Profiles of 100 mn Facebook users leaked online

London, July 29 (IANS) The personal details of 100 million users of social networking website Facebook are now available for download after they were leaked online.

Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users' privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every 'searchable' Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID, the BBC reported Thursday.

Bowles said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook retorted by saying the information was already public.

'People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want,' the website said.

'In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.'

'No private data is available or has been compromised,' Facebook said.

The list has already been downloaded by over 1,000 people on Pirate Bay, the world's biggest file-sharing website.

One user, going by the name of 'lusifer69', said the list was 'awesome and a little terrifying'.

But internet watchdog Privacy International said Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.

'Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it,' Simon Davies, an official of Privacy International, said.

'It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn't have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there's an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence, he said.

Facebook hit 500 million users in June this year.

Courtesy: Yahoo>>Technology

WalMart all set to get inside your Jeans

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will put electronic identification tags on men's clothing like jeans starting Aug. 1 as the world's largest retailer tries to gain more control of its inventory. The individual garments, which will also include underwear and socks, will have removable smart tags that can be read from a distance by Wal-Mart workers with scanners. In seconds, the worker will be able to know what sizes are missing and will also be able to tell what it has on hand in the stockroom. Such instant knowledge will allow store clerks to have the right sizes on hand when shoppers need them.

The tags work by reflecting a weak radio signal to identify the product. They have long spurred privacy fears as well as visions of stores being able to scan an entire shopping cart of items at one time.

Wal-Mart's goal is to eventually expand the tags to other types of merchandise but company officials say it's too early to give estimates on how long that will take. "There are so many significant benefits in knowing how to better manage inventory and better serve customers," said Lorenzo Lopez, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

Earlier, Wal-Mart and other stores were using the tags, called radio frequency identification tags, only to track pallets or cases of merchandise in their warehouses. But now the tags are jumping onto individual items, a move that concerns some privacy experts. "This is a first piece of a very large and very frightening tracking system," said Katherine Albrecht, director of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. She worries that Wal-Mart and others would be able to track movements of customers who in some border states like Michigan and Washington are carrying new driver's licenses that contain RFID tags to make it easier for them to cross borders.

Albrecht also fears that retailers could scan data from such licenses and their purchases and combine that data with other personal information as even though the smart tags can be removed from clothing, they can't be turned off and can be tracked even after you throw them in the garbage, for example.

Wal-Mart officials said they are aware of privacy concerns. Spokesman Dan Fogelman said that the smart label doesn't collect customer information. "Wal-Mart is using it strictly to manage inventory. The customer is in complete control," he said. Fogelman added that Wal-Mart's readers identify only inventory it has in the store. To placate privacy concerns, Wal-Mart, which is financing some of the suppliers' costs, is asking vendors to embed the smart tags in removable labels and not embed them in clothing.

Courtesy: Marketing Power, Walmart 

Social media - most important data

 "Social Media is not the most important thing right now. It is the shift from computers to mobile based computing platforms", as suggested by a digital marketing leader - WPP Group. 

With Facebook exceeding 0.5 Billion users, just under six years that it has been launched, many others have not done so well. Below is some 'hard data' to explain this:

Facebook's empire at risk

Facebook has announced that now it has over 500,000,000 active friends in its network. It clearly means Facebook is not just another networking phenomenon but it is the company changing our lives and the was businesses see consumers and market segments.

With so much happening with them, how can Facebook loose its 'Face' to the market?

1. Alternatives - There are enough of these research projects out there in the market like OneSocialWeb, the Appleseed Project and WebFinger. Getting these open protcols into decent shape one can build them into an improbably powerful stack. This might mean your social profiles in future could automatically behave in a certain pre-defined way. This could mean it communicating with your data around automatically and keeping itself updated all the time.

2. Google Me - Google tried hard luck with a lot of community applications such as Orkut but lost the battle to Facebook (now in the final phases of loosing their strongest markets - India and Brazil to Facebook). They came out with Google Buzz as an answer to Twitter but it didn't gave them much benefit apart from the Threaded views and discussions.

3. Specific mobile computing services - As correctly put by market leaders Wunderman, "the most important thing right now is not social networking. It is the change from computer based applications to mobile computing platform". Apparently the wiz kids might come up with something more local and more specific to the locational requirements.

