staff: Tumblr for Windows Phone has arrived! Find and follow the things you love Share photos, gifs, video, quotes, chats, links, and text Jump between your dashboard and Explore with just one swipe Display the latest images from your dashboard on your lock screen and live tile GIFs play as you scroll Get the app Well what have we here! None other than the official Tumblr app for Windows Phone! Is it not quite foolish for a company like Tumblr to launch an app for an OS that is dead? /s (sarcasm). But I cannot lie, the launch of this app caught me totally off guard as I probably got a bit too comfortable using a wonderfully concocted 3rd Party Tumblr app made by the capable developer, Jose H. Arriago (@joseharriaga) (Kudos sir on a job well done!). That has pretty much been the story of Windows Phone for some time now. Lack of official apps but a bountiful supply of great 3rd party apps that fill their places. Before Foursquare, there was 4th & Mayor; before YouTube (and there’s still no official YouTube app—but many Google sabotage attempts) there was MetroTube and now there’s MyTube, No Pinterest, but there’s Pinspiration, Pinboarder, Pinsation; No Reddit, but Baconit stomps on many official apps. However, slowly but surely, this situation has been changing. Windows Phone has seen quite a good number of official releases in recent times, some making it to Windows Phone even before iOS and Android (more often the latter of course). This is all of course a result of Windows Phone not being dead, as some people like to spew, but rather growing exponentially in many places that don’t happen to be America. I have no doubt that things will only continue to get better as Microsoft with their right hand help, Nokia, continues to develop and push the excellent and full of potential OS that Windows Phone is.
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staff:

Tumblr for Windows Phone has arrived!

  • Find and follow the things you love
  • Share photos, gifs, video, quotes, chats, links, and text
  • Jump between your dashboard and Explore with just one swipe
  • Display the latest images from your dashboard on your lock screen and live tile
  • GIFs play as you scroll

Get the app

Well what have we here! None other than the official Tumblr app for Windows Phone! Is it not quite foolish for a company like Tumblr to launch an app for an OS that is dead? /s (sarcasm). But I cannot lie, the launch of this app caught me totally off guard as I probably got a bit too comfortable using a wonderfully concocted 3rd Party Tumblr app made by the capable developer, Jose H. Arriago (@joseharriaga) (Kudos sir on a job well done!). That has pretty much been the story of Windows Phone for some time now. Lack of official apps but a bountiful supply of great 3rd party apps that fill their places. Before Foursquare, there was 4th & Mayor; before YouTube (and there’s still no official YouTube app—but many Google sabotage attempts) there was MetroTube and now there’s MyTube, No Pinterest, but there’s Pinspiration, Pinboarder, Pinsation; No Reddit, but Baconit stomps on many official apps.

However, slowly but surely, this situation has been changing. Windows Phone has seen quite a good number of official releases in recent times, some making it to Windows Phone even before iOS and Android (more often the latter of course). This is all of course a result of Windows Phone not being dead, as some people like to spew, but rather growing exponentially in many places that don’t happen to be America. I have no doubt that things will only continue to get better as Microsoft with their right hand help, Nokia, continues to develop and push the excellent and full of potential OS that Windows Phone is.

The Super-Powerful Long-Lasting Smartphone Battery Has Just Been Invented - Maybe

via ReadWrite

10 Times Better Than Today’s Batteries

Finally, help may be on the way.

According to a recently published article in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Illinois claim to have developed lithium ion microbatteries with power densities up to “2,000 times” more powerful than comparable batteries. Or more helpfully, technology that could support batteries either 10 times smaller or 10 times more powerful than today’s typical lithium-ion batteries.

…… If viable, it could revolutionize the market for consumer mobile electronics such as smartphone and tablets - and spur a new outpouring of innovative hardware and screen designs.

Somebody needs to [profanity removed] invest in this already! I dislike the fact that I have to purchase a Motorola RAZR Maxx that’s not running the OS I prefer, to be able to gain above-better-than-average battery life.

