Much ado over yet another change to Facebook's profile page
Facebook today released more details about a major user profile overhaul that was supposed to take place early last month but is now back on track.
Although MySpace is considered the more popular social networking site overall, Facebook remains especially popular among college students and young professionals looking for a social network that is more organized and easier to navigate. The latest redesign to Facebook centers on the user profile page, taking account of several key modifications requested by Facebook users and the developers who create Facebook applications.
State Dept. loses, then recovers, anti-terrorism computers worth $30 M
For several months, according to an Inspector General's report discovered by a group of former State Department employees, the Dept. did not know the whereabouts of some 400 laptops. And now, somehow, they've all been found.
A blog maintained by some former US Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) who found their security credentials inexplicably suspended in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, is being credited for having shed light on a serious State Dept. problem: A February audit by the Inspector General's office determined that as many as 400 laptop computers belonging to a key anti-terrorism training task force were unaccounted for, among other possibly lost State Dept. assets.
Latest XNA Game Studio CTP adds support for Zune games
Download XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP from BetaNews FileForum now.
The next phase in Microsoft's efforts to scale games across Windows to a certain portable device, begins this week with the introduction of a preview of the next XNA Game Studio. But as we discovered, it could use some help.
MySpace gets the most users, but ad sales lag
MySpace might get more user traffic than any other social networking Web site, but it will probably fail to hit revenue targets set earlier this year by its corporate parent News Corp.
That disparity between incoming traffic and incoming dollars has led to new questions about the relationship between advertising and social networking.
NBC appears to be courting Apple once again
With Apple now streaming NBC shows to iPhones through its dedicated portal, and the network's properties appearing on the iTunes UK store, are the two sides ready to settle their differences?
Several shows are now available for download through the NBC iPhone portal, including Heroes, Eureka, The Incredible Hulk, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and House, shown in America on Fox.
Online pizza ordering becomes a billion-dollar industry
In another sign of the changing nature of communications in the US economy, Papa John's, America's third-largest pizza chain, has recently passed $1 billion in completed online transactions.
At the risk of editorializing an otherwise fluffy story for the approaching weekend, it's worth noting that some of us at BetaNews have a soft spot for lighthearted examples of modernity. Take for example, the coverage we have given to the trend of pizza delivery franchises embracing technology to improve business.
No surprises from Samsung and Verizon with their Glyde phone
The CDMA version of Samsung's F700 that has been seen in Europe since last year, the Glyde is a GPS-enabled 2.8" touchscreen and QWERTY slider that will be made available to Verizon customers tomorrow both online and at company stores.
The cardinal elements of the handset's design have been re-hashed by practically every major mobile phone manufacturer from LG with its KS20/Prada Phone to this week's HTC Touch Diamond, making it stand out far less than if it had adopted a unique form factor.
Internet Archive emerges victorious in national security row with the FBI
A National Security Letter was issued last year to the Internet Archive, seeking information about what it called a "subscriber" in conjunction with an anti-terrorism investigation. The IA challenged the letter, and as we learned yesterday, it won.
Last November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation served a National Security Letter (NSL) to the Internet Archive, the project to preserve much of the Internet's content at various stages in his history, as a perpetual online museum. The letter appeared to contain boilerplate language that would normally be used in requests to ISPs for national security information, as this one did request certain data about so-called "subscribers."
Microsoft refutes a Times article on Zune's 'copyright cop'
A New York Times article purporting that Microsoft is working with NBC Universal to create a "copyright cop" -- or anti-piracy filter -- for the Zune that will prevent playback of unauthorized videos, was refuted by Microsoft today.
In the article which appeared on a Times blog, Saul Hansell, a Times reporter, quotes J.B. Perrette, president of digital distribution for the movie studio, as saying there are two reasons why NBC chose Microsoft's Zune over Apple's iTunes for content distribution.
OpenOffice 3.0 beta natively supports Mac OS X
Download OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 Beta for Mac OS X from BetaNews FileForum now.
The latest beta of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the first to support Mac OS X without the need for X11.
iPhone inventory in Europe appears to be dwindling
It seems to be getting harder to find the iPhone in Europe these days, a possible sign that the 3G version is close to release.
For a period of time on O2's Web site Thursday, a message stating the iPhone was "no longer available" greeted users. This had changed by midday US time, when the 16 GB was shown to be again in stock.
Vietnamese Firefox 2 users were given malicious content
About 17,000 users of Vietnamese-language Firefox may have been wondering why their systems keep pulling up these video game cheat Web sites at random, for the past two months. But Mozilla didn't know what was up until last Tuesday.
The executable code for a Vietnamese language pack for Firefox 2 was the apparent victim of a virus located on the hard drive of its sole author. As a result, Windows Firefox users with the Vietnamese language pack have been victims of malicious page redirects, apparently since last February.
TorrentSpy ordered to pay $111 million
A Los Angeles federal judge has delivered a default judgement against the BitTorrent site finding it guilty of copyright infringement and forcing it to compensate studios.
It may be difficult for the labels to ever collect, as the company that owned the site as well as its creators are broke, having filed for bankruptcy. The ruling also includes a permanent injunction preventing further infringement.
Photoshop Express update halted before release
An update to Adobe's online-only Photoshop Express beta was expected to be pushed out yesterday, but was removed just before launch due to a last-minute bug that was discovered.
Photoshop Express was launched in beta recently, allowing users to edit photos that users uploaded or cross-loaded from their Facebook, Photobucket, or Picasa albums.
Dell plans a new set of artistically customized laptops
Dell has touted the concept of personalized PCs ever since it began business as "PCs Limited." But now, it's experimenting with taking that philosophy to new levels, offering a peek at new laptops with custom artwork on their cases.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - "'One' is the number we eventually envision," said Anne Camden, during a Dell press event in New York City yesterday. Dell's senior PR manager was referring to plans by Dell to use the Special Art Edition Inspiron 1525 laptops rolled out this week as a launchpad for offering totally customized, build-to-order laptop covers at some point down the road.
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