David Lifferth on Technology

KSL: More people getting fired because of online posts

2009-08-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

More people getting fired because of online posts
August 11th, 2009 @ 5:20am

By Paul Nelson
SALT LAKE CITY -- Some people on social-networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn may be a little too social.

The e-mail security vendor Proofpoint recently released its sixth report on Outbound Email Security and Data Loss Prevention.

"Seventeen percent, nearly one-in-five large U.S. companies, actually investigated a leak of confidential information to a social-networking site," the company's director of market development, Keith Crosley, said.

Crosley says 8 percent of companies have fired an employee for something they posted on social sites in the past 12 months, which is up from 4 percent last year.

Even the micro-blogging site Twitter can be problematic. Crosley says people can post links to sensitive information using URL shorteners.

"You could post something somewhere else, use a URL shortener to point to that, and you could actually leak masses of information that way," he said.

E-mail is a bigger problem.

"It's much easier to get fired over e-mail. In fact, it's almost a third of companies [that] terminated an employee for violating an e-mail policy in the last 12 months," Crosley said.

He says 31 percent of companies fired someone because of an e-mail, and 9 percent of companies have fired someone because of a blog.

The Proofpoint survey also found:

•E-mail still the No. 1 threat: 43 percent of U.S. companies surveyed had investigated an E-mail-based leak of confidential or proprietary information in the past 12 months. Nearly one-third of them, 31 percent, terminated an employee for violating E-mail policies in the same period (up from 26 percent in 2008).
•Blogs breaches continue: 18 percent of companies had investigated a data loss event via a blog or message board in the past 12 months. Seventeen percent disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies, while nearly 9 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation (both increases from 2008: 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively).
•Video exposure: Given the rapid adoption of video and audio media within the enterprise--and the popularity of media sharing sites like YouTube--it's no surprise that more U.S. companies reported investigating exposure events across these channels (18 percent, up from 12 percent in 2008). As a result, 15 percent have disciplined an employee for violating multimedia sharing/posting policies in the past 12 months while 8 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation.
•Friends or foes?: Concerning social networks, U.S. companies are also experiencing more exposure incidents involving sites like Facebook and LinkedIn as compared to 2008 (17 percent versus 12 percent). U.S. companies are taking a much more forceful approach with offending employees--8 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation as compared to only 4 percent in 2008.

E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7491222

UK Times: India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards

2009-07-14T19:27:00.001-07:00

The Times July 15, 2009

India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards

(Zuma/eyevine)
Millions of Indians who live in remote rural areas will finally have proof of their existence thanks to biometric identity cards
Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards.

The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.

The task will be led by Nandan Nilekani, the outsourcing sage who coined the phrase “the world is flat”, which became a mantra for supporters of globalisation. “It is a humongous, mind-boggling challenge,” he told The Times. “But we have the opportunity to give every Indian citizen, for the first time, a unique identity. We can transform the country.”

If the cards were piled on top of each other they would be 150 times as high as Mount Everest — 1,200 kilometres.

Related Links
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India’s legions of local bureaucrats currently issue at least 20 proofs of identity, including birth certificates, driving licences and ration cards. None is accepted universally and moving from one state to the next can easily render a citizen officially invisible — a disastrous predicament for the millions of poor who rely on state handouts to survive.

It is hoped that the ID scheme will close such bureaucratic black holes while also fighting corruption. It may also be put to more controversial ends, such as the identification of illegal immigrants and tackling terrorism. A computer chip in each card will contain personal data and proof of identity, such as fingerprint or iris scans. Criminal records and credit histories may also be included.

Mr Nilekani, who left Infosys, the outsourcing giant that he co-founded, to take up his new job, wants the cards to be linked to a “ubiquitous online database” accessible from anywhere.

The danger, experts say, is that as one of the world’s largest stores of personal information, it will prove an irresistible target for identity thieves. “The database will be one of the largest that ever gets built,” Guru Malladi, a partner at Ernst & Young who was involved in an earlier pilot scheme, said. “It will have to be impregnable.”

Mr Nilekani will also have to mastermind a way of collecting trustworthy data. Only about 75 million people — or less than 7 per cent of the population — are registered to pay income tax. The Electoral Commission’s voter lists are thought to be largely inaccurate, not least because of manipulation by corrupt politicians.

He will also have to persuade as many as 60 government departments to co-operate. The Government has said that the first cards will be issued within 18 months. Analysts feel that it will take at least four years for the project to reach “critical mass”.

Such is the scale of the project that analysts believe India will have to develop a new electronics manufacturing base to supply information-storing servers, computer chips and card readers.

For the time being Mr Nilekani has more mundane matters on his mind. “I’ve only just left my previous job,” he said. “First I have to find a new office.”

Keeping tabs around the world

• Compulsory national identity cards are used in about 100 countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain

• ID cards are not used in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Irish Republic or Nordic countries

• German police can detain people who are not carrying their ID card for up to 24 hours

• The Bush Administration resisted calls for an identity card in the US after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

• In Australia street protests in the 1980s forced the Government to abandon its plans for a card

• Plastic cards are favoured over paper documents because they are harder to forge

• Most identity cards contain the name, sex, date of birth and a unique number for the holder

• South Korean, Brazilian, Italian and Malaysian ID cards contain fingerprints. Cards in some countries contain information on any distinguishing marks of the holder

• Objections to card schemes have focused on the cost and invasion of privacy

• Supporters say that they prevent illegal immigration and fraud

• In the European Union some cards can be used instead of a passport for European travel

Sources: Privacy International; Times database

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6710764.ece

NYTimes: Google Hopes to Open a Trove of Little-Seen Books

2009-01-04T19:35:00.000-08:00

Google Hopes to Open a Trove of Little-Seen Books

By MOTOKO RICH

Published: January 4, 2009

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Ben Zimmer, executive producer of a Web site and software package called the Visual Thesaurus, was seeking the earliest use of the phrase “you’re not the boss of me.” Using a newspaper database, he had found a reference from 1953.

Google’s book program makes it possible to read on a computer screen a page scanned from a rare Bible that is centuries old.

But while using Google’s book search recently, he found the phrase in a short story contained in “The Church,” a periodical published in 1883 and scanned from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Ever since Google began scanning printed books four years ago, scholars and others with specialized interests have been able to tap a trove of information that had been locked away on the dusty shelves of libraries and in antiquarian bookstores.

According to Dan Clancy, the engineering director for Google book search, every month users view at least 10 pages of more than half of the one million out-of-copyright books that Google has scanned into its servers.

Google’s book search “allows you to look for things that would be very difficult to search for otherwise,” said Mr. Zimmer, whose site is visualthesaurus.com.

A settlement in October with authors and publishers who had brought two copyright lawsuits against Google will make it possible for users to read a far greater collection of books, including many still under copyright protection.

The agreement, pending approval by a judge this year, also paved the way for both sides to make profits from digital versions of books. Just what kind of commercial opportunity the settlement represents is unknown, but few expect it to generate significant profits for any individual author. Even Google does not necessarily expect the book program to contribute significantly to its bottom line.

“We did not think necessarily we could make money,” said Sergey Brin, a Google founder and its president of technology, in a brief interview at the company’s headquarters. “We just feel this is part of our core mission. There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site.”

Revenue will be generated through advertising sales on pages where previews of scanned books appear, through subscriptions by libraries and others to a database of all the scanned books in Google’s collection, and through sales to consumers of digital access to copyrighted books. Google will take 37 percent of this revenue, leaving 63 percent for publishers and authors.

The settlement may give new life to copyrighted out-of-print books in a digital form and allow writers to make money from titles that had been out of commercial circulation for years. Of the seven million books Google has scanned so far, about five million are in this category.

Even if Google had gone to trial and won the suits, said Alexander Macgillivray, associate general counsel for products and intellectual property at the company, it would have won the right to show only previews of these books’ contents. “What people want to do is read the book,” Mr. Macgillivray said.

