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Monday, November 15, 2010

E-mail secondary as Facebook revamps messaging (AP) : Technet

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E-mail secondary as Facebook revamps messaging (AP) : Technet

E-mail secondary as Facebook revamps messaging (AP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 06:55 PM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writers Barbara Ortutay And Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writers – 2 hrs 53 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is betting that one day soon, we'll all be acting like high school students — more texting and instant-messaging, at the expense of e-mail. Facebook unveiled a new messaging system Monday, and while CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't go as far as declaring e-mail dead, he clearly sees the four-decade-old technology being eclipsed by more real-time ways of communicating.

"We don't think a modern messaging system is going to be e-mail," Zuckerberg said.

Right now, Facebook's Messages section is a lot like an e-mail inbox. The overhauled version, which will be rolled out to users by invitation in coming months, brings in cell phone texts, IM chats and e-mails from non-Facebook accounts.

All the messages stack up in one inbox, and they're organized by the person sending them rather than the type of technology they use. For those who want one, Facebook will hand out facebook.com e-mail addresses — mostly to make it easier to communicate with people who aren't on Facebook.

"If we do a good job, some people will say this is the way that the future will work," Zuckerberg said.

By making e-mail part of its communications hub, Facebook escalates its duel with Internet search leader Google Inc., which shook up online communications 6 1/2 years ago with its Gmail service. Google has said it will roll out more social networking features to counter Facebook's growing popularity, and within Gmail it already lets people chat, e-mail and make phone calls.

Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are also working on incorporating messages from Facebook, Twitter and other social sites into their main e-mail systems.

What Facebook has that Gmail and others don't have, however, is people's real identities, plus a map of their real-life relationships and online interactions — something Facebook likes to refer to as the "social graph."

Facebook will use what it knows of these relationships to build a social inbox that not only filters out spam but messages it deems less important from strangers or overly chatty friends, and impersonal messages such as the phone bill. Those lower-priority messages will be tossed in a separate folder labeled "Other." Users can also tell Facebook to automatically block messages that don't come from friends.

To communicate with a friend, a Facebook user would click on the friend's name rather than hunt for a phone number or an e-mail address. If that friend prefers to get text messages, that's how the message will be seen. If the friend likes e-mail, e-mail it will be.

The messaging system, however, isn't e-mail. It doesn't use subject lines or "Cc" fields.

Facebook says it will store every missive sent between two people for eternity, unless they choose to delete it; the company likens it to this generation's equivalent of a box filled with years of love letters.

But love letters can sometimes get into the wrong hands. Running a communications service within a social network may increase the chances that sensitive information gets exposed. One of the most common complaints about Facebook is that some updates and photos posted on personal pages are seen by more people than accountholders intended, either because they misunderstood how to program their privacy settings or because of a security breach.

Google learned the hazards of melding e-mail with socializing earlier this year when it planted a Facebook-like service called "Buzz" into Gmail. When Buzz launched in February, it was set up in a way that caused many of its early users to inadvertently open up lists of e-mail contacts to outsiders. The ensuing privacy flap elicited an apology from Google, which also recently settled a lawsuit over the misstep.

Zuckerberg dismissed notions that the Facebook service, code-named "Project Titan," is a "Gmail killer," as portrayed in the media. At the same time, he said he thinks more people will forgo lengthy e-mail conversations in favor of shorter, more immediate chats.

That could lessen the need for people to use communications tools other than Facebook, said Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li.

"It may not be a Gmail killer, but it could be nibbler," she predicted.

It could also nibble away at other e-mail services from Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and AOL Inc. According to comScore, Microsoft's Hotmail had nearly 362 million unique monthly users in September, the latest available figure. Yahoo mail followed with 273 million and Gmail, the fastest-growing service, with 193 million.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt welcomed Facebook's expanded role in online commmunications. "More competition is always good because competition makes the market larger," Schmidt said in a meeting with reporters at the Web 2.0 technology summit. "We are all well served by having everybody online."

With Facebook's foray into e-mail, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of law and computer science at Harvard University, said he'd like to see the company be more open in allowing users to turn to outside software to process their Facebook activities.

"We ought to be able to take our lists of friends, or our wall contents, or our photo archives easily from one service to another," he said.

So far, this is not the case. Users will have to keep an active Facebook account for the messaging service to work. If they decide to leave Facebook, they will lose the messaging service.

The first Internet e-mail system arrived in the early 1970s. Though e-mail is still a primary form of communication for older adults, recent studies suggest this is not the case for young people.

Text messaging has surpassed face-to-face contact, e-mail, phone calls and instant messaging as the primary form of communication for U.S. teens, according to a 2009 survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Facebook sees its messaging service as a way to deepen its connection with the more than 500 million users of its network. If it can persuade its vast audience to become faithful users of its e-mail service, Facebook conceivably will have more opportunities to sell advertising that caters to their likes and dislikes.

That ambition also could heighten the privacy issues surrounding Facebook as it becomes more deeply ingrained in people's lives and its computers become a treasure trove of personal information.

Privacy, to be sure, has been a thorn in 6-year-old Facebook's side since it was born in Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy watchdog group, called Facebook's move into e-mail "deeply disturbing." He said that under the guise of giving users a new utility, the company "opens up another door that allows it to closely track how their members communicate."

Privacy concerns aside, Wedbush Morgan analyst Lou Kerner, who follows social media, sees the feature expanding the site's appeal.

