Austrian skydiver sets live view record on YouTube
Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner broke a number of records with his breathtaking edge-of-space skydive yesterday -- and not just the highest jump from a platform (128,100 feet), the longest distance free-fall, (119,846 feet) and becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier (with a maximum vertical velocity of 833.9 mph or Mach 1.24). He was also responsible for notching up the most simultaneous live views on YouTube to date.
According to Google, over eight million people (myself included) visited the live stream to watch Baumgartner jump from a capsule attached to a giant helium balloon some 24 miles (39km) above the Earth and land safely around nine minutes later, nonchalantly touching down almost -- as a friend described it -- as if stepping off a bus.
TweetDeck 2.0.1 makeover mimics Twitter website
Twitter may be accessible through a website, but many users turn to a dedicated app to keep abreast of what the people they follow have to say and to share their thoughts with followers. One of the most popular Twitter clients, TweetDeck, has received a major upgrade that brings a redesigned interface, choice of new themes and much more.
The most noticeable change in this latest release is the new look, which is more in keeping with the Twitter website and other official Twitter apps. Anyone using the service can enjoy a more uniform experience moving between platforms as things now look much more similar whether the web is used or an app for iOS, Android, Mac or PC. There has been a great focus on usability, and screen elements have been improved o make them easier to read.
Facebook reaches 1 billion monthly active users
You know what’s cooler than 500 million Facebook users? One billion. That’s the number of people Facebook says are now using the social network every month. It reached that magical milestone on September 14 at 12:45 PM Pacific time, so it’s probably one billion and a bit, by now.
To celebrate, Mark Zuckerberg posted a little thank you and a fact sheet about the news, which contains some interesting key metrics, including that there have so far been 140.3 billion friend connections, and over 1.13 trillion likes since that feature launched in February 2009. There are 219 billion photos currently on the site, not including deleted ones, which Facebook says totals around 46 billion.
You can now follow 'thought leaders' on LinkedIn
After allowing people to follow companies, groups and news by industries and sources, the popular, professional-oriented, social network LinkedIn announced today that a limited number of professionals can be followed as well.
What does "limited" entail? The number of professionals that can be followed is limited to 150 of the most influential thought leaders on LinkedIn, from the likes of Richard Branson, United States President Barack Obama, Governor Mitt Romney, Arianna Huffington, Jim Kim and many more. What's the advantage?
Happy Birthday Google (belated)
If you went to Google.com today, you probably noticed the logo was replaced with a fun little birthday cake animation celebrating 14 years of incorporation. Google was incorporated on Sept. 4th 1998, but chose today to celebrate the birthday. What does it matter when they celebrate, after all, Google has had a great year.
In April, Google released a concept video about Project Glass, fancy glasses with computers in them. In May, the search giant closed the purchase of Motorola Mobility. During the annual developer conference in June, Google made a lot of announcements, among them: Android 4.1, Nexus 7 tablet, Nexus Q and creepy but useful Google Now. The fun: skydiving, bicycles and rappelling down the side of a building. Big surprise: event participants could purchase a developer version of Google Glasses.
LinkedIn identifies the top-10 endangered office tools and trends
The office workplace is continually evolving. New technologies and trends -- like cloud computing and BYOD schemes -- are becoming more and more popular, but not every firm is willing to embrace the future, and many are stuck firmly in the past.
LinkedIn, the world’s largest social network for professionals, surveyed more than 7,000 members across the globe and asked them which of the current office tools and trends they expect to be extinct in five years’ time, combining the answers to produce the following top 10:
New Myspace: gorgeous, but who will use it?
Let's be honest, the news that Myspace is being revamped probably doesn’t have you jumping for joy and punching the air. In fact, I expect your response is probably similar to mine -- a little bit of interest mixed with a lot of "so what?" Myspace was the number one social network in the days before Facebook and Twitter, but now it’s a faded and largely forgotten web presence used by people who should have let go and moved on a long time ago.
But before you dismiss the revamp entirely, as I nearly did, it’s at least worth watching the teaser video Myspace just released because, as it turns out, the completely rebuilt service is beautiful, glossy and -- rather surprisingly -- it might just have you wanting to try it out. I know. Using Myspace! What's next, lobbying Yahoo to bring back GeoCities?
Bitrix24 gives away free cloud-based social intranet to startups
As Microsoft’s recent $1.2 billion Yammer acquisition proves, there’s a growing demand for enterprise social networks at the moment. Big name firms like Citrix and SalesForce have invested heavily in the popular communications trend, and Bitrix24 has seen some 10,000 SMBs sign up to use its cloud-based service since the May launch -- helped in no small part by the fact it’s entirely free for companies with 12 or fewer users.
