World's Smallest Battery Yet is About as Thick as a Human Hair

Nanotechnology promises to enable tiny, intricate circuits powering devices on any surface. But unless they’re harvesting energy from something like a heartbeat, the devices can only be as small as the smallest battery.

Now researchers at Rice University have combined the two, packing an entire lithium-ion battery into a single nanowire. The developers say it’s as small as such a device can possibly get.

Researchers led by Rice professor Pulickel Ajayan built a hybrid energy storage device, which serves as a battery and a supercapacitor. The first version sandwiched an electrolyte between a nickel/tin anode and a cathode made of a polymer called polyaniline. The cathode also served as a supercapacitor, storing lithium ions in bulk, as this writeup by Rice University explains. The prototype proved that lithium ions would move through the electrolyte and into the cathode.

Then Ajayan and colleagues incorporated this structure into a single nanowire, through a complicated process of etching and chemical washing. The goal is to make nanowires with ultra-thin separation between electrodes, so the device can remain as small as possible.

The completed wire-batteries are about 50 microns tall, which is roughly the diameter of a human hair, according to Rice.

For now, they can only charge and discharge about 20 times before they die, but researchers are trying to optimize them to last longer. The research is published in the journal ACS Nano Letters.

[Popsci via PhysOrg]

White Samsung Galaxy S2: Release Date, Specs and Price

The white version of best selling Samsung Galaxy S2 has been hinted for a September 2011 release in the UK. White Samsung Galaxy S2, functionally identical to the existing black Galaxy S2, which hit the market 85 days ago, and has already racked up 5 million sales record with Samsung. The new White Samsung Galaxy S2 model means another 5 million units sale, which seems to be a very smart move on the foot print of Apple.

White Samsung Galaxy S2 Features and Specs

It does appear that white is the only difference from the black version with no change to specs. The White Samsung Galaxy S2, like its Samsung Galaxy S2 black version, is Worlds Thinnest Smartphone, loaded with Android mobile operating system. The Samsung Galaxy S2 is the successor to the critically acclaimed Samsung Galaxy S, featuring:

• 1.2 GHz Dual-Core SoC Processor
• Samsung Exynos Processor (GT-I9100 model) or Nvidia Tegra 2 Processor (GT-I9103 model)
• 1GB RAM
• 10.9 Centimetre (4.3 inches) WVGA Super AMOLED Plus Display
• 8 Megapixel LED Flash Camera with HD 1080p videos recording
• USB Host (OTG) Function Support
• Upgraded version of Android, officially known as TouchWiz 4.0
• Enhanced Accessibility with Multi Touch Gestures and Clean Widget Arrangements
• It also supports Mobile High-definition Link (MHL), which allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output with HDMI while charging the device at the same time.

White Samsung Galaxy S2 Release Date

The incoming White Samsung Galaxy S2 variant was first previewed by a UK retailer earlier in the week, though the original product page suggested an August 15 launch and has since been taken down.

Since, Samsung Galaxy S2 is going to be released for sale in the US, in August 2011 through Verizon. Its white version, Samsung White Galaxy S2 Release Date is expected to be somewhere in late September or October 2011.

White Samsung Galaxy S2 Price

Right now it appears one can only pick White Samsung Galaxy S2 at full retail price, between £410 and £500 ($669 to $800 USD) depending on ones country.

White Samsung Galaxy S2 Price is listed at for an unlocked, SIM-free model, though Samsung UK tells us that the white version will be made available through carriers as well, so iTechWhiz expect some easy cheap subsidized deals and offers.

3D Displays Does Cause 'visual discomfort'

No, it's not just you. According to studies recently conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, the viewing of stereoscopic 3D displays does indeed cause visual discomfort, fatigue and headaches. The problem appears to come from the fact that the viewers' eyes are simultaneously trying to focus on the screen, and on objects that appear to be located either in front of or behind that screen.

