Internet & Websites - Page 32

Facebook has been banned in China for what seems like forever, but now Beijing has lifted the ban on the Internet access within the Shanghai free-trade Zone to foreign websites that were previously considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government.

These websites included Facebook, Twitter and The New York Times, but now according to government sources who told the South China Morning Post, the authority in charge of the Hong Kong-like free-trade zone in Shanghai is a first in mainland China. This would also see bids coming in from foreign telecommunications companies for license to provide Internet services within the new zone.

One of the government sources told the South China Morning Post: "In order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must think about how we can make them feel like at home. If they can't get onto Facebook or read The New York Times, they may naturally wonder how special the free-trade zone is compared with the rest of China."

Throughout the day, Gmail users have been experiencing spotty performance issues as well as downtime when trying to access their email. Sluggish load times and delayed receipt of emails are the major nuisances, while some users, including myself, were unable to access the service altogether several times throughout the day.

Google has confirmed that as many as 50 percent of users may have been affected by the performance issues and service disruptions, which appeared to start around 2:05PM Eastern Time. Google says that they are working diligently to return things to normal and as of this posting, all of my issues seem to have been resolved.

Update: Google appears to still be dealing with issues pertaining to the GMail service. Per their update page, Google says that "Gmail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change. Gmail message delivery delays and attachment download issues have been corrected for most affected users. A majority of the delivery backlog has also been cleared. We hope to clear the backlog completely in the very near future."

Netflix's Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos has some harsh words about Canada's big ISPs, where he said that: "it's almost a human rights violation what they're charging for internet access in Canada."

Sarandos' harsh words were said during the Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment conference in Los Angeles Wednesday. Sarandos was referring to the low broadband caps in Canadian ISPs like Bell and Shaw, which force their customers to pay more if they exceed their 15GB monthly cap. Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, has called caps and overage feeds like the aforementioned ones above are "grossly overpriced."

Sarandos was asked if business for Netflix would grow in Canada if consumers' Internet caps were increased, where he said: "The problem in Canada is... they have almost third-world access to the internet."

Today, Google unveiled a new logo and a completely redesigned navigation bar that effectively removes the black bar that resides at the top of the screen when visiting any of Google's online services. The new logo is much flatter and removes the glossy embossing that it featured for so long. Additionally, the font is a little bit different and the colors are a little more subdued.

The other major change is the removal of the black navigation bar we first hated but quickly grew to love. It has been replaced by an icon that opens up to reveal a Chrome Launcher-style window that lets you choose which service you would like to navigate to. I don't know how I feel about this yet as it seems to add an additional click into my workflow. I'm sure that as time progresses I will learn to love it just like I did the black bar.

The new logo and navigation bar will roll out to all users in the coming weeks and will be featured on mobile devices as well. Google says that these changes have been made to help streamline user workflow and to bring the company's UI up to date with current trends.

Yahoo is continuing its image revamp by continually rolling out new products and redesigning existing ones that have become stale. Today, Yahoo released an update to its My Yahoo service that completely refreshes the personalized homepage.

I understand that in today's era of multiple tabs, smartphones, and tablets, the idea of an all-in-one home page seems kind of pointless to some, but there was a time that the homepage ruled supreme. Services like Yahoo, AOL, MSN, and even iGoogle popped up to fill this niche, but they almost all slipped into a stagnant state as tabbed browsing and mobile computing took over.

Yahoo is hoping that its completely redesigned My Yahoo service will once again resurrect the now all but defunct all-in-one home page. With iGoogle nearing its end of life, this does appear to be a smart move on Yahoo's part as Google refugees can equate to big money. Just ask the little-known RSS service Feedly about its increase in traffic since Google Reader shutdown.

It appears that Facebook is going to jump into the professional social networking ring and go head-to-head with LinkedIn. A new report is showing off a new section that Facebook is said to be testing called the "Professional Skills" tab. Much like LinkedIn, it would allow users to list out their professional skill sets.

