This Is The Story Of How Gmail Went From Closed Beta To Public phenomenon

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Many of you may not remember, but Gmail wasn’t always so popular. It also wasn’t always meant for the wide range of general public. Once decided though that Google wanted to share the joys of Gmail with everyone, it entered a closed beta and well… the rest is history as they say. Fast forward to today and Gmail is probably one of if not the most widely used email service. Interested in knowing how Gmail came to be and ended up as one of the most commonly used services of people on the web? Good. Because we were too and we want to share the story. As I said, Gmail wasn’t always meant for the general public. However today marks the 10th anniversary of Gmail’s launch, and it’s quite interesting to think that most people saw this as a simple April Fools joke back then.

Gmail has seen a wide range of changes since it all began, launching it into the upper echelon of email powerhouses that we know and use in today’s day and age, but we shouldn’t forget it’s humble beginnings. Gmail for those of you who don’t know, actually started with search, or rather with a search feature, which if you think about it is kind of ironic given the nature of Google’s main service offered, which to this day is web searches. Gmail’s creator, Paul Bucheeit, began work on Gmail in 2001 but had previously attempted a web email service years earlier in 1996. Drawing from his experiences over the years, and gathering feedback from fellow engineers at Google who suggested that Gmail incorporate searching emails into its list of features and functionality, giving users the capability to search within their own email inbox to find specific content that they might have forgotten about, built Gmail with the idea that it could allow users to virtually keep their emails forever, and finding old mail by searching for it. This coupled with the decision to give users a large amount of space for storing emails made Gmail one of the most revolutionary web mail services at the time, and it still continues to innovate with fun and exciting new features.

Even Gmail’s design and look on a user based personal level has come a long way, offering things like the infamous Shelfie theme users can apply to their Gmail inbox as part of the April Fools set of gags this year. Gmail didn’t always look like this though. You didn’t always have the option for things like themes. just like most other web mail services, it had a basic design to it that had just the right amount of Googleyness, which we can thank Kevin Fox for,(Gmail’s designer)who was a new Google employee at the time. Gmail was finally launched in 2004, and Google had in fact methodically selected April 1st as the date to announce the release of Gmail to the public, because they knew that it would lead some people to believe it was just another one of their April Fools Day pranks. The jokes started for Google in 2000(Y2k as we might fondly remember), which is why they had a good idea that people would claim the Google email service as a fallacy. The date wasn’t the only factor which played into this theory, as the amount of storage space also had a small role to play, since 1GB of storage space for any email service at the time was unheard of. However, Gmail to much of the public dismay was not a prank, and now it is the proverbial champion among similar services. How do you use Gmail? Do you keep your inbox relatively clean or do you let things go on and on and on until the end of time?

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Draw Awesome Pictures With Your Friends With The New Chromecast Game Doodlecast

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Do you all remember Draw Something? It was insanely popular for a time and those that remember its inception and have actually played it know that it was a god among men(for games), sitting high atop the throne just like games before and after it. The basic idea of the game was to try and draw something for an opponent who you played against online and they would end up having to guess what it was. Almost like pictionary. If it was your turn to draw, you would pick a category from which to be given something to draw for your opponent, which would end up being something random within those category guidelines. While the original Draw Something was quite fun in its own right, it would be much more fun when played as a party game or in the company of real friends who you have actually met and see face to face on occasion.

This is where the game Doodlecast comes in. It’s a great new game for Chromecast that allows you a similar style of play for the big on screen experience that you get when streaming other already available games to Chromecast. It isn’t the first game to launch for use with the streaming media dongle, others like Dehumanize your friends(previously known as casts against civility, the Cards Against Humanity clone) and others have already been out for a little while, but for the pictionary fans out there this proves to be one game that can be fun for the entire group.

The game while awesome, does its few downfalls, one of which is a low number of possible words and phrases to be drawn out. Although this is a minor setback, the app is in its complete infancy so expect plenty of updates in the future that should expand on its vocabulary and give the players more value in it. The game does well to put some more variety into what’s available for the Chromecast owners who enjoy games, and just like the other games on Chromecast, it’s turn based, so each person that connects up to the Chromecast will take turns choosing a word to draw which appears up on screen. If you enjoy a good game of pictionary, this is certainly a must have to play on the Chromecast. Doodlecast is free, and you can grab the game from the link here.

