Taking Public Transportation? No Need for Change!
On Wednesday, New Jersey’s public transportation agency announced its partnership with Google to bring Google’s Wallet payment system to their customers. Riders on some of New Jersey’s Transit trains and buses now have the ability to pay for their trips using their phones. This is the first major transit system in the US using Google Wallet.

Hoping for a Standard for 3D Effects
Adobe recently proposed a new set of CSS-based tools in hopes that it will become a standard on the web. CSS Shaders will bring high-quality cinematic effects to the web without the need for plugins, such as Flash. CSS Shaders would allow developers to apply cinema-style filter effects to any HTML content with ease. This includes: grayscale to color transitions, animated shadows, photo-realistic warping and other mainstays of the 3D animation world.

LinkedIn’s Reach
On Thursday, LinkedIn Corp. launched its online professional networking service in Japanese. This represents the first Asian language platform for the company.

Have you Heard of Keek?
Canadian-based Keek, who recently received $5.5-million in financing, describes itself as a YouTube and Twitter hybrid. It allows users to send out a 36-second short video message (or “keek”) easily captured on web cameras and smartphones to people in their network.

Do You Have Kids That Enjoy Puzzles?
If you have kids, you may want to check out Fashionbuddha’s line of Piece Me Puzzle apps. The first is Piece Me Birds and the second is Piece Me Circus. Each one features seven simple puzzles. They stand out because of artistic detail and work contained within each puzzle. Puzzles within Piece Me Birds were created by Portland artist Amy Ruppel, and Piece Me Circus puzzles features artwork by Alberto Cerriteño. Additionally, each app provides you with a short bio page about the artist.

Kodak Will Print your Pictures for FREE
Kodak is running an offer to help turn your Facebook pictures into printed pictures you can hold in your hand. The contest itself is pretty standard fare: Like Kodak’s Facebook page and get a voucher for 20 free prints of your Facebook images.

New iOS Features
The latest operating system for Apple was recently released and is packed with over 200 new features. This could be a bit overwhelming for average users so Mashable has come up with a list of 5 hidden features that will really improve the functionality of your smartphone. One of the coolest features is that you can use the volume key as a camera shutter release. This helps to make your phone more like a point and shoot camera.

Microsoft’s Purchase of Skype Finalized
Today, it’s official that Microsoft has purchased Skype for a reported $8.5 billion.  Skype CEO Tony Bates, who’s staying under Microsoft, said he hopes to reach “one billion users daily” integrating voice conferencing into all Microsoft platforms.

Google Buzz is History
Google Buzz launched in February 2010 with a great deal of scrutiny concerning privacy issues. Over time these issues became more apparent and Google began focusing on other projects like Google+. Google Vice President Bradley Horowitz says, “We think the time has come for us to focus our energy on projects that will have the most impact to the most users,” Horowitz wrote. “With the majority of Buzz users now here on Google+, it became obvious that all of our attention should be focused on this community.”.  It will be interesting to see how successful Google+ is as a replacement.

Tablets Owners Consume More News
Tablet owners tend to consume a greater variety and volume of news on their devices, and tablets’ visual, interactive features encourage in-depth exploration, according to a joint study from Starcom MediaVest and the online division of the BBC.

How To Sell Your iPhone
A startup company in the U.S. called Gazelle is now recycling more than 100,000 gadgets each year. The website is what is called a reCommerce site that enables users to search for the the item they want to recycle, input what condition it’s in, and then Gazelle will provide a purchase price. It’s an easy way to sell your used electronics for reasonable prices. To get paid for your device Gazelle offers payment in form of a check, PayPal, Walmart Prepaid Visa, or Amazon.com® gift card.

The Need for Future-Friendly Websites
Check out this informative presentation by Brad Frost. He discusses the idea that the internet is changing too quickly, thus posing a problem in the creation of future-proof websites or webapps. He calls for future-friendly sites and emphasizes the use of tools like responsive design. If you enjoyed the presentation, check out the related video.

Adobe’s Latest Acquistion
On Tuesday, Adobe acquired web font service, Typekit, which allows for the use of fancy fonts online through its easy-to-use service which takes care of licensing, font loading and cross-browser support. It will be interesting to see what Adobe’s acquisition will mean for the Typekit.

