Posts Tagged ‘fresh’

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Smartisan OS unveiled in China, takes a fresh approach on Android UI design

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Smartisan OS unveiled in China, takes a fresh approach on Android UI design

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Following the likes of Meizu and Xiaomi, another celebrity is born in the Chinese smartphone market. In reality, some might currently understand the man behind this brand-new Android-based Smartisan OS: Luo Yonghao, a self-taught ex-English teacher (and later on becoming the principal of his own English school until last August), as well as the founder of prominent blogging platform Bullog. cn (now Bullogger.com) and the chairman of Chinese font studio Redesign. Luo is likewise a relentless consumer advocate, with his most noteworthy act being his fridge-smashing objection outside Siemens’ Beijing headquarters in November 2011, in order to highlight the business’s rejection to acknowledge their damaged refrigerator doors (all clarified in the “More Insurance coverage” link at the bottom).

Already a bit of a legend in China, the 40-year-old serial business owner announced last April that he had formed Smartisan Co., Ltd. to work on a smartphone OS, which it would shame all makers with its innovative individual experience. Having actually missed out on the December target that he guaranteed, Luo at some point took the stage in Beijing last week to spend well over three– yes, 3– hours undergoing the idea process behind his Smartisan OS, so bear with us right here.

Gallery: Smartisan OS launch event

Gallery: Smartisan OS unveil: VisualsFiled under: Cellular phones, MobileCommentsVia: Engadget ChineseSource: Smartisan(in advancement)

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Facebook explains how the fresh News Feed came to be: a deck of cards

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Facebook explains how the fresh News Feed came to be like poker for social updates

Facebook made a sharp break from tradition when it unveiled the simplified News Feed, but how did it get there? As the social network’s Jane Justice Leibrock has just explained, it was as simple as shuffling cards. Well, almost. Leibrock gave focus group subjects a stack of cards reflecting their recent social updates and asked them to pick the cream of the crop as well as sort the rest into groups. The results led to the filtered approach that’s rolling out now: users tend to gravitate toward specific categories such as close friends, photos and direct interests, rather than piling everything together. As often as people accuse Facebook of launching surprise changes, it’s clear that the News Feed revamp involved at least some deliberation.

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Facebook explains how the fresh News Feed came to be: a deck of cards

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Facebook explains how the fresh News Feed came to be like poker for social updates

Facebook made a sharp break from tradition when it unveiled the simplified News Feed, but how did it get there? As the social network’s Jane Justice Leibrock has just explained, it was as simple as shuffling cards. Well, almost. Leibrock gave focus group subjects a stack of cards reflecting their recent social updates and asked them to pick the cream of the crop as well as sort the rest into groups. The results led to the filtered approach that’s rolling out now: users tend to gravitate toward specific categories such as close friends, photos and direct interests, rather than piling everything together. As often as people accuse Facebook of launching surprise changes, it’s clear that the News Feed revamp involved at least some deliberation.

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A Fresh New Office Finds a Place in the Cloud

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Tablets and smartphones may have taken over people’s lives, but Microsoft has managed to maintain a stronghold on the way many people use their PCs with one product: trusty Microsoft Office.

Microsoft’s newest version of Office, available starting Tuesday, is a radical change from the past. For starters, Office 365 has a surprising new price model: It is available as a subscription that can automatically renew each year, if you choose. This new system constantly updates program features year round. Every time you open a program in Office, you will be running the latest version.

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With Office 365, any PC can be activated or deactivated in one step.

It’s also more closely tied to the cloud, saving documents to Microsoft’s SkyDrive storage system by default, so your documents and personal settings are remotely accessible. With that, Microsoft aims to stave off Office challengers like Google Drive, which gives people a way to create and store documents online, as well as share documents and edit with multiple people.

What’s more, Office 365 gives people a centralized spot online where they can manage their account, showing them where they have Office installed so they can deactivate unused computers with one click or completely cancel subscriptions. And files are still accessible to download even if subscriptions expire.

Along with these broader features, there are significant changes to Office 365′s programs, which include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access. It does a nice job of bringing to the surface some features that were too far buried in menus for people to use. It also packs in many new features, some of which were made for touch screens and new devices designed to run the touch-centric Windows 8. And Microsoft has updated its Office Web Apps, stripped-down programs that offer free editing, via a Web browser, of files stored online.

