Social networking

Google said today that it has temporarily disabled its Realtime search function in the wake of the introduction of its social network Google+.

The feature was developed to integrate real-time data from Twitter and other social-networking sites. The option for the feature has been removed from the right side of Google's search bar, and the feature's Web page now contains a 404 message.

"We've temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We're exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned," the company said on its Google Realtime Twitter feed.

Google began indexing real-time … Read more

Perhaps some of you are still bathing in the pride you felt when Microsoft accepted your ideas for Windows 7. Several of you seem, indeed, to have appeared in the company's advertising (played, perhaps, by slightly more photogenic humans).

However, I may have some bad news for you with respect to Windows 8. It seems as if the company might not care so much about receiving your ideas this time.

At least that is the impression gained by former IT Manager Chris Carlucci from Hopedale, Mass. when he approached Microsoft with an idea for Windows 8. I won't … Read more

The biggest challenge to making Google+ a viable competitor to Facebook is that people must reproduce their social graph--their collection of connections--at the new service. But a Chrome extension makes that process a lot easier by automating the extraction of contact information that your Facebook contacts have shared.

The extension, from open-source programmer Mohamed Mansour, is called Facebook Friend Exporter. It's not a simple one-click process, but it's close.

The tool, though, likely won't sit well at the dominant social-networking site. Section 3.2 of Facebook's terms of service states, "You will not collect users' … Read more

Some people are simply obsessed with monitoring every part of their lives. I don't know if it's sheer ego or sheer paranoia.

But when trackers like Fitbit come along, they tap into this need like Justin Bieber taps into the need for little girls to have boyfriends with hair like theirs.

Fitbit is a fitness tracker that enables people to log all of their moods and calorie intakes and usages. However, it seems to have one characteristic that will be entertaining for some and perplexing for others: it seems to let the world know, among other things, when … Read more

What do you do to dethrone the iPad?

Well, you could simply make a device that is so obviously better that people stream to your doors like raccoons to the garbage.

If that doesn't quite work, you could release a good product, call it the TouchPad, and tell people that the iPad isn't your competition at all because you're really after the enterprise customer.

Just in case that doesn't convince everyone, reach for one more resort: make them laugh.

I am grateful to the Silicon Alley Insider for revealing that HP has, indeed, gone for the … Read more

How's this for irony:

It was less than a year and a half ago that Owen Van Natta was ousted from his job as CEO of MySpace.

But last week--just as the failed social-networking site sold for a paltry $35 million--Van Natta could have bought it himself for a fraction of his stake in Zynga, the social-gaming phenom that just filed for its IPO and where he's a top exec and shareholder.

As the San Francisco-based Zynga's chief business officer, he was listed second after CEO and founder Mark Pincus on its S-1 on the list … Read more

For those who live for seeing someone rise from obscurity to reach the heights of temporary fame, seeing "American Idol" once a year just isn't enough.

In any case, it's only on two nights a week. What are you supposed to do with the other five? Pray that Simon Cowell's new show "The X Factor" will somehow be entertaining?

It seems that Justin Timberlake, he who is one of the new purchasers of MySpace, is at one with human feelings.

For, according to the Associated Press, Timberlake's manager, Johnny Smith, said after … Read more

When you give techies a new plaything, it is always instructive to stand by, watch, and measure the degree of their fulmination.

This week's launch of Google+, the search conglomerate's vast, effortful attempt to finally show its human side, has managed to engender huge feelings--some of glistening hope, some of disdainful despair.

Everyone wants to predict the success or failure of this new, new social thing. However, when it comes to the potential success or failure of a gadget, the last people to ask are techies.

Techies are just too immersed in that world. "What trees? What … Read more

Google+ is being tweaked to move it in an even more privacy-sensitive direction.

Google said today that it was completely eliminating the ability to share certain semiprivate posts more widely. That option was previously available as an option for users.

At the moment, if I created a post and specified that it could be viewed only by family members, they would nevertheless have the option to share it publicly--the Google+ equivalent of forwarding e-mail--unless I remembered to select the "Disable reshare" option.

Google engineer Kelly Ellis said in a video that: "Starting next week, limited posts will … Read more