The majority of Android phones still don’t even have it yet, but as time goes on, that will change. I only recently upgraded my own device to one that has access to the feature, and have only begun to learn first-hand just how powerful Google Now can be. The more it learns about you, the more it has to offer.

One of the things Google Now has to offer is a flow of suggestions for places that are near you when you spend any considerable amount of time in some location. For local businesses, this can be a great thing.

Negative reviews are one thing, but anonymous reviews allow people to say whatever they want without being held accountable. Businesses are already suing people for defamation over some of the things they say in online reviews, when they are saying things they can be held accountable for. Anonymity just lets people say whatever they want. Even if they’re trashing your business. And anonymous reviews are still appearing right in front of Google Now users curious about what place Google is telling them is nearby.

I noticed this the other day. I took a look at the Google Now “Places” card and saw that the Lock & Key cafe was nearby. Here, you can take a look at their page. The top reviews from real people have “Very Good” and “Excellent” descriptions across the board. Then it gets into the anonymous “A Google user” and the rating is “Poor to fair”. This is followed with another anonymous review, also with a rating “poor to fair”.

At least Google is showing the positive reviews from users with names at the top, but are they always doing this? Sure, not all anonymous reviews are negative, but many are.

Google has actually moved away from anonymous reviews in policy. When they made the move from Google Places to Google+ Local as the format for local business pages, users were supposed to be required to sign in with their Google account to leave reviews (they’ve adopted a similar policy for Google Play). When I have tried to leave a review while not logged into mine, I’ve been prompted to sign in. But as we’ve seen in recent months, this isn’t always working for some reason.

Old anonymous reviews from before the change are staying on business pages. That’s nothing new, but a few months back, we looked at an example where even new reviews were coming in from anonymous users. One user complained about this in a Google help thread. The Google representative acknowledged the problem, and indicated they were looking into it.

I checked back on the page in question today, and those anonymous reviews are still there. It’s unclear whether they’re still accepting new anonymous reviews. I’ve seen no indication from Google that they have corrected the problem.

When I looked at that Lock & Key page that Google pushed to my attention, it dawned on me that Google is likely pushing a whole lot of anonymous negative reviews to a lot of Google Now users. Then this week, they greatly expanded the user base for Google Now by launching it for iPhones and iPads.

Bert and John Jacobs designed their first t-shirts in 1989 and hawked them on the streets of Boston and at colleges along the East Coast. But for five years, success eluded them. Then, in 1994, they struck upon the idea to use a design of a cartoon figure called Jake and the motto “Life is good.” People seemed to embrace the simple message of optimism — the shirts were a hit at a local street fair and retailers soon became interested.

Now Jake’s face and motto are on more than just shirts. You can find him and other characters smiling on products from towels and totes to coffee mugs and dog leashes. And life sure is good now for Bert and John Jacobs. Business is booming, with 2011 sales coming in at about $100 million.

The biggest challenge most of us face is the rapidly changing nature of the technologies and strategies that we incorporate into our daily routines, and in no area of Web work is this more true than design and development.

Working on the Web in a design/development role means adapting to new situations and going well beyond creating functional sites that please the eye. Much time is spent trying to keep up with the constant evolution of the growing organism that is a website, and a major aspect of the process today should include testing how specific elements of a site’s design impact a business’ objectives and how they can be improved to increase conversions.

First impressions are everything

There’s no doubt that Web success, at least in part, hinges on the visual elements of a site. And, like it or not, most users are going to judge your business from their very first impression of the website.

“Design is critical because half of our brain is devoted to visual processes,” says Tim Ash, CEO of conversion rate optimization firm SiteTuners. “How a page looks and how we perceive it is key.”

Users will form an impression about a Web page in only a fraction of a second, so it’s largely up to the design of that page to gain their trust almost immediately. The best way to do this, says Ash, is to keep it simple.

“As an aesthetic choice, we tend to favor bland, boring sites,” he says. “When a site has flashy design elements, they have to compete for attention.”

Where to begin

To eliminate the competition for users’ attention that Ash speaks of, successful website designs highlight the most important elements of each page. But the challenge for designers, of course, is that identifying what is most important to users is like trying to hit a moving target.

“In this day and age, users have moved beyond a need for images and graphics,” says Eric Hansen, CEO of website testing and optimization firm SiteSpect. “The aesthetic appeal is not as important as compelling copy is today. Designers should focus on cues that will visually help identify content so that they know what to read more in-depth.”

