According to Reuters, more than 25,000 demonstrators marched the streets in various Eastern European cities. but not only, including Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest, Vilnius, Paris, Brussels and Dublin.

But what is ACTA and what does it do? ACTA is a trade agreement whose purpose is to stop counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement, which are all noble intentions if you’re not looking at the fine print. We’re mostly interested in copyright infringement, which is what spawned laws like SOPA and PIPA in the first place, and which could ruin the Internet as we have it today. We, TFTS, have not, do not and will not encourage copyright infringement, but at the same time we can’t support such laws/agreements that would significantly affect our online freedoms.

ACTA indirectly encourages online censorship and surveillance, as Internet Service Providers will have to keep track of one’s actions online, all in the name of stopping any copyright infringements. Building on that, we’d have a scenario similar to SOPA and PIPA, in which the user would be at risk of facing various consequences for the most unexpected events, which is something we wouldn’t want to go through. The video below best explains how an innocent activity like recording a video at a party where a song is playing could get you in trouble after sharing it with your friends online since, after all, you’re not allowed to use the song in any form of content under ACTA. But of course, the consequences of ACTA can be far worse:

In other words, ACTA, at least the way it’s formulated right now, would simply trash some of our most basic freedoms; freedoms which our forefathers, or even our fathers in certain instances, have actively pursued. The same civil rights and liberties should be enforced online and treaties like ACTA should be only signed after the people have been heard. In many instances that’s not the case, and many governments around the world have signed the document without hosting a public debate first. Countries like Germany and the Czech republic have postponed ratifying the ACTA treaty, and hopefully other governments will reconsider their stance on ACTA at least until a better copyright infringement law is devised.

What is your opinion on ACTA?

Many people were surprised to see the iPod come to life, but Apple soon proved it was right to create such a device coupled with an accessible and affordable digital music store for the masses. Driven by Jobs’ passion for music, the iTunes music store now offers over 20 million tracks, including all the albums from The Beatles, one of the most important additions to the store, and one of Jobs’ last completed music projects.

Therefore, we were not surprised back in December to hear that The Recording Academy will honor Steve Jobs with a Special Merit Grammy Award, The Trustees Award, which was accepted yesterday by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue. Here’s the speech he gave when accepting the award on behalf of Jobs:

On behalf of Steve’s wife, Laurene, his children, and everyone at Apple, I’d like to thank you for honoring Steve with the Trustees Grammy Award. Steve was a visionary, a mentor, and a very close friend. I had the incredible honor of working with him for the last fifteen years.

Accepting this award means so much to me because music meant so much to him. He told us that music shaped his life…it made him who he was. Everyone that knows Steve knows the profound impact that artists like Bob Dylan and The Beatles had on him.

Steve was focused on bringing music to everyone in innovative ways. We talked about it every single day. When he introduced the iPod in 2001, people asked “Why is Apple making a music player?” His answer was simple: “We love music, and it’s always good to do something you love.”

His family and I know that this Grammy would have been very special to him, so I thank you for honoring him today.

The Trustees Award, which honors contributions to the music industry in other areas than performance, was also awarded to Rudy Van Gelder and Dave Bartholomew, a jazz recording engineer and a band leader, respectively. On a different note, counting this special award, this is the second time Apple is honored by The Recording Academy after previously winning The Technical Grammy Award back in 2002.

After Microsoft criticized Google’s initiative in a series of newspaper ads and after we’ve seen the EU asking Google to postpone the privacy policy changes we now see the Electronic Privacy Information Center sue the company in the U.S. because of the proposed changes:

A lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy Information Center alleged Google violated a settlement agreement reached with U.S. regulators last March that requires consent from the user if Google collects information under one privacy policy and then changes the policy.

The group is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction compelling the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to enforce the consent order.

“The Court must act now to prevent irreparable injury to EPIC and the public,” EPIC said in its court filing.

EPIC says that Google’s privacy policy changes will actually benefit advertisers, and therefore Google, as future ads will be better tailored to Google Account holders based on the aggregated data that those advertisers will be able to access. And that will happen without Google specifically asking for permission:

The group also challenged Google’s claim it is not collecting any new information. Aggregated data would give advertisers access to information about users that they were not privy to before, such as logged-in users’ YouTube search histories, EPIC said.

“Thus, Google will share new or additional information with third-party advertisers without first obtaining ‘express affirmative consent’ from Google users,” EPIC charged in court documents.

Naturally, Google says that the upcoming changes will not affect the way users control their privacy and the way personal data is collected and shared across Google services. But then again, that’s the kind of defense we’re expected to hear from Google.

We’ll be back with more news about Google’s new privacy policy changes, in the mean time let us know what you think about the move.

With the new privacy policy in place, Google will be able to use all your personal data from various Google services that you use in order to offer you a better Google experience, including ads specifically tailored to your needs, which is how the company is making its cash nowadays.

In addition to these policy changes, the company is interested to learn how the average user is using the Internet – apparently it doesn’t know that yet contrary to our believes – and Google will pay you to help shed more light on the matter. The company is conducting a special survey, with selected participants being rewarded $25. That’s not cash and that’s not upfront. Google will pay you $5 for signing up and then $5 in monthly installments using Amazon gift cards:

Google is building a new panel to learn more about how everyday people use the Internet.

The new project is called Screenwise. As a panelist, you’ll add a browser extension that will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them. What we learn from you, and others like you, will help us improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone.

What’s in it for you? Up to $25 in gift cards. Our panel management partner, Knowledge Networks, will give you a $5 Amazon.com Gift Card code instantly when you sign up and download the Google Screenwise browser extension.1 Then you’ll get additional $5 Amazon.com Gift Card codes every three months for staying with it.2 It’s our way of saying “Thank you.”

To be eligible to join, you must be 13 or older, have a Google Account (or sign up for one), and be ready to use the Google Chrome browser.

Are you going to let Google in your online life for $25? What is the right price for your privacy?

The show is set to hit Thursday night, and can best be described by two of the greatest words to be used in terms of describing any concert: “live” and “free”. As for the time of the event, it changes based on your location, with the event set to hit at 7 PM on the west coast of the United States, and 10 PM for the east coast. You’ll be able to get in on this via several methods, actually, including iTunes’ desktop client and, if you want to see McCartney take on the big screen, your HDTV can accommodate, assuming you’ve got an Apple TV set top box.

McCartney is reportedly getting in on this as a means to promote his upcoming album Kisses on the Bottom, which can be found at iTunes right now, and is no doubt hoping the live show will get people interested in the download, possibly during the show itself.  And this isn’t Apple TV’s first foray into live events, either, but it is likely to be the simplest so far, especially after Apple’s broadcast of London’s iTunes Festival, which actually required users to use AirPlay to get the show on their bigger screens.

Smart idea? I’d say so. Nothing like taking something people would ordinarily want to do, like watch a free concert staged by one of the biggest names in the industry, and make it accessible through the platform you want more people using anyway. Anyone who’s been vacillating between the various set-top boxes may well tip the scales one way or another at the possibility of more free concerts.

But what do you guys think? Would anyone buy an Apple TV for the shot at more free live shows down the line? Or do you think that Apple won’t get much mileage out of this concept? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think!

Basically, analysts at the Linley Group have said that the A5 chip in the iPhone 4S was too large for just putting in a pair of Cortex A9 processors and a GPU, and have offered up the idea that the extra room was geared for housing a built-in noise reduction chip, picked up from audio specialist company Audience. Audience, in turn, had revealed previously that they were working with Apple as part of their recent IPO documentation.

As a result, the A5 chip on the iPhone, reportedly, not only contains the Cortex A9 chips and the GPU, but also a derivation of Audience’s EarSmart technology that offers up noise cancellation systems sufficient to allow users to use the phone at arm’s length, which is exactly what Siri depends on. EarSmart uses a combination of dual microphones and custom DSP to filter out background noise, much like the human brain itself would in a similar situation. Since the iPhone 4–as well as the iPad 2–doesn’t offer such a system, Siri’s backward compatibility thus becomes an issue. And, as we’ve discovered from a variety of hacks so far, it’s not that the A4 can’t run Siri, it’s that, without that noise reduction capability, Siri has a tough time hearing you.