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Oppo Giving Away Three Free Accessories To Find7a Pre-Order Customers

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Are you going to be one of the first in your group of friends and family members to obtain the Oppo Find 7a? you probably already know that Oppo will be starting pre-orders this next week on Monday, April 7th, but what you may not have known is that those who pre-order the device will get a few accessories for free along with their phone when it arrives. Or perhaps you did know but just like the rest of us you just weren’t aware of what the complimentary items would be. What do you get? Something every device owner could use, a spare battery. That’s not all though as Oppo is also going to be sending pre-order customers an easy style cover to go along with the device as well. That sounds like a great deal to us.

While a spare battery and a free easy style back cover for the phone are great, what has our interest piqued is the third freebie that Oppo says is going out to those who pre-order the device. The company announced all this on their Facebook page this morning, but looking closely at the image accompanying the post we can see that they have an unannounced item going with the first two that they will unveil on April 4th. That’s just a few short days away from now and only a few days before the pre-orders begin, so if you want to get in on this awesome deal from Oppo it would be advantageous to scrounge up $499 which will be the cost to pre-order the Oppo Find 7a on the 7th. For those who are more interested in the Oppo Find 7 2K model, you’ll end up having to cough up an extra $100 to get your hands on it.

The oppo Find 7a comes powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, and has 2GB of RAM to allocate for all those memory intensive tasks. Worried most about the camera quality? Don’t be. The rear camera will give you stunning(although we have yet to test it for ourselves) 13MP quality images, and for the selfie aficionado there is a 5MP shooter on the front. All those pictures will look great on the 5.5-inch 1080P display and you have no problem storing all of them with the 16GB of internal storage, although if you need more you can simply slide in a microSD card in the expandable storage slot that is included. Sadly there’s no Android kit kat, but hopefully that’ll come down the road. Looking to pick one of these up? Get your wallets ready for the 7th, and stay tuned to find out what Oppo is giving away as the third free accessory.

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Humble Bundle:PC And Android 9 Is Here With Six Totally Awesome Games

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This is not a joke people. I repeat, this is not a joke. Humble Bundle has indeed launched Humble Bundle: PC and Android 9 today, the page is live, and you can pay what you want to help charity and get six awesome games to play on either PC through steam, or on the go via your Android device of choice. As we all know with Humble Bundle game packs, there are usually four games in the pack that you will get for whatever amount you wish to pay to help charity,(a little bit of the money can go to the devs and Humble Bundle as well, so be a little generous) while the other games included are unlockable, meaning you have to pay the minimum average amount to unlock those games and take your gaming to epic new heights.

The games included in this bundle are Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror, an interactive adventure game with great cartoon style art visuals, Bridge Constructor(just in case your life long dream has been to become a civil engineer and build bridges, now you can!), Type:Rider which is an immersive platformer that tasks you with exploring typography like never before, and Ravensord: Shadowlands, the award winning open world RPG from Crescent Moon Games. Still hungry for more games? Great! The good news is that if you pay the minimum average amount which is $3.49 at the time of this publication, you’ll also unlock two additional games, Kingdom Rush, and Knights of Pen and Paper.

That’s six awesome games, for just a little more than the original cost of Ravensword: Shadowlands by itself. Should you decide that you want to play the games on both platforms, you can do that. Just sign into your humble bundle account on either your PC or your android device and download the appropriate game file to proceed. The bundle remains live for about two weeks, but like many bundles who have come before it, Humble Bundle: PC and Android 9 will most likely end up having games added to it as extra unlockable titles, which you’ll gain access to at no additional cost if you have paid the minimum average amount. While there is no guarantee that Humble Bundle will add in extra titles to unlock, it happens near every time so it’s safe to assume there’s a good chance with this bundle as well. Get Humble Bundle for PC and Android 9 while the average price is low for the absolute best deal.

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Leaked Images Surface Of The Huawei Ascend P7 Showing Off The Front

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With all the fuss surrounding leaks on the HTC One M8 the last few weeks, and the buzz about Samsung’s upcoming flagship device, it seems we may have almost forgotten that other OEMs exist and that they have phones set to launch this year as well. Huawei is one of those OEMs that while no longer having a presence in the US, they are huge in their home market of China and other regions. Their newest addition to their smartphone lineup will be the upcoming Ascend P7, which seems to have posed for the camera again but this time out in the wild. These images found their way online thanks to the Chinese Weibo network, that display the a phone that is all set up for internal testing. The images are pretty low on quality and resolution so it’s hard to make out many details.

These wouldn’t be the first leaks of the Ascend P7 to show up on the web, as there were photos of the back panel that popped up not too long ago, but we’d say Huawei has done a pretty good job of keeping images of their new unreleased handset off of the internet compared to HTC. The Huawei Ascend P7 is expected to launch sometime later this year, and we’d wager that as we get closer to the release date it’s possible that more leaks could surface on the web for our viewing pleasure.

