Google+Facebook+iPhone: 09/13/11

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Veracruz proposes lesser charges for Twitter terrorism suspects

The state of Veracruz in Mexico wants to change its penal codeto apply a lower charge against the jailed Twitter and Facebook users accused of terrorism for spreading unconfirmed rumors of an attack on local schools (link in Spanish).

A proposed change in Veracruz's laws would permit the government to punish the two social-networking users now behind bars, but for a lesser offense of "disruption of public order," rather than the original charges of terrorism and sabotage. Those charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years.

Under the government's plan, teacher Gilberto Martinez Vera and journalist Maria de Jesus "Maruchi" Bravo would be retroactively charged with a crime that isn't even on the books, a scenario that Internet and human rights activists in Mexico promptly denounced as legally unfeasible.

The crime envisioned under the proposed law would carry a sentence of one to four years, meaning that Martinez and Bravo could possibly be set free after posting bail, the Veracruz government said.

In a telephone interview with La Plaza on Monday, Veracruz Interior Secretary Gerardo Buganza affirmed that the proposed law is a response to pressure from activists who have intensified calls for the release of Martinez and Bravo on free-speech grounds.

In addition, Buganza added, the administration of Gov. Javier Duarte was also responding with its plan to calls for "benevolence" from the state's Catholic Church hierarchy (link in Spanish). Martinez and Bravo "coordinated themselves," the secretary said, to spread panic among parents in a city on edge amid an uptick in drug-related violence.

"People were so desperate to reach their children, they blocked streets, they went the wrong way down one-way streets, and in fact even in the hospitals, both public and private, doctors and nurses left the sick to go fetch their kids," Buganza said. "This is very similar to what happened in the United States during the Orson Welles radio show, when no one knew that it was not fact. This was just like that."

Buganza dismissed reports that the parental panic in the port city of Veracuz on Aug. 25 started hours before the first online messages by Martinez and Bravo. Our report last week shows cracks appeared in the case almost immediately after the pair were arrested.

"This was not a game," Buganza said. "This was orchestrated, and was an act of irresponsibility."

CIVIC ELECTION: Campaigns all a-Twitter in getting message out

In any election year, there’s plenty of baby-kissing and hand-shaking by the political hopefuls candidates but, in the age of social media, expect the fall civic election to include plenty of tweets and pokes.

Several current city councillors are using social-media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and many candidates will likely do the same as the election draws near.

Coun. Nancy Bepple is among the local politicians who tweet on a regular basis.

She said she decided to join the ranks of Twitter after watching civic politicians in other municipalities use the application with some success.

“I thought it would be an effective tool to communicate and also to find out what’s happening in the community,” she said of her foray into social media.

Bepple said she tries to use Twitter once a day, but only if she has something to say or wants to talk about an upcoming issue.

The councillor isn’t interested in using her account to tell people she’s going for coffee.

Bepple also has a Facebook page dedicated to her re-election.

Coun. Denis Walsh has had a Twitter account for months, but noted he’s not an active tweeter.

He said he is undecided how he wants to use the social-media device, lamenting keeping up with accounts takes a lot of time out of his day.

“You have to manage how many people you follow, otherwise it can be overwhelming,” Walsh said.

Bepple, Walsh and fellow Coun. Marg Spina all have Twitter accounts, while Mayor Peter Milobar is the newest local politician to join the group.

He said he started an account in August at the urging of his wife, who has been an active tweeter for months.

The mayor said his Twitter account isn’t intended to be all about politics.

Instead, he wants to mix in personal thoughts and even some business.

Milobar owns the newly opened Stag’s Head Liquor Store in Aberdeen.

He argued if social media is just being used for non-stop political advertising, people will just tune out the message.

However, it’s not only current councillors hopping on the social-media trend.

Former councillor and 2011 candidate Arjun Singh has been active in social media for years.

He’s sees Twitter and Facebook as quick ways to connect with people around the region in a personal way.

“It’s the content and information that you’re putting out through social media that ultimately becomes the key thing,” he said, adding it can be a powerful tool if the information is authentic and not overused.

Council candidate Donovan Cavers has also set up a Twitter account.

Social media might be able to take credit for the political uprising in the Middle East earlier this year, but it’s unlikely to lead to a revolution in Kamloops.

Nearly all the candidates approached for the story told KTW they intend to use social media to some degree in their campaign, but they also all agreed technology can’t take the place of face-to-face campaigning.

“One-on-one encounters at the end of the day, that’s what’s important in politics,” Bepple said.

Milobar said he feels better communicating face-to-face with voters, while Singh said there may be a false perception that social media is the one thing helping people get elected in recent years.

Twitter's Hands-Off Approach to Tweeted Terrorism

On Friday, hackers broke into the main Twitter account for NBC News and reported a terrorist attack on Ground Zero. Twitter acted fast, pulling the accounts of NBC and the Script Kiddies, the LulzSec-lookalikes that took credit for the attack, but the tweet stirred some anxiety in the days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11. This is hardly the first time that rogue tweets have stirred fear, and Twitter is drawing an increasing amount of scrutiny for the potential dangers of people using the service to incite violence. There are also new details about how the NBC News account was hacked in the first place (hint: don't click on mysterious files that strange emailers send you). All in all, though, the burgeoning social media company has not always been so quick to address the misinformation. Twitter is a boon for free speech around the world, but considering the security problems, it's also struggling with the consequences of free speech left unchecked.

The NBC News breach could've happened to anyone. MSNBC reports that Ryan Osborne, NBC's director of social media, received some suspicious emails in the days before the attack and, probably out of simple curiosity, opened an attachment that might have infected his computer with a Trojan horse. Once installed, this type of spyware can nab passwords by recording keyboard strokes. With a stolen password from Osborne, the Script Kiddies would have been able to take control of the account and tweet about terrorism or anything else they liked. The F.B.I. is meanwhile investigating the hack, but a government official told MSNBC, "The truth is it's relatively easy to get into these accounts."

