.::REALITYRECALL::.

Job action will continue next week in the contract dispute involving the province’s 12,000 teachers, the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation says.

(Cross-posted on the Google Commerce Blog and Google Mobile Blog)

Today in our New York City office, along with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint, we gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.

Google Wallet is a key part of our ongoing effort to improve shopping for both businesses and consumers. It’s aimed at making it easier for you to pay for and save on the goods you want, while giving merchants more ways to offer coupons and loyalty programs to customers, as well as bridging the gap between online and offline commerce.

Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You’ll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.

At first, Google Wallet will support both Citi MasterCard and a Google Prepaid Card, which you’ll be able to fund with almost any payment card. From the outset, you’ll be able to tap your phone to pay wherever MasterCard PayPass is accepted. Google Wallet will also sync your Google Offers, which you’ll be able to redeem via NFC at participating SingleTap™ merchants, or by showing the barcode as you check out. Many merchants are working to integrate their offers and loyalty programs with Google Wallet.

With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.

To learn more please visit our Google Wallet website at www.google.com/wallet.

This is just the start of what has already been a great adventure towards the future of mobile shopping. We’re incredibly excited and hope you are, too.

Posted by Rob von Behren and Jonathan Wall, Founding Engineers on Google Wallet

If your phone’s auto-rotate feature is a bit too sensitive, Smart Rotator allows for selective application-by-application rotation.

Many people turn off the auto-rotate feature on their phones because it flips the screen at awkward times. Smart Rotator allows you to specify which programs you want to rotate and which should stay in portrait mode. It’s a simple application that stands to save a lot of frustration. You simply install it, flag the apps you want to rotate, and it runs in the background automatically toggling the auto-rotate feature based on which apps are in focus.

Smart Rotator is a free app, Android 1.6+.

Smart Rotator [Android Market via Lifehacker]

Soluto Solves PC Crashes and Speeds Up Boot Time. Download It Now!	Download the HTG Photography Cheat Sheet (Wallet-Sized!)	How To Remotely Backup Your Data for Free with CrashPlan

Ever leave your Android phone around the house while doing some work only to find missed calls and text messages? With Android Notifier, your phone’s alerts will pop up on your computer. It’s free and it even supports Growl!

Soluto Solves PC Crashes and Speeds Up Boot Time. Download It Now!	Download the HTG Photography Cheat Sheet (Wallet-Sized!)	How To Remotely Backup Your Data for Free with CrashPlan

In case you’d forgotten (and who could blame you), Kingmax used to have a thing for setting small records — even if it meant one-upping itself. Four years later, the king is back and he brought a 64GB microSDXC card with him; the world’s first, wouldn’t you know? If history repeats itself, we can expect similarly sized storage from SanDisk and other manufacturers soon. We love passing storage milestones, but don’t get too excited: only a handful of devices currently have the architecture to support microSD cards bigger than 32GB, so make sure you have a compatible device before you empty your wallet. Don’t have one? Don’t sweat it; there’s no word yet when the new cards will be available, so you have plenty of time to upgrade. Head past the break to check out the press release.

Continue reading Kingmax flaunts world’s first 64GB microSD card

Kingmax flaunts world’s first 64GB microSD card originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 04:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What would a morning be without a little injection of rumorjuice courtesy of DigiTimes? Today’s tattle has HTC’s 10.1-inch LTE “Puccini” tablet hitting mass production in June with AU Optronics and Wintek pegged as the touch panel suppliers. Other specs, like the 1.5GHz MSM8660 processor and Android 3.0.1 build, seem to have been culled from that 911sniper leak which DigiTimes graciously cites as “sources in the supply chain.” Of course, the June date has been tossed around before by DigiTimes but it’s good to hear it again so close to the 10-incher’s rumored summer release.

HTC’s 10-inch ‘Puccini’ Honeycomb tablet still rumored for summer release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 01:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you one of those people that likes to doodle on a dollar bill? Deface the president with a goatee? If so, then you must participate in the Make Your Franklin Project. More »

Google has used their insanely smart engineers to create an image compression algorithm that’s just as good as JPEG but 39.8% smaller. It’s called WebP and it’s pronounced “weppy”. You can create WebP images in Acorn, Pixelmator, ImageMagick, Leptonica and XnConvert. If you use Photoshop, you can also install the WebP plugin.