The question from here, of course, is will, say, the iPad 3 or the iPhone 5 (still expected to come out this year) offer up the same kind of technology which will allow Siri to run on either platform? It’s a safe bet to say they will, of course, given how popular Siri’s been on the iPhone 4S, but it’s not a slam dunk. At least, it’s not a slam dunk yet.

So what do you guys think? Will future Apple products include the Audience system to allow Siri to run? Or do you think that Siri will be much more of a limited release? No matter what you think, hit the comments section below and let’s talk Siri!

Lilyhammer, featuring Steven Van Zandt (formerly of The Sopranos as well as the E Street Band where he served as a guitarist), follows a New York mobster who ships out to Norway in a bid to start his life over again in a whole new environment. The first season offers up fully eight episodes lasting 45 minutes each, and was developed by a Norwegian production company then sold to Netflix.

This isn’t the only original content Netflix has on tap, either; starting in 2013, a new lineup of Arrested Development episodes are slated to arrive on the streaming service. Though on an unusual note, it seems that Lilyhammer isn’t available in the UK, going against some earlier indications that Netflix’s original content would roll out on Netflix systems all over. But it might be more of a phased rollout than anything else.

It’s not so much this series by itself that’s a big deal, but rather, what it means. Perhaps the biggest impediment to getting streaming content available in a much wider range has been one of content. From Netflix to Apple to Microsoft, streaming video providers have seen first hand the difficulties inherent in getting content out of a system with a vested interest in keeping content available essentially via its current structure. The studios prefer brick and mortar video stores to kiosks, the cable networks want to stick with cable, and the online ventures are pretty much staying where they’re at.

But when a Netflix–or conversely, a Microsoft or a cash-flush Apple–starts developing its own series for release on streaming, then you’ve got a whole new ball game on your hands. If the studio system is cut out by cash-rich tech companies developing their own series for distribution, now you’ve got a system in which the studios are competing on one ball ground and the tech companies are on another wholly different ground. But considering that, in many cases, the two overlap (Comcast, for example, would find itself offering both classes of service), you’ll likely see some very intense infighting as a result.

But what do you guys think about this? Should the companies interested in streaming work to make their own content? Or is streaming simply doomed media? No matter what you think, hit the comments section and let’s talk about it!

According to a recent FCC finding, Google is also working on a mystery device, which does not have a name at this time, but which is described as “an entertainment device” that needs to be tested appropriately in the following six months. Google is asking for permission to perform such tests in its Google labs but also in employees homes in four cities, Mountain View, Los Angeles, Cambridge and New York:

Please explain in the area below why an STA is necessary:

Google is developing an entertainment device that requires testing outside the laboratory environment. The device is in the prototyping phase and will be modified prior to final compliance testing.

Please explain the purpose of operation:

Testing throughput and stability of home WiFi networks using an entertainment device. Testing will include functional testing of all subsystems, including WiFi and Bluetooth radio. Users will connect their device to home WiFi networks and use Bluetooth to connect to other home electronics equipment. This line of testing will reveal real world engineering issues and reliability of networks. The device utilizes a standard WiFi/Bluetooth module, and the planned testing is not directed at evaluating the radio frequency characteristics of the module (which are known), but rather at the throughput and stability of the home WiFi networks that will support the device, as well as the basic functionality of the device. From this testing we hope to modify the design in order to maximize product robustness and user experience. Utilizing the requested number of units will allow testing of real world network performance and its impact on applications running on the device, so that any problems can be discovered and addressed promptly. All devices will be used by and registered to specific individuals (all Google employees), and Google will maintain a record of each device, so that they can be easily recalled at any time during testing and when testing is complete. The devices will be tested at Google facilities and within employees residences in the following areas: Mountain View, CA: 37.421265 N, -122.085314 W; Los Angeles, CA: 33.995388 N, -118.477035 W; Cambridge, MA: 42.362754 N, -71.088023 W; and New York, NY: 40.741872 N, -74.004579 W.

What product are we looking at? Is it some sort of homegrown Google TV? Is it an Android device specifically made for home entertainment? Is it Android @Home, an Android-based home automation product that would really require some proper home-testing before being launched? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Microsoft has been making such claims in newspaper ads a few days ago, with Google fighting back with ads of its own and a blog post to explain the existing myths about its advertising business. Unlike Microsoft, a Google competitor in various tech fields including search, productivity applications and mobile and computer operating system which doesn’t really have any power to stop Google from modifying its ToS as it sees fit, European regulators may have a more important word to say about such changes.

And it looks like a group of EU regulators have written to Google to stop the roll out of its new privacy policy in order to investigate the new ToS to see whether the user’s data is still protected following the upcoming changes:

The Article 29 Working Party, an independent body that brings together data protection authorities from each of the EU’s 27 countries and the EU’s executive European Commission, said it needed to examine Google’s plans more thoroughly before the search group’s policy comes into effect on March 1.

“Given the wide range of services you offer, and the popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the EU member states,” the group wrote to Google Chief Executive Larry Page on Feb. 2.

“We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated way,” it said, explaining that France’s data protection authority would be in charge of the investigation.

“In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis.”

European commissioner in charge of data protection Viviane Reding is also supporting the requests saying that Google’s new privacy policy has to fully comply with EU law. Google already faces antitrust inquiries both in the U.S. and in the EU, so it’s probably safe the say the search giant does not want another EU probe into its business practices right now. Therefore it’s probably safe to say the privacy policy changes will be delayed to allow the EU regulators to investigate them. On the other hand, there’s always the chance Google will go forward with the planned ToS change, but we’ll certainly keep you updated on the matter. How do you feel about Google’s privacy policy change?

Just that alone sounds like a nice feature. After all, this would mean that you would not lose your images if you lose your phone — something that is becoming a bigger and bigger issue as more and more people rely on their camera phone to capture those special moments. But that being said, the Everpix set-up also comes with another perk in that it will also pull in your images from other services so you can view and manage them all in one location.

The app is available for free and can be found by way of the iOS App Store. Everpix requires iOS 5.0 or later and will run on the iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch. Otherwise, the app is currently sitting at version 1.0.1 and the features break down as follows;

• All your photos in your pocket, beautifully presented and accessible anywhere, even offline.
• Automatically uploads your iPhone camera roll photos to Everpix.
• Super simple photo sharing directly to your Facebook or Twitter.

With that, there is one small catch — the portion of the set-up that will allow you to get all your photos from other services into the cloud is currently Mac only at the moment. That portion can be accessed by visiting the Everpix website and downloading the Mac uploader app. Details on this state that it will allow you to get images from Flickr, Facebook, Instagram and more.

Lastly, even without using the Mac uploader portion and pulling in your other images — Everpix sounds like a nice way to make sure your images will not be lost if you lose your phone. The only catch with that, in order for those images to upload automatically, the Everpix app will need to be running in the background.

Facebook is going for a $5 billion IPO, which could go as high as $10 billion, with the company being valued at $100 billion once it goes public. While Facebook wants to raise at least $5 billion with the IPO that doesn’t mean Mark Zuckerberg will lose any control of the company and daily operations. He will continue to act as the CEO of the company and he will continue to own 56.9 percent of the voting shares and have economic control of 28.4 percent of the shares. What will change for Zuckerberg starting with January 1, 2013 is his annual salary, which will be dropped from $500,000 to $1.00 in a Steve Jobs-like move. His shares will be valued at around $30 billion after the company goes public, making him one of the wealthiest people on earth.

Are you considering investing in Facebook? Here are some details that should help you decide:

• 845 million active users
• 2.7 billion likes and comments per day
• 250 million photos uploaded per day
• 100 billion friendships
• $3.71 billion in revenue in 2011, $1 billion in profit
• $1.97 billion in revenue in 2010, $606 million in profit
• $777 million in revenue in 2009, $229 million in profit
• 85% of revenue came from advertising in 2011
• 12% of revenue came from Zynga 2011
• $4 billion cash reserves.

Facebook has big plans for the future too, with Google probably being the main rival the company has right now in the social networking business. A paragraph in Zuckerberg’s public letter for the IPO, seems to outline this fact, although Google is not actually named:

By helping people form these connections, we hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information. We think the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph — a network built from the bottom up or peer-to-peer, rather than the monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date. We also believe that giving people control over what they share is a fundamental principle of this rewiring.

