Written by Facebook has rolled out their new timeline and media sharing features across their site. Our easy question, have you migrated to the timeline?
Google Plus Goes Public: Do You Plus?
Google this week has launched Google Plus to the public and has launched its public hangouts to the masses. Google Plus is the latest social feature by Google to compete with Facebook and other competing social sites. Up to 25 million users have already signed up for Google Plus and should launch many more millions in the near future. Mobile enhancements have also been added to Google Plus with the ability to join hangouts via Android phones, an API for Google Plus Hangouts, and more.
The bigger question is with Facebook having 800 million users and Google Plus with 25 million and growing, do you Google Plus? Leave your comments and let us know.
Facebook Adds Third Party Content & More
Facebook today changed the social graph and has added content partners such as Netflix, Spotify, MOG, and more. Marc Zuckerburg led over a 90 minute presentation at the Facebook F8 Conference detailing the changes. The Facebook profile has now been altered and modified to reflect the ever changing social site. Users will be able to share their music and video sharing with others with ease. The changes will be rolling out slowly to users and more over the next few weeks.
Why The HP Thinkpad Failed and Succeeded
The HP Thinkpad was the latest tablet addition to what is being considered an overloaded market of portable computing. Apple controls over 90% of the market with its iPad line of tablet computers and other Android variants including the Xoom and Asus Transformer line fill the rest of the tablet storefront. The HP Thinkpad featured WebOS which if you aren’t familiar with it, is almost a web based interface for computing brought by Palm and others in the past few years.
The Thinkpad was brought with huge fanfare and celebrity endorsements to the market at a $499 and $599 pricepoint. Sales were poor and the developers didn’t develop for this market, thus HP decided to pull out from the hardware market in the past few weeks. HP will continue to develop and license WebOS which is owns but for a $1.2 billion pricetag, there had better be a lot of licensing for them to make profits back on this investment.
The Thinkpad was a 9″ tablet with a touchbased interface. The problems with it included a sluggish performance, a lack of top named applications by developers, and well sales. What the HP Touchpad did do right was multitasking and present a beautiful display to use the limited applications on.
HP dropped the prices of the Touchpad to $99 and $149 in the past week and according to estimates by ifixit, are taking a $200 loss on each one sold. Best Buy couldn’t unload them at full price, but are having Black Friday type lines for the ones at the lower price.
Is $99 or $149 the correct price for a tablet? Probably not and most up and coming tablets won’t be featured at these prices. Amazon with an upcoming tablet is likely to embed their Amazon marketplace deeply into the tablet. Is $299 a fair price for an Amazon tablet?
The tablet market is new and a tough market for manufacturers to survive on. HP tried and failed. Others including Toshiba Asus, and Android tablet makers have a free operating system and low costs to try to make money on. Will they make it against Apple, who is to say. The iPad is a killer tablet and the economic market will decide the tablets fate in the next few years. HP tried and brought out a nice looking tablet, but maybe with Android it would’ve succeeded further or failed.
Google+ Review
The latest and greatest social network has launched this past week and it was revealed by Google. The newest network is called Google+. The reinvention of the social network has now occurred with the reinvention of the levels of friendship, networking, and social contacts along with instant messages and video conferencing.
Google+ was launched and to a very limited invitation list which immediately got the attention of the tech press, media personalities, and bloggers across the internet. Google+ is almost Google Buzz on steroids but even more.
Users are able to place their contacts in several circles which let you organize your social life. Friends, Acquaintances, Followers, and others separate people you met at a conference versus your Aunt Betty, and your coworkers. The ability to follow specific news streams also you to only read that information that is pertinent to what you need. Facebook does this with lists, but is a lot more clumsy in the way it does this.
The video conferencing feature is the killer feature here. Whereas certain internet sites have allowed 10-20 users to join a specific video room to chat and gather, the hangout feature lets you start a video room immediately and lets 10 users join in as well. This spontaneous video chat room is a strong feature for families, work groups, study groups, and more as the product rolls on.
The Google+ project is in a limited beta feature and most users won’t be able to join quite yet. Although invitations fill the internet from Twitter and eBay for serious sums like all Google products.
