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For comparison with a water droplet (the closer to 180 degrees you get, the closer to a perfect non-wettable/sticky surface you have):

This new glass (165 degree contact angle)
The upcoming Neverwet material (160 to 175 degrees)
Lotus leaf or even some birds' feather (150 degrees)
Rain-X (110 degrees - car windshield protector)
Teflon (95-110 degrees - surprisingly low, but then it needs to be tough and heat-proof)
Car wax (90 degrees)
Human skin (90 degrees - PDF warning)

I wonder what the durability of the glass is compared to Neverwet w(which is pervious to solvents, detergents, soap and high pressure water)...

[apologies, pholks.. I hit Submit instead of Preview by accident, and am just figuring out that I can't edit a comment. Here's the handy-dandy, and proofread, HTML...}

college&community&public stations a-plenty-- make sure yours is among them:
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/cispa_critics_warn_cybersecurity_bill_will

And here are the go-to sites for leadership/updates on the issue:
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.epic.org/ (though, just checking.. not sure why EPIC is lagging on this issue thus far.)
And though I don't like ragging on sd'ers, it's a bit troubling that the site which is heralded as bringing the news is "hothardware".. I guess a peeve of mine is overspecialization. Ever the humble polyglot, I make it a point to check aggregators of alternative news daily:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/

and as re Your Rights specifically, a good podcast is http://www.lawanddisorder.org/
... also, CNet puts together a good "Politics and Law" rss feed: http://news.cnet.com/8300-13578_3-38.xml

AMANDLA!

References here and here.

So you were the one guy that subscribed to Buzz?

And you DO know that it was USER error/carelessness that allowed Buzz to leak, don't you?

Does this mean you also can't store on your G-drive anything you don't have permission to reproduce.

No, it doesn't mean that.

TFA is a click-bait beat up. There's a FAQ here http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57420402-93/the-google-drive-faq/

Very nice, I remember that one :)

Before someone mistakes you for a troll, I guess I'd better link to an explanation. 14 years ago, somebody at Microsoft left a dangerous backdoor in Frontpage 98, with the phrase "Netscape engineers are weenies!" as the key. People were fired over this, and so should the persons responsible for the SNAFU at Rugged.

Wish I could mod you up. I'd almost forgotten about that.

A couple of points about this. First, if the recent Wired article on the under-construction Utah data center is accurate, mass spying is already underway with increasing volumes being planned. So I think it is fair to say that this is a reflection of Total Information Awareness and the post-Admiral Poindexter philosophy of spying: build it and let 'em try and take it away later. CISPA, then, is best thought of as a legal framework around existing and planned hardware buildouts. While I do not expect the Obama White House to be forthcoming with its real reasoning for threatening a veto, I presume that the real reason is that CISPA does not go far enough so far as the executive branch is concerned.

The idea for AdWords came from Overture. Overture was originally named GoTo.com, and was founded 6 months before Google, and 2 1/2 years before AdWords.

Overture sued Google for infringing its "bid-for-placement" and "pay-for-performance" patents. (article)

Google settled the suit for $300+ million

If you mean "the various Google editors for documents, spreadsheets, drawings, and presentation that were and still are called 'Google Docs'", you don't have to use those with Drive either, though they are available (and the SDK allows third-party web apps to supplement them for creating or editing files online, and even to replace them as the default editors for various file types.)

I thought that's what Google Docs is.

Now that the rest of what was Google Docs before today has been renamed "Drive", that is what Google Docs is. The cloud storage and web-based file list UI that are now part of what is called "Google Drive" used to also be part of "Google Docs". You can use the Drive part without using the Docs part (essentially, the Docs part is a set of apps that handle create/open actions from within Drive, and which can now be supplemented with third-party apps that can do the same thing.)

Regardless, how do I use it outside of the above definition?

