Games announced for Google+

Google announced that users would soon see a ‘Games' button at the top of their stream. There will supposedly be a list of games to browse from and invite others in your circle to. Some games that will be available are: Bejeweled Blitz, Bubble Island, Angry Birds, City of Wonder, Dragon Age Legends, Collapse! Blast, Crime City, Diamond Dash, Monster World, Dragons of Atlantis, Edge World, Flood-It!, Zombie Lane, Zynga Poker, Wild Ones, and Sudoku.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering for Google said, "With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web, but sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life."

For users who aren't really a fan of games on Facebook, Google says on its blog, "games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't". This indicates that the games can be ignored and probably won't show up in your stream until you choose to play them.


Source : ITP.net

Apple launching mobile web version of online store?

Apple is reportedly looking to launch a mobile Web-based store that promises to be more user-friendly than the current Apple Store app, according to a story today from 9To5Mac.

Citing information from a "proven source," 9To5Mac says the new store would "mimic" the Apple Store App but would be simpler and more accessible and let online shoppers more easily download software and buy other Apple products on the go. The new store would be accessed directly through mobileSafari.

The tech news site says it's watched Apple put this project on hold and retool it over the past few months but now seems on track to complete it and launch the new online store sometime in 2012.

The current Apple Store app tries to replicate the experience in a physical Apple Store, letting people search for, browse, and buy an array of products from Macs to iPhones to iPads to iPods. Users can also find details on their nearest Apple retail store to reserve a product, register for a workshop or other event, and make an appointment for a checkup with the folks at the Genius Bar.

9To5Mac doesn't know if the Apple Store app would be kept as is or actually replaced by the new online store.

Source : cnet

Apple releases first Lion update

Apple has released its first update for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - and it’s a bumper package.

There are two packages.

General client update:

This update addresses a number of issues, including:

• Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari
• Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out
• Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections
• Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion

79.29 MB download

Update for MacBook Air and Mac mini 2011 (Client):

This update addresses a number of issues, including:

• Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari
• Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out
• Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections
• Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion
• Resolve an issue where MacBook Air may boot up when MagSafe Adapter is attached
• Resolve an issue causing intermittent display flickering on MacBook Air
• Resolve an issue that causes the SD card slot in Mac mini to run at reduced speed with SD and SDHC media

68.86 MB download

Neither of these patches includes security updates.

Having problems? Give this update a go

Quickoffice Pro HD for iPad adds Evernote and social support

As I stated in my updated 2011 iPad Office showdown article Quickoffice Pro HD is one of my favorite applications. Today the folks at Quickoffice announced an updated version 3.0 available as a free update that integrates more cloud partners (they already had more than everyone else) and social networks.

You can now share documents to your friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, SlideShare, Scribd, and Docstoc. Cloud support is provided for Box.net, Google Docs, Huddle, MobileMe, Dropbox, SugarSync, Evernote, and Catch. Regular readers already know I am a huge fan of Evernote and at first I was wondering why I would need Quickoffice Pro HD when I already have the full Evernote client on my iPad. This is the first 3rd party Office application to integrated Evernote’s Premium features so that you can open and edit files stored in Evernote and then seamlessly save them back into Evernote. Since Quickoffice Pro HD has many more advanced editing features, this is just what I was looking for to make my iPad even more productive than it already is.

Quickoffice’s iPad app is currently available for promotional price of $19.99 in the Business category in Apple’s iTunes App Store.

Source : zdnet

Mobile is remaking entire industries, study says

Although multimedia adoption trends vary by industry, mobile is single-handedly “remaking entire industries,” according to the first annual “Technology Outlook” research report conducted by Bluewolf, which specializes in enterprise-class cloud adoption.

The survey highlights what Bluewolf researchers believe to be the top five tech trends of 2011. Mobile is at the forefront of the pack thanks to increased HTML5 adoption as well as an exponentially growing pool of apps designed for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

As for those industries that are being remade? Without a doubt, media is the leader here from a variety of angles as print publishers are finally going forward faster with digital, and then major networks and movie studios are licensing their material for online streaming.

Retail and “high-tech” (i.e. cloud providers, front-end developers, etc.) companies have also made significant gains in mobile, and financial services have made a small push.

Specifically, Bluewolf found that HTML5, Android and iPhone/iPad app development increased by more than 200 percent, although development for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile apps has dropped by roughly 50 percent.

The other four major themes we’re seeing this year, according to Bluewolf, are user engagement, big data, the consumerization of IT and, unsurprisingly, cloud computing.

Cloud computing as a major trend of 2011 has been drummed to death already, but the other three trends could really be considered as off-shoots from the cloud from certain perspectives.

For example, Bluewolf cited that big data revolves around “everything from data storage, warehousing,
and integration to Business Intelligence.” Well, cloud storage and virtualization are definitely going to be options there.

Bluewolf concluded that there are a few lessons that can IT managers can learn from these findings — namely, the value of the user experience and keeping the technology portfolio simple.

Even though most of the study findings make it look like companies should starting betting on mobile more than anything, it’s still a good idea to pay considerable attention to the cloud.

Tom Gooding, account director for financial services at Bluewolf, noted in the study, “Look seriously at what you can move to the cloud now (processes, applications or infrastructure), otherwise you will be the last in your industry to do so.”

Source : zdnet