UK development and design firm Parallax spotted the flaw in the latest version of the Chrome app that Google has updated to add support for Apple's iOS 7 mobile operating system and, perhaps ironically, a number of security improvements.
Google has made another technology startup acquisition, with the very interesting acquisition of Flutter, a company that has created gesture recognition technology to interact with online applications by simply using hand gestures.
Facebook's Graph Search has been updated to allow people to search in greater depth on Facebook. The new Graph Search allows users to search for not just the usual people and places, but also to search posts, status updates, check-ins, and comments.
Bing has announced Pinterest boards can be accessed right from its image search results, Now users can find more interesting content in the image results, and businesses and organizations can have another way for their brand to be found.
UK-based MathSight attempted to analyze Google's Penguin 2.0 algorithm update through a reverse engineering process. What that data suggested is that Penguin 2.0 was really about “low readability” levels of content on a site.
Pivot tables can help organize massive amounts of data and pull out only what is needed. This guide will explain pivot tables in plain English, give you a visual breakdown of pivot tables, and give examples of pivot tables in search marketing.
Google unleashed a one-two punch of moving entirely to secure search and rolling out a brand new algorithm known as Hummingbird. Here's why heading forward you need to start building your content with concept and context in mind.
Google's UK division paid a tax rate of 2.6 percent on non-U.S. income because it designates its UK operation as primarily marketing with its Irish operation taking most of the profits, with these profits being channelled to a subsidiary in Bermuda.
Considering expansion into different countries and languages? Google's Maile Ohye offers some great advice and best practices for expanding into additional languages and country-based language variations, plus solutions for potential search issues.
A recent Google webmaster help video from Google's Matt Cutts brings up an interesting question: should a webmaster nofollow internal links within their site or does it not make any difference because they are simply internal links?
Is Google taking a less tolerant stance on "spam"? Which link types are most often classified as "unnatural"? How much can exact match anchor text tactics hurt your site? Here are some conclusions and top takeaways based on recent real world work.
The Service Provider Report is a small but significant report in Google Analytics that offers a lot of value. It's great for finding sales leads and markets to target, troubleshooting, and reviewing cross domain requirements.
Whether it's a publisher, social network, or curation platform, marketers have a hard time figuring out how to grade performance in a black hole of data. What to do? Use these tips as a framework to build your own analytics solution internally.
Google has announced the launch of the Google Web Designer, which was released as a public beta. The free tool enables advertisers to create HTML 5 advertisements and comes with default layouts for DoubleClick rich media ads and AdMob mobile ads.
Webmasters can breathe a sigh of relief. The missing keyword data in Google Webmaster Tools was simply a bug, Google has confirmed. Expect reporting on search queries to return to normal in the coming days. Data through Sept. 25 is now available.
Yelp says that up to a quarter of the reviews the company receives may be fake, and that its automated review filter suppresses about 25 percent of reviews it deems as being suspicious. However, Yelp admits that the system isn't completely accurate.
The company’s latest feature gives more data to users of its application about the competition for the topics that content creators want to write about, promising better decisions about the performance of the content before it’s even written.
While the first position in the organic search results may drive the most traffic, it doesn't drive the most click on ads within the website once a visitor lands on it. Chitika's latest research dives into why this behavior might be happening.
Many people have had great success snapping up expired domains and using those sites for link building purposes, but you must make sure to vet them. Here's how to find expired domains, how to use them, and some risk factors and warning signs.
Google AdWords has announced a major reporting update to conversion tracking called Estimated Total Conversions. This feature provides estimates of conversions that take multiple devices to complete and adds this data to the conversion reporting.
This small experiment shows that social media managers who engage in short bursts of live tweeting and curating conversations on second screen hashtags can bet on a good response. There will be tweets worth retweeting and new hashtags emerging.
Local keyword research is often tricky due to low query volumes. And if you're just starting out, you may not have analytics data to pull from. Here's how to leverage data from Google Trends to help you make better decisions about your keywords.
Google has not responded in a timely manner to the French data protection authority's demand that it make changes, and will now face sanctions in the form of a fine of more than $400,000. Google maintains their policy respects European laws.
Google Webmaster Tools is missing keywords data. It appears as though search query data from the Search Traffic section hasn't been recorded since last Monday, September 23, the same day Google launched secure search for all searches.
