January 2012
70 posts
6 tags
EFF is trying to help MegaUpload users retrieve...
If you are one of the MegaUpload users that had files uploaded to the site before the federal indictment and shut down and have lost complete access to those files, there may be something you can do about it to get those files back. This is of course for users with non-infringing content. If you happened to have copyright infringing content, that you will never get back. For those that had...
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Soon you will be able to kill pigs on Facebook
The very popular Angry Birds game that took the mobile app market by storm, then Google Chrome and naturally Google Plus is making it’s way to the biggest most dominant social platform in history; Facebook, which by the way is supposed to be filing it’s IPO possibly by tomorrow. The pig killing birds plan on making their way into your open social graph on Valentine’s Day,...
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Hawaii is proposing legislation to track all...
Hawaii may be known as the “Big Island” and the go-to place for the best vacations around, but if you plan on visiting Hawaii and are bringing your laptop or mobile device, you may want to think again. It will be worse for residents of Hawaii if state officials get their way with a new proposed Internet bill which will make living in the Aloha state tougher for Internet users. ...
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Using geo-tagged tweets to map out city paths
Programmer Eric Fischer who likes to map data in interesting ways just finished a new project mapping out tweets from Twitter. Using public tweets from Twitter’s API that were geo-tagged in specific cities like New York for example, he was able to map out ‘point-to-point’ trips which show the most traversed paths taken by those Twitter users. Using a random selection of...
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If you need to 'avoid the ghetto', don't worry,...
Microsoft is currently working on an app that is hitting a bit of controversy. The Microsoft pedestrian routing app not yet named but dubbed the “avoid the ghetto app”, is supposed to be a GPS navigation assistant that uses statistics to help you find your way. For example, if you need directions to that sporting event downtown, the app will use crime statistics, weather reports,...
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Shit Silicon Valley says
Riding the coattails of the Shit people say meme like Shit girls say and Shit black girls say, comes Shit Silicon Valley says. Written, filmed, and edited by Kate Imbach and Tom Conrad, they seem to capture the Valley in it’s funniest form. Some of my favorite quotes from the video are: “I saw it on TechCrunch”, “It’s stealth, so I can’t say too much”,...
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Facebook may file for it's IPO next week
In a new report from the Wall Street Journal published a short time ago, they are saying that Facebook may finally file for their Initial Public Offering (IPO). Currently Facebook is a privately held company, and if they go public their stocks can be traded publicly and they can build on their capital dramatically. The IPO if filed, is estimated to be in the range of about $100 billion, which if...
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Tweets still must flow, even if some are censored
What the heck is happening to the Internet? It seems lately that it’s going to hell in a hand basket. Sure the Internet has always been a place where volatile things can happen, but it could be avoided on an individual basis. Now it appears the places that we come together as a community to interact and socialize in places that have become sacred is evolving and changing at a rapid pace...
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The FBI is building an interactive social media...
The FBI is expanding their plans for their social media tracking program. The bureau has published a Request For Information from application developers/companies for information on how the FBI can build a flexible program to map out and analyze social media in real-time. No longer does the FBI want to waste their time doing this by hand, they want to automate it, naturally. A year ago DHS...
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This currently takes up most of my iPhone time at...
For the past week I have to admit something I have been doing. You see, most of my iPhone time has been spent playing Temple Run. I definitely think I am addicted to it. It’s one of my favorite iPhone apps at the moment. If you haven’t played it before, go download it (it’s free) and give it a try. You will like it, I promise, but be prepared to not be able to put it down...
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Obama implies ACTA enforcement during SOTU speech
It’s no secret that President Obama approves of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), since the U.S. has signed the agreement along with several other countries in 2011. If you aren’t familiar with ACTA, you need to get familiar with it, fast. The premise of ACTA is to combat piracy and counterfiet goods, however with all the undermining issues with the agreement it’s...
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Watch street art in Bogota, Columbia, come to life
In Bogota, Columbia, graffiti is an accepted form of art in the streets and isn’t really considered vandalism. In this video taken in downtown Bogota, watch as a few artists take an entire wall and create a masterful piece of art using spray cans, brushes, paint rollers and a lot of skills.