1. The same way you could use the cloud storage part of Google Docs without using the online editors part that is still "Google Docs" before the cloud storage was renamed Drive -- upload via the Drive (ex-Docs) web UI, share via the Drive web UI, and download via the Drive web UI. None of that requires the online editors.

2. Using the new desktop applications, which provide a synchronized local copy of the files stored in your Drive (ex-Docs) cloud storage.

3. Using third party web apps installed through the Chrome Web Store using the new Drive SDK which can manipulate files stored in your drive cloud storage, including the ability to handle create/open actions initiated through the web UI.

Linky? drive.google.com isn't terribly helpful, unless I'm missing something.

CNETs How to get started with Google Drive
Google Drive SDK docs

Maybe the BSA learned their lesson from the Ernie Ball incident.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57414373-64/sonys-fall-and-japans-hang-ups/?tag=mncol;editorPicks http://www.firstpost.com/business/sony-gets-beaten-by-apple-samsung-innovation-sees-2-9-bn-loss-201493.html I was there, I know how business is done in Japan, its not efficient. The Chinese simply lack the know-how, I'm sure they'll catch up though.

Well, per the 2003 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision it's not legal to do so(*) but it's perfectly simple to do and the occupants of the vehicle are not alerted that it's happening.

link

(*) this decision is only applicable in California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Hawaii, and other states that fall within the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction.

Sure, let Google try that. As far as I can tell, the best defense Google might have is relying on the fact that Java was released under the GPL.

Maybe you haven't seen Oracle's collection of evidence here. They have a lot of evidence that Google derived their work from Sun, including the pieces of code, including an engineer testifying that he was staring at documents taken from the Sun website while he did it. Whether they also derived from Apache's implementation is irrelevant, because they certainly derived sufficiently from Sun.

No inside info here sorry.

I did not know the Microsoft deal had the precondition to dump Meego/Tizen, I figured it just had the precondition to produce a WP7 phone.

But I do not think the rumors of two new Nokia MeeGo phones would persist at all if Nokia had the precondition to dump Meego; although it appears the rumored phones will at best have the MeeGo GUI and run S40.

A little Google searching on the topic does not reveal any such agreement to abandon Meego, at most Nokia agreed to make Windows Phone its primary platform, do you have a sources to clarify that Nokia has to kill all in house MeeGo development? I hope I have not missed something: paidCOntent, Telegraph, CNet, The Next Web, Microsoft.

But I am sure that it is wishful thinking to think that Nokia will drop Windows Phone and get back behind MeeGo in full force any time soon, if ever...

Reminds me of a similar usage of the DMCA and copyright claim for performance art. Remember the Electric Slide fiasco?

Well, when all the litigation amongst the companies shook out, it turns out that Nvidia is footing the bill for their own screw-up.

As much as it pains me to defend Apple's corporate behavior in any matter, Nvidia was clearly in the wrong. Apple had no advance knowledge of Nvidia's bad engineering and dishonest documentation. The GPUs failed after time and use, so only an unrealistically long engineering evaluation period by any customer of Nvidia's parts would have uncovered the issue. Apple was boned, and Nvidia did the boning.

This little peccadillo on Nvidia's part is how they wound up on my "never buy" list.

The Inquirer chased the story quite intensively back in the 2009 timeframe. This query will give you the list of the articles there that might provide a bit of context to this story.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10315648-92.html

So, we're going to split hairs over what is construed as "theft" while using terms like "pirate"?

The pirates seem to have no problem with that label. But there is a distinction with a large difference between copyright infringement and theft. To use "theft" when nothing has been stolen is disingenuous -- in short, a LIE. If you have to resort to lies and inflammatory statements to make your case, you don't have a case to make, period.

Theft is the term is use because that is how the *AA sees it.

So you're going to follow the liars' lead?

I'm sure that the "someone else paid for it" defense works really well against Microsoft when pirating (sorry, I meant sharing) 150 copies of Microsoft Office around the company after buying just one.