Users are already taking advantage of out-of-print books that have been scanned and are available for free download. Mr. Clancy was monitoring search queries recently when one for “concrete fountain molds” caught his attention. The search turned up a digital version of an obscure 1910 book, and the user had spent four hours perusing 350 pages of it.

For scholars and others researching topics not satisfied by a Wikipedia entry, the settlement will provide access to millions of books at the click of a mouse. “More students in small towns around America are going to have a lot more stuff at their fingertips,” said Michael A. Keller, the university librarian at Stanford. “That is really important.”

When the agreement was announced in October, all sides hailed it as a landmark settlement that permitted Google to proceed with its scanning project while protecting the rights and financial interests of authors and publishers. Both sides agreed to disagree on whether the book scanning itself violated authors’ and publishers’ copyrights.

In the months since, all parties to the lawsuits — as well as those, like librarians, who will be affected by it — have had the opportunity to examine the 303-page settlement document and try to digest its likely effects.

Some librarians privately expressed fears that Google might charge high prices for subscriptions to the book database as it grows. Although nonprofit groups like the Open Content Alliance are building their own digital collections, no other significant private-sector competitors are in the business. In May, Microsoft ended its book scanning project, effectively leaving Google as a monopoly corporate player.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said the company wanted to push the book database to as many libraries as possible. “If the price gets too high,” he said, “we are simply not going to have libraries that can afford to purchase it.”

For readers who might want to buy digital access to an individual scanned book, Mr. Clancy said, Google was likely to sell at least half of the books for $5.99 or less. Students and faculty at universities who subscribe to the database will be able to get the full contents of all the books free.

For the average author, “this is not a game changer” in an economic sense, said Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers and president of the digital media investments group at Bertelsmann, the parent company of Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books.

“They will get paid for the use of their book, but whether they will get paid so much that they can start living large — I think that’s just a fantasy,” Mr. Sarnoff said. “I think there will be a few authors who do see significant dollars out of this, but there will be a vast number of authors who see insignificant dollars out of this.”

But, he added, “a few hundred dollars for an individual author can equate to a considerable sum for a publisher with rights to 10,000 books.”

So far, publishers that have permitted Google to offer searchable digital versions of their new in-print books have seen a small payoff. Macmillan, the company that owns publishing houses including Farrar, Straus & Giroux and St. Martin’s Press and represents authors including Jonathan Franzen and Janet Evanovich, offers 11,000 titles for search on Google. In 2007, Macmillan estimated that Google helped sell about 16,400 copies.

Authors view the possibility of readers finding their out-of-print books as a cultural victory more than a financial one.

“Our culture is not just Stephen King’s latest novel or the new Harry Potter book,” said James Gleick, a member of the board of the Authors Guild. “It is also 1,000 completely obscure books that appeal not to the one million people who bought the Harry Potter book but to 100 people at a time.”

Some scholars worry that Google users are more likely to search for narrow information than to read at length. “I have to say that I think pedagogically and in terms of the advancement of scholarship, I have a concern that people will be encouraged to use books in this very fragmentary way,” said Alice Prochaska, university librarian at Yale.

Others said they thought readers would continue to appreciate long texts and that Google’s book search would simply help readers find them.

“There is no short way to appreciate Jane Austen, and I hope I’m right about that,” said Paul Courant, university librarian at the University of Michigan. “But a lot of reading is going to
happen on screens. One of the important things about this settlement is that it brings the literature of the 20th century back into a form that the students of the 21st century will be able to find it.”

Google’s book search has already entered the popular culture, in the film version of “Twilight,” based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. Bella, one of the main characters, uses Google to find information about a local American Indian tribe. When the search leads her to a book, what does she do?

She goes to a bookstore and buys it.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 5, 2009, on page B1 of the New York edition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/technology/internet/05google.html?_r=1

Wired: Online Jihadists Plan for 'Invading Facebook'

2008-12-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

Online Jihadists Plan for 'Invading Facebook'
By Noah Shachtman December 18, 2008 4:53:03 PM
Categories: Info War

Online jihadists have already used YouTube, blogs and other social media to spread their propaganda. Now, a group of internet Islamic extremists is putting together a plan for "invading Facebook."

"We can use Facebook to fight the media," notes a recent posting on the extremist al-Faloja forum, translated by Jihadica.com. "We can post media on Facebook that shows the Crusader losses."

"We have already had great success in raiding YouTube," the poster adds. "American politicians have used Facebook to get votes, like the house slave Obama."

Groups like al-Qaida were pioneering users of the internet — to train, share ideas and organize. But some observers, like George Washington University professor Marc Lynch, see a reluctance to embrace Web 2.0 tools like Facebook. "One of the biggest problems for a virtual network like AQ today is that it needs to build connections between its members while protecting itself from its enemies. That's a filtering problem: How do you get your people in, and keep intelligence agents out?" he asks.

But as Jihadica.com author and West Point Combating Terrorism Center fellow William McCants notes, the proposed Facebook invasion "is not an attempt to replicate [existing] social networks." Instead, "the members of the campaign want to exploit existing networks of people who are hostile to them and presumably they will adopt new identities once they have posted their material."

The al-Faloja poster suggests seven "brigades" work together within Facebook. One will distribute videos and writing of so-called "martyrs." Another will spread military training material. Most of them will work in Arabic, presumably. But one of the units will focus just on spread English-language propaganda through Facebook.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/online-jihadist.html

Daily Herald: Eagle Mountain Councilman blogs the good, bad and ugly

2008-12-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

Friday, 12 December
Eagle Mountain Councilman blogs the good, bad and ugly
Caleb Warnock - DAILY HERALD
CRAIG DILGER/Daily Herald Eagle Mountain blogger and city council member David Lifferth - Friday, December 12, 2008.

Looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly in Eagle Mountain? One councilman here has a blog for you. Over the past three years, DavidLifferth.com, owned by the city's namesake councilman, has drawn nearly 300,000 page views from 84 countries by tracking all things Eagle Mountain.

Lifferth is hoping more elected officials will follow his lead into cyberspace.

"People just like someone who is going to be open about government," he said. "If I was not on the council, I would want someone who was in the know to blog and talk about things."

"This blogging that I have done consistently for four years now has forced me to read, understand, and explain the good, the bad, and the ugly here in Eagle Mountain," Lifferth wrote in a recent e-mail to his fans. "I have been praised for my openness and candor while at the same time I have been threatened with a half dozen lawsuits for my openness. This openness and candor caused the readership of my blog to been massive."

Lifferth said his site "has frequently been the most read Web site in all of Eagle Mountain and surrounding areas. My Web site frequently had more page views than Eagle Mountain City's site, the local newspapers sites covering Eagle Mountain, blog and forum sites, and any of the developers' sites."

All this attention is one of the best things that could happen to city government, he said.

"The quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis comes to mind: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'"

Lifferth said one of the highest compliments paid his site came from a friend who said "the bad guys fear your Web site."

Lifferth is not exactly a cyber newbie, so to speak. He runs about 30 online sites, earning money from advertising on most, if not all, though he does not make money from his site dedicated to city politics, he said.

To draw readers, he makes sure his posts are enticing. Take this recent example: "Reagan Caused Global Warming," a post which documents why, in Lifferth's view, a significant cause of the statistical increase in average global temperature has been the reduction in temperature reporting stations in the former Soviet Union" and Reagan's role in that.

Getting 500 hits a day, Lifferth's most lucrative site is surprisingly -- not political at all -- it is a James Bond fan site, 007BondMovies.ning.com. He also runs JunkScience.ning.com and PonyExpress.ning.com, to name a few.

Lifferth said he tries to have fun with his sites. During his interview with the Daily Herald, he surprised this reporter by bringing up a photo on his Web site of this reporter perusing a competitor's weekly newspaper during a slow moment in an Eagle Mountain City Council meeting. Lifferth said he took the photo from the council dais during the meeting using his cellphone. This reporter never even knew the photo existed.

"You've taken some jabs at me and once in a while I want to take some jabs back," he said with a laugh. "... I do think I have fun with my site. I have a playful attitude."

Jokes aside, every elected official should consider blogging as a way to give information directly to the public, he said. At least several Web sites allow anyone to set up their own blog for free, so getting started is easy.

