Tag Archive for: afterdawn

Google has announced today that it is killing off the popular Google Reader service, among other services as it completes its second round of “spring cleaning.”

The company has been killing off small projects and “non-core” projects since 2011. Google Reader is an aggregator that can read Atom and RSS feeds.

Reads the post:

“Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change–it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus–otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we’re announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since our spring cleaning began in 2011.

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”

Besides Google Reader, the company is also killing Snapseed, Google Voice for BlackBerry and Google Building Maker.

Since the announcement, the Internet has gone up in arms over the death of Google Reader with the search giant seeing significant backlash, especially among the tech saavy crowd. It will be interesting to see if the Reader stays dead moving forward.

Roku has introduced their third-generation set-top box this week, aptly named the Roku 3.

The new set-top has an enhanced remote that includes “private listening” and a headphone jack (with headphones) and a more powerful processor under the hood.

Additionally, the company has refreshed the user interface which promises to make browsing and navigation “more fluid.” The updated UI will also be rolled out to all existing second-generation Roku devices over the current coming weeks.

“Roku 3 introduces thoughtful new features that customers will love,” added founder and CEO Anthony Wood via the press release. “The intuitive new interface makes it easy to find movies and shows quickly while the private listening mode is perfect for late-night streamers who don’t want to wake up the family.”

Outside of the private listening, the remote will also have motion control, allowing for easier playing of certain games, including Angry Birds Space.

Just like its current high-end boxes, the Roku 3 has USB ports, a microSD card slot, dual-band Wireless N, an ethernet port and 1080p support.

The box is now available for $100 in the U.S.

Evernote, the popular multi-platform online note-taking service has announced this weekend that following an attack by hackers they have performed a global password reset for all 50 million account holders.

Reads the company’s post:

“Operations & Security team has discovered and blocked suspicious activity on the Evernote network that appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service.

As a precaution to protect your data, we have decided to implement a password reset.

In our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost. We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed.

The investigation has shown, however, that the individual(s) responsible were able to gain access to Evernote user information, which includes usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords. Even though this information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption. (In technical terms, they are hashed and salted.)”

Next time you log in to Evernote, you will be asked to reset your password.

Microsoft has quietly rolled out its latest Internet Explorer 10 browser for Windows 7 users.

The release preview was made available in mid-November, and the final version is now available to W7 users, which remain the majority of Microsoft’s customers.

IE10 had previously only been available to Windows 8 users.

You must have Service Pack 1 installed to be able to download the browser, which is available in 32 and 64-bit variants. Most likely, if you have Windows 7, you have SP1, so that should not be an issue. Auto-updaters will take place for IE users in the coming weeks.

Outside of some aesthetic updates, IE10 also brings better JavaScript performance, integrated spell checking and auto-correct functions, and better support for the new CSS3.

Get it here: IE 10