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Blackberry webpage briefly shows that BBM for android and iOS is here

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The Canadian sub-domain briefly displayed a banner showing the words that BBM for android and iOS is here. This was however removed later and replaced with a banner showing that the Blackberry messenger app will be coming to Android and iOS soon.

This might mean that the new chat service is ready to launch and blackberry is probably waiting for the right time to launch the app. Soon we wont need to own blackberries to actually use the BBM service.

However, according to Engadget, the Canadian blackberry page showed some services that wont be included at launch such as BBM Voice, BBM Video and screen sharing features. The page was later on torn down and might reappear during or after the launch.

Source: Engadget, Blackberry

Youtube teases us with new logo!

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The new logo was first seen on the updated android and iOS apps, the new logo looks like the play button with the word youtube under itwe usually see, on youtube videos that are paused which is significantly different from the old logo which is highly glossy.

The new logo appeared on the Official Youtube’s Facebook and twitter accounts. The logo is flatten to fit into the modern UI which is being taken by almost all Operating systems and blends in with the new smooth User Interface of their android and iOS apps. And looks like the other google app icons that are not glossy.

newyoutubelogo
The New Youtube logo logo
The Old youtube logo
The Old youtube logo

 

 

 

Android Vice President ‘Hugo’ joins Xiaomi

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The Android Vice president Hugo Barra has confirmed that he is join Xiaomi a Chinese manufacturer. Barra will be the vice president Xiaomi global as the company plans to expand to the global market after successfully producing for the Chinese market. Hugo also wishes the current Android team the best, specifically calling out Andy Rubin, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Sundar Pichai, and Vic Gundotra.

However Hugo’s departure leaves a big power vacuum in the android team as we are not sure who would replace him since Andy Rubin also left the android team to join the Google X team.

Hugo has definitely been a big public face to Google, he appeared on new android device launches such as the launch of the nexus 7.  Reasons for Hugo’s resignation are rumours and we can not confrim them, however CNET says it could have been due to and affair with a Google Co-worker who Sergey Brin might have been dating.

Skype is developing 3D video but is limited by number of 3D devices its users have!

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During an interview with the BBC explains “making its own 3D content”, the vice president of Skype Mark Gilbert said that the Microsoft VoIP team has been working on developing 3D calls.

However don’t expect to get 3D calls yet on your Skype calls because that could be launched years from now because the technology hasn’t yet reached Skype users, this would comprise of 3D capturing devices such as 3D web cams and 3D front facing cameras on tablets and phones.

Gillet confirmed that they have tested the service in their labs looking at the capability of 3D screens and 3D capture and said, “ we’ve seen a lot of progress …but the capture devices are not yet there.” , “we have it in the lab, we know how to make it”, he added.  The company does such ventures under its research programs that cost billions of dollars and they aim deeply look at the device ecosystem.

Skype says that the full HD video will be available on Tablets and laptops before it goes to the smart phone because the higher-level processing it requires.

Let’s wait for the future and see our video calls in 3D. For those who prefer the present can see be able to use HD video chat on Hangouts that were wrote about earlier.

Google Hangouts Upgrades to HD video.

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Google’s video and chat service called Hangout has slowly started showing HD videos at 720p which is a high quality. Much as the feature isn’t fully available to every user at the moment but some video chats have already started showing in HD. This has been tested on ‘Google Hangouts on Air’ which has received the feature.  Google Hangouts on Air is a feature which enables a hangout to be shown live on and shared to the public on your Google +.

That means video chats on Google hangouts will get clearer and come with crisp clear sound. This will help Hang outs evenly compete with Apple’s Facetime which despite being in HD is limited to apple devices.

The HD will be in a format known as VP8 which is an open video compression format owned by Google. Google has been using H.264; however VP8 will lower the bit rate and improve the quality. This was confirmed by Google’s Vice president Chee Chew to GigaOm in an interview.

The switch is happening without the notice of the users, you will just notice that your hangouts have got clearer.