The Ascend P7 is rumored to have a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution, and come packed with Huawei’s own HiSilicon Balong chipset that is clocked at 1.6GHz. It’s also rumored to be holding 2GB of RAM which seems to be the standard for new flagships, and we’d expect no less from any OEM that offers high end handsets. The Ascend P7 is supposed to be running Huawei’s version 2.0 if their Emotion UI, and come sporting a 13MP rear camera for taking pictures, all while running off of a 2,460 mAh battery. So far there’s no word on cost, actual availability or what version of the Android OS is to be running on this new device from Huawei, although some are speculating that it will be running Jelly Bean and not the latest, Android 4.4 kit kat.

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OnePlus and Cyanogen Inc., Holding a Contest for 10 OnePlus One’s now Through April 10th

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While today is mostly about joking, since it is April Fool’s Day, the folks at OnePlus has started their own giveaway. They are giving away a new OnePlus One each day through the 10th of this month. Which is a pretty cool idea, actually. This case-chase campaign will be taking place in 10 places throughout the world, mostly in the US though. Basically a Cyanogen Inc, agent will be waiting for players in each of these 10 locations. Obviously the exact place where the Cyanogen Inc., agent is, will be a secret but they will be giving out clues. You’ll have to give them a manly handshake and whisper a secret word or phrase to them as well. Which will probably be their catch phrase “Never Settle”.

Each Cyanogen Inc., agent in each location will also have a package in tow. Which may or may not have the OnePlus One inside, since the release date is now April 23rd, it’ll likely be a code so you can get your free OnePlus One once it launches later this month. CyanogenMod will be releasing additional details about the Case Chase on their Twitter handle every day, so you’ll want to be sure that you are following them on Twitter. Cyanogen also announced that the runners up will also get some sort of prize from the developer team, if you don’t win the grand prize of the OnePlus One. Which is definitely a nice prize.

The OnePlus One is supposedly going to feature a 5.5-inch 1080p display with very small bezels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor inside, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of Storage, and an amazing camera, all for under $400. Of course with Cyanogen’s own custom software on the device, which is a bit different than the AOSP builds we all know and love.

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Rumor: Will Amazon’s Streaming Device Be An HDMI Dongle Like Chromecast?

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We all like rumors right? Who doesn’t? They give us something to chew on and hope for, while we wait for official statements from the companies that are producing the products that become the topic of our discussions. Today we’ll be going over all of or most of the rumors about the new Amazon product, the streamer box that plenty of people have been talking about, and what we know or think we know so far. As of right now we know that Amazon has scheduled something for the day of April 2nd, we just don’t what that is yet. We do know that it will be taking place at precisely 11 am EST, or 8 am PST for those of us on the West Coast. As you all may already know, April 2nd is tomorrow, so we’ll know soon enough what they have planned for the event.

Now let’s dig in to the rumors. There has been plenty of talk about Amazons next device, and it seems that the most likely product to be making an appearance will be their streamer box that would compete with the likes of Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV. Like the Chromecast and the Roku, the streamer box may not actually end up being a box at all, and Amazon could end up releasing the streamer as an HDMI dongle instead. This would actually make plenty of sense as it could plug right into the back of your TV discretely, and it would be infinitely more portable than an actual streamer box that has to be plugged in with an a/c adapter, and actually utilize an HDMI cable instead.

In addition to the devices design, the Amazon streamer(stick?) might end up being based off of a forked version of Android just like Amazon’s line of Kindle Fire tablets, which we wouldn’t call too far fetched, as they already have the software side of things in place and wouldn’t have to create an entirely new ecosystem to power the streamer. Although this is Amazon’s streamer, and we can certainly expect to see Amazon instant video as the star of the show, you can bet that big players like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other major video apps will likely make a debut on the device as well. In fact, that’s one of the major rumors surrounding the device. Seeing as how those media streaming options are also already available on their line of tablets, there’s no reason not to add it into a device such as a streamer also.

Rounding out the rumors for this currently mystical device from the largest online retailer, is that Amazon could be considering an ad based service to run on the streaming device, which would definitely set it apart. We have also seen some images of what appears to be an Amazon bluetooth game controller, which suggests that Amazon’s new streaming box/stick could support gaming capabilities, although to what extent yet we have no idea. As of yet there has been little talk about price and availability, but we might end up learning more tomorrow morning when Amazon’s big event jumps off. What are your thoughts on Amazon’s new streaming device? Will it be a box, an HDMI stick, will it have gaming capabilities? What would be the sweet spot on pricing to entice you to buy? Tune in tomorrow as we’ll be sure to update you on the latest.

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