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Sunday, July 10, 2011

40 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed (Mashable) : Technet

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40 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed (Mashable) : Technet

40 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed (Mashable)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 11:46 AM PDT

Stephanie Buck Stephanie Buck – Sat Jul 9, 2:46 pm ET

Whew! This week was awash with news. So, we transformed that news into advice, tips and how-to's that you can reference for years to come. Take Facebook's video chat launch -- we'll guide you in setting it up. Or the space shuttle launch -- we provide the Twitter accounts for dozens of astronauts and space experts. And Google+ has been on the minds of millions -- we present its pros and cons. Mashable not only releases breaking news, we help you learn how to apply it to your business, your interests and your personal life.

[More from Mashable: Navigate Pitchfork Music Festival With an iPhone App]

If spare time for reading didn't exactly factor into your busy week, here's a roundup of resources that appeared on Mashable.

Editors' Picks

Social Media

eBay purchases mobile payments firm Zong for $240 million in cash (Appolicious)

Posted: 10 Jul 2011 09:00 AM PDT

3 Cool Web Apps for Your Online Convenience (Mashable)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 11:22 AM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Sat Jul 9, 2:22 pm ET

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Each weekend, Mashable handpicks a few startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.

[More from Mashable: What's In a Name: Google+ Is Your Plus One]

Startups pop up every day, adding an extra layer of convenience to our online experiences. This weekend's bunch is no different, each making common online functions more useful.

The online job seeker should see if his résumé passes the test with RezScore's résumé grading application. The amateur photographer can graduate to professional status on the web and make a few sales with the help of Artflakes. And, the spontaneous daily deal buyer might want to offload some bad buys with the help of CouponTrade.

[More from Mashable: Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART]]

RezScore: Résumé Report Cards

Quick Pitch: RezScore is a free web app that reads, analyzes and grades résumés.

Genius Idea: Résumé report card.

Mashable's Take: Our social media achievements may speak to our professional feats, but most hiring managers will still want to see an old-fashioned résumé during the job application promises. Thankfully, startup RezScore promises to grade your résumé before you hand over a flunking CV.

The site uses proprietary algorithms -- based on the practices and preferences of résumé writers, hiring managers, HR directors and job search experts -- to read through your résumé in seconds. It then returns a letter grade anywhere between an A+ and F-.

RezScore also offers tips for improving your resume, and you can connect with the site's expert "evisors" for additional assistance.

Artflakes: Art That's Accessible

Quick Pitch: Artflakes is a community marketplace for art prints, posters and cards.

Genius Idea: Accessible art from amateur photographers.

Mashable's Take: Hobby photographers and artists have a friend in Artflakes, a printing service they can use to sell their photos and share their work with fans, without the hassle of managing payments and order fulfillment.

The site translates photographers' shots into adorable pieces of art, ranks artists and photos by popularity and organizes works into collections for easy discovery. You can also upload your own photos to order prints in a variety of styles.

Artflakes sells art prints, poster prints, canvas prints, gallery prints and greeting cards for each of the images available, but we also get a kick out of the startup's Instagram and Picplz sticker books.

The Berlin-based startup launched in November 2010 and now has more than 300,000 works by 20,000 photographers and artists. It's backed by the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft Fund.

CouponTrade: Couriers on Demand

Quick Pitch: CouponTrade is an online marketplace for buying and selling daily deals and gift cards.

Genius Idea: Dump those daily deals you don't want.

Mashable's Take: In the buy-now-or-forever-pay-full-price world of the daily deal, buyer's remorse is bound to be a common occurrence. CouponTrade to the rescue. Here you can sell your unused daily deals and gift cards, or shop around for discarded gems from other users.

In the near future, the seed-funded CouponTrade will also barter in digital coupons and coupon codes. Plus, the startup is promising to add a deal organizer with a map-based view.

CouponTrade's premise is far from new, but the secondary market for daily deals is here to stay.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pixdeluxe

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Q-and-A: Is Your Android Phone Getting the Gingerbread Upgrade? (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 10 Jul 2011 11:24 AM PDT

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Sun Jul 10, 2:24 pm ET
Contribute content like this. Start here.

