06
Mar
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Google+ Profiles Got A Huge Holo-Esque Update Today And It's Actually Kind Of Amazing

Posted by in Google, News

Tomorrow, Facebook is expected to announce some major changes to its News Feed. This has been a long time in coming and many people agree that, compared to the growing competition amongst modern social networks, the News Feed is one of the oldest, stalest, and ugliest presentations of information around. Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it could use a refresher, so we're all eagerly awaiting the chang-Oh hey look new Google+ features!

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Without warning, Google launched a massive change to profiles today that beautifies the heck out of personal and business pages alike. The most noticeable change is users now have a gargantuan cover photo.

04
Sep
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Google Wins Multi-User Face Unlock Patent, Further Teases Our Multi-User Dreams

Posted by in Android OS, Google, News

Today it was learned, through a US Patent and Trademark Office filing, that Google has been granted a patent concerning the logging in of multiple users by facial recognition.

Typically, the granting of yet another tech patent wouldn't be extraordinarily interesting news. But given the fact that Google's latest patent relates to multiple user support, and the fact that code meant for multiple user support has been sitting right under our noses in AOSP for some time now, patent number 8,261,090 is definitely worth discussing.

Without quoting the entire 17,000 word filing, patent '090 essentially covers methods that allow a "computing device" to recognize one or more users' identities based on facial recognition, and then give them access to resources specifically assigned to them.

06
Dec
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AT&T Toggle Hits The Android Market – Keep Business And Pleasure Separate With The Click Of A Button

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, AT&T, News

You might remember mention of a new AT&T service called Toggle last month, a service which promised to allow enterprise users to access corporate email, calendars and contacts securely from whatever Android device they choose to purchase, while separately maintaining their personal data. AT&T's official Toggle app hit the Android Market today, heralding the beginning of the service, and bringing hugely useful functionality to enterprise users concerned with keeping their business and personal activities separate.

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AT&T Toggle essentially allows users to operate in two different modes on a single device: a personal mode, which acts just like your stock device, and a business mode, which allows access to corporate email, calendars etc.

01
Nov
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[Update: Root No Longer Needed] Angry Aviary Lets You Share Multiple Angry Birds Profiles On The Same Device

Posted by in Applications, Games, News

Update: root is no longer required to use this app.

As an Angry Birds lover, I have always been slightly disappointed by the fact that when both me and my wife share the same phone to play the game, we never know who set the highest score in every level. Short of splurging the green for a new phone (she is still under contract with her crappy Pre), we now have another option - a small utility wittily called Angry Aviary.

Angry Aviary utilizes its elevated privileges (your phone needs to be rooted) to swap Angry Birds profiles around on the fly, thus letting multiple people go through the game at their own pace.