Facebook Launches Job-Listing App

Facebook has launched a job-hunting app in hopes that its network of more than 1 billion users will help people find their next career opportunity.

The Social Jobs app announced on Wednesday is a result of Facebook’s year-old partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. The app has job listings from other online job boards like BranchOut, DirectEmployers Association, Work4Labs, Jobvite and Monster.com. Right now, users can browse through more than 1.7 million openings. A ticker at the top of the app shows the exact number of available jobs.

So will a site typically considered a casual social network be useful for professional purposes? Facebook is a repository for users’ day-to-day activities, including updates that might be inappropriate if you’re using the site to look for a job. There have been cases where people have lost their jobsbecause of updates they posted on Facebook, and employers have gotten sued for asking for their employees’ Facebook passwords.

Sites like LinkedIn are built to cater to people’s professional identities, targeting very specific qualities — skills, past jobs, languages spoken, and more — that someone might want to highlight when searching for a job or presenting themselves to recruiters. Unlike LinkedIn, Facebook has a very hazy boundary between social and professional. But the Social Jobs partnership found in its research that Facebook is a useful site for both job hunters and recruiters. In a survey of 530 employers, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that half of employers use Facebook in the hiring process, and more than half anticipate it becoming a more important tool for finding and recruiting talent. The vast majority said that Facebook helps decrease print advertising for job openings, and that the site can be used as a networking tool to get jobs.

That said, Facebook isn’t actually hosting the job listings. At launch, the app functions more as an aggregated search tool than anything else. Users can find jobs through the app, but once they try to learn more about a job, it points them to another app. The Work4Labs listings, for example, often links back to the hiring company’s Facebook page. If someone wanted to apply for the Head of Lighting position at Cirque Du Soleil, the new Social Jobs app would link to the Cirque Du Soleil hiring page on Facebook. The user would have to access the separate Work4Labs app if they wanted to see if anyone in their network could refer them. Should they want to apply, they would get pointed all the way back to Cirque Du Soleil’s official website.

It’s far from a seamless process, and there are several other glitches (Monster jobs showing up in the Work4Labs page, links going to a company’s Facebook Timeline, etc.). There is a lot of potential for Facebook to connect users to jobs — and create another source of revenue in the process. But in its current state, Facebook’s Social Jobs app is more of an extra side tool than an actual player in the job-hunting space.

source: internet

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T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 810 is a solid competitor to the HTC 8X

I have been using the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X for the last couple of weeks and even though my head tells me the 920 is best I keep going back to the 8X. T-Mobile customers will soon get to choose between the HTC 8X or Nokia Lumia 810 (the Lumia 920 is an AT&T exclusive) and after using the 810 for the past several days it is not as clear of a choice as I once thought it would be. The 8X is definitely positioned at the high end with a price of $199.99 on other carriers (T-Mobile hasn't announced pricing or availability yet) while the Nokia Lumia 810 is a mid-range device that should be priced around $100.

Out of the box impressions

The Nokia Lumia 810 did not come in one of those hefty, tank-like T-Mobile boxes, but it is attractive in gray and pink. Inside you will find the Lumia 810, USB A/C charger, USB cable, and some advertisements and basic instructions. There is no headset in the box and no other accessories. The black cover does not support wireless charging, but I understand there will be other covers with this support and I think the accessory lineup may help get folks in the door.
The Nokia Lumia 810 is a rather square device, but it still feels good thanks to the soft touch back cover and rounded corners. The display looks great and even though it has the same resolution as the previous Windows Phone devices you can't easily see pixels and I would have no problem using this device.

What's up with the Nokia Lumia 810, 820, and 822

Nokia announced the Lumia 820 and then we saw T-Mobile reveal the 810 and Verizon the 822. I spent a couple days with an 822 while I was using the 810 and they are both very similar devices. I like the feel of the 810 in my hand a bit more than the 822, but they are both solid mid-level smartphones. The 820 specs show a VGA front facing camera while the 810 and 822 come with 1.2 megapixel front facing cameras. The 810 and 822 also have 1800 mAh batteries while the 820 is limited to 1650 mAh.

