Top Tech Story of the Day
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Twitter's Censors Provoke Backlash |
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After years of touting itself as a champion of free
expression on the Internet, Twitter Inc. on Friday touched off a torrent of
criticism after it announced it can now remove messages from the online service
within specific countries if asked to do so.
A backlash from Twitter users and free-speech advocates
came one day after the micro-blogging service announced the change, noting that
it is bound to enter "countries that have different ideas about the contours of
freedom of expression."
The San Francisco-based company, whose website allows
people to broadcast short messages called "tweets," didn't specify particular
countries it planned to enter, but noted that countries such as France and
Germany restrict pro-Nazi content.
After Twitter's policy announcement, thousands of people
who use the service in English, German, Arabic and other languages called for a
one-day boycott, starting on Saturday.
"Twitter starts deleting tweets, I stop posting tweets,"
said Matthew Wallace of Wake Forest, N.C., in a tweet on Friday. "Join the #twitterblackout
tomorrow!" he wrote.
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Latest Tech News Headlines
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 Twitter Begins
Censoring Tweets By Country |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Twitter has confirmed that it will begin to censor
tweets, if required by law, on a country by country basis. Until now the micro-blogging
service has remained a free and open platform for millions of people worldwide,
empowering its users to say and share whatever they like.
"The open exchange of information can have a positive
global impact […] almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of
expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of
expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits," the company said in
a statement on its blog.
Like all worldwide, borderless businesses though,
Twitter is required to obey the laws of the countries it is in, so in order to
comply they will begin censoring content published that falls foul of laws in
individual countries, rather than on a global level.
For example, in countries like France and Germany, where
pro-Nazi comments and celebration are against the law, Twitter will censor
tweets containing pro-Nazi comments for micro-bloggers in those two countries,
whilst still allowing those that do not ban it to view the tweets.
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Google Seeks To
Clarify New Privacy Policy |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Seeking to blunt a sharp backlash to recent privacy policy
changes, Google has offered to share "the real story" about a system that
compiles information about users based on their activity on all of Google's
sites and products.
This week, Google announced new privacy settings. They spell out
the fact that the company collects and compiles data about its users based on
their activity on its various sites -- from its search page to Gmail to YouTube
to phones running its Android operating system.
The announcement gave some privacy advocates cause for alarm, even
though Google says the information is assembled to enhance user experience, such
as better targeting ads that will be of interest to its customers.
Perhaps most notably, eight members of Congress, both Democrats
and Republicans, wrote a letter to Google CEO Larry Page asking for
clarification about the changes.
"While Google suggests that the purpose of this shift in policy is
to make the consumer experience simpler, we want to make sure it does not make
protecting consumer privacy more complicated," reads the letter. The lawmakers
also noted that because of Google's global reach, the change "potentially
touches billions of people worldwide."
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Nintendo Details
Plans For Wii U’s Online Service |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
At a briefing this week for investors and media in Japan
following the release of its most recent financial forecasts, Nintendo outlined
major new steps it would take to bring its online gaming service for its
upcoming Wii U console up to speed with the competition.
Announcing a rebranding of the service from the somewhat
unwieldy “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection” to the more sensible “Nintendo Network,”
Nintendo worldwide president Satoru Iwata announced a variety of new features
that would come to both the Nintendo 3DS and the upcoming Wii U console.
Nintendo said it will finally support multiple user
accounts on the Wii U hardware. It will also introduce what Iwata referred to as
“digital distribution of packaged software” — offering users the choice of
purchasing its top-tier videogames either at retail stores or through direct
download.
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Smartphones Drive
Record Samsung Profit |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Samsung Electronics Co posted a record $4.7 billion
quarterly operating profit, driven by booming smartphone sales, and will spend
$22 billion this year to boost production of chips and flat screens to pull
further ahead of smaller rivals.
The South Korean firm, the world's top technology firm
by revenue, is locked in breakneck competition with Apple Inc in the red-hot
smartphone market. Apple, overtaken by Samsung in the third quarter, regained
its crown as the world's biggest maker of smartphones in the fourth quarter,
with record sales of 37.04 million iPhones.
Samsung didn't give its own sales volume data, but
research firm Strategy Analytics put sales at 36.5 million smartphones in
October-December, with 3rd-ranked Nokia on 19.6 million. Smartphones account for
around 40 percent of all Samsung's handset shipments.
Samsung's telecoms business earned a record 2.64
trillion won ($2.35 billion) profit in October-December on increased sales of
its flagship Galaxy smartphones.
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Facebook Sues
Clickjacking Spammer Sparking Row |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Facebook is suing a marketing firm, accusing it of
"spreading spam through misleading and deceptive tactics".
Adscend Media is alleged to have carried out "clickjacking".
The practice involves placing posts on the social
network which include code that causes the links to appear on the users'
homepages as a "liked" item without their permission. The links are designed to
take users to other sites.
