Monday, July 9, 2012

Facebook’s Facial-Recognition Acquisition Raises Privacy Concerns: Mashable

Right now, Facebook’s facial-recognition software can sense who is in your pictures and make tagging suggestions, but what if the social network could further learn behaviors and preferences by reading the Gap sweatshirt you’re wearing and seeing that Coca-Cola can in your hand?
Following Facebook’s recent acquisition of facial-recognition software company Face.com for an undisclosed amount of money last week, some users have expressed concern that the expansion of this type of technology on the social network could encroach on their privacy rights. Facebook hasn’t said what it’s future plans are for Face.com or its technology and would not comment for this story.

How to Turn Your Ubuntu Laptop into a Wireless Access Point :HowtoGeek

If you have a single wired Internet connection – say, in a hotel room – you can create an ad-hoc wireless network with Ubuntu and share the Internet connection among multiple devices. Ubuntu includes an easy, graphical setup tool.

Earlier this week, Josh Constine wrote an epic piece on Facebook, Google and Apple’s impending messaging war. As Constine explains, we have most likely reached “peak SMS,” that is, text messaging is on the decline and another form of messaging will take its place.

But as the major empires wage total war for glorious messaging spoils, there are far smaller, distant tribes that will make their own windfall of riches from the battle. Man, I miss playing Age of Empires.

As these tech giants extend their reach even further, it is quite possible that users will seek to regain control over their information and embrace applications that quickly erase or encrypt their messages and pictures. Especially if the companies’ battle reduces their respect for users’ privacy—like Facebook’s aggressive email changelast month.

Cara Friedman is the president of Likeable Community College, a social media training program for community managers and other social media professionals.

To be successful in social media and community management you need to keep track of the constant changes to that ecosystem. That’s because everything you know about Facebook, Twitter, and other social spaces today will somehow be different in six months. Layouts will be altered, features will be added or removed, and new social networks may pop up.

So how should you keep track of all these moving parts? Here are six tips for staying on top of social media.

CUPERTINO, CA - OCTOBER 04: Apple CEO Tim Coo...

Tim Cook has a decision to make. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Once more, it’s time to discuss Apple, so once more I’ll invoke Taniyama-Shimura and look at the world of the seven inch tablet and the iPad.

When it was Steve Jobs running Apple it was easy. Jobs would say that something was silly, impossible, and a bad decision, until the moment that Apple announced a product that would revolutionise that area of technology. After some investigation, it will turn out that Apple has been working on said technology for a few years, internally iterating like crazy to get the perfect product.

With all the talk of a 7 inch tablet I keep coming back to Steve Jobs dissing the 7 inch form factor when talking about the iPad. Given Apple’s previous form, that leads me to think that seven inches is bad… until seven inches is what consumers need. Strictly speaking, all the talk is now over a 7.85 inch tablet thanks to some nifty arithmetical calculations around display panels and pixel density (here’s Andy Faust’s explanation).

27 Sexy Things to Do in a Bikini : Cosmopolitan

If there's anything that the Kate Upton Cat Daddy video taught us, it's that sometimes, you just need to throw on a bikini and flaunt what you've got. This summer, we say you get creative, and let that bikini body out whenever possible. Some ideas to get you started..

DIY Delight: 76% of women say they nearly always achieve orgasm alone, while less than half say that holds true during sex with a partner.

Tamara Schlesinger

Talk about getting your knickers in a twist. When earlier this year a brochure from the British National Health Service announced, “An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away,” it created an immediate brouhaha, with educators and health experts calling it deplorable and warning that it would encourage "risky" behavior and STDs.

Okay, maybe the Health Service did go a bit too far when they created a page from a fictional high-school girl’s weekly planner with handwritten reminders to “masturbate!” and “bring condoms to the date on Saturday!” But it turns out, they have a very strong point. “There are a number of health benefits to be gained from having sex or an orgasm — or many orgasms — daily,” says Yvonne K. Fulbright, PhD, author of Pleasuring: The Secrets of Sexual Satisfaction. The stress-relief goodies are obvious, along with better sleep and some PMS pain relief. But that’s just the small stuff.