Specifications and walk around the hardware

Specifications of the Nokia Lumia810 include:

• Windows Phone 8 OS
• 4.3 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display with 800x480 pixels
• Qualcomm S4 1.5 GHz dual-core processor
• Total integrated storage of 8GB with microSD card support
• 1GB RAM
• 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and F2.2 aperture, Carl Zeiss optics, and 1080p recording
• 1.2 megapixel front facing camera
• NFC, GPS, digital compass, proximity sensor, light sensor
• 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi
• Bluetooth 3.0
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Removable 1,800 mAh Li-Ion polymer battery
• Qi wireless charging capable (with optional back)
• Dimensions of 127.8 x 68.4 x 10.9 mm and weight of 145 grams

The Lumia 810 has very similar specs to the other Windows Phone 8 devices, with the display technology being one of the major differences. Enthusiasts may actually prefer the 810 due to the microSD card slot and removable battery.
The front is dominated by the 4.3 inch ClearBlack AMOLED display and even though the resolution is the same as all last generation Windows Phone devices it still looks great. Nokia included the touch sensitivity found in the Lumia 920 on the Nokia Lumia 810. There is a toggle for the sensitivity too in case you don't need to use gloves or a fingernail with the display. The headset speaker is above the display with the front-facing camera to the left of the speaker. T-Mobile and Nokia logos are found on the upper left and right sides above the display. Below the display you will find the Back, Start, and Bing search buttons.
The 3.5mm audio jack is off to the right side on the top. The volume, power, and camera buttons are all on the right, nothing is on the left, and the microUSB port is on the bottom. The camera is centered on the upper back with the dual LED flash to the left of the camera lens (will be on top in landscape orientation).
The back cover is removable and it actually consists of the back and four sides. Under the back cover you will find the microSIM card slot with the microSD card slot positioned above it. The 1,800 mAh battery is removable.

Windows Phone 8 and Nokia software

I covered all the details of Windows Phone 8 in my other article so I won't go into all of those details here. Needless to say, it is better than Windows Phone 7 and I appreciate the differences, but it remains to be seen what the consumer will think.
This is an operator-branded device and T-Mobile includes several additional services and utilities. As I made clear in a recent article you can easily get rid of all the bloatware (you can later add it back in by visiting the T-Mobile section of the Windows Phone Store). The services that are loaded on the 810 include:

• 411 & More
• CallerTunes
• My Account
• Slacker Radio
• T-Mobile TV

One of the benefits of buying a Nokia Lumia is all of the value-added services they provide, along with many exclusives from other developers that end up first on Nokia Lumia devices. You will find the following on the Lumia 810:

• Nokia City Lens: Augmented reality application
• Nokia Drive: Voice guided GPS navigation only found on Lumia devices.
• Nokia Maps: Included on all Windows Phone 8 devices and includes ability to download maps for offline navigation for FREE.
• Nokia Music: Awesome free service that had me drop my Spotify subscription. It's a major benefit for the Lumia.

I use my phones for navigation, and having a client I can rely upon is important. I use Google Maps and Apple Maps and find them both to work well for me. Nokia Maps has always been a favorite and their voice-guided navigation is a real benefit for consumers.
Windows Phone provides a new "Lens" feature in the camera utility and Nokia provides a couple of these in the Lumia 810. The Cinemagraph utility lets you animate still photos and is lots of fun, while the Smart Shoot utility shoots five frames for each photo and then picks the best faces to create the "perfect" shot. Panorama allows you to capture wide shots with the Lumia 810. Nokia told me there will be even more camera utilities coming to Lumia, including the existing Lumia 900.

Experiences

Before I received the Lumia 810 to test out I would have told you that the obvious choice on T-Mobile for Windows Phone was the HTC 8X. The 8X is an excellent device and I personally would still select it since it feels so good in your hand and has a great display. The Nokia Lumia 810 is a solid competitor and if you look in my image gallery you can see that the camera captures still images even better than the 8X in some cases. When you look at ALL of the added Nokia software and services (Drive, Music, City Lens), combined with the removable battery and microSD expansion capability you may find the Lumia 810 is actually a better choice for you. The Lumia 810 should also launch at half the price of the HTC 8X, which may be enough for some people to consider the device.

source: internet

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Android 4.2 SDK Is Now Available

We’ve all seen the great new features coming to Android 4.2 by now. The Photo Sphere camera is pretty amazing, and multiple accounts on tablets has been a long time coming. Those features, however, are just the beginning. The new Jelly Bean also has a number of new features that developers will be able to make great use of.

