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LinkedIn Contacts for iPhone is now available
LinkedIn has released its next expansion with the new iPhone app LinkedIn Contacts. The app collects your contacts from your phonebook and services like Gmail, Yahoo and Evernote. It then uses that information to create a sort of personal assistant which organizes your interactions with business partners across your services. When you look up a contact, you're shown your "Relationship," email exchanges, personal messages from LinkedIn, calendar appointments and other interactions. You can filter your contacts based on parameters like companies, job titles or locations to optimize your results. Going to a business meeting in Oklahoma? Search through your contacts by location and see if there's an old friend to catch up with. The To Do section of the app keeps you up to date on whose birthday it is or who recently changed job titles. Finally, the Calendar portion allows you to quickly go over the background of the people you're scheduled to meet in case there have been any changes since you last spoke. LinkedIn Contacts works with the company's upcoming web service of the same name. You can request early access now by visiting their website, but the service is not required to use the app. The LinkedIn Contacts app is free and currently available for download in the app store.
LinkedIn overhauls its iPhone app in version 6.0
The universal iOS LinkedIn app has been updated to version 6.0. The update brings a dramatic overhaul to the iPhone app, plus bug fixes and improved performance on the iPad. According to the LinkedIn Blog, the iPhone app has a new interface, which makes using the app a lot easier to navigate and interact with. Now users can invite, follow, like, share and comment on content directly from the update stream, which is now the center of the app. One particular new feature adds shortcuts to the new navigation area, accessed with a swipe to the right from the main homepage. This makes it quicker to get to certain features of LinkedIn, like connections or who's viewed your profile. Finally, the app allows users to follow Influencers, and has added Dutch and Norwegian language support. To celebrate the launch of the new app, LinkedIn has put together a video demonstrating the iPhone app in action. The LinkedIn app is available now as a free download from the iOS App Store.
LinkedIn launches redesigned iOS, Android apps with a focus on the news stream
Recent moves by LinkedIn -- including its acquisition of Pulse -- suggested its eye was towards becoming a center of its users universe for much more than simple networking or job hunting, and its latest mobile updates continue on that path. Updates arriving today on the iOS and Android platforms are redesigned for more "delightful interactions" throughout the app. That means a shift of focus to the news stream, including conversations, updates from your network and of course, advertisements. Check after the break for a quick video demo of the new features or hit the blog for a description -- whether it's enough to overtake Twitter, Facebook or something else for your social dashboard remains to be decided.
The Daily Roundup for 04.11.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
LinkedIn acquires Pulse news reader for $90 million
LinkedIn has been pretty clearly repositioning itself as a source for news as of late, and it's now made that shift even clearer with a fairly major acquisition. The company announced today that it has acquired Pulse, maker of news reader apps for mobile devices (in addition to a web-based offering) at a cost of some $90 million. In its own blog post announcing the news, Pulse says that its apps will remain as they are for now, although they will now offer a "LinkedIn Influencer" feed featuring the company's hand-picked contributors. According to Pulse, its apps currently have over 30 million users around the globe, with approximately 40 percent of those outside the US; for its part, LinkedIn recently topped 200 million users.
Sunrise for iPhone adds call, text, email features
Sunrise is a free iPhone app designed to make using Google Calendar easier and, through an innovative user interface that makes good use of gestures, it accomplishes that goal. Now the team at Sunrise Atelier has released version 1.1 of the app, adding new features and better integration with LinkedIn. The new version has added the ability to create recurring events, add notes to events and skip sending invitations to other attendees. But one of the most useful features isn't listed in the "What's New" portion of the app description. Ellis Hamburger at The Verge points out that now when you add new attendees to a meeting, tapping on their image points you to a contact card with useful information pulled in from Facebook, LinkedIn and Contacts. At the bottom of that card are three big buttons to let you call, text or email that person with a tap. Hamburger also says that the developers are looking at providing more integration soon to iCloud, TripIt and other services -- "but only once they're good and ready."