Twitter doesn't exactly deflect the blame, and it's certainly not shouldering the responsibility for security breaches. We reached out to Twitter to ask how the company protects its users, especially news outlets with large followings, against security breaches. Twitter spokesperson Lynn Fox told The Atlantic Wire that it doesn't comment on individual user accounts and directed us to an official blog post on "Keeping your account safe." We then asked in an email if it would be safe to say that Twitter entrusts the security of individual accounts to the users who own the accounts. "I wouldn't say that," Fox replied and directed us to the last paragraph of that same blog post, that points to Twitter's account security help page and "an excellent safety and security checklist," which gives some good tips for users but says nothing about what the company does to prevent malevolent uses of accounts.

The company has been similarly dismissive about a recent flare-up of criticism over the misuse of Twitter in the London riots and violence in Mexico. Last week, news emerged about two "Twitter terrorists" who sent out false reports about attacks on a school in the Mexican city of Veracruz now face 30 years in prison. When we asked, Twitter would not comment on the specifics of that case.

"Our users' ability to express themselves is important to us and that freedom of expression is recognized internationally as a fundamental human right," Twitter said in a statement. "Our users' ability to express themselves is important to us and that freedom of expression is recognized internationally as a fundamental human right. Of course, we neither condone nor allow illegal content on Twitter and we evaluate reports on accounts that may violate our Terms of Service."

Twitter Unveils Web Analytics Tool, Expands Promoted Tweets

Twitter on Tuesday unveiled a new Web analytics tool that will help Web site owners keep track of Twitter-driven traffic. Separately, the company also announced plans to expand its Promoted Tweets platform.

Twitter now has 100 million users, many of whom are hoping that their tweets will help drive traffic to their Web sites. Until today, however, indepth analytics from the micro-blogging site wasn't available.

Part of the problem is that "Web analytics software hasn't evolved as quickly as online sharing and social signals," Twitter's Christopher Golda wrote in a blog post.

Twitter hopes to rectify that with its new Web analytics platform, which it unveiled today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

The offering is "a tool that helps Web site owners understand how much traffic they receive from Twitter and the effectiveness of Twitter integrations on their sites," Golda wrote.

Twitter Web Analytics is possible thanks to the company's June acquisition of BackType, of which Golda is a co-founder. BackType produced a product called BackTweets, which aided companies in understanding the influence of their 140-character messages, as well as Storm, a data-processing tool BackType called the "Hadoop of realtime processing."

Intel Oculus: Preparing Intel for Competition in Smartphones & Tablets

Intel has been quietly working on its plans for smartphones and tablets. This is a significant departure from the waves it was making just a couple of years ago. Failure to get any smartphone design wins with Atom and the failed MeeGo partnership with Nokia have pushed Intel back into a contemplative corner. Progress is still being made as you can see by this morning's announcement with Google, it's just not front and center until Intel finds itself in a device.

One area Intel has been working on is performance characterization. The setup above is what Intel calls Oculus. It's a high speed RED camera mounted above a platform that can accommodate a smartphone or tablet. Intel uses the camera in combination with a robotic arm to measure things like UI response time and animation smoothness. These types of characterizations have been very difficult to make based on currently available benchmarks (e.g. there are very few UI smoothness benchmarks) but are very important to quantifying the user experience of a platform.

Analysts look ahead to RIM's future prospects in competitive smartphone market

MONTREAL - A year without a new BlackBerry launch has hurt Research In Motion in the competitive North American marketplace, enough that even a decent quarterly financial performance might not dispel concerns about the company's long-term performance, analysts say.

"Our investment concern remains that RIM's existing products are not competitive to sustain market share over the long term," says National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson.

Research In Motion (TSX:RIM) will release its second-quarter results Thursday after markets close, with late summer sales of the updated BlackBerry Bold, Torch and Curve expected to help the Waterloo, Ont. company.

RIM has been late delivering some products in recent years, which has been noted by analysts as a competitive drawback. The PlayBook came late into the tablet game, well behind Apple's iPad and devices by other manufacturers powered by Google's Android operating system.

The last new RIM phone product line to debut was the BlackBerry Torch, with both a touch screen and pullout keyboard, in August 2010.

Upgraded BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch smartphones, which have improved operating systems, were rolled out last month.

"In North America, future buyers prefer the iPhone and Android nearly 20 to one over BlackBerry — a year without a new phone launch has hurt RIM," Thompson said in a research note.

As for RIM's new generation of BlackBerrys, expected to debut in 2012 or possibly late this year, Thompson said there's "limited visibility" into the road map for these devices.

RIM has said its next generation of BlackBerrys will have the same operating system as its PlayBook tablet. These smartphones are expected to be fully touchscreen friendly and act more like mobile computers.

Analysts' estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters are looking for RIM's second-quarter revenue to reach US$4.5 billion and earnings per share of 90 US cents.

Thompson said he expects adjusted EPS of 97 cents, before restructuring costs related to the layoff of 2,000 employees announced several months ago. He expects RIM to ship 11.9 million BlackBerrys during the quarter with an average selling price of $275.

However, Thompson has lowered his estimate for shipments of the PlayBook tablet to 450,000 units in the quarter from 860,000.

Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Robison said RIM's current sales may have little bearing on long-term prospects. Robison said RIM's updated BlackBerrys are "essentially equivalent to competitive offerings" from Apple and Android.

Android Beats iOS In European Smartphone Market Share, Still Behind Symbian

Europe is growing quite fond of Google’s Android operating system, according to market research firm ComScore. Android devices now account for nearly a quarter of all the smartphones used in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK — a dramatic jump over the Google OS’s performance last year.

In July 2010, Android only accounted for 6% of the smartphones used in those five European markets, putting it dead last behind Symbian, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. One year later, Android has zoomed past their rivals in Cupertino, and now is second only to Symbian in terms of market share.

Now, a full 22.3% of EU5 smartphones run on Android, a 16 point bump over last year. The most popular Android handsets are made by HTC, accounting for 34.6% of all devices, with Samsung hot on their heels at 31.7%.

Symbian’s hold on the lead is, at present, tenuous at best: while it powered more than half of the smartphones in the EU5 last year, usage has slipped to 37.8%, a drastic shift by any stretch. Given Android’s explosion in popularity, this could be Symbian’s last appearance in the top spot.

