StART - Your homepage reinvented!

[Jeayese]

Hey fellow Apple fans, how are you today? I hope you're doing well, let me introduce you to a project i've been working on for a while now;

This is stART: http://thinqtek.com/start

A homepage of beautiful bookmarks and images. Although...That's only the.. Start.

We Do Not collect users settings and data.

A new way to "Start" your browsing experience, we aim to make it the best possible browsing experience.

I do apologies, for some strange reason I cant insert images or screenshots into this post, i'll try again tomorrow.

Current Features Available of stArt:

- Customisable Bookmarks

- Elegant minimal design

- A Large selection of Images to use from Reddit, Bing or Chromecast

- Custom Reddit Sort Options – Top, Hot or New

- Custom Image Library - Use your own images

- Search window with latest news, photos and videos - Start your day with all the latest and greatest information available at your fingertips)

- Widgets (still in beta) - Add your IP & Time on the homescreen. Currently working on weather & several other widgets

- HTPC Ready! - we have taken into consideration that browsing on a HTPC is a must and with start we don’t forget about you guys, StART is HTPC ready and works with keyboard or remote control.. simply bind the keys to the remote using the "Hot Keys" info available in the settings page

and heaps more, Dive into the open beta and see for yourself what StART can do



What is coming in future updates?



- #1 requested feature - Sync settings - Simply sign in with your favourite social network and all your settings will be backed up and synced to any device! - No need to customise anything! (yeah, we're listening)

- Media player settings - we said HTPC earlier and we meant it, StART will be able to play all your media and organise your Movies or TV shows.

- Slideshows effects - we will give you more options than just a fade in/ fade out effect.

- Text Effect Selection styles

- Notifications

- Categories

- use images instead of text for bookmarks/links/ apps

- !Pronto AKA Siri, Google Now, Cortana

- iOS App

- Android App

- Windows 10 & Mobile app

- Mac OS X app

- Opera extension

- Konami Code! (for s**** and giggles)

I would love to hear what you guys have to say.. i look forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers,

Jason

 

[Ap0ks]

There are no credits or source links on any of the background images used

 

[Jeayese]

There are no credits or source links on any of the background images used

I'm confused, are you referring to the slideshows or the author images from the slideshows?

we're using reddit, chrome & bing API.. I'm sure it won't be hard to add extra info/ source into the images but that would start to create bloat in the UI.. maybe we will make it an option to add or remove credits, yeah.. that could work.

 

[Ap0ks]

I'm referring to the slideshow of images used on the main page, I'm pretty sure they'd be copyrighted material so you can't just use them as you see fit. If you look at bing.com you'll see that the I icon contains the relevant copyright information.

 

[Jeayese]

I'm referring to the slideshow of images used on the main page, I'm pretty sure they'd be copyrighted material so you can't just use them as you see fit. If you look at bing.com you'll see that the I icon contains the relevant copyright information.

The slideshows on the main page are actual posts from reddit/r/wallpapers.. its just people sharing their wallpapers. i'm not sure authors of the wallpapers know or care that their art is shared there.

if copyright was such an issue why would the images be so freely available on other websites api's?

Attributions are a feature that we are still working on, It will be in the interface in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Ap0ks]

This is all Copyright 101 - if you aren't the copyright holder you shouldn't be using the image without obtaining permission. Just because somebody has posted it on Reddit doesn't mean the copyright holder doesn't care, it may be that the image has been released with free wallpaper use rights or as you say they don't know that it's been posted. If you're using it commercially then I'm sure copyright holder would want to be compensated for their work either by agreement or via lawyers and a Copyright infringement case.

Copyright isn't an issue, it's law. I notice you have your own design & code copyrighted, seems a bit hypocritical!

Other than the whole copyright issue, what you've done is nice although the transitions between pages/panes seem to chug a bit in Safari (might just be my machine though). Is there anyway to change which search engine is used? Would also be nice if the News, Images, Pictures bit in the search pane could be customised to RSS feeds or something from other websites.

 

[filmbufs]

The slideshows on the main page are actual posts from reddit/r/wallpapers.. its just people sharing their wallpapers. i'm not sure authors of the wallpapers know or care that their art is shared there.

if copyright was such an issue why would the images be so freely available on other websites api's?

Attributions are a feature that we are still working on, It will be in the interface in the next couple of weeks.

I am hesitant to post this, as I don't want to discourage honest, hard work but this could also be a good platform for you to address some concerns.

Jeayese, your post above sort of highlights a naive or innocent view on copyrights. I would guess you haven't had any legal advice regarding copyrights and, if that's the case, it automatically makes me concerned as to what else your company is innocently missing. You do mention that your site doesn't collect user settings or data, but one has to wonder what systems you have in place to prevent that, should it be a big deal for people.