Unlike LinkedIn, however, when clicking on a person's professional skill, it will not take you to a page showing who endorsed you for that skill, but rather to other professionals who claim to possess the same skill. Additionally, the new professional skills tab will only allow you to add skills that have existing Facebook pages. This can be confusing as a quick search shows that skills such as "marketing" have several different pages created by the community.

Facebook has not announced a launch date for this feature, nor has any information on a beta program been released, but we expect some kind of announcement soon. With Facebook adding job-search features and other professional-style searches, users may want to rethink the content they post on the service or at least adjust their privacy settings to only display content they wish the public to see.

Have you ever ordered a paperback or hardcover book from Amazon and wished that you could get the digital copy for your Kindle in the same purchase at a discounted price? If so, an announcement today is sure to make you quite happy. Amazon today announced a new initiative called Kindle Matchbook that will allow customers to include the Kindle edition of physical books in with their order at a highly discounted price.

Customers will now be able to pick up the Kindle edition of their book for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or for free anytime they purchase the physical copy of the book. Amazon has made this feature retroactive as well, and any books you have purchased since Amazon first opened its online bookstore now qualify for this deal. This means that you can go back through your Amazon purchase history and pick up the Kindle edition of your favorite books at a highly discounted price.

"If you logged onto your CompuServe account during the Clinton administration and bought a book like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus from Amazon, Kindle MatchBook now makes it possible for that purchase-18 years later-to be added to your Kindle library at a very low cost," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "In addition to being a great new benefit for customers, this is an easy choice for publishers and authors who will now be able to earn more from each book they publish."

It appears that YouTube has been quietly changing its logo across the various social networking platforms it uses to promote its content. Additionally both the Android and iOS apps now feature the new logo. We're still not sure though, if this is an official permanent logo update as YouTube.com still features the old bubbly style logo.

The new logo as seen above appears to be more Windows 8 friendly and looks like it would fit in perfectly with the live tiles on any Windows 8 home screen. Additionally the logo does appear to more closely align with other Google-owned services such as Chrome and Drive, which both are quite minimalist and features double drop shadows. I have sent a request to YouTube for more information and will update this post as soon as I know more.

Yahoo began doling out good news (or bad) today to its users who applied for a recycled username back in July. The company began firing off emails today notifying users if a username they wished to recycle has been reserved for them are not. Today also marks the beginning of the new policy in which Yahoo will begin recycling user accounts if they go dormant for more than 90 days, so remember to keep logging into your account even if you're not using it if you wish to keep your name.

If you did not receive an email today, do not worry as it is expected to take several days for Yahoo to completely notify everyone who signed up. Additionally, if you did not have the chance to sign up for the original wish list of names, Yahoo will now allow you to do so at the cost of just $1.99. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky few who received my very first request, but apparently was denied for my other four. We want to know how many of you received your requested username, so drop us a line in the comments below!

All Twitter users are being advised today to log into their account and revoke access to all third-party applications after an Islamic hacker managed to pull the entire OAuth database for users of Twitter. Calling himself the Mauritania Attacker, the hacker from the West African country of Mauritania posted details from just over 15,000 Twitter users earlier today and claims to have millions more. It's not clear whether he attacked Twitter or a third-party site. The latter is much more likely. Twitter says they are looking into the situation.

Twitter says that the stolen files do not include passwords, but do contain all of the usernames as well as OAuth access keys used by third-party applications to manage your Twitter account on your behalf. Security expert Allen Woodward, of the University of Surrey in the UK, told website Gigaom that the easy way to protect your account is to log-in and delete all third-party access to the account. Then by simply reauthorizing those accounts, a new key will be generated and everything will be safe again.

"Personally, I do regular housekeeping where I go into the Apps settings of Twitter and delete the third party apps that have access. The reason is that at present Twitter OAuth tokens once issued do not expire. You have to manually revoke them," said Woodwars. "So, I think best thing one could [do] is to go in and revoke third party's apps rights and then just relogin when/if you want to reaccess Twitter via that app. This way a new token will be issued."