I don't think I would defend a money-making outfit for that, but I would certainly defend the home user buying one copy of Windows and installing it on all five computers he built. After all, my CDs aren't all tied to a single CD player. Either way, it's just ones and zeros.

There is at least one instance of "piracy" costing MS money. They lost Ernie Ball as a customer because of accusations of piracy. "I don't care if we have to buy a thousand abacuses, I refuse to do business with someone who treats me badly."

It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than a iMovie and YouTube to keep people from wanting to pay for the next cyber-apocolypse-zombie-vampire movie....split into 7 highly-profitable parts.

Indeed. People will always pay for stuff thay want and can afford. But the world is changing. RIAA record labels are obsolete, and it probably won't be long (the technology isn't quite there yet) before the MPAA suffers the same fate.

Ex-Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, gave some contrasting statements in the past. See: Privacy Worries Are For Wrongdoers.

On related subject Facebook is one supporter of controversial CISPA law project.

Google is by now means perfect, by I still trust then more than the alternatives.

Other people have done this before.. it's not like you'd be the first to block google's tracking

There is a reason MS has to use snoracles java:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-251401.html

If facts count at all in this disagreement, then the Aussies are correct.

Anytime you have a long network hop to your data, it is at greater risk for downtime and inaccessibility. This is a fact, not a political thought.

I live in the USA and work in IT. I would not host my data in Australia unless I wanted to have times when it was inaccessible and was willing to put up with clogged networking.

Heck, I'd like to host my data outside the USA too .... just to prevent the US government from feeling they deserve access to it, which they do not.

More and more countries need to only store data in the USA for end customers who are actually located inside the USA. I'd try to keep my infrastructure outside the US too based on FBI server-grabs. The FBI has grabbed entire racks of servers because they were too lazy to figure out which specific server was believed to hold the "offending" data. The other 3000 websites were gone and I read that after a year, the servers were still not returned. Too bad if your company data is "close" to some supposed "bad guys" - they take and figure out the issue later.
* http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/22/0217200/fbi-seizes-servers-in-virginia
* http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387447,00.asp
* http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157
* http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10220786-240.html
and the recent megaupload seizures
* http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

A Canadian service provider was caught up in a raid like th
is and immediately contacted the US-FBI special agent to be told they were too busy to work with them.

The US government is arrogant based on these actions and others.

If I were in Australia, there's no way that I'd host data in the USA for non-USA-based users.

• Vehicle noise outside the car - to warn pedestrians/other motorists/etc. of the car's presence;
• Vehicle noise inside the car - so the driver has a perception of how fast they are driving.

A speaker making 'vroom vroom' noises outside the car does nothing for the driver - most modern Audi-class cars are so quiet inside you can barely hear an internal combustion engine. Some cars (even loud high-performance ones) already artifically add engine noise to the stereo system so the driver can gauge their speed.

Really? They are plenty critical of Microsoft.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gartner-windows-8-tablets-will-be-an-utter-failure-2012-4

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9076698/Windows_is_collapsing_Gartner_analysts_warn

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9862322-56.html

Stop with the stupid lame bias, which is proving the article's point, really.

Yeah, and how hard is that? Is this about malware that magically attaches itself to existing executables, or does it just drop itself into a system directory and run itself?

"As with previous variants of the malware, the latest variant of the Flashback malware, called OSX/Flashback.I, works by modifying code within Web browsers that causes it to launch when the browsers are opened and result in modified Web pages being displayed."
Removal instructions

Both are pretty bloody old problems and easily mitigated. How is it that OSX can be owned by a driveby exploit trojan that adds it to a botnet? I thought its underlying guts were Unix. How is it that Windows can't notice that something new has been installed and executed without the user's instigation?

What have Apple and Microsoft OS developers been spending their time on for the last decade? Surfing pr0n? Posting "you guys suck" on web forums? Making Clicky spin more gracefully?

Meanwhile, their users are unwittingly added to botnets and their machines run keyloggers that phone home to crackers. And they get to pay for these "privileges"?!? Gee, what a great deal.

