Internet & Websites - Page 37

Facebook has been tinkering again (do they ever stop?) and this time they have modified the messaging aspect of the site. The new version of Messenger will allow users to send messages to a person's inbox even if they aren't friends or friends of friends. The new service will act as a spam filter as it charges users $1 to make sure it gets to the inbox.

Right now, if someone, as described above, sends you a message, it will most likely go to the "Other" folder, rather than your inbox. For $1 dollar, a potential job candidate or someone who heard you speak somewhere can send you a message on Facebook and not have it be missed. Facebook said:

Twitter suspended @YourAnonNews, a popular Twitter handle that spreads Anonymous related news. The reason for suspension is said to be a picture that they tweeted, and it is believed to have contained the addresses or personal information of people in regards to the Westboro Baptist Church.

Twitter sent the Twitter handle owners and e-mail that contained the following: "Your account has been suspended for posting an individual's private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents." They tweeted out a picture of the e-mail that they received.

The handle has since been restored and subsequently tweeted "BREAKING: We're back motherf**kers." (Pardon the censorship) Anonymous is a bit upset with the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting the vigils of Sandy Hook victims, hence the reason for them tweeting a picture believed to contain personal information.

If you are a Google+ fan (we are!) then things got really exciting for you today. Google launched many new features for the service today including the ability for Android users to back up the full sized photos taken by their phone.

While Google+ has always allowed users to backup their Android phone generated photos, the size was capped around 4 megapixels. Today's update removes that constraint and allows any size image to be uploaded. The caveat being that free storage is limited to 5GB with additional storage space being available for purchase.

This new backup feature is no doubt partially the result of Android 4.2's new "Photo Spheres" feature which creates 360 degree panorama's. This update allows users to share these extra large images on their Google+ photo stream.

Teenage boys across the world have just let out a collective sigh after Mountain View-based search giant Google updated their image search algorithm which now makes it much harder to find pornographic images through Google.

Even with SafeSearch disabled, the new algorithm puts up a brick wall, and Google have said that they are not censoring any adult content, but there should be some people that would disagree with that right now.

A Google spokesperson has said that they are just trying to show the explicit images to those who are intentionally searching for them instead of a minor stumbling across something they shouldn't. The algorithms Google are using try to work out which images are best to display for the search query a user enters, so that if someone is on the hunt for adult images, they might have to be more specific with their search.

Most Arrested Development fans know that Netflix has commissioned two more seasons of the hit TV show to be produced before they make a movie. The production has been put on pause and is set to resume in late January. But, the good news is that Mitch Hurwitz has reportedly shot more material than originally planned.

Netflix originally ordered 10 new episodes, but Hurwitz and the producing studios have reportedly approached Netflix and gotten them to increase the order to 12 to 15 episodes. Filming was originally scheduled to end before Thanksgiving, but with the increased order, they have filmed for an extra few weeks.

Hurwitz has taken the existing footage and is reviewing it to figure out just who he will need to film in January and how to incorporate the extra ideas. Netflix is planning to release all of the episodes at one time in spring, so they still have time to finish up production without delaying the planned release.

FreedomPop made waves by producing a case that provided an allotment of free 4G data to iPhone and iPod Touch users, with the option to purchase greater amounts of data. The case, a rather cheap device, used the Clearwire 4G network to provide the internet. Now, FreedomPop is doing it again, this time with home internet.

The company has just announced pre-orders for its new device called the FreedomPop Hub Burst, a modem that uses the same 4G network to provide internet for your home. The modem could ship as early as next month and will come with 1GB of free 4G data per month, again utilizing the Clearwire WiMax 4G network.

For $10 a month, users can get 10GB of data, or a pay-as-you-go option that works out ot be $5 per GB. Here, the choice is clear that anyone using more than 3GB of data should opt for the $10 plan. Since it relies on a wireless connection, the ping may not be as great as your DSL or cable connection, but it sure is a heck of a lot cheaper.

Google experienced a bit of downtime across a few of its services today, a rare occurrence for the web giant. From about 9:30a.m. to 11:30a.m., Google's Mail service experienced a "Service disruption" meaning that some were able to access the service and some couldn't. I happened to be in the group that didn't experience any issues.

Alongside the Gmail outage, Google Drive experienced a very brief piece of downtime from 9:42 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. About an hour after Gmail was fixed up, Google's Admin control panel / API experienced an outage from 12:50 p.m. to 2:34 p.m. The control panel is that of the Google Apps and is mostly used by businesses.

