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Here you will find detailed, unofficial reviews and recommendations on websites/web services that cover every different category, from Personal Information Managers, to Image Editors to Desktop Managers…and more!
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Google redesigns Image Search, adds bigger views and keyboard shortcuts
Google has redesigned a lot of its core services like Gmail and even turning Google Docs into Google Drive. So it’s about time that they made significant changes to how image searches work, as its mostly stayed the same over the years save for the few tweaks here and there.[...]
Read More »New high-quality video standard H.265 is approved, will bring better quality videos to both fast and slow connections
The current standard for high-quality video is H.264; H.264 is used by pretty much all video streaming websites and most offline videos that are of high-quality use it, too. However, soon H.264 will be a thing of the past because the International Telecommunication Union has just approved H.265, the new [...]
Read More »Google protects user privacy and defies the government by asking for search warrants to access Gmail emails
To most Americans (and other countries that have laws to protect citizens from search and seizure without warrant), it may come as a surprise that a search warrant is not required for the American government to access private emails. This is due to the ‘Electronic Communications Privacy Act’ (ECPA), a [...]
Read More »Protect your Google account (Gmail) by enabling SMS (text message) notifications for suspicious activity [Tip]
Google has a useful ‘account activity’ monitor built into Gmail that allows you to check to see where the latest logins to your account were made from. This helps you identify if there was unauthorized access to your account. Another useful security feature Google has is the ability to notify [...]
Read More »Kim Dotcom’s newly launched Mega already has anti-piracy groups trying to shut it down
After launching Mega in one of the strangest technology press conferences to date, it looks like the site is already target of anti-piracy groups that want it shut down.
Robert King, who is affiliated with the adult industry, is also behind an anti-piracy group called StopFileLockers. Just how do they [...]
Read More »Student expelled from college because he reported a security problem to officials
What do you do when a student discovers then reports a serious vulnerability in your school’s network — so serious that it could potentially give access to students’ social security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers, class schedules and every other bit of information that a school would have on its [...]
Read More »Facebook is impersonating you without your consent — you just don’t know it
Facebook is ‘impersonating’ people on the social network without their consent. What Facebook is doing is re-posting one of your ‘likes’ every once in awhile accompanied with a related article. The posts are in your name and they appear in feeds as if you posted them. People have no idea [...]
Read More »Cable industry admits that data caps (bandwidth limits) are all about the money, not network congestion
If you didn’t need any more reasons to dislike internet service providers for charging too much for their services, this isn’t going to help very much. Michael Powell, who is the former chairman of the FCC but now president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, told an audience the [...]
Read More »Watch Kim Dotcom’s ridiculous Mega launch event
Leave it up to Kim Dotcom to not be content with simply launching a new file-sharing service, but to have an actual launch event to go with it that is probably crazier than he is.
The whole event can be viewed on Youtube…
…and it’s up there in terms of [...]
Read More »Google responds to claims that they murdered a donkey with a Street View car
This little donkey has been making the rounds on the internet lately — from Twitter all the way to Fox News. Twitter user @TheRealSheldonCooper posted the picture above on the social network, which is actually a Google Street View image in Botswana. People assumed that the donkey was behind the [...]
Read More »US will have Google Fiber-like gigabit internet speeds in all 50 states by 2015, if the FCC Chairman has his way
If you’re jealous about Kansas City’s current gigabit internet speeds, you’ve got a friend in FCC Chairman Julius Genachoski. The chairman has just issued the “Gigabit City Challenge.” What does he hope to accomplish from this? At least one community in each of the 50 states to have gigabit internet [...]
Read More »Google wants your next password to be your phone or a ring on your finger
The traditional password is now considered by many to be a security flaw. A combination of characters that can be cracked or even guessed is probably not the best way to safeguard our online lives today, and services like LastPass or 1Password provide an alternative through their software-generated passwords. But [...]
Read More »Kim Dotcom’s ‘Mega’ file locker service will give you 50GB of free cloud storage
Looks like Kim Dotcom is definitely going through with launching his latest file sharing service Mega, despite its striking similarities to the ill-fate Megaupload. It’s also launching soon — like this Saturday kind of soon.
Dotcom also recently revealed through Twitter that the service will be going big right away [...]
Read More »US House of Representatives enjoy torrenting movies and TV shows; here are some of their favorite BitTorrent downloads
It looks like the US Congress doesn’t need to look very far for examples of internet piracy for inspiration to put together another internet-related legislation. Turns out pirated movies and TV shows can be found within the walls of Capitol Hill. Anti-piracy forensics company ScanEye has published a report revealing [...]
Read More »Facebook’s newly announced ‘Graph Search’ is an internal search engine, helps you make new connections
Facebook has just announced “Graph Search,” which they’re hoping will change the way you search for new friends, connections and even answers on the social network. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is careful to note that this is in no way a competitor to web search, it’s something different. Ordinary searches on [...]
Read More »Verizon’s ‘six-strikes’ anti-piracy program is coming in a few weeks, here are the details
Remember that controversial six-strikes anti-piracy thing we talked about? And how that got delayed to 2013? Well, it’s 2013 now and the program is just a couple of weeks away from officially kicking off. None of the participating ISPs have detailed their measures, but TorrentFreak was able to obtain Verizon’s [...]
