One in 10 US Facebook users don't protect privacy
About 13 million Facebook users in the United States either do not use or do not know about the social network's privacy controls, sharing private information they would not have otherwise. This amounts to one out of every 10 users in the country.
Consumer Reports' study of what we are posting on Facebook should give pause to chronic oversharers. For example, 4.8 million posted publicly where they were going for a day, possibly tipping off a burglar to an empty house; 4.7 million liked a page on a specific health condition or treatment for a disease, which may pique the interest of a prying health insurer.
Windows Live is dead, long live Windows Live
In a blog post on Wednesday, President of Microsoft's Windows division Steven Sinofsky announced the seven-year old Windows Live brand is being retired.
Do not be mistaken, there are more than 500 million users of the various Microsoft services that fall under the general classification of Windows Live. They are alive and well.
Who will buy Galaxy Nexus from Google?
While we wait for Samsung to unveil its new smartphone in a few hours, for your waiting pleasure I've got answers to the question posed last week: "Would you pay Google $399 for unlocked, HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus?" The search and information giant ended April with a May flower: Direct sales of its flagship, Android 4.0 smartphone, presumably because AT&T and T-Mobile aren't doing so.
Google's got a good thing going here for Android enthusiasts, but I've got a problem with the direct sales thing. What Apple offers that its rival can't: Service. People buying iPhone can get defective replacement at local Apple stores. They also can purchase, granted for an extra 99 bucks, AppleCare+, which extends the basic warranty and provides discounted replacements. If you drop and break iPhone 4S, Apple will replace it for $49, up to two times. What's Google going to do for you, if Galaxy Nexus goes bust or you bust it up?
Amazon Cloud Drive app offers little
Amazon has released a desktop app for Windows and Mac users wishing to access its cloud-based storage service. Amazon Cloud Drive 0.3.28 provides basic upload and download functionality for Amazon account holders to access the 5GB of free online storage space the retailer provides.
The desktop app is a late addition to Amazon’s free cloud-based storage service, which launched last year to all Amazon account holders. The 5GB is provided free, along with additional unlimited storage for all MP3s purchased through Amazon.com.
IBM is at a tipping point
Fifth in a series. When I was growing up in Ohio, ours was the only house in the neighborhood with a laboratory. In it the previous owner, Leonard Skeggs, had invented the automated blood analyzer, pretty much creating the present biomedical industry. Unwilling to let such a facility go to waste, I threw myself into research. It was 1961 and I was eight years old.
I was always drawn to user interface design and quickly settled, as Gene Roddenberry did in Star Trek half a decade later, on the idea of controlling computers with voice. Using all the cool crap my father (a natural scrounger) dragged home from who knows where, I decided to base my voice control work on the amplitude modulation optical sound track technology from 16mm film (we had a projector). If I could paint optical tracks to represent commands then all I’d need was some way of analyzing and characterizing those tracks to tell the computer what to do. But the one thing I didn’t have down in the lab in 1961 was a computer.
The Xbox console will soon be free
Microsoft wonk Tom Warren reports that a new Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle will be offered at $99 with a two-year Xbox Live Gold subcription beginning next week. If this proves true, it will be the first example of a video game console using the mobile phone carrier subsidy model.
According to Warren's sources, the deal will only be available at Microsoft Stores, and it will include the 4 GB Xbox 360 console with a Kinect Sensor. The cost of a two-year Xbox Live Gold subscription is approximately $120.
Crocodoc uses HTML 5 to solve the riddle of online document viewing
If you ever viewed a document on Dropbox, LinkedIn, or Yammer, you have already used Crocodoc. The San Francisco-based company offers an HTML5-compliant document viewer that allows for the embedding and viewing of documents as they were intended, and is making the service available for licensing starting Tuesday.
Google Docs and similar competitors have offered online document viewing for some time. Google Docs' transcoding isn't perfect and documents often lose a portion of their original formatting. While this may not be an issue for the average consumer, enterprise usage typically requires a more accurate reproduction.
Use Cloudfogger to better protect your online docs and files
Just how secure is the data you’ve backed up online? Most cloud-based backup providers promise to encrypt your data before it’s uploaded to their servers, but a handful perform the encryption after the data’s been uploaded, which means they possess the key required to unlock your data and potentially hand it over to anyone who comes asking (backed with the right warrant).
Cloudfogger is a brand new (and currently free) service that puts you back in control of your data, allowing you to encrypt it prior to uploading it, providing you with another layer of protection for your most sensitive documents and files.