Overall, Google+ is a solid beginning product and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes. Will it get 750mm users like Facebook? Who knows but with Google, anything can happen.
Local OC Optometrist Offers Heart Smart Technology
Some local OC news today with a local Optometrist by the name of Dr. Kathleen Andersen. Dr Andersen will be one of the first eye professionals in Orange County and throughout the US to help her patients detect early signs of cardiovascular disease. Press Release Below:
RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA–(Marketwire – May 3, 2011) – Dr. Kathleen Andersen of RSM Vision in Rancho Santa Margarita has been selected by HeartSmart Technologies to be the first eye care professional to offer technology to detect the early signs of cardiovascular disease in her patients.
“It’s estimated that over 81 million Americans have some form of cardiovascular disease,” says Blaine C. Ung, president of the Eye Care Division of HeartSmart Technologies. “Primary eye care professionals like Dr. Andersen are ideally positioned to be the first to detect and assess the risk of heart disease and stroke because they perform over 100 million eye exams per year. Additionally, the Foundation for Eye Health Awareness estimates that over 100 million Americans suffer from life-threatening conditions that could be detected early from a comprehensive eye exam.”
“I am honored to be selected to be the first optometrist in the nation to offer this cutting-edge technology to help save the lives of my patients and others. The HeartSmart technology utilizes standard ultrasound which is non invasive and doesn’t involve radiation. It is quick and convenient, and it takes less than ten minutes to screen a patient. My patients receive an easy to understand, consumer-friendly report card of their risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Andersen.
About HeartSmart Technologies
The Eye Care Division was officially launched in January of this year. Its goal is to partner with eye care professionals to save one million lives. HeartSmart provides diagnostic tools that measure Cartoid Intima Media Thickness (CIMT) to identify and assess the risk of cardiovascular disease. To find out more, visit www.heartsmarteyecare.com or call 213-915-4376.
About Dr. Kathleen Andersen
Dr. Kathleen Andersen, practicing in Rancho Santa Margarita since 1991, is dedicated to excellence in vision care, and utilizes the latest technology including retinal imaging and laser aberrometry in the detection of eye diseases and conditions. In addition to glaucoma medical management, specialized contact lens evaluation, and vision therapy services, Dr. Andersen also co-manages with the finest surgeons for LASIK and cataract surgery. Call 949-589-6171 or visit her web site at www.rsmvision.com to schedule an appointment.
Is Amazon Prepping A Tablet?
Amazon has a few things up its sleeves lately including a stellar mp3 store, a cloud player for that music, an on demand video store, and the Kindle platform for e-books. It would only make sense that Amazon would put all of those together along with its Android App store and build a tablet that could compete with the iPad2 and others. According to an Engadget report, it appears as this will appear at the end of the year. An estimated 700,000 tablets per month are expected to be ramped up by a firm name Quanta. Should Amazon build a tablet? Can it compete with the iPad2 and others?
Google Video Chat In Gingerbread Update
Google announced today that integrated video chat with other users will be included in the upcoming Gingerbread update to the Google Nexus S phone lineup. This will be the 2.3.4 update and in the next few weeks will roll out to users. Users of other Android models will see updates trickle to their phones as Android updates usually occur. The Motorola Xoom on Honeycomb features this already but is the only tablet to feature this video chat option.
The White iPhone Finally Arrives On April 27th? Really?
According to various sources across the web, the unicorn of all technology, the White iPhone by Apple will finally arrive in retailers on April 27th. European retailers have begun to list the white iPhone on the sites, but more and more stories have surfaced on the US launch date of 4/27/2010. The black iPhone of course has existed since the launch, but the white iPhone has only existed in images and numerous delays have circled around the white iPhone. If this is true, the White iPhone 4 Unicorn is in trouble.
Is T-Mobile Getting the iPhone? BGR Says Yes
On a weekend story, BGR.COM has a story up telling of how T-Mobile is testing the Apple iPhone and it’s being developed and worked on as we speak. While rumors of the iPhone on T-Mobile have existed for a while, this is one of the more credible stories regarding this. BGR Story Link
Photo via BGR.COM
