The day after Thanksgiving, which this year falls on November 27th, is also known as Black Friday, and it marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping craze. Capitalizing on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Apple has announceda “special Apple one-day shopping event” on November 27. The company posted a teaser saying the following:“Come back to the Apple Online Store this Friday for a special one-day-only shopping event. You’ll find lots of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas — all with free shipping.”So there you have it; if you don’t know what to do with your extra cash, here’s a chance to blow it all on Apple’s gadgetry (hopefully at a good discount). Tags: apple, black friday
A couple of weeks ago, the first iPhone worm appeared, spreading on jailbroken devices with the SSH application installed (vulnerability being the fact that many users haven’t changed the default root password). As far as worms go, this one was quite benign, merely “rickrolling” users; i.e., changing the background image on the device to an image of Rick Astley.Now, according to early reports of strange activity by Dutch ISP XS4ALL, and later confirmed by Sophos, there’s a new worm in the wild, and this one is far more malicious. The new worm is called “Duh” or “Ikee.B”, and it uses the exact same vulnerability as the first one. The fix is thus identical – change the root password in the SSH application to something other than the default, which is “alpine”. Failing to do so might result in very serious consequences. According to Sophos, Ikee.B is “designed to connect to a server in Lithuania and to follow orders from remote hackers.” It can find vulnerable iPhones on a wide range of IP addresses, including IPs in several different countries, for example the Netherlands, Portugal, Australia, Austria, and Hungary. Furthermore, it changes the root password on the iPhone to “ohshit” (as discovered by Paul Ducklin, head of technology in Sophos Asia Pacific.)Users who haven’t jailbroken their iPhone or haven’t installed the SSH application are not affected by this vulnerability. Reviews: Australia
Spotify, the European music service that attracted attention by launching the first streaming music appfor the iPhone, now has a version for Symbian smartphones. Spotify is a fantastic app, offering access to over 6 million tracks; unfortunately, it’s available only in certain European countries, with the US version pending. Some of the smartphone models Spotify now works with are Nokia 6220 Classic, E71 and 5800 XpressMusic models, as well as some non-Nokia phones, like the Samsung GT-I8910 Omnia HD and Sony Ericsson Satio.Spotify’s Symbian application is available on m.spotify.com; alternatively, Symbian smartphone owners can enter their phone number on this pageto receive SMS installation instructions. Reviews: SpotifyTags: spotify, Symbian
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.Name: PearltreesQuick Pitch: Pearltrees is a new visual way to organize content on the Web and connecting people’s interests.Genius Idea: How do you organize the web on the browser? Since the time of Netscape, we’ve been using bookmarks and a wide series of folders to manage our favorite websites and web pages. Perhaps in some instances you use something like Google Reader to organize your articles and favorite things on YouTube, but the result is the same: it’s a messy affair.Pearltrees is nothing less than a reinvention of how we organize the web. The service provides a completely unique and visual experience to saving your favorite websites, organizing what you find interesting, and even seeing what others are saying about specific web destinations.Signing up for Pearltrees is simple, but getting used to the interface and all of its features is not as easy. Once you add your personal information, you are presented with a display connecting you to a web of circles, which are called pearls. In this system, you add websites you find interesting (either manually, via a browser extension, or through bookmarklets) into your profile. You also have control over where the pearls are placed on the page.Now for the organization part: you can create complex systems of pearls, known as pearltrees. These complex trees are like your bookmark folders and subfolders, but visually represented. If you create a pearl for YouTube, you could create a tree filled with nothing but your favorite YouTube videos. The same goes for articles or any other type of web content. You can collapse or expand trees at will.Clicking on a pearl gives you a range of options that go beyond visiting your favorite website. It provides a preview of the page and offers options to share it via social media. The most unique aspects are the connections and discussions, however. You can see how others have organized any website within the pearltrees, along with their notes on that website. In a way, it’s like Delicious, but more in-depth and visually rich.Pearltrees takes a time investment to make it useful. Once you’ve spent some time with it though, it’s easy to get addicted. It’s more intuitive than bookmarks and provides a social context comparable to Delicious. It’s still in Alpha too, meaning that you can expect it to evolve significantly as its team better understands what users want and need.Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSparkBizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platformfor their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest– use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”Reviews: Delicious, Google Reader, PHP, YouTubeTags: bizspark, Pearltrees
