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Google Maps’ “Group Planning” provides the ability to decide where to vote online

 

“When you are planning to hang out with friends, it is quite often to be annoying when it comes to where to go and where to eat. Everyone will have her opinion that they want to go to, but no one would say it out. Now the new feature “Group Planning” that Google Maps is about to launch is designed to solve the troubles for this embarrassing situation. What kind of function is it? Let’s take a look for it.”

 

The new version of Google Maps previously released on Google I/O 2018, in addition to the motorcycle navigation features that have been launched online, now includes Group Planning, which allows users to vote directly and relatives with friends online.

The Group Planning function allows users to create a set of voting lists through Google Maps and prepare their online friends to participate in the voting. This will improve the situation happened in the past which is when confirming the each other’s opinions, it would be much easier to integrate the opinions of the destinations, thereby reducing the unnecessary waste of time (and even reducing the disputes caused by the discussion).

This feature was first mentioned in this year’s Google I/O 2018. At the time, it also mentioned the features that will be added to Google Maps, as well as the motorcycle navigation function that has been opened for operation. The reason why Google continues to update Google Maps is to attract more people to use this service. It can also create more service applications by combining geography and search functions, and it can also drive more map integration.

For example, quickly adding information such as nearby recommended attractions, businesses, gas stations, convenience stores, etc. in the map can also help passengers to explore the first-time visits, and at the same time quickly assist the local stores to connect various types of consumer business opportunities. Behind it, nature also has the cooperative benefits of advertising content.

At present, the Group Planning function is expected to open up users in various regions in the near future, and it is used by Android and iOS platforms.

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Ever heard of Internet archives? Introducing you to the website WayBack Machine

 

“This article will be introducing everyone the website ‘WayBack Machine’. WayBack Machine is basically an Internet archive that contains a lot of online data that no longer exist. A lot of content not even Google can find is made available on WayBack Machine so you’d have a chance to find them. Those who may be interested, come to take a look!”

 

We have museums to collect artefacts, libraries to store old books, then, of course, there are organisations that specialise in “storing websites”. The WayBack Machine shown in the above image is a website that specialises in storing web data. Whether it is websites that still exist or ones that have been closed down. Not only can you find the sites, but there is also a chance for you to find a particular webpage or even its media content!

Before we learn about this website’s history, let’s look at how competent WayBack Machine actually is. Today I am using “wretch” as a search example, it was what once was the pride of Taiwan but unfortunately ended its service eventually. However, I really don’t remember which blogs I can search (I myself never used wretch), so I’ll be using wretch celebrity “Wan Wan” as today’s test subject. After some vigorous research (I deleted this from my favourites long ago!), I was able to find the link that once led to Wan Wan’s blog, “www.wretch.cc/blog/cwwany”.

After entering this in the search bar, Wayback Machine will start searching the past saves of this website (they never delete outdated stuff). But don’t think that Wayback Machine will help you make daily backups, there is, after all, a very large amount of data on the internet (in 2012 there is around 10PB of information stored in Wayback Machine, which equals to around ten million GB), therefore the results of your searches will only appear like as shown in the above picture, only the dates circled in blue are dates where a backup was made.

Note: Wan Wan’s blog attracts huge traffic, which means that it gets backed up often. If your blog has little traffic… then it probably was only backed up once or twice

Now let’s go ahead and check on a random date… and check out the web data saved in the past! Seeing once again this historic scene today where wretch no longer exists sure is making me nostalgic! But limited by Wayback Machine’s processing power and limitation of the website itself, the pictures that used to be on the blog are all long gone. You are therefore unable to see the collection of Wan Wan’s comics, so this is really only useful for nostalgic purposes. However, this means that text-based web pages are not limited by this, so if you’re only seeking text content from text-heavy websites then this truly is a useful tool.

For some of the dates, the crawler may be bugged, resulting in the website not being properly backed up, leaving only its basic text data. But don’t despair, since every backup is theoretically “a complete website backup”, you could actually click on a webpage that is better preserved (such as Wan Wan’s blog in the example above), and searches for your other desired pages from the said webpage. For instance, the works of mAn does not show to have backups on any of the indicated dates on the schedule, but actually you just need to go to any of the indicated points (after 2010/09/01) and go to web archive, you will be able to to find mAn’s content through these saves.

Note: This website is very slow. It is, after all, a non-profit organisation with an enormous amount of data

Exactly what are the kind of people running such a “charity” of an organisation?