"I think elected officials should talk about what the issues are, and why things are happening," he said, noting some elected officials in Utah Valley are starting to follow suit, including council members from Payson and Saratoga Springs.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/292207/17/

TimesOnline: Google Earth accused of aiding terrorists

2008-12-09T08:54:00.000-08:00

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5311241.ece
From Times Online
December 9, 2008
Google Earth accused of aiding terrorists

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

An Indian Court has been called to ban Google Earth amid suggestions the online satellite imaging was used to help plan the terror attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai last month.
A petition entered at the Bombay High Court alleges that the Google Earth service, "aids terrorists in plotting attacks". Advocate Amit Karkhanis has urged the court to direct Google to blur images of sensitive areas in the country until the case is decided.
There are indications that the gunmen who stormed Mumbai on November 26, and the people trained them, were technically literate. The group appears to have used complex GPS systems to navigate their way to Mumbai by sea. They communicated by satellite phone, used mobile phones with several different SIM cards, and may have monitored events as the siege unfolded via handheld Blackberry web browsers.
Police in Mumbai have said the terrorists familiarised themselves with the streets of Mumbai's financial capital using satellite images, according to the sole gunman to be captured alive. The commandos who stormed the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai said the militants had made a beeline for the building's CCTV control room.
Russia and China 'harbour cybercriminals'
A report claims that several countries are providing criminal gangs with 'political cover' against prosecution
Koobface virus worms its way into Facebook
Closure of ‘spamming gateway’ McColo Corp gives respite from junk e-mails
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'Mumbai mastermind' arrested in Kashmir raid
Indian space agency to launch Google Earth rival
The legal petition also follows unconfirmed reports that Faheem Ahmed Ansari, a suspected militant who was arrested in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in February, said he was shown maps of Indian locations on Google Earth by members of Lashkar-e-Taiber, the Pakistan-based terrorist faction that Indian officials are convinced was behind the Mumbai attacks.
Ansari was carrying a fake Pakistani passport and a list and maps of nine targets in southern Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel and other sites attacked last month, a senior police officer told The Times.
Security agencies have called for the wealth of data available on Google Earth to be limited for several years amid fears the freely available application may prove invaluable for militants planning terrorist attacks.
In 2005, the operators of Australia's nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights called on the internet giant to censor images of the plant, warning that the images could be used by terrorists.
Earlier, the satellite photographs of the installation would have been available only to a handful of government agencies and NASA, they said.
In the same year, it was reported that Google omitted to blur the roof of the White House in Washington when it updated the images available on Google Earth – something it had done previously.
South Korea and Thailand also complained after the layout of air bases was revealed.
The Mumbai terrorists concentrated their attacks in south Mumbai, a popular tourist location. However, the plea filed with the Bombay High Court claims that Google Earth includes "absolutely no control to prevent misuse or limit access" to details of nearby sensitive locations, such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
The complaint comes just weeks after India said it would launch its own version of Google Earth.
The project, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), is being developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which is based in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of the subcontinent.
It comes as India redoubles its efforts to reap profits from its 45-year-old space programme, long criticised as a drain on a country where 700 million people live on USD2 a day or less.
Bhuvan will use a network of satellites to create a high-resolution, birds-eye view of India – and later, possibly, the rest of the world – that will be accessible at no cost online and will compete with Google.
Isro officials say Bhuvan will provide images of far greater resolution than are currently available online – particularly of the subcontinent, a region where large areas remain virtually unmapped.
The agency intends to refresh its images every year – a feature that would give it an edge over its biggest rival and help keep track of the frenetic pace at which India's cities are growing.
About 2.5 million people used Google Earth in the UK last month, according to Neilsen, the web analysts, making it the web's seventh most popular application behind tools such as Apple's iTunes (fourth with 5.7 million users) and Windows Live Messenger (first with 14.8 million).

Reuters: "Koobface" virus turns up on Facebook

2008-12-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

"Koobface" virus turns up on Facebook
Fri Dec 5, 2008 8:32am EST

By Jim

BOSTON (Reuters) - Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed ''Koobface'' that uses the social network's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers. It...";

By Jim Finkle
BOSTON (Reuters) - Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed "Koobface" that uses the social network's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers.

It is the latest attack by hackers increasingly looking to prey on users of social networking sites.
"A few other viruses have tried to use Facebook in similar ways to propagate themselves," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail. He said a "very small percentage of users" had been affected by these viruses.

"It is on the rise, relative to other threats like e-mails," said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee Inc.

Koobface spreads by sending notes to friends of someone whose PC has been infected. The messages, with subject headers like, "You look just awesome in this new movie," direct recipients to a website where they are asked to download what it claims is an update of Adobe Systems Inc's Flash player.

If they download the software, users end up with an infected computer, which then takes users to contaminated sites when they try to use search engines from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live.com, according McAfee.

McAfee warned in a blog entry on Wednesday that its researchers had discovered that Koobface was making the rounds on Facebook.

Facebook requires senders of messages within the network to be members and hides user data from people who do not have accounts, said Chris Boyd, a researcher with FaceTime Security Labs. Because of that, users tend to be far less suspicious of messages they receive in the network.

"People tend to let their guard down. They think you've got to log in with an account, so there is no way that worms and other viruses could infect them," Boyd said.

Social network MySpace, owned by News Corp, was hit by a version of Koobface in August and used security technology to eradicate it, according to a company spokeswoman. The virus has not cropped up since then, she said.

Privately held Facebook has told members to delete contaminated e-mails and has posted directions at www.facebook.com/security on how to clean infected computers.
Richard Larmer, chief executive of RLM Public Relations in New York, said he threw out his PC after it became infected by Koobface, which downloaded malicious software onto his PC. It was really bad. It destroyed my computer," he said.

McAfee has not yet identified the perpetrators behind Koobface, who are improving the malicious software behind the virus in a bid to outsmart security at Facebook and MySpace.
"The people behind it are updating it, refining it, adding new functionalities," said McAfee's Schmugar.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE4B37LV20081205

Sun UK: YouTube bans 'suggestive' vids

2008-12-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

YOUTUBE is cracking down on sexy videos in a bid to clean itself up.

In a blog posting, the video-sharing website revealed it would be enforcing a "stricter standard for mature content".

The popular site – which already bans porn – said it will be "tightening the standard for what is considered 'sexually suggestive'".

"Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they'll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older," the Google-owned website said.

"Our goal is to help ensure that you're viewing content that's relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming across content that isn't."

Provocative

YouTube also said videos which contain sexually suggestive content or profanity would no longer appear on its lists of 'Most Viewed' or 'Top Favorited' videos.

The internet's top video-sharing site also said it would step up enforcement of rules banning misleading descriptions in the tags and titles of a video.

And thumbnails will now be randomly selected to cut down users who manipulate frames within their videos to get a provocative thumbnail to appear with their video listing.

Some YouTube users have been known to give videos misleading titles such as "sexy" in a bid to increase the view counts of a particular video.

YouTube, which receives 13 hours of video from users every minute, said repeat violators of the new rules will have their accounts terminated.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2000335.ece

Ning: The End of the Red Light District

2008-12-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

http://help.ning.com/cgi-bin/ning.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3451&p_sid=y1_SUrkj

The End of the Red Light District

As individuals and as a service, we stand for the freedom to create your own social networks for anything. We believe that people should be able to set their own social norms and Ning, as a broad-based service, is designed to respect many different perspectives and enable them to co-exist seamlessly and effortlessly.

We architected Ning so many diverse types of social networks could create their own social space and this is still one of the proudest achievements we have of the service today. It’s from this foundation that we’ve seen Ning grow to hundreds of thousands of social networks and millions of users around the world.

Therefore, the decision we’re announcing today to discontinue our Red Light District is a tough one. However, from a practical perspective, this difficult decision is the right one.

As of January 1, 2009, we’ll no longer support adult social networks on the Ning Platform.

