Hasta La Gadget!

Ready the spandex and decide on a name for your alter ego, because come October 16th, you’ll have the chance to fight crime from the comfort of your computer. On that date, the “Connected To The Case” website goes live with the aim of crowd-sourcing tips from its users to help the cops solve active investigations. You’ll use your Facebook login for access, as the service pulls data from your profile to prioritize cases with which you might have a connection. Morgan Wright, CEO and Chief Crime Fighter of Crowd Sourced Investigations, told us its system looks at five key areas when digging for pertinent triggers: “date, location, time, relation and demographics.” It then uses that data to tailor notifications of unsolved crimes based on — for example — proximity to your school, or where you used to work. Rest assured that you control the privacy settings, and if you’ve got useful info to share, you can do so anonymously.

Law enforcement agencies can register to include their cases from today, with the initial roll-out targeting the US. The plan is to expand first to other English-speaking countries, with foreign language support in the future to build a global network of internet do-gooders. Including data from other social networks is also in the pipeline, starting with Twitter and later, Foursquare and Pinterest. A smartphone app is also on the agenda, so get your detective devices ready — we can be heroes, if just for one click.

Continue reading Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving

Filed under: Internet

Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you own a BlackBerry, it might not have been immediately apparent that Facebook Messenger has been an option since October; unlike with Android or iOS, you had to track down the download on Facebook’s website. We don’t know why it’s been kept out of a more accessible channel, but that ends today with Facebook’s chat-focused app arriving on BlackBerry App World like most any other title. There don’t appear to be any new tricks included with the expanded availability, although we’d say that the wider exposure is enough of a highlight for an audience that just needs to get by until BlackBerry 10. Those who don’t use BBM for all their instant messaging can find what they need at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Facebook Messenger for BlackBerry reaches App World, sates compulsive chatters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve got a business that has an extraordinary amount of likes on Facebook and have suddenly felt a bit lighter today, you’re not alone: the social network has brought out the axe. This week Facebook has begun implementing many of the changes and rules they outlined in a very basic way several weeks ago regarding fake accounts and likes. If you’ve payed for likes from odd sources or are the sort of person who makes large amounts of fake accounts just to like your own products, you might be in for a wakeup call.

This situation is being reported by multiple sources who speak on the fan count of large pages like Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker which TechCrunch says lost 96,000 fans in less than 24 hours. Facebook has noted that most pages will not experience any gigantic changes in their amounts of likes and “real” Facebook fans, but they should expect some manner of change or another in numbers. Do not be afraid though, these changes are not in the number of actual users, but robots and accounts created just for likes instead.

In other words, if you’ve got a page that’s liked by nothing but accounts with single photos of a strangely promiscuous lady who has little to no information up about herself, only a note about how she’s “new to this Facebook thing”, you’ll be seeing some drops. This is part of Facebook’s big plan to give another new wave of legitimacy to the social network universe – with the cuts of the unreal masses, investors will be able to have a much more accurate view of how Facebook is doing (with real humans.)

Have a peek at a few more recent Facebook bits and pieces in the timeline below to see how the company has been changing since they went IPO earlier this year. As a public company, their initial offering did not do so fantastically well. Now that they’re a few months down the road, they’re staying tough about everything, even the knocking off of their own huddled robots.

Facebook terminates fake accounts with extreme prejudice is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you were wondering how Facebook was going to take their Groups platform to the next level, look no further – they’ve tied the knot with Dropbox for massive amounts of storage space for all. What you’ll be able to do with this storage space is share your larger files with your buddies, make it simple for your Group surrounding your business or club to share files – perhaps a PDF guide for your next big showing! You’ll be able to upload large files of all kinds – videos, packs of notes, your new photo collection, whatever you need!

What the actual service provides is not a new way to upload files to the cloud, but a connection between Dropbox and Facebook. You’ll still need to upload your files through Dropbox, but the path from your Facebook Group to the files you seek will be much, much easier. And better integrated – you wont have to post a link each time, you’ll have a big ol’ box there ready for you – easy to see, easy to click.

If you make edits to your Dropbox folders, an update will appear in your Group. If you make edits to your files in the cloud, an update will reflect this as well. This service will make Dropbox an extension of your already diverse group on Facebook. Here Facebook expands to a level beyond that which their current server space will allow – or that they want it to allow, given the wild and sometimes dangerous world of web storage.

Working with Dropbox will allow Facebook to continue to be as safe – legally – as they are now, while still making it possible for people to share files of all types. No longer will you be limited – in groups – to single photos and relatively small videos. Now the storage world is yours to command!

[via Dropbox]

Facebook integrates Dropbox for group sharing of large files is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you have an urge to always know what your close friends and family members are up to, then Foursquare has the remedy. The popular social network has announced the availability of its new “Always On” option which allows you to receive continuous check-ins from a selected list of people — even if you have notifications disabled. This slick new feature gives you the flexibility to create a list of VIPs that you’d like to keep tabs on opposed to receiving a play by play of everyone else’s weekend excursion. For now, the toggle can only be found on Foursquare’s website, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this toggle headed to the company’s cadre of apps in the near future. The Android app specifically just received a new update that brings back the nearby friends check-in filter users lost in the upgrade to 5.0 (iOS and BlackBerry saw it return in August) plus a “social history” that shows if your friends have visited a location and how many times, as well as a redesigned me card.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Mobile

Foursquare’s ‘Always On’ feature tracks your VIPs near or far, Android app regains nearby check-in filter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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