Archive for: March 4, 2010

Art.com has launched new iPhone and Facebook apps that help shoppers browse, preview, and purchase wall art--with a twist.
The iPhone app lets users take a picture of the wall they want to decorate, upload it to a personal "My Walls" gallery on Art.com, and then see the artwork they plan to buy hung on the wall, framed and all. Users can then send that result over to Facebook, so friends and family can say "what the heck were you thinking? That looks terrible!" Okay, maybe not, but this is actually a pretty darn innovative idea. The iPhone app also lets users buy art directly from the app.
Meanwhile, the company's MyFrameShop application for Facebook can take any personal photo from your account and turn it into framed artwork. The app reads Facebook, Picasa, and Flickr account photos, lets you choose from hundreds of moulding and mat combinations, previews the selection in the aforementioned "My Walls" gallery, and then lets you either share it with others or purchase the final artwork from art.com. Not sure how pixelated, poor resolution photos will turn out in print, but there you have it.
Grab the free iPhone app from Apple's App Store, or download the MyFrameShop Facebook app at http://www.art.com/asp/landing/myframeshop.

According to a new Pew Research Center report, 26 percent of American adults now get some form of news from their cell phones, FierceMobileContent reports--a pretty hefty number when you consider the high cost of data plans.
The study said 72 percent of those folks check weather reports, 68 percent browse headlines, 44 percent go after sports scores, 35 percent look for traffic updates, and 32 percent check stock quotes and other financial news.
Interestingly, just under half (49 percent) of those adults have downloaded a mobile app to do these things, while 31 percent receive news alerts via SMS or e-mail, according to the report. Lots of good stuff in this one, so hit up the link for more numbers.

Vlingo has unveiled a new iPhone app that lets users send voice-powered e-mail and text messages, among other things.
The company aims to distinguish its app from countless others by boasting how it can handle numerous different tasks, instead of just one. The list: e-mail, "SMS paste," social site updates, maps, search, and voice dialing.
Anyone can grab the new version for free in Apple's App Store, although you'll need to pony up $6.99 to activate e-mail or SMS paste (or $9.99 for activating both at once).
Gotta love those new in-app purchases, huh?

The good folks at Opera Software have announced a Windows Mobile version of Opera Mini 5--one that finally doesn't require a Java virtual machine to run. Normally this would be cause for celebration, since Windows Mobile 6.5's standard Web browser is... junk. No matter how many times Microsoft said it improved it.
Nonetheless, this could end up as a case of bad timing. Microsoft recently unveiled Windows Phone 7 Series, a long-overdue, ground-up rewrite of the company's mobile operating system for smartphones. Alas, the new OS--set to hit the first handsets later this year--doesn't work with any of the thousands of third-party Windows Mobile apps already out there.
As a result, there could be collateral damage, as countless developers suddenly find themselves working on completely incompatible apps. Like this one. Nonetheless, anyone who wants a better browser on their current Windows Mobile handset now can download Opera Mini 5 Beta for free, rather than paying extra for the (admittedly more powerful) Opera Mobile.
Opera Mini traditionally does a nice job rendering desktop sites, and also includes tabbed browsing, bookmark and password managers, and the Speed Dial home screen. Grab it from your Windows Mobile 5 or 6 handset at m.opera.com/next. (BlackBerry version pictured)

Yahoo on Thursday started a slow roll-out of its integration with Facebook Connect by allowing users to import e-mail addresses from the social networking site.

"In addition to importing your contacts from sites like Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail, starting this week you can now easily add your Facebook friends' email addresses to your Yahoo contacts list," Yahoo wrote in a blog post.

Yahoo announced in December that it would link up to Facebook Connect in 2010, a move that will eventually let members check their Facebook statuses from the Yahoo Mail inbox, and access Facebook features across other Yahoo properties, like News, Answers, and Sports.

This first phase will allow you to access Facebook contacts on Yahoo. "Maybe you want to forward your cousin your airplane reservations on Yahoo Mail, but you've never emailed him before. Now you can type the first few letters of his name in Yahoo Mail and—presto!—his email address from his Facebook profile will appear in your email," Yahoo said.

To access this feature, sign into your Yahoo account, and select Contacts from the drop-down menu on the main page. Find the "import your contacts from another provider to Yahoo" link and click on that. Select Facebook and follow the prompts.

