Bad news from the land of Tegra. NVIDIA has shut down its Developer Zone forums after noticing what it calls “attacks on the site by unauthorized third parties.” While the nature of the attacks isn’t clear, what’s troubling is that these attackers “may have gained access to hashed passwords.” Users are of course encouraged to change their secret codes and, with all the hackery going on lately, we might recommend you just go ahead and change them all — just in case.
Digg’s $500,000 sale to Betaworks is just one element of the social site’s overall break-up, according to new industry whispers, with talk that the total figure involved is more in the region of $16m. Reports that Betaworks had snapped up Digg’s assets for half a million dollars yesterday surprised many who remembered the link sharing site’s halcyon days, but TechCrunch‘s sources suggest that was merely the mopping up after the best parts had already been spoken for.
The biggest chunk of the pie came from the Washington Post, a source says, which paid around $12m for the Digg team. Meanwhile, business-centric social network LinkedIn supposedly paid up to $4m for a Digg patent bundle. That, made up of around 15 different filings, covered the technology behind “clicking a button to vote up a story” among other things.
What Betaworks actually got for its investment is the Digg domain name, the code behind the site, the existing data, and all of the traffic. The company will apparently license the necessary patents for running the business as it sees fit from LinkedIn.
Those intentions are still unclear, though there has been talk of a new “cloud-based version of Digg” that will work with the News.me iPhone and iPad apps. The News.me team will also be running the web-based Digg.com, though likely with some changes along the way.
Can’t unwind without the aid of open spaces? Skippy the robot might be able to help you out. The aptly named bot lets you remotely skip stones across an Idaho pond using a simple web interface. After waiting for your turn in a virtual queue, the machine lets you adjust its aim, tweak the amount of force behind the pitch and dispatch a rock. Best of all, your stone jumping exploits are automatically recorded, letting you show off your skipping prowess. Devised as a way to raise awareness for Idaho’s Sun Valley resort area during the summer months, the mechanical projectile chucker seems to be arduino-powered, and operates only during daytime hours. Check out the source to start pelting pebbles, or venture past the break for two short videos of the contraption in action.
A couple of months ago, Twitter did a big overhaul of its mobile site. When your service reaches such massive levels of popularity, there’s a lot a to take into account with even the most minor of redesigns. Over on its official blog, Twitter offers up a fascinating bit of insight into what goes into such a reconfiguration — oh, and if you’ve ever wondered what Twitter looks like on a Samsung Corby, this is the post for you. Check it out in the source link below.
According to this flyer, Time Warner Cable is asking people in Kansas City to share “tips, rumors and rumblings about Google construction or launch activity” about Google Fiber for a chance to win money. Yeah, Time Warner is so worried about Google Fiber that it’s asking people to spy on Google so it’ll have a better idea of how screwed Time Warner is. More »
Digg, once one of the shining stars of the social media world, is now a sad shell of of its former self. The once mighty news-sharing service founded by Kevin Rose, has just been snatched up by a small New York City firm called Betaworks for a paltry $500,000, according to the Wall Street Journal. The site still draws roughly seven million visitors a month, but that’s a far cry from the more than 30 million is was pulling in during its 2008 heyday. And the pocket change paid for the property pales in comparison to the over $45 million it raised from investors over its lifetime. The sale follows the departure of its most high profile exec, the aforementioned Rose, who is now in charge of Google Ventures. Betaworks plans to revitalize the brand involve folding it into News.me, another social news service, which launched in April of last year. The deal only includes the property itself and the brand — none of Digg’s remaining employees will be making the move to Betaworks. Of course, there were very few left once the Washington Post subsidiary Social Code hired 15 engineers from the floundering service, which accounted for more than half of its workforce.
Update: As it turns out, that “$500,000” figure may not tell the whole story. TechCrunch and AllThingsD are both reporting that there’s a lot more to consider besides the cash outlay.
