Feedly, a news aggregator which promised to make the migration from Google Reader — which is being shut down on July 1 — seamless, has already seen an influx of over 500,000 million Reader users.

"More than 500,000 Google Reader users have joined the feedly community over the last 48 hours. We love passionate readers. Welcome on board," said Feedly on its official blog.

And that's not all: Feedly's Twitter account is buzzing with activity, with new users asking about features and new versions of the software, and Feedly's iOS app has quickly become the top free app in Apple's App Store.

To cope with all the new users and their feedback, Feedly has upped its bandwidth by 10x, added new servers and launched a suggestion forum for new features.

Of course, Feedly is not the only alternative to Google Reader, but its example shows how a smaller service can benefit from a big player exiting its space.

Have you tried Feedly out? How do you like it? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, wibs24, composite by Mashable





































View the Original article

Toy Story Smash It!

Buzz Lightyear blasted onto mobile this week in a brand-new Toy Story-themed game. In the 3D physics-based game you play the role of Buzz, who is trying to knock down the aliens and stop the evil Zurg with a number of different balls. Throughout the game’s 60 levels, the aliens position themselves in new and unique ways on blocks, toys, and even model trains.



Harlem Shake Creator

Haven’t made a Harlem Shake video yet? A new Android app helps you create the perfect video with step-by-step directions, built-in music and an in-app video uploader so you can send your creation directly to YouTube.



Twitter for Windows Phone

Twitter updated its app for Windows Phone this week, adding support for Live Tiles. Accounts you follow can now be pinned to your home screen for easy access, with live updates appearing on the tiles themselves when they’re posted.

The update also includes the Home, Connect, Discover, and Me tabs found in other versions of the app. The tabs function much like they do in the Android and iPhone versions of Twitter.



YouTube

YouTube updated its iOS app Thursday, adding the Send-to-TV feature it introduced for Android in November of last year. With the update you can use your iOS device to send YouTube clips to Google TV, Xbox or PlayStation 3 and watch them on the big screen.



Waze

Waze released an update this week that enables drivers to report closed roads on the social GPS service, in real time. Enabling them to help others navigate around areas that might be temporarily shut down for obstructions such as a street fair, road construction and even damage from a hurricane or tornado.



Carrot

Have trouble getting things done? Carrot rewards and punishes you based on how many items you complete on your to-do list. When you complete a task, you earn points that can later be redeemed for prizes like jokes and compliments. Don’t finish things on your list? Carrot gets very angry.



Real Racing 3

Love racing? EA launched Real Racing 3 this week. The free game features real tracks, real drivers, and even real cars including Porsche, Lamborghini, Dodge, Bugatti, and Audi.



A new Android app helps you be part of YouTube's latest craze, and a popular racing game is back with a brand new update.

Think we left one off the list? Let us know about your own app highlights from this week in the comments, below.

Image courtesy iStockphoto, scanrail.



































View the Original article

1. Benchwarmer

What if the first tab in your browser every morning was a healthy shot of inspiration? Benchwarmer is a neat extension for Chrome that replaces the "New Tab" screen with six shots from Dribbble. Dribbble is an invite-only, high-quality community of designers who share what they are currently working on, in the high altar of pixel-perfection.

Once installed Benchwarmer defaults to the latest top-rated shots; however, you can customize this view using the gear symbol. Hovering over a shot shows its number of likes and who posted it. You also can enter your own Dribbble username to display the work of users you follow.

The extension is open-sourced on Git Hub, if you are looking to contribute.



2. ColorZilla

When ColorZilla launched for Firefox over seven years ago, it was one of the first browser-based color pickers available. This official port for Chrome proves equally useful and includes a color picker, eye dropper and gradient generator, along with additional advanced color tools. You can get a color reading from any point in the browser (and save these colors in custom palettes), make edits on the fly and paste the output (in CSS, Hex, RGB and more) into other apps.

The ability to analyze DOM elements on a webpage and inspect its palette of colors is a particularly valuable feature. You can also pick colors from Flash Objects at any zoom level, and generated or sampled colors automatically copy to the clipboard.




3. WhatFont

The days of right-clicking to "view source" are long over. WhatFont identifies all the fonts used on a webpage and gives in-depth details, such as the font family, font size, along with the color, weight and line height (you can even tweet this information). Apart from native web safe fonts, it detects the services used for serving the font and supports Typekit and Google Web Fonts.

It gives you the fall-back string, and if a font called for is not installed, it's striked-through, showing the actual font used. It's important to remember it only works for online pages, not locally. Once activated, hover on text and a pop-up displays all the selected fonts information.