Google Maps Does It Again!
Earlier this week, Google announced a 3D preview option in Google Maps, referred to as “helicopter view,” offering an aerial view of your desired route. Impressively, it gives you the feel of taking a helicopter rather than a vehicle. If you’d like to see a route, look for the “3D” button next to your driving directions. Unfortunately, there is limited coverage right now, so if you don’t see a 3D button, the route is currently unavailable.

The Influence of Social Media on Hollywood
Paramount Pictures, the studio behind Paranormal Activity 3, is choosing where to first release the movie, based on the number of tweets each city comes up with. Between now and Oct. 13, the top 20 markets/cities which tweet the most “Tweet to See It First” messages will host the Paranormal Activity 3 premiere on Oct. 18. Interesting idea on engaging viewers and building up hype for the release!

Now You See It, Now You Don’t!!
I was amazed when I saw this video! Researchers from the University of Dallas have utilized the mirage phenomena to make an invisibility cloak, which hides objects from view, working best underwater. The amazing thing is that it has almost an instantaneous on/off switch!

Let Your Friends Choose Your Next Trip
Trippy is a new startup that links with your Facebook account to help you plan out your next vacation. The way it works is this: login to Trippy, start planning your trip by choosing the type of trip (business or pleasure), the locations you know you want to visit, and then you write a brief description of what you hope to accomplish. After this is complete, Trippy’s Facebook integration will kick in. It will provide a list of Facebook friends that likely have knowledge about your potential destination. Trippy prompts you to send them a message to those friends, asking for their help. In addition, any friends on Trippy will see that you recently created a trip and are looking for help. It’s a different twist on making travelling plans and is definitely worth a try.

iPhone 5
It is rumoured that Apple will introduce the iPhone 5 on Oct. 4. The question is, what new features will the iPhone 5 have? As with the release of every Apple product, there is always speculations and rumours. The best rumour I’ve read comes from Jason Schwarz, an investor and follower of Apple, who has previously made claims about Apple products (all of which have been accurate). The claim is the iPhone 5 will have new voice technology. It will, for example, allow users to instruct an iPhone to send a text message, through voice command. This will be a great new feature, as we have seen the emergence of no-text, no-talk legislation in Canada and the US. “Layers of intelligence” will be added: if you tell your phone to call your brother, it will ask you whether you’d like the home or mobile number dialled. In addition, it is rumoured to do Web based search functions to “find a movie at 10 pm” or “make a reservation for 5 tonight at 9 pm.” This could be the biggest threat to Google yet! The voice technology will give Apple a competitive advantage to Google. It has already been rumoured that “Voice search, rather than browser based search, could prove to be a real threat to Google’s dominance.”

The Latest Flickr Development
Recently, Flickr unveiled the new feature, Photo Sessions, which allows users to create real-time slideshows that can be shared with friends.
Users have the ability send the URL to friends and once everyone has joined in, sessions will allow everyone to see the same photos (much like screen sharing). Interactive features are available, as individuals have the ability to chat as photos are displayed. Additionally, friends can doodle on the images from their laptop or iPad.

Amazon’s Silk
One of the features of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet is the new Web browser, “Silk.” It offloads the heavy lifting to Amazon’s cloud computing cluster for superior browsing performance. This means that Amazon will load the webpage on its server side, downloading all the necessary content elements in parallel, and send the compiled page back to the device.

Delicious Bookmarking Has Relaunched
The Delicious bookmarking service has relaunched. One of the main new features in the revamped Delicious is the “Stacks” feature, allowing users to create collections of links and share them with other users. Instead of adding users to your network, users can “follow” them and there are no more Bookmarks. Additionally, Delicious users can now add avatars to their profile.

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.

Expand Your Playlist!
MOG, a subscription music service, just introduced a free music service that will supplement its $5-a-month unlimited streaming plan and $10-a-month unlimited mobile music offering. This is an amazing thing for music lovers everywhere as there is a library of 11 million songs.
Things like sharing songs and making playlists awards users more “gas,” while listening guzzles it up. More friends and more followers multiplies the gas-earning effects of a user’s activity.