Meanwhile, Apple slips to third place with 20.3% of the market. They’ve benefitted from a very slight increase in market share over the last year, but that could all change soon. When Apple’s long-awaited iPhone 5 (or 4S, or whatever it ends up being called) launches, it’s likely to steal a bit of market share from all parties, perhaps securing them a second place finish next time around.

The entire landscape is in flux, and the chart below may not look anything like it does when ComScore’s next report pops up. Android will probably continue to pick up steam thanks to HTC and Samsung’s wide product lines, and Apple (as mentioned) will see a bump thanks to new hardware. Similarly, RIM’s forthcoming QNX BlackBerrys could help them pick up some steam, as could Microsoft’s WP7 Mango update.

5 Ways to Dump Your Old Handset Before the iPhone 5

Apple is expected to unveil the next iteration of the iPhone before the end of October. The new device, dubbed the iPhone 5, will reportedly have a beefed up camera and possibly an edge-to-edge display. If you're one of the expected millions of people planning on lining up for a new iPhone this fall, have you thought about what you're going to do with the handset you're carrying around in your pocket right now?

You may not realize it, but if you have an old iPhone, it could be worth a few hundred dollars. And you don't even have to sell it for cash. You can turn your old handset into a copy of Gears of War 3 or Star Wars: The Old Republic at GameStop. If gaming isn't your thing, how about a gift card from Wal-Mart, Target or online electronics retailer Newegg?

Here are five ways to convert your old iPhone (or almost any other old smartphone) into a new gadget, game or plain old cash.

How to get started with Turntable.fm for iPhone

We told you about Turntable.fm's new approach to the music service scene back in June. The service is fun, interactive, and has really caught on since.

Today Turntable.fm released its first mobile app. It's built for the iPhone and is available in the App Store [iTunes link]. We are going to show you how to get started with the mobile app. Read on for more.

Before you attempt to use the mobile app, make sure you have access to the Web site. Turntable.fm isn't open to the public quite yet, it still requires that you have a Facebook friend who is a member of Turntable.fm before you are granted access. If you do have access, go ahead and download and install the iOS app.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)

After you log in to Turntable.fm using your Facebook credentials, you will be shown a list of the available rooms, in order of popularity. You can create a room of your own, search for a room, or enter any room listed all from this initial screen. Tap on the room you would like to join to enter it.

Read more at http://howto.cnet.com/how-to-get-started-with-turntable.fm-for-iphone/8301-11310_39-20105581-285.html

iPhone 4 demand remains strong while anticipation for iPhone 5 grows

The results of a recent ChangeWave survey conducted in August shows a strong interest in Apple's next-generation iPhone hardware. Dubbed the "iPhone 5," it is widely expected to be unveiled by Apple in the next few weeks and will likely ship by mid-October. Meanwhile, demand for the iPhone 4, which has now been on the market for well over 12 months, seems to continue unabated.

ChangeWave surveyed 2,200 potential smartphone buyers at the behest of RBC Capital to gauge the interest in Apple's newest hardware, according to Fortune. Nearly one-third of the respondents were either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to buy an iPhone 5 when Apple makes it available. In comparison, just 25 percent of respondents were planning an iPhone 4 purchase in a similar survey conducted last June. The high demand echoes results from an earlier ChangeWave survey from June, which showed a strong preference for iPhones over Android and RIM devices among those surveyed.

RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky characterized the results as "unprecedented iPhone 5 demand." We tend to agree, especially given the fact that the device is expected to be a minor update to the current iPhone 4 design.

One factor that may be increasing the demand over the last upgrade cycle is the longer time between hardware updates. Apple has typically released a new iPhone in late June or early July ever since the first iPhone was introduced in 2007. The extra few months this time around will allow many iPhone 4 buyers to qualify for an early subsidized upgrade. Another factor may be the expected release of the iPhone on Sprint and possibly T-mobile. Over half of the survey respondents currently on Sprint or T-mobile said they would be interested in the iPhone 5 if it became available on their carrier of choice.

Despite the higher demand for an updated iPhone, however, demand for the current iPhone 4 hasn't shown any signs of the typical drop in the months leading up to summer. In the past, sales typically peaked in Apple's fiscal forth quarter (July, August, September) just as new iPhone hardware was released. Sales would taper down the following quarters until a new model was released a year later.

Apple wants to press pause on patent suits, calls Motorola a lame duck

In what could turn out to be a very expensive lesson in minding one's mouth, Apple plans to use Google's and Motorola's own words against them in court. Over the weekend, Cupertino's lawyers filed two motions to stay in patent-related litigation with Moto, claiming the OEM's pending merger renders its patent suits indefensible. According to Apple's legal team, the proposed Motorola Mobility acquisition effectively transfers patent control over to Google, an allegation that public-facing statements from both companies seem to corroborate. Citing the potential waste of resources and probable reversal of future pre-merger settlements, the house that Jobs built is hoping to hold off on the court room fisticuffs until after the GoogMo consolidation is settled.

Motorola Droid Bionic Review: It’s Superfast, But…

It's funny, the way that Motorola keeps awkwardly scraping away at the future of computing. The Atrix was a phone with a dual-core processor-like your laptop!—that also turned into a laptop. The Droid Bionic is the next step—a dual-core transforming thing of a phone, but it pulls down realinternet from the sky.

Why It Matters
Verizon 4G LTE + dual-core processor. That's why it matters. This thing hums like Frank Sinatra with his lips sewn shut. Verizon has had 4G LTE phones, and it's had dual-core phones, but this is the phone that has both. It's also the thinnest LTE smartphone on the market—and did we mention it turns into a laptop? In short, Motorola's giving us another taste of the future of computing, even if it manages to ensure the experience of using the whole thing still crashes back to here, in 2011.

Using It
The screen does not look good. It's grainy and has an oddly visible cross-hatch pattern, thanks to the PenTile display. What it lacks in clarity, though, it makes up for in brightness. The Bionic has the brightest screen I've ever tested, which makes it extremely usable even in bright sunlight. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for watching movies or viewing photos (though you can always use this to stream video to an HDTV via HDMI or DLNA), but if you spend a lot of time outdoors, this might off-set that.

