Internet & Media

Twitter bomb joker found guilty

Courts do seem to find it difficult to see the funny side of things. Especially in the United Kingdom, where the lawyers who plead their cases appear to wear very unflattering wigs.

So perhaps some might feel a little sympathy for Paul Chambers, who Monday was found guilty of tweeting "a message by means of a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003."

Some of you may not recall the contents and context of Chambers' tweet. He had met a woman on Twitter. He … Read more

Report: Facebook to let users share their locations

Facebook is reportedly adding a new feature that would let its users share their location in their status updates.

The new location feature, described Friday in a story by Advertising Age, would debut later this month and let people automatically include their current locale in their postings if they choose to do so.

Stung by concerns and complaints about customer privacy and new features that are turned on by default, Facebook is likely to offer the location feature on an opt-in basis, according to Ad Age.

Certainly, many of Facebook's more than 100 million users might find it useful … Read more

WiGig group opens way to gigabit wireless devices

Wireless devices that run at speeds in gigabits rather than megabits have been given the green light to hit the consumer market.

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) announced Monday that its 60GHz multi-gigabit wireless technology is now available for member companies to start turning out products that use the new high-speed standard.

Operating at the unused frequency of 60GHz, the WiGig standard can theoretically deliver speeds of up to 7 gigabits per second (Gbps), more than 10 times faster than the current 802.11n Wi-Fi, or Wireless N, rate.

Finalized last December, WiGig is not meant to replace existing Wi-Fi … Read more

Following, not leading on Twitter

The number of followers a Twitter user has doesn't directly correlate as an indicator of influence, new research by Meeyoung Cha of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany demonstrates.

After looking at data from 52 million Twitter accounts including a more detailed look at the 6 million "active users" (or roughly 8.6 percent of the user base), Cha found that popular users with large number of followers "are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions."

The data in the paper also provides a number of interesting points related to how followers interact with the Twitter service, and how influence and fame don't always match up.

The most-followed users span a wide variety of public figures and news sources. They were news sources (CNN, New York Times), politicians (Barack Obama), athletes (Shaquille O'Neal), as well as celebrities like actors, writers, musicians, and models (Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears). The most retweeted users were content aggregation services (Mashable, TwitterTips, TweetMeme), businessmen (Guy Kawasaki), and news sites (The New York Times, The Onion). The most-mentioned users were mostly celebrities. Ordinary users showed a great passion for celebrities, regularly posting messages to them or mentioning them, without necessarily retweeting their posts. Most influential users can hold significant influence over a variety of topics. The top Twitter users had a disproportionate amount of influence, which was indicated by a power-law distribution Mainstream news organizations consistently spawned a high level of retweets over diverse topics. In contrast, celebrities were better at inducing mentions from their audience. Influence is not gained spontaneously or accidentally, but through concerted effort. In order to gain and maintain influence, users need to keep great personal involvement.

… Read more

Five hidden dangers of Facebook (Q&A)

Facebook claims that it has 400 million users. But are they well-protected from prying eyes, scammers, and unwanted marketers?

Not according to Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online.

She says your privacy may be at far greater risk of being violated than you know, when you log onto the social-networking site, due to security gaffes or marketing efforts by the company.

Facebook came under fire this past week, when 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, charging that the site, among other things, manipulates privacy settings to make users' … Read more

FCC lets movie industry selectively break your TV

How badly do you want to see new movies in your home close to the date they're released in theaters? Badly enough to let the movie industry reach through your front door and break your TV? Well, good news for you.

The Federal Communications Commission decided on Friday that the movie industry can remotely disable analog video outputs on your home theater equipment to prevent you from recording certain programs--namely, first-run movies available on demand before DVDs are released or while they're still in theaters.

The FCC ruled that it's "in the public interest" (PDF) … Read more

Toyota's viral hit makes the minivan (almost) cool

Toyota has an image problem. Rather like families.

Both, once revered, now seem to stand for dysfunction. So both try to use various communication techniques in order to redress the balance. In the case of families, well, I'm not sure it's working. Every time I want to believe in the public face of family unity, up pops a Tiger Woods or a Jesse James to suggest that, somewhere along the production line, the brakes must have failed.

Toyota, having undergone difficulties with respect to gas pedals, brakes, and computer glitches, might, however, have created something that works for … Read more

Warner Bros. expands DVD-to-Blu-ray program

Warner Bros. has expanded its DVD2Blu program, a service that offers customers the opportunity to send in a DVD copy of a movie and receive back from the studio a Blu-ray version.

Citing Blu-ray's success, Warner Bros. said consumers can now choose from 90 of the company's "most popular titles to upgrade." The available movies include several well-known titles like "The Aviator," "A Christmas Story," and "Get Smart."

Although I haven't tested it out, the process of using DVD2Blu seems painless. Customers can go to the site and select … Read more

AOL hires Microsoft's Alex Gounares as CTO

According to sources close to the situation, AOL has hired Alex Gounares (pictured here) as its chief technology officer.

Gounare's departure was announced internally at Microsoft today, where he is corporate vice president of Advertising Research and Development and CTO for the software giant's Online Services division.

According to his bio at Microsoft, Gounares "was the corporate vice president for Corporate Strategy, where he was responsible for helping set the overall strategic direction for the company. Before that, Gounares spent three years as the technology assistant to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, and he also was responsible for … Read more