Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time

We're not entirely sure of the time line here, but it looks like Google has now rolled out the SPDY HTTP replacement to its full bevy of Web services, including Gmail, Docs, and YouTube. If you're currently using Google's Chrome browser you're probably already using SPDY.

We originally reported on SPDY way back in November 2009, when Google introduced it as yet another experiment in making the Web faster, like Go, Native Client and speculative pre-connections. Over the last 18 months, though, SPDY support has found its way into the stable build of Chrome.

SPDY is basically a streamlined and more efficient version of HTTP. At its most basic, SPDY introduces parallel, multiplexed streams over a single TCP connection -- but at the same time, SPDY allows for prioritization, so that vital content (HTML) can be sent before periphery content (JavaScript, video). All in all, the SPDY protocol can halve page load times, which is obviously rather significant.

The best bit, though, is that SPDY is an open-source project. HTTP 1.1 is a lumbering beast that needs to be replaced before low-latency real-time computing really becomes a reality, and SPDY is one of the best options currently on the table. To be honest, we're not sure why SPDY hasn't received more coverage -- it's awesome in every way. At the moment, though, the only way to help speed up SPDY's proliferation, is with an experimental Apache mod.

As far as actually 'trying it out,' your best bet is downloading Chrome, hitting up some Google sites, and then checking chrome://net-internals to see your active SPDY sessions. SPDY is a transparent replacement for HTTP, though, and as such it's rather hard to see its effects. Google's sites definitely feel fast in Chrome, but there are more technologies than just SPDY at work.

Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/google-chrome-now-uses-spdy-http-replacement-halves-page-load-t/

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Trouble Hiring? Create A Cult.

Everyone knows there?s a war going on today in Silicon Valley: a war for talent. Startups are competing for a limited supply of engineering and product design labor, largely constrained by the failure of the US to invest in STEM education and a terribly restrictive immigration process for work visas. Meanwhile, big companies like Facebook and Google are paying out millions to either retain or rehire engineers through talent acquisitions. This system is under even more pressure from seed funds (Sorry: I?m a part-time partner at Y Combinator, so I?m probably contributing to the problem). Not only do you have to worry about your engineers going to your competition, you have to worry about them getting seeded to run off and start their own company. It?s often hard to compete against the ?grass is greener? dream of being a founder, especially when the theoretical upside of doing your own thing is nearly infinite and there are investors ready to write you a convertible note check today. No cap necessary! If you want to attract and retain the best talent, you?re going to have to work hard at it. Here are a few lessons I?ve learned in the past couple months:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kwQS0LQQdcI/

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Screen Grabs: Palm Pre-iPhone hybrid appears on Grimm, doesn't look half bad

Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com.

Anyone who caught the series premiere of Grimm, NBC's new fairy-tale-and-crime-procedural would have seen another sort of unearthly fusion: a Palm Pre device ringing like an iPhone. The phone then switches to the typical webOS interface we've long admired, picking up reception on AT&T along the way. We're torn over whether they're using a Pre 2 or another Palm family member, though the screen looks too dinky for it to be the mythical Pre 3. But in a world of monster hunters and big bad wolves, we guess anything's possible.

[Thanks, Ben]

Screen Grabs: Palm Pre-iPhone hybrid appears on Grimm, doesn't look half bad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/31/screen-grabs-palm-pre-iphone-hybrid-appears-on-grimm-doesnt-l/

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Barnes & Noble has 'very special announcement' next week; we'll be there!

Barnes & Noble's whipping up some breakfast on Nov. 7, and it looks like we've got some new hardware in store, too. At the very least, we're promised a "very special announcement." The odds are on seeing a new Nook Color -- and this just a week before the uber-hyped Amazon Kindle Fire starts shipping. Will what we get be able to extinguish the Kind Fire's, erm, fire? We'll find out next week.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/MUemqov6EzI/barnes-noble-has-very-special-announcement-next-week-well-be-there

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Deal of the Day: Otterbox Commuter Case for the Photon 4G, Inspire 4G and EVO Shift 4G

We've got a triple treat for the Oct. 31 Deal of the Day -- the OtterBox Commuter Series case for the Motorola Photon 4G, HTC Inspire 4G and HTC EVO Shift 4G. The OtterBox case is synonymous with protection, with three layers to keep scratches, dings and dents well away from your phone. There's a self-ahering clear plastic film to cover the screen, a durable silicone mid-layer, and a one-piece custom polycarbonate shell. And you'll still have access to all of the ports and buttons. The OtterBox Commuter Series Case is available for all three phones today only for just $19.95 -- that's 43 percent off! [Photon 4G | Inspire 4G/Desire HD | EVO Shift 4G]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/VxGni6ma0VE/deal-day-otterbox-commuter-case-photon-4g-inspire-4g-and-evo-shift-4g

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Test Page For GDrive Appearing In Google Search Results

In case there was still any doubt about the long-rumored "GDrive's" existence, a page now appearing on Google's search results offers a pretty clear indication that something is going on. On Writely.com - the online word processing service Google acquired in 2006 - �a test page is now appearing with a title that reads "test page for Platypus (GDrive)." Well, there you have it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/niui2a4Eikg/

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PSX games now available in the Android Market, if you own an Xperia Play

If you're lucky enough to own an Xperia Play -- Sony Ericsson's new Gingerbread-powered smartphone-cum-gamepad -- you can now buy PlayStation (PSX) titles from the Android Market.