The studies involved 24 adult subjects, who viewed 3D content both on small, consumer electronics-style screens, and on larger, theater-style screens. With the smaller screens, which are viewed at a closer distance, content that appeared to be located in front of the screen caused the most discomfort. Interestingly, however, viewing of the larger, more distant screens was most uncomfortable when content appeared to be located behind the screen.

"When watching stereo 3D displays, the eyes must focus - that is, accommodate - to the distance of the screen because that's where the light comes from," said Martin S. Banks, professor of optometry and vision science. "At the same time, the eyes must converge to the distance of the stereo content, which may be in front of or behind the screen."

Further studies are planned, which would include a larger number of test subjects, including children. The U Berkeley researchers hope that their findings could be used to establish guidelines for the positioning of viewers relative to 3D displays.

"Discomfort associated with viewing Stereo 3D is a major problem that may limit the use of technology," said Banks. "We hope that our findings will inspire more research in this area."

The research was recently published in The Association for Research and Vision in Ophthalmology's Journal of Vision.

Source: Gizmag

Apple Becomes World's Top Smartphone Vendor Passing Nokia and Holding Off Samsung

Just hours after research firm IDC released data showing Apple dramatically outpacing the overall mobile phone industry in year-over-year growth for the second quarter of 2011, Strategy Analytics has confirmed that Apple has indeed become the world's largest smartphone manufacturer. In that smaller but faster-growing submarket, Apple dethroned long-time leader Nokia and just barely held off a fast-rising Samsung to take the top spot.

Alex Spektor, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global smartphone shipments grew a healthy 76 percent annually to reach a record 110 million units in Q2 2011. We had previously reported on Apple becoming the largest smartphone vendor in terms of revenue and profits. Now, just four years after the release of the original iPhone, Apple has become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume with 18 percent market share. Apple’s growth remained strong as it expanded distribution worldwide, particularly in China and Asia.”

With both Apple and Nokia reporting their quarterly financial results last week, it was confirmed that Apple had passed Nokia, but some analysts had suggested that Samsung might surge past both companies on the strength of its Android-based handset sales. While Samsung did indeed achieve remarkable 520% year-over-year smartphone growth to move from 5.0% of the market to 17.5%, Apple's performance was strong enough to at least temporarily take the crown with 18.5% of the market. 

ABI Research has also released similar data showing Apple on top of the smartphone market with Samsung in a close second.

ABI Research Senior Analyst Michael Morgan comments: “Although Apple’s 142% YoY growth placed it as number one this quarter, Samsung’s 500% YoY growth shows that going forward, the top smartphone OEM position is Samsung’s to lose.”

ABI Research estimates that 47 million Android phones were sold during the quarter, giving the platform 46.4% of the smartphone market, more than double that of the iPhone.

New Liquid Biomaterial Could Help Rebuild Faces Without Surgery

Doctors are testing a new liquid polymer that can be injected under the skin, molded and sculpted, then set in place with a LED array. Ultimately intended for use around the face, it sounds like a plastic surgeon's worst nightmare.

According to Technology Review, the compound is made of substances that are already used in cosmetic surgery, but has different properties than any before it.

It's a blend of hyaluronic acid-a biological material already used as a soft-tissue implant-and polyethylene glycol, a synthetic material. The blend is a liquid polymer that can be injected-thus avoiding the need for surgery. Once injected, the material can be sculpted into the necessary shape. When exposed to light of specific wavelengths, the messy tangle of polymer chains in the liquid implant rearrange into a stable, crosshatched form, stiffening the implant.

It only takes a few minutes in front of the LED light array before the material sets, and the procedure is generally pain-free once finished. Doctors recently completed a small trial in Canada, which was mostly successful (save for some unwanted inflammation), and they plan to launch a full-scale trial soon. 

Source: Gizmodo via Technology Review

A Transparent Battery to Power Next-Gen See-Through Gadgets

Stanford researcher Yi Cui looked across the field of transparent electronics and saw that all was not equal. While all other major electronics components--things like transistors, displays, and other circuitry--have been made transparent, no one had taken the time and effort to create a transparent power source. And you can’t have a fully transparent device without a transparent battery. So Cui made one.

