This week Pandora the Internet radio service has announced its now passed 100 millions users and is adding around 36 million active users every month. The new members have allowed Pandora to increase its radio listening market share within the US from 2.3 percent in 2010 to 3.6 per of all radio listening in the United States in 2011.

As well as passing milestones Pandora has also announced that it will soon be launching a newly designed website which has been under development for around a year.

The new website design has been created using HTML5 emphasis and according to the Tech Crunch website the re-design is a major move in the right direction. Tom Conrad, Pandora head of product and CTO explains:

“We started on it about a year ago. But even earlier than that, we’d been talking about it. There were core navigation problems that needed fixing. At first, we had been talking about more incremental changes, with the site still operating in Flash. But then last summer, it became clear that browsers with full HTML5 capabilities had gained enough support. We realized we could do the full Pandora experience without Flash,”

The newly designed website will start rolling out to subscribers of the Pandora One service over the next few weeks. For more information about the new site design  jump over to the Tech Crunch website.

The AquaSkipper’s patented design, hydrofoil wings and fiberglass spring let you fly across the water by hopping up and down. The secret to your awesome power? Hydrofoil wings have very little drag in the water. Plus, the aircraft aluminum frame weighs a mere 26 pounds. So take on the surf. Try new tricks. Race your friends. And turn heads everywhere you ride.

When the fun is done, quickly stow your AquaSkipper in the optional tote bag.

It’s environmentally-friendly. No noise pollution. No air pollution. No water pollution. No engine. And with the AquaSkipper, the only fuel you’ll burn are the calories from an exhilarating and invigorating cardiovascular workout.

The AquaSkipper has been featured nationally on The Today Show on CBS, MTV’s Parental Control, Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, I Want That! on HGTV, Beyond Tomorrow, and The Price is Right, and was a semi-finalist in the History Channel’s Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge in 2007. It has done extremely well in Australia and Europe, where it was recognized with an international award for new sport-related inventions at ispo BrandNew in Munich, Germany.

The latest revolution in pedestrian mobility is upon us. Like all the other single-person transports that have aspired to turn sidewalks into mini highways, we’re not sure if the Solowheel really is a revolution or destined for smashing success. It does look like heaps of fun though.

Unlike other unicycles featured here, Solowheel has no seat, so you’re standing upright while guiding the Li-ion battery powered vehicle. Capable of reaching 12 mph, the Solowheel is ideal for those in-between trips from the metro to your office and other short distances you think aren’t worth the walk.

Here’s a good chunk of text from the official site:

“Externally, the Solowheel consists of a wheel and two foldable foot platforms. Internally, the inner workings of the Solowheel use gyro sensors, a 1000-Watt motor and a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. All this technology is housed under a visually appealing, slim case with leg pads and a handle for easy carrying.

100% battery operated; leaning controls your speed. Lean forward to go forward and backward when you want to slow down. The highly efficient lithium ion battery recaptures energy when going downhill or slowing down. It has a two hour battery life and can be fully recharged in only forty-five minutes.”

The Solowheel will hit stores this April and the $1,495 package will include an instructional DVD and charger. 

The world is already abuzz about Google+, even though it’s not accessible to most. Still, many doubt that anyone, even the mighty one from Mountain View, can catch up to Facebook’s half a billion (at least) active users. Unless, maybe there was a simple way to import your Facebook friends to your Google+ Circles.

Inevitably, there is now an app for that. Actually, it’s a Chrome extension.

Facebook Friend Exporter is the work of developer Mohamed Mansour, a software engineer who works at Blackberry maker Research in Motion, according to his online resume (and his Google+ page), and develops open source tools in his spare time.

The extension wasn’t designed with Google+ in mind. In fact version 1 was released last November, but it has exploded in the past week as the limited number of Google+ beta users have gone searching for ways to port over their entire Facebook world to Google.

Launching years after Facebook and Twitter, it’s easy to look at Google as simply playing catch up in the social networking game with the release of its Google+ “field test.” But look back in time and it’s clear that Google has been playing in the social world for years, but never quite put all the pieces together in one place.

Here’s a chronological look at the long path Google has taken to form what could be the next big social network, if the company can pull off the mega-coup of convincing most of the half a billion Facebook users it has a better service.

2004 - Orkut: Google had a social network in place long before your Mom joined Facebook. Orkut was quietly launched more than 7 years ago to compete with Friendster, and it’s stayed quiet in the United States and most of the world, but has become the dominant social network in a few countries, most notably Brazil. Hilariously, it’s still in beta.

I use Google Chrome as my main browser on a day to day basis and have a multitude of Chrome extensions installed to help with productivity and tasks.

