Hasta La Gadget!

For those who haven’t kept track, Facebook has had a years-long history of only maybe-sort-of-more-or-less purging our photos: they could be removed from a profile, but they would sometimes float around the site’s content delivery networks for months or years, just waiting for a prospective employer to spot those embarrassing frosh week snapshots by accident. As Ars Technica discovered through experiments and official remarks, that problem should now be solved. In the wake of a months-long photo storage system migration and an updated deletion policy, Facebook now won’t let removed photos sit for more than 30 days in the content network stream before they’re scrubbed once and for all. The improved reaction time isn’t as rapid as for a service like Instagram, where photos vanish almost immediately, but it might be a lifesaver for privacy advocates — or just anyone who’s ever worn a lampshade on their head in a moment of insobriety.

Filed under: Internet

Facebook starts really, truly deleting removed photos originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering if that Facebook acquisition would slow down the pace of innovation at Instagram? Perhaps v3.0 will answer that. The famed photo sharing network — now some 80 million users deep — is detailing its latest user interface overhaul today, and geolocation is at the heart of it. Lining up with our own feelings on the benefits of geotagging and the usefulness of tagged photos from an archive / diary perspective, the newest edition of the app introduces a Photo Maps view. As the name implies, it overlays photos with a map underneath, giving people a far more visual look at what they were seeing at a given point on Earth (or Mars, assuming Curiosity hasn’t reached its data limit this month).

Beyond that, the app includes “multi-line caption editing, more streamlined photo uploading, speed improvements and infinite scroll,” according to our pals at TechCrunch. Interestingly, the Twitter “Find Friends” feature has been yanked in the latest build due to Twitter shutting off its API to the company last month. If you’re wondering about a master plan for Photo Maps, it’s pretty simple; just as you’d tune into #nbcfail on Twitter to read the latest musings about the Summer Olympics, hovering over London in Instagram could give you a highly filtered look at what kind of photos are emerging from an event in real time. And really, who wouldn’t want to see 807 sepia-infused 1:1 shots of Usain Bolt? Per usual, you’ll find the demo vid after the break.

Continue reading Instagram 3.0 adds Photo Maps, infinite scrolling and speed improvements (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Instagram 3.0 adds Photo Maps, infinite scrolling and speed improvements (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve ever been so embroiled in a chat or sharing splurge that you’ve been told to “take it off of Twitter,” you now can — sort of. Twitter co-creators Biz Stone and Ev Williams have launched Branch and Medium, two companion services that (naturally) use a Twitter sign-in but narrow the focus to just a few subjects. As the name suggests, Branch lets especially vocal Twitter users invite others into conversations that don’t clutter everyone’s feeds or cut replies off at the 140-character limit. Medium? Think of it as Pinterest turned publishing platform: members can publish either a static collection of favorite articles and media, for reading and rating, or leave it open for more collaborative efforts. There’s no rush to open the floodgates to the invitation-only portals, though. Stone and Williams see the quietness of their new services as an antidote to the madness of regular social streams, and we can’t help but sympathize.

Filed under: Internet

Twitter founders create Branch and Medium to keep the conversations, collections flowing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week the folks at Pinterest have finally released both iPad and Android versions of their mobile app, previously only available for the iPhone. Today we’re having a peek at the iPad version in just a few steps – it’s a simple app and it simply does what you need it to do. It’s also quite nice to look at, as it should be, and also has a built-in web browser so you’re not stuck in the browsing of other people’s Pins – full involvement on the way!

This application is free to download and is ready for your Retina display – if that’s the version of the iPad that you’ve got – but works perfectly well on all iterations of the iPad. You’ll need a Pinterest account to make it work, and signing up inside the app is simple too – you’ll just connect via Facebook or Twitter or make your own unique account just connected to Pinterest. Once you’re in, your account will be perfectly synced up no matter which device or app you’re in.

Pinterest is an environment in which users collect their favorite online items and “Pin” them to a board for everyone to see. Like Facebook, each person in your friends group is able to see your Pins along with the rest of their friends Pins in one giant news feed. This app makes doing all of this unique for your iPad instead of requiring that you use your iPad’s built-in web browser for access.

You can download this application for the iPad, the iPhone, or any Android device right this second – just search for “Pinterest” in your app store! The download is well worth the 15 seconds it’ll take to download, and it’ll make your Pinterest experience all the more engaging. If you’re not hooked up with Pinterest yet, also download the app – it’s an awesome experience for the casual iPad user too!

Pinterest for iPad Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

One of the biggest problems with Google+ is the inability to easily type in a URL to get to a specific person’s profile page. Profiles right now are accessed via string of random numbers, so either you’ll need to have someone in your feed or you’ll have to search for via Google before stumbling across their profile page and feed. The search company has made moves to correct the problem, according to TechCrunch, with the introduction of new vanity URLs.

The feature hasn’t been enabled for everyone, however. Only a handful of companies and celebrities have access to shortened URLs right now. Britney Spears, for example, can be accessed by going to plus.google.com/+britneyspears/posts, and several bramds including Hugo Boss, Delta Airlines, and Toyota have also seen the change.

Google says that the new feature will be available worldwide, but didn’t go into specifics about who has access to vanity URLs or how it intends to dish out the custom URLs in the future. According to the company, this is merely a “first step,” with the vanity URLs available only to “a limited number of verified profiles and pages.”

If you’re jonesing for a custom URL to replace the random numbers, you’ll have to sit tight until Google rolls out the feature on a wide basis. In the meantime, you can check several examples of the shortened URLs in action, which include individuals like David Beckham, Hugh Jackman, as well as games such as Assassin’s Creed.

Google rolls out limited Google+ vanity URLs is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.