Battery life, like on all 4G LTE phones, is not so hot. With medium to heavy use the phone was usually dead by mid-afternoon. If you switch LTE off, though, and just use 3G/CDMA, it should last you into the night. For that reason I say leave it in 3G then use a toggle app to switch to 4G when you need it——even though it does kill half the reason you're buying this thing. Still, if you aggressively micro-manage, you'll get the speed when it counts and you should make it through the whole day on a single charge.

The software side of things is a weird mix. It's Android 2.3.4 with Motorola software that runs slightly more than skin deep. They don't call it MotoBlur anymore-you can call a dead raccoon Jessica Alba, but that won't make me want to make out with it. In the video you can see I put LauncherPro on it, and the user experience improved by 200 percent. Which, you know, consumers shouldn't have to do to their phones. It comes with some great software if you're a business user, and a lot of useless bloatware if you're anybody else-which you can't remove unless you root it. (And yes, Android nerds, the Bootloader is locked down.)

With Zagat, Google Could Eat Rivals' Lunch

NEW YORK (Trefis) -- Google's(GOOG _) purchase of Zagat, a 32-year-old company best know for its restaurant guides, clearly suggests that the search giant is aggressively pursuing growth in its local merchant-based offerings, i.e., Google Offers.

Lately some companies have become skeptical of the long-term viability of "daily deals" offerings. Facebook recently shut down Facebook Deals, and Yelp recently scaled down its operations significantly.

But with its Zagat aquisition, Google has made it clear that it's well-armed to counter other big names in the local deals business such as Groupon and LivingSocial.

The acquisition would also help Google compete with restaurant reservation sites such as OpenTable(OPEN _).

Zagat's Reputation, Reach Are Threats to Google's Competitors
Zagat is a well thought-out strategic acquisition that should help Google Offers counter competition in two big ways:

Tablet Wars: Will Windows 8 Give Microsoft the Edge Over Google and Apple?

The tablet wars will undoubtedly heat up when Microsoft ships Windows 8 next year. The developer preview of Windows 8--unveiled today at the BUILD Windows conference in Anaheim--underscores how Microsoft’s new OS is nothing like what we're used to seeing.

Microsoft finally looks poised to deliver the touch-friendly operating system that the Windows universe has craved for a decade. That said, the company doesn't have a clear sure bet. Microsoft has a host of challenges ahead if it wants to go toe-to-toe with Apple and Google on tablets.

Currently, using Windows on a tablet is very much the same experience as using it on a desktop. Windows is not at all prepared for the navigational challenges of using your fingers to get about. (An add-on software pack doesn't help enough.) The current Windows tablets, including models from Fujitsu, Motion Computing, and ViewSonic, have primarily targeted businesses and markets that require compatibility with existing custom Windows software. But these tablets have had limited appeal to consumers enamored with the stylized, clean interfaces introduced with Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems.

Windows 8 now blows away the distinction between consumer and business tablet, simply by changing the fundamental basics of how we use Windows, and what the Windows front door looks like. No, Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore.
It's All About the Interface

Let's face it: One of the things about iOS that caught everyone off guard when it first debuted five years ago was that it looked so fundamentally different than any other computing interface. Using the iPhone, and later, the iPad, was downright fun as you swiped, tapped, and glided your way through navigation and options.

Windows has long lacked a comparative “whiz-bang” factor. Its drab, gray dialog boxes and angular windows have made the OS feel dated for a long time. With Windows 8, Windows gets its whiz-bang back--and does so through touch-friendly design aesthetics that will appeal to mobile-phone-influenced consumer tastes.

At the heart of Windows 8 is the new Start screen, a sophisticated, clean design with a face dominated by large, finger-friendly tiles that practically invite you to touch them. The tiles are in the “Metro” style, first defined in the Windows Phone 7 interface, and those tiles translate well to the tablet.

Water district taps Google for good coverage

Readers who type "Central Basin Municipal Water District" into Google News get a series of upbeat articles.

One story hails the benefits of Central Basin's new recycled water system. Another piece praises the agency's legal battle over groundwater rights. Others catalog the successes of its conservation programs.

What the average reader doesn't know is that Central Basin is paying nearly $200,000 in taxpayer money for the glowing coverage. In a highly unusual move, the water district hired a consultant to produce promotional stories "written in the image of real news," according to agreements reviewed by The Times.

The articles appear on a professional-looking news website called News Hawks Review. The site is indexed on Google News, carries its own advertisements and boasts an "experienced and highly knowledgeable" staff of editors and reporters. But records show it is directly affiliated with a corporate communications firm under contract with Central Basin.

It's fairly common for celebrities and private-sector businesses to game search engines to generate positive buzz or better sales. But Web experts said they had never heard of a public entity employing such a strategy to increase its visibility online. They also question whether Google would continue to classify News Hawks Review as a "news channel" if it knew the articles were paid for by the district.

District officials have portrayed the arrangement as innovative, noting that people who type "water conservation," or "recycled water" on Google News are now more likely to find stories about Central Basin.

Valerie Howard, the district's public affairs manager, said the news stories have resulted in a "huge spike" in traffic to Central Basin's main website and proved far more effective than traditional press releases.

Another nail in the coffin of Google’s global library

The Google Print Library Project sounded like such a brilliant idea when it was first launched in 2004: The search giant said it had partnered with a group of prominent universities and would scan millions of out-of-print and hard-to-get books — in effect, creating a vast digital library of more than 15 million volumes that would be available to anyone. Then reality hit, in the form of a lawsuit by publishers and authors, saying the company didn’t have the right to scan their books. A settlement agreement, which took years to hammer out, was thrown out by the courts last year, and now the Author’s Guild is suing the universities that originally partnered with Google for copyright infringement. It’s another nail in the coffin of Google’s global library.

The Author’s Guild in the U.S. and its counterparts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Quebec have filed the suit, along with a group of individual authors, claiming that their rights are being infringed by the book-scanning and indexing that several universities — including the University of California and Cornell University — have been engaging in, both with Google and on their own. The lawsuit also names the HathiTrust, a nonprofit entity created by a number of universities, including Harvard and the Library of Congress, to manage the digital collections created by the book-scanning project.

Google Aims Dart To Kill JavaScript

JavaScript is a critical component for modern Web applications. It's one of the most popular programming languages and is widely used for tasks like validating input in Web apps or creating animated visual effects, as well as for more complicated application logic.