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Google Plus now boasts over 90 million users
On a recent Google earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page said that Google Plus reached a new milestone. On the call he said that Google Plus now has 90 million users globally. Well over double what he announced just three months ago. 90 million total users is a high amount, given the age of Google Plus which just launched in June of 2011. To help draw comparison, Myspace one of the first and most...
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Facebook offers divine tools for business
Looking for a web-based equivalent of a divining rod to find out where the customers are? While the hard work of converting prospects into paying consumers rests with the business, Facebook has stepped up to the challenge of connecting business page owners with not only their base customers but with those Friends of customers who show interest in your business. For some time, companies using...
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Petition the White House to end #ACTA and to...
News about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is starting to gain a lot of traction. I talked about it earlier today, pointing out major concerns expressed by the global community on how harmful this agreement is, on an International scope affecting many countries who have signed on to it, including the United States. Using the petition tool on the official White House website, there...
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Another day, another problem: Why ACTA is a threat...
You may have never heard of ACTA before, I know I haven’t. ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and due to the recent events and publicity of SOPA and PIPA, attention has been drawn to ACTA, which after reading about it appears to be just as bad if not worse than SOPA. ACTA is an International agreement among volunteering nations to put new controls into place for ...
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FileServe, X7, UploadBox join the ranks of others...
Ever since the MegaUpload shut down, the file sharing and cyber locker world has been rocked and turned upside down. Every day more and more sites appear to be completely shuttering their services or scaling back ten fold in attempts to avoid what happened to MegaUpload. As TorrentFreak points out which everyone is saying, this is more than a mere coincidence. If sites have been all doing the...
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FileSonic and Uploaded.to forced to make changes...
After the MegaUpload FBI shut down last week, it seems other file sharing sites have been left shaking in their boots. Just today, two sites have made huge changes to their services. FileSonic, a big file sharing site has completely shut down their sharing abilities, issuing a notice on their website that reads “All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only...
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Help petition the White House to investigate MPAA...
This past week during the height of the Internet and Congress coming to a head on the SOPA and PIPA bills, the deep pockets of Hollywood spoke out. Those in Hollywood, specifically the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) made their point clear to Congress that if they aren’t going to support their controversial anti-piracy bills that they won’t support them in return. Chris...
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Success! SOPA & PIPA get pulled from Congress...
I have great news! House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) who is the author and sponsor of SOPA, made a statement this afternoon that he is pulling SOPA from the House “until there is wider agreement on a solution.” This is in direct response to the sister bill PIPA in the Senate which has also been postponed indefinitely. In a separate statement issued by Senator...
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The most influential #SOPA voices on Twitter
Klout, the website that measures online social influence released their Most Influential SOPA Voices on Twitter, for the SOPA strike earlier this week. According to Klout, there were twice as many retweets about #sopa, #pipa, #blackoutsopa, #stopsopa, #blackout, and #factswithoutwikipedia on January 18 than in the past 30 days combined. In total, the amount of SOPA-related retweets alone were...
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Apple launches iPad Textbooks along with iBooks...
At Guggenheim in NY yesterday, at the Apple Education event, Apple announced a better way for students to consume information and be educated. Apple announced the new iBooks Textbooks, offering to do away with heavy, clunky, expensive and outdated textbooks and suggesting that iPads replace them; reinventing the way students learn and how educators use tools to teach. Education has always been...
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A snapshot of the attacks during the Anon...
It’s been a crazy week for the Internet to say the least. First there were nationwide protests and blackouts against SOPA, with citizens of the web uniting as one to keep an open and free Internet. Then yesterday, things really popped off after major file sharing website MegaUpload was shut down by the FBI, after a 2-yr long investigation. In direct response to the MegaUpload shut down,...
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Hacker group Anonymous fights back, in support of...
Holy cow, is this really happening? After hearing about the MegaUpload shut down, the hacker or ‘hactivist’ group Anonymous is already taking a stance on the situation, and fighting back. They have already taken down Justice.gov and UniversalMusic.com and shot off a tweet saying “justice.gov & universalmusic.com TANGO DOWN! You should have EXPECT US! #Megaupload.” As...
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FBI shuts down MegaUpload file sharing service
Wow, on the heels of the SOPA protest which is heavily related to online piracy, today come to find out the FBI has just shut down the major file sharing service MegaUpload. Seven people from the online service have been charged by the FBI, and as of this writing, the entire website is offline. Apparently, the FBI has been investigating them for two years now. According to the WSJ, the charges...