How to Install IIS 8 on Windows 8 : howtogeej

One of the first things Web Developers using ASP.NET will want to install on Windows 8 is IIS (Internet Information Services). Windows 8 ships with a new version of IIS, version 8, lets take a look at installing it.

Apple Resets App Ratings For Developers Affected By App Crashing Bug, But Negative Reviews Remain: Techcrunch

One more update on this week’s “app-ocalypse” – Apple says it has resolved the issue which caused iOS and Mac apps to crash upon launch, and it has now pushed out new, untainted updates to fix the previously corrupted apps.

But in developers’ minds, the bigger worry here had been what to do about all those angry, one-star customer reviews related to crashes which were not their fault? It seems Apple is taking care of that, too.

According to the developers we’ve spoken with, the one-star reviews are not actually being removed from the iTunes App Store, they’re just being hidden. There seems to be some confusion on this point, however. For example, the folks atReaddle, makers of the Scanner Pro, blogged about the situation, noting that “Apple has decided to remove ALL comments of corrupted apps on the App Store, since many of those get 1-star ratings from angry users.”

Twitter Search Adds “Search Within People You Follow”, Autocomplete, Related Results : techcrunch

Twitter has just implemented a massive set of improvements to search, allowing you to search just within tweets of people you follow, autocomplete, and related results including similar hashtags and usernames. These will all help you find what you’re looking for even if you’re unsure of the exact hashtag or someone’s handle.

Yahoo and Facebook settle patent brawl: CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook and Yahoo are officially friends again. The two companies said Friday that they have settled the patent lawsuit Yahoo filed against Facebook four months ago, in a "strategic" deal that includes no cash.

Facebook is planning to roll out a new mobile advertising strategy that targets users based on which apps are installed on their phones, according to a reportfrom the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook engineers are said to have created software that can track what apps a user has downloaded. By using this information, Facebook can determine other apps that may appeal to them, serving up ads for those apps in the news feeds on their phones or tablets. Typically, Facebook users only see ads in the news feed from brands they’ve “Liked,” but this system would serve app ads whether they’ve liked the brand or not.

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...

For some time now I have been of the opinion that while a number of companies would look to challenge Apple (AAPL)’s iPhone position in the smartphone market, there would be many that fell short. Crashed and burned if you will, and that is what we are seeing with Research in Motion (RIMM), Nokia (NOK) and others.

Go Directly to Desktop Mode in Windows 8 on Login (Without Installing Extra Software) : howtogeek

A lot of people are unhappy with being forced to interact with the new Start Screen in Windows 8 first thing once they have logged into their system. But there is a quick and simple work-around to go directly to Desktop Mode that does not require installing extra software or making changes to your system.

How to Stream Videos and Music Over the Network Using VLC : howtogeek

VLC includes a fairly easy-to-use streaming feature that can stream music and videos over a local network or the Internet. You can tune into the stream using VLC or other media players.

VPN vs. SSH Tunnel: Which Is More Secure? : howtogeek

VPNs and SSH tunnels can both securely “tunnel” network traffic over an encrypted connection. They’re similar in some ways, but different in others – if you’re trying to decide which to use, it helps to understand how each works.

500Friends Predicts And Rewards Big Retailers’ Most Valuable Customers : Techcrunch

Not all customers are created equal — that’s the idea behind a new product from Y Combinator-backed loyalty startup 500Friends.

The company already allowed businesses to reward customers for activity like referring friends, writing reviews, checking in on Foursquare, and so on. Recently, however, it released an enterprise product that does a lot more.

