19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Naviflix brings MENA movie listings to Android [TNW Middle East]
- Teen buys his own songs 2000 times with stolen credit cards, reaps £500,000 royalties [TNW UK]
- iPad text editors: Which one to choose? [TNW Lifehacks]
- Viinyl: A sexy twist on digital track distribution [TNW Apps]
- textPlus brings group messaging to the iPod Touch and iPad, at a cost [TNW Apps]
- 10 Last Minute Gifts for Mobile Geeks [TNW Mobile]
- Camera+ is back with huge updates and a free upgrade [TNW Apps]
- The Chrome Web Store is broken and it’s not Google’s fault [TNW Google]
- Instagram Expands the Definition of a Check-In with the Help of Foursquare [TNW Location]
- The Next Big Thing might just be the Cloud [TNW Shareables]
- Coming Soon on Facebook: News Feed Filter Revamp [TNW Facebook]
- Quick! Take down your Christmas lights, these are smarter. [TNW Mobile]
- Merriam Webster unveils its free iPhone dictionary app with Voice Search [TNW Apps]
- Think Mother Nature makes rainbows? Think again. [TNW Shareables]
- Photos: The Day Niagara Falls Went Dry [TNW Shareables]
- 44% of Brits will use their smartphone to buy gifts this Christmas [TNW Mobile]
- My Blackberry Is Not Working! [TNW Shareables]
- Adidas’ new Facebook sales campaign innovates but doesn’t execute [TNW Social Media]
- Last Minute Gifts for Bloggers [TNW Media]
- A Christmas gift from Squarespace: The iPad app has finally arrived [TNW Apps]
| Naviflix brings MENA movie listings to Android [TNW Middle East] Posted: 22 Dec 2010 02:19 AM PST
When we covered Naviflix for the iPhone back in April we thought it got the job done for UAE movie lovers. This time around, Naviflix has decided to take the service to the next level, providing the service to 9 countries in and out of the region. UAE, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, India, and even South Africa movie lovers get to see what’s playing where through a location aware app that shows you the nearest movie playing to choose from. For a chronically late person like myself, that feature alone makes it a win. Not to mention it’s free. The Android version follows in the footsteps of its iPhone predecessor we reviewed here by being just as sleek and easy to use, they’ve even delivered on some extra features they promised their users 8 months ago.
We tried the app out on an HTC Desire here in Oman and we here at TNW absolutely love it. The Naviflix team have really outdone themselves this time, providing all the info you might need to get you off the couch and on your way to the theatre. From showtimes to movie trailers, Naviflix allows users to see screenshots of the movie, read Naviflix user reviews and even favorite the movie which doesn’t even require registration. They haven’t forgotten to offer a link to IMDB for those who want expert opinion before dishing out money for the movie, but if you’re a fan of any of the leading actors or more importantly, the director, such information is already there. But like most good things in life, it comes with its quirks. Since this isn’t the final release, the people from Naviflix haven’t yet covered all theatres in all countries included, so it still can’t be considered ‘the destination’ for movie goers in the Middle East. Until something that does this, it’s the only worthwhile option. Another major issue for me was the fact there is no support whatsoever for Arabic only speaking users, not even Arabic movies presented in Arabic. Flip Media definitely need to address this issue as soon as possible. Direct ticket purchasing is also a feature that’s yet to be added. So check out one of their versions: iPhone, Android or mobile web app and enjoy impulsive movie-watching in the Middle East. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Teen buys his own songs 2000 times with stolen credit cards, reaps £500,000 royalties [TNW UK] Posted: 22 Dec 2010 01:23 AM PST
It’s a pretty bold idea and the group allegedly made almost £500,000 ($773,000) in royalties from the sales while downloading the songs 6000 times between January 2008 and June 2009. One teenager in the gang has admitted being responsible for 2000 of the downloads, with the rest of the accused set to appear in court next month. If you’re the kind of person who hangs around in circles where you might get hold of stolen credit card details, it would be an easy enough crime to commit. Services like Tunecore make it simple to upload music to iTunes and Amazon – and hey, who says that music has to be any good? While credit card fraud is heavily monitored by banks, we wouldn’t be surprised if one or two struggling record labels aren’t thinking (at least in jest) “Why didn’t we think of that?” The Daily Mail reports that the trial is now on hold until 25 January, when the rest of the group’s cases will be heard.The Daily Mail, Engadget, Image source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| iPad text editors: Which one to choose? [TNW Lifehacks] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:51 PM PST
