imobisoft Today's Blogs

US couple name child on Facebook poll result

04/02/2012 19:08:11

A Facebook group has made it to the Guinness Book of World Records, thanks to the interest shown by over a million users in one of its posts on the social networking site.

The post was made by US woman Tracey Hodgson to have a short at the world record for most comments on October 30 last year.

“A new record has been set for the most comments on a single Facebook item after a post about the game Frontierville became the first to receive over a million responses,” Guinness said on its website.

“As of the 31 January, 1,001,552, comments had been made in response to a post on 30 October 2011 by Tracey Hodgson (UK), on the Facebook page "Ffgpioneers",” it added.

Tracey was quoted as having said that her interest in Frontierville began after her daughter “started playing it using my Facebook account"

"I began to play myself, and then got involved in helping with the game's community groups as an administrator," she said.

Woman arrested for ‘selling fake Facebook stock’

04/02/2012 18:08:46

Authortities in the United States have arrested a woman for allegedly trying to profit from Facebook’s decision to go public by selling fake stock in the social networking site.

Hailing from Oshkosh, Wisconsin , Marianne Oleson’s alleged fraud came to the fore after several people complained that she sold them fake Facebook stock over four m

Facebook, Google join internet giants in fight against phishing

04/02/2012 16:51:45

Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are among 15 major internet companies who have joined hands in the fight against fishing and spam mails.

AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail , Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, PayPal , American Greetings, Facebook, LinkedIn, Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and Trusted Domain Project under a working group called DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) have come up with a policy to combat the threats of phishing and spam.

“ (DMARC) draws upon a history of private industry collaboration with 18 months of dedicated work, to outline an enhanced vision for email authentication that can scale up to today's Internet needs," the working group said .

"Email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole," a top member of DMARC.org said.

"Industry cooperation - combined with technology and consumer education - is crucial to fight phishing," he added.

Facebook pictures cost worker compensation claim

04/02/2012 16:35:40

Posting pictures of himself , partying and drinking, on social networking sites Facebook and Myspace has cost an injured worker in Arkansas a compensation claim.

Zackery Clement suffered a hernia in March of 2009 during an accident at work.

Although he was compensated for medical expenses and reportedly received temporary total-disability benefits for more than a year, Clement was seeking an extension of benefits following three surgeries resulting from his injury , according to media reports.

But the Arkansas Court of Appeals treated as evidence pictures on Facebook and Myspace, showing Clement "drinking and partying", submitted by his former employer and insurance company , turning down Clement’s appeal for an extension of the benefits.

Even as Celement’s counsel reportedly argued that the photos were unrelated to medical treatment since having a hernia wouldn't prevent someone from drinking, the Judge David Glover said the photos questioned Clement's credibility.

"We find no abuse of discretion in the allowance of the photographs," he said.

Facebook pictures cost worker compensation claim

04/02/2012 16:27:43

Posting pictures of himself , partying and drinking, on social networking sites Facebook and Myspace has cost an injured worker in Arkansas a compensation claim.

Clement suffered a hernia in March of 2009 when a refrigerator fell on him at work
Although he was compensated for medical expenses and reportedly received temporary total-disability benefits for more than a year, Clement was seeking an extension of benefits following three surgeries resulting from his injury , according to media reports.

"We find no abuse of discretion in the allowance of the photographs," he said.

Google to do country specific filtering for blogs

04/02/2012 16:09:37

Following in the footsteps of micro-blogging site Twitter, Google has announced plans to make content on its blogger platform available according to the local rules of each country.

The rules will be applicable in many countries such as India, Brazil, Honduras, and Germany, the internet giant said.

This will means Google will be able to restrict content in individual countries , in case there are requests by the local legal authority. The move will not require blocking worldwide access to a blog. It means, for example, that if a blog breaks an Australian law, Google can now block it in Australia but leave it up in the rest of the world, the company said.

"It will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law," Google said.

Facebook reunites twins, after 29 years of separation

04/02/2012 16:03:23

Facebook has helped reunite two Indonesian- born sisters after nearly 30 years.

Emilie Falk and Lin Backman, non-identical twins, were separated just weeks after their birth when two Swedish couples adopted them from an Indonesian orphanage in 1983.

Ironically, the two were living just 25 miles apart from each other in southern Sweden, for decades .

Lin initially ignored a message she received on the social networking site from a woman claiming to be her sister.

Finally, when curiosity got the better of her, she asked her adoptive mother if there was any chance of the message being true.

She was told that the when she was being taken to Sweden from the orphanage , the taxi driver asked the Backman’s about the “other girl( Emilie)”, prompting the Swedish couple to note down the twins’ Indonesian names.

Lin responded to the Facebook message , expressing interest in meeting the sender.

Following several meeting, Emilie and Lin decided to go for a DNA test , which confirmed what they had thought at their first meetings: they were twin sisters.

Few ‘like’ Facebook’s Timeline feature: Poll

03/02/2012 19:32:08

Few people using Facebook are impressed by the Timeline feature on the social networking site , a poll by opinion website SodaHead has revealed.

70 percent of respondents said they disliked the Timeline feature , urging Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg , to “lose it( Timeline)."

Only 20 percent of people polled by the SodaHead said they liked the Timeline while 10 percent said they didn’t use Facebook at all.

Those who polled against the new changes includes an equal 77 percent of men and women.

Compared to countries like India and Brazil, where 32 percent respondents approved the Timeline, only 23 percent in the United States said they were fine with the new feature.

The Timeline feature which is likely to become a mandatory upgrade for Facebook users will reveal the entire history of wall posts and other activities of users on the social networking site.

Facebook users in India double in 2011

03/02/2012 19:02:25

The number of people using Facebook in India have more than doubled in the past one year.

"We have achieved varying levels of penetration within the population of Internet users in different countries," the popular social networking site has said, while noting that its penetration rate in India was estimated to be 20-30 per cent.

"We experienced growth across different geographies, with users in Brazil and India representing a key source of growth," it added.

"... we had 46 million MAUs in India as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 132 per cent from the prior year," Facebook said, noting that growth in the US was 16 per cent and 268 per cent in Brazil for the same period.

Facebook said it would "continue to focus on growing our user base across all geographies, including relatively less-penetrated, large markets such as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea."

"We compete broadly with Google's social networking offerings, including Google+, and also with other, largely regional, social networks that have strong positions in particular countries, including Cyworld in Korea, Mixi in Japan, Orkut in Brazil and India..."

Graffiti artists becomes millionaire, courtesy Facebook

03/02/2012 18:55:24

In a rags to riches story, David Choe, a graffiti artist who painted the walls of Facebook offices in California in 2005, has become an overnight millionaire .

The popular social networking site gave Choe an option between cash and the company’s shares equivalent to it. Choe chose the latter. Now, seven years later, Choe ‘s shares are said to be worth more than 200 million dollars after Facebook went public on February 1 and filed for the largest ever initial public offering( IPO ). The company hopes to raise 5-10 billion dollars.

Initially, Choe, according to the New York Times, is said to have thought of his decision to bet on Facebook as “ridiculous and pointless.”

Facebook to particpate in Data Privacy Day

21/01/2012 20:22:16

The Facebook security team will particpate in the Data Privacy Day, being sponsored in the US by the National Cyber Security Alliance, on January 26.

The Data Privacy Day 2012 will be featuring Julie Brill, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission and two expert panels, Facebook said. "Our own Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan will participate in a panel titled “Privacy & Security: Best Practices in Action,” which will incorporate questions from the Facebo

Indian court to hear Google, Facebook pleas next month

21/01/2012 20:04:52

A court in India has deferred the hearing on petitions of Google India and Facebook India challenging a trial court's order to prosecute them for allegedly hosting objectionable content.

"The matter is likely to be taken up on February 2 or February 3,” said Justice Suresh Kait of the Delhi High Court.

Google India and Facebook India pleaded that controlling content with billions of people accessing the websites was "impossible".

The Indian governmen

Facebook asked to close down fake page of Indian educational body

21/01/2012 19:55:02

The Cental Board of School Education has asked Facebook to close down a page impersonating as the official page of the main governing body of education in India.

Media reports said that students were being doled out advices on the fake web page called 'CBSE'

"Thousands of students are under the impression that all that information is coming officially from the central board," a media report said.

"We have written to Facebook officials and have a

Indonesian man held for 'atheist declaration' on Facebook

21/01/2012 19:30:57

A man has been arrested in Indonesia after he declared himself an atheist on Facebook.

30-year-old Alexander An, a civil servant, is facing jail for blasphemy after being attacked by an angry mob on Wednesday in his hometown in Pulau Punjung, West Sumatra province.

Alexander, who wrote "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook page, is reportedly said to have been beaten by dozens of locals who barged into his office following a heated debate on the soc

Facebook 'No. 1 in Brazil', ousts Orkut

21/01/2012 19:01:13

Surpassing Google's Orkut, Facebook has become the most visited social networking site in Brazil

Compared to Orkut's 34.4 million visitors, Facebook saw 36.1 million visitors in December, according to figures released by an analytics firm.

The figures indicate rapid growth for Facebook, a 192% year-on-year rise in visitors, Comscore's Alex Banks said.

"Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market. That has all changed in the pas

Decision on Google's Motorola takeover on Feb 13: EU

21/01/2012 18:52:10

EU regulators will decide on February 13 whether to clear Google's takeover of US handset maker Motorola Mobility.

The decision comes after Google came forward with new documents to support its case,

Last month, the EU executive had suspended the previous January 10 deadline while waiting for certain documents from Google.

Google, the world number 1 Internet search engine wants to buy Motorola Mobility to boost its patent portfolio and compete better

Google to shut down Picnik, modify other services

21/01/2012 18:43:03

Google has decided to shut down Picnik, Google Message Continuity and Needlebase and also announced to make changes to some other services.

"We're retiring the service on April 19, 2012, so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products," according to Dave Girouard, vice president of product management for Google.

The company is also discontinuing Google Message Continuity, its service for backing up Microsoft Exchange emails

Google 'best company to work for', says Fortune

21/01/2012 18:36:10

Fortune has ranked internet giant Google as the 'best company to work for' among a list of 100.

Google climbed three spots in the list and was ranked No. 1 in the magazine’s 2012 ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list.

“Everything was up at Google last year — revenue, profits, share price, paid search clicks, hiring — and so, too, was employee love,” the magazine said.

According to Fortune, Google employees rave abo

Facebook post helps in saving life of woman

03/01/2012 15:42:30

A Facebook post helped in saving lives of a Utah woman and her 17-month-old-son after they were held hostage in their own home for five days.

According to police, the woman hid in a closet with a laptop from which she posted a cry for help, saying she and her child would be "dead by morning" if some help didn’t reach her.

A friend was prompted by the post to contact the police in this matter, which dispatched to the woman's home to check in on her.

Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Jon Arnold said: "Facebook was her only outlet that she had at the home. It just happened that she was able to use it."

As a consequence, police on Saturday arrested and detained 33-year-old Troy Reed Critchfield while they investigated charges of aggravated kidnapping, forcible sodomy, aggravated assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and animal cruelty, among other things.

According to reports, the culprit forcibly held her and her son in her home, where he repeatedly hit, choked, and sexually abused her for nearly a week. The victim, further added, that said Critchfield took her cell phone and another phone in the house that belonged to a disabled child, and that he refused to let her feed her dog.

Facebook made responsible for divorces

03/01/2012 15:28:13

A law firm has revealed that social networking site Facebook has been blamed for one third of divorces across the globe.

Law firm Divorce-Online has revealed that in divorce cases the social network is increasingly being used as a source of evidence.

According to the firm,over the past two years, the firm said it has seen a 50 percent jump in the number of "behaviour-based" divorce petitions that contained the word "Facebook".

During the past one year, the name of the website was mentioned by at least 33 percent of the 5,000 petitions filed with the firm

Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online said: "Facebook has become the primary method for communicating with friends for many people. People contact ex-partners and the messages start as innocent, but lead to trouble. If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then it's the easiest place to do it."

Company sues worker over Twitter followers

03/01/2012 15:18:38

A former worker was recently sued by an internet company after alleging that he costed the company thousands of dollars in lost business when he took 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left the firm.

Noah Kravitz, a writer who worked for the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, company PhoneDog LLC, from 2006 until last year is facing a lawsuit from his former employers. Attorneys for the website, which reviews mobile devices like phones and tablets, said Kravitz owes them $340,000, according to the attorneys for the website.

According to the company, when Kravitz resigned, he changed his Twitter name from PhoneDog_Noah to noahkravitz, and kept his 17,000 followers. The company maintains that the followers should be treated like a customer list, and therefore PhoneDog's property.

$2.50 per follower per month for eight months, or a total of $340,000 is claimed by PhoneDog from Kravitz.

Facebook used by substantial populations in countries

03/01/2012 15:07:52

With more than 800 million active users, social networking site Facebook has become the most dominant social networking site in the world.

In a December said market analyst firm Pingdom said: “Facebook currently has more than 800 million active users. With a world population having just passed the 7 billion barrier, that would mean that around 11% of people on Earth are on Facebook.

Although, US is touted as the country with the largest number of Facebook users in the world, it also has a much bigger population than many other Facebook-using countries.

By comparing a country’s population with the number of reported Facebook users in the region, Pingdom set out to discover how popular the social network was in countries with a population of more than 500,000.

Pingdom said: “We took SocialBaker’s data on how many Facebook users there are in countries around the world, data on Internet users from the World Bank, and population data from Wikipedia.”

According to the figures revealed, most popular country is Cyprus, where 69% of the entire country is using Facebook.

Hong Kong is second with 53 percent of the population and is followed by Chile (52%), Singapore (51%), Norway (51%), Denmark (51%), the United States (50%), Canada (49%), the UK (49%) and Sweden (48%).

Facebook among others summoned by court

03/01/2012 14:51:35

21 websites, which include Facebook, Google, Orkut and YouTube among others, were summoned by a Delhi court for facing trail on charges of criminal conspiracy among others, for "selling, publicly exhibiting and...(circulating) obscene, lascivious content".

The summoning came just three days after a civil court ordered some social networking websites to remove content that might offend religious sentiments.

The matter was taken into consideration after a private criminal complaint which compelled metropolitan magistrate Sudesh Kumar to direct the Centre to take "immediate appropriate steps" and file a report in the court by January 13. Secretaries of the IT, home and law ministries received copies of the order.

The accused companies were summoned by the court on Friday to "face trial under Section 292, 293 and 120B IPC" for alleged sale of obscene objects and criminal conspiracy.

Privacy concern for Facebook users

11/12/2011 15:56:30

According to the revelations of a new survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Privacy Authorities forum, privacy on social networking sites is a big concern for most people.

Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said: "Most people like to talk and share information about themselves, but the survey shows people are concerned about whether they can control who sees their information,"

"Many people try to restrict access to their information, but one-third of respondents told us they weren't sure how to use their privacy settings.This suggests social networking sites aren't making it as easy as they should for people to understand how to choose who sees the information they post,” she said.

She further added that Constant changes to privacy settings don't help.

Mr Pilgrim released the results of the online survey at an APPA event in Melbourne last week.

Getting more than 10,000 respondents, the survey was conducted in four languages by privacy commissioners locally and in New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea and Mexico.

Concerned about their personal information, nearly 68 per cent said they would stop using a site that used information in unexpected ways.

Facebook postings land police dispatcher in jail

11/12/2011 15:44:40

Recently, on the basis of alleged harassment charges, a police dispatcher was arrested for posting text messages and photos between her husband and a female police officer on her Facebook page.

Late Tuesday, dispatcher Laura De Leon turned herself into Brownsville police where she was charged with one count of online harassment and one count of phone harassment.

After being arraigned on both counts by Municipal Judge Ben Neece, she was released on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond.

She was among the two police department employees placed on administrative leave last month for employee misconduct. The other employee was her husband Dalberto “Louie” De Leon, a Brownsville police officer.

The two had been suspended for personnel matters.

According to a dated Oct. 31, the Brownsville police report states that the charges are levied by Nancy Alanis, who is also a police officer for the city of Brownsville, and also married.

Furthermore, according to a police narrative, Alanis stated that besides harassment on phone, Laura De Leon also posted several pictures of her, and the text messages exchanged between Alanis and Dalberto De Leon, on Facebook without her consent.

$366 million in new construction move by Facebook

11/12/2011 15:34:48

According to an impact study, the planned relocation of Facebook to Menlo Park, Calif, can result in $366 million in construction expenditure in San Mateo County

According to study commissioned by the company it is estimated that the relocation plan of the social networking giant can result in 366 million in new temporary construction spending in the surrounding county.

Economic research firm Brion & Associates said in a study of the impact that the construction budget is $250 million, and the project may generate $116 million in additional activity and it may also mean 2,441 temporary construction jobs.

Joanne Brion, founder of Brion & Associates, said: “The potential is there to change and diversify the nature of Menlo Park’s economy,” she said. “Employees may leave Facebook and set up their own companies. VCs could be attracted to the area. Facebook will need goods and services as they grow.”

Rs 70 lakh package to IIT-Kanpur student offered by Facebook

11/12/2011 15:26:42

In a new move, an IIT student in the ongoing campus placements, at Kanpur, was offered about Rs 70 lakh per annum package by Facebook, the social networking giant.

IIT-K registrar Sanjeev Kashelkar said: "M Tech (computer science and engineering) student Siddharth Agrawal has been offered the package (near about Rs 70 lakh),"

Without disclosing the amount, the registrar said that Facebook has offered high packages to other students as well but the one offered to Agrawal is the highest so far.

A similar package to an IIT-Kharagpur student was offered by Facebook, last week.

Facebook to comply with government orders

11/12/2011 15:19:44

On Tuesday, it was announced by Facebook that it will pay due consideration to the concerns of Indian government regarding the minimization of abusive content online, and it will remove any content violating its terms.

In a statement Facebook said: "We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service."

On Tuesday, the information and telecoms minister Kapil Sibal said that many leading Internet companies including Facebook and Google were instructed by the Indian government that they need to remove 'offensive content' from their services, , but he insisted the request was not censorship.

Furthermore, Sibal said that the government did not believe in censorship, but the internet companies needed to evolve a mechanism to remove 'offensive' content.

Music licensing management strategy of Google

11/12/2011 15:11:45

Improvement and innovation have always been the focus of Google. Keeping up with this trend, a post on the YouTube blog disclosed that Google has bought RightsFlow, a start-up based in New York to manage its music licensing. The move is aimed at increasing the company’s productivity. Music rights of songwriters, recording artists, record labels, distributors and online music services will be managed by the assistance of RightsFlow.

Complex issues of licensing and royalty payment management are the main areas of focus for RightsFlow . The blog also said that smart copyright management is essential for online video service as it helps songwriters and performers to be compensated appropriately and also allows using those works in newer ways. A team that will manage all the licensing issues for YouTube will be now brought onboard by the acquisition of RightsFlow. A move, estimated to bring more music on You Tube.

Google Chrome with mini ninjas coming soon

11/12/2011 15:04:55

Even though browser gaming in not a new concept ,but the visual extravagance which is lacking at most times, is being planned for a change by Square Enix by launching Mini Ninjas for Google Chrome, next year.

Mini Ninjas which was released in September 2009, was a cute-ish action RPG, where players took control of a Mini Ninja who had to put an end to an Evil Samurai Warlord hell bent on transforming docile animals into mindless samurai warriors. IO Interactive, the same company behind the Hitman and the Kane and Lynch series were the hands behind the manufacturing of the game. Although, certainty can’t be expressed whether IO will be working on the browser version as well, but sometime this month, things should become clearer as the game’s all set to hit an open beta.

More than four million have installed Guardian's Facebook app

01/12/2011 18:03:46

As per the figures released by Guardian, the company’s Facebook app, which was launched in September, has been installed by more than 4 million users and has driven up daily page impressions by almost 1m.

The app is generating almost 1m extra page impressions per day as per the statement from Guardian News & Media. If figures from the latest ABC internet figures are to be believedguardian.co.uk recorded 3.2 million daily browsers, up by 12.23%, for October.

The young audience is also looking up to it as the data has revealed that 56.7% of the app's users are 24 or under, and 16.7% are 17 and under.

"As well as increasing traffic, the app is making our journalism visible to new audiences. Over half of the app's users are 24 and under – traditionally a very hard-to-reach demographic for news organisations. The Facebook app is one of a number of successful launches by the Guardian in recent months as our 'digital first' strategy gains momentum. We're delighted with the results," said Andrew Miller, chief executive officer of Guardian Media Group, which owns GNM.

Facebook IPO estimated to reach billions

01/12/2011 17:40:11

The young audience is also looking up to it as the data has revealed that 56.7% of the app's users are 24 or under, and 16.7% are 17 and under.

Free websites by Google for small businesses

01/12/2011 17:22:12

Offering of free websites to small businesses in Rajasthan was announced by Google India.

A seminar highlighting the utility of internet medium in improving businesses was held by the company.

Besides, in order for advertisers to find new markets overseas, the business owners were enlightened about Google's new free online tool 'Google Global Market Finder'.

Nitin Bawankule, Head of Online Sales, Google India, said: "Rajasthan is a key market for us as search queries in google for businesses like travel and tourism, handicrafts, jewellery of the state have gone multiple times higher in the last three years."

He further added that they are offering free websites for those small and medium businesses in Rajasthan who do not have websites, enabling them to get a free, easy-to-build website and web hosting for one year.

Firefox overtaken by Chrome

01/12/2011 17:12:17

According to web analytics firm StatCounter, Google Inc’s Chrome internet browser for the first time overtook Firefox and in on its way to reduce the gap between Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer.

Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter chief executive, said: "We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally."

Chrome saw its market share roughly doubling from a year ago to 25.7 per cent,in November, while Internet Explorer's share dropped to 40.6 per cent from 48.2 per cent.

Fall of 25.2 per cent from 31.2 per cent, globally, was witnessed in the market share of Firefox.

Chief privacy officer appointed by Facebook

01/12/2011 17:04:33

After overhauling its privacy policy after being forced by a US regulator, two new corporate privacy officer jobs have been created by Facebook.

The pressure recently brought by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) who ruled that that the company had lied to its 800million users for the past five years made Facebook to comply.

The FTC ruled that Facebook's serious violations included allowing other companies access to users' personal information - even after they deleted their accounts.

Allegations have been pointed out that Facebook had been 'unfair and deceptive' and broke the law.

Responding to these allegations, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Erin Egan, who recently joined the company from law firm Covington and Burling, will become Chief Privacy Officer (Policy), while Chief Privacy Counsel Michael Richter will become Chief Privacy Officer (Products).

Admitting that the company has made some 'high-profile mistakes', Zuckerberg maintained that it had a good general record on privacy.

Status update character limit increased by Facebook

01/12/2011 16:53:44

In an apparent effort to race ahead of its rivals, Facebook has introduced new features to users' profiles and now another update is in the offering. The social networking giant has now increased the limit of Facebook status updates to “more than 60,000 characters.”

"In September, we increased the character limit on status updates to 5,000 characters. Today, we're announcing that you can now write posts with more than 60,000 characters,” said Facebook’s Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik.

In this regard, update of up to 63,206 characters can be posted by the users.

While the initial limit was restricted to 160 characters, new updates through the years has now has stepped up the limit to 63,206 characters.

Galaxy Nexus volume bug in U.K. acknowledged by Google

23/11/2011 18:18:19

Acknowledgement regarding the Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones, using the newest version of Andriod OS, can spontaneously drop volume in the U.K., has been made by Google.

In a statement Google said: "We are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix. We will update devices as soon as possible."

The bug causes volume on smartphones with Android 4.0--aka Ice Cream Sandwich--to drop spontaneously. The 900MHz 2G frequency, which is used by U.K. carriers O2 and Vodafone, initially appears the cause behind the issue. Nexus owners on Orange, T-Mobile, or Three won't be affected, as these networks use a different frequency, suggests evidence.

Last week, the Galaxy Nexus launched in Europe, although, no U.S. launch date has been released yet.

Facebook posts spark communal riots in Rajasthan

23/11/2011 18:10:20

Objectionable comments against a religion on social-networking site Facebook resulted in fresh communal violence in Rajasthan’s Dungarpur town as members of a community pelted stones at shops and vehicles and clashed with police.

The troubled area was clamped with prohibitory orders as the violence resulted in injury to six persons, including policemen.

The violent clashes were in continuation of last night's tension in Udaipur over the comments on Facebook with members of the community holding demonstration in Mukherjee Chowk area near Masjid Chudigaran and burning tyres.

In Dungarpur, the protestors took a silent rally which turned violent when a youth on motorcycle entered the crowd.

The people participating in the rally beat up the youth and pelted stones at shops and vehicles.

The events turned violent and police had to resort to force to quell the protestors.

According to police, the comments, posted from a fake account, have been removed and investigations are on to nab the culprit.

Small businesses opt for Facebook

23/11/2011 17:53:02

Social media marketing has been adopted by many small businesses and with Facebook a name to reckon with, it is no surprise that it tops the choice of these businesses.

Facebook was the most commonly used social media tactic by small businesses in connecting with their customers and stood only next to email, revealed a research from email marketing software firm Constant Contact.

83% of the small businesses that perceived social media marketing as effective said that Facebook was at least moderately so and by comparison, 46% said the same of Twitter.

Even though social media seems a favorite with small businesses, the choice lags when it comes to mobile. Overall, 72% of respondents to the Constant Contact survey said they had not incorporated mobile into any business function.

Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus coming to India

06/11/2011 05:12:54

On Thursday, in New Delhi, while launching the Galaxy Note smartphone, Samsung said that they are planning to bring the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in India by the end of the year.

“The Google flagship phone’s “tentative launch will be this year and not next,” said Ranjit Yadav, Country Head – Mobile & IT Business at Samsung India.

The users were allowed to register for updates about the availability of the phone in the country, by the official Galaxy Nexus page for India.

The Galaxy Nexus which was announced in October features a large 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels and comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. This will be the first handset to come pre-installed with the latest Android v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which brings a plethora of changes to the popular smartphone OS.

Indian-controlled Kashmir visited by Google

06/11/2011 05:01:22

On Thursday, an eight-member team from search engine giant-Google visited Indian-controlled Kashmir and interacted with young entrepreneurs, information technology aspirants and students.

In order to understand the strategy needed for making the region a hub of online businesses ,the visiting team held the interactive session with the young people at an international convocation centre in Srinagar, the region's summer capital.

"We are here to understand how Google owned technology can be made accessible to clients online,"said Debu Pukayastha, Principal New Business Development, Google, adding "we are not here to invest but we are here to learn how we can create and build businesses."

During the visit, interaction with local companies is scheduled for helping them in using Google technology in making their businesses successful.

"We are holding an interactive sessions to inform developers and entrepreneurs on Google product and technology," said Pukayastha.

Google integrates YouTube in Google+

06/11/2011 04:53:40

Google has eased the sharing of videos from YouTube, its video website, for the users of its social network, Google+.

Through a small YouTube icon appearing on the top right of every Google+ page, users can access videos. A video search via the icon, which slides out into a search box when clicked, results in a playlist of related videos housed in a pop-up video window. This playlist can be posted to a Google+ user page and shared with the user’s various networks, called ‘circles’ in Google+ parlance.

The update, which has been in the works even before the Google’s private July launch, is a big boost in the social network arena for the search giant, as it stands to benefit by serving more videos from its YouTube property and Google+ users can be spend more time on the social network with the added incentive.

Gabourey Sidibe calls her Twitter account fake

06/11/2011 04:44:07

Oscar nominee, actress Gabourey Sidibe has told fans that the twitter account under her name is fake and belongs to an impostor.

The actress further said that she doesn’t use the micro-blogging site and the messages are sent by the user who pretends her identity.

“Isn’t that crazy? I’m not on Twitter, I’m like a loser, I’m still doing Myspace,” quoted the actress on Contactmusic.

While talking about the impostor she said that it is strange because the impostor is really positive believing her to be positive but the fact is otherwise.

Furthermore, the actress said that her mom and she had actually begun to like the person behind the bogus account.

The fake Sidibe was described by her as ‘uplifting and nice’.

Warning of attacks by Kenya on Twitter

06/11/2011 04:30:14

On Twitter, a warning was issued by Kenya's military spokesman to the residents of 10 towns in Somalia, including the port city of Kismayu, the central town of Baidoa and Afgoye near Mogadishu, about an imminent military attack.

On his Twitter account Major Emmanuel Chirchir, the Kenyan military spokesman, said that residents of Baidoa, Baadheere, Baydhabo, Dinsur, Afgoye, Bwale, Barawe, Jilib, Kismayo and Afmadow that their towns can come under military action.

Chirchir said that anyone with relatives and friends in the towns should be advised accordingly.

Advising civilians to stay away from al-Shabab camps or being used as conduits for weapons, the Kenyan military said that it will attack 10 Somali towns where the presence of al-Shabab is suspected.

Trail of Oracle, Google patent postponed

21/10/2011 08:14:23

Delay has occurred in the patent and copyright dispute between Oracle and Google and it won't go to trial on Oct. 31 as initially scheduled, according to the judge overseeing the case.

In this regard Judge William Alsup issued an order canceling the Oct. 31 jury-trial start date as well as a pretrial conference set for Oct. 24, on Wednesday. "Dates for the final pretrial conference and trial will be re-set in due course," he wrote.

A scheduling conflict at the court due to a large criminal trial that started earlier this week is the reason for the cancellation.

It appears that the companies have been busy preparing for the trial to start. On Tuesday, they filed a lengthy list of exhibits to be presented during the trial.

Charging Google with infringing on patents and copyrights in Dalvik, Oracle filed the suit last year. Oracle acquired Java patents along with its purchase of Sun early last year. On the other hand, Google denies wrongdoing.

Alliance of Facebook and Labor Department for online job search project

21/10/2011 08:08:03

With the objective of assisting the unemployed to find jobs, an effort will be started today by Facebook Inc., and the U.S. Labor Department.

The undertaking, called the Social Jobs Partnership, will feature a Facebook page with resources for job seekers and employers at www.facebook.com/socialjobs. Besides, a way will be developed for job postings to be delivered free using Facebook after the company studies how job seekers and recruiters use social media.

Marne Levine, vice president of global public policy at Facebook, said: “Facebook is about connecting people so that they can share what’s important to them, and that is the driving force behind the Social Jobs Partnership.”

The Labor Department alliance with Facebook is designed to help lower U.S. unemployment, which has remained at 9 percent or higher since April.

First Facebook post by Medvedev

21/10/2011 07:56:43

To garner support as he leads Russia’s ruling party into elections, President Dmitry Medvedev has joined Facebook.

His spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters today in the Kremlin that Medvedev, who posts regular updates on Twitter Inc. and the LiveJournal blogging site, may also join VKontakte, a Russian social network.

For discussing national events as well as his own initiatives Medvedev will use Facebook, the spokeswoman added.

“This is to attract a broader spectrum of people,” Timakova said. “The president has never hidden his interest in modern means of communication, in social networks.”

Yesterday, Medvedev made his first post on Facebook. More than two years ago an unidentified fan created his account before being taken over by the Kremlin’s press service. The page had about 250,000 subscribers prior to the post.

Brothers face charges over Facebook abuse

21/10/2011 07:48:57

The Victorian-first move in which two brothers were charged for the creation of a Facebook page used to humiliate teens has been heralded as a significant step in the war on cyber abuse.

Evidence against two Bendigo brothers who allegedly set up a page where youths as young as 13 were rated after sexual encounters, is being prepared by police.

Police have interviewed the men, aged 24 and 21, and are set to lay charges for using an "online information service to publish, transmit or make available for transmission objectionable material".

According to legal experts, the move is significant and should pave way for more cases involving social networking sites as debate continued about what behaviour pushed legal and social boundaries.

The case was investigated by police after one of the victims, a teenage girl, produced a screen grab of a post.

It is believed the 24-year-old told police he set the site up as a joke.

After about three days, Facebook closed down the web page by which time police had contacted its administrators.

Susan McLean, leading cyber safety expert praised police for pursuing the case.

"Hopefully, it will send a very clear message that people can't get involved in this stuff, and if they do there are consequences," she said.

German IT group to be joined by Facebook

21/10/2011 07:37:54

With the prevalent concerns among its more-than 20 million German users over the social media giant's data privacy and security policies, Facebook says it is will join Germany's leading IT association.

On Wednesday, vice president Elliot Schrage held talks in Berlin with the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media â€” also known as Bitkom, says Facebook.

However, there needs to be a formal approval for its application to join.

Following complaints that it fails to comply with strict German privacy laws, it was agreed by the social media giant last month for more self-regulation concerning data privacy and young users in Germany.

The commitment to Germany is taken very seriously by Facebook which aims to work toward improved regulation and self-regulation, said Schrage in a statement.

ex-Googler eyed for board by Twitter

21/10/2011 07:28:29

According to reports, in order to bolster its board's business credentials and diversity, Twitter is looking for a director and among the candidates is a former Google Inc executive.

Although in its early stages, the search has drawn names like Mariam Naficy, chief executive officer of paper goods company Minted.com, and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, chief executive officer at fashion retail site Joyus and the former president of Google's Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations.