HTC is reported Building a custom OS for its China users

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The Taiwanese company is reportedly working with the government of China to build a mobile OS that has deep integration of Chinese services and social networks like weibo. This OS will be target the Chinese market and could launch before the end of next year as sources at Wall Street Journal state.

However it hasn’t clearly been stated where the OS will based upon an open source android fork or will be built from scratch.  However its most likely the OS might be custom because china has had issues with Google and most android phones made for china either don’t have Google play or have it blocked.  HTC already has some devices using the OS in active testing and prototypes are in the hands of the Chinese government officials.

You might say that HTC’s idea of building an OS for “a third” of the world’s population is a smart idea however they aren’t the only players, because some companies such as canonical have partnered with china to build a China specification version of its Ubuntu.

HTC’s new OS will favor china based apps and services because the government of China has been actively trying to reduce reliance on foreign made software and its technology ministry early on released a “white paper” that criticized China’s over reliance on Google-made Android OS.

This OS might not be the biggest threat to Google’s android or iOS but it will definitely eat up a share of their market. However this is a smart move by HTC because integrating a long term partnership with the government of China will see HTC’s profits probably grow.

Facebook publically releases Report on Government requests

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Facebook released a report that shows the number of requests on its users the government was making and the number of user accounts on which inquiries are being made. The social network went ahead to  list the percentage of requests that were honored.

The largest number of request was on US accounts with the first half or 2013 having logged between 11,000 and 12,000 requests for facebook user data which involved between 20,000 to 21,000 accounts.

India came in second place with 3,245 requests, UK in 3rd with 1,975 requests and Germany in the fourth position with 1886 requests.

Such data isn’t surprising following previous leaks by Snowden about the US government operative known as “PRISM” which involves surveillance of users’ accounts.

Facebook’s transparency is a big step forward to clear its name, and 25,000 request from all governments might seem a small figure but remember Facebook isn’t the only way governments collect data.

Below is the Statement from Facebook:

Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook. We strive to embody them in all aspects of our services, including our approach to responding to government data requests. We want to make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature and extent of the requests we receive and the strict policies and processes we have in place to handle them.

We are pleased to release our first Global Government Requests Report, which details the following:

The report details the following:

  • Which countries requested information from Facebook about our users
  • The number of requests received from each of those countries
  • The number of users/user accounts specified in those requests
  • The percentage of these requests in which we were required by law to disclose at least some data

The report covers the first 6 months of 2013, ending June 30.

As we have made clear in recent weeks, we have stringent processes in place to handle all government data requests. We believe this process protects the data of the people who use our service, and requires governments to meet a very high legal bar with each individual request in order to receive any information about any of our users. We scrutinize each request for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and require a detailed description of the legal and factual bases for each request. We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests. When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name.

More details about our approach to responding to government requests can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/.

We hope this report will be useful to our users in the ongoing debate about the proper standards for government requests for user information in official investigations. And while we view this compilation as an important first report – it will not be our last. In coming reports, we hope to be able to provide even more information about the requests we receive from law enforcement authorities.

As we have said many times, we believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent. Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals. Each can exist simultaneously in free and open societies, and they help make us stronger. We strongly encourage all governments to provide greater transparency about their efforts aimed at keeping the public safe, and we will continue to be aggressive advocates for greater disclosure.

– Colin Stretch, Facebook General Counsel

Source: Facebook

Facebook finally wins lawsuit on Sponsored stories!

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Facebook finally wins lawsuit on Sponsored stories!
Facebook has finally put an end to a legal battle in regards to lawsuit on “Sponsored Stories” in the US. This was after district judge Richard Seeborg approved the suit’s $20 million settlement on Monday.
Judge Seeborg was went ahead to say, “While not incorporating all features that some of the objectors might prefer, the settlement has significant value,” in his order on Monday.
This lawsuit was against Facebook’s advertising that the plaintiffs claim violates user’s privacy by publicizing likes of users in advertisement without asking them for permission or giving them a share of the revenue in form of compensation. The legal complaint was filed in 2011 when facebook used user’s names, profile picture and a statement saying the user likes a particular Advert.
This legal battle hasn’t been the shortest, in May 2012 Facebook made a settlement which Judge Seeborg refused then in October the same year Facebook brought a new settlement offer where they agreed to pay $20 million in compensation to the plaintiffs and agreed to start user controls and the offer was preliminary call it ‘partially’ approved.
However the plaintiffs and children’s advocacy groups opposed the offer because it wasn’t enough to protect Facebook’s underage users and wanted an +opt- in feature.
Finally, Facebook’s preliminary approval was fully passed on Monday by Judge Richard Seeborg.

