Author: Terren

While our federal government continues to spend its taxpayers’ money on useless things like the U.S. Senate, the Pacific island nation of Samoa is doing something awesome: Time-traveling. Into the future! More »

A jury has been selected in the trial of a Yorkton, Sask., man accused of killing his daughter’s boyfriend.

Android: Constantly changing your phone’s settings to match your location, save battery, or otherwise fit your current conditions can get annoying quickly. Llama automates settings changes by detecting factors like where you are, what time it is, and what your phone’s doing. More »

If you’ve run out of beef jerky and had your free Hulu Plus trial go bust, you’re certainly not alone. Don’t get bored: more bits of new hotness are coming to your console, and they’re coming soon. An internal document leaked to our good friends over at Joystiq looks to confirm that the big Xbox 360 spring update will hit on May 19th. However, it’ll come in six “separate groups” to “ensure a high quality deployment,” so you might not get it until the end of the month, and everyone will have to wait until May 27th to get Avatar Kinect. What else is new? Well, there’ll be the slightly larger disc format and support for PayPal, opening the door to a bold new world of personal finance information able to be hacked from your console.

Xbox 360 spring update coming May 19? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 17:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Joystiq  | Email this | Comments

In just a few hours, Google I/O will begin and Google have updated their blog with some details of what to expect.

Google I/O is a yearly event that Google hosts in San Francisco over 2 days. The main focus is developers, so there’s plenty of workshops and talks on how…

Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows
Microsoft’s PowerToys for Windows XP included a neat little utility called Image Resizer. And now it’s back, but in modern guise, and ready to address your image resizing needs. …

Been jonesing for more news about Microsoft’s upcoming Mango OS update? So have we, and now all of us, VIPs and commoners alike, can circle the 24th of May as the date when Redmond will dish the full details of its next major software release. Notably, the mango(ish)-colored invite makes no mention of Windows Phone 7 anywhere, leading us to suspect that Microsoft will likely upgrade its mobile nomenclature as well as feature set. We’ll be there whatever happens, liveblogging the full preview event and keeping an eye out for launch details for this fruity new OS.

Microsoft’s next major release of Windows Phone will be previewed on May 24th, and we’ll be there live! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 14:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Posted by Michelle Chen, Software Engineer

If your calendar ends up full of many different types of events (film nights, lunch dates, and doctor appointments, for example), there’s now an easy way to categorize them using colors.

Just click on an event, then click the colored square in the top left of the pop-up bubble and pick a new color. If you don’t see this option quite yet, hang tight — it'll be there for everyone within the next day or so.

Only you and anyone else you’ve given edit access to your calendar will be able to see the colors you choose. This has been a feature request from many of you for some time, and we hope you enjoy using it as much as we do.

When you’re searching for images, sometimes it can be hard to come up with exactly the right words to describe what you have in mind. For example, when you think of London, you might picture the iconic clock tower or the big Ferris wheel. You may not always remember the names of those landmarks, but you can visualize them in your mind. To make it easier for you to find images in situations like these, you can now use Google Images with sorting.

When you search for [london], by default you’ll see image results ranked by relevance. Click on “Sort by subject” in the left-hand panel and you’ll see images organized into categories that will narrow down your search and help you find the exact image of London that you want.

Sorting by subject shows that some of the most popular images associated with London are the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the city at night. This organized view helps you find the images you were visualizing more quickly, so you might realize, “Ah, that big clock tower is called Big Ben, that’s what I was looking for.” You can then can click on the Big Ben group to find the best image within that subject group.

You can also use this feature to explore categories of a general topic that may be easier to learn about visually, like flower varieties or dog breeds. For example, if you want to get flowers for someone but you only know what their favorite kind looks like, not the name of it, you can sort by subject to learn different flower types and discover the name of the type you’re looking for. Watch this video to learn more about how sorting can help you find the image you’re seeking:

Sorting by subject uses algorithms that identify relationships among images found on the web and presents those images in visual groups, expanding on the technology developed for Google Similar Images and Google Image Swirl. By looking at multiple sources of similarities, such as pixel values and semantic relationships, and by mining massive amounts of data, we can make meaningful connections and groupings among images.

Sorting will be rolling out globally to nearly every domain and language over the next week. Whether you have a particular image in mind or you’re just exploring a general topic, sort by subject can help you find the image you need—even if you don’t have the exact words to describe it.

Posted by Donald Tanguay, Google Images team

Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. says it is buying Calgary-based sporting goods retailer Forzani Group Ltd. for $26.50 a share in cash.

Opening a lot of links takes a lot of clicks, which gets tedious when you’re scouring Google for information. These Chrome and Firefox add-ons will let you select multiple links with a click-and-drag motion, opening them all at once. More »

As last week’s promised date for the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services to go back online passed us by, Sony users must be feeling pretty antsy right about now. It’s not looking good however, as Sony’s spokesperson told Bloomberg that they now plan to have the services up and running by May 31st. As the services shut down on April 20th, that means it would’ve taken Sony a full six weeks to get their shit together. More »

We’re still not sure what’s stylistic about Smart Card readers, fingerprint scanners and TPM modules, but you won’t find them in many slates, so if you’ve been considering the Fujitsu Q550 — which has one of each — today’s your lucky day. The Oak Trail-powered Windows 7 tablet with a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS screen is ready for US pre-orders today, with $729 bringing you the base model with a 30GB solid state drive and a two-cell rechargeable battery. $849 upgrades the slate to 62GB of storage and four cells worth of swappable Lithium-ion joy, while both sport front and rear cameras, HDMI out, a bootable USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD slot and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi. Let’s just hope the UI is a tad more optimized than last time.

[Thanks, Manish]

Fujitsu’s Stylistic Q550 business slate up for US pre-orders, starting at $729 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 04:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Fujitsu  | Email this | Comments

Canadian troops will be dispatched to Manitoba as the flood threat from the Assiniboine River continues to grow, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.