There are a few ways to make an electronic component transparent. One is to make it so thin that it doesn’t register with the human eye. Or you can make the component take the form of a pattern whose features are so small they are invisible. Some battery components are easy to render transparent by shrinking them, but electrodes are particularly difficult to make thin. A super-thin electrode isn’t energy dense, and therefore it doesn’t store up enough power to be useful in any realistic way.

So Cui opted for the second approach. He and his team figured that if you can pattern the electrode into a superfine mesh, you can still build an energy dense battery. With enough electrode material distributed across the mesh, a battery can still hold a significant charge.

So using a relatively straightforward lithography method, they built a framework for the mesh in a soft, clear, spongy material called PDMS. To make a complete battery, they simply need two of these layers filled with electrode material--in this case, they used the makings of a standard lithium-ion battery--with a gel electrolyte (also clear, of course) sandwiched in between. Encase the whole thing in plastic, and you’ve got a see-through battery.

In the lab, the batteries have been used to power a small LED light (which can be viewed straight through the battery itself). Cui thinks the batteries should be roughly half as energy dense as a equally-sized regular battery. So right now the prototype is about as powerful as a NiCad battery, but Cui says he and his team should be able to improve that by an order of magnitude by reducing inefficiencies in the prototype design and layering batteries one atop the other. Depending on how it scales, the Stanford team thinks such transparent batteries could be commercialized in just two to four years.

[via popsci]

First Windows "Mango" Phone Unveiled

The first smartphone based on the new "Mango" edition of Microsoft's Windows Phone platform was unveiled on Wednesday in Tokyo. The phone is the first of several handsets due over the next few months, that Microsoft hopes will signal its return to the smartphone market as a serious player. (Video of the new phone and its launch is available on YouTube.) If that wish sounds familiar, it is. This time last year the company was hoping the first version of the Windows Phone 7 would accomplish the same thing. Far from boosting its market share, the introduction of the new operating system saw Microsoft lose share.

But a year earlier during the first quarter of 2010, its market share was 7.1 percent, the market research company said. In terms of handsets shipped, those with Windows Phone 7 or Windows Mobile fell from 3.9 million to 2.8 million phones in the two periods. Mango, officially Windows Phone 7.5, adds some 500 improvements to the Windows Phone 7 platform, according to the company. Built by Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications, the phone will be available in September or after. The company is one of several partners Microsoft is working with on Mango handsets.

The Finnish cell phone maker threw its weight behind Windows Phone 7 earlier this year when it announced a wide ranging agreement with Microsoft to collaborate on future handsets and technologies. Nokia is losing market share to aggressive competitors, but it remains one of the world's largest manufacturers of smart phones, so it has the potential to help Microsoft shift the market. The launch of the phone came just hours after Microsoft signed off on the operating system and declared it ready to be installed in consumer handsets. That should mean additional phones will get launched in the coming weeks. Bluetooth and WiFi are included in the CDMA-based phone.

Artificial Lung Created !

Researchers have created an artificial lung that uses air as a ventilating gas instead of pure oxygen - as is the case with current man-made lungs, which require heavy tanks of oxygen that limit their portability. The prototype device was built following the natural lung's design and tiny dimensions and the researchers say it has reached efficiencies akin to the genuine organ. With a volume roughly the same as a human lung, the device could be implanted into a person and even be driven by the heart.

The artificial lung is filled with breathable silicone rubber versions of the blood vessels that branch down to a diameter less than one-fourth of human hair. It was created by first building a mould with miniature features and then layering on a liquid silicone rubber that solidified into artificial capillaries and alveoli. They air and blood channels were then separated with a gas diffusion membrane.

By making the parts of the artificial lung on the same scale as the natural lung, the researchers say they were able to create a very large surface-area-to-volume ratio and shrink the distances for gas diffusion compared to the current state-of-the-art. In comparison to current artificial lung systems that require pure oxygen due to their inefficient oxygen exchange, tests of the new artificial lung using pig blood showed a three to five times improvement in oxygen exchange efficiency over current devices. It is this efficiency that enables the new artificial lung to use plain air instead of pure oxygen as the ventilating gas.