$DEITY help them if their shareholders ever wise up.

Actually the problems ARE all solved in the latest versions of OSX. The attack vector is a Java applet displayed in the browser, Lion no longer includes Java by default, malware detection was added in Snow Leopard and starting in Lion processes are sandboxed. From what I've read the malware seems to target older computers and versions of OSX. As always the best protection is remaining up to date.

A) Vulnerability has been patched.
B) It's not that difficult to detect and remove.

This is strictly about helping non technical users that might be infected in an easy way. It's these users that were specifically targetted by the way since the malware targets old versions of Java and even checks for the existence of "power user" tools installed and doesn't install if they are :

"4. You do not have certain security tools installed on your Mac that Flashback checks for, including Little Snitch, Xcode, and a few anti-malware tools.'

A) Vulnerability has been patched.
B) It's not that difficult to detect and remove.

This is strictly about helping non technical users that might be infected in an easy way. It's these users that were specifically targetted by the way since the malware targets old versions of Java and even checks for the existence of "power user" tools installed and doesn't install if they are :

"4. You do not have certain security tools installed on your Mac that Flashback checks for, including Little Snitch, Xcode, and a few anti-malware tools.'

Economists at Stanford demonstrated that other variables were responsible for 80% of the music sales downturn at the height of Napster.
http://siepr.stanford.edu/publicationsprofile/379

And it was found that Napster users bought more music, because they were exposed to more music.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-243463.html

Nobody ever blames Clear Channel's tight control over US airwaves, and their limited playlists, as being a major factor in restricting new music to the buying public, but it is. And what about concert tickets rising from $10 in the 1980's to $100-$200 in the 2010's? We have LESS disposable income now than ever before. Music is mostly listened to incidentally.

polluting vehicles off the road (and into landfills)

Just so you know, this is bunk. Cars are almost entirely recyclable, and are one of the most recycled items on the planet.

Here is an article where Ford says their cars are 85% recyclable:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20003169-54.html

expensive pen

It sure is: $100 to $200 depending on model. That's why I haven't bought one.

that's uncomfortable to hold,

[citation needed]

needs batteries,

You mean, has a built-in rechargeable battery. Which, in fairness, someone in this discussion thread has said won't last for a full day of conference unless you recharge it at lunch.

doesn't have good ink

[citation needed]

The CNet review says it runs out of ink faster than most pens, due to the short length of the pen refills. It doesn't say the ink isn't "good"; you are the first time I have heard that.

and requires fixed size expensive hard to acquire paper.

There are several sizes of paper, but it's true you can't just use any paper you want.

If I spend $200 on a LiveScribe, I can afford the special paper. Depending on what size of page you get and where you get it, you might pay 4 to 8 cents per page... on Amazon you can get a set of 4 notebooks with standard US Letter paper for $20, which is exactly 5 cents per page. Just not that big a deal to me; the $200 pen is where I balk.

You do have the option of printing your own paper, but I believe it requires a color printer. I'd rather just buy a nice notebook.

[Dude], do you even care how usable something is or are you just a technowhore?

Oh, I'm such a technowhore that I don't even own a LiveScribe.

I just thought it was sort of funny and weird: some guy suggests using a LiveScribe, and some other guy says "just use pen and paper, plus make an audio recording". That's the whole idea of the LiveScribe, except for an extra layer of complexity that digitizes your notes, plus gives you the ability to use your notes to seek to particular points in the recording.

Now, since I have never actually used a LiveScribe, I might be willing to take your word for it if you have actually used one. If you say it's hard to hold, I'm not going to argue since I haven't ever held one. But the weaselly way you worded it means I have no idea if you have actually held one or if you are just guessing like I have to.

I also find it odd that you seem pissed off about this. I was replying to some guy named icebike; why do you care so much?

