Apple Pays, Google Plays, Viddy Sells, Horizon Fixes [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, Apple pays for in-app purchases, Google Play Movies & TV arrives on iOS, Starbucks is caught using clear text when storing passwords, Fullscreen acquires Supernova (formerly Viddy), EA backtracks on offline SimCity, and Horizon arrives to kill videos shot in portrait mode. Apple Backs Down Over In-App Purchases Apple to refund change it found in couch to FTC in settlement. — Alex Wilhelm (@alex) January 15, 2014 Apple has agreed to pay full refunds to customers who claimed confusion over in-app purchases led to their kids racking up huge bills. The accord with the FTC...

Read the full article: Apple Pays, Google Plays, Viddy Sells, Horizon Fixes [Tech News Digest]

Google Now in Chrome for Desktop

Google Now cards are available in the latest Chrome Canary build for Windows and Mac. You only need to go to chrome://flags/#enable-google-now , then switch from "Default" to "Enabled" and click "Relaunch Now" at the bottom of the page.

If you're signed into Chrome, you should see a Google Now notification and then a list of cards. "Google Now on your desktop! Stay connected to what you need to know, across all devices," informs the first card. Google Now cards are displayed using Chrome's notification interface in the Windows system tray or the Mac menu bar.



"If you use Google Now on your mobile device, you can see certain Now cards on your desktop computer if you're signed into Chrome, including weather, sports scores, commute traffic, and event reminders cards. Some of these cards may be based on the location of your mobile device. Google Now on Chrome shows a subset of the Now cards you see on your mobile device, which uses your device's location. You can edit your location settings (Location Reporting and Location History) on your Android or iOS device at any time," informs Google.

{ Thanks, Michael. }

I Sold a Chrome Extension but it was a bad decision

When Google decided the pull the plug on Google Reader, I quickly made the switch to Feedly since it was (and still is) the best alternative to Google’s RSS Reader. The one important piece that Feedly did not offer was a Chrome extension that would let users subscribe to RSS feeds on any web page with a click.

Since the extension was something that I needed for my own workflow, I wrote one (writing a Chrome extension is easy) and also published it to Google Chrome store. The last time I checked my Chrome developer dashboard, the extension had gained 30000+ users on Chrome.

Monetizing Google Chrome extensions is tricky

One morning I got an email from someone ( I tried Googling her name but it returned no results ) asking me if I would be interested in selling the Feedly Chrome extension. It was a 4-figure offer for something that had taken an hour to create and I agreed to the deal. I had no clue about the buyer and was also curious to know why would anyone pay this kind of money for such a simple Chrome extension.

The extension was sold, they sent the money via PayPal and I transferred the ownership of the extension to a particular Google Account. It was a smooth transition.

A month later, the new owners of the Feedly extension pushed an update to the Chrome store. No, the update didn’t bring any new features to the table nor contained any bug fixes. Instead, they incorporated advertising into the extension.

These aren’t regular banner ads that you see on web pages, these are invisible ads that work the background and replace links on every website that you visit into affiliate links. In simple English, if the extension is activated in Chrome, it will inject adware into all web pages.

The user ratings of the Chrome extension are headed south.

No surprises, the ratings of the extension have recently plummeted at the Chrome store but the business model of the buyer is simple – they buy popular add-ons, inject affiliate links and the bulk of users would never notice this since the Chrome browser automatically updates add-ons in the background. And there are no changelogs either.

The extension does offer an option to opt-out of advertising (you are opted-in by default) or you can disable them on your own by blocking the superfish.com and www.superfish.com domains in your hosts file but quietly sneaking ads doesn’t sound like the most ethical way to monetize a product.

It was probably a bad idea to sell the Chrome add-on and am sorry if you were an existing user. Meanwhile, you can switch to the Feedly bookmarklet for the adware-free experience.

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This story, I Sold a Chrome Extension but it was a bad decision, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 16/01/2014 under Feedly, Internet

Do You Value Online Reviews? [We Ask You]

We all have opinions on things. And the Internet seems to have drawn previously reserved individuals out of their shells until they’re more than willing to tell you their opinion on anything and everything. Whether you asked for it or not. Reviews are everywhere. From websites rating the latest movies, music, and television shows, to online shopping sites such as Amazon ranking consumer products by an arbitrary scoring system. But just because reviews are ubiquitous doesn’t mean they’re actually worthwhile. The Value Of Opinion… We want to know, Do You Value Online Reviews? This questions cuts both ways. Do you...