4. Postal Service - Everybody might just love the retro feel of the postal service and might just get back out from the social networking thing. Personally I would love writing letters but most of my contacts might not, so waiting for the phenomenon to take a lead.

5. Lust for money and glory - The free-to-register and free-to-use Facebook service might seem very good to most of the users but those who belong to marketing fraternity will understand how important it is to disable all their advertising options on facebook on their social profiles otherwise their emails and direct messages might all be full of companies promoting baby diapers and duty-free liquor.

 

'Kinect' for XBOX360 pricing out now

Microsoft’s ‘Kinect’ peripheral for Xbox 360 promises to revolutionise gaming by removing the need for any kind of hand-held joypad, through its motion-sensing camera technology. The price has been confirmed as £129.99 by Microsoft. 

Kinect costs the same to buy as an entry-level Xbox 360. £129.99 is the price for the standalone sensor unit, along with the game ‘Kinect Adventures’ too. The best option for gamers who have yet to jump aboard the Xbox gravy train is a bundle pack comprising all the above and a shiny new Xbox 360 ‘slim’ with 4GB of onboard memory (a new model) – it’s £249.99 for that.

Kinect is scheduled to launch in November, with more than 15 games available from the outset, including such family-friendly titles as Kinect Sports, Dance Central and Kinectimals, which has players interacting with a collection of cuddlesome big cat cubs. Moreover, the future’s bright for the device, with all major software publishers pledging their support going forward.

On the other hand, Sony is out with its ‘Move’ controller, which offers motion-sensing PlayStation 3 gaming at a fraction of the price – the starter pack costs just £49.99, and it’s launching in mid-September too.

Kinect is absolutely cutting-edge technology but is expensive and launching later in the year, while Move is imminent, much cheaper but insists that players physically hold a controller. Then there’s the Wii, which is the cheapest of the lot, is readily available and still boasts plenty of brilliant games. So which of these are you up to?

Courtesy: Microsoft, Sony, Wii

Times looses almost 90% of online readership

Less than 3 weeks after the Times paywall went up, data shows a massive decline in the number of readers for its online version. At the registration page for thetimes.co.uk -25.6% users sign up and proceed to the Times site. The times has lose 90% of its readership, as compared to Feb'10 since making registration mandatory in June'10. 

Unregistered users of thetimes.co.uk are now "bounced" to a Times+ membership page where they have to register if they want to view Times content. Data from the web metrics company Experian Hitwise shows that only 25.6% of such users sign up and proceed to a Times web page; but it also says that traffic to the Times site is now only 4.16% of UK online newspaper traffic, compared with 15% before it made registration compulsory on 15 June.

Based on the last available ABCe data for Times Online readership (from February 2010), which showed that it had 1.2 million daily unique users, and Hitwise's figures showing it had 15% of UK online newspaper traffic, that means a total of 332,800 daily users trying to visit the Times site.

There are approximately 150,000 Times print subscribers who get a free online registration, but if the estimated 15,000 daily online users who agreed to pay opt for the £2 a week deal, the paywall will generate £120,000 a month – £1.4m a year.

The Times started redirecting traffic to registration pages on 15 June, and put the paywall fully in place on 2 July.

Courtesy: Josh Halliday, The Guardian 

Google's Nexus One to be discontinued

Earlier this year, Google announced that they are closing the Nexus One web store. This week Google has received their last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once they sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions.




