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CIA working with Amazon to develop private cloud

CIA working with Amazon to develop private cloud
  • Posted March 19, 2013, 4:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • According to a report by FCW, Amazon has been entrusted to build a "private" cloud computing system for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA is rumored to be outsourcing the task to Amazon in hopes of reducing its operating…

Google could unify chat services under a single product called Babble

Google could unify chat services under a single product called Babble
  • Posted March 19, 2013, 11:30 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in The Web, Software
  • Google has built a number of communications platforms around different services over the years. There’s Google Talk for text, voice and video chats, Hangouts for group video conferencing, Messenger for mobile messaging, Chat for Drive collaboration, and Voice for online…

EU Commission: Piracy doesn't hurt music sales, may even help

EU Commission: Piracy doesn
  • Posted March 19, 2013, 10:27 AM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in The Web, Industry News With Video
  • Although music labels remain adamant about piracy's harm to sales, illegal filesharing sites may actually boost industry revenue according to a report from the European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. After studying the browsing habits of...

Five Internet pioneers awarded Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

Five Internet pioneers awarded Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
  • Posted March 18, 2013, 3:00 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Five Internet pioneers were recently announced as winners of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the first of its kind. The award carries a cash prize of £1 million (just over $1.5 million) which will be shared between the five recipients.

Google Drive outage reminds us that cloud services aren't perfect

Google Drive outage reminds us that cloud services aren
  • Posted March 18, 2013, 2:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in The Web
  • Reports this morning of Google Drive becoming inaccessible sent ripples through social media. Shortly after complaints surfaced, Google confirmed Drive was experiencing a noteworthy disruption. The company subsequently resolved the issue and all Google services appear to have returned to normal…

Dropbox acquires recently-launched Mailbox app

Dropbox acquires recently-launched Mailbox app
  • Posted March 15, 2013, 2:30 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Industry News, The Web With Video
  • After a few months building up hype with promises to revolutionize email, Mailbox finally launched its streamlined Gmail client for the iPhone last month, along a waiting line mechanism that quickly became absurdly long. They’re not even done letting everyone…

Facebook expected to add hashtag functionality to posts

Facebook expected to add hashtag functionality to posts
  • Posted March 15, 2013, 7:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Facebook will soon be intensifying their battle with Twitter as they are preparing to roll out hashtag support. The social network already allows members to tag people, places and pages but hashtags will open up a whole new world of…

Outlook.com suffers 16-hour outage due to overheating datacenter

Outlook.com suffers 16-hour outage due to overheating datacenter
  • Posted March 14, 2013, 10:46 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Microsoft, The Web
  • Microsoft suffered a massive server outage yesterday that left users of Outlook.com, Hotmail, Calendar and SkyDrive unable to access all or parts of those services for a 16-hour stretch. In a blog post explaining the situation, Microsoft's Arthur de Haan…

Google to shut down Reader and more as part of spring cleaning

Google to shut down Reader and more as part of spring cleaning
  • Posted March 14, 2013, 8:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Less is more at Google this year as the search giant has announced plans to retire more services in the latest wave of spring cleaning. Paramount among them is Google Reader, the company’s web-based program that allows users to subscribe…

Google Fiber tops brand-new Netflix ISP Speed Index

Google Fiber tops brand-new Netflix ISP Speed Index
  • Posted March 12, 2013, 2:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • Netflix has launched its new Netflix ISP Speed Index which promises to show consumers the top ISPs for streaming movies and TV shows through its service. The new website will be updated monthly and can make country-specific or International comparisons utilizing…

BitTorrent Live uses P2P to make broadcasting easier, cheaper

BitTorrent Live uses P2P to make broadcasting easier, cheaper
  • Posted March 12, 2013, 10:39 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in The Web, Industry News
  • BitTorrent has officially taken the wraps off a new broadcasting service that draws its main strength from its namesake peer-to-peer protocol, so the video stream becomes more and more stable as more people tune in -- instead of the other…

YouTube co-founder to launch new video-based venture

YouTube co-founder to launch new video-based venture
  • Posted March 11, 2013, 3:30 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • Six years after selling YouTube to Google in a deal valued at $1.65 billion, co-founder Chad Hurley is ready to jump back in the online video business with something that’s flexible enough “for people to work together and create content.”…

Iran blocks 'illegal' VPNs that help citizens evade Internet filters

Iran blocks
  • Posted March 11, 2013, 10:22 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in The Web
  • Iran has a long history of trying to control what its citizens can and can't see on the web. From blocking Google searches and all foreign email providers, to cutting access to social networks services and even announcing plans of…

Generation Free: Piracy, distribution, and entertainment

Generation Free: Piracy, distribution, and entertainment
  • Posted March 11, 2013, 1:48 AM by Cliff Bleszinski | Filed in The Web, Industry News
  • I was in my 20’s when the Napster revolution came along. Even before that I remember piracy on newsgroups. During the crafting of the first Unreal I remember watching one of my peers downloading Hollywood movies in the background and then watching them on his giant, fat monitor. I remember at the time thinking "Hollywood’s going to shit when they see this."