Read the full article: Do You Value Online Reviews? [We Ask You]

Nest: When Design Gets Expensive

Google's announcement that it will buy Nest was surprising. "Google has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash. Nest's mission is to reinvent unloved but important devices in the home such as thermostats and smoke alarms. Since its launch in 2011, the Nest Learning Thermostat has been a consistent best seller and the recently launched Protect (Smoke + CO Alarm) has had rave reviews."

Back in 2007, Google paid $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, which completely transformed Google's ad business. Why pay $3.2 billion for a home automation company that designs beautiful objects? Maybe because it was founded by Tony Fadell, one of the people who designed the iPod, an iconic product that changed Apple.



Google's 2013 was mostly about hardware. From Chromebook Pixel to HP Chromebook 11, from Nexus 5/7 to Chromecast, from Moto X to Glass, Google designs consumer hardware and it's just getting started. Many of these products bypass OEMs and use Google's brand. It's a major shift for Google and a superstar designer can make Google's products even better.



From Jon Willey, Lead Designer for Google Search:

When Nest first made a thermostat, it seemed a lot of people said "wow, what a great thermostat company." And then they released a smoke alarm and the sense I got from many was "oh, Nest is a great thermostat and smoke alarm company."



But at the heart, Nest is obviously a great design company. Great design is about simplicity, utility, and beauty and Nest products have those qualities in abundance.



And so as Google works hard to bring great design to all of its products, it is very exciting to have the Nest team join Google.

Chrome's Data Compression, Now For Everyone

Chrome's data compression feature is now available for all Android and iOS users. The latest releases of Chrome for Android and iOS add this feature, which was previously limited to Chrome Beta for Android and some randomly picked users.



"When enabled, Chrome's data compression and bandwidth management can reduce data usage by up to 50% while browsing the web on Chrome for Android and iOS. This feature also enables Chrome's Safe Browsing technology which helps protect you from malicious webpages," informs Google.

This feature uses a Google proxy to compress all the pages you visit, except for HTTPS pages and the sites you visit in Chrome's incognito mode.



"When the Data Compression Proxy feature is enabled, Chrome Mobile opens a connection between your phone and one of the optimization servers running in Google's datacenters and relays all non-encrypted HTTP requests over this connection. (...) The browser-to-proxy connection runs over SSL, meaning that your browsing session is encrypted between your device and Google's servers. The proxy also performs intelligent compression and minification of HTML, JavaScript and CSS resources, which removes unnecessary whitespace, comments, and other metadata which are not essential to render the page. These optimizations, combined with mandatory gzip compression for all resources, can result in substantial bandwidth savings," informs Google. DNS lookups are performed by the proxy, while the images are converted to WebP and the resulting images are up to 80% smaller.



Chrome for iOS also adds the page translation feature, which was previously limited to Chrome for Android and desktop, while Chrome for Android lets you add to the homescreen shortcuts to any page or web app.



As usually, "these updates will be rolling out over the next few days", so don't expect to get the latest version of Mobile Chrome right away.

Chrome's Metro Mode

This is not Chrome OS, it's a new Chrome interface that's only used in Windows 8 in the Metro mode (Modern UI). "Manage multiple Chrome windows and quickly get to your favorite Chrome Apps with an integrated app launcher. On the desktop, we've updated the default styling of UI elements like form controls and scrollbars to match the sleek design of the new Chrome Metro interface," informs Google.

Google ignored the Metro design language and decided to bring the Chrome OS interface to Windows 8. You'll get an app launcher, a shelf where you can pin your favorite apps, you can add new windows, move them, minimize them, maximize them, resize them and close them.



It's a great way to promote Chromebooks. You run Chrome in an immersive environment, as if it were the only application from your computer.



You can switch between the desktop mode and the Metro mode by clicking the menu and selecting "Relaunch Chrome on the desktop/in Windows 8 mode". Relaunching Chrome on the desktop didn't work well for me: only one of the windows was properly restored. "Chrome remembers the mode you last used. For example, if you exit Chrome from your desktop, you'll automatically be in desktop mode the next time you open Chrome," explains Google.



Chrome doesn't run in Windows 8 RT, but Windows for ARM isn't very popular.

Chrome Shows Noisy Tabs

I've noticed that many music/video sites now add a "play" Unicode character to the title when a video or a song is playing, so you can quickly find noisy tabs. Here are some examples: YouTube, Dailymotion, Soundcloud.



