Web Log

Compiled by JOHN COLLINS

INSTALL: GroupShot for better family snaps

It’s a perennial problem. You have a lovely family photo but invariably someone is looking the wrong way, has a hand in front of the face or just doesn’t feel they look their best. With GroupShot installed you grab a couple of shots from the same scene and the software cleverly allows you to swap the faces between them.

It might be a one-trick pony but at €0.79 this iPhone app is a very cheap one.

[ groupshot.com ]

SEARCH: Outside the bubble without leaving a trace

It’s a brave company that decides to launch a search engine when Google dominates the space and Microsoft is burning millions to try and catch up. But DuckDuckGo has a simple premise – “We don’t track or bubble you”. In other words, it doesn’t retain data on what you search for. It also claims to give you the raw search results, not those from within the “bubble” that Google and others create based on your past experiences and preferences.

[ duckduckgo.com ]

WATCH: Future Hipsters on YouTube

So what are all those cool kids working in social media going to look like in 2062? This amusing minute-and-a-half clip of tattooed, beanie-wearing older people gives you some indication as they reminisce about “building apps that did absolutely nothing”, working as “community managers” and why no one realised the whole concept of “viral” communications was rigged. The spoof would probably have been even more hard-hitting if it hadn’t been released to promote Social Media Week.

[ iti.ms/yIAssI ]

BOOKMARK: Hacker Shelf

There is a real grassroots movement growing around the idea of people educating themselves with the skills needed to get back to work and hackershelf.comfits right into that ethos. It's a collection of books that are freely available online which are submitted by visitors to the site. Although with a heavy technological bent at the moment, the site says any books for the "intellectually curious" are available free online.

[ hackershelf.com ]