By the way, on YouTube you can watch ads for the LiveScribe and they make it look very easy to use. They are ads, so they are hardly impartial, but having watched them I still don't know how you could get "bogged down with operating" a LiveScribe.

And the CNet review had this to say:

Overall, as someone with a lifetime of note-taking experience, there's very little you need to do to accommodate the Echo. Just turn it on, tap the record icon, and the rest of the experience is just like writing with any other pen.

So as far as I know, the LiveScribe is pretty usable.

If you want to say the LiveScribe is not usable, I hope you at least have tried one.

don't go preaching to other people about the superiority of your flawed solution.

[citation needed]

Where exactly did I preach about the superiority of a LiveScribe? Here you go, clickable link back to what I wrote. Where did I say it was superior, and what did I say it was superior to?

This is from three days ago on cnet.

Does not appear to be an AF joke.

Recording artists from major labels now put their songs on youtube for free and still sell copies. Why they are still getting bent out of shape over file sharing is beyond me.

They're not. The middle-men, i.e., the RIAA, is the one getting bent out of shape.

The internet has basically eroded their hold on distribution and they're fucking pissed off about it. The whole "stealing from artists" line is just propaganda, the RIAA has been fucking stealing from artists since it's inception. Here's a suit from just a few years ago that, using their own calculations when going after individual copyright-infringers, found $6 BILLION in damages due to piracy by the CRIA (the Canadian wing of the RIAA). They later settled for $45 million, less than 1% of the original damages.

And then there's their latest legal arguments. In their case against Redigi, the RIAA argued that an MP3 downloaded from the internet was not owned, it was licensed, and therefore First Sale Doctrine did not apply. That's nothing new; we've heard that argument a billion times. The funny part is, while that case with Redigi was being argued, the RIAA was being sued for not paying disco group Sister Sledge their contracted royalties. See, they were contracted to receive a small percentage of "sales" revenue, and a higher percentage of "licensing" revenue. The RIAA, in a fit of irony it seems, argued that the music they sell online isn't licensed, it's sold, and thus, the group was not due the higher percentage of royalties for their online music 'sales'.

So, according to the RIAA, music sold online is both licensed and sold, depending on whichever argument justifies their thievery in open court.

Anyone defending these fucking assholes should have their head examined.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
Now more devices have network connections, firewalls are on average consumer junk sitting on consumer OS.
Your "Internet of Things" is now open to the CIA inside the USA.
The noticing the traffic would just be the usual data that that a new device sends back for recipes, extended warranty, new, exciting apps and all the data needed personalizes the experience.
All that unique data might just flow back via a fed sever onto its usual ip - your fancy Linux/Mac/Windows firewall would see nothing.
A log of faces, sound, location and temperature aware ads http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/google_mobile_ads_patent/.
Then add in that browsing history, HTTPS URL that your telco or other client might have got via some small 3rd party to better understand their network... that shipped in every device.
The FBI has used mobile phone mics as roving bugs http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html noted back in ~2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(software) hints at what some anti-virus companies would do to help :)

I've already moderated so I'll have to post anonymously, but I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with the Score:5 responses I read. Nothing inexpensive, everything was either pre-built or over the top.

Home surveillance is, well, sort of a hobby of mine. Way back in 2007 I was sending home surveillance video at 5fps to my Motorola Q smartphone through a slow EDGE connection.

Cheap route: old PCs and webcams. Any high-end P4 or Pentium D PC is more than enough to record HQ video and stream it anywhere. I picked up a Dell Pentium D PC on ebay for $60 shipped, and bought a 17" LCD on craigslist for $30. Webcam is a Logitech c300. They're cheap, less than $20 shipped on ebay, I even bought a few at $10 shipped, and can record at up to 1280x1024, which is plenty for HD 720p video of 1280x720. Also has a built-in mic, which is useful if your surveillance software supports audio.