Google, however, believes that JavaScript, an implementation of ECMAScript standard, is fundamentally flawed and can't be fixed at a speed that matches its development ambitions. The company plans next month to announce a new programming language called Dart that it hopes will eventually replace JavaScript.

Google declined to provide further details about Dart in advance of the official announcement, scheduled to be delivered at the GOTO conference in October. But a document describing Google's position was published last November. The post, from Mark S. Miller, a Google engineer and designer of the E and Caja programming languages, who also serves as a representative to the ECMAScript committee, was sent to an internal Google developer mailing list. It was co-authored by Miller and over a dozen other Google engineers, including Lars Bak, who is scheduled to introduce Dart next month.

The executive summary notes that JavaScript "has fundamental flaws that cannot be fixed merely by evolving the language" and describes a two-pronged strategy to address the situation.

Google plans to continue to participate in the development ofHarmony, a future version of ECMAScript that's being spearheaded by the ECMA T39 standards group.

At the same time, Google plans to release and promote Dart, formerly called Dash. "The goal of the Dash effort is ultimately to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of Web development on the open Web platform," Miller's post states.

The first Web application written using Dart that we're likely to see from Google is a cloud IDE known by the codename "Brightly," according to Miller's summary. Presumably, Brightly is based on the code for Writely, the online document creation app that Google acquired in 2006 and later turned into Google Docs.

IDEs, or integrated development environments, are tricked-out text editors for writing code, with tools for compiling, debugging, and the like. Mozilla has offered a Web-based IDE called Bespin since 2009, but Google, for all its promotion of Web-based apps, has yet to release one.

Dart has been designed with three main goals: performance, developer usability, and support for tooling. Performance is obviously necessary: No one would want to use a programming language that produces slow, inefficient apps. Developer usability is necessary to match the usability of JavaScript, which is popular with programmers of varying abilities. If Google creates a language that's too complicated, it will remain a niche tool and have only marginal influence on Web development. Support for tooling is necessary because large projects, such as Google Apps, often require special extensions that support code refactoring or locating subroutine calls.

Miller's summary also notes that security is important, though less so than the three main goals: "Dash is also designed to be securable, where that ability does not seriously conflict with the three main goals," the document says.

Google to Offer More Privacy for Owners of Wi-Fi Routers

BERLIN — Google on Tuesday defused a clash with European privacy regulators by announcing that it would give the owners of residential Wi-Fi routers around the world the option of removing their devices from a registry Google uses to locate cellphone users.

The change comes less than four months after European regulators warned that the unauthorized use of data sent by Wi-Fi routers, which can broadcast the names, locations and identities of cellphones within their range, violated European law.

“Google in this case is only doing voluntarily what they would probably have been forced to do under German and European law anyway,” said Ulrich Börger, a privacy lawyer in Hamburg at Latham & Watkins, a U.S. firm.

Google’s concession, while motivated by Europe’s stricter privacy laws, will have an impact beyond the Continent’s borders because Google plans to offer the option around the world, including in the United States.

The move also comes little more than a year after it angered European officials by collecting unencrypted Internet data from residential Wi-Fi routers while compiling its StreetView maps. The company apologized for collecting the data, which it attributed to a programmer’s error, and has since settled most national complaints by paying fines or making simple apologies.

In a blog post, Peter Fleischer, the Google global privacy counsel, said the company only used Wi-Fi access points that did not identify people by name.

“At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google’s location services,” Mr. Fleischer wrote. “Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.”

Mr. Fleischer said Google intended to introduce the opt-out system this autumn.

The mobile business, especially in Europe, is becoming increasingly important to Google, which earns the bulk its money through advertising, as computing shifts from desktop PCs to smartphones and tablet computers.

In Europe, the search engine leader is being investigated by competition officials for allegedly calculating its rankings to disadvantage smaller, rival engines, a charge the company has denied.

Google makes the Android mobile operating system, No.1 in the world in the second quarter with 48 percent share of all new cellphone shipments, according to Canalys, a research firm in Reading, England. Last month, Google said it would buy the mobile phone business of Motorola for $12.5 billion.

Intel Unveils Google Partnership, Ultrabook Details at IDF

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel executives are continuing to push their mobile computing efforts on multiple fronts, including with a newly announced partnership with Google to optimize the Android operating system for the chip maker’s Atom processor platform.

In his opening keynote Sept. 13 at the first day of the Intel Developer Forum, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said the partnership with Google will be a key part of his company’s smartphone plans, with the first Intel-based smartphones due out in the first half of 2012.

“The first phones … will be all Android-based, hence the important of the Google partnership,” Otellini said during a question-and-answer period with journalists and analysts after the talk.

Otellini was joined on stage by Andy Rubin, senior vice president of mobile for Google, and the two showed off a prototype smartphone running Intel’s “Medfield” chip and the Android “Honeycomb” operating system.

The Google partnership came during a talk by Otellini that continued the computing continuum message he first brought up at the IDF in 2009. The idea is that users are looking to have a consistent and secure computing experience that can move from device to device without interruption, and Otellini outlined the way Intel is pushing toward that goal.

“The era of ubiquitous computing is now here, and it’s well-established,” he said.

Intel’s ultrabrook strategy, first broached during the Computex show in May, is a key part of the strategy. Intel executives see ultrabooks as very thin and light laptops that offer many of the features of tablets—from long battery life to instant-on capabilities—and the advantages of traditional notebooks around such areas as productivity and compatibility with other systems.

Otellini said such OEMs as Asus, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba are already beginning to ship—or will ship before the holiday season—the first wave of ultrabooks powered by current 2nd Generation Core processors. The next round will come in 2012 and will run on Intel’s upcoming 22-nanometer “Ivy Bridge” chips, he said.

Google Introduces Flight Search

Google made further inroads into the travel category Tuesday with the quiet launch of Flight Search, a web-based tool that lets you find and book flights.

Google provided what it called an “early look” at the service on Tuesday with flights to and from a handful of cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Minneapolis. Participating airlines include Delta, JetBlue, Continental and American.