Five apps for business card scanning
Persistent critters, those little analog cardboard rectangles. Even with the option to scan QR Codes, email vCards or bump phones to swap contact information, the venerable business card keeps on trucking -- and keeps on making it challenging to leap from analog to digital information. If your career or avocation takes you to meetings, trade shows or conferences, chances are you too have a pile of to-be-dealt-with business cards that could stand a good digital shakedown. Here's our five apps rundown of a few good choices for handling business card scanning on the go. SHAPE's Business Card Reader: Last year, we noted that the US$4.99 Business Card Reader expanded its offerings with an iPad version of the app. BCR delivers capable scanning and OCR (using libraries licensed from high-end scanning developer ABBYY, which has its own app suite as well), with a good verification step to make sure that the recognition is matching the actual card data. BCR can quickly export scanned data to your device address book, match LinkedIn connections, and in the latest version it hooks directly into the CRM tools of Salesforce.com for marketing and sales pros. Evernote Hello: I wasn't all that taken with the first version of Evernote's free meet-and-manage contact app; it was buggy, and it seemed awkward to ask a new acquaintance "Mind if I take your picture so I remember you?" Things have definitely changed for the better with January's version 2 release. In addition to manual entry and Hello-to-Hello audio contact sharing (very cool, I recommend giving it a try), the beautifully designed app now supports business card scanning -- temporarily free for both regular and premium Evernote users, although at some point down the road the regular user scan allowance may be curtailed or changed to IAP. Evernote's expertise with text recognition and knowledge of the iPhone's camera capabilities seems to have paid off, as Hello is now delivering some of the best and quickest scan results I've seen. My favorite feature is the heads-up display that automatically detects the card and gives you instant feedback on getting the best image ("use a shallower angle," "center the card," "hold the phone steady," etc.); as soon as Hello thinks it's got the shot, it captures the scan automatically. If it can't auto-detect, it falls back to manual mode, but most of the time with a light card on a dark background it nails it in one try. Within a few seconds, the data is detected, and if you're signed into LinkedIn via Hello, the card will be matched with that contact immediately. Hello also links a "meeting" note to give context to the encounter, rather than leaving a bare contact without metadata. Some minor quibbles aside (you can't edit the Hello notes in either the desktop or iOS versions of the regular Evernote app, for one), Hello is a winner. Without a firm date or pricing for the end of the free scan trial for non-premium Evernote users, my recommendation is to use it while you can. LinkedIn's CardMunch: With more than 2 million cards processed already, the free scanning app from your friendly neighborhood social network for professional use has simplicity and volume on its side. Assuming you already use LinkedIn's connection ecosystem, CardMunch's scanning speed and off-device processing make it great for dealing with a lot of cards in batch mode, and you can make notes on each scan before it's recognized on the back end. Of course, the trade-off of the cloud processing step is that you can't easily OCR cards on the plane on the way home without forking over for some WiFi. Also, checking for errors is a two-step process since the scan and the data return are a few minutes apart -- but CardMunch tends to make fewer mistakes than other apps, so that's not a big drawback. WorldCard Mobile: When I last checked out the $6.99 WCM app a year ago, it stood up well against competitors like CardMunch and BCR. Since then, the app has added QR Code scanning with support for both vCard and meCard formats, iOS 6 compatibility, support for double-sided cards, batch scanning, duplicate search and direct synchronization with Google contacts. WCM's interface is still in need of some redesign TLC, but for rapid and accurate scanning, it's a good choice. Note that WCM also requires you to tap a small button on the screen to take a card photo, while other apps let you tap the whole screen or auto-detect the card (Evernote Hello). NeatCloud and NeatMobile: If you're in the habit of keeping all your print-to-digital documents in the Neat ecosystem driven by one of the company's desktop scanners, you're already comfortable with the OCR and filing capabilities of the platform. What's new is that Neat is extending your scanned repository into the cloud and onto your iPhone, with the NeatMobile / NeatCloud combination app and service. NeatCloud gives you on-the-road access to your scanned docs, and in turn the NeatMobile app allows you to scan back to that pile of data from wherever you happen to be. This sync isn't a free service, however; monthly plans start at $5.99 for individual users. As such, the mobile app doesn't worry much about handling address book sync or other standalone features; the workflow is that you'll do that processing back on your Mac or PC with the downloaded scans. Neat's app does a solid job of scanning business cards in standalone mode, but for true accuracy with a human touch the optional NeatVerify pass submits your scan for a once-over by a person to make sure everything is in the right place. NeatVerify credits are linked to your NeatCloud account.
Twitter, LinkedIn apps updated for BlackBerry 10, now function like the real deal
Two new app updates are currently on deck for owners of BlackBerry's Z10 aimed at enhancing the native Twitter and LinkedIn experience. And by "enhance," we mean achieve parity with app iterations on rival mobile OS platforms. With the newly tweaked Twitter for BB10, users will have the option to add or take photos while creating a tweet, delete messages, send direct messages from the 'Me' tab, report users as spam and browse conversations in a threaded view. So basically, the new version of Twitter for BB 10 is now fully baked. LinkedIn is also getting a minor overhaul, now letting users view and search for "Recommended" jobs, filter news by industry, message contacts from their profile pages and view images in full-screen. The updates should hit the BlackBerry World store within 24 hours, so practice some patience. Your Z10 just got that much more useful.
