Gmail For Android Could Soon Get A Navigation Drawer

The folks over on Android Police must have spent some of their time rewatching I/O videos. While they were doing that, they spotted a potential leak during the “Structure in Android App Design” session. In it, it seems, Google quietly leaked screenshots of what looks to be a revamped interface for the Gmail app.

If this turns out to be a real product, and the presentation sure made it look like that, the app could soon get a new navigation drawer that should make using it quite a bit easier – especially for those of us who like to use lots of labels in Gmail.

Currently, Google uses what it calls a “spinner,” the drop-down menu at the top of the screen you’ve probably seen in numerous Android apps. Instead, as Google’s Jens Nagel showed during his presentation, the new design would use a navigation drawer that users can pop out from the left side of the screen.

Here is what this would look like:

It’s worth noting that Google showed a lot of mock-ups during this presentation. The Gmail screenshot looks pretty real, however. Google does typically vet these presentations ahead of time, so we will just have to wait and see if this is really a leak or just an example of what the Android team could do with navigation drawers in Gmail.

During the presentation, Google also showed a mock-up of what the Calendar app would look like with the new navigation drawer, but Jens Nagel explicitly noted that while they could use this as the main interface for Calendar, the sidebar does “look a bit underpopulated,” especially on a tablet. It would be odd for Google to use one interface paradigm for one of its main native Android apps and go with another one in the rest of its apps.

Here is the full presentation. The discussion about the new Gmail interface starts about 23 minutes into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XpqyiBR0lJ4

Source: TechCrunch

Resport by: FREDERIC LARDINOIS

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Xbox One Instant Switching Turns The Console Into A Voice-Powered Set Top Box With Live TV Integration

Now leading the pack in gaming consoles, Microsoft’s future growth lies outside the gaming sphere. We’ll surely see tons of games at E3 in a few weeks, but at the big reveal of the Xbox One, the company chose to focus on non-gaming features, such as media streaming and Skype conversations.

But what makes streaming and entertainment a true upgrade on the Xbox One, which already has access to almost all streaming platforms? Instant Switching. It allows you to switch between inputs, games, menus, internet explorer, and almost anything else almost instantly. And what’s more, it lets you layer the power of Microsoft partnerships and information across live TV.

The Xbox responds to the voice; saying “Xbox On” turns on the console to the homescreen. The UI is familiar, and lets you see what you were doing last, along with trending content from friends, and other panels like games, tv, etc. But then you say “Xbox watch TV”, and live TV pops on. “Xbox show Guide”, and the guide pops up letting you see what’s available on Live TV. “Xbox watch ESPN”, and bloop, ESPN is on. Instant Switching at its best.

And here’s where it gets interesting:

“Xbox show Fantasy,” and instantly, along the right side of the screen showing a Knicks vs Celtics game you’ll see a run-down on your fantasy league, letting you access further information and even make alterations in real-time, right alongside the game itself.

The company also announced a new partnership with NFL which will offer exclusive content and access to Fantasy leagues in Snapmode in real-time.

This is thanks to a feature called Snapmode, which will offer new interactive experiences for Live TV. This includes social, applications, and more.

Because Xbox is now tapping into your live TV, it offers a more targeted and complete entertainment UI, with favorites showing all of your favorite content in a single destination.

And it’s all powered by your voice, should you like. What’s that? Is that the voice of Microsoft telling the hundreds of thousands of Xbox 360 owners out there, who proudly revel in their ownership of what’s considered the most popular gaming console out there, that they should maybe think about upgrading?

Of course, Microsoft wouldn’t upgrade software without hardware (which you can read more abouthere), and that includes the addition of a Blu-ray player.

Alongside announcing the Xbox One, Microsoft also announced a partnership with 343 Industries and Steven Spielberg to develop a live action TV show about Halo. They didn’t go into much detail, but how much you want to bet there’s some awesome Snapmode features and Xbox SmartGlass features?

Source: TechCrunch

Report by: JORDAN CROOK

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Microsoft Confirms That The Xbox One Will Come With An Incredibly Sensitive New Kinect

The Xbox One was just unveiled at Microsoft’s Redmond campus and, true to multiple reports that circulated before the official reveal, the new console will indeed come with a Kinect.

And what a Kinect it is! The rumors of a vastly improved Kinect sensor array were right on the money — this next-generation model is capable of tracking motions as minute as wrist rotations, and Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said the new Kinect would even be able to read users’ heartbeats when they’re exercising or when players shift their weight. The new Kinect’s main camera is capable of recording 1080P RGB video at 30 frames per second (for a bit of perspective, the original model could only capture VGA video). Perhaps most importantly, the Xbox One will be capable of chewing on all the data the newfangled Kinect (no one has dropped an official name for the thing yet) captures at a rate of about 2GB of per second, which is probably partially why the onstage demos looked so brisk.

