.::REALITYRECALL::.

Today, Google Maps 5.8 for Android improves Places and Latitude with:

• Upload photos for a Place
• My Places as a simple way to manage the Places you’ve starred and recently viewed
• Descriptive terms for Places in search results
• Add a new Place on-the-go when checking in

Photo upload for a Place

When deciding on a place to go, people often want to know what a place looks like in addition to seeing ratings and reviews. You can now contribute photos to help others get a sense of places. You can now attach your photos to Places, and yours may even become the profile picture for that page. If you want to view or delete any photos you’ve contributed to Places, you can manage uploaded photos in the “Photos for Google Maps” album on your Picasa account.

Left: Uploading pictures to a place. Right: Photos in Android Gallery
My Places and descriptive terms for mobile

In June we announced descriptive terms and ‘My Places’ for the desktop. Both these features are now in Google Maps for mobile. Descriptive terms appear in search results for Places to inform you what businesses are ‘known for,’ such as their ‘eggs benedict’ or being ‘worth the wait.’

Also, My Places for mobile provides quick access to starred and recent Place pages you’ve looked at. You can access My Places by pressing your phone’s menu button while in Google Maps.

Descriptive terms and My Places in Google Maps for mobile
Add a new Place ‘on-the-go’ for check-ins

If you’re out and about and want to check in, we want to make sure you can quickly add a new Place to check into if one isn’t available. This might happen for new businesses or those that haven’t set up a Place page yet. For example, let’s say you’re at Xoogle Xtreme Sports, a new sports shop in your neighborhood. You go to check in but don’t see Xoogle in the list of places to check into and when you do a search still nothing comes up.

Add a Place when checking in, if needed
To solve this, you’ll now see an “Add place” option at the bottom of suggested places. Select that option, and you’ll be prompted to confirm the name and location of the new place. Then a brand new place is added (and you’re checked in). This place will be available for you and others to check into from Latitude, but will not appear as a search result in Google Maps or Google Places.

We’ve also added ‘Bigger text’ to our experimental Labs features and ‘Download map area’ has been renamed ‘Pre-cache map area.’

To start using Google Maps 5.8 for Android, download the update here. This update requires an Android OS 2.1+ device and can be used anywhere Google Maps is currently available. Learn more in our help center.

Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager

We’re not sure how Don Draper would have sold a 60 percent price increase on your most popular service package but maybe Netflix executives can make a guess after they start watching the first four seasons of Mad Men today on Watch Instantly. Netflix’s Lionsgate deal will keep reruns flowing for years to come, while a new agreement with CBS International is bringing its programming — including Showtime shows like Dexter that were recently yanked from the US Netflix service — to viewers in Canada (who already had Mad Men) and Latin America (where it locked up a cache of telenovelas yesterday). This CBS agreement is separate from their (also non-exclusive) US deal that brought Star Trek back, but international viewers will still get to both TOS and TNG, as well as shows like Twin Peaks and 90210. Check the press release after the break for more details on the international deal, the source link for a time warp back to 1960s NYC or hit the comments below to explain how canceling your $7.99 per month service is a stand against greedy corporations.

Continue reading Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later

Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What do you think? Highly accurate or…?

Something I’ve noticed about the proliferation of computer viruses… (Larger Version of the Chart) [via Reddit]

How to Make Free Android or iPhone Ringtones From Any Youtube Video	How to Configure Your Router for Network Wide URL Logging	How to Make Photos Look Like Pencil Drawings in About One Minute

In Dunn County, North Dakota, the roads can kill you. In fact, anything you do to disturb rocks in the area, like driving or even sweeping, can kick up naturally-occurring particles that lodge in your body and give you a rare kind of lung cancer up to 30 years later. Dunn County, you see, is home to a lot of rocks containing erionite, an asbestos-like substance that’s highly toxic. Unfortunately, nobody knew that until very recently. And so at least 300 miles of roads in North Dakota are paved with the stuff. More »

The large complex would pose a space debris risk if left in orbit after its life cycle.

Google has a tremendous number of free services they offer which many of your probably take advantage of. But have you ever considered what you might lose if all of a sudden you lost access to your account? Just like all important data on your hard drive, your critical data in “the cloud” should also have backup consideration.

So if your Google account contains data you can’t afford to lose or you simply would like to have a local copy of it for yourself, you can easily download just about everything.