4. Screen Capture

An official Google extension, Screen Capture quickly captures visible objects, whole pages, visible sections of pages and drawn selections as PNG files. Each snapshot can be edited and annotated (before being saved), and highlighting, lines, arrows and redacting and adding text are fully supported. It intelligently detects floating objects on a page to avoid repeating the capture of the same objects if the whole page requires scrolling.

It works quickly, even when capturing large pages, and will also scroll the page horizontally if necessary. Share the snapshots on Picasa, Facebook and Imgur for instant collaboration.

Also of note is Awesome Screenshot, which boasts a rich feature list for capturing and annotating webpages.


5. Evernote Web Clipper

When we spend most of our time using a web browser, storing and cataloging information effortlessly becomes essential. The Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome makes it quick and easy to store just about anything you find on the web in your Evernote account, including selected text, articles, links, PDF's, images and even entire webpages. Tag each snapshot when saving and select an Evernote notebook in which you'll store the snapshot. The "intelligent," context-aware functionality is impressive, with the pre-selection of notebooks (and tags) based on website content.

There is virtually no limit to the ways in which you use it; for example, you could collect inspiration for a particular design project you are working on, and have access to it whenever you need, even if the original is removed.


6. Pixlr Editor

Pixlr Editor is a fully featured photo editor available directly in your browser. Sharing interface similarities to Adobe Photoshop, the learning curve is low and it boasts a wealth of capabilities you would only normally find in a desktop application. The fast, intuitive, thoughtfully organized interface means quick edits are a breeze. It includes editing, filters and adjustment tools and even opens PSD files.

Accomplish image editing entirely in the cloud using Pixlr Editor -- open images from Facebook, Picasa or Flickr, edit them and then save back to the cloud.


7. MeasureIt

With MeasureIt, draw out a ruler which shows the alignment and exact pixel width and height dimensions of any selected element on a webpage, an especially useful tool when designing and developing websites. To use the extension, just click and drag out the ruler to find an element's dimensions quickly and easily.

While not as feature-rich as its Firefox counterpart, it is especially useful when tweaking CSS, where accuracy down to the last pixel is necessary. MeasureIt works on local installs of most CMS's but does not work on local HTML files.


8. Palette

Colors play an important role in design, and it can be challenging to create the "perfect" palette. Having an extension such as Palette at easy reach within your browser can make this particular task much more efficient.

Palette for Chrome can create up to 64 color palettes and is useful for grabbing ideas and inspiration for color palettes from images around the web. The interface is intuitive and easy to use; simply right-click on the desired image, select "Palette for Chrome," and choose the number of colors you want the palette to generate. A new tab will open, displaying the image and resulting color palette.

The extension was recently updated to fix several bugs, and the code is now open-source and available on Git Hub.


9. Yet Another Lorem Ipsum Generator

When testing content or typography, dummy text can be useful. For those who don't use alternatives, try Yet Another Lorem Ipsum Generator. It will generate text (paragraphs of variable length), titles, dates and dummy email and web addressees, with other options available via the toolbar button. You can configure the date format and choose specific dates or generate a random date.

Copy text to the clipboard for use in other apps; the extension itself is extremely lightweight as it doesn't include any external libraries or require access to other online resources.


10. Pendule

Pendule complements the built-in developer tools of Chrome and makes website edits easy, such as viewing CSS, disabling styles, reloading CSS (without having to reload the entire webpage), viewing JavaScript and much more. The extension itself is unobtrusive, quick and responsive, featuring an extensive toolset. The the ability to switch off both images and CSS is particularly useful when designing and developing websites.

There is also a color picker, display ruler, link checker and several script validators, with each feature neatly arranged into groups. The option to change the display resolution, for checking how your website renders on multiple screen resolutions, is neat, and you can even set keyboard shortcuts for the extension from the Options menu.


As a designer you may have used Google Chrome for some time already, but are you using the browser to its full advantage? Chrome features a robust extension system that deserves to be explored and tested. It's one reason Chrome can now claim to be the world's most popular browser.

We've gathered 10 of the best Google Chrome extensions for web designers and, when used in combination with the chrome extensions for developers, you could have a fully customized, powerhouse of a browser, completely suited to your individual requirements.

Have we missed any great extensions you love and use on a daily basis? If so, please share your recommendations with other readers in the comments below.

Homepage image composite via iStockphoto, Kameleon007































View the Original article

More middle- and secondary-school teachers are using digital tools in their classrooms and professional lives, a new report says. A study by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project released Thursday delves into teachers' increasing technology use, but also expresses educators' concerns about the digital divide.