"It's going to bring some of the remaining holdouts to the Facebook platform," Kerner said.

___

Barbara Ortutay reported from New York.

Google working on phone with built-in payment tool (AP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 06:13 PM PST

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Nov 15, 9:13 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. is taking another stab at designing a game-changing mobile phone, this time by including a built-in payment system that could eventually enable the devices to replace credit cards.

The new phone got a brief preview Monday when Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the stage to kick off the Web 2.0 summit, a technology conference held annually in San Francisco.

Schmidt confirmed that Google has been working on a sophisticated new computer chip and an upgrade of its Android mobile operating system that will include a payment processing tool. He showed off the new phone with the device's name and manufacturer concealed.

Several technology websites have speculated the new phone will be called "Nexus S" and will be manufactured by Samsung Electronics Co.

Google unveiled a phone called the Nexus One with much fanfare at the beginning of this year, but stopped selling it several months ago after other similar devices powered by Android hit the market. Samsung already makes several phones that run on Android software and just introduced a new computer tablet called Galaxy that's powered by Google's 3-year-old mobile operating system.

Schmidt declined to address the reports about the Nexus S. He indicated the new phone, equipped with the upgraded version of Android software called "Gingerbread," will hit the market within the next few weeks.

The new phone will feature a Near Field Communication, or NFC, chip that will enable phones to transmit the payment information of the device's owner to vendors using compatible technology. The transactions will be completed by tapping a physical point, such as a payment terminal or other objects encoded with the information needed to complete the purchase.

Schmidt said the chip will be more secure than the magnetic stripes that carry personal information on credit cards, an advantage that has been greeted enthusiastically by payment processors.

Google intends to forge partnerships with payment processors rather than try to expand into that line of commerce, Schmidt said. Although he expects mobile phones to supplant credit cards, Schmidt said the transition is still a long ways off.

"I still expect to be using credit cards for many, many years," he told reporters after his presentation. As computer chips and mobile software continues to improve, Schmidt envisions the day when phones will be able to alert their owners when they are passing by a merchant with a product or service on their shopping list.

Mobile phones powered by Android have become ubiquitous since Google released the free mobile software two years ago. HTC Corp., which made the Nexus One, and Motorola Inc. are among the other major manufacturers that have developed Android handsets. The widespread usage helped Android surge to a 25.5 percent share of the market for mobile phone software, up from 3.5 percent a year ago, according to the research firm Gartner Inc. That ranked Android's software second only to the Symbian operating system, a staple on Nokia Corp. phones, which holds a nearly 37 percent share, by Gartner's reckoning.

From ex-Facebooker, a new 'Path' to sharing (AP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 09:07 AM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Nov 15, 12:07 pm ET

NEW YORK – A new service aims to help you share the hundreds of photos you take with your camera phone with the people you trust the most — be it of moments as forgettable as a late-night McRib sandwich or as memorable as a new engagement ring.

Path, as it's called, comes from Dave Morin, who played a crucial role in developing Facebook before he left the company in January. Unlike Facebook, which encourages people to expand their circles of contacts, Path is focused on sharing with just your closest friends — and, for now, just photos.

Launched Monday, Path is a free iPhone app that lets you share photos taken with the phone with up to 50 people. Versions for other phones are coming.

Though there are other sites that let you share photos, Path sets itself apart by keeping things simple and only between friends. To start, Path will ask you to set up an account using your e-mail address and phone number, the latter so that people who have it can find you on the service.

Once you're set, tapping a green camera icon on the bottom of your iPhone screen will bring up the gadget's camera function, so you can snap your picture. Rather than adding a caption, you can add three types of tags — people, places or things. If you tag a person, Path will give you the option of sharing the photo with just that person. Otherwise, you're sharing it with all the people you've preselected.

Sharing on Path is asymmetrical, so in that sense it's more like Twitter than Facebook. Just because you're sharing with someone it doesn't mean that person has to share with you.

Tagging things can be as whimsical or as boring as you want it to be. Tag your socks, your morning cup of coffee, your pet hamster. And you can tag places, such as the restaurant you're sitting in or the office building you're about to enter.

Why would anyone want to do such a thing?

Morin, 30, who says he's a big believer in the mobile market, noticed that people have a lot of photos on their phones that they don't do anything with. Have a phone long enough, and it's a unique insight into your life. Not a lot of people do anything with these photos, he says, so creating a platform to share them made sense.

Path's founders picked 50 as the highest number of people you can share with because they wanted to create a "personal network" that's of a higher quality than the hodgepodge of co-workers, schoolmates and acquaintances that people have collected on Facebook and other social hubs over the years.

Napster creator Shawn Fanning is among Path's other co-founders.

Facebook's 'modern messaging system' is 'not an email killer' … yet (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 12:12 PM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Mon Nov 15, 3:12 pm ET

Email is too slow, too formal, and overburdened by "archaic" conventions like subject lines and even email addresses, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg argued Monday. But relax, Facebook doesn't intend to kill off email. Well ...  not yet, at least.

During a press briefing Monday, Zuckerberg took the wraps off of Facebook's long buzzed-about "Project Titan" — a pumped-up, completely re-engineered version of Facebook's existing messaging system that combines email, SMS, and instant messages in a chat-like interface, complete with filters that prioritize communication from your friends.