CEO Justin Yoshimura says the new product creates “archetypes” of different kinds of customers, then uses the businesses’ data to determine which archetypes are going to be the most valuable, either in terms of dollars spent or social influence. Then, when a new customer comes to a website, a business can match them against the different archetypes, effectively identifying which ones are likely to be the most valuable and allowing businesses to give them special service and offers. Yoshimura says:

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Student Competition Turns 10, Gets Underway In Sydney: Techcrunch

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is probably one of the world’s best-known student technology competitions and Microsoft itself likes to call it “the world’s premier student technology competition.” Every year, thousands of local teams compete to represent their country in the finals. Over the last 10 years, over 1.65 million students from over 190 countries have participated in the event in some form or another. Ever since the first event in Barcelona, Microsoft has hosted the Imagine Cup in a different city around the world. This year, the event is going down under and is taking place is Sydney, Australia, where about 350 jet lagged students from 75 countries descended on the city’s convention center today to register, fine-tune their presentations and kick the event off in style.

Mobile Gaming Startup Zipline Games Raises $750,000 More From Seattle Angels : Techcrunch

So can we all agree that the future of gaming is mobile, and if you’re not building fun apps for your game studio, you’re missing out on a huge potential audience and huge monetization opportunity? If there’s any lesson from the success of Rovio’s Angry Birds or OMGPOP’s Draw Something, it’s that people love nothing more than putzing around on their mobile phones when they’ve got nothing better to do. And so that’s why startups like Zipline Games are so exciting.

Tech is getting more gay-friendly :CNN

James Lazar, right, of Chicago, didn't update his Facebook page to include his marriage until the icons changed.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Facebook adds icons for users to commemorate same-sex weddings
The icons look like cake toppers and show two men or two women
Previously, same-sex married couples were given icons of a man and woman
This is the latest example of tech companies pushing for LGBT inclusion

(CNN) -- James Lazar is married to a man. He won't buy anniversary cards that picture a man and a woman. He didn't want his Facebook page to show those symbols, either.

"I don't like being forced into typical gender roles -- because we aren't," he said by phone. "I think it's offensive."

Twitter has a big search and discovery announcement today, according to a tweet by the company’s Personalization and Recommender Systems Chief Pankaj Gupta.

“Search & discovery in @twitter set to change forever after tmrw,” tweeted Gupta Thursday, without giving away any other details.

It’s a long shot, but today’s possible announcement could be somehow tied to Twitter’s recent criticism of Google, after the company tightly integrated Google+ into its search results.

Many of us have several credit cards that offer rewards like airline and hotel points when we use them for purchases. Yet with so many choices and frequently changing rewards, it can be confusing to figure out which card to swipe. Matthew Goldman wants to make this easier.

Goldman is the founder and CEO of Wallaby Financial, a payments startup that, for a fee, can connect all your credit cards to one plastic slab. The company is betting that improving the existing credit-card system is going to be easier and more appealing for people than newly emerging payment technologies, including ones reliant on near-field communications chips in phones.

How to write a FaceBook Application in 10 minutes

Writing F8 apps is where it’s at right now. Everybody knows it. The userbase is huge and now we have a (free) API to. Everything is good….but the documentation.

I spent a day writing my Sudoku Facebook application yesterday. I already had the sudoku javascript widget ready to go - the time was spent wading through pages of documentation and downloading toolkits that (as it turns out) I didn’t need.

As far as I can tell, Facebook allows you to create applications that appear to the user in 2 different areas.

More reports suggest a smaller iPad is coming : CNN

The screens of current iPads measure about 10 inches across diagonally, but reports suggest a 7-inch model may be coming.(CNN) -- A new round of Apple rumors and leaks are suggesting what some tech observers have been predicting for the past year: that a smaller, less expensive iPad is on the way.The talk of a 7-or-8-inch version of the popular tablet (the current model has a nearly 10-inch screen, diagonally), comes on the heels of Google announcing plans for the Nexus 7, its own smaller tablet that will be more in the mold of Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The Nexus 7 will have a 7-inch screen and sell for $199 like the Fire, which has been one of the few

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Reviewer: Just because Nexus 7 isn't as big as the iPad doesn't mean it's not as useful
The Nexus 7 sells for $200 with 8GB of storage
Reviewer says Nexus 7 does not have software performance problems
Nexus 7 has Google Now info cards and a voice-activated search system

Nathan Olivarez-Giles says the Nexus 7 provides the best tablet experience outside of Apple's iPad.

