Archive for Internet Content

admin | February 18, 2012
No comments

Microsoft explains bland New Windows logo

Microsoft has detailed the thinking behind the latest modify in its logo for Windows, expression the new aim brings the software back to its roots.

If you tone back to the origins of the logo you see that it actually was meant to exist a window, blogged Sam Moreau, primary director of user receive for Windows. “Windows really is a beautiful metaphor for computing and with the young logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective.

The logo was made by intent domiciliate Pentagram, which has likewise worked for Dell, Netgear, Nike, and the One Laptop Per Child initiative. The firm’s designers dropped an entire daylight being briefed on the Windows 8 intention philosophy and Redmond’s corporate thinking before coming up with the young logo. One of Pentagram’s designers asked, Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?

Windows logos were developed to both lawsuit the mood of the times, equally substantially as the current land of the computer industry, Moreau explained. The original Windows 1.0 logo was a simple, two-color affair, only evolved into the classic four-color flag design for Windows 3.1, which was adapted for XP with meliorate rendering and a 3D feel.

Microsoft maintained the four-color flag intent for Vista, but changed it to agreed into the Aero styling that some Panorama users would be employed to, provided they received the properly hardware. Those who bought some of the systems marketed by Microsoft as “Vista Capable” were, however, in for a disappointment when they were found to be not powerful decent to handgrip Aero. Moreau claimed the young logo was humble, however confident.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: ,
admin | February 11, 2012
No comments

Google says its Young privacy policy complies with FTC Colony

Google is rebutting charges that its new privacy policy violates a colony it struck with federal regulators last year.

The Internet search giant stated the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that its policy complies with the settlement, granting to a self-assessment account the companionship handed over in January.

The report, obtained by Politico Friday, says Google has gone to special lengths to tell its users what data it harvests and what it does with it.

Google settled charges finally yr that it violated privacy polices by exposing Gmail users’ personal information when rolling away its now-defunct Google Buzz social networking service. The breach prompted an angry backlash from consumers and privacy advocates who enounce the Spate View, Calif., company discovered personal information without their cognition or consent.

The Electronic Privacy Info Center, a consumer watchdog group, filed a federal causa Wednesday against the FTC in a bid to closure Google from rolling out a young privacy policy that it says violates the FTC settlement. A federal judge has agreed to expedite the case.

Last month, Google got alerting users about the globe that start March 1 it will percentage data it collects from users across its dozens of services. Google says that solely users who are logged into Google will exist affected. Google already shared what it knew nearly its users across near of its services but now it will also include YouTube and Google hunt history.

A Google spokesman refused to comment on the self-assessment report.

“The FTC takes compliance with our consent orders very severely and always looks cautiously at any evidence or allegations that they are being violated,” FTC spokeswoman Claudia Bourne Farrell said in an emailed statement. “Allegations get been created that Google’s late declared changes to its privacy policies and practices violate a Commission order. Wholly orders are discipline to a detailed and vigorous compliance review process, but such investigations are non-public, and we thence cannot comment further.”

Category: Internet Content | Tags: , ,
admin | February 9, 2012
No comments

iPhone Owners Protesting at Apple HQ Over Foxconn

customers programme to waltz into Apple’s headquarters and stores located in Washington D.C., Young York, San Francisco, London, Sydney and Bangalore. Their mission: to deliver petitions signed by 250,000 people asking the company to develop a worker protection strategy for those constructing iPhones in its Chinese supplier factories. The signatures were collected by Change.org and SumOfUs.org.

By swarming into Apple’s HQ and stores, protestors conceive they represent the part of every Apple customer. Equally of this writing, 56,464 receive signed the SumOfUs petition, more than 35,000 of which purchase Apple products. Out of this latter group, 20,00 own an iPhone. On the Change.org front, 194,999 out of 200,000 people experience signed D.C.-based Tag Shields’ petition.

“I usage an iPhone myself. I love it, simply I don’t love having to stomach sweatshops, and neither do millions of other Apple consumers,” enounced Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs. “The hip, educated market that Apple aspires to corner is mostly written of responsible consumers who don’t want to be complicit in sweatshop labor. Apple’s tending to point is famous, and the entirely way they could fail to exist cognizant of dozens of worker deaths, of child labor, of photograph to neurotoxins is through willful ignorance.”

While news of Foxconn’s suicides get been topics for some time, a heated interest in Apple’s worker policies ignited afterward an episode of Public Wireless International’s “This American Life.” The account uttered nigh the working conditions in Apple’s manufacturing facilities, and evening revealed adolescents working 16 hours a day and making 70 cents an hour. Afterward that, the Young York Times and other well-established news outlets published their own reports.

