Internet & Websites - Page 30

If you are a big twitter fan, the service has announced some updates that will make it a bit more social. On networks like Facebook, you can attach multiple photos to your posts and tag people in the photos that you want to see it. Twitter hasn't had that capability.

In the past, it was one photo per tweet and if you wanted someone to see it, you had to use the trusty "@" to do the trick. Twitter announced this week that it was adding two new features that will change all that. The new features include the ability to tag people in photos that you are posting and put multiple photos in a single tweet.

Twitter also now supports up to four photos in the tweet. The cool part about support for photo tagging is that you can tag up to ten people in a single image and not use any of your 140 characters to do it. If you are tagged in a photo, you will receive a notification.

Despite Turkey's attempt to ban social networking site Twitter, the government is now "fighting a losing battle," experts claim, with Turkish citizens using virtual private networks (VPNs), text messaging and Tor to continue tweeting.

Although Twitter hasn't publicly issued a response - following the Turkish government trying to have government corruption tweets and links deleted - Twitter's decision to post a guide on how to post tweets via SMS provides an initial insight into the company's stance on the matter.

Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek isn't overly impressed with the ban:

One of Google's favorite hobbies is killing off services that the company no longer wishes to support. Last year we saw this happen when Google grew tired of supporting its Reader service, and this year it looks like one of its older services will be led to the chopping block. Several reports have popped up today that suggest that Google is looking to retire its Voice service and integrate some of its key features into Hangouts.

Google launched Voice back in 2009 when it decided to rebrand the aging GrandCentral internet calling service. One of the best features about Google Voice was the ability to have a second phone number that would ring straight through your Gmail account or your Android Device. Additionally many users loved the way Google Voice handled voice mails and many switched their Android devices over to Google Voice just for this voice mail feature. Unfortunately this feature for far fewer users than it glitched out for, and now it appears that Google will be putting an end to the service in an effort to further unify its Google+ and Google Hangouts services.

No word was given on when Google might kill Google Voice, but I for one can not wait to see it go. I use Google Hangouts almost exclusively now for my "At PC calling" and could never get Google Voice to function properly for more than a few days at the time. There is a part of me that is sad to see it go though as I was one of the original GrandCentral subscribers way back in the day. As with Reader going away, the death of Voice will benefit us more than we realize at the moment, and I can not wait to see how Google Hangouts improves because of this.

Back in the mid to late 90's, the search engine we know as Google began as a research project between Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, and as with any website that is a product of the end of the 90's some aspects of the original design have remained. With Google search, one last fall back to days past has remained on the site since its inception.

Back in the day web developers use to set all hotlinks to display as underlined in an effort to make the links more visible to a not so computer savvy generation that was just beginning to use the web. The links in Google's search results were all underlined back then and while this trend died off in the mid 2000's, Google kept its links underlined. Today Google decided to remove those underlines as well as increasing the size of result titles.

"We've increased the size of result titles, removed the underlines, and evened out all the line heights," says Google lead designer Jon Wiley. "This improves readability and creates an overall cleaner look." With these changes also comes new ad labels , and a more modern and well refined search results page. Perhaps one of the best decisions Google made was to no move forward with banner ads in search results, something it had been testing for a few months.

A Mexican website that was a source for information containing, news, discussion and point of view from many protestors about the new President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto at a wake of a controversy in December 1st 2012. The website 1dmx.org grew over the time.

When the protests' first anniversary was near, the website included information about organized campaign against a bill that was going to criminalize protest in Mexico and even made preparations to document the entire protests. However, but December 2nd 2013, the website was taken offline by its host 'GoDaddy' without any notice.

The U.S. based GoDaddy hosting company told the site owners that the site was suspended as it was a part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. It was also revealed that the office who is in charge of the investigation was lead by Special Agent Homeland Security investigations, US embassy in Mexico City. It was also found that the contact email to this agency was from 'ice.dhs.gov' domain, which is used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.

Comcast is planning to use its customer's Wi-Fi routers to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot in Chicago. The Internet Service provider has started to convert a large number of Wi-Fi routers in homes into Xfinity hotspots using its existing equipments.

The company will be using a separate Wi-Fi signal and sending it through Comcast-owned wireless routers. Such signals from Comcast's home equipments can be identified by Comcast Xfinity's Wi-Fi mobile app. According to Comcast, by using such measures, it will not affect its subscriber's speed and privacy.

Comcast earlier did a test to see if they can do so, and made sure that such concerns are dealt with. During the time of testing, few users were found the need to opt-out of this service. Nagel said that Comcast provided a manual setting on the router should the customer choose to de-activate it. But by default, the Xfinity Wi-Fi signal will be switched on.

Ever wanted to know what's there in the menu of a restaurant you haven't been before? Google search engine will now show menus anytime you search for a restaurant in the United States. This announcement was made officially via Google+ post.

Google said,"Next time you're planning a brunch or a date night, check to make sure the menu has something to satisfy everyone in your group, without having to browse through several restaurants' websites". As of now, this feature is available in United States and wasn't clear if they will make this feature available in other countries. Some say that the move is made you try to compete with services such as Yelp.