The study surveyed Advance Placement and National Writing Project teachers across the United States, and 92% say the Internet has a "major impact" on their ability to access content, resources and materials for teaching. Teachers are becoming advanced tech users, according to Kristen Purcell, Pew's associate director for research.

"The findings bode well for people who really want to see these tools become a part of the educational sphere," Purcell tells Mashable.

Use of mobile technology dominates the learning process, the study finds. Seventy-three percent of teachers say that they or their students use cellphones in the classroom or to complete assignments. Nearly half of respondents use e-readers and tablets for teaching.

Not only are educators using devices in the classroom, but they outpace typical online adults when it comes to personal tech use. Fifty-eight percent of teachers surveyed have a smartphone, compared to 48% of all American adults, and they're more likely to use social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are differences, however, across subjects. English teachers will use these networks more than their math-teaching colleagues.

Teachers as professionals are always in the position of sharing, which accounts for their higher use of new technology, according to Linda Burch, co-founder at Common Sense Media.

"Teachers are really active sharers and connectors from time immemorial," Burch says.
"They're people who like to gain knowledge from others and in digital literacy, teachers are the best evangelists. They want to understand how to improve their practice."

They're also in a position to keep up with their students, and work to bring familiar tools into their classroom in creative and engaging ways. Sixty-four percent of teachers under 35 describe themselves as "very confident" with new technologies, compared to 44% who are 55 and older. Still, 42% say their students know more than they do when it comes to digital tools.

Schools embracing tech changes the learning landscape for students of all ages. While it allows teachers to personalize lessons to individual students, letting them to learn at their own pace, it poses challenges to teachers and parents. How can both group gauge what apps, sites and devices are beneficial for children?

Blending teacher-student face-time with media-rich components is important, Burch says. Digital skills are necessary for students in the 21st century, but they need to know how to use them responsibly, she adds. This creates room for more "digital citizen" curricula that stress ethical use of technologies.

Pew's study highlights a notable find within teachers' Internet use. A majority of educators use the same tools they discourage students from using, such as Wikipedia. Ninety-nine percent of teachers use search engines, and 87% look to Wikipedia for information online.

While the report highlights educators' increasing comfort and familiarity with these tools, 84% of teachers agree that technology is leading to greater disparities between affluent and disadvantaged schools. Those with low-income students are much less likely to use digital tools. To further emphasize the divide, 15% of teachers whose students come from upper-income households say their school is "behind the curve" in digital learning, compared to 39% with low-income students.

Policymakers and educators have rehashed the conversation around digital access time and again. One superintendent in Mooresville, N.C. used technology initiatives to dramatically increase his schools' performance levels. After a five-year period of incorporating digital resources, Mark Edwards witnessed a large jump in graduation rates, with an increase from 52% to 95% among African-American students.

Although his district ranked 108 out of 115 in funding, they claimed the number-two spot in the state for overall graduation rates. The district repurposed their funding to provide a laptop for each student in fourth through twelfth grade. A thick, paper textbook is hard to come by in Edwards' schools, and most classrooms moved from print to e-books in the last four years.

The key, Edwards says, is clear communication and collaboration between students, teachers and parents.

Teachers go through technology training eight times a year, as well as sessions during the summer. Similarly, the majority of respondents in the Pew study indicated they were satisfied with guidance provided by their schools. However, access and funding still come into play; 50% of educators from low-income schools are least positive about their training, compared to 70% from high-income schools who feel their institutions do a "good job."

While the report finds that most Advance Placement and National Writing Project teachers are digitally savvy, the statistics aren't reflected across the board. Rebecca Levey, a mother with children attending a New York City school, says the majority of teachers hardly implement tech in the classroom. When digital tools are used, they're primarily for research purposes, and don't stray too far from use of a Smart Board.

"All these things people talking about, how you can individualize lessons with the kids — that's not happening," Levey says. "They're just supplements to add bells and whistles and a little bit of in-depth research. It’s hard because at our school, I wish they were teaching real computer skills. Certainly by fifth grade, kids could be learning basic HTML and CSS instead of playing games and using a word processor. The real access isn't to the tools themselves but the learning associated with it. It's a huge problem."

At her daughters' school, some teachers use Twitter, emails and blogs to keep parents connected, but most aren't bringing technology to the table. The school has two laptop carts with 30 laptops for students to use, and teachers received an iPad each. But the tablets aren't used in the classroom, Levey says, and the funding could have been allocated to more devices for students.

"There's lack of training, lack of money for professional development," she explains. "There’s a constant conversation trying to solve these issues."

