Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Mozy Releases File-Syncing for Its Cloud Service”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Mozy Releases File-Syncing for Its Cloud Service”

Mozy Releases File-Syncing for Its Cloud Service

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 04:59 AM PST


Online data storage service Mozy has unveiled a new file synchronization feature for consumers and businesses to keep data up to date across all devices, from smartphones and tablets to computers.

Called Stash, the feature allows Mozy users to backup and protect files against catastrophes, as well as give people a way to access their data anytime, anywhere.

The beauty of Stash is that there’s not much that needs to be done to make use of it. After installing the platform on a computer, it links a local folder with your Stash online. You can then add files to the local folder and access it via Mozy’s site or mobile app. When it’s linked to a computer, any changes made are synched up to the rest of your devices. Photos and videos can also be uploaded to Stash from your mobile phone or tablet.

The Stash beta service is available now for MozyHome customers with a 2 GB free, 50 GB or 125 GB plan. Stash runs on Microsoft Windows (XP and later) and Apple Mac OS X (10.5 Leopard and later). To access the beta version of the service, MozyHome customers can visit their account settings and select the Stash Beta page.

“We’ve been seeing a huge increase in interest and double-digit growth, which is just testament to consumers and businesses that they are becoming even more comfortable using the cloud,” Gytis Barzdukas, Mozy's director of product management, told Mashable. “People understand the concept now and have faith in its security, which is why we wanted to expand our services file synchronization on any device, regardless of where you are.”

More About: cloud, Mozy

Solar Storm Puts Beautiful Northern Lights on Display [VIDEO]

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 03:18 AM PST


The solar storm that showered the Earth on Tuesday, Jan. 24, was one of the strongest such occurrences in recent years.

It was only a minor nuisance for people on Earth, but for some, it was a great chance to catch northern lights or aurora borealis, a natural light effect caused by the collision of solar particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.

One of the most beautiful such videos comes from Helge Mortensen who captured the nature’s light show in Norway.

The solar radiation storm was classified by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center as “strong” or S3, and is now considered the largest since October 2003.

As a bonus, check out this stunning NASA video showing a closeup of the M8.7 class solar flare which occurred on Jan. 22 and caused the solar storm two days later.

[via Space.com]

More About: northern lights, solar storm, trending

Google Offers Expands to Five New Cities

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 01:31 AM PST


Google’s daily deals service, Google Offers, is coming to five new locales: Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tampa.

These five cities bring the total number of locales where Google Offers is available to 38.

Furthermore, this number will soon be 40, as two more cities – Oklahoma City and Omaha – are on the “coming soon” list.

For starters, Google is offering a beer tasting deal in Charlotte, cheap burgers in Milwaukee and a deal on Greek cuisine in Tampa.

You can check all the debut deals for the new cities here and sign for the service over at www.google.com/offers.

Image courtesy of Flickr, joi

More About: daily deals, Google, Google Offers, groupon

For more Business coverage:

Davos 2012: What’s Your Question For the World Economic Forum?

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 08:37 PM PST


Mashable’s Davos coverage is presented by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment.

Documented@Davos

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has been called one of the most important conferences in the world. Once a year, heads of state, politicians and leaders from across the world join together for a week to discuss the key global economic, societal and political issues that will shape the coming year.

There’s often a debate about the closed and elitist nature of the forum, commonly known as Davos. Mashable is working with Scribd to help bring Davos to the public the best way we know how: via the Internet. As part of the Documented@Davos program, Mashable founder Pete Cashmore will interview young leaders, technology pioneers and forward-thinking organizations.

What Would You Ask?

As part of our efforts to bring interactivity to Davos, we want to know: If you could ask World Economic Forum attendees any question, what would it be and who on the list below would you ask?

We’re going to pose several of your questions to these renowned thought leaders, recorded in front of a live audience. Then we’ll share the videos with all of you so that you, too, can be a part of the World Economic Forum.

Please share your questions in the comments below, and follow along with the hashtag #DavosDocs.

Here’s the lineup of leaders who will be interviewed for Documented@Davos:

Coverage presented by BMW i

Mashable’s Davos coverage is presented by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, leaf

More About: community, Digital Davos, features, mashable

How Fancloud Centralizes Sports Talk

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 07:56 PM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Fancloud

Quick Pitch: Fancloud aggregates the Twitter feeds of more than 2,000 sportswriters from around the country — sorting them by sport and game, and enabling fans to join the conversation too.

Genius Idea: An online meeting place for sportswriters, fans on the couch, and fans at the game.

Sports fans attending games over the next few months shouldn’t be surprised to see a gaudily painted, QR Code-emblazoned, eight-passenger Chevy van among the usual assortment of tailgate vehicles found in pre-game parking lots around America. Inside the van, they will find a flatscreen TV, mobile satellite dish and — of course — a hefty cooler.

Fans will also likely find Terence Gelke, Bryan Shaw and Ben Bjurstrom inside the party-on-wheels. The three amigos are taking their tailgating machine on a 43-city, 14,000-mile, 100-plus-game tour. The purpose is to promote Fancloud.com, their social startup for sports fans.

Fancloud serves a sort of virtual sports bar — except if that bar was also inhabited by top sportswriters and virtual incarnations of people actually watching games in person.

The site aggregates more than 10,000 tweets each day from beat reporters covering a variety of teams around the country. The tweets are then organized and streamed on different Fancloud channels according to sport or specific event. Then, fans can login via Twitter to start conversations with one another or the reporters.

The Fancloud idea was born in January 2010, when Gelke, Shaw and Bjurstrom attended an NBA game wearing specially made Carmelo Anthony New York Knicks jerseys. Anthony, then with the Denver Nuggets, was the center of many trade rumors at the time. The three friends’ whimsical jerseys gained them attention from TV cameras, Twitter users and print reporters alike.

“Everyone was talking about it, but in separate areas,” Gelke said in an interview. “At that point we realized that we needed a portal to connect fans at the game with the fans at home, and with the sportswriters who cover the game.”

The Southern California-based company raised $200,000 in Series A funding and plans to open up a new round of investments soon. Since its launch less than two weeks ago, Gelke said that Fancloud has attracted more than 3,000 visitors, who have a 50% return rate and stay on-site for an average of between four and five minutes each.

As part of their roadtrip, the site’s founders are giving away more than 100 free game tickets per week through a partnership with ASC Tickets. They’re also meeting with executives from professional sports teams in different leagues to explore partnership opportunities. They say that multiple teams have a “strong interest” in installing Fancloud widgets on their own sites.

Fancloud is currently monetized in part through another ASC partnership that allows fans to buy game tickets from different events’ chatter channels. Gelke promises no on-site advertisements for the site’s first year, though he said it might eventually host “a small amount” of clickable ads and offer a premium subscription membership.

