Digital Media

Lady Gaga social network is for little monsters' eyes only

Move over Facebook, stand aside Google+: there's a new social juggernaut in town--and it's snarling and holding aloft a bunch of bent fingers.

Lady Gaga, the poker-faced megastar with a penchant for meat dresses and a Twitter following the size of Florida, has launched her own social network, CNN reports.

Called LittleMonsters, Gaga's pet name for her trillions of fans, the site has launched as an invite-only beta--asking fans to submit their e-mail to request an invite and "be among the first to experience a new community only for little monsters."

Bless. We expect Mark Zuckerberg has already signed up to try and get an early sniff at this potentially monstrous competition.

Read more "Lady Gaga social network is for little monsters' eyes only" on Crave UK.

Amazon denies standalone subscription-video service plans

Amazon denied that it plans to soon launch a standalone video-streaming service similar to Netflix, dashing--for now--the prospect of a true head-to-head battle between the rivals.

Brad Beale, who oversees Amazon's video-acquisition unit, said in an interview with GigaOm's Ryan Lawler on Wednesday: "The bundle of benefits that come with Amazon Prime make perfect sense to offer to customers. The way that Prime Instant Video is offered today--we're going to continue that approach at least into the near future."

Even Netflix believed Amazon might spin off a standalone video service. In Netflix's fourth-quarter earnings last month,

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Latest Google Wallet hack picks your pocket

Google Wallet users might be wise to start getting a little nervous.

Yesterday, researchers outlined a complicated way to crack the Google Wallet PIN used to make purchases with the smartphone-based payment system. Now there's a new hack that could let a stranger gain access to the funds of Wallet users.

Described yesterday by blogging site The Smartphone Champ, the hack doesn't require extra software, root access, or any particular skills in general.

Instead, all someone apparently has to do it clear the data for the Google Wallet app in the smartphone's application settings menu. The app more

Iran cuts off Internet access

Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without access to e-mail and social networks.

An individual inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email are no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption.

But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.

"The interesting thing is that when asked, they deny the fact that all these services are all blocked," an Iranian contacted by CNET said. This individual asked to remain unidentified. more

Latest Yahoo rumor: A possible cash-and-stock trade with Alibaba

Yahoo is still working hard to turn some or all of its Asian assets into cash.

According to Reuters, Yahoo is currently considering a complex deal in which it would sell back slightly more than half of its stake in China's Alibaba Group--specifically, shares equivalent to about 25 percent of Alibaba. Yahoo acquired a 40 percent stake in Alibaba in 2005 for $1 billion, and could stand to make more than $8 billion in the deal.

Of course, nothing is ever simple with Yahoo, and the deal it's putting together with Alibaba is no exception. Yahoo would only more

Xbox 360 scores huge sales win in January

The Xbox 360 is still scoring big amidst a slump in overall gaming sales.

Microsoft's hot gaming console was the best-selling platform in the U.S. in January, its 13th month in a row at the top of the charts, NPD Group said yesterday.

For January, Microsoft sold 270,000 Xbox 360s,  grabbing 49 percent of the console market last month. The Xbox accounted for $310 million in total sales (hardware, software, and accessories), the highest number for any console in the U.S. January also marked the 11th month in a row in which the Xbox grabbed more

Friday Poll: Has Pinterest piqued your interest?

Oh yippee, another social-networking site. Well, this one seems to have some legs. Pinterest has been described as a cross between Tumblr and StumbleUpon, but it also has a strong scrapbooking mentality.

Users pin photos, recipes, and other Internet finds onto the site so that others can like, re-pin, or comment on them. All this content is collected onto virtual pinboards for easy organization.

Pinterest is invite-only at the moment. I'm on the waiting list myself, which shouldn't be surprising considering that I'm a woman.

If CNET's Buzz Out Loud is onto something, Pinterest may be missing the male boat. Guy listeners recently chimed in with their complete lack of interest in Pinterest.

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Kickstarter racks up over $2 million for two projects

"WoooooooooOOOOoooOoOoooOOooo! We did it! 100% funded in just over eight hours. You people are amazing!," read the Kickstarter page for Tim Schafer's Double Fine Adventure today.

This was one of two projects to hit $1 million in donations today from the crowd-source funding platform Kickstarter.

According to Kickstarter, every week, tens of thousands of people pledge millions of dollars to projects listed on its site. But never has a project topped $1 million, much less two in one day.

One of the projects is the Elevation Dock designed by Casey Hopkins, the founder of ElevationLab in Portland, Ore. The more

E-mail viruses most likely to appear in the morning

Eight in the morning is a good time to grab some coffee, but not to check your e-mail.

The number of viruses sent out each day peaks between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. EST, according to the Global Security Report released by security research firm Trustwave this week.

"The number of executables and viruses sent in the early morning hours increased," reads the report. "The spike is likely an attempt to catch people as they check e-mails at the beginning of the day."

Using real-world data collected in 2011 from more than 300 incident response and forensic investigations more