María Socorro Rosario | Managing Director | Intuic Puerto Rico 09/04/2012
MASH MY WEEK! Review of the outstanding Internet, Technology and Social Media news for the week 2-7 April
Welcome to a new edition of Mash My Week!
In this week’s edition we bring you the latest online world news relating to cutting edge gadgets, mobile device applications and other technological topics.
We start with the announcement by Google that it is launching an online market research service through Google Consumers Survey. We also include a brief overview of the newly released Instagram for mobile devices with the Android operating system. Have you seen the new futurist glasses designed by Google? Here we tell you what they will be like. Finally, some advice from Western Digital about how we can correctly back-up our stored data.
All this here:
Google Consumers Surveys
The popular search engine company recently launched a new service for businesses and professionals: Google Consumers Surveys.
Google Consumers Surveys was designed for marketing professionals, and enables the carrying out of low-cost personalized marketing studies.
The methodology is very simple, those interested should visit the service page and create an account using a Gmail address. Then, you can start to design your own survey, any question is permitted related to your company, brand, product or topic in particular. The information obtained through data collection is for the users’ exclusive use.
The surveys will be published on various online sites, surfers will be asked to answer questions in exchange for access to exclusive privileged material. Site publishers will be paid for publishing the survey, and Google will charge 10c for each completed survey, although the figure may increase depending on the complexity of the study.
The benefits are:
- High response rates, and prompt delivery of results,
- Nicely aggregated and analysed presentation with prior analysis by Google,
- Low cost compared to the budget necessary to do an offline market survey,
- Accuracy
Tell us, what you think of this new service? Would you use it?
Instagram for Android
The much coveted application Instagram which was originally only available for Apple products is now compatible with Android.
For those of you who are not familiar with the application, we can tell you that Instagram is software for capturing, editing and sharing photos on the web using mobile devices.
Since its launch on to the market in October 2006, Instagram has obtained more than 30 million users around the world and has been named on many occasions as one of the best mobile apps.
The Instagram app for Android is said to be better than the one that is currently available for iOS. Although the new interface is exactly the same as its original version for Apple devices, some modifications have been made, for example, the user can now crop and play with images. Nevertheless, the version for Android has lost the tilt-shift feature which allowed you to focus on an area of the photos, and the basic settings offer fewer options for publishing on social networks than the original application.
According to information revealed by Mashable, the Instagram application for Android was downloaded one million times in the first 24 hours of its release (surely some kind of record)
Lastly, the application is compatible with devices that have the Android 2.2 system and up, and can be downloaded free from Google Play.
Augmented reality Glasses
Google has been experimenting with a new product which consists of augmented reality glasses with Internet access. This initiative, named ‘Project Glass’, enables the user to obtain information about the visual environment through a screen built into the lens and a digital camera in the frame.
Google recently revealed the prototype of the glasses (as seen in the photos) so that Internet users could give their opinions. “We decided to start sharing details of the project so that we could get some feedback about what we’re dong,” said Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun, members of the company research team.
According to Google, the device enables the user to make voice calls, take photos, record video, interact with the environment through augmented reality, and share information on the Internet.
To demonstrate the functions and possibilities of the device, Google has uploaded a promotional video on YouTube that you can see here.
What do you think of this futuristic device?
World Backup Day 2012
As March 31 was World Backup Day we decided to share with our readers a series of tips for correct storage published by the hardware company Western Digital.
For a completely solid backup we recommend:
- Don’t wait until it’s too late: try to back up your important files on a frequent basis.
- Back up regularly: this way you can update your old files that have been modified and include new ones.
- Keep back-up copies in different locations: having at least two backups significantly reduces the risk of data loss.
- Use backup software: a backup program will automatically create backup copies.
- Keep a cloud-based copy: cloud-based services offer other storage guarantees.
- Check your backup copies: make sure everything is backed up correctly.
I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Mash My Week!
See you next Monday!