Planning a Trip to Australia?
Beginning this October, Australian carrier Qantas, will offer in-flight iPads, loaded with various forms of entertainment – movies, shows, and music. One iPad for every seat will be available, in addition to spares. Qantas wants to be able to offer streaming movies to one’s own devices in the near future.

Google Propeller
It’s been reported that that Google is working on a Flipboard competitor for both Android and iPad. This is supposed to be one of Google’s new socially focused announcements. Google is currently also preparing apps.

Israel Now on the Digital Map
Israel is will be visible on Google’s Street View. This marks the first time they have been on a digital map. There are concerns that such detailed photos available online could assist with planning terrorist attacks. In August, legal and security issues were discussed, and agreement was reached between Israel and Google.

How Technology Can Help
The Missing Children’s Society of Canada announced that a modified version of Poynt, an app using GPS technology to help people locate businesses and various services, can be used to help locate missing children, just as it helped find Kienan Hebert, a 3-year-old who was abducted from his home. Last Wednesday, when the boy disappeared, the app relayed vital information about the child and abductor to over 7000 smartphone users in two provinces. Users were also given access to information about the missing child.

Following Up Just Got Easier
A great reminder service is FollowUp.cc, which allows you to prioritize your email and follow up later on important emails. For example, if you need to follow up in 4 hours, just BCC 4hours@followup.cc in your email response.

Social Networking Vehicles
The Ford Evos plug-in hybrid concept vehicle can socially network with its driver’s friends. In addition, it will recommend roads and routes, which could be quickest or the most fun to drive. Ford wants this vehicle to be connected to the cloud at all times, which will keep tabs on the driver’s work schedule, monitor traffic and weather conditions, and assist and monitor the driver in an attempt to “enable a seamless lifestyle between home, office and car linked by access to the driver’s personal information.”

Flickme, Netflix’s Soon-To-Be Social Rival
Streaming movies is about to get more social. Studios are already turning to social media as a marketing and distribution platform. The goal is to turn social media users into audiences. Next Tuesday, the social streaming startup flickme will launch a library of more than 1,000 movies for rent or purchase with Facebook and Twitter integration. Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. are some of the backers of this project. The most notable distinction to flickme is its “sharable discount” feature, which encourages recommendations among friends. Though new releases are offered for $3.99 and older films for $2.99, users can rent a film for $1.49 if a friend recommends it. The discount works for up to 10 friends via Facebook and Twitter, provided the original viewer pays regular price.

Are You a Fan of Angry Birds?
A theme park in China has opened an unlicensed “Angry Birds” attraction, offering visitors the change to use a real slingshot to knock pigs off elaborate structures. Check out the video.

Google’s Latest Acquisition, Zagat
On Thursday, Google announced that they acquired Zagat, a review company rating restaurants, stores, hotels and more by surveying consumers, in an effort to beef up its host of services with more and better content. Google’s VP announced that Google and Zagat will collaborate to bring together the power of Google search and Google maps.

Offline Gmail is Back!
Offline Gmail is back and offline support for Google Docs and Calendar are both available. Offline Gmail has been rewritten using HTML5 and requires the Google Chrome web browser. In order to get the offline version of Gmail, you will need to install an app, available through the Chrome Web Store. Although a great feature, remember that you do need the app to view emails offline and you will only be given access to the last three to seven days’ worth of email. Unfortunately, you will not be able to download a specific tag or set of messages for offline use. The offline version of Google docs is limited to read-only access.

Flickr’s Geofence Setting
Flickr has introduced a new way to geotag your photos without revealing your location to the entire web, through it new “Geofence” settings. Geofence features are easy to use – all you have to do is draw a circle on a map, choose a geoprivacy setting for that area, and you’re done. If you’re interested in applying this setting, head over to the Flickr Geo privacy page.

Be a Favinconist!
All website needs a favicon. Faviconist, a new favicon generator, can help you do this! It enables you to create a favicon without Photoshop and is easy to use. Once you’re favicon is the way you want it, all you have to do is click the “save favicon” button and the site generates some cut and paste code you can drop into your pages. If you prefer to host the image yourself, just right-click the image and save it.