The hunt was launched by Twitter last month after the company's board parted ways with directors Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, both of whom were among the microblog's earliest investors.

Facebook abuser sentenced

21/10/2011 07:20:58

Jail sentence of eight months has been awarded to a man who posted sectarian comments on a Facebook page called "Neil Lennon Should be Banned".

Earlier this year, Stephen Birrell, 28, from Glasgow, admitted posting the religiously prejudiced abuse on the social network.

According to Sheriff Bill Totten, the accused person has committed a hate crime which is beyond tolerance for "the right thinking people of Glasgow and Scotland".

He further said that he wanted to send a clear message to deter others form crimes like these.

The postings made derogatory references to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and also included remarks about Catholicism.

He also posted abuse directed at the Pope.

"I am satisfied that the nature of this offence, and in particular your previous record, means that I require to impose a prison sentence on you.I do want to make clear today that in selecting a prison sentence I also have in mind that the court should be sending out a clear message to deter others who might be tempted to behave in this way," sheriff Totten told Birrell while passing the sentence.

He also told Birrell that there was "no place in our modern society" for the use of the internet to spread or support abuse or to target people.

Furthermore, the accused was banned from attending all regulated football matches in the UK for five years.

Privacy not a concern for frequent Facebook users

21/10/2011 07:12:07

According to a new poll by USA Today and Gallup, even among the prevailing atmosphere where security concerns are raised with Facebook’s sharing of information online, most users aren't very worried.

The survey which was conducted with more than 2,000 adults revealed that privacy was a concern for 26 percent of respondents who use Facebook daily as compared with 35 percent for weekly Facebook users and 39 percent for people who use Facebook less often.

The revelation implies that the more use of Facebook is equivalent to less concerns regarding privacy on the social network.

Facebook has recently included some changes that allow users to reveal more about themselves: "Timelines" are a new form of profile that chronicle users' entire lives through photos, status updates and apps, and the "Open Graph" is a way for Facebook apps to automatically publish your activity, including the songs users are listening to, the places they're going and the articles they're reading.

The survey revealed further 87 percent of respondents who use Facebook daily have noticed the new features, compared with 34 percent for respondents who use the site less than once a week.

56 percent of respondents disliked the new features, and 36 percent showed approval.

A virtual superhero created on Facebook

09/10/2011 18:04:53

A cult following has resulted for an opera-loving, cage-fighter-in-training after stories and pictures were posted on Facebook of the muscular mystery man whose peculiarity is shirtless walks through Milwaukee.

Curiosity about the focused man he'd see speed walk past his workplace every day rose so much in Tim Panicucci, 35, that he started the fan page about a year ago. Helped by his hairy resemblance to the comic book character Wolverine and his shark-like movements on the streets of Milwaukee, Panicucci and his friends chose the nickname the Milverine.

More than 2,700 fans from Milwaukee were garnered by the photo-filled Facebook page and with the number growing and growing by additions from other places .

John Hamann is the actual name of the Milverine and the 48-year-old construction worker who lives with his mother says he doesn't mind the attention. Although he is not much into computer usage, he learned of the Facebook page recently when someone stopped him.

"It just kind of amuses me, you know? That's all I can think about it," he said. "Somebody wants to take a picture and I say, 'OK.' You know, it's over with, you know."

Usually he walks shirtless when it is warm and he's trying to keep his weight down to become a cage fighter. He loves opera because of the strong voices.

He said he has intervened several times when he's seen people being attacked, but he doesn't compare himself to fictional superheroes like Wolverine.

Inexpensive manual link building service offered by SEO Deutschland

09/10/2011 17:53:46

Announcement about the launch of affordable complete link building services in the market was recently made by Seo Deutschland. Keeping in consideration the businesses and demand of all sizes, the company introduced the latest plans.

In Germany Seo Deutschland, a company that offers affordable marketing and link-building to boost the web reputation of businesses is best acknowledged as the preferred web services. Link building, article/press release writing and distribution, social bookmark submissions, rss distribution, video creation and marketing, press release and brand recognition are some of the services that the company offers.

Apart from Germany, Seo Deutschland is a well-known solutions provider in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa and several European countries also.

All-inclusive business model is the specialty of Seo Deutschland. The policy is indicative of this all inclusiveness with the consideration that majority businesses online are small, and medium-sized. The pricing policy is kept budget friendly, Whether it is for services that needs regular commitment or work in large quantities.

Inexpensive manual link building service offered by SEO Deutschland

09/10/2011 17:53:46

Apart from Germany, Seo Deutschland is a well-known solutions provider in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa and several European countries also.

Wall Street protests assisted by Facebook, Twitter

09/10/2011 17:45:37

Highlighting the power of social media in spite of scant major media coverage, Facebook and Twitter are being used for organizing by Occupy Wall Street.

The protestors find it convenient to communicate with one another and draw new participants by using social media, as well as mobile e-mail, video, and texting. Besides, updates regarding location changes, strategies, and potential dangers can be sent instantly.

The other peculiarity shared by social media is that long before major media outlets arrive, photos and videos of police responding to protesters, and other compelling clips, are shared and circulated instantly.

The social media tools like Facebook etc., were utilized with astounding success in the uprisings in Middle East countries, earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street protests are spreading to smaller cities throughout the U.S. Hartford, Connecticut and Knoxville, Tenn., among others, are planning solidarity marches with new technology, as mainstream media's coverage continues to falter.

Twitter flooded with comments on Apple founder's death

09/10/2011 17:35:40

It was a landslide of comments as Twitter was flooded users to mourn Steve Jobs' death.

Using a medium that was made popular on the iPhones and iPads that Jobs created, the users utilized Twitter to pay homage to the co-founder of Apple. "RIP Steve Jobs" was the top trending topic in New York and San Francisco, shortly after the news of death of the technology entrepreneur.

However, the deluge of comments proved too much for Twitter to cope with. With the said situation, many Twitter users reported seeing the so-called "Fail Whale," an image of a sperm whale which is displayed when Twitter has more messages than it can handle.

"You know that somebody important has died when you keep getting the FailWhale...It's the new measure of somebody's influence," tweeted Mike Shaw, who goes by the name @zax2000 on Twitter.

Celebrities were also among those who expressed their tribute on Job’s death.

"Steve lived the California Dream every day of his life and he changed the world and inspired all of us," wrote Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former governor of California.

Ashton Kutcher, the actor, said: "We have all surfed on the wake of Steve Jobs ship. Now we must learn to sail, but we will never forget our skipper".

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey wrote simply: "Thank you, Steve."

Twitter diplomacy in Latin America urged by US senator

09/10/2011 17:09:28

According to a new U.S. report obtained by Reuters, in order to promote its agenda in Latin America and help newly wired citizens cement political gains, the United States needs aggressive utilization of social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Although, Latin countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua still sought to curb economic and political freedoms, the other countries needed help buttressing emerging civil society groups, said Senator Richard Lugar.

Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that just like playing a central role in Arab uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, social media can play a pivotal role in Latin America.

In the preface to the report, Lugar said: "Latin America does have the advantage of more mobile phone subscriptions, Internet users, broadband access, and secure Internet servers than the Middle East."

Twitter diplomacy in Latin America urged by US senator

09/10/2011 17:09:04

Although, latin countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua still sought to curb economic and political freedoms, the other countries needed help buttressing emerging civil society groups, said Senator Richard Lugar.

Lost wedding ring sought by widow on Facebook

09/10/2011 16:55:22

To locate a priceless piece of jewelery, the widow of a Navy Seal who was killed in Afghanistan has pinned hopes on instant digital communications.

In the hope of finding her late husband's silver wedding band which she lost Oct.1, Kimberly Vaughn turned to Facebook.

On Aug 6, along with 30 U.S. personnel, her husband, Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class (SEAL) Aaron Vaughn, was killed by insurgents in Afghanistan.

It is said that somewhere between Super 8 hotel in Deer Park, Texas, and her US Airways flights to Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, she lost her wedding band.

According to her Facebook page, the lost ring is in silver with a flat edge and brushed finish and although, it has got "Kimberly" engraved on it, it may not be visible as it is worn out for long.

Vaughn says that she is thankful for all the support she has garnered so far in her campaign on Facebook.

Dalai Lama debacle finds expression on Twitter

09/10/2011 16:39:31

On Wednesday, social networking site Twitter was used as premise to express their opinion and disappointment over the cancelled Dalai Lama visit by prominent SA celebrities, media personalities and politicians.

"Ban the Dalai Lama, ban reporter Deon de Lange from parliament. Ban, ban, ban. Who do you think you are - Ban ki Moon [United Nations secretary general]?” said Journalist Max du Preez.

"Just had breakfast with senior Western diplomat. Says no doubt SA could have allowed Dalai Lama with only few grumbles from Beijing," expressed the same journalist earlier.

Because of not getting visa on time, the charismatic exiled Tibetan spiritual leader was compelled to cancel his trip on Tuesday. He was planning to attend Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday.

Reacting to the government’s failure in granting the Tibetan leader a visa, Tutu said South Africans would pray for the downfall of the ANC.

Supporting Tutu, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille tweeted: "Pray by all means -- and vote!"

“We will pray for your downfall.' Turning-point has just arrived. Ndebele, Tutu, Tutu, Ntsebeza...", posted City Press editor Ferial Haffajee.

Many opinions were expressed in this regard on Twitter.

Football tweets broaden horizons of Twitter usage

09/10/2011 16:19:06

According to the US researchers Twitter can prove a barometer of what is happening during important events.

Tweets were monitored by engineers of Texas Rice University during US National Football League games.

The tweets seemed to indicate within seconds when touchdowns, interceptions and other match action happened.

These services can be utilized for a wide range of scenarios like political debates, power cuts, reflections on society etc.

The tweets made during football matches in 2010 were monitored and analyzed by SportSense. Professor Lin Zhong worked in collaboration with engineers from the Betaworks group of the Motorola Mobility Applied Research Centre for this undertaking.

"We chose football because touchdowns, interceptions and other events in the game cause a lot of excitement and lead a lot of people to tweet," he said.

"We found that a careful examination of the tweets could tell us what was happening in the game," he added.

Within 20 seconds, the software was able to register big events of them happening, often before sports sites such as ESPN had acknowledged them.

Cut estimated in the Twitter sales

04/10/2011 08:41:20

EMarketer Inc., has estimated Twitter Inc’s advertising revenue to reach $139.5 million this year, which is below the earlier estimation of $150 million because the microblogging website has been slow to roll out some services.

The report of the research firm stated that Twitter hasn’t yet added expected advertising products such as a “self-serve” platform that lets customers set up their own ads. However, EMarketer still gave the chances that ad revenue may more than triple in 2011, and sales will rise more than expected in later years. By 2013Global ad revenue is predicted to reach almost $400 million.

Earlier this month, Twitter said it surpassed 100 million active users, and is aiming to drive revenue by wooing advertisers and leveraging its membership base, which includes celebrities, politicians and journalists. The company in July said it would begin highlighting advertisers’ promotional messages, called “promoted tweets,” in some user feeds.

Twitter tweets users' emotional states revealed by study

03/10/2011 20:35:56

A new study on Twitter messages has revealed that most people in the world feel upbeat in the morning before becoming grumpier later in the day.

In the course of its findings the study examined the contents of more than 500 million tweets sent in 84 countries over two years, and found that people wake up happy but become grumpier as the day wears on and rebound in the evening, with a peak right before bedtime.

Published in the journal Science, the study, also showed that people are happier from December to late June, when days gradually lengthen in the Northern Hemisphere.

Twitter account cancelled by Yingluck after hacker attack

03/10/2011 19:38:50

According to officials, after hackers manipulated the twitter account of Thailand's Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, it was terminated.

The 29,000 followers of Yingluck's twitter account may have surprise written on their faces as they will witness the blank page on the account now, with almost all previous tweets deleted.

According to the Information and Communications Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap, Yingluch had made up her mind to stop using twitter and would from now on only contact the netizens via her Facebook page.

After hacking Yingluck's personal twitter account @PouYingluck on Sunday, the hackers posted messages that defamed the the government and premier.

The police investigation is on and the culprits behind the crime have been indentified, according to Anudith.

Google bypassed by Amazon tablet software

03/10/2011 18:25:43

According to an anaslyst, even though Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire tablet uses Google Inc's software it, however, bypasses Google's project to extend its clout in Internet search and advertising into tablets and phones

According to an announcement by Amazon, the sale of the tablet will commence from November 15 for $199. The tablet is based upon the Google Inc's Android operating system, used by most tablets that are trying to compete with Apple Inc's iPad.

However, all the Google applications that ride on the Android kernel, including the Web browser, Gmail, application market place and mapping application have been removed by Amazon. Instead, is providing its own applications instead, like a "Silk" browser that sends traffic through Amazon's data centers to optimize it for tablets.

Google is the most attractive employer

03/10/2011 18:03:22

Beating Apple and a host of non- tech companies, Google has topped the choice as the most preferable company to work with, in a survey.

The findings of the survey conducted by employer branding firm Universum, reveal that more people would like to work for the Mountain View company than any other.

In the process of finding the results, the survey, split between those looking for a career in the business sector and those looking for a career in the engineering sector, found that more than 160,000 job seekers from the world’s 12 biggest economies questioned in the survey preferred Google as the world’s most attractive employer for the third consecutive year.

“The talent market for business career seekers is being dominated by the professional services firms, known for being great places to launch a career, and by companies that offer a new working culture in a dynamic environment,” said Lovisa Öhnell, head of research and consulting at Universum about the findings of the survey.

Twitter plans new office in Ireland

28/09/2011 13:03:02

The Irish Industrial Development Agency announced in a tweet that an international office is planned at Dublin by Twitter, the San Francisco-based micro-blogging website.

The message by the agency said: "Ireland is trending. Twitter to establish international office in Dublin."

By this move, Twitter joins a band of high-profile technology and computer multinationals with bases in Ireland, including Citigroup, Facebook , Google and Microsoft.

Ireland offers 12.5-percent rate of corporation tax, one of the lowest in Europe and this is the reason why foreign companies are attracted to it.

The move is a part of the expansion operation outside the US planned by Twitter, which already has its offices outside Tokyo and London.

The decision has been appreciated in Ireland.

Data centers in Asia to be built by Google

28/09/2011 12:49:20

As it is giving tough competition to its rivals with surge in the number of its membership, Google announced that with a cost of $200 million it will build three data centres in Asia.

According to the firm, the venue for these centres remains Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong on a total of 22.6 hectares (56 acres) of land. The firm has data centres in the US and Europe but lacks one in Asia.

In order to improve the firm’s service to customers in the region, computer and telecom systems with high security and backup power supplies will be housed by the centres.

The firm faces stiff competition in Asia, where the world’s largest internet population resides. The challenge gets stronger as IT competiveness is on the rise in Asia.

Surge in the membership of Google+

28/09/2011 12:28:48

Since it allowed anyone to join it, social network Google (GOOG) + has attracted an unprecedented traffic surge. Now, with all the attention it has garnered the only thing that remains to be tested in its case is the sustainability.

The surge of traffic was 1,269 percent for the week after Google's decision to open up membership to the 3-month-old site, according to Internet metrics company Experian Hitwise . Astonishingly, just one day- 21 Sept – was enough for it to become the third most popular social networking site. On the way, it surpassed Twitter and trailed only Facebook and Youtube

Meanwhile, Paul Allen, the Ancestry.com founder who has become an unofficial statistician for Google+, estimates the number of people worldwide who have joined at about 50 million, with the social network adding about 2 million members a day.

Nearly 50million people have joined Google+ and the membership gets added by 2 million per day, said Paul Allen, the Ancestry.com founder who has become an unofficial statistician for the social network.

However, these estimates were not commented upon by Google.

Claims of tracking logged out users denied by Facebook

28/09/2011 12:10:50

Facebook has denied allegations that it tracks it users when they are logged out, saying it only uses tracking cookies to personalize content and to make the social networking site more secure.

Allegations that it tracks its users when they are logged out has been have been refuted by social networking site Facebook, which said that in order to make the site more secure and to personalize the content it only utilizes tracking cookies.

Claims were made by an Australian technologist, Nik Cubrilovic that rather than deleting its tracking cookies when the user is logged out, the site only modifies them while maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify its users.

The claims by the Australian technologist were refuted by Facebook engineer, Gregg Stefancik who said that the company alters, but does not delete cookies when users log out.
The engineer further added that it was only a safety measure and the company does not use the cookies to track users or sell their personal information.

The logged-out cookies are used to identify spammers and phishers, detect when an unauthorised person is trying to access a user's account, help users regain access to an account when it's been hacked and disable registration for underage users who try to re-register with a different birthdate, said the social networking giant.

Art of joke telling murdered by Facebook, Twitter

22/09/2011 18:18:11

The art of joke telling is getting diminished by technology, reveals a new study.

The time-honoured tradition where schoolchildren, work colleagues or friends would ask each other 'have you heard the one about,’ has been replaced by technology in the shape of emails, social networking sites and internet video clips.

The extent of the influence of high-tech humour can be gauged by the fact that that one in three adults does not know a single gag, while 18 per cent know only one.

The poll of 2,000 people by Costa Coffee revealed that nearly half of the participants would like to be able to tell more jokes but can never remember the punchline.

According to the findings of the study, 13 per cent of the respondents prefer to share funny anecdotes via email and one in twenty likes to tell jokes via social networking sites.

Furthermore, the researchers found that one quarter that said funny clips on the Internet are more likely to amuse them than old-fashioned jokes.

Twitter and Facebook associate to link users

21/09/2011 18:38:57

In order to help its users in directly channeling their profile to a linked Twitter account, Facebook is working on a corresponding feature.

The move is unique given the fact that, at present, Facebook pages that are specifically meant for bands, businesses, and celebrities and other public personalities are the only means by which the Facebook users can connect to Twitter.

While no specific date has been given, Facebook has said linking will be introduced soon.

The forthcoming connection to Twitter was highlighted before the people as Facebook unveiled its "subscription" system that works in a similar fashion to Twitter's "follower" feature.

Facebook page subscribers will automatically be informed when its subscriber publishes his/her 'public update'.

The dynamic of Facebook will be changed by this new feature which before now has been about sharing updates with users deemed to be their "friends".

The public activities of almost any of Facebook’s 600 million users will be available by subscribing to the feature.

The changes are deemed as response by Facebook to the success of the Google + social network that makes it easier to send updates to other places.

Lack of evidence crashes the first ‘Facebook trail’

21/09/2011 17:27:33

Lack of evidence crashes the first ‘Facebook trail’

There has been collapse of the case against a man accused of inciting a political uprising on Facebook , say Defense attorneys in Zimbabwe.

On Wednesday, citing that investigators failed to retrieve the message as evidence, Attorney Lizwe Jamela said the court threw out the subversion charge.

The accused 39 year old businessman was acquitted from the allegation of of posting a message on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook which urged him to lead North Africa-style protests in Zimbabwe.

Before his acquittal, the businessman spent a month in jail in May.

Staying in power for more than 30 years, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been striving to constraint the public debate about the Arab Spring that toppled other longtime rulers on the continent.

German local bargain website acquired by Google

21/09/2011 17:10:21

In its efforts to expand its local deals program to users outside the United States, Google has bought German local bargain website DailyDeal, the company said in a statement.

Responding to an AFP inquiry a Google spokeswoman said in an email response that as more and more people go online to find the latest, most relevant deals, they are exploring new ways to help consumers get the best local deals out there.

The spokesman further added that DailyDeal team has an incredible track record in this space and the company is looking for a fruitful association with them.

Uncle Pai doodled by Google

21/09/2011 16:56:03

Paying homage to the man behind India’s largest-selling comic book series, Amar Chitra Katha, Google chose to honour the late Anant Pai, fondly known as Uncle Pai, with a tribute doodle on its home page on his 82nd birth anniversary.

With Google’s logo running across the two panels in the background and aptly, depicting a comic strip, the first panel of the doodle showed a young Pai seated at his desk, while the second had him standing next to a book shelf with some of his comic books.

Following a heart attack, the veteran passed away earlier this year, leaving behind his legacy of numerous memorable characters, such as Suppandi, Tantri the Mantri and Shikari Shambu, which are popular comic characters in India.

Stressing on the Indian mythology he launched the famous comic series Amar Chitra Katha in 1967.

EMarketer estimates double revenue for Facebook

21/09/2011 16:45:30

According to research firm EMarketer Inc., $4.27 billion in revenue this year will be generated by Facebook Inc., which is more than double the $2 billion made in 2010.

This year, advertising will fetch the company $3.8 billion, which is up by 104 percent from $1.86 billion in 2010, estimated the research firm in an e-mailed statement. Besides, it is estimated that the company should make $470 million from Facebook Credits, a virtual- currency program that lets users buy items in games, which is more than triple the $140 million it made last year.

Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at EMarketer, said in a statement that Facebook’s revenue streams will continue to diversify, with ads representing a decreasing proportion of total revenue while other sources such as Facebook Credits will grow.

The company, EMarketer said in the statement that Facebook, while competing with rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc., is looking to benefit from its more than 750 million users, by trying to draw more ad dollars and spending on its service for online attention and t is expected to become the top seller of display advertising in the U.S. this year, surpassing Yahoo, which was No. 1 in 2010.

Facebook and Google met by German minister on US tech tour

21/09/2011 16:30:42

While on a visit to the US, German Consumer Protection Minster Ilse Aigner has met with Facebook managers. However, as Aigner couldn't be persuaded to reestablish her Facebook account , there will be no online discussions.

Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner, after deleting her Facebook profile over a year ago and more recently warning her colleagues in the German cabinet to remove the "Like" button from their websites, met with Facebook's spokesperson for global policy, Marne Levine, on Tuesday.

The discussions were described as “open and constructive" by the minister, while emphasizing that Facebook and other social networks' popularity mean they have an important role to play when it comes to data protection.

The modus operandi of the company in dealing with the users' data needs a change, she added.

She further added that her responsibility as consumer protection minister is to fight for the users and as far as privacy of the data is concerned, she sees a lot of question marks when it comes to Facebook.

Besides, representatives from Google and Microsoft as well as consumer protection groups met Aigner, but the details of those discussions were not made public.

2.3 lakh jobs worth $15 billion created by Facebook apps

21/09/2011 16:16:10

A new study has revealed that, besides being platform of connecting with friends and acquaintances, social networking website Facebook, also seems to be helping create lakhs of jobs.

More than two lakh jobs this year alone in the US with salaries totalling more than $15 billion could have been created by the enormous increase in the Facebook-related applications, revealed the study by the University of Maryland's Robert H Smith School of Business.

The study stated that up to 235,644 new jobs have been created by the Facebook applications and contributed an estimated up to $15.71 billion in wages and other benefits to the US economy.

This year, the study pegged the minimum number of such jobs at 1, 82,000, with at least $12.19 billion worth salaries and benefits in software companies making the applications for Facebook Platform and other sectors associated with such activities.

Stressing that more than 53,000 new jobs have been created in software companies alone, this new phenomenon has been termed as 'App Economy’, by the study. Everything from productivity tools to popular games like 'Farmville' that users interact with on Facebook, is included in these Apps.

Smith's Center for Digital Innovation, Technology, and Strategy co-director Il-Horn Hann said that their findings confirm that social media platforms have created a thriving new industry and as Facebook and other platforms grow, they will continue to see job growth and the ripple effects of these advances in the US economy.

Job creation has been the result of business in the app economy at businesses that supply app developers, and in sectors that reap the benefits of increased household spending by app developers.

About 2,000 people are employed by Facebook, which boasts around 750 million users who install 20 million apps each day.

“Tweet” trademark battle for Twitter

13/09/2011 12:06:29

In its battle to win trademark registration of the term “tweet,” Twitter is suing one of its third-party developers.

An online advertising service, Twittad, filed its trademark application for “Let Your Ad Meet Tweets,” in 2008. Twitter, in a lawsuit filed last week, asked a California court to cancel that trademark, claiming the phrase “unfairly exploits the widespread association by the consuming public of the mark TWEET with Twitter, and threatens to block Twitter from its registration and legitimate uses of its own mark.”

Twitter owns trademarks for terms like “retweet” and “cotweet,” but not “tweet.” Several third-party developers registered the trademark first, and for years Twitter has been arguing that it is the rightful owner of the term.

The lawsuit is Twitter’s latest battle move as it tries to manage tenuous relationships with developers who have claimed important trademarks or cultivated a wealth of Twitter users through unique tools, like the Tweetie iPhone app or the TweetDeck message organizer. Twitter acquired both of those companies, but continues to negotiate with others that rely on its platform for their business.

In its complaint against Twittad, Twitter claims that it made “numerous attempts to resolve the dispute amicably” before filing the lawsuit. It has since suspended Twittad’s Twitter account.

On the same day Twitter filed the lawsuit, it also announced reaching the milestone of 100m active users on its site.

Facebook posts by two cops draw complaint from San Jose councilman

13/09/2011 11:13:18

San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant, highlighting a growing and sometimes controversial nexus between police and social media, has made a complaint to city officials that two San Jose command police officers flamed him on Facebook.

A former San Jose police officer, Constant, would not identify the officers. Nor would the department.

According to reports, the two officers are Lt. Rob Millard, who works in patrol, and Lt. Rick Weger, head of the department's Internal Affairs unit.

The two objectionable posts were made in late April, said the councilman.

Weger's post referred to the published account of a meeting in which Constant summoned a police officer to make sure a disruptive speaker left the podium: "Who is going to come running when he fires 200 cops? Maybe Constant would need a SJPD body guard if he would just tell the truth."

Millard's Facebook post said of Constant's behavior: "Once a coward and a thief, always a coward and a thief."

The posts were shown by Constant to City Manager Debra Figone and Police Chief Chris Moore. They expressed "concern," Constant said. But he said he is not aware if anything was done about the complaint.

"Your job as a command officer to is to build morale, not to tear down morale," Constant said, referring to the two officers. Both officers declined to comment.

The San Jose Police Department has a general policy that says officers may post on Facebook and other social networking sites but warns they should not use it in a way that would constitute "conduct unbecoming of an officer."

One of the examples the policy warns against is posting anything that would harm the reputation of the department, the city or its employees.

Legal experts say it's permissible to limit some online free speech rights of public employees, but others warn the limitations can easily go too far.

"There is a legitimate interest in maintaining order and not undermining the department," said ACLU staff lawyer Linda Lye. "But maintaining an effective administration is not to be used as a pretext to censor unpopular speech in political issues, such as questioning the competence of elected officials."

Google's Chrome is No. 2 internet browser in Taiwan

06/09/2011 17:51:41

After its launch three years ago, Google Inc.'s Chrome browser has overtaken Mozilla's Firefox as the second-largest browser in Taiwan the Internet search engine said Monday.

The web-based Chrome browser, released in September 2008, accounted for 15.1 percent of the local market in July this year, surpassing the 14.22 percent of the open-source Firefox for the first time, Google said in a statement, citing statistics compiled by web analytics firm StatCounter.

In August, the figure further rose to 15.53 percent while Firefox lost more ground to 13.35 percent, the statistics show. Last year in August, Google's Chrome had only 5.99 percent behind Firefox's 11.3 percent in Taiwan.

However, Chrome remains a distant contender to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which took the top spot with a 67.42 percent share of the local market.

Chrome's share, in terms of the global market, increased to 23.16 percent in August from 10.76 percent a year earlier, marking the fastest growth among the top five browsers, StatCounter said.

During the past two years, as the global number of users of Chrome has increased from 70 million to 160 million the company launched Chrome-based notebook computers, or Chromebooks, in the middle of June.

The two Chromebooks, branded by Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan's Acer Inc., are being sold in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and South Korea.

Ohio antitrust case victory for Google

06/09/2011 17:30:05

In a small Ohio antitrust case that many observers view as part of a legal proxy war with archrival Microsoft Corp, Google Inc. scored a victory.

An Ohio state court, on Wednesday, dismissed a private antitrust case brought by local Internet company myTriggers.com Inc. against Google. In its ruling, the court said the company had failed to provide evidence to substantiate its allegation that it had been boycotted by Google.

The myTriggers case attracted broad attention because the tiny company was being represented by Microsoft's chief outside antitrust counsel, Charles "Rick" Rule.

In filing a private antitrust suit against Google, Mr. Rule and his firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, represented another small Internet company: Tradecomet.com LLC. In July, a New York appeals court rejected that company's appeal against a ruling dismissing its case, saying it should have been filed in Google's home district in California instead.

In a bid to get access to Google's internal documents through legal discovery, Google has long suspected that Microsoft was helping orchestrate these small, private suits.

In March 2010, a Google spokesman told The Wall Street Journal, "It's become clear that our competitors are scouring court dockets around the world looking for complaints against Google into which they can inject themselves, learn more about our business practices, and use that information to develop a broader antitrust complaint against us."

Microsoft has repeatedly denied being behind the suits. TradeComet and myTriggers also said their claims against Google were unconnected to Microsoft.

Google’s App Engine price Increase disgusts developers

06/09/2011 17:19:06

An increase in the price of its App Engine was decided by Google. In the second half of September, it would lose its preview status and the company will release a tool that would let present users calculate how much they need to pay according to the service’s new pricing setup. The new pricing is an effort to turn App Engine into a sustainable business.

This news was not received well by the developers with some of them are looking for alternatives for their applications. But there are others who pointed out that moving would be expensive because of the service’s unique design.

Some are questioning the App Engine’s long-term health. It features unique APIs and a data model that’s not found in other platforms. Developers using the App Engine are at the mercy of Google. Now coders realize the disadvantages of the service, which are the pricing and the lock-in argument against it.

In the spring of 2008, Google App Engine was rolled out as a beta product. IT offered third-party developers a way to run apps using Google’s distributed back-end infrastructure. After three years of testing, it will now go out of its preview stage.

The service will still have a free version of the service for developers that can keep their usage under a certain limit but it would be lower. Larger apps are charged according to the amount of time the virtual instance is running instead of CPU time.

Google Exec stole Android, claims Apple

06/09/2011 17:09:06

Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president and the man responsible for the Android operating system, is accused by Apple of pinching the idea when he worked as a low-level engineer at Apple in the early 1990s, U.S. media are reporting.

According to U.S. Internet media Business Insider, on Friday (local time), Rubin was in a position to see Apple's patent for a new operating system, which he later developed into Android and took to Google, the company is claiming.

Apple is believed to have made the allegation in a paper it handed to the International Trade Commission in the United States when it filed a suit against Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC in March 2010.

Until now, it was thought that Rubin started planning the Android OS when he worked at General Magic in the mid-1990s. But Apple is arguing it is no mere coincidence that this took place after he worked for Steve Jobs from 1989 to 1992.

Hijacking led by Facebook security flaw

06/09/2011 16:58:44

Just like general users, corporate who have set up their Facebook pages too need to cautious, as according to IT security  firm Sophos, it is quite easy to hack Facebook 'Page' due to a loop hole in the social network's settings.

As their Facebook page stands for their brand, this can be especially dangerous for businesses.

Once the creator of the page appoints someone as an administrator to their Page, that person can then remove the admin privileges of the creator of the Page, According to Sophos .

Here, while the onus is on Facebook Page creators to be careful about who they grant admin access to, it is possible for newly appointed administrators to hijack the Page, removing the original creator's admin rights -- effectively taking permanent control of the Page.

Facebook's own help pages state that "the original creator of the Page may never be removed by other Page admins", however a video from Sophos proves that this is not the case.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said : "There are two issues here. Even if a trusted friend or colleague is working as an administrator on a Facebook Page, it is possible that their account may be compromised, giving the bad guys a chance to hijack the Facebook Page you've created. The other possibility is that the Page founder grants a stranger admin rights to the Page.”

“While this might not sound like the best idea, there are several services, such as Fiverr, where you can find plenty of people offering to help you to maximise the success of your Facebook Page, " he added.

"If you give a cut-price 'social media expert' admin rights to your Facebook Page, you really only have yourself to blame if you're ousted," continued Cluley. "However, the question is - why can't Facebook do what its help pages say it will do - either block attempts to remove the original admin, or send a request to the original admin asking if they agree to be removed from their administrator role. That would surely help prevent hijacks like this taking place."

15% of Facebook videos are likejacking attacks, finds Symantec

06/09/2011 16:41:53

On the social network, Facebook scams have always been a problem and just like email spam, no matter what improvements the company makes, scammers and spammers always find a new way to cause problems. Security company Symantec recently set out to analyze like jacking attacks on Facebook.

On August 2, using a sample of 3.5 million posts with videos Symantec found that up to 15 percent of unique posts were identified as likejacking attacks. Of course this number is skewed because most posts on Facebook aren’t videos, but it still gives a general idea of what Palo Alto needs to do in order to compete with YouTube.

For those who don’t know, likejacking is a play on the term clickjacking, which means asking a victim to click something while a different action is taken behind the scenes. Likejacking specifically refers to a victim clicking on something only to have some piece of content Liked, without their knowledge, in the background. This typically occurs with a fake video player window overlayed with a hidden iframe; actually clicking on it anywhere submits a Like, promoting the scam in question to your Facebook friends.