Zuckerberg touted the new, "modern" messaging system as nothing less than the future of online communication — an easy way to send simple, personal, and (most of all) short messages between two people. On Facebook, of course.

The new service, which will be rolled out gradually over the next couple of months, initially by invite only (you can apply right here), involves three main components.

First, it's a seamless messaging system that incorporates messages sent via email, text message, or instant message (and yes, everyone can get an "@facebook" email address). For example, if someone sent an email to your Facebook address, it would pop up instantly in your Facebook chat window; you could then reply in the chat window, but your response would arrive to your non-Facebooking friend as an email.

You can also — seamlessly — send and receive messages via SMS or IM, depending on whether you're at your desk with Facebook open or on the go with your iPhone.

Also, there's your conversation history: a series of long, single-thread conversations between you and your various friends, rather than a bunch of threaded conversations based on subject lines (a "confusing" and "archaic" system, Zuckerberg said). Your conversation thread would include all your communication, including email messages, SMS, and instant chats.

Users will be able to archive days, months, even years of back-and-forth chat with a friend if they want to, said Andrew Bosworth, Facebook's director of engineering. They can also permanently delete threads, add or remove participants in the case of group conversations, or forward specific messages to others.

Finally, there's a filter for your in box based on your Friends list — or, to be more specific, you'll get three in boxes: one for messages from your Facebook friends (or others that you specifically designate), one for everything else that isn't junk (you can also demote annoying Facebook friends to the "Other" in box if you like), and of course, the "Junk" folder for spam.

In your Facebook privacy settings, you'd get the option of restricting incoming messages to those sent from your Facebook pals (or just your friends and "friends of friends").

The idea behind Facebook's revamped messaging service is to make it more simple and immediate than email, while stripping away the more "formal" elements like a subject line, Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg admitted that he didn't expect users to start abandoning traditional email services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail overnight.

"This is not an email killer," Zuckerberg said during Monday's briefing. "This is a messaging system that includes email as one part of it. We don't expect anyone to shut down Yahoo! Mail and switch exclusively to Facebook."

Then again, if Facebook's new messaging paradigm takes off, "maybe we can push the way people do messaging," Zuckerberg said.

There will be ads in the new Facebook messaging app, as usual; unlike Gmail, though, the ads won't be targeted based on key words in your conversation. (Instead, the advertisements will be based on your Facebook "likes" and "dislikes.")

So no, Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook cohorts aren't saying that they want to kill email ... although they'd probably like to, based on Zuckerberg's description of email as an "archaic," "too formal system" burdened by "the weight and friction of having to think of the address of the people you want to send an email to" and "think of a subject line."

"Email is still really important to a lot of people," Zuckerberg said, although only after noting that "we don't think the modern messaging system is going to be email."

So, what do you think: Has Facebook managed to reinvent email? Or are you perfectly fine with such oldies-but-goodies as email addresses and subject lines?

Facebook Blog: See the Messages that Matter

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

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Tuesday is a day ‘you’ll never forget,’ Apple teases (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 10:24 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Mon Nov 15, 1:24 pm ET

Something "exciting" is in store for iTunes, promises Apple, adding that we should get ready for a big announcement Tuesday morning. What could it be?

A prominent teaser popped up on Apple.com Monday morning that read: "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget," along with a series of clocks for different time zones marking the hour when we should return to Apple's home page for the "exciting" iTunes news: 7 a.m. Pacific time, 10 a.m. on the East Coast, 3 p.m. in London, midnight Tokyo time.

So, what are we talking about here?

Well, iTunes got an update to version 10.1 on Friday, adding the long-awaited AirPlay feature for streaming tunes and video to the Apple TV, Airport Express-connected speakers or other AirPlay-enabled devices. But that doesn't really tell us much about what might be on tap for Tuesday's announcement. (The much-anticipated iOS 4.2 update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, which had been expected to arrive at the same time as iTunes 10.1, failed to materialize Friday; prevailing wisdom has it that the update was delayed to fix a last-minute Wi-Fi glitch.)

Another possibility: music subscriptions for iTunes, at last. Chatter about an all-you-can-eat subscription plan for iTunes has been on the upswing lately thanks to a) all that money Apple is sinking into a massive North Carolina server farm, which could be used to power "in the cloud" music or videos, and b) rumors that Apple was in talks to buy Spotify, a popular streaming-music service. (Spotify denied the rumors late last month.)

Or, how about this: a digital locker for your iTunes music and videos, similar to what Amazon offers via its on-demand video service. Rather than having to rely on music tracks or videos that have been downloaded and stored locally, a cloud-based iTunes media locker would let you stream any and all of your content to your Mac, iPhone or iPad, or even over your new $99 Apple TV—you know, the one that lets you play only streaming TV shows and movies.

Again, such a service could be powered by that gigantic server farm in North Carolina that Apple's long been toiling over.

Or maybe ... it'll be something completely different.

In any case, we'll find out bright and early Tuesday, at 10 a.m. Eastern (7 a.m. Pacific). Stay tuned.

Got any predictions about Apple's iTunes announcement? Post 'em below.

Update: Late word has it that Apple will announce—at long last, and after years of rumors, denials, and false alarms—that The Beatles are coming to iTunes.

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

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Microsoft sells one million Kinects in 10 days (AFP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 07:33 PM PST

– 2 hrs 15 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Microsoft said it sold one million Kinect motion-sensing controllers for the Xbox 360 videogame console in 10 days and is on pace to sell five million by the end of the year.