Today, LinkedIn announced that it has launched a new Page for Universities feature that allows post-K-12 educational institutions to have their own featured page similar to the pages companies currently have. LinkedIn is hoping that this new feature will better help high school students choose the right university for them.

The program launched today with over 200 universities participating worldwide. Each university's page displays very important metrics such as where the majority of the institution's alumni work and what careers many of its alumni go into. Universities can set up their respective page for its community similar to how pages on Facebook work. They can then assign page managers who can post announcements and updates to the page for anyone that is following. LinkedIn's Christina Allen officially announced the new Pages for Universities in a blog post that I have copied below (source #2).

It looks like Google pressed a wrong button on Friday, most likely in the TGIF celebrations, taking down every single service that the Mountain View-based giant has to offer. This obviously includes Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, and every service in between.

According to analytics firm GoSquared, worldwide Internet traffic dropped by a whopping 40% during those hectic 120 seconds, as you can see in the graph, above. Most companies and website owners were scratching their heads for a few minutes, because when Google goes down, it would be like not being able to breathe oxygen for those two minutes - sheer panic. Google came back online two minutes later, to the relief of, well, everyone.

Google should hopefully come out with a report next week, which should stun, and scare thousands across the world.

Google has really been stepping up their game when it comes to what they capture using their Street View cameras. With recent treks to the top of Mount Fuji, the tallest building in the world, and even the Eiffel tower, the company has taken thousands of photos that were never used or were shots of behind-the-scenes activities.

Instead of letting these images go to waste, Google has put together a behind-the-scenes site that offers a plethora of extra information about the shoots which include photos, videos, audio tours and actual accounts of how the imagery was gathered by those who put in the footwork.

"Our first two multimedia adventures enable you to experience the Canadian Arctic in Iqaluit, Canada, and the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE," Street View program manager Deanna Yick says in a post introducing the new material. "We also invite you to enjoy photos and videos from our past journeys to the Grand Canyon, the base camp of Mount Everest, the Amazon Basin, the Great Barrier Reef and the NASA Kennedy Space Center - minus the extreme temperatures and long plane rides!"

It looks like Edward Snowden might have another e-mail service to use in a little while, as Kim Dotcom is working on a secure, encrypted e-mail service that will launch under his Mega service.

The new Mega e-mail service will include most of the luxuries of modern cloud-based e-mail services, all while your data and e-mails are kept safe. Mega's CEO, Vikram Kumar, has confirmed rumors that Mega is working on an encrypted e-mail service, where he told ZDNet that the service is still a work-in-progress, and that it's difficult to provide the same functionalities of something like Gmail, but keep it encrypted.

He continued: "The biggest tech hurdle is providing email functionality that people expect, such as searching emails, that are trivial to provide if emails are stored in plain text (or available in plain text) on the server side. If all the server can see is encrypted text, as is the case with true end-to-end encryption, then all the functionality has to be built client side. [That's] not quite impossible, but very, very hard. That's why even Silent Circle didn't go there."

Until just recently, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden used the e-mail services of Lavabit. But now Lavabit has shut its doors, with the owner of Lavabit, Ladar Levison, leaving a very cryptic and scary message stating he walked away from his business as he has "become complicit in crimes against the American public."

It gets a little scarier, with the Lavabit owner saying that until real reform happens, he "would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States." This includes most e-mail services, like GMail, Hotmail, and more.

The full message reads:

Today, Facebook has announced that it has finished rolling out its Graph Search feature to everyone using US English as their primary language. Eight months ago, the company launched the advanced search feature to a handful of select beta testers and then began to slowly roll the service out a few months later.

Graph Search lets users search using common phrases such as "pizzerias in my city that my friends have visited and liked." In the early weeks of the beta program, the service received much criticism as the level of search capable was just to much for some people to be comfortable with.