Is iWork worth it? I admit I caved and got Pages and Numbers for my iPad pretty quickly. I wanted to see if I could really work on my iPad. Did grab Keynote later as well to round out the suite. Now, I did this before I switched to using iWork on my MBP for most things (with the exception of editing book chapters which have to be done in Word), and now that I try to use iWork most of the time, it makes sense to try to keep working in the same general file format. This doesn't answer the question, though, are the apps worth it? Mostly. Since I haven't tried QuickOffice (I'd be happy if someone gifted it to me though!), I can't speak for the editing experience in those apps, but from using Pages and Keynote (honestly I don't think I've fired up Numbers more than once, silly I know) I think they are pretty good for rich text editing. This is an important point. If you're just doing text editing, Pages is overkill. Presentations, well … that's different, but Pages is a nice app for the iPad. If you need to format a document, Pages is going to be the app to use. If not? If you're just working in plain text or Markdown then pulling that into another app, skip Pages. PlainText and Writings: Syncing with Dropbox FTW If you're going to go bargain basement on a text editor that also syncs with Dropbox, PlainText (free. but $5 to remove adds) is very hard to beat. It's a basic, no frills app that just lets you get down to writing. Writings for iPad ($5) (Disclosure: I was in the private beta test, so I received the app for free while testing.) is a much more elegant app for the iPad. It also has Dropbox syncing, but adds a really nice UI on top of of the usual features. It doesn't allow you to create folders like PlainText does, but the extras like being able to create docs to and from the clipboard, tying into the "Edit in…" dialogs and a nice full screen focus mode (like WriteRoom). I'm torn between these two apps. Yep, PlainText is free (if you don't mind ads), but Writings just looks nicer. I like nicer. Writings has nice word count, spell check, and margins features…it's just an elegant app to use. Both these apps work with Dropbox in the same way: they create a folder that text files are created and stored in. If you want to edit the files in another app, just open the folder and edit the file and save it. Again, these are just plain text files, nothing fancy…just like SimpleNote. Basic, slam it out writing. Don't knock it either. Sometimes it's a lot easier to just blast out the words in text than having to worry about dealing with a blog editor, formatting, links, or whatever. That said, I think these apps could really use support for Markdown to take editing to another level of awesomeness. I know I can still use Markdown in the editor, I just need to switch to another app (nvALT for example) to get the HTML for posting into WordPress and other places. Being able to write in Markdown, then copy HTML to the clipboard would let me tap into a whole new level of coolness for posting on the go. What about… Yes, I know there are a ton of apps out there for writing. Personally, especially now that I've been doing a lot of work in SimpleNote and nvALT, I'm enjoying the "peace and quiet" of a simple text editor. Oh, don't get me wrong, I love Scrivener on my MBP and wouldn't write longer pieces or books in anything else, but … plain text is just freeing in its simplicity. Am I going to switch to writing in Writings or Plaintext? Probably not. My system with nvALT, SimpleNote, and Scrivener is working really well for working on blog posts. I have a nice set of apps that I'm using. However, I might use Writings for times I might want to share docs with other people in text or just not use SimpleNote for some reason. The only drawback is that I really like nvALT for writing (especially using Markdown for posts), and my other text editors just aren't as nice for writing in. Confused yet? No doubt. I think the question of what to use for writing on your iPad is going to depend on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to work on formatted documents, it's the iWork suite for iPad or QuickOffice. No question. The one you pick will depend on what you're using on your desktop, but QuickOffice (it's on sale right now) has a much stronger feature set for saving and syncing than iWork does (including Dropbox syncing). QuickOffice wasn't available as a native iPad app when I got my iPad, in hindsight, I might have picked that as the one app to get over the three iWork ones, but … ah well. For text editors, I'd start with PlainText to see if it meets your needs, but do think about Writings as a more feature-rich and visually appealing option for text file.photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Viinyl: A sexy twist on digital track distribution [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:29 PM PST
This music service offers artists a new platform to share their music with millions of people, engage audiences and connect with other musicians within Viinyl's community. Musicians already have a series of different options to distribute tracks on the web. Services such as BandCamp, FMA and MySpace enable musicians to market their music. However, compared to Viinyl, they fail to stack up in aesthetics and polish. And polish is something you want associated with your brand. At first glance, the clean design of the interactive song pages are brilliant. Song pages are dedicated to one single track, it isn't meant to present the entire album or be used as a musician's homepage. 1 song, 1 page and 1 unique url.