Blood is injected into the device's fluid inlet, while air is fed into the gas inlet. Oxygen molecules diffuse across the gas exchange membrane into the blood on the way to the blood outlet, while carbon dioxide in the blood fed into the device would diffuse across the membrane to be released through the air outlet.

"Based on current device performance, we estimate that a unit that could be used in humans would be about 6 inches by 6 inches by 4 inches tall, or about the volume of the human lung. In addition, the device could be driven by the heart and would not require a mechanical pump," said Joe Potkay, a research assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University.

Potkay says the device is a major step towards an easily portable and implantable artificial lung and the team envisions patients using the technology while allowing their own diseased lungs to heal, or implanting one while awaiting a lung transplant.

Potkay's team, which includes Brian Cmolik, MD, an assistant clinical professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and Michael Magnetta and Abigail Vinson, biomedical engineers and third-year students at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, is now collaborating with researchers from Case Western Reserve's departments of biomedical engineering and chemical engineering to develop a coating to prevent clogging in the narrow artificial capillaries and on construction techniques needed to build a durable artificial lung large enough to test in rodent models of lung disease.

The Case Western Reserve University researchers expect to have human-scale artificial lungs in use in clinical trials within a decade.

Source: Gizmag

Time Travel Impossible ?

Shengwang Du and His Team Measured the Speed of a Photon

Hong Kong scientists claim to have proved that a single photon cannot travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, making time travel seemingly impossible.

These findings are consistent with Einstein’s claim that the speed of light is the “traffic law of the universe” or, otherwise put, that nothing can travel faster than light. Of course, humanity’s dream of time travel has long relied on the hope that Einstein was wrong. We got a glimmer of hopeback in 1999 when scientists found superluminal (faster-than-light) propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said. Unfortunately, this was later revealed to be a visual effect, and the photons involved couldn’t actually transmit information.

Since then, there has been a debate surrounding whether or not a single photon might actually be able to travel faster than the speed of light. This experiment, conducted by a team at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and led by Professor Shengwang Du, measured the ultimate speed of a photon using controllable waveforms. An explanation, from the press release:

"HKUST's team used a demonstration which required not only producing single photons, but separating the optical precursor, which is the wave-like propagation at the front of an optical pulse, from the rest of the photon wave packet. To do so, Prof Du's team generated a pair of photons, and then passed one of them through a group of laser-cooled rubidium atoms with an effect called electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). For the first time, they successfully observed optical precursors of a single photon.

The team found that, as the fastest part of a single photon, the precursor wave front always travels at the speed of light in vacuum. The main wave packet of the single photon travels no faster than the speed of light in vacuum in any dispersive medium, and can be delayed up to 500 nanoseconds in a slow light medium. Even in a superluminal medium where the group velocity (of an optical pulse peak) is faster than the speed of light in vacuum, the main part of the single photon has no possibility to travel faster than its precursor."

What that means for us: probably no time travel. Du says their results "confirm the upper bound on how fast information travels with light. By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon." That indicates, in turn, that time travel is not possible, and that decades of beloved science fiction may not be entirely based on fact.

Source: Popsci via Daily Mail, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Trypophobia a Real Phobia? (Creepy Clustered Holes)

If you’re like me and you have a visceral reaction to the image above—if it makes your skin crawl, your hair hurt, and your stomach turn—you can count yourself among the trypophobic. According to its Facebook page, which is more than 4,000 members strong, trypophobia is fear of clustered holes. It is usually small holes in organic objects, such as lotus seed heads or bubbles in batter, that give trypophobics the extreme willies, triggering reactions like itchy skin, nausea and a general feeling of discomfort. 

Although this may be of no comfort to those who suffer from it, trypophobia is simply one of an infinite number of fears that people experience, some more idiosyncratic than others. The onlinePhobia List, run by an amateur etymologist, contains the names of hundreds of fears, from the well-known (fear of heights: acrophobia) to the fringe (fear of the great mole rat: zemmiphobia). Trypophobia hasn’t made the list yet.

