Articles by "Google"
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Here are the best and easy ways that you can implement in your Mozilla firefox browser to make it perform better and speed up the browsing in it with the guide that we discussed right below.

speed up
Easy Ways to Speed Up Firefox in Less than 10 Minutes

Similar to other browsers, Firefox’s speed is also degrading day by day with wear and tear. With time you must judge that it takes one more second or minute to upload your required page. In addition to this, you must not be satisfied with the current speed it provides to you. If you want faster Firefox experience, look towards the given easy ways. As the techniques that we are going to discuss right in article will help you to boost up your browser speed to get the better browsing experience. So have a look on complete guide discussed below to proceed.

Here we have discussed some implementations that you need to perform in order to speed up your browser.

Easy Ways to Speed Up Firefox in Less than 10 Minutes

1. Click-To-Play Flash Content

The very first thing I noticed and went through, when I start using a new browser is to disable Flash content or set it to “click-to-play“. Most of the websites use Adobe Flash Player to load videos and other contents such as ads. This consumes lot of your time even if you didn’t want to see any flash content. When it is set to “click-to-play“, flash content will only be loaded when you click on it.
To set flash content to “click-to-play” in Firefox:
1. In the top right corner, Click on the Firefox main menu and then click on “Add-ons.”
2. On the add-ons page, click on the “Plugins” button on the left side and search for “Shockwave Flash” plugin.
3. Click on the drop-down menu next to it, and select “Ask to Activate.” You can also completely disable flash if you don’t use it at all.


2. Free up Memory

If you prefer to use Firefox and continuously use it and in some way you find it slowing down, then to speed up its free memory,  type about:memory in the firefox address bar and press Enter. Pursue on the next page and click on “Minimize memory usage” under “Free memory” to free up memory.


3. Disable Firefox Animations

To speed up a Windows PC by disabling animations, you can speed up Firefox by disabling its animations. To disable animations in Firefox, type about:config in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. Type “animate” in the search box and set its values to all entries that leads to “False“.

4. Use Add-ons to Speed up Firefox

Similarly to the chrome, there are lots of add-ons available for Firefox that helps in speeding up Firefox experience. Best ones are defined below:

  • Auto Unload Tab: This add-on will automatically unload idle tabs and will free up all the resources that are taken upon and helps in easily loading when needed.
  • Image Block: This will block all the images on websites leading to faster browsing by which less data will need to be downloaded.
  • Speed Tweaks: This extension can make all the tweaks we have done above in the about:config page and some additional ones thus increasing speed. You can also do all this manually, but this extension makes it a one-click process.


Also Read: How To Speed Up Google  Chrome

5. Enable Firefox Pipelining

This is just a little hack that lets Firefox to create multiple connections with a server instead of one for speeding up the loaded page. To enable pipelining, enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. Search for the below defined entries and change their status to what is mentioned below:
network.http.pipelining -> true
network.http.pipelining.aggressive -> true
Network.http.pipelining.maxrequests -> 8
Network.http.pipelining.ssl -> true
To find all of the options, type network.http.pipelining in the search bar and then double click on the value to each entry for changing it.


6. Refresh Firefox

If above mentioned tweaks didn’t work or it is acing up due to continuous use then refreshing firefox is the best fix. Firefox lets you to refresh it and change all its settings by default and remove all the unwanted and third party data. Type about:support in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. Click on the “Refresh Firefox” button on the right and confirm the prompt to refresh it.


7. Disabling Add-Ons

There are lots of add-ons that can make your browser slow with time, so it is recommended to remove them if you think that they are of no use to you and for this you can head towards “about:addons-memory 2016.” extension and then install this extension and visit the page “about:addons-memory”, and you will see all the installed add-ons and the resources each one is using and you can disable or uninstall them accordingly.


8. Removing Adwares From Firefox

Adware are the extensions that gets installed in your system due to certain factors and they generate ads on your browser and also slow downs your browser speed. So it is better to remove them as soon as possible and for this is the best choice that will remove all these adwares from your browser and make it faster.


So above discussion is all about Easy Ways to Speed Up Firefox in Less than 10 Minutes. By using this guide, you can easily remove all the crap from your browser and make it faster to browse different sites. So implement these today. hope you like the guide, keep on sharing with others too. Leave a comment below if you have any related queries with this.
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Samsung Pay -Samsung's mobile payment service- is now available on GearS 2 Smart-watch. 

