Sean's Lifestream

Late last week, details began to surface on the detailed specs of a new Blackberry Storm 3 coming to the market at the end of 2010. Amid all of the iPhone 4 and Android mania, we can’t ignore the large market share that RIM holds in the smartphone industry. Plus, Blackberry’s are still considered one of the best phones to manage email from. Let’s take a look at some of the specs mentioned:

• Blackberry OS 6.0 will be introduced. This will include “kinetic scrolling” and multi-touch (screen).
• Webkit Browser
• 512 MB RAM with up to 32GB of expandable storage.
• Five (5) megapixel camera
• Wi-Fi 802.11n
• 3G Mobile Hotspot
• The World Edition

As we delve into these features more, there are two we should take special note of. First, the five megapixel camera is rumored to give the Blackberry Storm 3 the ability to conduct video-conferencing. This addition is a direct move to compete with Apple’s iPhone 4 which has the same capability. In order for the video-conferencing to be successful, the Storm 3 will support Long Term Evolution (LTE or 4G)  networks which should translate into clean data transmission. One concern would be whether or not a five mega-pixel camera is going to be strong enough for clear video streaming and also HD video recording. Why not come with a factory installed eight  megapixel camera? Time will tell on that one.

The next feature to watch is the 3G Mobile Hotspot. First, will the hotspot be 3G or 4G (perhaps the network will eventually transition to 4G)? Second, seeing as most of the new hot Android devices (Droid X and HTC EVO) can successfully turn into a mobile hotspot, it seems as if RIM is trying to attract (or prevent current customers from leaving) a portion of Android’s growing market share. Game on. This feature makes sense for Blackberry’s as the majority of the user base will make optimal use of the ability to have a mobile hotspot. The key question is the cost per month and what (if any) limits to bandwith they will implement.

Blackberry Nation – how do you feel about the new, potential features for the Storm 3? Are you ready to place your pre-order right in time for a Holiday season delivery? Let us know in the comments section.

The latest version of Google’s 3D map application, Google Earth, now has the ability to display real-time rain and snow in certain parts of the world.

To see it, you must first enable the clouds layer, and then zoom in to a location where it’s raining or snowing. Google Earth displays rain and snow only in certain parts of North America and Europe; to see where exactly the new feature is available, enable the radar layer.

The weather simulation adds another layer of coolness to the already mesmerizing Google Earth application. Since it displays rain and snow in real time, the feature can actually be useful as a precise visualization of what weather is like in a certain place. It may, however, render all of those weather-related chats you have with friends and relatives over the phone even more meaningless.

Unfortunately, there’s no word on when this feature might be enabled in other parts of the world.

---

Reviews: Google, Google Earth

More About: 3D, google earth, Map, Weather

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The rules for Cadwallon: City of Thieves are now online

Welcome to Cadwallon, a city of vagabonds and outlaws of every kind. Your tiny gang has been chosen to relieve the fat merchants of the city from a portion of their “excess” wealth. But there are many factions within the Guild, and yours is not the only band working in the district tonight! In fact, your...

The Gameshark computer gaming news site has posted an interview with Jim Bailey of Grindhouse Games.

We’re very proud to tell you that we’ve just launched a new feature for the Google font directory. The new Google font previewer lets you test drive all the fonts in the directory so you can decide which web font in the Google Font API works best for your requirements.

Now, whenever you visit the font family page of any of the fonts, you will see a link saying “Preview this font” that will load your font selection into the font previewer.

Here you can edit the text, change its size and line height, and add decorations and spacing among other things. You can even apply text shadow to your text.

The previewer will generate the corresponding code for you so all you have to do to start using the font on your own website is to copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages. In the example above this would be:

<link  href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster:regular"
rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" >
<style> body {   
  font-family: 'Lobster', serif; 
  font-size: 28px;
   font-weight: 400;
   text-shadow: 4px 4px 4px #bbb;
  text-decoration: underline; 
  text-transform: lowercase;   line-height: 1.42em; } 
</style>

That’s really all you need to use the Google Font API.

If you want to see the font sample without any distractions from the font previewer controls, you can do that as well simply by clicking “Toggle controls” in the upper right corner. This will show you a nice clean example of what the font would look like in your design.

We think the previewer is a great way to try out web fonts and showcase what can be done with them. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think about the new font previewer.

By Marc Tobias Kunisch, Google Font API team

So a rumor dropped today like a neutron bomb all over twitter (first dropped by @criticalhits) that Wizards would cease publication of the core 4e books, and concentrate on Essentials.  This was reported by Mana Nation, a Magic fan site.  You can read the original post here.

As you can imagine, everyone is up in arms about this.  My suggestion, as with every rumor, is to take it with a grain of salt and analyze the situation.

