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SpaceX approved to build Starship factory and research hub in LA
SpaceX has been given the final go ahead to build its Starship manufacturing plant in the Port of Los Angeles. Authorities granted the company a permit for the facility by a unanimous 12-0 vote, allowing Elon Musk and his team to push on with the development of technology designed to take humans to the moon and Mars.
Pandora's CEO is doubling down on podcasts
By JP Mangalindan Pandora CEO Roger Lynch wants to offer listeners an easier way to discover new podcasts as the company adds more podcasts to its service and beefs up advertising. Indeed, podcasts will become a more significant aspect in the months and years ahead for Pandora, which has over 75 million monthly active users -- 5.5 million of which use Pandora's paid features and services. The key to growing those users, according to Lynch, who joined the company in September, is offering a more comprehensive catalog of content. "In the car, 80 percent of listening is music, while 20 percent is other stuff," Lynch explains to Yahoo Finance. "As a service, if you don't have that 20 percent, it doesn't mean you capture the 80 percent, because then people will just stay on their FM Radios. But if you can create audio content for people that gets packaged with the music content in a way that doesn't give them a reason to go back to that FM dial, then you capture much more than just the spoken word."
Shards Online opens website with 24 hours left on Kickstarter
As of this writing, Shards Online has 24 hours remaining on its Kickstarter program and has yet to break a quarter of its funding goal. Odds are that it's not going to hit that marker, although fans are encouraged to jump in and donate while the campaign is still running. But the team at Citadel Studios isn't giving up on the project and has launched a website for the game devoted to all things related to Shards Online. Despite what you may have suspected from the last paragraph, the page is not currently fishing for donations. The team will be holding the game's first community roundtable discussion on June 13th, starting at 8 p.m. EDT, when the developers will discuss what comes after Kickstarter and why there are no plans to ask for funding on the site directly. It'll be worth watching if you're a fan of the game -- and if you're a fan and still haven't donated, now is the time to do so. [Source: Citadel Studios press release]
Google launches Tips to help you get more out of Gmail and its other services
Though we're sure Google tries to keep its products like Now and Docs as easy to use as possible, who has the time to learn every single feature? That's likely why it just launched Google Tips, a site that uses its info card trope to help you dive more deeply into all 13 consumer products. For instance, a card for Google+ suggests you can "make your still photos not so still" and reveals a tutorial for supported devices when you click it. You can even submit your own idea for a tip, though you'll need a Google account for that and other functions. It's only available on desktop browsers for now, but if you want to give it a spin and see all the supported products, hit the source.
Google+ adds card UI and larger cover photos to mobile site
Google has been spending quite a lot of time tweaking, streamlining and generally beautifying the interface of its "social backbone." But while the mobile apps and desktop site have seen near constant updates, the mobile Google+ site has languished slightly behind. Today Mountain view is delivering a little bit of parity for those on platforms that don't have an official app, such as Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10. The update brings the new card UI to the phone-focused version, along with easier to see and tap +1 and re-share buttons. The updated profile experience is also going mobile, with large cover photos and more touch friendly icons coming to both personal profiles and pages. There's no need to wait patiently while this rolls out either: the new mobile Google+ site is already live.
Blizzard's Project Blackstone is a Heart of the Swarm viral campaign
Blizzard Entertainment registered a site called ProjectBlackstone.com late last year, and fans wondered if maybe it might be related to the mysterious upcoming Blizzard project code-named Titan. But no such luck, it seems: The domain went live this week and, soon after that, some crafty Redditors found the password. (It's "Y7_$0>0k_3<$m," if you want to try it yourself). The whole campaign has been revealed as a Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm tie-in.Opening the site up reveals emails between various Terran characters talking about experimenting on Zerg lifeforms and presumably we'll see updates in the future that will fill out the story heading into the new game. Heart of the Swarm, the second part of the trilogy that Blizzard's Starcraft 2 has become, is due out on March 12.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Grand Theft Auto 5 marketing kicks off with viral 'Epsilon Program' site
A Twitter account for something called the "Epsilon Program" has materialized in the past few days, linking off to a freaky (and annoying) website for a pseudo-religion called "KIFFLOM", registered by Take Two Software.The site features a thinly-veiled parody of the real-life Scientology organization and includes such hilarious "facts" as: "If you have a birth mark, you may be descended from Kraff, the famous Emperor of the 4th Paradigm." Considering that the next iteration of GTA is set in a faux Los Angeles and that the Epsilon Program was featured in a gags found within GTA: San Andreas, odds are good that we're looking at an early viral campaign for Grand Theft Auto 5. Good timing, since only yesterday investors were asking why the hype train for GTA 5 had not yet left the station.What does it tell us about the game? Nothing at all. But investors were wondering where the marketing was, and Take Two appears to have answered right away.
