Technology News and Gadgets Updates: 12/22/10

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Tips and Tools for Gathering Information on Twitter

Twitter is more than just sharing anecdotes and alerting friends of your daily activities. Many big businesses and scores of individuals are sharing valuable information. For instance, you can gather information to make more informed marketing choices by conducting surveys on Twitter. Or you can learn about the newest product straight from the company releasing it. Here are some great tips and tools for finding this type of information.

Keep Track

If you are searching locally, then Twitter Local is the place to go. Twitter Local sorts tweets according to location. So, if you are looking for local information, you would filter according to where you are. When you need to look for a business with Twitter, then Twellow (Twitter yellow pages) can help you with that.

Just Ask

People who tweet do so because they like to share information. If you want to learn more about your customers, for instance, simply ask how often they buy a product. If you want to try a more official poll or survey, try Twtpoll.

Follow Competitors

Use Hootsuite to follow your competitors. You can create a column that keeps you up to date on all the latest news of sales and promotions. Another column can search tweets with your competitors’ names, words like your competitors’ names, and keywords they may use. Also search with the words “hate” and “sucks.” You can find out what your competitors are doing wrong. That is where you step in and suggest your own solution.

Retweetist

The Retweetist keeps track of the things that are considered worthy of retweeting. They share the top topics, linking directly to the sites. Of course, you can follow Retweetist on Twitter.

Monitter

Monitter is your personal Twitter moniter. Just type in keywords and watch what people are saying. You will get information streaming live about the topic you most care about.

Tweetnews

Tweetnews sorts news according to related tweets that you send and receive. This is nice because you will never miss out on the news you really care about while you read about stuff you love knowing about.
Use Twitter for more than just your entertainment with the right tools and techniques. Take advantage of this free form of information to get your news fix or to build your business contacts. Be careful, though; you may develop a new addiction.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

10 alternative applications for Android phones

As bound in open source awesomeness as Android is, using some of the default applications can be a less-than-exciting experience. The stock applications offer basic features and although they work well enough, there's always something better out there. For instance, the default Webkit-based internet browser with Android is free and fast, but it doesn't have a whole lot of interesting things to fiddle around with or anywhere close to a genre-defining feature set.
In case you're worried about experimenting, everything is reversible. If you don't like the alternative browser, email client or media player, you can always choose to uninstall and get back to the default application. So, if you wish to get more out of your Android device, a bit of an OS refresh maybe, here's a bunch of 10 alternative applications that get our recommendation.

Best Alternative Keyboard Application: SwiftKey ($3.99)
A slightly larger and a much more useable version of the Android keyboard, SwiftKey is a decent offering that introduces a whole lot of features, including a revolutionary text prediction option. It doesn't just predict the word you're typing currently, but also uses a pre-set algorithm to guess the next word. Over time, it ‘learns’ how you write and becomes more accurate. You can try it out for a month before you buy it.

Best Alternative Email Application: K-9 Email (Free)
The default Android email client is very basic. It serves the purpose, but some complain that it feels and looks rather bland. K-9 Mail on the other hand does the job in a better way, and it allows you to customise pretty much everything according to you taste. You can edit colours and fonts, combine multiple inboxes/accounts, use various gesture options and even set individual view options for every folder.

Best Alternative MP3 Player: MortPlayer (Free)
MortPlayer is specifically made for people with enormous MP3 collections, gathered over time and put together by folders. It doesn't work by the way of tags or playlists; it just boots and loads up the content of a particular folder and plays whatever is in it. No fancy stuff. It is considered a great tool and application simply because it bridges a tiny gap.

Best Alternative IM Application: Nimbuzz(Free)
Standalone messengers are good for what they do, but what do you do when you have friends who prefer separate IM clients? You can get Nimbuzz, a cross-platform all-in-one messenger app which is regarded as the most complete and feature available in the Market. It supports the likes of Google Talk, Facebook, MySpace, Skype and many more such services. Better yet, it’s free!

Best Alternative Video Player: RockPlayer Universal ($9.99)
(Free ad supported version also available)
RockPlayer is a high-performance alternative to the stock Android Video Player, specifically optimised for mobile devices. It supports a variety of video formats such as avi, rmvb, flv, mkv, mp4, mov, wmv, asf & ts. It also features a resume feature, subtitle support and accurate audio encoding.

Microsoft plans new Windows for tablets

Microsoft Corp is working on a version of its core Windows operating system for devices such as tablets, according to media reports on Tuesday, and the company said its Windows Phone 7 software is making headway in the booming smartphone market.