Courtesy: Google

MIT set to make internet 1000 times faster

MIT's all set to make internet 1000 times faster. Yes you heard right!
Vincent Chan (an electrical engineering and computer science professor at MIT) and his team have just made a breakthrough that could revolutionise the current internet infrastructure by boosting it to become 100 to 1000 times faster.
All of us know what is the capability if light is considered to be carrying out data - enough to be handled for next 10-50 years at least. In the current structures, optical cables carry the data signals which are really very fast but they come to intersections where the signals need to be re-routed. Currently this process requires switching, for which the signals are needed to be converted into electrical form, re-routed and then finally again converted back to optical form to continue their journey. 
What they have figured out is known as 'flow switching'(I'd recommend those unfamiliar to this term to be Googling it right away), which was surprisingly never given a serious thought before. Chan comments, "With bigger applications and more bottlenecks, you could buy extra bandwidth if you pay through the nose, but that's not something every user could do.  Sure, you can increase the data rate, but it's expensive. With this new architecture, we can speed up the Internet but make high-speed access cheaper."
What would that mean to us? Faster P2P downloads (hope they do not ban them), Richer web browsing experience, more 3D web applications which otherwise suck up all our bandwidth...the possibilities are endless.
Keeping in mind that UK is planning to provide each citizen a bandwidth of at least 2-mbps by 2012 and countries like Finland planning to give each home an internet connection, I guess US might also have to bend their strict laws to ease out the added internet experience to people. Only time will show us the best out of it but to all those techno-geeks and marketers, the market it just warming up


Courtesy: MIT archives, HP, AnandTech  

White iPhone 4 & Proximity Sensor fix on the way

For all you ladies out there who wanted to have a matching white phone with their favourite dress in that special party in August, here is a good news: Steve has announced that late July' 10 will witness the launch of iPhone 4 in white. Are you smiling already?

To top it all with sweetness, he already announced before today that problem or no problem, every user will get free iPhone 4 cases now and as they cannot send all the cases by themselves, Apple will shortly be sending a list of 3rd party vendors so that you can choose your free case. These cases will be sent to you for free. Wait, Wait, there's more to come: He also announced that some proximity sensors have a genuine problem and they will soon come out with a fix for that too.
Phew! What a day!

Courtesy: Twitter, Cult of Mac, Google News

Rupee gets a new symbol!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am so proud to announce that Rupee has got a new symbol now. Yes, u will have to buy new keyboards and typewrites now!
Five member jury was set up to finalise symbol for the rupee selected the design presented by IIT-ian D Udaya Kumar. The Union Cabinet approved the symbol on Thursday noon. The Indian rupee is now the fifth currency in the world to have a distinct identity. The rupee will join the elite club of US dollar, British pound-sterling, Euro and Japanese yen to have its own symbol.
D Udayakumar proudly told Rediff.com, "My design is based on the Tricolour, with two lines at the top and white space in between. I wanted the symbol for the Rupee to represent the Indian flag. It is a perfect blend of Indian and Roman letters: a capital 'R', and Devanagari 'ra', which represent rupiya, to appeal to international and Indian audiences."

Meanwhile, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said after the Cabinet meeting in Delhi on Thursday that the symbol will be printed or embossed on currency notes and coins.

Soni said that the government will try that the symbol is adopted within six months in the country and globally within 18 to 24 months.

"The symbol will feature on computer key boards and software so that it can be printed and displayed in electronic and print", she said.

Soni said it would also help in distinguishing the Indian currency from rupee or rupiah of countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

What do u say about this revolution?

Courtesy: Rediff Business

Apple's surprise news conference on friday

If you go the suggestions of Olivier Blanchard - President, Brand Builder Marketing, the fiasco with iPhone 4 is all an excuse to attack this company who is one of the most important brands in the last 50 years. If it has been 5 years back, when Apple was still an underdog in the market of Phones, it would have been a non-issue. 
The competitors have tried to cash on the problems being faced by this firm. Motorola has planned to launch their next-in-market best product called Droid-X by calling it iPhone 4 killer, whereas Nokia on the launch of their new flagship product N8 in the market published a whole new manual focusing on how you should be holding a mobile phone.
In addition to the allegations been put on Apple since its launch in US/UK on 24th June 2010, there has been a large cry on what are they doing about the faulty phones and to win back the market's trust and loyalty to the brand.
Analysts have estimated a recall could cost as much as $1.5bn whereas the cost of issuing free rubber bumpers to aleviate the problem would be far cheaper at nearly $180m. Apple has, on the other hand, reacted by calling a surprise news conference this friday. Experts are guessing this may be about how they plan to handle the situation to win back the trust of the customers.


Courtesy: Financial Times, Gizmodo, BBC News

Time for some Vintage Ads

After I passed out from high-school and while entering into college, I have always been really very keen on watching and reading adverts because of two reasons:
1. They all were very colourful
2. A lot many of them were really smart piece of advertising
And here I am into advertising domain, having worked with Web, Radio, TV and traditional media platforms. But sometimes when I look back on those old days adverts, they really bring a lot to memory in a jiffy.So I thought of sharing some of those Vintage ads from Indian Subcontinent. Hope you'll enjoy!

