News Gathering Gets A Fresh Break As Google Launches Google Media Tools

News and media organizations have been using Google for a long time. Google has taken things a bit further by giving journalists a rich set of tools in one centralized hub called Google Media Tools. Google Media Tools is a collection of all Google resources that can help journalists enhance their reporting. Common tools like Google Drive, Google Maps, and Google Search Trends along with many others find a place in the suite. The idea is not to be just a diving-board platform for the Google tools journalists need and use most often. Rather, Google wants this one-stop shop to...

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Technophilia 86 Live From MakeUseOf

This week: Apple’s new operating system is free for all Mac users. Your move, Microsoft. Dick Cheney thought terrorists were going to hack his heart. And Wikipedia fights paid PR editors who try to make companies look good. No way that will backfire, am I right? This week’s episode is brought to you by Bitdefender Internet Security is the acknowledged Antivirus of the Year. With a non-intrusive and extremely fast scanning technology, it offers enhanced silent security against e-threats, Superior security for all your data, and it’s Extremely fast and Non-intrusive With Bitdefender Photon. Bebo is coming back, and their...

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Asus RoG Vulcan PRO

Active noise cancellation, bundled DSP, detachable boom mike, 7.1 virtual surround sound and more come together with a funky red and black colour scheme to create the ASUS Vulcan PRO. Do all these elements fit together to create the ultimate gaming headset? Let’s find out. Design and build The Vulcan PRO is an interesting headset. The black and red colour scheme, ASUS’s signature for their RoG series, is quite nice. The build is also quite nice and while it’s only plastic, it [...]

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Gaana.com gets a fresh new look and improved navigation

Gaana.com, has revamped its web app with a new look, a faster search engine, along with a host of social and personalisation features. Gaana.com offers pre-programmed radio streams, featuring Radio Jockey bytes, curated music and celebrity favourites. The company stated that the new version will soon feature radio stations based on artist, genre and other categories. The site will also be adding hundreds of new radio stations and celebrity playlists, all up for selection by users. The revamped [...]

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) launched in India for Rs. 49,990

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) unveiled in September is now available in India for Rs 49,990. Samsung stated that the tablet will be launched this weekend over online and retail stores. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition has a 10.1-inch WQXGA Super clear LCD display with 2560 X 1600 pixels resolution. The tablet comes in two chipset variants, Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition in India is powered by a 1.9GHz quad-core Exynos 5 Octa processor coupled with 3GB of RAM. It comes with [...]

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Apple MacBook Pro Retina laptop: The new model vs. the old

At the Apple event last night, the MacBook Pro Retina got an update. Apple has removed the regular 15 and 13-inch laptops from its portfolio leaving only the Retina display devices. The entry level 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina is priced at Rs. 99,900 where as the top of the Line 15-inch variant is priced at Rs. 1,99,900. The upgraded machines bring with them a slew of features including Haswell, OS X Mavericks, better battery life, slimmer form factor, 802.11ac Wi‑Fi and more. Here is a spec [...]

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Assassin's Creed 4: 'Black Flag' mid-night launch in India on 28 Oct.

Ubisoft's highly anticipated flagship title Assassins Creed: Black Flag will see a midnight launch at 'Games The Shop' on 28th October. e-xpress Interactive Software Pvt.Ltd in association with Games The Shop, will be organizing the midnight launch of the action adventure stealth title. The launch will take place on 28th October from 11 p.m onwards. Fans can grab their copies at Games The Shop, Oberoi Mall (Mumbai). Fans present at the launch stand a chance of winning 'Assassins Creed: Black F [...]

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Snapdeal launches app for iPhone users

Online marketplace Snapdeal has introduced a new mobile shopping app for iOS users. The app, already available for Windows and Android users, provides users access to Snapdeal's various product categories. Some of the main features of Snapdeal for iOS include dedicated offers section, sorting and filters options, recent and top searches, top sellers in each category and sub category, and easy order tracking. “The number of Apple device users in India is growing rapidly and with the laun [...]

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iPad Air and iPad mini: what's new in Apple's tablets

Apple has updated the iPad more than a year after the launch of the iPad 4. This is the first time that Apple has redesigned the iPad since the launch of the iPad 2 (we aren’t counting the upgrade to the Lightning port but the overall design). The design is something that has been suggested in numerous leaks and rumours that have been circulating all over the Internet. It’s nice to see the iPad in not only a new design but a new name as well. Here, we take a look and see if you shou [...]