Internet-enabled set-top box makers Roku (who we wrote about in our top 10 gadgets for social media addictsfeature recently) have some welcome announcements today about 10 new, free content partners being added to the platform in an also new Roku Channel Store section. Coming to the new “App Store”-style store are popular video providers blip.tv, independent netcasters Revision3and This Week in Tech, photo browsing from both Flickr and your Facebook photos, music from recommendation engine Pandora, plus content FrameChannel, Mediafly, MobileTribe, and Motionbox. As internet-based television and other video content marches into the living room, we’re seeing a number of different approaches to bringing online video to the big screen. Some, like Boxee, began as a software interface that makes hooking up your computer to your TV an easier experience and later began pursuing a dedicated hardware solution. Roku began initially as a hardware solution — an alternative to (or addition to) the set-top box that powers your cable subscription.Roku has several different players available including a standard definition model and two flavors of high-definition boxes. Existing content partners will of course remain, with Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand and MLB.TV also available for streaming video to the devices. The new Channel Store represents a shift towards building an open platform model to allow new channel partners to more easily make their content available via the Roku box.How do you watch internet video in the home? Do you have a setup that brings online television to your actual television?Reviews: App Store, Boxee, Facebook, Flickr, PandoraTags: facebook, flickr, ONLINE VIDEO, pandora, revision 3, roku, Twit, video
Yes, really. Rupert Murdoch’s crusade to blame Google for the failing newspaper business model continues today, as it emerges that News Corp has conducted talks with Microsoft about de-indexing the company’s sites from Google and (presumably) being paid to include them in Bing instead. The concept makes sense only if you buy Murdoch’s claims that Google is “stealing” content rather than simply helping people find it.The revelation comes from the Financial Times, which has a strong track record for accurate reportage – this is unlikely to be a fluffy rumor. The piece reads, in part:Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.News Corp and Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, declined to comment.I say go for it. So, I’m sure, do all the other web publishers who see that removing many of the major news sites from Google will provide even more traffic for the upstarts. News Corp is merrily making itself irrelevant to web consumers, while continuing to use Google as its punch bag rather than addressing the radical transition of media into the online world.Reviews: Bing, Google
For those who’d like to turn the American Music Awards into a more social experience, don’t forget that the pre-show is streaming live on Facebook today, with full integration of Facebook status updates. As a viewer, you can post your own live commentary into your Facebook news feed and read status updates on the event from everybody or just your friends.As we wrote of the eventearlier this week:Facebook is teaming with Ustreamand fans at home will have a chance to post questions for the hosts — which include Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg and Brandee Barker — to ask the music artists as they prepare to enter the award show.The AMA’s air Sunday night on ABC from 8-11 EST. The pre-show will start at 6 p.m. EST. You can tune in at Facebook’s Celebs Page, the AMAs Facebook Pageor via Ustream or ABC.com. What do think of Facebook’s latest live streaming partnership? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: Facebook, ustreamTags: facebook
It all started with Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” ads that emphasized the poor 3G coverage provided by AT&T. Next came a lawsuit from AT&T, claiming the ads were misleading, and a series of holiday-themed ads from the Verizon camp. Finally, AT&T decided to hit back with an ad of its own, bringing in actor Luke Wilsonto point out AT&T’s advantages.Now the Luke Wilson campaign continues, with the latest in the series featuring Wilson throwing postcards all over America. Why the map looks good: AT&T’s ad includes all their coverage, while Verizon’s maps highlight 3G coverage. But as someone who has used AT&T’s extremely flaky coverage in San Francisco, Wilson’s claims don’t exactly ring true. [via Gizmodo]Tags: ads, att, verizon
A Canadian woman claims she has lost her health benefits after her insurance company used her Facebook pictures as evidence that she was no longer depressed.Nathalie Blanchard had been on sick leave for a year from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, after being diagnosed with severe depression. The 29-year old was receiving sick pay from insurer Manulife. However, when payments stopped coming she contacted Manulife and, she claims, was told that Facebook pictures taken on a beach and during a night out were evidence that she was no longer depressed.According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., which also produced a TV reporton the case:When Blanchard called Manulife, the company said that “I’m available to work, because of Facebook”…She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on the popular social networking site, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday — evidence that she is no longer depressed, Manulife said.…in a written statement sent to CBC News, the insurer said: “We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook.” It confirmed that it uses the popular social networking site to investigate clients.It’s a case that adds fuel to the privacy debate, especially given that Blanchard claims her Facebook photos were private. Are we entering an unsettling new reality in which insurance companies are able to deny claims based on Tweets and Facebook pictures?Reviews: FacebookTags: trending
