What’s new in Chrome 19

A little more than 6 weeks between releases this time, but it’s end of life for the Chrome Canary version 19, so let’s see what the user-facing changes are. Following the trend from the previous version, when extensions have been integrated in the ‘Settings’ page - a.k.a. the Uber page - it now incorporates ‘History’ and ‘Help’ / ‘About’ as well. There is not much to say about ‘History’, it’s basically the same design introduced in version 17 only in a new location. The ‘About’ page in web format looks unfinished for now: it can’t check for updates so it hasn’t replaced the usual modal dialog yet. On the other hand it has two handy links for help and reporting issues, the latter being buried under two levels of menus until recently – it should be much more visible here.

Remove the ‘0 comments’ label on Blogger

With the recent revamp of the commenting system and a rumored Google+-based solution for sites, there are still some minor tweaks that can make Blogger comments work better on your blog or site. One thing that nagged me was the fact that below each article there is a rather big section dedicated to the number of comments – which is well and nice if there are comments, but completely useless on posts with none (I have a fair amount of those, as most casual bloggers do). So if you want to remove that part of the page, follow the instructions in this article. This involves changes to the HTML template, so be sure to back it up first, just in case.

The Next Web: “Google Play gets top billing in Google’s black navigation bar”

Now that the Android Market has been re-branded as “Google Play” the company is wasting no time getting it in front of all of its users the best way it knows how, via the black navigation bar that appears on all of its products. Drew Olanoff

Yep, I see the link too. This new ‘in-your-face’-Google is slowly getting ridiculous. How is this link relevant to me as a user if I don’t have an Android device (and probably never will) and the books Google sells aren’t compatible with my Kindle? As I said before, I need a way to kill the Google black bar; unless I can configure which links I see it’s just a waste of screen space.

And what kind of a silly name is ‘Play’ for a site where you can purchase books?! What’s wrong with Google Store?

Oh, it was already taken…

More control over the Facebook news feed: show or hide friends

After adding controls for the types of updates in the news feed and the relative importance of individual friends, Facebook has introduced more clear controls over who appears in the main news feed: a check box labeled simply ‘Show in News Feed’. The new on-or-off option is available for both friends and the pages you liked, appearing for my account in both the desktop site (hover over a profile picture in the news feed, then click on the button on the lower right of the hover card) and in the mobile site (visit a friend’s profile and click on ‘Friends’ or ‘Liked’) – that’s where I discovered it earlier today. The controls for the types of updates displayed for a given friend have been moved in the same menu under the ‘Settings…’ entry.

By default, of course, new friends and pages are shown in the news feed, you have to remove them manually one by one if you want. I haven’t tested it that thoroughly, but I would guess that hidden friends or pages will still be shown in lists. Like other recent initiatives, it’s a move to reduce the noise on the main page, while at the same time providing users with less drastic options than removing those connections entirely.

Online identity: ‘walled gardens’ are not the way

Behind the social agenda of most tech giants there are other underlying goals. It’s a competition to capture the online identity of users, better and more relevant data, in order to deliver ads and monetize. The problem is this competition is leading to a lot of fragmentation; instead of having one ‘identity’ on the web you have to manage several accounts and social graphs: one for Facebook, one on Google, on Twitter, Yahoo!, Windows Live, Disqus and so one. There should be a better way to handle this instead of this multitude of centralized identity providers.

Like an earlier post where I shared some thoughts how social networks compare to our offline interactions, I want to do the same for identity. Offline we generally have a single identity (name, age, sex, address, nickname, workplace, interests), with variation depending on the social context: a business persona, a more intimate and open image for family and friends, a very superficial, general image for the rest of the world. There are of course the outliers, public figures who are more universally recognizable, but you can’t really say you know them intimately, that is also reserved for a low number of people. We carry most of out identity with us and don’t build it from scratch with each new circle we encounter; after all, while getting a new job, for example, you are changing only one small aspect of your identity.

Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

La două decenii de la finalul celei de‑a doua părți, refugiații de pe Resurgam – acum un sistem complet ostil vieții după intervenția violentă a Inhibitorilor – își refac comunitatea pe planeta Ararat, printre organismele stranii ale jonglerilor minții. Dar așa cum se așteptau încă de la sosire, răgazul lor e doar permanent și o singură capsulă aterizând în ocean semnalează că frontul contra Inhibitorilor a avansat pe nesimțite, amenințând liniștea aparentă a noii colonii. La zeci de ani-lumină distanță, lighthugger‑ul Gnostic Ascension se apropie de steaua 107 Piscium; un membru al echipajului, Quaiche, cercetând sistemul în căutare de artefacte sau orice altceva ce ar putea fi comercializat pe alte colonii, este atras către suprafața înghețată a satelitului Hela de un pod aflat într‑un loc care n‑ar fi trebuit să fi fost locuit niciodată până atunci. Doborât de vechi sisteme automate de apărare, salvarea îi vine de la un eveniment incredibil de improbabil: gigantul gazos Haldora, în jurul căruia orbitează Hela, dispare pentru o fracțiune de secundă, permițând navei lui Quaiche să recepționeze S.O.S.‑ul lui. Pe aceeași lună înghețată și lipsită de atmosferă, adolescenta Rashmika Els fuge de acasă pentru a intra în serviciul unei Catedrale, unde speră să afle detalii despre soarta fratelui ei, recrutat în urmă cu câțiva ani de bisericile de pe Calea Permanentă, și să aprofundeze studiile ei despre specia extraterestră dispărută, probabil tot într‑un atac al Inhibitorilor, ale cărei vestigii se găsesc peste tot pe suprafața Helei.

Ca și în romanele anterioare, Absolution Gap se structurează în trei povești paralele care converg de‑a lungul romanului spre un final comun. Eu nu am fost la început foarte atent la indicii, dar conexiunile se pot ghici devreme dacă urmăriți anii în care are loc acțiunea, menționați la începutul fiecărei secțiuni. De altfel primele capitole nu mi s‑au părut foarte interesante, ba chiar puțin respingătoare din cauza figurii aproape caricatural de grotești a Reginei Jasmina de pe Ascensiunea Gnostică; am făcut până și o pauză pentru a citi o altă carte. Când am revenit însă am început să fiu captivat din nou de acțiune, de idei și de universul creat în roman; ar fi multe de spus, deci...

David Riesenberg: “Canon Mirrorless Concept”

Like many others, I too have been waiting for quite a while for Canon to release its mirrorless system. There are speculations and indications that they may very well do so this year, but I personally grew a bit restless. Because of this, I decided to put to paper, or rather to CAD and rendering software, my vision of such camera. After about a month of learning, debating, modeling and rendering, the Canon AE-D came to life. David Riesenberg

Awesome concept and simple design, maybe a bit too retro for my taste; in any case, looking better than the bulky G1X. But, as the author himself acknowledges, the chances of this even being considered by Canon are pretty slim. It boils down to one major weakness: lens compatibility. As long as the camera has a different mount than the majority of Canon lenses it can never fully benefit from the lens ecosystem like other EOS cameras do. Sure, you could buy an adaptor – but that adds up to the likely high price – or hope for third-party lenses – an unlikely solution. With the market for cameras already squeezed by smartphones and the recent Kodak bankruptcy, the income from the model probably wouldn’t even cover the R&D costs and it’s unlikely the company would risk loosing money with a new product line when it can focus on the already profitable pro cameras.