weave

Windows Azure Cloud Computing Powers Popular Line of Windows Phone Apps

November 23, 2011 | By aemami

Seles Games, the company behind popular news readers Weave (reviewed here), Windows Phone News, Tech News Now, as well as several other apps, recently switched to Windows Azure to provide fast delivery of news for WP7 users. Their press release appears below.

Windows Azure competes with Amazon Web Services as well as Google App Engine in the realm of cloud computing – and while Amazon’s cloud solution is the more widely used and discussed platform, Microsoft has made an excellent case for Windows Phone developers to use Azure for Windows Phone development.

“Press Release: Seles Games switches to Windows Azure for all news apps – sees huge speed gains.

Since switching to Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of time it takes to download articles in our news apps.

The gains have been staggering – even on a slow cellular connection, our apps are able to download news in a fraction of the time it took prior to using the Windows Azure platform!

By leveraging Azure, our apps such as Weave and Windows Phone News are able to bring users fresh news up to 5000% faster than competing products. That is no typo – compared to an app like Pulse, we can download over 3 times as many feeds and do it 50 times faster.

We are very pleased with Windows Azure as a platform. We will be continue to leverage Azure for our news reader apps, as well as some new apps we have in the pipeline.

We believe it is a very compelling platform for Windows Phone developers who need a fast cloud-based solution.

Seles Games is a company dedicated to providing incredible Windows Phone application experiences to users.

Our apps.

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames”

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Inspired by Windows 8, Weave 3.0 takes Metro on Windows Phone to a new level

August 24, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Seles Games – makers of the popular “Windows Phone News” app – is proud to announce the latest update to their signature news reader Weave. For the first time ever, Weave is now available as a FREE application.

Weave 3.0 has been rebuilt from the ground up to be faster, more beautiful, and easier to use than ever. The redesign of the app was inspired by the new tablet interface for Windows 8. The changes reflect a more evolved take on Metro – ideal for anyone tired of all the various apps that look exactly alike!

List of new features in v3.0:

Powered by Windows Azure, all feed parsing now happens “in the cloud”. End result – news articles come in much faster than before, regardless of how many feeds and categories you have enabled
New article coloring: when in an article list, all old articles will appear in your phone’s accent color. New articles, however, will appear in the complementary color of your phone’s accent color.
The number of new articles is now highlighted in the phone’s accent color on the top right of the article list page, above the page count,
Article list has a new UI. The application bar at the bottom of the screen has been removed. The ‘refresh’, ‘previous page’, and ‘next page’ buttons have all been moved to the top left side of the page. This frees up more pixels vertically, and we feel leads to a better look overall. Additionally, a settings button has been added to that page.
The ‘settings’ button now links to a new page that lets you select amongst different preset font sizes. You can also change the font thickness/weight.
You also have checkboxes to toggle what actions happen when you tap on an article, giving you more control over how Weave functions.
You can now toggle the System Tray (i.e. time, battery life, WiFi, etc.) on or off on the article list page.
At the top of the page, you can now tap on the large category name to bring down a navigation menu that takes you directly to another category!
New ‘share’ button. Tapping it once brings up the share tiles (5 of them: Instapaper, Twitter, email, Facebook, Internet Explorer). Aside from looking cooler, we feel this new approach is easier and faster to use.
Most animations throughout the application have been sped up.

Download the free version of Weave here (opens Zune).

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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World News Now released; available for FREE for Windows Phone users

April 27, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Seles Games is proud to announce the release of World News Now. World News Now gathers articles concerning the topics of World News, U.S. News, Sports, Entertainment, Business, and Politics, presented with the same gorgeous interface used in their line of popular news readers (including Weave).

World News Now features a hand-curated selection of the best news feeds available on the web. Every feed was selected due to its stellar article and image quality. The result is a mash-up of the world’s best newspapers and websites, in the palm of your hand, available any time you want and at your complete convenience!

Full list of news sources included in World News Now:

CNN
The Guardian
The Star
The Telegraph
The Christian Science Monitor
Chicago Tribune
L.A. Times
N.Y. Times
MSNBC
Google
SI.com
ESPN
Yahoo!
The Hollywood Reporter
PopSugar
Radar Online
Hitfix.com
Rotten Tomatoes
Latino Review
FOX News
Hot Air
NPR
Crooks and Liars
Business Insider
Fast Company
Forbes
Inc.com
Investors.com
Reuters
Signal vs. Noise
The Economist
The Wall Street Journal

World News Now is available for free at this link (opens Zune).

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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Weave version 2.9 released; goes on sale for LG users

April 5, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Seles Games is proud to announce the latest update to their Windows Phone news reader, Weave.

The new mobilizer renders pages incredibly fast – as much as 20x faster than viewing a page normally. Additionally, articles are presented with the same Metro typeface and styling that Windows Phone users love.

Windows Phone users who own an LG phone had been able to download a special LG promo edition of Weave for free as part of LG’s hAPPiness campaign. Since that version is no longer available, Seles Games wanted a way to make it easier for LG users to get the regular version of Weave.

