Tech News Beats

Google just do not want to be Internet search and ad delivering platform. They want to be the masters of the net. Most of the commerce will take place online in future and Google is gearing up for that with its latest offering – Boutiques.com. It took the first step in this regard when it acquired Like.com in August, 2010. From Like.com, Google got the image recognition technology required for this product. Earlier, Google used to follow simple meta data to recognize a picture. However a look at the Like.com website shows that Boutiques.com is almost same in terms of what Like.com used to do. Not sure what the exact difference Google is making Like.com and Boutiques.com. Before the launch of the site, Google sent special invites to fashion designers, fashion bloggers etc as follow:

Boutiques.com will put Google in direct competition with ebay with ebay’s fashion site – http://ebaylookbook.com/. The official Google blog says that it is a new way to buy fashion goods online and it offers you what you looking for. The search algorithm has been upgraded to understand fashion elements like colour, pattern etc. It is a collaboration various boutiques and fashion designers who feature their goods on the site and when an item is sold, Google make some commission.

As of now Boutiques.com is available only in the US and limited to women. For more information or help, visit its help section.

Website: http://www.boutiques.com/

Soon twitter will be making two important updates that will impact how you interact with Twitter applications. If you are a Twitter users, make sure you are aware of these changes. Lets check how it can impact you:

What are applications?

There are over 250,000 applications built using the Twitter API. To use most applications, you first authorize the application to access your Twitter account, after which you can use it to read and post Tweets, discover new users and more. Applications come in many varieties, including desktop applications like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or EchoFon, websites such as TweetMeme, fflick, or Topsy, or mobile applications such as Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Blackberry, or Foursquare.

Update 1: New authorization rules for applications

Starting August 31, all applications will be required to use “OAuth” to access your Twitter account.

What’s OAuth?

* OAuth is a technology that enables applications to access Twitter on your behalf with your approval without asking you directly for your password.
* Desktop and mobile applications may still ask for your password once, but after that request, they are required to use OAuth in order to access your timeline or allow you to tweet.

What does this mean for me?

* Applications are no longer allowed to store your password.
* If you change your password, the applications will continue to work.
* Some applications you have been using may require you to reauthorize them or may stop functioning at the time of this change.
* All applications you have authorized will be listed at http://twitter.com/settings/connections.
* You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list.

Update 2: t.co URL wrapping

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

* A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
* You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
* When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.