If you're like me, you probably have a dozen or so tabs open in your Web browser at any given time, and they're probably not static pages that never change: They're likely blogs, news sites, or other pages that are constantly updating with new information that you'd like to keep your eyes on. If you're using Google Chrome, Revolver-Tabs is an extension that you can use to refresh all of your Chrome tabs regularly, and even rotate through the tabs to present each one to you after it's been refreshed.


Even if you're not exclusively a blog reader, Revolver-Tabs can help. For example, if you work in a monitoring center where you need to keep an alerting system or other Web application up to date at all times, or if you're keeping tabs on an Internet auction you'd like to bid on at the last minute, its ability to refresh tabs and then rotate through them to make sure you at least get a glance each time the page changes can be essential to making sure you don't miss something important.

When you have Revolver-Tabs installed, setting the extension to refresh your tabs is as simple as telling it how many seconds to wait between rotations and whether or not to refresh the tabs as they're rotated. You can do one without the other if you, for example, would prefer the extension just rotate the tabs instead of refreshing them.

Best of all, Revolver-Tabs works in individual Chrome windows, so if you open one Chrome window and set it to start refreshing, it won't impact tabs you have open ...

Of all of the Web services that aim to put you and a stranger together in semi-uncomfortable circumstances to spark conversation and dialogue, ChatRoulette is probably the first that's done so with such unpredictable, frequently disturbing, and often hilarious results. The Web service allows you to share video from your Webcam and audio from your microphone, and then click to randomly connect with a stranger's webcam and microphone somewhere else in the world.

In some cases you'll turn up an actual person or group of people looking for conversation with a random stranger, in other cases you'll turn up someone who's essentially an internet performance actor wearing a costume or pointing the camera somewhere else in the room, and in other cases (this just can't be ignored) you'll turn up sights or sounds that you simply won't be able to click "Next" fast enough to escape seeing.

Fair warning: ChatRoulette is by no means safe for any workplace and definitely not safe surfing for minors or anyone else easily offended. 
ChatRoulette was built by a Russian developer who was looking for a way to take services like Omegle and other Web applications that match you up with another person somewhere in the world to chat with to the next level. Add a webcam, a microphone, and a virtual roulette wheel behind the scenes that connects you with a random user.

The service has become something of an Internet phenomenon, with entire Web sites springing up dedicated to hilarious or disturbing screen captures from ChatRoulette sessions. Since the service allows you to see the face of the person on the ...

Bank withdrawals for PayPal customers have resumed in India, the company announced Thursday.

"When you select the 'Withdraw Funds' option on your PayPal account, we will ask you to fill out a new field entitled 'Purpose Code'," PayPal's Anuj Nayar wrote in a blog post. "This information is required under the laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions. Simply select the one most appropriate for your business."

More detailed information is available on PayPal's site.

Last month, PayPal halted personal payments in India amid questions from Indian regulators about whether personal payments constitute remittances--or money transfers that foreign workers make into their home countries--into India.

This suspension caught many by surprise and meant that some people with money in their PayPal accounts had no way of getting it out. PayPal had planned to start allowing withdrawals to Indian banks on February 14, but complications delayed that move until yesterday.

Personal payments into India remain suspended until further notice.

Microsoft on Wednesday released an Android version of its Tag app.

Microsoft Tag lets marketers add a mobile barcode to promotional materials. Users with the Tag app then use their cell phone cameras to scan that barcode and gain access to additional information, including videos, Web sites, reviews, schedules, contact information, social networks, discounts, and more.

Tag is already available on Windows Mobile, J2ME, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Symbian 960 phones. It is now available via the Android Market.

"It's important to give more people access to Tag because there's huge demand for reliable mobile barcoding—businesses and consumers are eager to find creative ways to use their phone and hyperlink the real world," Microsoft's Benjamin Gauthey wrote in a blog post.

In the next few months, Microsoft will also be revamping its Tag Web site to include more ways to learn about and experience Tag, Gauthey said.

Worried that your text messages might be read by the wrong people? Enter Tiger Text. The new iPhone app lets users remotely delete their text messages from other peoples' phones. You can program your text to be deleted immediately after reading, or at a set time, though both users must have Tiger Text installed on their phone for it to work.

"Be in control of the record you leave," creator X Sigma Partners said in its product description. "Send texts that don't live forever."