In addition to creating videos that are unique, compelling, and entertaining or informative, make sure you're also dedicating time to interact with your audience, developing relationships with top contributors, responding to comments, and much more.
Ron Gilbert's The Cave is out on iOS, which is pretty great. Hey, Stardock is here too!
With Kevin Packingham stepping down from his chief product officer role, what's next in store for the technology giant?
Snapchat is giving photos and videos captured with its app some longevity.
VW’s new Car-Net service debuts on select 2014 models including the EOS Komfort. Car-Net provides vehicle status, remote control and monitoring, and safety features, with an iPhone app now and an Android app on the way.
, will both be available as unlocked handsets. will cost $449.99. The centerpiece of this handset is its 13 megapixel camera, which is further enhanced by a high-end, scratch-resistant Konica-Minolta sapphire lens and a Sony CMOS sensor. Shutterbugs will have access to a full range of advanced photography settings, including a high-speed burst mode, control over focus and lighting options, and a four-direction panoramic shooting mode. More casual photo fans will find features like filters and smile detection modes included as well. A second 2 megapixel lens is also equipped on the phone as a front-facing camera. , originally showed off at CES last January, will be distinguished as the thinnest smart phone available in the country to date, just 0.27 inches thick. This handset will also be slightly taller than the Nubia 5 (5.59 inches vs. 5.43 inches), and will be offered at a price of $399.99. The Grand S also has a 13 megapixel camera and front-facing 2 megapixel secondary lens, but it lacks the Konica-Minolta lens. S4 Pro processor with 1.5GHz quad-core CPUs, have 16GB of ROM and 2GB of RAM, and run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Aside from the minor size differences and camera lens features, the phones also feature different battery capacities. The Nubia 5 has a 2300mAh battery, while the Grand S offers a 1780mAh battery (which helps to make possible its amazing slimness).
The $300 Samsung HomeSync is an Android-based set-top box that acts like a big-screen extension for Samsung's Galaxy phones and tablets.
A vulnerability found recently in an OpenID-based feature of the Mozilla Persona online-identity management service prompted the company to advise web developers to check their OpenID implementations for similar issues. Mozilla Persona allows users to verify their ownership of one or more email addresses and then use those addresses to authenticate on websites. Users have to remember only their Persona account password, because once they’re logged into the service, authenticating on Persona-enabled websites only takes two mouse clicks. To verify email addresses for use with Persona users typically have to click on a link sent to those addresses, except for Gmail and Yahoo addresses which are verified through what Mozilla calls “Identity Bridging,” a feature based on the OpenID authentication protocol. It’s in this identity bridge feature that three security researchers from the University of Trier in Germany have recently found a serious vulnerability. The flaw, which was reported through the Mozilla bug bounty program and is now fixed, could have allowed an attacker to authenticate on Persona-enabled websites with the Gmail or Yahoo Mail addresses of other users.
, and reporters are having a field day writing about an incredible story as revealed by federal investigators. Rife with drug trafficking, secretive Internet sites, and assassins for hire, Silk Road's tale is a crypto-crime story of epic proportions. But Silk Road is more than just a fascinating yarn: The site’s demise also has a lot to teach us about our current digital environment, especially when it comes to online security. Here are four key takeaways from the end of Silk Road and the Dread Pirate Roberts. .
Verizon is extending its suite of cloud services to offer a new IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) option, called Verizon Cloud Compute, as well as a new storage-as-a-service, Verizon Cloud Storage, that the company says offer finer granularity in pricing and stricter quality of service metrics than its competitors. . “We have taken off the table the whole notion of the noisy neighbor. It doesn’t matter if someone else spins up a workload—we’ve eliminated that [lag] from the infrastructure,” said John Considine, Verizon chief technology officer for Verizon Terremark. The services will be offered in public beta form by the end of the year. Full pricing has not been disclosed yet.
The Internet service and telecommunications provider to all the European Union’s official institutions was subjected to a malware attack that “no single company or authority could withstand on its own” the company’s secretary general admitted on Thursday. Belgian company Belgacom counts the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council among its customers. told a special Parliamentary inquiry that Belgacom sounded the alarm when it discovered the malware in June. In July, results of an investigation showed a complex digital attack and previously unknown virus. Standaert described the malware as “highly developed software” of the type that would normally only originate with a nation state. “The intruder had massive resources, sophisticated means and a steadfast intent to break into our network,” said Lybaert.