So for ~$100 you now have an entire PC with 17" LCD that records and streams video over the network or internet. Won't find that at Costco for $100. And you can buy these and place them all over the house. Power usage is higher than a wireless IP camera, but considering price is almost the same and the versatility of a PC & webcam combo, I'd go this route.

Lots of software available. After trying everything I've narrowed it down to and iSpy. Both have their pluses and minuses and both are free to try so I'd recommend trying them both to see which you like.

Orb is what I used to stream USB webcam video to my cellphone many years ago but there's probably many other options available now.

That's a fair point, and it's going to be a bigger problem for Sony than you might think.

To give you an idea of what games will eventually be worth on their platform, you need only look at iOS games (iPhone, iPad, etc.), which by their nature cannot be resold or transferred (short of transferring an entire iTunes account, that is). According to c|net, the average price of a game on iOS is on a steady decline, and as of a year ago, was only $1.44. Some websites are claiming that the current numbers are as low as $1.02. The most expensive game I've seen was still under $20. Admittedly, it may take longer for a more tightly controlled market like console games to collapse to that point (because the console manufacturer won't let just anybody develop games for their platform), but $5-and-under games are the direction things are trending, and if Sony isn't run by absolute idiots, they'll think twice before they take an action that is guaranteed to hasten that price collapse.

Of course, there's a flip side to that. If the game prices do collapse, more people will buy them. So things might balance out for Sony if the decision doesn't drive people to other platforms... which brings me to the other fatal flaw in their plan. If you have to carry your entire console to somebody else's house to play games because your friends' devices can't play your games, that eliminates the only other advantage that consoles have over an iPad. If they do this, Sony can pretty much kiss their console sales goodbye. Not that there's necessarily any good reason for them to care as far as their game titles are concerned—they probably don't make much money on their consoles anyway—but it takes away control, and Sony's biggest flaw has always been their irrational desire for complete control.

On the one hand, it sucks that Sony is considering this. On the other hand, if I had to pick which console maker I'd rather see go down in flames as an example to other console makers, Sony would be at the top of the list by a sizable margin, so I'm not going to shed a single tear. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of corporate dirtbags.

There was a non-compete clause in the employee agreement for a job in California. I crossed it out and initialed those parts. In California it's against the law to require or enforce such a clause: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10010724-92.html

That was also before MS had a lot of success in the server space. In 2001 MS went from 42->49% of the server space: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-959049.html, in 2011 it was 73.9%. Linux gained marketshare but so did windows and they went from a minority share to a large majority share. As much of a flop as Vista was people forget that MS revenue has gone crazy mostly because they've started to dominate serverland.

Wait, what am I saying? I'm sure Google would never, ever share this kind of info with any government agency, especially without a warrant.

Looks like you're right: Though the Justice Department also demanded that Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online hand over similar records, Google was the only recipient that chose to fight the subpoena in court.

Just watch and wait: it'll be the kid who takes apart his iPod to replace the broken battery who gets charged.

That is entirely too cynical. The authorities seem perfectly capable of coming up with reasonable suspects:

'Lulzsec hackers' arrested in international swoop

FBI arrests 16 in Anonymous hacking investigation

You can be prosecuted for indirect incitements to violence, like the abortion "hit lists" - it is up to a jury of your peers to decide if you are trying to use your "free speech" to encourage violence. http://news.cnet.com/Abortion-hit-list-slammed-in-court/2100-1023_3-221054.html

Here's the links to what you're looking for:

http://www.amnh.org/news/2011/08/valuable-lesson-about-variables/
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html

And here's another link about the MIT solar panels:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57404585-76/accordion-shaped-solar-tower-captures-more-light/?tag=mncol;inside

Siri doesn't seem to work as well as it used to, according to Steve Wozniak. However, that seems to be more related to the results it provides than understanding voices (not counting the well-documented issues related to various non-US accents in English)

However, I don't think improving voice recognition is the only driver. I suspect Voice does the following:
1. Keeps people in Google
2. Increases the value proposition for Android with carriers who let you use Google Voice as your phone #
3. Broadens the suite of offerings for its business users

