Your Daily IT News |
- Traders Say eBay Fees Are Bad For Business
- 6 Billion Apps Installed On Android
- Update: Women Are Finally Warming Up To Google+
- Amazing Twitter Stats For Its Fifth Year Celebration
- Google News Releases Badges
- LG Optimus 3D to get 2D to 3D conversion for apps with Gingerbread
- Baidu launches its own web browser
- Seneye lets you keep an eye on your aquarium from a distance
- Droid X2 Review
- Build your own solar-powered reverse trike for only $550
| Traders Say eBay Fees Are Bad For Business Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT Small businesses that sell their goods on eBay said that the new higher commissions have reduced their profits. Retailers said that their costs doubled because eBay gets up to 12 percent from the final sale price. The new eBay policy has affected the small firms that rely on the online marketplace for most of their revenue. eBay announced the increases around May and gave users a month before it was implemented. Most retailers who use the site have no way to cushion the changes made by eBay. A lot of them say that they are driven out of the business because they lose their profit margins, which are small to begin with. In the old fee scheme, eBay utilized a sliding scale where it would take a smaller percentage of the selling price from the higher prices items. The new policy incorporates a flat rate that would take big sums from the sales of more expensive goods. This would leave many retailers making little from their sales. The Federation of Small Businesses said that the fee increase will be a major problem for a key sector of the economy. It said that the company raised the fees for short term gains and didn't think about the retailers that would be affected by it. |
| 6 Billion Apps Installed On Android Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT Google announced during its second quarter earnings conference that there are now six billion apps installed on its Android operating system. The company also noted that there are 550,000 Android device activations each day. This is up from 500,000 activations two weeks ago. In 20 months Google reached the 1 billion mark on apps installed on the Android platform. Five months later, the company announced that it already hit the 2 billion mark. Then two months later, the company said that there are already 3 billion apps installed on Android. Android is an open ecosystem and this means users can download apps from more than one app store. Aside from the official Google Android Market there are other app stores, including Amazon's App Store that was launched last month. Apple said that there are already 15 billion downloaded apps on its iOS. Apple achieved the 1 billion apps downloaded milestone in April 2009. Then in April 2011, the company said that it has already passed the 10 billion app downloaded mark. Apple iOS apps download are still increasing each day. Because of Android's success in the market, app downloads will continue to increase and could probably catch Apple iOS' numbers. This is impressive considering that there are 200,000 apps in the Android Market as of December 2010 while Apple's App Store has more than 300,000 apps as of September 2010. |
| Update: Women Are Finally Warming Up To Google+ Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT Earlier this week the blogosphere was abuzz with news that Google+ is awashed with unshaven, bespectacled men—you know, the type that you bump into in Silicon Valley. Well things have changed (if only slightly). According to the man who was responsible for fuelling the initial piece of news, Paul Allen (Ancestry.com), women are starting to close the gender gap on Google+. This of course is excellent news for Google, who I am sure, was getting a bit worried of its ever expanding male-dominated user base. The rate of growth is pretty encouraging too. On the July 4, 2011, Allen estimated the percentage of female users at 23%. 10 days later, on July 14, that number had shot up to 33%. Whatever the reason for the slow start, women are starting to feel comfortable in the arms of Google+ for sure. Other experts are citing Google's targeting of women in their marketing of Google+ as a key driver in the increase. It's hard to tell where the final numbers will end up, but one thing is certain: for Google+ to reach critical mass, females will have to underpin its growth. Social networking requires dynamism; anything less and Google will be lucky if the total number of users cracks 100 million. Still, at this stage of the game, I suppose Google is pretty happy with the buzz surrounding Google+. The more people talk about it, the more people will take notice. Hear what a woman has to say about Google+ by watching the video below.
