We explain why Google just received the largest privacy fine in history. Leaked screenshots of Twitter’s upcoming iPhone app tell us a great deal about what to expect. The IPAA shares some disturbing privacy issues with SOPA.
Google Gets the Biggest FTC Privacy Fine in History – and Deserves It
Google is about to settle with the Federal Trade Commission for $22.5 million for violating the privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser. Apple’s default setting prevented third-party sites from tracking users as they visited different sites, but Google (and several other, less reputable companies) exploited a loophole to do it anyway. More
Leaked Twitter iPhone App Update: Here’s What to Expect
If you tweet from your iPhone, get ready for big changes. Twitter’s official iOS app is about to get a meaty upgrade, judging by screen shots leaked from the App Store. Twitter 4.3 for iPhone is expected to deliver deeper interactivity, improvements to search and more granular push notification settings, among other things. More
SOPA Lives! New Bill Seeks to Resurrect Expansion of IP Enforcement Powers
A new bill is about to be officially introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives that would resurrect some unsavory aspects of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that sparked widespread protests last winter. More
More Top Stories
Get Your Startup Into a Top Accelerator: 4 Insider Tips
The top startup accelerators in the world – programs like TechStars and Y Combinator – receive a couple thousand applications for just a handful of spots each session. It’s harder to get into one than Harvard or Stanford. So how do you do it? More
Kippt Reinvents the Internet’s Favorite Hobby: Sharing Links
With its update on Monday, the link listing tool Kippt adds social features that make it a one-stop shop for practicing the Internet’s favorite hobby: sharing interesting links. It helps you keep track of links you like, as well as find and follow people who share interesting things. You can easily share links with your friends on Facebook or wherever else, but your list belongs to you instead of disappearing into the Facebook ether. It’s the kind of thing you probably won’t know you need until you try it. More
Apple’s App Store Secrecy Hurts Indie Developers
The timer in the built-in Clock app on the iPhone sucks, so David Barnard built a new one, Timer. But if you search for “timer” in the App Store, you won’t find it. Because of Apple’s obscure, ever-shifting search method, making the best timer in the store is not enough. Barnard invested $7,000 to build this app. It’s the best timer iOS could ask for. Instead of a fiddly, spinning wheel, it has giant buttons that represent preset periods of time. All you have to do to start a timer is tap the interval you want. To set a new one on the fly, you dial it in with the full-sized phone keypad. It’s fast, smooth, easy on the eyes, and it costs a buck. More
From Contest to Company: 6 Tips for Taking a Startup to the Next Level
From hackathons to programming contests to business plan competitions, competitive events are a great way to test the potential appeal and viability of a startup idea. But what happens after the contest? Win or lose, how can a new company make the most of the experience and the exposure? Let’s say your team was good enough – and lucky enough – to make it to the finals of one of these events – or maybe you even won the grand prize. After you have had a chance to get some sleep and gather your thoughts, then what? More
What Is the Point of: Google+ Hangouts?
Whenever a new Web trend comes along, people ask, “What is the point of this?” If millions of people are using something, there has to be a reason. In our What Is the Point of… series, we’ll explain it to you. This week, we’re asking, What is the point of Google+ Hangouts? It hasn’t exactly taken over the world yet, but Google+ has become the social backbone of all Google’s services. If you “upgrade” your Google account to Google+, as more than 200 million people have, your profile becomes the way people find you in search and communicate with you across the Google-sphere. More
Russia’s New Censorship Law Diminishes the Entire Internet
Russia’s new Web blacklist is only the most recent of an alarming series of authoritarian moves to muzzle networked communications. National governments bent on censorship are eating away at the global, public Internet. On Wednesday, the Russian parliament’s lower house approved legislation that would block Web pages selectively. The proposed law reportedly lets officials filter out specific domain names and IP addresses. Law enforcement agencies could add URLs to the blacklist without a court order. Hosting services would need to remove banned materials within 72 hours or risk being shut down. More
Teen Sexting Really Does Mean Teen Sex
For all the parental and media hand-wringing, sexting remains a poorly studied phenomenon. But according to new peer-reviewed research, that concern might not be unfounded. Teen texts are indeed ablaze with sexual content – but how does technology-based sexual activity intersect with actual behavior? More
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