What do you think of the study's findings? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Image via iStockphoto, Nasowas
































View the Original article

Samsung will announce its next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S IV, next month on March 14. We know this because the company said so — an act simultaneously like and unlike the approach by its chief mobile rival, Apple.

Apply typically doesn't say anything about what it's going to unveil, preferring instead to shroud its events with false mystery — false because everyone always knows what Apple products are coming through rumors and leaks, even if they don't know the details. And Apple may tease (it did so with the iPhone 5, sending invites with a large "5" on them), but almost never pre-announces anything.

That's why Samsung giving the name of the product in advance isn't like Apple, but the fact that it's choosing to unveil a major product at its own marquee event is very Apple-like. Samsung is now the top smartphone maker worldwide, and its unveilings rightly command attention comparable to Apple's.

Even though Samsung's Galaxy phones lead all other Android models, the iPhone 5 is still the single most popular phone in the world. Samsung has come a long way since it was primarily known for appliances, but it's still in second place.

Nevertheless, there's no question it has the momentum. With the Galaxy S IV, it has an opportunity to do what seemed impossible less than a year ago: Overtake the iPhone as the No. 1 smartphone in the world (something it briefly did last year). Samsung can actually beat Apple at its own game.

However, Apple didn't rise to the top of the mobile world by accident. The iPhone still delivers one of the best experiences in smartphones, with a well-rounded ecosystem, and the hardware is beautiful. Samsung's Galaxy line doesn't have quite have all the pieces of the puzzle, but it could get there with the S IV. Here's how.

1. Bring on the Magic

Apple likes to toss around the word "magical" to describe its products, and although that's mostly Kool-Aid, there's some justification for it. Apple has done a good job of injecting the "wow" factor into its mobile products for the past six years, and although Android has caught up to a large extent in the last year with Jelly Bean, Apple was the one who pioneered many of the things that we take for granted in a mobile experience, such as fluid animation that responds instantly to touch.

Although it's harder to wow mobile users today, a few people are doing it. The screen of the new BlackBerry Z10, for example, uses sensors to detect finger swipes even in sleep mode, letting you wake it up without touching any physical buttons.

That's the kind of magical thing that Samsung is bordering on already with its Smart Stay feature, which uses the front-facing camera to detect if you're looking at the phone, keeping the screen from timing out. If the Galaxy S IV toook that to the next level by, say, letting you actually turn on the phone just by looking at it, or speaking to it, would be a good start to laying claim to some of that Apple "magic."

2. A Better Ecosystem

The fact that the iPhone is tied to iTunes — both the software and the store — has been a key part of its success. iCloud, along with its seamless backing up of photos and other content, has taken it a step further.

Samsung's ecosystem is comparatively weak. The company has a jumble of multiple digital storefronts (called "hubs"), its horribly named "AllShare" cloud-storage system, plus some partnerships with third parties including Dropbox and SugarSync. Compared to Apple's single-storefront, set-up-once system, Samsung's is a mess.

Samsung would do itself a world a good if, with the Galaxy S IV, it would finally offer a clear ecosystem. It should either cut away the partnerships and go all-in on its own system, or just use Google's, which isn't perfect either but at least Google Play is relatively consistent.

3. Fewer Tricks, More Features

Samsung's approach to the feature set on its smartphones — particularly the Galaxy S III — has been the shotgun approach: Blast a bunch of features at consumers with questionable usefulness, and something will hit. Smart Stay was a good idea; Share Shot (which lets a group of people share pictures at an event), not so much.



In addition, some of these functions aren't very well thought out. Having the GSIII's camera automatically suggest tags based on people's faces is good, but since those tags don't work with Facebook, it's not as useful as it could be.

While any feature will find its share of fans, giving users a grab bag of trinkets isn't nearly as good as giving a big gift they didn't even know they wanted. Apple's done this a few times with the iPhone, introducing major features features such as the Retina display, FaceTime, iCloud and Siri

Think about the Galaxy S III: What's it's standout feature, other than just being a Samsung Galaxy? With its successor, Samsung would benefit from focusing on one or two big features instead of inundating users with stupid gadget tricks. Quality over quantity.

4. Improved Durability

One of the sad truths about Samsung's phones is that they just kind of feel cheap. Recently, Samsung went with plastic backs for most of its mobile devices to cut down on weight (and probably production costs), but they've also had the effect of making the device appear low-end when you put it next to, say, the aluminium-unibody HTC One.

On top of that, the Galaxy S III has failed its share of drop tests that have left the iPhone 5 still ticking. It's not the world's most durable phone, partly because a its large (4.8-inch) screen is harder to protect than a smaller display.