(Wired)

Amazon Cloud Goes Down Friday Night, Taking Netflix, Instagram And Pinterest With It : forbes

As of 11:21 PM EST Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud in North Virginia went down, due to severe thunder storms in the area. The Washington Post reports torrential rains, “scary winds,” lightning and massive power outages in the D.C. area.

Follow Up: Survey OF Effects Of Cloud Outage Shows How Much Of The Web Runs On Amazon

How to Stop Employee Turnover in India : forbes

It’s no wonder workplaces everywhere are obsessed with employee engagement – everything seems to link to it. Engaged workers are more productive, perform better, motivate others and, perhaps most importantly –stay. So it is also no surprise that in a labor market such as India where attrition rates of 20-30% are normal and 50% in industries such as IT not unheard of, serious questions about engagement are being asked.

How to Stop Employee Turnover in India : forbes

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Placed

Quick Pitch: A service that lets marketers and app developers analyze location data.

Genius Idea: Contextualizing data about a user’s location for free to provide a better understanding about how our digital lives overlap with our physical ones.

Facebook Users Hijack Campaign to Exile Pitbull : mashable

Sometimes, Facebook campaigns backfire.
To promote Energy Sheets, the caffeine-infused approximate of Listerine strips, Walmart on Tuesday announced a contest that would send American rapper (and Energy Sheets spokesperson) Pitbull to the store location that received the most new Facebook Likes by July 15.
David Thorpe and Jon Hendren of Something Awful started a campaign to #ExilePitbull to the most remote Walmart in America: Walmart #2711 in Kodiak Island, near the Alaskan coast.
Kodiak’s Page now has more than 60,000 Facebook Likes — nearly 10 times the population of the entire island, according to 2010 census figures.

The Terrible Management Technique That Cost Microsoft Its Creativity : forbes

Tony Avelar/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Vanity Fair has an article in its August issue that tells the story of how Microsoft “since 2000 . . . has fallen flat in every area it entered: e-books, music, search, social networking, etc., etc.” According to a summary available online, the article finds a devastatingly destructive management technique at the heart of Microsoft’s problems.

Author Kurt Eichenwald interviewed employees and found that

The CEO's Guide to Earnings Calls: Larry Page's Cautionary Tale : The Atlantic Wire RSS

Google CEO Larry Page his post-earning conference call with investors Thursday. He spoke less than 400 words, skipped the Q&A session and left investors in the dark about why the company's operating expenses increased a whopping 54 percent from a year ago. As thanks, Wall Street sold Google's stock down 8 percent, which lopped off $15 billion of market value and set a record for the biggest single-day decline since 2008. Ouch! What did Page do wrong? Here's a tip sheet from business writers and Wall Street analysts on surviving the dreaded earnings call:

After Steve Jobs, a 7-inch iPad ? : The Atlantic Wire

Just as Google releases a 7-inch tablet that the techies actually like, the rumor mill has resurrected that old Apple seven inch tablet rumor, making Steve Jobs' nightmare of a smaller iPad seem more likely now than ever. It feels like some kind of sign that the same day noted Apple-phile David Pogue lauds the smaller Google tablet, calling it a "Rival to the Tablet Leader," The Wall Street Journal's Lorraine Luk cites mysterious

Apple’s spotless record tarnished by App Store’s first malicious spam app - forbes

Apple’s spotless record of keeping the App Store clear of malicious spam apps has been tarnished. Researchers at Kaspersky have discovered an app called “Find and Call” in Apple’s iOS App Store and the Google Play marketplace, Forbes noted on Thursday. The malicious app masquerades as a tool for simplifying contact lists but it instead uploads a user’s full contact list to a

Here's What Facebook's 'Want' Button Will Probably Look Like: Mashable

It's been said that is that would allow you to add products to a virtual wish list, and now we have a glimpse at what the icon could look like.

