No, this isn't The Onion.
But just look at that headline and wonder how it could possibly be true.
Well, according to Newsday, Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber was due to conduct an album signing at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, N.Y.
It seems that thousands of teenage girls turned up to mob the wondrous teen hope, a happening perhaps so frightening that Bieber did not turn up.
The Nassau County police became rather concerned that the crowd might break the glass in store windows with its shrieking. (The official word seems to have been "unruly," but teenage girls are never really that.)
So they asked a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records (Bieber's record label), James A. Roppo, to do what record label executives often do when solving a difficult situation: tweet.
However, he is alleged to have not complied with this endearing request and thus found himself arrested, pending charges that might, according to the police, comprise criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration.
Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police told the AP: "We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message. By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."
What is somewhat peculiar is that a tweet was sent from Justin Bieber's account around the time of the arrest, reading: "they are not allowing me to come into the mall. if you don't leave, I and my fans will be arrested, as the police just told us."
Bieber followed this message up with another tweet pleading for the high-pitched wailers to disperse, just three minutes later.
All this occurred Friday. And, thanks to Bieber himself, I have embedded YouTube footage of the melee at the mall.
Bieber posted a link to this footage Saturday and tweeted, "wow. this upsets me. the mall should of had proper security. They wouldnt let me in! Gotta make this right 4 the fans."
Well, yes, it should of. Just look at the worried faces of the parents. Just listen to the screams of the aficionadas. This is the kind of nightmare many will have experienced after a large tub of dulce de leche eaten well past midnight.
I cannot imagine what Roppo might have said to the police in order to incite their wrath. However, looking at this footage, I suspect that something like "Look at these people!!!! They're outta their minds!!! You really think a tweet is going to stop them from screaming?!!!" might have been part of the dialogue.
It is also pleasantly reassuring that the mall staff appears, near the end of the footage, to have resorted to analog crowd dispersal means. Yes, someone found a loudhailer.
However, I can find no record of any arrests from the scene other than Roppo's. And certainly, no one else appears to have been arrested for refusing to tweet.
Therefore, this truly seems to be a world first. One can only look forward to the day when someone's Facebook friends cause them to be arrested for not updating their status.
Google has reserved one of its valuable ad spaces on Google Image Search to explain why an offensive image of Michelle Obama appears as the first result for searches on her name.
Search Engine Land noted that last week, Google had removed the image after claiming the site hosting it was spreading malware, but it's back with the ad featured prominently above the image results. "Sometimes our search results can be offensive," Google said in the ad copy. "We agree. Read more."
Clicking on the ad takes you to a special page on Google's site where the company explains "sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google." Google said its policy in matters like this is to only remove content from its site if that content is illegal, violates Google's Webmaster guidelines in some way, or if the site owner requests the content be removed.
What's not clear, however, is what triggers the company to take out an ad explaining the search results: after all, there's no shortage of things on the Internet that would offend the average person. Google did not immediately respond to a request for more information about how those decisions are made.
Search Engine Land notes Google has also taken out explanation ads against search queries such as "jew" and "miserable failure," the search query that introduced much of the world to the concept of the Google bomb when searches for those keywords were orchestrated to point to the official Web site of former President George W. Bush by taking advantage of Google's PageRank formula.
Movie and TV show streaming service Hulu on Monday added tagging to the mix, allowing users to add up to 30 tags to each piece of content for the sake of organization. These tags also work site-wide, which means that users can see all types of related content regardless of whether it's a TV show or feature-length film.
Users have two choices for tagging: one is creating an all-new tag, while the other is to vote up a tag someone else has made. Each time a user does this it adds to the number, giving certain tags more validity, although unlike size-based systems it's not as immediately clear which tags are more popular or common. Users can also delete tags, but only their own--meaning that if there is a bad tag placed by another user there's no way to report it.
Hulu's new tagging system is part public, part private and works on all content.
(Credit: CNET)Tags are made public and can be seen by other users immediately, although they do not yet appear to be an integrated part of Hulu's search engine. Instead, users can search for a specific tag within the tag section of each video. It's also worth noting that some content on Hulu has an expiration date, so you can spend all the time in the world tagging videos, but something you tagged a few months ago might not be able to be watched at a later date.
