buttons

Facebook adds 'subscribe' feature to comments

Facebook has added a "subscribe" button to its comments box plugin, allowing users to follow comments made by users who have enabled Subscribers.

The new link allows users to subscribe to commenters with one click, and gives commenters another way to grow their subscriber base, Facebook said. In some cases, it will also show a subscriber count next to the button.

The link will only appear on public comments made by Facebook users who have allowed other users to subscribe their updates.

The move is an evolution of the subscribe button the social-networking giant added last month to … Read more

Mouse more with X-Mouse

Your mouse probably has several buttons and maybe a scroll wheel or two, but are you using the default settings or can you open and close Web pages, turn the volume up and down when you play music, or simulate any keystroke? You can, with X-Mouse Button Control. This free utility lets you set customized profiles, called Layers, with individually customized mouse controls in each, and rapidly switch between them. You can create separate mouse control profiles for individual applications, such as games that don't support extended mouse buttons. Or, you can have the scroll wheel change to a … Read more

How Apple's new iPhone 4S changes gaming

At today's Apple event, a new iPhone was announced. Surprise, surprise: the iPhone 4S is a modest upgrade, at least in terms of design. However, it shares a benefit with its larger iPad 2 cousin: significantly improved graphics.

It's no longer a secret or even an aspiration: the iPhone and iPod Touch are now the most popular gaming handhelds on the planet. The Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita are, at best, hopefuls trying to steal away Apple's newfound crown. So, how does Apple's latest iPhone hold up the mantle as the reigning gaming handheld du jour?

In short: by continuing to do what it does best.… Read more

How badly does the iPhone 4S need a redesign?

Surprise: the iPhone 4S looks just like the iPhone 4. Disappointing? Sure. However, consider this: it's been more than four years since the original iPhone debuted. In those four years, much has happened under the hood of the iPhone, but surprisingly little has changed about the iPhone's outward appearance.

Even amid yesterday's outcries over a possibly similar-looking iPhone 4S, I was reminded of how little the iPhone has changed previous to last year's 4. The iPhone 3GS and 3G both shared an identical design, and that design only changed slightly (mostly in the curved plastic back as opposed to the original's flatter aluminum) from the first iPhone. The same is true with the iPhone 4S. History repeats.

The iPhone was revolutionary back in 2007; no other phone looked like it. Today it's still an exceptionally attractive phone, but it blends into a sea of me-too touch-screen competitors. What was once utterly futuristic has now become commonplace. That's what happens when you have a phone estimated to ship more than 80 million units this year.

The original iPod debuted in the fall of 2001. Its design, unlike the iPhone's, wasn't utterly revolutionary. Still, its iconic scroll wheel remained until 2007's iPod Touch. Over that span of six years, the iPod had its share of spin-off designs, including the Shuffle, Mini, and Nano.

The iPhone may be 4 years old, but will a functional design shift happen, even next year? It's unlikely, because right now it isn't necessary or even practical.

Full-screen touch screen: The iPhone is a tabula rasa, a slab of screen that can be transformed into whatever software or graphics are displayed on it. Buttons, movies, maps: the iPhone becomes what it displays. That means the iPhone can reinvent itself based on the software and OS it runs. The iPhone can't change its dimensions easily because its screen dimensions are used by so many apps, and because the screen needs to be used for vertical and horizontal functions constantly. With all the effort made to make a Retina Display, it's not surprising that Apple let the iPhone 4S screen stay the same. … Read more

Wanted: A game controller as diverse as the iPad (the Atari Arcade, reviewed)

We said it before. We'll say it again. Louder, this time.

It's time for an iPad game controller.

And not just a joystick novelty like the Ion iCade or the Atari Arcade, both of them intriguing but incredibly limited ways of going retro. The Atari Arcade Powered by Duo, a joystick accessory made by Discovery Bay Games, has a joystick, four buttons, and a 30-pin connector. However, it only works with the Atari Greatest Hits collection of 100 Atari 2600 and old, old-school arcade games. The iCade, a far larger assemble-yourself cabinet, is compatible with a handful of other motley games plus Atari's app, and that's it.

It's clear something else is needed.

EA and 2K Sports are already experimenting with iPhone-as-controller: both FIFA 12 and NBA 2K12 have downloadable apps that turn a local iPhone or iPod Touch into a multibutton controller. That's hardly a solution: the touch controls are no easier to find and use than the iPad's onscreen virtual buttons--in fact, they're even harder to locate when the iPhone in question is being held in your lap. The solution is simple. … Read more

Facebook get groovy with music services

Kindle lets people borrow e-books from their public library, Pandora gets a site redesign in HTML5, and Facebook has some big changes in store at its F8 developers conference.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Bing brings Action Buttons to search results

Bing is now trying to direct you toward specific actions with a new search feature appropriately dubbed Action Buttons.

Designed to appear among certain types of search results, the Action Buttons can link you to pages where you can complete a specific task. For example, searching for airline flights may pop up a result for an airline with Action Buttons that you can click on to book a flight, view a flight status, and check in with the airline. Searching for hotel rooms may display different hotels with links to find their locations and reserve a room.

The goal, as … Read more

Facebook's subscribe button

YouTube adds a built-in video editor to the site, Dyson releases a room heater called simply Hot, and Facebook's new subscribe button makes the social network more like Twitter and Google+.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Facebook becomes like Twitter with subscribe button Netflix takes subscriber hit Sony PlayStation Vita's battery life YouTube adds built-in video editor Dyson's Hot AM04 Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (HD) | RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS HD

Facebook unveils a Twitter-like subscribe feature

Just a day after announcing sweeping changes to friends lists, Facebook has announced another new feature, called the subscribe button.

Facebook users will soon see a new "Subscribe" option on some other people's profiles. When clicking the button on a friend's profile, users will have the option of subscribing to all, most, or only important updates the other person posts to the site. Those updates will show up in the user's news feed.

To make things a bit more interesting, Facebook is also letting people subscribe to news feeds of users they're not friends … Read more

Google beefing up its +1 button

Google is enhancing its familiar Google +1 button to give people more control over the content they share and who they share it with.

Found on many a Web site these days, the +1 button lets people signed in to their Google account share and recommend specific content with their friends and contacts that can then appear as recommended pages in Google's search results. But the button has been limited in that users have only been able to share links publicly and couldn't comment on what their were sharing.

Now Google has tweaked the +1 button, says a … Read more