Apple no longer censoring the word ‘jailbreak’ in U.S. iTunes Store
Yesterday a bit of a hullabaloo was started when it was discovered that Apple was censoring the word ‘jailbreak’ in the U.S. App Store. Now, that censoring has been corrected, and the word is visible across all categories, including podcasts, songs, iTunes U, iBooks and more.
This censoring was likely the result of an error in the ratings for the U.S. App Store, as the word appeared just fine worldwide. As I conjectured yesterday, we have seen Apple fix the problem quietly, and the error has been rectified. Read more...
Enterprise BI models undergo radical transformation
About two years ago, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield implemented a self-service business intelligence platform to aggregate and analyze vast amounts of data from multiple repositories scattered throughout the company.
The technology, from Palo Alto, Calif.-based QlikTech, was brought in as a supplement to a project management product from CA Technologies. So far, it has saved CareFirst $10 million in project costs and helped the health insurer reduce the number of outside contractors it uses by 25%.
Activities that used to take up to 18 months are now accomplished in less than two days. Moreover, the project management office no longer has to depend on its centralized analytics team to run BI reports. Read more...
Etiquette expert: No phone calls in bathroom — and stop shouting!
Like her great-great-grandmother and etiquette expert Emily Post, Anna Post strives to make the world politer. She speaks with msnbc.com's Rosa Golijan about smartphone etiquette — and rude phone users.
Post explains that attempting to be a bit more courteous while using our smartphones (and other mobile devices) is quite important as many people list misuse of mobile technology among their top pet peeves. According to a survey sponsored by Intel, 73 percent of people complained about seeing someone use a cellphone while driving, 65 percent were annoyed by people shouting into phones, and 28 percent were irritated by those who use mobile devices while walking down streets. Read more...
Facebook raises IPO price as offering nears
Already expected to be the largest-ever initial public offering for an Internet company, Facebook is making its IPO even bigger.
The world's largest online social network on Tuesday increased the planned price range for its stock to $34 to $38 per share in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's up from its previous range of $28 to $35. At the upper limit of $38, the sale would raise about $12.8 billion. Read more...
Why Are People Resigning Before The Copyright Industries’ Will?
Defeat in a single battle in the war over net liberty doesn’t concern me too much. I know that the net freedom forces have the strategic and intellectual upper hand in this war over our freedom, but there is something else that concerns me gravely. Why are people seriously thinking that the copyright industries have the final say in shaping society?
In a discussion thread concerning a recent book from myself and Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament, people were concerned. The book is titled “The Case For Copyright Reform”, and is a collection of the most relevant essays over the past year, as well as reproducing contributions from Mike Masnick, Ernesto and Michael Geist. (Did I mention it’s available for free download? Copy and seed.) Read more...
Minecraft Hunger Games exists, and it’s just as amazing as you’re imagining
What happens when you combine one of the hottest movies of the year with a giant virtual sandbox? You get perhaps the coolest custom Minecraft experience ever — not to mention plenty of chaos. Hunger Games-style Minecraft servers are popping up all over, and — short of an officially-licensed Hunger Games title — they are one of the best ways to live out your Mockingjay-fueled fantasies.
Most of the serious Hunger Games servers are called "Survival Games," but don't let that fool you: The experience will definitely feel like you're living in the fictional nation of Panem. Players — called "tributes" to add to the authenticity — start off each session by mimicking the opening action scene, with tributes standing a large circle around a cache of supplies. When the timer hits zero, all bets are off. Read more...
Revolving door: Yahoo ushers out another CEO
Yahoo still has credibility issues, even after casting aside CEO Scott Thompson because his official biography included a college degree that he never received.
The troubled Internet company's next challenge will be convincing its restless shareholders and demoralized employees that the turnaround work started during Thompson's tumultuous four-month stint as CEO won't be wasted.
It won't be an easy task, given that Yahoo Inc. has now gone through four full-time CEOs in a five-year stretch marked by broken promises of better times ahead. Instead, Yahoo's revenue and stock price have sagged during a time when rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. as advertisers spend more money online. Read more...