Because of the content posted to your Wall, Likejacking can be embarrassing. It can also be annoying because of how quickly a given scam can go viral. Worst of all though, they can be used by scammers to infect PCs with malware or steal online account information.

Facebook ads more likely to be clicked by women

06/09/2011 15:09:18

Older users are more likely to click on a Facebook ad while younger users tend to click the Like button instead, found a new study. Facebook ad clickers are also more likely to be women.

As an advertising medium, interest around Facebook is exploding, arguably because the site’s user base is still rapidly growing: 750 million users and counting. Of course, not all these users react to advertising the same way, according to a new research study by Sociasl Code, which calls itself a Facebook-focused agency.

To get a better understanding of how age and gender affect click-through rates (CTR) and Facebook Like rates on the social network, the research examined over 4 million data points across over 50 clients from a wide variety of industries. The results show that older Facebook users have a higher CTR while younger Facebook users tend to click the ad’s Like button instead. Aside from being older, Facebook ad clickers are more likely to be women.

The study found that while age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, it oftentimes has the opposite effect on the likelihood of the user Liking a given Page:

·         50+ year-old users, the oldest segment in the study, are 28.2 percent more likely to click through and 9 percent less likely to like than 18-29 year-old users, the youngest group observed.

·         Versus the rest of the younger population on Facebook, 50+ users see a 22.6 percent higher CTR and a 8.4 percent lower Like rate.

Age, when broken down by gender, has a much more pronounced effect on CTR for women than it does for men, whereas for men there is a stronger effect on the Like rate than for women:

·         Men are 2.2 percent more likely to like an ad than women are.

·         Overall, women are 11 percent more likely to click on an ad.

·         For women, CTR is 31.2 percent higher for the 50+ age group versus 18-29 year olds, while men only see a 16.2 percent difference between the age groups.

·         Versus all age groups, 50+ women’s CTR is 22 percent higher versus a 16.4 percent difference for men.

·         The oldest male segment has an 11.7 percent lower like rate than the youngest segment and a 9.5 percent lower like rate versus all age groups. Women only see a 7.2 percent and 7.9 percent difference, respectively.

Facebook account of Pink hacked

06/09/2011 15:02:48

Pink has now been added to the constantly growing list of celebrities who have been targeted by hackers.

Recently, the 31-year-old 'So What' singer launched a rant on those who broke into her Facebook account and targeted her personal photos.

Contactmusic quoted her as tweeting: "To all the people I don't know hacking into my private pictures on Facebook, please stop. Have some respect for privacy."

"It's my own fault for posting a picture. I should know better. Anyways, there are way more important things in the world than my Facebook page," she later added.

Higher PPI compensation hits Santander profits

26/08/2011 14:09:58

Hit by needing to allocate £731m for compensating customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI), Santander UK has seen its half-year profits more than halve.

Its pre-tax profit for the six months to 30 June was £549m, down from £1.2bn a year earlier.

The £731m figure is an increase on the £548m Santander UK said last month that it had put aside to cover PPI claims.

PPI compensation is paid by Most of the UK's largest banks .

Lloyds Banking Group has set aside £3.2bn, followed by Barclays (£1bn), Royal Bank of Scotland (£850m) and HSBC (£269m).

Santander UK is the British arm of Spanish lender Banco Santander.

In 2004, it bought Abbey National, Bradford & Bingley in 2008, and Alliance & Leicester in 2010.

PPI is supposed to cover loan repayments if someone becomes ill or loses their job. But it has emerged that many of the policies were mis-sold, either because people were not aware they were paying for the insurance or because they would not be covered.

The banking industry lost its High Court challenge to new rules on the sale of PPI, in April.

Among other things, the rules require sellers of PPI polices to review all their past sales to see if their customers have a claim for mis-selling, whether or not they have actually complained.

Compensation sought by residents after toxic smoke causes illness

26/08/2011 14:04:19

After toxic smoke from a blaze at a recycling plant caused them illness, residents of Orsett in Essex are seeking compensation.

In July, the fire took place at the Rio recycling plant. A pile of woodchips was on fire and due to its size (600ft wide by 80ft deep) it was burning for a total of five weeks. Firefighters were reluctant to spray water on to the woodchip, for fear of contaminating water supplies

In total 40,000 tonnes of woodchip was allowed to burn, letting smoke bellow onto the homes of local residents. It is suspected that chipboard and MDF were also burnt, although there has been no confirmation as to what type of recycled wood made up the woodchips   . Exposure to the smoke left some residents feeling ill.

Now, a group of residents who were made ill by the smoke are reportedly seeking compensation  from Thurrock Council and the owners of the recycling plant. They allege that they were given no health warnings about the smoke from the plant.

Worker suffers fatal personal injuries after being run over by fork lift truck

26/08/2011 13:58:04

After one of its employees was fatally injured in an accident at work when he was run over by a fork lift truck that had been heavily overloaded, a food company have been fined .

In June 2009 George Hardie, 60, was walking through the work yard to drop some paperwork off at an office on the other side of the site, when he was hit by a fork lift truck carrying to large containers to be washed, driven by a colleague.

The risks were assessed by the Health and Safety Executive and it was found that the driver’s visibility was impaired by the containers that had been stacked on top of one another.

As he approached the wash that he felt the truck go over something, at which point he stopped got out of the vehicle and found Mr Hardie trapped underneath, said the driver.

The company did not have any management of site traffic or supervision for pedestrians of the site and also the risks of moving containers had not properly been assessed, found the investigation that was carried out by the HSE . Vion Foods Scotland Ltd was fined £100,000 for breaching the health and safety at work act.

Fertiliser company fined for personal injury at work

26/08/2011 13:44:13

After one of its workers suffered serious injuries when a 600kg bag of fertiliser fell on him , a fertiliser firm based in the north east of England has been fined.

The accident occurred when the Fertiliser Solutions Ltd worker, Robert Dearlove, aged 32 was helping a team tidy up a spillage after some bags of fertiliser fell from a stack in the Middlesbrough based warehouse.

The team was working close to the remaining stack, and noticed that the bags on the third layer were leaning precariously to one side. Robert proceeded to hook the last of the bags that had fallen up to the forklift truck and turned around so his back was facing the stack.

According to reports, one of the remaining bags fell and hit Robert on his back forcing him to the ground, where he hit his head and causing him serious back injuries, a fractured thigh and ligament damage to his leg.

Since 2008, Mr Dearlove has not been able to return to work and had to spend three weeks in hospital, due to the accident at work.

For the accident at work, the north east fertiliser firm, were fined £10,500 and made to pay £12,411.45 in legal costs after the Health and Safety Executives investigation found the firm had breached the Health and Safety at work act and the management of health and safety at work act.

Brain injury at hands of Columbia Heights police claimed by man

26/08/2011 13:36:52

Brandon Skinner needs round-the-clock care for a brain injury that he claims came at the hands of an overly aggressive Columbia Heights police sergeant early this month.

In his report on the incident, Sgt. Matt Markham, said that Skinner was drunk and belligerent, and that when a cuffed Skinner tried to grab Markham's hands, the sergeant pulled him to the ground, with Skinner's head striking the street and knocking him unconscious.

The police reports are disputed by Skinner's version. He said that Markham, nearly twice his weight, picked him up and body-slammed him, causing the head trauma. Police waited at least 15 minutes before calling an ambulance, said Skinner's fiancée, Jennifer Seelig. Toxicology tests at the hospital showed no drugs or alcohol in his system, the couple said.

Skinner, 27, was in a coma for nearly a day, and doctors will have to wait six months to know the extent of his brain damage.

The couple, who planned to be married this month, has filed a complaint with the police department, and the department is investigating. Chief Scott Nadeau wouldn't comment on the case, as is standard with a pending inquiry, but he said Markham has no disciplinary history and is one of his best supervisors.

His department takes excessive force complaints seriously and has called Seelig and Skinner to get their statements, said Nadeau.

Markham will remain on duty during the investigation. The sergeant, a member of the department since 1998, had one complaint filed against him, but it wasn't sustained, Nadeau said.

Woman receives injury compensation after near fatal fall overseas

26/08/2011 13:29:11

After falling down an open manhole whilst on holiday with friends in Turkey, a lady from Southend has received a six figure personal injury compensation payout.

Forty nine year old Michelle Dragon, from Southend was on holiday with friends in Turkey. As she was walking back to her room after spending the day by the swimming pool, she fell down an open manhole that had been left uncovered by workers at the hotel she was staying in.

She fell 12 foot and suffered injuries that will affect her throughout her life, which included an open break of her right leg and a head wound which needed a lot of stitches as it was 8 centimetres long.

In order for the doctors to fuse her shattered bone together,Michelle need a bone graft from her hip. Now she can only walk with the aid of crutches.

According to reports, Goldtrail holidays, went bust in 2010 but admitted liability for the accident and Miss Dragon was given a six figure personal injury compensation claim payout.

Woman wins compensation claim after imprisoned in hospital for two years

26/08/2011 13:19:47

After a district nurse failed to identify an infection, a Newcastle woman has been awarded half a million pounds in medical negligence compensation.

Angela Banks, 46, from Heaton, in Newcastle, had to endure thirty months of treatment at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, after an infection, which started in a pressure sore spread to her thigh and pelvis.

The infection spread so deeply that surgeons were forced to remove a section of Angela’s bone and further medical complications resulted in her lengthy hospital stay.

Angela who has had to rely on a wheelchair all of her life, after being born with spina bifida, described her two and a half years in hospital as ‘soul destroying’ and ‘worse than being in prison’.

Following an out of court settlement, after the NHS North of Tyne admitted liability, Miss Banks was awarded £500,000 in damages.

A NHS spokesperson stated that lessons had been learned from the incident and apologised for the poor standard of nursing Angela received.

Angela, who is a qualified professional dog trainer, said that the compensation awarded would help her regain her independence by providing the specialised equipment and support she now requires.

Golf club fined after work injury

26/08/2011 13:11:29

A golf club in Warwickshire has been fined, after a green-keeper’s hand was mangled in an industrial ball washing machine.

The green-keeper, believed to be of Hungarian origin, was attempting to unblock the machine when it suddenly started up, dragging his hand into the rotating mechanism, according to the reports.

In the accident at the Warwickshire Golf & Country Club, at Leek Wootton, in Warwick, the employee partially severed his index finger and suffered serious injury to both his middle and ring fingers,.

After admitting a breach of Health and Safety regulations, his employers Club Company (UK) Ltd, who operate the golf club, were fined £13,500 at Leamington Magistrates Court.

They were also ordered to pay £5,000 in accident at work compensation  to the injured green-keeper, as well as a total of £8,000 in court costs.

Speaking after the court hearing, a spokesperson from Warwick District Council’s environment department stated that the accident had been totally preventable had the golf club maintained a safe system of working.

For pleading guilty to the charge early on in the proceedings and for co-operating fully with the council’s investigations, Club Company (UK) Ltd, were given credit in court.

Dressage rider makes compensation claim for ruined career

26/08/2011 13:01:45

After a car accident ruined his career and ended his Olympic hopes, a talented British dressage rider is making an accident compensation claim for a minimum of £300,000.

Sonnar Murray-Brown, 23, from Chichester, in Sussex, was a front seat passenger in a Renault Clio being driven by his former friend Lee Harris, also twenty three, when it was involved in a head on collision with another vehicle.

Following the accident, Mr. Murray-Brown, who was tipped as a potential British team member, endured an eight hour operation as surgeons battled to repair his badly crushed legs.

Unfortunately Mr. Murray-Brown is not expected to be able to return to his favourite sport at the top level and his plans to become a trainer are now also in jeopardy.

Sonnar is now pursuing a car accident compensation claim against Mr. Harris, claiming that his former friend drove too fast and lost control of his vehicle, effectively causing the collision.

Issued by his solicitors, a High Court writ states that the claimant who was a talented rider with excellent career prospects prior to the collision, has now lost the prospect of breeding horses and running his own specialised dressage company.

Following the accident Mr. Harris of Blandford Forum, in Dorset, was charged with driving without due care and attention, according to the contents of the writ.

Schools pay out £500k in compensation claims

26/08/2011 12:54:04

In new figures that show pupils have claimed more than half-a-million pounds for injuries suffered, the compensation culture in Northern Ireland's schools has been revealed.

In the periods 2008-09 and 2010-11, a total of £578,120 in compensation has been paid out to schoolchildren by education boards in Northern Ireland.

After a door was closed on his thumb in 2009-10, one six-year-old boy was given £70,000 in compensation . Compensation of £62,500 was paid out to a 14-year-old pupil the year before after he was hurt while climbing to retrieve a football.

And a boy who suffered head injuries after being hit by a car at his primary school in 2009-10 received compensation of £50,000.

For creating a compensation culture here, teachers' unions have blamed television advertising.

The staggering figures have been revealed through a series of Freedom of Information requests submitted to Northern Ireland's education and library boards.

In comparison, over a similar three-year period from 2007-2010, five councils in the south of Wales - covering an area about half the size of Northern Ireland's pupil population - paid only £44,999 in compensation.

The Southern Education and Library Board (SELB) made almost half of all compensation payouts here, at a total of £245,059 across 12 claims between 2008 and 2011.

Over the past three years, a total of £129,250 was paid out by the North Eastern Education and Library Board (NEELB) in 17 claims. An eight-year-old boy received a £25,000 payout after he fell in the school playground in 2008-09 and suffered a large lesion on his knee.

A nine-year-old girl got £8,000 after she tripped and broke her arm, while a girl of 11 received £1,500 for fracturing her nose after being hit by a door, among the successful compensation claims in the past year.

Over the past three years in 10 claims against the South Eastern Education and Library Board (SEELB), compensation totalling £107,000 was paid out. A male primary school pupil received the area's largest single claim of £50,000 in 2009-10 for sustaining head injuries after being hit by a car.

And a boy attending a special school in the area received compensation of £5,000 after he broke his wrist while playing a game of football. Belfast Education and Library Board dished out £65,276 to schoolchildren across 12 compensation claims. This figure is more than three times the amount of compensation given out to schoolchildren in Cardiff between 2007 and 2010, which caters for a similar number of pupils.

The lowest amount of compensation was given out by the Western Education and Library Board (WELB), at a total of £31,534 over the past three years.

The level of compensation increased by more than 62% from £12,034 in 2008-09 to £19,500 in 2009-10.

No compensation, however, was given out by the education authority in the past year. The WELB refused to disclose information on specific payouts.

Electrician to claim personal injury compensation

26/08/2011 12:34:56

A claim for personal injury compensation is to be made by a Yorkshire electrician, who almost lost his life after being inflated like a balloon by a high pressure air hose.

Gareth Durrant, 26, from Hull, in East Yorkshire, was employed by static caravan manufacturers Willerby Holiday Homes, of Hedon Road in Hull, when a high pressure air hose somehow penetrated his body from the rear.

On the firm’s production line, Mr. Durrant was working alongside two colleagues when he suddenly felt the blast of pressurised air, which entered his body and caused a six inch tear to his bowel and also caused severe intestinal damage.

Since the accident, Mr. Durrant, has not been able to return to work and is now pursuing a claim for accident at work compensation  from his employers.

Mr. Durrant stated that he wanted people to be aware of the risks involved with high pressure air lines, which can carry air at a pressure of 300 pounds per square inch, warning that they should not be ‘messed around with’.

While, Willerby Caravans refused to comment on the incident, the matter is now being investigated by the governments Health and Safety Executive.

Google expanding Wash. operations

22/08/2011 10:46:02

With a new office in Bothell that could accommodate up to 840 workers, Google is expanding its Washington state operations.

In Kirkland and Seattle, the Mountain View, Calif., company already has 850 employees. The Seattle Times reports that Google is now planning to renovate a two-story building in a Bothell office park.

Like other Silicon Valley companies, the online search giant has boosted its presence in Puget Sound in hopes of luring talent from Microsoft and Amazon. Google has said 2011 will be the biggest hiring year in the company's history.

Employment in the information sector across the state this summer reached its highest level on record, shows data from the state Employment Security Department. In June, there were about 142,300 jobs in the information sector and computer-systems design, most of them in the Seattle area.

In July, Facebook, Twitter saw record numbers of U.S. visitors

22/08/2011 10:40:28

Facebook and Twitter both saw record traffic in terms of U.S. unique visitors in the month. In July, Facebook saw a whopping 162 million unique visitors, compared to 160.8 million unique vistors in June, and 157.2 million uniques in May.

In its five year history, Twitter also posted record traffic; with 32.8 million unique U.S. visitors in July, up from 30.6 million unique visitors in June, and 27 million unique vistors in May. The steady increase in traffic is a big deal for Twitter, which splits traffic between its own mobile clients and the many third-party clients that are used to access the network.

LinkedIn, dipped slightly in terms of unique U.S. visitors in July, seeing 32.5 million unique visitors in the month compared to 33.9 million unique visitors in June. MySpace continued to bleed traffic, with 32.8 million unique visitors in July (tied with Twitter), down from 33 million in June.

Facebook’s U.S. traffic is five-fold to Twitter visitors. Twitter isn’t ‘killing’ Facebook, or vice versa, as Twitter is still growing in terms of traffic.

But with Google+ steadily gaining users, it should be interesting to see if the search giant’s social network will reach Twitter’s traffic. Already there are signs that Google+ traffic is slowing, but it’s still early and that could change.

Verification badges to profiles added by Google+

22/08/2011 10:31:35

Google, in another effort against fake profiles, has started rolling out a new feature for members of its upcoming social network Google+ — verification badges.

The feature will initially be rolled out to celebrities, public figures and people who had been added to many Google+ circles, said Google's Wen-Ai Yu.

"We’re starting to roll out verification badges on profiles so you can be sure the person you’re adding to a circle is who they claim to be ... For now, we’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we’re working on expanding this to more folks," she said in a blog post.

Many Google+ members want to make sure the celebrities and public figures they would add to their circles are who they claim to be, she noted.

The new feature can be seen as a gray checkmark next to the Google+ member's name.

Google permitted to operate controversial Street View in Israel

22/08/2011 10:20:02

On Sunday, the Law, Information and Technology Authority at the Justice Ministry allowed Google to operate its “Street View” service in public places throughout Israel.

The authority permitted the technology giant to use special portable cameras in public space that can fully survey its surroundings at a 360-degree-angle. It also allowed the pictures taken by Google to be directly uploaded to its Google Maps service; however, the authority mandated that Google protect the privacy of its users.

On several conditions, the authority granted Google the right to run Street View in Israel: The first is that Google would obligate Google Israel to accept Israeli legal ruling so that all civil proceedings would be conducted in Israel. Google also agreed to give the authority the right to file criminal proceedings against it in Israel if necessary.

After it was discovered that the service both publicized images that included people’s faces and license plates and collected personal information when they mapped out wireless networks, Google Street View has come under harsh criticism from several states. As a result, governments demanded that Google blur people’s faces, and in several places is Europe citizens blocked off streets and prevented cameras from being brought into their neighborhoods.

When it allowed Google to operate the service, the Justice Ministry took Israelis’ privacy into consideration demanding that when the site shows pictures it give the public a mechanism that would allow them to request that faces, license plates and homes be blurred after they are uploaded in the event that they aren’t blurred automatically by the system.

In addition to this, Google is to publish a full explanation of the service, civilian’s rights, and the route the cameras will take when photographing the public.

Google said that it is “happy that the Law, Information and Technology Authority at the Justice Ministry has allowed the operation of Street View in Israel, and we hope to provide an update about our plans in the near future.”


Fight to be Facebook friends with students by Missouri teachers

22/08/2011 10:11:38

On Friday, the Missouri State Teachers Association ( MSTA) filed a lawsuit challenging a new law. MSTA is specifically asking the Circuit Court of Cole County to determine the constitutionality of the law’s social media portion.

Also known as the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, Senate Bill 54, aims to fight inappropriate contact between students and teachers, including protecting children from sexual misconduct by their educators. It is named after a Missouri public school student who was repeatedly molested by a teacher several decades ago.

The new law is broad enough to prohibit teachers from communicating privately with students over the Internet, and inhibits educators’ ability to converse with students via text messaging and social networks. it means teachers and students can’t be Facebook friends.

MSTA argues the law infringes on educators’ first amendment rights of free speech, association, and religion. The group is asking the court to keep that section of law from being implemented until the constitutionality can be determined.

Gail McCray, MSTA Legal Counsel, said in a statement: “Many of our members are concerned about the unintended consequences of this law, including their ability to monitor their own children’s online activities. It’s vague and more importantly, we believe it violates the constitutional rights of educators.”

“Plaintiffs have used and are using non-work-related social networking sites as an important avenue for contact with students, both during emergencies and for everyday educational issues, such as when a student has difficulty with a classroom assignment or identifying bullying,” the lawsuit states. “Senate Bill 54 makes it unlawful for Plaintiffs who are also parents of a child in the school district to communicate with her student/child via a non-work-related social networking site if there could be exclusive access.”

State Governor Jay Nixon signed Senate Bill 54, last month, which goes into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. The new law bans direct social networking contact between teachers and students in the hopes of setting more distinct boundaries on the relationships between the two.

Teachers will still be able to have a Facebook Page for interacting with students on a slightly more personal level, as long it’s still work-related. It’s the actual friending, messaging, and whatever other direct connection you can make on a social network that will not be allowed.

It’s still not clear how Missouri plans to implement the law, whether social networks will be asked play a part in the enforcement, nor if the state be allowed access to Facebook accounts, personal computers, and/or ISP records. It is, however, obvious that the language used to describe the law is too general and overreaching, at least according to many of the state’s teachers.

Research says Google+ not mainstream yet

22/08/2011 10:01:15

Social media traffic analysis firm SocMetrics has said that Google+, the social network of internet giant Google, is yet to become a mainstream platform.

SocMetrics during its study, concentrated on the mothers who, it believes, are key influencers for the growth of a social network. The traffic analysis firm believes the mothers have not taken up the new social network Google+ in a big way.

On the contrary, a recent report of Experian Hitwise, which studied 10 million online users, said that the new social network from Google was headed into the mainstream.

While SocMetrics studied social media mentions on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as well as Digg, Reddit and Disqus, Hitwise instead studied the actual traffic on the social networks for its research. There were about one million conversations detected by the study per day, out of which few thousand conversations were about Facebook or Google+.

It also found mostly people form industry such as technology or marketing were more talking about Google+ whereas in the mainstream conversations which included sports or style - Google+ presence was less. The study says the moms are more active on Twitter or Facebook compared to Google+ - their engagement on Google+ is about 30 to 50 per cent less, says the SocMetrics study.

"While the initial buzz is waning, Google+ still has a great opportunity ahead. It has enough attention, even with some mainstream groups like moms, photographers, book authors that are giving it a chance. Google needs to move quickly to capitalize on this window, though, before it continues waning. As the adage goes, "you only get one chance to make a first impression". This is even more true in the age of social media," concludes the SocMetrics study.

Danger alert on Facebook

22/08/2011 09:56:08

A former fighter pilot who quit the air force after an injury has hit back at the “dangerous precedent” Team Anna has set.

On Friday, Shashank Shukla ,raising his voice against the cacophony at Ramlila Maidan, where the crowds have been swelling since the Gandhian launched his fast for his group’s version of the Lokpal bill, wrote on Facebook :

“Anna Hazare is NOT India.”

The cyber entry has come at a time an international website, which helped sustain recent mass movements in countries such as Syria, Libya, Canada and Brazil, has involved itself in the Hazare campaign.

Shukla’s page, says while “the issue is correct, the methods being employed by Anna ji of undermining (the) authority of parliamentary democracy sets a very dangerous precedent” because the methods could be exploited by others.

Hate messages started pouring in the moment the 32-year-old put up the page on the social networking site. So far, the page — the only visible one till now against the 73-year-old activist — had got just 26 supporters against hundreds of hate messages to Shukla’s homepage.

“But there has to be another voice,” said the young man who is planning a “counter-sit-in” on Thursday near the Maidan.

With him will be his wife Pooja, a student at IIM Calcutta.

“Even if I am beaten up, I am going to sit on a chair on August 25 close to the Maidan to express my view,” he said.

When Hazare first came on the national scene, Shukla was a firm supporter as he felt a shake-up was needed to tackle the malaise of corruption. As the days went by, however, his opinion changed.

Shukla, who quit a cushy job with IT major Infosys to return home from America to teach street children as part of the Teach for India campaign said: “If this does not stop now, it will be dangerous.”

Security guide for teens, parents, teachers published by Facebook

22/08/2011 09:46:45

To help teach them about the best ways to protect their privacy and safety on the internet, Facebook published a 20 page security guide for teens, parents, and teachers on its website titled” A guide to Facebook security”, on Friday .

Security experts Linda McCarthy Keith Watson, and Denise Weldon-Siviy, a teacher and editor worked together to write the security guide, which covers topics like choosing the best password to make your Facebook account secure, using the website’s advances security features like one time passwords, HTTPS encryption, and log-in notifications; taking back control of a hacked account, realizing when one is dealing with an imposter, and recognizing and avoiding phishing and other, similar scams.

Linda McCarthy has over 20 years experience in the IT security sector and has worked as Senior Director of Internet Safety at Symantec. Mr. Watson is an IT researcher at Purdue University.

The authors write in the guide’s introduction that it is intended to help you the Facebook member “Own Your Own Space” and….”to understand what Facebook is doing to make the site safe and secure and to take the actions that are needed in this digital world to protect yourself and your account.”

Spanish campaign to singe Google's beard

15/08/2011 13:53:02

A Spanish campaign for the right to be forgotten is gathering momentum.

Now,more than 90 cases of people who want information deleted from the web, have the backing of their government and it has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its data protection agency.

The case is in court now, and apparently is being closely watched by the EU which is keen to see how much control its citizens will have over information they posted, or which was posted about them, on the web.

The European Union's justice commissioner, Viviane Reding,said that it was wrong that individuals have no say over their data once it has been launched into cyberspace.

However, the privacy thing is set to cause a spat between the US and the EU. The US has its belief that you have the right to publish the truth, whereas the EU believes that people have the right to privacy.

European law balances the freedom of speech and the right to know against a person's right to privacy or dignity. It is all based on the way that information was collected and used against individuals under dictators like Franco and Hitler.

The US has yet to tell its government to sling its hook when it comes to the ability of people and governments to attack other people and beliefs using the "free press".

Google said that if the Spanish succeed in their beard singeing, it would have a have a profound, chilling effect on free expression without protecting people's privacy.

'Facebook fatigue' forcing decline in users of social network

15/08/2011 13:40:55

Experts claim that Privacy concerns, "fatigue", general boredom and the rapid rise of alternatives are to be blamed for a global exodus from Facebook.

There are signs that its impressive growth rate -- an average of more than 100 million new users a year -- may be slowing down.

Social media expert of Queensland University of Technology, Peter Black, said Australians were likely to start deleting or deactivating their profiles in growing numbers.

"If Facebook hasn't already peaked in Australia, it will soon," News.com.au quoted him as saying.

"That term 'Facebook fatigue' is right."

Facebook's ability to attract new users has noticeably declined around the world.

In May, more than 100,000 people reportedly deactivated their account in the UK, with an estimated six million users pulling the plug in the US.

Dr Sean Rintel, University of Queensland digital communications expert also pointed to interest in Google+, which has attracted some 25 million users within the space of less than two months, many of whom were poached from Facebook.

'Facebook fatigue' forcing decline in users of social network

15/08/2011 13:40:55

Experts claim that Privacy concerns, "fatigue", general boredom and the rapid rise of alternatives are to be blamed for a global exodus from Facebook.

There are signs that its impressive growth rate -- an average of more than 100 million new users a year -- may be slowing down.

Social media expert of Queensland University of Technology, Peter Black, said Australians were likely to start deleting or deactivating their profiles in growing numbers.

"If Facebook hasn't already peaked in Australia, it will soon," News.com.au quoted him as saying.

"That term 'Facebook fatigue' is right."

Facebook's ability to attract new users has noticeably declined around the world.

In May, more than 100,000 people reportedly deactivated their account in the UK, with an estimated six million users pulling the plug in the US.

Dr Sean Rintel, University of Queensland digital communications expert also pointed to interest in Google+, which has attracted some 25 million users within the space of less than two months, many of whom were poached from Facebook.

Google’s attempt to offer competition to Facebook misses target

15/08/2011 13:30:30

Google has scored a huge blow against its archenemy with its new social network.

Yes, Google+ delivers features and functionality that Microsoft's Bing search engine can't touch.

Google+ is supposed to be a Facebook-killer?

At least not now. While Google+ brings some welcome new features to the social-networking space, there's no great innovation that would make you want to use it as your primary online identity, or that Facebook couldn't emulate if it chose to.

Launched about a month ago, Google+, is officially a beta, or test, service; to join, you need an invitation from someone who's already a user. Judging from the evidence, invites aren't very hard to come by: Less than three weeks after launch, Chief Executive Officer Larry Page announced that the service had already signed up 10 million members.

Considering that Facebook is up around three-quarters of a billion, Google+ has a long way to go before your friends are as likely to be hanging out there as they are on the competition.

Google’s attempt to offer competition to Facebook misses target

15/08/2011 13:30:30

Google has scored a huge blow against its archenemy with its new social network.

Yes, Google+ delivers features and functionality that Microsoft's Bing search engine can't touch.

Google+ is supposed to be a Facebook-killer?

At least not now. While Google+ brings some welcome new features to the social-networking space, there's no great innovation that would make you want to use it as your primary online identity, or that Facebook couldn't emulate if it chose to.

Launched about a month ago, Google+, is officially a beta, or test, service; to join, you need an invitation from someone who's already a user. Judging from the evidence, invites aren't very hard to come by: Less than three weeks after launch, Chief Executive Officer Larry Page announced that the service had already signed up 10 million members.

Considering that Facebook is up around three-quarters of a billion, Google+ has a long way to go before your friends are as likely to be hanging out there as they are on the competition.

Accused's Facebook posting after hotel couple slaughtered

15/08/2011 13:20:38

"I would like to wake up from that nightmare" wrote a man accused of butchering two of his work colleagues, on Facebook the day they died.

The bodies of Tibor Vass and Alice Adams were found in the blood-spattered staff quarters of a posh hotel.

The pair, both 20, had suffered multiple stab wounds.

The accused Attila Ban, 31, was later arrested in hospital with slash wounds to his neck and wrists.

Ban was said to have grown close to fellow Hungarian Vass while they worked together as receptionists at the Radisson Edwardian near Heathrow Airport.

But Vass is thought to have become increasingly friendly with Alice after she started working at the hotel.

At 7.53am last Wednesday, the day of the double killings Ban posted the message that he wished to "wake up from that nightmare”.

Friends desperately sent messages asking if he was OK but he never replied. Colleagues said neither Ban, Tibor nor Adams turned up for work at 7am.

After the two bodies were discovered, police were called to staff quarters in a semi-detached house nearby in Harlington, West London, at 3.15pm. A knife had been discarded at the scene. An earlier post on Ban's Facebook page mentioned visiting a gay club in London's Soho.

On Saturday, Ban appeared at West London Magistrates' Court charged with double murder. He is being held in custody to appear at the Old Bailey tomorrow.

Experts say Facebook crimes on the rise

15/08/2011 13:07:34

Cyber experts have warned that Facebook crimes such as scams, bullying, phishing and many other forms of illegal activities, are soaring and are getting more sophisticated.

Rarer cybercrimes on Facebook involve the installation of malicious software or ‘malware' on computers so credit card information can be easily stolen.

The crimes are not limited to just scams and phishing, claim experts. There are sexual predators who use this forum, and even robberies have been reported when users post the GPS location to inform others about their whereabouts when out of town.

Experts are studying why these crimes are happening at such a rapid rate.

According to Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont College in southern California, scammers prey on Facebook because they don't know their victims, the report said. “It is easier to hurt someone when you're not seeing them in person.”

“Neuroscience research shows that moral violations are less likely when interactions are personal because people empathise with those they meet in person. In the online world, people are just a number,” he added.

According to communication specialist at BitDefender, Ioana Jelea, the social scam industry is thriving because scam creators are taking legitimate Facebook functionalities and persuading people to click on links. Ms. Jelea also argued that it's not just users' trust in the platform that puts them at risk, but also their insufficient familiarity with Facebook's security and privacy settings.

News of pregnant Hilary Duff makes Twitter feel old

15/08/2011 12:54:18

Announcing that she is pregnant with her first child, Hilary Duff celebrated her first anniversary with husband Mike Comrie . Obviously, people have sent plenty of congratulations. However, there is a large group of people who feel old hearing the former Disney star's happy news.

"Just heard that Hillary duff is pregnant. That definitely just made me feel 90," tweets commented. Many others agreed saying that the news made them feel as if their childhoods are over.

Then there were those who do not believe that the star who played Lizzy McGuire could be pregnant. "WHAT? Hillary Duff is preggers?! She's still the little 16 year old Disney star to me. This is so bizarre," another tweet said. Indeed it is quite strange to watch some of these young women grow up so quickly. It does truly seem they should stay young forever, but of course, they cannot.

