Social Media

Webcam porn! Spying! Cell phones! Bitcoin controversy! Just another normal week in the world of tech news! Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox disappeared offline amid concern about missing millions and then filed for bankruptcy. After panic spread through Mac users following the discovery of a serious SSL bug in Mavericks, Apple released an update that plugged the hole -- but it was also discovered that iOS 7 has a keylogging vulnerability. Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Office 2013, but anyone using Office 365 will need to force the installation of newer updates in order to reap the benefits.

Security updates are all well and good for operating systems and applications, but it will do little to protect you against the wandering eyes of government agencies. As if everything we have already learned about the activities of the NSA et al, this week's revelations about what the UK's GCHQ has been getting up to is sure to raise ire. Not content with logging emails and web searches, the UK intelligence agency apparently spent a number of years tapping into the webcam chats of millions of Yahoo users. There may be little good news in this revelation, but it was at least slightly amusing to find that the surveillers were rather taken aback by the amount of pornographic content they encountered. It makes ya proud!

Spotify is all about streaming music, creating playlists and sharing them with others. Who doesn't relish the idea of creating the ultimate mixtape and sharing with not just their best friend, but the whole world? Music fans love it, and so do the musicians who earn royalties from making their work available.

But Ministry of Sound felt a little differently about things. Back in September, the dance brand took Spotify to court, claiming that the music streaming service was refusing to delete playlists created by users that mimicked the tracklisting of Ministry of Sound releases.

A study of 2,500 people in the UK shows that 68 percent have been distracted from completing work by browsing the web, checking emails and engaging in social media.

In addition, 63 percent said they had lost their train of thought while working on a report or long piece of written work because they responded to an email or social media alert.

Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the Mobile World Congress today, saying that there needs to be some "pretty dramatic changes" to help to get more people online, pointing out that most people in the world simply do not have access to the internet. The Facebook founder has already launched Internet.org with a view to getting more people online around the globe and this is referred to as an "an on-ramp to the internet" -- he wants to get a billion people online in the next five years.

Zukerberg's goal is fairly simple. He feels that there are a number of basic services -- he mentions weather and messaging specifically -- that everyone should have access to, and this is what Internet.org provides. He admits that Facebook is not able to connect everyone without help, and suggested the possibility of working with more partners in the future. It seems as though this is a venture that Zuckerberg has taken a broad view with. At the moment it is a venture that is losing money, but this is not an example of martyrdom: "If we do something good for the world, eventually we'll find a way to benefit from it".

Like Google+, YouTube had a love affair with white space. This quirkiness was only noticeable to those who have large displays. On my 23-inch screen this meant the video-sharing site had only taken roughly half of it to show me relevant content. To get around this behavior, I had to resort to Google Chrome extensions which could center the page.

I said "had" because, thankfully, YouTube is now smart enough to figure out that when we are using large screens it should adapt its look accordingly. It now centers, yes. And, to my eyes, YouTube now looks more like Google+. That is not a bad thing, really, as, from my point of view, there is nothing wrong with the latter's layout.

The world of social media has exploded -- there are countless sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus to name a few. One problem with these sites, is that they are not focused. In other words, they exist to encapsulate all topics. That is good and sometimes better, but some people may prefer a network that is dedicated to one topic. After all, if you are passionate about one thing, everything else can be noise.

This is particularly true of chefs -- they are passionate people that dedicate themselves to preparing, cooking and presenting their dishes. While a site like Facebook could store pictures of meals and cooking techniques, there is a good chance that it will be lost among the sea of cat videos and chain letters. And so, Chef's Roll has been born.

It seems to be hacking season at the moment, with new high profile victims hitting the headlines just about every day. The latest target is Kickstarter. The website, which exists to help projects raise the funds they need to get off the ground, was hacked on Wednesday, but details of the attack -- along with an apology -- have only just been made public. If you're wondering why is has taken so many days for Kickstarter to speak out, the company has pre-empted your question and supplied a FAQ: "We immediately closed the breach and notified everyone as soon we had thoroughly investigated the situation".

In a statement on the Kickstarter website CEO Yancey Strickler explained that the company had been contacted by law enforcement officials and alerted to the activity of hackers. It's not clear what users are likely to find more alarming, the fact that the site was hacked in the first place, or the fact that it was not Kickstarter that noticed, but a third party.

