Widgets Lab » News

Geek Love Speed Dating To Premiere On TLC December 18, 2011

Derek Anderson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:36:39 +0000

This is something that may go down as one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Wookie mating calls!

Blue Origin Short Hop Video

Derek Anderson — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:15:59 +0000

2011-11-17 Short Hop Video.

This is one of the more interesting launches from a commercial space company.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/blue-publicweb/videos/Short-Hop-Fisheye-2011-i.m4v

Definitely looks very stable!

http://s3.amazonaws.com/blue-publicweb/videos/Short-Hop-Handheld-2011-i.m4v

source: techflash.com

Don’t wait for Black Friday…Buy that computer now!

Derek Anderson — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:58:00 +0000

With all the hard drive eggs in one flooded basket (Thailand) you can be guaranteed that the price of all computers will rise…possibly dramatically.

Slashgear.com reports on the ‘new’ HDD pricing seen at Newegg.com

An example is the price of a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM 3.5-inch HDD sold on Newegg. The price back in August before the flooding for this HDD was only $50 to $60. As of November, the price on that HDD has soared to $139.99 thanks to the shortage. You can bet that the computers out there using that HDD are seeing a more significant price increase than that add-in drive has seen.

source: slashgear.com

News from Widget World

Derek Anderson — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:12:12 +0000

Widgets are everywhere
So many new services across the Internet are offering widgets it requires a dutiful eye to keep up with them all. From online telephone directories like Anywho.com to health widgets for senior citizens, if you’re a widget junkie here is a cross-section of offerings from the GUI universe…

On the Music Front
Spotify, the latest craze in music streaming, now offers itself as widget that you can display on your website or blog. All you have to do is embed a simple piece of HTML code and soon all your readers can check out any and all of your playlists. If you’re into ‘scrobbling’, or Last.fm, you can highlight your latest exploits there with a widget that keeps tabs on your last 5 tracks.

The Silver Screen, Streamed
Despite its catastrophic troubles making Qwikster fly, Netflix boasts two unique widgets for the tech-savvy movie buff to play with. There’s the Spotlight widget, which allows you to embed “add-able” photos of a certain movie or show. Let’s say you adore the movie Air Bud 2. With the spotlight widget you could showcase a screenshot of the Golden Receiver on your Facebook page and allow your friends to add the movie to their Netflix queue just by clicking on it.
The other Netflix widget is called the Bubble widget, which allows you to garnish the Netflix links on your page with the pop-up synopsis information about a certain movie or show, just like on the site itself.

Don’t Forget About Social Media
Facebook has widgets for just about every facet of their site, from the Like button to profile badges and registration options. Similarly, Twitter has rolled out a series of widgets that let you showcase your latest Tweets and allow others to ‘follow’ you and/or Tweet your blog. Almost any social media tool worth its salt integrates itself across the web using widgets.

Smartphone Mania
The Android Ice Cream Sandwich widgets were so popular they were leaked before an official release, allowing users an early look at the augmented Gmail and Calendar updates, with the more robust notification bars.

Breaking News
Reuters, CBS, Fox, and almost any news site you can imagine offer widgets that give bloggers the ability to scroll breaking news stories on their blogs or websites. The news agency Reuters offers breaking news, top news pictures, and market information all in three separate widgets. An innovative 2010 widget from The Huffington Post allowed users to share fund-raising information related to political candidates.
The popularity of widgets isn’t going away. In fact, some iPhone users have figured out ways to ‘jailbreak’ their phone and import widgets onto their dashboard. In the near future, it will be hard to imagine any online service not having a widget counterpart.

Is mobile Chrome set to arrive on Android?

Derek Anderson — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:08:00 +0000

Today on recombu.com there is article about the possibility of an imminent release of Google Chrome Mobile for Android.

I know that there are thousands of people out there who are reading this with absolute relief. They have been waiting for a mobile version of Google Chrome since the first time they picked up an Android phone. I know I have.

Chrome for Android is most definitely in the pipeline and looks set to bring much of the main features of the desktop browser; we’re hoping for the speed dial/smart home screen and tabbed browsing, which you can currently get with Opera Mobile and Dolphin Browser HD, but can’t get on the stock Android browser.

I’m pretty sure that the delay in the creation and release of this much anticipated addition to the Android universe is mainly due to the hardware. What I mean to say is that Chrome needs to run super fast in order to keep its good name from becoming tarnished. Older Android devices will most likely be banned from installing this app in the interests of limiting any fallout from unhappy users.

My Hero will be left out in the cold… I am almost 100% positive of this.

Here is a link to the code page with some details of the current progress of the Chrom(ium) for Android project. http://codereview.chromium.org/8008026

source: recombu.com