Egypt blogger quizzed for comments against army

15/08/2011 12:43:23

According to reports, leading Egyptian blogger Asmaa Mahfouz has been questioned for allegedly defaming the military on Facebook, the official Mena news agency reports.

She was briefly detained by military prosecutors and later released on a bail of $3,356 (£2,062).

One of the leaders of the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Ms Mahfouz, is suspected of calling for assassination attacks against the military and judicial bodies.

Her lawyer denies the accusations.

According to Mena, Ms Mahfouz wrote on Facebook: "If justice is not achieved and the justice system fails us, no-one should feel upset or surprised if armed gangs emerge to carry out assassinations.

"As long as there is no law and there is no justice, anything can happen, and nobody should be upset."

Maj Gen Mahmud Morsi, the head of the military judicial authority, said the blogger had overstepped the limits of free speech by insulting the military, the AFP news agency reports.

He added that there would be "no tolerance to insults directed at the armed forces".

Mena said Ms Mahfouz was released on bail until a date is was set for her trial before a military tribunal.

However, Ms Mahfouz's lawyer denied the accusations.

Hossam Issa told the AFP news agency: "What Asmaa wrote on Facebook is not a call to violence... She was only expressing her fears and that is not a crime".

The comments attributed to Ms Mahfouz on the other social network Twitter were not her own and that someone had hacked into her account, the lawyer added.

Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took power after the mass street protests that forced President Mubarak to resign in February.

Zuckerberg's sister to set up on her own social media

09/08/2011 17:45:14

Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is generating headlines of her own - after six years working faithfully in her younger brother's shadow as Facebook's director of market development, she is standing to set up an independent social media.

Silicon Valley tech bloggers are rubbing their hands at the prospect of some sibling rivalry to follow on from the multiple lawsuits that the younger Zuckerberg - he's 27, she's 29 - has endured over the parentage of his wildly popular website.

More perplexed tech watchers wonder what Randi hopes to achieve that she hasn't in one of the world's most rapidly expanding companies.

Without doing anything to damage the Facebook brand, she appears to have decided to have fun with her money and her instantly recognisable last name to branch out on her own.

"I'm proud of what I've done here… but I know I'll be able to do just as much, or more, for Facebook once I'm on the outside," she wrote in her resignation letter. She said her goal was "to launch my own innovative programming and work with media firms," adding: "Facebook will clearly be a central element in all my projects."

A Google book deal in France after much ado

09/08/2011 17:37:47

Google has had a sour relationship with France. Its politicians have denounced the U.S. Internet giant as a cultural imperialist; its publishers have called it a copyright cheat.

However, France is suddenly the only country in the world in which Google has managed to achieve a longstanding business goal. A few days ago Google signed an agreement with the publisher Hachette Livre under which tens of thousands of French-language books will be pulled out of ink-on-paper purgatory and provided with a digital afterlife.

Last year, Hachette and Google reached a preliminary deal but it was overshadowed by a far broader agreement between Google and U.S. authors and publishers that would have settled longstanding litigation. Like the deal with Hachette, the U.S. agreement involved books that were out of print but still protected by copyright, a category that accounts for the vast majority of the world’s books.

However, last winter, a U.S. judge, Denny Chin, rejected the American settlement, and talks have stalled since. Meanwhile, with a final agreement in place in France, Google says it intends to start selling e-book versions of the Hachette titles by the end of the year, when it introduces a French version of its digital bookstore, Google Editions.

Google’s problems with French publishers don’t end with the deal with Hachette, which is part of the media conglomerate Lagardère . At least three of them, Albin Michel, Flammarion and Gallimard, are pursuing lawsuits against the company, saying it illegally scanned their books. Another publisher, La Martinière, previously won a similar court case against Google.

Yet Hachette, the biggest French publisher, with about one-quarter of the French market and Google, said they hoped their deal could serve as a model for a broader rapprochement.

Simon Morrison, copyright policy and communications manager at Google in London, said : “We would love to implement similar arrangements with other French publishers, and it’s something that we have in mind as we talk to other partners.”

Hachette said it would make digital copies of scanned books available to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and other libraries, “thus contributing to the advancement of French culture,” as the company put it in a statement.

Between the French accord and the U.S. proposal that Judge Chin rejected, there are several key differences. One is that Hachette retains control of which books can be scanned and sold by Google, just as it does with copyrighted works that remain in print. Under the U.S. proposal, Google would have been free to digitize any out-of-print books, unless the copyright holders expressly opted out of the settlement.

Last month, in a hearing in New York Judge Chin asked representatives of Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild whether it might be possible to negotiate a so-called opt-in agreement — in other words, along the lines of the Hachette deal. According to news reports of the hearing, both sides were noncommittal.

Until now, Google has steadfastly resisted switching to an opt-in system in the U.S. talks. Doing so would be a big setback for a company that says its mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Some authors or publishers would opt out. So-called orphan works, those whose copyright holders cannot be clearly identified or tracked down, might never make it into the digital future.

Google backs Bletchley Park restoration fund

09/08/2011 17:19:32

In the UK, Google is now putting its controversial Google Street View service to a better use by opting to fund the restoration work on the historic site Bletchley Park.

According to reports, Google has initiated a new campaign by sending out a tricycle to the Bletchley Park which renders 360 degree imagery of the historical site. For pioneering computing and for the wartime code breaking, Bletchley Park holds a lot of historic importance.

The site has a number of huts that are reported to be in a poor condition. These huts served as centers for deciphering and breaking vital German codes during the war. Google’s Philanthropic arm now intends to allocate funds and restore the site.

Google, previously, also bought a batch of papers by the computing pioneer Alan Turing and described his work as heroic. They also issued the following statement; “It was probably the most inspiring and uplifting achievement in scientific technology over the last hundred years.”

UK residents, who have been feeling betrayed by the firm for using their Street View service to collect unsolicited data, which they claim was done unknowingly, it may prove to be a great move by the technology giant to regain the trust .

Fans mourning Alexisonfire on Facebook

09/08/2011 17:11:49

Over the weekend, comments filled nostalgia, fond wishes and recrimination stacked atop each other on the Facebook page of famed Canadian post-hardcore band Alexisonfire, after its lead singer revealed that the band has broken up.

On Friday, George Pettit posted a note on the band’s official website that guitarist/songwriter Dallas Green had told bandmates a year ago that he would be leaving to attend his career as the frontman of City and Colour; the band considered replacing him, but then lead guitaristWade MacNeil said he, too, was out. “So we all took a good hard swallow and decided to end it so it would never get old and ugly.”

The St. Catharines band, also including bassist Chris Steele and drummer Jordan Hastings, ends its run with four albums and two Juno nominations under its belt and — to gauge by the comments on Facebook — fans left heartbroken everywhere from Australia to the Netherlands.

Patch more important than Google

09/08/2011 16:56:28

An industry publication said that Patch is more important that Google, Fox and even AOL -- Patch's parent company.

The network of nearly 900 hyper-local news websites that includes Temecula Patch ranked fifth on a list of the 100 most important online publications.

Because of its intense news focus, the article reads, Patch is important. "Patch now rivals much, maybe most, of local newspaper and TV coverage," the article published by MediaPost.com states.

The list put Patch just above AOL, Patch's parent company, though two places below the Huffington Post, which is also owned by AOL.

First place was taken by Facebook , the New York times took second, followed by the Huffington Post and Netflix.

Below Patch was AOL in sixth, Google in seventh, the Wall Street Journal in eighth, Fox News in ninth and CNN.com in 10th.

Standalone online dictionary discontinued by Google

09/08/2011 16:51:08

On Monday, Google Inc. said that it has decided to end its standalone online dictionary service as it has recently included a dictionary tool in its search engine.

A Google spokesman said: "Because the dictionary tool offers the same functionality as Google Dictionary, we've decided to discontinue dictionary.google.com. For your definition needs, you can type your query into the web search and use the dictionary tool located in the left-hand panel of the results page, or you can type 'define' and the word directly into the search box."

Since Aug. 5, users trying to look up words on Google Dictionary have been seeing a message reading, "Google Dictionary is no longer available. You can use Google web search to find definitions or Google Translate for your translation needs."

Many local and foreign netizens have said they are dissatisfied with the move, which was not announced in advance, and have complained that the alternatives are less convenient and of a lower quality.

On Google Taiwan's Help Forum, many of the 240 comments called for the reinstatement of Google Dictionary. The new dictionary tool provides less information than the old version did, some people complained.

In Taiwan, Google Dictionary was seen as a very handy tool among English learners and students according to the netizens who posted responses to the new tool.

CUTS wants Facebook to be investigated by CCI

03/08/2011 16:25:56

CUTS International, consumer right activist, has urged competition watchdog CCI to investigate potential misuse of dominant position by social networking site Facebook.

Regarding Facebook Inc and its newly introduced payment system ‘Facebook Credits’, which could be spent across various games or applications on the popular website, CUTS has written to the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

“Facebook can potentially engage in anti-competitive and unfair business practices in the market for virtual goods purchased in social games through its Facebook Credit terms in India and therefore its activities in this regard need to be investigated by the CCI,” CUTS said in a statement.

In July, Facebook launched ‘Facebook Credits’ in India. According to the new contractual arrangements, game developers using the Facebook platform must exclusively utilise Facebook Credits in the operation of their games; must agree not to charge lower prices to consumers outside of Facebook, and must pay a 30 per cent service fee for all Facebook Credit purchases.

Facebook page infected by porn

03/08/2011 11:40:04

For years, John Taylor had a Facebook page but it took only seconds for it to turn into a forum of hardcore porn.

According to reports, the internet developer from Noosaville has become the latest in a string of victims of malware sweeping the social network that posts graphic images and videos on users' walls.

Mr Taylor said: "Obviously I blocked the person who posted the content and reported it to Facebook straight away.”

"I put a quick search into Facebook to see if this was a widespread thing or not and I was astonished that 5000 pages were infected with this stuff across Facebook's network.

"Some Australian users haven't even noticed the porn is on their site."

Making it easy to avoid content filters and parental controls, the graphic images are embedded within the Facebook site.

Facebook users should alter their notification settings so they get an email every time something is added to their "wall", say experts.

Facebook rival Google+, which has attracted more than 20 million users since its launch late in June, has been praised for its 18+ age limit.

Facebook users have to be only 13 to join.

However, QUT social media expert Axel Bruns said it wasn't clear yet whether Google+ had security pitfalls similar to Facebook's.

"Some of the problems around Facebook involve the apps where users enter their information and then that information is used without permission to push things on to your Facebook page," Professor Bruns said.

"Google+ doesn't have apps as such but sooner or later will introduce them.

"It will take some time for Google+ to settle and for us to fully realise what it is and what it does."

Underage users could still access Google+ by pretending to be over 18, said Prof Bruns .

Last month, attorneys-general from across Australia met in Adelaide to examine whether parents should be given the legal right to access their children's Facebook pages.

A recent survey revealed more than half of Australian mums set up an account to keep an eye on their children.

Two held by Malaysia police over 'Facebook murder'

03/08/2011 11:30:28

On Tuesday, Malaysian police said they have detained two people on suspicion of bludgeoning a man to death after he reportedly posted negative remarks about a girl he had "friended" on Facebook.

"The two men are in a police lock-up. They are being investigated for murder," a senior police said.

On Friday, Mohamad Amran Romli, 21, died in hospital shortly after sustaining severe head injuries in an attack by two men believed to be brothers of the girl, the Malay language daily Berita Harian said.

The two men beat Amran with motorcycle crash helmets during the attack in an alley behind a supermarket in Kulim town in Kedah state, it said.

Amran had befriended the girl through Facebook, which is extremely popular in the mostly Muslim country along with other social networking and microblogging sites, local police chief Ghuzlan Saleh was quoted as saying .

However, their online relationship eventually and the victim allegedly posted disparaging comments about the girl and her family, after their online relationship "turned sour".

"She then complained to her brothers who sought to resolve the dispute with Amran. They met behind a supermarket but an altercation broke out and the victim was hit on the head with crash helmets," the police chief was quoted as saying.

"It will take about two weeks before they are charged in court after a report is submitted to public prosecutors," the senior police official said.

Last year, a study by global research firm TNS showed Malaysians to be the most popular people on the Internet, with an average of 233 friends in their social networks compared with 68 in China and just 29 in Japan.

Newt Gingrich accused of 'buying' followers on Twitter

03/08/2011 11:22:58

In an attempt to make himself seem more in touch with the grassroots, former employee of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has accused him of buying followers on the Twitter website.

The Republican used a number of agencies that create inactive or dummy accounts which were made to "follow" his Twitter account, claimed the employee.

He told the Gawker website that only ten per cent of Mr Gingrich's 1.3 million followers were "real sentient people who happen to like New Gingrich".

Most of his followers have odd usernames and no profile photos, suggesting they were mass generated.

However, Mr Gingrich acquired most of his following when he was on Twitter's "Suggested User List", experts in the field pointed out.

New Twitter users, at that time, were recommended accounts to follow selected by Twitter employees. The list has been dropped and account recommendations are now made by computer. But the SUL is known to have pushed others listed into the millions, such as Al Gore and Senator John McCain, who has 1.7 million followers.

Newt Gingrich accused of 'buying' followers on Twitter

03/08/2011 11:22:58

In an attempt to make himself seem more in touch with the grassroots, former employee of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has accused him of buying followers on the Twitter website.

The Republican used a number of agencies that create inactive or dummy accounts which were made to "follow" his Twitter account, claimed the employee.

He told the Gawker website that only ten per cent of Mr Gingrich's 1.3 million followers were "real sentient people who happen to like New Gingrich".

Most of his followers have odd usernames and no profile photos, suggesting they were mass generated.

However, Mr Gingrich acquired most of his following when he was on Twitter's "Suggested User List", experts in the field pointed out.

New Twitter users, at that time, were recommended accounts to follow selected by Twitter employees. The list has been dropped and account recommendations are now made by computer. But the SUL is known to have pushed others listed into the millions, such as Al Gore and Senator John McCain, who has 1.7 million followers.

Report finds that Google is not power hungry

03/08/2011 11:12:51

According to a recent report, Google might appear to be power hungry, but it only accounts for one per cent of electricity used by data centres worldwide.

This is the first time that Google has released specific details about its total data centre electricity use. According to Jon Koomey, the report's author and a consulting professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford University, Google "gave me an upper bound, not an exact number, but something is better than nothing".

Even better for Google, because despite the fact that the internet search and advertising firm is a heavy user of computer servers only 0.01 per cent of global electricity consumption is attributable to it.

This result is in part a function of the higher infrastructure efficiency of Google's facilities compared to in-house data centres, which is consistent with the efficiencies of other cloud computing installations, the report says. However it also "reflects lower electricity use per server for Google's highly optimised servers," the report said.

Power consumption from global data centres doubled in the first five years of the new millennium, and was forecast to double again by 2010.

However, consumption rose by only 56 per cent, representing 1.1 to 1.5 per cent of global electricity consumption, and power use in the US rose just 36 per cent. At least in this report, Google has shown itself to have been blameless for excessive energy use in its data centres.

Twitter valued at $8.4 billion

03/08/2011 11:07:10

Twitter Inc. said it received a "significant" round of funding led by Digital Sky Technologies, a Russia-based venture firm that has invested in other social-networking companies that have enjoyed surging valuations.

In the long-anticipated announcement on Monday, San Francisco-based Twitter, which has more than 600 employees, didn't disclose how much money it raised.

However, a report said that Twitter raised $800 million in an investment round that valued the micro-blogging service at $8.4 billion after the deal. Like a growing number of investments in fast-growing Internet start-ups, the financing round will be partly used to buy out existing shareholders, said the person.

The report claimed that half of the investment will go to Twitter, while the other $400 million will be used to buy the shares of existing holders.

Twitter can find a way to generate large revenues and profits from its vast and growing user base, much like Facebook Inc. is doing, investors are betting.

Research firm eMarketer says that the company has been ramping up its bid to become an online-advertising powerhouse, though it is currently on course to generate $150 million in ad revenue this year.

Twitter's new funding round is the latest sign of the growing investor hunger for social-media companies, which obtain information about people's personal interests that advertisers crave.

Dutch, Indonesian added to Twitter language mix

03/08/2011 11:00:11

Adding Dutch and Indonesian to the mix, Twitter has announced its first crowd-sourced translations. For those of you keeping count, this means Twitter now officially exists in 11 different languages.

using Twitter’ s translation center, which was introduced this year, Dutch and Indonesian are the first languages to be translated. The translation center asks Twitter users -- all volunteers -- to help translate Twitter's interface into various languages. Once the basic support pages are translated, a select group of the "most active" translators are invited to work with Twitter to "maintain localized versions of the service."

Twitter boasts that its translation center has 200,000 translators, and that the localization process for Dutch and Indonesian took just one month from the first call for involvement to its announcement. Filipino and Malay are the next languages that Twitter plans to translate.

Twitter battle started by Miley Cyrus' tattoo

03/08/2011 10:49:00

Miley Cyrus showed off her tattoo that supported the gay community, and as a result, her fans engaged in a Twitter battle on the singer’s page.

On Friday, the singer tweeted a picture of her tattoo and also wrote, “All love is equal."

Cyrus, however, received a negative response from one of her Twitter fans, @MileyCyrusLuver’s, according to reports. The fan tweeted to the singer to “look up Leviticus, 1 Corinthians” and “read both chapters and tell [her] where God says homosexuality, incest, and polygamy is ok?"

Cyrus retorted: “Where does it say in the bible to judge others? Oh right. It doesn't. GOD is the only judge honey. 'GOD is love.”

Popwatch reports that other Miley Cyrus fans began to tweet negative comments on @MileyCyrusLuver’s page. In fact, some fans even tweeted death threats. Rushing to her fan’s defense, the singer quickly tweeted, “Dude everyone lay off @MileyCyrusLuver Love u! Everyone is entitled 2 opinions! ‘if u don’t stand 4 something you’ll fall for anything.”

Second most popular UK browser is Google Chrome

03/08/2011 10:41:47

In the UK, Google Chrome has beaten the competition to become the second most popular internet browser, second only to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The browser captured 22 per cent of users in the UK, beating Firefox in third place and truly trumping Safari with it's 9 per cent share in the UK user base, according to web metrics from Statcounter.

Microsoft, with the browser catching up fast, will surely be looking to find new ways at making their browser more appealing because while still in the top spot, this is in part down to the fact that Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on almost all the computers sold in this country.

Boasting super-quick browsing and a minimal footprint on your hard drive Chrome is the first product by Google to be advertised on British TV, showing off a querky but interesting take on how a browser operates.

Google Shopper iPhone app

27/07/2011 19:50:05

At local restaurants and other businesses, iPhone owners who use the Google Shopper app to find their favorite products can now hunt for special deals.

Google Shopper 1.5, updated last week, now sports a tab at the bottom called Offers. Tapping on Offers brings up a list of special Google Offers being promoted by local merchants eager for your business. Tapping on each deal or offer then displays the business name, location, details of the deal, and its expiration date.

You can save each deal, in which case it appears in your My Offers section. You can then redeem the offer by bringing your mobile device to the different restaurants and other businesses and showing them the offer screen.

Google said in a blog published yesterday that its Google Offers  are currently available in Portland, Ore., the San Francisco Bay Area, and New York, with other cities to follow.

Google Shopper is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Via Facebook, veterans plan D.C. protest

27/07/2011 19:43:56

To protect veterans’ compensation and benefits from being targeted for cuts in the debt-crisis negotiations, the nation’s largest organization representing disabled veterans and their families is organizing a “virtual march on Washington’’ on Facebook .

The online protest, comes as veterans groups express increasing anger that veterans are being used in a game of brinkmanship.

Barry A. Jesinoski, executive director of the Washington headquarters of Disabled American Veterans, protest sponsor, said : “The uncertainty over what actions our government might take is causing unnecessary and harmful anxiety in the American public at large and veterans and their families specifically.’’

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, echoing comments from President Obama, warned this month that payments for veterans benefits could halt if there is no deal to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans have called such comments scare tactics.

“What we’ve heard is that if the debt limit isn’t raised, the government may not have enough money to pay its obligations, including veterans benefits checks,’’ said Garry Augustine, the DAV’s national service director. “Whether it’s accurate or not we’re not sure, but it makes people nervous when they hear it.’’

According to the DAV, thousands of virtual marchers have registered for the online protest. To record and post personal videos discussing their benefits and to e-mail elected officials, veterans and supporters will be encouraged, via Facebook and on several veterans groups’ websites.

From Google news Antisec’s Paypal campaign is missing

27/07/2011 19:37:59

The ongoing Antisec Operation Paypal news is not appearing at Google News, despite trending at Twitter and winning headlines in the Inquirer.

It's almost as though it is being rejected from the top ranking news pages for some mysterious reason.

It is well known that Google and Paypal do not get on, so its unlikely that the former is sticking up for the latter, particularly as they have fallen out over mobile payments involving at least one lawsuit, but Google and the US government do get on, we hear.

The US government, for those sleeping at the back, partly funded Google's startup through the CIA venture capital arm Inqtel, as it also did Facebook, by the way, but it does not like Anonymous and probably cares even less for Lulzsec. A combination of those two likely has it reaching for its revolver and its internet kill switch. But this is all speculation, of course.

Facebook may replace phone banks

27/07/2011 19:31:14

Consumers are changing how they look for information, and that could force Nissan North America to move operators out of phone banks and onto the Internet.

Erich Marx, Nissan's director of marketing communications, responsible for social media, said : "Currently, our social media staff can handle the volume of questions and problems that are showing up on Web sites."

But he believes the number of people asking questions on Nissan's Facebook page or venting about a complaint could double over the next year. "We will need to rethink the staffing that we have."

That could imply shifting some employees out of Nissan's traditional consumer affairs operations, including its multiple toll-free call centers, so they can monitor sites such as Facebook and the Web pages for Nissan's individual nameplates. No changes have been proposed yet.

In Taiwan market, no plans to sell Google Chromebook

27/07/2011 19:26:33

On July 27, Google Inc. said that the company has no plans to sell Chromebooks in Taiwan or Asia, despite the web-centric laptops having remained bestsellers on Amazon.com for seven weeks.

Chromebook is a new kind of computer not typical notebooks. With a Chromebook you won’t wait minutes for your computer to boot and browser to start. You’ll be reading your email in seconds. Automatic updates of the software on your Chromebook will get faster over time. Your apps, games, photos, music, movies and documents will be accessible wherever you are and you won't need to worry about losing your computer or forgetting to back up files.

On a single charge, Chromebooks will last a day, so you don’t need to carry a power cord everywhere. And with optional 3G, just like your phone, you’ll have the web when you need it.

With many layers of security built in there is no anti-virus software to buy and maintain for Chromebooks. Even more importantly, you won't spend hours fighting your computer to set it up and keep it up to date.

The Chromebooks are being sold in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. Taiwan is not included in the marketing regions.

Google senior product manager Vincent Wu said, "We don't have any plans to sell the devices in the Asia-Pacific in the next few months, as we want to test mature markets in the United States and Europe first." "But we can talk if Acer want to sell Chromebooks in Taiwan," he added.

Phenomenal following on Twitter for Dalai Lama

27/07/2011 19:20:53

On microblogging site Twitter, more than two million people across the globe religiously follow him giving Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama an unprecedented reach.

As he disseminates his teachings, speaks on various issues concerning his people and even reaches out to the Chinese people, the Dalai Lama has outstripped the following of many icons of cinema and sports.

"To control negative physical and verbal actions, it is necessary to get at their root, the mind, and tame it," is a spiritual lesson from him on Twitter.

As on 1.40 p.m. Monday, the Dalai Lama's Twitter account @DalaiLama had 2,075,807 followers, having added over 6,000 followers since 7 p.m. Sunday.

Next in following is cricketer Sachin Tendulkar (sachin_rt), being followed by 1,239,638 people, and in the third place, was Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra (1,209, 115).

According to a post on the Dalai Lama's official website, he began tweeting soon after his meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House (in February last year). During his US visit, the Tibetan spiritual leader met Twitter founder Evan Williams, who suggested he use the medium too.

Google + may be real rival for Facebook

26/07/2011 20:13:27

Comparing Facebook and Google was like comparing apples to oranges, up until a few weeks ago .

John Wirtz, assistant professor of public relations at Texas Tech University said that even though both their revenues depend almost entirely on advertisement, both giants did it in a different way

About a month ago, Google entered the world of social networking for the third time with a site called Google + (Google Plus).

Google + has 20 million users, since its birth on June 28, which makes it the fastest growing social network ever, said Brian Solis, a principal analyst at Altimeter group, a business research and consulting group based in San Mateo, Calif., and author of “Engage,” a guide for businesses to use the Internet.

It took Facebook a little more than three years to reach the 20-million mark. So with such a great start some have already called Google + the “Facebook Killer,” while others think it is too early to know, those who watch social media have said.

To run Venezuela from hospital bed Hugo Chávez uses Twitter

26/07/2011 20:07:08

Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president, is using Twitter as a tool to govern remotely while he undergoes cancer treatment in Cuba.

In more than 40 messages this week on his account, he has approved money for a Caracas rubbish collection project, praised plans for a new park and cheered on the national football team.

About his chemotherapy, Chávez hasn't mentioned anything directly but has alluded to his hospital stay, as he did in one tweet to a supporter on Tuesday: "We're moving along here, brother! With God and the Virgin!"

Most of his messages have had the tone of a patriotic father figure connecting with his public. Chávez boasts more than 1.8 million followers, and his messages also regularly pop up on the screen on state television in Venezuela.

Celebrities to mourn Amy Winehouse death on Twitter

26/07/2011 20:03:16

In regards to the sudden death of singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse, who was found dead at her London home on Saturday, celebrities are taking to their Twitter to pay their respects and express their grief.

The cause of death is still unknown for the Grammy Award winning artist, only 27-years-old at the time.

For many, her death may possibly be the result of her long-term battle with substance abuse, having also struggled previously with manic depression and eating disorders.

Kelly Osbourne, who had previously helped the late singer check into a drug addiction treatment facility in 2008, according to The Associated Press, tweeted her disbelief.

“I can’t even breath right now i’m crying so hard I just lost 1 of my best friends. i love you forever Amy and will never forget the real you!”

Other stars took the time to tweet their respects as well, including Rihanna, Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher, and Kate Moss.

Rihanna: “I am genuinely heartbroken about this,” and “Dear God have mercy!!! I am SICK about this right now!”

Jessica Alba: “So sad about Amy Winehouse- she was so talented. Really tragic.”

Ashton Kutcher: “I nevr know wht 2 post after paying respect 2 sum1 who died. Just seems lk anything funny is inappropriate. mayB I’ll just go C Harry Potter.”

His wife, Demi Moore also tweeted: “Truly sad news about Amy Winehouse. My heart goes out to her family. May her troubled soul find peace.”

Fellow Brits Kate Moss and Lily Allen shared, “R.I.P. Amy Winehouse, So upset, my heart goes out to her, sad to see such talent vanish from the world.”

Google "Places" drops outside customer reviews

26/07/2011 19:49:08

Google Inc has removed excerpts of customer reviews from sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor from Google Places, its competing online service aimed at helping consumers search for local businesses.

On Thursday, the move, announced in Google's official blog follows the disclosure of a U.S. antitrust investigation last month.

The federal probe concerns whether Google, which dominates U.S. and global markets for search engine advertising, abuses its market power by favoring its own services over those of rivals in online searches and through other practices.

The investigation got no mention on the blog post.

In the blog post, Avni Shah, Google's director of product management, said: "Based on careful thought about the future direction of Place pages, and feedback we've heard over the past few months, review snippets from other web sources have now been removed from Place pages."

Google said it added a function for Google users to write their own reviews at the top of its Place web pages.

It said the search pages' rating and review counts would only include reviews written by Google users, although the company would continue to list links to other review sites.

Google's "Places" offerings of local ratings and reviews, originally called Hotpot, were introduced last fall.

In Google patent lawsuit, Oracle to question Larry Page

25/07/2011 19:40:05

Google co-founder Larry Page will be questioned by Oracle under terms set by a US judge presiding over a patent suit pitting the business software titan against the Internet giant.

Oracle can depose Page "for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks" regarding the value of Android and whether Google intentionally infringed on patents at issue, Judge Donna Ryu said in a written decision on Thursday.

"(Page) reportedly made the decision to acquire Android Inc., and thereby develop and launch the platform that Oracle now contends infringes its patents and copyrights," Oracle lawyers argued in their request to the court.

"Oracle believes that Mr. Page's testimony will likely be relevant with respect to a number of other key issues in this case as well, including the value of the infringement to Google," the letter continued.

In the case, Google has asked to depose its chief executive, Larry Ellison.

Google's Android software is accused by Oracle of infringing on Java computer programming language patents held by Oracle stemming from its recent purchase of Java inventor Sun Microsystems.

Google has denied the patent infringement claims and said it believes mobile phone makers and other users of its open-source Android operating system are entitled to use the Java technology in dispute.

With half of $800 million in funding, Twitter is said to buy employee stock

25/07/2011 19:28:51

Twitter Inc., in funding, is close to raising $800 million and will use half the money to buy back shares from its employees and backers, according to reports.

Digital Sky Technologies lead the investment, completed in the next two weeks, which values Twitter at $8 billion, according to reports.

Through private investors, Twitter’s staff of about 600 workers will get the chance to capitalize on their shares rather than having to wait for an initial public offering. The company has remained on the sidelines during this year’s resurgence in IPOs.

Since December, Twitter’s worth has more than doubled when it received a $200 million investment led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that gave it a $3.7 billion valuation. In 2009, it was pegged at about $1 billion a person familiar with the matter said at the time. SharesPost Inc., an exchange for shares of closely held companies, has assessed Twitter’s current worth at $7 billion.

Investors are enticed by the popularity of Twitter’s service, which lets users share 140-character messages. Its members include celebrities, executives and President Barack Obama, who together send more than 200 million messages a day. The company is working to make money from those users by selling advertising.

1 million PCs hit by search hijack, warns Google.

25/07/2011 18:46:17

As many as one million Windows PCs appear to be infected by browser redirection malware that is sending searches through proxy servers in order to generate traffic, A quick-witted Google engineer has uncovered with evidence.

In one form or another, this type of attack has been around for years, but the scale of what Google engineer Damian Menscher chanced upon from a single family of malware is still unusual in its scale.

Menscher, while performing routine maintenance on a data center, noticed unusual traffic still arriving at the servers from unusual addresses. Calling in help from security experts, it was discovered that the requests were coming from a large clutch of PCs infected by proxy redirection malware.

Now, Google has added a layer of detection that picks up on the redirection attack and gives its victims a search page message 'Your computer appears to be infected' if traffic through the proxies is noticed.

"We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their antivirus software and remove the infections," Google said in an official blog.

The symptoms of this type of attack are easy to spot although not always easy for a user to clean up. When making Google searches, users are sent to any one of a variety of unrelated sites for porn, malware, fake anti-virus, or cloned products.

Despite privacy concerns Google buys facial recognition firm

25/07/2011 18:15:14

Google has gone out and bought itself a facial recognition software company by the name of PittPatt, even after publicly declaring on several occasions that it had no interest in facial recognition.

Pittsburgh based PittPatt, which emerged from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, has all the algorithms needed to identify your little punum , and is even able to track the motion of faces on video.

A notice on the PittPatt site said: “At Google, computer vision technology is already at the core of many existing products (such as Image Search, YouTube, Picasa, and Goggles), so it’s a natural fit to join Google and bring the benefits of our research and technology to a wider audience.”

“We will continue to tap the potential of computer vision in applications that range from simple photo organization to complex video and mobile applications,” the statement went on.

It thought PittPatt’s “research and technology can benefit our users in many ways,” though whether those ways invade people’s privacy or not remains to be seen, said Google.

Facebook helps save life of young child

17/07/2011 06:07:47

On Facebook, a mother’s pictures of her feverish four-year-old son allowed his rare and life-threatening illness, Kawasaki disease, to be identified, and ultimately saved his life.

Kawasaki disease can affect all ethnic groups and involves inflammation of the blood vessels in the arteries, especially the coronary arteries.

Initially detected with a fever and bloodshot eyes, the inflammation caused by the disease can cause an aneurism, which can lead to a heart attack, even in young children, that can cause death.

There is no specific test to indicate Kawasaki disease; pediatricians usually diagnose it based on the presence of all the symptoms involved.

After being diagnosed as strep, Deborah Copaken Kogan’s son Leo’s condition had not improved and Kogan posted another picture of the swelling that begun in Leo’s eyes and chin.

Kogan received a phone call from a former neighbor who had viewed the photos of Leo on Facebook, after many comments and questions from friends on Facebook.

The mother of a Kawasaki disease patient apologized for butting in, but insisted Kogan take Leo to the hospital at once. The Facebook user possibly saved Leo’s life with her phone call. Kogan took Leo to the hospital to learn that he did indeed have Kawasaki disease.

Leo Kogan, as a result of Kawasaki disease, suffered from liver disease that will increase his chances of heart attack later in life, but as of today he is at least feeling much better.

