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SAN FRANCISCO — Craigslist, by shutting off its “adult services” section and slapping a “censored” label in its place, is engaging in what some analysts describe as a high-stakes stunt to influence public opinion.

The Android mobile operating system—specifically, smartphones running it—is continuing a steady climb in mobile web market share versus Apple's iOS-based devices.

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crimeandpunishment writes "Does the battle over the Blackberry ban in the United Arab Emirates have its roots in a spy story? Dubai's police chief says concern over espionage (specifically, by the US and Israel) led to the decision to limit BlackBerry services. The UAE says it will block BlackBerry email, messaging, and web services on October 11th unless it gets access to encrypted data. Comments by Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim are often seen as reflecting the views of Dubai's leadership, and would appear to indicate a very hard line in talks with Research in Motion."

SPACE.com - As the summer night sky draws near its close, there are still some cosmic objects that may beckon skywatchers equipped with a small telescope, binoculars or their own two eyes.

On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup. After an investigation we determined that the allegation was true. In fact, on at least one other occasion this intern was almost certainly given a computer in ...

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As you've probably heard, Craigslist shut down its ‘Adult Services’ section this weekend, caving to pressure from Attorneys General and anti-trafficking groups.  But Craigslist is far from the only place to score sex on the Internet.

From BP's Boost in June to AT&T's Massive IPhone Outlay, Internal Doc Reveals What Marketers Drop on Search  —  NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Before BP could stem the oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, it unleashed $100 million in ad spending …

MAKE your password strong, with a unique jumble of letters, numbers and punctuation marks.  But memorize it — never write it down.  And, oh yes, change it every few months.  —  These instructions are supposed to protect us.  But they don't.

Mark Hurd, who resigned as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. last month, is in talks to join Oracle Corp. as a top executive, people familiar with the matter said.  —  The exact nature of Mr. Hurd's new job couldn't be learned.

A few days ago Apple released a social network.  Gee, how bloody creative of them and they used to be so cool.  There are enough social networks, too many actually.  But I digress.  —  Yesterday when I updated iTunes and got the slightly odd new version …

Apple announced just a few hours ago that it's new music-centered social network Ping has surpassed 1 million users in a mere two days.  —  While the announcement may seem impressive, if you consider that iTunes …

Bad news for Craigslist users who like to peruse the [Erotic Services] Adult Services section of their site.  It's gone, replaced by a large black and white “censored” logo.  —  I've reached out to Craigslist for comment and await their reply.

Apple® today announced that in less than 48 hours since its launch on Wednesday, more than one million users have joined Ping, its new social network for music which lets users follow their favorite artists and friends to discover …

Most of the security industry has been pointing out the migration of spam from an email-only venture to blog/forum comments, Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 platforms.  But apparently Apple didn't consider this when designing Ping …

Most new smartphones seem to get rooted within a week or two of their release, but four weeks before they go on sale? Hackers have cracked a prototype tablet from Samsung, the Galaxy Tab, a month before it hits shelves.

Apple makes computers, tablets, phones, TV set-top-boxes and a dozen other things, but to date it hasn’t made a wristwatch. Oh, wait, it has! It’s called “the new iPod nano.”

Purported picture of a future iPad in testing with a front camera capable of FaceTime video calls.

While Apple CEO Steve Jobs said on Wednesday that iOS 4.1 would be coming to iPhones and iPod touches this coming week, he didn't give a date. It seems the Apple U.K. site's webmaster has put up some different info that in the U.S., with their site giving an exact date: Sept. 8. The U.S. site continues to say "Coming Soon," but we'll assume that rather than making two mistakes (posting a date, and posting a wrong date) that the Sept. 8 is correct. It also makes sense since the new iPod touches will ship on Sept.

submitted by leap2 to gaming [link] [56 comments]

Google has settled a class-action lawsuit over Buzz, and has agreed to a $8.5 million payout which will help fund groups that focus on privacy issues.

It's terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you're inclined to believe that Android is mopping up Apple and RIM's declining mobile mindshare in the US, you'll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast. The analytics firm reckons a full one-quarter of mobile web traffic stateside comes from devices running Google's OS, though it's important to know that the iOS tallies apparently don't include the web-friendly iPad. You also might want to note that this is mobile web traffic here -- these days, we spend an increasing amount of our internet time in apps -- and since we're on a roll with the disclaimers, let's just add that these numbers have nothing to do with a company's financial success. Nokia can attest to that.Android accounts for one-quarter of mobile web traffic, says Quantcast originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Apple Insider  |  Quantcast Blog  | Email this | Comments

In order to celebrate 2 years, Google is releasing a new stable version (Chrome 6) that's even faster and more streamlined than prior versions. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance.