Following the reports, Apple CEO Tim Make claimed that Apple cared nigh every worker in the provide chain, and vowed to shaft deeper into the allegations. He said the society besides has the Fair Toil Association monitoring its suppliers. Protestors retaliated, expression it’s a measure in the decently direction, only want the names of the suppliers found to receive violations and what those violations are “so that there is transparency about the monitoring effort.”

“If Tim Prepare is really offended by these allegations, why isn’t he doing anything to prepare the problems? This is the render chain he put up equally COO he needs to start taking responsibility, not blaming the messenger,” Stinebrickner-Kauffman added. “Every time a Foxconn worker is killed or disabled making an Apple product, Mr. Cook bears personal moral responsibility. Apple’s enforcement of razor-thin profit margins at suppliers invites and may eve draw them to slash workers’ rights. Simply Apple is locomoting to get much bigger longer-term problems than paying a few extra dollars for its productions if it loses its luster with ethical consumers.”

It’s unnamed how many people will actually visit Apple’s HQ and stores on Thursday, just they’ll paseo in wearing iPhone costumes. If that’s not obvious enough, they’ll also exist the ones waving around iPhone posters and delivering petitions in Mac boxes. Unfortunately, iPad and iPod Touch owners aren’t invited to the costume party.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: , ,
admin | February 7, 2012
No comments

Google, Microsoft Survival Struggle With Internet Data Privacy

Microsoft, Google and Facebook should do more to protect their users’ privacy online, just these types of safeguards battle with how these technology and Web giants construct their profits, according to one expert.

Privacy should be constructed into online services by default, just it won’t occur so long as companies, such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook, rely on advertising to make money, granting to a prominent privacy activist.

Major technology vendors are providing sophisticated applications in commutation for user data, such as their preferences, online activities and behavior, Christopher Soghoian, a Washington, D.C.-based graduate fellow at the Kernel for Utilized Cyber-Security Research, said in his keynote language at the Kaspersky Lab Security Analyst Top Feb. 3. When the companies receive to decide between making money and protecting user privacy, occupation needs take priority, he told attendees.

“When their line models and your privacy conflict, alone one will survive,” enounced Soghoian.

Browsers are not “cheap” to develop, just companies are handsome them dead in order to construct33333 it easier to collect user data, said Soghoian. Almost popular browsers by default are posed to take cookies that Websites and third-party advertiser networks can utilisation for online tracking. Apple’s Safari accepts cookies from the Website, but really disables third-party cookies by default. Apple conveyed the “responsible route,” enounced Soghoian.

The advertising-based job model relies on Internet users to surrender increasing amounts of information, Soghoian said. If the interface “sucks,” users won’t employment the privacy settings effectively and will build mistakes, resulting in data being exposed. The difficulty is intentional, since companies know that users are less likely to bother with turning on privacy settings if the options are difficult to discover or understand.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter whole offering HTTPS on their online services to encrypt connections and prevent malicious attackers from intercepting user data while in transit. It takes six distinct stairs to routine on HTTPS in Microsoft’s Hotmail, and Facebook has been criticized for its confusing array of privacy pages. Ahead Google took the step to enable HTTPS by default for totally Gmail users, the HTTPS alternative was sunk at the underside of the settings pages. It was the “least important” option, enunciated Soghoian.

The interfaces are generally not designed by security-minded developers or developers thinking nearly the best user experience, simply kinda by the people who get an “understanding of human psychology” and not concerned about the user’s best interest, articulated Soghoian. What settings are on or snuff by default is just3 as important equally what the interface is like, he said.

“These companies experience default settings that are not private and not secure, because they know consumers will never modify these defaults,” pronounced Soghoian.

When Google implemented HTTPS, it initially justified the decision to act conk the alternative by default by claiming that encryption potentially slowed down page performance and received extra performance overhead. A hard privacy question over encryption and privacy was simply “left up to the users,” enunciated Soghoian.

The society switched to applying HTTPS by default soon afterward it revealed several Gmail accounts belonging to United States government officials received been breached by Chinese attackers.

Facebook and Twitter yet experience HTTPS turned conk by default, even though Facebook enabled it by default for its Tunisian users afterwards reports emerged of the authorities eavesdropping on its citizens lastly year.

Toolbars are frequently bundled into other software installers. The average Internet user doesn’t want the toolbar just0505050505 are tricked into installing them. When installing Adobe Reader, users are opted in by default to install Google Toolbar, and the Coffee installer has a like alternative for the Yahoo toolbar. Often, users don’t even know how they would up having several toolbars taking up space at the tip of the Web browser.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: , ,
admin | February 6, 2012
No comments

Torrent Search Locomotive BTJunkie voluntarily shuts down

Torrent hunt locomotive BTjunkie is the latest file-sharing service to drop on its sword in the wake of the Megaupload sting. Junkie, one of the largest BitTorrent indexes, decided to shut down voluntarily.