At the same time, competitors such as Sony (whose new devices are waterproof) have found that durability is a differentiator that consumers care about. Phones get dropped, phones get dinged and phones get submerged — if it hasn't happened to you, it has to someone you know. If the Galaxy S IV actually ends up beating the iPhone 5 in stress tests, that's a headline that will be written over and over again.

5. Mobile Payments, for Real

Mobile payments on Samsung phones are already almost certainly in the works, and it represents a ball that Samsung has picked up because Apple left it lying on the ground. Mobile payments in many countries — especially the U.S. — is a big fat boondoggle because there are so many cooks in the kitchen, from wireless carriers to hardware manufacturers to merchants to ecosystem managers.

Getting all those stars to align is something only a multibillion-dollar company with a lot of market and mindshare could actually do. So far Apple has been reluctant to advance in mobile payments, leaving near-field communication (NFC) out of the iPhone 5 and instead offering its slow-to-catch-on Passbook app.

At Mobile World Congress, Samsung announced it was partnering with Visa to include NFC mobile payments on its phones. Since Visa works closely with merchants and is a partner in Isis (the carrier-blessed partnership for mobile payments in the U.S.), Samsung could finally be the company to take NFC payments mainstream in America.

All IV Nothing?

About a year ago, Samsung had just launched a marketing campaign specifically targeting Apple, painting its adherents as uncool and Samsung products as the "Next Big Thing." But when its commercial for the Galaxy Note (with a stylus!) debuted during Super Bowl 2012, many laughed Samsung off as the one that was out of touch.

No one's laughing anymore. Samsung's market share has skyrocketed, it's due to release it's second major smartphone since the iPhone 5 debuted, and Google is reportedly worried about how powerful it's getting. Some major developers are even building versions of their apps specifically for Samsung's products.

To keep the momentum going, however, Samsung needs to take the most important play from the Apple playbook: Deliver an outstanding product. With the Galaxy S IV, Samsung has a chance to steal Apple's mobile crown, but it needs to be a game-changer. All the marketing in the world can't make the next big thing out of an insignificant upgrade.

What would you like to see in the Samsung Galaxy S IV? Let us know in the comments.

Image via Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

Galaxy S III image courtesy of Samsung
































View the Original article

Beginning Monday, CreativeLIVE will host a week full of 40 free online classes taught by professionals at the top of their fields. Taking down two of the largest barriers to accessing education — geography and cost — founder Chase Jarvis hopes Photoshop Week will inspire creative individuals to pursue their passion for photo editing.

Classes are geared toward all levels, from noobs to pros, but each course focuses on how photo editing can be used to further your career.

CreativeLIVE has already educated a few million people through online workshops and tutorials through the website.

"When you get these people next to each other, you get to survey and sample a broad range of styles and types of education — and you get to experience it all at the same time," Jarvis said. "What's broken is the education system. Our hope is to transcend that system."

Online audiences can interact with the instructors through social media on Twitter and Facebook. Designated students who participate in the live audience will act as ambassadors, bringing the online students' questions to instructors. This not only allows students from all over the world to take part in the course but allows them to shape its direction.

"We are inherently social. Online classes where you can download the syllabus — that is not social," Jarvis said.

Gurus are given the ultimate access to anything they might need to aid them during instruction. All workshop sessions are shot with the full CreativeLIVE treatment, using multiple cameras and equipment that keeps the audience engaged. "The best teachers you ever had were entertaining and engaging. We want to continue in that vein," Jarvis said. "They’ve gotten better and have more at their disposal."

Lesa Snider, a long-time CreativeLIVE instructor and the author of the Photoshop and iPhoto series of Missing Manuals, says being able to communicate with an engaged audience that wants to participate is a huge incentive for her as an instructor. "That is a huge difference. I can feel the whole of the Internet there with me, and it is the most rewarding and fulfilling thing that I have been able to do," she said.

Enrollment in Photoshop Week is free by signing up on the website. From looking at advanced numbers, Jarvis is hopeful this will be the biggest Photoshop course of its kind in the world.
Image via iStockphoto, ileela
















































View the Original article

ProxToMe

Need to send files from your phone to a friend? How about a group of friends? ProxToMe is a new app that lets you see other iOS devices around you, and then send a file from your phone to theirs, instantly. The app can be used for everything from sending a movie to your best friend, to sending your band’s latest single to concertgoers.


Highlight

Highlight released version 1.5 this week. The updated location-sharing app for iPhone and Android now allows you to upload pictures and create location-based events.