Film premiere at Facebook’s FlickLaunch

16/07/2011 18:47:49

FlickLaunch, the first independent-movie distribution platform built on Facebook will premiere Horror thriller "The Perfect House” as its inaugural film.

On October 1, the film, a haunted-house anthology that tells three separate stories using different horror-film techniques, will debut on FlickLaunch as a seven-day, $5 rental accessible through its Facebook page.

On Friday, the debut was announced by FlickLaunch and by the makers of "The Perfect House," which stars Monique Parent, Felissa Rose and Will Robertson and is directed by Kris Hulbert and Randy Kent.

FlickLaunch was designed to be a simple platform that independent filmmakers can use to upload and stream their films quickly and easily, receiving up to 70 percent of the revenue. The films can be viewed full-screen directly on Facebook, and stopped, paused and resumed within the rental period.

The cast and crew of "The Perfect House," prior to the FlickLaunch debut, will take the film on a 30-day tour around the country, which will be documented on its Facebook page and official website.

FlickLaunch has also finished work on an iPad app, and is working on apps for the iPhone and Android.

'Facebook, Twitter breaking marriages'

16/07/2011 18:16:41

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have been held responsible for extramarital affairs leading to the breakdown of marriages.

And the Malacca state government in a bid to "prevent broken marriages” is planning to have a counselling session for married couples.

Woman lands in court after Facebook mouse murder

13/07/2011 16:44:17

Later this week, a young woman who allegedly filmed herself hacking off a mouse's head and then posted the footage on Facebook will front court.

Over the gruesome footage, which shows the mouse taking 40 seconds to die, the 23-year-old has been charged with animal cruelty, the RSPCA said.

She allegedly used a steak knife to cut off the mouse's head, filming the incident and later uploading it onto Facebook using an alias.

On Friday, the woman, from Caboolture north of Brisbane, will face the Caboolture Magistrates Court.

Facebook searched by US coppers

13/07/2011 16:41:18

According to a report at Reuters, US police are being granted warrants to search user accounts on Facebook, .

Law enforcement agencies are obtaining search warrants and entering user accounts without the individuals' knowledge or consent, the news agency reports.

At least two dozen search warrants have been awarded, it explained, and the majority of these asked for what was called a "laundry list of personal data". This, Reuters learned, includes messages, status updates, friend requests, videos and photos, and, interestingly, "rejected friend requests".

Reuters suggested that Facebook makes the process easy by offering investigators a user's "Neoprint" and "Photoprint", which it said was a very detailed dump of information. Reuters said that the information was not available to users themselves, although this appears to be sitting at its offices waiting for anyone that asks for it.

The number of searches seems to be rising, and the article reports that eleven warrants have been granted since the start of this year, more than double the number that were seen in 2010.

Facebook grilled on privacy by Nordic countries

13/07/2011 16:36:55

In Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland data protection agencies have quizzed social network giant Facebook on its management of users’ private information.

“This is a common action to obtain better knowledge of how personal information is handled by the world’s largest social network,” the Swedish Data Inspection Board’s chief attorney Hans-Olof Lindblom explained in a statement.

Last week on behalf of authorities in all four countries,Norway’s data protection agency had sent Facebook a list of 45 questions, the statement said.

They include queries on the consequences of clicking the “like” button to comment on posted items, and the sharing of data that can help determine a user’s name and address with third parties.

The autorities also asked Facebook to explain what it does with photos uploaded to the site, shared items on users’ “walls,” and account holders’ stated religious and sexual preferences.

Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, was instructed by the Norwegian Data Protection Agency that it had until the end of August to answer each question as accurately as possible, but in no more than 3-4 sentences.

“We have for a long time had a good dialogue with Facebook’s headquarters,” Bjoern Erik Thon of the Norwegian authority said in a statement.

“Despite the fact that Facebook is continuously working on improving information to its members, it is unclear what information Facebook collects and how this is used and passed on,” he said.

Gateway for Facebook, PaaS introduced by MicroStrategy

13/07/2011 16:32:07

A provider of business intelligence (BI) software, MicroStrategy, is introducing Gateway for Facebook, a new cloud-based service that can interconnect enterprise IT environments and enterprise applications with the Facebook social graph. The company also announced the general availability of MicroStrategy Cloud, a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

Facebook social graph data structure is converted into a relational data structure by the Gateway for Facebook ,making it instantly suitable for enterprise applications like CRM, marketing, service, sales, loyalty, and mobile applications, said the company.

The company futher added that the new service offers bidirectional data flow so that social intelligence from Facebook can be added to enterprise applications, and enterprise applications can interact back with the social network.

Companies can leverage the two-way communication to inject social intelligence into enterprise applications and transform them into "friendly" applications.

Among the key features of Gateway are: rich data query; high efficiency query algorithms; real-time data response; and scalability.

MicroStrategy Cloud is a cloud-based service to enable rapid, cost-effective development of business intelligence, mobile and social apps.

The company said that the service leverages hundreds of thousands of terabytes of data and scaling to hundreds of thousands of users.

Google's Schmidt to testify

02/07/2011 08:19:27

Eric Schmidt, Google's Chairman, has agreed to testify before the Senate antitrust subcommittee in September to answer questions about the company's growing dominance of the Internet.

Because of a many different probes looking into its business practices, the search giant was reluctant to have any senior executives testify.

Senators on the panel, just last month, warned they would use their subpoena power to compel one to appear.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), chairman of the subcommittee, on Friday, said the company had complied with their demand, the Wall Street Journal reported.

No date has been set for the hearing, though the Senator's office expects it to take place in September.

"Senator Kohl expressed a strong desire to have our executive chairman appear in front of the subcommittee and we're happy to accommodate."

The company has denied acting unlawfully to stifle competitors. It has said its growing success will inevitably attract scrutiny from regulators, as well as complaints from disgruntled competitors.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission launched a broad, formal antitrust investigation of Google. The European Commission is also investigating whether the company has violated European competition laws.

The US Justice Department at the same time, is conducting a criminal investigation into whether Google knowingly profited from rogue online pharmacies. It's also conducting an antitrust review of Google's recent purchase of Internet advertising company Admeld for around $400 million.

In India, Facebook plans to hire public policy expert

02/07/2011 07:53:20

Facebook, the world's largest social network, amid growing privacy concerns across the world, including India, plans to hire a public policy expert in India. Facebook, with nearly 25 million active users in India, lags behind Google, which counts nearly 60 million users in the country.

As these Internet giants seek to expand their base in India's lucrative Internet market, they face challenges of regulatory hurdles, misinterpreted features and lack of awareness among government departments. Bangalore, last month asked Google to stop collecting images for its Street View service on security concerns.

Facebook, in a job posting, said the new head of public policy to be based in Delhi, will "actively promote of the uses of Facebook with policymakers and influencers in both electoral and governing bodies." The need for internet companies to engage with the government and even lobby, comes in wake of the amendment of the Indian IT act of 2008 - a tool with which the government regulates content on the internet.

On Thursday, when contacted by ET officials at the public relations agency handling Facebook's communications in India said none of the company officials were available for a comment. Companies in possession of third party data have come under the scanner as the government has drafted regulations for companies dealing, handling or processing sensitive personal data on April 11, 2011.

The social networking behemoth which has close to four crore users in India is keen on hiring someone who can be a bridge between the government and the company. The practice of having a public policy head is not new. Google has had a policy team in place since 2006 which has ties with the government to influence policy making.

There were 282 item removal requests of which 199 were for YouTube alone where 100 items were for defamation and 53 were for privacy and security, states the Google's latest transparency report released for India. Google either partially or fully complied with 22% of the requests filed in 2010.

Facebook, email access in Phylicia Barnes case sought by FBI

02/07/2011 07:19:50

As part of a child pornography and sexual exploitation of children investigation, Federal authorities are seeking access to multiple e-mail and Facebook accounts, including some bearing the name of slain North Carolina teen Phylicia Barnes.

Last week, applications for search warrants filed in May by an FBI special agent were unsealed, but related affidavits remain sealed.

State police, who are leading the investigation into Barnes’ death, declined to comment. The FBI is involved in the case through the Maryland Child Exploitation Task Force and so is Special Agent Jaquelyn Dougher, who filed the application, said Special Agent Kelly Bell. She could not say whether any of the accounts listed in the applications were linked to Barnes or if the applications were granted.

On Dec. 28 the 16-year-old from Monroe, N.C., vanished while visiting her older half-siblings in Baltimore and her body was found nearly four months later in the Susquehanna River, an hour’s drive from the apartment where she was last seen. Barnes’ death was ruled a homicide, but police have not released the cause. There have been no arrests in the case.

The applications seek access to three e-mail accounts that include Barnes’ first name and a Facebook account in her name and linked to accounts in her relatives’ names. The reports claim that they also seek access to four accounts that appear to be associated with men with Baltimore ties.

Unwanted Olympics tickets shared at Facebook page

02/07/2011 07:12:46

Without having to pay inflated prices to touts, a ticket sharing website has been launched to get fans into the London Olympics.

Sports lovers can use TicketCollective’s Facebook page to tell pals what spare tickets they have available for next year’s Games – then get together for events.

It aims to stop touts profiting by selling tickets at extortionate prices.

TicketCollective is not a ticket reselling or swapping site and is free, so it is not affected by the Games’s strict rules.

Andrew Mobbs, managing director, said: “We think ticket touts make it more difficult for people to attend events with their family and friends by pushing prices up to unreasonable levels.

“So we want to offer a service that is healthy for the ticketing ecosystem where event organisers get paid, fraud is reduced and each and every event is a success in the minds of those attending because lifelong memories are created when we do things with family and friends.

“TicketCollective uses your Facebook network to quickly help people find friends to go with or tickets to use. No fraud, no rip-off and no unused tickets.”

London 2012 chairman Seb Coe hailed the phenomenal demand for tickets and pleaded with International Olympic Committee members to return any unwanted ones to Britain.

Lord Coe said: “1.9 million people applied for 22 million tickets, we have 6.6 million to distribute.

“We have sold out in 23 out of 26 sports. We promised full venues and affordable prices. There has been disappointment, with that level of demand.

“My message is, ‘If you have tickets you have not sold please send them to us’. I know people who would like them.”

“We are thrilled by the success of the sale of tickets. It’s something unheard of and proves the great love of sport,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said while praising the progress made by London 2012.

Facebook is being outsmarted

02/07/2011 07:05:43

A leading media intelligence company in the Middle East has said that Facebook's popularity could well be waning with the entry of new social networking sites and a sharp drop in the number of its users.

In a statement, Mediastow said: “According to Facebook's data service, the social networking site lost 6 million users in the US last month, dropping from 155.2 million to 149.4 million. That is the first time numbers have dropped in more than a year in the country.”

“It also lost 1.52 million users in Canada, dropping to 16.6 million an 8 per cent drop and 100,000 each in the UK, Norway and Russia. Facebook could fade away in 10-15 years,” it said.

Mohamed Elzubeir, Founder and Managing Director of Mediastow said: “When it comes to the Internet, everything is cyclical. The fate of MySpace demonstrates how a strong player can quickly fade into oblivion. Looking further back, Geocities represents another similar example.”

In late 1994, GeoCities was originally founded as Beverly Hills Internet. Ten years after Yahoo bought it, the company announced that it would shut down the United States GeoCities service on October 26, 2009. There were at least 38 million user-built pages on GeoCities before it was shut down, Elzubeir pointed.

“Currently, there is already a debate on whether Facebook is bleeding users from its launch countries in North America. While it is possible to blame seasonality or even saturation, I believe there are other more important factors at play here,” he added.

After US antitrust complaint Facebook dev rules tweaked

02/07/2011 07:00:38

Following an antitrust complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook has updated its developer terms of service.

The company now lets Facebook-game developers charge a lower price for virtual goods when their game runs on other platforms, such as MySpace, Yahoo!, or another website. Facebook's terms of service previously required that the same prices be charged on competing platforms.

The earlier rules were anti-competitive, according to the consumer watchdog known as Consumer Watchdog. Facebook is the largest social network on the planet with an audience of 750 million.

On June 28, Consumer Watchdog complained to the FTC and the terms of service were updated three days later. According to Consumer Watchdog, Facebook was violating section 1 and section 2 of the Sherman act, and section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

In the 1990s, It was the Sherman Act that 19 US states and the Department of Justice threw at Microsoft claiming it had abused its dominant position in PC operating systems to restrain competition in browsers. Microsoft is now an investor in Facebook and a search partner.

Facebook's terms of service change has failed to satisfy Consumer Watchdog, which has also asked that the FTC prevent Facebook from forcing developers into using its "Credits" currency system as the sole means of paying for virtual goods and services across the platform. Consumer Watchdog is peeved that Facebook charges developers a 30-per-cent service fee for using Credits.

"Facebook Credits will make it far more difficult, if not cost prohibitive, for smaller game developers to compete inside the Facebook platform against larger developers. The effect of these terms is to create a barrier to competition between social game developers, and between potential competitors to Facebook-social networks or websites operating as a platform for games," the complaint reads.

Also, the group wants the US regulator to probe the five year agreement signed in May 2010 between Facebook and Zynga, maker of agri-crowd-pleaser Farmville, and other similar agreements between Facebook and game developers.

Before the deal over the Credits setup, Facebook and Zynga had been at loggerheads.

Terms of the agreement were not revealed, but Facebook said that Zynga  would expand the use of Credits to more titles. Zynga had been talking about setting up its own portal for its online games. Zynga claims more than 270 million monthly active gamers on Facebook, so creating its own site could have seen Zynga take significant traffic away from Zuckerberg.

Consumer Watchdog director John Simpson responding to Facebook's rules tweak, said in a statement that the social-network giant continued to use its monopoly position to maintain an onerous burden on developers that would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

"Facebook tweaked its terms when its worst policies were highlighted; now there is nothing to stop them from changing them when the heat's off. We call on the FTC to formally block Facebook's predatory policies," Simpson said.

Despite Facebook-Skype deal, Google outlook good

02/07/2011 06:41:41

According to Ben Rogoff, fund manager at Polar Capital Partners,Google is continuing to hold its own despite Facebook and Skype's video chat integration.

Rogoff said in an interview: "If you look at the share that social media is having in terms of behavior and so on, it`s really not coming at the expense of Google. It`s coming at the expense of Yahoo and AOL and some of the other legacy properties."

He adds that Microsoft and other incumbent technology companies face challenges in remaining pertinent and refreshing their brands.

"It was a high-ticket price for what they [Microsoft] paid for, but Skype is a transaction that will put Microsoft back in the forefront of IT buyers` minds," Rogoff said referring to Microsoft's deal to acquire Skype.

Despite it all, "Google is continuing to hold its own, which is very positive indeed," Rogoff added.

He urges tech investors to "look beyond" short-term thinking:

"I genuinely think it`s one of the poorest, laziest approaches to investing in our space... So you have to sit there and model what this business will look like in two or three years."

Buffett shies away from Facebook

02/07/2011 06:36:14

Warren E. Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, long reticent of technology companies, has no plans to take the plunge into the social networking space even while investors are salivating over the Web’s hottest start-ups.

“It’s not my game,” he said in an interview with DealBook at the Allen & Company conference here. “The world is changing, and I’m lagging behind.”

He is not exactly sure what to make of the multibillion-dollar valuations of Facebook, Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn and the like, said Mr. Buffett .

“A few of them will be worth enormous amounts,” he said. But “I don’t know which ones.”

The most successful ones, he added, will figure “out something that somebody wants that they don’t know they want now.”

And what about Facebook, the world’s largest social network, which is said to be preparing a public offering that would value the company at more than $100 billion?

“I’m the last guy to ask about that,” Mr. Buffett said.

At 80, the Oracle from Omaha says he’s pretty comfortable sticking with his long-held strategy.

Although fellow attendee, the chairman of IAC, Barry Diller, told reporters Thursday morning that current valuations are “wildly overpriced,” Mr. Buffett said he was optimistic about his ability to find great investments in this market.

“We’re looking for ones that aren’t crazy,” Mr. Buffett said. “Most companies I don’t know how to value, there’s a few that I think I know how to value and every now and then one of those are a price number that falls within my valuation range.”

Family life overtaken by Facebook, emails

02/07/2011 06:27:53

A new study has claimed that e mails and social networking websites like Facebook are disrupting family life.

Family life is being disrupted as parents and kids are overwhelmed by the huge volumes of emails and social messaging updates they are handling each day, researchers at Cambridge University have found.

One in three Britons is now desperate to cut down our use of Twitter and Facebook as well as emails as a result, a newspaper reported.

Surprisingly, the study, based on a survey, also found children as well as adults preferred to communicate face to face. More than half of all families said a "technology-free" time is important and a third of parents said technology had disrupted family life.

38 per cent of respondents amongst children aged 10 to 18, who have grown up with new technology, admitted to feeling overwhelmed by the volume of messages. And, similar numbers of adults felt the same way.

The study also discovered that 43 per cent of children and 33 per cent of adults are taking steps to reduce their reliance on messaging, text and networking. Both groups now preferred interacting face-to-face rather than through the internet or by mobile phone.

A painful loss for Google

02/07/2011 06:06:43

In a stalking horse bid, Google offered $900 million for Nortel's remaining patent portfolio. A consortium of Google enemies, however, placed the successful bid of $4.5 billion.

Thanks to the patent-sue-me-sue-you frenzy in the wireless industry, Nortel squeezed a substantial amount of cash out of its 6000 patents. Relating to the areas of wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider, and semiconductors, the portfolio may have little value as an asset the perspective of active innovation, but it is said to carry tremendous value as a defense in potential lawsuits.

Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony consist the winning consortium. What makes this sale so special is the fact that those are companies that already have a substantial patent portfolio, while Google has not and it is generally seen as a problem for Android. Whether we like it or not, the U.S. and this industry in particular is a patent and legal system mess. Fraudulent lawsuits are surfacing frequently and threaten to slow or halt innovation.

Google, which originally made it sound like it had to simply buy the portfolio to be able to "innovate", is now out of the loop again and there are questions just how dangerous this game is and how likely it is that Android can be shut down by lawsuits. Google, at the very least, will need to be more open about its strategy to defend especially Android developers and handset manufacturers against lawsuits.

Arabic becoming the Facebook language

02/07/2011 06:00:32

Arabic, it’s expected that within a year, will overtake English to become the most popular Facebook language in the region.

Use of the Arabic Facebook interface has skyrocketed to reach some 10 million users today, since it was launched in 2009. At the moment, they represent ab

Facebook taken back to court

27/06/2011 21:37:08

After opting not take their California case to the US Supreme Court, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are attacking Facebook on a new legal front.

Accusing Facebook of duping them in a deal they made in a lawsuit charging that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea, the twin brothers and fellow ConnectU founder Divya Narendra revealed plans to rev up litigation in Massachusetts.

On Thursday, lawyers for the Winklevosses notified a federal court in Boston that they wouldn't appeal a failed California case to the Supreme Court, clearing the way to proceed in a separate lawsuit idling in Massachusetts.

The filing indicated that the Winklevosses intend to commence a "discovery" process aimed at uncovering whether Facebook suppressed evidence while negotiating a settlement with the ConnectU founders.

"These are old and baseless allegations that have been considered and rejected previously by the courts," Facebook attorney Neel Chatterjee said in a statement.

The twins have argued that Facebook held back information about the estimated value of the California-based social networking firm while reaching a $65 million settlement with the brothers.

The twins inked a settlement two years ago that got them $20 million in cash and $45 million worth of stock valued at $36 per share.

The value of that yet-to-be-issued stock has skyrocketed along with Facebook's estimated market value.

On the grounds that Zuckerberg suckered them during settlement talks by not revealing Facebook internally valued the stock at $9, The brothers challenged the settlement, which was supposed to be confidential .

The lower figure would have resulted in the Winklevoss twins getting many more shares.
Lawyers filed legal paperwork on Wednesday saying that the twin brothers will not ask the top court in the nation to overturn a decision the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made siding with Facebook.

In May, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a bid by the identical twin brothers to have a full panel of 11 judges second guess a ruling made by a three-justice panel.

The three-judge panel said that litigation in the case "must come to an end" and threw out the bid by the Winklevosses to review the settlement.

Google’s first Android 4.0 phone

27/06/2011 21:25:45

For its first Android 4.0 phone, potentially called the Nexus Prime, Google may be sticking with Nexus S manufacturer Samsung.

BGR has dug up new info saying that the Nexus Prime’s screen will be branded “Super AMOLED HD,” which sounds like a follow-up to Samsung’s current Super AMOLED screen technology. That leads BGR to believe Samsung will be building the phone.

Google’s next Nexus phone is rumored to be a 4G LTE powerhouse. The phone’s display is said to run at a 720p (1280 by 768) resolution, which means that it will like sport a large screen (around 4.3-inches) and it will be extremely sharp like Apple’s Retina Display on the iPhone 4. The Nexus Prime, like the Nexus S and Nexus One before it, will be Google’s flagship device for its newest version of Android, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich.

Later this year, Google may be breaking with tradition for the release of Android 4.0. The company may also be working with manufacturers to launch other Android 4.0 smartphones and tablets around the time of the Nexus Prime’s launch. So unlike the Nexus S, which for the longest time was the only phone running Android 2.3, Google may have several updated devices to choose from this holiday season.

Over Twitter comments Kuwait arrests duo

27/06/2011 21:00:08

For criticizing Gulf Arab ruling families on social media site Twitter, Kuwait will put two citizens on trial.

Nasser Abul, was arrested for posting criticisms of the ruling families in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Lawrence al-Rashidi posted defamatory comments of Kuwait's emir.

Both would remain in detention for two more weeks before a hearing is scheduled, where they will likely face charges of harming the Gulf Arab state's interests and defaming the country's ruler after being arrested earlier in June.

To debate, organize and share information in Bahrain, where the kingdom's rulers crushed a protest movement in March, Democracy activists have used social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Bahrain called in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to enforce its crackdown.

Bahrain questioned a rights activist in April for publishing an image which appeared to show signs of torture on a man who died in detention during the unrest.

It is not clear if the case will be brought to court.

Facebook for Android updated to new version

27/06/2011 20:54:21

Facebook is the most widely used social network in the world. This means that all platforms have to take special care of the social networking application The Android version of the application has now been updated to version 1.6. This update will bring along some improvements in the news feed, support for Facebook pages, and the ability to add videos to your Facebook profile.

No political ideology for Google

27/06/2011 20:43:40

Eric Schmidt, Google chief, has said the web giant has no interest in encouraging particular political change.

However, the company believes more information and transparency leads to better governments, the executive chairman said.

He was speaking at a Google-sponsored summit against violent extremism in Dublin, which has brought together former religious fundamentalists, guerrillas, gangsters, neo-Nazis and paramilitaries to work out how to defeat extremism.

Mr Schmidt criticised the cynicism he has experienced "over and over again" about tackling the issue, adding society only moves on when it tries something new.

"It's time for us as a society to take charge on these things," he said.

"Phenomena begin, phenomena end. They do, in fact, and new problems emerge. Let's work on some new problems, fix the old problems."

There was no political ideology at the heart of Google's operations but it was happy to act as an enabler of information, said Mr Schmidt .

"We have a particular view that more information, more transparency, produces more better and more responsive societies and governments," he said.

He said it was "a little uncomfortable" at times championing free speech because it can lead to speech people don't like, but he added the company will only censor very few things, like specific death threats.

He said the company, because of this, was always concerned about Google employees in some countries which did not have a strong record on transparency and freedom of speech.

After threat made on Facebook guard faces probe

27/06/2011 20:39:24

In response to a Herald story raising questions over Rugby World Cup security a security guard who issued a threat on Facebook faces an investigation by his employer.

A posting from the guard on the social networking website said: "The guard that spoke to the media ... shut your mouth! Or it will be shut for you!"

The posting was linked to the Herald story reporting complaints from staff of Darien Rush Security, which included not being paid.

The claims are disputed by the company.

About training and licensing of security staff, the workers' union, Unite, has also expressed concerns.

To manage security outside Eden Park and other facilities during the Cup, Darien Rush Security has a contract with the Auckland Council.

It is also contracted by Eden Park to provide security within the stadium.

The guard who posted on Facebook was one of its workers, the firm said.

Jason Brott, chief operating officer said yesterday the man had been spoken to and had removed the posting from Facebook.

"This was a personal comment and absolutely did not reflect the views of Darien Rush Security. [The firm] does not support this type of behaviour."

Facebook urged for expansion of operations

27/06/2011 20:33:37

On Thursday, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy invited Facebook to expand its presence to Tier-II cities in the State and assured full support of the government for its growth.

To mark the completion of one year of successful operations, the Chief Minister participated in a function organised at the Facebook India office. Ponnala Lakshmaiah, minister for IT & Communication, was also present. Facebook has its presence only in Hyderabad in India, besides Palo Alto, Dublin and Australia, according to a press release here.

In India, Facebook has more than 600 million active users and more than 25 million. It has more than 100 employees here and has a number of positions currently open in Hyderabad, ranging from user operations to sales operations to finance and recruiting. Facebook is currently available seven local languages — Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam and Nepali.

In Android patent battle Oracle seeking billions from Google

21/06/2011 18:54:48

Oracle is seeking as much as $6.1 billion in patent and copyright infringement damages from Google as the companies continue their intellectual property fight over the Android mobile operating system.

Android "directly copied" elements of the Java programming language, acquired by Oracle in April 2009, when it purchased rival Sun Microsystems for about $7.4 billion, alleges Oracle . According to an Oracle filing released Friday, its damages total "in the billions of dollars," an estimate based on "both accepted methodology and a wealth of concrete evidence."

A June 6 letter from Google attorneys to U.S. District Judge William Alsup states that Oracle's damages expert contends Google would owe Oracle between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion in damages if it is found liable for infringement. Google representation calls the projection "a breathtaking figure that is out of proportion to any meaningful measure of the intellectual property at issue," adding that even the low end of the range "is over 10 times the amount that Sun Microsystems Inc. made each year for the entirety of its Java licensing program and 20 times what Sun made for Java-based mobile licensing."

Google argues the damages expert's testimony should be disregarded, claiming the projection inflated Android licensing royalty rates that Google may owe. Google said in an email statement: "Oracle's ‘methodology' for calculating damages is based on fundamental legal errors and improperly inflates their estimates."

Oracle's original complaint, filed in August 2010, supplied few details about the alleged infringement, but an amended complaint filed in October includes specific examples of code attached as exhibits. The complaint states that "approximately one-third of Android's Application Programmer Interface (API) packages" are "derivative of Oracle's copyrighted Java API packages" and related documents.

Facebook to take no 1 position

21/06/2011 18:04:16

Facebook’s banner ad business will top $2 billion this year, making the company the biggest player in the category, predicts eMarketer .

Facebook’s U.S. display ad revenues will hit $2.19 billion this year, an 80.9% jump over 2010, the researecher predicts. Such revenues grew in the triple digits in 2009 and are projected to increase 31.3% from 2011 to 2012, according to eMarketer’s estimates.

Meanwhile, eMarketer predicts Google’s display ad business will grow 34.4% this year, making the company a strong number three player in the category, next to Facebook and Yahoo.

The researcher’s prediction comes after another projection earlier this month that display ad revenues will overtake search in 2015.

Google and Apple beaten by Infosys, Tata Brands

21/06/2011 17:58:33

According to a recent report by a London-based company, Infosys Technologies Ltd. and the Tata Group have topped a list of India's leading corporate brands, far ahead of global giants such as Apple Inc.

Bagging seven of the top 10 positions, Indian companies did well in the survey, very different from the U.K., where only four local companies made it to the best 10 list in a simil

To bolster Google TV with useful features, Google buys up SageTV

21/06/2011 17:51:22

A company that makes products with streaming and media center-type services, SageTV, announced on Saturday that it had been acquired by Google. Google is speculated to want SageTV for its DVR and Slingbox-like capabilities for possible integration with Google TV and Google's cloud services.

For a couple of years now, SageTV's products have filled a niche as just-works media extenders allowing customers to serve media over LAN, stream YouTube videos, and stream from PVRs running SageTV's DVR software to a home theater setup.

Now that Google has scooped it up, there are a number of SageTV's services Google might be after. Rakesh Agrawal, SnapStream Media founder, speculates that Google bought SageTV in order to add native DVR capabilities to Google TV. But Google TV can already integrate with and automate existing DVRs, leading GigaOM to counter that making DVRs that run Google TV software would be redundant.

Instead, Google is more likely to focus on the Slingbox-like abilities of the SageTV platform, which can "place-shift" both live and stored video content from a DVR or PC to either a local or remote playback location. With that type of software installed on PCs and Google TVs, customers could watch video stored on their computers or DVRs connected to a Google TV on any other Google TV-enabled device in the world.

Google told to pull out Street View cars

21/06/2011 17:47:24

After an objection from the city police, just three weeks after Google's Street View cars started driving around Bangalore, the company has grounded the fleet. According to Google, it received a letter from the Commissioner of Police Bangalore asking it to stop the cars. The cars were taking pictures and mapping streets of Bangalore. The data was supposed to be used for Google's Street View service.

A Google spokesperson said: "We can confirm that we have received a letter from the commissioner of police regarding Street View. We are currently reviewing it and have stopped our cars until we have a chance to answer any questions or concerns the police have."

According to Google, it received the letter last week. Sources said the commissioner has asked the search engine giant to stop photographing streets of Bangalore. The commissioner has also called Google officials for further discussions on the matter. Google claims it took permission from the traffic department of Bangalore police, before Street View cars started operating.

The police have reservations regarding legality of Google's Street View in India, According to MediaNama. An anonymous source reportedly told the website that the police acted because there were several restrictions on photography by foreigners or foreign firms in India.

Putting it under the ambit of foreign direct investment policy that governs investment and participation by foreign companies in Indian media, the police also reportedly consider Street View and the data presented through it as a form of new media.

Beyond mobile Google's Android ambitions

13/06/2011 19:01:03

Google’s top mobile-phone executive, Andy Rubin, likes to talk about everything being "Android-ized." Android has become the top smartphone operating system in the United States, but Google's ambitions for it go well beyond tablet computers and smartphones, even beyond the mobile Web.

Now Google says Android can also become the first mass-market bridge between the virtual world and the physical world, allowing smartphone apps to control light bulbs, home appliances, and even medical devices. Google announced a program called Android@Home, a system that will allow Android phones and tablets to turn on household lights, activate speakers in a wireless stereo system, or analyze the calories burned on a gym exercise bike, at its annual I/O developer conference last month. The first Android@Home products are LED light bulbs embedded with technology that can be controlled by an Android device. Built by a Florida company called Lighting Science Group, they will go on sale by December.

But their ambition goes beyond turning a smartphone into a universal remote that could switch on the kitchen coffeemaker from your upstairs bedroom, say Android's executives .

Post traffic offenders on Facebook, to appear in court

13/06/2011 18:44:41

Nine days after the Chandigarh police launched its Facebook page, a directive asking the users to be ready to depose for the evidence before the court for uploading picture or video of traffic violation has acted as a dampener. However, maintain that only those will be asked to depose where the court asks for the same, the police maintain.

Inspector General of Police Pradeep Kumar Srivastava said: “Every one who posts pictures or videos of violation on the Facebook will not be asked to appear before the court. But if the court wants any one’s personal appearance, the user has to be ready for that.”

The users can keep their identities secret for posting the traffic violation pictures, he further added.

“If any user wants that his or her identity should not be made public on the Facebook page while uploading a video or a picture of traffic violation, the user should make a request about the same to the Chandigarh police,” he said, adding the procedure is also being followed by Delhi traffic police that is successfully running the page.

Google Confirms Plans to Buy Admeld

13/06/2011 18:41:24

To increase its offerings of ad-management tools, Google Inc. (GOOG) confirmed it plans to acquire the online-advertising firm Admeld.

The Wall Street Journal, last Thursday, reported Google was in talks to buy Admeld for about $400 million, as the technology giant continues to invest outside its main search-advertising business.

In its Monday blog posting, Google didn't confirm financial terms of the deal.

New York-based Admeld, known as a supply-side platform company, helps large websites sell advertising, which would help Google obtain ad inventory from some of the top publishers of online content, including Thomson Reuters Corp. (TRI, TRI.T) and News Corp.'s (NWSA, NWS) Fox News and New York Post sites. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal and this newswire.

In 2010, Google generated nearly $30 billion revenue, the vast majority of which came from selling ads on its search engine.

Shares were recently trading down 0.8% at $505.33. Over the past year, the stock has risen 3.4%.

For efficient functioning, UP department to use Facebook

13/06/2011 18:37:36

Uttar Pradesh food and civil supplies department, with a view to ensure greater transparency and better interaction, will be using social networking site Facebook to improve the department's functioning.

Food Commissioner Santosh Yadav said: "Each regional food controller have been asked to open a separate Facebook page on which they will be required to update their status, information about completed works and problems faced by them."

Yadav said he has also suggested food inspectors to use the online platform to remain in touch with fellow inspectors and seek their help if needed.

So that they could remain in contact with the department and interact with their colleagues at the click of a mouse, the department will also be providing data cards to food controllers.