A instruction on the website reads, “This is the conclusion of the line my friends. The decision does not arrived easy, merely we’ve decided to voluntarily closed down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, simply it’s time to motion on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you completely the best!”

The site was never instantly targeted by copyright holders, an unknown BTJunkie founder told TorrentFreak. However, the site was reported to the US Trade Instance (USTR) in 2011, the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index equally a ‘rogue’ site, and Google censored the hunting term.

Despite avoiding legal attention hence far, the site’s founder stated TorrentFreak that the legal action against file-sharing sites Megaupload and The Pirate Embayment played an important role in its closure.

Online storage locker Megaupload was seized and shut down by the US Department of Justice in January 2012, for allegedly breaching copyright infringement law. The site’s staff members were arrested and founder Kim Dotcom was latterly been denied bail.

Meanwhile, the founders of The Pirate Embayment were arrested for copyright infringement in 2009. This month, the supreme court of Sweden made the opinion final, and announced that the founders will not exist able to appeal their months-long prison sentences or combined fines of 46 million kronor (around $6.83 million).

In response to Megaupload’s shutdown, a mickle of popular Web lockers receive neutered the ability to share files with others. FileSonic, FileServe and Uploaded.to completely cut conk file-sharing in the days after Megaupload was seized.

The Pirate Bay, on the other hand, struck its domain name from .org to the Swedish .se. A Pirate Bay insider said TorrentFreak that this was to prevent US authorities from seizing the popular domain.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: , ,
admin | February 4, 2012
No comments

EU reviews New Google policy

Google Inc. publicized its new privacy rules which regulate how it uses the enormous amounts of personal data its collects through its search engine, email and other services with much fanfare lastly week.

Since then, it has launched a huge publicity campaign telling users about the orb of the young policy, positioned to begin March 1. But that launch date may be under threat. Jacob Kohnstamm, chairwoman of the group of 27 national privacy regulators in the EU, pronounced the Gallic data protection way has commenced investigating the new8 rules and how they will affect Google users in the EU.

We outcry for a pause (in the rollout of the new rules) in the interests of ensuring that there could be no misunderstanding most Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis,Kohnstamm composed in a lett to Google’s chief executive, Larry Page. It was sent on Thursday and published on Friday.

Google’s search engine has a market portion of more than 90 pct in the EU, with rival services like Microsoft’s Bing gaining little traction. The EU’s competition authorities are already examining whether Google uses this dominance to occlusion other search engines from entering the market.

The new policy makes it easier for Google to immix the data of one person utilizing different services such equally the search engine, YouTube or Gmail. That lets Google create a broader profile of that user and target advertising based on that person’s interests and hunt history. Advertising is the main manner Google makes its money.

The society says combining the data likewise makes search results more relevant and lets a cross-navigate among different services more easily.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: ,
admin | January 30, 2012
No comments

Amazon Kindle Fire Hijacks Android Tablet Market

Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Kindle Flame has coped to become the first tablet based on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating organization to see demonstrable application usage in a little period, suggesting that the 7-inch slate has got quite the content driver for the e-commerce giant.

The tablet, which alone launched Nov. 15, has already matched the Samsung Galaxy Tab in application usage by an Android tablet, granting to mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Before the Flame4444 launched in November, the Galaxy Tab comprised 63 percentage of Android app sessions. Withal through January, the Galaxy Tab and Kindle Flame7777 accounted for 36 percent of app usage, showing the Flame9999 paired with Amazon’s Appstore has proven to be popular among consumers.

Flurry too looked at data from 5 popular paid apps and felt that the Kindle Flaming drove over 2.5 times more paid downloads to consumers than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which has at least twice as many active units in the genuine world as the Fire.

“This shows that for tablets, the Amazon App Store could already deliver more manoeuvre revenue to developers than the Android Market,” renowned Flurry, which tracks tens of grands of Android apps, tracks over 20 pct of wholly consumer sessions on more than 90 pct of wholly Android devices each day.

These are telling stats at a time when analysts experience totally but composed dead Android tablets as non-starters in a young tablet market that industry watchers receive involved to calling the iPad market.

Indeed, one of the reasons Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) has crushed the nascent Android slate market in market portion and application usage is that consumers don’t get decent compelling substance or applications to access via Google’s Android Market. There are alone virtually 200 or so Android apps designed for tablets based on the Android “Honeycomb” operating system.

The findings are drenched in irony. Google launched Honeycomb nearly a year ago with the belief that the software would be powerful adequate to challenge the popular iPad.

Yet Google never capable sourced Honeycomb and developers were coolheaded on writing for that ramification of Android, eventide as the smartphone branch went the near popular Os platform in the world. Indeed, Google expected the hardware and Os to sell itself, simply it never happened to the point that Google expected it to

Seizing on this dearth in tablet traffic, Amazon arrived out of nowhere to offering a $199 tablet that was less than half of existing tablets. Moreover, the companionship eschewed Honeycomb to “fork” or customize its ain Android build, and sold apps through its ain Appstore instead of the Android Market.