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Google Plus is getting into the meme game
A new update will be coming to Google Plus according to Time where soon, you will be able to create Internet meme sensations in a matter of seconds. If you aren’t sure what a meme is yet, here is one of most recent memory. If you are still unclear of what a meme is, look it up on Wikipedia or skip down to the pictures below.
The new update on Google Plus will go something like this: ...
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BitShare is back up, after our 24hr #SOPAstrike
When I first went on SOPA Strike it was just after midnight on Wednesday, with the intention on striking with my custom message up to stop SOPA for 24 hours. I ended up keeping the message up all last night as well, so all in all, it was well over 24 hours of striking the horrible SOPA and PIPA bills. I am happy I did too. It appears the turn out here on my blog and all across the Internet was...
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#SOPAStrike, the time has come!
Ok, so this is it folks. It’s about half hour past midnight EST my time, January 18, so my SOPA STRIKE starts now. This will be my last post for the next 24-hrs so that I can stand in solidarity to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills. I have added a huge message to this blog so that anyone visiting will see it. I ask that you please read it, do your part and please share it on all your...
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The MPAA is crying like a little kid who isn't...
Now this is funny! Look who is acting like a little kid who didn’t get their way and is now throwing a hissy fit. It’s the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). They have spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to push SOPA and PIPA so that they can finally have all the power they need, and now that the Internet is reacting in unison to fight back, the MPAA is starting to...
4 tags
The best damn Star Wars cake ever baked
I don’t think I have ever seen a life size Star Wars cake that looked this detailed and delicious at the same time. The cake in question is a Storm Trooper cake made by Amanda Oakleaf Cakes, with the Storm Trooper weighing in at 300 lbs and standing 6 feet 4 inches tall - wowzers! The cake was commissioned for a sci-fi convention in Boston, Massachusetts and fed 600 Star Wars...
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Lock and load with the AppBlaster for iPhone
If you are looking for a better gaming experience for your iPhone or iPod that is more realistic, then the AppBlaster may be something you would be interested in. I saw the commercial on TV for this the other day and had to dig a bit deeper to see what it’s all about. The AppBlaster is a gun accessory that you can attach to your iPhone or iPod. You can then download apps from iTunes...
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Support our memes, stop SOPA
This is cute, a propaganda-esque poster to help spread the word about SOPA and PIPA. Created by 21st Games, they took the time to create this neat poster before the Jan18 black out tomorrow. Help save our memes, and stop SOPA! via, source
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Google joins the Jan18 SOPA protest, Facebook...
Great news on the SOPA Protest front; Google made a statement that they will be posting a message on the Google home page (search page) with information on SOPA, hopefully drawing even more light to the SOPA and PIPA bills that are going to be protested tomorrow, January 18. According to Compete, Google sees somewhere around 174 million views per month, so upwards of 5 million per day (divided by...
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Check out this Wall-E case mod built from scratch
Remember Wall-E, the robot that that was programmed to clean up trash on earth in the Pixar animated film back in 2008? He was so adorable that the film was a huge hit, grossing in over $521 million worldwide and won a few awards too. Many have been infatuated with with Wall-E ever since, and according to Pondly, one unknown Russian builder took it upon himself to build from scratch an extremely...
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Wikipedia confirms blackout in protest of SOPA on...
It looks like Wikipedia just confirmed that the huge Internet resource and information website is going to do a blackout on January 18 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales sent out a tweet a couple of hours ago saying “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa.” He then followed up his tweet...
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The White House finally chimes in on SOPA
Well, it only took over a 100K signatures on two petitions using the official White House petition tool to get a response from the White House on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I’m sure along with all the other news and fury recently including the petitions, the Obama Administration must have felt the need to finally speak up and make a statement. Thankfully their response is in favor of...
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The transparent Samsung Smart Window is innovation...
After seeing video of the Samsung Smart Window at CES, my mind is a bit blown. This is innovative times ten. This is so cool and it doesn’t look believable but it is, it’s very real. It’s called a “window” because it’s a fully transparent screen so you can see through to the other side. It’s also a fully functioning operating system that can run apps;...