I tested Office 365 Home Premium, which costs $ 99 a year and can be installed on up to five computers, including Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs as well as Macs running Apple’s OS X version 10.5.8 or later. Office 365 University, which costs $ 80 for a four-year subscription, is available for college students, faculty and staff. Office 365 for businesses will be released on Feb. 27; subscription rates will range from $ 4 to $ 20 monthly.

Traditional, non-subscription versions of Office are available for one-time fees, including Office Home and Student 2013 ($ 140), Office Home and Business 2013 ($ 220) and Office Professional 2013 ($ 400). These new suites still receive security patches, as they always have, and can only be installed on one machine and upgrades require installing whole new versions. Like Office 365, these versions of Office also now save to SkyDrive by default, tying them into the cloud.

I installed Office 365 Home Premium on two devices: a Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which had a touch screen and was running Windows 8 Pro, and a MacBook Pro, which was running OS X version 10.8.2. I also looked at and edited documents on computers that didn’t have Office 365 installed by using Microsoft Web Apps. And I set up Office 365 on a Windows Phone to access and edit documents on the go.

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The new version of Microsoft Word lets people have integrated conversations in editing comments.

To install on the Windows 8 PC, I used a product key given to me by Microsoft for pre-release testing, otherwise you would have to go to Office.com to buy a subscription and get a product key. (A free 30-day trial is available.) The Windows 8 PC install took about 20 minutes, and a helpful introduction walked me through key points of Office 365. One screen asked me, “How would you like your Office to look?” And I scrolled through a handful of patterns and chose a background that looked like rings on a tree stump.

When I installed Office 365 on the Mac, I just went online to office.com/myaccount, selected an option to sign into an existing subscription and entered my username and password. The download on the Mac took about 30 minutes and then I saw on my Mac the familiar tree-ring background. The version was Office: Mac 2011 because the new Office for Mac typically ships after the new Office for Windows.

The My Account Web page is a big plus for people who have had computers die and take copies of Office with them. Now, in one step on My Account, any PC can be deactivated and a new PC can be activated.

The cloud-based structure of Office 365 takes some adjustment, but users can still save files to the PC. In Word, when I wasn’t connected to the Internet and opened a document, I saw a notification reminding me that the version of the document I was reading was an offline copy. This notification also told me when the document was last updated and saved online. Each Office 365 account comes with 20 gigabytes of free storage, but all SkyDrive users get seven gigabytes each, so a person using Office 365 could potentially have 27 gigabytes of storage.

I enjoyed using new touch features, like five small squares on the far right of the Inbox screen in Outlook that made it a cinch to quickly sort through my inbox. These small icons enabled replying, moving, deleting, marking as unread and flagging for follow-up. I wrote this column in the new version of Word, automatically saving it to SkyDrive and easily opening and editing it on other computers and a Windows Phone.

Excel spreadsheets are now smarter than ever thanks to auto-fill features. I tested one that felt like it was reading my mind as it filled in names of people who had appeared in an earlier column because it detected the same name pattern. PowerPoint presentations now include special CliffsNotes-like tools that only the presenter can see.

Office 365 feels grown up and ready for the fast pace of the Web. It’s custom made for people who use many devices, including desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. If potential users can wrap their brains around its new subscription system, Microsoft has a winning program on its hands.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

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Fresh Design Brightens Evernote 5

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Evernote 5, currently available for Mac and devices with the iOS operating system, features a complete redesign, with an improved ‘Cards’ view, top, of saved items.

Ever miss the simplicity of file cabinets and manila folders? Although today’s digital lifestyle is supposed to be easier, it can quickly turn into a muddled mess of out-of-sync devices, forgotten account passwords and misplaced files.

Since its debut in 2008, Evernote has tried to change that. This free service gives people a place to store all kinds of documents and uses a system of virtual notebooks to sort things like PDFs, text notes, audio snippets and drawings. One of Evernote’s strongest features has been its usability on almost all devices and operating systems, including Macs, Windows PCs, BlackBerrys, devices running iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) or Android, and browsers and printers.