It will certainly be interesting to see who will prevail in these social networking wars, but while we wait for Facebook and Google+ to fight it out, let us know whether you’ll start buying Facebook shares as soon as they’re available.

And a rival like Microsoft will not just sit by and let this policy change slide, at least from a marketing standpoint. The Redmond-based company has purchased a round of anti-Google newspaper ads part of a “Putting People First” campaign, which is meant to show the advantages of Microsoft products, compared to similar offerings from Google, from the privacy point of view. The products that Microsoft advertises are Hotmail, Bing, Microsoft Office 365 and Internet Explorer.

Here’s what the ad above reads:

Google is in the process of making some unpopular changes to some of their most popular products. Those changes, cloaked in language like “transparency,” simplicity” and “consistency” are really about one thing: making it easier for Google to connect the dots between everything you search, send, say or stream while using one of their services.

But, the way they’re doing it is making it harder for you to maintain control of your personal information. Why are they so interested in doing this that they would risk this kind of backlash? One logical reason: Every data point they collect and connect to you increases how valuable you are to an advertiser.

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve the quality of an advertising product. But, that effort needs to be balanced with continuing to meet the needs and interests of users. Every business finds its own balance and attracts users who share those priorities. Google’s new changes have upset that balance, with users’ priorities being de-prioritized. That’s why people are concerned and looking for alternatives.

If these changes rub you the wrong way, please consider using our portfolio of award-winning products and services: […]

Microsoft is very clear about its intentions, and I’ll have to say that unlike the Samsung anti-Apple smear campaign, this ad is not offensive in any way. But are the facts presented by Microsoft accurate?

As expected in this game, Google has responded to Microsoft’s own claims by placing ads on various websites including the Washington Post that simply say “We’re changing our Privacy Policy. Not your privacy controls.”

Furthermore the company has published a posts on its Google Public Policy blog in which it’s “busting myths about [their] approach to privacy.” Here are the myths Google is debunking, and it’s pretty clear that the Mountain View giant is going after Microsoft with this one:

• Myth: In 2011, Google made $36 billion selling information about users like you. [Fairsearch - PDF]
• Fact: Google does not sell, trade or rent personally identifiable user information. Advertisers can run ads on Google that are matched to search keywords, or use our services to show ads based on anonymous data, such as your location or the websites you’ve visited.

• Myth: Google’s Privacy Policy changes make it harder for users to control their personal information. [Microsoft]
• Fact: Our privacy controls have not changed. Period. Our users can: edit and delete their search history; edit and delete their YouTube viewing history; use many of our services signed in or out; use Google Dashboard and our Ads Preferences Manager to see what data we collect and manage the way it is used; and take advantage of our data liberation efforts if they want to remove information from our services.

• Myth: Google is changing our Privacy Policy to make the data we collect more valuable to advertisers. [Microsoft]
• Fact: The vast majority of the product personalization Google does is unrelated to ads—it’s about making our services better for users. Today a signed-in user can instantly add an appointment to their Calendar when a message in Gmail looks like it’s about a meeting, or read Google Docs within their email.

• Myth: Google reads your email. [Microsoft]
• Fact: No one reads your email but you. Like most major email providers, our computers scan messages to get rid of spam and malware, as well as show ads that are relevant to you.

• Myth: Google Apps aren’t safe, and aren’t government-certified. [Microsoft]
• Fact: Google’s Apps are certified for government use because they are secure.

• Myth: Google’s Privacy Policy changes jeopardize government information in Google Apps. [SafeGov.org]
• Fact: Our new Privacy Policy does not change our contractual agreements, which have always superseded Google’s Privacy Policy for enterprise customers.

• Myth: Microsoft’s approach to privacy is better than Google’s. [Microsoft]
• Fact: We don’t make judgments about other people’s policies or controls. But our industry-leading Privacy Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager and data liberation efforts enable you to understand and control the information we collect and how we use it—and we’ve simplified our privacy policy to make it easier to understand. Microsoft has no data liberation effort or Dashboard-like hub for users. Their privacy policy states that “information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services.”

What do you think, Google and Microsoft product users? Who’s right and who’s wrong about online privacy?

That being said, Intuit has officially announced the release of the Mint.com app for Android tablets. More specifically, a Mint.com app designed for Android devices running 3.0 or later. The app is available by way of the Android Market and similar to the other versions — it is both free to download and free to use.

With that, those already using (or familiar) with Mint.com will understand the features and most likely be happy that a version has come available for Android tablets. And for those not as familiar with Mint.com, or for those who have been sporting an Android tablet and have been angry and ignoring Mint because of the lack of app — here is how the feature set breaks down;

• Organize all accounts: One tap gives users a complete overview of their finances; helps them review account balances and automatically categorizes transactions.
• Obtain financial insight: Detailed graphs drill into spending by category, such as food, clothing and travel, or spending over time; provide customizable date ranges for a personalized view.
• Stay on top of spending: Personalized budgets track spending help users reach financial goals.
• Get personalized updates: Streaming delivery of account alerts, bill reminders and personalized advice provides the most up-to-date information and helps people make smart financial decisions.
• Track cash spending: Enter cash transactions while on the go to more accurately capture spending.
• Easily find transactions: The search bar helps users find specific transactions or purchases by merchant, category or tags.
• Review finances anywhere: No Internet? No problem. Storing information from the latest download allows easier viewing of finances, anytime, anywhere.

Being the first aside though, this will give those interested in the Square credit card readers another place to check them out in person. And while we were initially a bit skeptical on the use of the word “select” in terms of describing where the Square could be found — a quick check of the T-Mobile website reveals roughly 100 locations across the US. And without listing each and every location, the list includes locations in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Anyway, aside from being able to find out which retail locations will have the Square on-site, lets offer a little bit about just what the Square actually does. In short, Square is a credit card reader that will allow users to accept customer payments using the small reader (plugged into the headphone jack) and a smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android).

When using a Square reader you will be able to accept payments from just about anyone and in just about any location. They make great additions to the small business who may just be considering (or looking into how they can begin) accepting credit card payments. And better yet, in most cases those payments will hit your bank account in about one business day.

With that, those looking to check out a Square reader at a T-Mobile retail location can hit the source link below and find the full list of participating stores. Well, that or visit the Square website directly at www.squareup.com.

Cathy Matthews is one of them, and together with 106 other people she posted 1,001,291 comments on a single post, which is almost double the current record. That means that on average, every participant posted 9,358 comments which is quite an impressive waste of time. As expected these aren’t meaningful comments – and how meaningful can you get over Frontierville anyway? – but rather spammy two-letter word comments posted mostly by Matthews:

Matthews did it mostly by posting two-letter words over and over.

“Once you get the rhythm, you can go pretty fast,” said Matthews.

So now what? What’s next after these 107 brave souls accomplished such a daunting feat?

“We’ll probably go back to playing our games,” said Matthews.

In the process, the 107 friends have probably spammed themselves and their acquaintances with these meaningless comments, but ultimately they got the job done. What the report doesn’t mention is how much time it took the team to reach the 1 million mark, which is probably a factor that will count in previous record-setting attempts.

Fox40 reports that the Guinnes Book of World Records has been notified but the team is yet to find out whether they set a new record or not. Since this endeavor has been already made public, chances are that a different group will try to beat this new number, after all, how hard is it to repeatedly post two-letter words on Facebook to “leave [your] mark on the world?” Because that’s why Matthews did it in the first place, and while it’s probably not something that should be encouraged – Facebook procrastinating – it definitely needs to be acknowledged.

Now, Facebook, how about preventing such spammy initatives?

Reuters reports that Steve Jobs himself wrote an email in March 2007 to Eric Schmidt to ask him to stop hiring Apple employees:

“I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this,” Jobs wrote.

Schmidt forwarded Job’s email onto other, undisclosed recipients.

“Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening?” Schmidt wrote.

Google’s staffing director responded that the employee who contacted the Apple engineer “will be terminated within the hour.”

He added: “Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs.”

Apparently that’s not the only email that has been discovered in the lawsuit. An other note, also from 2007, reveals an alleged agreement between Intel’s Paul Otellini and Google’s Eric Schmidt:

“Let me clarify. We have nothing signed,” Otellini wrote. “We have a handshake ‘no recruit’ between eric and myself. I would not like this broadly known.”