Flight Search is a more user friendly version of a service Google launched in May. It offered flight info when you typed “flights from [a city] to [another city]” in the Google search window.

Google made its first formal foray into that segment last July with the $700 million purchase of ITA, developer of the airfare search and pricing system QPX that is used by major airlines.

Formspring Launches iPhone App For Its Personal Q-And-A Service

Question and answer start-up Formspring is launching its first iPhone app. The company has carved out a different focus from others in the space such as Quora, by focusing on questions and answers about personal topics particularly between friends.

Quora is known more for trying to come to an answer on a topic of some type of public importance, whereas Formspring focuses more on personal questions. Launched in November 2009, Formspring has grown quickly and now has 30 million monthly unique vistors and “tens of millions” of active members. The site is more conversational than other services such as Quora, Olonoh says. ”Lots of people use Formspring as way to quickly catch up with friends and ask questions and get to know them better,” says Formspring founder and CEO Ade Olonoh.

The iOS app also includes the ability to post pictures, as an answer or as part of a question. Olonoh believes the mobile app, with photos will be a big driver of traffic on the service, since people can quickly ask or answer questions in a few spare minutes on their phones. The app includes the ability to ask questions to iPhone contacts, even those who are not Formspring members.

Looking for a Lawyer? Look no Further Than Your iPhone with iSeekLaw

Burbank, California (PRWEB) September 13, 2011

www.iseeklaw.com, an innovative new legal resource for tech savvy consumers, has announced a recent update of iSeekLaw for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices running on iOS 4.0 or later. Updated to improve usability, the veritable lawyer search engine delivers hundreds of law firms' profiles to users anywhere and at any time. iSeekLaw version 2.3 can either aggregate a list of random law firms or local lawyers - based on the user's location - or users can actively search out the exact type of legal assistance they need by filtering searches according to 15 different criteria. The app includes PR posting and blog integration tools to help lawyers present themselves to prospective clients effectively as well. iSeekLaw version 2.3 is currently available for download on the Apple App Store for free in the Reference category.

iSeekLaw revolutionizes the way consumers go about finding lawyers. The app is a dynamic network that organizes legal firms for users quickly, and perhaps most importantly, gives them the tools to find lawyers that match both their legal concerns as well as their expectations. Other legal resources such as Lawyers.com, Avvo.com, Findlaw.com, and others provide users with fairly stagnant lists of law practices and force them to waste valuable time finding what they want. By contrast, iSeekLaw offers users a flexible search engine that filters results through up to 15 unique criteria. These filters include everything from experience level, reputation, and legal focus, to practical knowledge important to consumers such as whether or not a given firm offers free consultations or flat rates, and more!

Read more at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/13/prweb8787887.DTL#ixzz1XsT92BY7

Game That Critiques Apple Vanishes From App Store

Is Apple back on the banning bandwagon?

On Tuesday, Paolo Pedercini, a game designer and professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, announced the availability of a 99-cent game for the iPhone that, in a cartoony way, critiqued the cost, both to the environment and to humanity, of producing mobile devices like the iPhone. It was not available for very long.

The game, called Phone Story, followed the life cycle of a smartphone, from the mining of metals in Africa that are needed for the chips in the phones, to factories in China, where the devices are manufactured. BLN, a business blog, posted screenshots from the app, one of which indicates that in part of the game the objective was to catch factory workers who are attempting to commit suicide. Mr. Pedercini planned to donate any revenues generated from the game to organizations dedicated to protecting labor rights and other groups that “are working to stop the horrors represented in the game.”

“The story was meant to generate some discussion about hardware and our socioeconomic impact as consumers of electronics,” he said. “But now it’s becoming more about market censorship.”

The application was released into the App Store on Saturday, but was removed on Tuesday after Mr. Pedercini started promoting it online and through Twitter, he said. Earlier this morning, Mr. Pedercini posted a celebratory tweet about the release of the application that read: “Announcing Phone Story: the anti-iPhone game for iPhone.” Roughly three hours later, the company posted another message that said the app had been removed .

Mr. Pedercini has released several politically charged in the past, including ones that targeted the fast food and oil industries. In addition, he’s also made artsier, conceptual games that raises questions about existence and the meaning of life. Most of his prior creations were designed to be played in a browser. He said that he decided to make the Phone Story game an application as a way to remind players of “the social impact of their device.”

He said that the game employed a bit of “dark humor” to get his point across, and he hoped it would help ignite discussions about consumerism and the lust for the latest new gadget. He said he did not expect it to get yanked from the App Store just hours after he began promoting it.

Tom Neumyar, a spokesman for Apple, confirmed that the company pulled the app out of the store on Tuesday.

“We removed the app because it violates our developer guidelines,” he said. He declined to elaborate.

Mr. Pedercini said that a developer relations representative from Apple called him to explain how the app violated the guidelines. He said that Apple had cited stipulations that any apps that depict crude and objectionable content, or the abuse of children, will be rejected. In addition, the rules specify that apps cannot be used to collect donations.

Sprint staff reportedly briefed on iPhone 4 for October launch

Sprint will begin selling the iPhone 4 in October, according to a new report fromTUAW’s Erica Sadun. The report comes from a Sprint Nextel sales associate who has been briefed on the iPhone 4′s arrival, which will be available with Sprint’s standard data plans, plus the carrier’s $10 premium that applies to all smartphones.

Earlier, both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal had reported that Sprint would begin offering the iPhone in October, and Bloomberg asserted that the iPhone would be available with Sprint’s unlimited data plan. Unlike those reports, TUAW’s account Tuesday says that only the iPhone 4 will arrive on Sprint in October, and that the iPhone 5 won’t make it to the network until around early spring 2012. If that’s true, and we see the iPhone 5 arrive on Verizon and AT&T next month, that could dampen any advantage Sprint might have gained by pairing the Apple smartphone with unlimited data.

The report coincides with news that France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard has hinted that the still unannounced iPhone 5 could arrive October 15. He made statements to that effect during a press event Tuesday, saying “If I believe what we’ve been told, the iPhone 5 will be released Oct. 15.”