In a bizarre case involving teen YouTube sensation Justin Bieber and a riotous crowd of his fans, a record exec from Island Def Jam Records was arrested Friday for, among other things, failing to Tweet when told to by authorities.When the Beiber event at Roosevelt Field mall became unruly (video below), police appealed to the artist’s label to send a Tweet telling the crowd to leave. When that allegedly didn’t happen, police arrested James Roppo, a senior vice president of Island Def Jam Records, for “endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration”.An Associated Pressfeed reads:Police arrested a vice president from Bieber’s record label, Island Def Jam Records, saying he wasn’t cooperating with attempts to disperse the crowd. James Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., was charged with a series of misdemeanours, including endangering the welfare of children and obstructing governmental administration.“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” said Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. “By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”The report doesn’t put the police in a good light, especially considering that Bieber’s feed does contain Tweets asking the crowd to leave. But all may not be as it seems: contrary to the AP reports, the NY Daily Newsimplies that the arrest was for sending out updates that Bieber was signing autographs even after the crowd had dispersed.Roppo is pleading not guilty to the charges.[via MediaMemo]Reviews: TwitterTags: twitter
It’s not too often that legacy media learns a new mass communication tool along with its audience. But that’s exactly what’s going on now because of Google Wave. Although it’s still invitation only and in preview, the real-time wiki collaboration platform is being used by some media companies for community building, real-time discussion, crowdsourcing, collaboration both inside and outside the newsroom, and for cross publishing content.Google Wavemay seem familiar to older users of the Internet, who have been using the parts that make up the whole of the platform for years. Wave, however, brings those pieces together cohesively to allow users to share photos, embed videos, and converge other Google applications such as Google Maps and Google Calendar to create customized blocks of user-editable content on the fly. Here are four ways that newsrooms are using Wave.Using Waves to Foster EngagementUsing Google Wave allows newsrooms to reach out to their audiences and invite their active participation on news stories. In the process, waves become a vehicle to create an engaged local community who can also play a role in the newsroom. That may redefine how news is gathered, reported and presented to its audience, blurring the boundary between newsroom and community bulletin board.Chicago Tribune’s RedEye blogstarted its first public wave on November 10, and since then it has attracted more than 300 blips. Following that success, Stephanie Yiu, RedEye’s web editor, and Scott Kleinberg, senior editor of digital and print, now lead a half-hour public wave session every day.“It’s a lot more live than Twitter because it’s like you can see people typing and everybody gets to know each other,” she told me. “It’s really about connecting with our readers on a new platform. We’re learning with our readers and moving forward together.”RedEye sends out tweets promoting each wave with a link asking Twitter followers (those that have access to Google Wave) to join the conversation. Yiu told me the daily wave is a discussion about RedEye’s cover story. During the last 10 minutes they ask participants for suggestions on how to make the wave better. What makes Google Wave so useful is the community building aspect, according to Yiu. “The great thing is once it ends at 11 o’clock, it keeps on going. They keep on talking,” she said. Yiu is hoping it will be a cool way to get feedback, such as movie reviews, from their readers that that they can also run in the RedEye print product, which is something they’re already doing with Twitter.Using Waves As ‘Town Squares’Robert Quigley, social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, has started two public waves so far. “People are enthusiastic and they want to talk about news. I was surprised how much discussion there was about the news,” he said.However, said Quigley, the challenge right now is keeping public waves on topic. If they get more than 50 blips discussion grinds to a halt, reported Quigley. He added that in order for Google Wave to work during a news event, there needs to be the ability to moderate and or easily spin something into another wave and link to it in the first wave to keep it on topic. He stressed Google Wave is in its early stages and in preview, but there’s definitely potential with it, so these are issues that could be addressed in the future.