LinkedIn gives all of its employees iPad minis
LinkedIn is most known for being a website that helps users get jobs, but it turns out working there is probably pretty nice as well: The CEO of the company today handed out 3,500 iPad minis, to every one of the company's employees. That's right: If you work at LinkedIn, you got an iPad mini today, as CEO Jeff Wiener (seen above) passed them out to everyone in the office. That's pretty great, and these probably won't just be used to play Angry Birds or Super Hexagon: The iPad is well-documented to help out in the workplace, and with every employee having an iPad mini, LinkedIn can now distribute documents digitally on the Apple devices, or possibly even come to rely on an iOS app for some office functions. LinkedIn isn't the only company that has done this, either -- Weiner used to work at Yahoo! with Brad Garlinghouse, who's now the current CEO of YouSendIt. And Garlinghouse had the same idea: He gave iPad minis to every one of his employees over last year's holidays as well.
Ubisoft Massive developing next-gen RPG, Montpellier on next-gen racer
Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Shanghai are working on AAA next-gen RPGs, while Ubisoft Montreal has a next-gen IP on its radar, a few LinkedIn profiles spotted by PlayStation Lifestyle divulge.At Sweden's Massive Entertainment, co-developer of Far Cry 3, one game designer listed a "AAA next-gen online RPG" before changing it to something more vague. We grabbed a screenshot here. Over at Ubisoft Shanghai, a senior gameplay/network programmer listed a "'Confidential Title' next-gen console (RPG)."A game designer for Rayman Legends listed a next-gen console racer that he's been working on since August 2011, PlayStation Lifestyle reported. He removed the listing before we could snap a shot.A 3D animator and a concept artist from Ubisoft Montreal list an "unannounced next-gen" IP on their LinkedIn profiles, the animator specifying work from December 2011 - February 2012. Neither employee lists Watch Dogs, the game whose other-worldly graphics made such a splash at E3, on their resumes.
Report: Major Square Enix game receiving Wii U port by Mass Effect 3 dev
Straight Right, the Australian developer porting Mass Effect 3 to Wii U, may also be working on a "triple-A Square Enix" port for Nintendo's new console. The info is based on the LinkedIn page (now altered) of Chris Slater, Straight Right's technical project manager, as spotted by an eagle-eyed NeoGAF user.Slater has since updated his LinkedIn profile, but a Google Cache of the page as it was on September 25 shows the project manager is "working for Straight Right on a short term contract, porting a triple-A Square Enix game to the yet-to-be-released Wii U platform." We have a screen-grab of the Google Cache page here.It's already known Straight Right is working on two Wii U games in addition to Mass Effect 3, with one an original IP and the other stemming from a well-known franchise. Since the Square Enix game is a port, it means this'd be the one from a well known franchise. Hitman Absolution, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and the new Tomb Raider are primary candidates. Crystal Dynamics previously denied Tomb Raider is coming to Wii U any time soon, saying the studio would have to design it "very differently" and with "unique functionality" for the Nintendo console.We reached out to Square Enix, but a spokesperson told us the publisher "cannot comment on rumors or speculation."
LinkedIn branches out with new blogging and 'following' features for select group
LinkedIn has always been based on the notion of "connections" rather than "followers," but the social network has made a bit of a break with that tradition today. For the first time, it will let users follow people they aren't connected to, although their choice of people is initially limited to a group of 150 individuals that LinkedIn deems to be "thought leaders." What's more, the company is also giving them access to some more advanced blogging tools that will let them publish longer posts with pictures and videos. Of course, while it's fairly limited in scope now, LinkedIn is clear that this is only their first step in this direction. It says it will continue to expand its group of "influencers" over the next few months (it's taking suggestions), and LinkedIn's Dan Roth told TechCrunch that "eventually we want to allow all people to follow each others." In the meantime, you can get the full rundown of what's in store at the links below.
