Apple Takes on Instagram with Upgraded iCloud Offering

The new features, which could be announced at Apple's world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said.

Currently, users can store only one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

Apple is trying to better compete in the red-hot market for photo sharing, dominated by fast-growing online services such as Facebook and mobile apps like Instagram — which Facebook has agreed to acquire for $US1 billion.

The Cupertino, CalifORnia company is also working on a new feature that will allow iCloud users to sync their personal videos via iCloud, these people said, adding that Apple also plans to allow users to access "Notes" and "Reminders"— two of its apps for jotting down quick thoughts—through iCloud.com. Currently, those items have to be accessed via apps for those features.

These features could come in Apple's next mobile operating system, iOS 6, which Apple is planning to preview to developers in June, the people said.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

The moves amount to the most significant refresh of iCloud since its launch last October. The service is highly strategic for Apple as it tries to satisfy customers who want to access their data across different Apple devices. As of April, more than 125 million Apple device owners had signed up for iCloud.

Yet Apple is rolling out new features cautiously as it worries about the costs of storing huge volumes of user data, the people familiar with the matter said. The company allows users to store music, movies and TV shows purchased through iTunes, along with apps, books and Photo Stream photos for free. After that, they get five gigabytes for free.

ICloud's Photo Stream limits users to accessing their last 30 days of photos, or 1,000 of them, on Apple devices as well as PCs.Its features, after the new sharing and commenting ones, will still remain basic compared with some other photo-sharing services.

When it comes to iCloud as a whole, Apple also limits which iCloud features users can access from a Web browser from any device to keep them buying Apple ones.

Only a few iCloud features, like email and calendar, can be accessed through the iCloud website. The rest work by syncing content to other Apple devices, including iPads, iPhones and its Apple TV box.

Apple executives continue to discuss expanding the number of photos and albums users can store via iCloud to make the service resemble its iPhoto downloadable software, one of the people familiar with the matter said. But it is moving cautiously because of costs.

Source from : The Australian

Google Probe: Meet the FTC’s Secret Weapon

San Francisco — The Federal Trade Commission has hired an outside litigator to lead its antitrust probe of Google, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Thursday during a visit to the agency’s‘s Western Region office here.

The search giant is getting some serious treatment. This is the first time in at least four years the FTC has had anyone other than internal staff run a major investigation.

The outside litigator in question: Beth Wilkinson. She’s a partner at the international law firm Paul, Weiss and previously helped secure a conviction against Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. She will begin work on the Google case Monday.

“We want to bring in someone who is a world class litigator and has some antitrust experience and the trust of the commission,” Leibowitz told a small group of reporters.

Wilkinson previously chaired the white-collar crime group at the law firm Latham & Watkins. She also worked in-house for the mortgage company Fannie Mae for several years. Wilkinson began her legal career in the U.S. Army, where she achieved the rank of captain and was an assistant to the general counsel of the Army for Intelligence & Special Operations from 1987 to 1991, according to her bio page on the Paul, Weiss site.

Leibowitz announced Wilkinson’s addition to the FTC’s Google investigation team while in San Francisco visiting a number of startups and tech companies including Square, Mozilla and others.

The FTC is investigating Google’s search business for anti-competition infractions. The investigation does not necessarily mean the FTC will sue Google, but it does pave the way for possible litigation.

“In an important case, you want to do a thorough investigation and make sure you get it right,” Leibowitz said Thursday. “It’s sometimes a good idea to bring someone in from outside and we found out Beth was interested in coming aboard. The commission talked about it and we thought it would be great for the consumers we represent.”

Also Thursday, Google agreed to pay a $25,000 fine — less than the cost of a day’s lunch for its employees — for allegedly impeding a Federal Communications Commission investigation into personal emails and other data collected via the company’s Street View cars.

This article source from : Mashable US & World

8 New Apps You Don’t Want To Miss

Keeping up with all the new apps to hit the scene is a tough job. But you’re in luck: You don’t have to, because each week we round up our favorite apps and app updates from the week in this handy roundup.

This week was a big one for some of our favorite services on the web, with big names such as LinkedIn, Skype, Klout, and Twitter launching new apps or updating their current offerings.

iPhone owners with face-unlock envy will love a new app that brings facial recognition technology similar to Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich feature to iOS.

If you’ve always wanted to be a superhero, a new augmented reality app lets you start your crime-fighting career. If you want to be a superhero for nature, another app takes a look at how the earth is changing over time. The app shows dramatic before-and-after shots of places affected by changes in climate, urbanization or just the power of nature.

Once you’re done fighting crime, a updated last-minute hotel app will make sure you find the perfect place to nap before you’re off to your next adventure.

Check out our favorite picks from the week in the world of apps in the gallery above. Have your own favorites from the week? Let us know in the comments.

Miss out on last week’s picks? Check out what made the list last week for more great apps worth checking out.

Source from : Mashable Tech

Spanning Stats Has Scanned 25,000+ Google Drives

Spanning, which already offers a backup service for Google Apps, is now riding the coattails of Google Drive, promising to help people see, “What’s in your Google Drive?”

Two days after the Drive announcement, Spanning released a free tool called Spanning Stats that analyzes your Google Drive account. The company says its report provides data including the percentage documents in your Google Drive by type, the 10 newest and oldest files, how much of the total storage quota you’re using by file type, the 10 biggest files, and the 10 users using the most storage space.

It sounds like there were people who really wanted to see those charts and graphs. The company now says that people have used Spanning Stats to scan 25,000 Google Drives. The app is now listed as one of the top installs in the Google Apps Marketplace and the number one install in the Document Management category.

That probably also reflects the initial excitement about Google Drive. In fact, after the announcement, the the data uploaded to Google Docs by Spanning users exploded — before the announcement, the average amount per day was 5 megabytes, but on the day Google Drive launched it went up to 36.8 megabytes, and then 22.6 megabytes the next day.

Source from : TechCrunch