Edward Snowden may not have acted alone, and may have had outside assistance, when he leaked information about the U.S. National Security Agency’s data collection and surveillance programs earlier this year. Snowden’s access to information he shouldn’t have known existed raises questions about whether he had help in collecting information about NSA programs, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chairman of House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday. Rogers didn’t say directly whether he suspects Snowden, a former NSA contractor, had help from inside or outside the agency. Newspaper columnist David Ignatius, moderating a Washington Post Live panel on cybersecurity, asked Rogers if he was saying there was “evidence that Snowden had help from another government.” “I didn’t say ‘evidence’ or ‘government,’ but that was pretty good,” Rogers answered. “As someone who gets to see all of it, it raises concerns that there may have been help in ... his search queries and in some of the security measures he circumvented.”
Nokia hopes its Here maps will be become more accurate thanks to crowdsourced information, and is testing the concept in India.
In the battle against Spotify and Pandora, Rdio hopes free mobile radio is a hook for premium on-demand subscriptions.
Something in the boot process is crashing the PC. Then Windows reacts to the crash by rebooting. You need to do three things: stop the rebooting, figure out what's causing the crash, and fix it.
Smartphone vendors have rekindled their infatuation with enterprises as the consumer segment fizzles; this week's exhibit is the launch of LG Electronics' Gate, which separates users' professional and private lives through virtualization. After concentrating on consumers during the last couple of years, smartphone vendors are being driven by tougher competition and lower margins in the mass market to focus more on enterprises, according to analysts. "It is becoming increasingly tough, particularly for companies like LG, who is a big player but essentially a follower. It is not going to be able to call the shots with Samsung in such a dominant position globally," said Andrew Brown, executive director for enterprise research at Strategy Analytics. Francisco Jeronimo, research director for European mobile devices at IDC, agreed.
Yahoo will stop giving T-shirts as a reward for finding security vulnerabilities after a public shaming it's calling "t-shirt gate."The company received a drubbing from the Swiss security company High-Tech Bridge after it found four serious vulnerabilities in Yahoo's network, all of which have now been fixed. Three of those problems—cross-site scripting flaws—could have allowed an attacker to hijack a person's Yahoo email account. on Wednesday. "This includes, of course, a check for the researchers at High-Tech Bridge who didn't like my t-shirt," Martinez wrote. on Monday saying Yahoo offered $12.50 in credit per vulnerability, which could be used toward Yahoo-branded items such as T-shirts, cups and pens from its store.
Toyota added a new concept electric vehicle to its Hamo car sharing project, which lets users rent electric cars by the minute.
Last month's awarding of the 2020 Olympic Games to Tokyo could be great news for technology. Pushed by a desire to showcase their expertise to the world, some of the country's biggest companies are now targeting 2020 for the deployment of new technologies that could revolutionize mobile telecommunications, consumer electronics, automobiles and even the way people watch the Olympic Games on television. In a series of presentations at the Ceatec 2013 electronics expo in Japan this week, companies outlined their plans for cell phones that transmit data 100 times faster than today, TV pictures with 16 times as much detail as current high-definition and cars that drive themselves. They might sound like fanciful dreams, but consider what happened last time Japan hosted the Olympic Games.
Security firm Kaspersky Lab said patent firm Lodsys had withdrawn its claims rather than face the verdict of the court in a patent dispute. "Kaspersky Lab paid no money to Lodsys, and did not agree to any settlement terms," it said Wednesday. The outcome is seen as a key win for technology companies fighting in court with patent companies, popularly known as patent trolls because they extract royalty and damages for the patents they own, but do not make any products. Lodsys wanted to avoid a ruling on the merits of its claims, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in . "While it has sued some big players, most of its targets have been tiny app developers who lack the resources to defend patent litigation," it said.
Sony's PlayStation 4's lower price will help it to outsell Microsoft's upcoming Xbox One during the year-end holiday season, according to IDC.
With its first computer based on the extremely low-power Quark processor, Intel is tapping into the 'maker' community to figure out ways the new chip could be best used. The chip maker announced the Galileo computer -- which is a board without a case -- with the Intel Quark X1000 processor on Thursday. The board is targeted at the community of do-it-yourself enthusiasts who make computing devices ranging from robots and health monitors to home media centers and PCs. The Galileo board should become widely available for under $60 by the end of November, said Mike Bell, vice president and general manager of the New Devices Group at Intel. Bell hopes the maker community will use the board to build prototypes and debug devices. The Galileo board will be open-source, and the schematics will be released over time so it can be replicated by individuals and companies.