Ars goes hands-on with iTunes 10 and finds some performance improvements. Unfortunately, it takes a step back in the UI department. At least you can get rid of the annoying, vertically aligned window controls.

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lewko writes "Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility and I'm looking for ideas/suggestions about the best hardware and the best way to make it comfortable for those manning a screen. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'CTU' from 24."

An anonymous reader writes "I have an 18-month-old who loves bright screens (TV and computer), loves loud noises, and loves to mash buttons. He targets my laptop with the button-mashing, and I sort of hate having to tell him 'no' when he wants to explore a computer. I was wondering if anyone knows of some fun (and maybe educational) age-specific PC software that also comes with an age-appropriate input device. I've seen those big-button devices in retail stores that seem to just hook up to the TV, and I've also seen some PC software that requires keyboard/mouse input, which does not seem like the right input device for a toddler."

Lucas123 writes "After a storage area network in a data center run by Northrop Grumman went down last week, crippling 26 state agencies' websites — some for more than a week — Northrop Grumman has now apologized to Virginia, saying it will learn from its mistakes in order to recover systems faster in the future. Northrop's $2.6 billion service contract with Virginia's government has come under harsh criticism in the past for service outages, along with project delays and cost overruns."

angry tapir writes "Facebook users will soon have a new way of knocking spammers out of legitimate accounts. The social-networking company is rolling out a new security feature that lets users see which computers and devices are logged into their Facebook accounts, and then removing the ones that they don't want to have access."

devjj writes "For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It's been very reliable and it's fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It's the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don't particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that's probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I'm looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?"

RichardSanders writes "This recent publication provides an accessible introduction to using Mahara within business and academic settings. It is great to see that the authors' work for TDM, who provide Mahara & Moodle based solutions for a broad range of clients. This professional experience has contributed to a coherent and easy to follow text that provides essential information for new users. This comes as no surprise, as many individuals within the academic sector regularly benefit from Derrin's advice within mailing lists concerned with educational technologies." Keep reading for the rest of Richard's review

An anonymous reader writes "The has been a lot of buzz in the industry lately about NoSQL databases helping Twitter, Amazon, and Digg scale their transactional workloads. But there has been some recent pushback from database luminaries such as Michael Stonebraker. Now, a couple of researchers at Yale University claim that NoSQL is no longer necessary now that they have scaled traditional ACID compliant database systems."

An anonymous reader writes "Responses to a survey from attendees of the DEFCON 18 conference revealed that 73% came across a misconfigured network more than three quarters of the time – which, according to 76% of the sample, was the easiest IT resource to exploit. Results revealed that 18% of professionals believe misconfigured networks are the result of insufficient time or money for audits. 14% felt that compliance audits that don't always capture security best practices are a factor and 11% felt that threat vectors that change faster than they can be addressed play a key role."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Galen Gruman reports on the future of mobile security — one that will see a significant rise in exploits as valuable information increasingly migrates to mobile devices. To date, sandboxing and code-signing have helped make mobile OSes relatively secure, when compared with their desktop brethren. But as devices store more valuable information than email, they will become more enticing to hackers currently breaking into Windows PCs. And the biggest bulls-eye appears to be on Android, in large part because its architecture is most like that of the desktop PC but also because there are so many variants in use — too many for Google or the carriers to patch securely. And as the PDF-jailbreak vulnerability showed, sandboxing has its limits when it comes to securing the browser — the most likely point of entry for exploits not due to the rise of extensions, helper objects, and plug-ins on the mobile Web."

LiveScience.com - Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems.