We’re not discontinuing the Red Light District because we no longer believe in the freedom to create your own social network for anything as long as it’s legal. We do. Practically though, supporting adult networks no longer makes sense. Here is what we’ve seen in practice to date with respect to adult social networks on Ning:

Adult social networks don’t pull their own weight. Specifically, they require other social networks to work harder because they don’t generate enough advertising or premium service revenue to cover their costs. Plus, our ad partners aren’t big fans of the adult networks and therefore require us to identify adult networks or risk our healthy advertising revenue. We don’t want to be in the policing business and, unchecked, that’s where this is heading.

By having legal adult social networks on Ning, we’ve seen a rise in volume of illegal adult social networks. We are always going to do the right thing as it pertains to social networks that are illegal or violate our Terms of Service. That’s non-negotiable. However, the time involved in reporting and assisting the authorities on illegal adult social networks is simply too time and cost intensive for the benefits derived by having adult social networks on Ning.

Adult social networks on Ning receive a disproportionate number of DMCA take down notices creating additional work for our team. We respect intellectual property rights and comply with the DMCA. Compared to our other social networks on the Ning Platform, the additional work created by adult networks alleged to have violated the copyrights of others is enough for us to discontinue adult networks in favor of investing time and energy in growing the Ning Platform from here.

Our focus is on creating incredibly simple, beautiful software and rapidly adding new features for the benefit of all. We can’t do that as efficiently as we need to and still support adult networks on Ning. It’s that simple. We’ve discussed and debated various ways to keep adult networks on Ning operating, including requiring them to be private networks or partnering up with someone who can make them self-sustaining. While there are strong cases to be made for either one of these solutions, they don’t enable us to focus our team on the most efficient execution of the Ning Platform possible.

This is important in all circumstances, but in this recession we have to be relentless in providing the most compelling service in the most efficient way possible. Therefore, from a practical perspective, the only practical answer we see is a clear elimination of adult networks from the Ning Platform altogether.

As part of this transition, we are exploring ways for adult networks that will no longer be available on Ning to export their content in addition to their members, which is available today from the Manage Members page. As we make progress on the specifics, we’ll communicate them in the here.

Again, this was not an easy decision and we did not make it on philosophical grounds. We made it on a purely practical one. We’re happy to answer any questions you have on this decision here and sincerely appreciate the hard work that all of you affected have put into your social networks on Ning.

Press Release: Family History 3 named Family History Software of the Year for 2008

2008-11-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Howard Luxenberg
President, Enteractive Distribution Co.
phone: 860-236-8600; fax: 860-232-7575
hluxenberg@sprynet.com http://familyhistorian3.ning.com

Family History 3 named Family History Software of the Year for 2008

West Hartford, Connecticut, November 25, 2008 -- Your Family Tree magazine (UK) named Family Historian 3 the Family History Software of the Year for 2008. Family Historian 3 beat out other popular genealogy software programs such as Roots Magic 3 and Legacy 7.

"I was thrilled that Family Historian 3 won this this prestigious award from one of the U.K.'s leading genealogy magazines," Howard Luxenberg, president of Enteractive, stated.
Due to its easy to use features and product quality, Family Historian 3 has won many major awards and recognition from the top reviewers including Windows XP Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, Which? Computing, Univadis and others.

In recognizing Family Historian 3, the editors of Your Family Tree magazine particularly liked the extensive range of charts, "including the stunning All Relatives [chart]" They went on to add: "Apart from its charts, the program offers a good range of reports all of which you can customize to meet your exact needs - website and family CD creation and a powerful merge and compare feature to import data from other GEDCOM files."

Product Features

According to Luxenberg, "This is a quality product that manages to combine ease of use with a remarkably rich set of features." The following are just a few of the important product features of Family Historian 3:
· 100% compatible with GEDCOM 5.5, the standard for shared genealogical data
· Lets you easily create beautiful family trees, CDs/DVDs & websites
· Family trees can include data, photographs, even video files
· Diagrams are interactive, so you can work visually
· Unique "All relatives" diagram shows all descendants and all ancestors (and their spouses)
· Bonus features: Six month subscription to WorldVitalRecords.com and CD Book "Getting Started in Genealogy Online"

More information about this Family History Software of the Year award from “Your Family Tree” magazine can be found on Enteractive Distribution web site http://FamilyHistorian3.ning.com.

Family Historian 3 runs on Windows Vista, XP Home and XP Professional, 2000, ME and 98.

# # #

Breitbart.com: Army manipulated general's photo

2008-11-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

Army manipulated general's photo

Nov 14 08:18 PM US/Eastern
By RICHARD LARDNER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Associated Press on Friday suspended the use of photos provided by the Defense Department after the Army distributed a digitally altered photo of the U.S. military's first female four-star general.

The image of Army Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody is the second Army-provided photo the AP has eliminated from its service in the last two months.

The AP said that adjusting photos and other imagery, even for aesthetic reasons, damages the credibility of the information distributed by the military to news organizations and the public.
"For us, there's a zero-tolerance policy of adding or subtracting actual content from an image," said Santiago Lyon, the AP's director of photography.

Santiago said the AP is developing procedures to protect against further occurrences and, once those steps are in place, it will consider lifting the ban. He said the AP is also discussing the problem with the military.

Col. Cathy Abbott, chief of the Army's media relations division, said the Dunwoody photo did not violate Army policy that prohibits the cropping or editing of a photo to misrepresent the facts or change the circumstances of an event. She did not know who changed the photo or which Army office released it, she said.

Dunwoody was promoted to full general on Friday at a Pentagon ceremony attended by Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff.

In the original photo, the general appears to be sitting at a desk with a credenza and bookshelf behind her. Three stars on her uniform identify her as a lieutenant general, her rank before Friday's promotion.

The altered photo, distributed by the Army and run on the AP's photo wire Thursday, shows Dunwoody in fatigues in front of an American flag. Her rank, affixed to the front of a soldier's tunic, is not visible.

"We're not misrepresenting her," Abbott said. "The image is still clearly Gen. Dunwoody."
In September, the AP banned use of a photo of Army Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson, who was killed in Iraq. Dawson's face and shoulders appeared to have been digitally altered.

Abbott said Dawson's unit did not have an official photo of him and wanted one that could be used for a memorial service.

"That photo was released to the public strictly by accident," she said. "We apologized for that."
Bob Owen, deputy director of photography at the San Antonio Express-News, was the first to notice the changes in the Dawson and Dunwoody photos, finding the earlier versions on the Internet.

Owen said he views all photos supplied by the Defense Department skeptically.

"Photo journalists lose their jobs over this," he said.
___
On the Net: U.S. Army: http://www.army.mil Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DesNews: Owner says Prop 8 opponents hacked into LDS site

2008-11-14T07:29:00.000-08:00

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705262907,00.html

Owner says Prop 8 opponents hacked into LDS site

By Carrie A. MooreDeseret News
Published: November 13, 2008

Owners of a Web site that specializes in advice and information for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say their site was attacked the day following passage of Proposition 8 by people they believe opposed the measure.

Scott Proctor of Meridian magazine said the site was hacked into early Nov. 5, and its home page was replaced with "horrible, explicit lesbians films placed all over the cover." Engineers took the site down immediately after the break-in was discovered, he said.

The company's Internet technology director said the electronic breach occurred in "a very elegant way. They had to have someone who really knew what they were doing to accomplish it the way they did it."

The Web site was down for half a day as engineers worked to remove the pornographic material, he said. Proctor and his wife, Maurine, founded the site several years ago as a forum for information of interest to Latter-day Saints, and Maurine Proctor often writes articles about issues of importance to the LDS Church that are posted there.

"We feel like this was very specific targeting," by people who oppose the Web site's conservative content. The church's support of Prop. 8 has been among a variety of topics chronicled on the site. "We get hate mail all the time over this issue," Proctor said.

"It's like they have a little network that they e-mail and ask people to send mail in. Every time we post something (about same-sex marriage) we get a few dozen letters with the same tone, similar wording, and the most horrible language and hatred."

Proctor said the attack and the e-mails won't have any impact on the site's content. "You just have to keep going and present things as you see them," he said.