Read More »China is now requiring fiber optic, high-speed internet in all new houses that are near it
First off, for you eagle-eyed viewers out there, I’m well aware that the photo is of a Japanese neighborhood — it just seemed to fit. Now that’s out of the way, a new policy in China is now requiring all new residences built near fiber optic connections to be wired [...]
Read More »Check out the first trailer for the upcoming The Pirate Bay documentary, ‘TPB AFK’
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to run one of the most hated and loved websites, while fending off authorities constantly, all in the name of piracy? I sure don’t. And I’m pretty sure you don’t either. But we can all catch a glimpse of what it’s like when [...]
Read More »Guess what? Hollywood studios illegally pirate movies, too
You know who really hates it when people pirate their movies? Hollywood studios. You know who else downloads pirated movies through BitTorrent? What do you know, Hollywood studios. It looks the entities that are thought to be suffering the most due to piracy are no stranger to downloading torrents themselves.[...]
Read More »Online digital library JSTOR now offering free (but limited) access to everyone
JSTOR, an online digital library filled with quality academic papers, journals, and books, is now offering free access to everyone through their newly announced ‘Register & Read Program’.
Registering for an account to access JSTOR is known to be very expensive, and even then accounts are usually restricted to libraries [...]
Read More »Federal Trade Commission drops cases against Google, and Google promises changes to mitigate anti-competitive concerns
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has closed its investigation of Google’s potentially anti-competitive practices related to Google Search and other services. The verdict? Google’s services are now in the clear and considered good for users and competition. In other words, FTC did not find enough anti-competitive wrongdoing on [...]
Read More »Dangerous Ruby on Rails bug makes more than 240,000 sites vulnerable, including Hulu and Github
A critical vulnerability in the Ruby on Rails framework has been discovered to bring devastating effects to those affected. One of the developers that confirmed its existence, Ben Murphy, says that it “gives hackers a simple and reliable way to pilfer database contents, run system commands, and cause websites to [...]
Read More »New Java zero-day exploit hits the internet, is “massively exploited in the wild” — disable Java now!
So you thought Java season was over, eh? Wrong! It is still open season on Java and a brand new, previously unknown bug has been discovered in Java that allows scumbags to install malware on the computers of netizens.
It isn’t entirely clear how this exploit is conducted but it [...]
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Yahoo! Mail quietly adds HTTPS security option
It looks like Yahoo! has learned its lesson when it comes to security. After its mail service was recently hacked by an XSS exploit, the company has not only patched the problem but is also quietly rolling out an HTTPS option for its users.
HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure [...]
Read More »Google is bringing free Wi-Fi to New York City
Google, in a press conference along with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Senator Charles Schumer, have announced that it is going to provide free Wi-Fi service to Chelsea, a New York City neighborhood.
The company says that it hopes to keep the thousands of residents and millions [...]
Read More »Iran plans on using “intelligent software” to censor social networks instead of blocking them
Do you think a censored Facebook is better than no Facebook at all? That seems to be the thinking behind Iran’s recent decision to develop “intelligent software” to censor social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, instead of outright blocking them completely.
Facebook and Twitter, as any Iranian would know, [...]
Read More »Google Now and Google Translate bug ‘praises the iPad’
Now this is definitely one of the stranger bugs we’ll come across. A bug in Google’s text-to-speech engine that affects the Google Now and Google Translate services causes it to add the phrase “he now praises the iPad” to sentences ending with “end with,” “enraged with,” and “filled with.”
The [...]
Read More »See what the world searched for in 2012 with Google’s 2012 Zeitgeist
With last year now almost a week behind us, it’s easy to forget all the big things that happened over the course of 2012. With many things good, bad and even great, 2012 was a year of many accomplishments as well as many losses.
Google’s 2012 Zeitgeist is a great [...]
Read More »Google reenabling Maps access on Windows Phone, one day after removing it
Well, that didn’t take very long. Around 24 hours after Windows Phone users began reporting that they been blocked from accessing Google Maps when using Internet Explorer on their phones, Google says that they’re now going to fix that.
“We periodically test Google Maps compatibility with mobile browsers to make
[...]
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Google no longer warning Chinese citizens about potential censorship
When performing searches on Google’s Hong Kong-based site, Google warns users about potential censorship by displaying a message. The message would usually tell the user that searching for that particular term may “temporarily break your connection to Google” and that “This interruption is outside Google’s control,” due to the results [...]
Read More »Windows Phone users no longer able to access Google Maps on the web
According to numerous reports from Windows Phone users, they are no longer able to access Google Maps on their phone. Instead, when attempting to load the web version of Google Maps, they are redirected to the main page of Google.
When asked about the issue, Google issued this statement to [...]
Read More »Internet-connected devices in the US outnumber US population
According to a report out of The NPD Group, there are now more devices in the U.S. that are connected to the internet than there are people.
U.S. homes have 425 million internet-connected devices, while the human population sits at around 315 million. Information was gathered using a survey [...]
Read More »Pakistan lifts Youtube ban for three minutes
When a blasphemous video of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) began circulating and inciting riots last year, Pakistan’s government decided to ban Youtube altogether. The government decided to lift the ban a few days ago, only to reinstate it after three minutes. Why, that’s not even enough time to watch Gangnam [...]
Read More »These are the most pirated TV shows of 2012
As you’ve probably already guessed, Game of Thrones is indeed the most pirated tv of show 2012. According to TorrentFreak‘s data, it handily beat out other popular shows — it even has double the amount of downloads of The Walking Dead. Check out the full list below for more [...]
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