Every Thursday, the Food Commissioner also plans to hold a department review on Facebook once the system starts in all the offices, sources said.

The department has asked those who do not know how to use computers to learn operate them.

On Thursday Twitter's 'Super 8' Promo Grosses $1 Million

13/06/2011 17:36:04

On Thursday, Paramount Pictures raked in $1 million in ticket receipts and priceless media attention through a Twitter-promoted sneak preview of J.J. Abrams' and Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller, "Super 8"—and all for the price of $120,000?

Paramount and Twitter, to promote the movie, which officially hit theaters on Friday, teamed up to offer a day-early sneak preview to Twitter users who tweeted with the designated #Super8Secret hashtag.

Paramount paid to make #Super8Secret a "Promoted Trend," putting the hashtag under the top 10 trends listed on users' Twitter homepages. Paramount also debuted the Super 8 trailer on Twitter.

According to report, about 10,000 across the country attended the sneak preview. On Friday, Twitter boasted that the Hollywood promotion, its biggest movie tieup ever, earned Paramount $1 million on Thursday alone. It's a dent compared to the $12.2 million the movie grossed on Friday, opening day, but a worthy investment considering how much Paramount reportedly paid to promote the sneak preview.

Twitter charges $120,000 per day for a Promoted Tweet, up from $25,000-$30,000 last year when the feature first started, According to ClicZ, Twitter also requires advertisers to spend at least $15,000 over three months on bid-based Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets.

An exec said at a conference in April Twitter has more than 200 million users worldwide. More than 70 percent of its traffic actually comes from outside the U.S., and roughly 25 percent come from Japan.

Google May Be Buying AdMeld for $400M

12/06/2011 19:34:13

Google is in the process of purchasing Admeld, which sells display advertising for large Websites owned by Thomson Reuters and Discovery Communications, and News Corp.'s Fox News and New York Post sites.

The buy, which Tech crunch first reported and claimed was worth $400 million, has not been confirmed by Google.

For search ads, Google has more or less locked up the market, where it has 90 percent-plus of text-based ads paired with search results. However, the company's plot of display ads—graphical ads with glimmer and sparkle that sometimes irk users—is much less.

Google's U.S. display ad revenue share grew to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of 2011 from 13.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, passing Yahoo for the first time, said IDC.

Google's vice president of display advertising, Neal Mohan, said engagement rates across all display ads will increase by 50 percent as "ads become less cluttered, more relevant, more engaging and more attractive."

Adding AdMeld would help Google grab ad inventory from leading online content publishers for its DoubleClick Ad Exchange marketplace, providing quite a weapon for Google in its battle against Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and other rivals.

Such a deal, however, would surely attract the attention of the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, which have scrutinized Google recently for its large acquisition bids.

Google staff highest paid workers

12/06/2011 18:48:21

Google's 26,000 employees earn a median salary of $141,000 (£86,800) a year, compared to the UK private sector average of £21,500, a survey revealed on Friday.

Google, which gives its entire staff free gourmet meals, massages and numerous other perks not found in most offices, pays its staff 23% more than workers are paid for similar roles at rival technology companies, according to the PayScale survey. Google gave all its employees a $ 1000 tax- free bonus and 10% pay raise  to stop staff defecting to rivals, such as Facebook, in January.

The report also found that Facebook has the youngest staff in the technology, with an average age of 26 – a year younger than chief executive Mark Zukerberg.

Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at PayScale, said: "Not only do many of the large tech companies pay their typical employees well into the six figures – not surprising given the large number of well-paid engineers on staff – they also pay a premium of as much as 23% above typical pay for the same kind of employees working at 'normal' companies."

Woman in Twitter firing wants name clearance

12/06/2011 08:02:30

The woman who was fired over a Twitter post by a regional economic development agency has hired an attorney and has asked the agency to clear her name.

Former media specialist for the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp., Vanessa Williams, was given termination papers last weekend after she mentioned the agency's summer work hours policy on its official Twitter feed last Friday.

Phil Mitman, LVEDC president, said in an interview with The Morning Call this week that the termination was based partly on the brief Twitter message, which read: "We start summer hours today. That means most of the staff leave at noon, many to hit the links. Do you observe summer hours? What do you do?"

It showed bad judgment and was not in keeping with the agency's mission of promoting the Lehigh Valley as a business location, he said.

Facebook swarmed by traffic violation pics

06/06/2011 19:17:56

Internet users have started uploading pictures of traffic violations, a day after the Chandigarh Traffic Police launched its Facebook page. Chandigarh Police already claim to have initiated inquiries into two complaints posted on the page.

Vijay Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Traffic) said: “We have started inquiries in two cases where a Facebook user has complained about the laxity of traffic policemen.”

“We are getting interesting feedback and it will help us manage traffic better.”

On Friday, the Facebook page named ‘Chandigarh Traffic Police’ was launched by Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, Inspector General of Police, Chandigarh. So far, the page has over 400 members.

Users have also started uploading pictures of traffic violations on the Facebook page.

The police believe that the Facebook page will also help tighten the noose around those who violate traffic rules.

Social networking trawler PostRank grabbed by Google

06/06/2011 18:41:31

Analytics firm which claims to make sense from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, PostRank, has been bought by Google .

In order to help sites and companies better engage their audience, and check on how the opposition is doing, PostRank looks at the top 20 social sites .

Its product already integrates with Google's own Analytics but presumably this integration will improve. Many companies are struggling with social networking marketing, and finding numbers to justify that investment.

From its current offices in Ontario, PostRank will move to Google's Mountain View headquarters.

PostRank said it was excited at the move because Google both understands the importance of the data it collects and has the reach to spread it to millions of users.

In 2007, PostRank was launched. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Facebook Call Prompts Protest Marches

06/06/2011 18:37:19

To protest China's recent actions in disputed territories in the South China Sea, Young Vietnamese, spurred by calls on Facebook and other social media, marched through Hanoi.

A crowd of mostly Vietnamese college students holding signs that read “Stop Chinese Invasion of Vietnam Lands” and singing the national anthem, demonstrated on Hanoi’s streets yesterday after police blocked their path to t

Online ad company bought by Twitter

05/06/2011 06:51:22

AdGrok, a company whose software is designed to simplify the creation and management of campaigns using Google's AdWords search advertising service, has been acquired by Twitter.

AdGrok has stopped accepting new customers, as of tuesday. It will shut down its AdWords management business and wipe out its servers by June 30, focusing entirely on enhancing Twitter's online advertising technology.

the company wrote in a blog post : "On June 30th, we will also unlink all customers from the AdGrok Google accounts and securely delete our databases. Performance data and campaign structures from AdGrok customers will not be shared with Twitter."

Based in San Francisco, AdGrok was founded last year and was backed financially by early-stage investment company Y Combinator.

The AdGrok technology will likely find its way into Twitter's Promoted Tweets ad service, which is similar in concept to Google's AdWords.

Twitter in the past year, having become the preferred microblogging vehicle for individuals, celebrities and businesses, has been trying to boost its revenue and create a self-sustaining business that is in proportion to the tool's popularity.

Twitter, Google move to replicate Facebook's 'Like' button

05/06/2011 06:36:18

To replicate Facebook's 'Like' button, Twitter and Google have reportedly launched separate buttons allowing web surfers to endorse search results and advertisements.

The move would reportedly make it faster and easier for Twitter to track the daily thoughts of famous people on its short-messaging service.

The Daily Mail reports that the new shortcut is being provided by a Twitter 'Follow' button that can be placed on websites to highlight celebrities, athletes, reporters and other people who tweet their thoughts and share other information.

Over 50 websites have reportedly agreed to use the new feature so far, including AOL, Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated and TV Guide.

Justin Bieber, Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga, are among famous people using the feature.

The news came on the same day that Google was expected to expand its own recommendation button, called '+1', to other websites.

+1 was first launched in March next to search results for just two percent of English-language results in the U.S.Google, however, has now invited third-party websites to add the button, placing it in more direct competition with Facebook's 'Like' button, the paper said.

21-year old management student inspired by Facebook builds his own social networking website Socheer

05/06/2011 05:41:06

A 21 year old management student inspired by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, is on an ambitious mission to build his own social network. Rahul Khanna, a student from Mumbai, has teamed up with some of his college mates and is on his way to launch a new social networking website which will try to "fill in the gap left by existing networks."

"To be honest I was inspired by Facebook. One day when we were accessing Facebook during the exam time and nothing fruitful came out..thats when I felt why don't we fill in the gap and try to take social networking to a new level," says Khanna.

About three months back, the social networking site, socheers.com, was launched in beta mode (testing phase). Khanna has registered a self funded company, Socheers Infotech Private Limited, along with seven others and is planning to officially launch the site in about two months from now.

Khanna who heads marketing and strategy for the company claims the site already has more than 18,000 registered users. Khanna's site went through an incident which is strikingly similar to Facebook which managed to overwhelm the Harvard University server when it was first launched.

"After we went live, word spread fast. The shared server we rented in Australia could not cope with the incoming traffic and had to shut down all the sites hosted on the server. We are now moving to a dedicated server in Nasik," he said.

A student of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) university, Khanna said: "We have not done any promotions so far. First, we want to concentrate on the user interface and features.Besides the regular social media features like the status update and sharing, the site has features like the "jukebox" which allows you discover music your friends like and regional language chat. It also lets you upload and share documents and post videos. Soon a new feature which has to do with women and fashion will also be added to the site. This will be a compelling reason to be on socheers.com.”

ASCI launches page on Facebook, Twitter

05/06/2011 05:29:17

Encouraging youths to speak out against questionable campaigns through its Facebook and Twitter accounts, errant advertisers could face more heat from industry watchdog ASCI, which has jumped on the social networking bandwagon.

The Advertising Standards Council of India  (ASCI), within a month of making its debut on Facebook and Twitter has already received ten times more complaints against advertisements than the earlier average of 15-20 complaints from individuals and industry against 12 advertisements in a month.

ASCI General Secretary Allan Collaco told PTI: "By being on the social networking sites, ASCI is targeting the youth who are very active on such platforms to come up and register comments or complaints against advertisements and thus help in regulating the industry."

Facebook page for students launched by Delhi University

05/06/2011 05:11:05

Giving them another avenue to sort out their questions, raise their grievances and offer suggestions, Delhi University today launched its Facebook page for students.

Officials of the University at the first Open Day at the South campus, were bombarded by a series of questions by curious students and concerned parents as they sought to clear their doubts about the new admission norms and other details and nuances of several courses.

Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh said at the institution's social networking profile, a link to which is available on the University's website, he will himself try to answer several of the queries posted by students.

The Vice Chancellor speaking to aspirants, also advised them to opt for the subjects they actually have aptitude for rather than running after market trends. "We are today launching our Facebook page, a dedicated email id is also in place. I'll do my best to personally answer several queries," he said.

The University officials said they are also making available the option of e-open days whereby presentations will be posted on the University website. Dean Students' Welfare J M Khurana said:"We are also launching e-open days and e-brochures. This will help local students as they will not have to move around the city in the heat and also outstation students who can avail of the information benefits from their own cities."

Lewd picture on Twitter not of Tory candidate

30/05/2011 19:14:33

The communications director for the provincial Tories told the Star that the lewd photo of a penis that was posted on rookie PC candidate George Lepp’s Twitter account on Sunday was not of his own “family jewels.”

The photo was taken by Lepp’s BlackBerry when it was on camera mode in his front pant pocket, the Sun article reported. The information was attributed to Tory communications director Alan Sakach.

“This is ridiculous. That wasn’t actually what I said. This is obviously a misquote,” Sakach told theStar. “I have no idea how the photo was taken.”

Saturday as he was leaving the party conference, Lepp was pickpocketed outside the Dixon Rd. convention centr, Sakach said. Lepp’s son noticed the “very unusual Tweet” on Sunday and removed it immediately, Sakach said.

“I know he was pickpocketed and somebody posted a link to a pornographic photo,” Sakach said. “Obviously it had nothing to do with George. It’s something he is very upset about.”

At Niagara-on-the-Lake farmer and businessman, Lepp is the PC candidate for Niagara Falls in the 2011 provincial election.

Emulator Dev's account killed by Google from Android market

30/05/2011 19:04:28

Freely available emulators for older gaming consoles are one thing that gamers love about the Android. Yongzh is the one responsible for developing NES, SNES, N64 and whole bunch of other emulators.

When it comes to killing accounts and disabling apps from its apps market, Google has been more conservative than some of the other app stores. It should come as a surprise to many that Google has disabled Yongzh’s account on the Android market and all the apps. It’s very likely that one of the large game console developers might have complained about the developer to Google, although, there seems to be no explanation given. While many consider emulators themselves to be legal, it’s the downloading of ROMs and playing them that’s considered illegal. In the past, Sony has been known to file lawsuits against emulator developers, but has lost those cases.

For Dia Mirza Twitter 'Open Book'

30/05/2011 18:52:01

Avid followers of Dia Mirza on twitter by now must have known her inside out. A fact, that our newly turned producer of tinsel town, the gorgeous Dia claimed in the recent media interaction.

“I was very reluctant about joining the micro-blogging site initially but my uncle convinced me to give it a shot. I must say that I’m very transparent about myself on it, thus, I rightfully claim that whosoever has been in touch with me since day one knows me completely by now,” elaborated Dia.

She further adds, “In fact, Twitter has been a great platform for me to do social work. And I’m glad that I joined after being so adamant about not opening an account on it,” she added further.

Looks like, Dia’s inclination towards Twitter is calling for a big time promotions of her home productions ‘Love, Break up and Zindagi’ on it.

Google Street View in India

28/05/2011 17:58:08

On Thursday, Google launched its “Street View”project in India, aiming to collect panoramic images of the vast country ranging from its palaces to its slums.

In the southern city of Bangalore, a technology hub where many Internet firms are based, the 360-degree photographic mapping service, which is already in operation in more than 25 countries, began gathering data.

Since its launch in the United States in 2007, Street View has proved hugely popular,but it has also run into trouble with several governments concerned about privacy.

Google India chief Vinay Goel told reporters in Bangalore that Street View is designed to comply with all local laws including those related to security and privacy in India.

He said the programme, which allows computer users to simulate walking down streets and around corners, would be useful for “urban development planners, law enforcement agencies, house-hunters, and travellers”.

The company said that detailed images of Bangalore, which are being collected by special cameras mounted on cars and tricycles, would be made accessible once the data had been processed.

Earlier this month, Google said that it would appeal against a Swiss ruling ordering it to ensure that all people and cars pictured on Street View were unrecognisable.

“We have got permission from Bangalore police, and are in touch with state and central governments,” a Google spokeswoman told AFP. “We want to map the entire city, but anyone can complain if they are unhappy about coverage.”

“In India too, we are planning to collect images of important monuments and tourist spots after getting necessary sanction from the authorities,” Goel said.

US lawsuit declared fraud by Facebook

28/05/2011 17:51:43

Lawyers for Facebook are calling a man's federal lawsuit claiming part ownership of the company ''a fraud on the court''.

Lawyers for Facebook, in their latest legal response, have accused Paul Ceglia of doctoring a 2003 contract that he says proves he bought into the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's idea for the site when Mr Zuckerberg was at university.

The response filed in the US District Court in Buffalo said that Mr Ceglia ''has now come out of the woodwork seeking billions in damages''.

Mr Ceglia's lawsuit relies on a two-page ''work for hire'' contract.

He and Mr Zuckerberg signed the contract after Mr Zuckerberg responded to his help-wanted ad for work on a street-mapping database he was creating, says Mr Ceglia .

Mr Ceglia paid Mr Zuckerberg $US1000 to develop software for the street-mapping project and gave him another $US1000 after Mr Zuckerberg told him about his Facebook idea, with the condition Mr Ceglia would get half if it took off, according to the lawsuit.

The company said the document was a fake. ''To be clear, Zuckerberg did not sign the purported agreement … which is a 'cut-and-paste' job fraudulently manufactured by the plaintiff for this lawsuit,'' the filing said.

TweetDeck acquired by Twitter for $40 million news

28/05/2011 17:45:34

On 25May, the acquisition of London-based startup TweetDeck by Twitter has increased the following of the micro-blogging site.

For the past week, rumors of a TweetDeck takeover by Twitter had been doing the rounds on the internet, but on 25May, the service announced, appropriately enough, via Twitter that it had been acquired by the microblogging site.

With Twitter reportedly paying around $40 million for TweetDeck, the acquisition comes following the end of a bidding war with UberMedia, owners of Twitter applications such as UberSocial.

Users can organise the feeds of brands, celebrities and people they follow on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media accounts with TweetDeck. According to estimates, 13 per cent of all tweets are sent from TweetDeck.

According to data from www.fanpagelist.com, the acquisition has led to around 2000 social media fans to adding the service on Twitter over the past week, which makes the brand, the seventh most followed, in terms of daily fans, this week.

The brand has experienced a 2.85 per cent growth in terms of weekly fans, much above the average of 1.62 per cent for most brands, according to data from social media monitoring site www.famecount.com.

Spotify makes Facebook symphonic

28/05/2011 17:38:57

A new update that is scheduled to get integrated on its platform In the coming weeks is being currently tested by Facebook. In partnership with Spotify, a popular digital music service; Facebook is almost as close to launching its own music sharing experience on its platform for its users.

The service will allow Facebook users to listen to music from Spotify’s exhaustive music collection, as also share and listen to their favorite ones with their friends. For the Facebook space Spotify services aren’t new. Spotify lets users import their Facebook friends onto their app, and share music into their news feed. The service, as mentioned earlier, is being tested and is poised to go live, soon. In only those parts which have licensed access to Spotify's services, the service will be made available soon.

Tsotsobe sacked Essex by after Twitter outburst

28/05/2011 17:31:50

Essex county team sacked the South African speedster Lonwabo Tsotsobe , after the bowler described his stint at the club as "the worst two months" of his life on social networking site Twitter.

"I've never felt like this ever. This is the worst two months of my life. And you know when you start regretting yourself it ain't good. It's just impossible to work in this environment," tweeted the 27-year-old.

The left-hander, who joined Essex last month, had a poor run of form bagging just five wickets at an average of 77.60 in three four-day County Championship matches.

English privacy law rethink forced by Twitter

24/05/2011 17:41:46

In England, Twitter is forcing the UK government to re-examine privacy laws.

The rethink comes after a granted a private injuction, meaning that English newspapers could not legally publish the name of a professional soccer player who allegedly had an affair, despite thousands of people who have reported the name on the social-networking site.

Prime Minister David Cameron has called the situation "unsustainable".

Against Twitter and "persons unknown" – the tweeters who had repeated his name, the footballer issued legal proceedings. Because English courts have no jurisdiction over the US-based company, the action is unlikely to succeed. "There are real challenges to bringing an action against Twitter," says Dominic Crossley, a partner at a London law firm who specializes in privacy law.

The ease and speed at which information spreads on Twitter makes it a significant threat to injunctions, although, the player's name has also been published on blogs and Wikipedia. Users can retweet other's messages to their followers with a single click, rapidly distributing them.

The clash between law and technology coincides with the publication last week of a judicial report on the use of injunctions and superinjunctions, in which the press cannot even report the existence of an injunction. The report was commissioned in April 2010 but makes no recommendation on enforcing injunctions on sites like Twitter. "I do think there is a need for this issue to be looked at," says Crossley.

"I think the government and Parliament have got to take some time out, have a proper look at this, have a think about what we can do, but I'm not sure there is going to be a simple answer," Cameron said.

The footballer was later named in the House of Commons as Manchester United player Ryan Giggs. Member of Parliament John Hemming identified the player using parliamentary privilege.

Team of foreign ambassadors created by Facebook

24/05/2011 17:31:52

The planet's most popular social network has made steps to expand its international presence and break down the few remaining borders left in global social media.

Facebook is currently "creating its own foreign service, hiring a network of ambassadors from India to Ireland to represent the Palo Alto-based social network with foreign governments and cultures," the San Jose Mercury News reports.

With everything from monitoring local political organizing developments happening via Facebook, to acting as a camera-ready talking head when more traditional media outlets like television inevitably call, these new ambassadors will have their hands full. These "International Directors of Policy" will be stationed in regions such as the Middle East, Western and Central Europe, and Scandanavia among others and will serve as the company's primary contact with foreign governments and politicians.

Facebook spokesperson Debbie Frost speaking to the Mercury News, called the initiative "the right investment" for the company to make at this time. "It's important that we have a presence, so people can have a direct line into Facebook. You limit the scope for misunderstandings," Frost said.

Microsoft help taken by Facebook to fight child pornography

24/05/2011 17:25:30

Facebook, in a bid to drive paedophiles away from its service, has announced introduction of a new technology that will automatically trawl photos posted by users for child abuse.

The popular social networking site has now partnered with Microsoft and will implement its PhotoDNA technology, designed to identify and remove images that exploit or endanger children.

The PhotoDNA technology, run by the Na

Kids under 13 welcomed on the site by Facebook founder

24/05/2011 17:07:02

To permit children under 13 to join, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said recently that he is willing to alter the site's regulations.

Zuckerberg, speaking before the NewSchools Summit in California, acknowledged that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act regulates what information websites can gather on children under age 13. He's determined to change this, reported International Business Times.

"That will be a fight we take on at some point," Zuckerberg reportedly said. "My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age." The site hasn't yet begun to figure out how kids would use the site at such an age, though he assured those present that the company would take a lot of precautions to make sure that younger kids are safe.

Eye-opening studies reveal a giant population of underage users already on Facebook. The number of U.S. parents who would allow children 10-12 years old to have a Facebook account has doubled in a year, according to an online survey of about 1,000 adults by Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project.

In the poll, seventeen percent of U.S. parents questioned said they had no problem with a pre-teen child using a social media site, compared to just eight percent a year ago. And 11 percent of parents admitted to using social media sites on behalf of a young child or infant.

And despite the company's official prohibition, as many as 7.5 million kids under the age of 13 are using the social-networking service, -- 5 million under the age of 10, according to a survey released last week by Consumer Reports.

Jeff Fox, technology editor at Consumer Reports, told FoxNews.com that Facebook recognizes that kids should not use the service and prohibits access to those under 13. But the age verification system is weak.

Acknowledging that it was relatively easy for children to work around the age restrictions, Facebook released an official statement about the Consumer Reports survey.

Fake Facebook page of Michael Eavis removed

23/05/2011 19:48:18

A fake page purporting to be that of Glastonbury Festival organiser Michael Eavis has been taken down by Facebook.

After Mr Eavis said he was unhappy that somebody was pretending to be him, the page, which had photographs and personal information, was removed.

"It's nothing whatsoever to do with me. The stuff that they're saying - whether it's true or not - is not the point," he said.

Because it violated its terms and conditions it was taken down, said Facebook.

The page contained various status updates and had personal information such as where Mr Eavis lives and what school he went to.

Although he had not seen it, he wanted it removed and had asked his solicitor to look into it, said Mr Eavis .

"I don't know what they're saying about me - whether it's accurate or if they're friendly or foe.

"It's just made-up gossipy stuff and it's kind of a comic strip.

"Maybe it's harmless fun, I don't really know, but it's better it not be there.

"It's probably part of the course and you have to live with these things as long as it's not malicious and nasty."

"Whilst we can't comment on individual cases, users and content on Facebook can be removed for a variety of reasons including using bullying others, using fake details or posting content which contains nudity," said a spokeswoman for Facebook.

To location data abuse event Apple and Google invited

19/05/2011 06:53:43

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of United States has asked Apple and Google to attend its location tracking forum.

The FCC made the request for the geolocation data harvesters Apple and Google to join its location tracking forum, which will be held in June. To discuss the abuse of location tracking this is the first time the FCC has held a forum and the FCC is calling the event a "public education forum" about the pitfalls and benefits of location based tracking, according to Reuters.

Location based tracking does have benefits, an unnamed Reuters source at the FCC said. However, it is wary that users and digital rights organisations aren't kept in the loop on how personal data is collected and what happens to it once companies have collected it.

The FCC said in a statement that while the use of location data has spurred innovation, the FCC's National Broadband Plan recognizes that consumer apprehension about privacy can also act as a barrier to the adoption and utilization of broadband and mobile devices.

Both companies Apple and Google have been in the media spotlight for accidentally harvesting personal data on their respective hardware and software, and were invited to the forum.

Shiny toy vendor Apple has a location data 'bug' in IOS such that its Iphone was recording punters WiFi data. Google's Android OS was collecting location data and the company was globally reprimanded for sucking up personal data in its Streetview cars from unencrypted WiFi networks.

The FCC move comes as both the US and the EU are cracking down on data abuse by technology companies.

With Second Phase Of Facebook Integration Bing Gets Social

19/05/2011 06:44:06

On Monday Microsoft announced that Bing is hoping to separate itself from competitors such as Google and Yahoo by modifying its search engines with data mined from Facebook "likes".

Microsoft is now making a bigger effort to create highly relevant results while the search engine first began integrating Facebook data last year. Certain results could be prioritized on Bing based on whethe

Google to rent out Chrome laptops for $20 a month

11/05/2011 17:34:43

This time, with the education sector, Google is making a major push for its cloud-based Chrome laptops.

A Google senior executive, in an interview with Forbes, said that the company will begin leasing out the computers to students at $20 a month. But Google isn’t solely targeting students, and it is likely that the company’s real aim for the rental program is the enterprise sector.

“Small and medium-sized businesses are banging on our doors to get something like this,” the executive told Forbes.

The news echoes previous rumors that Google would start a Chrome rental program within the coming months. The computers, manufactured by both Samsung and Acer, are expected to retail for $500, far below that of most other laptops. Google is expected to announce the device’s June release date later today.

Next Google, Intel in India not wanted by Obama

11/05/2011 17:31:49

President Barack Obama, making a strong pitch for his immigration reforms, has said that he does not want the next corporate giants like Google and Intel to be created in India and China, which are giving stiff competition to American firms.

"We don't want the next Intel or Google to be created in China or India. We want those companies and jobs to take root in America," Obama said, as he made a case for bringing 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows and putting them on a path to citizenship.

Obama, arguing that immigration was fundamental to his country's economic well-being, said that the US could not afford to train future entrepreneurs at US colleges, and then send them home to compete with American firms.

"Look at Intel and Google and Yahoo and eBay - these are great American companies that have created countless jobs and helped us lead the world in high-tech industries. Everyone was founded by an immigrant."

In an apparent play for vital Hispanic votes in his 2012 re-election bid, Obama said Republicans would seek to block his drive for immigration reform.

To rival Facebook Google to launch +1

11/05/2011 17:24:18

According to Google's development team, Google's counterpart to the Facebook Like Button is all set to make its debut "in the coming weeks.

In San Francisco, the company gave the attendees at its Google I/O developer conference a sneak peek into its Google +1 button. Similar to Facebook's Like Button or the Twitter Tweet button, it provides a way for website visitors to endorse and share an article or web page.

"Installation for most people will be done by using a simple code generator that allows setting of size, whether to include a count and other options," according to a report on Searchengineland.com.

The buttons will reportedly be available in several different shapes and sizes with and without counters. Users can create one of these +1 buttons from a simple form where they can generate the embed code.

Google's +1 button is said to come with a suite of analytics that look similar to the Google Analytics dashboard.

Swiss Street View shutdown threatened by Google

11/05/2011 17:15:55

Unless Switzerland’s supreme court overturns a ruling requiring an absolute guarantee of anonymity for people captured on the popular Street View service, Google is threatening to wipe photographs of streets and houses in the country from its online maps.

To complaints it is violating people's privacy, shutting down Street View in an entire country would be the Internet search giant's most severe response yet.

California-based company, The Mountain View, said on Wednesday that it will ask the Swiss Federal Tribunal to throw out a lower court decision that obliged it to ensure all faces and vehicle license plates are blurred before uploading pictures to the Street View service. Street Views allows map users to click on virtually any spot in a city to zoom into a series of street-level pictures taken by cars mounted with 360-degree cameras.

Last month, the ruling by the Federal Administrative Court in Bern — following a complaint from the country's privacy watchdog — also ordered Google to obscure identifying features such as skin color and clothing from people photographed in the vicinity of "sensitive establishments," such as women's shelters, retirement homes, prisons, schools, courts and hospitals.

Peter Fleischer Google's global privacy counsel said that demands made by the administrative court are unrealistic and would force them to withdraw the service from Switzerland.

If Google fails at the higher court and goes through with its threat, it would be the first time that the company has permanently switched off Street View anywhere in the world, though it has faced privacy concerns in many of the 27 countries where the service is available.

Below the Minimum Age7.5 Million Facebook Users

11/05/2011 16:55:03

7.5 million profiles on the site are operated by users younger than 13 years old, the minimum age to have a Facebook account, according to a new survey.

According to a survey by Consumer Reports, a large majority of these kids on Facebook are under 10, and their parents don't monitor their activity on the site, which leaves them open to threats like cyber bullying or sexual predators.

Consumer Reports' technology editor Jeff Fox said that despite Facebook's age requirements, many kids are using the site that shouldn't be and what's even more troubling was the finding from their survey that indicated that a majority of parents of kids 10 and under seemed largely unconcerned by their children's use of the site.

Admitting that it's aware of the problem, Facebook ,earlier this year said it removes about 20,000 profiles every day many of which belong to users that are younger than 13.

Consumer Reports says 20 million are under the age of 18, out of 500 million Facebook users worldwide. Absent any manner of actually verifying a user's age, kids younger than 13 can simply join the site by providing a false birthday.

New highly optimised (SEO) business directory to be launched

11/05/2011 16:48:04

Next week, a brand new highly optimized online business directory specializing in listings for hire and rental companies is due to be launched in the UK.

www.anythingforfire.co.uk offers users based across the UK access to one of the largest databases of approved and reliable hire companies covering every imaginable service and product.

So for your new company, if you need to hire a fully SEO website or maybe computer or IT equipment for your new office, or if you’re looking for marquee hire for an upcoming event, or if you need to rent a house, or hire a dog walker, you’ll find every hire service you could possibly need on Anything for Hire.

State of the art search engine optimization techniques are featured by online business listings to ensure all of the company listings rank highly on organic search results for all major search engines. The listings also feature superb graphics and high quality images for a glossy and professional overall effect.

The database is updated daily with new services and products so you’ll receive up to the minute rental company information via the new online portal. Brand new hire companies, and long running established hire firms as well as specialist hire businesses, can all be found one place courtesy of Anything for Hire.

Anything for Hire will go live online from next week. The easy to use website allows users the chance to search for a desired company via product or location so it’s never been easier to secure a hire service, regardless of your requirements or location.

HTC Facebook phones

10/05/2011 19:35:21

A phone with a dedicated Facebook button is to arrive by June 26, the UK branch of Amazon has revealed.

Back in February, the phones were first revealed and will fulfil their promise of a Q2 launch in Europe with launch events planned for Austria and Switzerland in July. While the Salsa finds itself with a typical HTC form factor the ChaCha offers more unusual design with a slightly tilted screen above a full QWERTY keyboard. A key feature of both is the distinctive Facebook button at the bottom.

A 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, 512MB of RAM and run Android 2.3 is a feature of both the devices. Also included in each handset is a 5mp rear-facing camera and VGA front facing camera for video calling. The main difference between the two is the size of screen, the ChaCha has a 2.6" screen and the Salsa a 3.4" display. The Facebook button will allow for instant and easy sharing of content with photos and website links posted to the social networking site simply by pressing it.

This year, not only are the ChaCha and Salsa similarly spec'd to each other but to INQ's Facebook phones which were also revealed earlier. The INQ phone also feature 600MHz processors and come in 2.6" and 3.5" variants.

The price tags of the phones definitely don't fall into the budget category. Both seem to fall under the same slightly overpriced curse as HTC's Flyer tablet with the ChaCha costing £249.99 ($408) and the Salsa £319.99 ($523) which seems a bit much for the below average specs. Hopefully when the phones reach carriers subsidies will help to make the devices more reasonable offerings.

1.4 version of Google Goggles released

10/05/2011 19:14:06

Back in the month of January, Google released its upgraded Goggles 1.3 version for Android devices.

The official Google Mobile blog highlights that the company has now rolled out the latest 1.4 version. Optimized search history, the capability to recommend improved results in case Google cannot precisely match the user’s image or the result quality is mediocre and, advanced business card recognition are rendered by this new solution.

Users can simply tap ‘Can you suggest a better result?’ on the results page, in order to send a suggestion to Google. Further, they can choose the appropriate part of the image and submit a tag. Tags will be utilized to enhance recognition in object categories where Goggles provides desired results. Business card recognition is swift and easy-to-use. Besides, Goggles now recognizes the information as a contact, thereby making it simpler to include users’ contact list.

Searching Goggles results, creating personal notes on particular results and effortlessly sharing results with friends, the revived search history functionalities enable users this facility. When a personal note is included in a Goggles result, the note will intuitively appear in the search history. Additionally, notes allow users to flawlessly manage their search history. Users can also include a personalized message while sharing their results with friends.

Google Goggles 1.4 version can now be downloaded on Android 1.6 devices and above.