How to Make Free Android or iPhone Ringtones From Any Youtube Video	How to Configure Your Router for Network Wide URL Logging	How to Make Photos Look Like Pencil Drawings in About One Minute

Just days after he touted The Walking Dead‘s second season at Comic-Con, rumors are flying that showrunner Frank Darabont is stepping down as the head zombie-wrangler on AMC’s hit undead series. What. The. Fuck. More »

Akamai’s annual State of the Internet report is loaded with all sorts of interesting, if not terribly surprising, tidbits about both broad and narrowband connections around the globe. The big news? The world-wide average connection speed has jumped 23-percent from last year, to 2.1Mbps. Speeds in the good ol’ US-of-A were up 15-percent for an average of 5.3Mbps, though we still languish in 14th place on the list of fastest countries. As expected, Asia continues to dominate the speed race, with 61 cities in Japan alone making the top 100 list. If you want the fastest connections the States have to offer you’ll have to head for San Jose or Riverside in CA or the home of the Wu (that’s Staten Island for those of you not in the know), which all tied with an average 7.8Mbps connection. Check out the PR after the break and click the more coverage link to download some charts.

Continue reading Akamai sees internet speeds climb, Asia still dominates broadband arms race

Akamai sees internet speeds climb, Asia still dominates broadband arms race originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Edmonton Oilers goalie Nikolai Khabibulin on Tuesday withdrew an appeal to his extreme drunken-driving conviction, accepting a 30-day jail sentence.

RIM has pushed out version 2.0 of the official Facebook for BlackBerry app. This is available (or will be within 24hrs) and can now be downloaded for both BlackBerry Smartphones and the PlayBook. For smartphone users this is only compatible with devices that run OS 5.0 or higher. The complete change log can be found on this post from yesterday, but for PlayBook users this update brings: Facebook Places; Facebook Event viewing; Ability to view ‘Likes’ and more privacy controls on your status updates.

A couple videos were created to showcase Facebook 2.0. Check them out after the break

Download Facebook 2.0 for BlackBerry Smartphone here
Download Facebook 2.0 for BlackBerry PlayBook here

Related posts:

1. Facebook app comes to the BlackBerry PlayBook
2. RIM creates a “virtual PlayBook” Facebook app
3. Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry officially goes live!

For the 200 million people worldwide with lung disease, current artificial lungs aren't much of a solution— they're heavy, external and short-lived. A new respiratory system, however, could help patients breathe easier. More »

Professional and casual photogs alike will be happy to know that Microsoft caved and finally supports raw, uncompressed images in Photo Gallery and Windows Explorer. They may be bigger, but they just look better. And Microsoft knows it. More »

The Food and Drug Administration announced last month that it was investigating the potential risks of spray sunscreens. Of particular concern to us is the possibility that people might accidentally breathe in the ingredients, a risk that’s greatest in children, who—as any parent knows—are more likely to squirm around when they’re being sprayed.

As a result, we now say that until the FDA completes its analysis, the products should generally not be used by or on children. We have also removed one sunscreen spray—Ocean Potion Kids Instant Dry Mist SPF 50—from the group of recommended sunscreens in our Ratings, because it is marketed especially for children.

Finally, we would like to reemphasize our longstanding advice that you use sprays carefully, by following these tips:

• Don’t use sprays on children, unless you have no other product available. In that case, spray the sunscreen onto your hands and rub it on. As with all sunscreens, be especially careful on the face, taking care to avoid the eyes and mouth.

• Adults can still use sprays—but don’t spray your face! Instead, spray on your hands and rub it on, making sure to avoid your eyes and mouth. And try to avoid inhaling it.

• Make sure you apply enough. Our tests have found that sprays can work well when used properly—but it is harder to make sure that you apply enough, especially when it’s windy. We recommend spraying as much as can be evenly applied, and then repeating, just to be safe. On windy days, you might want to spray the sunscreen on your hands and rub it on—or just choose one of our recommended lotions instead.

For details, see our updated sunscreen Ratings.

Sources
FDA Announces Changes to Better Inform Consumers About Sunscreen [FDA]

Samsung has been on a glorious roll recently with the Android-powered Galaxy S II, most recently rumoured to have sold over 6 million units in less than 3 months. Even upcoming devices such as the QWERTY slider that was revealed today, or possibly the upcoming Hercules will be making severe impressions. If you think those are solid handsets then check out this concept device that was thought of by designer Heyon You. This creative beast is called the “Galaxy Skin” as it comes with a 4-inch Super AMOLED flexible display, runs Android “flexy” and has an 8 megapixel camera, shoots 720p HD video and comes packed with a projector and converts into a smartwatch (overall size is 221x67x8mm). Hopefully this is what Samsung is thinking with they demoed their flexible displays at CES earlier this year. More pics after the break…

Source: Yanko Designs

Related posts:

1. Samsung 4.5-inch Flexible AMOLED display to be shown at CES
2. CES 2011: Video of Samsung’s 4.5-inch Flexible AMOLED display
3. Concept: The “Rollerphone” has a flexible display and should be in the movie TRON

With all of the Android devices available, it’s important to be able to make sure all your data makes it from one device to another when you upgrade. But what’s the best way to make the transition? More »