Wayback Machine actually has a backer called “The Internet Archive”, it is an “ancient internet organisation” established in 1996 in San Francisco. The objective of this organisation is to archive all the information to ever exist on the internet, like a library or a museum, this archive collects historical data and makes them available for users and scholars alike to browse. The Internet Archive is created by the founder of the famous web analysis company Alexa (the same Alexa used for web ranking), when it was just established it was actually one with Alexa, functioning as two organisations (Alexa for profit, The Internet Archive as non-profit).

The company name Alexa pays respects to the Library of Alexandria, making the comparison between the world wide web and the largest library in the world two thousand years ago, the Library of Alexandria. However Alexa was eventually bought by Amazon with 250 million US dollars, and aside from having the same founder, The Internet Archive has nothing to do with Alexa anymore. So far The Internet Archive can save data from after the year 2001 (limited by the technology of Wayback Machine) and is one of the best tools to perform research on the early development of the world wide web.

 

Note: The Internet Archive is now a member of the American Library Association ALA, and is also appointed as an official library by the State of California.

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A more efficiency and safety Chrome is coming after it has been launched a decade.

 

“It has been 10 years since Chrome launched. Google Chrome has always been a simple life helper, even it was Microsoft IE and Edge can’t resist its power. At this moment of the decade, Google announced they are going to launch an update of the latest version of Chrome which includes three major characteristics that might let everyone surprised! Let’s take a quick look at what fantastic function does the new version of Chrome have!”

 

Since the Chrome browser has shown up in 2008, Google Chrome has quickly replaced Microsoft IE with the most popular browser. So far, more than 60% of the market share has been used. Google has also used Chrome to be the foundation of Chrome OS and developed more application of Chromebook, which brought a lot more convenience to the network surfing. Gradually, Chrome has become the main web browsing tool of the Android platform. Microsoft hopes to reverse the market situation with the new Edge browser. However, it seems that it still can’t stop everyone’s demand for Chrome.

On September 2nd this year, the 10th anniversary of its official expiration, Google also announced the launch of a new Chrome browser version. Replaced the current interface to a new and more compact appearance, strengthening the security protection, and re-adjust the browser operation interface, especially for mobile browsing, which would exactly make browsing more efficiency. As for the iOS platform, the main menu will be moved to the bottom, which is similar to the operation mode of Apple Safari and also improves the access efficiency of CSS syntax content.

When it comes to the web service, account password that users often considered it difficult to remember, the new version of Chrome will work with the new password administrator, which is called Chrome Dino mechanism. By logging in to the personal Google account, the system can remember it in a safer way and let the user get their account details in cross-platform and cross-device as well. Even when users meet the need to create new passwords, the system can automatically assist users to establish a higher level of password combination and record passwords in personal accounts, which makes the user more easily to use it later.

The second brand new function is Omnibox, which is added. It is a function of input prediction and searches suggestion, once the system finds the corresponding answer that users entered, it will be displayed in the search field in a summary manner. Or the search results page is presented in the form of an information chart so that the user can more intuitively understand the search content’s answer.

The new version of Chrome will now give users priority to browse HTTPS-encrypted web content or websites that are designed to be secure, and also natively target VR or AR content applications. In other parts, the emphasis is on shortening overall loading time and reducing browsing latency. And to increase the efficiency of memory usage, to avoid the old version is easy to generate memory is occupied by specific paging, it is expected to release a new version of Chrome browser update in the next few weeks.

Google expects to release new Chrome browser updates in the coming weeks. Not only for the PC platform, Android and the iOS system will be updated in the future as well. As for the Chrome OS operating system, it is expected to follow up also.

Chromium architecture drives more browser generation

In addition to Google’s continued implementation of the Chrome browser, its external Chromium architecture is also open to free access changes. For example, Opera’s subsequent implementation of the browser abandoned the original browser and changed to the WebKit browser engine used by the Chrome browser. Even the recent Red Core browsers that are controversial in China market are actually based on the Chromium architecture. Due to Chromium architecture allows third-party vendors to model themselves, it also spawns many web browsers with different application features.

At the same time, Google continues to support a variety of HTML5 technical specifications in the Chrome browser. Through the new image encoding technology allows users to view audio and video content without installing any plug-ins, and actively limit the use of Adobe Flash plug-ins unless Users manually open it when needed, otherwise, Google will stand in the user’s perspective to avoid all kinds of malicious attacks affecting browsing security.

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Learn the purpose of Youtube’s creator studio. Free music and materials all at your disposal

“Those who enjoy making videos are certainly aware, that background music is resources that you cannot skip out on. Additionally, sound effects are also a crucial touch to add to your videos, however, copyright issues are always a concern when using music or sound effects in videos. This article will introduce the audio library available in Youtube’s creator studio, so long as you follow the regulations, you will get a myriad of music and sound effects to use for free.”

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