Mac OS X is called Mountain Lion. Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion have already been used.

That leaves really only two choices, out of the trademarked big cats that Apple got way back in 2003. The two unused trademarked big cats are "Lynx" and "Cougar." Here's the kicker: a cougar is just another name for Mountain Lion, so Apple would likely not use that name. This leaves the final name as Lynx.

Furthermore, a report has surfaced that Apple's internal papers say they are working on finalizing the name and that it will be Lynx. Of course, this is the part that should be taken with a grain of sand as it relies on "reliable sources" and other decidedly flaky sources. But, it does have some logic behind it.

Steven Sinofsky is out. Steve Ballmer personally fired Sinofsky, who was head of Microsoft's Windows division. He was the principle proponent and driving force behind the decision to remove the start button from Windows 8. He detailed his reasoning of why users should be forced to drop it cold-turkey.

But now that he is out, could the Windows Start Menu make a come back? Some factors point to yes. Stardock, makers of Start8, has distributed tens of thousands of free trials of Start8, a program which brings back a Windows 7-style Start Menu. Kris Kwilas, Stardocks vice president of technology:

Apple's attempt at supplying its own Maps application could be considered a complete disaster as not only did it create an uproar within the iOS community, but it became such a problem, Apple had to issue a public apology, even going as far as recommending alternatives within its own App Store. iOS users who updated to iOS 6 and have longed for the days when Google Maps was made available as a standalone application will soon have their day as it's being reported Google Maps for iOS is very close to being released.

According to the WSJ, Google has released a "test version" of its Google Maps iOS application to a limited number of people outside of the company. This release could indicate a near-final version of Google Maps for iOS is much closer than we all expected, which hopefully means we could be hearing of it heading into Apple's approval process soon.

Hopefully Apple will expedite the process of Google's Maps application as it must know by now just how much people hate its own Maps application. I understand Apple has been trying to rule the world just as hard as Google has been, but in the world of map applications, Apple just needs to admit defeat and let the pros guide me to the nearest Chipotle without ending up in the Hudson River.

If you haven't heard about Android 4.2 Jelly Bean's "Daydreams", well, they're a screensaver-like app that runs whenever your device is docked, or charging. There's a handful included with the stock Android 4.2, but there's a hidden one, too - it's unlockable if you access the Jelly Bean "Easter Egg" animation.

Tapping several times on the Android version number under Settings, then About Phone will display a large Jelly Bean smiley face. Press down on this for a few seconds and you'll be prompted with a screen filled with even more delicious-looking jelly beans.

Once you've done this, the "BeanFlinger" Daydream will be unlocked. You can find BeanFlinger under Settings, Display, Daydreams. This unlocking should work on any Android 4.2-based device that supports Daydreams.

As much as I've enjoyed using Spotify on a daily basis, one thing that it's been missing has been a web-based music application allowing me, and other users around the world, to log in to their account and instantly access their music, playlists and radio station preferences no matter where they go. But today, Spotify has announced that it's planning to roll out a browser-based application that will do just that in the coming months.

According to reports, the web application will retain much of what is currently available in the desktop versions including search, Radio, Spotify's "What's new" section and management of playlists. Assuming Spotify is planning on making everything available from its desktop application to the web, we can expect Spotify's Radio feature to be free for all users, with banner and audio ads removed for premium members.

Spotify's web-based music player is currently in beta, but the company plans on rolling it out to everyone over the next couple of months. The company had the following to share in regards with today's news:

Browsermark 2.0 is now available. Browsermark, a benchmark produced by Rightware, is a benchmarking tool designed to test mobile and embedded devices, though it will work on any browser that has an internet connection. This means the benchmark can be used to analyze high performance desktops all the way down to that single core phone from 2008.

"We are all frustrated with the performance of our browser, based on the device we are web browsing on, and continually ask, 'Am I expecting too much from my tablet?'" said Tero Sarkkinen, CEO of Rightware. "Browsermark answers that question for you! This simple-to-run test will help you decide which browser provides the best web experience for your device. In addition to measuring your own device, consumers can check out the latest results of many devices in our Power Board online database. We believe these two technologies will help to improve the user experience on every device."

