Google has just rolled out the new Knowledge Graph that is expected to make your search experience more engaging. Until now, search was all about queries matching keywords. The new technology is designed to deliver a more human approach to the search results rather than just a list of links. With Knowledge Graph, Google can now shed light on people, places, books and many other such things that are correlated to the query. Google presents you with 500 million objects along with 3.5 billion facts that relates those objects. That’s an impressive count to start with. Let us take a closer look at what it promises to do.

Pinpointing The Search:

Every time you search for something that may have different interpretations, you are presented with a list of possible things that relate to the search. For instance, a search for the term Taj Mahal will now show Shahjahan’s monument, a musician whose stage name was Taj Mahal and even a casino likewise with a same name. Click any of those and links having matching keywords or relevant information will show up.

Summary and Related Information:

The search for the term Frank Lloyd Wright will now show a summary about the versatile architect with information such as date of birth, education, projects etc. In addition to these, Google will also show people and data that may be of importance or concern to the user. A similar search about Marie Curie, the Noble winning erudite, will portray her as a person and not just a search term, thus depicting her as a mother(name of children) and a wife(name of spouse) as well apart from showcasing her achievements in the field of radioactivity.

Delving Deeper:

The another side of search that intrigues a user apart from the information he/she was looking for is something that he/she found out of the blue. The new search is capable of doing that(as the press release publicizes). Web seemed great so far, however, at times the pool of information seems overwhelming. The new search feature will perhaps be better enjoyed for consuming information easily.

The Knowledge Graph was rumored to change the search experience altogether and with the official launch, the response so far from the media bigwigs are quite pleasant to summarize. The feature is yet to be available for all but will soon be rolled out globally. Since Google has already implemented social search with Google+ search integration, the new technology is expected to provide better results based on facts from knowledge bases like Wikipedia, Freebase or CIA World Factbook which with time will be augmented by the search habits and shared information not only by any user but his/her network as well. Although Google predicts Google+ to be the next step, the improvement to the core product is a welcome change. To put it in a line, “I’m feeling luckier”, are you?

[via Google Blog, Forbes]

Twitter is one of the leading social networks and unlike Facebook a much cleaner media to interact. You can find almost every soul you ever wished to follow. The minimalist interface and the 140 words keeps sharing simple and more engaging. The native clients for Android and iOS platforms has been great to keep up with the main web interface. Although, until today, the web interface that is still being used by a lot of cellphone users who don’t own an Android/iOS mobile was a step behind. Twitter has finally responded and rolled out the new spiffy mobile web interface which resembles the smartphone iterations. Let’s take a quick look.

Twitter for Android Vs Twitter Mobile Web

Home: The home screen looks the exact same on both the interface and also similar in how it works . Long pressing or swipe any update gives you choices(reply, retweet, favorite, profile and share) in the native client whereas on the web client for mobile you need a swipe to do that. The “Pull down to refresh” also works on both.

Connect: The Connect tab is a great way to track replies which also offers a quasi-similar interface on both with a little rearrangement of items. Functionality remains same for both.

Discover: The most intriguing section about Twitter to keep a tab on the latest and greatest stories, finding people who matter and many more. The interfaces are an exact match and also the way they behave.

Me: The features and interface remains same here too.

Overall(refer screenshots) the mobile interface seems to work the way it is meant to. Although the screenshots(on Twitter’s official announcement) refer that the top bar exists (and a refresh button is also there) I found it missing(refer screenshot below) while using Dolphin browser which means you may miss out on the search option. . The update button is still there and is clubbed into the top bar along with the other four major options. The elements on the profile viewing screen also remains the same on both the web and native clients. The web client is also quite low on bandwidth demands.

The timing isn’t so great considering the competition. Facebook has a equally interesting (and Android/iOS equivalent) mobile web interface for a long time now (and perhaps the best way to avoid the app nuisance ). Nonetheless the new interface is an adaptation much awaited.

You know that moment. It’s your birthday, the clock gets past 12:00 a.m and your Facebook wall is ambushed by birthday messages and wall posts from friends. It feels great when 167 friends have wished you “Happy birthday” on Facebook but at the same time, it is really painful to thank each one of them.

Painful in the sense that you have many contacts on Facebook who are no more than “acquaintances”; you rarely interact with them or know them personally. Yet, they wish you on your birthday and not acknowledging their post with a “Thank you” message is loutish and may be considered as ill mannered.

These days, Facebook is a really big issue with lot of netizens. Things like not replying to a comment, not responding to an instant message or not interacting for a long time is considered “avoidance”. This behaviour affects relationships, especially if both players are equally savvy about Facebook.

One way to get over this situation is to publish a wall post e.g “Thanks everyone for wishing me happy birthday”. I’ve seen some of my Facebook friends do this but you know what? This ain’t funny and it proves that you’re too lazy not to respond to each birthday wall post personally.