The design of your site appears to be very nice so kudos to you and your team for getting that far! Now, if you're going to become a company, it's time to bump up to the next level and cover yourself, protect your users and give credit and/or money to those that contribute. Good luck to you!

 

[Jeayese]

This is all Copyright 101 - if you aren't the copyright holder you shouldn't be using the image without obtaining permission. Just because somebody has posted it on Reddit doesn't mean the copyright holder doesn't care, it may be that the image has been released with free wallpaper use rights or as you say they don't know that it's been posted. If you're using it commercially then I'm sure copyright holder would want to be compensated for their work either by agreement or via lawyers and a Copyright infringement case.

Copyright isn't an issue, it's law. I notice you have your own design & code copyrighted, seems a bit hypocritical!

Other than the whole copyright issue, what you've done is nice although the transitions between pages/panes seem to chug a bit in Safari (might just be my machine though). Is there anyway to change which search engine is used? Would also be nice if the News, Images, Pictures bit in the search pane could be customised to RSS feeds or something from other websites.

I am hesitant to post this, as I don't want to discourage honest, hard work but this could also be a good platform for you to address some concerns.

Jeayese, your post above sort of highlights a naive or innocent view on copyrights. I would guess you haven't had any legal advice regarding copyrights and, if that's the case, it automatically makes me concerned as to what else your company is innocently missing. You do mention that your site doesn't collect user settings or data, but one has to wonder what systems you have in place to prevent that, should it be a big deal for people.

The design of your site appears to be very nice so kudos to you and your team for getting that far! Now, if you're going to become a company, it's time to bump up to the next level and cover yourself, protect your users and give credit and/or money to those that contribute. Good luck to you!

As I said on Friday, attributions are a feature that we are currently working on. Because we are getting wallpapers from multiple sources, we need to still work out the way to ensure our attributions are always displayed correctly. For example, we want to assure users that they can download images (and provide them with a link), but without ensuring that we have that information for all our sources, including Reddit - where that information is not easily accessible. We want to ensure that attributions are responsibly and reliably given

 

[Beachguy]

Good to see you posting here as well with the story! You would know me on Neowin as SoCalRox. Still enjoying the page!

 

[Jeayese]

Good to see you posting here as well with the story! You would know me on Neowin as SoCalRox. Still enjoying the page!

thanks mate! glad you're still enjoying it! we have a pretty big update coming this week!

 

[Beachguy]

Excellent! looking forward to when you have the search abilities enhanced.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

As I said on Friday, attributions are a feature that we are currently working on. Because we are getting wallpapers from multiple sources, we need to still work out the way to ensure our attributions are always displayed correctly. For example, we want to assure users that they can download images (and provide them with a link), but without ensuring that we have that information for all our sources, including Reddit - where that information is not easily accessible. We want to ensure that attributions are responsibly and reliably given

Kudos for what you've made so far but seriously, merely giving attribution doesn't make it all OK as far as copyright is concerned.

Just because someone's posted some art somewhere online or has linked to it on Reddit, doesn't mean you're free to use it in your own work without getting permission, regardless of whether or not you give attribution.

Please read up on copyright and licensing. I would strongly recommend you stick to Creative Commons licensed work and make sure that you give proper attribution.

 

[Jeayese]

Hey guys! How are you?, it's been a while but we're ready to release a new build for you guys to play with!

• Overall Loading times have been dramatically improved.
  
  
• Loading overlay is now removed
  
  
• The cursor changes to pointer on clickable elements.
  
  
• Wallpaper Sources and basic Copyright information are now a new feature.
  
  
• Bookmark autohide functionality added
  
  
• Animated Walls Added. In early development. Support for Most YouTube Videos and quality settings as well as some suggestions.
  
  
• Notes - Still Beta (use with caution)
  
  
• Search Options Added: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo.
  
  
• Lightbox added for columns within the Expansive Search - supported video and picture sources are; YouTube, Vine, Vidme, Streamable, Vimeo, Imgur. Other sources will open in new tab.
  
  
• Export and Import of Settings Added. JSON and XML are functioning options to both download or directly edit for the advanced user.
  
  
• Significant Code Optimisation.
  
  
• Column Scrolling in Expansive Search, currently limited to top 50 results with scrollable loading in development.
  

So head over to http://thinqtek.com/start and jump right into it! or simply download our google chrome extension

if you're currently using stART, head over to the about screen and "Clear Local Cache" for the new update to take effect!

I look forward to your comments and remember, positive or negative, I would love to hear it all.

also, we're looking into Trademarks, copyright and licensing.. I'll keep you guys updated about this! enjoy Champagne!