Starting today, developers will be able to download the Android 4.2 SDK platform. It features a number of improvements and new features that developers are sure to do some amazing things with. Here’s the major improvements and features:

Performance
We’ve worked with our partners to run Renderscript computation directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, a first for any mobile computation platform.

New ways to engage users
Users can now place interactive lock screen widgets directly on their device lock screens, for instant access to favorite apps and content. With just a small update, you can adapt any app widget to run on the lock screen. Daydream is an interactive screensaver mode that users can encounter when their devices are charging or docked in a desk dock. You can create interactive daydreams that users display in this mode, and they can include any type of content.

New interaction and entertainment experiences
Android 4.2 introduces platform support for external displays that goes beyond mirroring. Your apps can now target unique content to any number of displays attached to an Android device.

Enhancements for international users
To help you create better apps for users in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, Android 4.2 includes native RTL support, including layout mirroring. With native RTL support, you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users with minimal extra work. Android 4.2 also includes a variety of font and character optimizations for Korean, Japanese, Indic, Thai, Arabic and Hebrew writing systems.

At the moment, Google’s own Nexus line are the only devices that are equipped with Android 4.2. Most manufacturers and carriers are still trying to catch up to the first iteration of Jelly Bean – Android 4.1. With that being said, developers will most definitely want to start thinking up apps that can take advantage of the advanced GPU in the Nexus 10. That screen is just begging for some amazing audio-visual experiences.

Veteran and novice developers alike can download the Android 4.2 SDK from the Android SDK Manager now. Before you get to that, however, you’ll want to check out the full list of Android 4.2 features and the API level 17 overview

source: internet

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Internet Explorer 10 Is Now Available On Windows 7

Internet Explorer 10 is an interesting beast. It was built with Windows 8, and touch, in mind. It launched with Microsoft’s new operating system last month, but now it’s available on the decidedly less-touch friendly Windows 7.

Microsoft announced today that the release preview of Internet Explorer 10 is now available on Windows 7. It features a number of HTML5 and CSS enhancements that any IE stalwarts will want to upgrade for. It also should make it easier for developers to make apps work across all the different browsers now that IE10 is catching up to the strides made by Mozilla and Google with Firefox and Chrome respectively.

Those interested in trying out Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 will also be happy to know that Microsoft will turn the controversial “Do Not Track” signal on by default when you first install it. It might not do you any good, however, as advertisers have already made it a point to ignore any DNT signals sent by IE10.

A study from last week found that Internet Explorer is actually the fastest browser on Windows. Microsoft is dead set on keeping that distinction with Internet Explorer 10 and performed a number of benchmark tests to prove it.

Microsoft attributes IE10′s performance enhancements to its “powerful HTML5 engine.” Users and developers can now take advantage of the following enhancements:

Rich Visual Effects: CSS Text Shadow, CSS 3D Transforms, CSS3 Transitions and Animations, CSS3 Gradient, SVG Filter Effects

Sophisticated Page Layouts: CSS3 for publication quality page layouts and application UI (CSS3 grid, flexbox, multi-column, positioned floats, regions, and hyphenation), HTML5 Forms, input controls, and validation

Enhanced Web Programming Model: Better offline applications through local storage with IndexedDB and the HTML5 Application Cache; Web Sockets, HTML5 History, Async scripts, HTML5 File APIs, HTML5 Drag-drop, HTML5 Sandboxing, Web workers, ES5 Strict mode support.

Windows 7 users can download the IE10 release preview today. IE9 was already pretty good, so users of that particular browser may want to upgrade to IE10 when they get the chance. The performance and security improvements are probably worth the few minutes it takes to install.

source:internet

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