Press Release: The #1 Rated genealogy software in the UK is now available at 1500 Target stores

2008-11-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Howard Luxenberg
President, Enteractive Distribution Co.
phone: 860-236-8600; fax: 860-232-7575
hluxenberg@sprynet.com
http://familyhistorian3.ning.com

The #1 Rated genealogy software in the UK is now available at 1500 Target stores

West Hartford, Connecticut, November 12, 2008 -Family Historian 3, the highest rated family tree software in the U.K. is now available in the United States and Canada. This top rated software is initially being distributed in the nearly 1,500 Target stores nation-wide.

"Enteractive is thrilled to be bringing what is simply the best genealogy software product in the world to the U.S. and Canadian consumer," Howard Luxenberg, president of Enteractive, stated.

Due to its easy to use features and product quality, Family Historian 3 has won major awards and recognition from the top reviewers including Windows XP Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, Which? Computing, Univadis and others.

Family Historian 3 was named “Winner” and "Editor's Choice" by Windows XP Magazine in its August 2007 review of Family Historian, Family Tree Maker, Roots Magic, and Legacy genealogy software. The editors said that Family Historian 3 was "Packed with features, but the charts alone put this package in a class of its own." In this comparison of the top products, Family Historian was declared the "All-round winner."

Personal Computer World gave Family Historian 3 an overall rating of 5 Stars (out of a possible 5) and said "The range of features and sheer ease of use makes Family Historian an excellent tool for any genealogist" in its May 2006 review.

Family Tree Magazine (www.familytreemagazine.com) said "The best genealogy package just got better" in its review in July 2006.

Which? Computing (www.which.co.uk) rated Family Historian as the "Best Buy" and gave it the highest overall rating in its July 2008 comparison of the top 10 genealogy applications.

Univadis (www.univadis.co.uk) rated Family Historian 3 a "Strongly recommended" product and said "The programme is brilliant and dead easy to use and is ideal for beginners and experts alike."

Australian Family Tree Connections said "With the release of version 3 Family Historian has become one of the best, if not the very best, in its class."

In an indication of the powerful features and ease of use of Family Historian 3, the producers and researchers of the very popular BBC TV genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" use Family Historian 3 as their family tree application of choice.

Product Features

According to Luxenberg, "This is a quality product that manages to combine ease of use with a remarkably rich set of features." The following are just a few of the important product features of Family Historian 3:
· 100% compatible with GEDCOM 5.5, the standard for shared genealogical data
· Lets you easily create beautiful family trees, CDs/DVDs & websites
· Family trees can include data, photographs, even video files
· Diagrams are interactive, so you can work visually
· Unique "All relatives" diagram shows all descendants and all ancestors (and their spouses)
· Bonus features: Six month subscription to WorldVitalRecords.com and CD Book "Getting Started in Genealogy Online"

Enteractive Distribution also announces a new web site to provide useful information to consumers and genealogists. This new web site http://familyhistorian3.ning.com provides modern consumer features such as a product blog, updated news about the product, discussion forum, store locator, FAQ, product support groups, and easy to use customer support features.
Family Historian 3 runs on Windows Vista, XP Home and XP Professional, 2000, ME and 98.

# # #

Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign

2008-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/11/08/ups_and_downs_of_a_digital_age_campaign/

Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign
By Eric Fehrnstrom
November 8, 2008

EARLY ON, I had a feeling the 2008 election was going to be different. As we prepared for the launch of Mitt Romney's national campaign, we looked to clean up his biographical entry on Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia edited by its users. Notoriously unreliable, it would serve as the first source of information for people curious about the then-unknown governor from Massachusetts.

A prankster beat us there: Romney's entry falsely claimed he spoke fluent Swahili and several different Bantu dialects. Despite our efforts to correct the record, over the course of the campaign more than one supporter would marvel to me about Romney's felicity with African languages.

There's something to be said for the old media filter. Despite its shortcomings, I kind of miss it.
In one positive sense, the still-evolving digital age means citizens with video cameras can have more impact than seasoned political reporters. The press corps may not have thought John McCain singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" was news at first, but they reconsidered when the Drudge Report linked to the video. Early GOP front-runner George Allen's "macaca" moment not only strangled his infant candidacy for president, but it torpedoed his 2006 reelection to the US Senate.

The lesson for us media handlers: Beware the innocuous-looking person with the YouTube account silently taping everything. He could destroy your day. Far less threatening was the reporter who abided by the conventional rules of journalism and knew the meaning of "off the record."

Yes, the Internet kept the mainstream media honest, and it opened new doors for candidates. Networking with tens of thousands of friends on MySpace and Facebook, it became easier to recruit volunteers. To raise money, there was no longer a need to rent a room and invite wealthy donors to munch on food and sip cocktails. Instead, donations came pouring in through the Web in response to an e-mail. In February 2007, Romney forever changed the traditional fund-raiser when he raised $6.5 million in a single day by gathering supporters at the convention center in South Boston and giving them laptops and phones.

But the Internet also allowed dirty politics to go viral. In 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth paid millions of dollars for ads suggesting John Kerry's military service was dishonorable. In 2008, not a penny was spent to spread the false claim that Barack Obama was a Muslim. It received so much attention that an election-eve poll in Texas showed that nearly one-quarter of voters there believed it. Thanks to the irresponsible reporting of the left-wing site Daily Kos, another myth had it that Sarah Palin was not the mother of her infant son, Trig, and that the child actually belonged to her eldest daughter, Bristol.

Here in Massachusetts, a fringe group e-mailed conservatives around the country the absurd claim that it was Romney, not the Supreme Judicial Court, who legalized gay marriage. During the primary, I lost count of how many times Romney was asked about a feared North American union of Mexico, Canada, and the United States - a conspiracy spread by right-wing bloggers who believed all three countries would be linked by a single government, a common currency, and a 10-lane superhighway.

Where are the online gatekeepers? Gatekeeping is the most important function for the offline media. Editors decide which stories get published. They make sure rumors aren't printed. Sensitive information is double- and sometimes triple-sourced. Gatekeeping serves an important purpose in establishing the ethics of journalism. Sadly, it doesn't exist on the Web.
What can be done? Citizen-journalists and bloggers need to provide links to websites that contain factual data backing up their assertions. These connections add credibility. And while Internet libel suits can be difficult to win, they should be pursued more often.

Moreover, it would help if TV and newspapers resisted the temptation to get edgier in their own reporting. If you can't be "first" with the rumors, be first with the most comprehensive and factual account. In the current Wild West state of political reporting, you will be rewarded with loyal readership in search of honest and objective coverage.

Eric Fehrnstrom was senior communications adviser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

Breitbart: Internet collaboration still in infancy: Wikipedia founder

2008-11-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Internet collaboration still in infancy: Wikipedia founder

Nov 1 11:49 AM US/Eastern

The age of public collaboration over the Internet is still only in its infancy, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told AFP in an interview.

The 42-year-old web guru, in an effort to show Wikipedia's impact thus far, referenced a recent trip to a slum in India where he "met this young man on the street who told me that he had used Wikipedia to pass his 11th grade exams."

"Wow, that's really cool, right? We've had some impact, even in such a place where I'm talking to this guy, and there's mud streets, and cows, and it's really quite a different environment from London."

Wales's popular online encyclopedia allows anyone with an Internet connection to make entries and edit content.

Speaking on the sidelines of an awards ceremony in London, Wales said: "We're really just at the beginning, still, of collaborative efforts."

"In video, right now, we're still back in many ways in the Web 1.0 era," he said, referring to the age before so-called Web 2.0, the peer-sharing model of the Internet of which Wikipedia is almost the definitive example.

"If you look at almost everything on YouTube, it's individuals doing videos, either funny cat videos, or drunk girl videos seem to be quite popular there," he said with a smile.
"What we haven't seen yet in video is large-scale collaborative projects."
Off the top of his head Wales suggested a 90-minute collaborative web video created by interviewing people from all around the world, giving their views on the war in Iraq.
He joked: "This isn't going to be that popular, frankly, a 90-minute movie with people talking about Iraq -- it's going to have a small audience. This can't be produced in the old-fashioned way. It's totally possible now.

