Hey folks in Boise and beyond: we just joined Alignable, and would love to connect and help each others’ businesses grow and thrive! It’s a simple networking site, no cost to join, and gives you access to like-minded business owners in both your local area and in your field across the country. Check out our new profile here:
https://www.alignable.com/boise-id/m-berndt-design
Looking forward to connecting and chatting more soon – cheers, everyone!
As we approach the upcoming World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) from Apple this morning, many questions are flying around about what we should expect from the technology giant, and one of the main items of speculation, of course, is the new iPhone. Will it be the iPhone 5S released first this summer, followed by a potential release of an iPhone 6 in the fall? Will the ‘Home’ button finally be cast aside, as was suspected for the iPhone 5? When will they launch iOS 7, and will it already be integrated into the new devices? These and many other questions will be answered shortly, but let’s take a look at what the rumor mill thinks will happen.
Due to the ease of scratching that came along with the iPhone 5, there may be a plastic/metal hybrid material that makes up the case for the new phone(s). This could be based on the easy-to-scratch problem, but some also say it could just be used to make a cheaper, budget iPhone to distribute at a later date. Remember, the company has said repeatedly that cheaper versions of the iPhones were on their way, and it appears that we will continue to wait for that as well. Storage may upgraded in these phones as well, possibly up to 128GB. They put that technology into an iPad, so it seems feasible that it could be incorporated here as well. The screen will most likely get an update, too, hopefully to 1080p Full HD resolution, and the camera is rumored to perhaps have a 12-megapixel sensor, which would be a significant upgrade from the 8MP in the iPhone 5.
Other rumors swirling about include wireless charging, an upgraded quad-core A7 processor, and possibly even Gaze Detection Technology, where the device would be able to tell if you are currently looking at the screen or not. Alas, we’re going to have to wait a few more hours to find out all the juicy details, but one thing’s for sure: we’re all hoping that the announcements Apple makes today will be mind-blowing, earth-shattering and knee-buckling. With all the technology that other companies are putting out right now, they need it.
*Thanks to Antoine Brieux, Federico Ciccarese, Abel Verdezoto and
Nowhereelse Designs for the concept images*
A new look and feel is coming soon to a Facebook near you, so let’s chat about it, shall we? I’ve been hoping they would do something a little better with the Facebook News Feed soon, and it seems they heard my thoughts from afar. From what I can gather, it will be more optimized and responsive as far as the web is concerned, as well boasting a cleaner, more modern look and feel. Apparently, the images will be larger, the text richer and the overall experience will “…try to give everyone in the world the most personalized newspaper…” possible.
As with any changes made to Facebook, the verdict will be hilarious. Any time there’s a new switch or development, a vast majority of users (from what I’ve witnessed, anyway) immediately hate it, and are not afraid to let everyone they know in on the secret. All-in-all, this is a pretty big step for the company, too, as this will be the first major overhaul of the News Feed since it’s inception in fall of 2006. Insiders speculate that Facebook is trying to make a more photo-friendly environment, along the same lines as Instagram, to attract a younger, image-obsessed generation. For most social media sites, it’s all about engaging the user and having them stay on the site longer, which the new News Feed is hoping to accomplish, without driving users away.
Another new feature of the Feed is splitting it into subcategories: Music, Photos, Games and Friends. This way, users can pick and choose which information they want to focus on at any given time, and not be overloaded with too much visual stimulation at one time. We’ll be able to see what our friends are grooving to via Spotify, and customize who’s posts and comments you see in any given subcategory.
This sounds like a lot of new stuff to take in…and it really is. When you don’t update one of the most popular websites in the world for close to 2 YEARS, it may come as a big shock to your users. Hopefully, the transition will be a smooth one for the social giant…complainers aside.
With the latest release/update of Mozilla’s Firefox browser, an interesting (and kind of hidden) feature is available for all you crazy kids with your social networking and your Facebooking. Firefox has introduced a pairing with Facebook to incorporate a messenger right in the sidebar of the browser. It looks similar to the sidebar we all some of us use when logged in to the actual Facebook site, and it performs in the same way as well. Not that we don’t flip back to that glowing blue tab every minute and a half as it is, but now, thanks to this new partnership, we won’t have to as much…
Allowing us all to work on (or surf) other things on the Interweb while still being able to know what everyone we care about is up to is a big boost for Firefox’s continued popularity. Since Facebook has agreed to be the guinea pig (of sorts) for this trial experiment, it suggests that the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter and other popular social media networking sites will be interested to see how this all plays out. Having just been released today, there’s obviously not a ton of feedback. Yet. Give it a few days and we’ll see what the public’s reaction is to this newfangled interweaving. Just wait.
As you can see, this tool could prove ridiculously useful to those of us that waste way too much time jumping all over the place, trying to sort out our tabs to see what we’re missing throughout the world. If too many social media outlets become involved, though, will out screen just become a massive retinal explosion of updates, with no regard to the feelings of non-social sites, who have struggled and performed valiantly for years? I suppose only time will tell us the answers to these (very important) questions, and we will, as you well know, be much better off for it.
(Oh, and there are some other new features and updates with Firefox, but so what?)
