Wired Geeks

Archive for the ‘Phone Application’ Category

Google Listen,latestly a new project that Google has added to Google Labs  and it’s sure to crowd pleaser for Android users..Google Listen,is an Android  application,which lets us to search through a web audio content, as quickly as possible.This application not only allows to search  the audio content ,but it also allows us to download or stream the audio content directly to our phone.This application acts similar to a podcaster by allowing  us to subscribe to audio feeds and new content is downloaded over the air. It is very simple to use this application, just go to the search bar, then you type and enter the thing whatever you are looking for,let it be a more general term or a specific podcast.The most relevant podcast and audio clips which are scattered across the web is pulled up by google ,then you can begin the streaming immediately. If you want to make multiple choices,you can build a queue, the playing of our  subscriptions will be automatically begined by Google Listen,when it has reached the end of the playlist.At this point ,the application is indexing “ thousands” of content sources only in English, But Google intends to expand to other languages.At this time ,Google Listen is available only on Android.This is due to the reason that, application is still under development. A fact that,this application has been omitted from iPhone has created a big issue,because Google has  got  its application approved  for App Store recently.Apple has also rejected a native application of  Google Latitude and it has also banned all the Voice apps of Google in the past few months.For competing with iTunes podcasting functionality, Apple would have smacked the app down well.Whatever the thing is, Google rocks  by supporting the devices it plans.

Google updates are now coming very fast in surrounding locations.Google has added locations to Google Maps a few days ago,for Chrome and Firefox browsers.Now it adds location to Mobile Web on the iPhone.In your iPhone if u have the new 3.0 software go to Safari in that go to Google’s homepage,if you see below the search box a new message saying,” New! Try My Location to find restaurants, shops and bars near you!”,if u click the link,a dialogue box will appear asking,whether it is okay for you if Safari locates you using device location.If you accept,below the search box you can see a blue dot showing your location next to it.This is a very good feature as mobile Safari can access locations,which allows Google based social networking,Google Latitude which works on the device without any native app.A interesting fact about safari is that,it can run apparently in the background like any other native iPhone app. It would be more interesting if Safari  is able  access locations when it runs in the background for something like Latitude.Many peope think that such features affect their privacy concerns,but Google says that unless you explicitly opt in,Google won’t search your location.And you are always allowed to disable this feature at any circumtances.The preferances is found in the bottom of the home page.

Recently, I heared  a news from a Chinese forum, that iPhone 3GS is perfectly capable of playing  720p and 1080p video, when it is encoded with H.264; But,the playback resolution had currently been limited to 640×480 by Apple,I don’t know why Apple artificially limits the resolution that can be played.May be, battery will get depleted so quickly when we play a 1080p video.But, A forum goer came out of Apple’s restriction himself, by playing a 1080p video at 30Mbps.A Mac book, would really scream in horror, if anyone tries to play a 30mpbs video on it,even when Plex is used.So,I do say that it is possible technically to play a “Full HD” on any iPhone GS. It is probably a overkill of watching such kind of videos on our iPhone.May be, one day, Apple would release an adapter that allows us to output a 1080p video from our phone  onto an HDTV. So, for the duration of that playback keep your iPhones plugged now itself,eventhough it’s  not exactly going to be elegant.

Apple Application Store has been officially hit by Yelp?s version 2.0 of its iPhone App.The importance of Yelp?s focus on the mobile space has been reported here.The new application helps the users in reviewing business via their iPhone and enhances its existing GPS capabilities automatically. Another feature is now Yelpers can write reviews directly from their iPhone through a Twitter like ?Quick Tips? feature which allows to create 140 character tips in the updated version of the application but this feature is lacking in its original version .The iPhone application helps in accessing the tips and if the site is a popular site it will be shown in a feed using the GPS capabilities when businesses is searched by the users .Another important feature is the friend feed feature which pulls our friens activites. Yelp allows its customers to write and post reviews even when they are travelling, eating,drinking. Suppose they have any bad experience in a place, say Restaurant he can write reviews in the same place and post it and he will be a little bit cool.The Yelp Application and GPS combined help to see the reviews of buisnesses where ever they go.This is the reason why this application has become so popular than its previous version.Yelp’s overall traffic is roughly around 1 million monthly visitors.

Many of them with Sonos equipment are filling up their abode with sweet tunes in their music library and the free app can be downloaded from the Apple’s App Store which is promptly hit by iPhone or iPod Touch.This type of apps may or may not be available right at this time,but it will be made to make its way to the Apple Store as soon as possible.Already,there are two Sonos apps which are currently available in the Apple store but they are not for free instead of that they want to pay $15 for each of the apps available.I have the seen the apps in person and this is very useful and very easy to use.When the Apps Window is opens it will prompt us to update our sonos’ firmware to 2.7 which makes sonos equipment compatible with the software. Suppose,we have brought a Sonos equipment in 2005 and we own also own a iPhone we are comfortable with the Apps.Above all that a Demo of the app in action along with the screen shots are available in the Apple’s App store.A update was made in the the sonos equipment is that Outbound link has been fixed.But this is not the last announcement for today says Sonos.

