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Riding an autonomous shuttle through Times Square was reassuringly boring
Yesterday afternoon, I rode an autonomous shuttle down a short section of Broadway in the heart of Times Square, and it was easily the most boring part of my day. I'm not saying that because my life is particularly exciting, either. The trip was boring because everything inside the Coast Autonomous P-1 worked exactly the way it was supposed to: The shuttle crawled up to a barricade on 47th Street, paused for a bit, and scooted back in the opposite direction toward 48th. In this case, the vehicle wasn't completely autonomous -- Coast CTO Pierre Lefevre manually started each leg of a trip with an Xbox Elite controller -- but the P-1 navigated its surroundings all own its own.
Opera's Coast iPhone browser is a speed dial for your favorite sites
Last year Opera introduced Coast, a simple mobile browser designed specifically for the iPad, and today it brought the same unique experience to the iPhone. Coast is a little different than Chrome or Safari, and streamlines browsing by organizing shortcuts to sites on menu pages like they're apps. Think of it like your phone's home screen, except exclusively for the internet. It's intentionally pretty barebones, and doesn't have much besides those site icons -- so no address bar or back button. While the stripped down browser may sound a bit restricting at first, we've been testing the iPhone app for a few days and have found it makes getting to your favorite sites a lot easier.
Opera's Coast browser for iPad gets makeover, ditches back/forward buttons
Opera has released a major new version of its iPad web browser Coast today. Version 2.0 adds several new features and builds upon the touch-centric design of its predecessor by doing something pretty radical: removing the back and forward buttons that have been a staple of web browsers since the early 1990s. With Coast 2.0, users will move forward and backward using gestures. It's something that may confuse more novice users (though those users probably wouldn't be using anything but the built-in Safari browser), but the move is a welcome one as it embraces the changing human-computer input method that touchscreens have enabled. Opera notes that there's also been a host of other new features added, including: Tap and hold on the home screen to customize the visual background and swipe through a gallery of backgrounds provided by Opera or select one of the pictures from your photo stream as background. Music and audio visualization: Sites with sound (music or video) have a visual indication that looks like a graphic waveform on the Speed Dial on the home screen to make it easier to know where the music is playing. Users can directly open PDFs from the web in iBooks or other PDF readers, which has been a frequently requested feature enhancement. It's faster to go back to the previous page; 80 percent of the time, you can go back instantly, making for less waiting time and frustration. Better "app detection": correctly displays the right graphics for users' favorite sites that are added to the Speed Dial. Smoother UI performance flows naturally + a lot of small changes based on user feedback. For the geeks: The security engine has been updated to better recognize attacks. Default sites can now be dynamically updated (with more relevant ones). Coast 2.0 for iPad is a free download.
Opera's iPad browser loses navigation buttons, gains lockscreen music controls
Since its launch in September, Opera's iPad-centric browser Coast has struggled to remain as visible as some of its more popular mobile apps. In an attempt to breathe some life into the app, the company today dropped a new update that introduces a number of new customization, navigation and media features that set it apart from Apple and Google's browser offerings. In version 2.0, Opera has ditched the familiar forward and back buttons in favor of the gestures it supported at launch, so expect your swiping finger to get more of a workout. The app now lets you set wallpapers using images from your Photo Roll and gives you the option to select which apps to open PDF files in, whether it be iBooks, Dropbox or another PDF-compatible app. Coast now also features its own media player, which is capable of handling music playback from the iPad lockscreen. The new update is said to make browsing speedier and more secure than before -- very helpful if you need to make a quick escape from some of the nastier corners of the internet.