Fancloud has Android and iPhone applications planned for release within the next couple weeks, and a Facebook application will be released next week. To expose the service even more, the site’s sportswriter feed will be made available to bar owners who want to combine the online and on-stool conversations by streaming content to a pub TV. Eventually, Fancloud’s founders hope to make their site a significant part of the fan experience, with profile pages that allow people to post photos from games and record events attended and chats joined.

“We think the site will be big for fantasy sports fans who want to get information on Twitter before it becomes a big story, and also good for more passive users who just want to get premium information from sportswriters,” Gelke said. “Then, it’s also great for heavier users who really want to interact with other fans as well.”

What do you think? Will Fancloud be a success? Let us know in the comments.

More About: bizspark, sports, Twitter

For more Business coverage:

Bill Gates Recalls Final Talks With Steve Jobs

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 07:07 PM PST

bill gates image

Bill Gates reflects on the death of his longtime friend and rival Steve Jobs in an upcoming interview with Nightline’s Bill Weir.

“You gotta pick important stuff because you only have a limited amount of time,” Gates says, reflecting on Jobs’ passing, mortality and his own philanthropic goals in a segment posted to Yahoo.

Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of Steve Jobs noted that Gates visited his house and the two would have in-depth conversations about their lives, work and families.

In Gate’s official statement after Jobs’ death, he said it was “an insanely great honor” to work with Jobs. Gates said the two were, “colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.”

Jobs was well-known to have an obsessive, sometimes abrasive personality, which the world became privy to when Isaacson released the biography of Jobs shortly after the Apple co-founder’s death.

Jobs stepped down from Apple in August 2011 and died that October. His passing was marked by his family, friends and colleagues — as well as untold millions fascinated with Jobs’ work — who paid tribute to him through eulogies, books and shines.

The full Bill Gates interview is scheduled to air Tuesday at 8:35 p.m. PT on ABC.

More About: bill gates, steve jobs, Walter Isaacson

For more Entertainment coverage:

Drunk Hulk Discusses the Oscars Plus 4 More Viral Topics

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 06:39 PM PST


The Mashable Meme Machine is a daily look at five hilarious viral topics spreading across the web right now.

Day two of this week’s Meme Machine has churned out loads of funny content from your favorite websites — Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook and Google+.

Leading the pack is a tweet from spoof account @DrunkHulk, who shared a link to a laugh-inducing interview he did. Also wiggling their way through the Meme Machine are an auto-tuned Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the Reddit mascot, Darth Vader and … well, I won’t ruin the fifth one. It’s a meme-fully pleasant surprise.

Discover any funny memes lately? Let us know. Feel free to contact Brian Anthony Hernandez (@BAHjournalist), Christine Erickson (@christerickson) or Lauren Hockenson (@lhockenson).


1. Drunk Hulk's Interview




Drunk Hulk, who's well known to the masses on Twitter and Facebook, provided some semi-incoherent commentary about current events in an interview with IBTimes.

Drunk Hulk spilled whatever inebriated beans he had regarding the Oscars and the Super Bowl. He even referenced Care Bears and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the same thought.

"WAIT MINUTE! DRUNK HULK GOT OVER 100,000 FOLLOWER? THAT CRAZY! THAT MORE PEOPLE THAN POPULATION OF SEYCHELLES! DUGGAR FAMILY! AND NEWT GINGRICH WIFES!" Drunk Hulk told reporter Ellen Killoran at one point.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Drunk Hulk, Meme Machine, reddit, rickroll, songify, Star Wars

For more Entertainment coverage:

Facebook Timeline-ageddon: Why Now?

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 06:01 PM PST

Lance Facebook Timeline

Mashable OP-ED: This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.

Facebook's steady march to global Timeline coverage just turned into a dash — and it's really the users who are running.

By making Facebook Timelines the new de facto standard for all Facebook profiles, in effect, the company just held up a starter pistol and yelled "Go! You have seven days to reach the finish line before we completely change the track!"

That's right, everyone has just one week to get their social media houses in order before Facebook moves the furniture (something we’d heard Facebook did not want to do).

Now, you may get slightly more than seven days. Even though Facebook is no longer offering a choice, the countdown clock to Timline-ification doesn't start until the "activate" button appears atop your profile page.

Once it does, you have just one week to prepare. Facebook (and Mashable) can give you lots of advice about how to hide those embarrassing posts from your virtual biography.

That’s not what this column is about. I'm more concerned with why Facebook suddenly decided a mad dash to rollout completion made more sense than ambling along with occasional conversions.

Is Facebook just super-confident about the global reception to its profile makeover? Millions must have already converted, either by forcing the change through publicly available development tweaks last fall or by clicking the button this winter.

I don't think that's why, though. I've met a lot of people who like—even love—timeline, but also almost an equal number who are confused or appalled by it. In my own home, my son likes it, but my wife and daughter hate it.

Some folks I've spoken to said that, given the chance, they would never switch. Others told me they simply abandoned Facebook and set up camp on Google+.

Facebook must know that putting a ticking clock in front of users is bound to make very few of them happy, yet here it is, stop watch in hand. Here's my theory.

The rather confusing Timeline apps environment isn't very effective without it. Facebook made a decent sized splash last week with the introduction of 60 new app partners.

Facebook apps and games are not new. Neither are apps in Timeline (Foursquare already got there). But conducting most of your day-to-day activities, like watching movies, sharing content, reading news, eating out, and more — that’s a new wrinkle.

None of this has quite the same impact without Timeline. During last week's event, Facebook made it clear that these apps and your activities around them would live on the Timeline. They'd be summarized in a special section of it.

For these Apps' activities to show up in your timeline, you need only install and allow them once. Then they and the gestures they generate become a part of the fabric of your Timeline—a piece of your growing biography.

I can see it now: "Poor, Charles, I'll miss him. Remember when he used to tell jokes? Remember when he would take us all out to dinner? Where was that? Oh, wait, here it is on his Timeline. And there's the music he was listening to right before he …"

The real reason Facebook is pressing so hard on Timeline now is that it really needs to prove to app partners like Slacker, Payvment, TripAdvisor, TicketFly, Wall Street Journal, Airbnb, and others that this is a real platform. They have to prove the ecosystem has just as much relevance as, say, Android, Windows or Apple's iOS.

Facebook execs, who may be noticing slowed growth in the U.S., realize the time to strike is now. Google is raising the stakes in the platform space, consolidating services and boxing out Facebook and Twitter.

If Facebook does not pull its users in closer and make sure they spend as much time as possible on Facebook, sharing everything they do, those users could share everything elsewhere.

And those of you who are not ready to make the switch to Facebook Timeline? Sorry. You are casualties of a social networking platform and ecosystem war, one that will likely continue for the rest of this decade.

All that's now guaranteed about our social networking experiences is battle after battle, and change after change.

Do you agree, or do you think there are other reasons for the hurry up to Facebook Timeline? Let me know in the comments.

Bonus: How to Fill in Your Facebook Timeline


1. The Timeline Menu Bar




As you scroll down your new Timeline, a floating menu bar will appear at the top of your screen. Use it to add new events.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, timeline, trending

Why Social Media Needs to Get More Personal

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 04:59 PM PST


Mashable OP-ED: This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.