According to Martin Anthony, a psychologist at Ryerson University in Toronto, past-president of the Canadian Psychological Association and author of The Anti-Anxiety Workbook, with the exception of a few terms (agoraphobia, claustrophobia and arachnophobia among them), professionals who study and treat phobias tend not to use all the Latin and Greek names that get tossed around on message boards and in the press.

Anthony wasn’t surprised to hear that some people have an intense aversion to clustered holes because “people can be afraid of absolutely anything.” The factors that contribute to fears and phobias include traumatic experiences (getting bitten by a dog leading to a fear of dogs, for example), observational learning (watching others be afraid of heights), information and instruction (learning to fear being alone in the dark after watching too many horror movies), and various biological factors (like an inherited predisposition to anxiety). “Although the studies on causes of fears have all focused on more common ones, such as spiders and snakes, there is no reason to think that different factors would be responsible for more unusual fears, Anthony says.

Trypophobia may also be catching. An element of so-called emotional contagion seems to be at work on Facebook, where some group members say they didn’t realize they were trypophobic until they started reading others’ comments and clicking on the pictures. “It’s not unusual to laugh harder at a funny movie if others around you are laughing,” Antony explains. “In the same way, we may be more likely to experience fear in a particular moment if others around us are fearful.” For me, however, all it took was a verbal mention of a “fear of small holes” to illicit a shudder. I became disgusted before looking at a single gnarly image of a skin graft or lamprey eel (look ’em up) or reading an online comment. I also immediately assumed that we were talking about biologic objects—holes in wood, in particular. Clearly, in me the fear was preexisting.

One trypophobic reported on Facebook that her fear stems back to childhood, when she had a Renaissance Faire dagger with a handle covered in little holes. Another member wrote: “I was stung by a bee in high school on my outer thigh. I had an allergic reaction, and my skin started to swell. The swelling was so bad, I could see each individual pore on my leg and I freaked out. Since then, I have not been able to look at clusters of holes without getting the heebie-jeebies.” Just. Gross.

Fear and disgust often go hand in hand, Anthony says. “Evolutionarily speaking, almost all of the things that arouse a strong disgust-reaction--spiders, mice, blood, vomit--are things that could have been triggers for fear of illness.” Perhaps the same could be true for little holes, especially in natural objects where they seem particularly out of place. I suspect that we’re disgusted by pockmarked objects because they don’t look quite “right”; these perceived deformities signal danger, which we manifest as revulsion. But then again, a fear of asymmetry (another form of things looking not quite right) in some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder is not associated with disgust, Antony says. Perhaps holes, particularly in organic objects, subconsciously remind us of the symptoms of contagious illnesses that affect the skin, such as the rash or blisters associated with measles and chicken pox, respectively. All of this, of course, is speculation, and just goes to show how little we know about trypophobia.

Masai Andrews hopes that will change. Andrews, who runs Trypophobia.com, founded the Facebook group page in 2009 when he was a sociology minor at SUNY-Albany. “I started the website and Facebook page because I suspected this was a very common phobia and I wanted a place where people could compile information,” Andrews says. “It is my hope that one day the academic and scientific communities will, at the very least, acknowledge the aversion to holes and certain patterns.”

When that happens, a Wikipedia page dedicated to the fear should follow. Surprisingly, one doesn’t exist today. “I can barely keep a page up on the subject without it getting taken down,” Andrews says. In March 2009 the powers that be at Wikipedia determined trypophobia to be a “likely hoax and borderline patent nonsense.” The deletion page also says that Wikipedia is “not for things made up one day.” As for who actually made the word up, that distinction probably belongs to a blogger in Ireland named Louise, Andrews says. According to an archived Geocities page, Louise settled on “trypophobia” (Greek for “boring holes” + “fear”) after corresponding with a representative at the Oxford English Dictionary. Louise, Andrews and trypophobia Facebook group members have petitioned the dictionary to include the word. The term will need to be used for years and have multiple petitions and scholarly references before the dictionary accepts it, Andrews says. I, for one, would prefer to forget about it forever.

