Google unveiled its latest lab today, Google Play (http://www.google.com/reader/play/), a magazine-style RSS reader. It shows thumbnails along the bottom edge and the viewing window enlarges images and makes them more prominent. A slideshow mode also makes Play dissimilar from Google Reader. Play includes the ability to “like” an item, share an item and star an item [Read More...]

This post was inspired by Stan Schroeder’s post on Mashable entitled, “Bing takes on ‘Goliath’ Google with Huge UK Advertising Campaign.” Apparently, Microsoft will spend up to $2.0B on an advertising campaign in the U.K.  To put this “huge” campaign into perspective, Microsoft current has a market cap of approximately $253B.
65 Google buzzers replied with [Read More...]

Gmail users can now enable “Refresh POP Accounts” in the Labs section. Once enabled, the refresh link (pictured) will check all POP accounts for new mail.
Friday I was complaining about the previous method for checking POP accounts to a friend who hasn’t yet become a Gmail convert. The 1 hour POP times were driving me [Read More...]

I believe the web has a new anthem, replacing the Black Eyed Peas Now Generation, depending on your taste in music. The video featured below has already been viewed on YouTube over 32,000 times and has scored a five star rating. It’s entertaining and it is the most web-centric of any music out there… as [Read More...]

Will Dewry, Google software security engineer, recently revealed that Chrome OS will be released in two flavors, one intended for home use and the other for business use. The business version will not be released until next year.
This comes as a surprise to many considering Chrome OS is already built like a tank but runs [Read More...]

I think there’s reasonable evidence that Apple and Verizon really hate each other, especially in light of recent developments. If I’m right, this may dash hopes of some loyal Verizon customers wishing that Verizon and Apple would strike a deal to bring the iPhone to Verizon. Below are the pieces of the puzzle that suggest [Read More...]

I re-themed Tech Bottle because many of the newer WordPress themes are more versatile and visually appealing than the Constructor theme I previously used.  I went with Suffusion which is designed by Sayontan. If Tech Bottle looks somewhat like another site you visit, don’t be surprised. The Suffusion theme has been downloaded nearly 5,000 times [Read More...]

The upcoming Blackberry Slider (a/k/a “Mr. T”) is pictured below. Kudos to Salomondrin for Tweeting the tip back in December that the upcoming slider would be a portait, Palm Pre-like, slider. This isn’t the first time his predictions have turned out to be spot on. I posted a brief bit about it shortly after he [Read More...]

I’ve been writing about the cloud lately and remotely hosted files. Quite a few Blackberry users already use the cloud to backup contacts and calendars either with Google Sync or mIQ. I recently discovered two new Blackberry cloud apps that have significant potential… one for managing cloud hosted files and another for streaming your Mp3s [Read More...]

GrooveShark is a cloud-based music service that works in two different ways. First, you can use it like a custom radio similar to Pandora and Slacker but with unlimited skips (yes, even in the free version). Second, you can upload your MP3s and maintain a cloud library of music that you can stream from any browser. [Read More...]

I’m starting a buzz campaign to bring Music Mondays from Twitter to Google Buzz. For those who unfamiliar with Music Mondays, people simply tweet the music they’ve been listening to lately to generate some Twitter activity and to help spread the news about good recording artists.
Music Mondays make more sense on Buzz than Twitter because [Read More...]

Transmedia Corporation’s “Glide OS 4.0″ is an advertising-free, cloud-based operating system. You can access it through any web browser (including mobile browsers) and through a proprietary desktop app (Windows/Linux and OS X flavors). It has all the bells and whistles of Google’s free cloud services (calendar, email, documents, spreadsheets, etc.) and some other services not [Read More...]

AdMob just released a report that analyzes various metrics to compare users of the following devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Palm’s WebOS (notably missing–RIM). The metrics are age, gender, app downloads, app purchases, and likelihood of recommending the device to a friend or colleague.  CNN has a pretty good take on the report, along [Read More...]

Milestone announcement… I’ve officially deleted 500 spam comments from Tech Bottle. So you’ll know what you missed… cheap auto insurance, viagra, cheap health insurance, cialis, free vacations and a bunch of stuff in other languages. I’m thinking of disabling the comment system on Tech Bottle because almost all of the legitimate comments I have received [Read More...]

Reuters recently ran an article about Microsoft shopping around for a mobile device manufacturer. Named as specific potential targets are RIM and Nokia. Apparently, Microsoft believes that the Apple model of vertically integrating handheld hardware and software would work well for Windows Mobile 7 Series, the operating system it recently unveiled at the Mobile World [Read More...]