One thing Hulu could do with tags (but probably won't) is add timing to the mix. Recently-launched (although still in private beta) AnyClip organizes movie clips by what's happening in them. Hulu could do the same thing with its content by giving users a way to tag by time the way video host Viddler does. Though again, this wouldn't be nearly as useful as AnyClip due to Hulu's frequent content expirations.
Worth noting is that competitor YouTube has long had tags for its hosted movies and TV shows. However, it does not let users add them.
It was inevitable that someone would seriously consider taking Google's dare.
Rupert Murdoch is reportedly thinking about removing all of News Corp.'s content from Google and striking an exclusive deal with Microsoft's Bing.
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET)For years, Google has all but dared traditional media companies trying to develop online businesses to live without the traffic it sends their way. The folks at the Googleplex make it clear that content owners who believe Google is unfairly indexing (or stealing, depending on your point of view) their content can easily remove that content from Google's massive corner of the Internet.
There's a tradeoff for that independence, of course: Don't expect the advertisers that have signed deals based on site traffic to pay the same amount next year.
News Corp. might be getting ready to do what many think is unthinkable. Reports have surfaced over the last several months, most recently in the Financial Times, that News Corp. is in talks with Microsoft to enact a plan that would see News Corp. properties hiding their content from Google's search engine in return for exclusive listing with Bing.
Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s famously cantankerous leader, isn't stupid: Microsoft would also have to pay News Corp. for the privilege of exclusive access to that content. But as Microsoft continues to lose billions of dollars a year on its online business, can it afford to be successful with this strategy?
Even if Microsoft is willing to cough up a huge sum (which Kara Swisher at Boomtown thinks is unlikely) for News Corp. content, this plan would only have a chance of turning the tables on Google if News Corp. and Microsoft can convince other large media companies to follow their lead.
First off, the practice of actually removing News Corp. content from Google would be relatively simple. News stories from The Wall Street Journal, commentary from The New York Post, and videos from News Corp.'s myriad cable and satellite television organizations can be tagged with a "noindex" tag, and Google won't index those pages as they are published. This also applies to pages that have been previously indexed, since they will be crawled again, this time with the new tag attached.
However, News Corp. would then need a backup plan to compensate for the revenue it would lose from the precipitous drop in traffic. With 65 percent of the search market, Google is the largest Web site in the world as measured by traffic. And its stated goal is to be the best information kiosk ever created by fielding queries and sending searchers on their way as fast as possible.
Murdoch has proposed removing his Web sites from Google only after constructing pay walls like the one used at the Wall Street Journal to limit free access to content, which is a somewhat controversial notion in this media era.
What News Corp. and Microsoft are reportedly discussing, however, is slightly different. Under the scenario outlined by the Financial Times, it does not appear that News Corp. would erect pay walls for all its content upon removal from Google. Instead, it would continue to make that ad-supported content available for free exclusively through Bing, helping offset the decline in traffic with a cash payment.
The two companies would then presumably market the hell out of the arrangement, because it would require a sizable shift in consumer expectations for Internet search. Right now, people are used to the idea that DirecTV is the only television provider that can offer a full package of NFL games every week, or that Comcast's Versus channel isn't available on DirecTV because of a licensing spat.
But that's not what they expect when they search online for news or information about a certain topic, and it would take some effort to educate them that The Wall Street Journal or Fox News' content can only be found if you're searching on Bing. Microsoft has already invested $100 million into Bing advertising, and would need to increase that amount to drive home the point that Bing is the only place you can find Fox News stories.
So will enough people be interested in that content as to change their search behavior and dramatically increase Microsoft's search market share? It's hard to see News Corp. moving the needle by itself, but modest results could embolden Microsoft to cut similar deals with other news companies and start the ball rolling toward the idea of Bing 2.0 as "the world's news search engine." That would be an interesting product.
As with just about everything, however, such a deal will likely come down to the amount Microsoft is willing to invest in such a project. Microsoft's Online Services Division, which runs Bing, is currently hemorrhaging money to the tune of $480 million in losses during its first quarter alone. Setting up content deals with the media industry would increase short-term costs with an iffy notion of when that investment would pay off in terms of increased search market share. And while Microsoft continues to milk Windows and Office profits, it can't throw money down a rabbit hole forever.
