Google Labs just released a snazzed up version of Google Reader, a web-based aggregator for reading Atom and RSS feeds. Appropriately named Google Reader Play, the web-app requires no initial set-up and still “adapts to your tastes.” Keep in mind, this new application does not replace Google Reader — it’s just a fun read.
Items are presented in a full-screen format, one at a time, with easy arrow buttons to move back and forth. There’s a “like” button and the option to choose categories to personalize your feed even more. Algorithms used in Google Reader for Recommended Items are also used in Reader Play to generate a custom feed. “It takes into account your past reading behavior and global signals,” according to the Reader Help section. Although Google Reader Play does not require a Google account for access, signing in will allow you to “star” items and provide better feed customization.
Only playing with Reader Play for a few minutes, it’s definitely more visually appealing than Reader, itself. The viewer presents items via slideshow (or not, you can turn this off) in “magic” mode or in their original layout. “Magic” mode gives the items more pop by filling the screen with the most eye-catching item (graphic or video — if it’s just text, it makes the text bigger, basically). Try it out for yourself and tell us what you think.
Google announced a big addition to Google Maps today. “Today we’ve added biking directions and extensive bike trail data to Google Maps for the U.S.,” reports Shannon Guymon, Product Manager for the biking directions team. In cooperation with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to building a nationwide network of trails for healthier living, Google has marked over 12,000 miles of trails for this maps venture.
The bicycling feature even goes above and beyond by taking in numerous factors to calculate the most efficient bike route possible. Google takes a look at roads with bike lanes, busy intersections and steep hills — then computes all that data to output the best route possible. Basically, Google is looking out for bicyclists… safest, quickest path possible while trying to avoid hill-peddling exhaustion. Similar to the road maps, bicyclists may also customize their trip by dragging their path to a desired route.
This feature is currently available for 150 cities across the United States. Since it’s in beta, it’s constantly being improved upon and feedback is encouraged. Roll on over to Google Maps Biking to try it out. Hey, just in time for spring too!
It’s not uncommon that airports have free wi-fi. It’s also not that uncommon that your flight has (possibly not free) wi-fi now. I’ve even frequented a commuter van pool that had wi-fi for us to continue working while traveling up and down the canyon — a way of encouraging more time to work or a nice gesture allowing you to escape work sooner (hmm… you be the judge). What’s next?
Well, according to the China Post, 1,000 taxis in Taipei will soon be offering Internet services. By March 9th, VMAX Telecom Co., one of six WiMAX licensed operators in Taiwan, will launch the service through taxis installed with WiMAX technology. “For the first time ever, taxis will be equipped with WiMAX technology to offer passengers wireless access to the Internet,” said a VMAX spokesperson. The service will be free for the initial trial period to assess whether the service will make any money long-term. As passengers use the Internet services provided during their ride, they will also be polled.
VMAX Telecom predicts the 1,000 equipped taxis will poll a minimum of 15,000 people a day. The capital city of Taipei is home to over 2.5 million people — that’s more than 10x the population of Salt Lake metro. It’s also home to a widely used bus system, train system (including the fairly new MRT) and subway system. I think it’s fair to say that Taipei is a metropolitan city where taxis are utilized fairly often. Actually, I think there was a day when I was in town and commuted in four separate taxis, all during lunch time! But, I wonder just how much the Internet can be utilized during a short car ride though…
Beck & Lee (Miami) and the Weston Firm (San Diego) filed a class action lawsuit against Yelp yesterday. Why? Well, according to the Yelp Class Action Website, “the lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of ‘advertising contracts,’ in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website.”
Last year, Kathleen Richards at East Bay Express wrote an article about how several businesses in the Bay Area were contacted by Yelp. John, a restaurant owner in the Bay, was contacted about negative reviews that were featured prominently on his Yelp site. “We can move them,” said the Yelp sales rep. Then came, “Well, for $299 a month.” Ha! What?! Although the article mentions this issue is addressed in the Yelp FAQ, there are a number a local business owners that challenge the statement. Yelp denies the statements addressed in Richards’ article though. The Wall Street Journal did an article on these events.
The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games start tonight. I’m completely psyched! Although I’ll be out at dinner during the opening ceremonies, I plan on recording the event on my good ol’ VCR. I know, I know… old school. But I don’t have a fancy phone that could stream live content…
For those of you on the go (with fancy phone in tow or laptop or what not), here’s a gather guide of how to enjoy your Olympics sans the television set.
