Archive for: news
- November 16, 2011 6:24 pm
Well, it is official with the Google press event wrapping up we know Google Music is official. With the online search giant dropping the beta tag and expanding its tendrils into the music industry by netting deals with major labels like EMI and Sony, it is shaping up to into quite the iTunes competitor.
Google Music will allow users to upload up to 20,000 songs and stream them in 320 Kbps quality from pretty much any device that has a web browser. Best of all, all of this new found Google Music action will remain free!
In addition to music labels being added to Google Music, some integration with Google+ was announced as well. Google+ users can share songs and entire albums with other Goolge+ users whom in turn are given one full free play.
Not to veer too far from the topic — Google+ is shaping up to be a very robust social medium. We like what we have seen so far and are looking forward to the months ahead to see what additions Google+ and Google Music will receive.
The new service is officially live at music.google.com as is the official Google Music Android app.
Well be giving Google Music a thorough testing over the weekend. Look for our Google Music “review” early next week.
In the meantime…Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
From here on out, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t care if every “good ol boys” print media corporation closed up shop and died. They obviously don’t know what the hell they’re doing in this new fangled digital age we live in. Nothing highlights this better than the NYT’s latest hissy fit over iPhone app “Pulse”.
Pulse was a paid app that pulled news stories from the NYT’s actual feed as well as many other news outlets. The NYT’s complained to Apple about the whole paid/copyright issue and Apple complied, removing Pulse.
The real problem here is this: There’s thousands of apps and services across multiple devices and platforms that do this very same thing. Limiting it to Pulse (which until now didn’t have a ton of publicity) doesn’t make sense. Then again, decisions from dying, bassakwards businesses rarely do — hence their down-spiraling.
The devs behind Pulse have stated that they’re simply going to remove the NYT’s feed from the app and re-submit. Good for Pulse, bad for NYT. Though if the NYT is trying to distance themselves from the digital mindset that is increasingly overtaking society, so be it. NYT who…?
**Update: And just like that — Pulse is back in the App Store. However, how it got back so quickly is unbeknownst to us…and Pulse. According to co-creator Akshay Kothari, they haven’t the slightest why it’s back again. Perhaps Apple realized the ridiculous claims made by the NYT, hmm?
According to AT&T’s Mark Siegel, “Nothing new” concerning the hot button issue of iPhone tethering is being released today. The news cuts through fresh rumors that have surfaced showing a new tethering config page in the latest iPhone 4.0 beta 4 that was recently released to devs.
Unfortunately, it’s a load of crap for all of AT&T’s customers who wish to use such a feature legitimately. The response also doesn’t give any indication or clue as to when we can expect such a feature either. It seems Ralph de la Vega’s comments in 2009 of iPhone tethering “coming soon” were full of hot air. I understand the much needed boost in network resilience, but going on 12+ months, come on…
As technology becomes more autonomous and allows lesser numbers of humans to do more things, people will inevitably bitch about lost jobs. For a few people responsible for printing the paper scripts used by WFXL-TV in Albany, Ga., the bitching will be overshadowed by news anchors duking it out on iPads playing Scrabble, Slot Racing, and whatever else it is news anchors like to play in their spare time.
WFXL-TV is as I understand, the first News station to toss out paper scripts entirely and adopting the latest in technology — the iPad. Doing so, according to news station staff, will save the station upwards of $24,000 annually…
Whether or not you feel Gizmodo operated outside of the law — or at the very least, outside of the ethics of journalism — regarding the circumstances surrounding the lost iPhone and their admission in paying for it, you can’t help but want to joke about it. And who better to make fun of Apple and corporate America than John Stewart…?
What have countless sources on the internet including myself and TechDirt said before? Paywalls, no matter how great of an idea on paper, simply don’t materialize into what investors and executives want. In the age of the internet, information is available extremely cheap, extremely fast, and most importantly, without any restrictions. That’s the very core of why the internet was invented in the first place.
Rupert Murdoch and many other news sites fail to see this. They seem to think simply slapping a price on their content will add value and entice people to pay up. While it is true that some will move over to digital subscriptions, many will not. It’s called a business model. The traditional print media is banking on an old, outdated, and dying one.
The point? Rupert Murdoch is a well known media big wig — operating NewsCorp which itself is a massive media company. His daughter — Elisabeth Murdoch, whom runs a TV production house — is more or less in the same business. A business field that suffers from growing pains moving to the web also. But her approach to the whole concept of digital information is far more enlightening:
“Fans remain the best salesmen of our content, even if that behavior is on the borderline of piracy. Danger of the new world is that we must concede that we’ll lose some control.”
Simply put, her comments are in start contrast to the countless claims and accusations by her father show that those who’ve been in the business for any length of time have little hope of “coming around”. In the digital age, we need more forward thinkers like Elisabeth Murdoch and less of those like her father. I’m not saying ban all monetary payments online. That’s silly. Instead, I’m saying don’t be so god damn greedy, adapt to the changing market, and stop labeling people and companies who help your business (such as Google, social networking sites, and so on) as thieves and criminals. It’s really not the best approach.
Paywalls and overly restrictive false barriers do nothing but erode and destroy the very principles of the internet.