Gingerbread is the latest version of Google's open-source Android operating system for smartphones. Each version is named after a dessert, and they go in alphabetical order: Cupcake, Donut, and so on.

The last version, Froyo, was sort of like Mac OS X Leopard in that it introduced a ton of new features. (For you Windows fans, it was like Vista except that it worked.) Gingerbread is more like Snow Leopard or Windows 7, in that it doesn't add very many new features but it just makes things better overall, with things like an improved on-screen keyboard and streamlined interface. You can read Ed Burnette's rundown of its new features here.

So when am I going to see Gingerbread on my Android phone?

That's a good question.

Can I have a good answer?

Maybe. It depends on a lot of things, really.

Like what?

Well, first, older phones probably won't see it at all. This may be partly because of heavier system requirements, but is mostly because of two things: Manufacturer customizations, and manufacturers' priorities.

Because of who to what now?

Manufacturer customizations are things like Motorola's MotoBLUR, Samsung's TouchWiz, and HTC's HTC Sense interface. They're like overlays layered on top of Android, that are supposed to improve it in some way or another. (HTC Sense is the most popular, in the Android community, while the others tend to be merely tolerated.)

The thing is, these customizations aren't just separate apps. They're like a layer of melted cheese on top of your Android sandwich, and they get all into the rest of it. So the hardware manufacturer can't just rip-and-replace, not if they want to keep from surprising people by taking their features away. They have to write a new version of their layer, that works with both Gingerbread and your phone.

That's probably the biggest reason why your older phone may never see Gingerbread.

You said two things, though. What's this about "manufacturers' priorities?"

The fact that they'd rather get you to buy a new phone than make your old phone better.

But Apple does free iPhone upgrades all the time!

That's Apple, not Android. For an Android smartphone the upgrade process is often painful and messy, if it even happens at all. I was lucky my HTC Aria got an update to Froyo, and I had to blow the whole thing away to install it. Then it messed something up on my phone, and I had to work around that.

OK ... so is my phone getting Gingerbread or not?

The easiest way to find out is to check with your manufacturer or wireless carrier, and see what they have to say. You can also type "(the name of your phone) gingerbread" into your favorite search engine.

There are a few phones that are rumored to be getting Gingerbread soon. These include the Droid Incredible 2, the Samsung Droid Charge, the HTC Desire and the Samsung Epic. That's partly based on rumors, and partly based on official communication; in the HTC Desire's case, HTC previously said they wouldn't upgrade the Desire before changing its mind.

Of course, there are two other ways to get a Gingerbread phone.

What are those?

The first one is to root your phone and install a custom ROM, like CyanogenMod. I didn't really enjoy doing that, but somebody else might.

The second? Do what the manufacturers want you to do and buy a new phone that has Gingerbread on it. If you like your old phone, though, there's really no need. Just wait out the rest of your contract.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Virtually explore the world for business and pleasure with Tour Wrist (Appolicious)

Posted: 10 Jul 2011 12:00 PM PDT

Verizon Thunderbolt update fixes random reboots, drops free mobile hotspot support (Digital Trends)

Posted: 10 Jul 2011 08:51 AM PDT

Adam Rosenberg Adam Rosenberg – Sun Jul 10, 11:51 am ET

htc_thunderbolt_03

The latest update to HTC's ThunderBolt phone on Verizon is a study in cost/benefit analyses. On the one hand you've got some big fixes in the functionality department, with fewer dropped calls and an apparent end to the random reboots that have plagued some of the devices. On the other hand, free mobile Wi-Fi hotspots are no more.

The official update graphic from Verizon of course doesn't mention anything about that second part, but ThunderBolt-owning commenters over at Android Police, which broke the news about the update prior to its release, confirm that the feature is no longer free to use. Some of those same commenters also complain of the update's newly installed Verizon bloatware, though one points out that a bloatware-free custom update is floating around on the XDA developers forums. Not recommended unless you know what you're doing of course, but it's an option at least.

You could also simply accept the update and the bloatware that comes with it, and root your phone to get your precious free Wi-Fi hotspot functionality back. Unfortunately, even that process won't fix the biggest glaring absence in the latest ThunderBolt update: an update to the Gingerbread version of Android. The smartphone is still running on the older Froyo OS, and the lack of an upgrade to the newer version is a big point of contention among ThunderBolt owners.