If you use the Chrome browser a new Chrome extension has launched this week called Mega Button which might interest you which adds shortcuts to settings right on your toolbar and has been created by Haroldinho. Check out the brief video to see the new extension in action after the jump.

The Mega Button extension provides quick access to Bookmarks, History, Plugins, Extensions, Downloads, DNS, Memory and Cache directly in the toolbar and is free to download from the Google Chrome Extension library.

Looking for a more fun and original way to get around?  Then why not take a look at this fantastic vehicle created by a team of students at the University of Adelaide, Australia from the School of Mechanical Engineering.

The new vehicle has been named EDWARD and is an electric diwheel creation with both its wheels axially aligned, instead of one in front of the other like a bike. Take a look at EDWARD in action after the jump.

The EDWARD Electric Diwheel has been fitted with inbuilt dynamic lateral stability and slosh control to prevent “gerbiling” or tumbling in aggressive braking or acceleration manoeuvres, and also has a unique feature that allows the rider to drive the vehicle when “upside down” – keeping the vehicle in its unstable state.

Fans of Linux, Microsoft and Macs used to be able to search for information about those topics on Google using specialized search tools that narrowed the results to a focused set of highly relevant Web sites.

Earlier this week, however, it was discovered that Google has pulled the plug on many such specialized search portals—including Google.com/linux, Google.com/microsoft, Google.com/mac and Google.com/bsd—redirecting users to Google.com/webhp instead.

 

Also eliminated by Google were Google.com/unclesam and USGov.Google.com for government-specific information searches.

‘Better Off Using the Search Box’

“We are no longer offering specialized search services at google.com/linux, google.com/microsoft, google.com/bsd, google.com/mac, google.com/about and google.com/unclesam,” Google confirmed in a statement provided to Search Engine Roundtable on Monday.

“These services were established many years ago to offer search across a limited index of the Web, which in the past was a better way to find this information. For example, google.com/linux was designed to help people find information from message boards and blogs about the Linux operating system,” Google explained.

“Today, search quality has advanced tremendously, and based on our analysis we’ve found that in most cases you’re better off looking for this kind of specialized information using the regular Google search box, for example by typing [linux fedora upgrade],” the company said.

‘A Serious Mistake’

The news came as a great surprise to many Google search users, however, as could be seen over the past few days on a Google Web Search forum.

“Google Uncle Sam is a critical search feature,” wrote one participant, for example.

“I consider the decision to remove Uncle Sam search a serious mistake and very bad public relations,” wrote another.

‘I Personally Apologise’

Combined with the lack of advance notice, in fact, users’ dismay even prompted an apology from Google.

“I personally apologize for our poor communication regarding the termination of Uncle Sam search,” wrote Google Search Product Manager Rishi K. on the search forum. “We should have done a better job communicating this in advance, and I apologize for that. In the future, I’ll make sure we find a way to do better.”

Google also directed disgruntled users to its Help Center for more ways to restrict searches in topic- and site-specific ways.

Loss of an Advantage

In addition to dealing a blow to users accustomed to relying on these topic-specific search portals, Google’s move could also shift an advantage to services like Bing-based search.usa.gov, as one forum commenter pointed out.

Search Engine Land has also noted that vertical search tools may be even more useful and important today than ever before.

I’m especially sorry to see the end of the Linux search tool. Have you used any of the ones that have been eliminated? Will this change affect the way you search? Please sound off in the comments.

Garmin has just unveiled its first ever touchscreen watch in the form of the Garmin Forerunner 610 and becomes Garmin’s new flagship model. Its equipped with a highly responsive touch screen and high resolution display and has recently won the coveted Red Dot Design Award.

It also comes equipped with a new feature called Virtual Racer where runners can race themselves over their previous bests or against other users.Together with a new run/walk alert, which allows the Garmin Forerunner 610’s other features, such as, Auto Lap and Auto Pause, to remain active during a run/walk session. Watch a video of the new Garmin Forerunner 610 after the jump.

Other features include a vibration motor to keep you updated about your heart rate, pace and distance, together with being waterproof and the touchscreen even works with gloves.

“From giving the basics such as pace, distance and time to monitoring your effort through heart rate, creating interval workouts and racing a friend on the other side of the world, Forerunner 610 becomes a necessary partner for all serious runners.”

Google has updated their online document editing software, Google Docs, and the latest version adds a couple of new features, which include Pagination and have also added native printing.

 

Today, we’re doing another first for web browsers by adding a classic word processing feature—pagination, the ability to see visual pages on your screen. We’re also using pagination and some of Chrome’s capabilities to improve how printing works in Google Docs. Pagination is rolling out now and should be available to everyone by the end of the day.

You can find out full details of all the new features in Google Docs over at the Google Blog.