January, 2012

Reel is an online presentation tool from ZURB.

It is different from PPT or web presentation tools with its simplicity and the fact that users can give feedback with a simple thumbs up/down for each slide.

You can upload PPT, PDF, and image files to Reel, then update and share your new presentation (Preso) with a link.

Sharing is available with Facebook and Twitter; for accessing reports simply add /report to the URL.

At the reports page you can see how many thumbs up/down the visitors gave each of your slides.

Overall, Reel is a rather simple tool, yet can be used to achieve great results, because feedback might very well be the one thing that’s missing from your current presentations.

jmpress.js is a jQuery port of impress.js for making websites on an infinite canvas.

jmpress.js cleverly uses the jQuery API and is thus more developer-friendly than impress.js — for most. The library uses jQuery UI themes, falls back to .animate() when transforms aren’t supported, and provides touch support for mobile devices.

We just recently covered impress.js, but this port is for making actual websites, not presentations.

Color Thief is a JavaScript library that can grab dominant colors from a picture.

Color Thief is easy to use and employs the canvas element for generating a color palette from a picture.

The script actually works (see demos in the homepage), and can grab the main colors even from the smallest image.

CES or Consumer Electronics Show held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada is the largest electronics show in the world. Naturally, we get to see some really cool products there. Many companies try to release their products, services or even apps during this time frame particularly because consumer interest is really high during CES days. CES 2012 is under way and popular music recognition service Shazam has released a new app titled Shazam Player for iPhone, and it is now available for download.

Most people know Shazam for what it has always been, a music discovery engine. Shazam apps are available for a variety of mobile platforms. The premise of this service is simple. Launch the app, let it listen to whatever music is being played on the television, in somebody’s car, in a club or basically just music playing anywhere. The app will then show you what song that is, and most of the time Shazam is spot on. The service is insanely popular and with the new Shazam Player for iPhone, they’re taking it a whole step further.

At first glance one can easily comprehend that Shazam Player for iPhone is built as a competitor to the native Music app on iOS devices. This app comes with added features that are not provided by its competitor. You can share your favourite songs to various social networks straight from the app. You can watch videos of your favourite songs on YouTube from right within the app. You can also discover lyrics straight from the app itself. Apart from these features, Shazam Player for iPhone comes with all of the features that are required in a normal music app.

Other features of Shazam Player for iPhone include:

• Bring your music to life with LyricPlay™. See streaming lyrics in time to the music – you’ll always have the words to your favorite songs with you.
• Share the soundtrack of your day on Facebook and Twitter
• Watch YouTube videos and concert clips
• Find tour dates for the bands and artists you’re into
• Manage your music – see your iTunes playlists and create new playlists on the fly
• Select your favorite tracks and hide ones you don’t want to hear
• Add to your music – buy new tracks on iTunes from within the app
• View music by artist/album/title and use the Track Tray to see all the great Shazam features available for each song
• Top tracks – a changing list of LyricPlay tracks – buy them straight from the app if you don’t already own them
• Identify new music you’re hearing by instantly launching the Shazam App

The best part? Shazam Player for iPhone can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store. You will need an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 4.3 firmware or higher.

Download Shazam Player for iPhone [Official iTunes App Store Link]

Apple has started sending out media invites for an Education Event destined to take place in New York City on January 19. Do not expect any new product announcements there, however it is possible that Apple has something up its sleeves that is aimed particularly at the education market.

Earlier last month it was constantly being rumoured that Apple was going to hold an event in New York City soon. Many suspected that Apple will take this opportunity to unveil their latest iPad. However now that the fruit company has officially started sending out media invites, they have confirmed that this event is strictly an Education Event and one should not expect to see any new product releases there.

Apart from this, Apple has also been rumoured to have an interest in the education market. Given the fact that a majority of high-school and college going students use Apple products extensively, an education related service could immensely help all students. Now deceased co-founder Steve Jobs knew that Apple had to venture in to this particular market, even if the traditional players wanted to stand by them or not. In his biography he has been quoted as saying that Apple has plans to enter in the education market and on January 19 2012, under the leadership of Tim Cook, the company is about to do just that.

At this point in time, it is well known that no major textbook publishers are actually working with Apple. Their textbooks are not available via the iBooks store and neither do they have any deal with Apple that allows legal distribution of such material. Perhaps that is going to change on January 12. Given Apple’s history of secrecy, it is really hard to determine what exactly the company has in store for all of us. We’ll try our best to find out what we can in the meantime. Come January 19, we’ll know exactly what announcements Apple makes in the Big Apple.

Strike is a neat little collaborative to-do list app from ZURB.

By using Strike, you can create a simple to-do list, which is shareable via an URL.

Users who have this URL can then cross out or add new items to the list.

A number of options are available: color palettes, crossed-out item styles, etc.

The application is great for smaller companies, as it’s literally post-it notes, just online and completely free.