Both Intel and Google disagree with the accusations, and that’s probably what other companies targeted by the class action suit will also declare. Apple has not yet commented on the newly revealed email exchange between Jobs and Schmidt.

It’s certainly understandable that such companies would want to protect their main assets, the employees that help develop the interesting products that we use on a daily basis, but that does not mean the employees would appreciate such agreements. It will certainly be interested to see where such class action suits are heading especially considering that in 2010 Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, Intuit and Pixar have agreed not to enter in any “no-poach” agreements following a probe from the U.S. Justice Department.

We all know that there’s a delay between many movie’s release dates and the time they land on Netflix. That all you can rent for one price plan does some pretty nasty things to studios’ plans to actually sell their DVDs. After all, why buy it when you can watch it for a nigh-pittance as part of a plan at Netflix? So many of the studios insisted that, if Netflix wanted to buy DVDs from them to rent, they’d need to wait to put them on shelves, otherwise they simply wouldn’t sell them. And Netflix agreed, knowing that it needed the DVDs to survive.

Well, now, not only is there an embargo on renting certain titles on Netflix, there is now an additional 28 day wait to even add the titles to your rental queue. So not only can you not rent a movie for, at last report, 56 days after it releases, you can’t even add it to your queue for the first 28 of those days. Once you even can add it in the first place, you’ll then have to wait another 28 days to get it.

This move is likely geared toward getting people to forget about Netflix, a practice which seems somewhat pointless anyway as more and more people use it for streaming purposes and less for DVDs, and then for catalog titles that they can’t find at what remaining video stores there are left anyway. Admittedly, I spent a lot of time morose on my drive home from that Blockbuster Video closure, thinking that the next generation might never see a video store (and I spent most of my high school off hours working in one!), but if Warner et al keeps the heat on, we may well get a resurgence after all, for good or ill.

But what do you guys think here? Figure we may be going back to the old fashioned video store? Or will you never leave Netflix / Blockbuster regardless of what embargoes are put in place? No matter what your stance, hit the comments section below and fill us in!

Of course, we only wonder where he will end up because of where he began. Many will remember Jon Rubinstein from recent years — Palm and HP. But before we get into that, lets discuss what has been said in regards to his leaving. The details of his departure have come by way of AllThingsD who report that;

“Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who took over handheld maker Palm and moved with it to Hewlett-Packard in a 2010 acquisition, has left HP effective today,”

And as for what has been heard from within HP, there has been a statement issued by HP spokesperson Mylene Mangalindan;

“Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,”

As it turns out, Rubinstein had a 12-24 month commitment to stay with HP. That being said, it looks like that time has come to an end. So far, it was noted that Rubinstein has “no immediate plans” as to where he is heading.

Taking that as a shift point, lets take a brief look back at where he has come. Rubinstein began his career after graduate school with a term at Hewlett-Packard. From there he went on to a few other companies but ended up working with Steve Jobs at NeXT in the early 90′s. Of course, what many will remember though is what came after NeXT — Apple and his work on what became the PowerMac desktops, the iMac and the iPod.

Sadly though, his latest ventures, Palm, webOS and HP did not have quite the same level of success as his time at Apple. Either way though, while webOS may not have been the success that many had thought it could and while the Pre, Pixi and TouchPad devices never reached iPhone and iPad like status — we can comfortably say that Jon Rubinstein has quite a history and we look forward to seeing where his next chapter will begin.

But perhaps the reason that this guy likes Pocket Informant is because it syncs and plays nicely with Google Calendar and Toodledo. That being said, it looks like the folks at WebIS are taking things a step further and have introduced a new offering — Pocket Informant Online. The new service is set to debut in February as a publicly available beta.

Pocket Informant Online will be priced at $15 per year as an introductory offer and then go up to $25 per year as the regular price. According to the description, Pocket Informant Online has been in development for “quite some time” and it will allow you to have “all your PI data synced in the same location.”

Breaking this down a bit further and WebIS is touting this as “complete mobile organization” with features to include calendar, tasks and sync.

Replacing the need for the old style paper planners, or your kitchen wall calendar, our full-featured PIM offers at-a-glance organization! With the available customization choices, you can set your information to show as much or as little as you wish. This calendar is a must have tool for everyone, from the person who just needs a little organizational help, to the power user.

• Add Events easily with just a few taps of a button.
• Choose from Year, Month, Week, Day, List and Today views. Each view is customizable to your specifications.
• Filter your Events per view
• Comprehensive collection of icons available for your Events

• Tasks are completely viewable and editable in the Calendar views.
• Comprehensive collection of pre-made Task Groups.
• Pre-made filters allow you to quickly find your Tasks.

• This is another addition to our great family of productivity software, enabling users to access their information anytime and anywhere.
• This is our own private sync service that will support iOS, Android, Outlook, and a future Mac OS X Desktop version.
• Sync the entire Pocket Informant Calendar, Task, Notes, and Settings between your iOS and Android devices and in the future, Mac Desktop.

All said and done, while I am interested in seeing how well the service works — I will say that I am not entirely convince that this is something I need to spend any additional money on. Then again, having the Calendar and Tasks together in one service could be nice. Anyway, in the meantime, check out the screenshots below.

Basically, what Lingual does is it allows Siri to connect to Microsoft’s Bing Translate API in order to take words and phrases spoken in English and turn them into their equivalents in better than 30 different languages. The current word suggests that it works very well, too, but not without some significant downsides.

One, it’s using Microsoft Bing’s translation services as opposed to Google’s translation services, and many have reported that Google’s translation is quite a bit better at making translations than Bing’s. As a result, words and phrases are often mistranslated. Two, for some reason, while Lingual can tell you what English words and phrases mean in over 30 languages, it can’t actually tell you what any of those words and phrases mean in English.

Though you’ve got to give the CodeThemed team, the guys who actually came up with Lingual, credit for trying. After all, the untethered jailbreak actually hit six days ago, so it’s not like they had a whole lot of time to put this thing together. And besides, with updates likely to follow–and hopefully at the breakneck pace of the original app–you’ll likely have a fully functional system up and running and doing some really top-notch translation work in a matter of weeks if this current pace holds.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty impressed. Sure, the first version of anything isn’t always the greatest, but it’s hard not to look at this thing with something like a note of respect. And while it’s not in the best of shape right now, it will likely get better, and considering that the app itself is a free one on Cydia, it just makes jailbreaking your iPhone 4S look all that more attractive.

But what do you guys think? Anyone going to get their hands on this one? No matter what your answer to that question, or any others on your mind, head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you think!

And Google has a new challenge for us, which it announced officially earlier today, “some changes to [their] privacy policies and Google Terms of Service.” In short, Google will now use all the data it can collect about you via the Google services you already use, in all the Google applications you will be using. The ultimate goal, Google says, is to offer you better results to your online searches, specifically tailored for you actual interests.

At the same time Google says it will continue to protect your privacy and that it won’t share your data with any third parties. You’ll still be able to export your data, if you want to cancel your Google account, and that’s great, but do we really want to have all our data merged into one big resource that would be available to the search giant at its own discretion?

Is it a bad or a good move from Google? That’s for you to decide. Some of you may like the fact that Google can use a bunch of information it collects about you to offer you better assistance during the day – this includes calendar appointments, maps and other services in addition to search results. Some of you may not like it as you’ll want to enjoy as much anonymity as possible once online. And Google is just about to break that anonymity by tying together all that information it holds about you in one single virtual file.

Whether you like it or not, that will happen as Google will merge its over 70 ToS for different services into a single one starting with March 1. At which point you’ll have to agree with it, or stop using your existing Google account. This announcement comes days after Google modified its Google Account sign-up page to include a mandatory sign up for its Google+ social network. And we’re certainly curious to hear what’s coming next from the Search giant.

Basically, Audiobooks.com is poised to do for audio books what Netflix does for movies, specifically, offering up access to their entire library for one price. Once you pay the monthly access fee, you’ll get in on a library of fully 11,000 titles, and you’ll be able to listen to as many of them as you like via your browser or your mobile device.

