Apple releases second iOS 7 developer beta, now with iPad support

Apple has just rolled out the second beta preview of iOS 7 to developers. Unlike the first release distributed shortly after WWDC, beta 2 has been optimized for the iPad in addition to iPhone and iPod touch. Aside from a few screenshots from Apple and unofficial simulator hacks, we've yet to get a good glimpse at how Apple's revamped mobile operating system will look on the larger device — until now. 9to5Mac has posted screenshots of the new beta running on Apple's tablet. An all-new Voice Memos app is also revealed in the images.

With the help of a transition guide outlining the design philosophy behind iOS 7, app makers will now be able to see how their iPad software looks before the public update reaches consumers this fall. Despite welcome additions like Control Center and the removal of skeuomorphic UI elements, Apple has faced some criticism for design and iconography choices seen in the first beta, though its work on iOS 7 is by no means complete.

Google To Retire Chrome Frame For Internet Explorer And End Support Next January

Google just announced that it is retiring Chrome Frame, its open source plug-in for bringing Google Chrome’s JavaScript and rendering engine to legacy versions of Internet Explorer. The company cites the fact that legacy browsers like Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are now finally on the decline and that most people are now using modern browsers as the reason for this decision.

Google launched Chrome Frame in 2009 as a way for businesses to move some of their web-based apps to a modern framework without having to switch away from Internet Explorer. Back then, Google argued that this would allow developers to target modern technologies for their users while still retaining compatibility with their legacy apps.

Chrome Frame allows developers to set a tag on their pages to automatically prompt Internet Explorer to switch to Chrome Frame or — if the user doesn’t have Chrome Frame installed — direct them to the installation page.

Chrome Frame will be retired in January 2014, when Google will cease support and updates for it.

The company, of course, recommends that businesses that rely on Chrome Frame switch to a modern browser or to check out Chrome for Business, which now includes legacy browser support through an add-on, too. Given that this is an open source project, there is always a chance that somebody else will pick it up and continue to support it.

YouTube Windows Phone 8 app updated, brings new pinning feature and Kids-corner support

Finally, the official Windows Phone 8 YouTube app receives a new major update that brings lots of much-needed improvements. Features such as the ability to pin videos, playlists, and channels; support for Kids-corner is also added to the list.

Speaking of the list, here is the rest of the new application features:

• Pin videos, playlists, channels, and even search queries to Start as Live Tiles for fast access.
• The tile flips to show either the latest video from your subscriptions or the most popular one.
• A filmstrip view of playlists.
• Background playback of video.
• You can share videos to popular social networks, and via email and text.
• Kids-corner enabled for parental control

Who out there is loving the new YouTube?

Lemon’s Mobile Wallet Gets More Useful With New Expense Reporting Service; Support For Transactions Is Next

Although you can’t ditch your leather-bound billfold yet, a startup called Lemon has been slowly building up a mobile wallet platform that’s encroaching on the traditional wallet’s territory, and even making it better in some cases. Today, it’s extending its feature set again with the addition of an expense reporting tool, which serves to augment its previously available receipt capture function.

Operating as a digital copy of your physical wallet, Lemon already helps you track credit card balances, access your saved cards on the go, cancel credit cards when your real wallet is lost or stolen, and save receipts by snapping a photo of them. But users have been demanding more, explains founder and CEO Wences Casares.

“The most active users of receipts were using them for their expense reports. And those users kept asking for more functionality,” he says. “They were doing a lot of inconvenient things to use it for receipts.”

Given that there are plenty of receipt trackers out there on the market today from services like QuickBooks, Expensify, Concur, and others, it’s somewhat surprising to find that users were turning to a consumer-facing tool to get the job done, especially when it required more manual effort.

Casares says that’s because, in many cases, expense tracking solutions (like Concur, e.g.) are sold to the enterprise, and then the company tells its employees this is what we have that you can use. But when users had more choice, they were opting for a simpler option: just snap a photo and be done with it, then deal with the headache of expense reporting later on.