We got a brief glimpse of the new Kinect in action when Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi called out commands and used minute hand gestures to manipulate content on the Xbox One — commands like “Xbox on” and “go to video” allow for near-instantaneous switching between running applications, and the Kinect is apparently also able to differentiate between users based on their voices.

In short, it’s a massive, massive upgrade compared to the venerable original model, which often exhibited issues with basic limb and motion tracking. Granted, demos we saw today were carefully staged, but the Kinect reacted to Mehdi’s commands and inputs without a hint of technical hesitation — if the new Kinect works in the living room as well as it did onstage, Microsoft may really have something here. And frankly, that’s saying something considering Microsoft managed to move 10 million of the original camera/sensor arrays between November 2010 and March 2011.

Source: TechCrunch

Report by: CHRIS VELAZCO

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The New Xbox One Live Features Add Advanced Social Gaming Features That Could Lead To True MMORPG Experiences

While we don’t have all of the details on the new Xbox Live features announced at today’s Xbox One launch, it’s clear that Microsoft is going all-in when it comes to social and multiplayer gaming. First, they are upping the number of dedicated servers for online play from 15,000 to 300,000 and nearly all of your content and game data will be store in the cloud.

The service will also allow you to take in-game video and photos and share them over social media services. This is similar to Sony’s PS4 solution and is definitely a method allow users to create valuable and viral homemade content while still maintaining control of distribution. As games become more social and more cinematic, this will be an important differentiator and is essentially free advertising for game makers.

Finally, the new service adds asynchronous matchmaking, which means you can be searching for potential teammates (or enemies) while watching TV or playing another game. This increases the stickiness of multiplayer titles by nudging you back into the game when a worth opponent appears. Microsoft has also added “bigger matches with more players” and, most important, “living and persistent worlds.” This sounds to me like a direct attack on MMORPGs like World Of Warcraft and could make the Xbox a formidable force in the popular professional gaming subculture, a niche no console maker has yet cracked.

We should see further information about the Xbox One at E3 this summer.

Source: TechCrunch

Report by:JOHN BIGGS

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It’s Official: Yahoo Is Buying Tumblr For $1.1B, Vows To Keep It Independent

Yahoo has now officially confirmed that it is buying blogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion mostly in cash, after reports on an impending deal first surfaced last week. It says it will keep it as an independent company, with founder David Karp at the helm as CEO. “The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators,” it writes.

The deal will close in the second half of this year.

With a lot of negative comments coming in from Tumblr users in lead-up to the deal, and some competitors claiming that they’re witnessing a kind of exodus from Tumblr as a result, Karp has also weighed in with his own announcement about the deal, emphasizing the same independence line: “We’re not turning purple,” he wrote:

“We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.”

Karp also points out that Tumblr, joining up with the “original Internet company,” will be getting more resources to create the “ultimate creative canvas.” Some users have complained about certain features around the site, such as how video works, so the implication here is that areas like this will be addressed faster from now on, but — again — in a way that “doesn’t compromise the community and product we love.”

To get into the spirit of things, Marissa Mayer has fired up her very own Tumblr account and has posted on the news herself, complete with her own GIF to commemorate the deal (and, yes, also respond to the negativity):

Although both Karp and Mayer are pushing hard on the “we will not screw this up” line, there are of course business reasons behind it.

The deal, as many have pointed out, will give Yahoo not just access to more younger users (Tumblr is strongest in the 18-24 age bracket), but a fast-growing number of consumers who are in general very engaged online. Yahoo notes that Tumblr currently has 300 million monthly unique visitors and is growing by 120,000 signups every day, “one of the fastest-growing media networks in the world” with 900 posts per second and 24 billion minutes spent on site each month. There is also a strong mobile story that fits with Yahoo’s new emphasis on that platform: more than half of Tumblr’s mobile users using the mobile app on an average of 7 sessions per day.

Yahoo says it expects Tumblr to expand Yahoo!’s audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors, and to grow traffic by approximately 20%.

That’s presuming there will be advertising against all of that content and all of those users. While Yahoo and Tumblr say that we won’t be seeing the birth of Yahooblr here, it’s also careful to note that advertising and Yahoo’s other monetizing services will most certainly be finding a place at Tumblr.

Tumblr, it appears, will be using Yahoo’s “personalization technology” and search infrastructure in its services to help users find content that fits their interests better. This is directly connected to advertising: “In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences,” Yahoo writes. Still, these apparently won’t be standard Yahoo display ads like the ones we see everywhere else: “The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance the user experience.”

Tumblr has been working on services like this for some time, for example with its Spotlight highlighting Tumblrs from brands. This last year helped the company make some $13 million in revenues — not much by Yahoo standards. It will be interesting to see whether Yahoo will be able to raise that figure without lowering the others around usage that attracted it to Tumblr in the first place.