However, here is a little hack which you can use to automatically reply to birthday wall posts on Facebook with your own custom “Thank you” message. Your friends, (who have wished you “Happy birthday” on Facebook) will have no clue that your reply was posted automatically. I know this sounds cheap but if you want to get over the formal mannerism and save yourself from the control v frustration, this is perfect.

First, go to the Say Thank you app page on Facebook and grant the application all the required permissions.

Once you’re through, the app will automatically scan your birthday date and year from your Facebook profile. Verify the details and proceed to the next step.

Now you will be asked how you want to thank your Facebook friends when they post a “Happy birthday” message on your timeline (wall). You can choose any of the following options:

• Comment: The app will post a comment on the “Happy birthday” wall post on your behalf.
• Comment and like: The app will like the wall post and post a comment on your behalf.
• Like: The app will like all the birthday wall posts o your Facebook profile.
• Wall post: The app will reply with a counter wall post on your behalf.

All set? Hit next and done!

This is important. The app will find all the old wall posts on your Facebook wall and post a comment on your behalf. This might start a chain of likes, counter likes and comments so use this app only when you’ve not responded to a birthday wall post.

For example: my birthday was on 14th last month, I used this app today and here is what happened.

Fun, right? Hard to believe we are entering an age where people post automatic birthday wishes and there is also an app to automatically reply to those wishes. Did I mentioned that you can post to Facebook from your grave?

If you ask me, I prefer to reply each friend personally no matter how much time it takes. But maybe, that’s just me. [ via ]

Dropbox is great way to keep your files in sync or have a backup. Google Drive is out and perhaps you are planning to switch sides. Most surely you wouldn’t be willing to let go of your “hard earned” storage with Dropbox referrals. If you are looking for an alternative use for Dropbox, try using it as a private web gallery for your photos. Wondering how? Well you can always create a public(or selectively shared) folder and put some designed web pages in it and create a website to show off those images. Well if you find the task daunting, Openphoto will do all the hard work for you. All you need to do is use your Dropbox or Amazon S3 account to sign up.

Sign up for Openphoto by entering your email, opting for a unique URL and granting permission to your Dropbox or Amazon S3 storage. Once you are into it, go to the upload page and upload some of your favorite snaps. You can just drag and drop files to upload them. The upload is powered by Plupload a file uploading service. As the files are listed hit the “Start uploading” to initiate uploading.

Use the Menu at top left corner to go to the gallery or manage photos. You can create groups to add people to share photos with, which is good for creating a private network for buddies. You can also edit uploaded photos to share them with group or add tags to them for better chances of finding them.

Sadly uploading via the Dropbox desktop client is not possible which means if you add an image to the OpenPhoto folder within the Apps folder in Dropbox will not add it to your gallery. Also you cannot use Dropbox and Amazon S3 storage at the same time. The app is somewhat similar to Lightbox only Lightbox can be handled with both mobile and web interface. An app for iOS and Android for Openphoto is wanting in and would have been better to get users more willing to join.

However the network being closed, lets you create a more private page for people you choose to share with. Also the core concept behind this app is to create a social experience without letting others control your data. Your data stays with you and you have sole ownership of the photos on Dropbox(or Amazon S3) and you can take them down anytime you choose. The idea deserves credit in an age where almost every other social network is more concerned about feeding off your data or information you generate. Photo sharing being the latest startup trend, and privacy a major concern, the idea might work for people who want a network for sharing their images without the notion of being chewed for the last bit of data. I just loved it for the second choice alone. Take a look at my album if you wanna get started with how it looks.

The internet has opened a window for everyone. From buyers to sellers, everybody from all over the world is into it. English is the language it speaks or is best at. However, there is no denying of the fact that any individual is more comfortable with his/her mother tongue. The all-encompassing WWW however faces a great challenge to bridge the language barrier between two users who speaks in two different languages. As the global market is growing more and more dependent on the web this specific problem needs to be addressed.

The feedback form any company uses to improve its services based on user notes is a key area that ConveyThis, a multi-lingual feedback form creator (and also a website translator), wishes to reform. As per the developers’ words,

ConveyThis can be used just for its Feedback Form in one language if wanted, but the real difference is how it helps solve the language gap online. Over 90% of people are more likely to buy products from websites that are localized into their own language. And more than 80% said they wouldn’t even consider a product which didn’t have localized marketing materials.  With more and more users of other languages logging onto the internet, it is becoming more and more necessary to cater to those users, and not just English-speaking ones. Our goal is to provide people with a free, all inclusive solution to localizing their websites for other language viewers.