Opera releases 'Coast' iPad browser
Opera Software today released a new browser for the iPad that re-imagines the way users interact with the web. A press release touting the app's release reads in part: The web has evolved exponentially from drab, grey webpages with blue, linked text to vivid, elegant pages with complex graphics, videos and other interactive information. Yet, so far, the web experience on tablets has been limited to browsers that are either scaled-up versions of mobile browsers or scaled-down desktop browsers. Opera wanted to do something about that. Dubbed Coast, and based on WebKit, Opera employee Huib Kleinhout told The Verge that the new browser is "futuristic" and is an effort to bring the browsing experience up to par with the evolution of content on the web. To that end, Coast is unique insofar as it treats different websites as unique and distinct applications. Translation? Say goodbye to traditional browser mainstays like the back and forward buttons. In Coast, users navigate around the web by using gestures. Despite the grandiose thinking, Coast isn't actually all that unrecognizable. While it eschews almost all interface chrome, its main screen still resembles the smart, new tab pages in modern browsers, which automatically fill in your most visited sites. Perhaps more aptly, it looks and acts just like the home screen of an iPad. Websites appear as app-icon style squares, tapping on an icon opens up a site, pressing and holding on one allows them to be rearranged and swiping side to side switches between additional screens. And like iOS at large, browsing on Coast is a single-pane experience too. One website takes up the entire screen, and you either have to go back to the home screen or navigate to a discrete page switcher in order to jump around to another site. Coast is available as a free download on the App Store and is iPad-only.
Opera unveils Coast, a new web browser purpose-built for iPad and iPad mini
Opera's no stranger to the mobile web, as it's been building browsers for phones and tablets for years. Today, however, it's revealing an all-new window to the web called Coast. Coast's been constructed specifically for the iPad and seeks to make browsing the internet feel the same as using an app. What's that mean? Well, for starters, a series of swipe-able home screens and a tile-based UI that makes all your favorite websites look like icons. Also, Coast wholly does away with browser chrome, instead showing just content, with only small home and history buttons residing beneath whatever page you're viewing. Navigation forward and back's accomplished by swiping, and a customizable search bar sits atop your favorites. Essentially, Coast aims to be simple to use and to deliver web content in an unobtrusive, elegant way. When launched, Coast shows you a tiled grid of favorites, and you can set the number of tiles you see per screen (the default is nine). Adding a new site's as easy as dragging and dropping it onto one of the home screens. Upon returning to home from a site, the icon tile of that last-visited page shows up beneath your favorites, so you can make it stick around permanently by sliding it up to join your other bookmarks. Coast also takes a page from the webOS playbook by providing your browsing history as a series of panes that are tapped for access or swiped upwards to be deleted. And, Opera has, of course, thought to secure the browser, too. Coast is backed by a security engine that constantly consults an online database of unsafe sites -- stray into a nasty corner of the internet, and Coast strings police tape across the page and warns you of the danger. You can also view the security and reputation of any given site by tapping the history button, then swiping down from the bottom of the webpage to reveal such info. Want to know how Coast came to be? Join us after the break to find out.
PayPal mobile payments hit the UK, filling your closet just went wireless (video)
PayPal's mobile payments have been on a whirlwind American tour this year, but they haven't had a chance to cross the border so far. Someone must have finally stamped the company's passport, since it's now an option for UK residents to pay using the InStore app for Android or iOS. A trio of fashion outlets -- Coast, Oasis and Warehouse -- can soon scan an on-screen barcode to take payment for that posh new shirt instead of requiring ye olde wallet. As it is in the US, there's no need for any NFC magic or even an Internet connection to clinch the deal, and there's still the same access to discounts and refunds as for paper- and plastic-wielding buyers. A total of 230 shops will take your PayPal credit starting May 31st, although they won't stop your potential fashion mistakes.
Macroswiss dishes out modern day periscope with DVR
If you're interested in traveling the globe, receiving paychecks where taxes aren't removed first, and getting excellent retirement benefits, a slot in the US Army could be calling your name, but we understand the whole "fear" aspect of joining a Call of Duty deathmatch for realz. Thanks to Macroswiss, however, a newfangled position could be opening up for those not quite ready for the frontline, as its Advanced Combat Camera System (ACCS) is essentially a "giraffe pole camera system" which allows a camcorder to be held out at a "safe distance" and record footage to an onboard DVR. While we're not exactly sure what type of go-go gadget reach this thing has, we do know the camera system touts "color zoom, low light / thermal sensors," and can be deployed in a variety of scenarios to support combat units and keep a video log of actual events for training and reporting purposes. Also dubbed a "camera on a stick" (COAST) solution, this modern day periscope is available right now for governmental use or just having a bit of role-playing fun in your pal's backyard, but we should probably be sure our enemies don't have one of these ready and waiting to counteract.[Via Gizmag]
