Generation

Is shopping site selling pirated iTunes gift cards?

According to Outdustry, iTunes gift cards have been pirated, and China's biggest C2C online shopping site, Taobao, is the platform used to sell the cards.

Chinese hackers have figured out a way to generate iTunes gift card keycode numbers and help themselves to songs from Apple's music store. The hackers have been selling pirated $200 iTunes gift cards on Taobao for as little as 17.9 RMB, or just $2.60--a savings of almost 99 percent!… Read more

This iPod Shuffle is a disaster

Updated at 11:30 a.m. PDT with info on Apple allowing third-parties to make accessories.

Let me start by saying that I'm a fan of the iPod Shuffle. I run with one and I just recently bought a second refurbished gen-two Shuffle for $30 to give to my brother. But with the new gen-three Shuffle, Apple made some design decisions I just can't understand.

First off, the old Shuffle was small enough. There's small--and then there's too small. Yeah, it's great that the gen-three Shuffle is the size of a small USB thumbdrive, but … Read more

Another $10.5 million for Auditude's video ads

Auditude, a video advertising company best known for technology that can identify clients' video content and run ads against it, has raised a $10.5 million Series B funding round from Redpoint Ventures and existing investor Greylock Partners. This brings the company's total funding to $23 million.

Last time we checked in with Auditude, the company had inked a deal with News Corp.'s MySpace and Viacom's MTV Networks to detect both official and user-uploaded MTV content on the social network's MySpaceTV platform. It was seen by many as a savvy antipiracy measure. Since then, Auditude has … Read more

Cluttered interface design

The name of this password and number generator is fitting, because it seems as though its overall design is truly random. Nevertheless, it proved to be a worthy tool for coming up with unique combinations.

Truly Random has a very cluttered user interface. Luckily, it can be resized, which also increases the font size for better readability. Still, we found it awkward to navigate. Check boxes let you select the characters that you wish to include: uppercase, lowercase, special characters, numbers, spaces, and pronounceable. The length and number of characters can also be manually inputted. There is a wizard that … Read more

Generation G: Wired to care, wired to share

Trendwatching gets it right (again): "Giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving." That's the key assertion in this month's trend briefing, which describes the characteristics of Generation G (for generosity) and offers eight ways for brands to join: from Tryvertising to Brand Butlers to Random Acts of Kindness (RAK).… Read more

Omnifone rolls out music service for broadband

U.K. music provider Omnifone, which offers unlimited music downloads to cell phone users, on Monday extended its reach to the broadband arena.

A new service called MusicStation Next Generation will let European consumers stream songs and music videos to their computers and television set-top boxes.

Omnifone is teaming with Internet service providers and cable companies to provide the service, but it did not yet name those partners. It did say it is in talks with satellite provider British Sky Broadcasting.

At a time when ISPs and cable providers are under increasing pressure to eradicate piracy over their networks, Omnifone … Read more

Get a TinyURL for every page you're on

TinyURL Generator is a new experimental Firefox extension that makes it easier to grab a TinyURL of whatever page you're on. Once installed it will automatically create and save a smaller, shorter URL from TinyURL.com when new pages are visited. The TinyURL is then copied to your clipboard for easy copying and pasting in an e-mail or IM conversation.

For frequent TinyURL users this might be a better route than using one of the many available bookmarklets since it saves you a click and a copy/paste. On the flip side, it doesn't work so well when … Read more

Report: YouTube may usher in Hollywood stars

YouTube reportedly wants the William Morris Agency to make it a star.

The video-sharing site is reportedly close to clinching a deal with the William Morris Agency, in which the talent agency's clients would create videos for YouTube, according to a report Thursday in The New York Times.

The deal apparently would give William Morris Agency clients an ownership stake in videos they create for YouTube, and, in return, YouTube would receive professionally produced videos, according to the Times report.

For YouTube and its owner Google, the question is whether such efforts will eventually generate advertising revenue.

YouTube and … Read more

Wikipedia considers limiting user edits

Just as Encyclopedia Britannica is moving in the direction of user-based entries, Wikipedia might soon be clamping down on theirs.

Wikipedia is apparently considering instituting a new editorial process that would put better safeguards in place and require all updates to be approved by a "reliable" user. The so-called Flagged Revisions process would allow registered, trusted editors to publish changes to the site immediately. All other edits would be sent to a queue and would not be published until they get approved by one of Wikipedia's trusted team of editors.

The proposal comes in the aftermath of … Read more