"This is a great start to the holiday season," said Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business.

"We will continue to work with our retailer partners to keep pace with high demand and deliver against our plan to sell more than five million Kinect sensors worldwide by the end of this year," Mattrick said in a statement.

Microsoft launched the Kinect in North America on November 4 and in Europe last week. It launches in Asia later this week.

Kinect uses a 3D camera and motion recognition software to let people play videogames using natural body movements and voice commands instead of hand-held controllers.

The standalone Kinect, which works with the 45 million Xbox 360s already sold worldwide, costs 150 dollars. A four-gigabyte Xbox 360 console that includes the Kinect and the "Kinect Adventures" game sells for 299 dollars.

Remains of the Day: Dance like everybody’s watching (Macworld)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 06:19 PM PST

Dan Moren Dan Moren – Mon Nov 15, 9:19 pm ET

One musical act is up to its usual shenanigans, now iPhone-enhanced; the father of "net neutrality" is scared of Apple; and an ex-Apple exec finds yet another new home. What's left after we skim the cream, that's the remainders for Monday, November 15, 2010.

Dance through your city (Range Rover Evoque)

In an odd collaboration, musical innovators OK Go have teamed up with Range Rover to use the company's new GPS-enabled app while dancing through the streets of Los Angeles. The path traced by the GPS will end up spelling "OK Go," making this the craziest thing the band has done since they created a stop-motion video with toast. Or used trained dogs to punctuate their music. Or created a giant Rube Goldberg machine. On second thought, this is pretty mild for them.

One on One: Tim Wu, author of 'The Master Switch' (The New York Times)

Columbia law professor Tim Wu, the guy who coined the term "net neutrality," named Apple as the company that he fears the most, citing Steve Jobs's desire for "too much control" as antithetical to Google's "open" approach. To be fair, I guess Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn't tell people where they had to move.

Former Apple, IBM executive Papermaster joins Cisco (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Remember Mark Papermaster, the executive who Apple almost went to war with IBM over, only to part ways with him less than a year and a half later? Don't cry for him, Argentina—he landed a gig at Cisco working on chips. If he's lucky, they'll still let him work on the iPhone.

AirPrint Hacktivator (Netputing)

If you were still a little worried about delving into Terminal to turn on the missing AirPrint printer sharing, someone's come up with a simple GUI that takes care of all the hokery-pokery. Whoa, wait a second: AirPrint? Mark Papermaster? By Jove, I think I've figured it out.

Names you need to know in 2011: Apple's Scott Forstall (Forbes)

Forbes's Brian Caulfield names Apple senior vice president of iPhone Software Scott Forstall as someone to keep an eye on. You know whose name you don't need to know? Hint: it rhymes with Dark Caperplaster.

Firm to appeal Utah jury award over fatal gas fire (AP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 06:26 PM PST

By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Paul Foy, Associated Press – Mon Nov 15, 9:26 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – An Oklahoma company said Monday it will appeal a $4.3 million jury award to a Utah man whose 2-year-old daughter died in a fire ignited when he poured gasoline from a plastic container into a wood stove in his mobile home.

Blitz USA, which made the plastic fuel container, told The Associated Press that evidence at the federal trial in Salt Lake City showed David Calder recklessly poured or splashed gasoline onto live embers in the wood stove.

The "misuse of gasoline" caused the trailer fire, not any problem with the gas container, said James R. King, general counsel for Miami, Okla.-based Blitz. The company plans to ask a judge to overturn the verdict or order a new trial before filing for an appeal.

Calder's attorney, Don Winder, said the jury made the right decision on Wednesday and that a 5-cent piece of wire mesh inside the gas spout would have blocked flames and kept the container from exploding.

The company insists its gas container didn't explode in the December 2005 fire and that Calder had enough time to get his daughter out of the trailer.

In an interview, Calder said his clothes immediately caught fire and he rolled in the dirt before trying to rescue his daughter. He said flames from the wood stove followed vapors back inside the gas container.

"They don't want to admit their gas cans blow up," Calder, a 38-year-old biomedical technician at the University of Utah's Moran Eye Center, said Monday.

"It's basically a milk jug with a nozzle on it — really not something that should be in the marketplace. Yeah, I made a bad decision putting gas on a fire. But I think it's up to manufacturers to make things safer, and the jury agreed."

The jury found Blitz 70 percent at fault for the fire. Calder was held to be 30 percent responsible, reducing by that much his take from a verdict that topped $6.1 million for medical expenses, lost earnings and other damages.

Calder was burned on 30 percent of his body and spent two months in the University of Utah hospital's burn unit. A son also suffered some burn injuries. His daughter, Hailey Parish, was engulfed by flames and died. Another son outside the trailer wasn't hurt.

The blaze at the remote Uintah County trailer occurred when Calder was struggling to light a stove fire with wet wood. His lawyer said Calder was unaware the stove contained any burning embers when Calder recalled pouring a "teeny bit" of gasoline on the wood, causing the gas can to explode.

"He was holding a bomb," Winder told the AP on Monday. He acknowledged Calder's gas container had a nipple ventilation valve that was broken off and could have been venting gas.

The company says that in a deposition, one of Calder's sons said he remained in the trailer for another three minutes, indicating there was no explosion or imminent danger.

