Avira service pack brings new toolbar |
- Avira service pack brings new toolbar
- Fly the friendly RC skies in RC Plane 2
- Report: Google to rebrand Blogger, Picasa
- Microsoft skips Apple's copy, paste with Bing 'Lasso'
- Facebook blocks contact-exporting tool
| Avira service pack brings new toolbar Posted: 05 Jul 2011 07:39 PM PDT Branded search toolbars are nothing new in the software world, a significant source of revenue for many software publishers, but the Ask.com-branded toolbar that German free antivirus maker Avira launched last week is definitely new to that product. Available in Avira Antivir Personal, AntiVir Premium, and AntiVir Premium Security Suite, Avira's AntiVir Service Pack 2 includes the toolbar and numerous security improvements.  New Avira users will see this Ask.com-branded toolbar option when they install the program. (Credit: Avira)AntiVir SP2 comes as part of the program for new users, while existing users in the United States and Germany should have already received SP2 from the program's update mechanism. People in other countries will receive the update in early August. The toolbar itself is not bereft of security-specific features, as it does include an indicator to let people know when Avira's Web safety shield WebGuard is out of date. The WebGuard blocks you from accessing Web sites that are malicious or have been infected. WebGuard's "blocked" page has been updated in SP2, as well, with more detailed information on the site you were attempting to reach and why it was blocked. The toolbar works with Firefox and Internet Explorer, but not Chrome, and its inclusion is notable because it represents a new move for Avira in the ongoing struggle that the company and its competitors face in making money off of labor-intensive free software. Whether the toolbar will scare users off or inspire indifference has yet to be seen. Avira Service Pack 2 other changes to AntiVir include strengthened rootkit detection, enhancements to existing repair tools to more effectively clean an infected computer, a more detailed scan log for people who like to know what their antivirus has found, and better support files for users who have questions about how AntiVir works. The publisher has also identified some known bugs in the update and posted fixes for them. |
| Fly the friendly RC skies in RC Plane 2 Posted: 05 Jul 2011 01:22 PM PDT  Check out the scenery in RC Plane 2! Too bad that thumbstick is right in the way--and can't be relocated. (Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)I love to fly--as long as I don't have to leave the ground to do it. That means my fun time of choice is either a flight simulator or a radio-controlled airplane. RC Plane 2 gives me both. It's a flight simulator for iOS, one that focuses squarely on radio-controlled aircraft. In place of complex controls, you've got virtual thumbsticks for your throttle and ailerons/elevator (though you can also use the accelerometer for the latter). For 99 cents, the app gives you two environments over which to fly (Tuscany and a seaside village), four planes to choose from (three-channel cruiser, four-channel cruiser, fighter jet, and stunt plane), and two game modes: Free Flight and Air Racer. Want more? The developer offers additional planes and game modes (with bundled planes) via in-app purchase. Most of these run 99 cents and $1.99, respectively. For example, there's an Airbus package ($1.99) that comes with three jumbo jets, whereas RoadRunner (99 cents) challenges you to fly as low as possible along narrow roads and comes with an F-22. Alas, you're stuck with the two environments, which can certainly get boring after a while. A couple more would be nice. I had a far better experience with RC Plane 2 on my iPad than on my iPhone 4, where my two thumbs obscured a lot of the action, and the thumbsticks proved more difficult to control overall. Switching to accelerometer controls helped some, but I had a hard time getting comfortable with the elevators (despite fiddling with all the calibration and sensitivity settings). That gripe aside, the game looks terrific (especially on the iPhone 4), with some of the best-looking skies I've seen in any iOS flight sim. There's even a decent fiery crash when you hit the ground or smack a mountain--always a nice touch. I think the fun here lies in free flight, a wholly pleasant experience made even more relaxing by the accompanying chill-rock soundtrack. But if you like a little gaming in your flight-sim mix, RC Plane 2 offers that as well. It's definitely worth a look for fans of flight. Originally posted at iPhone Atlas |
| Report: Google to rebrand Blogger, Picasa Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:41 AM PDT  Google is planning to rebrand two of its most popular services, Mashable is reporting. Citing anonymous sources, the social-media blog said Google is planning to change the names of its Picasa photo management service and its Blogger blog platform to Google Photos and Google Blogs, respectively. Google acquired Picasa in 2004 for an undisclosed sum. Its technology, which can be downloaded or used online, helps users edit and manage photos. In 2003, Google acquired Blogger owner Pyra Labs for an undisclosed sum. According to Mashable, Google's decision to rebrand Picasa and Blogger is the result of its desire to "unify its brand" ahead of the public launch of its new social project, Google+. The search company already has several services that use its Google branding, including Google Docs and Google Apps. Although Google reportedly plans to rebrand Picasa and Blogger in the next four to six weeks, it's worth noting that Mashable's sources said Google has no plans to rename YouTube, even though it doesn't have "Google" in its name. The search company previously offered a Google Video service but shut that down earlier this year. Google declined CNET's request to comment on Mashable's report. Update at 1:58 p.m. PT to include Google's response for CNET's request for comment. Originally posted at The Digital Home |
