Google is killing off Chrome’s desktop notification center and I’m going to miss it

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Chrome notification center
Google has announced that it will remove the desktop notification center in the next release of Chrome for Windows, Mac and Linux because very few people use it. Sigh. It’s a minor feature, and not many users will even notice its disappearance. But I liked being able to view notifications from Web apps and services on my desktop and I’m going to miss the convenience it offered. See all those handy notifications available right on my desktop? They’re going away soon The notification center made it easy for me to check new emails and alerts from the Web apps I…

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Plume for iOS and Android reports air quality and tells you how long you can stay outside

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You want to go running, but it looks kind of gross outside. Is it safe, or should you wait until the morning? A new app, Plume, will tell you all you need to know about air quality, and then some. Based on the World Health Organization’s guidelines on air quality collected from over 11,000 stations in 30 countries, the app produces what’s called a ‘Plume Index.’ That metric is a forward-facing, user friendly look at the Air Quality Index used by scientists and government. In addition to the scaled index readout, Plume also charts a graph of your day. It…

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Microsoft’s latest iOS app lets you mash up photos in group chats

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As part of its Garage initiative, Microsoft encourages its employees to test new ideas by building and releasing them to the public. The latest experiment to come to fruition is Twist, an iOS app that lets you message friends with meme-style images for exchanges that are more visually engaging than your typical group chat. Microsoft notes: It’s called Twist for the unexpected juxtapositions that occur when you have a split screen as the foundation for these ongoing chats. You start a photo conversation with an image that fills half the screen and wait in anticipation to see how your friends…

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Bing’s image search is now the ultimate cookbook

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It’s already fairly easy to look up recipes for your favorite dishes online, but Bing’s updated image search lets you sift through them quickly and find the most tempting ones to try. When you search for a recipe in Bing, click on Images and then look for the chef’s hat badge at the bottom left of each visual result. The badge has a number next to it that lets you know how many recipe pages use the same image. I looked up recipes for Caesar Salad and roast beef and Bing’s new system worked great. It immediately displayed a larger…

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Snapchat has breaking news filters in its Stories

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Snapchat has shown off many different slices of life around the world in its ‘Stories’ feature, but something interesting popped up in the story for Los Angeles. It appears the startup has a ‘Breaking News’ filter capability. Whoa, breaking news filters in #LA @Snapchat story. Wonder if @liahaberman saw this yet… http://pic.twitter.com/GhkGrHfQDp — Jeremy Lowe (@jeremyElowe) October 14, 2015 We’ve reached out to Snapchat, and will update this story with a better idea of what’s going on. On Monday, the company confirmed to Deadline that it was spinning down its original content channel. Currently, it is focusing on content created…

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LinkedIn simplifies, de-sterilizes with its Voyager mobile app

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Is the LinkedIn app on your smartphone right now? The recruiting and professional platform certainly has mobile traffic; according to the company, 50 percent of its traffic derives from mobile. So the company has pushed the reset button to create a modernized app that simplifies the app into something stickier and more digestible. LinkedIn’s new flagship app, nicknamed “Voyager,” is a complete architectural and design overhaul available for iOS and Android, as well as an online mobile experience, in the coming weeks. Announced at the company’s Talent Connect 2015 in Los Angeles, Voyager boils down LinkedIn’s complexity to make the app easier…

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5 of the best social media tools that help newsrooms find and share content

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As the march of technology (and the death of the traditional newsroom) continues, digital publishers and journalists (like us!) need to continue to adapt to stay ahead of the game and successfully grow audiences. Here, we’ve got some of the best social media tools a digital newsroom can use to to find, source and promote stories by harnessing the power of the mass of publicly available data. What follows is a short list of tools that we’ve either used in the past, use currently or are definitely keeping an eye on for the future. No single tool is going to make…

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Facebook is reportedly testing a ‘Notify’ app to take on Twitter for real-time news

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Though a ton of people already use Facebook as their primary source for news, Twitter still reigns king when it comes to aggregating news story as it happens. That may be changing soon: According to a report by The Awl, an upcoming Notify app allows Facebook users to aggregate notifications from various publishers on recently posted stories or content. It means that – as on Twitter – people can access news in real-time, instead of just stumbling upon an article whenever it shows up on your feed. The app would allow you to specify what kind of news you want…

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Skype for Business graduates out of preview, but not on Android

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Microsoft has launched a the full release version of Skype for Business on iOS today, but Android users will have to wait a little longer. The company started rolling out its replacement for Microsoft Lync on the desktop earlier this year, which was then followed by the Skype for Business preview app for iOS and Android devices in August. Among the changes on the new iOS app are an updated dashboard, which should make it easier to see upcoming meetings and recent chats. The buttons to control things like adding participants mid-call are now a bit larger too, Microsoft says. Rounding off the notable…

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