Web denizens who regularly run Chrome or Safari are used to seeing PDFs in-browser, but their Firefox-using counterparts have had to settle for either a download or a third-party plugin. With the just-launched Firefox 19, they’re on an even playing field: Mozilla’s browser now has a built-in PDF viewer to save the hassle. Other updates on the desktop involve more incremental CSS and startup speed tweaks, although Android users do receive theme support, Chinese localizations and lowered minimum hardware requirements. Both Firefox versions and their release notes await at the download links.
European Union regulators weren’t exactly content with Google after it rolled up most of its privacy policies into a monolithic document early last year, and it doesn’t seem like that’s about to change. After giving Page and Co. four months to respond to 12 recommendations regarding its new policy, French regulator CNIL has come to the conclusion that “Google did not provide any precise and effective answers.” Though EU officials aren’t happy with Mountain View’s responses, Google says its policies respect European law and that it replied with steps to address the concerns by the January 8th deadline. Still, data protection regulators are committed to their investigation and are aiming to form a group before the summertime that would respond to the search titan.
As noted here, the RIAA has issued 10 million takedown requests to Google in an attempt to close off paths to sites that facilitate music downloading. At the same time, a related phenomenon is fueling the fire of rightsholder outrage: Brand advertising that appears on download sites and generates revenue for those businesses.
These two aspects of the internet’s ecosystem — finding free music downloads through search engines, and ad-supported sites expediting illicit music acquisition — represent deeply rooted challenges to media owners. At the same time, as with most challenges, there is a flip side of opportunity. The difference between capitalizing on an opportunity and being defeated by its challenge is the difference between getting in front of reality and falling behind it. The RIAA is regarded by many as the poster organization for denial of reality. A reversal of strategy and tactics might get big media owners in front of 21st century realities.
eBay will be revamping its homepage tomorrow to give it more of a Pinterest-esque feel. This new design, while it looks very nice, will also spell trouble for your wallet. The new homepage will allow you to create a custom feed filled with your favorite interests, brands, and trends. Everytime you visit the eBay home page, new items will pop up that match your customized feed, leading to more temptation to buy things. The feed will also continuously update while you’re shopping around on eBay.
This new look and feel was designed by eBay to help “personalize” its users’ shopping experience. By allowing shoppers to create a list composed of the items they love, eBay believes it can offer a more personalized and helpful shopping experience. The new homepage does look a lot more attractive than the current eBay layout, which currently shows your recent searches, eBay’s deals, and “popular on eBay” listings.
This new change will definitely help eBay in terms of revenue and profit, and it should make the eBay shopping experience more pleasant and fast-paced. The new homepage was tested with 10% of shoppers back in October, and it received a lot of positive feedback. eBay plans on launching a mobile app featuring the new look and feel sometime in the future.
That being said, you can actually begin customizing your eBay shopping feed right now. The feed creation wizard will guide you step-by-step through the process, starting with a list of items you have searched for in the past. You have to add 5 items to your list before you can view it. There is also an option to have updates from your list sent directly to your e-mail, which of course can result in you spending more money. Have fun shopping!
Opera’s been making quite a few notable changes lately, and now we’re finding out it won’t be without any repercussions to some of its staff. Earlier today, Opera CEO Lars Boilsen’s confirmed to our friends over at TechCrunch that the browser’s developer team is indeed downsizing, confirming previous reports about the company having to make changes as part of its recently announced WebKit adoption. Just how many Core positions will be lost in the process is still unclear, however, with Mr. Boilsen only going as far as telling TechCrunch the number of developers working on the overall project is now at “around 600.” What’s more, Opera’s CEO says it’s all part of a belief that “WebKit’s good enough, to switch, and by doing that we free up a lot of resources,” adding that Opera “will still have a Core team but it will be less people going forward.”
In theory, every actor and actress in the planet could be connected to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less. And in theory, according to Hungarian physicist Albert-László Barabási, every random web page can be accessed from any other random page by clicking just 19 times or less. More »
Think you’re brave, internet tough guy? Ex-Google China chief Kai-Fu Lee’s been rather outspoken about censorship in his homeland, and as such was banned from Sina and Tencent Weibo for three days, presumably by over-zealous authorities. To keep his followers in the strictly monitored nation up-to-date, the Beijing-based Lee took to Twitter and invited all 30 million of them to join him, which would make him the social network’s fourth most-followed user. That’s unlikely, of course — Twitter can be accessed fairly easily despite a ban in the nation, but developing a country-sized following on an illicit site would be a stretch, even for an outspoken pundit.
The odds of rising from NBA stat junkie / forum poster to Houston Rockets GM like Daryl Morey did are slim, but thanks to the new NBA.com/Stats page fans have access to more data than ever before. Until now, only league and team personnel have had access to the NBA’s complete official stats — media got access last spring — with box scores that go as far back as its start in 1946-47, individual stats for anyone who has ever played in the league plus advanced statistical breakdowns and rankings of best lineup combinations. Fan sites like Basketball Reference have filled in the gaps in the past, but this should bring a new level of accuracy and analysis to bear.
Access to these stats means we can evaluate games at a much deeper level to know precisely why the Lakers are so bad this season, or which combinations of players are giving the Knicks their best advantage. SAP announced the project back in July as a part of its marketing deal with the league, as it gets to show off its database chops building a system that can handle such a large number of requests on so much info. Hopefully other leagues follow suit and encourage this level for interaction with fans, although we suspect it would take more than a few Moneyball-esque calculations to fix squads like the Bobcats. Hit the source link below to satisfy a jones for numerics or find the perfect angle for your LeBron vs. Kobe argument, although last night’s All-Star Game may have given all the ammo necessary.
Linkedin will be revamping its job search engine to help its users find the jobs or careers of their dreams a whole lot easier. Their redesigned job search engine adds a bunch of new features that make it easier to search for the jobs that people both want and qualify for. There will be a whole new look and feel for their job search engine as well as more tools to help you search for the specific jobs that match the qualities you’re interested in.
The first major feature being added is what Linkedin calls the ‘first degree connection’. The Linkedin job search engine will show you companies where you know someone who can get you through the front doors. This is similar to the mutual friends system on Facebook, except these people will be your ticket to getting a new career.
Another feature being added is the ability to filter your job search by country, zip code, industry, and function. This advanced search feature will help you pinpoint careers that more specifically addresses your needs. You can also now view the latest job postings within your saved searches. There will be a new notification that will let you know when new job opportunities show up matching the criterias you listed before. There will be “Save Job” button that will let you keep track of your favorite job postings. And finally, there will be easier access to jobs that match your interest based on the information you place in your Linkedin profile.
For those with a subscription to Linkedin Job Seeker Premium, you will have a feature in the advanced search engine that will allow you to look up jobs that match the salary requirements you want. There will also be tips that appear during your job search to help you utilize Linkedin to its highest potential. All of these new features, as well as the redesign of the job search engine, will be rolled out to everyone within the next few weeks.
Google Takeout’s export functions have slowly extended their reach from profiles and personal contacts to heftier material, such as all our videos. However much we’ve been using that data portability, Google is eliminating what few gaps are left in its coverage: the company’s Data Liberation Front has expanded Takeout to preserve both Blogger content as well as Google+ Pages. Web denizens can cherry-pick just the blogs or Pages they want if a whole-enchilada backup is too much. Regardless of how large a safety net we need, the new options are ready and waiting at the source links.
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