That means there's a sizable chance that this whole operation is geared around News Corp. negotiating a search and technology services deal with Microsoft to replace its current one with Google, which expires next June. Installing Bing as the search provider on News Corp. sites would generate increased searches for Microsoft while denying a common enemy Google some revenue, without kick-starting a huge battle that would have wide-ranging effects.
Murdoch has been able to tap into a well of frustration among those in the traditional media business over the way they are unable to duplicate the profits they enjoyed in the offline world on the Internet. But does he really want to call Google's bluff?
If so, he's banking on the notion that while basic news is a commodity, opinion and analysis is not. And whatever you might think of the various News Corp. properties, it's hard to argue they haven't earned a reputation for themselves as a unique source of opinion and analysis.
Professional networking site LinkedIn's platform, previously a closed offering for select partners, has opened up to developers at large, according to an announcement Monday on the company blog.
Well, sort of. Building an embeddable widget on LinkedIn, unlike Facebook's, still requires a stringent application process. But LinkedIn's own code has now been opened up so that developers can integrate it into their own sites. It's launched a developer site for those interested in features that let site users access their LinkedIn profile and contacts externally. They still have to request a key to get into the platform's application program interface (API), which means that LinkedIn widgets likely will not be coming to office prank-calling Web sites any time soon, despite that they could make it much easier to robo-call your boss and ask if his refrigerator is running.
One of the first participants, for example, is desktop Twitter client TweetDeck, which says that it will soon allow users to plug in their LinkedIn contacts' status updates alongside Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace contacts.
LinkedIn has about 50 million users as of last count.
Google has entered into an agreement to acquire online ad-optimization firm Teracent, the search giant announced in a blog post on Monday. The transaction is subject to several closing conditions, but is expected to close by the end of the quarter.
Google said it has been "busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the Web," according to the blog post. After examining Teracent's technology, the company felt that it fit "neatly" into its display-advertising goals, the blog said.
Teracent certainly brings something new to Google's advertising efforts. The company's technology tweaks images, products, messages, or colors to optimize ad units based on the viewer's location, what language they speak, the kind of content they're viewing, the local time, and how well particular units have performed in the past. It does all that work in real time as the algorithm examines the ad's environment.
"This technology can help advertisers get better results from their display ad campaigns," Google wrote in a blog post. "In turn, this enables publishers to make more money from their ad space and delivers Web users better ads and more ad-funded web content."
Teracent should be integrated into Google's advertising efforts by the end of the quarter. Neither company divulged how much Teracent was acquired for.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
eBay on Sunday confirmed that a "technical issue" had caused search queries on the auction site to be messed up over the weekend, resulting in limited or no search results. The company says that it's being cautious, though, and is holding back on some advanced search features until the issue is fully solved.
"We are happy to report that critical search functionality was restored overnight on Saturday and we are seeing normal activity levels today," a post on the company's eBay Ink blog read Sunday. "As part of our effort to restore critical search functionality as quickly as possible for sellers and for buyers, we have kept some secondary search features temporarily offline. This includes refining search by certain item specifics, such as color or clothing size, and having Store Inventory Format results included in the main search results."
In a statement, eBay also said the technical issue was caused by "a surge in live listings as sellers ramp up for the holiday season. eBay currently has more than 200 million live listings, 33 percent more than at this time a year ago."
Some eBay members still weren't satisfied with the explanation. "I had a one day auction ending today, (and) no one was obviously able to bid on it because they couldn't search for it," one commenter said on the eBay Ink blog. "Will I get a credit for this?"
"eBay should credit all sellers with active listings during this time," another said. "These issues have cost sellers many bids and sales. Once again eBay is screwing sellers."
Much like Twitter's today, outages at eBay were rather prominent in the company's early days. They're not too frequent anymore. But this one came at a time when there are some sentiments of malaise among eBay sellers, some of whom use the auction site to make a living, and when it also faces increased competition in the e-commerce sector.
An analyst release from JP Morgan Chase said that it did not anticipate the outage would have an effect on eBay's fourth-quarter earnings. But, it contained a warning: "Although we recognize it is virtually impossible for a site of this complexity to not encounter occasional issues," the report from analyst Imran Khan read, "we continue to believe that eBay needs to make greater investments in the robustness and functionality of its site in order to remain competitive within the e-commerce space."
(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn / CNET)
Buying off of Craigslist can be quite a process, and of all the things for sale, the cars and trucks section is one of the most daunting. Unlike digital cameras and random bits of furniture, cars are (usually) expensive and come with an important history both from the owner, and the manufacturer.