Samsung Pay
Samsung's mobile payment service- is now available on GearS 2 Smart-watch. 

This mobile payment service has been available for almost a year now but only on some Samsung Smartphones. Last year, the Gear S2 and the Gear S2 Classic smart-watch was launched and the company announced that the devices would soon support Samsung Pay. It looks like the company kept to their promise because now, they rolled out an update to the smart-watch and which adds Samsung Pay to the Gear S2. According to a support page on the company's website, the beta version of Samsung Pay is now available to all Gear S2 users.

On Samsung's phones, Pay uses both NFC and MST to ensure you can pay at almost any terminal
terminal. However, the Gear S2 lacks the hardware for MST. That means you'll only be able to use Samsung Pay from your watch with terminals that support NFC.

To use Samsung Pay on their smart-watch, Gear S2 owners have to update to the latest firmware and then download the latest update for the Samsung Gear app. With that installed, you will then need to be set for a secure password on your Gear S2 before adding support cards. The watch app does not automatically share the cards you've added to the phone app, so you have to add them again to the watch. After adding your cards, press and hold the back button to launch the app, select your card, and hold the watch up to the scanner. That's it!

P.S: Samsung Pay Beta on the Gear S2 is only available in the US for now. According to Samsung support, it's also not available on the 3G models (Bluetooth only for now)
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

These 11 Ways Will Help You To Speed Up Chrome

Speed Up Google Chrome
Google Chrome is one of the most popular and streamlined web browsers in the world. However, despite of all the feature updates and bug-fixes, Chrome can be slow at times. The reason could be due to some of its features, extensions or applications.

 However, the good news is that it is still possible to greatly improve your browser’s overall speed and sensitivity just by using some several tips, tricks and hacks.

 In this article, we bring to you 11 ways to help you to speed up your Chrome. By following these, not only will it improve Chrome’s page loading but also it’s browsing speeds. In order to allow the browser to load web pages faster, these tips and tricks disable various unnecessary and unneeded features of Chrome, which include extensions, plugins and web apps that you don’t need.

1. Disable Avoidable Extensions


 While extensions are considered as helpful tools that prolong the functionality of the Chrome browser, yet some may actually be less helpful than one might think. Extensions mostly run in the background, and parse or filter web pages before they are displayed on the screen, but will also load their own pack of data from the Internet.

To get better browsing speeds and good response times, disable and/or delete extensions you don’t actually need.

 To disable extensions:

 1. Type “chrome://extensions” in your Chrome’s location bar. Otherwise, you can go to Chrome’s Options > More tools > Extensions.

 2. Untick the Enabled to the extensions you want to disable, or click the Trash icon to delete the extension.

2. Disable Unnecessary Plugins


 Similar to extensions, plugins offer extended functionalities to the browser. Chrome comes with few built-in plugins provided by Google (like Chrome PDF Viewer, Native Client, etc.), and may carry plugins by other software installed in your computer. Like extensions, plugins can slow down the browser and block memory and network resources.

 To disable plugins:

 1. Type “chrome://plugins” in your Chrome’s address bar.

 2. Click Disable to disable the plugin you no longer need.

3. Remove Excessive Web Apps


 Besides being a web browser, Google Chrome is also an application platform for web apps. It can run locally-installed web apps written using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. While web apps don’t load resources like websites do, if you don’t need them, remove them.

 To remove unnecessary web apps:

 1. Type “chrome://apps” in your Chrome’s address bar or click Apps on the Bookmarks bar.

 2. Right-click the app you want to remove, select Remove from Chrome…, and click the Remove button to confirm the removal.

4. Enable Prefetch Resources


 Google Chrome comes with many smart features such as network prediction, resource preloader, spelling correction, etc. Resource pre-fetcher or preloader offers intellectual suggestions about the pages or links the user is most probably to open next, loading those pages/links in the background before you actually open them.

 To enable the prefetch feature in Chrome browser:

 1. Head over to Chrome’s Options > Settings > Show advanced settings…

 2. Check the “Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly” option.

 Enable Secret Hacks

 There are several secret and experimental features that Google Chrome has under its cloak. These are experiments by the Chrome’s developer team – some may not be built for beginners, some may not work for some devices, and some may not be good for your computer too.

