This week’s edition of the Weekly Clicks feature a way to edit videos online, recipe sharing, hotspots, and some facebook news. Enjoy!
Edit Your Videos Online
Earlier this week Magisto, a web based video-entering service, announced collaboration with Horizon Ventures, owned by Li Ka-shing, the world’s 11th wealthiest man, who made early investments with Facebook and Spotify. Magisto offers a new breed of free online video-editing systems, both fully automated and quick. The editing system gives you a great end-result. Users need to upload a video, choose a title and soundtrack, and then hit edit. It takes seconds to analyze the unedited footage and turn it into a short movie with music and effects that can be shared over social channels, like Facebook and YouTube.
Share Your Favorite Recipes
Ziplist, a grocery shopping app, launched new features for discovering and sharing dishes. Originally starting as a shopping list where individuals can save ingredients from recipes to their lists, with the ability to clear it after they’ve shopped. The app is using the information to personalize recipe searches. Search results take into consideration a user’s saved recipes, as well as groceries from their lists. Ziplist also added a sharing feature called ZipThis, which provides a URL, SMS Shortcode, embeds code for every recipe, and generates a QR code that can be used to share recipes offline.
WiFi for The Wealthy
If you want to check Facebook or BBM regardless of your location, now you can…but for a huge cost. On Wednesday, Iridium Communications Inc., a satellite phone company, announced its launch of a cigarette-pack-sized box that connects to an Iridium phone. This box produces a Wi-Fi hotspot for smart phones, laptops, and tablets. The AxcessPoint will cost less than $200, but needs to be paired with a phone that costs about $1,000. The data connection will cost about $1 per minute.
Skype’s Freetalk Connect Me
With two new products, Skype has made it easier to make Internet calls from home phones, in hopes to save money on both domestic and international calls. Compared to other Internet calling options, Skype’s solution isn’t the greatest, however, Skype fans may appreciate the new cordless phone with a built-in Skype function. The Freetalk Connect-Me phone adapter is available for $40 and includes an hour calling. For an additional $20, you can get free calls to the U.S. and Canada for a year. Calls to people on Skype are free, regardless of location.
How Facebook is Benefitting the Economy
On Monday, researchers at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business released a report concluding that Facebook is extremely beneficial for the economy. Facebook apps have added at least 182,744 new jobs and $12.19 billion in wages and benefits to the U.S. economy.! It is reported that back in 2007 when the Facebook Platform launched, 85 applications were available to its 20 million users. To date, Facebook has over 750 million users, who install over 20 million apps per day!
The Next Step for Angry Birds
If you are in Singapore this weekend and are a fan of Angry Birds, you might want to check out the Formula One racetrack. Angry Birds will be rolled out as a crown game to be played by live audiences. In the crowd game version, viewers will control the slingshot on jumbo screens with their voices. This new gaming experiences will first be tested at the Formula One event, but will then be present at the largest live events in the world, including various sport games and concerts.