SwiftKey

SwiftKey updated to version 4 this week. The new version of the app adds SwiftKey Flow, a new take on gesture typing that predicts words from the moment you touch the screen. It predicts the next word as soon as you stop typing the first. What's more, a new feature called “flow through space” allows users to enter entire phrases with a few simple gestures.


Sunrise

Ex-Foursquare designers released a new social calendar app for iPhone this week. The free app can be synced with multiple Google calendar accounts, Facebook, and LinkedIn, so you’re sure to stay on top of all your events. Taking the concept one step further, users can also post to a friend’s timeline on Facebook, or send text messages to friends from directly within the app.



Mokriya Craigslist

An new app by Mokriya brings an officially licensed, ad-free version of Craiglist to your mobile phone. The app lets you browse through listings on your iPhone or Android, perform GPS-based searches based on your location and post Craigslist ads from your mobile phone.



Thinglist

Thinglist is a new app for storing ideas and recommendations for later on. A private, simple app for keeping track of things you want to remember, it can be used for keeping track of everything from the name of a restaurant you want to try out, to the name of someone you meet at a party.



































View the Original article

Google Glass isn't even out yet, and people are heralding the part-camera, part-mobile device as the future — a revolutionary product that will surely change the way we use (and view) technology.

But some vision specialists are worried the high-tech specs, which you'll be able to wear on your head, could lead to health issues, including eye strain, headaches and neck pain.

"While Google Glass is a brand new interactive heads-up display (HUD) technology, there are some things we can presume based on the information Google has released," said Dr. Nathan Bonilla-Warford, a VSP optometrist for Bright Eyes Family Vision.

"Consumers may experience a physiological impact while wearing these glasses, such as increased eye-strain and dry eyes from reduced blinking," he added. "This could ultimately cause headaches and neck pain and are the symptoms of computer vision syndrome or digital eye strain."

Most people who spend long hours in front of the computer or mobile devices know the discomfort associated with prolonged eyestrain. That could also be compounded by the fact that Google Glass will be extremely near the eye, increasing the chances of irritability.

"The glasses themselves are too close for the eyes to focus, so the display alters the light so that the perceived image is located up and to the side, about two feet away from the user," said Warford, adding that despite the effect, it will still cause straining.

A Google spokesperson told Mashable that the company has studied design comfort and safety very closely, and hasn't found a cause for concern. They said it plans to continue to watch this area carefully.

Meanwhile, Dr. Michael Ehrenhaus of New York Cornea Consultants believes eyestrain isn't going to be as much of a concern as the distraction it can cause users on the street.

"We still need to learn more about the technology and what exactly people will be seeing, but there may not be a lot of eye straining at all," Ehrenhaus said.

"The bigger issue is that you don't want to fall into a manhole while trying to look at an image in the glass."

Research has been conducted on pilots and drivers in the past reveal that when a person is mentally focused on the HUD, they are not paying attention to the world around them.

Warford agrees, noting clinical studies will eventually evaluate concentration factors, as well as visual skills and ocular physiology before and after extended use of Google Glasses to see its impact.

"For now, we can extrapolate what we know about visual processing of HUD data, the eye movements needed to use the glasses and the effects of prolonged digital screen usage," he added. "Consumers should also keep in mind the experience will not be like the original concept video or the holy-grail of augmented reality. It will be more like a phone you can see without having to hold."

What do you think about the possible health concerns surrounding Google Glass? Would you be nervous to give it a try or can you not wait to get your hands on it? Let us know in the comments.

Google Glass: How It Will Look"

OK, Glass..."

More than a catchphrase, "OK, Glass" is how the wearer will engage the headset, enabling it to listen to commands.



Taking a Photo

One of the most basic things Glass will be able to do is capture photos of whatever the wearer is looking at.



Recording Video

Similarly, the onboard camera will also be able to record videos.



Quick Communication

Here's how it'll look to receive a message.


Flight Alert

Location-based or timed alerts will appear on Glass like so.



Navigation

Showing maps based on the users point of view is potentially one of the most useful features of Google Glass.



Google+ Hangout

Glass will be able to share the wearer's POV via Google+ Hangout.



Brooklyn Bridge Query

The wearer can call search Google for answers to questions verbally.



Brooklyn Bridge Answer

Answers to queries appear similar to how voice search in Google Now works -- giving the user the one answer that they're looking for rather than a series of links.



Translation Query

Google envisions that fast translations of single words or phrases will be a common query for Google Glass.



Translation Answer

Here's how the answer will look, accompanied by an audio pronunciation.








































View the Original article

Microsoft confirmed on Friday afternoon that it too was a victim of the same type of attack that affected Facebook and Apple earlier this month.

The company chose to not make a statement earlier this month while it was investigating the event, a move it says is consistent with its security response practices.