There aren’t any apps specifically geared toward Audiobooks.com as yet, but the word is that anyone with iOS 4.0 or better, or Android 2.3 or better, will be able to get in on this. And support for Blackberry devices, as well as Windows Mobile devices, is unavailable as yet, though word is that’s likely to follow in the not too distant future.

As for the pricing, you’ll be able to get in on Audiobooks.com’s 11,000 title library for $24.95 a month, which as bibliophiles out there know is about the cost of one hardback book, making this a very, very exciting offer indeed, especially if you’re big on audiobooks. Audiobooks’ plan compares reasonably favorably to other services like those offered by rival Audible, as while Audible’s plan gives you access to nearly ten times the content Audiobooks.com provides for fully one third the monthly cost, Audible’s plan will reportedly only allow you access to a mere two books in a month. But then, considering the amount of time required to listen to an entire book, you may not need the kind of all you can stream service that Audiobooks.com offers up.

So what do you guys think about the offering from Audiobooks.com? Figure that you could really use access to a whole lot of ebooks in a very short frame of time? Or would you be better served by less access to more books in a much longer time range? No matter what you think about Audiobooks.com’s offering, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think about it!

We’ve known for some time now that there’s more video on YouTube than any one person can watch in a lifetime. But there are plenty of people out there intending to go down swinging, as evidenced by recent announcements that say YouTube gets full four billion views per day, or somewhere around half the planet watching one video every day.

This by itself is no mean feat, but it only gets more interesting when you consider that fully 60 hours of content gets uploaded every minute. Expand that out and you get some very disturbing points, like the fact that YouTube basically gets an entire week of dusk-to-dusk content every three minutes, or two full years of content uploaded every five hours. Those are averages, of course, so it may not always work out like that, but still, we’re talking about just mind-boggling quantities of content.

And this in turn should get most wondering about just what’s to come for YouTube, especially with its massive user base. We already know that there’s some more professional user content in the works, and between that and the sheer amount of amateur video getting uploaded, YouTube may well prove to be one of the biggest sources of home theater viewership out there. This in turn will do interesting things to the bandwidth provision issues currently going on all over the world.

So what do you guys think here? Think that YouTube might be more of a fixture on our televisions soon as the content goes through the roof and improves besides? Or do you think YouTube will soon be killed off by aggressive lobbying? No matter what you think, head on down to the comments section and let’s talk YouTube!

Job opportunities like this didn’t just come about thanks to the Internet’s rise in popularity, but rather because the Internet is open and free. In a world where television news sources are owned by conglomerates that have their own political agendas and newspapers throw journalistic integrity out the window in favor of partisan articles meant to divide the world, the Internet is really the only place you can go to find speech that is truly free. That’s the wonderful thing about the Internet – anyone can set up a website and instantly have a platform to speak their mind, regardless of whether that opinion is popular or not.

All of that, however, is currently under attack. If you’ve read this blog any time in past month or so, you know that I’m talking about SOPA and PIPA. SOPA and PIPA are two bills that have been introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, that aim to bring online piracy to an end. It’s a noble cause considering that online piracy is real problem that has far reaching ramifications you probably didn’t even know were possible when you downloaded the latest Justin Bieber album, but both bills have major problems.

First and foremost, SOPA and PIPA would aim to stop piracy by censoring the Internet. In recent days, both bills have suffered major setbacks, with the Senate and the House both opting to shelve PIPA and SOPA. That may seem like a victory, but don’t become complacent. SOPA and PIPA are merely waiting in the wings, with Senators and Representatives alike waiting until the controversy dies down before reintroducing these bills under different names with less offensive language. This is going to happen, because major organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA will continue to try and convince congressmen and women that they only way they can effectively fight piracy is by being given the right to wipe out any site that even hint at copyright infringement. They will do the convincing with money, and they won’t stop until they get what they want or they Senators and Representatives they’ve bought are removed from office.

The notion that the only way to fight piracy is through censorship is a direct threat to free speech, and I can’t believe that my government, which was founded on the value that an American should be allowed to speak his or her mind, is even considering a bill that could result in voices being stifled. Even more bizarre is the fact that the US government has openly chastised China and Iran for censoring the Internet, yet looks to grant itself the same power. You’ll hear supporters of SOPA say things like “Well, things will probably be okay even if SOPA passes.” They might be right, but do you really want to give the government that kind of power just to see what it does? I certainly don’t.

This issue has quickly evolved into something more than online piracy, most likely because SOPA and PIPA won’t do anything to stop piracy. Our Senators and Representatives clearly have no idea that simply blocking websites or having them removed entirely won’t do a damn thing to stop piracy. Hackers and pirates are smarter than those who run our country and the massive media organizations that support these bills, and SOPA and PIPA will be an annoyance for them at best. They will still find a way to get the stuff they want illegally, all the while laughing, tickled that our government thought that something as stupid as SOPA or PIPA would do anything to stop them.

The only thing that a bill like SOPA will do is put our jobs at risk, along with the millions of other people who rely on a free and open Internet to make a living. For that reason, TFTS cannot support anything resembling SOPA and PIPA, and we urge you to contact your elected officials (even if you don’t live in the US, since this will affect the entire world) and tell them that a vote for bills like SOPA and PIPA is akin to a vote against free speech.

Since this is a matter that will affect TFTS as a whole, our editors all have something specific they’d like to say, and we invite you to carefully consider what each thinks about these bills:

Steve Andersen – TFTS Assistant Editor:

SOPA in its current form is a disaster waiting to happen. SOPA is likely to kill jobs–and this during the worst economy since the Great Depression–as well as do horrible things to innovation all across the
internet. Why? Simple–it’s so spectacularly vague that just about anything could apply under its terms. In an environment where just about any picture or any video or any clip could result in a horde of overpowered lawyers landing on your throat feet-first, who in their right mind would start anything? Worse yet, even if it’s not your post, but rather a post from a user, you’re automatically assumed at fault because you didn’t do enough to stop it. And we’re not even talking about software pirates for large parts of this discussion, but rather blog owners, web site owners, and the like. There’s too much presumption of guilt here and not near enough common sense applied.

Chris Smith – TFTS Executive Editor:

My name is Chris and I have a problem, I am an Internet addict – which is not necessarily a problem. I love the current kind of Internet flavor, uncensored, with everything it has to offer, good or bad. And it’s mostly good stuff! Because the Internet drives innovation and helps online and offline businesses flourish, something certain lawmakers are clearly unaware of. The good thing about SOPA and PIPA is that it made me realize how many Internet services I use every day, whether work-related or not, to make my life easier. And I take them all for granted, they’re there to be taken advantage of and I can’t imagine waking up one day and finding out they had to be shut down without due process, for alleged copyright infringement. Should these bills pass, then we’ll have all kinds of big corporations anonymously bully various smaller sites out of business, without suffering any consequences. Various services and websites will disappear thanks to a law that gives certain powers and a waiver-to-censor to certain corporations overnight. Innovation will be stifled and soon everyone using the Internet will lose money. Everyone. As a tech writer but also as a simple Internet user, I can easily see how these two bills would affect my whole online experience in a heartbeat. I’m not an American, but once the U.S. green-lights such laws, I bet that other less democratic governments will have their own SOPAs and PIPAs out there in a minute to locally censor the Internet. And we’ll all have to suffer. The best thing of all is that piracy, which we don’t condone over here at TFTS, will not disappear, it will just adapt to the new environment. The bottom line is that I don’t want to tell my kids one day how I witnessed the Internet being pilled up in a yard in a cold winter day and being set on fire.

Andrew Tingle – TFTS Editor-In-Chief, Publisher, and Owner:

We live in a world that’s increasingly disinvesting us of ourselves, where those that are supposed to be serving us utilise the power and trust invested in them to bear down with invisible shackles upon a Joe Public who seemingly needs said individuals to reign in on our own personal responsibilities and freedoms. Many of us already live in a bubble that sees our every move tracked and filmed as we as carefully steered along the ever more restrictive tramlines defined not by a genuine cause based on what’s right and wrong but by lobby groups with cash in hand.

In all this, as we try to live our lives in a world ever more zoned and mapped out for us lest we actually need to fall back on our own sense of right and wrong or tax our brains with any sense of personal responsibility, the internet has been and remains, to a large degree, one of our last freedoms – but should the likes of SOPA and PIPA (in whatever iteration they may now take) come to fruition then, as in politics, Joe Public’s voice can and undoubtedly will be sidelined, pushed to the fringes by teams of lawyers whose mission is to see that whom they represent get to steer public opinion.