 However, luckily enough there are some experiments that are handy enough to enhance the browser’s page-loading and rendering engines.

 Again, some of them may not work for some devices, and if you find yourself in a situation like this, just undo the hack to go back to normal.

5. Experimental Canvas Features


 Experimental Canvas Features allow the Chrome to make use of opaque canvases to increase the loading times and improve performance.

 To enable experimental canvas features:

 1. Go to “chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-canvas-features.

 2. Click on Enable and then Relaunch Now button.

6. Fast Tab/Window Close


 The Fast Tab/Window Close option escalates the response time of the browser when a user tries to close tabs or windows. Enabling this feature runs a tab’s onUnload.js handler autonomously of the graphical interface and speeds up the closing process.

 To enable fast tab/window close feature:

 1. Type “chrome://flags/#enable-fast-unload” in the address bar.

 2. Click on Enable and then Relaunch Now button.

7. Scroll Prediction

Scroll Prediction feature tells the Chrome browser to foresee the finger’s future position during scrolls allowing the engine to render the frame before the page is scrolled again.

 To enable Scroll Prediction:

 1. Type “chrome://flags/#enable-scroll-prediction” in the location bar.

 2. Click on Enable and then Relaunch Now.

8. Maximum Tiles


 Maximum Tiles refers to the tiles for interest area. Increasing the maximum number of tiles allows Chrome to show more tiles based on your interests or browsing history, which lets you to quickly open a new website from the interest area.

 To increase the number Maximum Tiles:

 1. Go to “chrome://flags/#max-tiles-for-interest-area” in your browser.

 2. Select 512 from the dropdown. Click Relaunch Now.


9. Raster Threads


 Raster Threads are responsible for rendering images in Chrome. Increasing the number of raster threads enhances the image rendering time, and thus impacts page loading time.

 To increase the number of raster threads:

 1. Open “chrome://flags/#num-raster-threads” in Chrome.

 2. Choose 4 from the dropdown menu and click Relaunch Now.


10. Answers in Suggest


 The “Answers in Suggest” feature allows Chrome to show responses to certain kind of queries (mostly questions) directly in the Omnibox’s suggestion list. You will no longer have to wait for the page to load to see answers for your queries, once you enable this feature.

 To enable Answers in Suggest:

 1. Type “chrome://flags/#answers-in-suggest” in the location bar.

 2. Choose Enabled from the dropdown. Click Relaunch Now button.

 11. Simple Cache for HTTP

 Simple Cache is the new caching device for Google Chrome. Depending on the filesystem for space allocation, it works better than the old caching system.

 To enable Simple Cache:

 1. Go to “chrome://flags/#enable-simple-cache-backend” in your browser.

 2. Select Enabled from the dropdown. Click Relaunch Now button.

 Source: Hongkiat

Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Google Daydream

Google has announced Daydream, a new VR hub built on Android N that will arrive this autumn. Similar to the home view you find inside of Oculus Rift, Daydream is an all-in-one experience that brings games, apps, movies and even the Google Play Store in its entirety into a VR headset.

Though no finished headsets were shown off at Google IO 2016, some reference design sketches were shown off, in addition to a small, Wii-like controller that provides motion control.

Several Daydream-ready devices will be launching this year from the likes of Samsung, HTC and other popular manufacturers
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Google now provides OTA images for Nexus devices

Serial flashers (not that kind) are already aware of Google's factory images for Nexus devices, that let you download the full ROM and flash it to your Nexus device.

The downside to doing this was you needed an unlocked bootloader, and doing that would wipe your device.

Enter OTA binary image files. These allow you to sideload the image to your device with adb through recovery without having to bother with the bootloader. This means you can upgrade easily without having your data wiped (although it wouldn't hurt to backup, just in case).

As before, these are only available to Nexus devices for now.
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology


A recently revealed Google patent shows how to make autonomous vehicles detect other cars' turn signals and react to the information.

This is the latest in a long series of registrations from the company to make driverless motoring safer, including bus identification and pothole recognition. The tech giant filed for this patent in June 2013, but the US Patent and Trademark Office only published the details in early April 2016. 

 Google's patent would use a forward-facing camera to scan traffic ahead. A short exposure would detect bright objects especially well, and the technology would then look for changes in color at the rear of surrounding cars. Based on how the light oscillates, the software could determine if the turn signal or hazard lights are flashing. Google's autonomous car would then have the programming to react accordingly. 

