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Facebook Problems: Evan Priestley, Former Engineer, Exposes Social Network's 'Buggiest' Software

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ramona Emerson - Jan. 10 (News Report) - Has Facebook developed the glitchiest software on the web? Yes, according to Evan Priestley, a former Facebook engineer. "Facebook is the buggiest software I use regularly, by a wide margin," Priestley recently wrote on question-and-answer site Quora.

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How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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How news orgs are reaching millions through Facebook’s new apps

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Jeff Sonderman - Nov. 30 (News Analysis) - It has been over two months since Facebook announced a new class of social news applications — ones that automatically share links to everything a person reads. Now we are learning more about the readership, strategies and effects of these “open graph” or “frictionless sharing” apps. Here are the six big lessons so far.

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The Apologies of Zuckerberg: A Retrospective

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Liz Gannes - Nov. 29 (News Analysis) - At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and

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True Or False? Automatic Fact-Checking Coming To The Web – Complications Follow

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Devin Coldewey - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - The social layer has settled on the web like a dusting of multicolored snowflakes, gracing every story with a little menagerie of sharing counts and buttons. Once basic standards of content publishing were established, basic standards of sharing had to be as well, the internet being as it is a medium of information transmission. First you get the content, then you move it around. We’re still working on the moving around part.

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Occupy PressThink: Tim Pool

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Press Think - By Jay Rosen, Alexis Madrigal - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - “Being a livestream he acts as ‘eyes and ears’ for the viewers. Literally. People will tell him to move the camera somewhere and he’ll do it. They’ll ask for interviews with someone, and Tim will go over and do so… The viewers will ask him questions and he won’t rest until he gets them their answers.” Recently, Alexis Madrigal, the technology editor of The Atlantic and pretty much the smartest young journalist ’round these parts, re-described occupy Wall Street as an API, or Application Programming Interface.

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Do mobile, the cloud and social spell the end of the PC era?

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jean-Louis Gassée - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - These are the three interdependent forces that power the biggest wave of growth, change, and destruction I've seen since I have been allowed to take part in the high-tech industry. In the beginning (or mine, anyway), back in 1968 when I was, miraculously, offered a salary to be part of HP France there was the mainframe. IBM – "The Company" – reigned supreme, a dynasty that seemed unassailable. The IBMer wore a suit and tie when approaching the punch card feeder. Big Blue's competitors, the BUNCH, were also called the Seven Dwarves because their combined market share couldn't compare to IBM's dominance.

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Playing with Fire: Amazon Launches a $200 Tablet, Slashes Kindle Prices

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - Sep. 28 (News) - One year ago, almost to the day, Jeff Bezos gave me the reason why people should carry around a Kindle in the age of the iPad. No Angry Birds. “The number one app for the iPad when I checked a couple of days ago was called Angry Birds—a game where you t

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Amazon's Kindle Fire just nuked the tablet market: Winners and losers

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ZDNet - By Larry Dignan - Sep. 28 (News Report) - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage Wednesday to unveil an arsenal of devices that are going to disrupt rivals like Barnes & Noble as well as Android tablet makers.

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Best Media Watchdog Experiment: NewsTrust

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

City Paper - Sep. 21 (Editorial) - We got used to NewsTrust Baltimore’s e-mails very quickly. More than a thoughtful amalgam of Baltimore stories from around the web, the alerts came with an invitation to think about the stories in a critical way and comment via a strict form included on the site. Inveterate web commenters might at first be offended by this kind of formalism, but it worked: The idea of rating which news sources are “trustworthy” is, of course, not new. But in using this form to guide self-selected readers, NewsTrust helped its readers (and itself) understand something about the news ecosystem from the point of view of both newsmakers and consumers. NewsTrust, launched via a now-concluded six-month pilot program but with its site still active, was filled with thoughtful, constructive criticism of stories and articles both local and global, and was blessedly devoid of moronic flame wars. In this age of partisan rancor, that is no small thing.

