Macgasm

Apple has purchased Siri, a dedicated search application for the iPhone, and this could mean that Apple is lining up to take on Google directly.

If you’re not familiar with Siri, the developers describe it thusly:

Today, Siri can help you find and plan things to do. You can ask Siri to find a romantic place for dinner, tell you what’s playing at a local jazz club or get tickets to a movie for Saturday night

This is another example of Apple buying technology instead of creating it in house. To me, this makes a lot of sense. Instead of reinventing the wheel, they’re dropping a tiny portion of their huge bankroll on technology that could help them compete in this arms race that is brewing between Apple and Google.

I’m very interested in seeing where this goes, and we’ll be covering this as more information becomes available. What do you think? Comment on this post or hit me up on Twitter.

Article via: Electronista
Photo Credit: stevendepolo

Genealogy used the be very difficult. Not only did we have to keep analog records, but collaboration was difficult too. There was once a lot of copy-pasting that needed to be done to merge the work of other people into your tree. With Geni, we no longer have to duplicate the work of others to work with their data.

Geni.com works under the model of “Everyone’s related.” Instead of having millions of duplicate trees, the goal is to connect everyone into a “Big Tree.” You benefit from the work that everyone else is doing while they benefit from yours. The best part is that it is free.

Tree View

The best way to view and interact with your family tree data is the tree mode. You can customize how many generations you want to display, which direction you want the tree to unfold, and if you only want to see direct ancestors.

Adding members couldn’t be any easier. You select the profile you want to add to, select what relation you want to add (Parent, Sibling, Spouse, etc.), and then you input the new person’s information right there in the tree view. Sadly, this part of the site uses Flash. If you’re on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, you’re out of luck. Let’s hope we see a Geni app in the future.

Stats

My favorite part of Geni is the statistics page. You can display the stats from your family group (Up to 4th cousins), your blood relatives (No inlaws), and your ancestors (Only parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.).

Some of the stats that you get to see are: Average life expectancy, percentage of religious views, percentage of birth locations, percentage of married individuals, and a graph of the number of births in each month of the year. I strongly believe that visualizing data makes all of the hard work of Genealogy worth it. When you can look at what you’ve done, you’ll be able to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Social Networking

The most unique aspect of Geni is that it focuses heavily on the social networking aspect of the service. You can share photos, videos, and virtual gifts with your friends and family like you would on Facebook, but this is focus around you. This is a great place to show Grandma the pictures of little Sally. It also provides context to the hard, cold data in your tree. When you can put a face to someone, they become real. This is a more personal genealogy experience.

Mapping

Another one of my favorite features is the ability to use the built-in Google Map to showcase the birthplace and current location of people in you family group. Getting a birds-eye view of the locations of your family provides a feeling of amazement.

When I look how my family has fanned out, I am somewhat surprised. I only wish that I could step through different time periods on the map — seeing how my family has moved throughout the years. I don’t know how feasible that would be, but it would be a welcomed feature.

Popular Profiles

This might be the most impressive feature of them all. Geni hosts a Top 100 page of the most viewed profiles. This includes many celebrities. If you’ve been able to connect your family to the “Big Tree” with over 38 million people on it, you just might be able to show your relation to Elvis, Barack Obama, or Abraham Lincoln. It really is cool when you can see how closely related we all are. For example, The Prophet Mohammed is my 38th-Great Grandfather. Who knew?

To be fair, there are some things that only pro users can accomplish. If you want to track the relation between you and people far into the big tree, you’ll need to drop $60/year on a pro account. Also, Pro users can view possible duplicate profile for their family. If you find a duplicate, you can merge them together to make a bigger tree. I really do recommend it for hardcore Genealogy folks.

All in all, I love Geni. It is a great place to start for people just getting into Genealogy, and it allows you to move forward into some really innovative collaboration. At the very least, go try out a free account.

Photo Credit: blmurch

First it was a concept, then we saw the iPad edition of Scrabble put it into use, and now we see just what console gaming on an Apple device might have in store for us.

The creators of Chopper 2 put together a proof of concept that included hooking up an iPad to the television and using the iPhone as a controller (connected over bluetooth). A lot of people have been talking about the AppleTV turning into a full-fledged gaming system in the upcoming years, and this YouTube video (below) clearly illustrates the potential it could have.

Jonny Evans, over at 9 to 5 Mac laments about the potential the device could have, and we have to agree. Getting access to the AppStore games on my television would convince me to pick up an AppleTV immediately.

I get a real chuckle out of these “It was my idea” Windows 7 commercials. Partially because the actors are terrible, and partially because they keep showing off functionality that would cost you a couple bucks if you were on the Mac.

If you want that glorious Windows 7 Snap feature on your Mac you have three options.

Option One: Cinch

This first solution comes in at a measly $7. Cinch lets you define “hot zones” around the edges of your screen. If you drag and drop a window in one of these hot zones, you’ll have your window snap into place. Cinching, to the left or right of the screen forces your window into a split view filling half the screen.

Option Two: SizeUp

This application is also created by Irradiated Software, and comes in at $13 dollars. It’s a little more in depth than Cinch. SizeUp lets you fill half the screen, a quarter of the screen, as well as move windows between spaces. It does this all with shortcut keys, which is what separates it from Cinch. SizeUp is for keyboard users; Cinch is for people who rely on their mouse.

Option Three: AppleScript and Spark

Spark is a shortcut manager that lets you assign applescripts to a keyboard shortcut (among other things). This will allow you to assign different to different keyboard combo’s and essentially recreates SizeUp for free.

