Google is Retiring Picasa

Google is retiring Picasa… why didn’t they Open Source it?

Moving on from Picasa

Google Blog: Friday, February 12, 2016 10:00 AM

“Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.

We know for many of you, a great deal of care has gone into managing your photos and videos using Picasa—including the hours you’ve invested and the most precious moments you’ve trusted us with. So we will take some time in order to do this right and provide you with options and easy ways to access your content. We’ve outlined below some of the changes you can expect.

Picasa Web Albums

If you have photos or videos in a Picasa Web Album today, the easiest way to still access, modify and share most of that content is to log in to Google Photos, and all your photos and videos will already be there. Using Google Photos, you can continue to upload and organize your memories, as well as enjoy other great benefits like better ways to search and share your images.

However, for those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. That way, you will still be able to view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit albums (you would now do this in Google Photos).

One thing to make clear is that none of this is happening today—if you have a Picasa Web Album you can keep using it as normal. We’ll start rolling out these changes on May 1, 2016.

Desktop application

As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.

Finally for developers, we will also be retiring some functions of the Picasa API. Developers can learn more here.

Again, none of these changes are happening today, and we’ll continue to update you along the way. We apologize for any inconvenience this transition causes, but we want to assure you that we are doing this with the aim of providing the best photos experience possible. Google Photos is a new and smarter product, that offers a better platform for us to build amazing experiences and features for you in the future.

Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Head of Google Photos”

Chinese Internet Firms to Buy Opera!

Wow, Opera being bought by Chinese Internet companies!

Opera gets $1.2 billion buyout offer from mix of Chinese firms, board recommends deal

ZDNet – By: Jake Smith – “Opera has received a $1.2 billion buyout offer from a consortium of Chinese Internet firms, the company announced on Wednesday.

The consortium includes Kunlun and Qihoo 360 and is backed by the investment funds Golden Brick and Yonglian.

Opera’s board recommends the deal.

The $1.2 billion offer is a 53 percent premium on Opera’s close as of February 4 on the Oslo stock exchange. Trading of the company has been suspended for two days following buyout rumors.

‘There is strong strategic and industrial logic to the acquisition of Opera by the Consortium,’ Opera CEO Lars Boilesen said on Wednesday. ‘The Consortium’s ownership will strengthen Opera’s position to serve our users and partners with even greater innovation, and to accelerate our plans of expansion and growth.’

Opera began looking for a buyer in August 2015, following slumping earnings after a steady loss of browser marketshare and slowing advertising sales. The company hired Morgan Stanley International and ABG Sundal Collier to help with the search.

‘Our Board has undertaken a careful review of the terms and conditions of the Offer and is unanimous in its recommendation. We commend the management team on the work they have done on behalf of the shareholders, employees and other Opera stakeholders,’ Sverre Munck, chairman of Opera’s board, said.

On behalf of the consortium, Yahui Zhou, CEO of Kunlun, said: ‘Opera is a well-recognized mobile internet company with great brand recognition and global impact. Under its excellent management team, Opera has made remarkable achievements in recent years in the fields of mobile browser and mobile advertising.'”

Dr. Bill.TV #406 – Video – “The Phred’s Vacation Edition!”

Dr. Bill updates us on his weight loss, Phred is back, and as surly as ever, Barracuda Networks’ Copy and CudaDrive services will go away May 1st, the Firefox Phone is dead, and why we should care, and this week’s GSotW: Chocolately Nuget!

Links that pertain to this Netcast:

TechPodcasts Network

International Association of Internet Broadcasters

Blubrry Network

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET

Chocolately Website


Start the Video Netcast in the Blubrry Video Player above by
clicking on the “Play” Button in the center of the screen.

(Click on the buttons below to Stream the Netcast in your “format of choice”)
Streaming M4V Audio





Streaming MP3 Audio

Streaming Ogg Audio

Download M4V Download WebM Download MP3 Download Ogg
(Right-Click on any link above, and select “Save As…” to save the Netcast on your PC.)