First and foremost, is Essentials.  Essentials is a program designed to lure new players to the game.  It is meant to introduce people to D&D with simple presentation and class builds.  I get that, that’s fine and dandy.  But once you have those players, you’ll want them to advance past the Essentials newbie stuff, and towards the big boys D&D.

But what’s the problem with that?  Well, I don’t know about you, but my PHB1 is horribly marked up with pasted paper, pencil marks, and 2 stealth rules thanks to all the errata that’s been pumped out.  Do you want to sell people that are new to your game a book full of contradictions and mistakes?  I wouldn’t.  I’d pull it off the shelves too.  Monster Manual 1?  I’d pull it and update the math on at least the solos.  Those chromatic dragons seem a bit off, no?  While you are at it, all the DMG errata regarding skill challenges and the page 42 table could use some updating as well, no?

After all, if you are going to eventually want these people that are new to your game to buy your $40 books, you want to give them a proper set, no?

So I wouldn’t worry too much.  My gut feeling tells me that while the books may leave the shelves for a bit, WOTC prefers to intro the game to new players through Essentials, and then graduate on to the hardcovers later… and to newer prints, with up to date rules.

Maybe I’m way off base, but that’s my feeling.

2-3 years ago, so-called "startpages" were all the rage - online dashboards where users could store links and quickly scan important news feeds. Startpages were also an evolving platform for "widgets," mini web apps inside of a web page. The big Internet companies had startpages: iGoogle, My Yahoo!, Microsoft's Live.com. Among the startups, Netvibes managed to establish a foothold. Other startup battlers included PageFlakes and Protopage.

In 2007-08 startpages were viewed as the second coming of portals and some even thought they might be the next social networks. Now of course many people use Facebook or Twitter as their place to "start" on the Web. So what will become of the startpage - does it have a future? Let us know in our poll whether you still use a startpage product. We have some initial survey results and further analysis below.

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Do you still use a "startpage" product; if so, which one?customer surveys

What's Become of Startpages?

Startpages have undoubtedly faded in recent years, despite my positive outlook for them 4 years ago (although I also correctly predicted that the enterprise market would provide revenue opportunities). The main reason for the decline of startpages in the consumer market is Facebook.

The main selling point of startpage was always the widgets, the mini web applications that users could add to their dashboards. Over the past couple of years, Facebook has become far and away the largest platform for mini web apps. Nearly every major web product these days has a Facebook Application version. A startpage widget is now often a second thought, if considered at all, for online businesses.

Netvibes is probably the most well-known startpage, outside of the big companies. As early as March last year, we were suggesting that Netvibes was struggling. This was vigorously denied at the time by Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini. He told ReadWriteWeb that while the startpage paradigm hasn't taken off beyond the early adopter set, it remains useful as a driver for sales of the company's new enterprise and "branded portal" offerings.

Netvibes still appears to be beavering away at the consumer market. For example, last month it launched an iPad-Friendly custom RSS Reader and other mobile products.

ReadWriteWeb Community on Startpages

We asked our community via Twitter: do you still use a startpage? Here's a representative sample of the replies (you can see them all via Twitoaster):

@shilpandya: "I have so much great content feeding to my iGoogle pg.Wish I checked it more often.Always so many browser windows already open though."

@CTdigital: "Spent ages playing with my iGoogle, however since chrome, just have my favorites pinned to browser on open and then search from url bar"

@RCMBartley: "Tried Netvibes and iGoogle. Start pages have never been able to keep my attention. Prefer Safari's opening page of 12 fav sites. Useful"

@Devindra: "Used Netvibes for years, but now I just stick with the Chrome startup screen"

@grandison: "Twitter = start page killer. Curated crowd sourced data eliminated the need for blocks of feeds. I would not have called it 2 years ago"

@tobiaspeggs: "igoogle is my window on the world, my realtime dashboard of everything I need to keep an eye on. Don't know what I'd do without it."

@zzramesses: "I def still use netvibes to start my day. I can get a quick overview of the day's happenings"

@andrewserff: "yes, I still use Netvibes although less than I used to because of twitter. But I like the pictures and interesting post pop out faster"

@donlbe: "i use iGoogle. it's about efficient agg of social nets, data (finance, weather, etc.) and feeds..."

@aldozenzo: "Only on mobile. On desktop, no. On mobile, it's usually "consume" mode, and on desktop, "work" mode."

It seems that many of our readers now use Google's Chrome browser, Twitter and Google search as a replacement for startpages. However, there was still solid support for Netvibes and iGoogle in particular. A few people mentioned Yahoo! too.

Participate in the poll to have your say - and let us know in the comments your thoughts on the startpage market.

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seanabrady: New Seesmic Web is quite nice with Facebook and LinkedIn integration added to Twitter and Buzz.