Patrick Moorhead is president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, a highly regarded high-tech industry analyst firm focused on the disruptive ecosystems of smartphones, tablets, personal computers, living room devices and social media.

New social media service Path promises to bring your true friends (not just acquaintances) together in a much more personal way. However, neither Path, nor Facebook, nor Google+ have fully comprehended that personal circles vary by context, and that context changes rapidly and infinitely.  

In the end, while services like Path get us closer to “personal,” they are still very much “broadcast” versions of social media. Ultimately, new services will arise that will allow the user to easily and naturally build relationships, physically meet and communicate with one’s rapidly morphing groups of true friends.        

How Humans Interact

To fully understand how structured broadcast and personal social models differ, we need to look at real life. First and foremost, people segment friends and groups based on a specific context. To put it simply, there are people we are very close with, people we may have never heard of, but who seem “safe,” then there are thousands of groups in-between. And that context only changes more over time. Even though it sounds confusing, we build and segment groups because the action has been hard-wired into our brains.  

The “Broadcast” Social Media Problem

The Facebook, Google+ and Path networks liken online interaction to shouting in different-sized movie theaters, each of which contains a different combination of close friends, family members and acquaintances. Most people in the movie theater aren’t even listening; others listen but ignore; and an even smaller group reacts to what’s being said.

For most people on the receiving end, a post is typically out of context, irrelevant, doesn't require a response or was just plain missed. For example, some children aren’t on Facebook during school hours, and many older demographics don’t check notifications on a regular basis, or else they use their accounts for very specific purposes only.  

What Defines “Personal” Today?

I outlined the challenges that come with a “broadcast” model of social media. So what do I mean by “personal?” Quite simply, personal reflects how we interact in the physical world.

The infinite number of groups we encounter in the everyday world communicate in a way you would expect: over the phone, through text, BlackBerry Messenger, face to face and via email. However, some of the tools we employ — even in today’s fast-paced digital environment — are slow, inefficient or even inaccessible.  

For example, three families may want to go out to dinner after the eighth grade basketball game. Let’s assume there are six parents total and kids don’t get a vote. Just imagine how many texts it will take to arrange this. One dad has to work late and will need to meet up with the group later. Another dad is a vegan. Mom really wants a steak. Kids from one family hate Mexican restaurants. One mom decides to send out an Evite to solve all the issues, while another mom decides she’ll send a message out on Facebook, but she’s not friends with third mom.

My head spins in these kinds of circumstances — but this is real life.  There must be an easier way to manage, right?  

Personal Tools to Fill the Gap

If today’s personal tools don’t work well enough, then what would a better set of tools look like? The following features would would help improve personal interactions. Here’s what made my wish list.

  • The ability to create groups from two to 50 people, based on an “event” or “theme.”
  • Events would indicate locations along with all relevant information (hours, ratings, reviews, direction, maps, parking, etc.).
  • Themed groups would contain a name, description and privacy options.
  • We would have the ability to see all the threads in a message. 
  • We would be able to add real friends who are typically in our everyday address books.
  • The network would be multi-platform, and feature smartphone, tablet and PC access.
  • The network would feature email, map and calendar integration.

This kind of a personal tool wouldn’t replace broadcast tools, but would operate alongside broadcast tools like Facebook, Google+ and Path.

New, More Personal Tools Emerging

Personal tools like group text and Evite work alongside broadcast tools, but they are inefficient or slow. However, new tool Forecast fits a few of the criteria above. The app tells friends specifically where you will be going in the future and allows people comment on those plans.

Another tool, called Goba, is more personal than broadcast. It allows the user to set up events or groups from his address book. Those in the group receive messages and can chat from a smartphone, tablet or PC. When I met with the Goba team, we discussed incorporating local data into the events portion of the tool. This way, users could suggest places to go and have access to enough data to make a good decision. Then, once the group decided on a plan, the maps would help individuals get there.  

Personal tools have a long way to go, but these kinds of services will be the next big thing in social media. After all, just how many more movie theaters do we need to scream in?

Image courtesy of Flickr, selva

More About: contributor, Facebook, features, Google, Opinion, Path, Social Media

Apple’s Best Quarter Ever: When Will its Run End?

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 04:29 PM PST



Somewhere, the spirit of Steve Jobs is smiling.

The company he so reluctantly left behind is in better shape than ever. Jobs’ hand-picked successor, Tim Cook, is a well-compensated, self-effacing steady hand on the tiller — exactly as advertised.

And every indicator of the company’s health you care to name is doing better than even the most optimistic predictions.

Apple had $97.6 billion in the bank as of the end of its first quarter, it announced Tuesday; that amount has almost certainly crossed the $100 billion mark by now. (The company’s first quarter actually ended on December 31.) It sold 37 million iPhones in the quarter, 7 million more than Wall Street was expecting. Sales of iPads and Macs also beat estimates.

In other words, Apple owned Christmas.

And yet, far from crowing, the company sent out one clear message on its earnings call Tuesday evening: we can do better.

Cook was quick to point out that Apple had been struggling with shortages all quarter. Tragic floods in Thailand have led to poor availability for components across its devices.

The company has not been able to make as many iPhone 4Ss as it would have liked. And it wasn’t even able to sell the 4S in mainland China, due to a rampage on launch day.

All of which left analysts wondering: what would the quarter have looked like if everything went Apple’s way? And if none of those problems can lay the company low, when will this amazing growth spurt end?

An Abundance of Caution

If anything seems likely to hobble Apple in the future, it’s that Cook’s greatest strength — his caution — is also his weakness.

Jobs may have ruled with an iron fist, and it was he who began storing up Apple’s cash to make a war chest large enough that it could be wielded as a weapon. But he also knew the value of throwing out as many spitballs as possible, in the hopes of finding one that stuck.

At Jobs’ memorial service, design guru Jonathan Ive fondly remembered the one phrase Jobs would use above all others: “Hey, Jonny, here’s a dopey idea.”

Those dopey ideas begat the iMac, iPhone and iPad. They also begat the countless tiny improvements which helped each of those devices redefine their category.

But it’s hard to imagine Cook peppering Ive with dopey ideas. So who is throwing out spitballs at Apple now? Is upper management making it okay for the company’s designers and engineers to try new ideas and fail fast?

Or is caution the new watchword throughout Apple? Are Apple’s industry-beating engineers and designers feeling constricted by Cook’s carefulness?

If so, then Apple could find itself being out-innovated by the competition. As one of the analysts on the earnings call pointed out, Android phones already beat the iPhone in a couple of categories: screen size and speed (ie. 4G).

Cook responded that Apple didn’t consider itself in a race with Android and was focused on creating the best product it could.

Yet if Android handset makers manage to overcome the battery life issues that plague 4G phones — the Droid Razr Maxx, set to launch Thursday, promises to do just that with an eye-popping 21 hours of battery life — then they have a very real claim to be selling more innovative devices than Apple.