A Conversation with Josh Harris (The Atlantic Wire)

Posted: 10 Jul 2011 07:02 PM PDT

Connor Simpson Connor Simpson – 2 hrs 13 mins ago

Thursday morning we wrote about Joshua Harris' latest tech venture, which he's calling "Wired City." He's looking to finance it via a Kickstarter project. (Just $21,267 of $25,000 to go!) Harris is most famous for Quiet, an underground bunker where people lived for free while being filmed passing into the new millenium. It was ultimately shut down by New York police and didn't do wonders for his bank account. After that he started We Live In Public, an early web video project in which his apartment was wired with cameras while Harris and his girlfriend lived out their relationship online. Harris is a pioneer of online television. He and that girlfriend broke up.

Related: Dot Com Relic Kickstarts New Tech Project

Wired City aims to be the interactive online television network of our lives. Each user will be communicating in different video chat rooms at all times. Everyone will film themselves as much as they can, and the more a user does to gain viewers then the more distribution and awareness they will be given. The higher a user's ratings are, the more promotion received on the Wired City front page, for instance. Users can work their way up an established hierarchy until they get invited to live on a Wired City sound stage. Once a user reaches the sound stage they will lead viewers on "missions" to solve problems on the internet, all the while trying not to get kicked off for another online celebrity nipping at their heals. Then, at the end of every day, content culled from some of the best feeds will be compiled into a one hour episode of regular television. The project has elements of Facebook, Twitter and the video blogging aspect of Youtube. It's new and dangerous and a little bit scary. The project has risen $3,733 as of Sunday night. The Atlantic Wire asked Harris a few questions about the new project over the weekend.

Related: A New Filter Can Tell Porn from Non-Porn Based on the Audio

The Atlantic Wire: A lot of your projects are open book, total access projects. What is it about the mundane day-to-day that you are so fond of?

Related: The Bill the Administration Wants to See Protecting Internet Users

Harris: This is a statistics game. In any given lifetime a series of events take place: love, violence, success/failure, etc. For most people there are vast spaces between significant events in their life. However, when a million people are in The Wired City world, several lifetimes can be compressed into one 24 hour period. So every day (just like on your local broadcast news channel) there is violence, murder, rape and pillage, as well as marriage, professional success and love.

Related: Seven Ways to Draw the Internet

The Atlantic Wire: What do you think will make others want to tune in too?

Related: Rebecca Black More Googled Than Libya: Worst Google Trend Yet?

Harris: The agents in the Matrix had a bug in their earphones. When fully realized, Wired City citizens will remain persistently connected to a live signal that tells them what to do and where to go. These instructions are based on a combination of the human element and predictive algorithms.

The Atlantic Wire: How will you deal with underage participants who might qualify to join a sound stage? 

Harris: In 2007, I did Operator11 in Hollywood, an internet television network that worked great but ran out of money (mine).

One night, a 12 year old, "Dinasor," out of Maryland was in the middle of doing a show, maybe ten people live, and asked a 45 year old shirtless "Texas Ranger" guy, "will you be my father?" A week later, I popped into another show and the Texas Ranger is asking Dinasor if he cleaned his room (he did), finished his homework (he did), etc.

At first blush you might think this is creepy, but it was, in fact, not. Since by that time we knew: 

  • Where the guy, Texas Ranger, worked and lived (including his street address), as well as the name of his wife and kids. 
  • That Dinasor’s brother was in college, his parents (never home) worked for the governement in Virginia, how he was doing in school (poorly) and his cat’s name.
  • We also had recordings of all the shows where Texas chatted with Dinasor.
The key is that the kid bought it. The man was now his virtual father. A week later, a freaked out Texas Ranger was doing a show without Dinasor wondering how to "unfather" himself.

The Atlantic Wire: When you say that "everything is wired" on the soundstage, how do you mean? Are there cameras documenting everything, separately from the bandstands? 

Harris: 20 years ago the concept of a home theatre was a novelty, and now it is an ingrained commodity, even available on your phone. Now, a home studio, a television studio in your home, is fast becoming commonplace with the advent of Skype, iChat, etc. Soon enough the marketplace will Sony-ize the home studio.

