So a Twitter employee's account gets hacked, and the hacker decides to send all of the info to several news outlets, one of them being TechCrunch. TechCrunch states in this post that they plan to publish some of the hacked content! Here's what Mike Arrington says about this decision:
"There is clearly an ethical line here that we don’t want to cross, and the vast majority of these documents aren’t going to be published, at least by us. But a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them."
I'm torn. I guess some of it IS extremely newsworthy, but it also feels slimy to be reading private information obtained this way.So a Twitter employee's account gets hacked, and the hacker decides to send all of the... more
US State Department workers have begged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to let them use Firefox.
"Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox?" worker bee Jim Finkle asked Clinton during Friday's State Department town hall meeting.
"I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program."
Presumably, the State Department is using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. And we wouldn't be surprised if it's still mired in the eight-year-old IE6. The only thing that moves slower than Orange is a US government agency. But the State Department has yet to respond to our questions about its Firefox-less browsing mandate.US State Department workers have begged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to let them... more
Today, Apple’s App Store surpassed 1.5 billion downloads only three months since they announced going over the 1 billion mark.Today, Apple’s App Store surpassed 1.5 billion downloads only three months since... more
Information on the recent developments from both companies. What has been happening, what is going to happen, and where they are going from here.
Clipping from Article (Much more after the jump):
In less than a week, Google announced an operating system to compete with Windows, while Microsoft said that Office 10 will include free, online versions of its four most popular software programs — a shot at Google’s suite of web-based office applications.
And not more than a month and a half ago, Microsoft unveiled its new search engine, Bing, which it hopes will steal market share from Google and finally make it real money online.
From the news of it, it’s a full-blown tech battle, complete with behind-the-scenes machinations to sic government regulators on each other.
It is, however, not a death match — it’s more of a fight to see who will be the King of Technology, since both companies pull in their billions through completely different siphons and are unlikely to severely wound one another any time soon.
Google pulled in $22 billion in revenue in 2008, 97 percent of which came from tiny text ads bought by the keyword and placed next to search results or on pages around the web. Google makes a negligible amount of money bundling its online apps for businesses, charging $50 a head annually — but mostly it just gives its online text editor, e-mail and spreadsheet programs away.
By contrast, Microsoft sold $14.3 billion worth of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and other business applications over the last nine months, making a profit of $9.3 billion. It made a further $16 billion in revenue in 2008 through sales of its operating systems, which range from XP installations on netbooks, to Vista, to Windows Mobile to its server software.Information on the recent developments from both companies. What has been happening,... more
"The UK was the likely source of a series of attacks last week that took down popular Web sites in the US and South Korea, according to an analysis performed by a Vietnamese computer security researcher. The results contradict assertions made by some in the US and South Korean governments that North Korea was behind the attack. Security analysts had been skeptical of the claims, which were reportedly made in off-the-record briefings and for which proof was never delivered."
The Vietnamese security site's blog is linked from the article, but it is very slow even before Slashdotting. The researchers observed 166,908 zombies participating in the attacks — a number far larger than most earlier estimates."The UK was the likely source of a series of attacks last week that took down popular... more
Typography on the Web is basic and dull. A startup called Typekit will fix it.
For typography geeks, the Web is a depressingly drab place. Just look around the page you're reading now: There are only a couple of fonts, Arial and Verdana, used to display most of the text. That would be fine, except that they're the same two fonts you find everywhere else on the Web. Don't blame Slate's design team for the shortfall; blame the people who build Web browsers, the Web's standards bodies, and the companies that sell fonts. The strange reality of the Web is that it's harder to display a novel font than it is to embed a video. In this realm, at least, print media are still way ahead. Flip open your favorite glossy magazine and behold the typographic bounty—the text sizes that range from the microscopic to the gargantuan, the huge variety of font weights and styles, and the thrillingly large universe of different typefaces. Compared with the typical issue of Cosmo, Slate and every other online magazine look like something out of the 1800s.
Typeface designers and font fanciers have new reason for optimism though. The past year has seen a surge of Web-browser innovation. Now, most major browsers—including the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera—recognize a CSS rule known as @font-face. What that means, in brief, is that Web developers can now easily embed downloadable fonts in their pages. To see an example, load up Firefox 3.5 or Safari 4 and check out this site. You'll see three new typefaces—Liza, Auto, and Dolly—used in the body text and headlines.Typography on the Web is basic and dull. A startup called Typekit will fix it.
For... more
So the oven says to the refrigerator, “Don’t be so cold.”