With six updates in six months, Google Maps for Android has been getting plenty of new features, both big and small. A continued focus with each update has been on giving you better ways to find places nearby. In the most recent updates, Maps has gotten features like swiping between search results and info like photos, reviews, and more helpful content on the result pages. With today’s launch of Google Maps for mobile 4.4, we’re introducing an even easier way to find places around you: a dedicated Places icon that lets you quickly look up nearby places and pick a place to go using updated Place Pages, just like on your computer.

On Android-powered phones with Google Maps 4.4, you’ll find the new Places icon in the app launcher with the rest of your apps. Press and drag it right onto your home screen to use it when you’re looking for a restaurant, shoe store, movie theater or any other type of local business. You'll get a detailed list of all the nearest places and can choose one to learn more about it on its Place Page.


Search for several convenient types of places with the default categories or add your own for your most frequent searches. You can also use the search bar at the top to type or speak any query. I tend to use the “coffee” search a lot, but I’ve also looked for “gas stations” on the road, “ice cream shops” in my neighborhood, and even specific places like “Chelsea Market” on a recent trip to New York.

Of course, you’ll often want to learn more before deciding where to go. With updated Place Pages, you should be able to find all you need to know about a place, whether you’re wandering into a new restaurant or deciding from your couch. In addition to photos and reviews, Place Pages now have a bunch of new details, such as prices, parking and menu links to inform your quest for the perfect steak. You'll also notice that the search results list now highlights business opening hours in addition to compass direction and distance -- consider it your late night caffeine radar.


Google Maps for mobile 4.4 is available now for Android 1.6 and above. Just search for Google Maps in Market or tap here from your phone. The Place Page and search result updates are coming soon for BlackBerry users so keep an eye out for an update at m.google.com/maps (from your BlackBerry Browser) or on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Visit our Help Center to learn more, ask questions in our Help Forum, or give us suggestions and vote on other people’s on the Mobile Product Ideas page.

Posted by Michael Siliski, Product Manager, Google Mobile Team

Google Chrome's team added a new releases channel for early adopters and developers: Canary builds. Unlike the beta channel and the dev channel, Canary builds can be installed without overwriting a regular Chrome build. That means you can install both a Canary build and a regular build that could be on the stable, beta or dev channel.

The Canary build is only available for Windows, it's "installed to a different path, gets updated separately, and runs side by side with an existing stable/beta/dev installation". Google says that the Canary build will usually be the same as the dev build. "Sometimes if necessary, we may push additional updates on Canary build so its version is higher than dev."


"The canary usually updates more frequently than the Dev channel (higher risk
of bustage), and we're working on making it update as often as we have
successful nightly builds. When something doesn't work on the canary, I can
just fall back to my Beta Google Chrome," says Mark Larson, from the Chrome team.

Now that Google Chrome synchronizes bookmarks, settings and it will also synchronize extensions, passwords, browser history, it doesn't even matter that the two builds use separate profiles. Unfortunately, you can't make Chrome Canary your default browser. Google's explanation that it's "a secondary installation of Google Chrome" doesn't make any sense.

Lee Mathews from DownloadSquad thinks that having four flavors of Chrome is "Vista-esque". Google probably noticed that there are many people who install random Chromium builds and decided to offer a channel that updates even faster than once a week, while allowing users to install a stable version of Chrome, just in case the "bleeding edge" builds have major bugs or they're unstable.

Google Chrome Canary builds - Windows-only, for now.

{ Thanks, Tim. }

I have decided to take up Warhammer Fantasy Battles again, and this album will house my in progress pictures for my new army(s). Date: Jul 9, 2010 Number of Photos in Album: 2 View Album

seanabrady: Can I access my saved searches on Touiteur for Android? I don't see them.

seanabrady: @gamefiend I am quite find of the game after reading through it. Have not had a chance to play though. Agree the box w/ diceis old school.

seanabrady: Anyone interested in an informal Google Android meetup at #ilta10?

Google repackaged some of the code from the Feedback extension as a screen capturing Chrome extension. Google's tool lets you save the content of a tab as a PNG image, annotate the screenshot and highlight interesting parts of the image. The extension is able to capture the visible content of a tab, a region or the whole page, but it needs to scroll the page to capture the content that's not visible.


Google's extension has a better interface than Webpage Screenshot, but it has less annotation options than Awesome Screenshot. Another advantage of Google's extension is that it scrolls the page horizontally if it's necessary.

{ Thanks, Arpit. }

seanabrady: RT @ILTAConf: #ILTA10 tweetup will be one of the Communities of Interest meetings being held on Sunday (8/22) at 4:00. http://bit.ly/9XWs5Y

Update (4:06PM, July 23): This new feature is not yet active for 100% of calls placed with Google Voice. We plan to roll this out for all calls in the next week or so.