Hasta La Gadget!

Look, we’ve all been there — that moment when palm meets face after viewing the umpteenth image of your best friend’s child. As cute as Louie is, there’s a finite quantity of JPEGs that one can stand if you aren’t Louie’s creator. Of course, scaling back the number of offspring photos uploaded to public social networks wasn’t the intention of those who crafted Ukky, but it’s a side effect that the childless among us will no doubt appreciate. Showcased this week at The Next Web Conference, Ukky is a (gorgeous) iPhone app that’s designed to journal the life of your youngster, and your interactions along the way. The word itself is Dutch for “little one” (or so I’m told), and it effectively brings the world of Path to a different niche.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile

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Source: Ukky

When you’re sharing a file in Google Drive, your time should be spent collaborating, not arranging conversations. Right? Google agrees strongly enough to have just finished tweaking Drive’s web interface for better teamwork. Users actively working on the project now show as mouse-over icons, with their Google+ relationship front and center — if they’re not friends and you want them to be, you can change that almost immediately. It’s even faster to start group chats, as a new dedicated button will launch a chatroom for everyone who’s currently looking at the project. Google expects the speedier Drive socialization to reach us within a day or two, and it’s planning to bolster the update with wider file support sometime in the near future.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google Drive Blog

The Justice Department is toying with the definitions of “legal,” according to the folks over at CNET, which say the Electronic Privacy Information Center provided them with documents detailing a bypass of the Wiretap Act. Says the report, the Justice Department has sent out letters to a variety of ISPs absolving them of repercussions for intercepting Internet communications.

The letters were sent in secret to a variety of providers, among them being AT&T, giving the ISPs permission to interception communications that go through their network, a violation of the Wiretap Act. According to the documents, those who moved ahead with intercepting communications have been provided with legal immunity. These are called 2511 letters, and the exact amount that was sent out is not known.

Both the Defense Department and the National Security Agency participated in this event, with CNET reporting that some of the documents it received showing discussions by the NSA’s director Keith Alexander. Said the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s executive director Marc Rotenberg, “The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws. Alarm bells should be going off.”

Originally, this program was used to keep an eye on defense contractors, monitoring their Internet links. The Obama Administration has expanded the program so that it now involves “all critical intrastructure sectors,” which are said to include finance, healthcare, and energy. This change will go in effect on June 12. While the Department of Justice and NSA turned down requests for comments, Homeland Security responded with a statement that it is “committed to supporting the public’s privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”

[via CNET]

Justice Department authorized ISPs to bypass Wiretap Act is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo announced via a tweet on Wednesday that Miiverse can now be accessed online, giving users access outside of the Wii U for the first time and showcasing Nintendo’s tentative trip into the social networking sphere. Nintendo is hailing this as a beta move, and so users should expect to see things shift around as it is refined and finalized.

Says Nintendo, the mobile access for Miiverse does not offer all the features users enjoy on the Wii U, with the reason being that it is still in beta mode. According to Miiverse.Nintendo.net, where users can access it, PCs, smartphones, and other devices are supported, with those “other devices” not being detailed. As a condition of being in beta mode, Nintendo advises that some devices may not be able to access it.

All of this meaning, try to access it on your device of choice and see if it works. If you don’t have a Miiverse account, you can still check out the service via a sampler selection of popular posts. Users can be tagged in posts, which can also be liked. It works about the same way those who use Miiverse on their Wii U are familiar with, minus a few features.

This news follows shortly after Nintendo revealed its quarterly earnings, which show that the Wii U’s console sales have continued to struggle. According to the financial report, Wii U sales failed to meet Nintendo’s reduced sales expectations, hitting 3.45 million units sold rather than the 4 million expected, which was a downgrade of nearly 30-percent over the maker’s original expectations.

[via Twitter]

Nintendo launches beta Miiverse online is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Provo, Utah’s plan to sell its cost-plagued fiber network to Google has been approved by the municipal council, meaning it’ll soon become the third Google Fiber city. However, while still not receiving any money upfront as earlier reported, it’ll now have to advance $1.7 million in equipment and engineering costs not part of the deal before, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. In exchange, each Provo resident will get a free 5-megabit internet connection for seven years and Google will have to upgrade the network to connect all the city’s homes. It’s not quite free, however, as the city’s 120,000 residents must still pay a $39 million bond for building the network — meaning they’ll shell out $3.3 million for each of the next 12 years.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Salt Lake Tribune