Examples of sensitive text messages on the App Store include "Hey, how'd the job interview go" or "Did u cave and get her the Tiffany ring", but the product's tagline, "Cover your tracks," as well as the Tiger reference in the name makes one think that it might also be a handy tool for cheating on a significant other.

The company told CNN that the name has nothing to do with golf star Tiger Woods, who recently admitted to having multiple affairs and was rumored to have been found out thanks to some steamy text messages. The name instead refers to actual tigers, which are stealth and can travel under the radar, they said.

The company CEO also remarked to CNN: "How many times have you wanted to put 'please delete this after reading?' at the end of a text message?" Uh, never? If the information is that sensitive, WHY are you sending it in a text message, or putting it in writing at all?!

The app is now available on the App Store, with version for BlackBerry and Android coming soon. It is free to download, and you get 100 free messages over 15 days to start. After that it is ...

Above is Shorty Award winner Ted Leo.

The Shorty Awards were announced last night during a ceremony hosted at New York City's New York Times Tower. The event, hosted by CNN's Rick Sanchez, presented winners in 28 categories, honoring "the diverse ways Twitter can be used to create the best real-time short form content."

William Shatner was also present via video, congratulating winners and performing readings from the @shitmydadsays Twitter account. In honor of the medium, acceptance speeches were limited to 140 characters each.

Finalists were narrowed down by Twitter-based voting. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, including, Kurt Andersen, Alyssa Milano, MC Hammer, Joi Ito, Craig Newmark, David Pogue, and Jimmy Wales.

Check out a full list of the winners, after the jump.

Advertising: Frank Adman, @FrankAdman

Application: TweetDeck, @TweetDeck

Art: deviantART, @deviantART

Brand (two-way tie): Whole Foods Market, @WholeFoods
Sesame Street, @SesameStreet

Celebrity: Nathan Fillion, @NathanFillion

Cultural Institution (three-way tie): Jonah Holland of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, @lewisginter Reduced Shakespeare Company, @reduced Poetry Society of America, @Poetry_Society

Customer Service: Bonnie Smalley, @ComcastBonnie

Design: Smashing Magazine, @smashingmag

Entertainment: TrueBlood HBO, @TrueBloodHBO

Finance: Suze Orman, @SuzeOrmanShow

Food: Foodimentary, @Foodimentary

Government: Cory Booker, @CoryBooker

Health: Rachael Dunlop, @DrRachie

Humor (two-way tie): David Thorne, @27bslash6
Mrs. Stephen Fry, @MrsStephenFry

Innovation: Helen Klein Ross's Betty Draper, @Betty Draper

Journalist (two-way tie): William Bonner, @realwbonner
Rachel Maddow, @maddow

Literature: Arjun Basu, @arjunbasu

Music (two-way tie): Ivete Sangalo, @ivetesangalo
Ted Leo, @tedleo

News: The Diane Rehm Show, @drshow

Nonprofit: To Write Love On Her Arms, @TWLOHA

Politics: The Nation, @thenation

Science: Jen Scheer, @flyingjenny

Sports: Bill Simmons, @sportsguy33

Tech: Mark Watson, @soldierknowsbest

Travel: Paul Smith, @twitchhiker

Weird: The Llama, @DoWhatITellYou

Special Humanitarian Award: Carel Pedre, @carelpedre

Real-Time Photo: "Plane in the Hudson" by Janis Krums

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Most people, myself included, wish they could be more on top of their e-mail. When you respond to someone and say, "I'll catch up with you on this next week," or "this is probably 60 days out," you really do mean to address the issue at that time, but with so many other things going on, it's difficult to follow up. You can set reminders for yourself, add to-dos or calendar appointments to keep your self organized, but if you live in your inbox, FollowUpThen may be a simple solution that doesn't require using an additional tool or app to stay organized.

FollowUpThen is a Web service that you CC or BCC on your e-mail messages, specifying the length of time you want to pass before you or the recipient gets a reminder to follow up on a specific item. For example, if you tell FollowUpThen to remind you in a week, you and the person you originally e-mailed will get a reminder in a week about that message.
 
To use FollowUpThen, all you have to do is CC or BCC the service to any e-mail message you'd like a reminder of. The address you add to the message depends on when you want the reminder to arrive. For example, you can add 1day -at- followupthen.com to have the service send a reminder tomorrow. The service understands hours, days, weeks, months, even years if you need to set a reminder for that far out.

If you add the ...