“We’ve been looking for years for collaboration with the public in a meaningful way and this could be the tool,” he said.Quigley is eager to keep pushing the envelope with Google Wave to see what it possible. He told me, for example, that he wants to try a participant’s suggestion to embed a Google Calendar with links to waves listed within it so users can follow that calendar with the wave schedule. He also hopes to try the map gadget the next time Austin gets hit with an ice storm. He said he would embed a map into a Google Wave and then people could report conditions at their house. Users could edit the map as weather conditions change.Google Wave has the potential to become a virtual “town square,” where otherwise separate gadgets applied to content created by journalists and enhanced by the wave’s users can be used to provide an accurate, detailed description of what’s happening locally.Wave as a Newsroom Content Planning ToolChris Taylor, online editor at TBO.com, is also the online breaking news editor in charge of planning content for his converged newsroom (which includes the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and TBO.com). Each night he emails a content budget to the deadline team, but he is now also using a daily wave that others in the newsroom can add to, edit, etc. Taylor said there are about 15 people on this wave and he has requested more invites from Google to get more people involved.The daily wave accounts for all the content the newsroom knows is coming or is chasing down. There are about 40 stories in a wave and each story gets a paragraph and after each story is a blip. “Anything we can do in a newsroom of this size [to help] the content we produce to keep from falling through the cracks is a plus,” Taylor said.When Taylor comes into work in the morning he can immediately get caught up on the status of all items in the newsroom budget by checking the wave. He said reviewing the wave at his desk takes one-tenth the time of having meetings.“I think using it for this will get people comfortable with wave, which is my ultimate goal,” he said. “As we get more comfortable with it, we’ll be able to be where our audience is.”Turning Blog Posts Into Public WavesAndrew Nystrom, senior producer of social media and emerging platforms at the Los Angeles Times, collaborated with social media reporter Mark Milian on the blog post “How Google Wave Could Transform Journalism” that ran on the newspaper’s web site a couple of months ago.Among some of the ideas listed in the post were: collaborative reporting, smarter story updates, live editing, discussing while reading, and a transparent writing process. Nystrom said in an email interview they’re looking at all the potential uses that Milian posited in the blog post. In a case of “eating his own dogfood,” so to speak, Milian even embedded the post as a wave and it has since received more than 350 blips.“That experiment was definitely an eye-opener. My understanding of Wave has always been that it’s a valuable tool for small-team collaboration. So to see it succeed as a larger-scale crowdsourcing tool was unexpected to say the least,” Nystrom said by email. “People quickly swarmed the wave and provided a ton of really smart insights. Things we had never thought of.”He added that they’ll definitely do more of this and that it’s just a matter of identifying which topics would benefit from collaboration. “Ideally, every post would plug into wave because I love the inline commenting system. But I don’t want to flood the ocean,” according to Milian. “When we do another piece on Google Wave, or on something that begs for crowdsourcing, you will definitely see it in Wave.”Reviews: Google, Google Maps, Google Wave, TwitterTags: Google Wave, journalism, List, Lists, mainstream media, media, News, trending, wave
One of the best things about Twitter is the way that it allows content and information to spread quickly across the network from person-to-person. This happened for two reasons: 1. because Twitter is a one-to-many communications platform and 2. because it allows for content to be easily repeated. In fact, the latter led to what we call the “retweet.” It’s safe to say that the founders of Twitter did not initially envision this as a use for their platform, but the retweet convention organized itself organically and was embraced by third-party apps.Unfortunately, retweets were messy for a couple of ways. First, because of the 140 character limit placed on tweets, retweeting someone else’s content sometimes meant editing their text in order to ensure that the customary “RT” and “@username” attributions fit. Second, because there’s often overlap in who we follow, retweets many times led to redundancy in your timeline as more than one of the people you followed retweeted the same content. So a couple of days ago, Twitter rolled out a solutionin the form of a completely new retweet system.Retweets: Old vs. NewRetweeting someone used to be a completely manual process. You had to copy and paste their tweet, add the “RT” designation, and the “@username” attribution, then click the “update” button. Some third party Twitter clients had built-in retweet buttons, which would automatically add the proper attribution and designation text. Many times you would need to edit the original retweeted text in order to make it fit within Twitter’s 140 character limit. (This was because adding the “RT” and “@username” text would often push the tweet over the limit.)The old style of retweets also led to redundancy within your timeline. For example, I follow a number of people that also follow @mashable. Many of these people routinely retweet Mashable stories, so whenever the @mashable account tweets a new link, my Twitter timeline is often filled with multiple identical retweets.Twitter’s new official retweetfeature fixes both of these issues. Now, instead of retweets being appended with the “RT” text designation, they have a special retweet icon. Further, they come directly from the original tweeter’s account — regardless of whether you are following that person. If one of your followers retweets User X, you’ll see that tweet in your timeline, with the