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-consumption-chart/ Using the average power cost for the United States, the difference between a 65 inch Panasonic plasma and a 55 inch Samsung LCD is about $70.00 per year. It'll take 20 years to make up the $1400.00 difference in price.

http://www.quora.com/Do-most-Farmville-users-have-multiple-accounts-to-be-able-to-be-able-to-do-tasks-you-need-to-do-with-a-friend

The first is to create fake accounts. It's trivially easy since all you need is an email address. However, these are very easily spotted by Facebook since they generally all only have one or two friends. If Facebook thinks these accounts are fraudulent, you'll often need to provide a unique phone number to verify that it is real.

[user comment] yes, it's too easy to create multiple facebook accounts. my sis made like 10 of them.

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/

Anthony Permal Says:
January 27th, 2011 at 2:42 pm

Nice stats, however I wonder alot about that figure claim of 500 million âactiveâ(TM) users. I know at least 5 or 6 people who have multiple facebook accounts for various purposes including personal accounts, professional accounts and the like. I feel the stat should be changed to say 500 million active âprofilesâ(TM) instead. Its very misleading.

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57399449-285/manage-multiple-facebook-and-twitter-accounts-in-one-place/

Manage multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts in one place

Whether you're a freelance social media manager or just someone with lots of online IDs, it can be a struggle to keep up with multiple Facebook and Twitter streams. Conversocial makes it much simpler.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-is-not-20-times-the-size-of-google-its-even-bigger/4654

kus2728 14th Oct

@aep528 the other thing to consider in all of this is are they both reporting actual users or just active accounts. I know multiple people that have multiple FB accounts that they log in to regularly. 1 person with 4 accounts does not equal 4 users in my opinion but I don't know if either network acknowledges the difference in their reporting.

and

Michael Alan Goff 14th Oct

I was wondering how it might have been me. XD

He is counting signups vs usage, but even signups vs signups doesn't tell the whole picture. There are people, and I this to be a fact, that make multiple Facebook accounts.

Some of them are for fictional characters they write.

and

inux for me 14th Oct

Everyone I know that is on Facebook and play the games on it, have 2 or more accounts. Many of these games allow player to transfer resources to other players, so they use multiple accounts to accumulate resources to transfer them to their main account. This makes the Facebook numbers extremely inflated compared to actual users.

If Google+ adds games, then the same thing will happen there too.

http://www.facedekk.com/

Facedekk

Manage Multiple Facebook Accounts

With Facedekkyou have all the following features available at your fingertips

Simultaneously update statuses for multiple Facebook accounts

There's plenty more like that. I know people who manage multiple fake accounts just so that they can either spam, or to make it look like their SEO activities are working "look you have these many new friends" - it's the same as buying facebook fans in bulk - they're mostly fake accounts.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57402589-92/jobs-act-clears-senate-one-step-from-becoming-law/

The JOBS Act has passed the Senate. In a 73 to 26 vote today, an amended version of H.R. 3606, which opens startup investing to individuals ("crowdfunding") and gives young companies more flexibility in filing to enter the public stock markets, cleared what is probably its last major hurdle before becoming law.

I'm really surprised that it passed the Senate as the JOBS act is chock full of poorly thought out deregulation.
It's so bad that the head of the SEC has come out against it and State securities regulators are against the bill

If this bill becomes law, it'll directly lead to the next wave of investor fraud.

In the one corner Apple, in the other such winners as HTC, Motorolla, Nokia and Sony Ericsson. CEO's always get fired if they back the wrong horse, but he picked the one with the right odds.

Perspective: Inside Cisco's eavesdropping apparatus

By Declan McCullagh | April 21, 2003 4:00 AM PDT
- http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071-997528.html?tag=fd_nc_1

"Cisco Systems has created a more efficient and targeted way for police and intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on people whose Internet service provider uses their company's routers.