It is well documented, both on this site and across the net, how SOPA/PIPA and any of their mutations moving forward can and undoubtedly will play out – all of which leads to opinion being stifled, slowly muted and lost.

Of course, copyright infringement is not something we condone, but SOPA/PIPA have clear wider connotations that could, and thus will, lead to the gagging of free speech as those with power – by power, I mean those that already dilute laws with their lobby groups – cast their shadow across the net.

Now that SOPA/PIPA have been sidelined (or, rather, as they slip into the backroom to avail themselves of a new mask ready to face us again) it is clear that the people have spoken and, without wanting to state the bleeding obvious, isn’t it these very same people whom the politicians are supposed to be serving?

Enough already. Some of us were lucky enough to have been born in “the free world” – let’s try to keep at least some semblance of it at least someplace. Or, perhaps, we could just hand over the net to those that would like to shape it for their own ends, have them filter our content whilst we, in democracies, slam other counties who have looked to shape personal opinion by the very some (ultimate) means – that of censorship.

You, we, still have a voice and a platform to be heard. Use it or loose it. It really is as simple as that.

So there you have it folks. If you’re a citizen of the United States of America, the stakes can’t be much higher. Now is the time to remind your Senators and Representatives that they were elected to serve the people; they work for us, not special interests. If nothing else, remember that bureaucracies and corporations will jump at the chance to take away liberties like free speech and the open exchange of information, and once they’re taken away, they’re nearly impossible to get back.

Over at the White House Blog, deputy director of outreach Kori Schulman announces that the administration is now officially on Google+, with the White House Google+ page now open. Now, Google+ users can follow updates, participate in discussions and even watch relevant Hangouts, where President Obama will regularly air updates and discussions.

The White House Page promises to echo news from the White House’s official blog, share behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and let readers participate in providing feedback to the government. One thing being highlighted is the Google+ Hangouts feature, which promises relevant discussions among White House officials and policy experts on pressing issues.

During its initial launch, Google+ was limited as an individual-only social network, in which only actual persons were allowed to have accounts. Google then launched Google+ Pages for Businesses and Brands later in the year to support companies and organizations that likewise wanted to have a presence on Google+. Even with a slow uptake at first, Google reports its pages for brands feature to be a success, with companies eager to establish their brand’s presence on the social network. Meanwhile, Google+ itself has gained more than 90 million users as of this month, according to Google CEO Larry Page.

If policy and governance issues are your thing, you can add the White House Google+ page to your circles, and get active in the discussions.

The Senate was the first to crumble, with Senator Harry Reid issuing a statement through democrats.senate.gov, saying that he’s chosen to postpone the vote on PIPA – which was scheduled for next Tuesday – so that he and his fellow Senators can find some way to reach a compromise on the issues that have garnered a lot of negative press:

There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

Over on the House side, Representative Lamar Smith decided to once again shelve SOPA after hearing Reid’s reaction to the blowback surrounding these two bills. This is the second time in the past week that Smith has shelved SOPA – he brought it back to the forefront earlier this week and said that the House would vote on the bill in February after hearing about the planned protests. Apparently, Smith realized that there is too much negativity surrounding SOPA and opted to pull it, saying:

I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.

So, both SOPA and PIPA have been shelved, and even though Reid says that he hopes to revisit PIPA in the coming weeks, it looks like the bills’ opposers can enjoy a momentary victory. We aren’t out of the woods yet, however, because this fight has merely gone from a battle against bills to a battle against ideas. The restrictive language in SOPA and PIPA will find its way into other bills, and Congress knows now that it has to be sneaky about it.

Chances are those in the House and the Senate will attempt to include provisions from these two failed pieces of legislation in a less controversial bill, so those of us who would like see the Internet to remain free and open need to stay vigilant. If we don’t, then this fight over SOPA and PIPA will be for nothing.

So, major organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA will continue to pump money into the pockets of Congress until they get what they want, and it’s our job not to let them. If you want the Internet to remain the way it is, vote for somebody else in the next election, and send SOPA’s and PIPA’s supporters packing.

Senator Reid’s full statement can be found here, while following this link will take you to Representative Smith’s statement.

7. SOPA Creates Problems Where There Weren’t Any

SOPA and PIPA together address a very basic set of problems. The trouble is that they also address a variety of problems that don’t actually exist, such as news sites–like us–putting up YouTube videos of a new product or service being introduced, or pictures of the aforementioned product. It was pretty safe to say that this wasn’t much of a problem, as many pictures are offered by the product maker, but now even video that might have proven newsworthy would have to be eschewed to avoid legal complications.

6. SOPA Provisions Can Be Worked Around

One of the biggest objections most have to SOPA is how it forces companies to operate. While web addresses might well end up blocked under SOPA provisions, IP addresses would remain relatively untouched. This unconventional method of websurfing is available to most anyone–instead of using a URL, you can simply use an IP address to reach your website of choice. So if, for example, The Pirate Bay were blocked, you could use the IP address to surf accordingly. SOPA isn’t even law yet, and already, a Firefox plug-in called DeSopa is already on hand to get around SOPA’s provisions. Why pass a law that’s already been circumvented?

5. SOPA Has A Tendency To Overreact

We’re all agreed that piracy is illegal, and thus bad. No one’s going to publicly endorse piracy. But SOPA has an unnerving tendency to overreact, and gravely too, posing a threat to sites that merely link to infringing material, as opposed to just actual infringers. While no one wants to see the content we know and love pirated, we can all agree that there’s not much of a piracy risk to, say, a movie news site putting up an interview with someone. Under SOPA provisions, though, if someone wanted to call infringement, it’d be the end for the site that put it up, at least for a while.

4. SOPA Can Be Misused

A lot of people out there are concerned about the relatively narrow burden of proof required to file a claim under SOPA or PIPA, and thus, shut down a web site’s ability to operate. It thus becomes the kind of legislation that can possibly be used punitively by government groups who disagree with what is being said online, or by similar parties looking to hamper a site’s operations. It may not be used often, but no one wants to consider the possibility of getting hit with SOPA complications without cause.

3. SOPA Could Destroy Search Engines As We Know Them

Perhaps the biggest problem with SOPA is that it puts most of the onus for policing the piracy allegations on the search engines. This in turn will lead search engines to adapt one of two stances: to block everything that doesn’t even vaguely look kosher, or two, to completely shut down in the face of the newfound necessity for avoiding legal issues. The choices in search engines suddenly look like “badly neutered” or “nonexistent”, and that’s not a choice anyone wants to have to make, especially in something like search engines.

2. SOPA Will Destroy Jobs In The Midst Of The Worst Economy In Decades.

Let’s face it folks…the economy since about 2008 hasn’t been what you’d call really good. In fact, it’s been easily one of the worst ever seen since economy sizes were measured. Some say it’s on par with the Great Depression. Some say it surpasses the Great Depression. So why, in such an economy, would anyone pass legislation that may well kill websites? Websites have paid staffs in many cases–webmasters, graphic designers, writers, and more–and if they’re suddenly neck deep in the constant threat of getting hit with lawsuits in any direction, as well as the loss of advertising revenue and traffic, it’s hard to imagine who will stay in business, and who will stay in business any length of time. And that leads directly into the final point.

1. SOPA Will Destroy Investment

We’re not just talking about blogs here, folks, we’re also talking about the entirety of the web presence. App stores, auction sites, social networks, Flash game sites, and everything in between may be affected by SOPA, and in the midst of that kind of uncertainty and dire potential consequences, who would invest money in internet based ventures? It puts a nightmarish sort of uncertainty into the market, and if there’s one thing that much of the market cannot abide, it’s uncertainty. Sure, there are always exceptions, but people invest to make money. And the very real possibility of losing one’s shirt, especially should that possibility be elevated in the way SOPA would.

And there you go. There are plenty of reasons why SOPA is a disaster. And you’ll find plenty more reasons out there to back up these seven. It’s a terrible idea in general, and a good time for you to get in touch with your various Congressional representatives. We already have out here, and hopefully, enough pressure on the lawmakers will make them see how crucial it is to keep their hands off the internet.