The test covers the usual: page loading, page resizing, conformance testing, and network speed. However, the new version also covers WebGL, Canvas, HTML5, and CSS3/3D. Best yet, the Browsermark 2.0 benchmark is completely free to use for everyone, which will make it easier for you to compare your shiny new device to your friend's old one.

The Android team has just made the Android 4.2 SDK (AP level 17) available for download, including some juicy nuggets of goodness for developers to mess around with. The SDK includes files and tools for application developers to use to create all the apps you see and download from the Google Play store, with some of the highlights being:

Performance

We've worked with our partners to run Renderscript computation directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, a first for any mobile computation platform.

One fun activity my brothers and I have when we get together is playing our favorite YouTube videos just to make each other laugh. It usually ends in a lot of laughter and high-fives, that is, unless one of us accidentally decides to play a video of a person cleaning a spider bite in their bathroom. That kind of content will put a damper on any good time.

When my brothers and I are watching YouTube videos, we usually watch them off of the YouTube applications available on our PS3 or Xbox 360, but today's update will certainly make watching videos together easier now that Google has updated its YouTube application for Android to interact with Google TV devices.

The way it works is a person with an Android smartphone or tablet can send YouTube videos that they discover on their devices to their Google TV device simply by pushing a new "TV" button. Google TV devices will automatically pair with any Android device that is found within the same WI-Fi network. The Android device can also be used as a remote as you can perform many of the controls you could within YouTube.

GrubHub has single-handedly saved my wife and I from complete starvation on numerous occasions as we'd always want food, but are either too lazy to call for takeout or actually go outside to obtain nourishment. Any time we use GrubHub, we know it's going to be a good time, but with its latest update, the experience became a lot more interactive.

GrubHub has rolled out a new service called "Track Your Grub" which allows users of the food ordering service to watch the progression of their order from the moment it's submitted up until the delivery person drops off your food.

The way GrubHub is able to do this is by its OrderHub and DeliveryHub app that is used by restaurant owners and drivers to help track a customer's order. Those restaurants who wish to go through all of the trouble to allow their customers' orders to be tracked will receive a "Track Your Grub" badge on their restaurant listing within the app.

Microsoft is pretty much only known in the operating system world for Windows, but the Redmond-based software giant have been working on another OS in secret, cheating on Windows.

The secret OS is known as project Midori, and according to ZDNet's well-sourced Mary Jo Foley, it has definitely been beating along in the labs at Microsoft. Midori is a new OS believed to be designed around Singularity, which was a Microsoft Research microkernel OS. The under-development OS was, and most likely still is, overseen by senior vice president of technical strategy, Eric Rudder.

The OS is reportedly a distributed, concurrent OS, and was referenced during a presentation last month at the OOPSLA 2012 conference. A handful of Microsoft employees presented a paper during the event which was titled Uniqueness and Reference Immutability for Safe Parallelism.

Microsoft has dominated the PC market for years with its Windows OS, but it's been battling to be the center of attention in your living room with its Xbox 360, its failed Zune and its recently launched Microsoft Surface. But a new job listing may have let the cat out of the bag early for the company for its "Cloud TV" service.

The job listing was posted on Microsoft Careers website looking for a Software Engineer Manager to lead "a team that is building awesome client applications for a new Cloud-based TV platform." The new hire would work with the Microsoft Mediaroom team, who already established an IPTV service that's used with a number of companies such as AT&T's U-Verse.

If I had to guess in order to save my loved ones from a terrible death, then my guess would be Microsoft is planning a more ambitious online video platform using its already impressive library of content on its Zune Marketplace. Seeing how monthly subscriptions for similar services like Netflix and Hulu have been accepted, I think Microsoft will finally give people access to all of the content on its Zune Marketplace through a monthly subscription, rather than being a pay-per-view service.