Internet & Websites News - Page 72

I've been using HTTPS to access Facebook ever since the social network offered it, but with over one billion users - having it by default is a much better way of keeping your users' data more secure.

Facebook has used HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to protect users when they submit their username and password to login - which prevents someone from diving in and accessing your username or password when typing it. But, in January of 2011, the social network starting offering users to opt in for all of their Facebook browsing to fall under the more secure HTTPS umbrella, at the time warning "Encrypted pages take longer to load, so you may notice that Facebook is slower using HTTPS."

Facebook also said that "We hope to offer HTTPS as a default whenever you are using Facebook sometime in the future." We're finally here, and they're about to press the GO button on this more secure way of browsing. A few days ago, a Facebook Developer Blog post hinted that "this week, we're starting to roll out HTTPS for all North America users and will be soon rolling out to the rest of the world".

Earlier today we posted news that the Unity 4.0 engine had been released, but now there's a short CG animated film from Passion Pictures called "The Butterfly Effect", based on the engine.

The CG short is incredible, with the engine pushing out some seriously slick animation. The story is of a guy who drags himself out of bed to go to the corner store in San Francisco to buy some milk and from there, it gets incredibly destructive. A great video.

The engine looks incredibly powerful, and I would love to see a AAA game based on the title. Imagine a next-gen game powered by this engine, PC-exclusive. It would be incredible. What did you think of The Butterfly Effect? Leave a comment!

Google Fiber is an idea Google has been kicking around for the past couple of years as it aims to become an Internet Service Provider that will offer customers in the U.S. the speeds they deserve at a reasonable price. Earlier this year, they announced Kansas City would be one of the first to receive Google Fiber promising 1 gigabit download and upload speeds for only $70. Today, Google has announced its Google Fiber installation has officially kicked off in Kansas City.

If you live in Kansas City, specifically in Hanover Heights, and see a new box on the side of your home and a sticky note on your door indicating your home is ready for Google Fiber, Google will be contacting you by phone or email within the next couple of days to schedule an appointment with you.

Google Fiber customers will receive a Network Box, which is a gigabit router with Wi-Fi built into it. If you're a Google TV subscriber, you'll also be given a DVR called the Storage Box as well as a Google Fiber TV box for each TV you want connected. Best of all, the remote control Google will give you isn't one of those "universal remotes" that you'll just throw in a drawer somewhere. Instead, it's a Nexus 7 tablet, which I'm sure will cost a ton in rental fees, especially if you accidentally drop it.

In the land of the free, the United States, the department of Homeland Security has just approved a one-year contract which will see them investigate the effectiveness of using social networks to look for instances of bioterrorism, pandemics and other health and security risks.

The department of Homeland Security are paying Accenture Federal Services $3 million the scan the social networks for keywords in real-time, where they'll monitor if growing threats or health trends can be identified. An example would be if an individual talks of their nasty cough or cold on a Facebook status update, the software would be looking to see if key medical terminology is repeated in connected groups, or from other individuals from the same locale.

Managing director for Accenture's public safety department, John Matchette, has said that "this is big data analytics", and has admitted that the technique hasn't been proven yet, adding:

If you ever attend a convention like a Comic-Con, one thing that will definitely get you the ladies is cosplaying as different characters. After watching Stealth Cosplay's video of his War Machine costume, I can tell you if he didn't already have a girlfriend, women at Comic-Con would be throwing phone numbers at him as if he was the guest of honor at a ticket-tape parade.

The suit took approximately one month to complete from start to finish that features the ability to open & close its face mask, blinking lights on the inside of his arms to simulate War Machine's machine guns and his shoulder-mounted mini-gun that spins when in use.

Sure, Iron Man gets all of the love at Comic-Con, but you gotta respect a guy who takes the time to create a War Machine costume as a wingman is never a glamorous job, but one everyone appreciates. It also helps his costume is really, really cool.

Laina's "Overly Attached Girlfriend" character made its debut this summer, and it seems like she's already started to sell out the character to companies who are willing to pay her to look all crazy while adding her own lyrics to karaoke tunes. One of the first "commercials" I've seen for the character just hit YouTube today promoting Samsung's SSD 840.

The video starring Laina's "Overly Attached Girlfriend" character has her speaking on behalf of your computer. It's been a long time since you've layer your Doritos-covered mitts on your computer and it wants you back. Bad. And it's willing to do anything to get you back, like threatening to release all of those quarantined viruses onto your system or deleting all of your pirated music downloads.

After threatening you for over a minute, the Laina, speaking on behalf of your computer, then suggests you buy it the Samsung SSD 840 in order to keep it "perkier, more able" and to show your computer you love it.

Put your hand up if you're one of these people - throws hand in the air - yes, I admit it, I have the least patience when it comes to buffering a video. Well, a professor has now analyzed data from 6.7 million unique visitors, and has bashed his fingers on that calculator.

According to a paper published by professor Ramesh K. Sitarman of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, viewers begin to leave a video after a two second delay, with 6% leaving per second thereafter. The professor took into consideration videos under 30 minutes as "short", where I would consider a short video 1 minute, so your results may vary applies here.

But, his data does add up, with twice as many viewers leaving a "short" video, compared to long ones after a ten second startup delay. The report also finds, most obviously, that users' impatience with Internet speeds looks like an unwinnable battle. Viewers with higher-speed Internet connections had a much weaker tolerance for delays when compared to those with slower, or mobile data connections.

Twitter may have withstood the election wave of tweets successfully, but their security is apparently still pretty lax. Today, Twitter sent out an e-mail to a large number of users urging them to change their respective passwords. The root cause for this is that several (number undetermined) accounts had been compromised through a third-party site.

The hacked accounts were then used to send out spam, the one problem every website with user contributed content faces. Twitter acknowledged that the accounts had been compromised, changed the passwords on them so as to make them inaccessible, and sent out the following e-mail, which explains some background and provides instructions for getting your account back:

Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We've reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account.

Twitter had an incredible day yesterday. While most of the country was out and about voting and watching the results come in, they were also tweeting about it--heavily. Twitter has come out today with a bunch of different stats for Election Day 2012, and some of them are extremely impressive.

Most impressive of the stats is that Twitter recorded a maximum of 327,452 tweets per minute (TPM). The number of tweets is incredible, and Twitter handled it all without a hitch. "These numbers reflect the largest election-related Twitter conversation during our 6 years of existence," VP of Infrastructure Mazen Rawashdeh wrote, "though they don't capture the total volume of all Tweets yesterday."

Even more impressive is that Twitter handled these loads for long periods. Previously, Twitter has had to deal with a high number of tweets per second, but only for a few seconds. An example of this is midnight on New Year's Eve or at the end of a sporting event, such as the Superbowl. For the election, Twitter averaged just under 10,000 tweets per second from 8:11 to 9:11 p.m. PT.

You read the title right, Facebook would like to offer users free internet access at some public places, but you'll have to check-in at the business in order to get access. Facebook has given some special routers to a few businesses that will provide internet once a user checks in to that location. The user is then forwarded to the business's Facebook page.

"When you access Facebook Wi-Fi by checking in, you are directed to your local business's Facebook Page. Some stores may also offer deals or specials when you check in," a Facebook spokesperson said.

Of course, not all users, including myself, will want to do this. Some like their privacy and some just avoid checking-in like the plague. Facebook has offered an alternative, if this is the case for you. Users can ask the business for a password, which will then allow them access to the internet.