Google, Amazon, Facebook and more confirmed as members of the Internet Association
Pitching itself as the first trade alliance to represent the concerns of the online economy, the Internet Association lobbying group has just confirmed its member companies and policy platform. As suspected Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Google are joined by other large tech firms, under the leadership of Capitol Hill advisor Michael Beckerman, to form the umbrella public policy organization. Citing its three main areas of focus as protecting internet freedom, fostering innovation and economic growth, and empowering users, the Internet Association will represent regulatory and political interests of its member companies, and their employees. There is no word on what the first freedom or innovation to benefit from the associations collaborative-clout will be, but while we wait to find out, you can lobby on the source link for the Mission- and Purpose-statement containing press release.
SWTOR's Daniel Erickson 'actively looking for new opportunities'
Is Star Wars: The Old Republic's lead designer and creative director looking to move on from the studio? This is the question that comes from reading Daniel Erickson's LinkedIn profile, in which he includes the phrase "actively looking for new opportunities" in his header. Erickson has been with BioWare for well over seven years at this point. We're cautious about deducing too much from a single blurb on LinkedIn, but then again, he puts it right up front and center. What do you think: Is Erickson looking to move on from BioWare, and if so, what impact will this have on SWTOR? [Thanks to Soeren for the tip!]
Rumor: Black Ops 2 heading to Wii U, according to QA tester's resume
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 could be coming to Wii U, according to the LinkedIn resume of a Treyarch QA tester recently spotted by IGN. According to the description of the duties of said QA tester, Randall Herman performed "QA testing on PS3 and Wii U, multiplayer testing while collaborating with team, ad hoc testing, and regression."Black Ops 2 is set to release November 13 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, the only platforms it is officially announced for. We have reached out to Activision for comment on the rumored inclusion of the Wii U on that list.
Current Caller ID app adds social info, weather details, suggests a good time to ring back
If staring at the incoming callers' visage just wasn't enough, Current's Caller ID might worth a try. The utility app adds a raft of extra detail to your smartphone when it rings, from recent tweets and status updates through to weather conditions and even location data. After loading up the app, you can connect to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, which Current Caller ID combines with your existing contact list. Based on your use history, the app will even offer up a time to return missed calls. There's the nice addition of some metrics between you and your phonebook, visualizing that precarious balance between text messages and calls with your significant other -- or a timegraph of when you call Mom. These stats are possibly more useful than the caller ID features, and while the design does jar a little with the typical Android aesthetic, it's hard to complain when the app's free. If you're willing to forgive those minor visual flaws, the download awaits at the source below.
Vizify offers free infographics all about you, makes you feel like a big shot
Infographics. The stuff of high turnover websites and news channels, right? Well, yes, but now you can bring the same white space and pastel shades to your own internet footprint, courtesy of free infographic web app Vizify. It's still in its trial period for now, which means you'll have to wait for an entry code to tap into the breezy visualization generator, but we managed to plug in as many social networks as we could to see how it all works. The service is definitely centered around those that are very connected to the internet. Vizify will draw information from Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, LinkedIn and also connect through work-based websites you add yourself. It will then populate a clickable front page with circles including images, quotes and links to your profile elsewhere. The service, which is geared at recruitment, crafts a convenient short link to offer up on resumes or job emails. Edit options include a choice of color palettes, and the ability to tweak the layout of the information circles [seen above] and the larger pages that follow it, bringing either more career-centric (or interesting) content to the forefront. Sign up for an access code at the source to give it a try for yourself, or take a stalker-esque trip down an Engadget editor's social network tracks at the second link below.
Microsoft details the People app, its cloud-connected address book for Windows 8
If you've yet to try the Release Preview of Windows 8 for yourself, fear not, because along with our detailed impressions, Microsoft is catering to your trepidation with a series of blog entries on its MSDN site that explore the nitty-gritty details of its latest OS. In the latest installment, we're given an in-depth preview of the People app, a cloud-connected address book that promises to be one of the many centerpieces in the Metro environment. For starters, Windows Phone users are bound to feel right at home, as the address book relies on cloud services to populate the entries from sources such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Twitter. Not only does this ensure that one's address book is always accessible and up-to-date -- friend removals come to mind -- it also brings quick access to social feeds via the "What's new" section and lets you keep tabs on specific contacts via live tiles on the home screen. By leveraging APIs known as contracts, Windows 8 makes the address book available to other apps such as Mail and Messaging, along with other programs written to take advantage of the service. One of the hurdles Microsoft is working to overcome with its cloud-connected services are the inevitable duplicate contacts. Currently, Windows 8 does a pretty good job of identifying and linking multiple accounts to one individual, but for the rare exceptions, the company will soon add the ability to manually edit and link various accounts to specific contacts. Naturally, with such a connected approach, security could be an issue for businesses, and for this reason, one's Exchange contacts will not be synced with their Microsoft account. In this scenario, users must manually add their Exchange accounts for each device they use. Take one look at the length of the MSDN blog entry and you'll be left wondering how Microsoft employees find time to code, but it makes for a worthwhile read.