But how can website owners and designers really know which elements of their designs are having the greatest impact on conversion rates? The answer, of course, lies in conversion testing. Business owners and website designers should identify approximately 5 to 10 design elements that are most influential to converting visitors, and then focus on continually refining and improving those aspects through testing. There is no way to know which parts of your website impact conversions without testing, and every minute they go ignored is money lost from the business’ bottom line.

So, where do you begin? It depends on what your website is trying to achieve, according to Mark Simpson, president of multivariate testing, personalization and optimization firm Maxymiser.

“When deciding what to test, when and how, it’s important to keep the business goals top-of-mind,” explains Simpson. “High-traffic areas and revenue/conversion generators like landing pages, search results and, most importantly, checkouts should be a priority.”

Regardless of where a company begins, the goal is to test different versions of the various elements that users will encounter along the path to purchase, determine which ones produce the highest conversions to gauge customers’ most pressing wants and needs, and then use that information to further optimize those elements.

Where to look for help

So, where should businesses turn to for help with conversion testing? There are numerous options available, but your decision may depend on what kind of testing you’re going to conduct.

A/B testing uses two versions of a live Web page in which one specific variable is different on each page to determine which one performs better and thus which will appear in the final design. Multivariate testing is a method that simultaneously examines multiple elements of a Web page at once to see how a larger variety of combinations compare and influence one another to impact conversion rates.

Maxymiser offers an A/B and multivariate testing tool with personalization solutions for segmentation, behavioral marketing and product recommendations for Web and mobile sites. Called MaxTEST, the solution serves multiple variants of content and structure to site visitors while monitoring and measuring the impact each option has on conversion rates and revenue.

SiteTuners offers a product called AttentionWizard, a tool that works like a heatmap without requiring companies to put their sites in front of users. By leveraging data gathered from brain studies, AttentionWizard can predict where users will look when they arrive at a website, allowing designers to gain insights on branding, colors, images, layout and buttons, and use this information to better meet the company’s business goals.

Being successful in Web business requires being highly adaptable, and designers have to embrace this trait as much as anyone else in the industry. And the only way to take full advantage of a fluid website design team is to be constantly testing for the hot or cold spots that affect conversions and, ultimately, the success of your business.

Apple’s voice input technology Siri opened the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, ridiculing Google’s Android release names, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. Such lighthearted payback for Google’s prior jesting at Apple’s expense during Google’s developer conferencesshouldn’t obscure Apple’s serious determination to have the last laugh by reducing the scope of Google services in Apple products–a goal exemplified by Apple’s iOS 6 Maps app, which no longer relies on Google map technology.

Speaking before an enthusiastic crowd of developers in San Francisco, Calif., Apple CEO Tim Cook reviewed the extent of Apple’s App Store power, noting that the company has more than 400 million App Store customer accounts and has seen more than 30 billion apps–free and paid–downloaded.

[ For a look at iPad's competition, read Windows 8 Tablets: Computex Sneak Peek. ]

The company also has more than 66 million Mac users, triple the number there were five years ago, according to Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of Mac software engineering.

Apple introduced revised models of its MacBook Air and its MacBook Pro–with a 15″ model sporting a version of the high-resolution Retina display added earlier this year to the third-generation iPad tablet.

The company also presented a preview of the next version of its desktop operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, as well as a beta version of iOS 6, the company’s mobile operating system. (See our related story:Apple iOS 6: Best New Features.)

Conspicuously absent was any mention of the Mac Pro, Apple’s desktop workstation which hasn’t been updated since August, 2010, or of apps for Apple TV, which had been predicted by various Apple news websites. Nonetheless, Apple did update its Mac Pro, which at the top end now features two six-core 3.06GHz Intel Xeon X5675 chips. Apple also updated its AirPort Express with support for 2.4Ghz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi.

Apple’s innovations tended toward iOS-OS X convergence and cross-pollination. Apple’s Safari browser, for example, is now tied to iCloud services. OS X users now have access to the Notifications system introduced previously in iOS. AirPlay and GameCenter, two iOS technologies, have been brought to OS X.

Perhaps most significantly, Apple intensified its competition with Google by introducing its own Google-free Maps app in iOS 6, by enabling Facetime video conferencing over cellular connections to better compete with Google+ Hangouts, by adding Siri support in iOS 6 to the new iPad, by adding Facebook integration, and by continuing to enhance iCloud.

