Posts Tagged ‘microsoft’

Which way does this battery go? (via Mashable)

Ever been frustrated by devices not working because you put the batteries in the wrong way? Well, the days of making sure the + and – side of your AA batteries are in the right direction are over, thanks to a new technology developed by Microsoft.

InstaLoad is a new battery technology from Microsoft that gives devices power, regardless of how users insert the batteries. It doesn’t matter which side is positive or negative; the device will simply work.

The technology is in the mechanical battery contact design. Each side of the metal contacts in a device have positive and negative points, rather than just a positive or negative point. The technology works with most barrel-type batteries, so your AA, AAA, C and D batteries are all compatible. It also doesn’t matter whether the batteries are rechargeable or not.

Frankly, we can’t figure out why no one invented this tech until now, but we’re glad Microsoft did. They have the reach to really get device manufacturers on board, which will be crucial to InstaLoad’s adoption. Microsoft is also providing a royalty-free license program for devices designed for those with hearing, vision, learning or ot

her disabilities.

All we can say is that we eagerly await InstaLoad devices in our homes. Batteries give us too many headaches already.

Facebook’s with new Photo tags

Reports have it that the all so popular “Social Networking Heavyweight” , Facebook has started up a new feature that shall allow the user to tag photos with more easiness than before.

According to the popular Mashable website, “If you’ve got a large album or a lot of friends in a single photo, this process is inefficient and tedious. To solve this problem, Facebook has implemented face detection technology that will automatically find faces in photos and select them, eliminating one of the most tedious steps in tagging Facebook friends in photos. Your friends are already selected by the software — all you have to do is answer the Facebook prompt, “Whose face is this?””.

What seems to a natural act of letting the users of Facebook have a more Facebook based upload and tagging plugin, Facebook seems to be going in the right direction, at least for now.

Reports had it that earlier this year, Facebook was seeing a heavy rise in the uploads done by the Third Party based Facebook Apps, which made uploading and tagging much simpler.

When I went to check out such apps, one of them called LiveUpolad, a plugin in the hugely popular Microsoft’s Window’s Live Photo Gallery has a better functionality than Facebook’s plugin.

However, one thing still comes as a non-surprise package  as the post on Facebook to bring this new feature was written by Sam Odio, one of the co-founders of Divvyshot, which Facebook acquired back in April in order to improve the Photos product.