Twitter confirms site issues, working to resolve things (update: Twitter apologizes and explains)
It's a rough day for internet communication. First Google Talk, now Twitter. The microblogging service confirmed that it's currently having some issues -- a fact independently verified by our frustrated staff -- adding that "Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue." We'll let you know when you can safely return to your regularly scheduled tweeting. Update: Everything seems to be back to normal. You know what to do. Update 2: Twitter just posted an apology and explanation for the outage on its blog. Turns out, tweets weren't making their way to the web because both a primary and back-up system in Twitter's data centers failed simultaneously, leaving us bereft of 140-character nuggets of wisdom for about two hours. Rest assured, VP of Engineering Mazen Rawashdeh and his team have apologized for the inconvenience and are working to prevent the problem in the future.
Twitter confirms 'on-going' site issues, millions resort to verbal communication
Sorry microbloggers -- looks like we're not fully out of the woods yet. After confirming that its users "may be experiencing issues" via its Status Blog roughly an hour ago, Twitter has added that the concerns are "on-going." Don't worry, though, engineers are on the case, so your #followfriday plans should be largely unaffected.
Jagex unveils new RuneScape website
Jagex announced today that it is giving the official RuneScape website a makeover. The update will add a couple of features to the popular F2P title's website, such as a new wiki and an events section, which should help the community pull together. The studio is also updating the site's news feed in order to ensure that players can get the latest in RuneScape news all the time. To check it out for yourself, just head on over to the official RuneScape site. [Source: Jagex press release]
Canonical launches Ubuntu App Developer platform for curious coders
Creating apps for Ubuntu is about to get a lot easier, now that the folks over at Canonical have launched the Ubuntu App Developer platform. On the new site, developers will find guides, tutorials and other resources to help them create apps specifically for the Linux OS, or to port other apps to the platform. Once finalized, these apps can then be published on the Ubuntu Software Centre, where developers can choose to either offer them for free, or at a price. In announcing the new platform, community member David Planella predicted that it will offer a "unified and consistent journey for both open-source, non-commercial and commercial app authors." He went on to acknowledge, however, that there's still plenty of work to be done: "For all its current awesomeness, we are aware that the site needs to pass the test of a wider audience, adapt to their needs, and grow." Find out more at the source link, below.
What do you love, asks Google with a new portal to its many web services
Say hello to your new online friend, wdyl.com. An eagle-eyed TechCrunch tipster spotted this freshly launched Google portal, whose purpose it seems to be to gather up all of the company's multifarious web services under one umbrella. A Google search for Google products, in other words. Punching in a topic brings up its popularity in Google Trends, lets you set up Google Alerts, plan related events in Google Calendar, email someone in Gmail, or hit up Picasa, YouTube or Google News with the same query. You get the picture. It hasn't yet been made official and hitting up the site without the "www." prefix throws up a bad URL error at the moment, but it's there and seemingly fully functional. Give it a try and let us know which search terms bring up the most humorous results.
Palm.com quietly replaced by HPwebOS.com, no wake to follow
It goes without saying that funerals are a downer, but we all deserve a proper sendoff, -- unfortunately for Palm.com, there will be no tearful goodbyes. We reported just a few months ago that Palm was on its way out, and now HP's unceremoniously given the brand's URL the boot. You can still find the Palm logo at a number of related URLs scattered about the internets -- the brand's support page, twitter account, and official blog are still up and running -- but try typing Palm.com in your address bar, and you'll be swiftly redirected to HPwebOS.com. And here we thought our aunt Pearl moved on quickly.
Stolen Camera Finder promises to find your camera with EXIF data, probably won't
Stolen Camera Finder is a site that promises to find missing cameras, as long as they've been stolen by cooperative criminals. All you have to do is drag and drop a JPG photo taken with your lost camera, and Stolen Camera Finder will hunt for any matches on the web, using the image's EXIF data. To find matches, the site consults a database of photos posted on Flickr and elsewhere, though, without only one million images to its name, this database is still very much a work-in-progress (the tests we conducted came up dry). It's a nifty idea, but one that would probably pay dividends only under certain circumstances. For instance, the thief would have to take pictures with the camera (rather than selling it) and post the images online without wiping the EXIF data. In other words, he'd have to be someone willing to steal a camera purely for the sake of sharing undoctored self-shots on Flickr. We're not sure those people exist.