A popular Bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk.org, remained offline Wednesday night as it investigated a cyberattack. of the hack posted by a Reddit user, the attackers call themselves "The Hole Seekers." Users were greeted with classical music and animated explosions followed by the message: "Hello friend, Bitcoin has been seized by the FBI for being illegal. Thanks, bye," according to the video. , an online market of mostly illicit goods.
It’s no secret that Microsoft’s Bing search engine doesn’t get much love compared to Google. So to help poor Bing snag a few more users, Microsoft set out to show that its search product was just as good—if not better—than big bad Google. Given the chance in a Pepsi Challenge-styled blind test, Microsoft says, people actually prefer Bing over Google. , based on a Microsoft study of “nearly 1,000 participants” who ended up preferring Bing over Google two-to-one in blind tests. To drive home its message, Microsoft embarked on a major advertising campaign and set-up a website called BingItOn.com where anyone could take the Bing challenge. Microsoft’s claims were entertaining, but they didn’t sit well with Ian Ayres, an economist and professor of law at Yale. On Tuesday, the good professor cried shenanigans against Microsoft. . “I would have thought…it would be hard for people to distinguish between the two sets of results, much less prefer one kind 2:1.”
Spotify hired local street artists to give the walls of its New York City offices a cutting-edge, local flare.
Wish you could turn off Netflix's Post-Play feature, which auto advances you to the next TV show episode? It's coming.
Last week, more than 300 students across three high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) brought their school-issued iPads home and hacked into them, probably to download juicy blacklisted apps and access banned websites. Well, “hacked” might be a strong word. Students simply removed their mobile device management (MDM) software profile-an easy enough thing to do—which also got rid of Apple’s Global Proxy that ensures traffic goes through a Web filter. It wasn’t much of a hack, rather a couple of finger taps. The ). Seemingly caught by surprise, LAUSD threw together an official response. Superintendent John Deasy quickly ordered a moratorium on allowing iPads to leave campus until the district could make sure that the problem was solved and that students would use the devices safely and appropriately.
Few things in life are as satisfying as building your own PC. Cobbling together a softly purring, fully functional computer out of disparate parts offers a true sense of creation. Even better, rolling your own results in a than what you can find at big-box stores. sounds daunting, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. Still, a few key details can trip up even seasoned geeks who are not being mindful. This handy-dandy guide can help you avoid the most common PC building mistakes—and their associated frustrations. Pay attention while you’re buying your components, or your DIY PC could wind up borked before you even begin. Not all PC parts are compatible with one another. The most obvious example is the relationship between processors and motherboards. For instance, Intel’s second- and third-generation Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge chips need a motherboard compatible with the LGA 1155 socket, while the processors require pricey socket 2011 motherboards.
Where are the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys when you need them?
I love the cloud. I depend on it. The cloud allows me to access my data from any device at any time; from anywhere I have broadband access. And I can share some or all of that information with other people: A boon to productivity when I’m collaborating with someone. I’ve become so addicted to that flexibility that I’m willing to pay a subscription fee, even though I don’t trust the service provider to keep my information entirely secure. I never put anything sensitive in the cloud, such as my tax returns or other financial data. And I never rely solely on the cloud. I always keep backup copies on storage devices that I have complete control over. WD’s My Cloud delivers the best of both worlds. It’s a hard drive that connects to my home network, so it’s as secure as I can make it. But I can access it from the Internet—from a PC, smartphone, or tablet—just like a cloud service. And I can create user accounts with passwords to allow family, friends, and colleagues to access specific folders, so we can share information (or media) and collaborate. I can also transfer files between the My Cloud and cloud-storage services, such as Dropbox. Hmm. My Cloud sounds a lot like WD’s product line, doesn’t it? As it turns out, the My Cloud series is replacing the My Book line, and the new desktop and mobile apps WD is launching alongside My Cloud will also work with the older drives. But there’s one My Cloud feature you won’t find on any My Book Live: a USB 3.0 port that can host a digital camera for direct file transfers. Alternatively, you can connect a stand-alone USB hard drive into this port and expand the My Cloud’s storage capacity.