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Tweaking the climate to save it: Who decides? (AP) : Technet |
- Tweaking the climate to save it: Who decides? (AP)
- Google profile in China shrinking (AP)
- Disney and Pixar Go Viral With "Cars 2" Faux Ads [VIDEO] (Mashable)
- 20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 2 (PC World)
- 20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 1 (PC World)
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| Tweaking the climate to save it: Who decides? (AP) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:00 PM PDT CHICHELEY, England – To the quiet green solitude of an English country estate they retreated, to think the unthinkable. Scientists of earth, sea and sky, scholars of law, politics and philosophy: In three intense days cloistered behind Chicheley Hall's old brick walls, where British saboteurs once secretly trained, four dozen international thinkers pondered the planet's fate as it grows warmer, weighed the idea of reflecting the sun to cool the atmosphere, debated the question of who would make the decision. The unknown risks of "geoengineering" — in this case, tweaking Earth's climate by dimming the skies — left many uneasy. "If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God, it's very tempting to a scientist," said senior Kenyan earth scientist Richard Odingo. "But I worry." Arrayed against that worry is the worry that global warming at some point — in 20 years? 50 years? — may abruptly upend the world we know, by melting much of Greenland into the sea, by shifting India's life-giving monsoon, by killing off marine life. If climate engineering research isn't done now, climatologists say, the world will face grim choices in an emergency. "If we don't understand the implications and we reach a crisis point and deploy geoengineering with only a modicum of information, we really will be playing Russian roulette," said Steven Hamburg, a U.S. Environmental Defense Fund scientist. The question's urgency has grown as nations have failed, in years of talks, to agree on a binding long-term deal to rein in their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N.-sponsored science network, foresees temperatures rising as much as 6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, swelling the seas and disrupting the climate patterns that nurtured human civilization. Science committees of the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress urged their governments last year to look at immediately undertaking climate engineering research — to have a "Plan B" ready, as the British panel put it, in case the diplomatic logjam persists. Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, subsequently organized the Chicheley Hall conference with Hamburg's EDF and the association of developing-world science academies. From six continents, they invited a blue-ribbon cross-section of atmospheric physicists, oceanographers, geochemists, environmentalists, international lawyers, psychologists, policy experts and others, to discuss how the world should oversee such unprecedented — and unsettling — research. An Associated Press reporter was invited to sit in on their discussions, generally off the record, as they met in large and small groups in plush wood-paneled rooms, in conference halls, or outdoors among the manicured trees and formal gardens of this 300-year-old Royal Society property 40 miles northwest of London, a secluded spot where Britain's Special Operations Executive trained for secret missions in World War II. Provoking and parrying each other over questions never before raised in human history, the conferees were sensitive to how the outside world might react. "There's the `slippery slope' view that as soon as you start to do this research, you say it's OK to think about things you shouldn't be thinking about," said Steve Rayner, co-director of Oxford University's geoengineering program. Many geoengineering techniques they have thought about look either impractical or ineffective. Painting rooftops white to reflect the sun's heat is a feeble gesture. Blanketing deserts with a reflective material is logistically challenging and a likely environmental threat. Launching giant mirrors into space orbit is exorbitantly expensive. On the other hand, fertilizing the ocean with iron to grow CO2-eating plankton has shown some workability. Massachusetts' prestigious Woods Hole research center is planning the biggest such experiment. Marine clouds are another route: Scientists at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado are designing a test of brightening ocean clouds with sea-salt particles to reflect the sun. Those techniques are necessarily limited in scale, however, and unable to alter planet-wide warming. Only one idea has emerged with that potential. "By most accounts, the leading contender is stratospheric aerosol particles," said climatologist John Shepherd of Britain's Southampton University, briefing the Chicheley Hall assemblage on the climate engineer's toolkit. The particles would be sun-reflecting sulfates spewed into the lower stratosphere from aircraft, balloons or other devices — much like the sulfur dioxide emitted by the eruption of the Philippines' Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, estimated to have cooled the world by 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) for a year or so. Engineers from the University of Bristol, England, plan to test the feasibility of feeding sulfates into the atmosphere via a kilometers-long (miles-long) hose attached to a tethered balloon. Shepherd and others stressed that any sun-blocking "SRM" technique — for solar radiation management — would have to be accompanied by sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions on the ground and some form of carbon dioxide removal, preferably via a chemical-mechanical process, not yet perfected, to suck the gas out of the air and neutralize it. Otherwise, they point out, the stratospheric sulfate layer would have to be built up indefinitely, to counter the growing greenhouse effect of accumulating carbon dioxide. And if that SRM operation shut down for any reason, temperatures on Earth would shoot upward. The technique has other downsides: The sulfates would likely damage the ozone layer shielding Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays; they don't stop atmospheric carbon dioxide from acidifying the oceans; and sudden cooling of the Earth would itself alter climate patterns in unknown ways over parts of the planet. "These scenarios create winners and losers," said Shepherd, lead author of a pivotal 2009 Royal Society study of geoengineering. "Who is going to decide?" Many here worried that someone, some group, some government would decide on its own to conduct large-scale atmospheric experiments, raising global concerns — and resentment if it's the U.S. that acts, since it has done the least among industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions. They fear some in America might push for going straight to "Plan B," rather than doing the hard work of emissions reductions. In addition, "one of the challenges is identifying intentions, one of which could be offensive military use," said Indian development specialist Arunabha Ghosh. Experts point out, for example, that cloud experimentation or localized solar "dimming" could — intentionally or unintentionally — cause droughts or floods in neighboring areas, arousing suspicions and international disputes. "In some plausible but unfortunate future you could have shooting wars between your country and mine over proposals on what to do on climate change,' said the University of Michigan's Ted Parson, an environmental policy expert. The conferees worried, too, that a "geoengineering industrial complex" might emerge, pushing to profit from deployment of its technology. And Australian economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton saw other go-it-alone threats — "cowboys" and "scientific heroes." "I'm queasy about some billionaire with a messiah complex having a major role in geoengineering research," Hamilton said. All discussions led to the central theme of how to oversee research. Many