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Google Redesigns its Image Search for Android and iPhone

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How often do you search for images on Google mobile? Well, if you do this a lot, you would have been annoyed by how hard it is to scroll through image thumbnails on your Android 2.1 phones or iPhone. Well, say goodbye to the old ways and welcome the newly refurbished Google Image Search for mobile which was just rolled by Google.

So now when you see the thumbnail images, you’d noticed that these were squared to maximize the number of images that can be displayed on the small screen of the iPhone or any Android 2.1 devices. In addition, you can also now do the swipe gesture to scroll through the next or previous pages of search results. Or even tap the large, stationary “next” and “previous” page buttons. Finally, the speed at which images appear were also enhanced display them as quickly as you browse.

Meanwhile, as you view the images on the mobile search results pages, this is now made larger through a special image viewing page wherein a black background image emphasizes the image and the buttons fade after a few seconds. This allows you to see images with little distractions. And you can also easily browse through the images by swiping from picture to picture, just like how you normally do it when browsing for photos on your iPhone Camera library or Android photo gallery.

To try Google’s new image search for mobile, simply point your phone’s browser to google.com and tap on the “images” link. This feature is available in 38 languages worldwide.

BloggingPro Launches Free Blogger Job Board

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After many years of existence BloggingPro has become one of the major blogs in the blogging and blog software scene. Of course we plan to continue expanding our horizons and deliver you more blogging news and tips, but that is not all and we here at BP want to deliver our users even more.

In our continuing effort to offer more to our readers, I am happy to announce the addition of the BloggingPro Job Board to the site.

Free Blogger Job Listings

Jobs can be added in three different categories: blogger jobs, blog designers needed and developers needed.

Free as in Beer

Jobs can be added in three different ways:

  1. Free Listing: Your job will be listed for 15 days after approval. Free
  2. 30 Days Listing: For those who want their job listed longer, without needing to refresh their listing. $10 [Read more…] about BloggingPro Launches Free Blogger Job Board

iPad and iBooks Will Eventually Kill the Kindle

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You don’t need to get your hands-on the iPad to realize that it has the potential to kill the Kindle unless Amazon does something drastic to make its  boring gray, e-ink display into something colorful. The iPad supports full color display and the iBooks app for the iPad will transform your  e-ebook reading experience into something colorful albeit a fun one.

I mean, just take a look at the sample screenshots of an e-book being rendered on the iPad using the iBooks apps. Rich, colorful graphics that accompanies e-books, be it children’s books, fiction, sci-fi or business-related, it will surely be more pleasant and appealing to read e-books on the iPad than it is on the Kindle.  And don’t even get me started on the issue of readability and eye strain due to prolong use. You can always shut off your iPad and rest your eyes a bit if you think that your eyes are already strained. So, it’s not really a negative point of the iPad that it’s display was said to be not mean for prolong reading pleasures.

And for the iBookstore, I’m pretty sure electronic publishers will dive into the iPad wave pretty soon if they haven’t started doing so, yet.  You don’t even have to worry if not too many publishers will not support the iPad.  The Project Guttenberg with its thousands of public domain books will provide you with your e-book fix.

What Apple needs to do to complete its e-book market domination and successfully steal the thunder from Amazon is to make the iBookstore available outside the U.S. Especially as soon as Apple starts marketing the iPad to the international markets.

Despite the Criticisms, Apple iPad is Selling Like Hotcakes

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We have to give credit where credit is due. And in the case of the ongoing success being reaped by Apple at this early pre-order stage of its “magical and revolutionary” iPad, it’s just but natural to commend Apple for coming out with a great promotional. This is what Apple does best – introduce a new product, excite would-be customers, open it up for criticisms and then later on, offer the product for sale.

Once again, Apple has proven its marketing prowess. This early, the iPad is reportedly selling like hotcakes. An estimated 50,000 units were reportedly sold in the first two hours after the pre-order process started.  Stocks are dwindling down, affecting those who are still in the process of pre-ordering and choosing the pick-up option.

And while everybody else are busy, it was found out that the iPad filing has just passed through the FCC.  This heightens the excitement so more. So, it’s true – the magical product is indeed coming. I’m pretty sure when the FCC news broke out, more people started clicking on that pre-order button.

So, have you wondered why despite the criticisms that were hurled against the Apple iPad, many customers still purchased it?  Call it Apple consumerism. A disease that has inflicted me and the rest of the thousands of Apple fans who have pre-ordered the Apple iPad and who will pre-order it until supply lasts.

In case you’d want to ask, yes I’m pretty excited and couldn’t wait for April 3 to come.

Popular Science Archives Now Available Online

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If you are a gadget freak, chances are you’re reading Popular Science. In fact, it might be your most favorite technology magazine. Did you know that Popular Science has been around for 137 years already?

Now, here’s the good news, Pop Sci the web wing of Popular Science has already scanned the entire issues of the magazine and has put up the archives available on the internet. By archives, I mean digital archives.  The project was in close collaboration of  PopSci with Google Books.

The Popular Science Archives is freely available on this site.  The moment the home page loads on your web browser, you’d immediately notice a simple search box.  That search box is your only way of getting into specific issues of the magazine.  A cool feature of this archive is the fact that it even has the original advertisements that appeared on when the magazine issue was released.

The online archives does not allow you to go into specific issues of the magazine except for the instance when you are brought to specific issues via the search function.  It would have been better if a browse option is available though especially if you have  not particular topic in mind and you just want to look back at what’s hip and cool in technology of bygone years.

E-Reader Owners Are Satisfied with their Device but Want More Features

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The NPD Group has released a new report entitled “e-Reader Owners: Attitudes and Usage” and this could very well be used by Amazon in its drive to develop the Kindle into a more powerful and interesting ebook reading device.

Based on the report 93% of e-reader owners were found to be either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their device. A mere 2% expressed their dissatisfaction.

Additionally, 60% of the respondents said that the wireless feature of their e-Reader device was their favorite feature. The second most favorited feature was touch-capability with 23% of  the respondents saying so. Interestingly, among the many e-readers available in the market today, Amazon seems to be the one with the most stable wireless feature. So, does this mean that most of the respondents have the Kindle as their e-reader? While the 23% may not be Kindle users since only the Kindle DX has the touchscreen feature. Unfortunately, the report did not specify what are the respondents e-readers.

Another interesting finding of the report was that e-Reader owners are still looking for more features for the e-reader. Among those features that they are looking for include longer battery life, more book titles and color screens.

As we all know, Kindle doesn’t have a color screen, so Amazon is probably looking into developing a new Kindle that will support this feature.  And what great timing it is that Amazon was reportedly eyeing to buy a start up called Touchco. This company, as you may have guessed specializes in touch-screen technology. Some analysts say that Amazon is preparing its e-readers  for the entry of the Apple iPad by March.