Read more at http://gigaom.com/apple/sprint-staff-reportedly-briefed-on-iphone-4-for-october-launch/

iPhone 4 mod makes the Apple logo glow

Want to make your iPhone 4 stand out from the crowd? Sure, you can dress it up in a fancy case (or even one with a custom photo), but if you really want to turn heads, check out the iPhone 4 Rear Apple Illumination Modification.

The name may not be sexy, but the mod definitely is: it makes your iPhone's Apple logo glow. And not some weak, greenish, glow-in-the-dark phosphorescence, but a brilliant, white, powered luminosity--much like what you see on the lids of Apple's MacBooks.

Sounds pretty slick, right? U.K.-based iPatch, an iPhone repair service, plans to release the mod next month at a yet-to-be-determined price. The company estimates £50 to £100, "depending on mass production costs," which works out to $80 to $160.

That's pretty steep, and it doesn't include labor: the mod will be made available only to "trained repairers," meaning you'll probably have to part with your iPhone to get the work done.

What, exactly, does the mod involve? For starters, it replaces the rear glass plate, but adds no thickness to your phone. iPatch also notes that it creates "no noticeable drop in battery performance," nor does it produce any heat or cause any interference with the flash.

Read more at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20105389-233/iphone-4-mod-makes-the-apple-logo-glow/#ixzz1XsSOuEdD

Turntable.fm Launches iPhone App [REVIEW]

Good news for all you Turntable fiends. One of the most requested features for the social music app — an iPhone version – launched Tuesday in the App Store.

Yes, that’s right: you can now listen, rack up those DJ points and chat from anywhere you happen to have your iPhone (though if you happen to be on the john, as one of my fellow DJs told me today, it’s probably best not to share.)

If you’re not familiar with Turntable — well, first of all, where have you been? Mashable has been rocking its own Turntable room with stellar guest DJs every Friday this summer, and we’ll be picking it up again this fall.

Secondly, Turntable.fm is easily the most addictive (and social) music service ever. In each room, avatars stand in front of a DJ booth, where five lucky souls can step up and spin tunes in turn (one from each, then back to the first DJ). Most songs you can think of are in the Turntable database already, but if not, you can upload them. You can hit “lame” or “awesome” on the like-o-meter; enough “lame”s and the song will skip, but an “awesome” will make you bob your head and give the DJ points, which they can then trade in for a bigger and cooler avatar. And all the while, folks in the room are nattering away in a chat window, proving once again that the best way to be social with strangers is to have something specific — like a song — to talk about.

That’s the browser version of Turntable. How does the iPhone version stack up so far? Good in some ways, quite buggy in others.

Visually, the Stickybits team has done a great job of packing everything in to the small screen. It actually seems easier on the iPhone to scroll down the list of rooms people have created (the list loads as you scroll). Step into a room, and it looks exactly like a Turntable room should. Even packed with avatars, it’s not significantly slower. My iPhone 3GS was able to render a 200-avatar room with no problem; the music didn’t skip and the head-bobbing was smooth.

Samsung tablets running Windows 8 Developer Preview given out at BUILD

It’s no surprise after this morning’s leak, but Microsoft just officially gave everyone at BUILD a special Samsung-built slate preloaded with the Windows 8 Developer Preview. The Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC is essentially a Series 7 tablet with some added sensors, and it’s running a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M — it seems Microsoft isn’t quite ready to hand out ARM-based tablets just yet. As with the Series 7, the tablet features an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 Super PLS display, USB and HDMI ports, a microSD slot, and support for pen input — the external dock / charging station offers USB, HDMI, and Ethernet connectivity as well. There’s also an AT&T 3G modem, and Microsoft is including a year of 2GB / month service, which is pretty nice. Those added sensors are the usual fare: a gyroscope, compass, GPS, and NFC for that new tap-to-share feature. That’s some pretty hefty hardware, and as with other Intel tablets, there’s nothing particularly small about this package — it weighs in at two pounds and 12.9mm thick.

Winklevoss twins poke Facebook fun with nut ad

LOS ANGELES — Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have shown a sense of humor -- and made a little extra cash presumably -- by starring in an ad for pistachios poking fun at their notorious Facebook legal battle.

The identical twins, who waged an epic battle with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg over whether he stole their idea for the social networking site, appear in bright green neckties in the advert.

Seated behind a desk with signs saying "Mr. Winklevoss" and "Mr. Winklevoss," one cracks a pistachio with his fingers -- prompting his brother to comment: "Hey, that?s a good idea."

"What? says the other.

"Cracking them like that. Could be huge.

"Think someone will steal it?" questions his sibling, before the pair, turning straight-faced to camera, ask in unison: "Who'd do that?"

The twin brothers accused Zuckerberg of duping them by stealing their idea while they were students together at Harvard, a story recounted in the box office hit movie "The Social Network."

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish 'Facebook' separates the sexes

(CNN) - Showing that modernity might, just might, find its place even in a world predisposed to the most traditional of customs, in walks FaceGlat: an ultra-Orthodox Jewish answer, at least for some, to Facebook.

Among the most conservative of Orthodox Jews, often referred to as Haredi Jews, modesty reigns. Women wear long sleeves and skirts, and they cover their hair after marriage. Men dress as their ancestors did centuries ago. The genders are separated in synagogues, on wedding dance floors and, in certain neighborhoods, on buses.

CNN reported this year on one community newspaper that went so far as to erase women from an iconic news photograph, all in an effort to uphold its values. The paper later apologized, not for its beliefs about modesty and featuring women in photographs but for how the matter was handled.

So social media – which, in the case of Facebook, invite sharing, tagging and gawking at photographs, among other interactions – may not be the most welcoming space for people with this kind of faith.

A 20-something self-taught website builder out of Israel, Yaakov Swisa, seems to be trying to change this.

Ynetnews, an English-language Israeli news site, reported in late July the establishment of FaceGlat, a Swisa-made social network that segregates men and women, blocks immodest advertisements and pictures, and uses a filter to keep language in comments and status updates clean.

“People who are God-fearing and care about their children’s education cannot tolerate the ads and pictures one sees on the regular Facebook,” Ynetnews wrote, quoting Swisa. “I personally know people who have deteriorated spiritually because of all kinds of things they were introduced to there.”

The name FaceGlat is a blending of Facebook with the word glatt, as in “glatt kosher,” the highest level of kosher when it comes to Jewish dietary laws surrounding meat.

