Hasta La Gadget!

Wouldn’t it be nice if photos you uploaded to Facebook, MySpace and Flickr just stopped being accessible after a while, saving you the almighty hassle of having to delete them yourself? Well, a few good Germans have come together to produce the X-pire! software, which promises to do just that — make online imagery inaccessible after a given period of time following their upload. It’s been around in prototype form as a Firefox extension, but next week should see its proper launch, complete with a subscription-based pricing model costing €24 per year. Yes, the observant among you will note that this does nothing to prevent others from grabbing those images and re-uploading them, but this software’s ambition is humbler than that — it just aims to give the less tech-savvy (or simply lazier) user a tool for controlling at least part of his or her presence on the web.

X-pire! software will add digital expiration dates to your photos, photo-related embarrassment originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 22:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you know that Wikipedia is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week? It is, on January 15th! It’s hard to believe that the ‘edited by the everyman’ encyclopedia has been around that long… or maybe we’re just getting old. Either way, co-founder of the site (and man of many personal appeals) Jimmy Wales took the opportunity to answer some questions about the past, present and future of Wikipedia, and, when asked about the growing prevalence of mobile apps and app stores, well, Wales had plenty to say, including that models such as the iTunes app store can represent a dangerous “chokepoint” and that they could be “a threat to a diverse and open ecosystem.” He also added that mobile devices are owned by people, and those people should control their own devices. We can see where Jimmy’s coming from in some ways — apps are a wholly new, untested way of ingesting content, but we have a hard time swallowing wholesale that the app store model could threaten internet freedom more than an issue such as net neutrality. But you know, if you ask us nicely, Jimmy, we might just take your word for it. Hit up the ‘more coverage’ link to check out a video of Jimmy Wales waxing philosophical about the birthday celebration.

Wikipedia celebrates 10th anniversary, co-founder Jimmy Wales opines on app stores originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Merry Internet pranksters Improv Everywhere pulled off another successful No Pants Subway ride this weekend. Not quite CES numbers, but according to initial estimates from the group, some 3,500 New Yorkers participated in the event, removing their bottoms and enjoying all that our city’s wonderful public transportation system has to offer–quite the feat, given the fact that it never got any warmer than 32 degrees.

Events were also held in 50 other cities in 24 countries, from chilly Minneapolis to the far more pleasant São Paulo. Video from last year’s event after the jump.

If you live in a technophile city like Taipei, you’ll have been enjoying underground 4G for a long time now, but in London the rule is that you have to bid adieu to your mobile connectivity when diving into a tunnel. The city’s Mayor has been active in encouraging (forcing?) the major British carriers to install the necessary equipment to provide coverage on the Tube, and now we’re hearing that ambition has stretched beyond the nation’s borders as well. The Daily Telegraph reports that Vodafone, O2, Everything Everywhere, and Three from the UK along with Orange, SFR and Bouygues from France have agreed to share the cost of putting together a £20 million ($30.8m) project for making cellular coverage possible while traveling through the 31.4-mile Channel Tunnel between the two countries. The goal is to get things up and running by the Olympics in 2012, though we’ve no indication as to what speeds those wireless data transfers will reach. Still, having some bars is better than none, right?

UK and French carriers working on cellular coverage for Channel Tunnel, aim to finish by 2012 Olympics originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 06:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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