You may also watch the Dr. Bill.TV Show on these services!

 

Dr. Bill.TV on YouTube Dr. Bill.TV on Vimeo

 


Dr. Bill.TV #406 – Audio – “The Phred’s Vacation Edition!”

Dr. Bill updates us on his weight loss, Phred is back, and as surly as ever, Barracuda Networks’ Copy and CudaDrive services will go away May 1st, the Firefox Phone is dead, and why we should care, and this week’s GSotW: Chocolately Nuget!

Links that pertain to this Netcast:

TechPodcasts Network

International Association of Internet Broadcasters

Blubrry Network

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET

Chocolately Website


Start the Video Netcast in the Blubrry Video Player above by
clicking on the “Play” Button in the center of the screen.

(Click on the buttons below to Stream the Netcast in your “format of choice”)
Streaming M4V Audio





Streaming MP3 Audio

Streaming Ogg Audio

Download M4V Download WebM Download MP3 Download Ogg
(Right-Click on any link above, and select “Save As…” to save the Netcast on your PC.)

You may also watch the Dr. Bill.TV Show on these services!

 

Dr. Bill.TV on YouTube Dr. Bill.TV on Vimeo

 


Geek Software of the Week: Chocolatety Nuget!

How cool is it to be able to install software on Windows as easily as apt-get does in Debian based Linux distros?

Chocolately Website

“Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows (like apt-get or yum but for Windows). It was designed to be a decentralized framework for quickly installing applications and tools that you need. It is built on the NuGet infrastructure currently using PowerShell as its focus for delivering packages from the distros to your door, err computer.

Chocolatey is brought to you by the work and inspiration of the community, the work and thankless nights of the Chocolatey Team, and Rob heading up the direction.

You can host your own sources and add them to Chocolatey, you can extend Chocolatey’s capabilities, and folks, it’s only going to get better.

With all of this in mind, think of Chocolatey as a framework that you can build on top of. Chef, Puppet and Boxstarter all have ways for using Chocolatey to ensure the state of a computer and packages installed. Even Microsoft has decided to use Chocolatey’s framework with the upcoming OneGet client! See Jeffrey Snover’s post for more information.”

You Should Care That the Firefox Phone is Dead

I wasn’t too excited when Mozilla announced the Firefox phone, but competition IS good!

Why the death of the Firefox phone matters

c|net – By: Stephen Shankland – “Maybe you didn’t bat an eye when Mozilla killed off Firefox phones.

The nonprofit, after all, faced long odds in taking on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile software. And the Firefox OS software had been on a downward trajectory over the past year.

But you should care that Mozilla admitted defeat Thursday because it’s further evidence that we live in an Apple-and-Google-only mobile world. Both increasingly draw you into their universe of native apps, where they have more control over what you use. Mozilla, by contrast, offered a more open alternative. The nonprofit’s overall waning influence has made it harder to build a vibrant Web, extend its utility to phones, and keep Google and Apple power in check.

Not that Google or Apple are up to anything nefarious, but history is full of examples of big companies abusing their powers, including Microsoft, IBM and the old Ma Bell version of AT&T. You already see heavy-handed behavior with your phone. Don’t like Apple Maps on iOS? Tough luck. It’s the default.

When the first Firefox OS phones arrived two and a half years ago, Mozilla hoped to repeat its success from a decade earlier when the Firefox browser successfully challenged Microsoft’s dominant Internet Explorer and sparked a tremendous burst of innovation and competition. Instead, Firefox OS was bunched with mobile software also-rans like BlackBerry, Canonical’s Ubuntu and Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

‘The circumstances of multiple established operating systems and app ecosystems meant that we were playing catch-up,’ John Bernard, director of collaboration for connected devices, and George Roter, head of core contributor participation, said Thursday in a note.