TechDirt
If you’re like me — a gadget freak — chances are you follow at least a couple dozen websites religiously. For me, I love to keep it fresh here so between stories being sent in and searching the vast corners of the web, I’d say I’m making quite a trek with 256 (and growing) feeds in my feed reader. At first, I’d always try to get that unread count down to a nice round goose egg as for some strange reason, it made me feel better as a person. Those self fulfilling days are long gone however. Now I rarely get my unread count below 3-digits as I don’t want to miss anything by carelessly clicking on “mark all read”.
Naturally, a feed reader is important and required as scouring 200+ sites would take far too much time to be of any benefit. So Google Reader it is. The versatility of GR is great. I can import my GR feeds to countless desktop and mobile applications as well as easily access my feed library anywhere else in the world by simply going to Google.com/reader.
Today marks another notch in the belt for el Googs and their little wonder reader as it now features the ability to automatically create feeds from websites that don’t have them. Now, manually doing such things isn’t that hard but does involve extra clicks and steps I simply don’t have time for. It may seem silly but it’s the truth. Dynamic and on-the-fly feed creation is a blessing.
I now ask you the question, how beneficial do you find this new Google Reader feature. But we don’t all use GR for our feed reading. In that case, what floats your boat?
RedFerret
- December 30, 2009 1:53 pm
Travel back in time inside your mind to November 25th when we touched on fellow tech blogger Geeky-Gadgets’ less than stellar interaction with the App Store and the mindless idiots who run it.
November 4th: App Submitted / November 25th app rejected
If you remember, the original Geeky-Gadgets app that was submitted on November 4th was rejected because of the contest category and some BS rule in the iPhone SDK that prohibits including or linking to such things. “Fair enough” said Ronald, editor of Geeky-Gadgets. To him, getting any app onto the App Store was more important. Ronald instructed the developers to abide by Apple’s rules and resubmit the app for approval. To recap, the original app was submitted November 4th and this first rejection/letter came on November 25th.
December 16th: rejected
Many more days went by as Ronald waited impatiently for any sign of progress. On December 16th that progress finally came — in the form of another rejection and accompanying fix. This time, Apple also wanted the contest category and any contest keywords removed as well. This problem Ronald admits, was more so his fault for not removing all contest material the first time. Again, the app was fixed and resubmitted.
December 21st: rejected
And so it continues, December 21st brings another email detailing another stupid ass example of Apple’s inconstancy and incompetence: the use of the word “Apple”. According to the SDK:
Applications that contain terms, product names, brand names, or entities in their search criteria that are registered trademarks not licensed or owned by the submitter cannot be posted to the App Store. It would be appropriate to remove “Apple”.
That’s all fine and dandy and I don’t have too much problem with the word “Apple” now being used as long as common sense is used. The problem however is that their consistency sucks and as we’ve seen countless times, common sense is sorely lacking. Do a quick search on the App Store for tech blog iPhone apps and notice how several other apps include the use of the “Apple” keyword. The dumbest thing is, apps such as the Geeky-Gadgets iPhone app weren’t using it in any manner that was questionable, illegal, or for self profit. They were simply narrowing down readers’ options by offering up a fucking keyword….
They removed the Apple keyword.
December 30th: app approved
When Ronald logged into his developers account this morning, he was greeted with some much happier information — the Geeky-Gadgets app had been finally been approved posted. However, the ironic, slap in the face, knee jerking, face palming kicker is that Apple used the original Geeky-Gadgets app screenshots — the ones that include the Contest Button which Apple made a big fuss about as the basis for their first rejection — nice.
Overall, the last nearly two month journey has been a nightmare and again, illustrates how clearly broken this App Store approval process is. On one hand I almost want to give Apple a little credit for “constant” updates starting with the second rejection. Then again, if this process wasn’t such crap, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
While I still have my old iPhone relegated to mobile gaming/internet usage (my old trust iriver ihp-120 is my mp3 player of choice for sound quality) and still enjoy interacting various aspects of the iPhone/App Store ecosystem, I thank my lucky stars every day that I dropped the hot mess that the App Store/iPhone/AT&T shit hole has become.
You may be asking “Why?” Why am I spending so much time and thought on a process involving an app and situation that isn’t my own? It’s not necessarily the app or people involved as I’ve never met any of the Geeky-Gadgets crew (though sharing a similar interest for all things geeky and gadget I’d consider us at least distant friends — perhaps a family member twice removed on the in-laws side…)? It’s the process and situation as a whole that sucks. It sucks and more people need to know it. Not to tarnish Apple or destroy their business yadda yadda yadda. Instead, hopefully rising amounts of criticism will get them to actually do something about it and improve Apple/developer relations and communication. That would be the ultimate goal.
It’s been a long trek through this stockpile of words and I’m sure you’ve got something on your mind. Leave it below.
Geeky-Gadgets
- December 20, 2009 7:52 pm
Android 2.1 (Flan) may or may not be available (depends on your level of Android hackery) yet but that doesn’t mean you can’t at least have one of the shiny new features 2.1 brings. For 2.1 Google has thrown in a new weather/news widget. It isn’t anything groundbreaking but nonetheless is a nice addition to the stock allotment of widgets.
The weather widget is rather simple and shows the city, current conditions, and temperature while the news widget is a bit deeper allowing customization showing/hiding various news categories and even creating your own. Overall it’s a nifty download worth installing. Get on it folks.
**In order to install the 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets, Navigate to Settings > Applications and check “allow install of non marketplace apps”.
- Download Android 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets from DroidForums
Download it and give it a go.
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