Here’s a gallery comparing WebP to JPEG.

The problem is it’s currently only supported by Chrome and Opera, but if all of us in the web community make enough noise, we might succeed in getting it to be adopted by all major browsers. Please voice your support of WebP by …

1. Commenting below. If we can get 500+ comments, then we’ll send this post to our contacts on the IE, Firefox and Webkit teams
2. Re-tweeting this post
3. Telling your followers, friends and clients about WebP

If we all voice our support of this awesome new image format, the web might just speed up by about 38.9% 🙂

If you can’t see the image above, then your browser doesn’t support WebP. Come on and help us get this adopted by all browsers!

Still feeling burned by Sony’s record-breaking PlayStation Network outage? Fret not, promised reparations have arrived: a short form on the PlayStation website is now distributing activation codes for a free year of Debix AllClear ID Plus identity theft protection. The offer is good for all US PSN and Qriocity account holders who activate before June 28th, netting users up to $1 million in identity theft insurance coverage. Feel better? Hit the source link below to get your redemption code.

Sony makes good, doles out identity protection activation codes for PSN and Qriocity users originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 00:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  Sony  | Email this | Comments

quote-book: (by wordsandlyrics)

Continue reading EVO 2 console promises to bring Android gaming to your TV this fall

EVO 2 console promises to bring Android gaming to your TV this fall originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 May 2011 18:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Cross posted from Google Mobile Blog)

We’ve made it easier to check in and out of places, rate various locations, and get transit information with Google Maps 5.5 for Android. This release adds ‘check in’ and ‘rate and review’ buttons to Place pages, the option to edit your home/work address for Latitude, and redesigned transit station pages.

Read below for more details about the new features, which we hope will improve your user experience, a topic we take very seriously as there are now more than 200 million users of Google Maps for mobile across platforms and devices worldwide.

New check-in and rating buttons added to Place pages

Now when you open a Place page from your mobile device, you can check in to places with Google Latitude or submit a rating or review by clicking on two new buttons at the top of the listing.

This past week I had the chance to explore the Computer History Museum during my visit to San Francisco from across the pond in London. Once nearby, I could quickly open the museum’s Place page and check in.

When I was ready to leave and head to lunch, in a few seconds I could go back to the Place page and rate the museum – which certainly earned the 5 star rating it received from me.

Update home and work address for your Latitude Location History

Last month we released the Location History dashboard for Latitude which estimates how much time you spend at home, work, and everywhere else. If your home or work address changes, or you’d rather set a different address to represent ‘home’ and ‘work,’ you can now edit these addresses within Latitude.

View the redesigned transit station pages

It’s been about two years since we added transit directions in Google Maps for Android. Since then, we’ve increased the coverage from 250 cities to more than 440 and counting – the most recent being Washington, D.C. To make it easier to plan your transit route, we updated the transit station pages in this release to better organize the information you need.

Each page now includes a list of upcoming scheduled departures for different lines, all the transit lines serving the station, and links to nearby transit stations.

Download Google Maps 5.5 for Android here to try out the new check-in and rating buttons, update your Latitude Location History home/work address, check out a transit station in a nearby city, or just make sure you have the latest version of Google Maps for Android. This update requires an Android OS 1.6+ device anywhere Google Maps is currently available. Learn more in our help center.

Posted by Luis Sigal, Software Engineer

Microsoft to launch web-based Windows Phone Marketplace alongside ‘Mango’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 May 2011 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You probably don't remember who taught you how to wipe—your parents, most likely—or why you wipe the way you do. All you know is that once you were settled in on one style of wiping that worked, more or less, there was no real reason to change. But is it the right way? Is it the best way? Let’s find out. More »

In real, modern combat, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers have cameras attached to their helmets. The videos make it to YouTube (and on Kotaku, too), giving the rest of the world a first-person view of real combat. More »

About a fifth of Canadian households still had no internet access in 2010, including nearly half the households with annual incomes of $30,000 or less.