News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Business Insider has an article listing the problems with Google Glass, based on reviews by others. Most of these issues can be fixed, but the author was unable to find anyone with a compelling reason to actually use Google Glass—which may be the primary factor in whether or not the technology is adopted by the general public.
Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
I’ve been hearing some good things about the Google Nexus 7 tablet computer. At $200 for the 8GB model, its price is comparable to the Amazon Kindle Fire, but the features and specifications are much better. The 16GB model, at $250, is so popular that it quickly sold out, but only for a week or so. Here at the Chad’s News Network Command Center, however, I still prefer my Kindle because of its tight integration with Amazon.
Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…
Link #2: http://www.komando.com/…
Back in April, Google updated its Cloud Print service, which allows you to print documents over the Internet from mobile devices. Now you can choose to print a document to FedEx Office locations—after choosing FedEx Office as the print destination, you simply go to any FedEx Office store, enter a code, and the document is printed right then and there. The second new feature is that you can print to compatible Android devices running the Chrome browser (the “printout” will be a PDF document that you view with Chrome).
Link: http://chrome.blogspot.com/…
(via Ars Technica)
Google+ is Google’s latest attempt at a social networking site. And it appears they’ve done a really good job of it. Unfortunately it’s still in a field test period where membership is by invitation only, but they’ll be opening it up to the rest of us sometime in the near future. The linked article has more details about Google+ and why it will succeed.
Update: I received an invite from Eric, a friend of Chad’s News. If anyone would like to be invited, please contact me.
The Chromebook is a “nothing but the web” laptop that runs Google’s Chrome browser on top of Google Chrome OS. It has the capability to upload and download files to a thumb drive but has almost no local storage. Any programs you run on it must be web applications that can be executed within a browser. With the increasing popularity of the cloud, however, it’s not too difficult to work within these constraints. Note that Chromebooks are manufactured by several different companies, and that Google itself is not one of them.
Google and Facebook are offering two-factor authentication to help prevent your account from being hijacked. In both cases, you give them your phone number, then when you log in using your normal username and password, they send a code to your phone. You must enter the code as part of the login process. Gmail does this for every login, while for Facebook it’s only when you log in from a device that hasn’t already been verified.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link #1 (Gmail): http://googleblog.blogspot.com/…
Link #2 (Facebook): http://www.facebook.com/…
(via Slashdot)
For those who missed it, Mozilla released Firefox 4 on March 22nd. Major features include a more streamlined and minimalist user interface (a la Google Chrome), tab groups, WebGL support, better HTML5 support, faster JavaScript processing, graphics hardware acceleration, and browser synchronization. This will be the last major release of Firefox—Mozilla is switching to the incremental update model that has worked so well for Chrome.
It’s interesting to see the significant impact Google Chrome has had on both Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4, particularly in regards to the user interface and JavaScript performance. Google’s stated goal when it first released Chrome was to force the other browser vendors to improve their products in an effort to keep up. Google has been wildly successful in this respect.
Link #1: http://arstechnica.com/…
Link #2: http://blog.mozilla.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we use OpenDNS and have previously written about using Google’s DNS resolver instead of the one provided by your ISP. Google and OpenDNS are recommended because of their reliability, speed, and features, but it may not always be advantageous to use them. Akamai is a content delivery company with web servers around the world. They deliver content for their customers using algorithms to determine which Akamai server is physically closest to the location of the person downloading the material. This significantly speeds up the delivery and also balances the load across multiple sources. But it appears that one of the ways Akamai determines your physical location is via the DNS resolver that you’re using. And as the linked article explains, this creates bottlenecks for OpenDNS and Google DNS. By switching back to his ISP’s DNS resolver, the author was able to shorten a 2+ hour iTunes video download into less than 20 seconds.
Link: http://joemaller.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Here at the Chad’s News network command center, Firefox is still the browser of choice. Google Chrome, however, is still improving and trying to become a contender for that top spot. There is the useful Chrome Toolbox extension, which adds functionality and configuration options that have been needed for a long time. Also, Chrome now has a built-in PDF viewer, which appears to be in the latest release version. Lifehacker has a tip on how to refresh the thumbnails shown for your “most visited” sites on the new tab page. Another tip from Lifehacker explains how to configure Chrome such that embedded Flash content is played on demand (versus the default auto play). This change has not yet made it to the release version. And finally, the linked article discusses Google’s decision to drop direct browser support for the popular H.264 video codec. This only affects HTML5 videos—Flash content will still play with no problem.
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Many past efforts to promote cloud computing have failed miserably, but it’s become more popular over the last few years, even here at Chad’s News. The linked articles detail two more steps in the long road towards universal acceptance. The first is Neverware, a way to run a powerful Windows system from a low-end computer. The second is Google’s cloud print, which allows a user to print a document from portable devices such as smartphones.
Thanks to Josh for the cloud print link.
Link #1 (Neverware): http://www.observer.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Link #2 (cloud print): http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/…
(via MacRumors.com)
Google is known for the unusual questions it asks job applicants, the most famous of which is “Why are manhole covers round?” The linked articles answer 15 of the actual questions, from a list of 140 collected by a professional interview coach. I was flying high when I knew the answer to “Explain the significance of ‘dead beef’?”, but felt pretty stupid for not getting “How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?”
Link #1 (questions): http://www.businessinsider.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
Link #2 (answers): http://www.businessinsider.com/…
Link #3 (main article): http://www.businessinsider.com/…
One of Google’s stated reasons for releasing Chrome into an already crowded field was to force other browsers to speed up their JavaScript processing. With JavaScript being used heavily by many of today’s most popular websites, this is a commendable goal. And here at the Chad’s News network command center the only reason we installed Chrome was to access Facebook—the site was way too slow with Firefox (which is still our favorite browser despite that). Well, it appears that Google has succeeded. The development version of Firefox 4 has a faster JavaScript engine than Chrome on certain systems. All I can say to Google is “well done and thank you!”
Link: http://www.conceivablytech.com/…
(via Slashdot)