| Microsoft skips Apple's copy, paste with Bing 'Lasso' Posted: 05 Jul 2011 10:18 AM PDT  Microsoft's new "lasso" feature lets you circle a word or group of words to start a search with them. (Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft is rolling out a new version of its native Bing application for Apple's iPad today that, with a new user gesture, aims to ditch the need to use Apple's built-in copy-and-paste feature. Dubbed "Lasso," the gesture has users drawing their finger around any word or words on a Web page to start a new search from that selection. That's versus selecting those same words with a tap, drag, and button press using iOS' built-in copy-and-paste tool, or manually typing them into the search box. In a blog post announcing the new feature, Bing group program manager Tony Chor says that "many searches" begin from pages users are on while browsing the Web, and that this feature eases that behavior from within the Bing iPad application. The data behind that claim is that users can save up to nine steps with Lasso compared with having to use Apple's copy-and-paste method, Chor said. Along with the Lasso feature, the company's app is being updated to let users go back to see the past week's worth of Bing home page images, as well as see multiple days worth of movie showtime listings at once. Microsoft released its Bing application for iPad in April. Update at 12:07 p.m. PT: The v1.1 update is now live in the App Store. Also, CNET reader bojennet points out that the Lasso feature exists as part of Microsoft's tablet tool set, and is present in other Microsoft products like the desktop version of OneNote. Originally posted at Apple Talk |
| Facebook blocks contact-exporting tool Posted: 05 Jul 2011 01:54 AM PDT  Mohamed Mansour's Facebook friend export tool (Credit: Mohamed Mansour)Facebook has been blocking a tool intended to let people extract contact information their friends have shared with them, the tool's developer said today--but he's working on a way to evade Facebook's restrictions. "Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove e-mails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. It will no longer work for many people," warned Mohamed Mansour, developer of the Facebook Friend Exporter, a Chrome extension that automates the data extraction process. The tool lets people save their contacts' e-mail addresses, birthdays, phone numbers, and other information into a text file or to directly import them into Gmail. That makes it much easier for Google account holders to rebuild their contact network at Google+, Google's brand-new social network site. The activity surrounding the export tool spotlights the value of the data contained in social networks. Google believes people should be able to extract information about their contacts and provides tools to let people do so. Facebook, the incumbent power in social networking, provides only a tool to let people extract what they themselves have put into the network. The friend list it provides is a series of names in plain text--no contact information, and not even a link to their Facebook pages to help distinguish John Smith No. 1 from John Smith No. 2.
Related stories: Facebook's actions to block the extension apparently were effective. Many users of the Facebook Friend Exporter tool reported that it didn't work, producing only names and the address of their Facebook pages, but not the e-mail address. In addition, Facebook earlier had begun showing addresses as graphics, not text that was easily detected, processed, and copied; Mansour got around this obstacle by extracting the information through the mobile version of Facebook's site. In a comment on his Google+ page, Mansour had this to say:
It's become a cat-and-mouse game. Mansour is working to sidestep Facebook's obstacles. "New version with a different design is currently deploying," Mansour said. "You might have to do exports daily. It uses a different approach, and I will maintain this version. Just bear with me." Mansour said that for now, he reverted his tool back to an earlier method involving iFrames. Facebook didn't respond to request for comment yesterday and didn't immediately respond today. The tool, though, doesn't look like a good fit with Section 3.2 of Facebook's terms of service, which state, "You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission." End runs around Facebook Rafael Laguna, chief executive of e-mail and collaboration software maker Open-Xchange, said in a Google+ post today that his company is working on a similar tool. "If it works we will release it on our test server immediately," Laguna said. The work is part of the company's SocialOX project that, among other things, is designed to give people centralized control over personal information stored at sites such as Facebook, Xing, and LinkedIn. Laguna acknowledges that it might be difficult, but believes the fact that the software is installed in many places will hamper blocking efforts.
Facebook's stance has triggered something of a backlash among those who don't like to see data that's been shared to them be locked up.  The open-source Diaspora project is billed as "the social network that puts you in control of your information." (Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)A Quit Facebook Day drew a commitment, at least an ostensible one, from tens of thousands of people to dump their accounts. And an open-source project called Diaspora has been working on social-networking software that runs on a distributed network of servers that could perhaps eventually become part of the federated social Web.. (A Diaspora feature, aspects, sounds awfully similar to Google+ circles: "personal lists that let you group people according to the roles they play in your life [and] a simple, straightforward, lightweight way to make it really clear who is receiving your posts and who you are receiving posts from.") Diaspora is in alpha testing now, with the first invitations sent last November. Such initiatives, though, have shown no signs of denting Facebook's dominance. Google is another matter. It's already got millions of Gmail users and several other online services people sign up for--Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, for example. It's got a strong brand name and lots of spare money to fund its ambitions. It's got a mature advertising technology to make money from it. And it's got plenty of experienced programmers and a massive global network of data centers to operate at large scale. What Google doesn't have is people using its services the way they use Facebook--a digital version of the minutae of life's interactions woven into hundreds of millions of people's daily lives. The hassle of rebuilding a person's social connections at Google+ is a major barrier to Google achieving that success. No wonder Facebook is leery of letting this data out of its hands. Updated 4:37 a.m. PT and 5 a.m. PT with information on Open-Xchange, background, and Mansour's updated approach. Via Emil Protalinski at ZDNet.Originally posted at Deep Tech |
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