The companies are holding a conference call at 9am Eastern time; we’ll be listening in and updating from that.

Source: TechCrunch

Report by: INGRID LUNDEN

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E-Commerce Startup Monogram Launches A Publishing Platform For Shoppable Fashion Magazines

Last fall, fashion commerce startup Monogramlaunched an iPad app that was aiming to be kind of like a mobile, shoppable magazine for those hip to fashion. It had all the makings of a great mobile commerce app: It looked good, it was easy to use, and it allowed viewers to buy all the latest fashions really easily.

But it didn’t catch on the way that the team had hoped, according to founder Leo Chen. One of the reasons he believes the app didn’t resonate with users was that “the motivation to share individual products wasn’t strong enough.” And there just wasn’t enough content. With the launch of Monogram 2.0, the startup hopes to solve both of those problems. So the team went back to the drawing board.

Rather than position Monogram strictly as a platform for consuming content and maybe buying some stuff, the team decided to leverage the huge existing world of fashion bloggers to help create and share content through its platform.

As a result, the new Monogram provides a full web editing tool suite, which will allow bloggers to publish and share their favorite fashions with others. Bloggers can create posts, or full “magazines,” of all their favorite content, which readers can browse or subscribe to. Each post provides shoppable links to products either featured in, or similar to, the clothes and accessories that are being shown off on the page.

For bloggers, the simplicity of the Monogram platform comes primarily in the tools that it provides for enabling easy purchases through their pages. Not only is the publishing part of the tool beautiful and easy to use, but the ability to add clickable items for purchase is just drop-dead simple. Rather than having to scour the web for the items they want to add, and putting in affiliate links, the Monogram platform provides an integrated search functionality within the platform, which scours the web for the products bloggers wish to share.

On the viewing side, the new version of Monogram enables easy to read and share versions of bloggers’ posts and magazines. Monogram is built as a web app with responsive design that can be viewed on PC, tablet or mobile device. The startup has also built a native app with all the same viewing features. However, users who wish to publish need to do so from the web.

Individuals who are logged in can repost the content of others, kind of like you can do on Tumblr — but all links go back to the original post. The idea is to build a sense of community within the platform, but also to provide the original publisher with the credit for creating the post.

The company is working on adding more features for bloggers — like, for instance, advanced reporting. It’s also working on figuring out an affiliate model so that they can get paid for the products that are sold thanks to their magazines. Chen tells me that he’d like to see the bulk of affiliate revenues go to the bloggers, while the company will take a small cut.

Monogram can afford to do that, he says, because the company’s R&D team is based in Shanghai, which means a low burn rate. The company has raised about $1.25 million led by Quest Venture Partners, with participation from Great Oaks VC, Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan’s Initialized Capital, 500 Startups, Chinese seed fund Innovation Camp, Yintai.com CEO Robin Liao, Rapportive CEO Rahul Vohra, Decide.com’s Brian Ma, and angel investors Jared Kopf Christina Brodbeck.

source: TechCrunch

Report by: RYAN LAWLER

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Dijit Brings Its Personalized Social TV App To PCs With The Launch Of NextGuide Web

If the last few years have all been about building compelling mobile-first or mobile-only experiences, the latest trend seems to be bringing those experiences back to the web. (Just look at Instagram!) Anyway, with that in mind, social TV startup Dijit became the latest to follow this lead, with the launch of NextGuide Web.

The new web experience is kind of like Dijit’s NextGuide app, in that it helps people search for and discover new shows they’d like to watch, while providing ways to easily get alerts and set notifications for shows and movies when they come on. That includes shows that are on both live and on the web, providing a way to manage both traditional TV and streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

The site, like the app, is highly personal — when making recommendations, it takes into account shows that you’ve liked, either in NextGuide itself or on Facebook. It also allows you to see what shows and movies your friends have liked or shared, giving you a sense of what’s cool or popular.

But it also includes the necessary search and browse functionalities necessary for “social discovery” apps. And while it hooks into a whole lot of online services — like Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Hulu Plus, and, of course, Netflix — it also lets you know when your favorite shows and movies are going to be on TV.

NextGuide Web allows users to create watchlists and queue up shows they will want to watch later. And it will remind users when a show is on live TV, or when a new episode is added to a streaming service. For those who have DirecTV, it’ll even allow those users to record to their DVR with one click. (Dijit CEO Jeremy Toeman says other cable TV providers will be added as time goes on.)

Those who are already users of the NextGuide iPad app can log in with their account credentials or Facebook Connect right now. But for others, the Web experience is being launched in a closed beta, with Dijit sending out new invitations each week.

NextGuide is just one product that Dijit has rolled out over the years, but it’s the one that the company is (obviously) most focused on. It also still supports the Dijit Remote app. Oh, and not too long ago it acquired Miso and all of its products.

Source: TechCrunch 
Report by: Ryan Lawler

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