environmentalists categorically oppose intentional fiddling with Earth's atmosphere, or at least insist that such important decisions rest in the hands of the U.N., since every nation on Earth has a stake in the skies above. But at the meeting in March, Chicheley Hall experts largely assumed that a coalition of scientifically capable nations, led by the U.S. and Britain, would arise to organize "sunshade" or other engineering research, perhaps inviting China, India, Brazil and others to join in a G20-style "club" of major powers. Then, the conferees said, an independent panel of experts would have to be formed to review the risks of proposed experiments, and give go-aheads — for research, not deployment, which would be a step awaiting fateful debates down the road. Like Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, John Shepherd is a fellow of the venerable Royal Society, but one facing a world those scientific pioneers could not have imagined. "I am not enthusiastic about these ideas," Shepherd told his Chicheley Hall colleagues. But like many here he felt the world has no choice but to investigate. "You would have a risk-risk calculation to make." Some are also making a political calculation. If research shows the stratospheric pollutants would reverse global warming, unhappy people "would realize the alternative to reducing emissions is blocking out the sun," Hamilton observed. "We might never see blue sky again." If, on the other hand, the results are negative, or the risks too high, and global warming's impact becomes increasingly obvious, people will see "you have no Plan B," said EDF's Hamburg — no alternative to slashing use of fossil fuels. Either way, popular support should grow for cutting emissions. At least that's the hope. But hope wasn't the order of the day in Chicheley Hall as Shepherd wrapped up his briefing and a troubled Odingo silenced the room. "We have a lot of thinking to do," the Kenyan told the others. "I don't know how many of us can sleep well tonight." |
| Google profile in China shrinking (AP) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 08:35 PM PDT BEIJING – A year after a public spat with Beijing over censorship, Google Inc. says its business with Chinese advertisers is growing even as the Internet giant's share of online searches in China plunges. A major Chinese portal announced last week it would no longer use Google for search, compounding its rapid loss of market share since March last year when it closed its local search engine. The future of a Google map service that is a key part of its remaining appeal in China is in doubt. Google's main presence in China has become its advertising sales offices, an unusual situation for a company that dominates the Internet elsewhere. Google risked being completely shut out of China after it angered Beijing by announcing last January it no longer wanted to comply with Web censorship. It dodged that fate but without a flagship local online presence, analysts say Google will fall further behind Baidu Inc. as a search provider, while the controversy makes it hard to line up Chinese partners for other ventures. "Chinese companies will think twice before they can have any kind of relationship with Google," said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing. Google, based in Mountain View, California, says it sees its biggest opportunities in China in selling advertising on behalf of local websites or to companies that want to reach customers abroad through its global sites. Google was allowed to keep advertising sales offices in China. Beijing had an incentive to let those stay, because they benefit local websites and advertisers. "Google's revenue in China has grown year-on-year," said a company spokeswoman, Jessica Powell, in an e-mail. "Our business in China is doing well. We have hundreds of partners — large and small — who we continue to work with." Yet its public relationship with Beijing is chilly. After Chinese authorities stepped up Web censorship following pro-democracy protests in the Middle East, Google said last month the government was obstructing access to its Gmail e-mail service and trying to make the blockage look like a technical problem. The government denied the accusation. This week, the government newspaper Economic Daily said three Google units that deal with research and development, customer support and advertising were under investigation for possible tax offenses. State media played up the report and one newspaper called the company "Brother Trouble," a play on its Chinese name. Google said in a statement, "We believe we are, and always have been, in full compliance with Chinese tax law." Mainland users can reach Google's Chinese-language site in Hong Kong, a self-governing Chinese territory without Web censorship. That comes with a big drawback: Beijing's filters can make access sluggish, reducing the site's appeal in China, which has more than 450 million people online. Google does not break out sales by country, but Analysys estimated its 2010 China revenue at 2.6 billion yuan ($409 million) — or less than 1.5 percent of Google's global revenues of $29.3 billion. Last year's dispute testified to the complex Internet landscape in China, which promotes Web use for business and education but has strict controls on content and blocks social media sites including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Google's China site still offers music downloads, business services and other features that are not subject to censorship. Users can click a link to reach the Hong Kong site. Google's share of China's search traffic fell to 19.6 percent in the final quarter of 2010 from 30.9 percent in the first quarter, according to Analysys. It said Baidu's share rose to 75 percent. Citigroup analyst Alicia Yap said data from other researchers show an even sharper plunge in Google's traffic share to 11 percent in the fourth quarter while Baidu rose to 84 percent. Google still is China's second-most-popular search service based on use of the Hong Kong site and others abroad. It leads rivals such as Sogou, Tencent Soso and Zhongsou, which have market shares at or below 1 percent. But the lack of a local presence will hurt as competition for new users spreads to mobile phones and the countryside, where users speak little English and will want a Chinese search engine, Yu said. "Baidu is in a very good position to grab more market share," he said. In a new blow to its public visibility, a leading a Chinese portal, Sina.com, said this week it would no longer use Google. The search giant has ended a series of such partnerships as it stopped providing censored results. Baidu has expanded aggressively, rolling out new services in the past year in an effort to differentiate a company long seen as a Google imitator. New competitors including state media also are jumping into the market with search and social media products. The government's Xinhua News Agency launched a search engine last year in a partnership with state-owned China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone carrier by subscribers. Google faces another challenge from new regulations that tighten control over online map services. On Thursday, the deadline to apply for licenses, Google said it was "in discussions with the government about how we could offer a maps product in China." "Google maps is one of the services that people still like a lot," said Yap. "If they can't provide the service in the future, people will use Google less and less." Yu said Google's situation might change if a planned handover of power next year from President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders to a younger generation leads to a shift in official attitudes. "New officials will be in place," he said, "so things could change at that time." |
| Disney and Pixar Go Viral With "Cars 2" Faux Ads [VIDEO] (Mashable) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 12:14 PM PDT