[ See post to watch video ]

But like a ho-hum, reliable car that merely got you where you wanted to go, Evernote hasn’t always been a particularly delightful thing to use.

Meet Evernote 5, a revamped version of the service that purrs with fluid features and playful design elements. In place of a dull list view of notes and notebooks, a handsome Cards view shows better images and details for saved items; on iOS, each card spins around and floats toward you when it’s selected.

A new Atlas section sorts all Evernote entries by where they were captured, displaying attractive maps that bring life to boring notes. Searching has improved. And a handy left-side panel includes new sections for Shortcuts to notebooks or notes, which you set up, and Recent Notes, which displays the five most recent things saved to your Evernote account.

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A new ‘Atlas’ section sorts all Evernote entries by location.

Evernote 5 recently launched on Apple’s Mac computers and iOS mobile devices, and the company will bring out versions for Windows, Android and the Web early next year. A free Evernote account gives you 60 megabytes of usage a month, while a Premium account includes 1 gigabyte of usage each month, no ads, offline usage and other extras. Premium costs $ 45 a year or $ 5 monthly.

Last summer, when I finished my final project for graduate school, I relied on Evernote to organize all of my notes, files, emails, photos and interviews. It did the job, but Evernote 5 is simply better looking, more functional and more enjoyable to use.

If you like collaborating with other people on notes, you can share anything from your Evernote account with others via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or email. Evernote 5 has a smarter way of displaying notebooks, with a small people icon in the top right of each shared notebook. The covers of these notebooks also tell who owns them, and notebooks can now be sorted by Name, Note Count or Owner in one simple step.

Evernote makes seven different apps and works with various products from other companies. To keep track of all these offerings, a Trunk section in Evernote 5 sorts them and directs people to links where they can buy or download products.

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Notebooks can be organized by subject, as shown on the iPhone app.

My favorite app is the Evernote Web Clipper, which works with browsers including Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari to help you save anything you find on the Web. This can include entire Web pages or just a particular image or selection of text. I used Evernote to gather gift ideas for family and friends, keeping them all in a notebook labeled Christmas 2012.

I also like using Evernote’s Clearly, which is a browser add-on for Chrome and Firefox that works like the Reader tool in Apple’s Safari browser. I use it with Chrome, and anytime I click on the Clearly icon, the text of the blog page or website that I’m reading appears without cluttered ads and other distractions. I can adjust the background color and text size on the page, or clip pages directly to Evernote.

A few keyboard shortcuts are extra helpful when using Evernote on your computer. Pressing Control + N on Windows, or Command + N on Macs, will instantly create a new note. On Macs, tapping Command + Z will undo your last action in Evernote and pressing Command + ; will check spelling.

One of the little-known Evernote features is its integration with email. Each account, free or Premium, is assigned an email address. This address is your account name added to a forgettable string of letters and numbers, but it can be added to your email contacts. Anything you email to your Evernote account gets saved just like a note would.

When you go into Evernote, you can manually drag that email you sent into a specific notebook. Or, by adding @[notebook name] to the end of your subject line, the email will automatically be added to a specific notebook. I did this with email confirmations for gifts I bought, forwarding these emails to my Evernote email address with @Christmas 2012 in the subject.

Evernote’s iOS app has a special Page Camera option that allows users to digitize entries made into physical notebooks by taking pictures of the pages. Evernote recently joined with Moleskine notebooks to make Smart Notebooks. These are specially designed for use with Page Camera and feature stickers to give notes pre-defined or personalized tags. These Smart Notebooks cost $ 25 or $ 30, depending on size, and come with a three-month Evernote Premium account code.

Evernote has come a long way from its original design, and people who use Evernote 5 will delight in this revamp of the trusted service.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

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iTunes 11 now available to download: fresh design, more iCloud features

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iTunes 11 screen cap

Apple’s completely re-engineered iTunes is now prepared for you to attempt. The pc download consists of a new MiniPlayer for playing tracks in a widget-sized window, an “Up Following” attribute for cueing up songs and seeing what’s next at a glimpse, and– if you can’t decide which tune to rack up– Apple’s software will certainly now supply “instant recommendations” of its very own. iTunes 11 will also endeavor to transfer your position within a tune, film or TV shows if your media usage ever before gets interrupted. Finally, iCloud integration will allow you to play back your collection on any sort of gadget, while an offline option ought to allow in-flight or underground listening sessions to continue without a hitch.

