Emanuele Vulcano is making waves with his latest Infinite Labs release . The grad student recently released SwapKit - a new iPhone OS exchange protocol that allows developers to share data between locally installed iPhone apps. Sponsor SwapKit is a unique protocol in that it allows developers to transcend the walls of the iPhone OS and pluck information from across a local network. In his own Mover application, Vulcano allows iPhone app users to add photos, videos or contacts to Mover's table. From here you can slide your various forms of media to nearby Mover app users. The result is a Bump -like application interface that allows for easy flow between devices. The Mover app will ship with SwapKit support in its next update. In this case, the application will use SwapKit's built-in UI to identify the sending and receiving app using a grand total of two lines of code. SwapKit is available as a binary package or you can view the source repository in GitHub . The API documentation is also available on Vulcano's Infinite Labs site at infinite-labs.net/swapkit/docs/api . Below is Erica Sadun's TUAW demo video of the protocol. Discuss

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iPhones Share Data with SwapKit Protocol

Collaboration services targeted for the small business market often seem more like software suites than web-based services with deep linking capabilities and tag-based environments. For example, the new offering from HyperOffice focuses on features that are fundamental to small business operations but lacks the advanced capabilities that we see from a number of Enterprise 2.0 services. Is this a good thing? Is this due to the domination of document-based systems that have traditionally been such a part of the small business world? Sponsor We are torn on this one. We see a number of companies offering services such as real-time collaboration environments. Still, the portal mindset seems to have such a hold on the small business market. HyperOffice looks like it is providing a service that has value for the small business. But like others we have seen, HyperOffice feels monolithic. It provides the capability to create personal and group environments but extensions to the web are limited. In some respects this may be just the right approach. HyperOffice users may not want the capability to build data mashups and tie into services like Twitter. The company points out that the market is flooded with Web 2.0 style point tools. The HyperOffice platform is a one-stop shop. This may be smart as the company is targeting Microsoft Sharepoint and Lotus Notes users. A SaaS like HyperOffice may be enticing, perhaps even more because it has similar functionality to the offerings from the big players in the market. The HyperOffice UI resembles a Microsoft Office environment. The main page includes icons such as desktop, mail and calendar. The features are basic but provide a clear functionality for the user. HyperOffice has personal and group settings. Groups may share calendar items, collaborate on documents and other tasks. Additional features include tasks, notes, a wiki and the ability to search Google and Yahoo! from within the application. Here's an overview of the service: Google Apps and Zoho provide a deeper web experience than HyperOffice. But there is definite value here for the company looking for an affordable, CRM service. Pricing starts at $7 per user, per month. Discuss

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Why Do Small Business Services Sometimes Lack Sophistication?

Having a meaningful conversation in 140 characters or less seems at times a tad, let's say, disjointed. It's not exactly meaningful. But it is this Twitter like approach that is defining how real-time technologies are deployed in the enterprise. AskMyBrainTrust looks at the real-time enterprise through a different scope. Users are not limited to a set number of characters for expressing themselves. Instead, the service uses a real-time model to elicit meaningful conversations with your brain trust, that inner circle you go to for counsel and feedback. Sponsor With most real-time services, the application provides better value when a critical mass of people participate. AskMyBrainTrust limits a group to seven people. Collaboration is limited only to the people in the group. After the group is formed, a topic is submitted. Idea are presented by members of the group. Each has its own threaded discussion. Members of the brain trust vote on the ideas with the intention of driving the group to a consensus. Real-time services with character limits make it challenging for meaningful communications across a tight group of confidants. Email is even worse. Discussions scatter. Gathering ideas together to form a consensus almost has to be done on a one-on-one basis. Conference calls can sometimes feel endless without any form of agreement. AskMyBrain represents the evolution of real-time technologies. Real-time services like Yammer and present.ly have their own fit for ongoing conversations with any number of people. AskMyBrainTrust is not suited for these kinds of social conversations. More so, it is a service for when you need to collaborate among a small group of people to reach a collective agreement. Discuss

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Conversations in 140 Characters or Less are not Exactly Meaningful

We've just heard from our friends at Google that their mobile app is now available in the App Store for iPhone users everywhere. In the new version of Google Mobile, everyone's favorite search company has redesigned their results display to show more results at one time. Also, users will be able to open web pages from search results from inside the app. Other new features are pretty impressive, too. Sponsor Users can now customize the application by any color they choose. Users with speedy iPhone models can also choose to turn on a moving waveform for voice-activated searches. These mods are available under a "Bells and Whistles" setting for fancy gizmodgery. And speaking of searching by voice, Google has worked out a special sort of magic for sussing out not only the language but also the accent of the speaker. "For example," writes software engineer Alastair Tse, "if you're Australian but live in London, you can improve the recognition accuracy by selecting Australian in the Voice Search settings." Google has also added such languages as Mandarin and Japanese to its list of supported languages. For more information about the Google iPhone app, check it out at Google's page or download it free from the App Store . Discuss

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New Google App Approved for iPhones