"That's just one dumb idea of mine, right? Imagine what we could get if we could get 100,000 people thinking about collaborative video efforts to create documentary films, or comedy, or art, or who knows what.

"So, I think we've still got a long way to go."
He acknowledged collaboration has its limits, noting that if "we said we want to write a novel about loss, and redemption, probably not so much public collaboration, that's really an individual vision and a view of the world."

"But for basic factual information, I think having an open public dialogue and debate and democratic process, seems to be very powerful."

Wales also warned that major steps had to be considered to stop governments abusing ordinary people's personal information, which is increasingly stored in vast computer databases.
He described potential government misuse of private citizens' data as a "concern."

"One of the interesting things to really think about is how, as we're using the Internet, we leave an enormous digital footprint everywhere," he said.

"And not just the Internet, but cell phones, everything else. I'm assuming, if anybody really cares enough, my movements all around the planet are pretty trackable by somebody.
"That's something most people don't think much about, and they don't think much about it because, frankly, no one cares what most people are doing."

He said, however, that as computing power increases, "we need to really think about what are the political controls we need to have in place to prevent governments from abusing that kind of information."

Wales's remarks come after a report last month which warned that European governments are rapidly eroding civil liberties in a bid to gain "unfettered" access to individuals' personal data in the name of tighter security.

The document by Statewatch, a non-profit online civil liberties monitoring group, criticised the EU for viewing data protection and judicial scrutiny of citizens' private information as "obstacles" to law enforcement.

Copyright AFP 2008

Breitbart:US Army warns of Twitter dangers

2008-10-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

Terrorist 'tweets'? US Army warns of Twitter dangers

Oct 25 02:22 PM US/Eastern

A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter, Global Positioning System maps and voice-changing software as potential terrorist tools.
The report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, posted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), examines a number of mobile and web technologies and their potential uses by militants.
The posting of the report on the FAS site was reported Friday by Wired magazine contributing editor Noah Shachtman on his national security blog "Danger Room" at wired.com.
The report is not based on clandestine reporting but drawn from open source intelligence known as OSINT.
A chapter on "Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter" notes that Twitter members sent out messages, known as "Tweets," reporting the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements.
"Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences," the report said.
Hacktivists refers to politically motivated computer hackers.
"Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives," the report said.
"Extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already evolving in use by hacktivists and activists for surveillance," it said. "This could theoretically be combined with targeting."
The report outlined scenarios in which militants could make use of Twitter, combined with such programs as Google Maps or cell phone pictures or video, to carry out an ambush or detonate explosives.
"Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool," it said. "However, it is unclear whether that same theoretical tool would be available to terrorists in other countries and to what extent."
Besides Twitter, the report examined the potential use by militants of Global Positioning Systems and other technologies.
"GPS cell phone service could be used by our adversaries for travel plans, surveillance and targeting," it said, noting that just such uses have been discussed in pro-Al-Qaeda forums along with the use of voice-changing software.
"Terrorists may or may not be using voice-changing software but it should be of open source interest that online terrorist and/or terrorist enthusiasts are discussing it," the report said.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Probe into how Google mix-up caused $1 billion run on United

2008-09-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is a facinating article on how technology is not perfect and that automation can create un expected consequences.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4742147.ece

These are the key paragraphs to what caused the problem for United Airlines, Tribune Publishing, a Florida investment firm, and Google and their Googlebots.

The comedy of errors began with just one reader who went to the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s website and viewed a 2002 article on United Airlines’ bankruptcy.
That single visit in the early hours of Sunday morning, a period of low traffic, apparently bumped it into a "Popular Stories" in the business section.
At 1:37am, an electronic Google program swept through the paper’s website for new stories and spotted the link.
Google says its program scanned the piece and, seeing there was no 2002 dateline, indexed the article for inclusion on its news pages.
Three minutes and two seconds later, Google News readers started viewing the story on the Sun Sentinel’s Web site.
Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said that the only date the automated Google News software found on the Sun Sentinel site was from early Sunday eastern time.
It appears that no one who passed this story along actually bothered to read the story itself,” he said.
The page also fooled Bloomberg. Bloomberg News staffers posted headlines noting first the UAL share price drop, and then, at 11:06 a.m. EDT, a bankruptcy denial from United.
A different Bloomberg News staffer working the story found the bankruptcy story on the Sun Sentinel site and, at 11:07a.m., posted a headline about the bankruptcy.

As a result of this technological comedy of errors, United's stock dropped from $12 per share down to $3. I had heard it reported that it had dropped to less than $1 at one point.

Major improvement in iPhone text input, iPhone is now usable for text input

2008-08-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

I found an application that is super fast and accurate for entering text into an iPhone. It is called Writing Pad from a company called ShapeWriter (www.ShapeWriter.com). It is a replacement for the notes application. It is not a complete replacement for text input in other applications such as SMS, but you can use it to create emails.

It is a free app and I strongly recommend that you try it out. I have been very impressed by it.

It is roughly 2-3 times more efficient than Graffiti text recognition, which was my favorite. I suspect that once I have become more comfortable with PI will be almost as fast as typing on a full size keyboard. And probably a lot faster than typing on a blackberry or other similar small keyboard device. I noticed that WritingPad is covered by a patent.

Unless you miss type a word, this system is amazingly accurate. It is even somewhat forgiving for mistypes (or miss-strokes) in suggesting real words that are close to what you entered.

The only downside is that you do need to be looking at the screen of the iPhone when entering data. With graffiti you didn't have to look at the screen, just write. I could actually type graffiti while I was driving and not even look at the screen of the Palm Pilot. The way WritingPad works is that you put your finger down on the screen and then drag it from key to key on the displayed keyboard. This takes much less effort and is more accurate and forgiving than picking up and dropping your finger on the next keys.

The number of strokes for the word "work" is 3 versus 10 strokes in Graffiti. This is three times more efficient. This would be less than the same number of strokes as typing only the first letter "W." using Graffiti.

And now that I think about this process, it is 2 times more efficient than typing on a keyboard as well plus it is more accurate. This is because with each keystroke, you have to a) identify the next key, b) move your finger to hover over the the key, c) drop your finger to touch the key, d) lift your finger. Using WritingPad you leave out the lifting and the targeting of the next key step is easier.

It has an optimized keyboard like a Dvorak keyboard which has all of the most used letters in the middle of the screen. I imagine that if someone took the time to learn that system they could enter text faster than on a full sized keyboard.

The application loads a 60,000 word dictionary into memory and it gives you several words to choose from if it doesn't recognized what you typed. You can also scroll through a bunch of similar words so you can select what you really meant. That has been one of my main complaints about the regular text input on an iPhone. If you don't get it right the first time, the iPhone seems like it picks the wrong word more often than what you wanted. Since data input has been the most disappointing feature of the iPhone, this is a huge step forward.

After using this application for a few days, it has led me to believe that it might be the most optimize data input device. I will still need to practice using it, but each time I use it, I am impressed with the genius behind it.

The experience of entering data using Writing Pad is a combination of Graffiti, cursive writing, and Chinese calligraphy. However, there are no curved lines, all of them are straight lines. Short words are a amazingly fast and easy. Longer words become a type of design that has an artistically random appearance. The lines that you draw stay on the screen until the word is complete.

Let me give one example of how well this application has worked for me. I composed a 6 paragraph email on my iPhone using WritingPad. I would have given up during the first paragraph if I had been using the regular iPhone keypad. Oh, and did I mention that I composed the email while on a plane was going through some major turbulence? I was able to compose a 6 paragraph email while the plane was bucking like a bronco. This would have NEVER had worked on the iPhone keyboard. I was very impressed with how accurate this was.

There are also a couple of other applications that have made the iPhone more useful. With useful tools like WritingPad and practice the iPhone can actually be used as a productive tool.

MyWay News: Web networking photos come back to bite defendants

2008-07-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080719/D920QGJG0.html

Web networking photos come back to bite defendants
19, 4:36 AM (ET)
By ERIC TUCKER

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a woman, the 20-year-old college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner. Pictures from the party showed him in a black-and-white striped shirt and an orange jumpsuit labeled "Jail Bird."