Jon Fingas contributed to this report.

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The Fresh Rain 2 minute short film (Award Nominee – Manorama Online 2 min mobile short film contest)

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A 2 min Short Film based on a rain and a little girl. A tiny endeavor to convey the message of saving our precious natural resources. Concept, Editing, Screenplay, Camera, Direction – Prayag Editing Mentor – Rakesh AS Sound Effects – Rash Rayz (Rakesh G) Music Courtesy : – Omnisphere short 20 URL :- www.youtube.com Published on Mar 28, 2012 by neeeuth Artwork by Raphael Lacoste – cornerofart.com Category: Music Tags: omnisphere short song 20 oceanus vst spectrasonics soft synth keyboard original song original music garageband imovie electronic korg nano key License: Standard YouTube License Filmed with iphone 4 Edited with Adobe Premiere CS4 Converted with Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate 6.0 and Adobe Bridge CS4 Sound Effects – Natural Sounds recorded with iphone 4

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Toshiba announces fresh C, L, S and P series laptops for back-to-school season

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Chances are, college students are merely gearing up for finals, and the high school seniors among us are still months away from graduating. No matter to Toshiba. The company is getting ahead of the competition, showing off its back to school collection now. In addition to refreshing its entry-level C series, the outfit has redesigned its mainstream L and high-end P laptops. Look closely and you’ll also see an entirely new line, the S series, which offers some of the same premium features as the P laptops, but with more of an emphasis on top-shelf specs than bells and whistles (because let’s face it, bang-for-your-buck is likely to be a bigger priority for parents footing the bill). To keep things simple, we’ll say this up front: each of these laptops is available in 14-, 15- and 17-inch sizes. Oh, and Toshiba isn’t dishing too much on specs at the moment (Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors still being shrouded in mystery and all.) Want the one-minute elevator pitch? You can jump straight to those pictures below. If you’re curious about what makes each line distinct, follow past the break for the full breakdown.

Gallery: Toshiba C and L series laptops (Spring 2012)

Gallery: Toshiba P and S series laptops (Spring 2012)

Continue reading Toshiba announces fresh C, L, S and P series laptops for back-to-school season

Toshiba announces fresh C, L, S and P series laptops for back-to-school season originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FAA to take ‘fresh look’ at gadget restrictions on flights

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F.A.A. to take

The only thing worse than the Terrible 10,000 Feet is the underlying sense that it’s all so unnecessary. Why should using an iPad, Kindle or bag-holding alarm clock be banned during take-off and landing, even with all wireless comms switched off? Nick Bilton from the New York Times has been hounding the Federal Aviation Administration over this issue for a while, but he’s suddenly received a reply other than “Just turn it off, sir”. A senior official told him that the agency as decided to take a “fresh look” at the rules, not for cell phones, but for the myriad of other gadgets that can make a flight so much more peaceful and productive. Currently, airlines complain that they have to test each model of device individually, on every single plane in the fleet, and with a separate empty flight used for each test, before they’re allowed to relax the rules for that model. That’s why personal electronic devices remain so closely restricted, but also why there’s so much room for a smarter solution — even if there are still reams of red-tape to overcome before anything changes.

FAA to take ‘fresh look’ at gadget restrictions on flights originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FAA taking ‘fresh look’ at ban on personal electronic devices during takeoff and landing

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Please turn off electronic devices airplane stock (1020)

There might be a sliver of hope for those who want to finish up that last round of Words with Friends or read a Kindle during takeoff. The New York Times‘ Nick Bilton — who previously commissioned his own tests to demonstrate the safety of using electronic devices during taxi, takeoff, and landing — has heard from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the agency plans to take a “fresh look” at the ban. It might not be much, but that’s the most we’ve ever heard concerning a change to the rule that sees flight attendants constantly asking passengers to turn off iPads, BlackBerrys, e-readers, and more. However, the FAA is only considering devices other than cellphones for the time being.

Currently, for a device to be approved…

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