Winder said Blitz's own market research showed 20 percent of its customers use the cans to pour gasoline as a fire accelerant, yet it still hasn't designed a safe container.

The company says nothing is wrong with its containers and that vapors from the gasoline Calder spilled ignited a fire that started on the floor and gradually spread throughout the trailer.

New Facebook message system takes aim at Google, Yahoo! (AFP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 06:19 PM PST

by Glenn Chapman Glenn Chapman – Mon Nov 15, 9:19 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Facebook launched a next-generation online messaging service that includes facebook.com email addresses in a move seen as a shot across the bow of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday unveiled what he called a "convergent" modern messaging system that "handles messages seamlessly across all the ways you want to communicate" in a single inbox.

The messaging service blends online chat, text messages and other real-time conversation tools with traditional email, which Zuckerberg said had lost favor for being too slow for young Internet users.

"It is true that people will be able to have facebook.com email addresses, but this is not email," Zuckerberg said at an event in downtown San Francisco. "It handles email."

Zuckerberg dismissed reports referring to the messaging system as a "Gmail killer" aimed at the heart of free Web-based email services from Google and similar services from Yahoo! and Microsoft.

"We don't expect anyone to wake up tomorrow and say 'I'm going to shut down my Yahoo! Mail or Gmail account,'" Zuckerberg said.

But, he added: "Maybe one day six months, a year, two years out people will start to say this is how the future should work.

"Maybe email won't be as important a part as it was before and we can push people toward real-time conversations."

The new messaging system, referred to inside the Palo Alto, California-based firm as "Titan," will be slowly rolled out in coming months to users.

Approximately 350 million of Facebook's more than 500 million members fire off messages at the service, with more than four billion digital missives sent daily, according to Zuckerberg.

With such a large user base, a free personalized facebook.com email service is seen as a challenge to the established email giants -- Microsoft's Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Google's Gmail.

Hotmail currently has the most users, 361.7 million as of September, according to online tracking firm comScore, followed by Yahoo! with 273.1 million and Gmail with 193.3 million.

Microsoft, which has a small stake in Facebook, is integrating its popular Office software into the social network's messaging system so people will be able to share Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents as attachments.

Facebook's new messaging service comes amid sparring with Google over data sharing. Google this month blocked Facebook from importing Gmail contact information over the social network's refusal to share data about its users.

"Facebook says this isn't a 'Gmail killer,' but this is neither completely accurate nor completely wrong," said Forrester analyst Augie Ray. "Anything that makes communication easier and pulls attention away from Gmail is a 'Gmail killer.'"

"It will increase the amount of time people spend on Facebook," said Lou Kerner of Wedbush Securities. "That?s really what a lot of this battle between Facebook and Google is about.

"All these Web companies want to have people spend more time with them so they can serve them more ads," he said. "So if people are using Gmail less and Facebook messages more that?s to the detriment of Google."

Facebook users can decide whether to get word to friends using SMS, chat, email or a messages feature at the social networking service. Messages will be received in whatever medium or on whichever device is convenient.

"You shouldn't have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use," said Facebook engineer Joel Seligstein. "Simply choose their name and type a message."

Incoming messages are sorted into one of three folders. A main folder holds messages from Facebook friends, while bank statements and other worthwhile messages not from close friends go into a second folder.

Messages people don't want to see go into a junk folder.

One of the major objectives was to streamline sending and receiving messages with an eye toward simulating an ongoing chat, according to Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg also said Facebook employees, who have been using facebook.com email addresses for some time, were transitioning to fb.com addresses after obtaining the rights from the American Farm Bureau.

Beatles coming to Apple's iTunes: source (Reuters)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 07:08 PM PST

By Yinka Adegoke and Gabriel Madway Yinka Adegoke And Gabriel Madway – 2 hrs 40 mins ago

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The Beatles on Apple's iTunes? Let it be.

The Fab Four's music is expected, finally, to be available for sale at Apple Inc's online music store, a source said after the consumer electronics giant signaled a major announcement about iTunes set for Tuesday -- igniting a frenzy of speculation.

The source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Apple has struck a deal to bring the Beatles' catalog to iTunes, but the source would not elaborate.

The Beatles -- arguably the most famous band of all time -- have been the most prominent hold-out from the iTunes Store, the world's No. 1 music retailer, and rumors about an agreement with Apple have circulated for years.

EMI Group Ltd, the Beatles' record label, declined to comment. Apple also declined comment on the news, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

On Monday, Apple gave over the entire front page of its website to tease an announcement scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (1500 GMT) Tuesday, but gave few decipherable clues.

"Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget," the message read.

The company usually hosts a media event when it wants to unveil a major new product or service, but Tuesday's iTunes announcement will be made online, which only added to the initial mystery.

The Beatles were at the forefront of a worldwide "British Invasion" in the 1960s, recording such classic albums as "A Hard Day's Night," "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," rated by Rolling Stone Magazine as the greatest album of all time.

Getting on iTunes may introduce the Beatles, who broke up in 1970, to a new generation of tech-savvy online music fans.

The iTunes store has helped redefine music retailing since its launch in 2003. More than 10 billion songs have been downloaded from the site, which features a music catalog of more than 12 million titles. Apple has also branched into selling and renting movies and TV shows.

CLOUD ITUNES STILL TO COME?

Apple's cryptic iTunes notice on Monday triggered debate among analysts and bloggers about what Apple might announce. It has been rumored for months that Apple will launch a "cloud" -- or Web-based -- version of iTunes.