But the search engine giant doesn't its own database of menus from a large amount of restaurants spread through United States, and therefore has to rely in data from a third party. Google didn't reveal any information, nor it provided any information of how many restaurant menus they have so far.

Online video site Dailymotion has set its sights on the U.S. video market, and wants to steal YouTube market share by launching original content to woo viewers.

In the first mini-series, Super chef Mario Batali will host fives episodes in which he speaks with musicians he is a personal fan of. Each episode will be 22 minutes in length and is a major gamble on Dailymotion's part, though was the brainchild of analytics that indicate many viewers enjoy music and cooking videos.

"It's our particular goal to package and distribute our own original IP that captivates and engages our existing community of over 127M global viewers season after season," said Roland Hamilton, Dailymotion US Managing Director, in a press statement. "We believe having original and exclusive content is a great way to differentiate so we're looking for interesting projects - passion projects from extraordinary people that deserved to get made, much like Mario's 'Feedback Kitchen'."

HTML5 is one of the leading mobile technologies that consumers and companies should pay attention to, especially in 2015 and 2016, a new report from the Gartner research group indicates.

"HTML5 won't be a simple panacea for mobile application portability because it's fragmented and immature and therefore poses many implementation and security risks," said Nick Jones, Gartner VP and distinguished analyst, in a Gartner statement. "However, as HTML5 and its development tools mature, the popularity of the mobile Web and hybrid applications will increase. Hence, despite many challenges, HTML5 will be an essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms."

Some developers are turning to HTML5 to get their feet wet - and create apps that are supported both on Google Android and Apple iOS. Moving forward, HTML5 development will become a growing priority for app and website designers, and there is plenty of opportunity for the technology to capture market share.

Today Google announced the launch of a new feature that is designed to make publishing and searching for custom maps much easier than ever before. The all new Google Maps Gallery is a new way for Governments, non-profit organizations and businesses to easily publish and share their map data with the rest of the world from a familiar and easy to use interface.

Once published, the new custom maps can be easily viewed on Google Earth and are discoverable from all major search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo. This brings maps from National Geographic, World Bank, and USGS instantly into the view of researchers, students, and the general public anywhere there is an internet connection.

Google's Street View is one of the revolutionary products from the company that forever changed the way we navigate the world. With Google's recent expansion of Street View to locations beyond city streets, the service has become much more than a simple navigation too, and people are using it to take virtual vacations to remote places all over the world. Today Google rolled out more images for its Underwater Street View library, taking us to popular diving spots in Cancun, and Isla Mujeres.

These latest editions join a collection of underwater panoramic photos from hot spots such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines, and Hawaii as well as spots from Bermuda Monoco, and the Galapagos Islands. Each photographic excursion takes place over a 2-3 kilometer area and is comprised of some 3000-4000 images that are later stitched together to form the breathtaking panoramic images seen in Street View.

For right now, Google seems to be focusing mainly on areas around North and South America, but the company says that in the future it will expand to the rest of the worlds underwater treasures, and that it expects to have a much larger uncatalogued within the next two years. Projects like this are one of the most important things Google does in my opinion as we know more about outer space than we do about the Earths Oceans. Personally, I hope Google teams up with someone like NOAA or Odyssey to do more panoramic images of deep water sunken ships and other ruins that lay below the waters surface.

Mt. Gox has just gone offline, with a joint statement released from several organizations from the Bitcoin community distancing themselves from the site. Not only is the site gone, but exchange's entire Twitter feed seems to have been wiped.

A spokesperson for the group told Recode: "Mt. Gox has confirmed it will file bankruptcy in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community". The Verge reached out to Mt. Gox, but the exchange didn't respond. Then there's an unverified document that tells the world that Mt. Gox's "crisis strategy" alleges that the exchange lost some 744,00 Bitcoins in a theft that goes back quite a few years.

The theft is said to have been enabled by the malleability bug that caused the exchange to stop all withdrawals earlier in the month. The join statement reads: "This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company's actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in Bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making Bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants. As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today".

Netflix made a deal with Comcast in which the TV series and movie streaming service will pay Comcast in exchange for faster and more reliable access to the broadband provider's subscribers.

The details of this agreement was not disclosed, but the companies said,"Netflix receives no preferential network treatment under the multiyear agreement." This deal however comes with a criticism that this agreement may violate the principles of net neutrality. It was being discussed that all content providers should have equal and free access to its consumers.

Tim Wu, a professor in Columbia Law School and an advocate for net neutrality said that this agreement between the companies will be bad for consumers. A fear also rises that if such deals become more common, only the wealthiest content providers will be the ones getting their content across.

The Federal Court in Canada has ordered Ontario based internet service provider 'TekSavvy Solutions' to cough out names and addresses of 2,000 subscribed who are suspected to use peer-to-peer client to down movies illegally which is owned by Voltage Pictures who made movies movies such as The Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club.

