If you’ve signed into any Google related account in the past week you will have noticed Google has updated it’s privacy policies. Most casual users probably won’t bother reading the changes, however Microsoft have come out firing at Google by placing full-page ads in a selection of major American newspapers criticising the changes.
Kevin Bermeister, an original financial backer of online communications service Skype believes the internet could be on the point of a revolution as ISPs gain access to new technology to help filter out questionable material, such as malware & pirated software.
ISPs could team up with copyright holders by adding in filters that would redirect users searching for pirated material to a legitimate source for purchasing the content.
You can read more at theage.com.au
Following Megaupload being temporarily shut down, it now looks like many other file sharing websites are shutting down world wide due to a US Government led crackdown on piracy.
Unfortunately this is hitting legitimate users of these websites who are now unable to access their files.
Steve Su, an academic in Perth was caught out by the closure of Megaupload.
“It’s like confiscating everyone’s mobile phone because terrorists used them,” he said. “I don’t think it’s correct to penalise the technology because, based on that logic, shouldn’t the internet be taken down, as this is how people infringe copyright?”
You can read more over at theage.com.au
The Age has some tips on how to better deal with email overload in your inbox, something a lot of us are very familar with.
Personally, I use a few different email accounts.
One I use solely for work, and I don’t use or publish it anywhere away from the work environment.
One I use for family and friends.
Lastly, I have an account I use when signing up to websites, or if a company needs my email. Generally this is where emails of no importance end up!
You can check out all the tips by clicking here.
Earlier in the week, Nik Cubrilovic, an Australian technologist, claimed Facebook was using cookies to track what users were doing, even after they had logged out of Facebook.
However, Facebook has released a written statement, saying:
“Facebook does not track users across the web. Instead, we use cookies on social plug-ins to personalise content (e.g. show you what your friends liked), to help maintain and improve what we do (e.g. measure click-through rate), or for safety and security (e.g. keeping underage kids from trying to sign up with a different age). No information we receive when you see a social plug-in is used to target ads, we delete or anonymise this information within 90 days, and we never sell your information.”
You can read more over at theage.com.au
The record for the most expensive .com.au domain name was broken yesterday, with investmentproperty.com.au put up for sale at auction. The domain ended up selling for A$125,000.
You can read more over at stuff.co.nz
According to an unnamed source, Facebook has doubled first half revenue to $US1.6 billion.
Facebook has a valuation of roughly $US80 billion.
You can read more over at theage.com.au
Google+ is a social networking website designed by Google to compete with Facebook, and offers similar features such as news feeds, photos and status updates.
The service was unveiled on June 28 with an invite system, which Google has said has created “insane demand”, so much so they have decided to halt users from sending any more invites.
Google have not yet set a date for a full public roll out of the new social networking website.
You can read more at sydneymorningherald.com.au
Samantha Amjadali from theage.com.au posted an interesting news piece on HTML 5 yesterday, offering a bit of an insight into what HTML is and what HTML 5 will offer in future.
For those who aren’t so familar with HTML, it is, as described in the article as “hypertext markup language. It is, in effect, the web’s DNA and creates a global system for identifying and linking web pages”. You could describe it as the language a website uses to communicate with your internet browser to tell it what to display.
HTML 5 is an updated version of this language, aiming to be complete by 2014.
You can read the full article at theage.com.au
Social media is one of the things which keeps executives at top companies awake at night, says a Risk Management Benchmarking Survey conducted by Aon.
“Increased use of social networks was specifically sighted [sic] as providing potential risk to an organisation’s brand, image and reputation,” states the report.
Why can social media be so potentially damaging? Well its hard to control what people may say in relation to your Facebook or Twitter accounts, including people from your own company. Examples of fallout from such activities include the Tweet from Qantas CE Alan Joyce that a plan had crashed, which wasn’t correct, resulting in a lowering of the Qantas share price, or the Dominos pizza makers who posted images of themselves mucking about with customers’ food – later fired of course.
But whats the flipside of not using social media? Your company can become outdated, fast!