Facebook Deemed an Accurate Personality Test for Employers

10/05/2011 18:02:16

Facebook profiles can reveal almost everything an employer might want to know about an applicant's personality within 10% accuracy of a standard personality test, a new study conducted at the University of Maryland found .

About 300 Facebook users were surveyed by researchers for information that is readily available on the social networking site, including favorite activities, movies, television shows, music, books and political stance, as well as the "About Me" and "blurb" sections. They then asked each user to take a personality test that measured the "big five" behavioral traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

People who tested as extroverts had more friends on the social site, but sparse networks — meaning that their friends were less likely to know each other, researchers found. The study also showed that women are more conscientious, agreeable and neurotic than men.

According to researcher Jennifer Golbeck, revealing a person's personality is important to determine how well they'll get along with others – whether at work or in life.

"If we can better understand people's relationships with one another, who they will trust online, potentially we can understand who they should interact with," Golbeck told Discovery News.

Google’s Cloud-Based Applications for Indiamart.Com

10/05/2011 17:31:44

Across its 75 offices in the country, more than 4,000 employees of Indiamart. com have shifted to Google’s cloud based applications for business which is web-based collection of messaging and collaboration applications.

The CEO of Indiamart. com, Dinesh Agarwal, said that new technologies have always been proactively adopted by the company for seamless business operations. Indiamart. com is a B2B marketplace which provides the common platform for the buyers and sellers for trading.

The companies have shown considerable interest in applications other than Microsoft Office and are continuously looking for alternatives, a Forrester Research study indicates. The Google apps for business have helped Indimart. com to provide common e-mail platform for its employees.

The Google apps for business includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Word Processor, spreadsheets, presentation, Google Calendar, integrated IM, Google Docs and website creation tools. Pradeep Agarwal, Google Enterprise Country Head in India, said that Indiamart. com had setup an example for other organizations and had demonstrated that cloud-based Google Apps can help them to connect to their employees, customers and business partners.

By adding new features and trying to advance Web standards, Google is working to make apps more capable, but still Web-based Office alternatives lag behind Office’s abilities

Tie-up with Skype eyed by Facebook, Google

07/05/2011 17:59:34

Two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters that Facebook and Google Inc. are separately considering a tie-up with Skype after the Web video conferencing service delayed its initial public offering.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, has taken part in internal discussions about buying Skype, according to one of the sources. Another source said Facebook had reached out to the Luxembourg-based company about forming a joint venture.

Google has also held early talks for a joint venture with Skype, the second source said.

The first source said that a Skype deal could be valued at $3 billion to $4 billion. Skype's IPO is expected to raise about $1 billion, several other sources said.

The discussions are in early stages, and it is not clear which option the companies favour, the first two sources said.

Although for the second half of 2011,an IPO is still in the cards, Skype remains in discussions with other companies, two of the sources said. If it goes through, a Skype IPO would be one of the most hotly anticipated debuts by a United States technology company this year.

Securing Skype as a partner would expand Facebook's user base, help it grow in international markets where Skype is popular, and give its half-billion users another reason to remain active and connected to its online community.

Analysts say a tie-up between Facebook and Skype would make more sense than one with Google, which already has a similar service: Google Voice.

Skype and Google declined to comment. Facebook was not immediately available to comment. The information is not public and the sources declined to be named.

Decline in freelance writing jobs after Google algorithm change

07/05/2011 17:55:13

According to Freelancer.com, the Google algorithm change which meant to optimize search quality by targeting writing mills has wreaked havoc on the freelance writing job market.

As most freelance writers will tell you entry level writing jobs for freelancers do not pay well. $5 for a 350 blog post is a common offer by a potential client. Many freelance writers make very little and now they may be fighting harder for jobs that pay far less than minimum wage. Freelancer.com reports that job offers for freelance writers looking to submit or rewrite content is significantly down. The decrease is due to major hit taken by the top employers for entry level jobs after Google changed its search algorithm.

Latest move by Google to increase search engine effectiveness has put content websites, often called writing mills, writing sweatshops, and content farms in the crosshairs. These websites typically employ many writers who are paid low wages to produce what critics say is low-value content that is optimized more for search engines than for quality.

Demand Media who originally reported that the Google algorithm change did not affect them is One of the most successful content farms. Now, Demand Media says traffic to its eHow website has dropped as a result of Google algorithm changes.

Recent search engine algorithm changes have negatively impacted search driven traffic to some of our websites, including eHow.com, resulting in moderately lower year-to-date page view growth for the company’s owned and operated Content & Media properties compared to page view growth rates before the algorithm changes.

Complaints for new Google service with Sprint

07/05/2011 17:49:20

New customer complaints increased with the integration of a much-lauded Google service into Sprint Nextel phones, although the carrier says the problems are rare.

Rather than offering the new convenience they expected some customers have complained that swapping their Google Voice numbers into their wireless Sprint phones has created hassles. Sprint would not say how many people are using Google Voice but stressed Friday that just a few were having problems.

Google Voice lets people choose their numbers and have calls to a single number ring on multiple phones. It can route calls to the same number to different phones depending on the day of the week or time of day. Most importantly, it means people need give out just a single number to be reached anywhere. Google Voice has also been prominent in the marketing of Google’s Nexus S highspeed 4G phone. It goes on sale Sunday.

Sprint was the first company to let customers substitute their Google Voice numbers for their Sprint-assigned phone numbers relatively simply and free.

The tech-centric blog Engadget contends it’s not been so simple. First Thursday, the blog reported that it heard a “hoard” of complaints from customers. Sprint spokeswoman Jenny Walsh said some customers could not switch their phones to Google Voice because they were using government or corporate phones that blocked the service.

However, others were paying for their own wireless service but got corporate discounts through their employers. Some, but not all, of those were improperly blocked from Google Voice integration, Walsh said.

In 90 percent of divorce cases Facebook used

01/05/2011 07:38:54

A says Facebook and social media are used in 90 percent of her divorce cases, says a St. Petersburg attorney.

"You get a little bit of everything that happens on Facebook," said Carin Constantine.

"Everything from clients coming in with pictures of the opposing party doing a keg stand with high schoolers... to teenagers drinking alcohol served by a parent... to a picture of a husband at a nightclub dancing with a babysitter."

Facebook is cited in one in five divorces in the United States, a recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found. Also, more than 80 percent of divorce lawyers reported a rising number of people are using social media to engage in affairs.

"There are times when my paralegal and I sit in this office and laugh because people are stupid. They put things out there on the internet that can last forever," Constantine said.

Divorce attorneys are becoming internet gurus because websites like Yahoo and Google cache images as soon as they're put online, Constantine says she can find pictures from Facebook accounts that have been deactivated.

She simply goes to www.images.google.com, types in the person's name and searches through every single page of returns.

"Those pictures are still accessible by us, and we can still print them and we can still use them as evidence in your divorce case," Constantine said. And that printed piece of paper can be attached to a motion within the hour.

Aside from deactivating your Facebook account, the best advice is asking friends and family not to post any pictures of you online, even if they don't tag you.

"The problem is, if you've got 400 friends, I assure you one of those friends [doesn't] have all the privacy settings correct," she explained.

And she, along with thousands of other lawyers, can find it.

Gaming market dominated by Apple and Google

01/05/2011 07:22:37

Thanks to cell phone users, Apple and Google have 34 percent of the portable gaming market, according to a report from the mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Junior finance and marketing major Cori Rosen said that it makes sense from a finance perspective because they're creating a whole new market, considering that people are buying more cell phones and getting rid of landlines. Therefore, more people have cell phones and will buy games.

Last month, at the Game Developers Conference, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said that smart phone games were hurting the industry with low-quality, low-cost games.

Nintendo has said to CNN that it isn't interested in making a phone right now.

Sony is even coming out with a phone, the Xperia Play, which is a phone that also has PlayStation controls. Xperia Play hit shelves in Europe, Hong Kong, and Taiwan early this month and will be in the U.S. soon.

"I think it's cool. I like games on my phone, especially when I'm in class and bored. It keeps me very entertained," said Rosen.

Between 2009 and 2010 Flurry estimates that Nintendo's share in the US portable gaming market fell 13 percent, leaving it at 57 percent overall. PSP fell two points to 11 percent.

Facebook users cross 25 million mark in India

01/05/2011 07:16:16

On Thrusday, Facebook said that in India it has crossed the 25-million base mark.

"Facebook currently has 25 million users in India," said David Fischer, vice president advertising and global operations, Facebook at an interactive advertising and digital marketing exibition, Ad-tech here.

Leaving behind other social networking sites such as Orkut and Twitter, Facebook has almost become the most popular for active interent users in the recent past in India.

"We are also looking forward to building strong relationship with India's strong network of developers and entrepreneurs who are increasingly harnessing Facebook to create unique sharing experiences on the social web," said the company.

Including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Delhi Traffic Police and bollywood perfectionist Aamir Khan, the 25-million and growing Facebook users in India range from business people and students to public figures and institutions.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi, from January, has also started using Facebook for users to post problems for immediate action on areas like sanitation and garbage cleaning.

India has over 100 million users. Though the figure is hardly 10 percent of the total Indian population of 1.21 billion, it still puts India at the number three position in the world largest internet users list.

In India Google Applications to Get Paid

01/05/2011 07:07:27

It has now been revealed that Google applications for the use of business purposes are soon going to get paid, a move amidst a lot of changes seen around in internet community. This shall start on the 10th of May, 2010, in India.

Businesses which have more than 10 users in the country will be affected by the move. The web-based tools that are available for the aid of the people are soon going to cost money. There are many options available on the Google services such as document editing, calendar management, Google Calendar, email and so on.

There are more than three million people who avail this every single day and for this reason, they have decided to be able to earn a little profit out of it. The business users of Google shall now be asked to pay for more than 10 email-accounts they have on Google.

The website has not yet announced the change, but an e-mail message sent by the Google Apps Team reads: “We recently announced upcoming changes to the maximum number of users for Google Apps. As of May 10, any organization that signs up for a new account will be required to use the paid Google Apps for Business product in order to create more than 10 users”.

Less generous Google Apps Standard Edition

29/04/2011 18:31:28

The organization-level offering of branded, Google Apps, integrated groupware that includes Gmail and Google Docs, comes in several flavors. Many businesses (millions, in fact) use the free version, which, while lacking some of the advanced features of the paid, educational, and non-profit versions, is an incredibly powerful suite of cloud-based applications that can provide everything a small business needs to communicate and collaborate. “Small businesses” are getting a lot smaller by Google’s definition, as of May 10th, though.

Town of York again misplaced by Google

29/04/2011 18:28:52

A Google problem thought to be solved is back, YORK, Maine.

Google Web and a Google Maps search for York often turn up results for Kennebunkport and Sanford, according to two local inn owners who said the Internet mistake is hurting their businesses. owner of the Morning Glory Inn on Seabury Road, Bill Alstrom, said the numbers of tourists who are not booking because they can’t find the inn online is hard to measure.

"A lot of our guests are returning guests," Alstrom said. "I can tell you the amount of Web traffic I’m getting is down, which is unusual for this time of year. Usually the phone starts to ring heavily now."

Facebook saves life of man

29/04/2011 18:26:51

Facebook literally saved his life, claims an Ottawa man.
Huw Williams will be forever grateful to the social networking site, which he says helped him get a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia.
He got the transplant from 23-year-old Mike Hogman of B-C, who signed up with the stem cell donor registry after seeing a link to it on Facebook.

Degree of chaos at Google

29/04/2011 18:23:38

Steven Levy, author of "In the Plex", At CBS Interactive San Francisco headquarters, discusses the notion that Google runs with a degree of chaos.

But Levy says there's also a cohesiveness at the company, which, at its core, he believes is a combination of things, including a technology company, an artificial intelligence company, and an Internet company.

Direct Groupon competitor launched by Google

24/04/2011 05:49:18

Google Offers, is another service that Google has added to its growing list of things that it offers.

The service is a direct competitor for Groupon, which was ridiculed earlier this year for the poor taste in super bowl commercials, but it also put them on the map of coupons and offers.

Can Google Offer really offer anything new to the table with an already growing number of sites offering similar or the same thing (such as Living Social ect.)?

Just months ago Google tried to buy Groupon for $6 billion. Groupon declined the offer and is preparing to launch an IPO at about $15 billion.

Since Google couldn’t buy them, it appears that creating their own service is one way of trying to beat them at their own game.

Can Google succeed? Or will Groupon or even LivingSocial, who already have an established customer base, will they still continue to succeed with the giant that is Google?

9 MILLION ‘BELIEBERS’ ON TWITTER REACHED BY JUSTIN BIEBER

24/04/2011 05:43:49

Justin Bieber‘s popularity is increasing day by day . The world-famous teenage popstar reached 9 million Twitter followers this week, surpassing Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and Rihanna — and is now hot on the heels of Lady Gaga, who has 9.5 million tweeting fans.

The Biebs

Facebook push eyed by tobacco firms

24/04/2011 05:38:54

To promote their products if New Zealand introduces new anti-smoking legislation tobacco companies are looking at Facebook and YouTube.

And a paper from Ministry of Health deputy director-general Margie Apa has warned that one of the risks of a pending ban on visible tobacco displays would be "adverse reaction by convenience retailer lobby groups". The groups have close ties with tobacco companies.

Instant fines for retailers who sell ciga

Wayne Rooney quickly builds up 80,000 followers after joining Twitter

24/04/2011 05:32:45

After joining Twitter yesterday Wayne Rooney didn’t take too long to rack up80, 000 followers.

The Man Utd and England star opened his account after his club’s 1-0 win over Everton yesterday with the misspelled tweet: “just started so bare with me” – rather than “bear with me”. Rooney’s first tweet was intended for his teammate Rio Ferdinand, saying: “Hi Rio d

Total compensation fall in 2010 seen by Google senior vice presidents

21/04/2011 05:34:09

In 2010, a year in which the Internet search giant's share price fell 4%, Google Inc.'s (GOOG) team of senior vice presidents saw their total compensation decline.

According to a regulatory filing on Wednesday, Google's executive triumverate of then-Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin once again received salaries of $1 for the year.

Bonuses of $1,785 each were received by the trio, while Schmidt also received $311,433 for personal security and the personal use of chartered aircraft.

Senior vice presidents Patrick Pichette, the company's chief financial officer, Nikesh Arora and Alan Estace all saw their total compensation decline slightly despite the company exceeding performance goals of its executive compensation plan, the document said.

Google said its 24% growth in revenue to $29.32 billion and 25% increase in operating income to $10.38 billion topped targets by 17% and 20% respectively.

In total compensation in 2010 Pichette received $22.6 million, down from $24.7 million the previous year. The company's chief business officer, Arora, received $22.6 million in 2010, down from $26.3 million, while the company's chief engineer, Eustace, received $12 million last year, down from $15.2 million. Shona Brown, senior vice president for business operations, received $16.3 million. Her compensation for 2009 was not provided.

The packages included salaries, bonuses, stock and option awards as well as non-equity incentive plan compensation.

Earlier this month Schmidt took a new role as executive chairman to make room for Page to return as CEO. The company has previously said it would give Schmidt a $100 million equity award and an annual base salary of $1.25 million.

A maximum bonus for 2011 of $6 million will be received by Schmidt, now . Schmidt currently owns over 9 million shares of Google, with a market value of roughly $4.8 billion.

Accidentally, Facebook resets email notifications

21/04/2011 05:24:54

Yesterday Facebook accidentally reset email notifications for some users. The social network lets users pick and choose what event on Facebook results in an email sent to their inbox (there are now 73 notification options to choose from). Most are turned on, by default, and users often choose to turn some of them off. The reset turned them all back on, unfortunately.

The glitch got a lot of attention and was posted on the Known Issues on Facebook webpage:

Email notifications: Some people are suddenly receiving email notifications for settings they had turned off, and the checkboxes are now checked. We are currently working on a solution to this problem.

According to Facebook the issue has since been fixed. “Yesterday evening, we discovered a bug that caused a small number of people to start receiving notifications they had previously turned off,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We have since resolved the issue and apologize for any inconvenience.”

However, if you’re still seeing the problem, you’ll have to manually update your email notification settings on Facebook. To do so, click on the Account menu in the top right corner, select Account Settings, and then choose Notifications.

Twitter plans to snap up Tweetdeck with $50 million bid

21/04/2011 05:20:31

In a move aimed at stemming competition micro- blogging site Twitter is in advanced negotiations to buy out UK-based Tweetdeck for $50 million.

Tweetdeck has over 10 per cent market share in of tweets.

UberMedia’s bid of $30 million for Tweetdeck was bettered by Twitter, hoping that the purchase would help it strengthen its hold over the social media market.

The growth of Tweetdeck, which recently launched TweetDck Web Beta is also a concern for Twitter. This is a web-based version similar to Twitter and is available on all browsers and doesn’t require a download.

For other bidders who want a slice of Tweetdeck to grow their market share there is a strong possibility that the gate will be open.

Twitter last year, acquired Tweetie, the most popular iPhone application. It renamed it ‘Twitter for iPhone’ and made it free.

The nation invited by Obama to a town-hall event at Facebook

18/04/2011 20:06:02

During the town hall meeting he plans to hold at the Facebook headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, President Barack Obama has asked Americans to take a break from “friending” and “defriending” on Facebook for a little while.

The president invited “folks from across the country” to tune into the town hall meeting on the economy, in a YouTube invite posted Sunday. The town hall will be live-streamed starting at 1:45 p.m.

President Obama said he will discuss his vision for reducing the deficit. Americans can participate in the town hall, submitting questions to the White House Facebook page. The president will be campaigning for his 2012 presidency and the Democratic Party, along with the Facebook town hall.

Egypt investments urged by Google official

17/04/2011 08:05:22

The Google Inc executive who helped spark the Egyptian revolt invited Americans to visit Egypt and urged the world on Friday to invest there to ensure the country's econ-omic success.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wael Gonim said that countries and corporations can help turn Egypt around. Failure to do so would send the wrong message to dictators, he said.

"There are definitely risks," said Gonim, who anonymously launched a Facebook page that helped trigger the protests said that there are definitely risks in investments in Egypt, but the world has to realise that this should not go wrong and the Egyptian revolution should not go wrong."

Gonim, who was in Washington for talks with the IMF and the World Bank, also said that tourists are returning to Egypt.

17% rise in online ads netted by Google

17/04/2011 08:00:31

In the January-March quarter of 2011, Buoyed by a rise in its online advertising revenue, Google Inc has registered 17% growth in net profit to $2.3 billion. In the year-ago period, the company had a net profit of $1.96 billion, Google said in a statement.

Google's revenue rose by 27% to $8.58 billion in the first quarter ended March 31, 2011 from $6.77 billion in the year ago period. Revenue generated by paid clicks on its search ads, which include clicks related to ads served on Google's sites and the sites of its partners has been attributed the cause of this surge in quarter earnings.

"We had a great quarter with 27% year-over-year revenue growth," Google CFO Patrick Pichette said.

"These results demonstrate the value of search and search ads to our users and customers, as well as the extraordinary potential of areas like display and mobile. It is clear that our past investments have been crucial to our success today, which is why we continue to invest for the long term," Pichette added.

Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.88 billion in the first quarter of 2011 representing a 32% increase over first quarter 2010 revenues of $4.44 billion.

However, reducing its operating margin by four points to 33%, higher marketing expenses along with the increased labour costs pushed Google's operating expenses by 54%.

It hired more than 1,900 people in the first quarter, taking the total to 26,316 employees worldwide, according to the search engine. The hiring was as part of a plan to add 6,000 employees this year. The company said that aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on its sites and the sites of its partners, climbed 18% over the first quarter of 2010. In addition, Google's partner sites posted revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.43 billion, or 28$ of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2011. This indicates a 19% rise from first quarter 2010 network revenues of $2.04 billion.

To make your computers sorry Tel Aviv University and Google team up

16/04/2011 20:10:15

Lead by Blavatnik School of Computer Science's Prof. Yishay Mansour, and funded by Google, a new venture initiative by Tel Aviv University researchers is aiming to change the way computers prepare for the future by making them take a good hard look into the past.

The TAU researchers say that they could better prepare for future tasks, minimizing the element of "regret," by providing computers with the ability to learn from past failures and unwanted results. "We are able to change and influence the decision-making of computers in real-time," Prof. Mansour said.

"Compared to human beings, help systems can much more quickly process all the available information to estimate the future as events unfold — whether it's a bidding war on an online auction site, a sudden spike of traffic to a media website, or demand for an online product," Prof. Mansour added.

U.S. internet giant Google stepped in to fund the project in the hopes that it would be able to use the research "to improve its own online technologies and businesses, such as its AdWords and Adsense advertising platforms," According to a TAU press release.

Prof. Mansour, referring to the possible online benefits of the computers' newfound foresight, said that if "the servers and routing systems of the Internet could see and evaluate all the relevant variables in advance, they could more efficiently prioritize server resource requests, load documents and route visitors to an Internet site, for instance."

The algorithm in development would, the TAU statement added, adapt to the situation at hand. Since Internet users, people, are not predictable, the algorithm in effect can study and "learn" as it is running. After the task is finished, the results are, as Mansour says, "almost as if you knew all the variables in advance."

Lions' Ndamukong Suh takes aim at Twitter record

16/04/2011 20:01:41

Another entry in the record books is the goal of the NFL's Defensive Rookie of the Year .

Ndamukong Suh, Lions DT ,who was the only rookie to garner All Pro honors last season, will try to break the record for a "Tweetup" on Saturday. A Tweetup is a gathering of people -- often meeting for the first time -- who are connected via their Twitter accounts.

The Ford Motor Company holds the attendance mark for a Tweetup, with 1,149 people at a 2009 gathering in Los Angeles, according to Guinnessworldrecords.com.

Suh plans to break the record with the help of fans from his alma mater, Nebraska, before the Cornhuskers' annual spring game, even reaching out to famous Nebraska natives such as tennis star Andy Roddick and comedian Larry the Cable Guy, asking them to take part if they're attending the game.

Telling his fans he wants to "crush" the record, Suh, who has almost 73,000 followers on Twitter, also posted a video about the event.

Over Facebook sex posts boy pleads guilty

16/04/2011 19:43:40

In encouraging two girls to perform sex acts on a webcam and then posting them on Facebook a 16-year-old Perth boy has pleaded guilty in court.

The teenager, who cannot be identified because of his age, pleaded guilty in the Perth Children's Court on Thursday to several child exploitation charges from September 1, 2010 to March 18, 2011.

Encouraging a child over the age of 13 and under the age of 16 to do an indecent act, attempting to procure a child aged over 13 and under 16 to do an indecent act and distributing child exploitation material namely a digital file are some of the charges he is facing.

The boy created a Facebook account and pressured the girls to expose themselves and perform sex acts on a webcam which he then posted on Facebook for their friends to see, police allege.

The boy's bail was renewed and a psychiatric examination was ordered.

He will be sentenced on May 16.

Zuckerberg lands at Ore. Facebook data center

16/04/2011 19:31:48

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO made a surprise appearance Friday night in Prineville, Ore., at a community party for the grand opening of his company's new data center.

Building the data center "is a massive step up for us from the leased space that we've been operating out of before," he told a crowd of about three hundred people.

Earlier in the day, KTVZ says other Facebook officials joined state and local leaders for the official opening.

The custom-built data center uses 38 percent less energy to do the same work as the company's existing facilities, says Facebook.

For Internet services such as Facebook, servers inside data centers are the backbone. They store and transmit billions of status updates, links and photos used by the social networking site's members.

10 years given to mom for playing on Facebook as baby drowned

16/04/2011 19:26:15

On Friday, a Colorado woman who admitted her 13 month-old son drowned in the bathtub while she played on Facebook was sentenced to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Jennifer Finch, spokeswoman for the Weld County District Attorney's Office, said in a written statement that Shannon Johnson, 34, was also ordered by a judge to serve five years of mandatory parole upon her release from prison.

In March Johnson pleaded guilty to felony child abuse resulting in the death of her son, Joseph.

Last September she called 911 from her home in Fort Lupton, Colorado, when she found the toddler slumped over in the bathwater making "gurgling" sounds, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Johnson under questioning by investigators admitted she put her son in the bathtub and went into another room to play Facebook game "Cafe World," police said. The boy was alone for 10 minutes, she told them.

Joseph was airlifted to a Denver hospital, where medical personnel could not revive him.

She often left her son unattended in the bath, because as an "independent" child he liked to be left alone, and that she did not want him to be "a mama's boy," Johnson told police.

Malicious Download Warnings to Chrome added by Google

09/04/2011 16:36:47

Plans to incorporate warnings about malicious downloads into its Chrome browser were announced by Google, this week.

Google said “Chrome already has a "Safe Browsing" mode and has done a lot of good for the Web," but there is still plenty of harmful content floating around on the Internet.

Google with this update, said it will go after downloads that "use social engineering to entice users to download and run the malicious content," like sites hosting free downloads that actually do things like display spam ads, perform click fraud, or steal passwords.

Moheeb Abu Rajab with the Google Security Team wrote in a blog post that the new feature will be integrated with Google Chrome and will display a warning if a user attempts to download a suspected malicious executable file and in this case a warning will inform that the file appears malicious giving the option to discard or save.

Google will display the warning to determine if a download is questionable for any download URL that appears on the latest list of malicious Web sites published by the Safe Browsing API.

"The new feature follows the same privacy policy currently in use by the Safe Browsing feature. For example, this feature does not enable Google to determine the URLs you are visiting," Rajab wrote.

The feature will first be tested with a small subset of users on the Chrome development release channel, but Google said it hopes to make it available to everyone in the next stable release of Google Chrome.

Google released a stable version of chrome 10 in early March that included a 66 percent improvement in JavaScript performance via its V8 benchmark and extended Google's sandboxing technology to the integrated Flash Player in Chrome.

Twitter Trails …

09/04/2011 16:35:47

A rolling armchair discussion of Ryan Tubridy and The Late Late Show has become something of a Friday night staple on Twitter, the social media platform.

Hundreds of tweeters under the hashtag #latelate, , with a beer or glass of wine in one hand and a smart phone in the other, exchange live views on Tubridy's choice of guests, his manner and choice of questions.

Comments are made on every second of the show. The adding of the hashtag at t

Thousands rally online on Facebook

09/04/2011 16:35:00

Pledging their support for the septuagenarian Gandhian, cyberspace was abuzz with thousands joining in as Anna Hazare’s fast-unto-death entered its fourth day. While the list of online supporters in the city swelled by about 200, more than 60,000 people joined the India Against Corruption (IAC) national page, taking the tally to 1.66 lakh supporters.

Friday saw numerous people from the city not just pledging their support virtually, but also planning and announcing rallies and protest marches in their localities. RBS Bir, for instance, posted on the Mumbai Facebook page: “Many of us will be at Bandra (W) station. Let us have large numbers coming there with candles at 7 pm.”

“Am at Chembur Ambedkar Garden candle vigil @ 7 pm tonite. Be there if you can,” wrote Shreyas Doshi.

Wanting to spread the word while the city was rushing back home, many announced protests at railway stations across the city. Neil Dixit posted: “TODAY: At 7 pm we will stand at our respective railway stations in Mumbai with a candle and spread the revolution through our spirit and pamphlets. Join us at the Railway Station near you!”

However, there were some, who displayed annoyance at Indian cricketers and at the Indian Premier League (IPL), which began on Friday, for not declaring support for Hazare. Mohan Iyer wrote: “Its so sad that the cricketers whu won the world cup and were put on the pedestal by the indian people arent even symbolically supporting the cause... do they deserve the support that they got when they needed it...”

Twitter dragnet on WikiLeaks supporters defended by Feds

09/04/2011 16:33:42

On Friday, federal prosecutors defended their attempts to access the Twitter records of three WikiLeaks supporters, arguing their claims that the dragnet violates their constitutional rights should be rejected.

Prosecutors said in a 19-page filing in federal court that a ruling issued last month should be upheld despite the claims by WikiLeaks supporters Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, and Rop Gonggrijp that it violates their right to free speech. The filing came in an ongoing criminal investigation into Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blower website.

The March 11 order approved the government's request for IP addresses the supporters used to access Twitter between November 2009 and last December and the email addresses they gave when registering with the micro-blogging website. There were no constitutional violations because the information sought didn't involve the content of any of the Twitter subscribers' communications, said US Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan. Federal prosecutors agreed.

“The subscribers' claim that Twitter's non-content records are subject to heightened protections under the First Amendment is baseless,” they wrote.

Under the US Stored Communications Act, the information demand was made in a confidential filing in December. That the secrecy of the motion violated their Fourth Amendment right protecting them from unreasonable searches and seizures was argued by Twitter users. The government later agreed to make public most of the court documents filed in their demand, but withheld revealing one document that Buchanan said would reveal “sensitive nonpublic facts, including the identity of targets and witnesses.”

Protest to dump trash at Boehner's residence cancelled by Facebook users

09/04/2011 16:32:42

In Washington, D.C. a group of Facebook users have cancelled a protest planned for Saturday to dump their trash outside of House Speaker John Boehner's residence after Congress struck a budget deal averting a government shutdown.

Jonah Goodman and Nolan Treadway, democratic activists, who were angry that a shutdown would have halted trash collection in Washington, had organized the protest.

"We want to thank the 8,700+ of you who joined our demands in the last 48 hours to fight for basic democratic principles of semi-self governance," they wrote. Moments ago, a very orange Speaker of the House just announced that he caved into some of our demands. This is Victory Accomplished. Ok not really but, since the shutdown has been averted, Saturday's event is CANCELED."

At Boehner's residence Saturday More than 5,600 people had committed to dumping their trash. The organizers said their protest wasn't over a budget not getting passed in Congress, but rather the lack of control that DC's loca government has over its own affairs, which would be made painfully clear during a work stoppage.

The nation's capital runs mostly on federal money and is treated as a federal agency, and a shutdown would have brought basic services like trash collection to a grinding halt.

"Fortunately, our mayor can exempt our police, firefighters and teachers but most of the rest of our local government will shut down because members of Congress won't give us autonomy to budget and spend our own money," they wrote "We are protesting at Speaker Boehner's house because he has the power to put bills on the floor of the House he controls to fix this."

Goodman identifies himself as the lead designer for the Democratic National Committee's website until December and Treadway says he is the political and logistics director for the liberal group Netroots Nation.

They asked Boehner to support three bills pending in the House that would give D.C. more control over its budget.

When in Washington, Boehner resides on Capitol Hill, but his spokesman Michael Steel responded Friday that protesters would have to travel farther.

"The speaker's house is in Ohio," he told FoxNews.com.

Google's Street View breaks privacy rules says court

08/04/2011 07:19:44

Google is breaching citizens' right to privacy with its Street View service and should take greater steps to obscure people caught by its cameras, A Swiss court has ruled according to court documents published on Monday.

On March 30, the Federal Administrative Court made the ruling following complaints from Switzerland's data protection commissioner, Hanspeter Thuer.

Google's business interests did not outweigh the rights of the individuals over their own image, according to the views of the court. Consequently, the court ordered the Internet giant to implement further measures to ensure anonymity before publishing faces and number plates captured in Switzerland on Street View, which came online there in August 2009.

To obscure people's faces and vehicle number plates Google currently uses automatic blurring technology and says that it is 99 percent effective. Via a link on Street View Swiss citizens can also request additional blurring of an image.

The court said in its ruling that Google must manually obscure or blur identifying features rather than relying exclusively on the automated technology, particularly in the vicinity of "sensitive establishments" such as women's shelters, retirement homes, prisons, schools, courts and hospitals.

The company was considering its options to appeal, said Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel .

"We are very disappointed because Street View has proved to be very useful to millions of people as well as businesses and tourist organisations," Fleischer said. "More than one in four of the Swiss population has used it since the service launched in Switzerland."

Other privacy concerns over Street View have been raised in various European countries like France and Germany.

Facebook and Hollywood

08/04/2011 06:48:17

According to one of the social network's primary investors, Facebook could well become a major force in Hollywood movie distribution.

Hoping that Facebook will become an increasingly important movie distribution force in the near future , Venture capital firm Accel Investing is Facebook's second-largest shareholder after founder Mark Zuckerberg - and is currently directing a significant amount of capital into certain Hollywood studios.

A cool $40 million investment in Legendary Pictures was dropped recently by Accel, the producer behind recent box-office favourites such as The Dark Knight.

With The Dark Knight already available for US viewers to watch via Zuckerberg's website - for a fee, Warner Bros is already trialling movie rentals using Facebook .

Accel exec Jim Breyer clearly thinks (and hopes) that Facebook will become an increasingly valuable distribution system for content producers in the near future, recently explaining to All Things Digital:

"We believe there are a number of extraordinary opportunities that sit at the intersection of content and social networking platforms like Facebook," hoping that Facebook will be able to provide Tinseltown with "multichannel distribution capabilities for video content beyond classic theatrical and television release."