FaceGlat, Ynetnews reported Swisa as saying, is “not an alternative for Facebook” but rather “a cleaner option for those who are already there. If it encourages people to open accounts or waste their time instead of studying Torah – it’s a failure. It’s not worth a thing. I promised myself that if that happened I would close it down.”

According to a Le Monde report, posted late last week on Worldcrunch, a still-open FaceGlat has more than 2,000 users and is getting about 100 new accounts per week.

Le Monde said Swisa is administering his fledgling site with “a lot of improvisation.” And even though upon signing up with FaceGlat, members are separated by gender into two distinct networks (click left to join the women, right to join the men), the French newspaper reported that Swisa is looking to purchase software that will automatically find and delete photographs revealing too much skin. Le Monde also said that although his website is available in English and Hebrew, Swisa plans to translate it into Russian and French.

“Orthodox Jews need the Internet, at home and at work alike,” Swisa told Le Monde. “My website allows them to browse freely, while offering maximum security.”

Facebook changes Friends Lists

Facebook will be changing the way it handles its friends lists, the feature that lets users sort their friends into broad categories and share content selectively.

The site already allows users to sort friends into lists, but since that functionality wasn’t built in from the beginning, many people haven’t taken advantage of the option.

According to a blog post from the social network, Facebook has built in three new list features that will be available to all users this week. Smart lists automatically populate groups based on those who have the same workplace listed as you, those who’ve attended the same school as you, family members, and friends who live nearby. Users will be able to add or remove friends manually and will be able to share with selective groups straight from a post.

“Lists have existed for several years, but you’ve told us how time-consuming it is to organize lists for different parts of your life and keep them up to date,” wrote Facebook’s Blake Ross. Now, Facebook will also make it easy to add someone to a particular friends list when you make your first connection.

The network is also rolling out “close friends” and “acquaintances” lists that you control and that affect what shows up in your news feed. Adding someone to the “acquaintances” list effectively mutes their posts in your news feed except for big events, “like when they get married or move to a new city,”Ross wrote.

Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail Rule Android Roost: Nielsen

What applications are the most popular on the Android platform? Answer: Many of the same apps that are popular on the desktop Web, which of course includes the major Google apps.

Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android Market app leads with a 90 percent active reach, or the percentage of Android smartphone owners who used an app within the last 30 days, according to new research from Nielsen.

Google Maps, Facebook, Gmail and Google Search all have between 72 percent and almost 75 percent penetration, said the researcher, which parsed data from usage meters on thousands of Android smartphones.

These findings mirror the bulk of usage on the wired Web, where Facebook is the leading social network with over 750 million users. Nielsen said Facebook users totaled 53 billion minutes on the social network during May.

Google meanwhile commands fewer than 65 percent search share, is the leading online map provider, and powers the Gmail app that ranks only behind Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Hotmail in Webmail usage worldwide.

The fact that Google is able to extend its desktop purview to the mobile Web bodes well for the company, which aims to dominant mobile search and display ads just as it does search and display ads on the desktop.

Ooyala lets publishers sell, rent premium video on Facebook

Ooyala has announced Ooyala Social, a new HD-quality Social TV experience that lets Facebook users share video with their friends and family, live chat while viewing, discover new content, and watch video across multiple screens. Ooyala is hoping broadcasters, distributors, and Hollywood studios will use the new product to make premium on-demand and live video widely available on Facebook.

Ooyala Social supports a number of business models, including rentals, subscriptions, purchases, and advertising. The solution also allows group-activated screenings, making it possible for content owners to unlock specific content if a target number of people log into Facebook to watch. Last but not least, it has tools that enable media companies to grow audiences, boost viewer engagement, and add new revenue streams

Facebook Page Calls for Action Against Israeli Embassy in Amman

A Facebook page created over the weekend calls for a march Thursday targeting Israel's embassy in Amman, Jordan, just days after a similar protest in Cairo, Egypt, resulted in a 13-hour rampage that trashed the Israeli diplomatic compound there.

"Our motto: No Zionist embassy on Jordanian territory," the Facebook page reads. Nearly 2,500 people have pledged to attend the protest in Jordan, with Israeli news reports suggesting protestors could break into the embassy and take down the Israeli flag.

Jordanian officials are said to be preparing for the worst. But Facebook, which has a clear policy against hate speech and violence, said the protest page conforms with the social network's terms of service, according to company spokesman Andrew Noyes.

Read more at http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/13/facebook-page-calls-for-action-against-israeli-embassy-in-amman/#ixzz1XsPJwWnk

Facebook Revamps Friend Lists [PICS]

Facebook is launching a massive upgrade of its Friend Lists feature in an effort to make it more useful for users.

The feature, which debuted in 2007, is currently used by less than 5% of users, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The revamp is designed to make Friend Lists easier to manage and and more popular.

The changes include Smart Lists, sharing content to lists, consuming content from lists and two new lists: “Close Friends” and “Acquaintances.” Facebook has been testing these features for the past few days and intends to roll it out to all users in the coming weeks.

The problem with current solutions for organizing friends (i.e. Google+ Circles) is that users simply don’t enjoy taking the time to organize their friends into groups, Facebook Product Manager Blake Ross told Mashable. So Facebook decided to find a way to automatically curate Friend Lists on behalf of the user.

The result is Smart Lists and suggestions. Smart Lists automatically creates lists for city, work, family and school. You can, for example, create a list of friends that live within 50 miles of your location. You can then use that list to find out what’s happening nearby or share local parties with local friends without bugging friends in another city.

Best Buy kinda blames Apple for weak quarterly smartphone sales

Big box retailer Best Buy has blamed its poor performance in its most recent quarter on the lack of demand for smartphones. According to the company, mobile phone sales were down 5 percent year over year, thanks "to industry softness driven by the lack of significant new phone launches during the quarter relative to the prior-year period."

While it may be hard to fathom that people are buying fewer smartphones now than they did last year, many retailers were hoping that Apple would release a new version of its iPhone smartphone in the summer, as it had done for the previous four years. When that didn't happen, retailers were left scrambling to make up for the loss of expected sales.

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Tuesday, 13 September 2011