Today in Tech News Digest, an Xbox One escapes into the wild two weeks early, Intel acquires education startup Kno, Digg Video has arrived to waste your time, Prefundia leaves beta, Wikimedia launches Beta Features, new larger, curvier iPhones could be next for Apple, the new and improved Google Maps opens its doors, and Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube, launches a sweary attack on the new Google+ commenting system. Xbox One Spotted In The Wild The Xbox One is due to be released on Nov. 22 in most territories. And yet due to a monumental mess-up by someone at U.S....
Read the full article: Xbox One Leaks, iPhone 6 Rumors, YouTube Haters [Tech News Digest]
Google has released a new app that allows you to earn Play Store credits by answering surveys. The Google Opinion Rewards app is U.S. only for now. Created by Google Consumer Surveys, it crowdsources consumer opinion with quick and easy to answer surveys in exchange for Play Store credit. The earned Play Store credit will be credited to the Google Wallet account of the user and can be used against any content on the online store. The pattern follows the basics of any survey process. After downloading the app, you have to answer a few rudimentary questions about yourself to...
Read the full article: Answer Surveys To Receive Play Store Credit With The New Google Opinion Rewards App
Last week we asked you to choose which phone you’d rather have, the iPhone 5s or the Nexus 5. We expected a close call. We couldn’t have been further off the mark. With 1,894 votes in, the results speak for themselves. 27% of the voters would rather have an iPhone 5s, while a full 73% would rather have the Nexus 5. What do you think these results mean for Apple and Google’s future? Full results and this week’s poll after the jump. As promised, this week we have two best comments, both of them win an awesome MakeUseOf t-shirt! Check...
Read the full article: How Many Friends Do You Have On Google+? [MakeUseOf Poll]
Internet Explorer 11 was just launched with Windows 8.1. It has been available as a Release Preview on Windows 7 for a while, but now Microsoft is ready to roll out the final version to all users globally. We often harp on about Chrome and Firefox, but you may be surprised to know that IE11 is a mature, modern web browser. Microsoft has made some radical changes under the hood, with the end result being that IE11 is 30% faster than other browsers out there. “IE11 on Windows 7 improves performance across the board with faster page loading, faster interactivity,...
Read the full article: Internet Explorer 11 Releases For Windows 7 Globally
Read the full article: Try Out Beta Features On Wikimedia And Preview What’s New Before Anyone Else
Ever since its relaunch in 2012, Digg has been constantly and busily reinventing itself with a clean new design and a well-received RSS reader. Now it is introducing a new feature – Digg Video, where it collects the latest viral clips doing the rounds on the Interwebs. Wave goodbye to productivity all over the globe, as office workers everywhere blow off work and sit and watch dogs on skateboards all day. Each video gets its own page with an enlarged screen, along with the usual sharing and social media buttons. You can also save videos to a kind of YouTube-style...
Read the full article: Digg Launches Its Own Video Clips Channel – Wave Goodbye To Work Productivity
A great irony of Black Friday is that average prices begin escalating during a period when sales hit new annual lows. A good way to counteract this trend is through cutting costs down on goods you purchase on a regular basis. The key is in tracking prices using monitoring software and buying in bulk. I’ve written before about handling specific purchases and tracking rebates using spreadsheets. This article covers how you might use spreadsheets, IFTTT, and Yahoo Pipes to track consumable items that you use on a regular basis. This method provides instantaneous notifications whenever an item you’re looking for...
Read the full article: Streamline Your Life For Cheaper Prices Using IFTTT And Yahoo Pipes!
With the rise of online shopping, we are now living in the future. Everything from electronics to furniture to food to clothing can now be purchased without ever leaving your home and often the online products end up being cheaper. Online shopping is so popular that we’ve even written an online shopping guide for you. But when it comes to buying clothes online, there’s a hitch. Most products only need to be scrutinized for quality, but clothing needs to fit. Reviews can be helpful — as long as you ignore the fake user reviews — when determining quality, but clothing...
Read the full article: Try It On For Size: 5 Tips To Buy Perfectly Fitting Clothes Online
How do you feel about typing on your Windows 8 tablet touchscreen? Are you comfortable with it, or do you want more features? Perhaps you’re more interested in disabling the keyboard entirely, so you can use a hardware keyboard. One of the strengths of Windows 8 is its use as a tablet operating system. Part of this strength is the flexibility of the touch keyboard, something that has been enhanced in Windows 8.1, making favourable comparisons with the software keyboards on other platforms. Windows 8 Touch Keyboard Basics Typing with the Windows 8 touch keyboard is quite a basic experience,...
Read the full article: How To Best Use Or Disable The Windows 8 Touch Keyboard
Hate typing passwords to unlock your Mac? You can automatically sign-in to your Macbook or iMac by simply tapping the screen of your iPhone.
Weebly, the tool that lets you build slick, professional websites for free, now wants to make it easier for anyone who wants to create an online store. The new Weebly eCommerce is designed to be a platform to set up a shopping site with features like that of Amazon, according to the company. Weebly eCommerce will accept credit cards directly from your site with Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net, with a secure checkout on your own domain with SSL. The store is also designed to work on mobile phones and tablets. Product listings can be of a wide variety, along with...
Read the full article: Weebly eCommerce Aims To Simplify Building Online Stores
Weebly, the tool that lets you build slick, professional websites for free, now wants to make it easier for anyone who wants to create an online store. The new Weebly eCommerce is designed to be a platform to set up a shopping site with features like that of Amazon, according to the company. Weebly eCommerce will accept credit cards directly from your site with Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net, with a secure checkout on your own domain with SSL. The store is also designed to work on mobile phones and tablets. Product listings can be of a wide variety, along with...
Read the full article: Weebly eCommerce Aims To Simplify Building Online Stores
Google Helpouts is an instructional service that will connect people who need help on any topic with experts to show them the way. If you need to ask for solutions on anything from fixing a garage door to planning a career, the live one-on-one sessions over Hangouts video chat come completely personalized. Depending on the nature of the topics and the mentoring required, some of the Helpouts could be free while others could involve a cost or come with a per-minute billing charge. In August, Google announced the launch of Helpouts and even showcased a landing page. Now, it has...
Read the full article: Google Publicly Launches Helpouts For Real Time Expert Help Via Hangouts
The new Google Docs based Apple Tracker tool tracks the availability of iPhone and iPad units in Apple Stores near your zip and sends email alerts when stock is available.