After launching a page, fans are greeted with a slick YouTube pop-up of the song (if the artist included one) as well as a streaming audio version. It displays artist details like bios, contact info, lyrics of the song and a link to the official site of the musician. It also includes a few necessary marketing channels to share the song; Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Although artists can choose to keep songs free, the pages can additionally offer direct links to purchase the song from services like iTunes, or through the aforementioned service BandCamp.
Within the back-end of the service, the user dashboard is equipped with multiple tools to add music, album/song art and the music genre; rock, blues, electronica etc. Nicely users have control over the name of the unique url, copyright restrictions and how the track should be shared. And the songs can be set to stream only or be made available for download.
Viinyl is still in private beta and has yet to put the final touches on its service. As an example, there are currently no working artist galleries, but since music genre details can be added to track, we'll assume users will soon be able to browse tracks by both genre and musician. Viinyl will also be adding more options within the back-end of the site including a new feature call Wallbums. We can't guarantee the song pages or the Viinyl community has a lot of reach however when it comes to ease of use, design and price, Viinyl is a major win. If you’re an artist, band or part of their team, visit Viinyl to sign up for an invite. The team will be sending out invites daily, and at this time, the site is completely free. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| textPlus brings group messaging to the iPod Touch and iPad, at a cost [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:46 PM PST
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| 10 Last Minute Gifts for Mobile Geeks [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 06:36 PM PST Cinema Seat
There are several reasons this is a good idea. First off, depending on the age of the child, it might not be the best idea to let them mess with the iPad. The idea of possible spills, scratches or the deletion of documents would make any iPad user cringe –this accessory makes the iPad hands-off. Also, if there's more than one person in the backseat, someone would be stuck holding it on their lap but with Cinema Seat, the iPad is nicely positioned at eye level. The backseat case additionally holds small accessories in its pocket and still allows users to access iPad connector and controls. It’s priced at $39.99. Foodie iPhone Cases — Like Bacon?