Such a service would allow users to stream content over a network onto various devices, but analysts said Apple still needs to line up agreements with music labels, whom the company has repeatedly clashed with the over the years.

"There's been a lot of speculation about iTunes.com, with the cloud. I'm not sure if that's ready. It's really more around partnerships, content partnerships, before they can announce anything," said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu.

A cloud-based offering would represent a departure from the current iTunes service. Rather than storing downloaded music locally on computers, users' content would be housed remotely on Apple's servers, meaning they can theoretically be accessed and played from an Internet-connected device.

There are plenty of hints Apple is moving toward some sort of Web-based iTunes. In December 2009, Apple acquired streaming music service LaLa.

In addition, the company is spending $1 billion to build a massive data center in North Carolina and expects to begin using it by the end of the year.

The shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple fell 0.3 percent to close at $307.04 on the Nasdaq.

(Editing by Andre Grenon, Edwin Chan, Gary Hill)

"Newsweek" Staffers Turn to Tumblr to Save Website (Mashable)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 03:52 PM PST

Lauren Indvik Lauren Indvik – Mon Nov 15, 6:52 pm ET

On Friday, Newsweek and The Daily Beast announced that the two publications -- one a sober, 77-year-old print publication, the other a lighter, more entertainment-driven, 2-year-old online-only news site -- would merge. Among the first reported casualties was Newsweek CEO Tom Ascheim.

In a followup article over the weekend, The New York Times reported another: Newsweek.com. The new chief executive of the joint company, former Daily Beast CEO Stephen Colvin, said, "Newsweek.com will cease to exist after the merger. Readers who type that URL into their browser will be redirected to TheDailyBeast.com, where Newsweek content will be housed."

TheDailyBeast.com attracts a monthly audience of around 2 million (although Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown claims it is more than twice that); Newsweek.com receives 5 million unique visitors per month. Both publications are reporting yearly losses in the millions ($28 million for Newsweek and $10 million for The Daily Beast); one of the more attractive features of the merger between the two entities is the opportunity to reduce staff. Given the difference in audience sizes and the expectation that layoffs are in store, the announcement about Newsweek.com incubated many negative emotions among staff.

In response, a team of anonymous Newsweek.com employees created a Tumblr page, titled "Save Newsweek.com - A Defense of Newsweek.com," above the subheader, "Why we think it would be a mistake to close the award-winning Website of Newsweek magazine."

It's a passionate cry for the preservation of the award-winning enterprise, which has managed, as it points out, to attract numerous awards and an audience much greater than that of its print counterpart despite constant changes in leadership and a small staff of 18. It's also bitter, calling itself the "ugly stepchild to its print grandparents, who were too busy burning money to notice," and moans that "while high-level print editors were taking sleek black towncars to and from the office (and everywhere in between, including, on at least one instance, from DC to New York), this was a staff who slept on grimy couches while reporting on the road; forking out their own funds, at times, just to produce good work."

(As a side note, it's interesting that they chose Tumblr to share their message over social platforms with a larger userbase, such as Facebook, or even their own website. By the time of writing, nearly 200 people had reblogged or "liked" the post on the blogging service -- significant, but likely not as viral as a Facebook Page would have been. But I digress.)

A few hours after the Tumblr page was picked up by the media, Brown tweeted, "Woah! Newsweek.com's superb content will live on under its own banner & in URLs on the new site. Not shutting down, combining."

The tweet should leave some at Newsweek.com feeling slightly more hopeful about their jobs -- but not about keeping their website.

We'll see how articles like "The 12 Rules of Sex & Tech" stack up against "Rare and Unusual Photos and Images From the Burns Archive" -- and whether Newsweek.com's current audience will feel at home at Newsweek.com's new address.

Image courtesy of Flickr, FontShop

[via PaidContent]

The world awaits yet another unforgettable Apple announcement (Appolicious)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 11:21 AM PST

Recent acquisitions by major technology companies (AP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 07:46 PM PST

By The Associated Press The Associated Press – 2 hrs 2 mins ago

EMC Corp. has reached a deal to buy Isilon Systems Inc. for $2.25 billion in cash, the latest in a recent spree of acquisitions in the tech sector as companies look to broaden the types of software and equipment they offer big corporate customers and government agencies.

Here is a look at some of the acquisitions over the past several months.

July 1: Hewlett-Packard Co. completes its $1.2 billion acquisition of smart phone maker Palm Inc.

July 8: Dell Inc. agrees to buy Scalent, a privately held maker of software for managing data-center infrastructure, for an undisclosed amount.

July 16: Cisco Systems Inc. buys privately held CoreOptics Inc., which makes technology for helping Internet service providers handle the growing traffic on their networks, for $99 million.

July 19: Dell announces it will buy privately held Ocarina Networks, which makes technology to compress data and remove duplicate information, for an undisclosed amount.

July 20: IBM Corp. buys BigFix Inc., a privately held business security and compliance software company, for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 2: IBM buys privately held Web analytics software company Coremetrics for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 10: IBM buys privately held business management software company Datacap Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 13: IBM agrees to buy marketing software company Unica Corp. for $480 million.

Aug. 16: Intel Corp. agrees to buy the cable modem chip-making business from Texas Instruments Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 17: HP agrees to buy privately held computer-security software maker Fortify Software Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 19: Intel Corp. agrees to buy computer-security software maker McAfee Inc. for $7.68 billion.