“During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit, that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations," Microsoft said in a blog post acknowledging the attack.

“We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing.”

Microsoft went on to say that the particular type of attack — an apparent malware attack originating from China – wasn't a surprise to the company, and is indicative of emerging threat trends.

“We continually re-evaluate our security posture and deploy additional people, processes, and technologies as necessary to help prevent future unauthorized access to our networks.,” the post said.
Microsoft's statement is similar to that made by Facebook and Apple regarding the same attack. In both cases companies said no data was stolen.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, zmeel.
































View the Original article

Smartphone cameras are great — except, usually, for zooming in, lighting and producing high-quality photos.

Researchers at MIT, however, have developed a processor chip that they say can instantly convert mobile device snapshots into professional-looking pictures.

The chip, pictured here, integrates into any mobile device or digital camera, and can be used to improve lighting, apply effects and kill low-light background noise. Plus, researchers say, it uses significantly less power than full computer processors or video cards.

One of the chip's tasks enhances low light photos. "Typically when taking pictures in a low-light situation, if we don’t use flash on the camera we get images that are pretty dark and noisy," Rahul Rithe, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, says in a press release. "And if we do use the flash we get bright images but with harsh lighting, and the ambience created by the natural lighting in the room is lost."

So, to avoid photos turning out like this, the chip takes two images — one using flash, one without it — and combines only the most desirable parts of both photos into a composite image.



It's unclear when the processor will come to market. The group presented their findings at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, which wrapped up today.

Does this sound like something you'd use?

To learn more, and read the official release here.

6 Apps for Editing Photos

5. Filterstorm

Filterstorm offers many of the same features you might find in a powerful desktop photo editor on your mobile phone. The app can support up to five layers at a time, and allows you to make adjustments to the image including brush, gradient, color range, vignette or selecting opacity. You can work with the brightness/contrast in a photo, the temperature, exposure, and saturation as well as crop a picture how you would like and specify a specific aspect ratio you’d like the final image to be.



Photoshop Express

Who says you need a computer to use Photoshop? Adobe Photoshop Express is a free, lightweight version of the popular photo editor that allows you to do things like crop and straighten your photos, as well as apply filters, effects and even borders to your prints.

The free app comes with a number of basic features. With a number of other filters, effects, and more available as in-app purchases.



1. Camera+

Camera+ is an app designed for not only editing your photos, but for taking them as well. The app has a built-in stabilizer for steadying your camera while taking pictures, a 6x zoom for getting close to your subject, and as well as a grid to help you line up your shot perfectly.

Once you’ve taken a photo, Camera+ has some built-in editing tools as well as a ton of built-in effects for giving your picture a finishing touch, as well as built-in borders. Finished pictures can be shared instantly on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr from directly within the app.



2. PicsPlay Pro - FX Photo Editor

PicsPlay Pro for Android has over 200 professional presets, allowing you to customize your photo on the fly. The app has several built-in themes such as HDR, Blur, Vintage and Black & White, and has real-time opacity control on those presets, allowing you to customize each one to best fit your own personal needs.
Photos edited using the app can be instantly shared with others on a variety of different services, including Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.


3. Pixlr-O-Matic

With more than 100 effects, 280 overlays and almost 200 different borders Pixlr-o-Matic lets you customize your pictures quickly and easily to give them a seemingly endless array of different looks. In addition to editing photos already stored on your phone, you can also use the app to take new pictures. Finished photos can be shared with friends via Facebook, or saved to your phone as high-resolution files that you can then print out or use in other projects.



4. PicSay Pro

Ever wish your dog could talk? Anything is possible with PicSay Pro. The Android app has a number of traditional photo editing features such as the ability to remove red eye and crop and straighten photos, and adds to it special effects like the ability to add tech and word balloons to your pictures or make just a small portion of a black-and-white photo color.


Thumbnail image via iStockphoto, PeskyMonkey; post image courtesy of MIT


















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2. Firebug Lite

A must-have extension for many web developers, and for good reason, Firebug allows you to analyze network performance and activity, and edit, debug and monitor HTML, CSS and JavaScript live on any web page. It's not a substitute for Chrome Developer Tools, but works alongside it to allow you to debug with ease.

Written in JavaScript, it is integrated into the toolbar and can be activated on a particular domain. It loads before all other scripts and is quick to load itself, as all code and images are stored in the extensions directory on your machine.



2. Web Developer

The official port of the long-time favorite Firefox extension, Web Developer, takes the form of a toolbar and boasts a wealth of options, including analyzing web pages and layouts, testing your code and making edits on the fly.