中国互联网是开放自由的，但Youtube上有太多伤害未成年人的视频了，于是我国依法将其屏蔽。 在写这篇文章时我很矛盾，到底要不要将方法从小圈子里公开到较大的圈子里，因为这样做可能会加速解决方案被相关部门取缔。但后来我想，即使只是在小圈子传播，相关部门也必须为了年终奖金做点什么，不然真的对不起5毛钱的工资。 所以，与其在小圈子里传播，倒不如让所有人都用上，起码能用上好一段时间。这篇文章分别介绍3个不翻墙上Youtube的方法，从简单到复杂。 一、山寨Youtube 山寨Youtube的网址是 www.youtubecn.com ，它利用Youtube的API，获取视频的地址后将其替换成一个还未被墙的地址，并使用第三方播放器播放。 事实上原理我们不需要知道，仅仅知道在这里能观看Youtube视频即可。 二、TubeWall脚本 TubeWall脚本是本文的重点推荐。 仅仅解决了主动观看Youtube视频是不足够的，很多网站、博客都嵌入了Youtube的视频，在不用代理的情况下，网页上就出现了一个又一个的“洞”。 于是很容易想到，能否用和山寨Youtube同样的原理，将网页上嵌入式Youtube视频的地址替换成还没被依法取缔的呢？ 答案是可以的。推友 @darasion 编写了TubeWall脚本，安装这个脚本后，网页上嵌入式Youtube播放器会被替换成第三方播放器，无需翻墙即可播放。同时，你还可以直接下载视频。 TubeWall脚本可以安装在Firefox（需要先安装Greasemonkey）、Chrome、Opera。点击这里直接安装。 安装TubeWall脚本后，如果网页上出现了Youtube的视频地址，点击后会弹出一个视频播放器直接播放。你可以在安装脚本后点击下面链接： http://www.youtub... 三、搭建一个TubeWall客户端 如果山寨Youtube也被依法取缔了，在不使用代理的情况下，我们如何主动观看Youtube的视频呢？ 这时我们或许会想，要是山寨Youtube开放源代码多好啊，我们自己就可以搭建一个。 实际上它没有开放源代码。但TubeWall的作者 @darasion 除了写了脚本外，还做了一个TubeWall网页版，并且将其开源。 只要你有一个PHP空间，就能在这里下载TubeWall网页版的源代码，上传到空间里你就能拥有另一个山寨版Youtube了。 相关文章： 【视频】胡紫薇大闹CCTV5改名发布会-家丑怎能如此外扬？ 小学生的成人行为 中文Twitter用户群抽样调查 因为在中国，所以有话题 一位Google员工及韩寒对Google退出中国的看法 宁为玉碎，不为瓦全-为Google喝彩 © 可能吧 | 查看原文 | 进行评论

Gmail is easily the most popular email application among power users, and with good reason: It's an excellent app. But if you haven't gotten to know its best shortcuts, tricks, Labs features, and add-ons, it's time you made Gmail sing.Photo remixed from Google's own Become a Gmail ninja page. Way back in 2006, I showed you my favorite tips, tricks, and tools for making the most of Gmail. A lot has changed in the Gmail ...

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When you’re on your way out of a job, there’s a lot of fun ways to exit. Some choose to take all the staplers in the office, some show up to the last day in shorts, some pull a Jerry Maguire. And some tweet out a haiku. That’s exactly what Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz did tonight. Here’s his tweet: Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on ...

Because many of you use twitter.com to read and write tweets, we've been spending some time focusing on ways to improve your experience on the site. Today, we're introducing a feature called Hovercards that will be a handy way to interact with the folks behind each tweet.On any timeline, as its namesake suggests, Hovercards are cards which appear when you hover over a username or avatar. The cards display additional information about the person and ...

Something tells me Kwedit, which launches today, is going to be a hit. It’s a new payment service that absolutely doesn’t guarantee payments. In fact, its unreliability is what makes it so attractive to social game publishers and other people selling virtual goods. It’s also a great way to let the unbanked masses out there pay for stuff without getting sucked in to scamville-type scams. The product is called Kwedit Promise. Here’s how Kwedit works: ...

Steven Frank: shutup.css is a custom user stylesheet that can be applied to your browser to hide comments on many popular web sites without user intervention. ★

Further Reading Amazon.com Widgets

Lorem ipsum is a block of dummy text in Latin often used in design and publishing to fill space in a mockup. The brilliant Dummy Image Generator is like "lorem ipsum" for images.Like "lorem ipsum", the Dynamic Dummy Image Generator offers a glimpse at what content might look like in a layout, but instead of placeholder text, it creates a placeholder image. Using the service is dead simple: Sometimes you just need a placeholder image ...