Google has flooded the news streams today and this time with 41 additional features. Google+ will see a complete redesign, on all platforms, and this intros 41 new features put into three categories: Stream, Hangouts, and Photos. But for now, detailing the major new features will suffice. First off, a new Stream, which is inspired by Google Now. Second is a standalone Google Hangouts app that will integrate SMS, Google+, and any other messages you plan on receiving into one service. Third, is the amped-up default storage of Google accounts to 15GB, because now photos uploaded will automatically have access to three editing features: Auto Highlight, Auto Enhance, and Auto Awesome — all of which correct, sharpen, or do whatever they have to in order to fix the pic.
Google is trying as hard as they possibly can with Google+ and they at least deserve applause for it.
There’s a catch, actually. In order to use Skype online, you’ll have to make the jump to Outlook.com. A lot fo users seem to love the service, but as a Gmail diehard, I’ll be staying put. It’s also important to know that it still is in beta, a plug-in is needed to bridge Skype and Outlook.com together, and the service rolls out in the UK today, with the US and Germany following in the “coming weeks”. Browser compatibility is the base standard, of course: the most recent versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox.
The celebrities that have been praising Twitter’s new #Music app weren’t kidding: it’s seriosuly awesome. Starting off as simple iTunes Previews, Twitter users with Spotify or Rdio accounts (with more services being added in the future) will be able to stream, search, tweet about, and discover new songs based on what they’re interested in, find, or what others are listening to. And it’s all incorporated into an amazing UI on iOS or on the web. It completely is free to use (unless of course you have a Spotify or Rdio account which you’re paying for) and with the power of tweets and charts, will help you better understand and enjoy the music you already listen to.
So, besides being offered to only celebrities and select top-tier Twitter users, the #Music page remains mostly a mystery. However, thanks to some curious minds, we now know that it’s a webpage that integrates with YouTube, Vevo, Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, and SoundCloud; all for the sake of social media and music.
This is the Facebook Phone. Built by HTC (just like the previous Facebook oriented phone, the Status), the smartphone is called the HTC First, and incorporates Facebook’s new user experience called Home, which integrates notifications, the newsfeed, and all things social with butter-smooth animations. The HTC First itself has a will come in red, light blue, white, and black color variants. It’s very minimalistic has a 4.3-inch, 1280 x 720 pixel Super LCD display.
Straight out of a small developer get-together in San Francisco, Twitter unveiled two new features (really one in two) to advance the social network as a whole. First in Twitter-specific markup, a tweet will feature an application’s name, icon, description, rating and price within the freshly unveiled App Card and link to its Google Play or App Store page, for convenience. The opposite of this is Product Cards which highlights merchandise with an image, price and ratings.
This is perhaps the most hipster acquisition of 2013 — Dropbox, the famous online cloud storage service of excellent reputation — has purchased the up-and-coming iOS Gmail app called Mailbox. Essentially, this creates what could rightly be called “DropMail”. How much does it take to purchase a super-modernized Gmail app for the iPhone and integrate it into your company?
Ready for an official Twitter app on Windows 8? Sure you are; the app which is now available for free on the Windows Store comes in 22 languages and brings the usual Home / Connect / Discover / Me tabs that you’d see on the iOS, Android, and Windows Phone apps. An added plus of the app is that it takes advantage of Live Tiles, with support snap view, the search charm, notifications and animations. Get ready to load it up on your Windows 8 PC or Windows RT tablet at the source link.