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The most awesomest watch that will ever tell time
Yeah I know, awesomest is not a real word. But this watch is just that cool, where no real word can describe it. It’s the HYT Hydro Mechanical Horologists watch and it makes James Bond watches look like child’s play. The HYT watch tells time in no way ever done before. For the first time, liquid is incorporated into time telling. The watch pumps fluorescent green liquid using...
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The Skin Gun is a miracle for burn victims
The healing process for skin on burn victims can take months and months and is a painful arduous process, as you can imagine. The most widely used technique for severe skin burns is for doctors to harvest new skin, through grafting and growing the new skin over the burns to cover them which is a lengthy process.
The grafting process can take weeks to harvest and grow the skin, which then needs...
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Tobii debuts vision gaze controls for Windows 8 at...
New products and technology continue to get more interesting at CES this year. So far I have seen some pretty cool demos and prototypes that will be coming out soon. The Tobii Gaze Interface is another one at CES that is pretty neat that I think when strategicially integrated into the right products will enhance user experience ten fold. The Tobii Gaze Interface is very similar to the Senseye...
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Coming to Google Plus Games: Play Your World with...
Today Google released a teaser video for a new upcoming game for Google Plus called Play Your World with Google Maps. The game appears to be a mash up of Google Maps technology and the old NES 8-bit game Marble Madness with an arcade feel to it. It really looks fun, but the teaser is just that, it teases and doesn’t give out a whole lot of information other than it’s built using...
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Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube are all...
Well this is some interesting information I just came across in the twittersphere. Maybe this is not news to some, but for me it was new in the sense that it is published official information and figured it was worthwhile sharing. Back about a year ago the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative. Before if you thought...
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I can't believe this just happened to Justin...
This is just too good to not blog about. The Verge’s Joanna Stern is at CES and got some great footage of Justin Bieber who was helping unveil the TOSY mRobo, a new portable music player that dances to music as it plays. The video and pictures that came out of it are priceless. I don’t know which is better now, this video or the one below.
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Google Plus gets fully integrated into Google...
Google Plus is again getting another boost from Google, this time injecting Google Plus directly into the Google Search results page. If you go to the Google home page, they have a link for Introducing Search plus Your World. Now when searching on Google, as long as you have a Google Plus account and your logged in, your search results will show related results from people in your Google Plus...
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WP7 gets it's own version of Siri called Ask Ziggy
Ever since Apple came out with it’s intelligent voice assistant Siri, the mobile market has been developing and hacking around it plus other mobile platforms have been trying to come up with alternatives to call their own, which haven’t been that successful. There was Alfred for Android however it didn’t have the full capabilities that Siri has plus the company that developed...
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Reddit will go black on January 18 to protest SOPA
Hey Congress, yeah you — you broke Reddit. You will break the rest of the Internet too if you aren’t careful. What’s this about you say? It’s about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In a blog post earlier today, Reddit made the very tough decision that on January 18 they will go black in protest of this piece of legislation. On the 18th, Reddit co-founder Alexis...
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Myspace announces partnership with Panasonic for...
At CES yesterday Myspace and Justin Timberlake had a big announcement to make. Myspace in their journey to become relevant again has partnered with Panasonic to launch a new service called Myspace TV. Coming to Panasonic Viera Connect-enabled HD televisions later this year will be a full Myspace integration with their social element in another attempt to bring back users and have people...
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The Samsung Smart TV with voice, motion control...
Well, it appears I spoke too soon. Last night I was ranting a bit about how I don’t see anything lined up to use Kinect technology for television, in particular for TV remotes. Since it makes perfect sense, I figured it was bound to happen. I didn’t give CES a chance apparently because I just saw that Samsung has done exactly what I was described, but way better and way more...
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The time has come to go "Office Space" on your TV...
The television was one of the greatest inventions of our time which became commercially available back in the 1920’s. It wasn’t until thirty years later in the 1950’s when the first commercial use of the TV remote control started being sold. Since then, you can’t imagine a television without a remote. I remember when I was a kid, I would go visit my grandmother’s...
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Sadly, Iran takes additional steps to national...
According to the latest report, Iran has taken additional steps this past week in their greater focus to censor the entire Internet for their nation of web users. As first talked about earlier last year, Iran is working on building their own Internet or in actuality, it will be an Intranet since only Iranians will be allowed access to their national network. The goal will be to censor the web,...