That line will soon be more than a bad joke. The Jetsons are coming to life as dishwashers, washing machines, and other home appliances begin to talk to each other and to the electricity grid in an effort to manage and reduce energy use.
Last week, for instance, General Electric and Boulder, Colo.-based smart-grid startup Tendril unveiled a deal to collaborate on software to connect the industrial giant’s “smart appliances” to the grid. Pilot projects with utilities are expected to begin by year’s end.
Given that about half of a typical home’s electricity consumption goes to power appliances, lighting, and water heating, so-called demand-response dishwashers and dryers could not only shrink your personal carbon footprint but allow utilities to avoid building new power plants to meet peak demand or firing up dirty ones to avoid brownouts.
“We’re looking at targeting a 30 to 50 percent reduction in energy usage per appliance,” says Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck. Tendril makes software that downloads data from smart meters to let people track their electricity usage in real time.
For most utilities, electricity demand peaks between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., when people come home from work, cook dinner, wash clothes, run the dishwasher, charge up their mobile phones, and flick on their big-screen televisions.
There is more to read at the linkSo the oven says to the refrigerator, “Don’t be so cold.”
That line will soon... more
Earlier this week FailBlog posted a screen-grab of one of the entries on Guinness detailing the “Most Individuals Killed In A Terrorist Act”, which included a link inviting viewers to “Break this record”. It was a classic case of Fail, likely caused by either a side-wide template that included the link or an editor who fell asleep at the wheel.
But rather than just simply fixing the issue, apologizing, and moving on, Guinness has decided to dig a nice, big hole for itself by threatening FailBlog with a lawsuit for featuring the Guinness World Records logo without authorization. This morning FailBlog posted a note to its site (appropriately titled ‘OMG U FAIL SO HARD’) with a screenshot of the threat, along with the site’s response.
///This response absolutely made my day. Definitely click through and read it, I laughed out loud for a while.Earlier this week FailBlog posted a screen-grab of one of the entries on Guinness... more
As the release of Windows 7 comes closer, surveys are showing that most people (as in IT managers and CIOs) don't plan to buy it. While some of these people simply don't have enough money at the moment, and may install the OS at a later date, a surprising (or maybe not not so surprising) number of people say they don't plan to buy it at all.
The way I see it, if Windows 7 doesn't absolutely wow us, Microsoft is going to start loosing significant market share.
(For the exact numbers follow the link above)As the release of Windows 7 comes closer, surveys are showing that most people (as in... more
Twitter seems to be the hottest thing in tech recently — if you look at TechCrunch, it averages at least 3 posts a week about Twitter. But the bigger question is, who is really using Twitter? Many of you might think that, as with most of the latest gadgets and technologies, teenagers are using Twitter, but you’re wrong, and here’s why. Matthew Robson, a 15 year old intern, over at Morgan Stanley, wrote a report on how teenagers are consuming media, and why Twitter isn’t the hot topic in high school halls.
If you look at technologies trending with teens right now, it’s Apple devices (iPhone, iPod), smart phones (Blackberry, Palm), and then social networks (Facebook and MySpace). At least that’s what I see from hanging out with 1,500 other teenagers in high school every day (I am 16 years old). But why not Twitter? Well, because Twitter is a different type of social network than Facebook. Facebook is about connecting people, and sharing information with each other. The way my friends and I see it, Facebook is a closed network. It’s a network of people and friends that you trust to be connected to, and to share information like your email address, AIM screen name, and phone number. You know who’s getting your status messages, because you either approved or added each person to your network.
With Twitter, it’s the exact opposite. Anyone can follow your status updates. It’s a completely open network that makes teenagers feel “unsafe” about posting their content there, because who knows who will read it. Sure, you get emails notifying you when you have new followers, but that doesn’t compare to the level of detail you get when someone on Facebook adds you, and you get their information.
According to June, 2009 comScore numbers, 11.3% of visitors to Twitter.com in the U.S. are ages 12-17. Internationally, in May, 2009, only 4.4% of visitors were younger then 18.
Twitter is also seen as more expensive to keep up with than Facebook. Most of my friends spend their time playing video games, watching TV, surfing online, and text messaging to actual friends who you know will reply back. In an economy like this, most parents don’t want to spend the extra money on unlimited texting to total strangers. So why spend money on sending SMS updates to Twitter, when you can send updates to someone you know will read it and reply?
Facebook has a more dedicated community than Twitter, which is why teenagers want to use it. Maybe the reason Twitter still isn’t considered mainstream quite yet is because Gen Y isn’t the early adopter this time around.Twitter seems to be the hottest thing in tech recently — if you look at TechCrunch,... more
Robert Scoble took some great videos of what's new and cool in Office 2010... nice to see these tools in motion, rather than the million other static write-ups I've read today!
