Google App Scripts commence in the spreadsheets of Google Docs. It enables the user to make sheets to read and change formulas, formats and cell contents, and allow to create create custom functions to automate repetitive tasks.

“Users write scripts in JavaScript using libraries designed to provide a powerful interface with Google products,” says Google. “If you already are a JavaScript developer, a key difference is that scripts run on Google Servers instead of user browsers. As a result, direct operations on the client-side DOM are not supported, although some restricted functionality is provided. Your code executes server-side, and operates on the Google products you’ve coded for.”

Special Features

* Showcase your favorite artwork in a scrapbook

* Pan and zoom

* Unlimited Undo and Redo

* Unique cross hair system for precise coloring

* Move and save  finished artwork to the photo library

* Sound Design by Tim Hands – Emmy award winning sound editor

Main Edit Features:

• Basics: Crop, Straighten, Rotate, and Flip

• Color: Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black and White, Contrast

• Filters: Sketch, Soft Focus, Sharpen

• Effects: Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, Soft Black and White

• Borders: Rectangle, Rounded, Oval, Soft Edge, Vignette, Rough Edge, Halftone and Film Emulsion

Recent Advancements :

• Video Playback: Photoshop.com Mobile now gives you access to video files that are stored in your Photoshop.com library. You can play your video files, view them in a slideshow, and share them with your friends and family.

• New Straighten, Sharpen and Contrast tools. Simply drag your finger to straighten or to bring out detail and contrast in your photos.

• Borders: Eight artistic borders are now available in the Effects menu; one touch adds fun frames to your photos.

Firebug 1.5,  not new to anyone here. It’s one of the most popular developer tool to debug , track network activity and tweak JavaScript, CSS, HTML and DOM of any website. I have personally used Firebug to find errors in my web projects and it works wonders. You can read a complete step-by-step review of this spectacular tool (Firebug Demystified – Link).

The newly updated Firebug has improved add-on stability and other new advancements have been introduced. Most of all, it has been made compatible with the new Firefox 3.6 browser. Among the updates in Firebug 1.5 are a much-improved Inspector tool, which allows you to select any element on the page and see the HTML and any applied CSS rules; and several major new features for the Net panel, which can debug XMLHttpRequests. [More features - Firebug Wiki ].

Download Firebug 1.5 – Link

Some of the advanced features are: Branding of the player, embedding markers in your timeline, communicate and respond to bandwidth utilization, integration of external data using data framework and provide quality Live and On-demand experiences.

Features to be included in the future:

1. A more modular codebase so it is easier for developers to choose what functionality they want compiled into their application without taking on unwanted file size.
2. An extensive plug-in API so partners can develop plugins for SMF that provide analytics, advertising, publishing, and delivery features.
3. Support for more delivery methods
4. Accessibility support similar to what is made available in the Accessible Media Project – http://amp.codeplex.com
5. Advanced captioning support including compliance with the W3C Timed Text spec
6. A more robust UI framework including support for global styling
7. Support for MEF, a new Silverlight 4 feature
8. Support for VAST & MAST for advertising
9. A JavaScript API

Download Framework – Link

Since Flash is a resource hog Mac OS X to the point that many people would not exist, this will be a tempting change for users of this platform. This is currently compatible in a few browsers (Google Chrome and Safari V4.0 and Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed presently!). It looks like they are still in Beta, ads and annotations are currently disabled. Video Ads will only work in Flash enabled browsers and full-screen mode is currently not made available for public use. Give it a try, Just join the experiment and help Google improve the technology.

Watch the video – Google Developers on HTML5.

Opera has also targeted latest of the standards which includes JSON encoding/decoding. For developers, revamping the JavaScript feature is a feature worth mentioning, as it has been a sore point in Opera for long. It has got the fastest JavaScript speed than any of the browsers out there.
Opera 10.5 also uses an updated rendering engine, Presto 2.5, which introduces a number of features including HTML5 features like persistent storage and support for CSS3 transitions and transforms. New graphics library supported by Opera 10.5 is Vega, which is currently software based and it displays everything that you see on-screen.
Besides visual changes and use of APIs, for Windows 7, Aero Peek and Jump List support is added so that you could easily access your speed dials, tabs etc. from the taskbar. For Mac, it brings in multi-touch gestures, a unified toolbar, native buttons and scrollbars, and other small features.
You can open a new private window or private tab that forgets everything that has happened on them once closed. Dialog boxes are now non-modal and they are displayed as a page overlay. This would allow you to switch windows or tabs while displaying the dialog. Address field and search field have been upgraded in functionality and also in looks. They remember searches, show results in a better layout and also support removing items from history.
On the darker side, it uses high memory and for Mac build no printing is supported.
Overall Opera 10.5 makes Opera a browse, which developers would want to test with and develop for.