Google last week held a Maps-oriented press conference at its San Francisco office, an event widely seen as an attempt to retain mindshare for its software in advance of Apple’s expected rejection of Google’s technology.

The MacBook Air has been updated with new Intel Ivy Bridge processors. The two models, 11″ ($999 & $1099) and 13″ ($1199 & $1499), are available with dual-core i5 and i7 processors ranging from 1.7GHz to 2.0GHz (and up to 3.2 GHz through an Apple technology called Turbo Boost), up to 8GB of 1600 MHz RAM and integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics processing that’s 60% faster than previous models.

The revised MacBook Air models can accommodate up to 512GB of flash storage with a read speed of 500MBps (2x faster than previous models). And they come with 2 USB 3.0 ports and a 720p FaceTime HD camera. The screen, however, is not a Retina display; the displays are 1366 x 768 and 1440 x 900 respectively.

I am complaining about the apple wwdc because I was really hoping for some information on the iphone 5 or apple TV. Below is the information provided. Although it is still interesting… I WANT MY IPHONE 5.

The MacBook Pro comes in 13″ and 15″ models. There’s also a 15″ model with a Retina display.

The 13″ model has a 1280 x 800 display; the 15″ model has a 1440 x 900 display, and the 15″ Retina model features a 2880 x 1800 display, with a pixel density of 220. The revised MacBook Pro is 0.71-inches thick, a quarter thinner than previous models, and weighs in at 4.46 pounds. It still has a built-in optical drive.

The MacBook Pro 15″ starts at $2199 for a quad-core 2.3GHz i7 processor, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of Flash memory, and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics chip. It can be configured to accommodate a 3.7GHz i7 processor with Turbo Boost and 768GB of flash storage.

iOS 6 is available now as a beta release for developers and is scheduled for general release this fall.

From 4″ screens to dual-core A5 / A6 processor to an 8 MP camera – the iPhone 5 is surely rumored to bring you something very hot and stunning. When, is the question, for which we still do not have concrete answers.

Let’s take a look at some of the interesting things that happened and are happening as we speak – in the Apple world pertaining to iPhone 5.

In September last year, even before the release of iPhone 4S, a prototype-version of one future generation of iPhone was lost. There was an initial hype surrounding the news – especially since a similar losing of iPhone 4 Prototype resulted in the entire world knowing about Apple’s iPhone 4 plans. But the device was never recovered, it seems and we still do not know if it was a prototype of iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 that was lost.

Another interesting thing is the speculation from a wide-section of news reports – who constantly quote supply chain streams – is the design. First, they speculated a tear-shaped glass-design for the display. Then it was dropped. It resurfaced somewhere again but it looks like such designs are not yet on the charts. And that is because of an increasing speculation that iPhone 5 would be having a larger display – of about 4-inches. We heard Steve Jobs not being happy about the 4-inch displays which made iPhones a lot like Androids, but it just looks like a larger-display iPhone could be possible.

So we still wait for news on iPhone 5 release date. However, that doesn’t stop us from considering a few possible dates, events, and times.

Spring 2012

Apple has followed the pattern of releasing its iPads in March every year. Therefore, spring time is now being considered for an iPhone 5 release date. Seeing that theiPhone 4S was released in early October, an iPhone 5 announcement in April, would give the 4S six months of uninterrupted sales.

However, the iPhone 5 release date set for Spring 2011 may not give Apple an ample sales buffer between the 4S and 5, and even spoil things for an iPad 3 release, in its usual Spring launch.

WWDC 2012 – June

It is likely that WWDC 2012 could announce the iPhone 5 release date.

Many people are of the opinion that Sprint’s announcement to roll out their 4G network – and supporting devices – by “mid 2012″ indicates that a 4G iPhone 5 could launch in June.

October 5th, 2012

Though no one would possibly want the iPhone 5 release date to be almost a year away, it could be true as Apple has typically put at least a year between its iPhone iterations.

It could also be considered that Apple has not yet set a hard-line release date for the iPhone 5. The sales may dictate the schedule, and affect their decision from launching in June, or else waiting for October again.

Judging from some of the failed iPhone 5 release date prognosticators of 2011, it can be said that there won’t be an iPhone 5 release – or any iPhone release for that matter – in August or the first week of September as August is a terrible sales month for most industry segments including Apple’s. Here are 4 Important Updates on Apple iPhone 5 Features.