Chrome 32 added a similar feature, but it works for any site. It shows a small icon next to the title if the tab is playing audio.

I tested this feature and it works for HTML5 video/audio and Flash content. Mute the video or pause it and the Chrome icon disappears.



The sound icon is redundant for YouTube and the other sites I've mentioned, but it's still displayed for consistency.

Chrome shows two other special icons for using the webcam and casting.

Star Google Contacts

Google announced a new starring feature for contacts. Now you can star contacts and they'll be added to the Starred group.



"Just like how you can star important messages in your inbox, you can now star individuals in your Google Contacts list. (...) For those of you who use Android, your Starred contacts will stay in sync with your Android Favorites. Starring a contact on desktop will star that same person in your Android contacts, and vice-versa, so you can see and manage your contacts seamlessly wherever you may be."



Until now, Google used the "Starred in Android" group for favorite contacts, but this was more like a workaround. Now it's a native Gmail feature.

I don't see the new feature in the desktop Gmail interface, so this will probably be gradually added in the coming days.



{ Thanks, Matt Carney. }

Quickly Find Creative Commons Images Using Google

Now you no longer have to open the advanced search page to restrict the Google Image Search results to Creative Commons pics or public domain images. Just click "search tools" below the search box, then click "usage rights" and pick one of the options: "labeled for reuse", "labeled for commercial reuse", "labeled for reuse with modification" or "labeled for commercial reuse with modification". You'll find many pictures from Flickr and Wikipedia.

Visit the page, find the license and make sure it's right for you. You should always link to the page, mention the author and the source. "Before reusing content that you've found, you should verify that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse stated in the license. For example, most licenses require that you give credit to the image creator when reusing an image. Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren't making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed," informs Google.

Google should replace the message "Images may be subject to copyright" with the Creative Commons license.



{ via Search Engine Land }

Perform These 7 Awesome Photoshop Tricks in GIMP

Do advanced photo tricks, for free. It’s possible, thanks to The GIMP. The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is a capable open source and free alternative to Photoshop. While it’s not quite as easy or powerful as Photoshop, you can still make anything happen with GIMP, some know-how, and a bit of elbow grease. If you’d like to keep yourself from burning a major hole in your wallet in exchange for a bit more work, grab a copy of GIMP and check out these seven great Photoshop tricks you can do with it! Layer Styles Layer styles are various...

Read the full article: Perform These 7 Awesome Photoshop Tricks in GIMP

Perform These 7 Awesome Photoshop Tricks in GIMP

Do advanced photo tricks, for free. It’s possible, thanks to The GIMP. The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is a capable open source and free alternative to Photoshop. While it’s not quite as easy or powerful as Photoshop, you can still make anything happen with GIMP, some know-how, and a bit of elbow grease. If you’d like to keep yourself from burning a major hole in your wallet in exchange for a bit more work, grab a copy of GIMP and check out these seven great Photoshop tricks you can do with it! Layer Styles Layer styles are various...

Read the full article: Perform These 7 Awesome Photoshop Tricks in GIMP

Finding Free Movies on YouTube Made Easy

Use Instant Movie Search or browse the catalog by year of release

Introducing Zero Dollar Movies, a new site for movie buffs that will help you find and discover movies that are available on YouTube for free. These are full-length movies and there are no trailers or partial uploads.

The catalog includes a collection of 15,000+ movies, organized by their year of release, and new titles are getting added every day. You can find movies in English, Hindi (Bollywood) and few other regional languages.

Instant Movie Search

One of the most useful feature of Zero Dollar Movies is Instant Search – you type a word and the site will instantly bring all the matching films that are available on YouTube for free viewing. The search feature is location aware and will only show movie titles that are available in your current geographic location.

The red-green ratings bar near the video thumbnails indicate the ratio of likes to dislikes and offer a visual clue on how popular that particular movie is on YouTube. If the red color is prominent, you may as well skip the video.

The movie data was sourced from YouTube using their data API and also /r/fullmoviesonyoutube, one of most active Reddit community where members post links to free movies on YouTube. I used Google Scripts to scrap Reddit and a copy of this movie database can also be downloaded from Github.

The Instant Search feature internally uses the YouTube Search API and queries the YouTube database directly instead of the Zero Dollar Movies database so the results are always current. The one caveat is that results may sometimes include paid movies as the YouTube API doesn’t offer a way to exclude rentals in search results, at least yet.