Buoyed by its growing user base, Bitrix24 now targets startups with a $2.4 million program designed to popularize social intranet use at firms that might consider it out of their reach for one reason or another. The company plans to do this by giving away a thousand one-year subscriptions to its flagship Professional Intranet plan (worth $2,400 each) and all companies need do to be considered for one of these grants is to fill out the short application form on the company’s website.
Google+ signups top 400M, but only 100M active users
On September 20, 2011, Google+ opened to the public, after nearly three months of closed beta. To mark the year anniversary, today the search giant released new data that initially bodes well for the first year while raising questions about the service's real success.
"This week we also hit an important milestone--over 400,000,000 people have upgraded to Google+", senior vice president of engineering boasts. "Here too, I’m happy to report that we have just crossed 100,000,000 monthly active users on Google+ (plus.google.com and mobile app)". What? Only one in four are active?
Grab all Instagram pics from any user
From Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez, Rihanna to Barack Obama, just about everyone is using Instagram to share photos these days. And if you’d like to get a closer look at the contents of any particular account then all you need is a copy of the Free Instagram Downloader.
To get started, just click “Input User Name” and enter the user name of the account you’re interested in. If no-one comes to mind, try MTV, say, or perhaps TaylorSwift.
WeJITS is collaboration in a persistent link
Third in a series. Every few years something comes along to fundamentally change how we use the World Wide Web, whether it is online video, social networking, dynamic pages or even search, itself. Last week a new technology called WeJIT was announced that looks like something small but is really something big because it extends collaboration from specialized sites like wikis to everywhere HTML is used. WeJITS is collaboration in a persistent link.
WeJITS come from Democrasoft, a company here Santa Rosa, Calif. that is best known for Collaborize Classroom, a cloud-based service used by more than 30,000 teachers to interact with students, deliver lessons from a global peer reviewed library and even give tests. WeJITS take the best of Collaborize Classroom and place it in a single link.
SharePoint 2013 is a missed opportunity
There is lots to like in SharePoint 2013 preview. The new interface stylings, whilst inconsistent in their current form, show some nice touches. The new social features are a big improvement on what went before. SkyDrive integration is potentially very useful, and adds to what was already a very solid document management offering. But my overall feeling: SharePoint 2013 is a missed opportunity.
The new social features don’t go far enough. Microsoft all but admitted this before the beta was released, by purchasing Yammer. They are now no doubt working hard trying to integrate it with the SharePoint code base. So presumably what we have now is "SharePoint Social 1.0", a stop gap at best?
Microsoft codename 'Schnauzer Spittle' revealed
Call it life imitating art. One of my favorite pastimes is watching technology trends catch up with popular science fiction. Whether it's smartphones and tablets presaging Star Trek's ubiquitous communicators and PADDs or iRobots and Roombas hinting at our Star Wars maintenance droid-enabled future, I enjoy connecting the dots between various technology developments to see how they point the way towards a sci-fi inspired future.
Take this week, for example. Three seemingly unrelated stories -- Microsoft patenting "life streaming", Facebook tweaking the performance of its iOS app and the announcement of a Nokia-led alliance to promote more accurate indoor location services -- may together lay the foundation for myriad fantastical future applications.
Your Fourth Amendment rights don't apply to Facebook
Last week, a federal district court made a ruling that has broad implications for your privacy on Facebook. The end result is that you should be much more careful about what you share on Facebook with whom, because regardless of whether your profile is private or not, the Federal Government can use your friends to gather evidence against you, which in turn can be used against you in a court of law.
This is what happened to accused gangster Melvin Colon. The Bronx, N.Y. man used his Facebook to brag about his apparent exploits, which according to reports included messages of loyalty to his gang, posts on violent acts and threats to other people. The US Government was then able to find a friend who worked against Colon, and allowed law enforcement to use his or her Facebook to gather evidence.
Chrome for iOS adds Facebook, Google+ sharing
Just like Firefox, Chrome rockets through version numbers as though it is going out of fashion. Although Google’s foray into the world of web browsers for iPhone and iPad is fairly recent, Chrome for iOS already is version 21. The latest release is a relatively minor one, but there is still one feature that brings the browser in line with other more socially aware apps.
The big news in this release: addition of new sharing options. Found a website that you think your friends will love? There is no need to copy and paste the URL into an email as there are now new sharing options built directly into the app. A new popup menu lets you share pages through Google+, Facebook, Twitter or via email.
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