Ari Jaaksi, Mozilla’s senior vice president of connected devices, said in a blog post that Mozilla will instead focus Firefox OS on the Internet of Things, shorthand for the spread of computing technology to countless devices in homes and businesses.

Firefox as a whole is losing clout, though. The Firefox browser’s market share plunged from 19 percent to 9 percent worldwide over the last three years, while Google’s Chrome rose from 32 percent to 48 percent, according to analytics firm StatCounter. On smartphones, you’re more likely to use Apple’s Safari browser on your iPhone or Chrome on your Android device. Increasingly, you’re also relying more on so-called native apps.

Not that the Web has disappeared. Who wants to laboriously search for, download and install an app when all you need is a museum’s hours or a flight check-in? Even if you do end up installing a company’s app, its website is often how you interact first.

Mountain View, California-based Mozilla used Firefox OS to advance Web technology on mobile devices during a time when Apple became more interested in supporting developers of native apps. Despite its focus on Android, Google remains interested in Web development. Yet for years, Mozilla has helped vet and validate Google’s plans even as it introduced new technologies like asm.js for faster Web apps and WebGL for hardware-accelerated graphics.

Mobile failures

Firefox OS struggled throughout its development. In May, Mozilla Chief Executive Chris Beard concluded that the company’s effort to find a Firefox OS foothold in low-end, low-cost phones had failed despite partnerships with major carriers like Deutsche Telekom and handset makers like Huawei. In December, Mozilla abandoned partnerships with companies like Verizon.

Plan B was to encourage enthusiasts to install Firefox OS on their own phones and turn them into evangelists, replaying the Firefox 1.0 playbook from 2004. But few phones are compatible, installing Firefox OS is harder than installing an app, and popular software like the WhatsApp messaging app is missing.

Tellingly, two high-ranking ex-Mozilla executives rely on Google’s Chrome technology. Former CTO Andreas Gal’s Internet of Things startup, Silk Labs, uses the Node.js project, which is based on a crucial part of Chrome called V8. Former CEO Brendan Eich’s new Brave browser is a variation of Chrome’s fundamentals, too.

‘We did a careful head-to-head comparison and by every measure’ Google’s technology won, Eich said in a January mailing list message. ‘We wish Mozilla well, but as a startup, we must use all sound leverage available to us.’

Firefox OS will live on in another form, H5OS, at Acadine Technologies, the startup of former Mozilla President Li Gong. Gong will release the first version of H5OS at the Mobile World Congress show this month and believes Mozilla’s withdrawal means more attention for Acadine.

‘We are the standard bearer in the open and Web-based mobile OS space,’ Gong said.

Mozilla itself will continue to push the Firefox browser for Android and iOS devices and for personal computers. Nick Nguyen, vice president of Firefox, promises better performance and new features over the next year.

‘Hundreds of millions of users worldwide depend on desktop Firefox,’ Nguyen said. ‘We will continue to dedicate the resources needed to build a great browser.'”

Copy Cloud Storage to Die May 1st

Here’s what they say for themselves:

Copy and CudaDrive services will be discontinued.

We are announcing today that the Copy and CudaDrive services will be discontinued on May 1, 2016.

Copy and CudaDrive have provided easy-to-use cloud file services and sharing functionality to millions of users the past 4+ years. However, as our business focus has shifted, we had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the Copy and CudaDrive services and allocate those resources elsewhere. For more information on this decision, please view the blog post from Rod Mathews our VP & GM, Storage Business.

We know this comes as disappointing news to our users, but rest assured that we will do everything we can to take care of each of you in the manner for which Barracuda is known. We have partnered with Mover to make migrating your data to another service as easy as possible and have created a step by step guide that walks you through the process of moving your data to a local hard drive or another cloud storage solution.

If you are on a paid subscription for either Copy or CudaDrive, please keep an eye out in the coming days for an email with more detailed information on your options. For additional information, please visit our FAQ page.

Thank you to everyone for your support.

All the best,
The Copy & CudaDrive Team