Tom Waddington, a web developer who recently found a disabled Want button included in Facebook's Javascript coding list of social plug-ins, told Mashable that the social network has been actively working on the feature. He embedded the code last week onto and it has since turned from an error code into a clickable "Want" button. (See below for image).

[More from Mashable: ]

Hawking says he lost $100 bet over Higgs discovery

-AFP

Renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking said Wednesday the Nobel Prize should be given to Peter Higgs, the man who gave his name to the Higgs boson particle.

Former Cambridge University professor Hawking also joked that the discovery had actually cost him $100 in a bet.

In an interview with the BBC Wednesday, Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, said: "This is an important result and should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel Prize.

"But it is a pity in a way because the great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn't expect.

Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday

- LOLITA C. BALDOR |

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.
According to the FBI, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States.

Researcher warns of Android phone 'botnet'

-AFP

Malware has been spreading on Android mobile phones that takes control of certain email accounts to create a "botnet" to send out spam, a security researcher said this week.

Microsoft security engineer Terry Zink said the malware has infected phones of users' Yahoo email accounts to send out spam messages.
"We've all heard the rumors, but this is the first time I have seen it -- a spammer has control of a botnet that lives on Android devices," Zink said in a blog post Tuesday.
"These devices login to the user's Yahoo Mail account and send spam."
He said the phones appear to be located in Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Oman, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela.

US approves first over-the-counter HIV home-use test : BBC

A home HIV test is expected to go on sale in the US within months, after winning regulator approval.

The OraQuick test checks saliva from a mouth swab for HIV and can produce results in 20 to 40 minutes.
Government estimates suggest 1.2 million people in the US are HIV-positive, but 20% do not know they are.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it hopes the over-the-counter test will reach people who might not otherwise get tested.
The test is expected to be sold in as many as 30,000 pharmacies and homeware shops, as well as online.
The manufacturer, OraSure, has not said how much the test will sell for but confirmed it would cost less than $60 (£38).

Eric Sykes, one of Britain's best-loved comedy actors and writers, has died at the age of 89, his manager has said. "Eric Sykes, 89, star of TV, stage and films, died peacefully this morning after a short illness," said Norma Farnes. "His family were with him."

Sykes found fame in a series of TV sitcoms from the 1950s, including Sykes And A... alongside Hattie Jacques.
Sir Bruce Forsyth paid tribute to the star, calling him "one of the greats of comedy in this country".
"He was universally loved here," the entertainer continued. "He was just one of the funniest men ever."
Comedian Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "Oh no! Eric Sykes gone? An adorable, brilliant, modest, hilarious, innovative and irreplaceable comic master. Farewell, dear, dear man."
League of Gentlemen star Mark Gatiss said: "The wonderful Eric Sykes has left us. A giant of comedy and a gentleman - funny to his very core. RIP."

Higgs boson-like particle discovery claimed at LHC -BBC

Cern scientists reporting from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have claimed the discovery of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson.

The particle has been the subject of a 45-year hunt to explain how matter attains its mass.

Both of the Higgs boson-hunting experiments at the LHC see a level of certainty in their data worthy of a "discovery".
More work will be needed to be certain that what they see is a Higgs, however.

Prof Stephen Hawking tells the BBC's Pallab Ghosh the discovery has cost him $100

The results announced at Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research), home of the LHC in Geneva, were met with loud applause and cheering.

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Monday, July 9, 2012

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Friday, July 6, 2012

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook and Yahoo are officially friends again. The two companies said Friday that they have settled the patent lawsuit Yahoo filed against Facebook four months ago, in a "strategic" deal that includes no cash.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Writing F8 apps is where it’s at right now. Everybody knows it. The userbase is huge and now we have a (free) API to. Everything is good….but the documentation.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

British scientist Stephen Hawking …

Wednesday, July 4, 2012