GorillaPod for iPhone & iPod Touch
BringrrDo you know someone who constantly leaves their phone at home? Bringrr is a Bluetooth accessory that fits into the car's power socket and is capable of telling you when you forgot your device. When you start the car, Bringrr will immediately start searching for the device over Bluetooth and if it can't find the device, it notifies the user that the device is out of range. Aside from reminding users to grab their devices, the Bringrr Charge model also charges the battery while the Bringrr Classic is limited to acting as a 'device reminder'.Bringrr is available in 2 different versions; iPhone and Micro USB (Android). The models are $29.95- $39.95 and it works will almost all Bluetooth enabled devices. Scosche KickBACK P1 iPad Case
iTrip DualConnect (Car charger + FM Transmitter)
Powermat 2X Portable Mat & Powercube
Multi-Touch Gloves
HD Anti-Glare Film for iPad
Pinball Magic & JackPot SlotsNewpotatotech have designed series of accessories that can turn your iPhone into either a slot or pinball machine. Pinball Magic JackPot Slots
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| Camera+ is back with huge updates and a free upgrade [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:17 PM PST
Now, though, the favorite camera app of many is back in the app store and ready to rock your photography world again. But it’s not just the app’s return that has caught our attention; far from it, in fact. What’s really gotten us excited is the huge list of changes that are included in the newest version. The full list reads like a novel, but here are the highlights:
Good news for those of you who are existing users of Camera+ — the new version will be a free upgrade for you. Haven’t used it yet? You can snag it now from the App Store for 99¢. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Chrome Web Store is broken and it’s not Google’s fault [TNW Google] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:58 PM PST
But the Web Store is broken. Not because of Google — at least not in full — but more because developers simply aren’t looking at its full potential. The question that was asked, and I think that it’s the one that still remains, is whether the Web Store really solves a problem that already exists. While many of us on the front-facing side of technology do appreciate the move toward a cloud society, there is still a huge group of people who either don’t trust the cloud or don’t see a reason for it. After the first day of using a few applications downloaded via the Web Store, I was already seeing my patterns shift. The real problem that I’ve found, like so many others on the store, is that many developers and/or sites just aren’t taking full advantage of the Chrome browser platform. There are a number of “apps” that are nothing more than handy links to another site. The notable exception, of course, being ChromeDeck. TweetDeck on the Chrome browser is a thing to behold. It’s slick, it’s fast and it’s just about as powerful as the vast majority of people would ever need. Though it does employ user streams, it’s not dead-on real-time, but it’s really close. The best part? It’s not some off-machine website. Everything in TweetDeck for Chrome is rendered natively in the browser, taking full use of the application’s ability to host other applications. TweetDeck on Chrome is something that honestly does solve a problem. For those of use who use TweetDeck as our main Twitter client, dealing with the frustrations of the laggy Adobe Air platform is a pain. ChromeDeck solves this, with an HTML5 interface. While website-based “applications” might be slick looking, they don’t really provide anything that isn’t available in any other browser. Is the lack of necessity to use web apps really the fault of Google? On one hand, yes. Google could, in the same way that Apple does with the App Store, regulate that applications in the Chrome Web Store have to be somehow enhanced to run on Chrome. Is that fair to the rest of the world? Not really, but we’re not talking about fairness here. We’re talking about solving problems. The other side of the coin is that Google isn’t at fault simply because the developers haven’t delved deeply enough into the Chrome architecture to take advantage of it. TweetDeck did, and out of it came an amazing product that won’t run on other browsers. Pretty much every other impressive application that I’ve used, though, runs just as well on Safari, Firefox and even some in Internet Explorer. So has my behavior shifted? Yes, somewhat. In that case, the Web Store is working just fine. However, I’m still reliant heavily on apps to the point that I can’t use my Cr-48 for a full-day jaunt. I tend to look for apps more than I do sites. Or at least I tend to look for apps of sites that I like. I also appreciate the doors that will open in the future as more sites continue to migrate over to an app culture. The problem isn’t fully solved, but it also doesn’t fully exist. The Web Store, as it stands, is a broken idea that holds a huge amount of potential. It’s up to the developers, however, to realize that potential. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water… [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Instagram Expands the Definition of a Check-In with the Help of Foursquare [TNW Location] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:33 PM PST
"Yeah, Foursquare is growing like crazy, but their retention rate is lousy." "Facebook Places has already won." "Normals are never going to check in." So what do you do if you are Foursquare and want to broaden your user base beyond early adopters and make your service part of the everyday behavior of more users? You fish where the fish are – invest in your APIs, and make it easy for other services to integrate your functionality. This is exactly what Foursquare did, and the strategy seems to be paying huge dividends in the form of Instagram. Let's look at the numbers. At current Instagram usage rates, here is a table that shows how many check-ins (and photos) that Foursquare may be getting access to by virtue of being the local database of choice for the fast growing Instagram.