Yes! Good news are in for those of you who were affected by the ongoing kerfuffle between Dish and AMC: the TV network just announced it’ll be live streaming the return of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman on its website. As you’re likely aware, this announcement comes shortly after Dish Network revealed it was dropping the home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men from its lineup, after both parties couldn’t reach a deal to keep the channel in place — if there ever was one on the table to begin with. Nevertheless, AMC’s taken it to the interwebs to stand its ground, and has rolled out a page inviting Dish customers to sign up for the free live stream of the season premiere this Sunday. Notably, TechCrunch reports an AMC rep told the site that “there’s no real way for the network to verify that viewers are actually Dish subscribers,” which pretty much opens the doors to anyone wanting to join the Season Five fun. The link to the nice streaming gesture is down below, so give it a bookmark if you’re planning on tuning in.
While it’s true that Yahoo’s recent security breach, in which a group of hackers used an SQL injection attack to walk off with 450,000 Yahoo Contributor Network passwords, could have been prevented with better security on Yahoo’s part (the company stored the passwords in plain text), it’s also forcing us to come to a rather shocking realization. Apparently, people are still making very dumb decisions when it comes to choosing a password. We should all know by now that the strongest passwords are ones that include a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, but is seems no one told that to a number of Yahoo users.
According to CNET, 2,200 of the passwords stolen were simply just “123456″ while another 780 were – you guessed it – “password.” Okay, so maybe 2,980 miserable passwords out of a pool of 450,000 isn’t all that much, but still, there really shouldn’t be anyone using “123456″ or “password” as the most important part of their login credentials in this day and age. When it comes down to it, we’re not sure if we should laugh at the silliness of all of this or cry because of how depressing it is.
Part of the problem here is that Yahoo did not require stronger passwords for the Yahoo Contributor Network, instead accepting any password the end user wanted to roll with. CNET says that Yahoo requires stronger passwords for most of its other sites, so it why it didn’t implement the same policy on the Yahoo Contributor Network is beyond us. This just goes to show that some people prefer convenience over security (at least when it comes to picking a password), so maybe it’s time to finally implement a stronger password policy and force people to pick one that isn’t so obvious?
With the memory of Dish Network dropping AMC at the end of June undoubtedly still fresh in their minds, Breaking Bad fans are probably getting a little anxious. The season premiere of the fifth and final season of the critically-acclaimed show is quickly approaching, and up until just a little while ago, it looked like Dish Network subscribers were going to be left out in the cold. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case, as AMC has decided to help fans of the show out by streaming the premiere over the internet.
The stream is only available to Dish Network subscribers, and unfortunately, only the first episode of the season will be streamed. After that, you’re on your own, so you’ll have to switch to another television provider or wait until AMC makes the season available in other forms if you want to catch the rest of the episodes. Still, this a nice gesture for those who just want to watch some quality programming but were instead caught up in AMC and Dish’s tussle.
Both companies say different things about why AMC was dropped from Dish Network – according to Dish, it’s because AMC and two other channels owned by the same company, IFC and WE tv, have been performing poorly as far as ratings are concerned. Dish also doesn’t like the fact that AMC makes older episodes of its show available for free online. Hearing AMC explain the parting of ways, however, we get a much different story. AMC says that Dish dropped them because of bad blood from an unrelated lawsuit. Which one is right? No one is really sure. The only thing that seems certain is that these two aren’t likely to kiss and make-up anytime soon.
If you’re a Dish Network subscriber interested in catching the live stream of the Breaking Bad premiere, you can sign up here starting tomorrow, July 13. The show is set to premiere at 10:00 PM EDT on Sunday, July 15, so be sure to register to watch it before then!
Facebook, that tenuous connection between ourselves and the many casual acquaintances we’ve amassed over the years, has just rolled out a better way to keep track of events. Now it’s possible to plan that witty annual birthday greeting months in advance, thanks to the new calendar and list views on the social network’s Events page. You can also see suggested events and respond to invites from the comfort of the same page. The roll out follows the introduction the new Google+ Events page late last month, so now the two social networks can avoid awkwardly bumping into each other at parties.
Update: Looks like weddings and celebrations are getting overhauled, too. Clearly, it’s time to get down.
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