Retailing for just $30, this is a an upgrade that is definitely worth it.

Apple - Mac OS X Lion

Notification Center – You get all kinds of notifications on your iOS device and you can keep track of them all in one convenient location. Choose which notifications you want to see. New notifications appear briefly at the top of your screen, without interrupting what you’re doing. And the Lock screen displays notifications so you can act on them with just a swipe.

Twitter – Tweet from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Sign in once in Settings, and suddenly you can tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, or Maps. You can even add a location to any tweet, no matter which app you’re tweeting from.

Newsstand – Read all about it. All in one place. iOS 5 organizes your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions in Newsstand: a folder that lets you access your favorite publications quickly and easily. As new issues become available, Newsstand automatically updates them in the background complete with the latest covers.

Camera – You can now open the Camera app right from the Lock screen. Added are grid lines, pinch-to-zoom gestures, and single-tap focus and exposure locks to compose a picture on the go. Then press the volume-up button to snap your photo.

iMessage – iPhone messaging to all of your iOS devices: iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. iMessage allows you to easily send text messages, photos, videos or contact information to a person or a group on other iOS 5 devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. What’s even cooler is messages are automatically pushed to all your iOS 5 devices, making it easy to continue one conversation across your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Safari – Safari Reader displays web articles fully so you can read without distractions. On the iPad, tabbed browsing helps you keep track of multiple web pages and the ability to switch between them.

PC Free – Needing a computer is no longer needed to own an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Activate and set up your device wirelessly, right out of the box. Download free iOS software updates directly on your device. You can now do much more with your apps such as editing your photos or adding new email folders on your device. Backing and restoring can now be done automatically using iCloud.

Wi-Fi Sync – Wirelessly sync your iOS device to your Mac or PC over a shared Wi-Fi connection. Every time you connect your iOS device to a power source such as charging overnight, it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes.

AirPlay Mirroring – AirPlay now supports video mirroring meaning you can now wirelessly stream whatever is on your iPad 2 to your television via Apple TV. Everyone can see exactly what’s on your iPad display even when you rotate the iPad from portrait to landscape.

Apple - iOS 5

Now you can check if people are on facebook or other social network. by just using their picture on your phone.

The Astonishing Tribe has been developing a new augmented reality application for mobile devices. They built a software application called Recognizr that allows your phone to see who a person is and what social networking they are connected to. It will also link whoever it sees back to your address book profile and will display their name, address, phone number, and basically whatever information you stored for that particular contact in your address book.

Check out the video for a demo:

via ubergizmo

Google recently bought a company called Aadvark. I was wondering what it was all about and finally found Aadvark listed as a part of Google Labs. It has a simple system. Ask a question and someone will answer the question. Aardvark will fit someone who will answer the question. It also means with Aardvark you can answer some of the questions people are asking.

About Aardvark:

• Simplicity is very prevalent on Aardvark. The website has been bought by Google and hence it allows you to find your Gmail contacts and also Facebook contacts on Aardvark.
• Ask a question which is specific and Aardvark displays it around to people with relative expertise. The answers are then displayed to you.
• You can also answer questions on specific questions and you can funnel down the questions by selecting what your expertise might be.
• Once you have submitted a questions some will usually answer it. If you want more answers you can ask Aardvark to look for more. It also allows you to flag inappropriate answers which is good as it would control spamming and internet rants which can often ruin a serious expectation of your question being answered.

Go ahead and try out Aardvark; ask a few questions and see if it gives you satisfactory answers. Or even better browse questions and answer a few. Do let me know your opinion by dropping in a comment.

via devilsworkshop

NEW YORK— Facebook users have been complaining about problems at the social media site. Users in the United States and other countries reported problems lasting at least half an hour Saturday morning. Some could not log in, and the site was unusually slow for others. Many used Twitter to complain. Facebook, which has more than 400 million users, has generally avoided such hiccups.

Twitter has had bigger problems. Last August, hackers shut down the short messaging service for several hours. Facebook also experienced problems, but it was never shut down completely. A Facebook representative says the company is looking into the problem.

via ctv

The world’s biggest social network has revealed details of a stripped-down, text-only version of its mobile site called Facebook Zero. The low-bandwidth site is aimed at people viewing Facebook on their mobile and will launch “in the coming weeks”. The social network recently said that more than 100 million people now access Facebook from their phone. Analysts at CCS Insight said that the new site could help operators free-up critical bandwidth on their networks.

Data from industry body the GSM Association recently revealed that Facebook accounts for nearly half of all the time people in the UK spend going online using their phones. The data showed that people in the UK spent around 2.2bn minutes browsing the social network during December alone. Facebook said the new site “omits data intensive applications like photos”. “We are discussing it… as an option to make Facebook on the mobile web available to everyone, anywhere and allow operators to encourage more mobile internet usage,” said a spokesperson for the firm.

Facebook already offers a slimmed down version of the version of its site – called Facebook Lite – for people with slow or poor internet connections. It is aimed at users in the developing world. The site was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which runs from 15-18 February.

via bbc

Stumped by foreign languages when you’re traveling? Google Inc. is working on software that translates text captured by a phone camera.

At a demonstration Tuesday at Mobile World Congress, a cell phone trade show in Barcelona, an engineer shot a picture of a German dinner menu with a phone running Google Inc.’s Android software. An application on the phone sent the shot to Google’s servers, which sent a translation back to the phone.

It translated “Fruhlingssalat mit Wildkrautern” as “Spring salad with wild herbs.”

There was no word on when the software would be available.

Software that translates text from pictures is already available for some phones, but generally does the processing on the phone. By sending the image to its servers for processing, Google can apply a lot more computing power, for faster, more accurate results. The phone still won’t order for you, though — you’ll have to point at the menu.

The demonstration was part of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote speech at the trade show, the largest for the wireless industry. He said phone applications that take advantage of “cloud computing” — servers accessible through the wireless network — will bring powerful changes to the industry.

Schmidt’s speech also featured a demonstration of videos and a game running on an Android phone using Flash, a format that’s ubiquitous on Web pages intended for PCs, but hasn’t worked on many phones, including the iPhone. Support for Flash in Android and a few other smart phone operating systems is expected later this year.

via ctv