In the age of the Internet, it might not be hard to guess what happened to those pictures: Someone posted them on the social networking site Facebook. And that offered remarkable evidence for Jay Sullivan, the prosecutor handling Lipton's drunken-driving case.
Sullivan used the pictures to paint Lipton as an unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital. A judge agreed, calling the pictures depraved when sentencing Lipton to two years in prison.

Online hangouts like Facebook and MySpace have offered crime-solving help to detectives and become a resource for employers vetting job applicants. Now the sites are proving fruitful for prosecutors, who have used damaging Internet photos of defendants to cast doubt on their character during sentencing hearings and argue for harsher punishment.

"Social networking sites are just another way that people say things or do things that come back and haunt them," said Phil Malone, director of the cyberlaw clinic at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The things that people say online or leave online are pretty permanent."

The pictures, when shown at sentencing, not only embarrass defendants but also can make it harder for them to convince a judge that they're remorseful or that their drunken behavior was an aberration. (Of course, the sites are also valuable for defense lawyers looking to dig up dirt to undercut the credibility of a star prosecution witness.)

Prosecutors do not appear to be scouring networking sites while preparing for every sentencing, even though telling photos of criminal defendants are sometimes available in plain sight and accessible under a person's real name. But in cases where they've had reason to suspect incriminating pictures online, or have been tipped off to a particular person's MySpace or Facebook page, the sites have yielded critical character evidence.

"It's not possible to do it in every case," said Darryl Perlin, a senior prosecutor in Santa Barbara County, Calif. "But certain cases, it does become relevant."

Perlin said he was willing to recommend probation for Lara Buys for a drunken driving crash that killed her passenger last year - until he thought to check her MySpace page while preparing for sentencing.

The page featured photos of Buys - taken after the crash but before sentencing - holding a glass of wine as well as joking comments about drinking. Perlin used the photos to argue for a jail sentence instead of probation, and Buys, then 22, got two years in prison.

"Pending sentencing, you should be going to (Alcoholics Anonymous), you should be in therapy, you should be in a program to learn to deal with drinking and driving," Perlin said. "She was doing nothing other than having a good old time."

Santa Barbara defense lawyer Steve Balash said the day he met his client Jessica Binkerd, a recent college graduate charged with a fatal drunken driving crash, he asked if she had a MySpace page. When she said yes, he told her to take it down because he figured it might have pictures that cast her in a bad light.

But she didn't remove the page. And right before Binkerd was sentenced in January 2007, the attorney said he was "blindsided" by a presentencing report from prosecutors that featured photos posted on MySpace after the crash.

One showed Binkerd holding a beer bottle. Others had her wearing a shirt advertising tequila and a belt bearing plastic shot glasses.

Binkerd wasn't doing anything illegal, but Balash said the photos hurt her anyway. She was given more than five years in prison, though the sentence was later shortened for unrelated reasons.

"When you take those pictures like that, it's a hell of an impact," he said.

Rhode Island prosecutors say Lipton was drunk and speeding near his school, Bryant University in Smithfield, in October 2006 when he triggered a three-car collision that left 20-year-old Jade Combies hospitalized for weeks.

Sullivan, the prosecutor, said another victim of the crash gave him copies of photographs from Lipton's Facebook page that were posted after the collision. Sullivan assembled the pictures - which were posted by someone else but accessible on Lipton's page - into a PowerPoint presentation at sentencing.

One image shows a smiling Lipton at the Halloween party, clutching cans of the energy drink Red Bull with his arm draped around a young woman in a sorority T-shirt. Above it, Sullivan rhetorically wrote, "Remorseful?"

Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini said the prosecutor's slide show influenced his decision to sentence Lipton.

"I did feel that gave me some indication of how that young man was feeling a short time after a near-fatal accident, that he thought it was appropriate to joke and mock about the possibility of going to prison," the judge said in an interview.

Kevin Bristow, Lipton's attorney, said the photos didn't accurately reflect his client's character or level of remorse, and made it more likely he'd get prison over probation.

"The pictures showed a kid who didn't know what to do two weeks after this accident," Bristow said, adding that Lipton wrote apologetic letters to the victim and her family and was so upset that he left college. "He didn't know how to react."

Still, he uses the incident as an example to his own teenage children to watch what they post online.

"If it shows up under your name you own it," he said, "and you better understand that people look for that stuff."

FoxNews: House Atwitter Over Rules Governing Video, Blog Posts

2008-07-16T08:31:00.001-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,383444,00.html

House Atwitter Over Rules Governing Video, Blog Posts
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

WASHINGTON — Texas Rep. John Culberson uses his Blackberry to post blurbs about his work onto Twitter, a social networking site on the Internet. The Internet has set him free from unfair media reports and other barriers between him and his constituents, enabling him to better represent them in Congress, he says.

But Culberson's actions have put him in possible violation of House rules that appear to ban blogging or other work-related activities on non-House Web sites.

Current rules "have been interpreted to prohibit (House) members from posting official content outside of the House.gov domain," Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., chairman of the Congressional Commission on Mailing Standards, better known as the franking committee, wrote in a report late last month.

In a series of recommendations sent to House Administration Capitol Security Subcommittee Chairman Robert Brady, Capuano said some rules are necessary so as not to mix House official messages with commercial or political campaign material.

"Members of Congress who use taxpayer money to communicate with constituents should be held to the highest possible standard of independence — and the appearance of independence," he said last week.

"Official content" — like video — that is posted outside the House.gov domain should be clearly marked, should not appear alongside commercial or campaign content and should contain an exit notice for people linking out from the House.gov domain, Capuano recommended.

But those recommendations have riled Republicans like Culberson, who argue they limit his communications. The spat has reached the highest levels of the House, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi backing Capuano by saying his work won't restrict but will rather loosen the rules. In response, House Minority Leader John Boehner has rung alarm bells over possible Democratic-led censorship of the Internet.

By communicating on Twitter, Culberson said he can tell his constituents to watch a live video he's about to broadcast on a site called Qik.com. By blasting an announcement that he's going to hold a town hall meeting, Culberson said anyone with a mobile e-mail device, an Internet connection or a phone can tap into the discussion. Or if a vote on a confusing or quickly-moving bill is coming up he can shoot out marching orders as needed to his supporters.

"It's a great way to instantaneously communicate with a large number of people," Culberson said.

Banning video postings by House members also hands the media an advantage they wouldn't have if he were allowed to use new technology to get out his side of the story, beating biased reporters to the punch, he said.

"How do I distinguish between Twitter and e-mail? There is no distinguishing. How do I distinguish between my interview with you on FOX News, and this live video that I'm broadcasting through Qik? How do you distinguish between my interview on Qik, which is live, with an interview on The New York Times?" asked Culberson, pronouncing the Web site as "quick," in an interview with FOX News last week.

Culberson said he believes lawmakers should face few, if any, restrictions on Internet use. If House members run astray of good taste, their constituents will let them know.

But Capuano counters that the rules — while they don't specifically address capabilities of sites like Qik — appear to ban such activity for good reason, and Culberson learned the lesson last week when the two men got into a one-on-one confrontation.

In a video posted online of his interview with FOX News, Culberson relayed how Capuano got irritated when Culberson apparently tried to get Capuano on camera, but hadn't asked him first. After the video was posted, Capuano ended up receiving a torrent of e-mails and phone calls from Culberson backers.

Admitting he might have jumped the gun by posting the confrontation, Culberson said he apologized to Capuano and pledged not to film him again without his permission.
Still, Culberson defended his decision to go to Qik to post the video, saying he thought a rule was going to be voted on and he felt it was his only recourse to let Capuano know how the public felt.
"I told him today — and he's a good guy, and he understood this — I said, 'Mike, you're going to have about as much luck regulating the Internet as King Knut did when he ordered his men to put this throne on the beach, and he tried to order the tide to stop," Culberson said, summing up the phone call in a video message to his constituents.
Click here to view the Culberson video of the interview with FOX News.
FOX News' Chad Pergram and Gregory Simmons contributed to this report.
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FamilySearch Web Site Enhanced by FamilyLink

2008-07-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

(From page 80 of the July 2008 Ensign magazine)
News of the Church

FamilySearch Web Site Enhanced by FamilyLink

A partnership with FamilyLink.com will improve navigation on FamilySearch.org, reduce research time, and allow major search engines to comb the Church’s Family History Library Catalog.