Human form robot Bina48

This interesting conversation between the Reporter and the AI-Robot named Bina48, was captured by New York Times. At times she sounded and looked disoriented, but hey it is a robot and she is learning and growing more each day.
Who knows in 10 years, she might be able to converse properly and talk to us about weather, stock market, new brand launches or even the new spring-summer collection clothes and accessories.

Courtesy: NYT, AllTop.com

A new iPod Shuffle?

The photos of this 3X3 inch device have now started flocking the internet all over. People are speculating this as a new design to iPod Nano, An Apple Watch, Apple TV Remote, a secondary remote for macbook pro's and what not.
Well, as the pics suggest, this one definitely has iPhone 4's styling in it and is gonna last long in the market in terms of aesthetic sense. Hope it should have some usable functionality to the design too.

Courtesy: Apple.pro, Phone Home

Flash Videos on iPhone/iPod

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Trying to find out a solution to viewing Flash videos on iPhone, I came across this interesting Video by tysiphonehelp on You Tube which clearly blew my head.
you can actually view all flash videos following this simple video on how to:




Courtesy: tysiphonehelp

Shanghai bites an Apple today

10th July 2010 saw an amazing and another interesting milestone for Apple in Shanghai, China.
As per Wall Street Journal, over 150 Apple fans waited overnight to be the first one's to get into the beautiful new underground store inaugurated by Apple today.

Apple opened the doors of its second store in the entire country on Saturday, drawing crowds of all ages as early at 5 a.m. Some drove several hours or flew in from other provinces for a chance to line up outside the cylindrical glass building. Many hoped to catch a glimpse of the iPhone 4 or of Steve Jobs, but were disappointed.

Like the company's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Pudong store is located below ground level and utilizes the glass tower as an iconic entryway with a glass stairway descending to the store below.


Courtesy: Wall Street Journal, MIC Gadget

No Nexus 2 says Google CEO

As per recent discussions between Mr. Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO and The Daily Telegraph, the reports have been confirmed that there will be no Nexus Two coming out in the market anytime.
Nexus One was launched by Google, in association with HTC, to push off Google's open-platform Android computing OS in 2008.
"The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did," he said.
Android is now activated on 160,000 phones daily, that's almost 5m every month, demonstrating a significant take-up of the operating system and Android app Marketplace. Google has also just announced plans to expand into emerging markets in a bid for a further slice of the mobile market.
With due gentle blow, he turned down any accusations on Apple competing with Google or there being a tug of war between these two market leaders for the share of market, by simply putting forward the fact that they both are into making totally different devices. He dismissed questions about the competition between Google and Apple, calling the two companies' models ‘completely different,' while emphasising the openness of Google's Android platform and ability of individuals to build any business model on top of the free software, describing Apple's platform as ‘the inverse'.

Courtesy: The Daily Telegraph, HEXUS TV

iPhone 4 reception issue not really a Math Error

Mr. Jobs easily said, "it is a Math error" for all the accusations put on account of iPhone 4's reception issue when not held in a "right way".
Last week witnessed Apple witnessing 3 lawsuits being filed against iPhone 4's misleading marketing approach, hiding problems and issue with iPhone 4 at the time of launch.
Here's a video by Redmond Pie, which shows he had no problems using the phone:



I just want to ask one thing, is there anything called "Ethical Marketing" in this world full of cut-throat competition?

Droid X hits iPhone 4 with Antenna Jibe

In an ad in Wednesday's New York Times began to tout Droid X's countless wonders. Droid X is big and most importantly, will have Android 2.2 later this summer.


Apart from other numerable statements, they clearly seemed to be mocking and utilising iPhone 4's current market situation to its advantage, by stating, "And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."


As the ad says, in all its subtlety: "You have a voice. You deserve to be heard."  It will be truly fascinating to see, on its launch day of July 15, just how many people stand in line to get their hands on this undoubtedly fine new phone.

Courtesy: eWeek Europe, CNET, Phandroid.com, eurodroid.com