Now Lemon can help with that latter part. Its new expense reporting application can accommodate photos of receipts and e-receipts which are forwarded to expenses@lemon.com for processing. When complete, receipts are saved in a PDF format for the user, and attached directly the expense report itself, which can also be output in CSV or XLS format for importing into other expense software.

Though Lemon has been designed for consumers, expense reporting pushes the product more towards business users, though not enterprise. With its centralized management dashboard, admins can group expense reports by individual, category or user-created tags, then approve and/or route approvals to others who process the reimbursements. The solution works well for smaller businesses or even individuals, who just need to track their expenses in a more organized manner.

The system is offered as a free trial within Lemon’s mobile app, updated today, and then the cost is $5/month per user going forward.

Casares says the company is now working to support deeper Quick Books integration, and will soon offer a refreshed mobile wallet user interface which allows users to group their cards into compartments – the way a “real” wallet works. Though he declined to provide download figures or user numbers, he says that Lemon is now capturing 1,000 new cards per hour.

Following the refresh, the next big move for Lemon will be to begin enabling transactions, using the data users’ have saved within their wallets already. Cesares says they’re considering many different avenues for this, but the plan is to start with e-commerce, not at point-of-sale. Guess you’ll have to hang on to your billfold for a bit longer, then.

Common Core State Standards Support Real Learning

Most people would agree that it’s a good idea for educators to work from a written plan that is focused on students learning important knowledge and skills. Writing a set of standards is a way to create such a plan.

In the district where I taught for 20 years, teachers, parents and administrators worked together to write standards for language arts. There was a tremendous sense of ownership, and for five or six years those standards were alive and well in K-12 classroom. Then what happened? Teachers retired and new teachers were hired. Administrators moved up the ladder of responsibility. Interestingly enough, parents were the most stable element of the group, many remaining closely involved with the schools as one child after another reached kindergarten age and entered the system.

The natural turnover in education makes it necessary to revisit standards for them to remain viable. About the time that our language arts standards needed a visit, several other sets of standards competed for attention. When different directions are coming from multiple sources, the natural response is to shut out the confusion and rely instead on what is most familiar. Under such circumstances, teachers reach back to what they experienced in school, modulated somewhat by what they learned in teacher preparation programs. In other words, confusion about standards tends to reinforce the habits of the past and impede progress toward the future.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have the potential to clarify what’s important in a 21st century education by establishing shared standards in all states. (At this writing, four states have declined to adopt the CCSS and one is using only the language arts standards.)

There are essentially two approaches to writing standards. One is to list every skill and concept that a child should learn by grade level, K-12. The problem with this approach is that teachers may feel the need to race at a breakneck pace through the long to-do list, sacrificing real learning for covering the curriculum. The other approach is to decide on a small number of essential skills and concepts that students will be working on throughout their years of school, and to back this list up with more detailed information about what mastery of the essentials looks like at each grade level. This approach gives teachers permission to limit the number of topics covered and focus on individual needs and strengths. This is the approach taken by CCSS.

As long as I have been involved in education, people have worried about national standards and national tests. The typical line taken is that parents, teachers and administrators want local standards and local control. In a society as mobile as ours, it’s a huge responsibility to prepare students for college, careers and, we hope, fulfilling lives given that they may eventually live in a wide variety of regions and settings. The responsibility gets even huger when we think about how rapidly our knowledge base is increasing, along with the technology to share and store that knowledge.

In my opinion, we need to “think globally and act locally.” All learning is local because it can only happen in a specific, personal context, but those who guide learning need to have a larger perspective. The CCSS offers that larger perspective to parents and educators nationwide. It’s important to note that a recent poll of members of the American Federation of Teachers shows 75 percent support CCSS. Teachers recognize the value of shared standards, but they need some time and support to do a good job of integrating them in their long-term plans and in their day-to-day work with students.

Jeanetta Jones Miller taught for 25 years in public schools in Albany, California, and Newtown, Connecticut, serving as English department chair at Newtown High School from 2001 to 2011. She specialized in curriculum development and served on committees that developed interdisciplinary reading and writing standards.