Web 2.0

Making real estate look good in Google's 3D world

In the physical world, people knowing they'll be judged on appearances often prefer to put their best foot forward.

But there's a direct analog of the real world taking shape inside thousands of Google computers, a collection that began with addresses and roads and that's extended to photos and 3D buildings. What do you do when it's time to spruce up for virtual visitors?

You can of course learn how to create 3D models and submit them to Google. But a New Zealand start-up is hoping you'll do the same thing most people do when … Read more

Tubemote: Turn a browser into a YouTube remote

YouTube has done an extensive amount of work tweaking its "Leanback" experience for users who want to watch videos on their couch, or several feet away from their computer. This interface works well with a mouse, or just by letting videos auto-advance. But if you're interested in ditching the mouse or game controller, or would like a more social experience than what YouTube currently offers, Tubemote is worth checking out.

This simple service does one thing, and does it well. On one machine with a Web browser you log in to your Tubemote account, and on any … Read more

Google gives Picasa 3.8 a cloud connection

Google issued Picasa 3.8 on Tuesday, hybridizing the desktop software by building in elements of its cloud-computing service for photo editing.

Picasa, used for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos to the Picasa Web Albums site, now incorporates all the editing abilities of Google's Picnik online photo-editing site, according to the blog post on the Google Photos blog. The update to the software is available for Windows and Mac.

In addition, the new version has a slick movie mode that uses face recognition to hold a subject's face steady as the rest of the photos change. It's … Read more

Typographic pizzazz: Coming to a Web near you

Your favorite font could soon be coming to the Web.

That's because of a new technology called Web Open Font Format, or WOFF, that has attracted support from all the right players: browser makers, standards groups, typography designers, and online services to ease licensing. The technology, just now ready enough to use, is making something of a debut this week at the TypeCon conference in Los Angeles.

WOFF grew out of cooperation among Erik van Blokland from type foundry LettError, Tal Leming from type foundry Type Supply, and Jonathan Kew of Mozilla. It's steadily accumulated allies, and some final pieces have now fallen into place:

Browser support. Apple has added support in prototype builds of WebKit, the browser engine used by Safari. The four other major browsers already had signed up for WOFF.

Adobe support. The design powerhouse said Monday it will offer several Adobe fonts for Web use through a font subscription service called TypeKit.

Standardization. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first draft of WOFF on July 27, clearing the way for its use in browsers and elsewhere.

Individually, these moves would be minor. But together, they promise to help open the Web to typography, catching the new medium up with books, newspapers, magazines, TV, and the rest of the world where words can embody more than just raw textual information. … Read more

6Rounds (now just Rounds) comes to Facebook

Video chat service 6Rounds is getting a new name, and will now go by just "Rounds." Along with the new moniker, the company is launching a Facebook app that brings the entirety of its video chat service to Facebook users.

As with Rounds.com and the company's API on third-party applications, users of the Rounds Facebook app can start a video conversation without downloading extra software or browser plug-ins. Included is the built-in co-browsing technology like the two-person Google Maps and YouTube video viewer, and a number of games that can be played by both users at … Read more

Yahoo Mail gets iPad-friendly Web app

Yahoo has rejiggered its Web e-mail service to better fit within the confines of the iPad's plus-size Web browser.

Users who visit Yahoo's Web mail service from their iPad will now get a version of the site that's been designed to fit in with the iPad's user interface aesthetic. This includes portrait and landscape support and scrolling up and down one's message list and messages themselves with acceleration.

As far as extra bells and whistles over the native iPad e-mail client, there aren't many. You cannot, for instance, attach a signature, photo, or video … Read more

Vimeo gets Flash-HTML5 hybrid player

Video host Vimeo put out a new version of its player on Tuesday that can detect the hardware of the end user and spit out either an Adobe Flash or HTML5 video player, as well as a proper video stream based on connection.

The feature was designed for compatibility on mobile devices--something Vimeo began working on late last year, though mainly for its paying pro members and for a handful of its featured content channels.

The new player works just the same as the old one, and the embed code itself is the same for both player technologies. The change … Read more

Meet Swingly, a Q&A tool powered by robots

While Facebook is busy amassing questions and answers from its 500 some million members, a new service called Swingly, which is coming out of stealth on Tuesday, is thinking a little bigger. Like the entire Internet bigger.

As described to me last week in a call with Swingly's managing partner Andrew Hickl, Swingly is a machine-generated answer engine that contains somewhere around 100 billion to 150 billion question and answer pairs. "It's the first one of its kind," Hickl said. "Our gimmick here is that Swingly uses our system and the Web."

What that … Read more

IM+ comes to the browser: Is it a Meebo killer?

Hopping onto several instant-messaging networks at once is often best done with the help of IM software, but in recent years Web-based chat tools have gotten to the point where software is not as much of a necessity. Shape Services, the maker of several mobile software applications, has put together just such a tool called IM+ for Web that does well to fit into that category.

Like the popular Meebo, IM+ for Web lets you connect to multiple IM networks at once and juggle several chats in one browser window. All the while it provides notifications when new messages arrive, … Read more

Like Guitar Hero? You'll love Instant Jam

Game-streaming technology company InstantAction is launching its very own title on Monday that puts a Guitar Hero-like experience inside of Facebook, and soon on any other site.

Called "Instant Jam," the new title brings the same general gameplay as most music rhythm games, with users having to key in the notes from popular songs as they rush towards the screen against colorful, and animated backdrops.

It requires no special software downloads or hardware on the part of gamers. Instead, it uses the embedded game technology the company debuted early last year to stream visuals from its server farm.… Read more