Friday, June 17, 2011

Screenr Business: Add Screencasting To Your Site With A Few Clicks (And Preserve Your Sanity)

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/16/screenr-business-add-screencasting-to-your-site-with-a-few-clicks-and-preserve-your-sanity/

“Do you see the ‘File’ option at the top? No, higher, at the very top of the screen. Click that. What do you mean it went away? What went away? What did you press? No, stop clicking for a second. I AM BEING PATIENT… sigh”

Ah, the pleasures of describing a computer problem over the phone, doubtless experienced by many of the people reading this post. And while most of us have only had to deal with tech support questions to help our friends, family, and dorm-mates, there are plenty of businesses that face the same challenges every day — and for them, money is on the line. And now Screenr, a company that offers a web-based screen recorder that lets you make screencasts directly from your browser without requiring additional downloads, has an answer.

This week Screenr is launching Screenr Business, a service that makes it very easy for any site to integrate the company’s browser-based screencast technology. In other words, they’ll make it super easy for your customers to file support tickets by video.

Say you have a standard support site for your product, which includes basic help information and a submission form where customers submit descriptions of their problems — descriptions that often aren’t very specific or may be difficult to understand. Using Screenr, you could now embed a button at the top of your support site that invites users to quickly capture a screencast of their issue, which they can then immediately send to your company’s support staff. Pretty cool.

That’s not the only use-case, either: CEO Adam Schwartz says that they’re seeing companies use the tool for internal software development (QA people don’t have to manually write out how to reproduce a problem, they can just take a video). The service is also often used in companies for internal collaboration, allowing coworkers to share a product demo without requiring a meeting.

In addition to the aforementioned widgets that can be easily embedded, Screenr also offers an API that allows for deeper integration (Stocktwits is one company that’s already using this).

As for pricing, Screenr Business is free for 15 days, then charges on a monthly basis with plans starting at $19/month (more expensive plans include more options, like analytics, custom branding, and API access).



Read More...

Googleâs Related Searches Now Harness Google Squared (And Theyâre Pretty Nifty)

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/16/googles-related-searches-now-harness-google-squared-and-theyre-pretty-nifty/

Google has just announced a new feature for its core search engine that sounds like it will be very helpful: a new kind of related search result that’s based around lists. Starting today, when you run a general query like, say, “Greek philosophers”, Google will actually present a list of top Greek philosophers instead of queries that are simply similar to that one.

Okay, so it isn’t the kind of announcement that’s going to make you scream from the rooftops, but it’s a subtle and important difference. Previously, for the query “american authors” you would have gotten suggested searches including “famous american authors” and “american literature”. Now you’ll also get a list of some of the top American authors themselves: Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and a half-dozen others.

Google’s post says that the feature also works for a variety of other query types, like movies (you’ll get a list of actors). I just ran a query for “Jelly bean flavors” (which was not one of the examples) and got a list that includes Green Apple, Coconut, and Blueberry. Neat.

Google’s post notes that this is actually based in part on Google Squared, the feature it launched in Labs two years ago that presents search results as structured data. At the time Squared seemed overly ambitious (the structured results didn’t seem very reliable), but obviously it’s come a long way.



Read More...

Study: Youâve Never Met 7% Of Your Facebook âFriendsâ

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/16/study-youve-never-met-7-of-your-facebook-friends/

A just-released Pew study on the ways people use social networking sites has found, unsurprisingly, that the most popular social network is Facebook, with 92% of social networking users reporting that they have a Facebook account.

The study also found that on average Facebook users have about 229 Friends, with about 22% of their total Friends list being comprised of people they know from high school, 12% extended family, 10% coworkers, 9% college friends, 8% immediate family, 7% people from extracurricular groups and 2% being neighbors.

According to Pew, the average Facebook user has never met 7% of their Facebook “Friends” in real life, which means that on average about 16 people on a given Facebook Friends list are actually more like strangers. Users on average have only met 3% of their list (around 7 people) just once.

These numbers seem about right: A quick scroll down my Facebook Friends list reveals a smattering of people I’ve just added because I know “of” them and a few people I’ve added who I’ve met once at a conference. These not-quite friends Facebook Friends serve as reminders that Facebook should make it easier to mass “un-Friend.”

Either that or come up with a different word for the relationship.