Building on the highly successful campaign from Toy Story 3, the marketers at Disney Pixar have crafted this hilarious and well-produced faux used car advertisement in honor of Cars 2. Cars 2 hits theaters on June 24, 2011, which means this is the perfect time to crank up the marketing buzz. The new faux spot debuted at the WonderCon comic, sci-fi and movie convention this weekend, via the Twitter handle @ChromeLeaks. A car featuring the Twitter name was on display at the convention, too. Users who visit the URL cars-n-deals.com are treated to the faux advertisement above. The spot, which was directed by Chris Cantwell (the same guy who directed those amazing Toy Story 3 ads), is for Cars N' Deals of Emeryville. The spot features subtle hints about the upcoming Cars 2 and even has a working phone number. Hidden within the ad is a URL for an exclusive clip of Cars 2. We won't spoil the surprise by posting the link, but viewers might want to hit the pause button on YouTube at the 57-second mark. As with the Lots-o-Huggin'Bear ads, the Cars N' Deals spot will probably make more sense within the context of the full film itself. We can't wait. |
| 20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 2 (PC World) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT In this two-part retrospective, we didn't try to re-create the history of the Internet. Instead, we focused on online events that were game-changers when they occurred. For our discussion of earlier milestones (1978 through part of 1996), read "20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 1." 1996: Google starts on the path to becoming a verb It began as a college project of Stanford University students Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page after they met in 1995. Called "Backrub," the project was the start of a joint idea in 1996: creating a better "search engine" that would allow people to more accurately find information on the fledgling Internet. But it became so much more. Renamed in 1997 and incorporated as a company on September 7, 1998, the Google brand now encompasses a myriad of products and services, including Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Earth, and Google News. Google continues to be the most-used search engine in the world, with 89.4 percent of the search market, according to March 2011 statistics from StatCounter.com. Google search rankings make or break companies, and determine their business success. Millions of people around the world use Google every day in a wide assortment of languages. Which search engine do you use most often? I'm betting that it's Google. 1996: People post used cars and more on Craigslist When Craigslist began in March 1995, it was just a private online bulletin board with posts from software programmer Craig Newmark to his many friends in San Francisco. But so many people began sharing it and using it in the city and surrounds that its growth forced a move to a Website on the growing Internet in 1996. The site's first official domain registration happened on September 11, 1997, according to a Whois search. What made Craigslist so earth-shattering in the Internet world? It was all about free access, a simple interface, convenience, and good results for users. Craigslist postings instantly started helping people find jobs, sell vehicles, rent apartments, barter goods and services, find a housecleaner, and much more, all at no cost. It grew quickly, adding Boston as a second city in June 2000, and hundreds more in the ensuing years. Today, Craigslist listings are available in more than 695 cities in more than 50 countries around the world. It sees more than 50 million users a month in the United States alone, with more than 20 billion page views each month. Now that's exposure. 1996: Online books pave the way for modern e-books With everything rushing to the Internet by the mid- to late-1990s, it was only a matter of time before the contents of printed books would also go online, giving readers new and easy ways to search, store, and carry reading material. The first book recognized for being published online was a highly technical tome from the former O'Reilly & Associates: MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers . Written by Jerry Peek originally in 1991, the book was posted online in June 1996, under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Sure, it wasn't a book that you'd take with you on a laptop to read at the beach, but it was a groundbreaking start. The book advised IT departments on how to work with MH e-mail commands on Unix systems. The availability of MH & xmh online was a modest beginning that arguably led to what we now can get almost anywhere: e-books on electronic handheld devices. It was possibly the Kindle, Nook, and iPad of yesteryear, which makes its debut relevant and eye-opening. 1997: Blogging transforms the Internet into a place for personal conversations The first time the word Weblog was used online was in December 1997. The term was soon shortened to blog, and by early 1999 officially 23 blogs were in existence online, according to BlogHerald.com. Things have certainly changed. Blogs are everywhere, ranging from the personal rants of movie stars and regular citizens alike to corporate sounding boards for companies from tech vendors to toilet-paper makers. A May 1999 story on Salon.com detailed the new phenomenon of blogs and "Web journalists." A 2004 story in the New York Times identified Justin Hall as perhaps the "founding father of personal bloggers" starting on January 23, 1994, when he began his blog, which morphed into "Links from the Underground." Asked in a recent e-mail why he began the blog, Hall replied: "I thought the Web was amazing, and I wanted to participate in it! I saw how many silly pages there were on the early Web, and I thought Web pages can't be expensive or difficult to make. So I looked up a few basic lessons and tried my hand." From such simple beginnings emerged a movement on the Internet that gains new participants every day. 1999: Online music-distribution software Napster shakes up the music industry When 18-year-old college freshman Shawn Fanning wrote the music-sharing application Napster and began to distribute it in 1999, he probably didn't know what would happen next. He created the program as a way to give computer users the ability to share and exchange music files using servers connected over the Internet. Napster users could take and leave songs for free as desired in small, easy-to-handle files that played on popular music players. It was great fun for students and music lovers, but it posed a threat to the very livelihood of the music industry, which took Fanning and Napster to court. A federal judge ordered Napster to shut down in July 2000, and after appeals were exhausted, an appeals-court judge followed suit, ordering a shutdown in February 2001. Colleges even felt the heat and banned Napster use on their campuses so that the recording industry wouldn't sue them in turn. It wasn't long before Napster as it was envisioned died on July 1, 2001. Its brief life, however, changed the music business almost overnight, and still has repercussions to this day. Next: iTunes, Facebook, the first YouTube video, and more iTunes online music store to the world on April 28, 2003, giving customers a new, catalogued, easy-to-use, searchable, portable, and inexpensive way to buy music from the bands they love. The iTunes software had been around since 2001, allowing users to put the music they already owned into the program so that they could play it on different devices. It was the iTunes store concept, however, that moved the music scene ahead significantly. Though music lovers in the past had bought vinyl albums, cassettes, and 8-track tapes for years, the incredibly popular iTunes store completely redefined how a new generation would buy its music: by the song track instead of by the CD or album. The store even affected things beyond consumer purchasing patterns--it helped redistribute power among musicians, music studios, and their listeners by making music a relatively cheap commodity. One big benefit: The business model has given emerging bands a chance to sell their songs one by one directly to consumers who want to hear them. All of this constitutes a world-changing event for the music industry and for users, who can go online wherever they are to buy and load the tunes they want onto their iPods and other players. Other services have been trying to ape what Apple built with its iTunes store, but so far no one else has attained the cachet, grace, and appeal of Apple's approach. 