LinkedIn confirms security breach, 'some passwords' affected
Reports began swirling this morning that around six million passwords attached to LinkedIn accounts had been compromised, and after looking into the matter, the site has confirmed that "some of the passwords" attached to accounts of LinkedIn members have been affected. The network doesn't specify the number of passwords leaked, nor does it confirm the rumored count of six million. It does, however, promise that it will invalidate passwords of the hit accounts -- and vows to send an email to each affected user with instructions on how to reset their password, followed by another piece of correspondence explaining what happened. Below you'll find the company's official statement, as well as what it is doing to ensure its members are safe.
LinkedIn leaks password hashes, iOS app is scraping your meeting notes [UPDATE x2]
It's not a good day for the social network for professionals. Recently, someone posted about 6.5 million password hashes on a Russian hacker forum; it looks like many or most of those came from LinkedIn. Hashes themselves are not enough to grant a bad guy access to your LinkedIn account, but if your password is found in any dictionary or list of common passwords, it's going to be cracked. Go ahead and change your LinkedIn password now -- then we'll get to the other LinkedIn news. Last April, LinkedIn finally got around to rolling out an iPad app. Truthfully, the iPad app leaves a lot to be desired. It's not nearly as good as LinkedIn's iPhone app. However, both apps share a new feature that lets them sync with iOS calendars, thus allowing users to view upcoming events inside the LinkedIn app itself. The only problem appears to be, as the New York Times reports, that LinkedIn is collecting a user's meeting notes and sending them back to LinkedIn's servers. Uh, oh. Why this is a big deal -- and why every LinkedIn user should be furious about this -- is because it's a major breach of privacy, it's against Apple's privacy guidelines, and nowhere is it stated in the app that enabling calendar sync will send any event notes back to LinkedIn servers. As the New York Times points out, many people include confidential notes in a calendar event. For instance, a CEO might have a calendar event for a meeting in which, in addition to the time and place, he also might have written down the corporate call-in number along with its passcode and the company's confidential financial highlights in the notes. Also, LinkedIn's calendar sync doesn't just upload your business calendars to LinkedIn's serves, it uploads your personal ones as well. So if you have a calendar event for a private medical appointment and make a note on the event saying, "Ask doctor about the lump I found," that's on LinkedIn's servers, too. LinkedIn spokesperson Julie Inouye told the New York Times the company's "calendar sync feature is a clear 'opt-in' experience...We use information from the meeting data to match LinkedIn profile information about who you're meeting with so you have more information about that person." She also noted that user's iOS calendars only sync when the LinkedIn app is open and that users could opt out of the calendar feature at any point. There are two problems with this answer: One, it doesn't explain why users weren't notified their private notes were being uploaded to LinkedIn's servers, and two, it doesn't address whether a user's calendars and notes are deleted from the servers when a user who has opted in opts out, or if the already-uploaded events and their notes remain on LinkedIn's servers forever. Until LinkedIn rectifies this (or Apple steps up to the plate and pulls the app until it's rectified) there's little a user can do if they've already opted in to LinkedIn's calendar sync. However, those who have opted in can still opt out, and thus at least prevent future entries from being uploaded to LinkedIn's servers, by doing the following: On the iPhone Open the LinkedIn iOS app on your iPhone. Select your profile (the "You" badge). Tap the cog wheel icon in the top-right corner. Tap "Add Calendar." On the next screen, switch "Add Your Calendar" to OFF. On the iPad Open the LinkedIn iOS app on your iPhone. Tap the cog wheel icon in the top-left corner. Switch "Show Calendar" to OFF. UPDATE: LinkedIn has issued a statement regarding the mobile calendar feature, saying: "We Don't: We do not store any calendar information on our servers. We do not share or use your calendar data for purposes other than matching it with relevant LinkedIn profiles. We do not under any circumstances access your calendar data unless you have explicitly opted in to sync your calendar We Will Improve: We will no longer send data from the meeting notes section of your calendar event. There will be a new 'learn more' link to provide more information about how your calendar data is being used." UPDATE 2: LinkedIn has updated their iOS app to presumably alter the way their calendar sync feature collects data. The 5.0.3 update states that the changes include "miscellaneous bug fixes" and "improvements in calendar."