Adscend Media said it "vehemently denied" the "false
claims".
Facebook likened its security efforts to an "arms race"
and said that it was committed to pursuing "bad actors".
"Facebook's security professionals have made tremendous
strides against this particular form of attack and we are intent on eradicating
it completely," said Craig Clark, the firm's lead litigation counsel.
"We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to
ensure that scammers do not profit from misusing Facebook's services."
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Nokia's Sales Fall
But Lumia Shines |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
In the first test of Nokia Corp.'s turnaround plan, the
handset maker said sales of its first Windows smartphones were off to a good
start even as its overall shipments continued to slide.
Chief Executive Stephen Elop said Nokia sold well over
one million of its new Windows-based Lumia handsets in the quarter. He pledged
to bring the Lumia series to additional markets including China and Latin
America in the first half of 2012 to further boost sales.
Despite the introduction of the Lumia, Nokia's overall
smartphone shipments fell 31% to 19.6 million in the holiday quarter. By
comparison, Apple Inc. said iPhone shipments more than doubled to 37 million in
the same period from a year earlier.
Mr. Elop last year embarked on a strategy to use Windows
software to regain market share, after his company struggled to compete with the
iPhone and smartphones using Google Inc.'s Android software with its Symbian
software.
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Motorola Sues Apple
For Patent Infringement |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Motorola Mobility, which is seeking regulatory approval
to be bought by Google Inc, has filed a new lawsuit against Apple Inc accusing
the iPhone maker of infringing its technology patents.
The case filed in a Florida federal court on Wednesday
is the latest turn in a bigger legal battle between Apple and Motorola Mobility,
which runs its phones on Google's Android software -- the biggest rival of
Apple's iOS mobile phone system.
Motorola said the patents cited in the latest lawsuit
are the same ones it is fighting to protect in a different Florida lawsuit. This
complaint is against two of Apple's latest products, the iPhone 4S and Apple's
iCloud remote storage service for music and other media, Motorola said.
In the lawsuit, Motorola said it was suing Apple for
infringing six of its patents involving technologies related to wireless
antennae, software, data filtering and messaging.
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Apple’s Profit
Doubles On Holiday iPhone 4S Sales |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
It turns out Apple didn’t need an iPhone 5 to bolster
sales.
The company reported on Tuesday that its profit for the
holiday quarter more than doubled. And that was largely thanks to sales of the
iPhone 4S, which, when it was introduced in October, was greeted with grumbling
from pundits and some users for lacking the razzle-dazzle that many imagined an
iPhone 5 would bring.
But consumers still came out in droves to buy the iPhone
4S, helping the company sell more than double the number of iPhones for the
quarter ending Dec. 31 than it did a year ago, a figure that was also lifted by
sales of cheap, older models of Apple’s cellphone.
With the 37 million iPhones that customers snapped up
over the holidays, Apple has sold 183 million of the devices since the product
went on sale in 2007. Revenue from the iPhone and iPad — neither of which could
be bought five years ago — now accounts for 72 percent of Apple’s total revenue,
underscoring the transformation of the company.
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HP’s Open-Sourcing Of
WebOS Begins Today |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
The last time we heard about webOS, HP had opted to
open-source the mobile platform, letting developers take a stab at breathing
some life into it. It was an unconventional move, but not necessarily a bad one:
it puts the platform largely in the hands of the development community, and it
doesn’t require a large investment.
Today we found out more about HP’s plans for the second
coming of webOS. The first step of the open sourcing process, the release of the
Enyo application framework, took place today. The entire process is expected to
be completed by September of this year. Upon completion of the open-sourcing
transition, it will be known as Open webOS 1.0.
The Enyo release lives up to HP’s pledge to continue
development, as it shows a refresh over the previous version. Enyo 2.0 is no
longer tied to WebKit, so it can be developed for any browser, including
Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.
Additionally, webOS is getting a new kernel, making the
switch to Linux (like Android). This move is designed to a) make webOS more
easily installed on a variety of hardware, and b) make it easier for Linux or
Android developers to jump in and start developing webOS applications.
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AT&T Sets Record
With 7.6M iPhone Activations In Q4 |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
AT&T on Thursday announced its earnings for 4Q11, noting
that it achieved its best-ever quarter for Android and iPhone activations, with
7.6 million iPhones activated out of the 9.4 million smartphones it sold. That
helped drive the company’s sales 3.6 percent higher to US$32.5 billion.
“In the year when our competitors began selling the
iPhone we outsold them in every single quarter,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson
said during a phone call with analysts. The iPhone is also available through
Sprint and Verizon.
AT&T said its 9.4 million smartphones sold during 4Q11
was a new record for quarterly smartphone sales that was 50 percent more than
the previous record. In addition, AT&T’s 4Q11 smartphone sales were nearly
double its 3Q11 smartphone sales, with 82 percent of its overall cell phone
sales in that category.