Switch to Hindi in the dropdown and find bollywood movies that are free on YouTube

This is the initial version and, going forward, I do plan to add more features including integration with other popular movie databases like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.

Also, a little request. If you encounter a video on the site that has been removed from YouTube, maybe because it was not uploaded by the original owner or YouTube terminated the owner’s channel, please use the “Flag Video” button to report the video. [Zero Dollar Movies ]

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This story, Finding Free Movies on YouTube Made Easy, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 15/01/2014 under YouTube, Internet

Online Dating – Men Don’t Get It And Women Don’t Understand

Do online dating websites work? Okay, it’s time to have an open and frank discussion about the battle of the sexes and the dating game. It’s far too complex, scary and difficult for mere mortals – so let’s bridge the gap by asking both men and women what doesn’t work when it comes to online dating. To explore this topic, I pulled aside two individuals who I knew were hunting for a long-term relationship using online dating websites, and asked them about their experiences with the services. The two services used by these individuals were OKCupid and Match.com, two of...

Read the full article: Online Dating – Men Don’t Get It And Women Don’t Understand

Technophilia 96 Live From MakeUseOf

This week: net neutrality is struck down by a US appeals court, meaning the companies that make the richest country on earth suffer through some of the slowest Internet access among developed countries now have even more power. What could possibly go wrong? An academic paper says killer robots are all but inevitable, barring the leaders of the world putting their own interests aside in order to work for the common good of humanity. So yeah: all but inevitable. And, on the lighter side of things, EA did what it said was impossible: offer an offline version of SimCity, a...

Read the full article: Technophilia 96 Live From MakeUseOf

Thinking Of Moving Abroad? 4 Tips To Do Your Online Research

We’ve all dreamed the dream: dropping all of our responsibilities at home and moving abroad, traveling to new places and living a different kind of life. It’s a deeper commitment than a short-term vacation and it can be frightening – even if you stay connected back home – but the experience is often rewarding. What’s the best way for you to prepare for such an endeavor? There’s more to moving abroad than simply hopping on a plane and winging it, at least if you want the experience to be as smooth and pleasant as possible. Without doing the proper research,...

Read the full article: Thinking Of Moving Abroad? 4 Tips To Do Your Online Research

No Net Neutrality, Winamp Lives, Kanye Kills Coinye [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, net neutrality suffers a loss, Winamp lives to fight another day, Beats Music is revealed ahead of launch, Tumblr adds Mention alerts (finally), Kanye West succeeds in killing Coinye, a man dies trying to save his phone, and the Internet is given the honor of naming a baby. Court Rules Against Net Neutrality http://ift.tt/1iU3r3S Net neutrality has suffered a huge defeat in court, with a ruling stating that the FCC’s rules on the matter are “invalid.” As GigaOM reports, an appeals court in Washington rejected most of the FCC’s Open Internet Order designed to keep...

Read the full article: No Net Neutrality, Winamp Lives, Kanye Kills Coinye [Tech News Digest]

Windows Live Tuner: Free Tool To Quickly Speed Up Windows

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One of the best things of Windows operating system, unlike other computer operating systems, is that there are plenty of free tools out there to tweak, customize, and fine-tune the operating system. Earlier this week, we posted about the 15 free tools tweak and customize Windows 8.1 version. When it comes to the tuning the […]

Cook with Jamie Oliver On Your Windows 8 PC or Tablet

Cooking with recipes found online can be a hassle when it comes to printing or writing recipes down. How does British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Recipes app for iOS and Windows 8 help? Jamie Oliver… Who? Available from the Windows 8 Store, Jamie Oliver’s Recipes is a free app that helps you to cook some amazing dishes (this app is also available for iOS). But who is this Jamie Oliver? If you’re not based in the UK, then there is a good chance that you haven’t heard of Jamie Oliver, a TV chef who shot to fame in the late...

Read the full article: Cook with Jamie Oliver On Your Windows 8 PC or Tablet

Windows 8.1 Preview Expires Today, Upgrade To 8.1 RTM Now

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To all PC users who are running Windows 8.1 Preview; the Preview version of Windows 8.1 expires today, January 15th 2014. The preview release of Windows 8.1 was released on June 26th, 2013 with over 50 new features, including Start button, new tile sizes, slide to shut down, and more. Starting tomorrow, January 16th, Windows […]