Have frequent Skype crashes ruined your relationships? Try the iOS update
iOS users now have an updated VoIP app to work with following the release of Skype 4.0 for iPad and Skype 4.0 for iPhone. The latest version focuses mainly on stability and accessibility improvements, but there are also a few other enhancements and new features to enjoy. There’s a new sign in screen in addition to a number of minor UI tweaks.
Anyone who finds the app prone to crashing should be happier with this new version. Skype promises generally-improved stability, and auto-restart in the event of a crash. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for a chat tool, but it’s a step in the right direction. Surely, it's better than untimely disconnects during an important video chat.
What the frak is CISPA?
There's something really troubling about CISPA. While the Internet rallied against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Protect IP, including boycotts, there is near silence about the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. This lack of interest hits BetaNews, too. For more than three weeks, I've asked writers here to do a CISPA story. No one wants it. Am I the only one scared witless about this thing?
I got to thinking about CISPA, again, this afternoon after the info graphic accompanying this story dropped in my mail box. It's a tidy explanation of what is CISPA that sheds some light on why the Internet isn't in uproar about it. Where's Anonymous? Who muted the Reddit outrage?
How do we just fix IBM?
Fourth in a series. Well it can’t be done from the inside, so it has to be done from the outside. And the only outside power scary enough to get through the self-satisfied skulls of IBM top management is IBM customers. A huge threat to revenue is the only way to move IBM in the proper direction. But a big enough threat will not only get a swift and positive reaction from Big Blue, it will make things ultimately much better for customers, too.
So here is exactly what to do, down to the letter. Print this out, if necessary, give it to your CEO or CIO and have them hand it personally to your IBM account rep. Give the IBM rep one business day to complete the work. They will fail. Then go ballistic, open up a can of whoop-ass, and point out that these requirements are all covered by your Service Level Agreement. Cancel the contract if you feel inclined.
LG enables real-time content sharing via new cloud service
LG will enter the cloud on Tuesday, debuting a new service aimed at sharing content across multiple devices. LG Cloud consists of apps for the Android and PCs, as well as LG's own line of smart televisions.
LG Cloud is part of a broader effort by the company to focus on both services and hardware. The offering will become part of a new LG division called the Smart Business Center, which is tasked with developing content and other services for its smart devices.
It’s a race to the bottom, and IBM is winning
Third in a series. The current irrationality at IBM described in my two previous columns, here and here, is not new. Big Blue has been in crazy raptures before. One was the development of the System 360 in the 1960s when T.J. Watson Jr. bet the company and won big, though it took two tries and almost killed the outfit along the way. So there’s a legacy of heroic miracles at IBM, though it has been a long while since one really paid off.
There are those who would strongly disagree with this last statement. They’d say that with its strong financial performance IBM is right now in one of its greater moments. But haven’t we just spent 2000 words showing that’s not true? Successful companies aren’t heartsick and IBM today is exactly that, so the company is not a success.
Say goodbye to April with one of these 36 downloads
Cloud was the big news this past week, and there were exciting developments in the world of online storage. After what seems like years of waiting, Google Drive 1.0 finally released, extending the idea of Docs and providing users with the opportunity to store any files they want online and keept them synched with their computers. There’s also a mobile version of the app available, Google Drive for Android 1.0.77, that enables access toyour files on the move.
Ubuntu One 2.0.3 has nothing whatsoever to do with the operating system of the same name, but provides you with 5GB of free space for storage and backups. Cloud storage stalwart Dropbox 1.4.0 has been updated and finally becomes stable, as well as adding batch uploading and importing of photos Meanwhile, Microsoft released Microsoft SkyDrive 2012 v16.4 and Microsoft SkyDrive 2.0 iOS with reduced storage levels.
LinkedIn 5.0 for iOS supports iPad -- finally
Social networking news is not limited to the latest acquisitions by the likes of Facebook; LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, still generates headlines. The big news for iOS users: the app has moved to version 5.0 and heralds, amongst other things, the arrival of the universal version of the app; so with LinkedIn 5.0, iPad users finally get an app that enables them to tae advantage of their Retina display.
The iPhone version of the app had already come in for some praise, and the move to welcoming iPad owners to the folder looks set to head down the same path thanks to the great design that is prevalent through the interface. With tablet devices becoming increasingly common in the business world as tools of the trade, it’s good to see that apps are evolving to take this into account.
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