Tech Tip Of The Day – This one’s for you Chrome users!

So, if you’re anything like us, you have, like, a bajillion and 8 tabs open in your Chrome browser. Because there’s just so much stuff on the internet that you need to remember to look at and everything is important!

Sometimes you open a bunch at once and everything’s going great. Then suddenly- an ad starts playing. A news story, music clip, or worse (depending on what kind of tabs you’re opening!)

It’s something you DON’T WANT TO HEAR AND YOU CAN’T FIND IT AMONG ALL THE BAJILLIONS OF TABS OPEN!

Oof. It’s like

Well, rejoice. No, seriously, rejoice.  Because now, with version 32 of Chrome, which can be updated or downloaded now, you will see a little, beautiful speaker icon on the tab from which that heinous sound is bellowing!

Chrome 32 also includes a red recording icon for tabs that are using your webcam, and a little TV icon for tabs that are being cast to your TV with Chromecast. It’s pretty sweet.

Download Chrome here if you haven’t got it yet and this has tipped your we browser preference scales, or update by clicking ‘About Google Chrome’ in the Chrome drop down in the main menu.

Images courtesy of Knowyourmeme & Imgur.

Another Google secret!

Happy Humpday!

Wednesday is almost Thursday. Thuuuuursday is so close to being friday which is pretty much the weekend and the weekend means beers and the beach right? Or, wait, family quality time. That’s what we meant.

To help you guys out with some Wednesday afternoon procrastination for the nation, how about some time with the original ladies man?

No, not that guy! Pacman, duh!

Originally bought out by Google for the 30th anniversary of Pacman on May 22, 2010, the link is essentially an easter egg where instead of searching for stuff you need to find out about, you can play Pacman!

It was so greatly received and proved to be so popular, Google left it there on the internet. Just for you guys!

What heroes. Kinda like this guy!

Here’s the link! http://www.google.com/doodles/30th-anniversary-of-pac-man

Also take note: Clicking on the right and left arrows will also take you through a gallery of previous Google ‘Doodles’ celebrating various anniversaries and special dates.

Image courtesy of Simpsons.wikia.com, Fightersgeneration & Cattime.

Episode 3,56789 of why it’s so good to work at Google

Hands up who wants to work for Google? Even though the company’s presence has become somewhat controversial recently in it’s hometown of San Francisco, there’s no doubting that it is one of the best tech companies to work for, with perks up the gazebo, including free haircuts, healthcare and awesome food.

You also get to ride sweet buses equipped with Wifi to transport you to and from your home to the Google offices. These are awesome and good for traffic and carbon emissions but have recently been targeted by angry San Francisans who see them as a symbol of their city being taken over by rich techies, making the city unlivable.

Apart from what they symbolize, they’re still an awesome perk. Now we have news of another one- a Google Ferry. Take a look at this little sexy lady:

This  83-foot, Wi-Fi-equipped catamaran names ‘The Triumphant’ is now being used to carry Google employees, for free, between San Francisco and the Redwood city port in the South Bay, where they can catch a Google bus to their offices in Mountain View.

The ferry service is apparently a test – with Google having the permits to operate the service for only 30 days currently. What lucky little Googlers. We wish we could get a ferry to our offices! Or…. like a submarine. A glass submarine. Yeah! That’s a thing right?

Images courtesy of Business Insider, 9to5Google and Obviousmag.

All the reasons you want to work for Google

Google has been rated the number one best company to work for by Fortune for the fifth time this past Thursday. It’s kind of getting silly now. We mean people are going to stop trying to beat them soon, and just sell their own companies to go work for google. They have a roller hockey rink for crimeney’s sake.

Here’s some of the reasons why you want to work for Google. We’re sorry if you’re reading this at work.

Google donates $50 for every five hours an employee volunteers. Cos they’re GOOD PEOPLE, ya get it? They’re rich and smart and good people.

Google employees get free onsite haircuts. Cos they’re rich and smart and good people and they’re pretty.

Google employees have a full gym and laundry service, both for free. Because they also have nice bodies and have well laundered clothes.

They also have access to swim-in-place swimming pools ( kind of what they use with racehorses… a bit weird).

Also available are ping pong, billiards and foosball tables as well as video game consoles.

There are onsite doctors and nurses at Google as well as a subsidized massage program. (subsidized? C’mon Google, that doesn’t sound like best rated company behavior!)

What does sound like top rated company behavior is the 20 percent program. Basically, every employee gets to use up to 20% of their working time on their own unrelated projects. To let creative freedom do it’s thing you see?  If we had something similar, we would be working on creating our tiny pet dinosaurs, obviously. Rawr!

Then there’s the food. Google employees get breakfas,t lunch, snacks and dinner all free of charge. We’re not talking bagels and oranges here, guys. We’re talking more than 30 cafeterias serving fresh, organic foods ranging from vegetarian to Japanese to Morrocan and back to good old American food.  There’s also snack rooms full of delicious snack type things. Mmmmm snack type things.

To rub in how awfully good they are, Google donates leftover food to food banks and collects the used cooking oil from its cafeterias and sends it to another company to convert it to biodiesel. Then Google buys back some of the biodiesel to supplement its power needs. Because obviously.