2003: Skype brings new allure and features to online chat Online chat (also called instant messaging or IM) has roots that go back to the BBS (bulletin board systems) and Internet Relay Chat of the late 1970s. Those early services led eventually to what many experts call the first true online chat: the CompuServe CB Simulator program in 1980. But to millions of users who discovered online chat around 1996, the service that really brought it home was America Online and its varied, expansive, and seemingly unlimited chat rooms for AOL subscribers. (Of course, that was in the days when AOL actually had millions of subscribers.) Those chat rooms brought together people from all over the world to talk about everything, anything, and even nothing. We hadn't seen chat grow in such a huge way before. The tables turned yet again, though, in 2003, when the online service Skype was founded. Bringing together IM, video, and Voice-over-IP service, Skype revolutionized chat just as much as AOL did in the mid-1990s. Skype allowed users to find new ways to communicate globally, in real time, using computers, text, Webcam video, voice, and even landline or cell phones in an intricate web of connections. Skype had "an average of 124 million connected users per month in the second quarter of 2010," according to the company's Website. "Skype users made 95 billion minutes of voice and video calls in the first half of 2010, approximately 40% of which was video," the company says. And that's why Skype continues to be incredibly influential today. 2004: What do you mean by 'Will you friend me on Facebook?' The biggest player in social media began quietly in a Harvard University dorm room in February 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg and cofounders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin launched a little thing they called Facebook. The idea was simple: Create an online place where all the students at Harvard could post "profiles" of themselves so that they could more easily get to know one another and become better friends. The service caught on so quickly that it expanded to three other Ivy League schools the next month. And it didn't stop there. By that December, the site hit 1 million users, and the race was on. It soon expanded beyond college students and became a site where anyone could find and communicate quickly with their friends. In just a short time, it has become a place where many people habitually go multiple times a day to see what's happening. It's like the old neighborhood fence of the past, where anyone can head over to chat, catch up, and share laughs or tears with the people we love. Facebook has had its share of drama, too, as the original foursome who built it ended up in a legal battle over money and status (as portrayed in the 2010 film The Social Network ). More than 500 million active users around the globe participate, with more than half of them logging in daily, for a total of more than 700 billion minutes a month, according to the company. Just how influential and important has Facebook become? Last December, Mark Zuckerberg was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2010. Facebook is everywhere, from online to the movies to the mass media. It's so big that your mom, your dad, and even your grandmother are probably even on it. It's an ongoing happening. 2005: The birth of YouTube ('They have really, really, really long, um, trunks') "All right, so here we are in front of the elephants..." And with that, the YouTube craze began as a Website where users can post and share videos of just about everything they create or watch. Although YouTube premiered on February 14, 2005, it wasn't until 8:27 p.m. on April 23, 2005, that the first video was uploaded for the world to see. Titled "Me at the Zoo," the 19-second clip is simple. It shows one of YouTube's founders at the San Diego Zoo in front of the elephant enclosure, talking about their trunks. Today, YouTube is the place to be for sharing video online, with more than 13 million hours of video uploaded to the site by users last year, according to the company, as well as more than 700 billion playbacks in 2010 alone. The site is localized in 43 languages in 25 nations, and it receives more than 100 million views daily. What makes it so important is that it brings huge numbers of people together very quickly to see what has been happening in the world. When a video clip goes viral on YouTube, everyone hears about it. That's power and influence, and that's what makes YouTube huge. 2006: Twitter arrives, and the Times Square news ticker appears in your hands The first Twitter message ever sent wasn't about what someone had for lunch or about floods, wars, politics, or celebrities. Instead, the first tweet ever sent, issued on March 21, 2006, simply said "just setting up my twttr." That short text message, sent by Jack Dorsey, the creator, cofounder, and chairman of Twitter, triggered an overwhelming cascade of tweets that continues today. Why is this important? People all over the world have adopted Twitter as a way to distribute information, in news-bulletin form, just like the tickers on Times Square buildings. People are using it after disasters such as the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, as well as for telling friends and acquaintances whatever needs to be said. Twitter is an integral part of every happening in the world nowadays because its users are connected with it. Some people still wonder what's with this Twitter thing, but if you are not at least paying attention, you are missing a very important communications tool in the 21st century. Oh, and if you are keeping track, the first tweet by a sitting president came on January 18, 2010, from Barack Obama, while the first ever tweet from space came on January 22, 2010. You may want to know those trivia answers someday. For another perspective on major events that formed the Internet, read "The 16 Greatest Moments in Web History." |
| 20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 1 (PC World) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT But have you ever taken a few moments to realize how far we've come since our first forays online? Were you among those who tried it in 1994 or 1995 when the Internet was in its nascent stages for home users? To honor this vital part of everyone's personal and work lives, we compiled a list of 20 huge Internet advancements and developments. We didn't try to re-create the history of the Internet in this two-part article. Instead, we decided to focus on events that were game-changers when they occurred--and that remain so even today. A lot has happened in a brief timeframe. Let's start back in the 1970s. 1978: MUD, the groundbreaking multiplayer online computer game, arrives original MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) text-adventure computer game was released by student Roy Trubshaw and Professor Richard Bartle at Essex University in England. The most notable aspect of the game was a huge new feature never before seen: the capability for several hundred people to play against one another simultaneously online. "There were multiplayer games before that," but they were for only a handful of players, says Jessica Mulligan, a longtime computer games consultant, historian, author, and expert. "This was the first one where really hundreds of people could get in and play in the same universe, the same world. That was what was so cool about it." MUD was a genuine game-changer, she says, and it has been the model for all multiplayer computer games that have followed. "They hadn't intended to create a game," she says. "Richard, being a Dungeons & Dragons fan, decided to use a game as a model for a development project, and it basically created an industry." You can still play an early version of MUD online if you want to take in a bit of gaming history. 