a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Radiohead put you in a bizarre 3D world with experimental PolyFauna app for iOS and Android

Feb11
by on February 11, 2014 at 5:37 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Product Launches

IMG 2350 520x245 Radiohead put you in a bizarre 3D world with experimental PolyFauna app for iOS and Android

Out of nowhere, Radiohead has released an intriguing app called PolyFauna for iOS and Android. Developed in collaboration with Universal Everything, a UK-based digital art and design studio, it places you inside a 3D world which you can adjust by physically moving your smartphone or tablet.

Lead vocalist Thom Yorke says the visuals and sound effects are inspired by the song Bloom, which Radiohead released in 2011 as part of its eighth studio album The King of Limbs. “It comes from an interest in early computer life-experiments and the imagined creatures of our subconscious,” he said.

IMG 2344 730x411 Radiohead put you in a bizarre 3D world with experimental PolyFauna app for iOS and Android

It’s an unusual app. Each environment is fairly primitive, but the shapes and colors are so striking and unusual that you can’t help but be engrossed by what’s on-screen. Your only objective, of sorts, is to seek out the red dot that’s quickly darting across each world. If you can track it for long enough, the marker will fly toward you and shatter the screen, triggering the next stage.

IMG 2340 730x411 Radiohead put you in a bizarre 3D world with experimental PolyFauna app for iOS and Android

While you’re inside each virtual landscape, you can also swipe across the screen to create new 3D objects and save your work with an in-app camera, although it’s unclear exactly where these images are stored.

This isn’t the first time Yorke has experimented with technology to promote his musical efforts. Atoms for Peace, another group which he performs in, teamed up with Soundhalo last year to give fans instant access to live recordings. Conversely, Radiohead produced a traditional print newspaper in 2011 called ‘The Universal Sigh’ to promote King of Limbs.

➤ PolyFauna | App Store | Google Play

└ Tags: ,
a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Google Search Appliance refreshed to make it easier for enterprises to find documents and organize data

Feb11
by on February 11, 2014 at 5:06 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Google, Insider

95920158 520x245 Google Search Appliance refreshed to make it easier for enterprises to find documents and organize data

Google has announced an update to Google Search Appliance (GSA), its enterprise-focused product that lets companies search across all their content.

Version 7.2 of GSA builds on version 7.0 which launched back in 2012, but introduces a series of key new features that promise to make it easier to find documents, organize data and generally improve productivity. This is in addition to a redesigned admin console, enhanced language support and “advanced sorting”.

In a nutshell, GSA draws on Google’s search technology, but instead offers a customized incarnation with business-specific features. In a blog post this morning, Brent VerWeyst, Product Manager for Google Enterprise Search, outlines what the refresh entails. Essentially, it now lets users test and tweak their ‘entities’ – key attributes such as author, data and product-type – before the indexing begins.

In addition, it’s looking to make searches more universal. While GSA has always been about making all files searchable from a single box, with version 7.2 the connector framework that enables this has been made more flexible, with users able to build customized connectors that better suit their needs.

Finally, version 7.2 also now supports wildcard character searches for when you don’t know the full name or title of the item you’re looking for. This means you only need to know part of the name to be able to execute the query.

Feature Image Credit – Getty Images

└ Tags: ,
a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Google explains why it won’t add a ‘mute tab’ option to Chrome, considers Tab Audio API for extensions

Feb11
by on February 11, 2014 at 4:35 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Google, Insider

google chrome 645x2501 520x245 Google explains why it wont add a mute tab option to Chrome, considers Tab Audio API for extensions

In Chrome 32, Google added tab indicators showing a speaker icon to show which tab is making noise, as well as icons on tabs currently using your webcam or are being cast to your TV. The feature grew out of audio indicators added to Chromium back in February 2013, but despite the fact there are three different icons now, even when you find the annoying tab in question, all you can do is close it. Google has now explained why: it doesn’t want the core browser to be able to regulate content.

tab indicators Google explains why it wont add a mute tab option to Chrome, considers Tab Audio API for extensions

The explanation was first noted by developer and Google open-source Chromium evangelist François Beaufort. He points to a Chromium open issue discussion with the following post:

After much debate, we decided not to proceed with a tab mute control, as this crosses a very important line: If we provide Chrome controls for content, we’re implying that Chrome should take on a responsibility to police content.

Today, users are (rightfully) mad at misbehaving content for doing things like auto-playing annoying ad audio, but they should continue to pressure web site authors to change this behavior. Also, some have pointed out that there is already a mute button to the right of the audio indicator (the “X”). In all seriousness, note that many web pages will register onClose() events to monitor when users leave their site. Thus, closing the tab will be a very strong signal to the web sites that their annoying ads are scaring all their users away!

For “behaving” content, we think it’s reasonable for a user to click on a tab and use the content’s media controls to stop playback. In this case, a Chrome tab mute control would be redundant. This redundancy is bad since it can confuse users (e.g., to play a video and forget that a tab was muted days ago); and, based on experience, confused users often report unexpected behaviors as browser bugs, which would be a big distraction to the Support and Eng staff.