Want to find out if you’re trypophobic? Take this quick visual test. But beware: You may be skipping lunch today.

Source: Popsci

Mastering Voice Recognition On Your iPhone, Android, or Desktop

Nobody talks on the phone anymore, but people are talking at their phones. On any platform, check your settings and helper guides to get an understanding of what your app or phone can actually do, as completely misunderstood responses from a speech app can be pretty infuriating. Android phones with Google's Voice Search installed, for example, can make a phone call, compose email, send a text message, get directions, and pull up musical artists-but can't launch applications from vocal commands. This isn't so much an issue on iPhones, but Androids and other phones can have pinhole-style microphones that can get gummed up or partially covered by awkward cases. Intermediate: Stop Slowing Down, But Think Before Speaking You need not talk like a robot to be understood by one, says Vlad Sejnoha, chief technical officer at Nuance, maker of the Dragon speech-to-text software for Windows, Macs, iPhones and iPads.

Dragon's software learns speech styles and tics over time, and you want to aim for a natural speaking flow. Digging around Android forums and elsewhere, I found a good number of tesimonies from speech-to-text enthusiasts who saw better results from simply speaking at a normal clip. Google representative Nadja Blagojevic offered much the same advice for the search giant's voice product in both Android and its Chrome browser: Speak naturally and clearly, but don't strain to enunciate too much or speak slowly. Advanced Dictation: Punctuation and Personalization Another embarrassing thing you can stop doing is holding your phone or desktop microphone directly in front of your mouth. In your Mac's System Preferences, there's a whole range of Speech options, sure; but check in the Input section of the Sound options, and you'll find a check box to Use ambient noise reduction, which Google's Blagojevic recommends for using the Chrome browser's speech function.

The best noise cancellation tools put in cars and hearing aids use multiple microphones to pinpoint the speaker and amplify their Input, but your phone isn't quite as refined an audio tool. Punctuation is no different than words, as Dragon, Google, and most good voice recognition software will train itself to how you say "period," "comma," or even "smiley." Just be sure to actually go back and fix bad Punctuation, as that's often how the software learns. Finally, if you're using an Android phone, be sure that you've enabled Personalized Voice Recognition. It benefits your speech-to-text on Android, in your browser, and, ultimately, your self-driving car.

Google+ vs Facebook (Privacy)

Of all the comparisons between the two, how the privacy differences between Google+ and Facebook stack up might end up being the most important.

If there’s anything Google+ can learn from Facebook’s experience, it’s that people are going to pay attention to its privacy policy. The Internet veteran has had its own user data battles to fight (particular overseas relating to its street view cam cars), but nothing quite gets consumers in an uproar like a social network’s privacy settings. While Google+ is still in its early days and things are likely subject to change, here’s an introductory look at how it sizes up against Facebook when it comes to guarding your information.

Readability

Digesting a website’s terms of service is one of the most mind-numbing, time-consuming activities imaginable – which is why most users don’t do it. Of course the same people who fail to go over the legalese are usually the ones most offended, but that doesn’t entirely mean the blame falls to them. When this portion of a site sounds like an instruction manual and falls above the eighth grade reading level, you’re asking for outrage. That might sound as if we’re advocating for dumbing things down, but sometimes and especially when it comes to user information that such a mass amount of the population uses, you should pander to the lowest common denominator.

This year Facebook tried to do just that by cutting down on the sophistication of how its privacy policy reads. Its new “controlling how you share” section simply and relatively briefly explains the basics of information sharing on the site. But that’s hardly where it ends. The amount of “learn more” links is overwhelming, and when you access the site’s actual privacy policy, there is a mountain of information. Also, we can understand how so many different URLs that pertain to Facebook privacy could be confusing, especially for younger users, of which there are many. The idea of including the new, simpler guide is full of good intentions, but it could also lead to confusion and may keep people away from perusing the entire privacy policy, which is always a wise choice to make.