Read More...

Brain Workshop Is a Brain-Training App That Might Actually Make You a Little Bit Smarter [Video]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5811960/brain-workshop-is-a-brain+training-app-that-might-actually-make-you-a-little-bit-smarter

Brain Workshop Is a Brain-Training App That Might Actually Make You a Little Bit SmarterWindows/Mac/Linux: Though it may not look very different from other (dubiously beneficial) brain-training games, Brain Workshop is special in that there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that it may actually succeed in making its players a little bit smarter.

Free, cross platform, and open source, Brain Workshop is founded upon the "dual n-back," a tricky sort of memory game where the objective is to keep track of two unrelated sequences of events at once. In most versions of the game, that means paying attention to a spoken list of letters while simultaneously tracking the changing position of a block on a three-by-three grid. Every turn, the game provides a letter and grid position and, every turn, the player has to indicate whether these newest values match the ones given a fixed number of turns ago. The more you play, the higher that number gets. Sound tiring? It can be! But it can also be kind of energizing. The dual n-back is, in that sense, the only brain exercise we've encountered that actually feels like conventional exercise.

If it were like other self-styled "brain games," dual n-back training would probably make you very skilled at dual n-back training and little else. What researchers have found, however, is that, with a little practice, the game can bring about significant improvements in a person's short-term or "working" memory (often abbreviated WM), a faculty the University of Michigan describes as "the ability to maintain information in an active, easily retrieved state, especially under conditions of distraction or interference." It's believed that this improvement in working memory, in turn, can boost "fluid" intelligence, a person's ability to solve unfamiliar problems independent of acquired knowledge.

How much practice does it take to see those effects? Surprisingly little, though it does seem the more you put in, the more you get out. Study participants are generally asked to perform the task about 20 minutes a day for a period of 3 or 4 weeks. While the cognitive benefits of n-back training aren't permanent (and thus require upkeep to maintain), research shows that, at least in schoolchildren, they can persist for up to three months after training has stopped. And, interestingly, new research indicates that single n-back training may be just as effective as the more complicated dual-task sort. (Brain Workshop makes it easy to switch between dual and single n-back modes should you find you prefer one to the other.)

Standard postmodern caveats apply. Your own mileage may vary, yada yada. But, even if the positive effects are in your head, that's where your brains are anyway, right?

Brain Workshop Is a Brain-Training App That Might Actually Make You a Little Bit Smarter Brain Workshop - a Dual N-Back game | SourceForge via University of Michigan News Service

Read More...

Scan Is the Best QR Code Scanner for iPhone [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5812632/scan-is-the-best-qr-code-scanner-for-iphone

Scan Is the Best QR Code Scanner for iPhoneThere are a ton of QR code scanners for iPhone so it almost seems silly to highlight one above the rest, but if you've gone through a bunch of them you know they're not all made equal. Scan is great because you launch it, it's immediately in scanning mode, and it can pick up a code within seconds. There is no BS—it just does its job.

Really, that's all there is to it. You launch it, scan the code (it even works from far away, out of focus, and at an angle), and it provides you with what's inside. If the contents are a URL, it just loads the URL in its built-in web browser. It does its one job really well, so if you need a QR code scanner this is the one to download. And as an added bonus, it's completely free.

Scan Is the Best QR Code Scanner for iPhone Scan (Free) | iTunes App Store via One Thing Well


You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook.  Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Read More...

Acer unveils Aspire Ethos laptops built to please eyes and ears in the US and Canada

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/acer-unveils-aspire-ethos-laptops-built-to-please-eyes-and-ears/

We got acquainted with Acer's new Aspire Ethos 8951G and 5951G laptops a week ago, and told you all about its hot hardware and its £999 price in the UK. Well, now these marvelous multimedia machines have journeyed across the Atlantic and brought their nifty detachable touchpads, which double as multimedia remotes, with them. The North American versions (named AS8951G and AS5951G) also pack the same 18.4-inch and 15.6-inch HD displays and USB 3.0 ports as their British counterparts. There's Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge silicon and GeForce GT 555M graphics to give you plenty gaming grunt, and to ensure that the sounds match the visuals, both models pump out 5.1 channel surround sound. Low end audio in the AS5951G comes courtesy of a bass booster, while its big brother has a small subwoofer stuffed in its underside. So, what's the damage to your wallet for these two black beauties? The AS5951G and AS8951G run $1,400 and $1,600, respectively, here in the States, while prices start at $1,200 and $1,500 CAD for our friends in the Great White North. Interested parties can find the full nitty gritty in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Acer unveils Aspire Ethos laptops built to please eyes and ears in the US and Canada