As inferred, the form is targeted towards businesses who wishes to value feedback from its non-English speaking customers/users. Now the whole discussion boils down to the credibility, efficiency and ease of use offered by the product.

Sign up for a free account and you are good to go. Create a form and tune it to your preferences. You can show the form in 13 popular languages (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) depending on the language of majority among your site’s users. You have choice to tie a form to any domain and also let the translated feedbacks be sent to your email. Simple and straight.

ConveyThis comes from Translation Services USA, known for its innovation in translation services and popular services like Ackuna Cloud Translator, Translation Cloud etc. The efficiency commanded by Translation Services USA can hardly be denied once you take a look at the clientele that includes heavyweights like Merrill Lynch, McDonalds, Barclays, Walmart, Disney to name a few. Considering that and the ease at which the feedback form can be created (and embedded) anyone can hardly say no to ConveyThis. True, it’s not one of the feedback forms out there packed with features, but it does what it promises to.

Google introduced the much awaited Google Drive yesterday giving users 5GB of free cloud storage. However, with that introduction it looks like Gmail has removed the option to save Gmail attachments in Google Docs and only provides options to view the document and download it. This is definitely a pain since I could easily save documents to Google Docs without problems in the past.

If you are like me and want that feature back, you can do that with a Google Chrome extension. The "Gmail Attachments to Drive" extension allows you to quickly save Gmail attachments straight to Google Drive by clicking a link. This saves you a lot of trouble because you no longer have to open the file before saving it to Google Docs. Secondly, this extension allows you to store any type of files in Google Drive.

Also Read: Google Docs vs Dropbox vs SkyDrive

Once you install the extension you will see an additional link to save the file to Google Drive. Clicking on the link should open a new window and save the file to your Google Drive account. Currently the files are stored in the main folder of Google Drive. You can easily move it to custom folders by visiting your Google Drive account.

If you are a Dropbox user, you can also save Gmail Attachments directly to your Dropbox account as well.

Have you heard of FriendCaller? Well some have while most haven’t . Previously an iPhone only app, Friendcaller has relaunched as an alternative to Skype. FriendCaller is a service from C2Call(Click-to-Call) GmbH. It has funding from Michael Brehm (former executive director of StudiVZ , a European social networking site) and Tapesh Sinha (founder of Acctel Group of companies).

So what’s so unique about FriendCaller? Well, its cutting-edge cloud hosted Java based VoIP technology turns any web browser into a phone instantly. Calls can be made directly from any browser without the installation of proprietary software such as Adobe Flash, or other plug-ins. Isn’t that fantastic?

FriendCaller has been launched its new web and mobile apps which supports up to 7-way group video chats or 20 participants in voice only chat at once. The services are free for FriendCaller members, but one has to pay for calling external phones. Moreover, its new algorithms require significantly low resources on both the mobile client and cloud server side which makes it fast at the same time.

The new mobile chat app has features like text/SMS support(free for a limited time), caller ID, support for calling “real” phone numbers over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G.

The new app appears as a completely separate download as compared to the previously available app. The web app is available here online. However, the Android version of the new caller app is freshly launched. Here again you can use Facebook to sign up for a new account. Notably the app also has a Facebook app for using Friendcaller from within it.

If one doesn’t want to pay for credits, FriendCaller offers “offer wall”, a pay-per-download scheme. This allows non paying members to watch videos or download apps to earn those credits. The app also runs a banner ad to assist in monetization efforts.

About two years ago, the company had about 1.4 million subscribers but today, that number has reached about 6.5 million. The application is available for desktop environments of Linux, Windows, Mac apart from most popular web browsers as well as iOS and Android-based devices.

Be it the feature set, the plethora of platform that the app supports or the monetization model, Skype has reasons to panic. And hopefully users are going to gain as the contest heats up. So why not give it a shot now? I’m sure you won’t regret.

[via TechCrunch]

Image sharing is of essence. Pinterest and Instagram have proven that and the Instagram acquisition by Facebook has made the startup trend even more legit. MyColorScreen is a new startup that opens up a network of people who love sharing the screenshots of home screen on their smartphones.

Smartphones are something which are a strictly personalized device be it the apps or how it looks. Now if you are passionate enough to show off how your homescreen looks like, the new startup is a great place to start. The app has already housed more than 11000 homescreens from the Android and iOS. It’s a nice idea and is quite addictive as you keep on looking at those stunningly customized homescreens.

Once you choose to jump into the new app, sign up. After that, go to the upload screen and after a couple of selections (OS choice, phone template, homescreen screenshot) you will be able to share the screen. You can upload multiple screens at a time too. Once you have uploaded the screen you will also be able to tag apps and wallpapers in the screenshot to tell what apps you used or are visible on the screenshot.