 Autonomous vehicles need this type of tech to survive in a world where they are still in the minority on the road. Turn signal identification would give the driverless system extra warning about what's happening in the environment and avoid a potential collision. As Google continues to expand its autonomous testing to more areas with different types of roads, the cars require more sophisticated software to deal with the challenges. 

 The company's driverless research could reportedly become its own business and morph into a taxi service. To get people to trust this future technology more, Google now needs to prove things are safe. Patents like this are one step toward making that happen because they increase autonomous vehicles ability to react to the real world. 

Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Demolition Company Tears Down Wrong House, Employee Blames Google Maps

Google Maps error gets wrong Texas house torn down
A Texas-based demolition firm accidentally tore down the wrong house before blaming Google Maps for providing the incorrect address for the house it was supposed to tear down.
The company, Billy L Nabors Demolition, had obtained a demolition permit for a duplex in Rowlett, Texas.
As WFAA-TV reports, the company was sent to demolish 7601 and 7603 Cousteau Drive, a tornado-damaged duplex in Rowlett, Texas. Somehow, 7601 and 7603 Calypso Drive, another tornado-damaged duplex a block away, was torn down, which is one street away.
After being informed by a neighbour, the owner of one half of the duplex, Lindsay Diaz, told WFAA that she drove up to the property, only to find that it was gone.
“How do you make a mistake like this? I mean, this is just the worst,” Diaz told WFAA. “They really wrecked my life.” She added, “[Google’s] mistake caused me to lose my home.”
Employees from the company later texted photos from Google Maps that shows the arrow for 7601 Cousteau pointing at the duplex a block away, according to WFAA. The crew reportedly thought they tore down the correct home, adding that the situation was “not a big deal”.
Demolition companies are not required to be licensed in the state of Texas, but all contractors working in tornado-damaged areas must register with the city of Rowlett.
Diaz then reported to CBS: “The team went out in the morning … They called him. They said, we’re at 7601, 7603. Is it the corner lot? Was it damaged by the tornado? Yes, yes, yes. Except the street wasn’t confirmed.”
Brian Funderburk, city manager, precluded the firm’s attempts to play down the situation. He told WFAA: “I think this is a huge deal. The homeowners were in the process of trying to figure out what it was going to take to repair their home and now they’re looking at rebuilding it instead. I think this is a very big deal.”
Local residents took to the company’s Facebook page to criticize the company for not compensating Diaz for the error.
“We all make mistakes, and this was a colossal mistake, but an even bigger mistake is not reaching out to the people with a basic apology whose lives were catastrophically upended upon learning their homes were destroyed,” said one Facebook user.
However, in an email, Google acknowledged the Maps error and said it’s investigating the cause.
“Google Maps did indeed show incorrect information for the houses in question,” a spokeswoman told CNNMoney. “Both addresses were shown as being in the same location (7601 Calypso Dr) on Google Maps… the issue was fixed as soon as it was brought to our attention.”
Google Maps now points to Diaz’s home accurately. Apple Maps, Yahoo Maps and MapQuest also display the correct information.
Google Maps uses a combination of satellite, aerial and street-level images and data to chart the world. The company also takes submissions and change requests through its Google Map Maker tool to keep its maps up to date. Ever since GPS was created, people have followed instructions from these sources without question. GPS errors occur quite frequently leading to hilarious outcomes, sometimes even deadly.
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology
Google
Not to be left behind as companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft all expand their services for enterprises opting for hybrid cloud environments, Google today announced a raft of partnerships to advance its position in the market, too. Google Stackdriver, the company’s platform for managing IT ops between Google’s cloud platform, AWS, and other servers, is now integrating with Splunk, BMC and Tenable, to expand in areas like IT ops, security and compliance. Expanding to third-party partnerships is not too surprising, given that these are hybrid clouds that we are talking about here — where end users are bringing together a number of different computing environments to work in a single place.
“Integration with rich third-party ops solutions is important for customers, and we know that many of you are already using these tools to manage hybrid operations in private and public clouds,” write Deepak Tiwari and Joe Corkery, cloud platform product managers. With the Splunk integration, users need to already be subscribers to Splunk’s Enterprise version. This will give those users Splunk insights on its GCP traffic, specifically covering Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), which you integrate via Google’s Pub/Sub messaging API for routing data between apps. Google The BMC integration, similarly, will give BMC users the ability to manage all applications in one window, while also monitoring security and compliance. Google
The Tenable integration is focused on its SecurityCenter Continuous View product, in which GCP users can monitor what apps, devices and people are accessing your network or running on it. SecurityCenter Continuous View works across both on-premise and cloud environments. As with the other products, this is partly a way also of expanding business for the third-party product. Here one needs to install SecurityCenter CV, and then create a service account within Cloud Platform, assigning  permissions to the Tenable service account. It also runs using Pub/Sub messaging. Google
Continue reading

