Add a Windows 8 user tile to your Windows 7 taskbar

Now that Windows 8 images have begun leaking out, it's only a matter of time until developers start releasing mods for Windows 7 which mimic upcoming features. Over at Into Windows, they've spotted one such mod already.

In the earliest Windows 8 images, we saw Windows Live integration on the taskbar. In the far right corner, there's a user tile displayed. If you'd like to do the same on Windows 7, download Taskbar User Tile from DeviantArt user AngelWZR.

Once installed, your current picture will appear on the taskbar. Click it, and a menu appears which allows you to log off, switch users, and access the control panel. Right now, the mod only works if your taskbar is displayed on the bottom of your Windows desktop.

Add a Windows 8 user tile to your Windows 7 taskbar originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/add-a-windows-8-user-tile-to-your-windows-7-taskbar/

Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein www.if.uj.edu.pl/ZINHAC/ticket/21750">Michael Vollmar Robin Jones

Windows 8 welcome screen revealed, looks very Metro

windows 8 welcome screen
It's not really a secret the Microsoft had planned on bringing bits of Windows Phone 7's Metro UI to Windows 8, but we haven't seen a lot of really telling evidence. However, with the Windows 8 milestone 3 build now available to Microsoft Connect partners, it was really just a matter of time before we started to get a peek.

Thanks to Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, we've now had a glimpse at what the Windows 8 welcome screen will look like. As you can see, the typography is very Metro indeed. Within Windows also mentions that the background image is customizable, and we're wondering if it might not pull from your current Windows 8 theme. This particular shot shows the CTRL + ALT + DELETE login option, but we imagine you'll still be able to log in by clicking your account picture tile as well.

Rivera and Thurrott also mention that the tablet version of the welcome screen will allow you to log in by swiping a pattern on the screen -- as you can on current Android devices.

Windows 8 welcome screen revealed, looks very Metro originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/windows-8-welcome-screen-revealed-looks-very-metro/

Tobias Leinenbach Olga Kreibich Nathalie Donnerhacke Anna-Lena Baumgärtel

Touchscreen Braille Writer Lets the Blind Type on a Tablet

One group of people has traditionally been left out of our modern tablet revolution: the visually impaired. But a Stanford team of three has helped change that. Tasked to create a character-recognition program that would turn pages of Braille into readable text on an Android tablet, the team ended up creating something even more useful: a touchscreen-based Braille writer.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/touchscreen-braille-writer/

Nathalie Füllgraf Janine Harrer Emilia Münchow Claus Rehberg

Google Talk Guru answers questions via your IM app

google talk guru answersBots -- like the kind which automate IRC rooms and Google Wave -- are a good thing to know about. There are plenty of useful bots worth knowing about, too, including the Google Talk Guru.

Just add guru@googlelabs.com to your GTalk buddies, and you can start firing off questions. Lifehacker suggests that the same types of queries supported by Google SMS will work, though we didn't have any luck getting a response out of the Guru with phrases like "score detroit red wings" or "sushi R3N 1Y1."

Still, Guru does answer a good variety of questions and it works right within your favorite IM app. It's well worth adding to your friend list, especially for getting answers on the go on your mobile device of choice.

Google Talk Guru answers questions via your IM app originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/google-talk-guru-answers-questions-via-your-im-app/

Nathalie Donnerhacke Anna-Lena Baumgärtel Sabine Kinzler Frieda Falkner

Dr. Dre's Beats Go Wireless (But Where's the @*##ing AirPlay?) (Ears On) [Audio]

No Detox announced today! But Dr. Dre's commanding bass-heavy Beats empire expanded a little today with a wireless iteration of the Beatbox iPod and iPhone dock. Good: it'll probably be as low-end heavy as the headphones. Bad: Bluetooth. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/JAn0Lz-hIn4/dr-dres-newest-beat-is-the-portable-beatbox

Kevin Fickenscher Amelie Schweizer Elfriede Oltmanns Janine Hillenbrand

Titan Starts Training for Supercomputing's World Cup

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has awarded U.S. supercomputer manufacturer Cray a contract to upgrade its existing Jaguar supercomputer. The contract, which Cray pegs as worth $97 million, will cover a multi-phase process scheduled for completion in 2013. Cray will essentially rip out and replace Jaguar's existing processors with the latest AMD Opteron CPUs and Tesla graphics processing units from Nvidia.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/73474.html

Claus Rehberg Tobias Leinenbach Olga Kreibich Nathalie Donnerhacke

Yahoo! Messenger now censors the links you share

Yahoo Messenger Big Brother censorshipWe've all thought it, but never dared think it could be true: what if Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL actively monitor our instant messenger chats? What if mentions of 'bomb' and 'underage' are tracked and sent to law enforcement agencies? What if chat providers don't agree with the things we say, or the links we share, and filter or censor the content of our transmitted messages?

Well, it looks like our fears may actually have some basis in reality: Yahoo Messenger strips FilesTube links from instant messages. It doesn't tell either party that a URL has been removed from chat -- it just deletes it. Poof. FilesTube, in case you were wondering, is one of the largest file hosting meta search engines on the Web -- it indexes RapidShare, Megaupload, Mediafire, and many other 'cyberlocker' services.

It's fairly obvious why FilesTube links are being removed -- the Censor General at Yahoo is probably one of those perplexed primates who think all uses of BitTorrent are illegal -- but this situation poses a far more important question: is Yahoo censoring messages on the client side, or the server side. Does the messenger client itself maintain a list of 'blacklisted' words -- and if so, why are we not told that FilesTube links are banned? What other words and terms does Yahoo protect us from?

Continue reading Yahoo! Messenger now censors the links you share

Yahoo! Messenger now censors the links you share originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 05:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/yahoo-messenger-now-censors-links-raises-serious-privacy-issue/

Robin Jones Ingeburg Otte Moritz Beller Gabriela Prell

Verizon set to drop some LTE on 13 more cities November 17th

Get ready Little Rock, Kansas City, Cedar Rapids and the greater Providence area, because Verizon is getting ready to unleash some serious LTE on all of you. The carrier is expending its coverage by 13 more cities on November 17th, bringing the total to more than 175. That date will also see coverage expansions in five areas, including Minneapolis / St. Paul, Louisville, Grand Rapids, Pittsburgh, and Nashville. Check out a full list of new cities and the accompanying press release after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Verizon set to drop some LTE on 13 more cities November 17th

Verizon set to drop some LTE on 13 more cities November 17th originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/11/verizon-set-to-drop-some-lte-on-13-more-cities-november-17th/

Finja Kerkhoff Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann Annette Lechner

Win a new iPhone 4S from BodyGuardz

Waiting for new gadgets is hard, but BodyGuardz has a contest that can help the time pass a little more quickly while you wait for the new iPhone 4S.  We’ve told you about BodyGuardz before here at The Gadgeteer; see the related links at the end of this post for other Gadgeteer posts about their [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/10/10/win-a-new-iphone-4s-from-bodyguardz/

Svenja Hoferichter Carola Auer Luca Liebe Finja Kerkhoff