Word Lens
5 years of painfully repetitive, horribly out-dated and unbelievably unrealistic Spanish classes; useless. Thank you, Mr. Jobs. Now, if only you could strike a deal for an iPhone app that gives back wasted time.
On December 16th, the iPhone introduced its newest augmented-reality application, “Word Lens” to the app store. Word Lens is a ground-breaking real time language translator that allows its users to hold up their iPhones to any piece of unreadable text and have it translated for them right in front of their eyes. Now, us monolingual folks can kiss goodbye the days of looking like a tourist in an unknown city, or slipping, so gracefully, on a “piso mojado”.
3 Creative Social Good Campaigns
1. Chrome for a Cause Raises $1 Million in 5 days
One of the most recent campaigns launched by Google – Chrome for a Cause – has raised over $1 million on behalf of Google’s partner charities. From December 15th to 19th, web users who downloaded the extension opened more than 60 million tabs total in order to raise funds. At the end of each day, a Chrome user could donate their opened tabs to one of five causes. We thought that maybe a picture could explain it better:
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Mac App Store Release Date: January 6th
Apple announced yesterday that it would be releasing its much-anticipated Mac App Store on Thursday, January 6th. The release date coincides with the opening of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where Apple intends to unveil the Mac App Store as a new feature of their upcoming software update – Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
On January 6th, the store will be available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard users as an upgrade before its official release for Mac OS X Lion. Launching in 90 countries, the Mac App Store, like its mobile sibling, will feature access to both free and paid apps in such categories as education, productivity, and games. When designing the Mac App Store, Apple made sure to bring the same sophistication in searching, installing and updating apps directly from the iOS App Store. Developers have until December 31st to submit their apps/software to feature during the launch of the Mac App Store.
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Google Ebookstore
Back in my day, we used to have to read books from an Amazon Kindle. Silly little things.
On Monday, Google launched its eBookstore, expecting to give Amazon a run for its money on the virtual book market. With promises of unexplored convenience and accessibility, the eBookstore contains approximately 3 million titles in a myriad of genres. Unlike the aforementioned Kindle, Google eBooks users are able to download their books wherever they’d like, and to whichever device is more available to them at the time. For example, if you start reading a book at home on your desktop, you can leave for work, and continue right where you left off using your iPad or smartphone. The idea here being that not only do you have one of the largest libraries on earth in your pocket; you also have it in a subway, at your workplace, or at your son’s little league baseball game. The possibilities (as has become the cliché of all Google’s campaigns) are truly endless.
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The New Myspace
After spending the last few years as the red headed step-sister of social networking powerhouse Facebook; Myspace owner Rupert Murdoch finally decided it was time for a change. With the launch of the new and improved Myspace, Murdoch aims to separate his site from the “social networking” label, insisting Myspace is now a “social entertainment destination” above all else. Albeit a powerful insistence, the seemingly-dead website proves to live up to its name thus far. Read more >>