In a way, Google already is a porn machine; it is what you make of it. But it turns out that a handful of bizarre, technically impossible search queries turn the raunchiness up like 20 notches and cause the engine to return porn results almost exclusively. The searches themselves aren’t dirty in the slightest, either. It’s ridiculous. More »
If you thought the Internet freaked out for a little bit and every site you went to was down, you’re not alone. Major websites were down: CNN, Huffington Post, ESPN, Gawker, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, etc. were all broken. Why? Because of a glitch with Facebook. More »
So the text string “File:SLASHSLASHSLASH” (with actual slashes) can inexplicably crash just about any app on Mountain Lion. Aside from being a curiosity, it can also be a weapon if you start hurling File:SLASHSLASHSLASH salvos at your friends through iMessage. If you get hit, or you hit someone and feel bad afterwards, here’s how you can fix the damage. More »
There’s nothing that inspires shriek-worthy horror quite like the terrible skittering of a cockroach bursting out from whatever dark corner and racing frantically to the next. Well that’s not reserved for just normal, squishable cockroaches any more. The VelociRoACH, a six-legged, 4-inch little sucker, darts around at speeds of over six miles per hour, or 26 body-lengths per second, making it one of the fastest robots around. More »
Normally bugs just annoy you by preventing something from working, but occasionally they’ll do something totally bizarre. A weird issue with Google’s text-to-speech functionality tells you that giraffes are now praising the iPad. Literally. More »
If you’re running iOS 6, your smartphone, media player or tablet may be taking a bit longer than usual to shake that post-party hangover. Users are reporting that the latest Apple OS’ Do Not Disturb feature remains engaged even after its scheduled period has ended, with the misstep linked to January 1st. As you can see in the screenshot above, the feature fails to flip off automatically, as confirmed by the crescent icon beside the current time — adjusting the date does seem to offer a temporary fix. When enabled, Do Not Disturb flips the device to silent mode, so you’ll need to keep an eye on the screen in order to catch phone calls, text messages and other notifications. The tool does not disable alarms set through the native Clock app, however.
There doesn’t appear to be an official fix available, but if you’re experiencing this issue, you can cancel that last-minute Genius Bar appointment — Apple reps aren’t likely to have a solution just yet. And, if you’ve been trying to reach an iPhone owner without success, expect a call back only once they’ve had a chance to check their device. New Year’s bugs seem to be an annual tradition at Apple — the alarm is a frequent target, and while this is the first year for an extended DND, the feature just launched in late 2012 with iOS 6.
[Thanks, Martyn]
Update: So, apparently Apple didn’t get the memo. Cupertino’s latest iPhone 5 ad, titled “Dream” and embedded after the break, transports you to the wonderful world of Do Not Disturb. Venus and Serena Williams are playing ping-pong and everything is white. So fun. And when was the ad first released? Just this morning. Didn’t you get the notification?
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Apple
If you’re finding yourself waking up to massive amounts of notifications today after a nice afternoon nap, do not fret, it’s just a Facebook bug. What’s actually happening here is that Facebook is, as they’re saying, experiencing a bit of a bug – one that signs users up for Facebook Groups sometimes even when they’d never been a part of those groups in the first place. As a result of this, some users are experiencing massive amounts of notifications from the groups that they up until today had no idea existed.
This bug is currently being worked on by Facebook, but for those of you that want a quick fix: you’ll have to leave each Group one-by-one. The other solution is to go to the little white triangle that sits in the upper right-hand side of your Facebook screen (near your name) and click it – then click Account Settings – then click Notifications. From there you can simply turn off all the Notifications you desire.
Meanwhile there’s one massive complaint thread about the situation, and a statement has been issued by Facebook representatives that reads as follows:
“A bug surfaced last night that caused some users to be re-added to groups that they previously belonged to. We are working to resolve the issue now. In the meantime, we are rolling out a short-term fix for all closed groups that will make the content of those groups inaccessible to the re-added members.” – Facebook Representative
The most concerning thing about this situation should be – for you – the idea that Facebook keeps a record of the groups you’ve been a part of in the past on their social network. This information clearly remains a part of the larger Facebook archive as it’s been proven today with re-ads galore. On the other hand, this should have all become clear as soon as the Facebook Timeline Layout was made solid – Facebook keeps everything.
At the moment there’s no ETA for when this problem is going to be solved, only that assurance that Facebook is making closed groups the priority here with re-stopping this flood. While we see what Facebook does to keep everything neat – let us know if you’ve experienced anything strange today!
[via Slate]
Facebook bug re-adds users to groups they’d long since left is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
A fairly problematic bug is affecting Google accounts, granting revoked users access to the Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics they originally had access to. For example, a business that fired an employee and revoked his or her access rights may find itself in the uncomfortable position of that embittered ex-employee regaining access to the tools. As you’d expect, angry tweets and forum posts are lighting up the Internet.
The folks over at The Next Web talked with eBay’s former Director of SEO Dennis Goedegebuure, who stated that he has regained access to eBay’s Webmaster Tools after having not worked for the company in over a year. A quick search for “Webmaster Tools” on Twitter reveals a host of tweets, many of which are angry, stating that they have either regained access or have had users added to Webmaster Tools who were previously revoked.
Just how much havoc could someone wreck with access to Webmaster Tools and Analytics? To start with, he or she could remove webmaster user access, followed by bumping pages off the index and purging sitemaps. This is on top of the massive amounts of data that will be accessible via Analytics, which include a variety of records and site reports.
Some users are reporting that old Gmail Talk contacts are also reappearing, suggesting that other services may be compromised as well. Google is no doubt frantically working to correct this issue. While we wait to see what damage is done, here’s a bit of random Twitter advice from @Skitzzo: “Never screw your SEO… you never know when Google will do something stupid like let them back into your Webmaster Tools account.”
[via TNW]
Google bug grants access to revoked Analytics and Webmaster Tools users is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Once upon a time in 2010, an Android bug was reported. A host of other users chimed in, concurring that they experienced the same problem. Over two years and six months went by when a Google employee suddenly appeared, announcing that the bug would finally be fixed in the newest upcoming release of Android. When rolled out, the issue of not being able to resolve a hostname on a local domain will come to an end.
Known as Issue 8030, this relatively unknown bug is not a problem for most users. Those affected, however, have expressed immense frustration. The issue was presented on code.google.com: “When connected on WiFi to a network which specifies a domain name, hostnames in that domain do not resolve without appending the domain to the hostname.”
After years of responses, someone from Google jumped into the comment pool and left this short bit of info: “The fix for this has gone in thanks to Kevin Tang. It will be available in the next major release.” Users then, not surprisingly, jumped in with a variety of grumbles about how long it took to correct the issue, to which Google again responded.
“Guys, it was a matter of prioritization and resources. We don’t have people to put on every requested feature and we certainly were not idle during this time. I apologize it took so long. I can’t say what the next version will be (neither know it nor can discuss it) but it will be after 4.2, which has already gone out.”
[via Android Police]
Google plans to fix 2.5-year-old Android bug is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
iMessage, which can be a fickle bitch sometimes, had an annoying, downright scary flaw that remained unfixed for too long: if your iPhone got stolen, the stolen phone would keep receiving messages sent via iMessage even after a remote wipe out and deactivation. That meant the thief who stole your phone, could see your messages. Apparently, it’s been fixed. Thank God. More »
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