Alan Buckingham

As the Twitter social network steadily tries to overtake the world, its Vine video sharing service is now spreading like a kudzu vine -- even if you are miles above the Mason-Dixon line! Today Twitter announces that the service is spreading to Android, the largest mobile operating system around.

"Starting today, [Android owners] can begin to shoot, share and watch short looping videos. We’ve been looking forward to this day, and we’re excited to get the app into your hands", says Twitter's Sara Haider.

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We have not seen a Firefox OS phone hit the market yet, though there are developer handsets out there. However, Mozilla continues to move forward with its mobile platform and you can check it out now with a browser simulator if you just cannot wait. Today the organization grabs its first victory, and it is a major one, scoring one of the largest tech manufacturers in the world.

Mozilla officially announces that manufacturing giant Foxconn is adopting Firefox OS. The organization tells us "the Foxconn Technology Group today announced at a press event in Taipei a wide-ranging partnership with Mozilla to collaborate on the use of the Firefox OS open platform, based on HTML5 and open Web technologies, on Foxconn devices".

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It may not be as bad as it looks on the surface, but Twitter is tracking your location when you upload an image -- something you could likely gather. However, given the social network's recent security issues, it could actually be as bad as it sounds. Today the company releases maps of where your images come from.

As I said, this is not the end of the world. Twitter is not broadcasting your location, but the fact is that, using geotagging, the company is keeping track of it. And your followers can as well.

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Despite recent rumors that it may fall into the black hole known as Yahoo, Hulu continues attempting to move forward as a viable source of TV for cord-cutters and those who just want an alternative. Today the company rolls out a new update for many of its hardware partners.

Dave Herman, senior product manager for living room devices, announces "we’re excited to roll out a new and improved Hulu Plus experience on Samsung Smart TVs and select Blu-ray players, Roku set-top boxes, and coming soon to the Wii console from Nintendo".

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Microsoft began to sell its first tablet, the Surface RT, back on October 26, 2012, and added the Surface Pro in February 2013. Since then, sales figures have been less than stellar (well, possibly). This brings Microsoft to an interesting point -- it is time for desperate measures. In other words, the company is holding a fire sale. Of sorts.

Starting May 31 Microsoft announces "We are excited to announce a special offer for those of you in Canada and the United States. For a limited time beginning May 31, receive a free Touch Cover, Touch Cover Limited Edition, or Type Cover with the purchase of a Surface RT".

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Remember the days when Google Nexus-experience phones were slim pickings? The days of one "Nexus" branded device are now gone, as Google continues to pull new handsets into the family -- granted, it is not really under the Nexus name, but they function as such. Now Chrome and Android chief Sundar Pichai announces that the pure Galaxy S4 unveiled at Google I/O will be joined by the HTC One.

Appearing on stage at the All Things D D11 conference, Pichai was asked by co-host Walt Mossberg about his current hardware and responded "I’m carrying an HTC One in my pocket. This is running the core UI on Nexus phones as well", in reference to hardware makers junking up current devices.

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It seems that security has become a daily news story now, with multiple high-profile attacks. Evernote has had previous security problems, but today the company wishes to alleviate a few of those issues. Having already been apart of one of the headlines, the note-taking service would rather not be included as part of the crowd in the future.

Today the company announces three new security features, beginning with two-factor verification. This requires a verification code whenever you are asked to provide your username and password. This will usually only happen when you log into Evernote Web or install it on a new device. It simply means that you will receive a new text message on your phone with a code that must be entered, in addition to your password -- something that many other services like Google, Microsoft and Facebook already do, and that Twitter does poorly. The feature is optional.

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If you have ever searched for a business on Google, you'll have noted some have images available -- carefully staged ones of course. These are especially popular with hotels and restaurants who wish to portray their establishments in the best light.

Google's Business Photos program makes this possible by letting firms hire one of the Trusted Photographers or Agencies to grab the images and get them up online. The service uses Google Street View technology to create panoramic images from the photo shoot and upload them. These results can be found on Google.com, Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile and on the Google+ page or Places for Business listing. Photographers can also sign up to become 'Google verified'.

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Last week it was pointed out that in the latest Twitter update, the implementation of two-factor verification that we mentioned here, was less than solid. Now, as opposed to working to solve these issues, the company instead concentrates on its latest mobile apps updates.

Today Misha Lushin of Twitter announces that the social network has "just released updates to our iPhone and Android apps. Tweeting is now even easier and more seamless".

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A move to Gmail frequently results in temporary disorientation. The labels feature takes getting used to, especially for those arriving from Outlook, which allows for the creation of folders. Now Google aims to clean things up a bit and help customers be better organized with the load of email received daily.

Itamar Gilad, Product Manager at Google, announces that "on the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when".

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Back in April Amazon released 14 original TV shows, exclusive to Prime customers. The company, through its video production studio, promised to take the most popular of these and turn them into series. The viewers spoke, and now the retail giant today announces those results.

Five of the original 14 pilots have been accepted -- Alpha House, Betas, Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf all make the final cut. Meanwhile, one of the hot favorites, Zombieland, was not picked up. It became much less popular after customers actually watched it.

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Google gets a lot of attention for its Street View adventures -- it's travelled from the Great Barrier Reef to the Grand Canyon -- but Microsoft is not taking this lying down. The software giant has teamed up with David Breashears and his non-profit, GlacierWorks, to scale the heights of the Himalayas.

The IE10 team, Microsoft Research, and the developers at Pixel Lab have come together to create a multi-touch experience that allows users to explore the work of David Breashears, who has spent considerable time exploring and photographing the world's tallest mountain chain.

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This past Tuesday Microsoft did its long-awaited Xbox reveal, though the company did not unveil every bit of information that customers were waiting for. For instance, we still do not know pricing or release date. However, the biggest urban legend in circulation -- that of used games -- is under attack from the console maker.

On the day of the big reveal, Larry Hryb took to his blog to assure users "While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail".

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Fans of social media were reassured this week as Twitter finally rolled out two-step verification, ostensibly making the service more secure for its millions of customers. This is a feature that other major companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have already implemented and, on the surface, seemed a victory.

Not so fast. Security researchers at F-Secure are taking a closer look and deem the implementation "not great". The problem, according to Sean Sullivan, is that "an attacker could use SMS spoofing to disable 2FA if he knows the target's phone number".

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The cloud has become a battleground these days between heavyweight companies, and Box has remained in the fight. Today the company takes another step towards securing its location in the corporate future with three new features in the Box admin console designed to make the service easier to deploy.

An improved content manager, granular co-admin permission options, and the ability to prevent users from permanently deleting content are all heading the way of IT administrators.

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