A search phrase such as "photos of friends of my friends at the beach" would return photos of all the friends of your friends who were at the beach. This became a problem because many of those photos featured women in bikinis. Facebook has since restricted certain search phrases and this issue is no longer a problem.

Today, Amazon launched a new online fine art store named Amazon Art. This new marketplace will give customers direct access to more than 40,000 works of fine art from over 150 galleries around the world. Amazon says that the new store will showcase artwork from more than 4500 artists and is one of the largest online marketplace collections of original and limited-edition artwork in the world.

"We are excited to bring one of the largest selections of fine art direct from galleries to our customers. Amazon Art gives galleries a way to bring their passion and expertise about the artists they represent to our millions of customers," said Peter Faricy, vice president for the Amazon Marketplace. "We're thrilled to bring the excitement and emotional connection of art to our customers."

"Paddle8 Editions sells works by internationally renowned artists to benefit the world's leading non-profits and cultural institutions. Through our new relationship with Amazon, we can dramatically expand our audience while simultaneously providing access to affordable, limited-edition works by some of the most significant artists working today," said Osman Khan, COO and founding partner of Paddle8. "We're excited to list our artwork on Amazon to make it more convenient for our existing clientele, and to help us reach new clientele."

When Google first announced plans to shut down its popular Google Reader service, the web was set ablaze with millions of users scrambling to find a new RSS reader to call home. Amidst all of the hustle and bustle, three big names arose out of the noise and offered up awesome solutions to this new found problem.

Digg announced that it would begin building an RSS reader, while RSS reader veteran Feedly welcomed Google refugees with open arms. Finally, The Old Reader started to get major attention as it kept things simple and truly felt like the old Google Reader we were all about to lose. Unfortunately, it appears that the developers behind The Old Reader were flooded by the massive influx of users and as a result, were overwhelmed by the issues that come along with running a project used by millions of people daily.

Today, the developers behind The Old Reader announced that they will be closing all public access to the site in two weeks and will only be allowing a select number of users access to the private site. Currently, new user registration has been disabled and the site is not accepting any more new user accounts at all. Current users have two weeks to export their feed's OPML file that can be used to migrate to another service. I have posted the full release from the developers below.

YouTube's Comedy Week has widely been considered a smashing success and the company is now looking to follow up that success with another week of themed, highlighted content. On August 4, YouTube will kick off its first annual Geek Week event in which the video sharing service will highlight more than 100 channels that feature Geeky and Nerdy content.

Participating channels include heavy hitters such as Chris Hardwick's Nerdist, the UK's Channel Flip, Machinima, and Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton's own Geek and Sundry. Additionally, Schmidt and Co will be hiding easter eggs over the event and will give users collectable virtual badges if spotted. Some big time players in the motion picture industry have taken notice as well, and an exclusive trailer for Thor: The Dark World will premier on Wednesday, August 7, right in the middle of the event.

As far as Internet-based corporations go, Google is about as big as they get, and rightfully so as the company offers up so many useful tools that many of us use in our daily lives. Today, we learned just how big Google actually is; a new report from Deepfield that was recently released says that based on the numbers Google represents 25 percent of all North American Internet traffic. This means that it is bigger than Facebook, Netflix, and Instagram combined in terms of bandwidth served.

"What's really interesting is, over just the past year, how pervasive Google has become, not just in Google data centers, but throughout the North American internet," says Craig Labovitz, founder of Deepfield, the monitoring company that did the study. Just three years ago, traffic to Google only accounted for about 6 percent of all Internet traffic.

Over the past year, Google has had to add tens of thousands of servers to its ranks to handle this massive growth and has built data centers on four continents within the last few years. Google has even gone as far as adding thousands of servers to ISPs around the world, called Google Global Cache Servers, that store the most popular content from Google's network such as a YouTube video that might be going viral, popular apps on the Google Play Store, or even a trending topic on Google+. These allow this content to be served to you faster than it would if it was all stored in a central location.