Articles about Digital Lifestyle

It's an indication of the impact of social media that Twitter is now often the first place where people learn of major news stories. But that's a double-edged sword because it can be hard to know how accurate the information you're reading is.

From today Twitter is making it easier for government organizations and charities in the UK and Ireland to make timely and accurate information available via Twitter Alerts. The alerts service launched in the US, Japan and Korea in September of this year and has already been used by a number of public services to share information during emergencies involving public safety, bad weather and so on.

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To help fight the problem of child pornography online, Google and Microsoft are joining forces to block access to illegal content in the UK and then globally. Writing in the Daily Mail, Google's Eric Scmidt explains how new search filtering techniques now prevent more than 100,000 search terms relating to child pornography from returning any results. The filtering is starting in English speaking countries, but will soon roll out to more than 150 languages.

He explains that Google and Microsoft have worked with law enforcement agencies for many years and are proactively involved in the removal of illegal images. More than 200 extra employees have been assigned the tasks of developing new technologies over the last three months. This is very much a joint venture between the two companies, and Schmidt recognizes the input of Microsoft, saying that the company "deserves a lot of credit for developing and sharing its picture detection technology".

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If you’re looking for a new tablet, laptop, 2-in-1 device or all-in-one system you might want to take a look at Intel’s new Holiday Buying Guide. The chipmaker has put together a 20-page PDF brochure featuring products from the likes of ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, HP, and Samsung.

Divided into sections, starting with 2-in-1 Devices, the guide tells you a bit about that particular type of system, and then presents a selection of shiny new hardware vying for your attention (and hard earned cash) this holiday season.

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There is nothing wrong with Google scanning millions of book and making that text available as snippets in search results. This is the ruling made today by a judge in New York, bringing to an end an eight year legal battle between Google and The Authors Guild in conjunction with several specific authors. Starting back in 2004, Google has scanned more than twenty million books -- and permission was not obtained from the copyright holder in many cases.

A class action lawsuit was launched against Google back in 2005, but in New York, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin has ruled that there is no copyright infringement and that Google's book scanning qualifies as fair use. Among the named writers were former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, The Trouble with Thirteen author Betty Miles, and legal author Joseph Goulden.

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Millennials are more heavily distracted when watching video and as a result adverts need to work harder to get through to them. This is among the findings of research by YuMe, a digital brand advertising specialist, and IPG Media Lab.

Focusing on millennials (those born between the early 1980s and the turn of the century) the first phase of the study looked at the tablet video viewing experience compared to TV, PC and mobile. The second phase analyzed media consumption and multi-tasking habits in an attempt to understand which device is most effective at achieving brand recall within the demographic.

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Twitter is about to get a whole lot more customizable and personal thanks to the introduction of custom timelines. This latest feature gives users the ability to control exactly what appears in their timeline -- a very interesting alternative to wading through thousands of tweets from the hundreds of accounts you follow. Custom timelines can be used in various ways and offer quick and easy methods of organizing related tweets into a single, manageable stream.

In a post on the Twitter developer blog, Brian Ellin reveals details of the new feature, explaining that:

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The rise of intelligent machines has long been fertile ground for science fiction writers, but a new report by technology research specialists Gartner suggests that the future is closer than we think.

"Smartphones are becoming smarter, and will be smarter than you by 2017," says Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "If there is heavy traffic, it will wake you up early for a meeting with your boss, or simply send an apology if it is a meeting with your colleague. The smartphone will gather contextual information from its calendar, its sensors, the user's location and personal data".

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BitTorrent still accounts for a massive proportion of Internet traffic, but it looks as though the global spread is switching somewhat. According to data published by Sandvine, BitTorrent traffic has dropped significantly in North America. While the protocol accounted for more than 31 percent of traffic five years ago, today this has plummeted to below 10 percent.

