TechCrunch
Zuck's Adorable Sheepdog Beast Is Now A Facebook Messages Sticker Pack
Now you and Facebook’s CEO can unwind in the same way: playing with Beast. The billionaire’s Puli dog just got his own Facebook Stickers pack, which lets you forgo typing and instead send friends animated images of Beast playing, begging, or wearing the cone of shame. It’s all part of Facebook’s quest to help you communicate complex emotions efficiently.
Stickers are becoming all the rage in messaging. They’ve been part of Asian apps like Line for years, but this year Path got into the action, and Facebook followed suit with an all-free Sticker store you can access from a little smiley emoticon button in Facebook and Messenger for iOS and Android.
At first glance, they might seem pointless or juvenile, but when you think about it, they bring a human touch (or in this case, a canine touch) to texting.
Without facial expressions, body language, or tone of voice, it can be difficult to express things like excitement, sarcasm, or being serious over text. That means you can take a joke too literally, or not realize someone was being sincere. But now if you mean something in a playful way, you can just send an image of Beast gnawing on a toy along with your message. Or add one of him looking angry if you’re not kidding around. While there have been emoticons for a while, they’ve been tiny and generic. Stickers are much larger, more unique, and can show off animations.
Facebook’s free approach to stickers is especially empowering as you can download as many of the 15 sticker packs as you want. Newer ones include First Mate, which is full of pirates and mermaids, Skullington, which has a bit of a goth feel, or Wide Eyes, which is a little more hipster. The diversity lets people find stickers that match their style, and convey things like “LOL” or “I love you” in vivid, graphical ways instead of with the same old text.
Personally, I’m going to throw around Beast chasing his tail when a friend is being indecisive, and the puppy dog eyes when I need a favor. Please please pleeeease can I be your +1 to the sold-out concert?
Microsoft Confirms IE11 Will Support Google's SPDY Protocol
In a press briefing this afternoon, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 11 will support SPDY, the Google-backed protocol for speeding up download speeds for web sites. Microsoft only briefly mentioned this in its briefing and didn’t even mention it in its announcement, but this actually a major step for SPDY, which is now supported in all of the mainstream browsers.
This move will surely also get more web developers to look into supporting SPDY on their servers now that almost 100% of the user base will be able to make use of this protocol in the near future (except, of course, those who are still using IE7).
WebGL, Too – But No WebRTC
Earlier today, Microsoft already announced that it would support hardware-accelerated WebGL in IE11. Indeed, the company is clearly stressing the fact that hardware acceleration is built directly into IE11, while other vendors haven’t yet focused on this so far. Microsoft argues that by just focussing on one platform, it’s able to deliver better performance because it doesn’t have to compromise.
With WebGL and SPDY, Microsoft is clearly getting behind a number of open standards. The one that’s still missing, though, is WebRTC. Microsoft has decided to back its own proprietary version of this standard, even though Chrome and Firefox now use WebRTC in their stable releases.
Windows 8.1′s Start Button Isn't A Start Button
The headlines are loud and clear today. Microsoft brings back the Start Button in Windows 8! Huzzah! ZONG! But don’t believe the hype. We’ve been duped.
Windows 8.1′s Start Button isn’t the Start Button of old. The classic multi-step application launcher is still missing. Windows 8.1′s Start Button is more of a shortcut to the Start Menu — you know, the screen with the little colorful icons.
A right-click on the so-called Start Button pulls up a quick launch menu of shorts. The menu displays a list of administrative tools like Power Options, Event View, Disk Management and Windows Shells. It’s not customizable.
Microsoft essentially installed a shortcut to the Start Menu and called it a button. This does nothing to fix the core issue of Windows 8.
With Windows 8, Microsoft dramatically changed how the user interacts with the computer. The Start Menu replaced the Start Button — a full screen menu replaced the task of a tiny application launcher. It is a step backwards for productivity. To open a new application, the user has to completely leave the workspace. It’s horrible on a laptop.
It’s clear that Microsoft switched the paradigm to address multitasking on a tablet, and it works well on a tablet, especially so when all the applications are Metro based.
But for those of us that greatly prefer the classic Desktop — mostly because of the lack of mainstream applications — having to switch back to the Start Menu to load a new app is a waste of time. A shortcut to this screen doesn’t change that fact.
I’ve been looking forward to the return to the good ol’ days ever since the news broke that Microsoft was bringing back the Start Button in Windows 8.1. Windows 8 runs like a champ — noticeable better than Windows 7. But even after 6 months of using it, I still try my hardest to stay within Desktop, mostly the browser, and shake my head ever time I have to see the Start Screen.
Also, startup idea: Customize people’s Windows 8′s start screen for them. Or better yet, develop a little plug in that does it automagically. I tried to do it once, but quickly discovered it’s a horrible chore.
Google Removes All The Clouds From Google Maps And Earth
Ready for your regular reminder that technology is magic?
Google has just rid the earth of clouds. Well, Google Earth, at least*. They’ve just pushed an update to the satellite imagery found in Google Earth and Google Maps, offering a higher-res (and now cloud free) view of the earth than ever before.
By tapping the tools they built for the Planetary Time Machine project they showed last month, Google was able to process and combine all of the photos they had for each region of earth — that’s hundreds of terabytes of data — until they had an almost completely clear shot of the entire globe. Go, now, Brave Adventurer! Explore the world from the comforts of your five-wheeled vessel, the SS Herman Miller!
As part of the update, they’ve also updated the satellite imagery in places that haven’t been refreshed in a while, focusing mostly on Russia, Central Africa, and Indonesia.
You can check out the new, mostly-cloudless view of the planet on Google Maps now. Just flip on satellite view.
[* Dear Google: Please don't try to remove the clouds from actual earth. We would probably die very quickly and I would be sad. Thanks. Your friend, Greg.]
Check out these before and after shots, compliments of the Googles:
Central Papau, Indonesia — Before And After The Cloud Patch:
Saudi Arabia:
South America:
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