And when you’ve had your say with your representatives, remember to have your say with us right here. Thankfully, many of you–like us here at TFTS–already had our say, and at least for now, it seems to have worked out. As much as you rely on us for commentary about tech issues, we always like hearing from you too. So hit the comments section below and fill us in.

all pics copyright their owners.

The changes were noticed and have been reported by the folks over at the Google Operating System blog where they break it down as follows;

“If you try to create a Google account from Google’s homepage, you’ll notice that Google redesigned the page, but that’s not all. You’ll now have to create a Gmail account, a Google Profile and you’ll automatically join Google+.”

Simply put, gone are the days where you could head over to Gmail and set up a new email account with little information and little time to do so. Previously you had to enter little more than some basic account information and an existing email address. Coming from a look at this new setup, Google will now require your first and last name, username (email), password, birthdate, gender, mobile phone number, alternate email address and evidence that you are not a robot which comes in the form of a CAPTCHA.

Otherwise, in addition to a tiny bit more information being required, you will then be shuffled off to set up your Google Profile page and your Google+ account. Sounds like a sure fire way for Google to bolster their Google+ numbers. Then again, being a user of many Google services, this idea does not seem all that bad to me.

And lastly, as it seems Google has not entirely rolled this out for all (potential new) users or for all properties. Bottom line, you may still be able to sneak in using the old sign-up process, however it looks like that may be coming to an end sooner rather than later.

Google CEO Larry Page has just finished with the company’s first earnings call for 2012. Along with announcements on the company’s financial status and performance at the start of the year, Page shared that the search giant’s fledgling social network has soared to heights, with 90 million users so far globally. This is double the figure that Page announced in October and about a third more than the December figure, signalling that the social network is likely to reach its growth tipping point soon.

I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services.

Google says they’ve been incorporating new features each day, with Google+ including 200 updates in total since its launch in June, including new hangout features, circles in Gmail and Pages for businesses. Additionally, Page shares that Google+ users are active, with over 60% using the service daily to engage with other users, and over 80% connecting on a weekly basis.

Senior VP for social business Vic Gundotra says that Google is still in the early stages of “having deep support for your identity and your relationships” with its Gmail, Android, Chrome, Search, Ads, and YouTube, which means social networking and online identity will play a bigger part in these services in the long term.

With this, Google and Facebook seem to be taking a different stance each on social networking. Facebook wants to integrate information from all possible sources into Facebook user profiles. Meanwhile, Google wants to focus on core services, and is making sure these interface and interconnect better with the Google+ identity. Which will prevail? Google+ currently has about 11% of Facebook’s userbase, but there is potential in tapping into Gmail, YouTube and Search users.

The U.S. Department of Defense is at the forefront of technology, and actively develops applications, software, and hardware used by soldiers worldwide. But aside from just deadly weapons like rail guns, the military also uses practical technologies, such as Android-based translators and the like. But with burgeoning software development costs, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is planning to crowdsource some of these efforts to reduce expenses.

The DoD plans to spend $32 million in developing computer games that will help test military software. The goal here is to reduce the need for formal bug testing and software verification, noting that current software gets about 1-5 bugs per thousand lines of code.

However, if you’re looking forward to anything as spectacular as Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare or Call of Duty, you might want to lower your expectations. DARPA says these games are likely to be casual puzzle games that are more widely accessible. The goal is to create “intuitively understandable” puzzles that can be played on a variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.

Of course, there is concern here that the puzzle you’re working on might actually be activating deadly weapons systems halfway around the world. As such, there is question whether the system can be gamed or rigged. But to some people, playing with real weapons more exciting than playing shoot-em-ups onscreen.

Earlier this week, prominent websites ran a campaign to oppose the Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property Acts (SOPA and PIPA, respectively) being deliberated on in Congress. But in a separate effort, the Justice Department had ordered the shutdown of download sites, including Megaupload, which acts as a file locker that lets users share files and content online.

Megaupload operates from Hong Kong, but leases some servers in Virginia, which gives U.S. authorities jurisdiction over the facility and content.

The five-count indictment against Megaupload includes copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and racketeering, citing Megaupload’s practice of giving users cash incentives for uploading popular files. These are mostly copyrighted content, such as movies and videos. Megaupload has also been accused of turning a blind eye to content owners’ requests to take down their copyrighted content.

Along with the site closure, the site’s founder and former CEO Kim Dotcom, chief marketing officer Mathias Ortmann and CTO Bram van der Kolk were arrested in New Zealand and are pending extradition to the U.S. It can be noted that extradition arising from allegations of copyright infringement has been criticized, in light of UK nationals likewise losing the fight against extradition ensuing from similar cases.

For its part, Megaupload claims that most of the content stored in the so-called cyberlocker was legitimate, and that the site was open to dialog with content owners.” The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch,” the website statement went, before being shut down.

Above the fold ads refer to ad banners, images or links that appear on the first instance a webpage loads — meaning before the user finds the need to scroll down the page on the browser. These ads usually sell at a premium price, as advertisers want instant visibility. Meanwhile, website owners often find the need to sacrifice some usability and aesthetics when ads are placed above the fold. In the same light, Google says users have indicated that they want to see content rather than ads.

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

Google says that the algorithm change is likely to only impact about 1% of searches globally. Google anti-spam head Matt Cutts says that website owners will also have to look into making sure their content loads properly with different browser sizes, considering the rising popularity of tablet computers and smartphones. Google says it will automatically adjust ranking for sites that adjust their layouts accordingly.

However, Google does not share quantitative measures that can help determine whether a website is top-heavy, so designers will have to consider the varying standard screen resolutions, and make a qualitative judgement on whether a site has too many advertisement units above the fold. We figure this is not likely to cause a stir among the webmaster community, though, especially those that do have legitimate and quality content.

According to recently unearthed Apple patents, the possibilities for expanding Siri start with email and web browser systems, allowing you to create and send messages, as well as surf, on non-Safari systems. Not bad by itself, but the picture only gets more interesting from there, as the patents detail possibilities for further future use.

One of the big ones is home automation. While we’ve already seen Siri get hacked to run a thermostat, the patents detail possibilities for dialing telephones, playing music and video (something we’ve also seen possibly connected to the upcoming line of Apple televisions), and even controlling things like home security devices. But there’s even bigger yet as some of the patents detail the possibility that Siri may be able to buy and sell things in the future (which wouldn’t be hard, especially if Siri could connect to the major vendors out there like Amazon or eBay, as opposed to just Best Buy), or even participate in conversations. From the patents:

For messaging platforms including but not limited to email, instant messaging, discussion forums, group chat sessions, live help or customer support sessions and the like, assistant 1002 may act as a participant in the conversations. Assistant 1002 may monitor the conversation and reply to individuals or the group using one or more the techniques and methods described herein for one-to-one interactions.

Basically, you’ve seen the commercials where the little boy asks Siri if it looks like snow, well, now you’ll be able to call somewhere and say “I can’t get my television to turn on” or “My car makes a funny squealing sound whenever I hit the brakes” or the like, and have an automated assistant like Siri serve as your first line of caller support.

There are lots of great possibilities here–some more feasible than others–but still some exciting stuff possibly on tap for Siri. So what do you guys think? Figure Siri will carry on expanding in the not too distant future? Or have we seen pretty much the end of what Siri will do? No matter what you think, hit the comments section below and fill us in!

In terms of the app itself, aside from coming at no cost to the user — it has arrived as version 1.0, measures in as a 558k file download and requires Android 2.2 Froyo (or later) for use.

“Official Wikipedia App for Android. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia containing more than 20 million articles in 280 languages, and is the most comprehensive and widely used reference work humans have ever compiled.”

Otherwise, while we can see that some may not be quite as interested in the dedicated app given you can already access this same information using the mobile browser — we suspect there are more than a few Wikipedia fans/users that will be happy to have this on their device. This guy included. And if nothing else, having this as a dedicated app just saves a few clicks as opposed to launching the browser and then clicking for Wikipedia from the bookmarks.

In terms of the app, some of the features includes the ability to save an article to read later or read offline, share articles using the Android “share” functionality, read the article in different languages, search using a nearby mode and using a full screen mode.