There are five titles currently available, all priced at £3.99: Syphon Filter, MediEvil, Cool Boarders 2, Destruction Derby, and Jumping Flash. They don't have an American price yet, but that will surely change once the Xperia Play launches in the States.

Two important questions remain unanswered: How big are these games? The Market descriptions say the games are only 5MB, but that sounds incredibly unlikely -- and more importantly, will it be possible to 'spoof' the Xperia Play and download PSX games onto other Gingerbread-powered phones, like the Nexus S?

In other news, the PlayStation emulator PSX4droid was recently removed from the Android Market. This obviously has nothing to do with today's release of first-party PlayStation games.

PSX games now available in the Android Market, if you own an Xperia Play originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/psx-games-now-available-in-the-android-market/

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Dolphin Browser responds to allegations of data mining

Several days ago we (and likely many others) were contacted about a potentially serious security issue with Dolphin Browser.  Apparently, quite a bit of information about your browsing session, including URL data for secure websites and search strings, was being forwarded to a remote server -- http://en.mywebzines.com.  We tore things apart and verified it, sure enough, it was happening and we were concerned.  Today the folks at Dolphin Browser have responded:

With roughly 300 Webzines supported at the moment, it was necessary for the client to check the current user URL against a database housing these 300 Webzine columns...None of these URLs have ever been stored by Dolphin, instead being used to cross-index if a Webzine for the current site exists. If it does, the current site is immediately converted to Webzine format; if not, it remains the standard mobile site. Again, none of this process is stored on the backend of our servers and we are deeply sorry that this was not made clear to our users from the beginning.

While the security nerd inside of us still cringes a bit at this, it's a perfectly reasonable explanation.  It's also the best way to handle the situation -- Webzine is pretty cool, and we don't want to have to maintain that database of 300 supported sites on our devices.  This should have been presented to the user before using the Webzine feature, but Dolphin Browser isn't evil.  We're glad they took the time to explain the whole mess, and now we can go back to using it.  Read the concerns, and Dolphin's entire response at the source links.

More: XDA-Developers;  Dolphin Browser blog

Thanks, CB!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/VW_52cFEuB0/dolphin-browser-responds-allegations-data-mining

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IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison

Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.

A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.

But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test...

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/ie9-and-firefox-4-post-top-marks-in-pc-power-use-comparison/

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DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android

Dropbox offers a lovely client for Android, but it's lacking true "sync" functionality. You can merely browse your Dropbox, pull files into the device, and manually upload specific files.

DropSpace is a little Android app that makes Dropbox on Android work like Dropbox - that is, you get real folder synchronization in the background.

When you run the app you're prompted for your Dropbox credentials. After logging in to Dropbox, you get to select which device folders you'd like to sync to the cloud. It's a straightforward mapping process: You select a folder on the device, and then specify where in Dropbox it should go.

The interface is rather clunky, at least for now. The biggest annoyance is that you can't edit your "sync list": if you add a folder and then wish to remove it, you must delete the entire list of folders and start over.

In terms of functionality, it works quite well. I tested it with the camera folder, and it was nice to be able to take my photos using the lean default Camera app and have them sync up to the cloud instantly.

DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/dropspace-adds-real-dropbox-sync-to-android/

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DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android

Dropbox offers a lovely client for Android, but it's lacking true "sync" functionality. You can merely browse your Dropbox, pull files into the device, and manually upload specific files.

DropSpace is a little Android app that makes Dropbox on Android work like Dropbox - that is, you get real folder synchronization in the background.

When you run the app you're prompted for your Dropbox credentials. After logging in to Dropbox, you get to select which device folders you'd like to sync to the cloud. It's a straightforward mapping process: You select a folder on the device, and then specify where in Dropbox it should go.

The interface is rather clunky, at least for now. The biggest annoyance is that you can't edit your "sync list": if you add a folder and then wish to remove it, you must delete the entire list of folders and start over.

In terms of functionality, it works quite well. I tested it with the camera folder, and it was nice to be able to take my photos using the lean default Camera app and have them sync up to the cloud instantly.

DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/dropspace-adds-real-dropbox-sync-to-android/

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HTML5 MP3 player lets you listen to your music library inside your browser

While this slick little HTML5 audio player might not pack all of the features of your favorite desktop media application, it's still a very cool demonstration of what a Web app can do with access to local resources -- like MP3 and OGG files.