The successful approach has led RBC Capital analysts to claim Amazon makes $136 from substance and service per Kindle Flame unit.

Now Flurry is looking at the Flame as mayhap the rise tide the lifts entirely boats in the Android tablet market. “Total Android tablet sessions in Jan more than tripled over November, with Galaxy Tab sessions increasing by more than 50 percent, Flurry noted. “Overall, Android Tablets are development aggressively equally a category.”

This seems to exist true, allotting to late data culled from Strategy Analytics, which felt that Android’s tablet market share lifted from 29 percentage in the tertiary quarter of 2011 to 39 percentage by Q4. Conversely, iPad market part descended from 68 pct to 58 percent over the same period.

Category: Internet Content |
admin | January 28, 2012
No comments

Facebook, Washington Country sue Averred ad scammer

It was a complicated scam that Facebook has blocked, executives from the fellowship said during a press conference in Seattle. Facebook users would see a link to a provocative video recommended by a supporter on Facebook. A user would click on the video link and see a pop-up that might ask the user to verify that he or she is over age 13. By clicking on the verification box, the user would unknowingly part the video on his or her Facebook page.

After clicking the box, another pop-up would seem taking the user to an advertiser site that might expect the somebody to render personal information or buy an item alike a telephone ringtone.

“Every time a user links to one of these advertiser sites, Adscend is paid a commission by the advertiser,” pronounced Paula Selis, assistant attorney general in Washington.

The attorneys said that advertisers didn’t necessarily know that Adscend was utilising these methods to drive traffic to their advertisements. The advertiser might be a big companionship working with a act of online advertising companies similar Adscend, paying them for the traffic they generate to their ads, said4 Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. “What happens is an advertiser doesn’t know every position the ads are being placed,” he said.

Facebook alleges that Adscend was earning more than $1 million a month, said66666 Craig Clark, Facebook’s star litigation counsel. He declined to say how long the action went on.

Facebook said that a browser vulnerability that allowed the exploit has been fixed thus users shouldn’t proceed to see the scam.

Neither Facebook nor the country attorney general’s situation involved Adscend to stoppage the action ahead they filed the lawsuit. When asked why, Selis said: “There’s no specific reason. They are big, they are pernicious, they have been doing this for a while and they know they are violating the law.”

Adscend, which is based in Delaware, could not forthwith be strained for comment.

In addition to the attorney general’s suit in the U.S. District Courtroom for the Western District of Washington, Facebook likewise filed a suit against the companionship in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charging that Adscend violated Facebook’s price of employment and a U.S. anti-spam law.

Category: Internet Content | Tags: ,
admin | January 26, 2012
No comments

Google Maps Straightaway displays emergency alerts

Emergency alerts experience now been subtly added to Google Maps, and are forthwith live across the United States. Never again will you experience to navigate from page to page looking for specific information on flood warnings, earthquakes, or eventide snowstorms. Maps will directly establish entirely the specifics: from the warning duration, to eventide how grave it may be.

Google uses more than one author to gather this new information. Warnings are provided by the National Endure Service, US Geological Survey, and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If you are rummy equally to what the latest alerts are, navigate here to see areas under watch about the US. As you can see, the remainder of the world has been left out. Only afterward Google adds more services from other countries, it will easily populate imminent disasters around the globe.

Category: Internet Content |
admin | January 25, 2012
No comments

Google Widens Its Tracks

n a move that could build it harder for Google users to rest anonymous, Google Inc. pronounced it would start compounding nearly wholly the information it has on its users.

This could mean, for instance, that when users hunt via Google, the society will exercise their activities on sister sites alike Gmail and YouTube to influence those users’ hunt results. Google hasn’t done that before.

Google’s move4 which was discovered in a privacy policy that will accept event on March 1is a signal of the vehement competition between Google and Facebook Inc. over personal data. Facebook has amassed an unprecedented sum of data about the lives of its more than 800 million members information that is coveted by advertisers.

Google traditionally hasn’t had the same amount of personal data virtually its users, and has held much of its personal data separate. Just as Facebook gears up for its planned initial public offer this spring, Google has amped up the competition.

Last year, Google launched its ain social network, anticipated Google+, and earlier this month Google begun including data from Google+ in members’ hunting results. Google’s latest motility would permit the companionship to include insights from services such equally Gmail and YouTube to hunt results equally well.

This could effectively rewrite the kinship between users and the world’s most-popular hunt engine.

Google has long treated users’ search queries as sacrosanct in part because they could check selfsame personal sensitive info virtually topics such equally wellness and finances.

Category: Internet Content | Tags:
« Older Entries