Okay, that’s one phone. But Apple’s insistence on selling a very small number of products, albeit excellent products, means that it only takes a few such insurgent gadgets to win before people begin to wonder what the company is really good for.

No, that won’t happen this year, and probably not next. But in 2014? Maybe.

If it is eventually buried under copycats-turned-innovators, even Apple’s giant war chest won’t necessarily help. Not if its leadership is overcautious and allergic to major innovations or new products.

It may seem almost too ridiculous to consider that Apple could be knocked off its lofty perch. But rest assured, it will happen sooner or later. All companies die eventually; all rise and fall. Cook is doing his best to push all problems into the far future, and in many ways he’s doing the best job imaginable.

But Apple already has two bars to jump this year: the launches of the iPad 3 and the iPhone 5. Expectations are ridiculously high. To meet them, Cook had better be throwing lots of spitballs behind the scenes — or appointing Jobsian idea-generating leaders who can.

More About: apple, earnings, ipad, iphone, trending

For more Tech coverage:

Google Changes Again, Launches One Privacy Policy to Rule Them All

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 04:11 PM PST

privacy

Offering users what it calls less “legal gloop to wade through,” Google announced a new master privacy policy and terms of service on Tuesday via the company’s blog.

Google began notifying users of the change coming to its terms of service and privacy policies, which will take effect on March 1.

Rather than 70 privacy documents, Google has created one main privacy policy to govern its many products. What this means: Google can pull information from one service and deliver it to you via another, fusing Google+ with Gmail with YouTube, for example, and whatever other Google products you use.

As your individual search becomes more customized, what this means for advertisers is the potential to reach a more targeted audience.

“In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience,” the blog post notes. Check out Google’s video explanation below.


This change comes a couple weeks after Google announced Search Plus Your World. Google+ results would pop-up in searches before Twitter results, even if Twitter or other social networks are more relevant. Twitter, along with many commenters, noted the possibility that their search results would be biased toward Google products.

Sure, everyone would like legal documents to be easier to understand. But let’s not forget about the advertisers — who are mentioned for just a second in the explanation video accompanying Tuesday’s news. These new setting could also help Google rake in more ad revenue.

“Over time, it will result in better search results and ads,” says Google’s privacy policy explanation video.

Google’s blog post concludes by explaining what has not changed — the company still “promotes data liberation” (you can take your data out of Google products) and transparency. Google says it will never sell your information.

The company doesn’t go into great detail about the changes to terms of service, other than the new terms will be compacted into one document — just like the new privacy rules.

Google paints the new privacy policies as a virtual personal assistant, which could prove very useful. Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, writes:

“We can make search better—figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too. For example, it's January, but maybe you're not a gym person, so fitness ads aren't that useful to you. We can provide reminders that you're going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends' names, are accurate because you've typed them before.”

In October 2010, Google re-wrote its privacy policies to include less legal jargon and increase transparency. The company has long been concerned with user privacy, but has also received its share of criticism.

What do you think about Google’s new privacy policies and terms of service? Sound off in the comments.

More About: Google, privacy, terms of service

Could SOPA Be Coming to Canada?

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:57 PM PST

digital canada 360

After widespread online protests that saw several sites including Wikipedia go dark, the U.S. House of Representatives effectively killed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last week.

But the spirit of SOPA lives on in a bill before the Canadian Parliament, according to at least one law professor.

Michael Geist, who specializes in Internet and ecommerce law at the University of Ottawa, says that Bill C-11, currently under review in Canada’s House of Commons, could bring SOPA-like copyright law to the country.

Bill C-11, titled the Copyright Modernization Act, aims to replace the country’s current copyright law with something more compatible with the days of broadband.

Geist says it goes further than that. Citing a document that appears to be a set of proposed amendments to the legislation from a music-industry representative, Geist makes the case that the same lobbying groups that backed SOPA are laying the groundwork for SOPA-like rules in Bill C-11.

“While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S.,” Geist writes, “Lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries. With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules.”

In particular, Geist says the idea of blocking sites from the Internet — or at least the Internet in Canada — is on the list of proposals. The note, dated March 1, 2011, suggests that the bill should “permit a court to make an order blocking a pirate site such as The Pirate Bay to protect the Canadian marketplace from foreign pirate sites.”

Besides that, the proposals would incentivize Internet service providers to terminate users who infringe copyrights more than once. Geist points out that there’s no mention of due process or what sort of proof would be required. Also under consideration is an “enabler” provision, which would target sites that aren’t necessarily pirate havens, but are primarily used for piracy.

Empire Avenue, a virtual-currency and gaming site based in Canada, came out against SOPA, and its CEO says he expected such legislation to come to his country and elsewhere after SOPA failed.

“One of the points I made when the SOPA debate was happening was that if SOPA failed, which it did, at least this time around, what would end up happening is that similar bills would be [proposed] in Canada and the U.K.,” says Duleepa Wijayawardhana, CEO of Empire Avenue. “The idea is to get these kinds of bills passed in other places and the say, ‘Hey, U.S., shouldn’t you be on board?’”

Wijayawardhana is optimistic that just getting the word out will be enough to ensure that any copyright legislation that passes will be fair.

“There’s a chance lobbyists will succeed. Our job as startups, innovators and entrepreneurs is to make sure people understand what about these laws will prevent stuff from happening. And I think as we explain to people why they’re bad, people get it.”

Are you concerned about Bill C-11? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More About: Bill C-11, Canada, SOPA, stop online piracy act

Instagram Co-Founder, Jobs’ Widow Join Michelle Obama at State of Union

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:44 PM PST


The prom king and queen of Silicon Valley will be attending the State of the Union address tonight at the U.S. Capitol as guests of First Lady Michelle Obama.

We’re referring to Mike Krieger, co-founder of rapidly growing iPhotography app Instagram and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

These two tech notables’ inclusion at the State of the Union may suggest the president’s annual address will focus on technology, which Obama believes is a surefire way to create new jobs.

In February 2011, Obama dined with tech industry luminaries in Silicon Valley, including the late Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt and Dick Costolo.

“The meeting is a part of our ongoing dialogue with the business community on how we can work together to win the future, strengthen our economy, support entrepreneurship, increasing our exports, and get the American people back to work,” Obama said last year.

A New York Times report this past weekend revealed a conversation from Jobs’ dinner with Obama. According to the report, Obama asked Jobs why iPhones and iPads can’t be made in the U.S. instead of China.

Beyond their much-publicized dinner last year, Jobs had other encounters with the current U.S. president. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder met with Obama and warned him that he faced a one-term presidency because the administration wasn’t sufficiently business friendly.

Jobs’s widow, who rarely gives interviews and who only occasionally appeared with her late husband in public, is active in philanthropy and supports a range of progressive initiatives including programs aiding the environment and education. She was also a supporter of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential run against President Obama.

SEE ALSO: Barack Obama Joins Instagram

Also sitting alongside the First Lady are Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, and a homeowner who was able to stay in her home thanks to the Home Affordable Refinance Program, according to CBS MarketWatch.

Michelle Obama has recently begun publicly embracing tech more, having joined Twitter early this month.

What do you expect the President to say about technology during the State of the Union? Let us know your predictions in the comments.

Todd Wasserman co-reported this story.

BONUS: Inspirational Steve Jobs Quotes





Jobs quote from 2005 Stanford commencement address. Posted by livinglauren.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: instagram, michelle obama, state of the union, steve jobs

Apple’s First Quarter Earnings: The Unbelievable Numbers

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:28 PM PST



Apple‘s blowout first quarter was notable for many reasons, not least of which was the company’s record revenues of $46.3 billion.

But the quarter was remarkable for several other reasons as well. Apple, which is known for keeping its affairs close to the vest, released a raft of information on Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the quarter, a 128% jump over the comparable quarter in 2010.
  • iPad sales hit 15.4 million, a rise of 111%.
  • Mac sales were 5.2 million, an increase of 26%.
  • Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a number which is down 21% as the iPhone cannibalizes sales of more limited-function devices.
  • Apple now has $97.6 billion in cash on hand.
  • Revenues from iTunes hit $1.7 billion. More than 140 million apps and pieces of content were downloaded on Dec. 25.
  • There are 1.5 million iPads being used by educational institutions.
  • iCloud has 85 million users. There are now 550,000 apps available. Developers of such apps have earned more than $4 billion, $700 million in Q1.
  • Apple Stores produced $6.1 billion in revenues for the quarter. The average revenue per store was $17.1 million vs. $12 million last year. There are about 22,000 visitors per store per week.
  • Apple’s revenues for the quarter were higher than the company’s revenues for its entire fiscal 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr, nechbi

More About: apple, ipad, iphone, trending

For more Business coverage:

Get More from Wikipedia: 10 Tips and Tricks

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:07 PM PST


1. Change How Wikipedia's Main Page Looks




You can change the way Wikipedia's main page displays -- choose from a variety of fun alternatives, like "classic" or simplified versions, different color schemes and even site-skins to mix things up a bit.

Once you're logged into the site, just add a snippet of code to your page and you can enjoy one of the different versions permanently.

Click here to view this gallery.

The English version of Wikipedia currently boasts over 3,854,000 articles over more than 25 million pages. That’s an awful lot of content to navigate when you’re trying to find something specific.

Maybe you visit Wikipedia several times per week, but how much do you know about the world’s leading online encyclopedia? We spent some time exploring the site in order to offer you 10 useful tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the site. Learn how to change the way the main page looks, how to use special characters in searches, how to view page stats, etc.

Take a look through our gallery of useful tips and tricks. When you’re done, hit up the comments and share with us — and the Mashable readership — any other handy hints you have discovered for using Wikipedia.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gmutlu

More About: features, gallery, How-To, tips and tricks, wikimedia, wikipedia

Not Lovin’ It: Twitter Users in Revolt Over McDonald’s Promotion [VIDEO]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:39 PM PST


A Twitter campaign that was supposed to reveal positive stories from McDonald’s suppliers turned into a nasty hashtag hijacking, as unhappy customers tweeted a variety of unpleasant tales — such as finding fingernails in their food.

The hashtag #McDStories started last week with a few tweets from the brand, promoting tales from suppliers. “Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStories http://t.co/BoNIwRJS,” one of the tweets said.

What ensued was less laudatory. “I haven’t been to McDonald’s in years, because I’d rather eat my own diarrhea,” read one. “One time I walked into McDonald’s and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up,” said another.

In an interview with PaidContent, McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion, said, inevitably “fans and detractors will chime in.” That they did.

"Within an hour, we saw that it wasn't going as planned," said Wion. "It was negative enough that we set about a change of course.”

Check out the video above to learn more about the fiasco. How do you think McDonald’s could have handled this differently? Was there any way to stop the damage? Share your thoughts in the comments.

More About: mashable video, McDonalds, trending

For more Business coverage:

LEGO Version of Minecraft Is Seriously Going to Happen

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:25 PM PST

minecraft lego image

Whether you love building bricks in real life or in the digital landscapes of Minecraft, this is going to be very good news: Minecraft is officially going to be coming to a LEGO set near you.

LEGO approved the idea on Tuesday and will start turning Minecraft objects and items into official LEGO box sets to be sold across the world.

The idea didn’t, however, come from LEGO. The Minecraft ideas were pitched to the LEGO through CUUSOO, its homemade platform where users can submit product ideas to the brick manufacturer. Any idea that gains 10,000 votes from the public will be reviewed by LEGO to see if it makes sense as a toy. The good news came back Tuesday that Minecraft was approved and that LEGO was coming up with designs to sell.

While several CUUSOO pitches were made for Minecraft designs, the winning petition came from Mojang, the studio that created Minecraft, a cult-smash game that lets players fashion and mold a blocky, low-res world around that looks much like a digital LEGO set. The open world gameplay lends itself to creation and free building, two aspects key to the LEGO brand, says the Mojang team:

Minecraft is about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine in the virtual world. You can build anything you imagine with LEGO bricks in the physical world. Minecraft and LEGO were meant to be together.

The project was so popular that it actually broke CUUSOO records. It took just 48 hours for Minecraft LEGO to reach 10,000 votes, making it the fastest project to do so.

The announcement on CUUSOO explained that the LEGO team would start cranking out designs with more details on the final products to come:

We’re happy to announce that the Minecraft project on LEGO CUUSOO has passed the LEGO review and we are now developing a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the LEGO system and in Minecraft and we can't wait to show it to you — but we aren't ready just yet.

LEGO reserves the right to decide what the final products will look like including packaging and promotion. However, with a fan community the size of Minecraft‘s, it’s safe to say they won’t stray too far from type. All approved CUUSOO projects will kickback 1% of sales to the project creator. Mojang says it will donate that 1% to charity.

Is LEGO Minecraft a win for everyone? What kind of sets do you think LEGO will create? Sound off in the comments.

Image courtesy of Mojang

More About: crowdsourced, Gaming, toys

For more Entertainment coverage:

Live From the White House: The State of the Union, Tweeted

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:03 PM PST


Tonight, President Obama will be addressing the nation in the annual State of the Union address. Mashable has been invited by the White House to attend a State of the Union tweetup.

The event (using hash tags #sotu #whtweetup) will be held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C, next door to the White House. We’ll be watching the White House’s enhanced version of the State of the Union, which will include graphics, data and statistics that TV audiences won’t see (If you’d like to see the stream, visit the White House’s website).

During the speech, we'll be watching for any technology-related announcements the president might make. We’ll keep you updated about what those announcements could mean for you.

SEE ALSO: How to Watch and Interact With the State of the Union Address Online

After the State of the Union, we'll be attending a panel with White House deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council Mark Zuckerman, special assistant to the president for education policy Roberto Rodriguez, deputy director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes and deputy White House communications director Jen Palmieri.

They’ll be taking questions from the tweetup audience and over Facebook, YouTube and Google+. If you’ve got a question you’d like Mashable to ask, tweet @mashusworld with the hashtag #sotu.

The tweetup will begin at approximately 7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday and conclude at 11 p.m. Follow along with the Mashable US & World team as we bring you the speech and panel live:

Images Courtesy of The White House

More About: president obama, state of the union, White House

Apple Blows Out Q1 Earnings; Sells 37 Million iPhones, 15.4 Million iPads

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:52 PM PST


Apple handily beat The Street’s estimate for its fiscal first quarter, reporting revenues of $46.3 billion for the quarter and a net profit of $13.87 per share.

That’s beats $39 billion to $43 billion in revenues and $10.19 to $12.01 that analysts were expecting. The company also sold more iPhones and iPads than had been predicted. In a note to clients on Tuesday, for instance, Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu said he expected Apple to announce sales of 29.5 million iPhones and 13.5 million iPads. In fact, the company has sold 37 million and 15.4 million, respectively.

“We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, a press release. "Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline."

The strong sales were no doubt buoyed by the successful introduction of the iPhone 4S in October. But the strong iPad shows also illustrate that Amazon’s competing tablet, Kindle Fire, has done little to halt sales of Apple’s other hit product. Apple’s iPhone sales jumped 128% compared to the year-ago quarter while iPad sales rose 21% from the comparable period in 2010.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Lydia Fizz

More About: apple, earnings, ipad, iphone

For more Business coverage:

Facebook Timeline for Everyone: How Does it Affect You? [POLL]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:46 PM PST


We knew this day would come. Now the answer of “when” is somewhat clearer: Facebook Timeline is officially coming to all users within the next few weeks.

According to a Facebook blog post, Timeline will automatically be enabled for all Facebook users. Once users receive this notification, they’ll undergo a “preview period” during which Timeline will only be visible to them, allowing them to customize and hide content that they don’t want to be visible.

Many users have already enabled Timeline, either through the developer hack that was available in September or through the simple one-click activation that Facebook made available in December. For many, however, this will represent their first interaction with it. Even if users have friends that have enabled Timeline, they won’t see it unless they have Timeline enabled themselves.

This got us thinking about how Facebook is undergoing yet another wholesale change, something that we understand will rankle some users and that we’ve ruminated on in the past.

What do you think about Facebook Timeline becoming absolute? Take our poll below and let us know in the comments.


Facebook Timeline: How Are You Affected?

Not sure how you feel about Facebook Timeline yet? View the gallery below for an in-depth look at the new feature.


The New Facebook Profile: Timeline




Timeline is a radical departure from previous versions of the Facebook user profile. The most prominent feature is the addition of a cover photo at the top of the page. Users can change this to whatever they'd like it to be.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, facebook timeline

Apple Is Worth More than All the Tea in China; What Else Does It Beat?

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:36 PM PST

Apple‘s market cap rose to a record high of $400 billion on Jan. 19, 2012. With its earnings report due later today, Apple may be delivering even more financial surprises, perhaps a new sales record.

Did you know the corporation is already worth more than Greece? This is quite the achievement for the 35-year-old company, which only had a $10 billion market cap 10 years ago.

UPDATE: Apple did even better than expected in its first fiscal quarter for 2012. Check out the report, here.

We’ve found seven more things Apple is worth more than — prepare yourself to be very surprised. And be sure to check out the awesome Tumblr Things Apple Is Worth More Than for more examples. What other examples can you think of? Let us know in the comments below.


1. 4,000 Trips to the Moon





It costs a mere $100 million to travel to the moon in a $1.7 billion space shuttle (of which Apple could afford 235). With 60,400 full-time Apple employees, can you say "company picnic in outer space?"

Image courtesy of Marcin Wichary.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Håkan Dahlström

More About: apple, earnings, features, stock market, trending

How to Watch and Interact With the State of the Union Address Online

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:26 PM PST


Several websites are flexing their digital muscles Tuesday, offering interactive ways to watch, learn about and participate in the State of the Union address on your browser or phone.

Aside from having the option to see President Barack Obama‘s 9 p.m. ET speech on TV, you can jump into the political dialogue surrounding it before he speaks, learn more during the address via online features and even get involved with post-SOTU activities such as the Republican response.

SEE ALSO: Live From the White House — The State of the Union, Tweeted

So here’s our quick breakdown of where to watch the address and interact with fellow viewers before, during and after Obama updates Congress, Americans and the rest of the world about the nation’s condition and his legislative priorities. Will you be tuning in? Let us know in the comments where you will watch the speech.

1. Before

  • Watch Behind-The-Scenes Footage: The White House’s YouTube channel has posted several videos leading up to Tuesday night’s address. This one gives you the inside scoop on the speech-making process.

  • Write Your Own State of the Union in a Tweet: Yahoo’s election blog — The Ticket — is challenging readers to describe how they feel about the state of the nation using just 140 characters, including the hashtag #sotu140. The example Yahoo provided was, “Jobs numbers up, but many, esp. veterans and small biz, still hurting. No clear exit in Afghanistan; Iraq over. What’s up with TSA? #sotu140.” Can you do better?
  • Ask the President Something: You can submit questions about any topic via video or text using YouTube's Moderator tool, and Obama will answer the top-voted ones after the speech during a Google+ Hangout on Jan. 30 on the White House’s new Google+ page.
  • Join #BarackTalk at 7:30 p.m. ET: On the League of Young Voters’ UStream channel, you can participate in the group’s #BarackTalk viewing party and panel discussion.

2. During

  • Watch the Address on Mashable: Take in the speech via PBS News Hour’s UStream embed below.

  • Check Out Mashable‘s Live Tweets From the White House: Mashable reporter Alex Fitzpatrick is in Washington, D.C., for the State of the Union tweetup, where starting at 7:30 p.m. ET he’ll tweet about the address and subsequent panel with advisers. Follow his tweets in the embedded Storify at the bottom of this post. The panel includes White House Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council Mark Zuckerman, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy Roberto Rodriguez, Deputy Director National Economic Council Brian Deese, Deputy NSA for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting Ben Rhodes and Deputy White House Communications Director Jen Palmieri.
  • View the “Enhanced” Version of the Address: At WhiteHouse.gov or on the White House iPhone and Android app, you can watch Obama’s speech live while simultaneously viewing graphics, data and stats as the president speaks. A standard broadcast is also available for people with slower Internet connections.
  • Tune in on Facebook: Using the White House Live app, you can watch the address and discuss it with fellow Facebook users all in one place.
  • Use Relevant Hashtags on Twitter: Aside from #SOTU, use these ones during Obama’s speech.