I have to say, being with Verizon, I have never had a slow connection, or lack of service.
From the Article:
A smartphone broadband test conducted by Wired.com found that AT&T customers reported the slowest average 3G network speeds, while Verizon subscribers posted the speediest results.
Conducted in May, our interactive 3G speed test attracted about 15,000 participants — 12,000 of whom reported valid, usable results. The study focused on 3G networks deployed in the United States by AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.
Verizon came in first place with an average download speed of 1,940 Kbps, as reported by 856 participants. T-Mobile’s average rate was 1,793 Kbps with 1,189 reported T-Mobile users. Third was Sprint with 1,598 Kbps, based on data from 1,570 users. In dead last was AT&T with an average of 901 Kbps — but an overwhelmingly large user sample of 8,153 test takers.
The debate over which carrier is best has been around for as long as there have been cellphones. A common myth is that Verizon’s is the most reliable and fast, while AT&T’s is the worst. These claims have been difficult to verify because of the variable nature of wireless technology. But Wired.com gave it a try on U.S. phones anyway.
(We also conducted an earlier test on the iPhone only, rating its network performance on a global level; that study revealed that AT&T customers reported considerably slower speeds than iPhone owners on European networks.)
To gather the data, Wired.com asked U.S. smartphone owners to test their 3G download speeds by running a custom web page that involved downloading an image. Then, we asked participants to manually plot their data on an interactive map. For a second data set, our test developer Ben Reubenstein automatically tracked download speeds using the test page.
After analyzing both data sets, Wired.com opted to use Reubenstein’s automatically reported results, because the information was more complete, comprehensive and reliable.
We acknowledge our speed test is not scientific; we view it as a general barometer that gauges the performance of 3G networks in the United States. With that said, we note a few caveats:
We realize that the substantially larger amount of AT&T test takers may unfairly contribute to an overall lower download speed — so take this considerably lower result with a nugget of salt.
The test results rely heavily on good faith that participants were being honest (and not, for instance, running the test over Wi-Fi). We did, however, remove any bogus, impossibly high results, as well as incomplete data fields.
Software, processors, memory and other factors will obviously affect a cellphone’s overall download speeds. Smartphones with faster CPUs, more RAM and so on will clearly give the network an advantage. But then again, these test results should give you a general idea of the network performance you should expect not only on these networks, but also the phones they carry.
Interestingly, our results appear to coincide with a similar test conducted by PC World in May. PC World’s test involved working with Novarum Inc., a wireless consultant firm, who performed a 3G stress test from 283 locations in a day. PC World’s testing also found Verizon was fastest, with Sprint and AT&T coming in second and third, respectively. (T-Mobile was not included in the PC World test.)
With that said, we thank Reubenstein for coding our test, and we also thank our fellow friends in the blog community for helping spread word of the study to attract participants. We invite readers to take a look at our spreedsheet containing the results [csv] if they wish to perform their own analysis.I have to say, being with Verizon, I have never had a slow connection, or lack of... more
This rumor keeps resurfacing. I just don't buy it... I've already got my iPhone, and between that and an available 13-inch Macbook Pro, why would we need something sized in-between that may not even run OS X?
-----------------------------
The China Times is now reporting that the endlessly-rumored Apple tablet isn't just coming someday—a fair bet—it's coming soon. It'll land in October, to be exact, when we should expect to pay around $800 for it.
The story of the Apple tablet has been one of hearsay and gossip from the start, and this report, despite coming from a respectable newspaper, is no different. Translation courtesy of the MacRumors forums, and our polygot tipster:
Taiwan's high-tech supply chain companies said Apple will debut its first netbook in October; Apple will pose itself to tackle the Christmas shopping season. Three corporations – Foxconn, Wintek, Dynapack have received direct orders from Apple.
To anyone who's been following this story, this will sound familiar: Wintek was the company previously said to have supplied a bunch of touchscreen panels to Apple for use in a tablet—a narrative that lost a little steam after a no-show at WWDC. But bearing a resemblance to previous rumors could mean two things: either the China Times has been able to independently confirm something true, lending it credence; or they—or their sources—are simply echoing rumors. The pricing rumor is subject to the same suspicions:
Because Apple will adopt touch screen technology on its netbooks, Apple will not target low-end consumers, avoiding direct competition with Acer, Asus, as well as their less-than-500-dollars netbooks. Apple's netbook (or a "tablet" as many call it,) will probably be sold at around $800 USD each.This rumor keeps resurfacing. I just don't buy it... I've already got my iPhone, and... more
Audiowood is looking to breach the gap between cold, impersonal electronics and nature with their line of wooden turntables. They're also hoping to “sell products with eco-credentials including low-power and efficient amplifiers and products made from sustainable and recycled materials…and evolving towards absolutely sustainable carpentry, from raw materials to production methods and finishes”.Audiowood is looking to breach the gap between cold, impersonal electronics and nature... more
Donnie and Sharon Leutjen and their 15-year-old granddaughter, Taron Leutjen, were found June 9. They had been shot to death, and their bodies had lain in their home in Cole Camp, Mo., for about two days.