at 0
Tech Touchz is a Network about Hacker News, Tech News &Tech Hacks - Latest &Tech News, Hacker News and Hacking Tricks About Technology

Don't fret, car fanatics. Self-driving cars won't replace your rides. John Krafcik, auto industry veteran and chief executive officer of Google's self-driving car project, said Tuesday he envisions a bright future for car enthusiasts who hold steadfast to the idea of driving their own vehicles in the oncoming era of autonomous developments and ride-sharing options. 

"I think we will still have as many – or maybe more – exciting, emotional, wonderful performance cars in the future," he said Tuesday in an appearance one day before the start of the New York Auto Show. "I don't see that going away." 

The approaching autonomous-car era has become a flashpoint for a lot of car enthusiasts, who dislike the technology for reasons ranging from the homely shape of some of the test vehicles to fears the government could eventually prohibit human driving. Google has been the focus of much of their ire, partially because the company is a leader in self-driving development and partially because the company's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, said last year that future generations will look back on an era of human driving, and "all giggle and say, 'You let that guy drive a car? What a dangerous concept!" 


"Our goal isn't so much that we're holding a vehicle to a level of perfection, but the question is more 'how are you improving safety on the roads." – Blair Anderson
Krafcik's words might provide some measure of relief. But he also offers a cautionary tale. A self-professed car guy who held executive positions with Ford and Hyundai prior to joining Google, Krafcik has seen his own automotive habits shift since joining the company in September. Like so many others in growing urban areas, he's eschewing use of a personal car. As one of the few commuters in America who has an option to take an autonomous car to work, he's even bypassing that choice. Krafcik walks. 

"I've had times where I'll go two weeks or more without getting in my personal vehicle, and the biggest personal transformation hasn't been the technology, but rather that aspect of my life going from 'extremely important' to 'meh,'" he said. "I don't miss driving. It's the most amazing thing: I don't miss driving." 

That transition away from daily driving is exactly the sort of thing that makes industry experts andcar dealers uneasy. They were in Krafcik's audience Tuesday at the 2016 Automotive Forum. Although the car industry has never been healthier, with 17.5 million units sold in 2015, there's disagreement on whether the autonomous era will help or hurt those numbers. 



Whatever their affect – self-driving cars remain several years away. Government regulations could hinder the arrival of autonomous cars, Krafcik warned Tuesday, echoing sentiments expressed by Google project director Chris Urmson before a Senate subcommittee examining autonomobiles last week. 

Self-driving technology is forcing regulators to reevaluate federal motor vehicle standards that are, in some cases, a half-century old. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in January the federal government intends to propose guidance for autonomous car companies by June. On Tuesday, Blair Anderson, deputy administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the agency is working through questions on those standards as best it can, and in some cases, issuing exemptions for standards. 

"I think we will still have as many – or maybe more – exciting, emotional, wonderful performance cars in the future." – John Krafcik
"At the end of the day, our goal isn't so much that we're holding a vehicle to a level of perfection, but the question is more 'how are you improving safety on the roads," he said. 

Issues both large and small remain. For one example, Krafcik noted there's a regulation that requires a car be equipped with a mechanism to cancel a turn signal via a steering wheel. But Google's vision of a self-driving car does not contain a steering wheel. More broadly, Google would like to bring a fully autonomous car that contains no controls for human intervention to the market. The Department of Transportation, thus far, has balked at that plan. It's one of several factors that needs to be in place before autonomobiles launch. 

"Introduction of self-driving cars would be a gradual process and will require comprehensive government policies," said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at Autotrader. "Much work needs to be done in the technology and development, government policy and public acceptance."
Continue reading
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)