NBCOlympics.com
The obvious choice for those of us in the United States. Although most of NBC’s coverage will only be aired on TV (advertising revenue), there’s a handful of video content on their just-the-Olympics website. Tonight, they are also blogging live throughout the opening ceremonies.
Spammed Remember how the Australian Government green lighted an Internet filter not too long ago? In retaliation to the proposed filter, a group of hackers, who call themselves Anonymous, took down two government sites: the main website and the Parliament site. Ars Technica tells us “the plan was DDoS government servers first, and then followup with ‘a s***storm’ of porn-related emails, faxes, and prank cell phone calls to government officials.”
Loopt, a mobile application, announced they are donating $1 for every check-in at Chipotle, Whole Foods or Panera Bread before the end of Sunday. The proceeds will go towards the relief efforts in Haiti and there’s no charge to the Loopt user either. Minutes later, I read that Gowalla, a competing app, will be launching a campaign called “Hearts for Haiti” on Monday, February 8th.
The Hearts for Haiti campaign will take place in the SF Bay Area at three specified locations — two Peet’s coffee shops and the Barenaked Ladies concert. When someone uses Gowalla to check-in at one of those locations during the event, $50 will be donated in to the Red Cross in that person’s name. Gowalla hopes to reach $20,000. In addition to Gowalla’s charitable efforts, the two Peet’s locations will also be donating 10% of sales towards Haiti efforts. Details on when to go where can be found over at the Gowalla Blog.
Google has finally brought extensions out of beta and stabilized them for the newly released update of Chrome. Bookmark syncing is packaged in there as well — automatically synchronize your Chrome bookmarks on different computers. Keep in mind that this update only applies to the Windows version of the web browser. No word yet on when Mac and Linux versions will release these same (stable channel) updates…
After news of the official release filtered through my Google Reader feeds, I pulled up the Chrome extensions gallery and started browsing through. There are currently just over 1,800 extensions available for Chrome; I probably surfed through half of them, if that… Since I’m not the true techie geek that I should be, I can’t say that I was super excited about too many. Here are the few that appealed to my simple and practical tastes. I’d say most of them contribute to an easier blogging experience or everyday web surfing…
A report analyzing the strength of passwords was released yesterday by security firm, Imperva. The study is 32 million passwords strong, thanks to last year’s Rockyou.com breach. And “never before has there been such a high volume of real-world passwords to examine,” notes the study.Take heed to these key findings in Imperva’s study:
About 30% of users chose passwords that are six characters or less in length
Almost 60% of users chose their passwords from a limited set of alpha-numeric characters
Nearly 50% of users use common slang or dictionary words, names and consecutive letters or digits — the most common password found was “123456″
Note that a study not too long ago also revealed “123456″ as the most common password amongst 10,000 Hotmail, MSN and Live.com users. Is that you? Okay, what about the most popular passwords following “123456″?
Are any of those you? If you have a password fitting the bullet points noted above, change it now! Let’s say a hacker worked off this list… It would only take “one attempt (per account) to guess 0.9% of the users passwords or a rate of one success per 111 attempts.” Now, let’s say this hacker is using his DSL connection (55kpbs connection rate) and each hack is 0.5kb in size… that hacker will gain access to one new account every second. Or, in the bigger scope of things, he just hacked 1000 accounts in less than 17 minutes.
A friend of mine, Emily, is moving to New York to learn, as she puts it, a practical skill. After working in the arts for a while, and majoring in the arts, she decided drop the harsh, struggling lifestyle to learn a more generally applicable skill. You know, in a more technical profession where the skills are often utilized in any part of the world! What what did she decide on?
She’s pulling a Julie and Julia. Emily’s going to culinary school (and says she’ll even be blogging the experience)! I, similar to Emily and Linda from Better Off Ted, have secured a position in the time-wasters hall of fame by studying the arts. Thus, I’ve acquired a slight sort of envy for Emily… I thought about culinary school once, twice, thrice before… maybe more often. I love to cook. I love food. Okay, mainly, I love to eat! And these are reasons why I love Bing’s new detailed recipe results feature (brilliant segue, eh?).
Loopt, a mobile application, 