Aug. 26: HP buys privately held database and application automation company Stratavia Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Aug. 27: IBM buys Sterling Commerce, which makes software that helps businesses buy and sell to each other, from AT&T Inc. for $1.4 billion.

Sept. 2: Intel Corp. agrees to buy the wireless-chip division of Germany's Infineon Technologies AG for $1.4 billion.

Sept. 2: HP agrees to buy data-storage maker 3Par Inc. for $2.07 billion, ending a bidding contest with rival Dell.

Sept. 13: HP agrees to buy security-software provider ArcSight Inc. for about $1.5 billion.

Sept. 15: IBM says it has acquired OpenPages, a privately held software company that develops risk and compliance management systems, for undisclosed terms.

Sept. 20: IBM agrees to pay $1.7 billion for Netezza Corp., a company that helps businesses sort through data on corporate servers.

Sept. 27: IBM agrees to buy privately held Blade Network Technologies, a maker of software and technologies that route data to and from servers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Nov. 2: Dell agrees to buy Boomi, whose AtomSphere software makes it easy for businesses to send data back and forth between Web-based applications and computer programs that run on PCs. Terms were not disclosed.

Nov. 3: Oracle Corp. agrees to buy e-commerce software maker Art Technology Group Inc. for $1 billion, to help businesses better understand people who shop with them online.

Nov. 15: EMC says it has reached a deal to buy Isilon Systems Inc. for $2.25 billion in cash to give EMC customers options for storing large amounts of data.

EMC buys smaller rival for $2.3 bil (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 03:20 PM PST

– Mon Nov 15, 6:20 pm ET

The No. 1 data storage systems vendor will pay $33.85 a share for Isilon Systems (NMS:ISLN), which sells midrange storage systems, an area EMC (NYSE:EMC - News) needs to beef up, analysts said. The acquisition is the latest in a wave of storage deals. EMC is competing with IBM (NYSE:IBM - News), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News), Dell (NMS:DELL) and Oracle (NMS:ORCL) for storage dominance. HP this year bought 3Par for $2.4 bil after a bidding war with Dell. IBM then unveiled plans to buy France's Netezza for $1.7 bil. EMC on Mon. also affirmed its 2010 outlook for $16.9 bil in revenue and EPS of 91 cents, in line.

Hackers Rush To Adapt Kinect Outside the Xbox 360 (NewsFactor)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 10:47 AM PST

Barry Levine, newsfactor.com Barry Levine, newsfactor.com – Mon Nov 15, 1:47 pm ET

Despite all the promotional hand-waving Microsoft did to launch its Kinect hands-free game controller, the company may have underestimated some of its impact. Programmers are rapidly adapting the Minority Report-like device for other uses that have nothing to do with the Xbox 360 -- and a contest is seeking more experiments.

Oliver Kreylos, a researcher at the University of California-Davis, announced he has used the two cameras in the Kinect to control the 3-D software and use it as a 3-D video camera. In Kinect, one of the cameras shoots video while the other measures depth, resulting in a 640x480 video stream and a 320x240 depth stream. The depth stream measures invisible infrared dots that are projected into a room. Kreylos' hack allows him to generate live 3-D feeds of himself or objects in the room.

Next: People with Computer Imagery

In a posting on his blog, Kreylos said his adaptation was "based on the reverse-engineering work of Hector Martin."

On a challenge from an electronic-kit-making company called Adafruit, Martin recently announced that he had utilized Kinect to work on a PC. He enabled Kinect's motion-capture system to interact with a Linux laptop and OpenGL drivers, and he reportedly is now working on interacting with the device's voice capture and control system.

Adafruit's challenge, which was accompanied by a prize of $3,000, was to use an open-source driver that would work with Kinect. Martin, like Kreylos, said he doesn't have an Xbox. Others have reported making Kinect work with Windows 7 and Mac OS X computers, and the effort raises the distinct possibility that Kinect and similar controllers could be used to control computers with hands-in-the-air motion, as in the Minority Report movie.

Kreylos noted that he didn't use any of Martin's code, except for the "magic incantation" that needs to be sent to the Kinect so the cameras can start streaming. He said he wrote the 3-D reconstruction code in C++.

His next goal, Kreylos wrote, is to mix the 3-D views into another 3-D environment so he can "mix realistic people captured with the Kinect with computer-generated imagery."

Kinect Peripheral for PCs?

After Martin's announcement, Microsoft issued a statement that it "does not condone the modification of its products," and that "numerous hardware and software safeguards" are intended to reduce the chances of "product tampering."

It later noted that, in fact, Kinect software and hardware were not modified. "What has happened," the company said, "is someone has created drivers that allow other devices to interface with the Kinect for Xbox 360."

And the Kinect adaption movement is likely to continue, if not thrive. Last week, Google engineer Matt Cutts announced two $1,000 rewards for "the person or team that writes the coolest open-source app, demo or program using the Kinect."

Michael Gartenberg, research director at Gartner, pointed out that, despite the enthusiasm being generated by the non-Xbox uses of the Kinect, "Microsoft is not going to support these efforts or, for instance, release a SDK."

He said "most of these efforts will be done out of love," and it's not likely that a robust market for Kinects based on non-Xbox hacks will emerge. "It's hard to monetize these devices if the manufacturer doesn't want to," Gartenberg said, adding that Microsoft could simply change some aspect of the device at any point, rendering adaptations useless.

