software

How do I look? Glasses.com app lets you try on shades at home

Here's a common scenario: You're looking for new frames at your optometrist or local sunglasses shop, and you realize you don't like anything in stock. You could look through their additional catalogs, but you're wary of ordering anything that's not in front of you.

You could also sign up for those try-at-home sites that send sample frames to you, like Warby Parker. But with all that back-and-forth, getting a new frame might take a while. And, you know, "seeing things" is sort of a priority.

To solve this problem, Jonathan Coon -- CEO … Read more

Turn your RSS feed into a "Star Wars" crawl

If Google's recent decision to pull the plug on the (incredibly useful and beloved) RSS tool Google Reader has convinced you that the search giant is now the Evil Empire, then join the Rebel Alliance with the RSS reader StarRSS, from user fotcorn at github. Simply enter in an RSS feed into the box on the landing page and a scrolling list of items will appear as familiar horns trumpet the start of that classic movie music.

Clicking on the items in your feed as they scroll up and become smaller and smaller isn't the easiest task in … Read more

The 404 1,250: Where we bet our bottom dollar (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Former 404 guest and Internet Archivist releases Web's largest collection of historical software.

- Judge holds himself in contempt for cell phone going off in court.

- NY Philharmonic phone disruption: A cell-phone etiquette reminder.

- Here's a 90-year-old granny freaking out over Oculus Rift.… Read more

'The Matrix' is back (in your hospital)

So you're in the hospital. You want a reassuring environment. You want everything to go well.

But who's that man in the dark suit? The one with the shades. The one with the very suspicious face and accent.

Why, it's Agent Smith. The very same Agent Smith who contributed to making "The Matrix" something of a cult classic.

The very same Agent Smith who can occupy your body, or a version of it. How might this affect your surgery?

Please try not to worry. For the moment, this is just an ad for GE software. … Read more

Facebook boosts mobile with Osmeta acquisition

For Facebook, all signs point to mobile. Hot on the heels of the social network launching its new Android skin, Facebook Home, the company confirmed to CNET that it has acquired mobile software startup Osmeta.

While Facebook is declining to comment further on the acquisition, TechCrunch reports that the buyout happened sometime in the month before last week's launch of Facebook Home.

Not a lot is known about Osmeta because it hadn't yet launched a commercial product, but its Web site says that it was "working on really, really interesting software technology."

Before the acquisition, the … Read more

Amnesia for Mac 1.4.3 Review

For users who frequently download applications, finding a program to completely remove them is important. Amnesia for Mac performs this function well and has some easy-to-use additional features.

Download and installation of Amnesia for Mac completed quickly due to the native installer. The program does require that the user accept a licensing agreement before allowing program use. After startup, the program did not offer any instructions, but the interface made them unnecessary. Large buttons at the top of the program indicate the main program functions. Users can designate a specific, known program for deletion, and search for a list of … Read more

SuperRam 6.4.8.2013 Review

Computers once had such small memories that Windows couldn't remember where it put its keys without registering them (it still can't, actually), but today's PCs have so much random access memory (RAM) that Windows can do much more than walk and chew gum at the same time, computationally speaking. Plenty of PCs still come up short in the RAM department, though, including a lot of older machines struggling to keep up with today's bloated Web sites and high-quality multimedia. For those PCs, the answer is the same today as it was way back then: a tool … Read more

Blink-WebKit split endangers some browser features

CSS Variables, a handy technology to ease Web page programming, could be one casualty in Safari with Google moving its resources to its browser engine, Blink.

Google engineers wanted to "fork" the WebKit browser engine project that underlies both Safari and Chrome so they could accelerate the pace of Chrome development and adopt changes too extensive to fit into a single open-source project. Even though splitting Blink away from WebKit may make each browser engine more nimble, it also means it's harder to cooperate.

That's because common features must be developed and maintained by duplicate teams … Read more

WebKit fracture puts a pinch on open-source browser efforts

The WebKit browser engine is becoming a less flexible foundation for open-source projects with the departure of Google from the project this week and Apple's consequent paring back of the project.

WebKit is a broad project that includes participation from many interested parties -- not just Apple and Google, but also BlackBerry, Samsung, Amazon, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and the programmers involved with the KDE and Gnome user interfaces for Linux. Indeed, the open-source project began as KDE's KHTML engine for the Konqueror browser before Apple got involved.

Google's Chrome team left WebKit this week, forking the open-source … Read more