Zapd iOS app creates your next website in seconds flat, seriously (video)
Sure, the end result looks like a highly styled Tumblr, but let's repeat this: it's created on your phone. For those who are flat terrified of coding (or simply don't have the time to stay on top of a so-called "blog"), PressPlane has created Zapd -- a free iOS app that allows the creation of picture-led sites in seconds flat. The app truly is as streamlined as the company advertises it to be; load up a few images (or take a few), select a website style, find a decent web connection, and watch as things are published and shared with your pals on Facebook and Twitter. Enough chatter -- peek the video below to see where we're coming from, and give that iTunes link a look if you're hoping to join what's next. You know, now that your honeymoon with Color is thoroughly over.
Sun.com, the twelfth oldest domain on the internet, will be decommissioned on June 1st
Sun Microsystems, one of the original gangsters responsible for supplying all the electronics and infrastructure we now know as the internet, ceased to be Sun Microsystems in January of last year. Assimilated into the Oracle juggernaut, its operations no longer carry that familiar logo and soon they'll no longer even be referenced in the same spot on the internet. Yes, after 25 years of answering the call of sun.com, the company that no longer is will be letting go of its former domain name as well. The site has already been redirecting users to Oracle for quite a while, but come June 1st, it'll be like the Sun we knew had never even risen. [Thanks, Jeroen]
Cryptozoic unveils new WoW TCG community site
After picking up the license for WoW TCG, Cryptozoic Entertainment has done a great job supporting the game and fostering its community. The only thing missing so far has been ... a functional website. The old Cryptozoic site just wasn't cutting it. Thankfully, today marks the release of the brand new WoWTCG.com, and it's a beauty. Visitors to the site can find hobby stores in their area, tutorials on how the play TCG and what they need to play it, galleries of TCG's fantastic artwork, and even special pages for each loot card. That's on top of the regular previews and strategy articles. Nice job, Crypto!
OkCupid: iPhone users have more sex
I've been a huge fan of social dating site OkCupid's OkTrends blog for a while now. They're constantly sharing data (anonymized, of course) from their social site about what people find attractive and interesting in each other. The latest post has some fun information about cameras -- specifically, the perceived link between what type of camera OkCupid's patrons use and successful relationships. All of the data is fascinating (as usual), but there's one little note of potential interest to iPhone fans. Apparently, when compared to users who post pictures from other smartphone brands, users who reported using iPhones for their profile pictures tend to identify more sexual partners over all. As you can see in the chart above, male and female iPhone users (at age 30) report higher numbers of sexual partners to OkCupid. In fact, across all ages, iPhone users reported having more sexual partners than those who used Android or Blackberry smartphones to take their profile pictures. Of course, OkCupid is just having fun here. Maybe iPhone users are actually more inclined to lie about their amorous conquests, or maybe there's a higher likelihood that Android or Blackberry users have reason to report a lower number. But then again, we already know that iPhone owners tend to be rich, engage in vigorous activity, and like to be outspoken about their buying choices and preferences. And aren't those the kind of people who end up going home with the girl (or guy) from the bar anyway?
The Explain-o-matic will explain your macros
This is actually a really cool idea for a site -- Fitzcairn's Macro Explain-o-matic is basically a web script that reads WoW macros, and will go, line by line, through them to put exactly what they do in plain English. Sure, odds are that if you have a macro already, you probably have some idea of what it does, but if you've ever wanted to learn how to write macros, or aren't sure exactly what the macro your friend emailed to you is supposed to do for your character, you can just throw it in a text field, and then Fitzcairn's script will break it apart for you.The site will even let you save (with a permalink) and email any macros you punch in -- though I couldn't find a way to browse them, maybe Fitzcarin is working on that. There are lots of resources online to find macros, but not so many to explain them well, so the Explain-o-matic is definitely worth a bookmark for the next time you need a little help.[via Twisted Nether]
Upload and browse screenshots at WoW Screenshots
From the makers of WoW Achievements comes a new site that's designed to collect and catalog nothing but screenshots from the game. WoW/Screenshots (clever) is a new site that's super barebones right now -- all you can do is view a few different uploaded screenshots or jump in and upload your own. But obviously, there's a lot of potential there -- if they can assign a rating system to screenshots, then you could have a Wowbash-style Top 100, with extra cool shots to check out from around the game. The website also says they're planning to put together monthly contests as well, so right now the idea just seems to be to populate the database, with the best entries coming to the top later.Of course, this isn't the only project designed to archive some of Azeroth's beauty -- we talked about the wallpaper project the other week (though that's more a project designed to hit every individual zone), and of course our great Around Azeroth daily feature has collected tons of great pictures from the game. But this seems like an interesting crowd-sourced way to do it, and with the WoW-Achievements folks behind the idea, it'll be fun to see what they come up with.