Some reported that Google Chrome crashed while this outage was affecting Google's services. People who experienced the crash said that they were signed into Google Chrome. It's not clear how the two are related, but usually programs are designed to not fail if another component does. Clearly, this isn't the case with Chrome.

Thanks to a bit of collaboration between Google, NASA, and NOAA, everyone can now browse around the Earth at night using Google Maps. All of the typical controls work just like they do in Google Maps and the image is built on top of Google Maps. If you zoom in too far, you'll see the normal Google Maps.

The image is from the same angle as NASA's Blue Marble photo and is composed of imagery taken over nine days in April 2012 and 13 additional days in October 2012. According to NASA, "It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth's land surface and islands."

It doesn't look like an official Maps feature, and Google hasn't indicated any plans to make it such. If you want to check out the awesome map, or maybe what your city looks like at night from above, you can head over to Google's website and scroll around.

For those who would be interested in this news, or know about NZBMatrix itself, I'm sure you've already found out - but for those who don't know, NZBMatrix has been shut down.

The site were slapped with a "very large takedown request" from a company called Wiggin LLC who represent some of the industries biggest companies: Federation Against Copyright Theft Limited ("FACT"), Paramount Home Entertainment International Limited; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Limited; The Walt Disney Company Limited; Twentieth Century Fox Film Company Limited; Universal Pictures (UK) Limited; Warner Bros. Entertainment UK Limited.

This will pain hundreds of thousands if not more all around the world, Sickbeard users, SABnzbd users, NAS users and oh-so-many more. With Newbin being taken down recently, reappearing and disappearing again, it's not good for Usenet users.

Everyone's getting excited about the upcoming cloud storage locker known as Mega. The new service by Kim Dotcom, formerly the owner of MegaUpload, will be launched on January 19, which will mark the one year anniversary of the police raid upon his New Zealand mansion.

The first screen shot, seen above, shows that the new cloud locker will use 2048-bit RSA encryption for files uploaded to the service. Mega will be encrypting every uploaded file so as to make sure that the site is squarely within the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions.

The file manager, seen above, features everything you would expect, with folders being supported. It shows modification date and time, file/folder name, size, and file type. The bottom of the file manager features the upload portion, which contains information on upload speed and other details.

Oh how I'd love to go back in time and have Google and Wikipedia available when I was in school - when I reached high school we were only just receiving proper PCs and basic access to the Internet through dual ISDN connections - kids of today are so spoilt.

Well, American kids use modern tools to help write assignments and papers, with the Pew Internet and American Life Project conducing a survey of over 2400 middle school and high school teachers that shows 94% of teachers saying their students were "very likely" to use Google for research.

Wikipedia comes in with 75% of students using the great research tool. Just 18% of teachers said their students were to use textbooks, and just 12% said their students were very likely to use other kinds of printed books.

YouTube have decided to put their best dress on going into the holidays, offering up new features that are designed to make it easier for users to subscribe and watch channels through the site. YouTube have pushed out a new Guide feature, which reaches out to multiple devies. The site have also unveiled a new look for the site, which I'm personally not fond of.

The video sharing site have also made it easier for people to subscribe and use channel subscriptions by adding the Guide to the homepage, something that was rolled out five years ago now - but now in a better position to users. When adding subscriptions to your Guide, it will display videos related to things you've seen before. The Guide will pass through all of your YouTube-enabled devices, be it the iPhone, iPad, PlayStation 3, Google TV and Android-based devices.

Each month YouTube offer up 4 billion hours of videos - an astounding number. Within the last twelve months, the number of users subscribing to channels has doubled, with the company estimating that an additional 30% rise is to be expected. This is why YouTube are concentrating more on subscribers, as the expansion has been huge.

Sony is pretty happy with some recent findings by Netflix that place the PlayStation 3 as the number one TV-connected device used for streaming the online video provider's content. Netflix even said that, on occasion, the PlayStation 3 actually surpassed the PC in hours of Netflix enjoyment and made it to number one overall.

Impressive. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, had the following to say:

I'm sure nearly all of our readers will remember when BPI earned a court order in England which forced ISPs to block The Pirate Bay. Well, that same court order is now being used to block The Promo Bay, a site ran by the same people as The Pirate Bay but operated on completely different servers and completely within the law.

That's right, the BPI, someone who would have an interest in preventing independent artists from making in the world is using a court order to block a site that helps promote independent artists. The Promo Bay is a legal promotional platform that seeks to help independent artists reach notoriety.

