web-development
Hunch Now Helps You Discover What’s Best in Your Area
Hunch Hunch , a collective intelligence app that delivers personalized — and, as many users have found, highly accurate — recommendations based on individual responses to a set of taste-determining questions, has launched an alpha version of its new Local Search feature.Users can visit Hunch.com/local to get suggestions on everything from restaurants and grocery stores to spas and museums in their area.Because Hunch’s accuracy increases in proportion to the amount of data it has collected from users, the feature currently functions best in urban areas, Co-Founder Chris Dixon explained.I was initially impressed to see that the app lists a good number of my favorite restaurants and wine bars near Mashable’s New York headquarters on the first results page, along with several that look like promising matches for future exploration. At the bottom is a slider I can use to filter between suggestions that are uniquely suited to me versus ones that are generally popular.Although the web app is useful, it’s primary function is to showcase what Hunch’s technology can do. “The best way to leverage our technology is by partnering with other sites,” Dixon said. He hinted that several major partnerships would be announced in the next couple of weeks. Also, a new version of Hunch’s self-service API will be rolling out soon so any developer can take advantage of its algorithms.Dixon believes Local Search in particular could be used to improve location-based services such as Yelp Yelp and Foursquare Foursquare . He noted that one of the recurring problems of Yelp’s star-rating system is that it doesn’t always accurately predict whether or not a visitor will like a given venue because not every user is going to like the same things. Yelp’s service could benefit from including Hunch’s personalized ratings alongside the general ones the site currently offers, Dixon thinks.Try the app out for yourself and let us know what you think. Did you find its suggestions relevant? For more Tech coverage: Follow Mashable Tech on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Tech channel Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad
Gmail Gets an Unofficial Snooze Button
E-mail inbox utility Taskforce has updated its service to convert e-mails into tasks and create reminders for them; the functionality is akin to a snooze button for e-mail. Taskforce , a beta service that integrates with Gmail Gmail via a Chrome Chrome extension or Firefox Firefox plug-in, refocuses the user’s e-mail experience around three central components: action, information and broadcast. The new snooze-like functionality provides a potential cure to the bloated inbox problem and archive dilemma that most Gmail users face on a daily basis.Taskforce users can now convert an e-mail message into a task and click the reminder button — a.k.a. snooze button — to set up an alert for a future date. The process allows users to treat e-mails as future tasks and clear out their inbox in the meantime.Taskforce is currently a private beta service, but the blog post on the feature update suggests following the team on Twitter Twitter and requesting an invite for faster approval. [ img credit: Anthony!! ] For more Tech coverage: Follow Mashable Tech on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Tech channel Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad
Software and Hardware Companies Jump on Google’s WebM Train
When Google announced the new WebM video platform at Google I/O this morning, it wasn’t just browser makers who were standing behind Google; many of the big players in web video have also pledged their support for the V8 codec, including Brightcove , Encoding.com , Telestream , Sorenson , Broadcom , MIPS and Qualcomm . Even Microsoft, a company that previously said it would only support H.264-encoded content in HTML5 playback in Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 9, has clarified that if a codec for VP8 video is installed on a user’s computer, IE9 will support it. The strong support from software, hardware and middleware providers for VP8 suggests a strong start for the WebM platform. H.264 has become the dominant codec in the world of web video for many reasons, but the primary reason is that, in addition to being of high quality, H.264 enjoys plenty of support on both the software and hardware side. Web video services like YouTube YouTube , Brightcove, and Vimeo Vimeo encode in H.264 as one of their defaults and hardware acceleration for H.264 playback and/or recording is supported in a cavalcade of devices. Practically every consumer electronics device that supports video playback in any way includes support for H.264. Because the codec is highly versatile, it can be used when recording video from Flip cameras and it can also be used to encode feature length content to Blu Blu -ray discs. One of the problems that other open standard video formats like Ogg Theora have had in the past has been limited support from hardware and software creators. Already, VP8 has support from some of the biggest embedded chipset makers — Qualcomm, Broadcom and MIPS — which means that many future consumer electronics devices will include support for VP8 playback at the hardware level. On the software side, Brightcove and Encoding.com will both be offering WebM support for their users. I spoke with Jeff Malkin, the president of Encoding.com, earlier this afternoon and he told me that his company will have WebM support as an easily selectable preset in the coming weeks. This means that Encoding.com users will be able to select WebM as one of their codec presets, just as they can with the iPhone or iPad so that the video they embed is automatically playable on browsers or devices that support the format. In fact, looking at the number of supporters, practically everyone in the entire video industry has expressed some level of support for VP8/WebM with one glaring exception: Apple. While Apple has made its support for HTML5 and H.264 clear, we’ll have to wait and see how the company plans to address VP8 in its desktop products and in future mobile devices. As of right now, this isn’t an either/or battle. Almost every company that has aligned with VP8/WebM is also a supporter of H.264. It will be interesting to see how Apple and the MPEG-LA respond to this announcement. For more web video coverage, follow Mashable Web Video on Twitter Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Facebook