Beaufort also notes that Google is considering building a chrome.tabaudio API, which would give sound control to extensions that have been approved into the Chrome Web Store. As a result, it may be one day possible to right-click a tab and mute it, instead of being forced to choose between dealing with the noise or closing the tab.

Arrow chrome.tabaudio proposal

Top Image Credit: casasroger/Flickr

└ Tags: 
a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Google Cloud SQL hits general availability with data encryption, 99.95% uptime, and databases up to 500GB

Feb11
by on February 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Entrepreneur, Google

clouds 520x245 Google Cloud SQL hits general availability with data encryption, 99.95% uptime, and databases up to 500GB

Google today announced the general availability of Cloud SQL, which, as its name implies, is a MySQL database that lives in Google’s cloud. Among the new features is the encryption of customer data, a 99.95 percent uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA), and support for databases up to 500GB in size.

First and foremost, Cloud SQL data (database tables and temporary files) is now automatically encrypted. Google says encryption of backups is “coming soon.”

Other Google Cloud SQL security and reliability features include:

  • All Cloud SQL traffic on Google’s internal networks is encrypted.
  • External connections can be encrypted using SSL.
  • All hosts and Google App Engine applications connecting to your instance must be explicitly authorized.
  • MySQL user grants can be used to control access at the database, table, or even column level.
  • Data is replicated multiple times in multiple locations.
  • Scheduled backups are automatically taken by default.

Thanks to replicated storage, Google is now guaranteeing a 99.95 percent availability of the service. Furthermore, the company now considers a single minute of just 20 percent connection failure as a downtime. You can read the full Google Cloud SQL SLA for details.

Last but not least, all Cloud SQL instances can now store up to 500GB. The smallest D0 instance costs $0.025 per hour.

“Your data is replicated multiple times in multiple zones and automatically backed up, all included in the price of the service,” Google says. “And you only pay for the storage that you actually use, so you don’t need to reserve this storage in advance.”

The war in the cloud is only beginning to heat up. Not only are companies like Amazon and Microsoft fighting to increase features and decrease price, but they’re also trying to maintain a very high uptime percentage. Given Google’s regular Gmail woes, the 99.95 percent figure is a bold promise to make.

See also – Google introduces six-month trial for Cloud SQL, ups storage 10x to 100GB, adds EU datacenter and Google debuts four-tiered 24/7 support for its cloud platform services, prices start at $0 to $400 per month

Top Image Credit: Christa Richert

└ Tags: 
a couple of laughzillas on a blue diamond background

Toshl’s incoming update brings more monsters and a beautiful take on personal finance tracking

Feb11
by on February 11, 2014 at 3:25 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider, Product Updates

Sterling 520x245 Toshl’s incoming update brings more monsters and a beautiful take on personal finance tracking

Toshl, the startup that wants to help you track all of your personal finance and expenses, is prepping a new version of the app for the Web and iOS that brings a whole new look and feel, as well as a number of new tweaks and features designed to make the platform more sticky with users.

Speaking to TNW today at Finovate Europe, CEO Matic Bitenc told us that the next-gen Toshl app will land for iOS and the Web in Q2 this year, with versions to follow for Android and Windows Phone a little later.

toshl desktop 730x454 Toshl’s incoming update brings more monsters and a beautiful take on personal finance tracking

However, where the current version provides a wealth of functionality but few frills, the new version offers a frankly beautiful and engaging take on tracking your personal finances.

Along with changing the whole overall appearance, adding new graphs and filters and generally making it easier and more pleasant to use, the next version includes a whole lot more Toshl monsters. What’s that you say, Toshl monsters?

Toshl Monsters are a friendly way of giving you feedback on your spending habits, but rather than simply saying how much you have spent on a particular item, it shows you how much you spent in comparison to people like you (age, location, etc) and gives you a little monster prompt if you’re getting too far out of line.

ToshlMonsters 730x634 Toshl’s incoming update brings more monsters and a beautiful take on personal finance tracking

This data can also be compared to people in other countries or different demographics, which gives it enormous potential as an additional revenue stream for the company, although Bitenc stresses this isn’t what the company is doing today and any information collected is anonymized and aggregated, so there’s no chance of individual identification.

Toshl isn’t stopping there either. It’s currently in talks to remove the biggest pain point with the app, and any others like it – the data entry. Calorie counters, fitness trackers and personal finance apps all suffer from the same problem; most require manual logging.

However, in future, Toshl hopes to use bank aggregation to automatically populate the app with your spending info, pulled directly from your bank statement. For now though, manual entry is still required.

Toshl operates in an increasingly crowded marketplace, personal finance is a hot topic and while the platform can already boast 1.75 million users, the key to its success will lie in convincing those users to come back and continually use the app, which in turn provides more value for the user too.

With the update I saw today, that challenge just got a little bit easier.

➤ Toshl

Featured Image Credit – Matt Cardy/Getty Images

└ Tags: ,