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Norway takes inspiration from its natural landscape for a gorgeous new passport design

Nov18
by on November 18, 2014 at 1:03 am
Posted In: Around the Web

Norwegianpassport_spread_UV1
When you think about passports, “gorgeous” may not be the first word that comes to mind. Government, bureaucracy, pain-in-the-butt — maybe. But Norway, in its inimitable way, has likely changed the language around passports forever with the announcement of its new — and arguably beautiful — new passport design. The Oslo design studio Neue — which created the winning entry as part of a national competition — based the visual presentation on the Norwegian Landscape theme, which might partly account for its allure. The cover comes in three vivid colors — white, turquoise or red (immigrant, diplomat and standard). Imagine your less-than-flattering photo going on a fiord….

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Google updates Google Play services with new features for Maps, Drive and Fit

Nov18
by on November 18, 2014 at 12:28 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Design & Dev, Google, Product Updates

Google
If you’re an Android developer that uses Google’s Play services, today is your lucky day as it hits version 6.5 with enhanced features for Maps, Drive, Wallet and Fit. The update will be rolling out over the next couple of days with enhancements to Maps that includes a map toolbar that lets users get directions to a location without leaving your app. There’s also a new option for a “lite” map for when you need a tiny bitmap image of a location in your app. For Google Drive, the search giant has made file syncing more battery efficient and improves in…

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a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Google updates Google Play services with new features for Maps, Drive and Fit

Nov18
by on November 18, 2014 at 12:28 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Design & Dev, Google, Product Updates

Google
If you’re an Android developer that uses Google’s Play services, today is your lucky day as it hits version 6.5 with enhanced features for Maps, Drive, Wallet and Fit. The update will be rolling out over the next couple of days with enhancements to Maps that includes a map toolbar that lets users get directions to a location without leaving your app. There’s also a new option for a “lite” map for when you need a tiny bitmap image of a location in your app. For Google Drive, the search giant has made file syncing more battery efficient and improves in…

This story continues at The Next Web

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a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Twitter has fixed the issue that kept you from sharing URLs in Direct Messages

Nov17
by on November 17, 2014 at 10:56 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Social Media

1117_twitterdm_
While Twitter has been working on updating and expanding its service, there’s been one issue driving some users of the micro-blogging site batty; the inability to share URLs via DMs (Direct Messages). Today you can once again share URLs via DMs with your friends. The Twitter support page concerning DMs had up until today, a message that the company was updating its backend and infrastructure. That work has been completed and with that, the you can send URLs again. The backend and restructuring work need to be completed to help Twitter capture spammy links that could end up flooding users’ DMs. With that…

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Snapcash gives us a glimpse at the future of mobile payments

Nov17
by on November 17, 2014 at 9:48 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Social Media

1117_socialcash
Today Snapchat unveiled a partnership with payment processor Square to launch payments inside the Snapchat app. The feature, dubbed Snapcash, allows users to send money to friends on the network by simply typing the amount and hitting send. With Snapcash, we’re finally starting to get a glimpse of a promising future of mobile payments. These types of frictionless payments aren’t exactly new. Square has allowed users to send money over email for some time now, while competitors like Venmo allow users to send payments with simply a mobile number. However, despite the choices before today, they’ve been going about it wrong. Many of these…

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