* assumes 2592000 seconds in a month These are not trivial numbers, folks. And this is via one third party developer, that is two months old. Where will Instagram, and by extension Foursquare, be in a year? Clearly this is a nice win for Foursquare, and one that is likely moving the check-in dial far more than some of their big brand partnerships. But what's going on here is something much larger. It's the broadening of the definition of the check-in to include things like taking a photo or using your Safeway card. There was a recent study by the Pew Research Center that found that only 4% of online Americans have ever checked into a location based service. Here's what my friend Eghosa Omoigui had to say about that: "Wrong. Only 4% of Americans know that they're checking in. 100% of Americans check-in. When they snap a photo. Or use a credit card. Or make a phone call…." You get the picture. By exposing their APIs, Foursquare has begun the work of mapping all sorts of activities to the check in gesture, in the process vastly broadening their insight into the real world behavior of consumers. Any wonder they are hiring a data scientist? [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Next Big Thing might just be the Cloud [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:55 PM PST We all know about the Cloud right? Or Cloud Computing as some might say. Well it seems that it is the future, some companies already knew this but lately I’ve found that most consumers don’t. Now I know almost all readers of TNW must have heard about it before or might already call themselves Cloud Guru’s but I wanted to share this especially with the folks that could use some in depth info about what’s next. Social Media might need to give way. The team over at JESS3 created this cool vintage looking video which shows the rapid growth: Want the facts given to you straight? Well here you go:
So how and with what are we using the Cloud?
I can’t wait to see SM “experts” suddenly rebrand themselves when businesses want a piece of the Cloud. Do you know of any other great services that use the Cloud to its fullest potential? Please let us know below.The state of Cloud Computing [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Coming Soon on Facebook: News Feed Filter Revamp [TNW Facebook] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:37 PM PST I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg is giving the staff a few days off this holiday season. Santa knows the kids deserve it. They’ve been busy, busy, busy at the Palo Alto pole, rolling out new features (even if by accident), making Facebook an even more impressive machine. Now, Inside Facebook reports that Facebook is rolling out a new way to filter the news feed. “Users with access to the new feature see a drop-down arrow beside their Most Recent news feed tab, revealing filters for status updates, Photos, Links, Pages, and friend lists. Facebook has implemented different designs of news feed filters over the years to help users view updates of specific content types or from certain subsets of their friends.” Check out the new look below.
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| Quick! Take down your Christmas lights, these are smarter. [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:06 PM PST
iGloLEDset is a very slick new product that brings interactive lighting into your Christmas household, set completely using your smartphone. Available on both iOS and Android devices, iGloLEDset is a very bright, full colour lighting kit where users can wave their phones in the air to control a 16 to 50 foot strip of lights that features between 120 and 360 lights. MEA Mobile hopes that the lights will tempt architectural markets, restaurants, custom car specialists and casual hobbyists who want to introduce a greater sense of interactivity to their Christmas decorations. The lights themselves are controlled via an app that updates the colour of the LED lights in real-time, as well as offering a number of presets to choose from. It connects to the household Wi-Fi network and can be accessed remotely to change various settings before downloading the app. It’s certainly not cheap at $299, but who can say they have complete control over the colour and frequency of their Christmas lights? [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Merriam Webster unveils its free iPhone dictionary app with Voice Search [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:45 PM PST Today, Merriam-Webster announces its free iPhone app, featuring Voice Search.