But, he said, "we will see these kinds of hands-free, gestural interfaces" for personal computers at some point, and it "wouldn't surprise me" if Microsoft decided to release a Kinect-like peripheral for PCs.

Anti-Firesheep Trick Protects Linux Users (PC World)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 12:45 PM PST

Katherine Noyes Katherine Noyes – Mon Nov 15, 3:45 pm ET

The Firesheep plug-in for Firefox has done an admirable job of illustrating the insecurity of public Wi-Fi, just as its creators intended. Now that it's out there in the wild, however, the question for users is how to protect their sensitive information.

On the Windows side, pretty much all we've seen so far have been tools that simply alert you when Firesheep is being used on the network you're connected to. Unfortunately, they don't go beyond that to actually protect your data.

For Linux users, however, the situation is better. A free new solution from security firm Sophos lets users of the open source operating system "browse over unencrypted Wi-Fi access points with no more risk than you'd browse at home," according to its blog post from earlier today.

It takes only 60 seconds to set up, even for users on the road, and it works even if you're already working over unencrypted Wi-Fi, the company says.

Remote Browsing

Sophos's solution centers on a 120-line Python http proxy hosted at a URL in Japan. Users begin by visiting that URL and then cutting and pasting the proxy into an editor and saving it, resulting in a 4500-byte file.

Next, users secure-copy that file onto the shell server on their home network so they can run the proxy remotely, away from the insecure Wi-Fi network. They then start that proxy with an encrypted SSH tunnel so they can send and receive the http content securely from that insecure Wi-Fi network to their home network, where the browsing requests will actually take place.

In Video: Big Security for Small Business

Users then simply tell their browser that they're going to surf over that SSH tunnel to the remote proxy, effectively allowing them to browse the Web from the airport or wherever via the security of their home network.

A YouTube video demonstrates the process involved, including the specific commands and Firefox settings.

The Linux Advantage

Linux users already enjoy many widely acknowledged security advantages over their Windows counterparts, so it's nice to see one more such benefit in the world of Wi-Fi.

As for Windows users? They'd probably do well to consider Wi-Fi alternatives such as tethering or MiFi, at least when dealing with sensitive data.

Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.

Google exit from China a predictable gift: Baidu chief (AFP)

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 08:32 PM PST

by Glenn Chapman Glenn Chapman – 1 hr 16 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – The head of China's dominant Internet search engine said that Google's retreat from the mainland was a predictable gift that came as no surprise to him.

Baidu chairman Robin Li said that when Google first launched its search service in China, his advice was that chief Eric Schmidt spend at least six months a year in that country to understand the market.

"Apparently, Eric did not take my advice," Li said during an unprecedented on-stage chat at a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. "I knew that, eventually, he would hand me a gift and it happened."

Schmidt had his turn on the Summit stage earlier in the day, but did not discuss Baidu.

Baidu reported in October that its net profit more than doubled in the third quarter, as rival Google continued to lose market share following its public spat with Beijing over censorship.

Baidu has increased its dominance of the world's biggest online market at the expense of Google, which has seen its share dwindle throughout the year.

Baidu said its net profit soared 112.4 percent year-on-year to 1.05 billion yuan (157.89 million dollars) in the third quarter.

Total revenue ballooned to 2.26 billion yuan, up 76.4 percent from the same period last year, the company said.

China has 420 million web users, with 99 percent of them using Baidu, Li said.

Baidu's share of the Chinese search engine market increased to 73 percent in the third quarter from 70 percent in the second quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

Over the same period, Google's share shrank to 21.6 percent from 24.2 percent, Analysys said.

The US Internet titan had boasted a 31 percent share in the first three months of the year, before its protracted tussle with the Chinese authorities.

In March, Google said it would no longer bow to government censors and effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, automatically re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.

The web giant has since tweaked the way it re-routes users in order to renew its business license in China, creating a new landing page with a link to the Hong Kong site, which users must click on themselves.

Li's comments came during his first-ever appearance at a technology industry conference in the United States.

He rejected suggestions that Baidu is succeeding because it is "the only game in town" or is a favored son of the China government.

"We did try harder," Li said of Baidu. "Over the past ten years we did nothing but Chinese search; we came up with innovative ideas."

Li left a job as an engineer at pioneering US Internet search firm Infoseek to move back to China and start Baidu.

"China is a very different market," Li said. "Market conditions change every day. If you are not close, it is difficult for you to keep up."

Venture capital for startups has been abundant in China, and bright Chinese engineers from the United States have returned to ply their skills in their homeland, according to Li.

He said that, like Google, he once considered moving Baidu to Hong Kong out of frustration with Internet censorship by Chinese officials.

"After careful thought I realized that if I moved to Hong Kong I would have been called an anti-government person so my life would be ruined," Li said.

"If an American company decided to defy Chinese law they would still call them a strategic partner. I don't have a choice."

He suggested that Internet firms should worry about what they can control in China and work with the things they can't alter, such as sluggish connection speeds, censorship, and bureaucracy.

"You need to be a little bit patient," Li said. "Don't complain. Find a way around the problem."

Baidu has ambition to expand to add more languages and enter new markets, but the US is not in its crosshairs yet, according to Li. Baidu has been in Japan for two years.
at 10:00 PM

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