To get around, employees can hop on free electric scooter found littered around the Mountain View campus, or alternatively they can use real pedal powered bikes, or one of the all-electric cars that they can check out for several hours each day.

Googlers and their families are covered with travel insurance and emergency assistance even on personal vacations and Mama’s get to spend time with new bundles of joy as well as a bundle of extra spending money. Because Google cares about the future!

Google will reimburse you for classes or degree programs that help you with what you do, give you legal aid for less, and they provide a free schedule of classes called Learning@Google which apparently ranges from sign language to open source web applications.

Every week, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit in the main Google cafe and give everyone a run-down of what happened that week. Afterwards, they open up the floor to questions from Googlers.

Ready to quit your job yet?

But wait there’s more!

When you start at Google, you’ll be taken to the ergonomic center where you pick out your laptop, mobile phone, keyboard, monitor, mouse, desk and chair. An ergonomic expert takes your measurements and shows you the options. The IT team installs your chosen configuration overnight.

When you’re stressed out from all the free food you’re eating, you can go rest and de-stress in the community gardens. The food grown here goes either home with the employees, used in the google kitchens or given to food banks. Cos Googler’s are so healthy!

You can also get to take naps in sleep pods.

AND just in case you’d forgotten what kind of people we’re talking about here, three winners of Google’s annual talent show opened for Bruno Mars at his Las Vegas in April at the Global Sales Conference. Because obviously they did.

Ok, ok, we’ll stop now. But hey, think of this as inspiring rather than annoying ( stupid googlers with being so lucky and stupid and pretty). Make a new years resolution to incorporate one of the above into your workplace. Boss or not, it’ll impress, improve the workplace and everyone will love you. 

We’re going to start with the free onsite haircuts and the learning program. Learning how to do haircuts. Sounds pretty sweet to us.

Images courtesy of Google, Edition.cnn.com, The Guardian, Sodahead, Quickmeme, Geek.com & Sodahead.

Smartphone Users, By The Numbers

INFOGRAPHICS! YEAH! These things make everything fun to read what with the colors and the shapes and the little pointy arrows!

We give you the best fun of 2014 so far- Smartphone infographics!

YEAH!

This Infographic is produced by Coupon Audit (provides Converse promo code) and iPhoneAntidote – Sell Your Cracked iPhone

Google Glass becoming more accessible!

Want to try Google Glass? Haven’t been able to yet? You can either check out eBay for a couple thousand clams OR you can try checking out subscribing to Google’s All Access Music service.

In Google’s most recent device expansion, users who are currently subscribed in the US would have recently received an invitation to try the infamous wearable tech. For only about $1500! Sweet right?

Um, by the way…

Um, yeah. Whats up with that Google? Opportunity MISSED! What suckers. …really rich powerful suckers. Are we right?

Anyway. Google Play Music was just launched on Google Glass, so it made sense for them to send out the invitations for Glass at the same time. Google Play Music All Access is a service available for $9.99 per month that lets users stream music from the internet on their devices.

According to AndroidCentral the invitations read: “Interested in rocking out while exploring with Glass? Sign up to receive your invitation below!”

If you live outside the US, can’t justify the cost, or just can’t fandangle an invite yet, Google Glass is expected to be released to the general public at some point this year, and possibly at less than the current $1500 price tag.

Images courtesy of TheVerge, Knowyourmeme & Lolshelf.

Google’s top trending searches 2013

What did we search for this year? Was it how to solve the never ending riddle behind how Pharrell doesn’t age?

Nope!

Google just released their annual year in review, with the worldwide and US based top trending searches listed from Most to Aaron Carter.

Just so you guys know, this is not actually or accurately the things that were searched for the most- as if Google would give us any kind of specific information like that! They have to keep all their knowledge and hence power in their sanctum! Duh! ( BTW we totally think the sanctum is kept on Larry Page’s super yacht)

Instead, trending searches, according to the Googleheads, “represent queries that had the highest amount of traffic over a sustained period in 2013 as compared to 2012.”

Here’s the worldwide top 10.

1. Nelson Mandela

2. Paul Walker

3. iPhone 5s

4. Cory Monteith

5. Harlem Shake

6. Boston Marathon

7. Royal Baby

8. Samsung Galaxy S4

9. PlayStation 4

10. North Korea

In the US, Paul Walker was number 1, the Boston Marathon was number 2, Nelson Mandela was number three, Cory Monteith was Number 4 and the iPhone 5S was number 5.

We feel like maybe we gotta start searching for some more happy things.

Google did give us some specific information on the most searched for people this year, and, you guys, it’s kind of disappointing.

1. Miley Cyrus

2. Drake

3. Kim Kardashian

4. Justin Bieber

5. Beyonce

6. Rihanna

7. Taylor Swift

8. Selena Gomez

9. Katy Perry

10. Kanye West

Kanye’s 10th?! He’s gonna be so upset, sitting there eating his fish sticks.

If you want to check out the lists for yourself, head here right now! 

Images courtesy of Iconarchive, Sodahead, Luxuo & Blacksportsonline.