Audit Your Site’s Content
Page Trawler is a new web service that crawls your site and give you a bird’s eye view of your content. Currently, you are only able to view the first fifty pages of your site and offers a .cvs summary of those pages. If you want to try it out, head over to the site and plug in your URL.

Google’s Most Recent Launch in Canada
Google Inc. is in battle mode with Netflix. On Wednesday, it launched a YouTube-based movie rental service in Canada. Users will be able to rent new and classic movies for about $4 or $5. Users have 30 days from the moment they rent a movie to begin watching it, and 48 hours to finish. Of course the concern is the availability of titles. When YouTube Movies launched in the US in May, there were roughly 3,000 titles available. The Canadian version of YouTube Movies has more Hollywood releases than the Canadian Netflix service. Google has signed deals with Canadian studios such as Mongrel and Alliance, as well as numerous American production companies, in efforts to increase the number of titles available.

Google Expansion in the UK:
Google TV, which uses web services through a set-top box connected to a tv, is set to hit the UK in 6 months. Users will be able to search the Internet, use smartphones as controllers, access YouTube in HD, and easily switch between tv and Internet.

An App Which Identifies Your Tastes:
Forkly is an app which attempts to analyze your taste buds against the taste buds of others, through a taste graph. This taste graph compiles reviews of food and drink. Users can add a “taste” – whether you like or dislike a food or drink, and post pictures or reviews on Facebook and on other social media. There is a Discover tab which let’s users discover what’s popular at nearby restaurants.

World’s Fastest Growing Social Game:
The Sims Social, which was released last Thursday, already has 4.6 billion people playing it daily! This makes it the 10th most popular app on Facebook and the 6th most popular game.

Social Media’s Influence on Our Language:
Last week, The Oxford Dictionary added “tweet,” “retweet,” and “sext” to it’s dictionary. Yesterday, Merriam-Webster added “tweet” and “social media” to it’s dictionary.

The Death of Popular Websites:
The top seven sites which used to be popular but are now diminishing in popularity include: 1) gawker.com, 2) chatroulette.com, 3) digg.com, 4) MySpace.com, 5) bebo.com, 6) salon.com, and 7) slashdot.org.

Discount Social Buying Now Aimed at Males:
Sites like Groupon and Living Socials often cater to women through their discounted offers for manicures, spa treatments, and fitness classes, such as yoga. GroupDudes is a similar site, but is aimed more at males, through offers such as discounted tickets towards sport games or an ATV experience.

Google’s Browsing Catalogs
Google has recently unveiled a a program that centralizes and combines catalogs from major retailers. This new app is now available for the iPad and is called “Google Catalogs.”
Click the link for a video to see some of the features of the app.
“Building Windows 8” Blog
Are you excited to get past the Windows 7 era and the “My idea” campaign? If you’re excited for Windows 8, you may be interested in checking out the latest blog launched by Windows, the “Building Windows 8” blog (also know as “B8″).
If you have Twitter and are interested in receiving notifications about the new blog, check out the @BuildWindows8 Twitter account.
Check out this video for more information about Windows 8.
QR Codes in the Fast Food Industry
QR Codes have grown in popularity in marketing campaigns. Now, Taco Bell has jumped on the bandwagon and made its sodas and burritos interactive with QR Codes.
When the codes are activated, they unlock exclusive footage related to Taco Bell’s sponsorship of MTV‘s Video Music Awards, including videos from musicians chosen by MTV.
Taco Bell is one of the first in the fast food industry to experiment with QR codes and it looks like It is successful. According to a recent study, in June alone, over 14 million people in the US scanned these codes!
Starbucks Offering More than Just Coffee
Starbucks is now offering free iPhone apps to its customers! This week, they started giving out gift cards that can be used to get free apps in stores. The first app to be offered under the plan is Shazam Encore, a music-identifying app, which currently sells for $5.99 on iTunes.
Disliking the “Like” Button in Germany
A German data protection authority is “unliking” Facebook’s “Like” button. In some states, it was ordered that state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the “Like” button from their websites. The “Like” button is said to lead to profiling, which is a direct violation of German and European law.