We all notice when a web app is acting a big sluggish. What is causing it to be so slow?Why is it not responding as fast as it should? These are the kinds of issues that keep developers up at night. To help solve this problem, Google is launching Speed Tracer , a new tool for the Google Web Toolkit . Sponsor Speed Tracer is a Google Chrome extension . it gives developers the ability to identify problems in their web apps using a "sluggishness graph," that shows how the app is doing. If it is zero on the graph's y-axis then the app is screaming. If the y-axis is 100 then something is wrong. It is acting sluggish. Speed Tracer is one of several new features added to Google Web Toolkit. For example, one of the new features in Google Web Toolkit splits code to help speed up the start time of large applications. According to Google, "Code Splitting enables developers to safely and easily slice and dice their application code so that key functionality can load immediately and other features can be loaded later as needed." These are the kinds of applications we should expect to see more of as web applications proliferate. We need more ways to do benchmarks. Services like Speed Tracer help diagnose issues to quickly improve performance. That's a critical issue in today's market. The speed of an application can be the difference for a customer. If the application is fast, they may stay and check things out. if it is slow they will split. And when they split, who knows if they will ever come back. Discuss

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Google Speed Tracer: Why Is That Web App So Sluggish?

There's a new iPhone application from Favstar.fm which launched late last night in the iTunes App Store. Like the Favstar website, the new Favit app (iTunes link) aggregates the "best" Twitter posts based on the number of stars they receive from other Twitter users. Although in theory starred tweets should point to interesting and useful content that people want to save for later viewing, the Favstar service tends to favor humorous tweets instead. The new iPhone app does the same which makes it the perfect addition to your collection of time-wasting apps for curing boredom. Sponsor Nearly all iPhone users have at least one if not more applications whose sole purpose is to help kill time. Whether you're sitting in a a waiting room or standing in a long line, these apps are lifesavers for those of us who are so digitally connected that a few minutes of boredom feels like a death sentence. For many people, these apps include casual games. But outside of that genre, there are plenty of other apps for quick-fire entertainment meant to be consumed in small doses. For example, FML (iTunes link) is a personal favorite. This app lets you read through people's posts of their unfortunate, embarrassing, and downright hilarious personal stories. Trivia-based Cool Facts (iTunes link) is another. (And yes, both were discovered thanks to a high-school aged family member. Don't judge!) The new Favit application fits right into this category of casual, entertainment apps. Using Favit With a very simple interface, Favit displays one Twitter post at a time on the screen. After reading the tweet, you can flip to see the next one using a finger swipe. If you see a tweet you want to star yourself, just tap the giant star button beneath the tweet. You can also swipe down on the tweet for more interactions. Doing so reveals the author and then lets you re-tweet their post or email it to someone. In addition, clicking on the "+" (plus) sign lets you add the author to a special Favstar.fm list which is synchronized with your saved lists on Twitter. This allows you to build your own personalized list of favorite twitterers, accessible from Twitter.com or any other Twitter client supporting lists. What's Missing Although the iTunes app description notes that Favit has a celeb and tech filter built in, we couldn't find these settings in the application itself. However, you can follow these pre-filtered lists via the Favstar website's Leaderboard section. We hope this feature is coming to the application in an update because it would be great to be able to switch from the funny and entertaining tweets over to the tweets from tech and social media set and then over to celebs, depending on whatever interests you at the time. Another missing feature from the application is one of our favorite features from the Favstar website - the ability to see who has been favoriting your tweets. The Favit app could offer a quick and easy way to track those people and then add them to a list or follow them, but sadly it does not. Still, that's hardly a deal-breaker since Favstar offers RSS feeds for this purpose via their website . Besides, it's clear the app is meant to be more of a fun toy for casual users rather than a handy utility meant for data-obsessed folks like us. If you want to check out the new Favit application (iTunes link), you'll have to fork out a little cash. Favit, unlike similar time-wasters including the above-mentioned FML and Cool Facts, doesn't come in free and pro versions. Instead, it's one price only: $2.99. That may seem like a lot for an app just meant to amuse you, but the next time you're terribly bored, you'll be glad you downloaded it. Discuss

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Star That Tweet! Favit Launches in iTunes App Store

The New York Times just launched a new way to read the paper's stories online. With Times Skimmer , which first launched as a prototype application earlier this year, the New York Times is trying to bring the feeling and serendipity of reading the physical newspaper to its online presence. Users can choose from seven different layouts. Most of these are based on a grid-based design, though some also mimic the feel of an RSS reader with stories organized in chronological order, or based on editorial ranked feeds. Sponsor Besides the different layout options, the New York Times made some major changes to the prototype we looked at in February. The navigation menu has moved to the right, for example, and clicking on a headline now opens the article in a pop-up window that is nicely integrated with the rest of the application. The app feels somewhat similar to the paid Times Reader application - especially if you use an application like Fluid or Prism to pack it into a standalone app. One nice feature of the app is that it smartly rearranges stories according to the size of the browser window. Times Skimmer also features keyboard shortcuts. Times Skimmer features a separate section for blogs, as well as a section for collections of articles about special topics, e.g. swine flu, credit crisis and bacon. According to Denise Warren, senior vice president and chief advertising officer at the New York Times Media Group and general manager of NYTimes.com, Times Skimmer is meant to give "online readers another way to view the latest news and updates in a choice of formats that best suit their preferences."