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NewsTrust on Fact-Checking and the Wisdom of Crowds

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Walter Frick - Aug. 25 (Interview) - Truthsquad is a new pro-am fact-checking service we are developing with the Center for Public Integrity, to help journalists and citizens separate fact from fiction together. We are combining the best practices of crowdsourcing with the knowledge of a large nonprofit newsroom and the reach of major news partners. This unique approach empowers citizens to collaborate with journalists to investigate controversial statements from politicians and newsmakers. Participants are invited to post questionable claims online, research factual evidence supporting or opposing these claims, and verify their accuracy as a community, with professional oversight.

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First Details About Lift, the Next Social Network From the Founders of Twitter

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ReadWriteWeb - By Marshall Kirkpatrick - Aug. 24 (News Report) - The recently-departed co-founders of Twitter who are now working together again under the old Obvious Corp. name (Ev Williams, Biz Stone and Jason Goldman) announced their first official partnership today, with a stealth alpha app called Lift. It's described as simple app for achieving goals through positive reinforcement. It sounds like Twitter and from what I've seen (which is more than I've seen reported about elsewhere yet) it looks a lot like Twitter too - but with more structure. What's called Lift today was apparently called Mibbles just weeks ago and was described then as "a very simple tracking and...

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This Mystery Chemical Could Cause You To Miscarry

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Rebecca Huval - Aug. 10 (Special Report) - Did you print a piece of paper today? Or use a digital camera? If so, it could have exposed you to glymes, a clear liquid class of chemicals used as solvents in printer ink, carpet cleaners and other household products. For a decade, the EPA has known about studies that link glymes to health problems including miscarriages, developmental damage, and gene mutation. And yet only now is the agency beginning to regulate them. This July, the EPA announced that it plans to clamp down on glymes, which may join the ranks of the 360 chemicals subject to the EPA's "significant new use rule." This means that any time a company wants to use glymes, it would have to ask the EPA first. In contrast, the EPA plans to regulate BPA, the chemical once found in Nalgene bottles, by simply identifying it in a list of harmful chemicals.

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Facebook's Mysterious Hire: The Guy Who Designed Much of the iPhone

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ReadWriteWeb - By Marshall Kirkpatrick - Aug. 03 (Opinion) - Matas wasn't just one of many Apple designers; he designed many of the key interfaces you probably interact with every day if you own an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac.

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Sidestepping Apple: Companies rethink app strategies

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Tim Carmody - Jul. 26 (News Report) - We all knew that once Apple starting enforcing new rules for in-app purchases, it would change how media companies do business on the iPhone and iPad. Now, we're beginning to see just what that looks like for companies trying to avoid giving a 30% cut to Cupertino. Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble all removed the stores from their iOS applications on Monday, as well as any hyperlinks to or mentions of their online stores.

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Google+: The Complete Guide

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mashable - By Ben Parr - Jul. 16 (Special Report) - This guide has everything you'll ever want to know about Google+. Updated regularly. Google+: It’s the hot social network on the block. In just three weeks, Google’s competitor to Facebook and Twitter has amassed more than 10 million users, and its users are sharing more than 1 billion pieces of content daily. It’s become a hotbed for early adopters, tech luminaries, marketers and businesses around the world. Google+ isn’t the easiest thing to understand, though. It has a lot of features that can confuse beginners. Even advanced users can miss a lot of the little gems and nuances that define Google+. That’s why we decided to dig into every aspect of Google+, from Hangouts to Circles, from Google+ for businesses to what’s next for Google’s social network. The result is an extensive guide on all of Google+’s key features, as well as an introduction to the service and the important things you need to know about it. We’ve included commentary, videos, photos and more in our in-depth guide. In addition, we will update this guide regularly with the newest information on Google’s Facebook competitor. So, without further ado, here is Mashable‘s complete guide to Google+

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Judges in US, Canada approve Nortel patents sale

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Business Week - By Randall Chase - Jul. 11 (News) - U.S. and Canadian judges on Monday approved a $4.5 billion cash bid from a consortium that includes smartphone makers Apple and Research In Motion for thousands of patents held by bankrupt telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp.

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Think Talks with the Group That Hacked A Fox News Twitter Account

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Think SB - By Adam Peck - Jul. 04 (Interview) - Perhaps deciding on a different strategy, The Script Kiddies have scrubbed all past mentions of their hack of the Fox News Politics Twitter account and replaced them with alarming and, most importantly, fake accounts of President Obama’s death. The updates have jarred quite a few readers–us included–who saw the news coming from what they believed to be an authentic Fox News source.

