Reddit’s reworked privacy policy clarifies data handling, comes into effect May 15th

Reddit's reworked privacy policy clarifies data handling, comes into effect May 15th

The online Aladdin’s cave and AMA forum Reddit has revealed a revamped privacy policy intended to make clear exactly how it deals with users’ data. Legalese is notably absent, with credit for that going to Lauren Gelman, a legal consultant who’s previously worked with the likes of the EFF — a member, like Reddit, of the Internet Defense League. Essentially, the new policy is geared towards allowing “your participation to remain as anonymous as you choose,” with the website stating that any of your data won’t be shared without consent, unless the law requires it. Even then, you will be notified, with the only exception being a court order that prevents it. Reddit also notes that deleting your account will remove your username from posts and comments, but they will remain on the site. As only the last edit performed stays on the servers, however, you could trek back through your history and strip everything out to finalize your departure. There’s much more in the announcement post and full policy document over at the source links, in case you wanna have a read before it all kicks in on May 15th.

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Source: Reddit (1), (2)

‘Introverted’ Evernote pairs with messaging app Kakao Talk (and its 90 million users)

'Typically introverted' Evernote pairs with messaging app Kakao Talk and its 90 million users

It’s not all WhatsApp and LINE. If you’re in Korea, then your messaging app of choice is most likely to be Kakao Talk, and Evernote hopes that allying with the app will expand its remit and boost its presence in Asia. The team-up looks set to bring Evernote’s services within the chat window of your Kakao Talk conversations, allowing users to share images, links and entire messages to their private note locker.

According to Evernote CEO Phil Libin, the company’s products have typically been “quite introverted; keeping your own memories and information for your own use.” He added that Evernote is always looking for ways to improve sharing and collaboration with the app: “There is a lot we can learn about sharing and communication by working with Kakao.” The messaging app’s CEO Lee Sir-goo added that the partnership would “elevate the status of Kakao Talk as a global mobile platform,” with the Evernote-optimized iteration arriving in the next two to three months. Now, to figure out exactly how many messaging apps is too many messaging apps.

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Source: TNW, Korea Herald

EFF report knocks Verizon, praises Twitter for protecting user data

EFF report knocks Verizon, praises Twitter for protecting user data

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual “Who Has Your Back?” report, ranking 18 companies by how well they protect user information from government eyes. Twitter and Sonic.net get high scores from the EFF, as they meet all six of the organization’s privacy guidelines, which include requiring a warrant for sharing content and telling users about government data requests. On the other end of the spectrum are MySpace and Verizon, both of which score zero out of six stars. Meanwhile, Apple and AT&T get one gold star each, and Google, Dropbox and LinkedIn are tied for second place. You’ll find the complete breakdown in the EFF ‘s comprehensive infographic (partially displayed above), and the full report is available via the source link.

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Via: Electronista

Source: EFF

Packaged Chrome apps now searchable in dev channels for Chrome OS and Windows

Packaged Chrome apps now available on Dev Channels for Chrome OS and Windows

While Google opened the door to packaged Chrome apps back in February, it’s been a largely one-way affair ever since — developers could upload the native-style apps, but they couldn’t find anything without a direct link. As of a dev channel update, the relationship is a little more two-directional. Both Chrome OS and Windows-based Chrome testers can at last search for packaged apps in the Chrome Web Store alongside the usual releases. Google is mostly holding back on wider access to give developers more time to polish their work. Us non-coders will have to be patient, then, but truly offline-friendly apps just came one step closer.

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Via: Chromium Blog

Source: Chromium Projects

Yahoo acquires Astrid, plans to shut the service down

Yahoo has made another acquisition, this time of time management service Astrid, which just made the announcement on its blog. Such a move comes at a time when Yahoo has been buying up a variety of services and apps, a move in part to bolster the company. Not many details about the deal were provided, but those we do know we have for you after the jump.

Astrid-Logo

Says Astrid in the announcement, its team will be joining Yahoo’s mobile team. As a result of the acquisition, the company’s app is going to be shut down in 90 days, with the service effectively putting an end to new premium subscriptions starting today. In addition, it is aiming to make the transition for its users as gentle as possible.

Those who currently use the service will be contacted “shortly” with instructions on how to download their data, which needs to be done within the next three months, after which point it will be gone forever. Says Astrid, its app has been downloaded 4 million times, and that the company is grateful for all of its users, as well as its investors and mentors, which it specifies by name.

This follows Yahoo’s purchase of Summly back in March for the hefty sum of $30 million, one of many moves by the company to boost its mobile-centric goals. The purchase came in the form of 90-percent cash and 10-percent stocks. No financial data was provided on the Astrid acquisition, just a note that Yahoo will refund users who bought an annual subscription set to expire after the service goes down.

[via Astrid]


Yahoo acquires Astrid, plans to shut the service down is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook wins legal victory over domain squatters

We’ve all done it at some point – hit the wrong key or two while going to a common website, such as Google or Facebook, only to be sent to a knock-off website on a similar URL, some of which are phishing attempts, others featuring their own content or service. Regardless, it is annoying and many of them now have their days numbered, with Facebook winning a legal victory over domain squatters in court today.