Microsoft plans to unveil a version of its operating software that runs for the first time on processors designed by UK-based ARM Holdings PLC, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported. ARM's processors dominate the tablet and handheld device market.
Microsoft intends to announce a version of its operating system to run on ARM chip architecture, which competes with the "x86" designs favored by Intel , the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the plans as saying.

It was unclear when such an operating system might come to market, but the U.S. software maker could claim lost ground in tablets and other battery-powered mobile devices by forging a new partnership with ARM.

Microsoft and ARM declined to comment. Microsoft said on Tuesday that more than 1.5 million cellphones carrying Windows Phone 7 operating software have sold in the first six weeks of launch, meeting what the company called "realistic" expectations.

Windows Phone 7 may be Microsoft's last chance to establish a major presence in a hot cellphone market now dominated by Apple Inc and Google Inc , analysts say.

The sales numbers were disclosed for the first time by Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows phones, in an internally conducted interview posted on Microsoft's website. "It's a decent number. The mobile market is going to be a battle for Microsoft," said Colin Gillis , an analyst with BGC Partners who has a "buy" rating on Microsoft.

Microsoft's disappearance from the phone market and its delayed response to tablet devices like Apple's iPad has been seen as a drag on shares this year. Its shares closed up 26 cents on Tuesday at $28.07.

DECENT SHOWING
But Gillis noted that the shipment of 1.5 million phones was sales into the distribution channel, rather than directly into consumers' hands, which tempers the announcement.

Taiwan's HTC , Dell Inc , Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are among the vendors who have launched or plan to begin selling Phone 7-based devices.

The industry is closely watching the early days of what could be a longer-term driver of growth. Gillis forecasts about 25 million Phone 7 sales in 2011. In contrast, analysts expect Apple to sell more than 60 million iPhones next year.

"We all know that the competition is extreme in this industry, and we have to compete on multiple fronts," Berg said in the interview. "We are on a path to begin releasing the first of several updates in the next couple of months, and several more mobile operators around the world will introduce Windows Phone 7 on their network in 2011."

Gillis noted that Microsoft is spending $500 million to market the Windows 7 smartphone, and suggested the company could see market gains by using some of that cash to subsidize the devices so consumers get them for free.

Apple removes Wikileaks app from its store

Apple has removed a WikiLeaks app from its store on the grounds that it violated the company's developer guidelines for applications for use on its iPhones and iPads, the company said on Tuesday.

The action places Apple among a group of major US companies who have cut ties or services to the whistle-blowing website and have subsequently been targeted by hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks.

The $1.99 app was initially released Friday and allowed users of Apple's iPad or iPhone devices to access WikiLeaks with a single click, rather than having to use a web browser to navigate to the site. The app has no official ties with WikiLeaks, but its developer did promise to donate all the income to the site.

"We removed the WikiLeaks App from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines," said Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple. "Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or target group in harm's way."

Apple keeps strict tabs on the apps it offers, unlike the more open platform offered on rival Android phones, prompting some users to "jailbreak" their devices to circumvent the company's restrictions.

Email gets GenNext makeover

Signs you're an old fogey: You still watch movies on a VCR, listen to vinyl records and shoot photos on film. And you enjoy using email.

Young people, of course, much prefer online chats and text messages. These have been on the rise for years but are now threatening to eclipse email, much as they have already superseded phone calls. Internet companies like Facebook are responding with message services focused on immediate gratification.

The problem with email, young people say, is that it involves a boringly long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours. And sign-offs like "sincerely" — seriously?

Facebook is trying to appeal to the youth of the world. It is rolling out a revamped messaging service that is intended to feel less like email and more like texting. The company decided to eliminate the subject line on messages after its research showed that it was most commonly left blank or used for an uninformative "hi" .

Facebook also killed the "cc" and "bcc" lines. And hitting the enter key can immediately fire off the message, à la instant messaging , instead of creating a new paragraph. The changes, company executives say, leave behind time-consuming formalities that separate users from what they crave: instant conversation.

"The future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual," said Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook , where he oversees communications tools. "The medium isn't the message. The message is the message."

The numbers testify to the trend. The number of total unique visitors in the United States to major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail is now in steady decline, according to the research company comScore. Such visits peaked in November 2009 and have since slid 6%; visits among 12- to 17-year-olds fell around 18%.

The slide in email doesn't reflect a drop in digital communication; people have gravitated to instant messaging, texting and Facebook. James E Katz, director for Center for Mobile Communications Studies at Rutgers University , said this wasn't death of email but a downgrade , thanks to greater choice.