The new Web elements provided by FamilyLink.com will allow users to link directly to other sources, post comments, and make contributions, such as adding missing information to a source. Some of the enhancements will be implemented in 2008.

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=8ac43645a2cba110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1
Ensign
July 2008
Volume 38, Number 07

LinkedIn networking site joins $1bn club

2008-06-23T08:40:00.001-07:00

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/446fef0a-3ca0-11dd-b958-0000779fd2ac.html

LinkedIn networking site joins $1bn club
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: June 18 2008 01:52 Last updated: June 18 2008 01:52

The biggest online social network intended for professional use has been valued at more than $1bn, putting it among a small group of private internet companies to have crossed that threshold before going public.
LinkedIn, whose members use the site to do things such as making professional contacts, recruiting staff or finding new jobs, said it had raised $53m from a group of venture capitalists led by Bain Capital, taking the total raised to $80m in all.

The latest investment, for about 5 per cent of the company, gives LinkedIn a “pre-money” valuation of $1.015bn, said Dan Nye, chief executive.

Though it pales beside the $15bn valuation for Facebook implied by a Microsoft investment of $240m last year, the latest stake in LinkedIn is still one of the most eye-catching investments in the fast-growing social networking business.

News Corp paid $580m for the parent company of MySpace, then with 17m members in the US, just as the social networking boom was taking off three years ago. This year, AOL paid $850m for Bebo, which claims more than 40m members.

Asked if he had held talks about selling out to a bigger media company, Mr Nye said LinkedIn “had discussions with the cast of characters” but decided to go it alone because of the company’s significant growth potential.

Launched in 2003 by Reid Hoffman, a veteran of online payment company PayPal, the network has 23m members, with more than 1m new ones joining each month. Though it has its headquarters in Silicon Valley, it also claims to operate the largest online professional network in Europe.

The company’s record in finding ways to make money sets it apart from other social networks that have struggled to meet high expectations for advertising revenue, said Jeff Glass, a partner of Bain Capital.

Besides carrying job advertising, LinkedIn charges members a subscription for “premium” services that let them do things like make professional introductions through the network.
It also has a “software as a service” business, charging a subscription to corporate recruiters to help them manage their hiring on the site.

It will generate revenues of $75m-$100m this year, more than double 2007, Mr Nye predicted.
The company has been profitable since 2006 and raised its latest round of capital to strengthen its balance sheet rather than to fund operations, he added.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

FT: Facebook heads MySpace in unique visitors

2008-06-23T08:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/302914bc-40a7-11dd-bd48-0000779fd2ac.html

Facebook heads MySpace in unique visitors
By Kevin Allison in San Francisco
Published: June 22 2008 23:32 Last updated: June 22 2008 23:32

Facebook, the fast-growing social network, has taken a significant lead over MySpace in visitor numbers for the first time, according to one popular measure of internet traffic.
Facebook attracted more than 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162 per cent over the same period last year according to ComScore, a company that monitors websites. That compared with 114.6m unique visitors at MySpace, Facebook’s leading rival, whose traffic grew just 5 per cent during the same period, ComScore said.

The findings mark the first time that Facebook, launched in 2004, has taken a significant lead in unique visitors, after ComScore’s April traffic figures showed the rivals in a virtual tie. They come at a time of change inside Facebook, as the one-time upstart attempts to transform itself into a leading media company. Several members of the original executive team have left the company in recent weeks.

The departures include Adam D’Angelo, chief technology officer and personal confidant of Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 23-year-old founder and chief executive; and Matt Cohler, Facebook’s first official hire, who was in charge of product development.
Mr Zuckerberg has appointed Sheryl Sandberg as his second-in-command. Ms Sandberg, who helped develop Google’s lucrative advertising business, is expected to play a crucial role in the development of Facebook’s revenue model.

The management changes come as the company is under pressure to justify the $15bn valuation it drew last year in an investment round with Microsoft.
Facebook is a private company and does not disclose official sales or profit figures. But people close to the company have claimed that it made $150m in sales last year. That figure is expected to grow to $300m-$350m this year as it attempts to broaden its revenue stream.
Counting unique visitors is just one way to measure the website popularity. Many sites, including Facebook, measure audience engagement by tracking the number of repeat, or “active” users of their sites, leaving out those who visit a site once and never return. MySpace claims to have about 110m active users, Facebook about 80m.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Yahoo! News: McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

2008-06-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

Mon Jun 9, 4:56 PM ET
It turns out choosing a vice president isn't that complicated after all.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain joked on Monday that Google, the popular Internet search engine, had made investigating his list of potential candidates a little bit easier.

"You know, basically it's a Google," he said to laughter at a fund-raising luncheon when asked how the selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet -- it's remarkable."

Vice presidential candidates go through rigorous screening to determine whether they would help a White House aspirant in a general election -- and to make sure there is nothing in their background that could be damaging down the road.

McCain, 71, has faced high scrutiny in his search because of his age.

The Arizona senator, who wrapped up his place on the top of the Republican ticket earlier this year, said he still had some time to complete the search for a number two.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, editing by Alan Elsner)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

TimeOnline: First preview of Google's Android phone

2008-06-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4032446.ece

From Times Online
May 30, 2008
First preview of Google's Android phone

The device allows owners to unlock it by drawing on the screen, and includes a built-in compass to help with navigation

Jonathan Richards

Click here for a slideshow of Android prototypes and other phones

Owners of the new Google-powered mobile phone will be able to unlock the handset by drawing a secret shape on the screen.

The new 'signature unlocking' tool was among the features revealed during a sneak preview in California yesterday.

Other highlights include a built-in compass that will allow people to orientate maps as they use their phone to scout out a restaurant or venue, and a customisable homepage that lets people bookmark their favourite web pages.

The device - which is unlocked by drawing a shape only the owner knows on a nine-square grid - will also include a magnifying tool, to make zooming in on web content easier on a small screen, and a mobile version of the game Pac Man.

Demonstrating the device at a developers' conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, who heads up the project at Google, declined to give a release date, but said that the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will appear in the second half of the year.
Google will not make the phone, but has helped develop the software that handset manufacturers will install in their devices. Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, and Motorola are among the companies that have said they will produce phones that run on Android.

The device on which Mr Rubin gave the demonstration (a video is here) had a touch-sensitive screen, but the software will work equally well on other devices, he said, including those with a so-called 'tracking ball', which has been used by BlackBerry.

Observers of the demonstration said the software bore a resemblance to that used on Apple's iPhone, which is also a touchscreen device, and which allows owners to place icons linking to sites such as YouTube on the homepage.

Google demonstrated the device to about 3,000 software developers at an annual conference, and said that it hoped developers would create all kinds of applications that owners of Android phones will be able to download from the internet and install on their devices.

Android is what is known as an 'open-source' operating system, meaning that developers can access the code and create software that works with the device. Apple has announced a similar inititiave which allows developers to create software for the iPhone.

Google, which handles about 80 per cent of search queries in the UK, also hopes that by helping to produce a phone that will make it easier to use the web, it will tap a new source of revenue - namely advertisements that appear on web pages viewed on mobile phones.

The search company reported revenues of just over $5 billion in the last quarter, but the vast majority came from adverts viewed on personal computers. In Western Europe, the spend on mobile advertising is expected to rise from $1 billion in 2008 to $1.5 billion this year.

In a bid to take on Google in mobile, Microsoft announced last week that users of its e-mail and messaging tools on mobile phones would for the first time see ads on such services.

According to a M:Metrics, a company which tracks use of the mobile internet, 62 per cent of search queries by UK mobiles are performed by Google, compared with 7 per cent by MIcrosoft.