WOF: How many unread emails are in your inbox right now?

WOF: How many unread emails are in your inbox right now?
  • Posted March 8, 2013, 6:00 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Weekend Open Forum, The Web
  • Unread emails. For some it's just an easy number to ignore but others will feel the need to sort through it all and decide what's archived, deleted, replied to, or just left there for later. The number of apps and…

Phone-unlocking petition author launches "Fix the DMCA" campaign

Phone-unlocking petition author launches "Fix the DMCA" campaign
  • Posted March 8, 2013, 5:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in The Web
  • Sina Khanifar, co-found of OpenSignal, has launched a campaign to "fix" the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Interestingly, Khanifar is also the same person who authored a recent petition to legalize cellphone unlocking. His "We the People" submission was subsequently blessed…

Microsoft enables China to spy on Skype users via keyword triggers

Microsoft enables China to spy on Skype users via keyword triggers
  • Posted March 8, 2013, 3:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in The Web, Microsoft
  • University of New Mexico student Jeffrey Knockel claims to have revealed an encrypted list of 1,100+ keywords within China's Skype client, TOM-Skype. This list, containing words like "BBC" and phrases like "Democratic Unionist Party", are suspected to be used for…

Iceland drafts Internet porn ban, EU considers "self-regulated" approach

Iceland drafts Internet porn ban, EU considers "self-regulated" approach
  • Posted March 7, 2013, 4:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in The Web
  • The European Parliament is mulling over a proposal brought forth by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality which, amongst other things, calls for a self-regulating ban on all forms of pornography in the "media". Parliamentary member Christian Engstrom…

Google testing same-day delivery service

Google testing same-day delivery service
  • Posted March 7, 2013, 3:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • For nearly a month now, Google has been testing its own same-day delivery service named Google Shopping Express. This information comes from Reuters' unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Google Shopping Express won't put the search giant in the package delivery business though...

Google+ profiles updated with Local reviews tab, larger cover photos

Google+ profiles updated with Local reviews tab, larger cover photos
  • Posted March 6, 2013, 12:00 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Google+ users have spoken and the search giant is taking action. Starting today, Google is launching some profile and page updates that members of the social network have been asking for according to a post from Google’s Sara McKinley which…

Roku 3 arrives with faster CPU, new UI and private listening mode

Roku 3 arrives with faster CPU, new UI and private listening mode
  • Posted March 6, 2013, 10:30 AM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Hardware, The Web With Video
  • Roku officially announced a brand new version of its popular set-top box last night. Simply dubbed Roku 3, the tiny media streamer received a faster processor and dual-band Wi-Fi support, as well as a revamped user interface that should make…

Twitter to close TweetDeck apps for Android, iPhone and AIR desktop

Twitter to close TweetDeck apps for Android, iPhone and AIR desktop
  • Posted March 5, 2013, 8:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Twitter has announced plans to shut down TweetDeck apps for the iPhone and Android handsets in addition to shuttering the Adobe AIR desktop version according to a recent post on the company’s blog. Furthermore, Twitter says they will discontinue support…

Yahoo to shutter seven services starting April 1

Yahoo to shutter seven services starting April 1
  • Posted March 4, 2013, 4:30 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer caused quite a stir recently when she made the decision to end the company’s work from home policy. The changes continue to come as Mayer is shutting down seven products according to a recent post on…

The Pirate Bay lands in North Korea, granted virtual asylum

The Pirate Bay lands in North Korea, granted virtual asylum
  • Posted March 4, 2013, 3:00 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in The Web
  • Late last month The Pirate Bay vacated its Swedish homeland after local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance threatened to sue Piratpartiet for supplying bandwidth to TPB.  After a week sailing the high seas for a new home, the torrent site has…

Denmark to slap Microsoft with $1B in taxes after funneling profits overseas

Denmark to slap Microsoft with $1B in taxes after funneling profits overseas
  • Posted March 4, 2013, 1:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Industry News, The Web
  • Microsoft's clever accounting techniques may have been a little too clever, at least according to Danish authorities. Denmark officials are considering a tax levy of 5.8 billion kroner -- or roughly 1.01 billion USD at current exchange rates -- over…

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