Source: Reuters

Facebook adds shared photo albums! Prepare to collaborate photos

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Remember how, you go to a party or place with your friends and they all take photos with their camera’s or smartphones and you want to share them on Facebook? Then each one had to upload the photos they had taken to individual albums. Now the feature that Google + users have been enjoying which is called party mode where users can contribute photos for an event or party to the same album, has somewhat been modified and adopted by the Facebook team.

You can now make a single album and have contributors, these may be your friends, colleagues name it, so that when you go for that hiking trip or beach party you can share your photos in one album. The number of contributors is limited to 50 and each contributor can share up to 200 photos within the album. You might wonder how they came up with the idea? It came out of a hackathon and Bob Baldwin and Fred Zhao are the creators/ developers.

With Facebook, privacy is catered for, in this case only the creator of the album has the rights to change the privacy setting from either friends of contributors, public or contributors only.

Baldwin told Mashable: “Right now, if you were at a party and there were three different albums created, you might not be able to see all of the photos, which is kind of confusing and frustrating.

I think one thing that’s really fun about creating products at Facebook is that you’re never quite sure how people will use the product in the end. We’re really excited for launch because we think people will use (shared photo albums) in ways that we’re not even thinking of.”

This feature is in it early stages of development and has been realized to only a few users and mobile support will be coming soon. By the way if you want to always be among the first testers of Facebook features always set your English to English (US) and join Facebook developer groups.

 

Microsoft tells parents “Google is corrupting your kids!”

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Microsoft is back to its ways of trashing its competition while marketing a new service. After the launch of Bing for schools, this is an Ad free service for children under the age of 12 who live in the USA. Microsoft in a new campaign it calls ‘Scroogled’ has released an ad about how dangerous Google’s advertising is to kids and that parents shouldn’t take send their kids to school before they sign them up for Bing for schools because their children might become obsessed with diet supplements or want a mortgage because the Google ads they see on a school computer are just like the ads their see on any public computer. Hmm! we all know or at least most of us know that Google Adsense uses keywords and Microsoft could be playing dirty!

In this new ad, Microsoft is quoted to say, “This is a message to Parents, Please don’t let your children resume school. At least, not until those venal principals have stopped allowing your children’s minds to be warped like plastic in the Sahara.

Did you know that your children are being pushed to get a mortgage? Did you know they’re being encouraged to get a free credit report? Those sweet innocent minds are even being teased into buying supplements.”

In the Ad the adults are wondering what this child might become because the child is being forced to use Google search in school and therefore seeing ridiculous ads.

 Microsoft goes ahead to say, “The corruption is palpable, she’s studying the history of Mesopotamia, where civilization reigned, before it was corrupted by ignorant from the west. Now here is Google corrupting young minds with issues far beyond their scope.”

Then Microsoft goes ahead to talk about their product in just like they always do in their commercials,

“How can any corporation justify peddling these ads to the impressionable who will soon be the guinea pigs of the robot era? Help is at hand. There is Bing for Schools. Its ad free!. And it knows lots about Mesopotamia too.”  

Microsoft then does the math on one of its Scroogled websites to tell us that Parents need to address this issue before children become ‘obsessed mortgage rates, credit reports and ingesting vitamins.

Now the questions remains, Do you find Microsoft justifiable for such a type of ad, Well Yes and No, if you follow what you always see on TV especially commercials you are most likely to side with Microsoft however when you realize you don’t live in the USA you just can use Bing for schools, For those who enjoy the re-known Google knowledge, and have information about how they use keywords you might ignore the Microsoft Talk.

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