Monday, February 10, 2014

TimeStats Tracks How Much Time You Spend on Web Sites

Source: http://lifehacker.com/timestats-tracks-how-much-time-you-spend-on-web-sites-1518505498

TimeStats Tracks How Much Time You Spend on Web Sites

Chrome: We keep reading about how much time we spend watching YouTube videos or goofing off on social networks, but if you really want to find out, timeStats is the easiest way to get actual figures in Chrome. And you can impose restrictions on yourself too.

Setup is simple. You can log into Facebook to share your timeStats on your wall, but this is optional so feel free to skip it. A basic pie chart of statistics is delivered through a dropdown dialog box from the extension's toolbar icon, showing your browsing patterns. Detailed stats are available as well, which show you almost anything you might want to know about your internet usage.

But the cool part of timeStats comes in the "Alerts" section, where you can set a limit on certain web sites. So for example, if you spend too much time on Facebook, you can set it so that Facebook can be accessed only for one hour in a day—beyond that hour, timeStats will automatically block it. There's also an option to go back to the site for another hour after rewriting a chunk of hard text, or guilt-tripping yourself with a notification timer that monitors the minutes spent on Facebook in a day.

Currently, timeStats is restricted only to your usage of Google Chrome locally—if you use Chrome across two different machines, it won't sync your stats. And it doesn't track how you are using your computer apart from that. For such detailed insights, you will need to turn to the more powerful RescueTime to analyze your entire personal computing habits.

timeStats | Chrome Web Store via I Love Free Software

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Sigma's dp Quattro cameras boast higher-resolution sensors and an extra-wide design

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/10/sigma-dp-quattro-cameras/

No, you're not looking at a projector -- it's the dp2 Quattro, the first of three cameras in Sigma's new dp Quattro lineup. That unusually wide, almost cinematic body is meant to provide a more balanced feel in the hand than the compact design of its predecessors. However, the real centerpiece is underneath: every camera has a new version of the three-layer, color-rich Foveon X3 sensor that takes higher resolution photos (20 megapixels versus 15.3) while improving both performance and battery life. Sigma has also made a leap to a faster TRUE III image processor. Unusually, there's also an optical viewfinder available for purists, which should work well with the fixed lenses. The dp2 Quattro will come with a 30mm f/2.8 general purpose lens, while the dp1 and dp3 will respectively carry 19mm wide-angle and 50mm telephoto optics. The company hasn't said just when the Quattro cameras will ship, but history suggests that they won't be cheap.

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Source: Sigma

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Sunday, February 09, 2014

Do You Ever Click On In-App Advertisements?

Source: http://gizmodo.com/do-you-ever-click-on-in-app-advertisements-1519033211

Do You Ever Click On In-App Advertisements?

"I'll just ignore the ads," you tell yourself whenever you choose a free app instead of paying for the no-ad version. But nobody can really ignore those ads—they're splattered all across your screen. And somebody's gotta be clicking on them. Is it you? You can tell us.

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500px will sell your photos if it can keep most of the cash

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/08/500px-prime/

500px Prime

Serious photographers who host their pictures at 500px will soon get to profit from their skills -- if not quite in they way they'd expect. The company has just unveiled Prime, a licensing store that's theoretically more lucrative than many cut-rate stock photo sites. Every image will carry a minimum $250 license fee, and photos will be ranked based on community reactions. A frequently shared photo may stand out from the pack, for instance. There's only one catch. 500px is only giving sellers a 30 percent commission, regardless of the licensing terms -- that's a considerably smaller cut than some pros are used to, and might not be as rewarding as selling the work directly to customers. Prime may be difficult to justify for full-time shutterbugs, then, but it could prove useful to hobbyists who'd like to earn some extra cash with minimal effort.

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Source: 500px

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Yahoo reportedly set to surface Yelp reviews in search results

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/08/yahoo-reportedly-set-to-surface-yelp-reviews-in-search-results/

According to The Wall Street Journal, the next time you search for a chicken dinner on Yahoo you could be served up a Yelp review for the best bird in your hood. According to the paper's source, Yahoo CEO Marisa Mayer announced a partnership that would surface Yelp reviews and listing in Yahoo's search results, during a meeting Friday. Little else is known of the deal.

While the struggling internet company continues to see revenue fall, its latest earnings report revealed that search revenues for Q4 2013 were up eight percent over the same quarter the year before. The company is clearly still invested in its bread-and-butter, but it's also made a push into content, signing names like David Pogue and Katie Couric to lead new news initiatives. During her CES keynote earlier this year, Mayer, who previously led search at Google, underlined Yahoo's commitment to search, revealing it added 869 partners, and conducted 600 related experiments in 2013.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

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