Facebook Takes A Cue From Instagram, Redesigns Mobile To Make News Feed Photos 3X Larger
If you’re sick of interrupting your news feed reading to open and load photos, you’ll like a new Facebook mobile site, iOS, and Android app redesign rolling out today that makes photos three times larger. Shares of single photos now look a lot like Instagrams, as they appear full width so there’s less need to stop and open them. Meanwhile the bigger previews of photo albums will help you instantly assess whether to dive in or breeze past.
As Facebook’s user base shifts to mobile where it can’t show as many ads as easily, it will need to keep mobile session length and return visit frequency high. Making the news feed less tiring to browse should keep us scrolling for longer as we ravenously peer into the lives of our friends our friends. Here’s the before and after photos…of photos. Read more...
Louis C.K. says that sites like Facebook and Reddit are “hurting folks”
Comedian Louis C.K. has been a bit of an Internet darling, of late. His irreverent style is a hand-carved fit for Internet culture, and his in-your-face attitude has carried over to how he markets his work as well. Today the comedian is back on Reddit, doing an “Ask Me Anything” thread, and he has some interesting points to make.
It’s first worth noting that the comedian did a unique thing at the end of last year, putting up one of his specials online for a $5 price tag. The result? Over $1 million earned, and 1/4th of the proceeds donated to charity. It spawned TNW’s Alex Wilhelm to say that, perhaps, the new pricing model for the Internet was a simple “$5 and a PayPal account“. Read more...
Total Film rolls out new ‘fully interactive’ iPad magazine app
Movie magazine Total Film has rolled out an all-new version of its iPad app, featuring interactive pages, full-screen trailers and galleries.
The UK-based magazine is a property of Future Publishing, which owns a slew of other music, gaming and tech titles. The latest incarnation of its movie iOS app was created using its own proprietary FutureFolio software, which is an Apple-approved wrapper for digital products on the Newsstand. Read more...
IllumiShare project connects physical desktops
Attendees at the Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI) this week saw a device that looks something like a lamp shade and houses a projector and camera, designed to let a worker share a physical desktop with another, allowing the two to collaborate on a project in ways not otherwise possible.
In one example at the show, two attendees were able to draw a picture of a house, with a pen and paper, simultaneously with each person adding different components. On one side, IllumiShare, a project from Microsoft Research, used a camera to capture the desktop and a projector to display the other side's. That means that each person received real time video of what the other side was doing. Read more...
Adobe: Photoshop is not a target for attackers
Adobe have responded to the suggestion that they are effectively charging for security updates, saying that they do not believe that "the real-world risk to customers warranted an out-of band release to resolve these issues". On Wednesday, a security bulletin issued by Adobe pointed out security flaws in Photoshop CS5/CS5.5 and Illustrator CS5/CS5.5, but offered only a paid-for upgrade to the very recently released CS6 versions of the applications as a fix for the flaws. Read more...
Plaxo online address book service warns of security breach
Online address book service Plaxo has confirmed that an unknown malicious third-party gained access to the company's API connection to Google's address book and calendar. As a result of the security breach, Google took precautionary measures and temporarily disabled the connection, and sent Google account holders a "Suspicious sign in prevented" email advising them that a hijacker was trying to access their account. Read more...
Court Forbids Linking to Pirate Bay Proxies
The Court of The Hague has handed down another ruling that restricts access to The Pirate Bay website. The Court has forbidden the Dutch Pirate Party from linking to, operating or listing websites that allow the public to circumvent a local Pirate Bay blockade. The political party is further ordered to shutdown its reverse proxy indefinitely and block Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses from its generic proxy.
After two Dutch ISPs were ordered to censor The Pirate Bay earlier this year there was an influx of visitors to Pirate Bay proxy sites.
In an attempt to take these proxies offline the Hollywood funded anti-piracy group BREIN obtained an injunction against one of the sites and used this to convince others to shut down as well. Read more...
Facebook launches self-harm prevention program for veterans, military families
A bit over a year ago, Facebook launched a program which aimed to prevent suicide by enabling users to instantly connect with crisis counselors through the social network's messaging system. On Wednesday, the company announced that it will augment those (and other) suicide prevention tools by adding customized services for veterans, active duty military service members, and their families. Read more...