Internet & Websites - Page 34

Facebook is so yesterday. The hip site among teenagers is Tumblr, at least according to a Pew Research study. The study says that teenagers are looking for a more "real" experience that isn't offered by Facebook and Twitter. Furthermore, teens are acutely aware that their parents are now on Facebook and monitoring their activities.

By switching over to Tumblr, these teens are looking to escape the drama, watchful parents, and "unnecessary pictures" that are ever-present on Facebook. Several teenagers were interviewed during a Pew Research focus group:

Anonymous female, age 15:

On Friday I reported on rumors that Yahoo was in talks to acquire popular social blogging service Tumblr for a reported $1 billion. As it turned out, those rumors were quite true as the deal was sealed over the weekend. The once king of the internet purchased Tumblr for a reported $1.1 billion US, of which all will be paid in cash.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's CEO, stated that Yahoo and Tumblr will remain separate entities and Tumblr CEO David Karp will remain at the helm of the massive blogging site. In the official press release, Yahoo said: "Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business." This announcement may have calmed some fears, but not all were sure.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg posted some tell-tell metrics on his blog last night that showed more than 72,000 post per hour were imported from Tumblr to WordPress last night, which was up from an average of 400-600 per hour. While this may sound like a massive migration, Tumblr says that it sees more than 75 million blog post per day, so 72,000 is but a mere drop in the ocean in comparison.

Time to report on another Google update announced today at Google I/O. Google has integrated its Wallet product into Gmail to allow people to send money with an e-mail. This makes the product competitive with PayPal, which also allows you to send money to other people. However, PayPal doesn't allow you to attach money to an e-mail.

The new attach money feature will allow you to send money to everyone, including people who don't have a Gmail account. According to Google, all transactions are stored on secure servers in encrypted form. Google monitors transactions for fraud and Wallet Purchase Protection covers 100 percent of "eligible unauthorized transactions."

It's pretty cool to be able to attach money to an e-mail just as you would attach an image or other attachment.

Google is well-known for hiding Easter eggs in its search engine. For instance, typing "do a barrel" into the all-knowing Google search bar will result in the whole web page doing a barrel roll. The latest Easter egg to be discovered celebrates Atari's classic game, Breakout.

To initialize the latest Easter egg, simply do a Google Image Search for "Atari Breakout." This will cause the game to start. Simply control the platform with your mouse to bounce the ball and destroy the pictures of, you guessed it, Breakout. Successfully beating that level will result in more levels generating with random pictures.

Today, YouTube has laid the groundwork for a possible future paywall. The new subscription channels will allow select partners to charge a monthly subscription fee of at least $0.99. These subscription channels will be able to offer a free 14-day trial and discounts for paying for yearly access.

YouTube is looking to more directly compete with the competition. By offering channels the chance to charge a monthly fee, it opens the door to even higher quality original content. It's not clear on whether or not YouTube will be taking a cut of the monthly fees, though we assume they will be.

New screenshots have appeared of what appears to be a completely redesigned Google Maps. The screenshots posted by the unofficial Google Operating System blog tease what could be the next iteration of Google's Maps user interface.

The screenshots show off a new sleek and minimalist user interface that appears to put more stock into full screen viewing and less into the ugly sidebar we are all accustomed to. Other improvements include a better filtering system, updated icons, colors and even new text styles.

It has been a very long time since Maps got a UI update this massive, and with more and more users switching to mobile, we can certainly see why Google would want to focus on a cleaner, more refined design. While it is always best to put a little credit into rumors and leaks as possible, with Google I/O just around the corner, this leak could in fact come true.

Google has added some "highly-requested" features to Hangouts on Air. Google warns that Hangouts could take a bit longer to start as a result of these changes. "As part of these enhancements, it may take longer to set up your Hangout On Air. For example: the 'Start broadcasting' button may be grayed out for a bit, before it turns red. Nothing to worry about, this is just us getting everything in place before you go live."

