Take a Virtual Walk through Hong Kong with Google Street View
If you’ve never been to Hong Kong, and you’ve heard legends about the busy streets of the city, you can now see how it looks for yourself without leaving your comfy chair, as Google has launched its Street View service for Hong Kong.
The huge city has been covered extremely well; just zoom out of Street View, pull the little yellow Street View figure on the upper left side of the screen and you’ll see that most of the streets are blue, which means Street View is available there.
In addition to Hong Kong, Google Street View is now also available in the city of Macau, south of Guangdong province.
Tags: Hong Kong, street view
HTC Touch Pro2 gets a new lease of Android life, loves it (video)
Android for Windows phones — simple concept, simple enough installation, but awesome results. The good people behind the XDAndroid project have been working hard to allow you to get your Google juices flowing nice and freely on your WinMo device and the latest build looks to have all but completed the task. Demonstrated on a Touch Pro2 — a phone that recently got itself Ubuntu-ized — the Android installation experiences no difficulty in making calls, sending SMS or email missives, or browsing the web. There are still limitations, mind you, with GPS, Bluetooth and “other key functions” not yet available, but for the most part you’re looking at the full Android experience on devices that weren’t initially meant for it. Check it out on video after the break or hit the source link for detailed instructions on how to load this up on your own phone.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: Seems the Touch Pro2’s keyboardless cousin has no intention of getting left out of the party — m8cool has a little exposé on HTC’s Touch Diamond2 dual-booting WinMo with Android. Thanks, stagueve!
Continue reading HTC Touch Pro2 gets a new lease of Android life, loves it (video)
HTC Touch Pro2 gets a new lease of Android life, loves it (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates
Think we’d all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn’t exactly a clear winner. The tests weren’t completely scientific, but they did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac — something it has complained about quite publicly. According to Ozer, the differences between HTML5 and Flash playback on a Mac could be virtually eliminated if Flash could make use of GPU acceleration. Hit up the link below for all the numbers.
Update: Mike Chambers has performed some additional tests that he says shows that “does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows.” Check out the complete results here.
HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates
Think we’d all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn’t exactly a clear winner. The tests weren’t completely scientific, but they did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac — something it has complained about quite publicly. According to Ozer, the differences between HTML5 and Flash playback on a Mac could be virtually eliminated if Flash could make use of GPU acceleration. Hit up the link below for all the numbers.
HTML5 vs. Flash comparison finds a few surprises, settles few debates originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Motorola partners with Microsoft, will use Bing search and maps on Chinese Android phones
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Motorola_s_Android_phones_to_use_Bing_search_in_China’; Uh, whoa. When we heard Google’s threatened pullout of China had prompted Motorola to seek out an alternative search provider for its China-bound handsets, we can’t say we were expecting a partnership with Microsoft to result. But here we are, staring at a press release announcing the Bing search and Maps will be the default on Moto’s Chinese Android phones starting in Q1 — and the partnership is described as “global,” so there’s a chance it could spread. That’s just one more slap in Google’s face from Moto, following the release of the Yahoo-powered AT&T Backflip — and another step away from the tight relationship that produced the Droid. And does this mean Motorola might yet build a Windows Phone 7 Series device, despite a very public commitment to Android? We’d say Eric and Sanjay have some unresolved differences to work through.
Motorola partners with Microsoft, will use Bing search and maps on Chinese Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
15 Famous Tech Titans Hit Forbes’ Billionaire List
Forbes has released its annual list of the world’s billionaires and when it comes to technology, the list includes many of the same faces we see year after year.
After regaining the throne last year, Bill Gates has once again been displaced as the world’s richest man — this time by Carlos Slim (who held that post back in 2007), but he remains the richest man in tech by a wide margin with an estimated net worth of $53 billion.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who fell off the list last year, has rejoined, tied with 20 others at #212 with an estimated net worth of $4 billion.
Check out how some other tech heavyweights weighed in:
Larry Ellison: $28 Billion
The Oracle founder and CEO is the sixth richest person in the world this year, sitting pretty with $28 billion as his estimated net worth.
Sergey Brin & Larry Page: $17.5 Billion Each
The two Google co-founders both place 24th on the list with $17.5 billion in estimated net worth.
Steve Ballmer: $14.5 Billion
Thanks to a rise in Microsoft’s stock price, Ballmer saw his net worth rise and he sits at #33 on the overall list.
Paul Allen and Michael Dell: $13.5 Billion
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might appear to spend money like its water, but he’s still ranked at #37 on the list, tied with Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell.
Jeff Bezos: $12.3 Billion
The Amazon founder and CEO is ranked #43 with $12.3 billion in estimated net worth. That’s a lot of e-books!
Eric Schmidt: $6.3 Billion
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is ranked #117 this year, tied with News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Steve Jobs: $5.5 Billion
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has watch his company’s stock price soar over the last twelve months. He’s ranked #136 with an estimated $5.5 Billion.
Pierre Omidyar: $5.2 Billion
The eBay founder is ranked #148 on the list.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg: $3 Billion each
While most filmmakers don’t necessarily fall into the category of technology players, I think we can make an exception for the guy who gave us Jaws, E.T. and Minority Report and the guy that gave us Star Wars and Howard The Duck. Both directors are tied at #316.
Jerry Yang: $1.3 Billion
Hey, being ousted wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Yang — Yahoo’s stock was up 26% in the last year, buoying the co-founders net worth along with it.
Tags: bill gates, billionaires, mark zuckerberg, steve jobs
Google Reader Play Transforms Feeds into Entertainment Experience
Google has just released an alternative player for Google Reader that gives those with a penchant for browsing news the ability to do so in an image-heavy, TV-like fashion.
Dubbed Google Reader Play, the new tool is an experimental Google Labs project that presents stories one by one — based on their Recommend Items technology — using enlarged photos and auto-playing videos (in lieu of text) on a black backdrop. Viewers can redefine categories and star, like or share stories, with those behaviors further contributing to what Google displays.
Google Reader Play could be both an entertainment utility for browsing the web and a complement to your Google Reader experience. Actions that you take in Reader or Reader Play are shared between the two products, and the recommendations in Reader Play are personalized based on the people you’re following in Reader.
Google Reader Play is certainly eye-catching, but it’s more pop than it is substance. In fact, given that Google Reader appeals to fairly narrow audience today, we believe the product was intended to up the entertainment factor and introduce Reader-esque features to a much broader set of users.
It’s nice to look at and worth a try; whether or not that’s enough to attract the attention of those outside the web/tech realm remains to be seen. We do, however, think that Google Reader Play on an iPad or actual TV set, say via something like Boxee Box, would be worth watching.
Reviews: Google, Google Labs, Google Reader
Tags: Google, google reader, google reader play, tv