Authorities know approximately when the Leutjens were shot because they got a 911 call on the night of June 7.
On the tape of the call — which investigators examined after the worried inquiries of someone who knew the family led to the bodies' discovery — “one of the male voices was directing Sharon Leutjen to sit down (and) put her arms behind her,” the sheriff’s office in Benton County, in central Missouri, said in court documents. “At least two threats to shoot her and the other two victims” could be heard, the sheriff’s office said.
So why didn’t deputies rush to the scene as soon as they got the call?
They couldn’t. They didn’t know where it came from. Whoever made the call used a cell phone, and Benton County’s technology isn’t advanced enough to take advantage of location services that are standard features of nearly all cell phones sold today.
Benton County isn’t an isolated example. Cell phones may lure us with the promise of immediate help in an emergency, but depending on where you live, that promise can go unkept because of inadequate technology at one or both ends of a 911 call.
“Access to 911 from cell phones is very different from wired phones and also varies greatly around the country,” said the National Emergency Number Association, or NENA, the nonprofit industry group that works with governments to promote and institute 911 programs across North America.
In places that haven’t upgraded their 911 centers to the latest technology, “this presents life-threatening problems due to lost response time” if callers are unable to speak or don’t know where they are, the organization said.
That’s why emergency officials and wireless industry leaders say every household should have a centrally located, easily accessible land line for emergency calls. But increasingly, Americans are dropping their land lines and going wireless-only. Some systems find only a cell tower
The problem is that, by definition, a mobile phone can be anywhere. It isn’t tied to an address, which automatically pops up on a 911 operator’s screen during a call from a land line. As cell phones have morphed into all-in-one multimedia toolboxes, U.S. carriers have integrated technology to use Global Positioning System satellites or their own towers to triangulate a phone’s location. It’s called Enhanced 911, or E911, and under Federal Communications Commission regulations, such capability must be built in to at least 95 percent of the phones a carrier sells.
But that information is only as good as the 911 infrastructure.
A decade after the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act was enacted in 1999, requiring cell phone carriers to provide a caller’s location to 911, about 10 percent of the nation’s more than 6,000 call centers haven’t installed the equipment to use the information, NENA found in February. Those jurisdictions still offer only 1990s-vintage basic 911, which rely on callers’ knowing where they are and being able to communicate that.
“On cell phones, we do not have an exact location,” said Ken White, operations manager of the 911 center in Tulsa, Okla., which has asked for state help to pay for an E911 upgrade that will show a cell phone’s location and call-back number. Such information often isn’t now available, even though a little more than half of Tulsa’s 911 calls come in from cell phones, about the same proportion as they do nationwide.Donnie and Sharon Leutjen and their 15-year-old granddaughter, Taron Leutjen, were... more
Google Phone designers Mike and Maaike are in the preliminary process of coming up with the ATNMBL (autonomobile). To be released by 2040, the all-wheel-drive car doesn't have a steering wheel, brake pedal or drivers seat and drives entirely by itself. The size of a parking space, the electric powered car will have an internet sitting room and can fit about seven people. Upon entering the ATNMBL, passengers are asked where they want to go and the car finds the quickest way to the destination.Google Phone designers Mike and Maaike are in the preliminary process of coming up... more
"Yahoo! GeoCities Service Announcement
Important notice: GeoCities is closing.
Dear Yahoo! GeoCities customer,
We're writing to let you know that Yahoo! GeoCities, our free web site building service and community, is closing on October 26, 2009.
On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files."
I received this letter this morning, and I have to say I'm a little shocked.
I remember a day when web design was a pioneer-like effort for everyone, sometime in back in rusty ol' 1998 when I was just getting started. Now, Geocities- a former home for personal sites that are now replaced by formats of myspace and facebook- doesn't even maintain enough profit from its banner ads and pop-ups to sustain itself. For a long while before this, they were the only ad-free service available on the internet, holding out years before they were forced to earn more money through their file-holding service. Still now, it could function as an online filing cabinet, but the world lay in disinterest.