Facebook

Over 100 different variations of Facebook.com were registered, and each of them were hit with a lawsuit from the social network giant. Although it is common practice, domain squatting is in violation of 1999′s U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal for someone to piggyback off a successful trademark, which domains like Dacebook.com were doing.

Facebook was awarded $3 million in damages by the District Court for Northern California, a figure that will probably never be paid and that the social network, in all likelihood, won’t go after. Nonetheless, it is a victory for Facebook, and a quick look shows that many of the domains have already either pulled their content or such completely down.

The folks over at TechCrunch got a statement from the social network’s Associate General Counsel Craig Clark: “We are pleased with the court’s recommendation. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to enforce against those who attempt to take advantage of the people who use our service.” Facebook is not the only big-name company that has gone after domain squatters, with Google having taken the legal hammer to its myriad of trademark leeches, as well.

[via Business Week]


Facebook wins legal victory over domain squatters is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Omaha, Nebraska to receive gigabit internet from CenturyLink

While Google is expanding its Fiber internet service to Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah, that doesn’t mean other cities can’t join in on the fun. Omaha, Nebraska is getting its own gigabit internet without the help from Google, thanks to internet service provider CenturyLink, who will be updating its current fiber optics platform to provide higher speeds.

century-link-logo

The company says that its faster fiber-optics internet service should begin rolling out to a select number of markets in Omaha next week, with availability to almost 50,000 of its customers to arrive by October of this year. This makes Omaha the fifth city in the US to receive gigabit internet, with Kansas City being the first.

The latest city to receive Google Fiber will be Provo, Utah, which was just announced last month, as was the announcement that Google’s gigabit internet would be coming to Austin, Texas. Even certain locations in Vermont will be getting fiber-based internet (not provided by Google Fiber, though). Based on this trend, we should see more cities crop up to challenge other cities for the fastest internet.

However, ISPs in these areas aren’t too happy about the deal that Google is getting with its Fiber service, and they’re fighting back with comparable services of their own. For example, AT&T announced that it would offer gigabit internet in Austin alongside Google Fiber. The war is officially on, and for once it’s not taking place in a court room.


Omaha, Nebraska to receive gigabit internet from CenturyLink is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook reports Q1 2013 revenue of $1.46 billion, 12 cents EPS

Facebook reports Q1 2013 revenue of $TK billion, $TK million in net income

There’s a fairly good chance that Mark Zuckerberg’s heading Home today without a massive bonus check. Zuck’s social network, Facebook, hasn’t quite reached the level of profitability that some investors once expected — its first year of public trading brought highs and lows (though, mostly lows). But, revenues steadily grew, and, in the final quarter of 2012, the company finally turned a profit. And now, for the most recent quarter, Facebook is reporting revenue of $1.46 billion, a 38-percent boost over the same period in 2012, with a net income of $312 million and earnings of 12 cents per share.

Daily active users jumped to 665 million worldwide, compared with 526 million in Q1 2012. As we learned last month, Instagram also saw a significant boost, with more than 100 million people actively using the service each month. Mobile is clearly in focus this year, and 751 million users are already accessing the site each month through smartphones and tablets, though the company’s efforts in that arena may be better reflected in the future — the site’s legacy products are responsible for Q1 2013’s figures. We hope to get some more insight during the earnings call this afternoon, and we’ll be sure to share any notable tidbits as they’re made public.

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Source: Facebook

Gigabit internet finds a new home in Omaha, Nebraska

Gigabit internet finds a new home in Omaha, Nebraska

When it comes to gigabit internet, the headline buzz usually involves Google and some mid or south western American locale. But not today. No, today, the ridiculously high-speed internet spotlight falls on Omaha, Nebraska where local provider CenturyLink is poised to launch a pilot service. Starting Monday, the telco’s Lightspeed Broadband package ($150 a month for standalone service or $80 a month as a bundle) will go live for nearly 10,000 subscribers and continue to rollout to a footprint just shy of 50,000 residential and enterprise subs by October. Further expansion plans for the greater metro area all hinge upon whether CenturyLink can turn a profit on the service, but the company will continue to sign-up enterprise subs outside of this pilot zone for the next two years. The path forward — at least, to us — is pretty clear, Omahans: vote with your wallet if you want to preserve the gigabit bragging rights.

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Source: Omaha

SOINN gets intelligence boost, uses web-based image search to ID objects

SOINN robot gets intelligence boost, uses webbased image search to identify objects

Tokyo Institute of Technology’s SOINN (Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network) bot was impressive enough during our first introduction back in 2011, but the intelligent device can now tap the web for its latest trick: accurate object identification. The updated system, which appears to utilize a database akin to Google’s image search, can scour the web for similar shots, making it possible to ID objects based on comparable structures published on the web. It can distinguish a box cutter from a knife, for example, or a rickshaw from a car. For now, SOINN is limited to identifying objects in images, including those captured in realtime with a camera, but its designers imagine that future revisions could enable content recognition in video streams, and audio clips, too. Our friends at DigInfo saw the update in action — check it out for yourself in the video after the break.

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Source: DigInfo.TV