With that, the Wikipedia app can be found by a simple search for “wikipedia” from within the Android Market. And in the meantime, those curious can check out the gallery of screenshots below. Lastly, for those heading over to the market on your device, after searching you will likely have to scroll down a little bit as there are more than a few unofficial apps available. But remember, look for Wikipedia from Wikimedia Foundation.

Starting today users will be able to access 60 apps right from their Timeline, but the downside here is that they will have to use the Timeline feature in the first place, and there’s no way of going back to the non-Timeline layout once the upgrade is made.

Depending on how you look at it, your timeline will be enriched, or spammed, with data from these social networking-friendly apps, as long as you’re interesting in such features. In fact, there are already a bunch of apps that can be used, with more to follow as developers are encouraged to submit even more apps for approval in the future.

In the mean time, here’s a list of apps that will be interfering with your Timeline starting today:

Travel
• Gogobot
• Airbnb
• TripAdvisor
• Wipolo
• Where I’ve Been

Food
• Foodspotting
• Cookpad
• Snooth (wine)
• Urbanspoon
• Yummly
• Foodily

Shopping / Fashion
• Pose
• Pinterest
• Polyvore
• Oodle
• Fab.com
• eBay
• Giftrocket
• Payvment
• Livingsocial

Fitness
• MapMyRun
• Runkeeper

Entertainment
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Dailymotion (French video site)
• Cinemur (French video site)
• Metacafe (videos)
• Ford (game)
• Wooga (Bubble Island, Diamond Dash)
• OMGPOP (Draw My Thing)
• Zynga (Words with Friends, Castleville

Giving
• Causes
• Fundrazr
• Artez.com

More
• BranchOut (job search)
• Monster (job search)
• Color (photo and video sharing)
• Courserank (education)
• Grockit (education)
• Foursquare (location)
• Goodreads (books)
• Kobo (books)
• StubHub (ticketing)
• Ticketmaster (ticketing)
• Ticketfly (ticketing)
• ScoreBig (ticketing)
• Appsfire (app discovery)
• Artfinder (art)
• Autotrader (cars)

Anyone interested in Timeline apps?

BitTorrent is a popular protocol for transferring big files, because of the decentralized nature of transfers. With BitTorrent, there is no central server that acts as repository of files, but bits and pieces of data are downloaded from other peer computers within the network. With this, entities sharing files can save on bandwidth and server load. However, the developers of BitTorrent are currently testing the platform in other applications, particularly streaming.

BitTorrent has partnered with Dean Guitars in streaming this Friday’s NAMM Jam event, a heavy metal festival to be held at The Grove of Anaheim. BitTorrent wants to test whether streaming through peer-to-peer sharing is viable. Developers say that this will eliminate the need to setup expensive server infrastructure and pay for bandwidth in live-streaming events. With BitTorrent live streaming, the network workload is distributed among peer computers who are part of the so-called swarm. The peer-based architecture will use resources like storage and bandwidth, and automatically adjusts according to demand and availability.

The limitation here, of course, is that the live-streaming event should have a minimum number of users for the peer-sharing protocol to work at optimal levels. As such, BitTorrent is testing its new protocol every 8 p.m. on Fridays, and has been inviting DJs to stream music live from their headquarters. This time, organizers have invited live bands, and BitTorrent is hoping to gain enough traction among music fans and event producers, as well.

Is BitTorrent the future of streaming media? If BitTorrent streaming gets enough traction from among consumers and platform developers, it might be one good way to circumvent the need for expensive server and bandwidth infrastructure in delivering on-demand and live content to Internet TVs.

This one is called Notification Control and as the name implies, it is a site that offers quick and easy access to check (and in some cases edit) what email alert notifications you are receiving from social sites. The sites included on the list are; Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare, LinedIn, Pinterest and Google+.

And nicely done, each of these sites (links) takes you directly to the appropriate notifications page. For example, clicking the Twitter link will take you to the Notifications page within the Settings and allow you to edit what emails are being sent for things to include Messages, Activity and Updates. The same applies for Facebook in that it takes you to the Notifications Settings page within your settings.

The rest of the other services follow suit with Twitter and Facebook. In short, visit the Notification Control website, click each link and make sure to kill off any unwanted or unnecessary email. Me personally, this should be a good way to get rid of a little bit of clutter in my inbox. I should also take some time and finally get to that MyPermissions site which has been sitting on my to-do list for over a week.

All said and done, these are two simple and relatively quick ways to help keep your online happenings to a manageable level. And lastly, for those who see these sites and immediately worry that you are going to have to authorize and give up something to use them — rest assured in knowing that they contain nothing to worry about as they are simply links to the appropriate pages on the respective services.

U.S. lawmakers are getting serious with two bills that involve copyright and infringement. The House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) both aim to empower copyright holders in enforcing their intellectual property. However, these will essentially allow these parties to request courts to shut down websites associated with piracy. Advertisers and service providers can also be banned from dealing with alleged infringers who operate in other countries.

In a bid to oppose the passage of said laws, prominent websites are planning to stage an online — or actually, offline — protest. Wikipedia, for one, will be going offline for 24 hours, particularly its English-language site. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says the site is not pro-piracy, but is an advocate of the freedom of speech. “”If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” he says.

Other technology companies have criticized these proposed laws, including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and AOL, saying that it is a free speech impediment. Meanwhile, other prominent websites and services have also urged independent publishers to participate in the blackout. WordPress, for instance, will turn off its home page all day Wednesday (from midnight Tuesday EST to midnight Wednesday EST), and urges its users to do the same.

Other services that plan to go offline are Twitpic, Reddit and Boing Boing, among others, although some services will only keep their home pages offline, but will not impose on users’ own accounts or profiles.

Will you participate in the SOPA / PIPA related blackout?

At least, that’s the idea anyway. Many smaller sites have joined the blackout as well, in the hopes that they can spread the word about SOPA to their own visitors. It’s a great idea, and it’s sure to get some attention from the average joes around the world, especially with a site as massive as Wikipedia going offline for an entire day.

But some aren’t that thrilled about it. Namely, the MPAA has some choice words for those sites that are participating in the blackout, issuing a statement today that calls the protest an “abuse of power.” Take a look:

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

That’s straight from the desk of former Senator Chris Dodd, who now serves as the chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. This is the expected response from the MPAA, which is one of the bill’s biggest sponsors, but allow me to take a moment and clarify some misconceptions Mr. Dodd quite obviously has about this blackout.

This is not an abuse of power, but rather an exercise in free speech – the same free speech which is at risk if SOPA is passed. The websites, quite frankly, can do whatever the hell they want. If it wanted to, Reddit could start charging all of its users a monthly subscription tomorrow as a means to offset the cost of running a website while SOPA is law. All of these websites could something like that, but they aren’t. Instead, they’re protesting in a way that will affect hundreds of thousands of Internet users across the country, and that has organizations like the MPAA scared to death.

Apologies, but I find it strange that Dodd is lamenting the fact that the information these sites make available will be inaccessible for one day while their owners protest SOPA, when really, the organization that he heads up would limit the free exchange of information through its support of the bill. I’d be on the floor laughing were it not for the depressing reality of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Yup, this latest seems to be all about fun. It is also something that we are not sure everyone is going to appreciate. But that being said, we here at TFTS love a good meme as much as anyone else and therefore welcome this new addition. This one is rather simple, Google+ is becoming more meme-friendly.

The latest will allow Google+ users to add “funny text to photos.” Or as we like to say, it will allow users to *attempt* to create that next great meme. Of course, with every great new meme that surfaces we suspect more than a handful will fail and die a miserable and unshared death. But hey, one will have to try.

Anyway, the announcement comes by way of Google employee Colin McMillen who breaks it down as follows;

“Adding a few words can turn a silly photo into a ROFL, or draw attention to what you find most interesting. Today we’re rolling out a feature that makes it easier to add big, bold text on top of your photos.

To try it out, drop a photo into the sharebox on Google+, then click the “Add text” button underneath the photo. Type in something funny, then share and enjoy.”

With that, this new feature will be rolling out over the next few days, which should mean that all Google+ users will have it sooner rather than later. Otherwise, have fun and if you want to try to get your new funny texted photo to stand out, make sure you share it on Google+ and tag it with #funwithphotos.