Few days before Washington D.C Police Chief ,has warned many people who were using radar detecting technology which includes iPhone applications.Using such applications especially like eyeWiki,allows them to detect the traffic cameras ,and the exact locations were they are placed using GPS.Hence,they slow down at that particular locations,but this doesn’t make sense as it could endanger many lives.The using of such radar detecting technologies as become illegal in Washington and Virginia as it might put lives in danger.The Chief also said that the traffic cameras has yielded a revenew of $1 billlion from 2005 to 2008,and if everyone starts using this technology and drive around ,this would affect the revenew and will result in a hole in the budget. Moreover ,this technology puts may lead to many accidents and will result in loss of many lives.The camera acts as a deterrent saying,drive in your speed limit or be ready to wipe of your pocket,but now as the locations of the camera are marked by the application used,people drive reckless all over except the places where traffic camera are placed and police will not able to get any of their money.But the fact is people don’t realize they are driving unsafely,even the Cops have only less money to fight against crimes.

When we start from point A, there may be many ways to point B,which is the place we have to reach,whether we are walking or driving.The Google Maps, has given us the routes which they consider it as the best till now,they also allows us to drag and drop the route for changing our path.But now Google, has added a special functionality in Google maps,which suggests us additional routes and  now we can see all the routes on the map for the purpose of comparison.Under the heading,named as “suggested routes”the other routes to the same destination can be accessed now.Like a Garmin device,this is also a very good feature for the GPS systems in car.The Garmin device had served for quite some time so that Google want to catch up,which makes a sense .The Alternative routes, are choosed by Google based on many factors such as, the distance,number of turns and travel time.Another important feature is, Google Maps finds the lowest “cost” ,based on the calculations using the above factors and based on the “costs”, it ranks the routes.But, alternate routes are not suggested by Map Quest but the site lets us to choose alternate routes by filtering directions by distance,highways and tool roads,which is similar to the functions of Google Maps.

Todaty GPS facility has been launched in smartphones and many of us are using it in which applications like Google Maps helps us to pinpoint were we are.But using a computer is a different thing, there are many plugins like Google Toolbar but most of the people don’t bother about it and do not install them. Now locations have been built in to Google Maps in the browser itself , but this depends on the browser we are using. If we use the latest version of Google Chrome or Firefox, in the left side corner of Google Maps we can see a little dot just above the street view guy. If you just click the dot you can see your exact location on the map, this feature is done using W3C Geolocation API standard powered by Google.This feature is more accurate on mobile devices,than in others as they have GPS facility in them.The location in Goolge Maps is mostly pulled from WiFi access points, if not from our IP address.If it wants services like Google Latitude to take off it needs ubiquitous location information and no matter we are on a laptop or our phone. Based on the current location Google serves us localized ads. Ofcourse,privacy is also maintained in this application as announced by Google.

As we all know Goolge Earth is one of the most powerful application for interacting with the Earth.It has also proved that it is one of the most powerful tool in the World of Web.A wonder about Google Earth is that its virtual application has helped to find the unknown mysery happened during a plane crash and it has also solved that problem,It was used by the Cops for busting out marijuana plantations in a remote areas and also allows us to explore all over the world,can explore Disney Land sitting in any part of the World.Now it has added a new feature which helps us to see buisness related information on both desktop and iPhone apps.This can be done by just adding a buisnesses layer to the Google Earth,after this whenever we start the application we can see businesses by default.Google Earth lists the buisnesses in order like grocery shop,gas station,bars, restaurants and bank further zooming will let us see more amd more buisnesses.The beauty is when we click on a icons additional informations like address. telephone number, reviews, and hours are provided.It seems that the database of local buisnesses is used by Google in Google maps.

Over a past few months, a collaboration is going on between Qik and Nokia, it seems that it would not take too long for Nokia to go ahead and put the live mobile video brodcasting service onto the handsets when the handsets are right out of the box. I am sure enough that the last month when they released North American N97, Qik came preloaded on all the Nokia S60 based phones.A few months ago, I thought that this feature had already came along with Nokia 5800, but I realised later that it was just a simple icon which led to a download page and Qik didn?t make appearance on the device at that time. But now Qik comes installed in all S60 phones and it is ready for use.This was a great challenge for Qik and now they had won in spite of all technical hurdles involved with streaming live video from a mobile phone and now people are getting it for there usage. Nokia has been treating Qik has pretty prominent in their ovi store,and all the mentioned preloaded download links are nice,but they are convincing people to make the leap,download the apps, register an account and broadcast, these seems to be really a tough sell. If any one step is removed,it becomes slightly less so.