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Saturday, July 9, 2011

Google to Stabilize Video for Google Talk on Android (Mashable) : Technet

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Google to Stabilize Video for Google Talk on Android (Mashable) : Technet

Google to Stabilize Video for Google Talk on Android (Mashable)

Posted: 08 Jul 2011 05:21 PM PDT

Charlie White Charlie White – Fri Jul 8, 8:21 pm ET

A common problem with video chatting using tablets is shaky video. Now Google has selected SRI International to embed its video stabilization software inside the Google Talk app in Android 3.0 devices, promising to smooth out those jittery video transmissions from front-facing cameras on Android smartphones and tablets. The Menlo Park-based nonprofit SRI International, formerly associated with Stanford University and responsible for the invention of the computer mouse in 1964, has been working on this stabilization software since the early 1990s. Now, Android tablets are fast enough to allow the software to perform its magic in real time.

[More from Mashable: The Future of Mobile Payments [INFOGRAPHIC]]

The software works by identifying the user's face, stabilizing that video before it's compressed for transmission. There's an added benefit to that steady shot -- the video is easier to compress because there's less movement involved, making the picture look sharper with less video noise.

So far, this video stabilization is only available for Google Talk with Android 3.0 installed. There are stabilization apps for the iPhone and iPad (such as SteadyCam Pro, which we favorably reviewed), but they don't yet work in real time, a necessity for live chatting.

[More from Mashable: 10 Top Google+ Users Weigh In on the Web's Newest Social Network]

[via Ubergizmo]

Graphic courtesy SRI International

This story originally published on Mashable here.

The New Verizon Droid 3 vs. The Verizon iPhone 4 (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 12:38 PM PDT

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Sat Jul 9, 3:38 pm ET
Contribute content like this. Start here.

Verizon's Droid line of smartphones are its signature, brand-name phones that run Google's open-source Android OS. It and the iPhone are getting sequelitis, it seems, as you can tell from the numbers after their names! But the iPhone hasn't had a fresh update in over a year, save for the release of a white model and for coming to Verizon's network, while the Droid 3 was just released. You can buy it online for $199, from Verizon's website, or wait until July 14th to pick up a Droid 3 in stores.

So why would you buy a Droid 3 instead of an iPhone 4?

Slider keyboard

This is the biggie, the feature a lot of folks care about that Apple hasn't seen fit to cater to. And the Droid 3 goes back to the Droid's roots, bringing back the horizontal slide-out keyboard that the first one had. Except this time, instead of making a chunky and plasticy phone Verizon says the Droid 3 is the slimmest slider phone ever, at about half an inch thick.

Bigger and better

"Better" is a subjective term, and a lot of people would rather have the iPhone's sleek, polished interface than an Android smartphone's raw power.

If it's raw power you want, though, the Droid 3 has loads of it. It has a dual-core processor, which means improved speed and gaming performance over the iPhone 4. Its camera can take higher-res pictures, and can record 1080p HD video compared to the iPhone 4's 720p. And its screen is four inches across, compared to the iPhone 4's 3.5" ... or the Droid 2's 3.7".

Stuff you probably don't care about

The Droid 3 has a few extra features the iPhone 4 lacks, which won't mean much to you unless you're one of the people who cares about them.

First, it's a world phone, which means you can make calls and use wireless Internet in more than 100 countries. Second, it has expandable memory via a MicroSD card slot, so if you want to boost its built-in 16 GB (or re-use a memory card from an earlier phone) you can. And third, it has Adobe Flash, although Flash still doesn't work well on smartphones and your mileage will vary as to how useful it is.

So what's the downside?

The biggest downside of the Droid 3 is that its release coincides with Verizon's new tiered data plans, and the disappearance of its old unlimited plan. If you're still on unlimited you can upgrade to the Droid 3 without losing that, according to Natesh Sood of android-apps.com, but if you're buying a new Verizon phone you'll have to have a bandwidth cap.

Besides that, techies might be dismayed to note that there's as of yet no announcement on when or if the Droid 3 will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich, the upcoming version of Android. It also only has 512 MB of RAM, which will slow it down when switching between apps compared to other new Android smartphones.

And, finally, it's like the Apple commercials say: It's not an iPhone. If you're attached to the Apple way of doing things, or to apps that aren't in the Android Market, Android's really no substitute. I personally like Android, though, so if you haven't tried it yet then give it a shot. You may find that you like the Droid 3.

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.

Motorola Droid 3 packs in the features, lacks 4G support (Appolicious)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 09:00 AM PDT

Google+ dominated news on Twitter last week, Pew says (Digital Trends)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 02:39 PM PDT

Andrew Couts Andrew Couts – Sat Jul 9, 5:39 pm ET

Google +

People just can't stop talking about Google+, the search giant's hot new social network. We know we can't. And according to a report by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, nobody else can either: For the week of June 26 through July 1, talk about Google+ accounted for 35 percent of all tweeted news links.