Just fire up http://antimatter15.github.com/player/player.html in your HTML5-compatible browser and browse to the topmost folder in your music library. The app will quickly build an index of all your tunes and let you start listening right inside your Web browser. Click on the filter library text, and you can enter a search string -- results load as you type.

There's a volume control, shuffle mode, play/pause control, and you can click and drag to skip forward or rewind during playback. As OMG! Ubuntu points out, you can even save the app to your hard drive and run it offline, which is pretty darn cool.

Not all browsers are equal when it comes to HTML5 implementation, of course. We found that Chrome worked the best, and Firefox was OK. It's also worth noting that this music player comes from the same developer that created one of our favorite restartless Firefox 4 add-ons, drag2up.

HTML5 MP3 player lets you listen to your music library inside your browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/html5-mp3-player-lets-you-listen-to-your-music-library-inside-yo/

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Artificial Blood From Bone Marrow Stem Cells Still Makes Me Genuinely Queasy [Blood]

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not the best person to call if you happen to be bleeding and need help. I tend to succumb to gravity pretty quickly, which has also prevented me from being a generous donor. But I know I'm not alone, and in a continuing effort to find a reliable source for blood that doesn't require sticking people with needles, researchers at Edinburgh University have developed a new type of faux blood that could be ready for human testing in as little as two years. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/jUC_QUdJR4s/a-new-technique-to-create-artificial-blood-that-still-makes-me-genuinely-queasy

GOOGLE FORMFACTOR FISERV FIRST SOLAR

Windows 8 Explorer to feature Ribbon UI, SkyDrive and Mesh integration?

Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott have posted a second look at some of the early changes which have surface in Windows 8 milestone 3. First there was the restyled Welcome Screen, and now it appears that Microsoft is toying with bringing the Ribbon UI to Explorer.

The Ribbon, like in Microsoft Word and Excel, is context-aware, adding tabs for specific tasks which apply to the folder you're viewing -- such as library or picture management. You can also make out two new buttons in the status bar, which allow you to change the current folder's view style.

It's clear from all the placeholder images and repeated elements that this is very much a work in progress, but featuring the Ribbon more prominently in Windows 8 would certainly be a logical progression for Microsoft. It's slowly become more ubiquitous, moving beyond Office and into Wordpad, Paint, and several of the Windows Live Essentials applications.

There's more to the screenshots than the Ribbon UI, however. Our friend Long Zheng has noted two interesting elements in the images: Web sharing and sync (image after the break). That would likely mean users will be able to quickly upload files to SkyDrive and synchronize using Live Mesh right from Explorer in Windows 8. That's not a total surprise considering many of the earliest leaked images of Windows 8 showed Windows Live integration on the desktop.

Continue reading Windows 8 Explorer to feature Ribbon UI, SkyDrive and Mesh integration?

Windows 8 Explorer to feature Ribbon UI, SkyDrive and Mesh integration? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/03/windows-8-explorer-to-feature-ribbon-ui-skydrive-and-mesh-integ/

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Get More Sound from Your iPad 2 with the Cygnett SmartSound

I almost never use earbuds with my iPad 2 and usually just rely on its speaker. �The sound from the iPad 2 is okay, but the speaker is on the back. �The sound is directed away from me, and I usually find I’m holding my hand cupped around the back of the iPad 2 to [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/10/30/get-more-sound-from-your-ipad-2-with-the-cygnett-smartsound/

EMS TECHNOLOGIES EMC ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS

Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7

We've been looking at some pretty cool Kinect and Windows interactions for a while now, but we were hoping that the release of an official SDK would lead to even more coolness. Evoluce has stepped up, and is now offering Win&I -- a full-featured gesture control system for Windows 7.

The company claims that a range of up to four meters is supported, which should be perfect for just about any home theater setting. In the video embedded after the break, you can see an Evoluce demonstrator flip through a photo album, pan through a map, rearrange application windows, browse the Web, and control media playback. Two versions of Win&I are offered -- the home version goes for about 20 Euros, the business version for 40.

Anyone else having fun pretending his stance is a little "Iron Man"? We're tempted to put a repulsor on that hand.

Continue reading Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7

Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/evoluce-winandi-controls-windows-7-with-a-kinect-sensor/

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Tonight, on the Greatest Android Podcast in the world

Hands-on with the Galaxy Nexus, in-app purchases and a bad-ass game

Oooooo. You're not going to want to miss this. We just got our mitts on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (and the Galaxy Note, again) and will have some thoughts. Plus our new favorite game -- Wind-up Knight, and whether the use of in-app purchases has soured it for us.

So join Phil and the gang -- and, of course, the chat room -- live tonight at 9 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. PST for the live broadcast. You should be there. You will be there. You must be there. After all, you are what makes it the Greatest Android Podcast in the World.

Not at a computer? Pick up the free UStream Viewer from the Android Market [link] and search for Android Central a little before the show (it won't appear until we go live). We'll see you there! AndroidCentral.com/live

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/2Vq9VQ189Eo/live-announce

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