Google Buzz Integrates Social Sharing into Gmail

Today Google announced Google Buzz, a new product that integrates with your Gmail inbox and makes it easy to start rich conversations about the things you find interesting. Google Buzz lets you share web links, photos, videos, and more with those who are important to you.

We've relied on other services' openness in order to build Buzz (you can connect Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail), and Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. We're building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and we invite developers to join us on Google Code to see what is available today and to learn more about how to participate.

The Mobile version of Buzz takes advantage of the location features built into your device. Google Buzz for mobile allows you to post buzz and keep up with your friends when you're away from your computer. It also uses your location to identify places around you. You can select one of these places and attach it as location tag to your posts, or read what others have posted about the place.

There are several ways to use Google Buzz on your mobile phone...

Buzz.google.com:
This web app provides access to Buzz from your iPhone or Android phone's browser, allowing you to view and create buzz messages. It has two different views: 'Following' view shows buzz from the people you follow, just like Google Buzz in your Gmail; 'Nearby' view shows public buzz that has been tagged with a location near you, and might be from people you don't follow. From Nearby view, you can also select a specific place from the list of nearby places and view posts attached to that place.

Buzz on Google Maps for mobile:
The new Buzz layer allows you to see buzz near you or anywhere on the map. You can post public buzz directly from the layer, and even attach a photo from your phone. Also, try visiting a mobile Place Page to read recent comments or to post buzz about that place. You can access Place Pages from the web app as well, by tapping on the place name in any location-tagged post.

Buzz Shortcut from Google.com:
You will see the buzz icon in the top right corner of the google.com homepage. Just tap on the icon to trigger the posting box.

Voice Shortcut:
The voice shortcut, which is available in the quick search widget on Android and in Google Mobile App on iPhone, allows you to post buzz without typing anything. Just say 'post buzz,' followed by whatever you'd like to post.

You can take a look at a few videos below to learn more about how Google Buzz works...

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Google Takes Street View to the Slopes for the Olympics

Google is bring Street View to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics using a snowmobile decked out with cameras to capture slope-level imagery of several runs on Whistler Blackcomb Mountains.

In time for the Games in Vancouver and Whistler, we're thrilled to be bringing this view to the world through Street View on Google Maps. How were we able to gather imagery at 7,000 feet (2,000 meters)? The Street View team's constant experimenting yielded a snowmobile decked out with cameras to capture slope-level imagery of several runs on Whistler Blackcomb Mountains. The view from the top of 7th Heaven chairlift on Blackcomb and from the peak of Whistler are among my favourites, as are the top of the Dave Murray downhill, where the men's alpine skiing events will start, and the Peak 2 Peak gondola. (That's Whistler's new feat of engineering which takes skiers and riders from Whistler to Blackcomb.) With the Street View trike, we've also covered Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside at the mountains' bases. There's more about the snowmobile's journey and this imagery on the Google Lat Long Blog.

This imagery and many other tools are being made available on a new website which provides information about the games in 40 languages. Take a look for up-to-date medal counts, news, event results and event schedules with rich visuals: 3D models and Street View imagery of the competition venues, plus new aerial imagery of the Vancouver-Whistler area.

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Adobe Demos iPhone Apps Built With Flash

Adobe has posted a video in which they demonstrate some iPhone applications that were built with Flash. These application are already available in the App Store.

The two examples provided are Fickleblox and ChromaCircuit.

Adobe has also posted a video demonstration of how to create an iPhone application in Flash CS5. In the tutorial Adobe demonstrates the current workflow for taking a Flash application and compiling it to a native iPhone application.

Take a look at the video below...

[via iSpazio]

Belkin Annouces New Laptop Cooling Pad

Belkin has redesigned the Cooling Pad to include a patent-pending AirFlow Wing, repositioned fan, and wave shape. This combination of features optimizes circulation to let hot air flow up and away from your laptop. The USB-powered Cooling Pad can be used comfortably on a desk or in your lap.

Features:
* Patent-pending AirFlow Wing for better cooling and quieter operation
* Patented wave design enhances cooling capabilities
* Single-fan design optimizes cooling with low power consumption
* Includes USB cable and convenient storage compartment for it when not in use
* Fits laptops up to 15.4"

Pricing and Availability
* April 2010 in all global regions
* Now available for pre-order on Amazon.com
* $29.99 (F5L055)

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New MacBook Pro to be Released Tomorrow?

French website Nowhere Else is reporting that Apple will update its MacBook Pro lineup tomorrow just in time for the start the Macworld Expo.

"A source close to Apple who wishes to remain anonymous has informed me that the new MacBook Pro range is launched tomorrow."

This information comes shortly after GeekBench benchmarked an unknown MacBook Pro model designated as "6,1". The system ran a non-shipping build of Mac OS X 10.6.2 (Build 10C3067) and featured an Intel Core i7 M 620 running at 2.66GHz.

The rumor cannot be substantiated at this time; however, the MacBook Pro lineup is due for an update soon. This would provide a little excitement to the Macworld Expo during which Apple used to announce new products such as the iPhone.

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