According to Pew, Twitter members "were mostly excited about the new Facebook competitor, especially when it came to the issue of privacy."

The No. 2 topic was "global warming," which accounted for 11 percent of all news links sent over Twitter. All of those links were from British publications, one of which was an article from the Guardian, which reported on a former chief scientific advisor to the government urging Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron to speak out about the dangers of climate change.

Next on the list is "hackers and al Qaeda," says Pew. This was due to the British government hacking a website of the terrorist group, and replacing the directions for making bombs with recipes for cupcakes. British unemployment came in at number four, and Tea Party presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann was number five, with 6 percent. Most of Bachmann's links were to a story about her husband receiving $137,000 from Medicaid.

News links are then only category Google+ won with regards to Twitter. As we previously reported, the Google +1 Button has already become more widely used on websites than Twitter's Tweet button. (Facebook still beat both by a large margin.) This is surprising, considering the +1 Button is still only vaguely useful, even on Google+, where it's functionality is most visible. Not just that, but Google+ is still in beta mode, and only open to a limited number of people. Once Plus opens its gates to the public, we have a feeling 35 percent of Twitter links is only the beginning.

How this app developer flexed its muscles to get featured by Apple and the App Store (Appolicious)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 06:00 AM PDT

BeenVerified CEO talks about bringing controversial Background Check app to Android (Appolicious)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 02:00 AM PDT

iPad 2 shipping time cut to less than a week (Digital Trends)

Posted: 09 Jul 2011 02:54 AM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – Sat Jul 9, 5:54 am ET

Apple has cut the shipping time of the iPad 2 once again. Now the popular tablet device will be sent on its way between three and five days after an order is placed at its online store.

When the iPad 2 was released in March, initial stocks were snapped up quicker than you could say "What do you mean, you've already sold out?" Reports at the time suggested that up to as many as 2.6 million units may have been shifted in the first month alone.

Not surprisingly, within a very short time of the iPad 2 going on sale, the wait time shown on Apple's online store jumped from the time it took to get your credit card out of your wallet to between four and five weeks, leaving many potential purchasers feeling more than a little frustrated.

Then in the latter half of April, the wait time was reduced to between one and two weeks. This came as something of a surprise as March's earthquake and tsunami in Japan was thought to have put a squeeze on the supply of components for the iPad. On top of that, an explosion at a Foxconn factory, where the iPads are assembled, was also thought to have further complicated matters.

Despite all this, however, it seemed that the supply chain was hardly affected, and even the introduction of the iPad 2 in a number of other countries appeared to have little discernible effect on wait times at the online store, which for a long time remained at between one and two weeks.

This week that was slashed to between just three and five business days, suggesting that supply is finally catching up with demand. The new wait time refers to all 18 versions of the iPad 2. A cursory look at Apple's online stores in Canada, the UK, China and Japan reveals the same shipping time. Barring some cataclysmic event, it's likely that the shipping time will remain there or thereabouts – until the introduction of the iPad 3 (or the rumored iPad HD), of course.

Google's +1 Button Already More Widespread Than Twitter's Tweet Button [STATS] (Mashable)

Posted: 08 Jul 2011 09:56 AM PDT

Todd Wasserman Todd Wasserman – Fri Jul 8, 12:56 pm ET

Google's +1 buttons have only been out for about a month, but they're already more common than the tweet button on major web destinations. BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform provider, analyzed the 10,000 largest sites on the web and found a 33% surge in placement for Google's +1 button during the past few weeks. The company found that +1 buttons are now on 4.4% of those sites, up from 3.6% in June. Meanwhile, Twitter's plug-ins are displayed on 3.4% of the sites.

[More from Mashable: TSA Agent Stuffs iPad Down Pants, Steals $50K in Electronics]

Both Google and Twitter trail far behind Facebook, whose plug-ins, most notably its "Like" button, are on about 20% of the sites' front pages. Note: Although the chart below lists Twitter's plug-in as a "Twitter Share," BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu says it refers to the Twitter tweet button.

[More from Mashable: Rowling's Pottermore Tweets Preview Photos]

To put +1's growth in perspective, Facebook's "Like" button showed up on 50,000 websites a week after the company announced a web-wide "Like" button last April. It was on more than 100,000 sites within a month. Twitter, meanwhile, made its tweet button available to publishers last August.

A Google rep declined comment on the report.

The study also notes adoption for links to Facebook Pages or Twitter feeds on front pages. Such links are much more popular than buttons, but still, more than half -- 51% of the sites -- have no Facebook or Twitter link on their front pages.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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