1985: A company registers the first Web domain name It's truly hard to believe that there was a time when companies around the world were not on the Internet with full-featured homepages, graphics, business information, and more. Yet that was the case until the first Web domain name, Symbolics.com, was registered on March 15, 1985, way before the first Web browsers were in broad use. Today the Symbolics.com domain is owned by XF.com Investments, a domain-holding and development company in Missouri, which purchased it in September 2009 from former computer and software vendor Symbolics. And although these days it seems as if every company rushes online to reserve its own little piece of the Internet through domain names, back in the mid-'80s it took 32 months for the first 100 domain names to be registered. What began as a trickle, however, later became a flood as the Internet became the place where business comes to do business. Today the Web has more than 94 million registered .com domain names, and a combined total of 129.7 million domains including .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us addresses. Few companies go into business today without having an online presence and at least one registered domain name. It has become an expected part of being a successful business. 1994: Hate pesky banner ads? Here's where they started The first online banner advertisement--those annoying ads that often flash and hurt your eyeballs with their gaudiness--appeared in October 1994, according to Web historians. An AT&T banner ad, held up as the first such ad, dates back to October 25, 1994, says one online source. Other experts point to banner ads on Hotwired.com that surfaced at about that same time. But even if the identity of the first ad is in dispute, the road these early marketing messages paved was huge in that companies quickly recognized a way to gain revenue from being on the Internet. Once online content could be paid for via ads, the entire marketplace changed overnight. Newspapers, radio and television stations, and other media outlets, which for decades had been cash cows due to healthy advertising revenue, saw their whole economic picture change, forcing them to go online just to try to survive. Those same issues continue today. 1994: Wi-Fi Internet access changes everything We take it for granted today that we can use our computers just about everywhere--in coffee shops, airports, hotels, and all places in between--through the magic of wireless connections. Although Wi-Fi has become increasingly available and popular in the past few years, it had its humble beginnings at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1994, where people claim to have built the first such network before the first Wi-Fi standards were even adopted in 1999. Now Wi-Fi availability is a factor that we consider when choosing where to eat lunch, travel, and even play. Its flexibility and convenience can make working or studying on the go a reality for students, businesspeople, and even vacationers, who can now stay in touch and get tasks done wherever they are, making the Internet portable--a truly significant change. 1994: E-commerce comes to the Web A year before Amazon.com opened for business, a small Nashua, New Hampshire-based company, NetMarket, became the first company to complete a secure, commercial transaction on the Internet. The item sold via e-commerce was a music CD by Sting that sold for $12.48, plus shipping, on August 11, 1994, to a Philadelphia man. Daniel Kohn, the then-CEO of the company, had built the first online music CD store that was connected to a merchandise database. From that small beginning, a global e-commerce industry would follow, as businesses quickly discovered that they could easily buy and sell to one another as well as to consumers from Websites that could serve customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Stores could essentially come to the customers, bringing them items from anywhere on earth. Companies around the world do this every day now, and so do craftspeople, in-home workers, and other people who can create simple Websites and sell their wares globally. The opening of such a direct and wider marketplace may be the biggest change to hit the business world in history. 1995: Welcome to eBay, the global garage sale In the old days before the Internet, if you wanted to sell some no-longer-used toys, car parts, dishes, or books, you put signs up in the neighborhood and held a garage sale. Wow, that is so 1970s! Since September 1995, when the online auction marketplace eBay.com launched, things have changed in a huge way. With its first online auction on Labor Day weekend in 1995, eBay transformed how goods are sold around the world. Now sellers could attract buyers from areas far from their homes, with the potential to get higher prices for their items. eBay even came to the rescue in helping buyers and sellers handle their transactions, by integrating an online payment service, offering purchase-satisfaction guarantees, and more. Today, if you have something to buy or sell and you want a global reach, eBay.com is likely one of your first destinations. For collectors, garage-sale lovers, and everyone in between, if you can't find it here, you just may not be able to find it anywhere. Next: Amazon.com arrives sold its first item online in July 1995. That first sale, a copy of the book Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, was merely the beginning. In January 2011, Amazon announced that its fourth-quarter sales were up 36 percent--reaching $12.95 billion. It continues to sell and ship a growing spectrum of merchandise, from books, DVDs, and CDs to vacuum cleaners and appliances. What made Amazon.com's model earth-shattering was its simple, information-filled Website, excellent customer service, low prices, great sales, vast selection, and fast free shipping with a $25 order. Lots of companies offer similar things, but none has captured the online market as Amazon has. For consumers, the site is often the first and last place to look for anything you might want to buy. And its used merchandise, with great customer support if problems crop up, is a huge bonus. Amazon continues today to show other online sellers how it should be done. 1995: Online streaming video debuts I have shocking news for you: The first streaming video online didn't come from Netflix. Okay, maybe you're not shocked. Actually, the first event ever streamed live online came in 1995 courtesy of Progressive Networks, which later became RealNetworks. The event was a live broadcast of a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees. That first stream launched an industry--now we can get movies and TV shows streamed into our homes over the Internet through a wide range of sources. As for Netflix, it may have started out as a DVD-by-mail online business on April 14, 1998, with 925 titles up for grabs, but by early 2007 the company offered online video streaming, allowing subscribers to watch movies directly on their computers. In January 2008, Netflix began video streaming that users could watch on TVs. RealNetworks' early progress certainly helped pave the way for the incredible entertainment options we all have today. 1996: AOL Internet-access charges go 'all-you-can-eat' It may seem minor today, but the announcement on October 29, 1996, was a landmark event. That was the day when America Online, one of the dominant ISPs in the United States, unveiled its plans to lower its fees and charge users a flat $19.95 a month for all the Internet access they wanted. The old fee structure had included 20 hours of access for $19.95, plus $2.95 for each additional hour. The unlimited pricing plan was a game-changer for users, who could enjoy the Internet far more extensively, and huge for competing ISPs, which would copy the all-you-can-eat model and leave AOL in the dust. Do you even remember when most people paid for their home Internet access by the hour? 1996: Broadband Internet access adds zip to the Web Many of us were just dipping our toes into "that Internet thing" back in 1994. We would sit there, waiting patiently as our high-tech fax modems made funny scratching noises and beeps while connecting us to the Internet. That sure seems like a million years ago, doesn't it? Though the first North American high-speed broadband services surfaced in 1996, they became available in the United States in a big way by 1999. That prompted a huge jump in household broadband use, the figure soaring sevenfold from 9 percent of households in 2001 to 64 percent in 2009, according to a report by the U.S. Commerce Department and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Thanks to fast download and upload speeds, the Internet became a place where people and businesses could truly accomplish great things. For more, see "20 Game-Changing Events That Shaped the Internet, Part 2." And for another perspective, read "The 16 Greatest Moments in Web History." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| iPad 2 sold out in the afterlife as Chinese pray for the dead (Reuters) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:30 PM PDT KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters Life!) – Apple's iPad 2 shortage has spread to the afterlife as Chinese families in Malaysia rush to buy paper replicas of the popular new gadget to burn for their dead as part of a centuries-old rite. During the Qingming festival, also known as the tomb sweeping festival, Chinese communities in Asia honor their ancestors by burning fake money or replicas of luxury items such as flashy cars and designer bags. The festival, which stems from Confucian teachings of loyalty to family and tradition, is also celebrated widely among the Chinese in Malaysia, who make up a quarter of the 28 million people in the mostly Muslim but multicultural country. "Some of my customers have dreams where their departed relatives will ask for luxury items including the iPad 2," said prayer item shopkeeper Jeffrey Te as he filled cardboard chests with fake money at his shop on the outskirts of the capital. "I can only offer them the first iPad model," he added, pointing to shelves stocked with the gadget along with paper iPhones and Samsung Galaxy Tabs. Te shipped in 300 iPad 2 replica sets from China for the Qingming festival, which has just flown off the shelves and left him struggling to meet demand -- a scenario Apple Inc also faces. In Te's shop, the first and second generation paper iPads sell at a dollar for 888 gigabyte capacity, an auspicious number in Chinese culture. A basic 16 gigabyte iPad for the living costs $499. For some Chinese, technological gadgets will not be part of the shopping list for their dead relatives. "They belong to the older generation. If you give all these so-called iPads, they don't know how to use it," said Thomas Soong, 61, as he set fire to a pile of fake money at his grandmother's grave on the fringes of the Malaysian capital. "So traditionally we give them shoes, shirts ... all the necessities," he added. (Reporting by Niluksi Koswanage; Editing by Sugita Katyal) |
| Thinking Space Pro Android app offers note-taking for visual thinkers (Appolicious) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 06:50 PM PDT |
| Social Media: Facebook Cozies Up to Obama and Congress (Time.com) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:05 PM PDT In early March, Barack and Michelle Obama appeared in an exclusive Facebook video from the White House. The topic was bullying prevention, and it was by far the highest profile in the series of online conversations the social-media behemoth has produced with various members of Congress and federal and state officials in recent months. "You can participate in the conversation online," the President said, "right here on Facebook." That endorsement is one of the most provocative examples of how Facebook is changing the way the social-media industry is throwing its weight around in Washington. This week, the company's 10 Washington staffers moved into a gleaming 8,500-sq.-ft. (790 sq m) office near the White House, equipped with a studio for upcoming Facebook Live episodes with lawmakers. In recent months, the company has hired several experienced Washington hands, including Marne Levine, a former aide at President Obama's National Economic Council. Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is a former Clinton Administration official. And the company is reportedly courting Obama's former spokesman, Robert Gibbs. (See TIME's 140 best Twitter feeds.) Barely three years after opening its first Washington outpost, Facebook has assigned a team to offer tutorials to Congressional staffers and state officials. Another new hire works exclusively with prospective Republican presidential candidates. And Washington has responded: as of last year, more than 50 federal government departments had created 1,000-plus Facebook pages. "They're doing things that no one else has done before because the technology is so new," says Chris Calabrese, the American Civil Liberties Union's top privacy lobbyist. Facebook's march into Washington began in late 2007, shortly after its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, unveiled Beacon, a program that allowed users to see granular details of the online behavior of their Facebook "friends." Privacy experts, particularly on Capitol Hill, fumed. That fall, Facebook's chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, approached Adam Conner, then a 23-year-old self-described Washington social-media evangelist, to join the company. Conner opened Facebook's first Washington office from his two-bedroom apartment. Congressional staffers and business consultants eager to learn about the company's privacy policies and discuss a range of issues - for example, how long tech companies should keep data like photos - tried to schedule meetings at Conner's "office." But he'd quickly suggest a nearby Starbucks. His business cards simply said, "Facebook - Washington," with no address. "There was no blueprint," he says. As the issues became more complex, it was clear Conner needed help. Facebook began adding to its Washington team. (See TIME's Person of the Year 2010: Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.) The company's growth in Washington came as the White House, Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and several states separately moved to toughen Internet privacy laws. Just two weeks ago, the Obama Administration for the first time expressed support for an online-consumer-privacy bill of rights. Sources who have seen a draft version of a bill authored by Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts say it would empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce laws on how companies collect privacy data from consumers. All of this has put Facebook and other social-media outfits on notice. Meanwhile, Facebook has been busy befriending everyone it can on Capitol Hill. One of the most intriguing outreach efforts has been a new online program, Facebook Live, a breezy, talk show–like series of interviews - think C-SPAN meets YouTube - frequently hosted by Randi Zuckerberg, the CEO's sister and Facebook's head of consumer marketing. Recent guests have included Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent; and Senator Kerry. Bono and Mike Tyson have participated, and nearly 317,270 people "like" what Facebook executives call "the show." (See TIME's 50 best websites of 2010.) Even the elusive, hoodie-wearing Mark Zuckerberg has joined the effort. Last summer, he made his first lobbying trip to Washington - wearing a dark gray suit and striped red tie - to meet and talk with various Congressmen about civil liberties and privacy protections for children. (The visit was prompted in part by letters from Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat, criticizing Facebook's collection of nearly 600 million users' data.) In February, Zuckerberg was among a small, elite group of tech-industry CEOs at a private dinner with President Obama in northern California. The event's host was venture capitalist John Doerr, a major donor to the Democratic Party. On March 25, Zuckerberg participated in a discussion at Brigham Young University, in Salt Lake City, about how he built Facebook. Leading the question-and-answer session - aired, naturally, on the university's Facebook page - was Orrin Hatch, the embattled Utah Senator, who is chair of the Republican High-Tech Task Force. Hatch mainly invited Zuckerberg, he said, "to finally get