Along with voice search, the free app offers more than 225,000 definitions from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and 300,000 synonyms and antonyms from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus. Additional features include the popular Word of the Day, example sentences, audio pronunciations, and recent look-up history. First let me say that I am a huge fan of MW’s Word of the Day. I usually get it right in my inbox, but this is much more convenient (one less e-mail to get through), since I can now open it when I want to. And I will want to. Right now Dictionary.com‘s app (an extension of Ask.com) sits on my home screen and it’s one of my most used apps. Both apps work without an Internet connection, although a connection is required to pronounce each word and for Voice Search on MW, which is a feature Dictionary.com doesn’t have. Both apps also provide the etymology of each word. It’s a close call. Merriam Webster’s Voice Search only recognized about half of the words I spoke, although I did learn a few new fun words with trial and error (see below). But unless you really dig the Voice Search Dictionary.com is the winner since it offers 50,000 more words than MW. Alas I’m still going to give MW, a household name, a fair try for now.
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| Think Mother Nature makes rainbows? Think again. [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:23 PM PST Michael Jones McKean, an American artist known for creating large-scale sculptural installations, has actually created a rainbow-making machine.
While his art tends to deal withv issues of narration, complexity, representation, materiality and failure, it seems the former resident at the Bemis Center and now a professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University has taken on a lighter hearted subject. His rainbow making machine creates artificial rainbows using natural materials. McKean has experimented with the machine in parking lots for years and is now preparing for a larger installation at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. I wonder if anyone has told Corporate at Skittles yet… via @SolarFeeds [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Photos: The Day Niagara Falls Went Dry [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:49 AM PST  The Niagara Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America with almost 4 million cubic feet flowing over the crest line every minute on average. It is one of widest water falls in the world, located on the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario, Canada and New York State in the U.S. The image to the right is what we normally think of when we envision the Niagara Falls. So you can imagine the surprise of a Connecticut man named Russ Glasson when he found a shoebox of 35mm slides of the falls completely dry. The photos below were taken by his in-laws throughout the second half of 1969 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was ordered to divert the American side of the falls over to Canada in order to remove debris from two previous rockslides in 1931 and 1954. On June 12, 1969, they completed a 27,800 ton rock dam that halted the Niagara Falls’ flow for the first time in 12,000 years.
In late November 1969, after the debris was safely removed, engineers removed the dam and rewatered the falls. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| 44% of Brits will use their smartphone to buy gifts this Christmas [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:57 AM PST
Sampling 4000 people, the survey found that a third of respondents would use their daily commute to complete a shop for goods and services on their mobile, whilst 42% said they would take advantage of being a passenger in the car to complete their shop. The growth of mobile shopping has been driven by the adoption of mobile apps but also because smartphone owners are constantly connected to the internet, having deals and offers send to them via email or via a social networking site like Twitter or Facebook. Glamoo has noticed that there has been a distinct rise in people ordering experiences for friends and family, buying paintballing or spa pampering trips via their mobiles. Glamoo allows users to buy the experience but then gift that purchase to a lucky recipient as an e-gift. The survey also suggests that more than one in five smartphone owners are already shopping their mobiles at least once a week. As retailers begin to move towards app based shopping and ensuring their websites are mobile-ready, this is only set to increase. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| My Blackberry Is Not Working! [TNW Shareables] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:43 AM PST [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Adidas’ new Facebook sales campaign innovates but doesn’t execute [TNW Social Media] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:38 AM PST
Replacing Tabs?
Innovative But Poor Execution
Remember Adidas’ Facebook Shoe?