As we have seen how Pinterest has grown into a referral site and publishers and developers are sincerely using it as a promotional tool even though it is nothing but an image sharing service. Considering that MyColorScreen can also be a great place to promote your Android and iOS apps by tagging them to the screenshots and showing off your app (multiple) screenshots too. The striking similarity to Pinterest grid layout also goes with the recent trend of grid based UI.

The frustrating fact about the app is that you do not have a native app for the smartphones to take/share screens directly from the phone. Otherwise the site is a visually pleasing gallery of homescreens worth a watch. All said, we still have to wait to see if this app turns into a successful marketing tool or just an image sharing app. Whatever be the fate of this app, the developers did employ a brilliant concept.

Twitpolls is the latest offering from WayIn, a startup from the Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy. The polling service recently got funded and extended its service to provide a polling system meant for Twitter. A startup trend unexploited for so long and with great chances to be another popular service that has grown around Twitter.

You have a question to ask to your followers, click the Create Poll button and you are taken to a page where you can type in the question and then the answers which will be added to the tweet as hashtags. Plain and simple, the tweet can then be replied to by any of your followers with the hashtag as an answer. Since your community does not need to leave the comfort of Twitter, it increases the chances of getting an answer to your question. This is also quite mobile-friendly which undoubtedly is the need of the day.

The new tool opens up an opportunity for brands to gauge real user insights about their brand, products or happenings. This in turn will help them get into their customers’ shoes and get a view of what they adore and what they detest. The seamless integration with Twitter makes it better to respond for any Twitter user.

There are other tools that serves a similar purpose but they aren’t as end-to-end tied with Twitter. The service developers are working with the Twitter hashtags to track the answers and so far the polls are working just fine. However the service has the even bigger task of making it useful for big brands before it can make the term a regular in daily Twitter buzz. So are you going to use the new Twitpolls next time you wish to ask a question to your Twitter community.

Email is a big problem but the bigger problem is keeping track of all those conversations where multiple people are participating. Two way conversations are fine, I send my message, archive it and immediately remove the conversation from my inbox. But the situation becomes alarmic when you have to frequently share old emails with a group of people.

This starts a never ending chain of email forwards and sometimes, I find myself losing track of the message which started the thread in the first place.

You’ve moved a long way into the conversation and suddenly, one member says –“Hello, I can’t find that old message in my inbox, I think I have lost it. Could you please check your sent mail folder and forward me the entire conversation?”. Facebook has a group messaging email combo but it isn’t as good as a regular email inbox, crippled and surrounded by distractions.

Unlike Gmail, Google Docs is far better as far as sharing is concerned. You create folders, choose collaborators, set access privileges, drop those documents and its done. But there is no easy way to share an entire email label with someone else (or a group of people), you will have to do it manually and this gets really irritating after some time.

Squadmail changes all this.

It’s like a Dropbox for your ever expanding email inbox, you just have to drag and drop messages to your Squadmail folder and it will be instantly shared with your chosen collaborators. No forwarding, no cc’s, no more searching for old email and forwarding a bunch of them to people who won’t ever learn to use the “CC” or “Bcc” in a message thread.

Here is how it works.

First, you have to tie your email account with Squadmail through IMAP settings. If that sounds geeky, just hit the “Sign up with Gmail button” on the homepage and grant Squadmail access to your Gmail account. When you create a shared folder within your Squadmail account, the folder gets a unique email address yoursharedfolder@box.squadmail.com. This email address can be set to receive messages only from selected email addresses, all you have to do is select the checkbox “Only members of this folder can send mails to this address”.

Next, add the collaborators whom you want to have access to all the shared emails and its done.

Now any member can send email to the common email address and it will automatically be forwarded to all the other members of the group. You can even drag and drop a pile of messages into your shared label and all those messages will be shared with the respective collaborators. This is a permanent solution for the Fwd: Fwd: Fwd loop and the best thing is that all the shared messages remains archived in your Squadmail inbox.

This is a really useful tool for enterprises and organizations who need a simple, yet hassle free way to share selected conversations with a team. Here at Techie Buzz, we have an email address [tips at techie-buzz.com] for receiving tips, suggestions and product pitches from startups and developers. This inbox has to be constantly monitored and it is really impossible for a single person to do this round the clock. Moreover, Keith has to manually forward the received press release to one of the authors, and then the author has to notify other authors that he is working on this particular story. We have switched from Google Groups to Yammer long back but Squadmail’s common inbox is a best fit, when multiple people must have access to a common inbox.

Squadmail can also act as an intermediary between your main inbox and newsletters. You can create separate folders for newsletter subscriptions and use the disposable email address to your advantage. When things go out of control, simply delete that folder and start over with a new Squadmail address. That way, your real email address is never shared with other sites; this helps keep your main inbox clean and free from junk.

The following video explains Squadmail in full detail: