Facebook has designed a system that would allow individuals and advertisers to make direct connections to those physically nearby that share similar interests or are open to receiving certain advertisements. The company’s work was outlined in a U.S. patent filing for a “wireless social networking” system that was published this week and represents a further step towards advertising and communication that is locally targeted. Under the envisaged system, a wireless device would establish a connection with other wireless devices nearby. The communication wouldn’t run via the Internet but would be based on a direct link between the devices. Each device might be linked to one or many other devices, depending on the density of people in a certain area, and each would be open to sending, receiving and relaying messages as part of the mesh network. Because the network is based on direct connections, the approximate location of users can be determined. For example, if a device has a 100-meter-range then all other devices it is in direct contact with could be determined to be within 100 meters. If those devices acted as relays, then a second level of devices could be determined to be within 200 meters and so on. The number of relays, or “hops,” lies at the heart of the envisaged system.
SAP’s Business Objects BI (business intelligence) product line may soon begin receiving a visual overhaul based on a new “design language” or methodology called LAVA (Lightweight Applied Visual Analytics). There are six design principles within LAVA, according to a recent post on an . One is “lean appearance,” where analytic applications have a “clean, minimal display style that focuses on the data itself versus on irrelevant faux decorations like gradations, drop shadows, or reflective surfaces,” according to the post by Anita Gibbings, director of BI solutions marketing. LAVA also introduces “points,” or “mini-charts” that deliver information in bite-sized pieces. “Think of them as chart tweets,” she wrote.
Semiconductor company Applied Materials has appointed Gary Dickerson as its new CEO as the company tries to overcome declining sales and profits. Dickerson, 56, will take the CEO post on Sept. 1. Dickerson, who is currently president, will replace Michael Splinter, who has been the CEO since 2003. Dickerson came to Applied Materials after the 2011 acquisition of Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, where he was CEO. He also previously worked at KLA-Tencor. The new CEO will strengthen the company’s precision engineering operations and help deliver revenue and growth, Applied Materials said in a statement Thursday.
Microsoft has reminded, cajoled, and pleaded with users to move off of Windows XP before support for its old OS expires next year. Now Microsoft warns users that they may be subject to “zero-day” threats for the rest of their lives if they don’t migrate. After April 8, 2014, Microsoft will halt support for Windows XP. That means Microsoft won’t issue patches or other security fixes for its opeating system. What does that mean, in terms of security? Tim Rains, director of Trustworthy Computing for Microsoft, sums it up: . “If it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP. Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a ‘zero-day’ vulnerability forever.”
Engineers at the University of Washington developed a pair of devices that can successfully exchange data at speeds of up to 10kbps over a distance of up to 1 meter.
Mozilla will launch Firefox for Microsoft’s Windows 8 “Modern” user interface in mid-December, more than a year after the operating system’s launch, according to the open-source developer’s planning documents. Called the “Preview Release,” the touch-ready browser will be packaged with Firefox 26 for the Windows desktop. Firefox 26 is slated to ship Dec. 10. Work on the browser—a so-called “Metro-ized” version of Firefox—will continue up until release, Mozilla said in from a planning meeting Wednesday published on its website. Before the final release of Firefox 26, Mozilla will pair the Modern version with the browser’s “Aurora” and “Beta” channel builds, which are to release Sept. 16 and Oct. 28, respectively. At each step, Mozilla will quash bugs and possibly respond to user feedback with changes.
. If it does it right, businesses will reap the benefit of monetizing their Facebook presence and be able to simplify the process of turning Facebook followers into revenue. Rivals should be worried any time an 800-pound gorilla like Facebook enters a market. Facebook is the online destination where users spend the most time each month, and with a billion-ish users it represents a dominating force in whatever market it chooses to compete. functionality to enable Facebook users to identify the music, restaurants, movies, and other things their extended social network likes. With Facebook mobile payments, businesses can streamline the process of turning that social relationship with customters into a revenue stream. The idea has always been to promote the business and hopefully generate revenue, but if those billion potential customers can use the tool they’re already logged into to do business with the companies they already Like and follow, it will make it that much easier.
Motorola's Moto X smartphone finally gets a release date.
Amazon reviews: These little nuggets of crowd-sourced wisdom are crucial information for buyers, oft-gamed by shady sellers, and frequently make the difference between a one-click sale and a click-through “pffft.” But not all Amazon reviews carry such tremendous portent on their shoulders! Indeed, it’s a time-honored tradition to shower the most ridiculous for-purchase products with a flood of hilariously satirical reviews to drive home their inanity. Finding these hidden gems used to take hours of sifting through the site, or—if you were lucky—a tip-off from a joke lover in the know. No more! Amazon has taken the time to compile a list of the funniest reviews to be found on the mammoth website, and yes, it’s as glorious as it sounds.
An open-source project aims to give a rudimentary eye to robots with the help of a camera that can detect, identify and track the movement of specific objects. The Pixy camera sensor board, being developed by Charmed Labs and Carnegie Mellon University, can detect objects based on seven colors, and then report them back to a computer. A was launched on Thursday to fund the $25,000 project, and the organizations are on pace to reach full funding by the end of the day. Adding the Pixy could be viewed as giving robots basic vision, said Rich LeGrand, founder of Charmed Labs. “Once you have vision, then you can introduce the idea of tasks,” LeGrand said. “If you want a robot to charge itself, that’s a simple example of a task. This will get you there. If you want to a robot to navigate, this will get you there.”
If true, reports that Nokia plans to release a tablet running Microsoft’s failed Windows RT OS are “bizarre” and “highly surprising” according to analysts who think the company should focus on its struggling smartphone business. The Finnish phone maker is going to launch the tablet in September, according to . The plans, if they turn out to be true, are surprising for a couple of reasons, said Informa Telecoms & Media analyst Malik Saadi. “First of all the OS has been a flop, there is no doubt about that. So the choice to go with Windows RT is bizarre,” Saadi said. Just 200,000 Windows RT tablets were shipped during the second quarter, according to IDC.
People surfing for media files on The Pirate Bay download site would be well-advised to heed the words of Admiral Ackbar from ! Some pretty strong evidence has come to light that one of the most notorious copyright troll operations in the U.S. targeted The Pirate Bay with a honeypot operation, a trap set to detect unauthorized use of copyrighted files. , an attorney associated with Prenda Law shares the same Internet Protocol address as Sharkmp4, a user and prolific uploader on the world’s most notorious torrent tracker. Sharkmp4 has uploaded more than 40 pornographic videos to TPB since February 2011. Those same clips were then used in copyright infringement suits. How many of Prenda Law’s cases were based on the honeypot is unclear. But in an , at least one man is being sued over a movie first uploaded to the TPB by Sharkmp4. The association between Prenda Law and Sharkmp4 was first suggested in an in May by Delvan Neville, the creator of EUPSC2k, a BitTorrent monitoring software suite.
for the first time. Huzzah! My first thought was, “They still sell non-smartphones?” My second thought was “Why do we even still call it a ‘phone’?” I mean, a PC is basically an evolution of a calculator, but we don’t get excited about whether or not PCs outsell calculators, and we don’t call PCs “supercalculators.” If you think about it, making and receiving voice calls is one of the more minor functions of a smartphone. Sure, the devices we use today evolved from a basic mobile phone, and they’ve gotten “smarter” with new features and capabilities and a seemingly endless array of apps. But the term “smartphone” is a bit of a misnomer that doesn’t accurately describe what the device is. It’s a personal communication and entertainment device (PCED). It’s a mobile pocket computer (MPC). It’s a personal digital assistant (PDA)—much more so than the devices that originally claimed that title. It’s an invaluable tool that enables business professionals to stay connected and be productive from virtually anywhere and at any time.
The price? $200 with a two-year contract.
Sometimes, it just ain’t easy being a Windows Phone owner. , bringing sweet relief to the poor Windows Phone users long saddled with an old and crappy port of the service, the new app has stopped working whatsoever. Why, you ask? Because Google blocked Microsoft’s access. Again. . “It has been disabled. We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines.”
Area 51 has been firmly embedded in American lore, often as the home of little green men secreted away in the Nevada desert. Now, the U.S. government has acknowledeged the existence of the site in a history of the Lockheed CL-282, also known as the U-2 spy plane. The report, authored in 1992, was originally classified as “secret,” but was declassified with redactions in 1998. Secreted away within those redactions were the references to Area 51, the site also known as “Groom Lake” in the Nevada desert. Those redactions were almost all eliminated in June; the university then published the report. Following World War II, the government's goal was to keep tabs on known and potentially hostile countries, with airborne surveillance seen as a means with great potential. The government also believed that a plane flying above 65,000 feet would evade the early-warning radars used by Russia and other hostile nations, and set out to develop a plane to do just that: the Lockheed CL-282 , which was renamed the U-2 in July 1955, according to the report.
The event would coincide with a prescheduled event for the Galaxy Note 3 on the same date.
Microsoft will be putting its PC games marketplace to bed next week, bringing an end to the company's efforts to rival Valve's popular Steam marketplace. . Microsoft's long lambasted Games for Windows Live client will still function, so people can keep playing games they've already bought, but without a way to buy new games, Microsoft's service is effectively in limbo. For buying new games, players will have to take their business to other marketplaces, such as Steam, Amazon, Origin, or GOG. As for downloadable content in games that have already been purchased, Microsoft says it'll be up to the publisher to continue selling that content. . Although Microsoft is encouraging people to spend unused points now, the company doesn't specifically say that users will lose their points after August 22. A support page says that the next time users make a purchase, Microsoft will convert their entire balance to real currency, in an amount equal to or greater than the value of Microsoft Points.
It’s official: The audacious Ubuntu Edge smartphone-, the previous crowdfunding record holder. Too bad it’s all for naught. With just six days left in the campaign, Canonical is still roughly $21.5 million short of the utterly ridonkulous $32 million goal set for . If the campaign doesn’t hit the magic $32 million number, the Ubuntu Edge remains a dream, and all pledges will be returned to people who donated to the campaign. Frankly, it’s not looking like that goal’s going to be met. That’s right—the most successful crowdfunding campaign in history is shaping up to be a resounding failure.
. , give motion-graphics artists and compositors much-needed integration with true 3D object animation. In addition, several upgraded tools—including the Refine Edge Tool (for use with Roto Brush), Warp Stabilizer VFX, and Pixel Motion Blur—make the CC version a substantial revision for compositors and animators. Also new are the enhanced 3D Camera Tracker, bicubic sampling for layers, and the ability to send a comp to render through the Adobe Media Encoder, which allows you to continue working in After Effects while your project renders in the background. For me, however, the real beauty of Adobe’s Creative Cloud is the ability to sync my user profiles and preferences between machines and to access my software and settings when I’m working remotely—simply by signing in with my Creative Cloud User ID.
Cybercriminals were quick to integrate a newly released exploit for a Java vulnerability patched in June into a tool used to launch mass attacks against users, an independent malware researcher warned. The exploit targets a critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2013-2465 that affects all Java versions older than Java 7 Update 25 and can enable remote code execution. The vulnerability in its June Critical Patch Update for Java. The exploit was released Monday by security research group Packet Storm Security, which originally acquired it through its bug bounty program as a zero-day exploit—an exploit for an unpatched vulnerability—from a researcher whose name was not disclosed. Packet Storm publishes the exploits it acquires 60 days after it receives them, with permission from their authors, so other security professionals can use them to perform penetration tests and security risk assessments. Two days after its release, the CVE-2013-2465 exploit was already integrated into so-called exploit kits, attack tools that infect computers with malware by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated software when users visit compromised websites.
Nokia has started rolling out the Amber software update to its Lumia smartphones, which will allow users to take better pictures and get new camera apps.
The use of tools to detect malicious patterns in apps led Facebook to temporarily disable some legitimate third-party apps that integrate with the social networking website, the company said Thursday. Earlier in the week, a number of people complained that their Facebook developer accounts and apps were unavailable. Facebook said it uses automated systems to identify and disable malicious apps, so as to protect its platform and users. These techniques identify a malicious pattern, find the apps that match that pattern, and then disable those apps. “This normally results in thousands of malicious apps being disabled and improves our automated systems’ ability to detect similar attacks in the future,” Facebook employee Eugene Zarakhovsky wrote in a .
Plants versus Zombies 2 is great. It’s in-app purchases threaten all of that.
Something ominous occurred earlier this week: Amid all the talk about the in the second quarter. Lenovo sells more computers than any other company, so that’s a mighty big feat indeed. Good for Lenovo, right? Right. But beyond that one company, what does it mean when the world’s top PC manufacturer sells more tablets and smartphones than it does traditional computers? Is this yet another sign of the impending demise of the PC? Are we entering an era that will be dominated exclusively by smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The PC isn’t dead yet. It’s just not the blazing solo star it used to be.
The inexpensive tablet's price reflects mediocre features, ill-advised design decisions, and an extremely low-quality screen.
Dropbox revolutionized the way we share information, and no enterprises have enjoyed the benefits more than small businesses. Cloud storage has enabled them to access critical data from the road, work across geographic boundaries, easily share large files, and do away with costly physical infrastructure. But while Dropbox and other popular cloud-storage providers are adequate for the average consumer, most services don’t meet small-business needs for security, affordability, real-time collaboration, and lots of file storage. Here are some Dropbox alternatives that do. Like Dropbox, each offers an easy-to-use interface, 2GB of free storage, and drag-and-drop syncing, and any are guaranteed to be a boon to your business. 2GB $100/year for 100GB, $600/year for 1TB (100 users per TB)
It's important to be in control of your financial future, and that starts with getting educated. Get involved in some free Stock Market simulators to get a feel of just how hectic and rewarding investing can be—just don't go for broke.
As any Dropbox user knows, it's pretty easy to share a cloud-stored file with someone; just click the icon to get a link you can distribute as needed. Ah, but what about the other way around? What if someone wants to send a file to you via Dropbox? Unless they have Dropbox accounts of their own, they can't. Now they can. Browser-based Dropbox. All you do is type in a desired user name, then click . You'll have to give Dbinbox permission, of course, after which you'll find a newly added Dbinbox folder inside your Apps folder.
The brainchild of Dr. Edel Garcia, the Minerazzi project aims to allow anyone to build small, on-topic search indexes. His hope is that anyone can be involved in data mining and learning through discovery by building these search indexes.
In case you missed it, as part of Geek Week, YouTube added a fun Easter egg that lets you play the classic "Missile Command" Atari video game. To trigger it, play any video, click on white space, type in "1980", and your game will load.
Google is once again gathering more search market share and remains the uncontested top search engine in the U.S. In July comScore reported that Google's market share shot back to 67 percent after having fallen below that mark three months ago.
Using Google Voice search, you can ask Google questions such as “Is my flight on time?” or “what are my plans for tomorrow?” and Google will now give you instant answers if the information is in your Gmail, Google Calendar or Google+ account.
Protecting your online presence keeps getting harder. Here's what to do to protect your site from exploits due to advertising security holes, nasty injections, HTTPS cracking, and more techniques that can get your site flagged as malware by Google.
With the approaching consolidation of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator into the Keyword Planner, SEO and PPC professionals should become familiar with this new product. Here's a comparison of the Keyword Tool and Keyword Planner.
There are several benefits to complementing your blog posts with a little visual appeal, but photos must make sense and not infringe on any copyrights. Follow these simple steps to find royalty free images using the Google Images advanced search.
A report from Be On analyzed the video reach and engagement of major sports teams across the world. Teams from five different sports represented – cricket, Formula 1 Racing, NFL, NBA and soccer, with the top five spots taken by soccer clubs.
In a world where mobile traffic continues to rise, you'd expect conversion rates to rise as well. But data from BrightEdge shows many sites are missing out on conversion opportunities, and signs point to not being optimized for mobile users.
Yelp now will let users leave reviews for businesses via their smartphones. Separately, Yelp also announced that is releasing a new batch of alerts on profiles where business owners have used some sort of incentive in return for great reviews.
The CEO is responsible for every aspect of the business they lead. The time has come for CEOs to step up and take responsibility for the most direct connection they have with customers, employees, stakeholders and the media – social media.
By understanding each YouTube video ad campaign type, how these ad units function, and understanding proper campaign segmentation, direct marketers can leverage this massive channel to drive more relevant traffic that converts.
Unique localized strategies specifically for social media are a must for brands that want to be engaging and stay relevant. Here's how to ensure businesses with multiple locations can easily be found online and help generate local leads.
xAd has released its Q2 2013 Mobile-Location Insights Report, which showed “geo-conquesting” – a way for mobile advertisers to grab attention away from local competition – is on the rise and businesses are seeing success with the strategy.
Oklahoma's Tourism and Recreation Department, using only 20 percent of its marketing budget on YouTube TrueView ads, increased website visits by 486 percent year over year. TrueView ads accounted for 44 percent of all their site traffic.
If you're a big fan of "Doctor Who", then you'll love the new Google Maps Easter egg. When you go to the address of the Police Telephone Box – a.k.a., TARDIS - you can actually "look inside" to see exactly how it appears on "Doctor Who".
This post will focus on the two main methods of managing the redirection of a single page on your website – the 301 redirect and the rel="canonical" attribute – to conquer duplicate content issues, sustain your rankings, and improve user experience.
Boring is in the eye of the beholder. Any industry, no matter how boring on the surface, has interesting stories just waiting to be exploited by a creative link builder. Here's how to find opportunities for tremendous coverage and editorial links.
Someone going through a difficult time, such as rebuilding after a major Google update, will go through a basic, universal grieving process – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Then you'll be ready to start over with your SEO.
A new study by online advertising company Chitika maps Google search engine usage by state and its correlation to variables like median age, job growth and income and education level. California, New York, and Massachusetts are top Google users.