What is Google Hiding? Tiny Pet Dinosaurs?

Google are so mysterious, man. Or are they?

So there’s this thing floating on San Francisco Bay. Luckily enough, making things sound ever so cool, it’s actually moored to an island in the Bay just off San Francisco called Treasure Island. That’s right, Treasure Island. 

Here is the island:

And here is the thing:

It’s a bunch of shipping crates stacked 4 wide, 4 high and 4 long and welded together. And it belongs to Google.

Up until a little while ago, this thing was a complete mystery. There was a front company called ‘By and Large’  who were eventually traced back to Google. But why were Google building it? What could be it’s purpose? Could it be for the launch of Google Glass? To house tiny pet dinosaurs? Or are google finally using their sea-water cooling data centre patent?

To be honest, the mystery of it all was pretty fun. We went out there to take a few photos ourselves, make a few stabs in the dark about it’s purpose and try to outstare the security guard there. Here’s one of our pictures:

And then, Google went and ruined all the fun/solved the mystery by releasing a statement saying exactly what the Google mystery barge is. Kinda.

This is what they said:

“Google Barge … A floating data center? A wild party boat? A barge housing the last remaining dinosaur? Sadly, none of the above. Although it’s still early days and things may change, we’re exploring using the barge as an interactive space where people can learn about new technology.”

And here’s what it is proposed to look like when it’s completed.

So, a clever publicity stunt designed around a pretty floating building where people can learn about technology. We’re thinking that when they say ‘technology’, they mean their technology. Namely, in all likelihood, Google Glass.

So we guess that’s still cool. Less full of dinosaurs than we would like, but whatever. They did say things could change, so we bet if we wish really hard, it could probably still end up being full of tiny pet dinosaurs for really special deserving people who want tiny pet dinosaurs?!

Sweet!

Images courtesy of   SF.funcheap, Sfgate & Nydailynews & Trendhunter.

Which celebrities use which phones

Yeah, yeah, why should we care what kind of celebrities use what kind of phones? Right? Right?

Well, cos they have people to tell them which is the best one to buy according to style and/or function. And they also have lots of money, so no real barrier to entry.

OR they get the best sponsorship deal. OR they get all phones for free and choose the best one.

Or cos they’re cooler and prettier than people in real life, and we want to be just like them.

Or so we can make fun of them cos they suck, and their smartphone choice proves it.

Anyway, wanna know which of your favorite celebrities use which brand smart phone?

Here’s what our researchers have come up with. Judge away.

Brad pitt uses an iPhone ( Hello ladies) as does Kate Hudson, Sarah Michelle Gellar ( Of course Buffy uses an iPhone. Right? COS SHE COOL.), Selena Gomez, Posh Spice, Denise Richards, Sharon Stone, Miley Cyrus and the Biebs (Uh oh).

Kanye West appears to have convinced Kim Kardashian to swap to an iPhone from Black berry. Halle Berry is also a big swapperer, having changed from being a Blackberry lover.

Speaking of Blackberry lovers, a surprising amount of celebs fit into this category. Who knew?

George Clooney, Megan Fox, Demi Moore,  Leo DiCaprio, Reese Witherspoon, Courtney Cox, Ben Affleck, Rihanna, Paris Hilton, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Tiberlake, Snoop Dogg ( Lion?) and Mindy Kaling (Breath), The Olsen’s, Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen all fit in here. As does Justin Bieber, again. What a category lover.
The President is well known to be a fan of the BlackBerry. So much so, that he has two of them.

Celebrities that use Samsung phones are also different than we expected – a lot less! Perhaps someone in Samsung has to get their celebrity marketing game on!

Jay Z is of course endorsed by Samsung and uses the brand, LeBron James lurves Samsung, as does Eliza Dushku, Nicole Sherzinger and Evan Rachel Wood, Robbie Williams, Anna Kendrick and a whole bunch of Ashley’s; Ashley benson, Ashlee Simpson and Ashley Green.

So the winning phone category if we cared what celebrities like would be Blackberry, then iPhone, then Samsung? That sounds…weird.

Color us surprised.

Images courtesy of blah, celebswithcells, cultofmac, sodahead, engadget and Goodreads.

Black Friday deals

Yay!

Here’s a couple of excellent, techy, exciting, WONDERFUL  Black Friday deals for y’all  to look out for!

1,

Walmart will have the 16GB Apple iPad Mini + $100 Walmart Gift Card for $299.00.

Apparently they will have stock guaranteed for 1 hour BUT you can’t use the gift card on the mini. Walmart says they will price match but you must have the ad and the store must be open with their sales starting when you try.

Walmart, opens at 6 p.m on Thanksgiving day.

2,

Target  will have the iPad Air 16GB w/ WiFi + $100 Target Gift Card for $479.00 for Black Friday.

Target opens at 8 p.m on Thanksgiving day.

It also seems that both online and in-store shoppers get a 20% gift card if they spend at least $75 between Thanksgiving and end of business on Black Friday. The gift card can be used Dec. 1 to Dec. 7.

It’s almost here!

Image courtesy of CNN & somepets.com