When clickable links and areas are large enough, this helps users who are not able to control a mouse with precision. When you code pages in such a way that users can navigate using the keyboard alone, or just a single switch access device alone, this would help users who cannot use a mouse or handle a standard keyboard. In the case of videos, if it is closed captions or if a sign language version is available, then the deaf users can understand the video that is being played.

When flashing effects are made optional or completely avoided, users prone to seizures that are caused by these effects will not be put at risk. And when content is being written in plain language and are illustrated with instructional animations and diagrams, users with learning difficulties are able to understand the contents better. When sites are built and maintained correctly, all of these users could be accommodated while not causing an impact on the usability of the site in the case of non-disabled users.

Many accessibility features could be easily implemented if they are planned initially during the Web site development or redesign. Fixing inaccessible Web sites would require significant effort; especially in the case of sites that were not originally “coded” properly using standard XHTML markup, and when it comes to sites with certain types of content like multimedia.

Much of the focus made on Web accessibility has been the responsibility of Web developers. However, Web software has also got a vital role in Web accessibility. Software needs to help developers in producing and evaluating the accessible Web sites, and thus be usable by people with disabilities. Developing guidelines and techniques that would describe accessibility solutions for Web developers and Web software is one of the roles of Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). These WAI guidelines are considered as the international standard for Web accessibility.

Image Credit: Webware

Real-time search feature of TwitVid.com allows anyone to see the most popular videos on Twitter. The search engine aggregates all Youtube and TwitVid video links currently being shared on Twitter. Then the proprietary real-time ranking algorithm ranks the videos based on their current popularity, relevancy to the search term and buzz on Twitter, as well as by their freshness, with the newest videos that rank the highest.

Video analytics tool of TwitVid.com is the first of its kind on Twitter, which enables members to track their videos online by day, week, month or even total number. It is possible for users to see how many times their videos have been viewed or the global location of clicks or even the top people who link others to your video.

Twitter video users can thus evaluate the success of their videos depending on the information about the performance of their TwitVids, gathered by our analytics tool around the web. This is incredibly valuable for celebrities, musicians, publicists, bloggers, marketers and others as a way to evaluate the success of their video campaigns.

TwitVid’s virtual gift feature is enhancing the video tweeting experience by enabling members to interact and connect with their favorite TwitViders.

TwitVid.com is giving users the ability to view, upload and share videos much faster compared to any other app, which is commendable, as in the current world, people are looking for more speed while posting the videos; at the same time they don’t want to sacrifice on quality.

One benefit of using Facebook Connect would be enabling the users on Facebook to share your content with their friends. Users can instantly find out their friends and get engaged in many activities. 300 million users are using this, and features like simple registration and robust data bring more number of users towards it. By increasing traffic, registrations and user engagement, you can grow your revenue, besides increasing monetization opportunities.

Advanced integration is currently going on. Based on a user’s profile information, relevant and targeted information will be present. Information by friends or people-in-your network’s usage is filtered, and recommendations are part of it. You could create new experiences and lightweight actions which would allow users to interact with each other. Publishing stories, gifting etc will be possible thereafter.

With Facebook Connect, you can share what you do online and stay updated on what your friends are doing. For every website, you won’t be required to create separate accounts and you can just use your Facebook login instead, wherever Connect is available.
Yahoo made an announcement that, it will be making Facebook Connect a much deeply-integrated part of their site. MySpace is also planning to make it a key part of their site.

Facebook Connect allows third party web sites to access Facebook user data and features of the site, like sharing activity from other sites over to its news feed home page. Facebook Connect is thus helping other sites to get more social, and is driving traffic between them and Facebook.
Facebook Connect is free and you can be a part of making the web much more social and use it to get connected to a much larger crowd.