Of all of Apple’s failures, one of the tech company’s more disastrous was its move into social music sharing with Ping. Things got so bad that Lady Gaga, the social network’s face, publically called the results “underwhelming,” while Apple’s once-promising service didn’t even warrant a mention during WWDC earlier this …
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Father’s Day Gmail Reminder Sparks Backlash: Three Lessons for Google
Google learned some harsh lessons on Father’s Day when it reminded Gmail users to “Call dad.” Despite good intentions, the reminder triggered a backlash among users with deceased, abusive or otherwise forgotten fathers.
The message appeared in the chat section of Gmail, and could only be removed by disabling outbound calls from the …
Dating Site Dumps 30,000 People for Being Ugly, Gets Hit by Virus
It’s difficult being one of the beautiful people; not only do you have to deal with those less attractive than you in real life, apparently people get upset when you ban them from your beauty-exclusive dating sites for not being attractive enough, too. Life can be so unfair.
The problem for BeautifulPeople.com started when the dating …
Custom Domain Suffixes Are Coming: Here’s What You Need to Know
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the use of new “top-level domains,” which we’ll start seeing next year. So instead of using .com, .net or .org at the end of websites, businesses (and well-heeled individuals) will be able to create their own “.whatever” suffixes.
If I had $185,000 and wanted …
Sega Hacked, 1.3 Million User Accounts Compromised
Yet another attack against a gaming site has been reported—this time it’s Sega that’s been hit, with the company reporting that the “names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords” of 1.3 million of its users have been compromised, according to Reuters.
The company confirmed that users of the “Sega Pass” network have …
Obama Is Actually Writing His Own Tweets Now
If you’re President of the United States, you’ve probably got bigger fish to fry than worrying about writing 140-character updates online.
Obama, though, will finally start regularly tweeting from his Twitter account. If you thought the man himself had been doing the work himself this whole time, don’t be surprised: His staff …
Cyber Vigilantes Claim to Have Unmasked LulzSec Members
Several “gray-hat” hackers are mounting an effort to unmask the persons behind Lulz Security, the group responsible for a rash of brazen attacks and breaches over the past month.
Among the cyber vigilantes are The Jester (a.k.a. Th3j35t3r), a self-described ex-military gray-hat hacker who has previously attacked Wikileaks and …
An Upgraded 7-inch ‘Galaxy Tab’ Android Tablet? Let’s Hope So
In a rumor that’s as shaky as rumors get, Samsung may be working on an updated version of its 7-inch Galaxy Tab.
That’s right, the original iPad rival that was quickly overshadowed by newer, shinier competition — including the iPad 2 and a bigger Samsung tablet — is reportedly getting a refresh, according to Italy’s unofficial …
Japan Criminalizes Cybercrime: Make a Virus, Get Three Years in Jail
Japanese authorities have had enough of spam emails and viruses, and decided that there’s only one way to deal with them: Jail time.
Admittedly, that’s not the only option for those falling foul of the criminalization of computer viruses, nor for the sending of pornographic spam emails; prison can be avoided if you can afford fines of …
Emotion Control: ‘Child of Eden’ Review
I’ll be honest with you, Techland readers: I haven’t played a Kinect game in months. Yes, motion-control titles have continued to roll out since the blockbuster launch of Microsoft’s skeletal-tracking camera but none of them, to me, offered anything to get excited about. And, yes, I mean you, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Carnival Games …
Indian Town Renames Itself ‘Snapdeal.com’
A small village in India has decided to rename itself “Snapdeal.com Nagar” after an online daily deals company, and surprisingly, it’s not some overblown publicity scheme gone wrong.
Instead, the town (or “nagar,” in case you were wondering why it was called “Snapdeal.com Nagar”) chose to change its name to thank the company for …
Strawberry Tree: A Free, Public, Solar-Powered Charging Station
A team of students from the University of Belgrade in Serbia have come up with a smart idea for a solar-powered phone charging station on the street. Known to the locals as “the Strawberry Tree“, it looks more like an art installation than a public utility.
Below the solar cell there’s a wooden bench where members of the public can …