Google+’s infancy actually helps it here. As far as readability goes, seeing as there aren’t any advertisers or applications for the site (yet), it doesn’t have quite as much to explain when it comes to sharing your information. And instead of a variety of places dissecting its policy, you have two main locations: The designated Google+ privacy page, and the official Google privacy policy. But if you want details, you can check out the +1 button, Picasa, and Google’s mobile privacy policies. And of course if you start getting into what Google+ may be broadcasting from your other Google accounts, you could potentially have a lot to wade through.

Winner: Draw – Google+ may have less to initially muddle through by itself, but diving into the Google privacy dashboard can lead to hours of staring at your screen. Google+ wins for its attempt at approachability, Facebook for laying all the cards on the table, even though all those cards might be confusing.

Customization

Both Facebook and Google+ provide a way for you to see how other users view your profile and customize who sees what. The difference between the two really comes in with when and how they do this. Google+’s priority while you’re creating your profile revolves around showing you what you share and goes for opt-in versus opt-out. Circles are a major part of managing this and are one of the things you’re sent to again and again (i.e., every time you add a new person, you are prompted to determine in what category they belong; every time you post something you indicate who all will see it).

Facebook has a similar customization tool, but you are never sent to it. When you decide to limit access to something on your profile, you go there on your own – Facebook will never prompt you to visit your privacy settings. Once you’re there, of course, the experience is generally intuitive. But with so many people skimming privacy policies and only reacting after the fact, we think Google’s agenda by trying to bring who sees what to the surface is the better approach.

Winner: Google+

Tags

Facebook tags are the one of the best and worst elements of the site. You can choose to make photos you’re tagged in visible to only some people, but the effort involved in this means most people would rather choose one of the prescribed settings, like “everyone” or “friends only.”

Google+ has the option to choose people who can automatically tag you and whether they can attach the location. You will need to change this, however, as the default lets people do it automatically, but including the option is a big bonus and something Facebook users have been asking for. Unfortunately, we’re not in love with Google+’s wording, which doesn’t precisely indicate you are asking for authentication rights for tagged photos. Considering the fact the tagged photos can be one of the most damning things out there, it’s a big step in the right direction that Google+ has this feature at all, and we advise using it.

Winner: Google+

Photos

We recently wrote about how much we love Google+’s take on photo albums. While that’s still true, its policy when it comes to your images deserves mention. Photofocus points out that part of its terms more or less say that when you share photos, “you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly display and distribute” them. Of course Google’s TOS also say “you retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post, or display on or though, the Services.” But if you’re a professional of any sort, you’re right to be a little wary when it comes to throwing your images up on Google+.

Facebook has the same sort of wording regarding intellectual property rights, but points out that this depends on your privacy and application settings. Meaning set photo sharing to “everyone,” and you’re giving up a lot of content. If you have a specific album you don’t want at the hands of anybody out there, you should make sure to clarify that in your settings. You can designate how people see your Google+ albums but it doesn’t say in Google+’s terms that Google itself will adhere to this, which Facebook specifically points out it is also subject to your privacy settings for photos.

Winner: Facebook

Circle vs. Lists

When you share something via Facebook, you’re likely sharing it with a lot of people. Even if you use the customization settings to the hilt, a post is rarely sent out to a handful of people. Part of this is because Facebook’s been around for awhile and users have accrued hefty Friends lists. Part of it is because customizing those types of features came later in the process. Google+ was able to learn from this and sharing anything on its network requires you to dictate who will see it then and there.

Facebook Lists helps you create specific groups, and then you can choose what your friends do and don’t see. The problem is that you aren’t reminded who you’re sharing something with, you need to think about it yourself. And when you do want to customize who sees a post, the lock icon doesn’t bring up the lists you’ve so carefully created automatically. Creating Circles is also much easier and its visual appeal definitely outdoes Facebook’s text-heavy interface.

Winner: Google+

Source: Digitaltrends