Acer unveils Aspire Ethos laptops built to please eyes and ears in the US and Canada originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Apple patent application highlights location-based social networking, encourages intimate pinging

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/apple-patent-highlights-location-based-social-networking-encour/

Making friends is hard. Apple knows this. In fact, the company outlined such difficulty in a newly surfaced patent, highlighting the sort of "long and awkward conversation" sometimes required to discover common interests. The patent application, filed back in late-2009, describes a location-based social network that helps users discover people in their vicinity, based on common interests like books, movies, and, naturally, music. Of course, Cupertino already dipped its toes in the social networking waters with the iTunes-based Ping, which, in spite of initial excitement, failed to really capture the imagination of Apple's dedicated base. And this isn't the first time the company has flirted with the idea of location-based social networking either, as a patent that surfaced halfway through last year can attest. The company has clearly learned its lesson with this one, however, and that lesson is: more drawings of women winking and references to Springsteen songs in the application process.

Apple patent application highlights location-based social networking, encourages intimate pinging originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mac Rumors  |  sourceUSPTO  | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/deep-shot-transfers-open-websites-from-desktop-to-mobile-sans-w/


When we first read about Deep Shot, we were admittedly dumbfounded, but equally impressed. The "technology" allows you to "capture" the current state of a website on your desktop and transfer it to a mobile device -- taking a picture of a Google Map on your desktop with your smartphone camera will open the site in the same state on your phone, for example. Sounds like a pretty neat magic trick, huh? Well, it's not. In order to use Deep Shot, you need to install an app on your mobile, computer, and any other device you plan to use it with -- thus making it even less practical than Chrome to Phone.

It currently works with Google Maps and Yelp, but could theoretically be used with any site that uses URIs, or those lengthy URLs that contain search details, such as the origin and destination addresses you sent to Google Maps. You could also "transfer" a site in its "current state" by emailing the URI, or by using an app to seamlessly share it over WiFi or Bluetooth with a "send to mobile" button -- which is likely what Deep Shot is doing here anyway, just with an extra step thrown into the mix. Care to visit a land where you can swim with the Loch Ness Monster and ride a pink unicorn? Head past the break for Deep Shot's coming out video, which curiously makes no mention of the required desktop software.

Continue reading Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry

Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMIT News  | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Kinect for Windows SDK beta launches, wants PC users to get a move on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/microsoft-launches-kinect-for-windows-sdk-beta-wants-pc-users-t/

We've been waiting for confirmation on yesterday's rumor, about Microsoft's motion-sensing Xbox 360 peripheral coming to PCs, and now we have it. MS has just now released a software development kit (SDK) for Windows that will allow .Net developers to write Kinecting apps in C++, C#, or VB. We spoke with some developer representatives from the company to get the full details, including just what you can and can't do with this big bundle of libraries. Follow us after the break for all the info.

Continue reading Kinect for Windows SDK beta launches, wants PC users to get a move on

Kinect for Windows SDK beta launches, wants PC users to get a move on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMicrosoft  | Email this | Comments

Read More...

Harvard's Kilobot project does swarm robots on the cheap (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/harvards-kilobot-project-does-swarm-robots-on-the-cheap-video/

We've certainly seen plenty of swarm robots before, but few of those are cheap enough to let you easily build something that can truly be called a "swarm." These so-called Kilobots developed by Harvard's Self-organizing Systems Research Group, however, can apparently built for just $14 apiece, and can each be assembled in just five minutes to boot. Despite that low cost, the bots are still capable of plenty of swarm-like behaviors, including the ability to follow the leader, disperse in an environment, put on a synchronized LED light show. Head on past the break for a pair of videos.

Continue reading Harvard's Kilobot project does swarm robots on the cheap (video)

Harvard's Kilobot project does swarm robots on the cheap (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink IEEE Spectrum  |  sourceHarvard!  | Email this | Comments

Read More...