In fact, within ten years every room in your house will be a “Hollywood set” within the home sound stage. Ergo, the desktop, bath top, toilet top, bedroom top and the home theatre will be a main stage. Shakespeare was right, the world is a (sound) stage.

The Atlantic Wire: How will the currency work? What kind of "services" could we buy from other members of The Wired City? 

Harris: The key use of the currency is to exchange it for an all expenses paid (in real world currency) trip to The Wired City (where you get the honor of spending all of your waking and sleeping hours physically hanging out with all the people you met virtually). Of course, from a business point of view, this is a form of cheap slave labor since the people who paid to make their way on set are actually generating billable traffic.

Currency can pay for one of the uniforms, set back drops or even audio visual gear to help people attain higher production values for their personal identity. 

The most important use of currency is to pay for “missions.” An example might be asking 10,000 fellow citizens to hit the “Like” button on Facebook in order to promote a cause, product or service.

The Atlantic Wire: How are meetings with investors going? 

Harris: Anyone reading this who has dough to invest should feel free to contact me. 

The Atlantic Wire: Have you had any success with sponsorships?

Harris: Over the last year I have visited ad agencies big and small in New York City. I have yet to find Don Draper. 

The Atlantic Wire: Have you spoken with any television channels about the one hour distilled broadcast, or would you opt for a more web-oriented distribution through Netflix or Youtube?

Harris: Have you noticed that when you go to most major broadcast television networks’ websites that they suck? You're lucky if you can actually watch a show, and most are bad versions of TV Guide. The reason for this is that they all seem to separate their internet operations from their show productions. So the people who control the networks’ internet don’t really produce shows and the people who produce shows don’t really think netcasting.

I emailed Reed Hastings, CEO at Netflix, and got no response. My agent is talking to Youtube. I have hit the major Hollywood production companies, particularly reality producers, about ten broadcast channels and even Brian Roberts who runs Comcast. He sent me to the their internet guy, which basically was the end of that.

Navigate Pitchfork Music Festival With an iPhone App (Mashable)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 09:45 AM PDT

Brenna Ehrlich Brenna Ehrlich – Sat Jul 9, 12:45 pm ET

[More from Mashable: HOW TO: Promote Your Band With Turntable.fm]

Lovely, image-based scheduling app Diacarta has partnered with Pitchfork Media to create the first-ever iPhone app for the annual Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.

"The festival grounds aren't overly complicated and are simple to navigate," says Pitchfork President Christopher J. Kaskie, explaining why the fest didn't previously have its own app. "The [Chicago] Reader was a fine way to have our schedule laid out, but it was on newspaper, back pockets get hot, and it was a little big. This will make things much easier in 2011."

[More from Mashable: Come Spin With Gavin Friday in Mashable's Turntable.fm Room]

Now music festivals are offering scheduling apps to make planning what gigs to see more palatable. SXSW had Festival Explorer Austin Edition, and Lollapalooza held a hackathon to crowdsource its ideal app.

Pitchfork turned to Diacarta, whose aesthetic seems in line with the music fest's indie feel. Diacarta's graphics recall those whimsy-soaked gig poster booths at Pitchfork.

The app is extremely easy to use: Click on schedule and scroll through the acts playing on each of the three days of the fest. Click on a band for more info and tap the "Plus" sign to add a show to your calendar. Your calendar comes in the form of three clocks -- one for each day -- with the bands situated around the face at the time they perform. You can also share your schedule or an individual band via Facebook or Twitter, and check out a map of Union Park, where the fest takes place.

Although the Pitchfork 2011 app [iTunes link] is lovely, it lacks some features that would have made it a more complete package -- like the option to listen to tracks by bands at the festival. Push notification reminders would have been a handy addition as well.

Still, as Kaskie says, this is a relatively small music festival. There are three stages, and if you stand in the middle of the arena, you can basically turn around to see who's playing. So perhaps a fancy app isn't really in order.

What do you think of the new Pitchfork 2011 app? Have you used apps to help navigate music festivals?

This story originally published on Mashable here.
at 9:54 PM

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