Daily News Courier

Action Launcher 1.2.0 update brings new search feature, improves covers

If you're using Chris Lacy's Action Launcher, there's a pretty sizable updating waiting for. Version 1.20 brings a helpful search feature right there in the Action Bar. It's able to search through your contacts, apps and even music, giving the results there there on the home screen. Action Launcher's unique "Covers" — think folders with more functionality — have gotten even better and now serve as app shortcuts as well as a folder with more options inside. There also are options to hide apps from the app list, some visual changes, and you can import home screens from other third-party launchers.

We've got the entire changelog after the break (Lacy jokes that it's too long to fit on a single Nexus 7 screen, which is saying something), and some demo video is ready to go there as well. The update should be live in Google Play any time now.

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How Facebook Could Give Its New Search the Edge

The company’s search engine will become formidable when it includes the text of comments and the vast store of Open Graph data about things outside Facebook.

Facebook’s new Graph Search—a feature that lets you search through the data shared by your friends—clearly needs some work (see “Facebook’s New Graph Search: Not Very Good”). It relies solely on the “likes,” check-ins, and profile data provided by your friends – signals that may be incomplete or unreliable unless you have friends all over the world who always faithfully check in wherever they go, and like products and brands honestly, not ironically. What’s more, queries must be structured in a way that often makes you feel like you’re talking to a database.

Facebook’s New Graph Search: Not Very Good

It’s going to take time and user buy-in for Graph Search to be truly worthwhile.

For years, we’ve been shoveling data into Facebook’s maws by way of status updates, photo uploads, comments, “likes,” and check-ins. Until this week, though, there has never been a way to really sift through any of that data.

Facebook’s Graph Search Won’t Hurt Google Without Your Help

The success of the social network’s new search tool will depend on how much information its users are willing to share.

Facebook hopes you’ll use its new social search feature, Graph Search, to find everything from dentists your friends recommend in New York to restaurants they’re talking about in San Francisco. But while the tool appears to be a smart way to glean insights from your connections, experts say it is inherently limited by the amount of useful information shared within a user’s social circle or made publicly available by those outside that circle. That means it may take time—and effort on the part of Facebook users—for it to be truly useful.

Live Updates From Facebook’s Graph Search Announcement

Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated a search service that taps into the information shared by a Facebook user’s friends.

Apps of the Week: Add Watermark, Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine, PhotoVault and more!

We've got the usual great set of app picks for your enjoyment this week, covering all genres. You can add a watermark to a picture, keep those pictures safe from unwanted eyes, check out some classic comic strips and more.

Read on and see how we did this week. And if you see an app you like, spend a couple bucks on it — hard working developers deserve to be paid when they make something great.

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Google releases updated iPad app, improves local search

Advanced search operators now work in GMail 4.2

The GMail power users among us may be aware of some of the more advanced search operators that are at our disposal. Things like typing "from:david has:attachment" and getting relevant search results is a great feature for those of us with gigs upon gigs of mail waiting to be searched. These features are now part of the latest GMail app — version 4.2 — available on Android 4.2 devices.

In our testing of a random sampling of the advanced search operators, they all seem to work just fine in the app. The results are found quickly, even for mail that isn't already downloaded locally, and it seems to bring back all of the same results that the desktop does. You can find a full list of the supported search operators at the source link below.

Source: GMail Support; Thanks, RonDon!

Google Adds Voice Search to iOS App

CoPilot Live switches to Google search, adds additional Android integration

• Free map update – the latest NAVTEQ street maps
• Google search – CoPilot’s Local Search is now powered by Google
• Android integration – allowing tasks such as navigating to an address in an email
• New info display – including Current Road
• Themes – four new free colour schemes are available*
• Drive for a cause – a paid-for pink theme in support of Breast Cancer Awareness (all proceeds go to charity)*
• Numerous user interface enhancements

The uber-expensive European versions have been updated, as well as the bare-bones free version, though the South Africa, New Zealand, and Australian versions are still a bit behind. We've got a full review of t CoPilot Live here, and will have a Q&A with the devs going up sometime this week. 

Anybody using CoPilot regularly? How does it fare compared to the core Google Maps experience? Is there any room for third-party GPS apps when Android provides a fairly robust one out of the box?