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MTS announces 3GPlus, next-gen CDMA services, in India

Sistema Shyam Teleservices ( SSTL), which operates in India under the brand name MTS, has officially announced the launch of Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Rev. B Phase II network in the country. MTS claims the new network,Dubbed '3GPlus', delivers data speeds up to 9.8Mbps. The company has also introduced a new dongle, MBlaze Ultra. The MBlaze Ultra device is priced at Rs. 1,299 for both prepaid and postpaid customers. The company is offering new prepaid customers the dongle at Rs. 1,3999, w [...]

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KillZone: Shadow Fall ready for launch

Guerrilla Games has officially announced that KillZone: Shadow Fall is complete and all set for shipping. Angie Smets and game director Steven Ter Heide confirmed on Twitter that Shadow Fall's development is over and is ready for printing and shipment. Ter Heide also revealed some info regarding the campaign, “should last well over 10 hours for most gamers” and that multiplayer will run “with dedicated servers to handle the transfer of data between clients", in a post on [...]

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Shooting Sunburn Noida with 3 Point-and-Shoot cameras; DSLRs need not apply

I’ve been a long time concert photographer who’s been fortunate to have worked with several big name artists. Having used every single big name DSLR and popular lens in the arsenal of both Nikon and Canon, I have to say that nothing compares to the ease of mind you get from using these bad boys. Many a times, as a “purists” (or rather a former purist) I tend to discount anything that’s not a DSLR as a credible tool for making great photos, but being in the line of w [...]

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All you need to know about last night's Apple event: iPad Air and the rest

Apple announced quite a few things at the special event last night. As expected the company showed off a redesign to the iPad, branding it the iPad Air, and an iPad mini with a Retina Display (finally!). We also now have concrete details about the new Mac Pro, the MacBook Pros saw an update and the biggest highlight was of course, that OS X Mavericks is available to users for free. iPad Air The iPad Air has been redesigned and is in line with what we have seen from the rumours circulating the [...]

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Intex Aqua N2 quad-core Android smartphone launched for Rs. 6,990

Intex Technologies has added another mobile to its Aqua series, the Intex Aqua N2. The budget device is priced at Rs. 6,990 and will be available on leading e-commerce portals and retail stores in India. The Aqua N2 has a 4.0-inch capacitive touch screen display with 800 ×480 pixels display resolution. It has a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor with 512MB of RAM and runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). The smartphone features a 5MP auto focus rear camera and 1.3MP front camera for video calling. [...]

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iCouchApp: New social networking app for TV viewers

The iCouchApp acts as a platform for users to interact about similar shows and share views. The app has been launched for Android and will be released for iOS users in a month, according to the company. The iCouchApp, helps TV viewers engage and receive alerts about the TV program they are watching. Users can take part in surveys, give reviews about their favorite programe, take polls and get more information about a show of their interest. Users can play on shows popular shows like KBC and Big [...]

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No More Saved Searches in Google+

Google+ had a cool feature that allowed you to save searches. It's no longer available and all your saved searches will be removed in a few weeks.



Google shows this message when you click one of the saved searches: "Saved searches are going away. Bookmark this page on your browser to save your Google+ search for later."

There's even an article that explains how to bookmark a search results page. "Browser bookmarks replace the earlier 'Save this search' option in Google+. You can access any existing saved searches from the Home > More menu until November 15, 2013."



I used this feature to save searches like #autoawesome, #googleplusupdate.



{ Thanks, Francis and Lee. }

More Google Experiments That Hide Results URLs

There are at least two other versions of the Google experiment that removes search results URLs. The first alternate version places site names or domain names above the page title. For some results Google shows the site name, for other results Google displays the hostname.

The second alternate version shows both the site name and the hostname.

Which one do you like?



(As a side note, if you want to learn more about URLs, check this article written by Matt Cutts.)



{ Thanks, Rubén. }

Chrome's New Tab Page Shows Static Doodles

The last time I wrote about Chrome's updated new tab page, I complained about the animated doodles that distract you every time you open a new tab. Since Chrome replaced the new tab page with Google's homepage, you also get the doodles, including those that are animated or interactive.



Here's what I asked Peter Kasting, from the Chrome team: "If nothing can be done about the new interface, my only request would be to show a static version of the animated doodles and click a button to start the animation. That would be a big improvement. It's really annoying to see the same animation over and over again when opening a new tab page."



The good news is that Google did exactly that. The updated new tab page now shows a static version of the doodle and you need to click a "play" button to start the animation.