The Seattle Seahawks overwhelming victory in this year's Super Bowl may now be a memory, but the ads certainly live on. Those that debuted during the big game continue to run during our daily TV shows, and Google's video service has been polling viewers to get a feel for what really came out on top that Sunday.

While everyone likely had a personal favorite, there was a consensus amongst the masses, and the company has unveiled its top five from the NFL championship.

It is usually Bill Gates who is heralded for his philanthropy, but according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, it is Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg who is currently the most generous. In another change from the norm, malware threats to OS X, Linux and Android have increased, showing it is not just Windows that is prone to attack. As if to prove this, Mac malware has been discovered that has been designed to steal Bitcoins from victims. Factor in all of Apple's devices and the company managed to sell more units than Windows PCs are sold, although this revelation caused quite some debate.

Twitter found itself in the headlines after the James Dean estate tried to gain control of a fan's James Dean-related account. Twitter has already spoken out about the shackles binding companies from being open about government data requests -- companies are practically falling over themselves to add their names to the list -- and Dropbox is in agreement. The European Commission has expressed a desire to wrestle some control of the internet from US hands voicing fears that too much influence was being exerted,

Social intranet cloud site Bitrix24 is two years old and has over 100,000 company sign-ups. To celebrate it is giving BetaNews readers the chance to claim a free account with 15 GB of online document storage -- standard free accounts only get 5GB.

Here is how to claim yours.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were the most generous US philanthropists last year. In 2013, the couple donated 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, amounting to some $992.2 million. The Chronicle of Philanthropy put together a list of the top fifty most generous donors in 2012, ranked according to the size of individual donations.

The list is concerned only with gifts and pledges of cash and stock to non-profit organizations and it might be surprising to find that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is not at the top spot -- in fact, it does not appear in the list at all. This is explained by the publication:

Legal threats on Twitter are nothing new, but it is usually Twitter users who are the subject of litigation. In the case of the @JamesDean account, however, it is Twitter itself found on the receiving end of legal action. Acting on behalf of the James Dean estate, celebrity licensing agency CMG Worldwide is attempting to wrestle control of the Twitter account -- which is currently being used to tweet quotes by and about the star -- from the hands of its current owner.

The complaint says that Twitter is breaching trademarks owned by James Dean Inc by placing "objectionable content" online. CMG Worldwide has been in touch with Twitter to ask that the account activity be stopped, and that contact details for the account owner be handed over. Twitter has refused both requests. It is hard to see how the James Dean estate could have suffered "immeasurable and irreparable" damage. It is also interesting to note that the complaint suggests that unless the account activity stops, then James Dean Inc "will continue to be irreparably harmed and suffer actual damages in an amount as yet undetermined". There is no suggestion of what irreparable damage has actually been caused.

LinkedIn, a popular social site for the business crowd, carries a lot of benefits for customers. There is the opportunity for networking, along with finding work. To that end, like any social network, the company has strived to find ways to enhance its offerings and make things more appealing.

It has not always succeeded, and one such failure is about to be killed off. Intro was an app for iPhone that insinuated itself into the user's email, and was perhaps a bad idea from the start.

The social network for professionals, LinkedIn, is to acquire Bright, a job-search site that matches employers with potential employees. This is a purchase that makes a lot of sense for LinkedIn, the Facebook of the working world, helping to make it even easier for people to connect across industries. While LinkedIn has around 11 years of experience under its belt, Bright is more a newcomer, having only launched three years ago.

It seems like a perfect pairing. LinkedIn members have their resumes online as part of their profiles. Bright makes use of resumes to link people to jobs. It just seems to make sense. The three year old site is being purchased for what LinkedIn describes as "approximately $120 million, subject to adjustment". This total comprises 73 percent stock and 27 percent cash. The deal is expected to conclude by the end of Q1 2014.

It's been a scant few days since US Justice Department relented, somewhat, on the restrictions placed upon companies in regards to the secret court order to hand over the data of customers. The ruling opened things up a bit, but in the opinion of some, it failed to go far enough.

Now Twitter is standing up to the powers that be and speaking its mind. "[...] we think it is essential for companies to be able to disclose numbers of national security requests of all kinds -- including national security letters and different types of FISA court orders -- separately from reporting on all other requests", says Jeremy Kesel, the manager of Global Legal Policy for the social network.