Also you might’ve noticed that I emboldened the word “viable” above. I did this because I’m almost 100% sure that this would be a non-factor once they got the battery on the market. Just about every, single and attached human that I know of would fall head over heels for a week long lasting battery. So kudos to the University of Illinois team, but you need to move forward with this asap or even stat!

Facebook Home is apparently not so at home on Android

Hours in, Facebook Home suffering from poor Google Play reviews as 48% of users award it 1 star (updated below)

via TNW

image

That 48% must be Google+ employees! j/k. But seriously, it (Facebook Home) has to be pretty disappointing to evoke that kind of response. Or maybe this could be the geek crowd that has some type of aversion to anything Facebook. I’d think that Facebook should know better when launching a product with so much publicity, that they ought to deliver an awesome experience right off the bat. Not to mention Facebook Home is being seen as the coming of age of the company. i haven’t used it as yet, but from what I’ve seen, many online journos have been giving it pretty nice reviews (with the fair share of negative points as well), especially mentioning something known as “chat heads”. But I guess the journo experience doesn’t always translate into the same experience for actual users (shocking!). This reminds me of Windows Phone (the much disparaged mobile OS that is my daily driver.) Some reviewers rate it as simply wonderful, others say it’s too lacking, and some more say it needs few small things and it’d be good for daily use. Meanwhile in the real world, rave reviews, rave reviews everywhere (Use your mind’s eye to imagine that Buzz light-year themed meme).

Maybe Microsoft was right when they said you could get the real People First experience with Windows Phone rather than a spooned experience with Facebook home on Android. Maybe people who like Facebook, don’t necessarily want it ‘all up in their grills’ like the Home experience makes it to be. For me Windows Phone has that perfect balance. But I guess due to Windows Phone’s closed architecture, Facebook can’t exploit it for their own gains as much as they can Android.
Anyhow, it’s a newly released concept so I’ll cease from further deconstruction until more concrete data comes in.

Update and Revision

At the time of this writing the Facebook Home launcher was only released a mere few hours prior. Being so, I decided to delay this post for a few days to gather a more complete picture once more review data flowed in. So here we are, 6 days later and sadly the situation has gotten even worse.

The rating of the Home launcher has dropped from it’s already pathetic 2.4 to 2.2 out of 5 stars from 6,863 reviews, with 3460 1 star reviews. Ouch!

image

Microsoft adds Pinterest support to Bing Image Search

Microsoft on Friday announced a new partnership with social network Pinterest. Bing’s image search has received a new “Pin to Pinterest” feature, letting users pin image results directly from the search engine to their boards.

The company touts the following points for the new integration:

  • Simple and Lightweight: There’s no need to install another bookmarklet in your browser, one click and you’re good to go.
  •  Link to Original Content: Bing automatically links and gives proper attribution to the original, high-resolution source, saving you the hassle of tracking it down yourself.
  • Powerful Search Tools: Take advantage of the full breadth of Bing image search tools like sorting and filtering by size, color, layout, and more. You can even do image search within a specific website, for example, see all “summer dresses” on Anthropologie.com.

via TNW via Bing Blogs

If you’ve been a regular Bing user like I am you would’ve surely noticed the presence of the Pin it button associated with the mega popular social network pinboard called Pinterest. I think that this is a very smart move and it shows that the Bing team knows that they have to pull out all stops to gain ground on Google. Bing image search has been far and away the best image search engine out there (in the opinions of many) to the point that Google has cribbed some of its ideas. The sad thing about this though, is that with Bing’s smaller mindshare and usershare, a lot of people won’t notice these and other benefits of Bing, until Google adds it to their engine. I’ve tried to keep a video documentary of Bing’s innovations in the event that such arguments arise Link 1 Link 2

Another thing this shows, is how open Microsoft is to partnering with different companies to create a great experience for users (though inevitably to gather data as well). This is a stark contrast to Google which is basking in shameless self-promotion of their not-so-popular social network, Google+.

Here’s how it works.

Winning


Now get Pinning! (I happen to be a pretty frequent user of that service as well, Pinning is winning, man.)

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  • Love LostThe Temper Trap

There’s just something about Temper Trap’s music…

(via effectortheme)