3. After

  • Watch the Republican Response: Head over to this YouTube channel to watch the post-speech comments from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.
  • Submit Questions to White House Senior Advisers: The White House encourages viewers to use Facebook and Twitter to submit questions about Obama’s speech for senior advisers to answer. On Twitter, use hashtag #WHchat. On Facebook, go to the White House Live app.
  • Help Translate the Speech Into Other Languages: Be part of PBS News Hours subtitle team by translating the address in any language. Last year’s speech was translated into nine languages.
  • Hang Out With Obama on Google+: Less than a week after the address, Obama will participate Jan. 30 in his first Google+ Hangout in which he'll respond to questions from YouTube users. Click here to find out how to watch the Hangout and even be invited to join the Hangout. "This year when we started discussing a post-SOTU YouTube interview with the White House we threw in the new availability of Google + Hangouts," a Google spokesperson told Mashable on Monday. "The White House agreed — it seemed like a great new use of technology to connect people face to face with the president."

Photo from WhiteHouse.gov, Chuck Kennedy

More About: 2012 election, barack obama, Live Stream, Politics, state of the union

11 Celebrities Already Rocking Facebook Timeline

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:16 PM PST


1. Arianna Huffington





Arianna Huffington's constantly updated Facebook Timeline gives us quite a view of the Huffington Post founder's busy life. Not only do many of Huffington's updates include personal photos, but she's also created Timeline events dating back her whole life to represent her achievements and the Huffington Post's milestones.

Click here to view this gallery.

While the rest of the world worries about the looming deadline to switch to Facebook Timeline, these celebs have already got it covered.

Not only that, we’ve seen celebrities experiment with adding more photos to their posts, and showing their personal sides to fans. Timeline integration allows us insight into the lens of fame, and it’s exciting to see so many celebrities embracing this level of access.

SEE ALSO: Facebook Timeline Roll Out: Everything You Need to Know

We gathered together 11 famous faces that are setting the pace for Facebook Timeline, so click through the gallery to see why we picked each one.

Is there a celebrity you follow on Facebook that you think is doing a great job curating his or her Timeline? Tell us in the comments.

More About: celebrities, Facebook, facebook timeline, features, web celebrities

Apple Tests Hundreds of Product Packages in Secret Unboxing Room [VIDEO]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:54 PM PST


Apple makes its product packaging with stealthy love. An advanced copy of Adam Lashinsky’s book, Inside Apple, reveals product packaging is another thing Apple keeps under lock and key. The tech giant has a secret room — accessible only by security badges — dedicated to hundreds of variant prototype product packaging options for products like the iPad.

“To fully grasp how seriously Apple executives sweat the small stuff, consider this: For months, a packaging designer was holed up in this room performing the most mundane of tasks – opening boxes,” NetworkWorld’s iOnApple blog quoted from Lashinsky’s book.

Packaging designers must open box after box to test the positioning of the invisible stickers stuck to the top of iPod boxes. The invisible tape must be placed exactly, Lashinsky explained.

Packaging is taken more seriously at Apple than other technology companies because Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple who died in late 2011, cared about every last detail. He wanted customers to feel a certain emotion when opening Apple products.

MacRumors quotes Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design, from Walter Isaacson's bio on Steve Jobs: “You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.”

Apple’s package designs have sophisticated utilization of white space, which differs much from Microsoft’s fit-a-lot-of-information-on-the-box approach. A YouTube video reveals how Microsoft might package an Apple product.

So the next time you open an Apple product, remember a packaging designer spent hours selecting the perfect box and precise placement of stickers. Watch the video to find out more about Apple’s packaging details.

More About: adam lashinsky, apple, ipod, mashable video, packaging, steve jobs, Walter Isaacson

For more Dev & Design coverage:

Sims on Facebook: Sex, Shopping and Secret Stats [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:42 PM PST

When it was launched in August, The Sims Social was the toast of Facebook. This social network-based version of the classic Will Wright game, where you get to guide your avatars toward the twin goals of advancing their careers and acquiring more stuff, was pretty damn hot. A month after release, it had overtaken nearly all those Zynga games at the top of the Facebook tree. Only CityVille remained more popular.

Fast forward to January, and that early growth hasn’t quite panned out. The Sims Social has settled into 4 million players a day, according to metrics firm App Data — impressive numbers, but down from the 4.6 million players it had daily at launch, and below such Zynga hits as FarmVille, Castleville and Words With Friends.

But that doesn’t mean the Sims haven’t racked up some impressive stats on Facebook. Herewith, an infographic from Electronic Arts offers everything you wanted to know about The Sims Social but were afraid to ask: How many times Sims have sex daily (a PG-rated, sheet-covered activity known in the game as “woohoo”), how often those gossipy avatars share secrets, and what the most popular personality traits and shopping items are.

So the EA game may not have toppled Zynga, but with this kind of activity — and 22 million users logging in a month — it’s hard to say it isn’t still a hit, with a solid fan base.


More About: electronic arts, Facebook, sims social, the sims, trending

Time Warner Helps Social TV Startup Bluefin Labs Raise $12 Million in Funding

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:32 PM PST


Social TV analytics startup Bluefin Labs has raised $12 million in a Series B round of funding, which means the company will be expanding its resources to help TV networks and marketers keep track of how audiences are responding to shows via social media sites.

Time Warner Investments led the round with participation from new investor SoftBank Capital and return investors Redpoint Ventures and Lerer Ventures.

Bluefin Labs is best known for its flagship product, Bluefin Signals, an analytics platform that analyzes and organizes social media conversations about U.S. national television. The dashboard interprets the social media response — including tweets and Facebook posts — to more than 11,000+ TV shows and 346,000+ individual airings of those shows. It looks at 5 billion public-facing social media comments each month and then pairs those comments with more than 2.5 million minutes of linear TV time.

Although the product debuted in July 2011, Bluefin Labs was founded in 2008 and came out of the MIT Media Labs, with the goal of applying machine learning and cognitive science to the broader goal of understanding how audiences respond to TV shows and ads.

SEE ALSO: Bluefin Signals Measures the Social Media Response to Television

Companies that use the platform — which include mix of television networks, marketers and agencies such as CBS, MediaCom and MTV — gain access to social data about TV shows and commercials to inform the buying and selling of TV media.

Bluefin Labs said in a press release that it plans to use the new financing to accelerate growth of its sales and client services efforts. The company will also “continue to invest heavily in technology and R&D [research and development] to lead further innovation in the field of social TV analytics.”

"We are witnessing a huge shift in consumer behavior, as people now naturally turn to social media to voice their opinions about what they are watching on television," said Deb Roy, co-founder and CEO, Bluefin Labs. "We are continuing to build out Bluefin's services that allow us to provide enhanced data which enables our clients to glean more of an understanding of their audiences and target consumers."

More About: Social Media

For more Entertainment coverage:

Judge: Order to Decrypt Laptop Does Not Violate Fifth Amendment [VIDEO]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:22 PM PST


A Colorado judge has denied a defendant’s argument that the Fifth Amendment protects her from decrypting her computer upon authorities’ request.

The decision came during a criminal trial in which the defendant is accused of bank fraud. She argues that allowing authorities access to the data on her computer would violate her constitutional right protecting self-incrimination. But the judge disagreed.

