Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Faster - Google Chrome 10 beta, try it?
ZDnet - Google has just released Chrome 10 beta (10.0.648.82 for all you perfectionists) and it brings with it a whole slew of new things to play with.
First off, there’s a significant JavaScript performance boost thanks to the updated V8 engine. According toGoogle, this version of the V8 engine offers a 66% performance advantage over the current stable release. That alone is pretty impressive.
This beta also adds GPU acceleration for video. For those running video in full-screen mode this can mean a decrease in CPU usage of as much as 80%. A good thing for those living off battery.
Another new feature is that the browser setting page now opens in a tab of its own rather than in a separate window. A small change but one that makes a lot of sense. There’s also a handy search box to allow you to find the specific setting you are looking for. Might not be needed by geeks, but dead handy for everyone else (Hey, Microsoft! Here’s a setting that would be really handy for IE users … fire up those photocopiers!).
To download the beta
Friday, February 18, 2011
'Significant' cyber attack on Canada linked to China
AlJazeeraEnglish | February 17, 2011 - The Canadian government has confirmed that its computer systems have fallen victim to what they call "significant" cyber attacks. Hackers using China-based servers reportedly broke into computer systems at key Canadian ministries last month.And now authorities say more protection measures are needed.
Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab reports.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 web browser goes live.
Microsoft has said the latest version of its internet explorer web browser puts it ahead of competitors like Google and Firefox.
The software giant, which is losing market share, made the bold claim as it unveiled what is known as the release candidate of IE9.
This is the final test drive for the new browser - a chance to catch any last-minute bugs before its debut.
Privacy and speed set IE9 apart, Microsoft said
Read more | BBC News - 10 February 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Bill Gross Just Acquired TweetDeck!
The number of companies in the Twitter ecosystem keeps contracting. But not for a necessarily bad reason, but because they keep getting purchased. And what’s crazy is that it’s largely one person who has been buying them up:Bill Gross. We’ve just learned that his company, now calledUberMedia, has just acquired TweetDeck.
We’re hearing that the deal, which happened recently, was in the $25 – $30 million range. And this is clearly the largest deal they’ve done yet as TweetDeck is the largest Twitter client outside of Twitter’s own properties.
This deal follows Gross’ company scooping up UberTwitter last month — a popular Twitter client for both BlackBerry and iPhone devices. And prior to that, earlier in January, they bought EchoFon, another popular Twitter client. But again, TweetDeck instantly becomes the crown jewel of the empire. And it means that UberMedia now owns a significant part of the overall ecosystem.
UberMedia has actually changed its name a few times now, partially due to these acquisitions. In April 2010, they launched as TweetUp, then they became PostUp, and then, following the UberTwitter deal, they became UberMedia. The company also own the popular Android Twitter client Twidroyd and Popurls (both of which they bought in July of last year), as well as the ad product, FollowMe. Overall, they fall under Gross’ Idealab.
TechCrunch | 1hr ago - read all
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Stop the presses: Facebook CTO says news next in social revolution
Each week we ask chief technology officers and other high-profile tech decision-makers three questions.
This week, Bret Taylor (pic), chief technology officer at Facebook and co-founder and former chief executive of FriendFeed, which was acquired by Facebook in August 2009, is providing the answers.
Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social network utility and website, with over 600 million active users. The company is privately held, so does not publish results, but says it is cash positive as of 2009. Facebook employs over 2,000 people and has offices in 12 countries.
What's your biggest technology problem right now?
Probably the biggest technology problem we have is delivering Facebook to all the people who use it, in the places they want to use it. The past couple of years has seen a rise in really advanced mobile devices.
BBC News | 10 Feb 2011 - read Full report
Luv this ChromeTweetDeck?
Utube : Introducing Chrome TweetDeck
TweetDeck | December 07, 2010 |An introduction to Chrome TweetDeck ("ChromeDeck"), presented by Richard Barley (@richardbarley) TweetDeck Community Manager.
TweetDeck is available in the Google Web Store now. Get it here http://bit.ly/chromedeck
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
'Twitter messages not private' rules PCC
Continue reading the main story
The PCC said it was increasingly being asked to make judgements about the use of social mediaMaterial that is published on Twitter should be considered public and can be published, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has ruled.
The decision follows a complaint by a Department of Transport official that the use of her tweets by newspapers constituted an invasion of privacy.
Sarah Baskerville complained to the PCC about articles in the Daily Mail and Independent on Sunday.
The messages included remarks about being hungover at work.
She complained that this information was private and was only meant to be seen by her 700 followers.
Ms Baskerville said she had a clear disclaimer that the views expressed by her on Twitter were personal and not representative of her employer.
The disclaimer currently reads: "Scottish & Sober-ish.. Civil Servant. This is my personal account, personal views. Nothing to do with my employers. What I retweet I may or may not agree with."
Ms Baskerville complained to the press regulator, arguing that she could have a
"reasonable expectation" of privacy and that the reporting was misleading.
BBC News | 8 Feb 2011 - read full report
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Social Media as a Tool for Protest
By Marko Papic and Sean Noonan | 3 February 2011
Internet services were reportedly restored in Egypt on Feb. 2 after being completely shut down for two days. Egyptian authorities unplugged the last Internet service provider (ISP) still operating Jan. 31 amidst ongoing protests across the country. The other four providers in Egypt — Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr — were shut down as the crisis boiled over on Jan. 27. Commentators immediately assumed this was a response to the organizational capabilities of social media websites that Cairo could not completely block from public access.
The role of social media in protests and revolutions has garnered considerable media attention in recent years. Current conventional wisdom has it that social networks have made regime change easier to organize and execute. An underlying assumption is that social media is making it more difficult to sustain an authoritarian regime — even for hardened autocracies like Iran and Myanmar — which could usher in a new wave of democratization around the globe. In a Jan. 27 YouTube interview, U.S. President Barack Obama went as far as to compare social networking to universal liberties such as freedom of speech.
"rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace" : Proposal for cyber war rules of engagement
John Bumgarner from US Cyber Consequences Unit on current threats
The world needs cyber war "Rules of Engagement" to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and US experts will tell world leaders at a security conference on Friday.
The cyber proposal, seen exclusively by Newsnight, comes from the influential EastWest Institute in New York.
It describes "rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace".
Cyber security is on the agenda at the annual Munich Security Conference for the first time this year.
Those attending the conference include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Google accuses Bing of 'copying' its search results
Google created fake results for nonsense words such as 'hiybbprqag'Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.
Google engineers created 100 nonsensical queries such as "hiybbprqag" and inserted a fake result for each.Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.
Within weeks, the same results began to appear on its rival Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Microsoft denies copying Google and accused Google of conducting "spy-novelesque stunts".
Harry Shum, vice president of Bing, said: "We do not copy google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results," he added.
"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites," he added.
Cheap imitation
Bing returned the same result for 'hiybbprqug'But Google's Amit Singhal told industry blog SearchEngineLand.com that it was "plain and simply cheating" and he detailed the sting operation in a long blog post.
He said Google decided to conduct its experiment after mis-spelt words and results were replicated on Bing.
"A search for 'hiybbprqug' on Bing returned a page about seating at a theatre in Los Angeles. As far as we know the only connection between the query and result is Google's result page," he said.
BBC News | 2 February 2011 - read full report
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
