The data London cites is New York Citys 311 non emergency data stream, which takes as its input New York residents emails, phone calls, and text messages sent to communicate issues to city authorities. Each day, HereHere pulls 311 data for each neighborhood and identifies the most compelling, important 311 request types, and the system generates cartoons and text that represent a neighborhoods characterized reactions.Think of it as a meta status update for the day—a simplification of issues in...

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Microsoft will release a new office suite for the Mac before the end of this year, according to the companys manager for Office products in Germany. The version available today, Office:mac 2011, lags far behind the latest Windows version in terms of user interface and functionality, although it has been updated since its release so it can be used as part of an Office 365 subscription. Microsoft folded its Mac business unit, which developed the package, into its business software unit in 2010. It...

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On Tuesday, Google Drive added a way for its Docs and Sheets office apps to tap into third party plug ins, giving both services additional features that Google hasnt supplied itself. The plug ins for Docs and Sheets directly compete with the Apps for Office program that Microsoft launched last year. And the three apps that Google highlighted as part of its program address some of the weaknesses Google Docs now part of Google Drive cloud storage service has compared to Office itself. To help take...

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The faces at the top of Microsoft may have changed lately, but it still full steam ahead for the Xbox division. Both new CEO Satya Nadella and ex Nokia boss, now devices and studios head Stephen Elop are said to be extremely committed to the Xbox hardware and software divisions. That might seem obvious really, but previous reports suggested that Elop would consider selling the Xbox arm should he have taken over as chief executive officer instead of Nadella. He didnt, but the Xbox division and...

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Revenue from the ads helps us feed the over worked hampsters so we can keep bringing you the latest news! You can also donate to keep us going. In the Top Free and New+Rising section in the Windows Phone Store, Facebook Messenger is at the top with over 2200 ratings from users. In fact, the app is so popular that it already has a rating of 4.5 out of 5. The official Facebook app, which has been at the top of the list for months, is down to second place. Instagram Beta rounds out the top three....

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Today is Patch Tuesday at Microsoft and that means the company will be releasing new software updates for a number of its products. Besides its planned security bulletinsfor Windows and Internet Explorer,Microsoft will also issue new firmware patches for its Surface 2, Pro and Pro 2 tablets the Surface RT model won't get an update today. Microsoft Surface update history page has the details of what will be included in this month firmware patches. All three tablets will gain support for the...

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The ability to pin Modern apps to the desktop taskbar is an interesting piece of cross environment integration in .1 Update 1. But in experimenting with the RTM version of this update, I've noticed a few additional featured I'd not seen before. Here an interesting example. If you're familiar with how taskbar pins work in Windows 7 and 8.x, you know that these application buttons can provide jump lists and live previews that show what the underlying app looks like if running, so you...

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Microsoft made the mistake earlier this week of allowing anyone with Windows 8.1 to download the files for Update 1thanks to a simple change in their registry. While this hole has since been plugged, this allowed many people to get the near final version of the OS update. That included some of our Neowin forum members and they have been writing up their hands on impressions of the changes in Update 1 on our message boards. In a forum post called Your observations on Windows 8.1 update 1 a.k.a....

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