Curated Tech News

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[samradford]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

samradford:

John Brownlee at Cult of Mac:

Adobe is now supporting HHTP Live Streaming, or HLS, on the Adobe Flash Platform. This support will allow video streaming on any platform where Flash is not installed, provided that the browser is up to HTML5 spec. Best of all, it’s invisible to end users: an embedded Flash video viewed in Chrome on the desktop might serve up Flash Player, while that same page accessed with an iPad would stream the video using 4F4 over HTTP.

Oooh. Now this could be interesting.

[samradford]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

samradford:

 The iPad 2 epitomized how Apple seems to be a generation ahead of its competitors on the device side — both hardware and software — but a generation behind on the cloud side.

Great article.

[samradford]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

samradford:

Shawn Blanc:

Tweetbot has more personality than any other Twitter client out there. Every single pixel has been hand crafted in order to build the most custom looking UI of any Twitter client I’ve seen. Moreover, the sounds, the animations, the actions — everything has been thought through with intent, care, and fun. It all adds up to create a Twitter Experience Extravaganza.

I have to say, I’m already a big fan of this app. It’s feels like a big step forward over all previous Twitter clients and gets the combination of beauty and function almost perfect. You can download the app for £1.19.

[samradford]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

samradford:

Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch:

Williams is gone. Dorsey is half-there. I have an uncomfortable feeling that if the product void isn’t filled by someone dynamic, Twitter will start to sputter and that several billion dollar purchase offer will be impossible to turn down. I don’t want to be alarmist– Twitter isn’t at that point now. But it’s at that crossroads now, where it needs to get back on the path to building the next great public Web company or pick the path of inevitable acquisition.

Very interesting thoughts that on many levels make a lot of sense.

[samradford]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

samradford:

Rory Cellan-Jones:

There are two main weaknesses in the Xoom - the apps and the look and feel of the device. Right now there just aren’t enough Android applications that are up to the standard of the best on the iPad - like the social magazine Flipboard, or Apple’s own iMovie editing app and Garage Band music application. And by contrast with the IPad 2 the Xoom feels heavy and a little cumbersome. In other words it’s great compared with the first iPad, but Apple has already moved on.

“Apple has already moved on.” And that says everything you need to know. Don’t waste your money. 

[curatedtechnews-blog]

Does anyone in Silicon Valley care about Windows anymore?

Well, at nearly every tech industry event lately I’ve noticed an almost complete shift away from Windows-based computers. Here, take a look at a panoramic photo I shot this morning at the VMware Cloud Foundry announcement (which was very interesting open source Platform-As-A-Service introduction, more Thursday when I get a video up). This room had only two PCs that I could see. The entire rest of the room was on Macs or iPads. Keep in mind that in this one room was a mixture of marketers, developers, executives, press folks, and hard-core geeks.

I noticed this same ratio at TEDx. At Web 2 Expo. At Stanford University events. At Facebook events. And other places. [Read Full Article]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

Free Online OCR

Free Online OCR is a free service that allows you to easily convert scanned documents, faxes, screenshots and photos into editable and searchable text, such as DOC, TXT or PDF.

The service is completely free and you don't need to register or install anything on your computer. Just select an image file and click Convert. You can immediately download the resulting document. [Read Full Article]

[world-shaker-deactivated2013092]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

world-shaker:

Undoubtedly one of the most amazing things I’ve seen done with social media.

The 2011 Virtual Choir video features 2052 performances of ‘Sleep’ from 1752 singers in 58 countries, individually recorded and uploaded to YouTube between September 2010 and January 2011. http://virtualchoir.org

People: This was not possible even five years ago. And now it is. And it’s free.

Eric Whitacre - Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 2.0, ‘Sleep’ (by EricWhitacreVEVO)

[curatedtechnews-blog]

10 Ways to Find Blogs You’ll Love

Whether your feeds need a refresh, you’re delving into a new topic, or you’re just new to this whole “blog reading” thing, we’ve got you covered. There are dozens of services on the web dedicated to helping you get the most out of the universe of regularly updated blogs, and many of them are focused on helping you find the most high quality content as well as the content most relevant to you. [Read Full Article]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

iPad 2 Case with a Bluetooth Keyboard Inside

We've all seen the ads. Now this slick case/keyboard combo is about to ship.

Shipping on April 19, this aluminum case stands up your iPad 2 in either portrait or landscape modes, and its keyboard, rechargeable via USB, pairs up with your iPad via Bluetooth. The best news is, the case and keyboard are a mere .54 inches thin, and that’s not going to add much thickness to your sleek tablet. By the way, if you have an original iPad, Zagg makes a similar case for that, too, with or without the keyboard. [Read Full Article]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

How to Build an Unforgettable, "Smashable" Brand Identity

As far as the logo is concerned, to paraphrase Bill Maher, it's time for New Rules. Today, what counts far more than a puma, a monkey, or a snarling aardvark is the cross-sensory experience your brand offers. I'm talking not only the emotion, beliefs, and desires your brand evokes, but its feel, touch, sound, smell and personality, of which the logo is just one small part. Whether it's a soda can, a car, a doll, a fragrance, a smartphone, or laptop, your brand needs to be smashable, e.g., instantly identifiable via its shape, design, copy, contours, and even navigation. Aside from adolescents, who are always on the lookout for the coolest logos to set them apart from, or help them gain traction with, their peers, today for most consumers the logo comes in near-to-last place to other considerations. [Read Full Story]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Anywhere I could see the northern lights

[nielsgouman-deactivated20130517]

[curatedtechnews-blog]

mediafuturist:

nielsgouman:

Exclusive interview with Seth Godin (by GiANT Impact)

Seth rocks. Period.

[curatedtechnews-blog]

Don't follow your dreams. Chase them.

[curatedtechnews-blog]

Create a digital magazine for the iPhone and iPad with this new service. No coding is required. [Read More}

[curatedtechnews-blog]

How can we mere mortals manage something as complex and unwieldy as privacy and online identity? This article has some answers.

[curatedtechnews-blog]

Meet Extragram, a Slick Web App for Instagram

Developed by a five-man team, Extragram is a slick web client that lets Instagram users log in to access photos on the web, instead of just via the iPhone app.

“We just loved how beautiful Instragram made the images look,” says co-creator Karthikeyan Mani. “We wanted to come up with a really good user interface that would complement the beautiful photos Instagram churns out and we wanted to make it easy for our users to discover more of these lovely images and users through our web interface.”