“I find and conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Blackburn wrote in his ruling Monday.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment plea. In it, the organization said:

“EFF's interest in this case is the sound and principled application of the Fifth Amendment to encryption passwords and encrypted information stored on computers. EFF submits this brief to help the Court apply the Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination in a manner that ensures the constitutional rights of those who use this technological measure to protect their privacy and security.”

A letter from the Attorney General’s office opposed the Fifth Amendment plea and reveals the effect the ruling could have on future cases. “This is not a situation where the government seeks to compel a defendant to produce items that may potentially be incriminatory and her act of producing them arguably has evidentiary value to authenticate the items,” it said.

“Public interests will be harmed absent requiring defendants to make available unencrypted contents in circumstances like these,” it went on to say.

Check out the video above to learn more about the case and ruling.

[via Wired]

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, forgiss

More About: laptop, legal, mashable video

Facebook Timeline Roll Out: Everything You Need to Know

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:11 PM PST

Facebook Timeline

Facebook announced Tuesday that profiles, as many of us have known them for years, will be gone in a few weeks — replaced by Facebook Timeline.

Facebook Timeline, the new interface equipped with a plethora of features, was introduced last September at the annual f8 conference in San Francisco. Eager Facebook users could previously test out the new design by activating developer accounts.

In December, Facebook began giving all users the opportunity to switch over. All you had to do to get Facebook Timeline was click the Get Timeline button on the Introducing Timeline page, rather than going through the multi-step process of creating a developer account.

Facebook Timeline, for those of us already using it, has meant a whole lot of changes and new features. Timeline neatly packages your life events in the form of photos, status updates and wall posts.

Here’s an overview on how to fill in your Timeline’s new features:


1. The Timeline Menu Bar




As you scroll down your new Timeline, a floating menu bar will appear at the top of your screen. Use it to add new events.

Click here to view this gallery.

If you’re dedicated to your classic Facebook profile, you may be weary of the implications of losing Facebook as you know it. To help ease the transition, we asked a Facebook spokesperson some of the pressing questions that may be on your mind as you transition to Timeline.

Everything You Need to Know About the Timeline Roll Out

How long until the roll out will be complete?
While Facebook hasn’t specified an exact date the roll out will be complete, they have confirmed the day will come within the next few weeks. In other words, it’s safe to start counting down to the end of the Facebook Wall.

What does the home page notification message say?
The notification lets you know you now have Timeline and will have seven days before it will be live for your friends to see (you can also publish it earlier, should you prefer). It will also direct you to go to the Introducing Timeline page to learn more.

Who will receive it first?
Facebook is starting with a few smaller countries to test performance and then they’ll start rolling everyone over in the next few weeks.

Is there any way for users to go back?
No, Timeline is the new Facebook profile.

What steps do you recommend Facebook users take before they publish their Timelines?
Facebook advises you take the time to review your Timeline and choose what you want to show and what you want to hide (by selecting to “hide” a story or by managing your activity log). Here are two ways you can get started:

1. Choose a Cover photo: Your Cover is the first thing people see when they visit new profiles. It's a space for you to fill with an image that represents you – the sunset over the ocean on your vacation, the day your baby took her first step, anything you want. Think of it like the cover of a book or album. Your cover photo is in addition to your Facebook profile photo.

2. Manage your Activity Log: Your Activity Log is list of everything that is on your timeline plus activity from the apps or websites you use. The log itself is visible only to you. From your Activity Log, you can choose which stories you want to feature and which ones you'd prefer to hide. To find a specific story or type of story, simply filter by content type or application. You will also find your pending posts here and can quickly approve new content tagged by your friends.

If someone were to not log on to Facebook for three months right now, would they sign on in April with a Timeline they didn’t recognize?
Facebook doesn’t have the specifics figured out for people who haven’t logged onto Facebook for a long time. However, Facebook says it will have to start the seven days for them at some point.

What happens to Facebook Mobile users? Is it the same procedure?
Mobile users will not receive the home page notification message; however, Timeline does appear on Facebook for iOS version 4.1 (or later), iPhone and iPod Touch and Android (version 1.8.1+) devices.

More on Facebook Timeline

Concerned about your privacy with the new Facebook? We’ve got you covered. Take a look through Facebook’s new privacy features to make sure you’re only sharing the information you want public.

Ready to get your hands dirty with the new Facebook Timeline? Here are some lovely Cover design ideas we’ve seen that can provide you with some inspiration.

Do you have any more questions about what the Facebook profile overhaul means for you? Let us know in the comments below.

On Facebook? Like the Mashable Facebook page and check out our favorite articles covering social media, tech news, and digital culture!

More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, trending

Formspring Launches an Android App

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:00 PM PST


Formspring, a 28-million-member platform for asking and answering questions, is launching its first Android app on Tuesday.

From the app, users can ask their friends or specific users questions, answer questions they have been asked and view their news feeds. It’s a screen-by-screen duplicate of the startup’s iPhone app, which it launched in September.

Though Formspring is mum on how many users its iPhone app has, it says that users on average spend 1.5 hours per session using it. A recent Nielsen report found social media mobile app use to be up 30% and unique mobile visitors on social networks to be up 47% since the same time last year. Formspring is in many ways a social network, so it makes sense to prioritize its mobile accessibility.

Formspring is also launching a new homepage on Tuesday that highlights Formspring features that go beyond asking and answering questions.

“With the new homepage you'll also be able to see the various Interest channels we created to give members a new way to meet and interact with each other through shared interests,” explains Formspring Founder and CEO Ade Olonoh. “The new redesign also spotlights celebrities taking time to respond to their fans' most pressing questions and thousands of people building conversation around the Formspring question of the day.”

Incidentally, these are also the features most likely to help the startup establish positive income. The platform has experimented with sponsored questions of the day, which it delivers to all users. Taylor Lautner’s account, for instance, once asked users “Have you ever felt like you were living someone else’s life?” and included a link to a YouTube trailer for Abduction, his latest movie. Twitter has shown how sponsored trending topics could be lucrative. And interest channels, which the platform launched in November with partners such as MTV, Hearst and The Huffington Post, could help make Formspring a more friendly environment for advertisers by giving a fuller picture of user interest graphs.

More About: formspring, q&a

For more Business coverage:

Talking Social Media At the Oscar Nominations [LIVE VIDEO]

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 11:49 AM PST

Academy Awards

The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, and Twitter and other social networks are already reacting to the news and the surprising new Oscar nominees.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is aiming to tightly integrate the whole affair within the social and digital world. Today, Oscar.com is kicking off the first of five live digital specials looking at the awards and the social commentary taking place online.

I’ll be joining What’s Trending host Shira Lazar to discuss the nominations today at 3:00p.m ET/12:00p.m. PT. Watch along below, and let us know in the comments what you think of the Academy’s picks this year.

More About: academy awards, oscar.com, Oscars, oscars 2012

For more Entertainment coverage:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)