This is considered as a pivotal moment to catch movie pirates. As said by Voltage Pictures' Lawyer James Zibarras, the decision marks a shift from a time when BMG Canada Inc.'s attempt to track down illegal music downloaders was turned down by the court. He said,"That was heralded by many people as a kind of green light for downloading. This is the first time that case has been reconsidered by the court."

The court however has placed several limitation on Voltage Pictures and the way they'll use the information that they'll receive. A decision was made by Federal Court that the movie maker's communication with TekSavvy users should first be approved by the court, and that its letter should mentioned in clear letter that 'no Court has yet made a determination that such Subscriber has infringed or is liable in any way for payment of damages.'

Google has now provided a useful tool to get rid of those annoying subscriptions that you may or may have not signed up for, and even taking the trouble to locate an unsubscribe button in those unwanted promotional emails.

From this week onwards, Google will provide a clearly marked 'Unsubscribe' link for Gmail. The link will be present on top of the header field in the such promotional emails or mailing lists.

Earlier Google tested this feature with a limited number of users, but now Google has implemented this feature for everyone. The unsubscribe link should appear on most of the promotional message that would have hidden away an subscribe option. On the downside, this may have a bad effect on companies who try to build a customer base online. a number of promoters have started adding email addresses which they receive from multiple sources and mailing lists. On many cases, its either without the user's approval or hidden away in those sign up offers of anything that you're signed up for. Eventually, it may come to a point that the user may abandon the email address or the email service for good. In my opinion, its a win-win situation for everyone.

Google has made plans to start its Fiber connection in nine cities across the United States. Google also said that it has invited thirty four cities in these nine metros to take a look at what would it take to establish a fiber optic network in their own cities should they wish to do so.

The company has been working very hard to deploy Fiber connections throughout the cities by conducting detailed studies for any factors that may affects its construction plans.

Along with studying topography (such as hills, flood zones, etc.), housing density and condition of the local infrastructure, they require the following information:

The underground Silk Road 2.0 website was reportedly hacked and those responsible ran off with an estimated $2.6 million for their efforts.

"I am sweating as I write this... I must utter words all too familiar to this scared community: We have been hacked," Silk Road 2.0 administrators posted on a forum. "Our initial investigations indicate that a vendor exploited a recently discovered vulnerability in the bitcoin protocol known as 'transaction malleability' to repeatedly withdraw coins from our system until it was completely empty."

Although Defcon, the admin who posted a message on the Silk Road 2.0 forums didn't post an exact figure taken, security experts believe 4,400 coins - the equivalent of close to $2.6 million - was taken.

Ice hockey, maple syrup, Bieber and... Internet piracy? The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) recently recommended Canada's addition to the Special 301 "watch list." There is special interest in the number of torrent sites and online piracy groups that are based in Canada, including a wide collection of smaller torrent sites.

"Even after the shuttering of Isohunt, Canada is still the home to some of the world's most popular Internet sites dedicated to piracy, including Torrentz.eu and Kickass.to, which garnered rankings of third and second place, respectively, on one of the most widely accessed listings on the world's most popular illicit BitTorrent sites," the IIPA claims.

The IIPA is made up of the RIAA, MPAA, ESA, BSA, and other copyright groups that share information, effective anti-piracy measures, and current legal efforts. IIPA officials would like to see U.S. lawmakers influence Canadian peers to crack down more harshly on piracy.

Social media plays an important role for viewers, businesses, and sponsors of major international events, with the 2014 Winter Olympics from Sochi, Russia, providing a great opportunity for Twitter and Facebook. Twitter gives smaller countries and lesser known Olympic athletes a way to share their love and passion for their sports with new fans - and give sponsors additional return-on-investment.

"The social media experience it's all about time and efficiency," said Justin Maas, fishbat Client Relations VP, in a press statement. "By making it easier for users to retrieve the information they want, Twitter has added value to its site. Twitter is essential for gathering news. Adding special pages for Olympics athletes and events was a smart move by the social network."

Journalists and Olympics viewers share stories, results, and interviews with one another - and with mobile content increasing, it's become even easier to share information to Twitter and other social media websites. However, athletes and coaches in Sochi aren't allowed to post audio or video from sporting events or anything happening in the Olympic Village. They can record audio or video for personal reasons, however, it cannot be done with professional recording equipment.

Major pizza chains are able to use customized online ordering systems to woo Internet users, while mom and pop shops are having trouble trying to keep up. Papa John's, Domino's Pizza, Pizza Hut, and other large chains are able to support online ordering using automated systems tested across multiple locations - but smaller local pizza shops traditionally need to use walk-in and telephone orders to handle customer interactions.

Younger customers are more inclined to order delivery through mobile or online services ,with smart TV and game consoles giving customers the chance to easily place orders.

"Most of the small and regional chains who still continue to sell the majority of the pizza in the U.S. simply aren't able to play on these technology platforms with the level of sophistication that we have," said Patrick Doyle, Domino's CEO, during an investor's financial call.