The company recently published a proposal that describes how it plans to embed "lawful interception" capability into its products. Among the highlights: Eavesdropping "must be undetectable," and multiple police agencies conducting simultaneous wiretaps must not learn of one another. If an Internet provider uses encryption to preserve its customers' privacy and has access to the encryption keys, it must turn over the intercepted communications to police in a descrambled form.

Cisco's decision to begin offering "lawful interception" capability as an option to its customers could turn out to be either good or bad news for privacy.

Because Cisco's routers currently aren't designed to target an individual, it's easy for an Internet service provider (ISP) to comply with a police request today by turning over all the traffic that flows through a router or switch. Cisco's "lawful interception" capability thus might help limit the amount of data that gets scooped up in the process.

On the other hand, the argument that it hinders privacy goes like this: By making wiretapping more efficient, Cisco will permit governments in other countries--where court oversight of police eavesdropping is even more limited than in the United States--snoop on far more communications than they could have otherwise.

Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says: "I don't see why the technical community should hardwire surveillance standards and not also hardwire accountability standards like audit logs and public reporting. The laws that permit 'lawful interception' typically incorporate both components--the (interception) authority and the means of oversight--but the (Cisco) implementation seems to have only the surveillance component. That is no guarantee that the authority will be used in a 'lawful' manner."

U.S. history provides many examples of government and police agencies conducting illegal wiretaps. The FBI unlawfully spied on Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., feminists, gay rights leaders and Catholic priests. During its dark days, the bureau used secret files and hidden microphones to blackmail the Kennedy brothers, sway the Supreme Court and influence presidential elections. Cisco's Internet draft may be titled "lawful interception," but there's no guarantee that the capability will always be used legally.

Still, if you don't like Cisco's decision, remember that they're not the ones doing the snooping. Cisco is responding to its customers' requests, and if they don't, other hardware vendors will.

If you're looking for someone to blame, consider Attorney General John Ashcroft, who asked for and received sweeping surveillance powers in the USA Patriot Act, along with your elected representatives in Congress, who gave those powers to him with virtually no debate.

I talked with Fred Baker, a Cisco fellow and former chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), about his work on the "lawful interception" draft.

Q: Why did Cisco decide to build "lawful interception" into its products? What prompted this?
A: Cisco's customers, not just in United States but in many countries, are finding themselves served with subpoenas to mandate lawful intercept functionality. Cisco received requests from its customers for this capability.

When I found out about the project, I asked to be involved because I wanted to ensure that it was done in a manner that was as close to balanced as I could get. From an engineering perspective, the easiest thing is to give everything to law enforcement and let them sort it out. But I wanted to d

The worst case is probably what is actually happening, which is that nobody is buying Windows phones.

Probably, really? Lumia is already outselling Symbian in the UK. Lumia 800 is listed among best-selling phones at many operators' websites. The U.S. have only seen the cheaper Lumia 710 on T-Mobile, and it is gaining quite a following. Check the approval rate and the reviews at T-Mobile's website.

Living in the Slashdot groupthink bubble is cosy, but the disadvantage is, reality sometimes differs.

The worst case is probably what is actually happening, which is that nobody is buying Windows phones.

Probably, really? Lumia is already outselling Symbian in the UK. Lumia 800 is listed among best-selling phones at many operators' websites. The U.S. have only seen the cheaper Lumia 710 on T-Mobile, and it is gaining quite a following. Check the approval rate and the reviews at T-Mobile's website.

Living in the Slashdot groupthink bubble is cosy, but the disadvantage is, reality sometimes differs.

I don't think a Windows computer that was sitting around doing nothing would get any viruses.

Yes, that did happen. Leave an unpatched Windows XP box directly connected to the net and it can get hacked in minutes: http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-exec-calls-XP-hack-frightening/2100-7349_3-6218238.html

One of the problems is that Windows always left multiple services open by default, particularly netbios, which was a complex system.