icon designating it as a retweet and a message telling you which if your followers retweeted that tweet.Further, Twitter has fixed the redundancy issue by grouping together identical retweets. You’ll only see that tweet appear in your timeline once, but the message telling you who retweeted it will let you know which two or more of your followers retweeted.Is this good or bad? Twitter’s new retweets are undeniably cleaner and more organized than the original, manual method. Your timeline will be easier to read and less noisy as a result, and the new API means that third-party clients can build in native retweeting in a much cleaner way (some already have). Also, you no longer need to edit original tweet text, which means it is less likely you’ll anger someone by inadvertently changing the meaning of their original tweet or messing up the attribution.However, it can also be somewhat jarring to see people you’re not following in your timeline, and the new retweets lack the ability to add commentary to retweets. In the past, when retweeting something, users would often add their own two cents before the “RT” text. Adding comments is not supported by the current implementation of retweets on Twitter (though there is a chance it will be in the future).How To RetweetRetweeting works a lot like replying to tweets from the web interface. If you hover your cursor over a tweet — in either your timeline or on any user’s profile page, a “Retweet” link will appear directly to the right of the “Reply” link that has always been there. To retweet the tweet, all you have to do is click on the link.But then what happens? The tweet you just retweeted will appear in the timelines of your friends regardless of whether they follow the original tweeter. If you think twice about your retweet, you can undo it. To manage your retweets, click on the “Retweets” link in the right hand side navigation. That will bring you to a page with three tabs:– Retweets by others – These are all the retweets by the people you follow. They’re arranged loosely by time, but the most retweeted posts tend to bubble to the top of the list. From here you can reply to or retweet any of the tweets listed– Retweets by you – This tab shows all of the tweets that you have retweeted. From here you can reply to tweets or undo your retweet (simply hover over the tweet and click the “Undo” link that appears).– Your tweets, retweeted – These are your original tweets that others have retweeted. From here you can delete your tweets. You can also see who retweeted you, and when.While there is no way to turn retweets off completely, there are two ways to block retweets from from appearing your timeline on a user by user basis. If you block a user, you won’t see their retweets in your timeline, even if someone you’re following retweets that user. You can also block retweets that a user you are following makes from appearing your timeline.To turn off retweets from a specific user, visit their profile page and click on the circular green retweet button that appears next to the “Following” message at the top of their page. Once you click on the button, it will turn grey, indicating that retweets from that user will no longer appear in your timeline. You can toggle this option on and off using this button.What Twitter Hopes to AccomplishTwitter co-founder Evan Williams wrote recentlythat he hopes the new retweet feature will solve the problems of attribution confusion, messy or broken messages, and will reduce timeline noise. Williams said that the new retweet feature should “make Twitter a more powerful system for helping people find out what’s happening now that they care about.”If embraced by users and third-party Twitter clients, there is almost no way to imagine that wouldn’t be the case. However, the inability to add comments to retweets is an issue that Twitter may need to address, especially to appeal to the power users who often shape the use of the platform and evangelize it to others.What do you think of Twitter’s new retweet feature so far? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: Mashable, TwitterTags: how to, List, Lists, retweet, retweets, trending, twitter
If you’ve been on the web long enough, you’ll know that Twitter isn’t the first startup to have suffered scaling issues: the auction site had significant problems keeping the servers humming in its early days. Today eBayis giving users a small reminder of that era: eBay’s search engine is down, meaning goods cannot be found without using the category structure.With the holiday shopping season ramping up, eBay will be losing significant revenue through the downtime: no doubt its engineers are working the weekend to get things working again.Are you having trouble with eBay search? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: eBay
If you’re looking to bring Facebook to the Windows desktop and Twitter-centric update tools like Seesmic or TweetDeck are too limiting for you, you might want to take Fishbowlfor a spin. The app, built on Microsoft Silverlight 4, features photo browsing and zoom, photo slideshows, drag-and-drop image uploads and a completely ad-free way to browse and update the news feed. It works on XP, Vista and Windows 7, and just became available for download.We’re already more addicted to Facebook than could be considered healthy, not to mention our affection for the Mac, but for those Windows users looking for a rich desktop experience, our friends at Download Squad are calling Fishbowl a “kick-ass Facebook client for Windows 7” – it’s free and built by Microsoft’s own developers, so it might be worth taking for a spin.[Images via Download Squad]Reviews: FacebookTags: facebook, fishbowl