The Global Internet Phenomenon Report found that BitTorrent now accounts for just 7.39 percent of traffic in North America, a drop of 20 percent. Conversely, in Europe, BitTorrent traffic has increased to 17.99 percent. Interestingly, during peak hours, 48 percent of European upstream traffic is accounted for by BitTorrent.

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When it comes to entertainment, I am mostly all-digital (although I still collect vinyl). However, like many people, I have abandoned optical media (CD, DVD and Blu-Ray) and instead choose to stream my movies and music over the Internet. This streaming-media trend has spawned a plethora of hardware devices such as Roku, Chromecast and "smart" televisions. I often find myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of devices with duplicate streaming functionality.

Today, Sony announces that the PlayStation 4 will also be adding this feature. "We know you’ve been waiting anxiously for PS4 to finally arrive and we have exciting news to share with you today. Starting Day One, a number of your favorite digital entertainment services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video will be available with more coming soon", says Phil Rosenberg, SVP at SCEA.

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It's becoming a familiar story. A big name company decides to reveal figures about the number of requests for data that have been received from the government, apologizing straight away for the lack of detail it can provide. Microsoft has already done it, as has LinkedIn and Google. The latest figures come from Apple, and they make for interesting reading.

The report starts off by stating that Apple is revealing as much information as it is legally allowed to, and then immediately goes on the defensive:

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Dropbox is a name that's usually associated with online storage where it finds itself pitted against the likes of Google Drive and Microsoft's SkyDrive. But now the company could be branching out in a new direction with the purchase of Sold, one of the simplest online selling services ever invented.

Sold existed as an iOS and Android app and the idea was that a user uploaded a photo and brief description and everything else was taken care of by Sold -- no worrying about determining the best price or calculating postage. Or as Sold put it "doing all the dirty work for" users. There are no details about what will happen to Sold now that it has been, er, sold, but for now the site has been effectively shut down.

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As promised back in August, Google launches Helpouts, an online video help service based on the idea of Hangouts. Or as Google puts it, "real help from real people in real time". There are numerous online help repositories -- Yahoo Answers et al -- but the thinking behind Helpouts is to make things live and instantaneous.

If you have a sudden yearning to make a soufflé, forget hunting through score of recipes sites for the best method, get someone to show you step by step.

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When it comes to reading, I use a Kindle PaperWhite. I hate paper books with a passion -- they take up space and are obsolete. The Kindle is wonderful because it allows me to easily bookmark pages, look up definitions, and scan the book for certain words with the x-ray feature. An Amazon Prime membership enhances the Kindle experience by letting the user "borrow" a book from among 350,000 choices.

Today, Amazon announces Kindle First , a new program that gets unreleased books into the hands of readers before the official release date. This is not just a few days either, it can be up to a month early. This will give Kindle owners extreme bragging-rights in the book-club community. I can already picture pretentious people sitting in Starbucks saying  "oh, that book is so last month".

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Running can, at times, get rather boring (especially treadmill running). I’m a huge fan of the Zombies Run app which helps keep runners like me going for longer by providing an unfolding story in-between your music tracks, and also offers numerous modes (like Radio, Race and Supply) for when you’ve listened to all of the available chapters.

A bit of variety is always welcome though, and Runtastic is muscling in on Zombies Run territory with what it’s calling Story Running.

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I like unusual games, and the original Papa Sangre really appealed to me. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s essentially a sound-only game for iOS in which you listen for 3D audio clues as to where you are and the direction you need to be going in. The follow up, The Nightjar (featuring the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch), added more of a story to the proceedings, and now in time for Halloween, Papa Sangre returns.

I was one of the beta testers for the new game, and I’m pleased to report Papa Sangre II is a massive improvement over the original. The rebuilt binaural processing Papa Engine does an amazing job of recreating a 3D soundscape in your mind and the addition of actor Sean Bean’s vocal talents, a choice of control systems and some inspired levels -- one moment you’re escaping a burning house, the next shooting ducks in the dark -- combine to create a very rewarding experience.

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