Seles Games is making Weave available again for $0.99 (66% off) from now until April 10th. The sale gives existing LG users, as well as new users, a way to get the latest version at the lowest possible price.

List of new features in v2.9:

Metro-themed mobilizer – now you can view full articles in speed and style!
Enhanced readability when viewing article excerpts
Refreshed styling of the article list
Various performance tweaks and enhancements
New Twitter sharing page – click the bird to send the word!

Version 2.9 brings an industry first – a mobile-optimized website experience specifically designed for Windows Phones. You can try or purchase Weave here.

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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Windows Phone News – Free App for keeping up with the latest WP7 news

February 23, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Seles Games is proud to announce the release of Windows Phone News, a FREE news reader catering to fans of Windows Phone.

Featuring news from the best WP7-focused websites and blogs, Windows Phone News offers an incredible news-reading experience for Windows Phone lovers everywhere.

Utilizing the technology that powers Weave, you get all the same great features, such as: preview and view full articles at your leisure; easily manage your news sources via the settings screen; share articles via email, Facebook, and Twitter; save articles to Instapaper at the touch of a button; read full articles via the lightning-fast mobilizer service!

The full list of sites included in the app:

WMPoweruser.com
Engadget
1800PocketPc
MobileTechWorld
Pocket-lint
WPCentral.com
Windows Roundup
#WP7 Twitter Feed
ZDNet

Download the app directly from Zune.

Seles Games is a company dedicated to providing incredible Windows Phone application experiences to users.

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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Weave version 2.3 Released Today

February 9, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Since its launch in November, Weave has quickly become the standard-bearer for excellent news readers on the Windows Phone platform.

Today, Seles Games is pleased to announce the release of Weave version 2.3 to the marketplace. This update brings new features frequently requested by the WP7 community. You can try or purchase Weave here.

This release brings usability enhancements, along with one of the most frequently requested features, improving what many already consider the best news/RSS reader on not just the Windows Phone 7 platform, but any platform.

List of new features in v2.3:

Loading indicator – now you can see when exactly Weave is pulling down new data!
Manual refresh button – users can refresh news for the current category they are viewing
Performance enhancements – in particular, the UI is more responsive while news is being updated.
Swipe-to-next-article: you can now swipe through articles when viewing an article summary

Seles Games is a company dedicated to providing incredible Windows Phone application experiences to users.

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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Tech News Now released for Windows Phone 7

January 10, 2011 | By aemami

Press Release: Seles Games is proud to announce the release of Tech News Now, a FREE news reader geared towards fans of technology websites and blogs.

Featuring news from 21 hand-picked technology websites, and powered by the same RSS engine that runs Weave, Tech News Now offers an incredible news-reading experience for technology lovers everywhere.

Utilizing the technology that powers Weave, you get all the same great features, such as: preview and view full articles at your leisure; easily manage your news sources via the settings screen; share articles via email, Facebook, and Twitter; save articles to Instapaper at the touch of a button!

The full list of sites included in the app:

Ars Technica
All Things Digital
Betanews
CenterNetworks
CrunchGear
Digital Daily
Engadget
Engadget HD
GigaOM
Gizmodo
Mashable
ReadWriteWeb
Redmond Pie
TechDirt
The Next Web
Silicon Alley Insider
SlashGear
TechCrunch
VentureBeat
Wall Street Journal
Wired.com

Seles Games is a company dedicated to providing incredible Windows Phone application experiences to users.

Follow us on Twitter for news on app updates, sales/promotions, and more! @SelesGames

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Weave bookmark sync comes to Fennec for Windows Mobile

July 31, 2009 | By Surur

We may have jumped the gun a bit when we wrote a few months ago that Weave was available for Fennec for Windows Mobile. The latest version, version 0.5, however corrects the error, and the software now natively supports our mobile OS.

Weave Sync is encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together. In short, Weave Sync lets you securely take your Firefox experience with you to all your Firefox browsers — including your mobile Firefox browser.

It currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs and allows, for example to:

Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favourite sites with just a few keystrokes
Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers
Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers
Easily sign in to all your favourite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)
Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data

Version 0.5 brings major performance improvements during upload and download, improved support for bookmark tags and smart folders, support for changing passwords and passphrases, better error handling and reporting and of course support for Fennec on Windows Mobile.

Weave can be installed from Mozilla here. (requires Firefox 3.5 or higher)

Via LifeHacker.com.

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FireFox weave released, syncs your browser sessions between your desktop and smartphone

June 29, 2009 | By Surur

Weave Sync 0.4 has just been released by Mozilla labs and now supports the new Fennec Alpha 2 for Windows Mobile. Weave Sync lets you take your Firefox experience with you to all your Firefox browsers. It currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs. For example:

Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favourite sites with just a few keystrokes
Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers
Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers
Easily sign in to all your favourite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)
Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data

Weave 0.4 brings:

Preference syncing (including Personas)
Identity support (automatic login, including use of OpenID logins)
Better support for addons using Weave
Support for Fennec 1.0 beta 2.
Significant improvements in performance during startup and opening new windows.

Weave 0.4 can for Firefox 3.5 (the only supported desktop version) can be downloaded from here.

Via LifeHacker.com

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