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Symantec Suspected
Anonymous Breach Back In 2006 |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Symantec suspected in 2006 that its network had been
breached, but the company was unable to confirm any data exfiltration until
Anonymous started talking publicly about Symantec source code earlier this
month.
We noted yesterday that Symantec confirmed the theft of
source code from the 2006 versions of several Norton security products and the
pcAnywhere remote access tool, and that Symantec is advising customers to
disable pcAnywhere until a permanent fix is issued. We followed up with Symantec
last night to learn some more details.
Symantec spokesperson Cris Paden tells Ars that Symantec
"investigated the incident in 2006 but our results were inconclusive."
The investigation was apparently shelved until this
month, when hackers related to Anonymous claimed to have stolen Symantec source
code and threatened to release it, supposedly to accompany a lawsuit claiming
that Symantec tricked users into buying products with trial software versions
that wrongly report security problems.
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Jailbreaking Phones
Could Become Illegal Again |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
The act of jailbreaking or rooting smartphones may once again
become illegal, as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) exemption set in
place back in July 2010 by the Copyright Office is set to expire soon.
According to the exemption, jailbreaking an iOS device or rooting
an Android device is perfectly legal as long as it doesn't circumvent copyright.
Apple, a public advocate which strives to keep a closed, secure platform, wasn't
keen on the ruling, and even indicated that jailbreaking would still void any
official Apple warranty. Like Apple, some device manufacturers still claim that
jailbreaking violates Section 1201 of the DMCA, which carries stiff penalties.
So what does that mean for consumers if the exemption runs out?
"Modifying a device to run independent software – known as jailbreaking – is
important to programmers, enthusiasts, and users," the Electronic Frontier
Foundation states.
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SOPA, PIPA Stalled: Meet The OPEN Act |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
SOPA and PIPA may have been put on hold -- thanks to
possibly the most contentious uproar seen on Capitol Hill and in the tech world
ever -- but other legislation was introduced this week to combat online piracy.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) introduced H.R. 3782,
the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act in the U.S. House of
Representatives on Wednesday, the same day as an Internet protest when a number
of high-profile websites such as Wikipedia went dark. Issa says the new bill
delivers stronger intellectual property rights for American artists and
innovators while protecting the openness of the Internet. Senator Ron Wyden
(D-Oregon) has introduced the OPEN Act in the U.S. Senate.
OPEN would give oversight to the International Trade
Commission (ITC) instead of the Justice Department, focuses on foreign-based
websites, includes an appeals process, and would apply only to websites that
"willfully" promote copyright violation. SOPA and PIPA, in contrast, would
enable content owners to take down an entire website, even if just one page on
it carried infringing content, and imposed sanctions after accusations -- not
requiring a conviction.
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Apple Announces iBooks 2, iBooks Author And New iTunes U |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
"Education is deep in our DNA, and it has been since the
very beginning."
With those words, Apple senior vice president of
worldwide marketing Phil Schiller kicked off the company's invitation-only
education event on Thursday, according to Technologizer's Henry McCracken. At
this event, Apple introduced the newly interactive iBooks 2, a first wave of
$14.99 school textbooks from the top educational publishers and a new tool for
educators to make their own textbook. The company also revamped its iTunes U
program for sharing multimedia educational material.
After his opening remarks, Schiller went on to explain
that Apple is "proud to help students learn" and that it has noticed that iPads
are finding their way into classrooms.
"It's not a big surprise that students get excited to
learn on the iPad — it was No. 1 on teen's wish lists this holiday," Schiller
said, quoted by The Verge's rapid-fire liveblog. Between the 20,000 education
apps on the iPad and the sheer volume of content in the iBookstore, it's
certainly understandable that there are over 1.5 million iPads being used in
education.
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After Megaupload
Shutdown, "Anonymous" Hits DOJ |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Anonymous was quick to target the Justice Department, Universal
Music, the RIAA, and MPAA in the wake of this afternoon's Megaupload
announcement, with the Web sites for all four organizations succumbing to
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Justice.gov and universalmusic.com went offline around 430pm
Eastern and have been largely unresponsive for the past 1.5 hours. RIAA.com and
MPAA.org are also unresponsive.
"Recording Industry Association of America—Department of
Justice—Universal Music—all TT, all TANGO DOWN," Anonymous tweeted this evening
with the #OpMegaUpload hashtag.
Earlier today, the DOJ announced the shutdown of file-sharing site
Megaupload. Seven individuals and two corporations were indicted for copyright
infringement and could face up to 50 years in prison. Megaupload earned
approximately $750 million for its exploits and incurred about $1 billion in
damages, the agency alleged.
In its statement, the DOJ said the takedown was "among the largest
criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States."
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