you to accept me as a friend." Facebook's live webcast of the White House conference on bullying briefly featured the President and First Lady, as well as Melody Barnes, an Obama adviser, and Facebook's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan. Levine, Facebook's vice president of global policy, says the company had "no editorial control" over the White House event. "We were helpful in terms of what they were trying to promote around bullying." Broadcasting the event hardly hurts Facebook's relationship with the Administration. (Comment on this story.) The company says its various efforts aren't a subtle form of lobbying. Not so, say government watchdogs. "It's clear these guys are working broadly in the arena of political influence," says Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group tracking lobbying. "And under the law, they don't have to leave a dollars-and-cents paper trail that reflects the efforts they're making," he says. Last year, Facebook spent $351,390 on federal lobbying, up from $207,878 in 2009, the first year it did so, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In comparison, in 2004, Google's second year of lobbying in Washington, it spent some $180,000, while last year, the company spent $5.1 million. In nearly every way, Facebook's Washington buildup follows a pattern. During the late-1990s tech boom, software companies like IBM, Microsoft and Texas Instruments led the industry's charge into Washington, mainly to fight challenges from the U.S. Justice Department and several states to the industry's expansion efforts. Now, Washington's tech lobby is a billion-dollar industry, and those pioneers are being joined by the likes of Google, Facebook and, soon, Twitter. See "Working at Facebook: A Day with the Profile Team." See TIME's Pictures of the Week. View this article on Time.com Most Popular on Time.com: |
| Security breach widens at retailers, others (AP) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 07:31 PM PDT NEW YORK – Best Buy Co., TiVo Inc., and Walgreen Co. are the latest in a seemingly endless string of companies to warn over the weekend that hackers gained access to customers' files, including email addresses. The companies all use the same marketing and communications vendor, Epsilon. It's a leading marketing services firm that sends more than 40 billion emails annually and has more than 2,500 clients including seven of the Fortune 10. Epsilon, based in Dallas, issued a brief statement on Friday saying "a full investigation was under way" following the discovery of the breach of some customer client data. The company said that information obtained was limited to names and email addresses and that "no other personal identifiable information associated with the names was at risk." Epsilon spokeswoman Jessica Simon declined to comment further late Sunday. The companies affected said Epsilon informed them of the breach and told them the compromised files do not include any personally identifiable information stored with the marketer. However, hackers could use these email addresses to trick customers into providing more personal information such as Social Security numbers. Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics chain, tweeted a link to a statement Sunday, saying it was doing its own investigation of the breach. It also reminded customers to ignore emails asking for confidential information. And Delaware-based Barclays Bank, which issues Visa credit cards on behalf of L.L. Bean, sent emails to its customers warning of the breach but assured them that their credit card numbers are safe. However, it cautioned they could be subject to spam seeking personal information. TiVo and Walgreens issued similar warnings Saturday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and grocery operator Kroger Co, which also use Epsilon to send emails, said Friday they had been affected by the breach. JPMorgan said the files concerned did not include customers' financial details. Kroger said that while a database with customer names and email addresses had been breached, no information connected with consumers' 1-2-3 Rewards MasterCard account had been involved. |
| HOW TO: Land a Job at Facebook (Mashable) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:56 AM PDT So you want to work at Facebook, one of the world's hottest companies -- what do you have to get your foot in the door and get noticed? It's not going to be easy -- you have competition. Facebook received 250,000 job applications last year and is consistently rated as one of the best places to work. And with Facebook's IPO around the corner, the competition for jobs is only going to heat up. There are plenty of ways to get noticed and stand above the crowd, though. I chatted with Thomas Arnold, head of recruiting for the social network, on what the company looks for and what it takes to get a job at Facebook.
What Jobs Are Available at Facebook?
Ever since Facebook announced it was moving to a bigger office and raised $2 billion in funding, it has been ramping up its hiring. While there are many openings in legal, communications, HR, marketing, online operations, business development, IT, design, user experience and internationalization, the company is especially looking for technical talent, especially software engineers and product managers.
The Facebook Interview ProcessI actually went through the entire Facebook interview process in 2008, before I joined Mashable as an associate editor. And while it's definitely changed since I applied for a job on the company's User Operations team, the basic format has remained the same. The first step is almost always a recruiter phone-screening -- Facebook will begin exploring your resume, asking you about your previous work, especially about what you've built and what leadership roles you've had in the past. Sometimes there's a second screening, depending on the role. If you pass the screening, the company will fly you out to its Silicon Valley headquarters for a series of on-site interviews with the hiring manager (your potential future boss) and a group of your peers -- in other words, you will be interviewed by the members of the team you're hoping to join. As Arnold explained to me, these interviews are designed to determine whether you have the skills for the job and whether you're a cultural fit. The group then makes "a collective decision on whether you're a great fit" for the position. The process itself greatly varies from group to group -- expect more technical skill challenges if you're applying for an engineering job. Oh, and one extra piece of advice from me: Always put the user first in any scenario or interview question.
Standing Apart From the CrowdWith more than a quarter of a million applicants, how does Facebook whittle down the applicant pool? "We're primarily looking for builders," Arnold says. He explains that Facebook has an entrepreneurial spirit and is a flat organization, and thus it's looking for people who can thrive in that environment. Employees need to be self-starters who don't need a lot of direction, so autonomy and self-motivation are highly valued. Builders -- especially engineers who like to build projects on their own and have cool, working products or apps they can show off -- are sought after by the Facebook team. If someone builds a unique application and/or solves a problem in a way that hasn't been done before, he's going to get Facebook's attention. Strong applicants to Facebook also "just get the social space," Arnold says. They not only understand the product, but can see the company's vision. Even more important is that they're active users of the product. This may seem like a no-brainer, but Arnold says his team finds a lot of applicants who haven't used their Facebook accounts in weeks or even months. And that is a very clear sign to Facebook that the person won't be a good fit. Finally, it's very helpful to know someone at Facebook who can vouch for you -- this was true even when I interviewed with the social network three years ago. While I got special consideration due to my unique history with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, I still had a Facebook reference.