The Facebook investor added that at the heart of what Facebook is trying to do is enable outstanding content and application developers to develop breakthrough video and media applications.

iPhone Apps Using Facebook found by Apptitude

08/04/2011 06:32:51

A new iPhone app that taps Facebook to pack your iPhone with new apps has been released by the creators of the music discovery app Hitmaker. Apptitude, from Noisetoys, joins app-discoverers Explor and Chomp to deliver recommendations based upon your friends' posts and "likes" on Facebook, reports TechCrunch .

Apptitude also incorporates Facebook Connect as a means of measuring what's hot in Apple's App Store and is not just about peeking at your friends' Facebook posts. Creator Shalin Mantri told TechCrunch that he hopes to eventually use data to create a better way of finding relevant apps. In v.1.1—expected sometime this week—he plans a Facebook-fueled recommendations list based on the apps that are trending in your social graph.

To see what apps your friends are using, find out what apps are most popular amongst your inner circle, and to share you personal favorites is the premise of the Apptitude.

There’s a scroll bar of your Facebook friends ranked by the quantity of apps they're using after you open Apptitude and log onto Facebook. Clicking on profiles lets you swipe through apps and from here, you can view stats, including how many of your friends use a particular app and how many of them have "liked" it. If you see something you like, there's an option to get it from the app through a "Download Now" button. You can declare your favorite apps through the "Share" button.

Apptitude is available now for free in the App Store for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running OS 3.0 or higher.

Another controversy hits Facebook

04/04/2011 11:03:41

Another controversy, an Indian update this time, got added to the Facebook's long list of controversial groups.

An FIR against the social networking site was filed by Social activist Nutan Thakur and it's users under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000, in Meerut. The FIR is concerned with a particular hate group that depicts Hindu gods on the film poster of 3 Idiots. The group is one of many that target Hinduism and Islam. Other hate groups include We Hate Gandhi, the ID of the latter group has now been blocked, following a complaint by Thakur.

Facebook were asked previously, to shut down groups that promoted child pornography, paedophilia, genocide and racism. Facebook watchdogs have included British Prime Minister David Cameron, who lobbied for a tribute page to Northumberland killer Raoul Moat to be deleted.

Twitter datacentre migration hit by problems

04/04/2011 09:08:06

Datacenter in Utah bespoke that Microblogging service Twitter's datacenter migration has been plagued by difficulties, due to structural problems at its new.

According to sources who spoke to Rueters, on 21 March, the site, which announced that it had completed a major datacentre migration, was forced to change datacentre plans, mid-flight, due to a botched datacentre,.

"A new, custom-built facility in Utah meant to house computers that power the popular messaging service by the end of 2010 has been plagued with everything from leaky roofs to insufficient power capacity," Reuters said.

Twitter may have alluded to the problems throughout its 'Great Migration' blogpost on 21 March, if the sources are true. At the time, Twitter described a two stage migration, where Twitter services were moved out of its primary datacentre and into a second staging datacentre, before moving to a third datacentre as the service's "final nesting ground".

It moved services out of its first and second datacenters, once it had touched down in the third facility. "This essentially required us to move much of Twitter two times," according to the post.

Twitter moved from a co-location facility it had been renting from hosting provider NTT America, into its bespoke Utah facility, but due to the problems migrated to a third datacentre owned by co-location company Raging Wire, according to Rueters.

As it has signed a four year leasing contract, Twitter still has the use of its Utah facility. But, according to a Twitter source who spoke to Reuters, "nobody wants to put any part of the site that's mission critical in Salt Lake City... that would be a huge battle royale inside the company if they were told they had to.

Departure confirmed by Twitter’s Evan Williams

03/04/2011 17:19:58

On Tuesday Twitter's Evan Williams confirmed that he will scale back his role at the micro-blogging company and pursue other, unnamed ventures.

Williams wrote on his personal blog that he is still involved, but it is no longer his fulltime job and he will remain on the Twitter board of directors and pledged to meet frequently with the company's staff "to help in any way he can."

As for the future, Williams said he was "not ready" to talk about where he's going, but he did say it was "time to pick up a whiteboard marker and think fresh."

"There are other problems/opportunities in the world that need attention, and there are other individuals I'd love to get the opportunity to work with and learn from," he wrote. "Details to come."

Williams stepped down as Twitter's CEO in October and said at the time that he would focus on product strategy, but reports soon emerged that Williams was no longer involved in the day-to-day goings on at the company.

"It will be bigger and better. I have the utmost confidence that, like Blogger, Twitter will grow an order of magnitude more (even though that's a much taller order, given its size already). The momentum is just incredibly strong, critical mass has been reached, and the dark days of imminent technical meltdown are over." Williams said of Twitter.

MTV airs and posts The Diary of Facebook

03/04/2011 06:27:48

A behind-the-scenes episode of “MTV Diaries” aired earlier this week on television with the title “The Diary of Facebook.”

The programme focused exclusively on the career side of Facebook and gave an inside look into the environment of working at the company, while also painting the social network in a very positive light with the caption “You think you know Facebook, but you have no idea.”

The recruiting video documents the average day of a few Facebook employees during a “hackathon.” for a quickly growing Internet company looking to expand its workforce it’s a very interesting marketing campaign attempt.

The whole episode is also available online at mtv.com. It is split into four parts.

Search in Iraq and Tunisia localized by Google

03/04/2011 06:21:15

On Thursday, Google began providing searches and results localized for Internet users in Iraq and Tunisia.

Bringing to 184 the number of domains it operates worldwide, Google added google.iq in Iraq and google.tn in Tunisia, in order to provide locally relevant results for queries to people depending on where they are.

Google searches previously in Iraq or Tunisia were routed through domains in different countries.

According to Google Middle East and Africa product manager Abdel-Karim Mardini , Tunisia and Iraq domains allow searchs in Arabic as well as other languages used in regions, such as Kurdish in Iraq and French in Tunisia.

"Local domains are a first step towards making the Web more accessible and relevant for people around the world and are also an integral part of our vision to make all of our products available in the world's top 40 most spoken languages covering 99 percent of Internet users worldwide," Mardini said in a blog post.

Facebook Posts suspend teacher

03/04/2011 06:15:58

A first-grade teacher in Paterson, New Jersey, has been suspended for posting a status update on her Facebook page that implied she felt like a warden overseeing future criminals.

Parents of the teacher's students weren't too happy about their children being called "future criminals” and the teacher (whose name hasn't been released) was suspended with pay after a "significant number" of parents complained.

According to The New York Times, this comment particularly hit home because the Paterson school district has "long been one of New Jersey's most troubled school systems."

Theodore Best, school board president said the teacher was suspended not for her indiscreet Facebook status update, but because "the incident created serious problems at the school that impeded the functioning of the building."

"You can't simply fire someone for what they have on a Facebook page; but if that spills over and affects the classroom then you can take action," Best said.

Meanwhile, over in Chicago, a computer lab teacher at Overton Elementary School has been reprimanded for posting photos of a 7-year-old girl on Facebook and mocking her hairstyle.

Just dial to complain on MCD Facebook

03/04/2011 06:01:28

To register a complaint about over flowing dhalaos in their areas, Delhi-ites, from Saturday will not have to log on to Facebook. All one has to do is make a call to the MCD helpline number, 011-46485270, to file one's compliant and this will automatically be put on the social networking site.

Complaints can also be registered by people regarding dirty public toilets maintained over phone. For this, MCD has roped in Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer at IIT-Delhi. It has developed a voice application through which any mobile user can post their complaints on MCD Facebook page.

MCD commissioner K S Mehra said that the message will be recorded and then automatically get posted on the MCD Facebook page and a complaint number will then be generated and messaged to the complainant along with other details. Once the complaint is redressed, another message would be sent.

The number will be active from Saturday.

New phone by Google to double as credit card

03/04/2011 06:00:36

A mobile phone that doubles as a wallet has been masterminded by web giant Google.

The customers, Instead of holding up checkout queues by rifling through their purses to find the right card, they will simply swipe the phone past an electronic reader to pay. According to the Daily Mail, the experts claim it is a safer method of payment than magnetic strip credit cards.

To develop the mobile payment system specifically for the Android phone Google has teamed up with Citigroup and MasterCard. They have also consulted VeriFone Systems, which makes credit card readers for cash registers. So that retailers and businesses can more efficiently target consumers with discounts and advertisements the phone will also store shopping habits and trends.

According to Wall Street Journal, Google is not expected to get a cut of the transaction fees. Initially, holders of Citigroup-issued debit and credit cards would be allowed to pay for purchases by activating a mobile payment application developed for one current model and many coming models of Android phones, it said.

According to experts it is safer method of payment than the traditional credit card.

Nick Holland, a mobile-transactions analyst at Yankee Group said that because it's contact-less there's a perception people can grab it from thin air, but it's actually a more sophisticated technology than credit cards with a magnetic stripe, making it more difficult to steal a consumer's payment information.

World’s Top SEO Firms for 2011

01/04/2011 07:43:29

To search engine optimization than most companies WebiMax has a different approach developing a core process that put in place that enables the customers to see significant improvements in their natural search engine rankings.

A comprehensive, strategic process WebiMax SEO satisfies the core principles that search engines look for when ranking a website. WebiMax process is as follows: An ethical approach to Search Engine Optimization, a proper site structure that is conducive to search engine indexing, strong, relevant content that is frequently updated and enhanced, and a comprehensive and targeted link building campaign.

WebiMax founded in 2008 by serial web entrepreneur Kenneth C. Wisnefski, has rapidly grown to become a profitable organization that serves over 250 clients both domestically and internationally. The staff of highly skilled experts from respective fields, in which WebiMax operates, has taken a small start-up to an internationally recognized brand that has received multiple rankings and distinctions including from TopSeos.com, the independent authority on internet marketing vendors.

To promote Internet Explorer 9 Microsoft partners with 29 websites in India

01/04/2011 07:41:59

Microsoft India has partnered with 29 of the most popular websites in India to vie for a larger share of the browser market.

Launching its latest browser Internet Explorer 9, the company has partnered with websites like the group buying website SnapDeal, e-commerce site Flipkart, online booking site BookMyShow, Photovault, ESPNCricinfo, Kotak Bank, PhotoVault, Naukri, Rediff SongBuzz, Reliance Global Call, Sameer Belvalkar's FrozenFrames.com, Sify, and Zapak Games.

Microsoft has globally partnered with over 250 top websites and global brands that have created new experiences to show off the capabilities of Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft India unveiled the new browser at TechEd India 2011, an annual IT conference organised by Microsoft India.

The launch of Internet Explorer 9 came at a time when the race to capture browser markets share is heating up. With an increasing number of devices going online every day the browser market is becoming increasingly competitive. When all versions of browsers are taken together, Internet Explorer leads the pack with 45% market share, according to reports.

Yahoo! takes on Google, social networking sites

01/04/2011 07:39:34

Yahoo! once a favourite with Indian Internet users, seems to be in a reload phase to win back the lost ground and take competition from Google and social networking sites head on.

The mail, search and news portal has lined up Search Direct for release in the second half of this year. The service, which targets Google's prompt-based search, will provide answers based on the user needs.

Mr Prabhakar Raghavan, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice-President and Head of Yahoo! Labs, said that users do not come to a search engine with just search strings and expect some useful information.

One will get prompts like in Google search.But the similarity ends there. “You will get answers as categories as you begin to key in the search string. You can directly go to the category,” he said.

Taking part in the 20th World Wide Web Conference, Mr Prabhakar said Yahoo! registered 30 million users a month in India and 74 per cent of all the net users in the country. With the user base growing, the company is planning to replicate a survey it conducted in the US to measure effectiveness (of Web content, including advertisements).

Claiming it registers 100 crore clicks every day in its homepage in India, the company said its Content Optimisation tool would allow users to see content based on their preferences.

The hybrid model picks trends based on the patterns in ‘clicks' and gives editors tools to pick relevant content.

The tool, which at present is offered to English users, would be expanded soon to its regional content, which was not so dynamic.

Allegations over obstruction of Google's Gmail service dismissed by China

23/03/2011 17:07:11

China has refuted allegations by Google that Bejing is hampering access to its email service and termed them as “unacceptable”. The internet provider has alleged that government blocks were responsible for technical problems using Gmail in china.

Amid a tightening of internet controls that has made it increasingly difficult to use several popular virtual private networks, the problems arose. VPNs allow people to access material hosted overseas even if it is blocked by the Chinese government.

Sparked by anonymous online calls for a "jasmine revolution" akin to the recent uprisings in the Middle East the new restrictions appear to be part of a security clampdown. Although, those messages were posted on an overseas website, scores of Chinese activists and dissidents have been questioned, harassed and in some cases detained by the authorities for weeks.

"Relating to Google, there is no [technical] issue on our side. We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail," a Google spokesman told the Guardian this week.

Users have reported frequent problems with basic tasks such as sending and searching emails or opening their address books.

Dismissing these allegations Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, told a regular news conference: "This is an unacceptable accusation." She declined to comment further. The ministry of commerce and ministry of industry and information technology did not respond to faxed questions.

Young workers want to work for Google, Apple

23/03/2011 17:05:32

In a study released on the firms young professionals most want to work with Tech companies make a strong showing

Employer-branding company Universum found that Google topped the list of most-desired employers.

Apple and Walt Disney Co. were next in line. Amazon.com was the fifth-most-desirable employer. According to the survey which polled 10,000 college graduates with one to eight years of professional experience Microsoft came in seventh place.

Those tech firms were surrounded mostly by government agencies. The Department of State was the fourth-most-desired employer, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation came in sixth. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration took the eighth and ninth places, respectively. Teach For America, an organization that places young college graduates in rural and urban schools to teach for two years, came in tenth place.

Lady Gaga interviewed at Google headquarters.

23/03/2011 17:03:38

On Tuesday, Singer Lady Gaga stopped by Google headquarters to answer questions from fans and announce her directorial debut.

Gaga, took to the Google stage in Mountain View and announced that she will direct her next video, which will be for the song, "Judas." Her next album, "Born This Way," is expected in May.

Google said in a statement that the superstar wowed a crowd in a venue that was (literally) packed to the rafters with adoring Googlers (Google employees). Googlers went Gaga, channeling their inner little monsters and donning everything from her signature bow-tie hairbuns to Mother Monster costumes and filling our Charlie's Cafe to the max.

The interview with Gaga was conducted by Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of consumer products. The artist answered questions submitted on YouTube and via Twitter; Google said the response was "overwhelming," with Little Monsters (Gaga's name for her fans) - submitting more than 54,000 videos and 220,000 votes.

In October, Gaga became the first person to have her videos reach 1 billion views on YouTube.

Challenge to Google's Android Market by Amazon Appstore

23/03/2011 17:02:18

Offering free and paid applications based on the open-source operating system, Amazon.com on March 22 opened its Amazon Appstore for android, albeit with some features that differentiate it from Google's competing Android Market.

The Amazon Appstore will let users test applications they're interested in on a simulated Android phone, while the Android Market lets users download free and paid applications. Customers access the application simulation through their computer using a mouse. The company calls this feature Test Drive.

This is a clever feature distinction from Google's Android Market as with Test Drive, consumers can decide if they like the application before bothering to download it.

The main criticism against the Market is that it doesn't make it easy for users to find applications to download. the Market did not have any other feature to help users slog their way through 150,000 applications, despite the presence of a search bar.

By contrast, Test Drive will help mobile-applications consumers sift through the 3,800 applications in the Amazon Appstore. This is particularly important for paid applications so users don't spend money without being certain they're going to like what they purchase.

Another perk to bring users into the Appstore is being offered by Amazon.com. The company partnered with Rovio Mobile to launch Angry Birds Rio for Android exclusively in its Appstore, allowing customers to download it for free for a limited time. The company will also exclusively launch ad-free versions of Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons.

Moreover, the Appstore will offer customers a paid application for free every day. Customers can buy applications in the Appstore in two ways. Users may buy applications through their computer's Web browser, or through an Amazon Appstore application they may download to their Android phones or tablets.

Two years jail for virtual Facebook thief

23/03/2011 17:00:21

Two year jail sentence has been awarded to a British hacker who funded his gambling addiction by stealing and reselling online gaming chips from Zynga.

The accused, Ashley Mitchell, 29, from Paignton, Devon, was sent down last week after earlier pleading guilty to five charges of hacking and theft at Exeter Crown Court. To steal virtual gaming chips with a face value of $400bn and transferring them into fake Facebook profiles under his control Mitchell exploited shortcomings in the security of Zynga's website.

Publisher of popular social networking games including FarmVille and Texas HoldEm Poker on Facebook, Zynga, would have charged £7.4m in real cash for the sale of the stolen 400 billion gaming credits.

Netting £53,000, Mitchell resold around a third of these stolen chips largely in order to fund his £1,000-a-day gambling habit, according to reports. In sentencing, Judge Philip Wassall said the attack had relied on "considerable expertise".

In August 2009, when it first detected the fraud, Zynga initially suspected an inside job. However an investigation revealed that an external hacker had infiltrated its systems and posed as two employees in order to pull off this heist.

By piggy-backing onto the unsecured internet connections of his neighbours, who initially became suspects in the case, Mitchell had attempted to cover his tracks. However on one occasion he used his own Facebook profile during an attack into Zynga systems, leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs that eventually led police to identify him as a suspect, according to reports.

Man charged with polygamy after his wedding photos on Facebook

23/03/2011 16:58:49

Polygamy charges are being faced by an American citizen after his first wife saw wedding photos of his with another woman on social networking site Facebook.

The accused, Richard Barton Jr., 34, of Grand Rapids was arrested by Michigan State Police after the wife he left in Rhode Island saw the photos, according to CBS affiliate WWMT.

"I let love get in the way," CBS News quoted the Grand Rapids Press as reporting Barton as saying outside a Walker, Mich., home where he is staying with friends.

Barton, who is free from jail on a personal bond, declined to comment further but admitted that he made a mistake.

According to his first wife they had met online in 2003 and he moved to Rhode Island so they could be together.

After marrying in 2004, the woman said Barton didn't return from work one day and she discovered he had been arrested as a parole absconder from Michigan.

The report said that Barton, who had been convicted of home invasion in 2000, fled Rhode Island after his release from prison.

After he married the Grand Rapids woman in July 2010 he now faces felony charges of polygamy, which carries a penalty of four years in prison and/or a 5,000-dollar fine.

20K Accounts pulled by Facebook per day

23/03/2011 16:42:21

According to Facebook about 20,000 profiles from the site are removed per day for various infractions, including users who are underage.

On Monday, to discuss Internet-related security issues, Facebook chief privacy advisor Mozelle Thompson appeared before the Australian Parliament's cyber safety committee. Representatives from Microsoft and Yahoo were also on the panel.

Thompson's appearance made headlines when he was quoted as saying that Facebook "removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage."

Facebook in a statement said those 20,000 removals cover a variety of policy violations, including spam, inappropriate content, and underage use. Facebook users must be at least 13 years old.

The company said that they take safety very seriously and we were pleased to participate in a hearing in Australia to talk about their safety policies, practices and systems and they explained in the hearing, these efforts include removing numerous accounts everyday for activities including spamming, posting inappropriate content, and violating age restrictions.

Proactive efforts that actually prevent fake or under age accounts from being created are not included in the20, 000 number, Facebook said.

Mobile masses eyed by Facebook with Snaptu acquisition

23/03/2011 16:38:19

Dominant social network Facebook, with its sights on the mobile mass market, recently purchased an Israeli startup, Snaptu, which enables people to use smartphone-like applications on simpler “feature” phones.

According to analyst firm Ovum, Snaptu develops applications that make Web services available on feature phones, which are the true mass market phone category and therefore exactly where Facebook wants to be.

Ovum principal analyst Eden Zoller said that Feature phones are less highly specified and priced than smartphones like the iPhone and are therefore particularly important for users in emerging markets, where in many countries mobile penetration is greater than fixed.

Zoller further added that feature phones will dominate consumer access to the Internet and their experience of web services and this is a high growth opportunity and Facebook is making sure it is in a good position to exploit it.

Earlier this year, Snaptu developed a Facebook for feature phones application and it is now available on 2,500 different devices.“Facebook must like the results, judging by the $60-$70 million it is widely reported to be paying for the Israeli developer, and clearly sees Snaptu’s technology as a means of extending its reach to a wider base of feature phone users," Zoller observed.

Google and Yelp Collide Over Use of Customer Reviews

18/03/2011 16:03:28

After complaints from Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman about the manner in which Google utilises the sites reviews for its Google Places results were made public recently, Google have felt the need to respond to the criticism through their Vice-President of search products, Marissa Mayer.

Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, Mayer commented that "We actually send a lot of traffic to Yelp and Trip Adviser and other review sites."

She said that Google had not issued an ultimatum but that the search giant has "one core index for all our locations". She added "It is very difficult to take them out of one index and not another because those indices are actually the same."

It is not known how Stoppelman will react as the indication is that to remove Yelp from the Google Places algorithm would result in the company being removed from general search engine results as well.

SEO in Birmingham on lookout as Google Hunts Down Sites Using Paid Links

18/03/2011 15:29:30

SEO Birmingham companies may have to re-evaluate some of their SEO techniques after it emerged that Google are to place a renewed focus on their algorithms in an attempt to track down websites that utilise paid links to raise themselves up in the rankings.

The company may even strip down their algorithm to its very basics, with Google's Matt Cutts noting that the company may previously place too much emphasis on keyword volume at this point in time.

As such, SEO strategies may evolve to take this into consideration, especially if paid links form part of an online marketing plan.

"If Google changes the weight of this component of its algorithm, you can be sure that publishers who have built on top of exact match domains will watch anxiously to see if they're negatively impacted," Mr Robles stated.

Google Workers to Devote Time to Building Technology to Help Japan

18/03/2011 15:06:49

Google has long been known to grant its workers 20% of their time to work on engineering products that are of interest to them and it appears that many in the company are going to turn their attentions towards creating technology that will help to deal with the disaster in Japan.

"A lot of 20-percent time is being spent on Japan," Google spokesman Jamie Yood told AFP on Thursday.

"There is definitely a group of people in our Tokyo office spending a lot more than 20 percent of their time on this, and that is supported by Google."

Google has already established a multi-lingual crisis response page that provides resources for people trying to get in touch with loved ones.

"Like the rest of the world, we've been transfixed by the images and news coming out of the northeastern part of Japan over the past six days," Google product manager Nobu Makida said in a blog post on Thursday.

"Googlers in Japan and elsewhere around the world have been working around the clock to try and help improve the flow of information."

Google Speeds Up Web Page Load Times

18/03/2011 14:49:04

Google has announced that it has tweaked is Adsense advertising platform in an attempt to make contextual adverts load up quicker in the background and thus improve the delivery speed of a web page as a whole.

The changes are part of what Google is describing as an ongoing effort to improve page loading speeds.

"Over the past few days we've been rolling out a new and improved version of show_ads.js, the piece of JavaScript used by more than two million publishers to put AdSense advertisements on their web pages," said Michael Kleber from Google's Ads Latency team.

"The new show_ads is small and fast, built so that your browser can turn its attention back to its main task – working on the rest of the web page – as soon as possible."

Kleber believes the change will affect billions of web pages, continuing "There's a substantial speed advantage: many things happening inside an iframe don't block the web browser's other work.

"On the real-world sites we tested, the latency overhead from our ads is basically gone. Page load times with the new asynchronous AdSense implementation are statistically indistinguishable from load times for the same pages with no ads at all."

Google Accused of Violating Linux Licence

18/03/2011 14:20:06

An article written by a patent and copyright lawyer has claimed that Google's Android mobile phone operating system has lifted vast swathes of free Linux code and has presented it as its own proprietary software.

The article, written by Edward J. Naughton, claims the Bionic Library used in Android phones was created using Linux software code that shouldn't have been used by application developers in the first place. Google is accused of lifting the code, which is available under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), and cleaning it to the point where it claims that it is no longer protected by the GPLv2 licence.

"At a minimum, Google has taken a significant gamble. While that may be fine for Google, because it knows about and understands the risks, many Android developers and device manufacturers are taking that same risk unknowingly," Naughton said.

Google to Improve Google Docs Commenting

18/03/2011 14:00:15

Google have announced that they will be improving the commenting features that they have placed in Google docs, allowing new features like integrated email correspondence.

The software has previously had quite a basic commenting feature for its files, however the company is now allowing commentors to not only assume ownership of the comments but also to integrate email notification of their comments into the documents. This means that users can add comments to a document simply by replying to an email relating to the document.

Nick Cooper, a software engineer at Google claims that the "next generation commenting system" has been in use internally at Google for months. Cooper continues "The combination of added structure and intuitive email integration have really given life to the discussions that surround our documents, and we're excited for this new feature to do the same for you."

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust helped by leading SEO Agency Impact Media with the recent

15/03/2011 16:54:07

It is important as an NHS Trust, that the local residents have 24 hour access to the Birmingham Community Healthcare website. For those looking to access services or search for healthcare jobs in the region, this informational hub provides a vital resource. Therefore ensuring that the functionality and visibility of the website wasn’t impaired during a recent re-launch was essential.

Birmingham Community Healthcare enlisted the help of Impact Media to make sure the transition between sites was a success. to review the site and recommend areas where it could be strengthened to improve the chances of improving rankings within Google, the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Agency worked with the Trust.

Impact Media were able to ensure that the changeover was as smooth as possible by working with the original Birmingham Community Healthcare site prior to the update. With everything in place on site they were able to target local phrases that would help local patients and healthcare workers find the site – both before and after the re-launch.

“As an NHS Trust it is vital that we maintain continuous visibility online. Local residents rely on the site to find out about the services we provide across the region. Therefore we needed to be sure that the re-launch of the site wouldn’t impact this accessibility,” said David Disley-Jones, Communications Manager for Birmingham Community Healthcare explaining why he chose Impact Media to manage the re-launch.

“Impact Media were recommended to us by another healthcare website that had used their SEO services previously. Their efforts have ensured that we have held our positions for most key terms whilst making gains elsewhere. The re-launch has been successfully completed now and we’re more than happy with the continued performance of the site.”

Birmingham Community Healthcare provides community and specialist healthcare services in the city of Birmingham and to the wider West Midlands region. It is the largest community healthcare provider in England, employing approximately 5,000 staff.

Google's New Anti-Spam Measures May Unfairly Affect SEO in Birmingham and Elsewhere

17/02/2011 11:39:07

Google has been upping its struggle against low quality and spam based websites in recent months, culminating in the company eventually resorting to having the users of its search engine services do the job for them.

Users of the company's Chrome browser are given the option to block websites in the Google search results in a single click. The general premise is that if a web user finds a low quality site, they can inform Google by blocking it, with enough blockages potentially leading to a ban.

However it could possibly have a side effect on websites handled by SEO technicians in Birmingham and elsewhere, as less scrupulous organisations could purposefully black-mark good websites in an attempt to have Google drop them down the rankings. It remains to be seen just what effect these new changes will have.

Twitter Head Plays Down Purchase Rumours

17/02/2011 11:27:27

Dick Costolo claims that talk of either Google or Facebook acquiring Twitter is premature as the company has no intention to sell, even for a rumoured $10 billion.

He said "Twitter needs to be super-simple and it needs to be always present, it needs to be like water in my home. Instantly useful. Always present, I don't need to relearn how to use it in the shower after using it in the kitchen," during a recent keynote speech.

He also highlighted the need to cater to the mobile market, as he revealed stats that around 40% of tweets now came from mobile devices.

He continues "We want deep smartphone integration and stronger text messaging integration. It has to just work the same way everywhere it is used."

Analysts, though impressed by the speech, felt it was lacking in detail. Eden Zoller, a principal analyst at Ovum, commented "Twitter quoted figures on healthy growth and use, which is good but not surprising. What it didn't provide was concrete details on was how effective its nascent businesses are proving to be in driving revenues - lots of case studies of cool brands using Twitter but no hard line on the margins this brings to Twitter."

Google Head Talks Up Smartphone Future

17/02/2011 11:14:16

Google's chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt has recently spoken about the importance of mobile phones and how smart phones are the way of the future when it comes to mobile technology.

Schimdt comments that "pretty soon, in a year or two, with the phones many of you have already and the tablets, you will never forget anything. Starting soon it will be possible to remember the hotels you went to, the pictures you took, the friends you met, because computer memories last forever."

He also claims that Google is not being affected by the rise of facebook advertising, stating that the company's main rival is still Microsoft. he said "We've seen no evidence that advertising on Facebook is hurting our advertising in any way. Facebook is additive [to Google's business]. Microsoft is a core competitor and likely to remain our main rival for a long time."

He points to Nokia's recent decision to tie-up with Microsoft rather than use Google's Android software for their new phones as proof of this, stating "We would like them to adopt Android in the future," Schmidt said. "We're sorry that they made a different choice. We certainly tried [to persuade them]."

Yell Aims to Restructure Local Search to Compete Against Google

17/02/2011 11:03:12

Yell has announced that it is to restructure its website to focus on local search in a bid to combat services like Google and GrouponYellow Pages. The company's revenues have been falling as the internet has become more ubiquitous and the print industry has started to fall.

The company is also looking to avoid a potential breach of banking covenants with the move, which comes after the company's shares dropped by 10% to less than 9p per share. This is the lowest since the company was listed on the stock exchange in July 2003.

Yell chief executive Michael Pocock, a former executive at Cisco, has outlined the key strategy that the company will follow in this process.

He says "Is it too late? No way. There is a lot of opportunity for us to keep the position we have enjoyed for years in print. We have to become relevant in digital media. We are moving, we just have to have a more robust, well thought through strategic plan."

Pocock said Google, which dominates the online classified ads market, doesn't have "half of what we have" in the local search market. "Look at Groupon, Google, Yahoo ... none of them have outside sales forces."

Google Search Engine Honours Earnest Shackleton

17/02/2011 10:06:38

Yesterday Google changed its popular banner to honour Ernest Shackleton, prompting users of the search engine and SEO specialists alike to ask...who?

For those not in the know, Earnest Shackleton was born in 1874 and is amongst the most famous polar explorers of all time. After initial failure when he was sent home from Captain Scott's Discovery Expedition through illness, Shackleton embarked on a trip of his own in 1914.

He and his crew of 56 men set sail for Antarctica with the goal of becoming the first team to cross from sea to sea, via the South Pole however his ship, The Endurance, became wedged in ice. Astonishingly, despite 500 days without any outside help, Shackleton managed to save every one of his ships men, making him one of the most notable explorers of recent times.

So now all you SEO in Birmingham specialists know. Made a nice change from the soppy Valentine's banner.

Stats Show One Third of Computer Users Affected by Virus Last Year

15/02/2011 12:34:12

Recent statistics released by the Statistical Office of the European Communities has revealed that around 31% of people in the EU were affected by a computer virus during 2010.

These statistics have arisen despite the fact that 84% of internet users have implemented some form of anti-virus software to protect against such threats.

Another 14% of web users also had parental guidelines and web filtering software installed in the EU, with 5% having experience of children accessing inappropriate materials on a home computer.

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the EC for the Digital Agenda, comments "It is hard for parents to ensure their children are always safe online, especially as youngsters now access the Internet not just from PCs, but also via smart phones and games consoles. This places greater responsibility on the ICT industry to provide products and services that protect and empower children online.

"We have worked productively with social networks and mobile operators. Now we call on the whole chain of ICT industry to work together to do more to safeguard children online."

Computer Charity Appealing for Increased Donations of PC Monitors

15/02/2011 12:26:29

The computer charity Computer Aid has been calling on the computing community to donate PC monitors for use in schools and hospitals in developing countries after claiming that there was a "critical shortage" of monitors in the countries.

Computer Aid is claiming that it is receiving only 30% of the 2,500 TFT (thin film transistor) and CRT PC monitors a month that it needs to meet the demand of schools, hospitals and charities in impoverished and developing areas in Africa and Latin America.

David Barker, CEO of Computer Aid claims "Hundreds of schools in Chile are waiting to receive computers and, while we currently have over 4,000 refurbished base units ready and waiting to go, we don't have the monitors to match them with."

He believes that organisations are using their old monitors for a longer period of time. He continues "While this is definitely a good thing as it means that companies are extending the life of their IT equipment, it has resulted in a critical shortage in donated screens to Computer Aid.

"Rather than recycling your ICT and especially your monitors, please consider donating your equipment to Computer Aid so that we can send your unwanted PCs to those who need them the most."

Computer Games Firm to Create Jobs in Dundee

15/02/2011 12:14:08

A new computer games firm in Dundee is set to create 150 new jobs in the area, but the effect has been culled in some respects by the loss of 140 at the Department for International Development's office in East Kilbride.

Outplay Entertainment has established a new office in the area and will produce games for use on mobile phones, social networks like facebook and other internet platforms.

There is no shortage of developers in the industry after the closure of Dundee based video games developers Realtime Worlds with the loss of 200 jobs.

First Minister Alex Salmond said the move was testament to the Scottish gaming industry's skills and infrastructure.

He commented "Outplay Entertainment's decision to establish a Dundee headquarters reinforces Scotland's reputation as an attractive and competitive location for the future of the video games market.

"Over the last decade the games industry has evolved into one of the largest grossing entertainment industries in the world and Scotland has demonstrated that it has the talent, infrastructure and skills todeliver success in this fast-growing sector."