The updated features include the ability to rewind live broadcasts, access recordings of the broadcast directly after it ends, and start live broadcasts without having to refresh the page. Google details exactly what these improvements entail:

This morning Google launched a new feature on YouTube called Trends Map, which displays the top trending videos across the US. The YouTube Trends Map is updated in real-time and the data can be broken down by gender or age of the viewer.

The map shows a mass of small thumbnails which represent the trending video for that particular region. While the accuracy of the overlay may not be that good, I would say that the actual data is very precise and could be used as a solid resource in reports. To the right is a list of the top trending videos in the US at the moment, and when hovering over a thumbnail, some quick info about the video is displayed, including some country wide popularity statistics.

The user interface is very basic at the moment, and it is unclear if Google plans on continuing to improve it or not, but the data sets that are presented are sure to capture the interest of marketers and video makers. As of this posting the trailer for True Blood Season 6 is holding the #1 trending spot in the country with a teaser of The Clood's upcoming EP coming in second place. Interestingly enough, True Blood sweeps the board across the age ranges, the 13-17 age bracket is topped by a Family Guy trailer.

This year's "Who Has Your Back" report published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation has just been released and Twitter is sitting pretty in the number one spot. In contrast, Facebook, Apple and Amazon all ranked very low on the list.

The report is based on how far the world's biggest tech companies go to protect your data from government demands. Each company is evaluated on six different criteria and given a star if they fit the requirements. Of the 18 companies tested, only two met every criteria with an excellent rating.

Twitter and Sonic.net both scored a full six stars, while on the other end of the scale, Myspace was awarded nothing. Facebook was middle of the road with three stars while Google, Dropbox, and Spideroak all tied for second best with five stars each.

Today, Digg disclosed the results of a survey it ran last week. The survey contained questions trying to gauge user interest in various features that Digg might implement in a replacement for Google Reader. The survey also asked if a respondent would be willing to pay for the service.

As you can see above, 40 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay for a Google Reader replacement. This then makes me ask, why doesn't Google charge and continue their own reader? As seen in the graph below, many users use E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to share links. Digg plans to include "seemless sharing" to all of the services seen below.

Twitter has issued a memo to news organizations around the world warning them that they believe the recent attacks on high-profile news accounts will continue. "We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers."

Twitter pleads with the companies to help them keep their accounts safe. They encourage companies to designate one computer to use for Twitter...and not use them for general web surfing or checking e-mail. Rumors of Twitter's two-factor authentication system are still floating around. We imagine it's a bit more difficult for them to develop a system for an account that is often used by multiple people.

The full memo, as obtained by BuzzFeed:

Google has released a second update for Google Drive just shortly after the one released earlier today. This latest update will allow all of your Google Drive documents to sync in the background so that you don't have to plan ahead. With this new feature, anytime you're offline, you can simply head to drive.Google.com

This is a feature that is already present in Chrome OS. Google may one day bring this feature to other browsers, though it's not clear if they have plans to do so as of right now.

Google Drive is one of the productivity tools that I do not think I could live without. I use it for note taking during meetings, collaboration on projects, and even as a file sharing service for documents. This morning, Google announced some improvements to the service that should make life easier and more feature rich for those like me who use the service daily with others.

Over the next few days, users will see the addition of profile photos, one-click group chats, and even a completely new look for anonymous users. Once the update rolls out, a profile photo will be displayed at the top of a file that was created and shared to you by another user. Google is hoping that this will help you better notice everyone who is in the file with you.

In addition to the profile photo being displayed, you will be able to click on the image and add that user to your Google+ circles. Anonymous users are also affected by this change and you will see them appear as a different icon chosen at random from the list above.

Earlier this month I reported that The Pirate Bay would be switching to the .GL top level domain amidst speculation that Sweedish officials would soon seize the .se domain name. Unfortunately, Greenland officials decided that they wanted no part of the Pirate Bay's armada and suspended the purchased .gl domain before anything could be migrated.