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Telcos could be the key to Twitter’s revenue model

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Sam Ramji - Jun. 26 (Interview) - At WWDC this year Apple and Twitter announced a new partnership to bring Twitter to iOS devices. While this is impressive, the total number of new iOS users is dwarfed by the number of people who use feature phones worldwide. So how will services like Twitter bridge this opportunity gap?

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Is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg Tone Deaf About Privacy?

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Jun. 15 (Opinion) - Remember the uproar when Facebook made your list of friends, pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region and networks publicly available to everyone? Now, the social networking behemoth has silently enabled facial recognition software without your permission under the rather benign tag "Suggest photos of me to friends." Even if you choose to disable the option, Facebook still will have the technical ability to connect your name with your image.

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Government may have hacked IMF

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:51:55 -0700

Reuters - Jun. 13 (News) - Security experts say the hacking of the International Monetary Fund bears the hallmarks of a national attack.

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Chinese manufacturers: The end of cheap goods?

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 12 (News Analysis) - “It is the end of cheap goods,” says Bruce Rockowitz. He is the chief executive of Li & Fung, a company that sources more clothes and common household products from Asia than perhaps any other. In the low-tech areas in which Li & Fung specialises, the firm handles an estimated 4% of China’s exports to America and a sizeable chunk of its exports to Europe, too. It has operations in several East Asian countries, where it diligently searches for cheap, reliable suppliers of everything from handbags to bar stools. So when Mr Rockowitz says the era of low-cost Asian production is drawing to a close, people listen. He argues that Asian manufacturing has gone through a number of phases, each lasting about 30 years. When China was isolated under Mao Zedong, companies in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea grew expert at making things. When China reopened in the late 1970s, after Mao’s death, these experienced Asian operators converged on southern China. With almost free access to land and labour, plus an efficient port and logistics hub in nearby Hong Kong, they started to make things ever more cheaply and sell them to the whole world. For the next 30 years manufacturers in China helped to keep global inflation in check. But that era is now over, says Mr Rockowitz. Chinese wages are rising fast. A wave of new demand, especially from China itself, is feeding a surge in commodity prices. Manufacturers can find some relief by moving production to new areas, such as western China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. But none of these new places will curb inflation the way southern China once did, he predicts. All rely on the same increasingly expensive pool of commodities. Many have rising wages or poor logistics. None can provide the scale and efficiency that was created when manufacturers converged on southern China.

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The iCloud just works ... but in whose favour?

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Douglas Haddow - Jun. 12 (Opinion) - No wonder Apple is keen to push the idea of a post-PC era in which all your stuff goes through its sprawling data complex As with all Apple unveilings, the iCloud was met with a monsoon of hype. Introduced to the public at the tech monolith's developers conference last Monday, it was hailed as a "time warp loophole" , a "tipping point" , and "the end of stuff" . A bit much, considering how humdrum it is when compared to previous product launches. The iCloud is essentially a rebranding and expansion of Apple's MobileMe cloud service, which has ceased accepting new subscriptions and will be discontinued when iCloud goes live. Indeed, there is nothing new here, apart from ambition. Most of us already utilise cloud computing on a daily basis, be it with Google Docs, Flickr or Tumblr. What differentiates the iCloud is how it hints at what's to come. During his keynote, Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, boasted that the iCloud signifies the beginning of the post-PC era, stating: "We are ...

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Citi says hackers access bank card data

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Maria Aspan, Narayanan Somasundaram - Jun. 09 (News) - Citigroup Inc said computer hackers breached the bank's network and accessed the data of about 200,000 bank card holders in North America, the latest of a string of cyber attacks on high-profile companies.

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China rejects Google allegation of massive hacking breach as ‘fabrication’

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Cecilia Kang, Ellen Nakashima - Jun. 02 (News) - Google’s allegation that hackers based in China accessed hundreds of Gmail accounts, including some belonging to senior U.S. officials, drew angry denials from Chinese government officials on Thursday, with a foreign ministry spokesman calling the accusation “a fabrication out of thin air.”

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