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Last Minute Gifts for Bloggers [TNW Media] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:35 AM PST As the shopping days before Christmas quickly run out, here are some last minute gift ideas for the blogger in your life. The iPhone Glove by Dots- $20
They are available for both men and women and come in four different colors. Belkin Laptop Hideaway- £23.46
TikTok and LunaTik iPod Nano Watches- $34.95, $69.95
Kodak Zi8 – $99
The Kodak Zi8 is what The Next Web team can often be seen carrying at events and conferences and we highly recommend it. This tiny device is good looking, highly capable and rugged enough to take a few knocks along the way too. It takes SD cards, has a replaceable battery and charges over USB, meaning that it lasts and lasts. It shoots excellent video for its diminutive size too, recording 720p video that looks great on the web. Flickr Pro Account – $24.95
The free Flickr account is fine to start with, but a Pro account gives unlimited storage, stats about your account and the ability to play back HD videos at full resolution. Flickr also makes Pro accounts really easy to give as gifts, either as a printable card or by email. Logitech H555 headset – $59.99
This Logitech H555 does the job well at an appealing price, featuring a noise-cancelling microphone and ‘Super Wideband Audio’ for clearer Internet calls. Laptop skin – $49.95
InCase offers a range of practical and stylish skins and cases for 13, 15 and 17-inch notebooks. We’re quite fond of this animal-themed design, but more minimalist looks are available too. MacBook Air – $999 – $1599
What’s more, despite a relatively slow processor, it’s perfectly capable of handling all the blogging tasks you can throw at it. Right now, I’ve got 12 tabs open in Chrome, Spotify, iChat, the GIMP image editor, Evernote and three Adobe Air apps running on my 13-incher and it’s not flinching. It really is the perfect blogging machine. Coconatch $16
These little robots work via USB and will burst into dance after receiving a new message from its unique email address. This means you'll need to direct Twitter notifications to Coconatch's email address, and we're assuming it also means users aren't limited to just Twitter notifications–it appears that any new email will cause the robot to get groovy. If indeed all new emails are supported, users could potentially use Coconatch to work with any social network as long as the network's updates are being directed to the robot's email address. Livescribe $208
Using this clever pen and smart paper, the Livescribe converts handwriting for conversion to text on a PC, but also allows you to hear what was being said at the moment of writing by tapping on the note. The Livescribe pen now has app store in beta that lets its customers download applications to their pen . This gizmo really has to be seen to be believed, watch an interview with the founder here. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| A Christmas gift from Squarespace: The iPad app has finally arrived [TNW Apps] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:05 AM PST I saw how excited you all became when Squarespace, a publishing software company, announced integration with Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places. Squarespace has a Christmas gift for you! Their iPad has finally arrived.
Squarespace released an iPhone app over a year ago, leaving bloggers to poke and prod at a tiny screen for too long now. Editing posts on the iPad is a simple, nearly relaxing experience — with the larger viewing space, you’ll see tags, categories, excerpts, comment counts, and the post’s author along with the date and time. Tapping a post or comment opens a tray below the post, which lets you take action without losing sight of the selected post. Watch their announcement video here: In November, Squarespace made our list of the 20 NYC start-ups you need to know about, check it out here. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
TNW Quick Hit
The 
Sure, these accessories are a bit strange but they're perfect for foodie-iPhone nut in your life. 
The entire line of 
If there's someone on your shopping list getting the iPad, 
The
The 
Sadly, the multi-touch displays of the iPhone, iPad and Android don't work if you're wearing gloves. And, ripping off the gloves in zero below weather to simply check your phone, can be seriously annoying if not a painful task. However, there are quite a few brands making multi-touch supported gloves that solve this issue. One of my favourite pairs are called the 
This 
Pinball Magic
The iPhone fits into the
It wasn’t long ago that we were telling you about 
It’s been a few weeks since we first got 
It’s a little late to have made it onto your Christmas tree when you first put it up but a new product from MEA Mobile could make you the envy of your gadget-loving friends and family.
The voice search feature, powered by Dragon voice recognition technology, allows users to look up a word by speaking it directly into the phone.
A new study by UK-based smart buying club 
I was messing around on 
I feel warmer just looking at these gorgeous geek gloves. Knitted from one-hundred percent merino lambswool sourced from the United Kingdom the gloves undergo a rigorous softening process, working every fiber to its utmost comfort. They are then finished with a straight stretch cuff so that the thumb, index, and middle fingertips can operate an iPhone with skin-like responsiveness.
Let’s face it, gadgets aren’t exactly French Country chic. If you’re trying to keep your house looking nice for relatives, 
In November, 
If you’re at a conference, event or interview and typing is just inconvenient, the Livescribe is basically a computer in a pen.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Next Web To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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