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| Amazing Twitter Stats For Its Fifth Year Celebration Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT Twitter is already five years old last Friday and at present, users are posting 200 million tweets per day. The San Francisco-based web site was created by Jack Dorsey in March 2006 and was officially launched on July 2006. Today, Twitter has been ranked as one of the most visited web sites across the globe. To celebrate its five years in existence, the information network shared some impressive statistics. IT said that in July 15, 2006, there were 224 Tweets sent that day. At present, users send that amount of Tweet in less than a tenth of a second. Twitter added that around 600,000 new users signed up yesterday. This is a huge difference from when it was just starting out. It took the company 16 months to have the first 600,000 Twitter accounts. Users send out a billion tweets every five days. Twitter has a million registered apps that were made by 750,000 developers. A new Twitter app is registered for every 1.5 seconds. The micro-blogging network revolutionized the way people communicated with each other in the internet. Lives were changed by Twitter as well. There are stories about how it helped a homeless man reunite with his daughter; helped residents in a small Korean town get fresh water; and a lot more heart whelming stories. |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT Google released Google Badges for its Google News platform. It rewards readers that read stories on a certain topic. Each badge has four levels, which are bronze, silver, gold and ultimate. The company put out a help page to educate users on the new reward system. Google said that there are 500 badges to collect, including one for stories about Harry Potter and badges for different baseball teams. People are asking why Google had to come up with an achievement system for people reading the news. Google Badges automatically parse the news you read into categories. You can easily click on a category to get similar news. People using categories on Google news already know how convenient this could be when looking for and organizing news items. Once you've earned a badge, you can turn it into a section in your Google News page. The new Google Badges feature is private by default but you can share it with others. Automatic sharing of news categories can be useful but people would not know what stories you've read or your thoughts on particular stories. To start using Google Badges, the user must turn on Web History. The badges will appear at the Personalize column of Google News. |
| LG Optimus 3D to get 2D to 3D conversion for apps with Gingerbread Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT
It's been reported that according to LG, the conversion won't be limited to just photos and videos in the future. When the Gingerbread patch is released for the phone in October, it will also get the ability to apply the 3D effect to apps – which won't mean much for regular apps, but when it comes to games, it should bring a whole new level of visual flair. Unfortunately, due to limitations of the phone, it can only display 3D visuals when used in landscape mode, but since most games worth converting are played in landscape mode anyway, it shouldn't be a big problem. How many of you own an Optimus 3D, and what do you think of its 3D conversion qualities? |
| Baidu launches its own web browser Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT If there's one thing that Baidu has no problem being, it is China's version of Google. The company already hosts China's most popular search engine and it is now it has launched its own internet browser, just like how Google has its own Chrome browser. And just like the Chrome browser, Baidu's offering has its own app store that boasts a collection of over 30,000 apps that connect users to online games, videos and tools. |
| Seneye lets you keep an eye on your aquarium from a distance Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT
The Seneye consists of a sensor that is placed into your aquarium and also plugged into your internet-connected computer. It then constantly measures the current condition of your aquarium, keeping your personal Seneye account updated with information such as the aquarium's water temperature, pH, ammonia level, and even light measurements. These stats can be checked from any other computer with access to the internet or through an app on the phone. |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:40 PM PDT With the Droid X2, Motorola has come up with an update to the original Droid X, another Android smartphone for the Verizon network. The changes are mostly internal, most notably with the use of a better qHD display -the best resolution for Android phones today- and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC that powers the handset. Because of those changes, the performance and gaming capabilities have much improved from the Droid X days. However, the competitive landscape has also changed quite a bit since, so how is it like to use the Droid X2 in the real world, and how does it do relative to other powerful smartphones? In this Droid X2 Review, I'll try to answer those questions. |
| Build your own solar-powered reverse trike for only $550 Posted: 18 Jul 2011 05:39 PM PDT If you live in a hot area and you're a fan of building your own vehicles, you can't go wrong with this latest DIY Instructable from Farrukh Khan. Called the Solar powered Reverse Trike, it is a DIY solar powered vehicle that can be completed for about $550. The best part about it is that it uses some pretty easy to obtain parts, though the challenge comes with assembling it by yourself but hey – that's the fun part about DIY projects right? It uses a large solar panel as a roof and to keep the trike's battery which runs the vehicle's motor. Nothing ground breaking or revolutionary in terms of design, but what it can do it does well. In case you're wondering why it's called a reverse trike – you do ride it in an odd fashion. Instead of having the single wheel leading it, in the reverse trike the two wheeled side is leading the car instead (though if you sit on it backwards it would be like riding around backwards). Hit the break to watch a demonstration video (with an odd choice of music but who am I to judge?) and head over to Instructables to find out how to build one for yourself. |
If you own LG's 3D phone – the Optimus 3D right now, you would have known by now that it has the ability to convert 2D images and videos into 3D images and videos. The phone uses software to take photographs and estimates the depth from each individual pixel and then generates a new image from it. The phone then shows two images to its users at the same time (one original and one slightly different) to create the 3D effect. This same effect is done for videos as well, albeit frame by frame instead of by pixels.
Love your fish and wish for a better way to keep an eye on them? So do the folks at Seneye who will be releasing an aquarium monitoring system. It will be available in three different variants for different kinds of aquariums – Seneye Home, Seneye Pond, and Seneye Reef. But they all do the same job – by monitoring the status of your aquarium that your fish or other pets are in.
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