Final Thoughts
While I ultimately failed to secure a job at Facebook, you don't have to let that be the case for you. For those of you applying to non-technical roles, be sure you're active users, understand the company culture and have a resume filled with leadership and "builder" activities. It's more impressive if you launched an organization or product than if you simply took it over. For technical talent, the best thing you can do is build something. If you build a really impressive iPhone application that gains some traction, you're going to get noticed. If you are a major contributor of open source code to various projects, you're going to get noticed. In the end though, the big filter is cultural fit. There isn't really much you can do to prepare for that -- the Facebook team simply knows if you're going to mesh well with them or if you're not going to be able to keep up. And as I said before, be sure to have an employee refer you. Otherwise, you're going to have a really difficult time just getting the phone screening. Have you gone through the interview process and landed a job at Facebook? Tell us in the comments below.
Social Media Job ListingsEvery week we put out a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we post a huge range of job listings, we've selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!
More Job Search Resources from Mashable:- Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes - Are Cover Letters Still Relevant For Social Media and Tech Jobs? - HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile's New Skills Section - Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career - HOW TO: Land a Business Development Job |
| Facebook goes audible with Friends Aloud Lite app (Appolicious) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT |
| Vivendi to take full control of SFR (AP) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 04:19 PM PDT NEW YORK – Vivendi SA said Sunday it agreed to acquire Vodafone Group PLC's 44 percent stake in French mobile operator SFR for 7.95 billion euros ($11.3 billion). The long-anticipated deal will give Vivendi full control of the company, which generates more revenue for the conglomerate than any other division. Vivendi already owns a 56 percent stake in SFR. Jean-Bernard Levy, chairman of Vivendi, said in a statement late Sunday that the purchase will help the telecommunications and entertainment giant focus on profitable growth and innovation. "The transaction will create a significant increase in Vivendi's adjusted net income, enabling us to raise the dividend to our shareholders," he said. Vivendi said the price represents 6.2 times SFR's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The deal is expected to be completed by June. As part of the transaction, SFR and Vodafone will extend their joint commercial co-operation for another three years. Vodafone, one of the world's largest wireless providers, has been under pressure from shareholders to unload some of its minority-owned assets. Late last year, the company said it has been cutting its operating sectors from three to two, and moving minority stakes outside those new divisions. Vivendi's Levy said last month it had the financial means to take full control of SFR after selling its remaining stake in NBC Universal to General Electric Co. earlier this year. It received a total of $5.8 billion for its 20 percent interest in the U.S. company, which owns U.S. broadcast network NBC, the Universal Pictures movie studio and related theme parks and a number of cable channels. The deal laid the groundwork for cable giant Comcast Corp.'s takeover of NBC Universal. Vivendi operates a range of businesses, including Universal Music, the record label behind Eminem, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber and Rihanna. It also controls video game maker Activision Blizzard, Brazilian telecom company GVT and Canal Plus television. |
| Email Provider Epsilon Responsible For Gigantic Security Breach (Mashable) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 06:48 AM PDT Epsilon, the world's largest permission-based email marketing services company that serves TiVo users and many more, reported a breach in its security Friday, and the list of companies affected keeps on growing. TiVo users had a rude awakening this morning, finding out the email address they'd given to TiVo as part of their account registration had been compromised. According to SecurityWeek, Epsilon is currently disclosing even more companies whose email marketing lists had been compromised. Noticing the problem first with grocery retailer Kroger, Epsilon continues releasing company names that were affected by the breach. Here's the list gathered so far:
TiVo tried to sooth victims, saying the release of personal data "was limited to first name and/or email addresses only." Here's the email we received from TiVo this morning:
While TiVo attempts to minimize the implications of this security breach, email addresses are now in the hands of those who would break into the database of a huge email conglomerate. This means those addresses might be targeted with phishing schemes, spam, and other annoyances. Now that they have a list of confirmed email addresses, those spammers and other miscreants will have much better success at targeting their victims. Other organizations such as Citi, Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards also warned their users, with lots more warnings probably on the way. |
| Apple debuts first iPad 2 ad: 'We Believe' (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 10:38 AM PDT
Like everything else Apple, the company's newest ad, dubbed "We Believe," continues Apple's marketing message that the technology we use is less about the device itself than how it fits into our lives. This time, however, they just come right out and say it. "This is what we believe: Technology alone is not enough," says the slow, soothing voice-over at the opening of the ad. "Faster, thinner, lighter — those are all good things. But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful, even magical." Apple's governing philosophy is, of course, accompanied by bodiless hands pinching, swiping and zooming a wide variety of apps that are accessible on the iPad 2. All of this carefully crafted marketing theater has a single purpose: To convince consumers that Apple's iPad 2 is the best tablet on the market. That it's easier to use, and more useful in general, than anything thing else out there, like the Motorola Xoom. It's not as though people need much convincing, however. The device has become so hard to come by that resellers have made a killing hocking the devices on eBay for between $200 and $400 above the retail price of the device, depending on the model. Of course, a little more than a third of iPad 2 buyers on eBay came from countries where Apple's newest tablet hadn't yet been release. But that still leaves 65 percent of US customers who were so anxious to get their hands on the device that they paid a greatly inflated price. With the tablet war getting more intense as the weeks go on, however, it never hurts to reinforce your message, and get your product in front of as many eyes as possible. Which is precisely what Apple is doing here. Watch the ad:
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| Windows 8 to Replace Your Toolbar with a Ribbon (PC World) Posted: 03 Apr 2011 03:31 PM PDT Just hours after an early build of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system leaked we're starting to get a good idea of how the latest version of Windows is shaping up. Intrepid users have already begun mining the build and a major departure besides the OS's new welcome screen is already evident. Microsoft seems to have replaced the toolbar in the explorer window with the Ribbon user interface currently used Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Once you've logged in, the most noticeable change to Windows is the new Ribbon interface on every Explorer window. At this stage, the Ribbon UI is in a pretty confused state and doesn't seem to have some of its functionality, so it's hard to tell exactly how successful this switch will be. Within Windows even suggests some disagreement may exist within Microsoft about using the new interface at all. Also unclear is whether this change is permanent for all devices. The current build of Windows 8 has a toggle to return the toolbar and menus we've all grown accustomed to, but it's not clear whether this will make it to the final version of Windows 8 or if it's just a temporary measure while the design of the Ribbon gets ironed out. This is a very early build, so many features, such as specialized tablet support, haven't yet made their way in. Still, even this early on, we can say with some certainty that Windows 8 will bring some dramatic changes to the OS. Via wwwery. |
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