That's why browser extension Craigslist Car Research is so useful. It adds an entire layer of data on top of each listing to make it easier to both find out more about the car, and others like it for sale on Craigslist; all without having to leave Craigslist.
The extension works the same for Firefox and Chrome. Users with Greasemonkey installed can also just add it to their list of scripts. Once it's up and running, every car listing on Craigslist gets a few extra pages of data below whatever the poster has provided, including things like:
• Car reviews from CarSurvey.org and Edmunds.com
• Recall or safety notices
• Price estimates from places like Motor Trend, Automotive.com, Kelly Blue Book, and the Canadian Black Book
•Other similar listings on Craigslist (with prices)
• A quick way to check and see other listings that seller has up on Craigslist.
All of this information can be hidden, either all at once or by specific feature. The extension also scans each list for problem words or phrases, and will tip you off on whether it's worth following up with the owner to see if it's been in an accident.
With the extension installed you get comparison shopping for other cars on Craigslist, as well as a heads-up on whether it's worth looking at other things for sale from that seller and if you should call to see if the car's been in an accident.
(Credit: CNET)Along with this extension, developer Tech4Computer has another script that can figure out the price of importing a car from the U.S. into Canada. There's also a version of the car and truck shopping extension for motorcycle buyers.
Amid promises to "reinvent the Web," the browser Opera debuted a new beta feature earlier this year called Unite that has been deemed stable enough to offer to all users. Opera's own hype aside, the Unite service provides people with the capability to serve files, host and stream music, and send messages to each other from inside the browser itself--a feature that is unique among the big five browsers. Opera 10.10 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Much like Opera's built-in e-mail client, Unite is basically a cloud-based, customizable server that includes multiple services, but its open API allows you to write and share your own services. The initial offering includes the default Unite Home, which is the Opera Unite Web page that is given to each user, a media player for creating your own publicly available music stream, the "fridge" for a Facebook-style message wall, an instant messenger with a public/private toggle, a photo sharing app, and file serving and Web hosting capabilities.
Besides including Unite, Opera 10.10 also includes an array of bug fixes, mostly aimed at smoothing out the Unite experience, tweaking mail, news, and chat features, and fixing three security problems. Two are relatively minor, one concerning an error message leak and the other a buffer overflow. The third error Opera is refusing to disclose at this time, but stated that it was discovered by the Google Security Team's Chris Evans. The full changelog for Opera 10.10 is available.
As I've tested Unite over the past few months, it's generally been a stable experience, with a few hiccups to be expected by the beta. However, it hasn't exactly set the browsing world on fire, either, and its target audience is still hard to define. Do you have an opinion on Unite? Let me know in the comments.
Another iPhone worm has been spotted in the wild.
Unlike the previous exploitation, which merely changed a jailbroken iPhone's wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley of "Rickrolling" fame, this new threat allows hackers to steal sensitive information.
According to security firm Sophos, which wrote about the exploitation after a Dutch ISP spotted it late last week, the worm attacks jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch devices only.
The worm "uses command-and-control, like a traditional PC botnet," Sophos wrote in a blog post on Saturday to warn users about the exploit. "It configures two startup scripts, one to execute the worm on boot-up, and the other to create a connection to a Lithuanian server to upload stolen data and cede control to the bot master."
Jailbreaking, which has been around for about two years, is a hack that enables iPhone and iPod Touch users to download applications unavailable through Apple's App Store.
Sophos wrote that the worm attacks users on several ISPs, including UPC in the Netherlands, Optus in Australia, and T-Mobile in several countries worldwide. Worse, the worm spreads faster on a Wi-Fi connection than a 3G connection. Users with affected devices might notice extremely short battery life while on Wi-Fi. According to Sophos, that's mainly due to the worm engaging in "so much network activity."
When a device is infected, it's assigned a unique number so that the attackers can easily pinpoint a single device. It also looks for authentication systems that use SMS, better known as mTANs. mTANs are frequently used by banks that send an SMS message with a password to mobile phones, allowing people to log in to their online accounts, Sophos wrote.
In essence, this threat is serious.
Sophos recommends that people with infected iPhones and iPod Touch devices restore them back to Apple's most recent firmware update. For now, there is no other way to fix the problem.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