What is that has changed about the world so much that what before was the most popular service of its kind has finally died after over ten years?
RIP Yahoo! Geocities
As a seventh grader, you changed my life for the better."Yahoo! GeoCities Service Announcement
Important notice: GeoCities is closing.
Dear... more
"Google's take on the world and other Sun Valley tidbits
Continuing a recent tradition, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt held court with the press at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he called the current economy "the new normal."
Companies need to "figure out how to be happy and get our lives together in this new configuration," Schmidt said, adding, "You can't waste money; credit is tight."
Schmidt, who was joined by Google co-founder Larry Page, spoke on a variety of topics ranging from Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health and concerns about Google's power to whether Twitter and Facebook are hurting Google. Schmidt, who is on the board of Apple, said he was "well informed" about Jobs' condition. He declined to comment on whether Apple should have been more forthcoming about Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant.
As for worries about Google's size on the part of regulators here and abroad, Schmidt said competitors were trying to stir things up. "We now expect governments to look at what we're doing ... we respect their role."
Schmidt still believes in MySpace, the struggling social networking site owned by News Corp. with which Google struck a $900-million advertising deal several years ago. "We like MySpace a lot," Schmidt said, although he declined to say whether the company would renew its ad deal with the site when it expires next year.
Schmidt expressed admiration for Hulu, the video site whose owners include News Corp. and NBC Universal, and said he hoped to get more professional content on YouTube. Asked when YouTube, for which Google paid $1.65 billion, would turn a profit, Schmidt said he wouldn't make predictions while Page said a timeline for YouTube to make a buck was "just not that important."
The tone of the conference on Day 3 was still somber. On a panel about global management, General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt lamented the state of education in the U.S.,, complaining that his company has to go outside the U.S. for the best people. As for the economy, Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Group, a huge advertising conglomerate, told reporters, "we don't see things improving."
News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch was also bearish, telling his Fox Business Network, “I’m shocked at the business mood, which is talking about either that we’re at the bottom or going lower, but that it’s going to take years and years, like five years at least before we see any real growth coming out of this.”
The conference was not without its lighter moments. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was walking out to lunch past a gantlet of reporters who were asking about Google's plans to launch an operating system to rival Windows when a voice behind him said, "Better if you not comment." It belonged to Google's Schmidt.
Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer may have had the best quip of the day. Asked about the success of Twitter and other social networking sites, Stringer said, "A lot of people are doing very well at making very little money. It's not a club I'm looking to join."""Google's take on the world and other Sun Valley tidbits
Continuing a recent... more
If the world seems to turn faster with each passing month, then don’t be surprised that the weekend box office has now shrunk to a single day: Friday.
The rise of social networking, studio executives say, is driving a near-instantaneous word of mouth effect that is doing much to hyper-charge Hollywood’s multi-million-dollar marketing efforts...or to defeat them a lot faster than usual.
A movie like “Up,” for example, had Disney executives surprised at its opening weekend success, which outstripped projections and brought in $68 million domestically.
Studio tracking did not indicate that the movie would have strong appeal to adults without children, one executive said, but by Saturday exhibitors were noting that that exact demographic was going to the movie.
"It's a new phenomenon and we're really seeing it this summer,” said Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios. “Clearly there's a Twitter effect."
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Not that this is that surprising, but it does bring up an interesting point as we're in the age of the webcam reviewer and twitter being used as a means of instant crowd-sourcing.
Also, check out the awesome photoshop that must've taken 10 days to make.If the world seems to turn faster with each passing month, then don’t be surprised... more
"Tiny flying machines can be used for everything from indoor surveillance to exploring collapsed buildings, but simply making smaller versions of planes and helicopters doesn't work very well. Instead, researchers at North Carolina State University are mimicking nature's small flyers – and developing robotic bats that offer increased maneuverability and performance.
Small flyers, or micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), have garnered a great deal of interest due to their potential applications where maneuverability in tight spaces is necessary, says researcher Gheorghe Bunget. For example, Bunget says, "due to the availability of small sensors, MAVs can be used for detection missions of biological, chemical and nuclear agents." But, due to their size, devices using a traditional fixed-wing or rotary-wing design have low maneuverability and aerodynamic efficiency.
So Bunget, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at NC State, and his advisor Dr. Stefan Seelecke looked to nature. "We are trying to mimic nature as closely as possible," Seelecke says, "because it is very efficient. And, at the MAV scale, nature tells us that flapping flight – like that of the bat – is the most effective.""Tiny flying machines can be used for everything from indoor surveillance to exploring... more