Virgin Media, BE broadband and BT and currently blocking the perfectly legal site. BT and Virgin Media say that the domain promobay.org is on the list of sites to be blocked under the court order. Virgin Media's spokesperson: "Promobay.org is included on the list of URLs Virgin Media is required to block under UK law following the ruling of the High Court against the Pirate Bay."

2012 was quite the year for those hungry for knowledge to learn about Apple's iPhone 5 as well as information regarding this year's elections in the United States as Yahoo has revealed its top 10 searches of the year. The election took the first spot in their list, while the iPhone 5 came in second place, which is one spot down from the iPhone's previous #1 spot on Yahoo's 2011 popular searches list.

Kim Kardashian, Kate Upton and Kate Middleton rounded up the top 5 popular searches of 2012, which just goes to show no matter how hard people search for worthwhile content, there's going to be a swarm of folks searching for the latest celebrity gossip.

Here's Yahoo's top 10 searches for 2012:

In the world of online streaming video platforms, Netflix is still king even though it hasn't exactly had the greatest time with its customers in recent months. I mean, there's no way you forgot about Qwikster, right? That's why any new online streaming video service needs to be aggressive and offer as good as a service as Netflix currently does. If today's report turns out to be true, it looks as though Redbox may have quite the service in store for those looking for an alternative to Netflix.

According to GigaOM, it looks as though when Redbox's "Redbox Instant" is launched, it'll charge its customers $6 a month for its online streaming video service, which is $2 cheaper than Netflix currently charges. Not only will it offer unlimited video streaming, but it will also give its users some optional perks like paying $2 extra a month to keep their DVD rentals for four nights, instead of the usual $1.20 per night cost. Redbox also plans on offering on-demand rentals of newer movies at $.99 a pop.

Seeing as Redbox Instant won't have the massive, and somewhat lackluster, catalog Netflix has, I'm still curious to see what kind of catalog it will have. If Redbox offers more worthwhile films at a lower cost, then it could easily be seen as a serious competitor to Netflix's "grab anything that was released on film, no matter how terrible it is" catalog.

Microsoft has been directing the majority of its marketing campaigns lately directly at Google with its recent campaign pitting Bing directly against Google in blind tests comparing the two services. This week, the company has launched another campaign, this time, going against Google's Shopping search results.

According to Microsoft's new "Scroogled" campaign, it's suggesting Google users are getting the short end of the stick when they search in Google's Shopping section as those results are paid for and not based on relevance of what users are searching for.

"They Scroogle you by defining relevance as how much they're getting paid. Don't get scroogled, you may be missing out on the best prices and highest quality products."

Most Twitter users know that they can't download all of their old tweets, nor can they readily access them if they need to. CEO Dick Costolo has already promised to provide users a way to download a copy of all of those tweets so that they could be archived, searched, or turned into a collage, if that's your thing.

Well, he has once again promised that feature, but this time he has put a date on it. In a talk at the University of Michigan, his alma mater for those who care, he doubled down on the feature and told the audience that the engineers may be mad at him, but they should have the ability to download an archive copy by the end of the year.

Here's a fun new website to mess around with: Google Type. Google Type uses Google's image search engine to create a custom "font" from images found around the web. It manages this feat by using a quirk in Google's image search. If you type in just a letter into Google Images, it will return a bunch of pictures that are that letter.

For instance, above I used Google Type to make TweakTown out of letters found around the internet. While you can't really use this as a font, it could just become the next tool for making ransom letters. No longer will I have to scrounge around newspapers and magazines for letters to cut out and glue into a message. After all, this is becoming increasingly difficult as papers go out of business.

Google Type comes from a group called the Internet Club, which is composed of web developers from Brussels, Belgium. They go by the tagline "Because Internet gave us so much we decided to give back." It's good to see them doing something for the benefit of the web--well, sort of--rather than the detriment.

GoDaddy is having more trouble with their DNS. After a major outage took down a large portion of the internet, they are again facing issues. This time, DNS records of websites hosted on GoDaddy are being modified. The modification adds subdomains that point to infected websites under the control of malicious users.

Once a computer is redirected to the malicious IP, the server attempts to exploit the system using the Cool Exploit kit. Because of the record being modified at the DNS level, the URL and site look to be legitimate. If a user becomes infected, the computer is locked down via ransomware and the user is made to pay to unlock it.

It's the typical ransomware setup--it uses local currency and information to make it look as if local law enforcement are the ones who locked it down. Affected webmasters should check their DNS records to make sure that they don't have these rogue subdomains and users who have been affected should contact a virus removal expert.