This led to the Pirate Bay having to look yet again for a new home. This time the Pirate Bay has dropped its anchor in the land of icelandic nords, and as of this posting can be found at thepiratebay.is. The choice to move to to Iceland was due to its recent pronouncement as a safehaven for those seeking true freedom of speech. When asked if it would seek to follow Greenland's lead and shut down the piratebay.is domain, the ISNIC had the following to say:

Facebook may have over one billion users, but how could they make more money from these users? The social network is reportedly set to roll out their own video-based advertising service, reports Ad Age.

A video ad on Facebook won't be cheap, where it might cost one million dollars for a 15-second spot. Quite an astronomical amount, but considering the amount of people you'd reach, it could just be worth it. Facebook are currently experimenting with four advertising slots, which could see the social network make around four million dollars in revenue, per day.

Facebook will do it well though, where they won't make you see the same video ads more than once per day, while simultaneously limiting the total delivery of ads to three per user, per day. How would these ads display to you? They could pop up as the 15-second ads, playing automatically and taking up a portion of your screen.

Google has introduced a new tool that Facebook and other sites with lots of personal information should take note of. Called Inactive Account Manager, the new tool allows you to decide what to do with your data after your death or inability to access Google's services.

Like the name implies, the tool keeps track of how long it has been since you last logged in to a Google service. Once it passes a certain threshold set by each user, Google will either delete the data, allow someone else to access it, or something else. Before the inactive period time is up, Google will warn you with a text message and e-mail.

It seems that at least once a month for the past several years, the Pirate Bay has had to make moves to evade action taken against it in order to keep the ship afloat. This time the popular torrent tracking site has had to switch up its top level domain.

The change comes in the wake of Swedish authorities announcing that they will seize the current domain, thepiratebay.se. This is not the first time similar actions have been taken, with the site previously being located on the .org TLD back in 2011.

This move not only creates a dilemma for Swedish authorities, but it completely messes up all of the pending DMCA take down notices that have been filed with Google recently. Since the domain name has changed, every request that has not been executed will have to be resubmitted to Google.

It's no secret, Google Street View is one of the most revolutionary products ever developed. It has changed the way we search for locations to shop, view homes for sale, and has even helped me pick out dining locations close to a hotel I stayed at in Las Vegas.

Today a design firm based out of Toronto, Teehan+Lax, has released a new and innovative way to put all of those Street View images together into a very awe-inspiring time lapse journey. The experiment has several pre-built "Hyperlapses" of things like crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, but the true awesomeness comes when you create your own Hyperlapse by selecting two points on a Google map and letting the service build a custom hyperlapse of what that road trip would look like.

Creating your own is quite simple. Just set a point A and a point B and the site will then stitch together all of the Google Street View images taken along that path. I was able to quickly create a Hyperlapse of a trip down US #1 in the Florida Keys. The actual site uses lower quality images, and a very fast frame rate to reduce load times. The entire source code is available on Github (source #3) with examples so users can create their own custom Hyperlapse engines.

Just as web developers across the world were settling down to enjoy the good life, Google and Mozilla have walked in the door and thrown a wrench into their smoothly running machines. This morning both Google and Mozilla announced that they are moving their browsers to new rendering engines.

Google has announced that it has forked the popular WebKit engine off into a more "manageable for chromium" engine called Blink. Google says that Blink will focus on speed and simplicity, and will still hold true to its WebKit roots. Opera, who just switched to WebKit says that they will follow Google's lead and fully embrace and contribute to Blink.

In a blog post, Adam Barth, a Software Engineer at Google said:

Mozilla has updated its Firefox web browser with per-window private browsing that functions much the same as Chrome's private browsing feature. In addition to per-window private browsing, Firefox 20 comes with stability improvements, bug fixes, HTML5 additions, and a new download experience.

As part of the stability improvements, users can now close a frozen plugin without the entire browser crashing. This is also similar to how Chrome handles plugins. The improved download experience features a new interface and a button that makes opening the downloads list much easier. When downloads are active, the button shows an estimated time to completion.

Probably the largest change with Firefox 20 is the ability to have both normal Firefox windows and private browsing Firefox windows open simultaneously. As previously stated, this new method is how Chrome has handled private browsing from the get-go. Firefox used to require the entire session to either be a normal session or a private browsing session.