We’d recommend SizeUp if you’re thinking about doing something like this, but if you’re feeling geekier than normal you can get the scripts from MacOSXhints.

So, the next time a Windows 7 user goes on about snap and how it was their idea, let them know it only cost you 14 dollars and an internet connection.

Those of us who pre-ordered the iPad 3G have been sitting on pins and needles awaiting any word that our gadgets will arrive by the promised April deadline. This morning I checked my order status on the Apple Store for the billionth (I’m not kidding) time, and, shock of shocks, the status had changed from “Not Yet Shipped” to “Prepared for Shipment.”

This still isn’t as satisfying as an actual Fed-Ex tracking number, but it is a step in the right direction.

Can Apple pull off the April 30th delivery date?  Well, if the iPads are still in China, probably not.  But at least one iPad 3G customer was told that the iPads are already in the U.S. in warehouses awaiting shipment by Fed-Ex.  When I contacted the Apple Store on Monday via chat, I was told by the representative that an April 30 delivery date is guaranteed.

And so we wait for the magical and revolutionary email that confirms shipment.  Tick . . . tock . . .tick . . .tock . . .

Microsoft is continuing to develop their Office Suite for the Mac.  The new version is titled Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, and it will be out later this fall.  Currently, only test versions are available, and from what I gather it is only select testers.  Why else would it be on BitTorrent sites?

It appears that the BitTorrents are ripe with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac Betas, Erica Ho from lifehacker reports.  What does that mean for you the Mac user?  Well, it means that you can download a copy of it, and play around with the new Office Suite.  However, a word of caution, like most beta software it will be buggy, and might cause the software to crash.  As with downloading from unknown sites, you should also be careful that there aren’t any hidden programs that might reek havoc on your Mac.

With that said, the new Office Suite appears to have some great new integration features with your current Mac software.  Michael Bettiol from Boy Genius Report explains these features:

“…One nice thing we will say about the Toolbox is that if you’re heavily into incorporating multimedia into your documents, the Toolbox is now fully integrated with iPhoto, iTunes, Photo Booth and Garage Band. It works phenomenally well.”

I guess Apple’s iWork is giving Microsoft Office a run for their money.

If you want to truly experience Microsoft Office 2011, without all the bugs and the hassle of downloading it off of a BitTorrent, I would wait.  Microsoft will more than likely have a final beta, or a release candidate that will be less buggy.  However, if you’re feeling adventurous and are ready to dive head first into Microsoft’s new Office Suite, by all means, dive in and have some fun.  If any of our readers have tried the new Office Suite I would like to hear what you think of it.  Is it better than previous Office versions for the Mac, or even Apple’s iWork Suite?  Drop a line in the comments section below, and let us know what you think.

Photo Credit: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Article Via lifehacker & Boy Genius Report

While the rest of the world eagerly anticipates the shipment of their iPad’s, the US can look to a new form of memory being exclusively sold at Apple stores around the nation. On Tuesday, Eye-fi announced that they’ll be selling the 4GB Geo X2 card in Apple stores.

The X2 will hit the shelves in May at the price of $69.99 for their 4GB unit. The new memory unit will utilize the new 802.11n transmitter that will allow users to automatically upload pictures and video to such Mac programs as iPhoto and MobileMe accounts. This feature is not limited to just those two as it also has features for Picasa, Facebook, and 20+ other sites.

The card brings in a hot new feature what Eye-Fi is calling “Endless Memory.” The memory card will delete pictures or video as they’re uploaded to their rightful sites. This is a great feature that takes care of the few minutes of memory maintenance after uploading to your computer and/or other sites.

As another announcement, Eye-fi has reported that as an expansion to their hotspot option with Devicescape they will offer, to their subscribers of their service plan, the ability to upload more photos and videos internationally and on thousands of other networks.

The new Geo X2 provides a great alternative and even a first option for those looking to change or upgrade. At $69.99 you really can’t argue that any other option beats it outright. For more info on the X2 you can check out their press release. It’s gppd to note that this item was given a CES 2010 Innovations Honor.

via Eye-fi.

If anyone has used the iPhone version of Facebook on the iPad, you know that it doesn’t scale well when it is magnified.  I personally don’t like using the app, so I access Facebook through Safari on the iPad.  Another noticeable flaw is with watching videos in Facebook on the iPad, they don’t play.  Well, this soon will change.

Federico Viticci of MacStories is reporting that Facebook is integrating MP4 videos.  Originally Viticci stated that Facebook was using HTML5 to output video to the iPad.  However, with a little more testing he found it not to be the case.  Viticci explains below:

“In our tests this morning, it appears that Facebook isn’t actually using HTML5 to display the videos. Instead, what appears to be going on is that Facebook.com is detecting that you’ve arrived to the website via the Safari web browser on the iPad. When you then attempt to play a video on the iPad, it doesn’t play inline (something that would have been a clear confirmation of an HTML5 implementation). Instead, Facebook is linking out to the actual video, transcoded to MP4, a video format that plays on Apple devices.”

It’s great to see that developers are are looking to the future of web standards, and are conforming to the HTML5 format.  Even though Facebook isn’t using HTML5, they are serving up MP4 versions that will work with the iPad.  Sorry Adobe, it appears that yet another nail is being driven into the proverbial coffin for Flash.  Times are a changing, plug-ins are yesterday’s news.

Photo Credit: Who needs flash whn u got HTML5. :p

Article via MacStories