While not as feature-rich as its Firefox counterpart, it still offers a variety of invaluable tools, such as the ability to show hidden elements, populate forms, control browser cache and quickly modify and switch between stylesheets.



3. Session Manager

When you're working on the web, browser tabs management is a priceless skill -- it's so easy to slip into bad habits and become "tab happy." Session Manager saves your browsing state and lets you re-open the session later. It is particularly useful if you find yourself opening the same web pages over and over.

The extension groups and saves related tabs, so for example, you could save your favorite news or social networking sites under their own session names, and then quickly access them without having to individually open each website.



4. Clear Cache

This simple but supremely useful extension allows you to clear your cache from the toolbar. It works "silently," meaning there are no annoying popups or confirmation dialogs to distract you. It's completely customizable in terms of how much data you want to clear, including app cache, downloads, file systems, form data, history, local storage, passwords and much more, available in the Options settings.
Combine this with the extension Edit This Cookie and you have perfect control of your cache and cookies, for web development.



5. Chrome Sniffer

While experienced web developers can simply look at a website's source code to understand what frameworks and technologies it's using, or even use a resource such as Built With, a quicker, more convenient way exists for Chrome. Chrome Sniffer lists all known JavaScript libraries and CMS frameworks that a websites uses, and can currently detect more than 100 popular CMS and JavaScript libraries.

Once installed, an icon will appear on the address bar indicating the detected frameworks on a website, with version detection. The code for the extension itself is GPL, available on GitHub.



6. JSONView

As a developer working with Restful API, reading raw JSON data on a browser can be painfully awkward. It's much easier to read well formatted JSON in tree view, rather than in its raw data format. The Chrome extension JSONView (an unofficial port of the Firefox extension), helps you view JSON documents in the browser.

Instead of being forced to download or be rendered as text, the extension presents documents in the browser similar to how XML documents are shown. The document is formatted and highlighted, and arrays and objects can be collapsed and expanded.



7. Resolution Test

The process of testing the look and feel of your website in different resolutions is not one many web developers look forward to. What Resolution Test does, though, is to make that process efficiently straightforward. The extension changes the size of the browser window to preview the website in different screen resolutions. Choose from a list of commonly used screen resolutions, with an option to customize the list according to your requirements.

Click on a specific resolution or a combination thereof and hit "View all selected." The browser window launches and resizes to the exact specifications you asked for.



8. Edit This Cookie

Inspired by the lack of a good cookie manager in Chrome, Edit This Cookie fills that role with ease. The clean, organized interface makes it simple to edit, add, delete, search, protect or block cookies. It presents your current cookies, their values and what properties are attached to the cookie, all of which can be modified.

It's easy to export or import cookies, limit the expiration date of any cookie, or even create a custom cookie -- you will find the "Delete All" feature supremely useful, too. Using the extension proves much quicker than going through the Chrome settings screen to search for cookies related to a particular website.

9.

Page Speed Insights

Created by Google, Page Speed Insights analyzes all aspects of a page load, including resources, DOM, network and the timeline, and provides suggestions to make them faster. It integrates well with the Developer Tools toolset and runs the open-source PageSpeed Insights SDK securely, to optimize images, JavaScript, CSS and HTML resources on a website.

It gives specific suggestions for improvement and generates a numeric score, indicating the room for improvement on the current page. When a page is being analyzed, PageSpeed displays the list of web performance best practices, sorted by importance and priority.

Also of note is YSlow, Yahoo's page performance extension that uses either a predefined or a user-defined rule set.



10. Postman - REST Client

A potential Swiss army knife for web service developers, Postman is a powerful HTTP client to let you test REST web services. With its incredibly clean and intuitive interface and a rich feature set, it's an ideal way to quickly test your requests when developing a REST app. Being able to switch environment variables, from local testing to deploying to the cloud and testing there, is supremely useful. The low learning curve also means you will be building and testing RESTful web services quickly.

Requests can be grouped into collections, enabling support for multiple projects, with the ability to export and share these collections with others, allowing you to collaborate on the same set of requests.



Working on the web means spending huge chunks of your time within the browser. If Google Chrome is your workhorse of choice, it pays to explore what extensions are available to make your daily tasks less of a chore.

While Chrome has a set of developer tools built in, you can access a wealth of extra extensions that add valuable functionality.

This post covers 10 of the best Google Chrome extensions for web developers to utilize in their everyday tasks, with an upcoming post on Chrome extensions for designers.

Are there any great extensions that we missed? If so, please leave a comment and share them with other readers.

Photo composite images courtesy of dAKirby309, tannerrussell





















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