Can Google Predict Who You Are By The Sites You Visit?
So Google revised it's privacy policy earlier this week, introducing all kinds of small modifications which were overshadowed by the sharing of information between the Google products you use. One of these changes has been an upgrade to the Ads preferences tab in your settings.
Jailbreaking exemption law expiring soon
Copyright protection for people who jailbreak their iPhones, as to install unauthorized apps and modify the inner workings of the OS, is set to expire soon. In the face of this, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has started asking for signatures on a new petition to renew this jailbreaking exemption law.
HP announces Open webOS 1.0
So webOS wasn't doing so well before, and after a prolonged wait was announced to be open sourced. Following this, HP have now released details on the process leading up to the code being released as the finished product, which will be called Open webOS 1.0.
The company went into great detail about the matters at hand, and told developers to expect open sourcing to be complete by September time.
Social network posters with wartime propaganda designs
The title is pretty self explanatory for this. Everybody's a fan of good design, even if you say it doesn't bother you a good typography and visual style will always win through.
And, courtesy of justonescarf design's Aaron Wood, social networks from Facebook to Twitter now have their own propaganda posters, heralding the design era from wartime. Take a look at the full collection on his etsy store. or check out our gallery of favourites, where he tackles more than just social media.
100-core processor created by MIT, to be released later this year
We sit here as consumers, feeling content with quad-core processors in our computers (or maybe eight, if you are feeling particularly greedy). But 100 processors on a single chip? That's exactly what silicon manufacturer Tilera has done, and it's coming later this year.
The Upstart Website Designed To Sell On Unwanted Gifts From Broken Relationships
Relationship break-ups are never a nice thing. A list of duties following a split ranges from everything to closing down shared bank accounts to informing relatives, friends and other parties. But when it comes to disposing of unwanted gifts from past relationships, website NeverLikedItAnyway.com aims to make it as smooth as possible.
SOPA protesters really hate the Scottish Organic Producers Association
In what is possibly the most idiotic and hilarious mix-up we've seen in a long time, during this timeframe of the general populous expressing their opposition towards SOPA, the Scottish Organic Produers Association saw an unfathomable spike in internet traffic. This was paired with many emails of threats and demands that they stop what they are doing.
'Focus on the User' retools Google Social Search to work with all networks
Engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace have banded together to "Focus on the user:" a project that reworks Google's social search update to include all social networks instead of it's own.
So as Google released Search Plus Your World to coincide with their social networking service, people realised that this wasn't exactly 'social' and it wasn't really 'your world.' As we made rather clear, for this to be seen as a social search it needs to be open, and that's exactly what this developed bookmarlet does.
Amazon’s Kindle ‘Most Unused’ Christmas Gift
Despite surging in popularity throughout 2011 – a year that included Amazon announcing we would be seeing an array of new models, including a quite impressive tablet, the Kindle Fire – Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has topped an online discount website’s survey revealing last Christmas’ most ‘unused’ gifts. This comes after it was announced in late-2011 that Kindle sales were expected to be around the 5 million mark for the year.
Minecraftians Remake Ocarina Of Time. The Best Minecraft Reimagining You’ve Ever Seen
As far as Minecraft remakes go, we’ve seen a mind-boggling number of blocky reinterpretations, from a complete remake of GTA V’s long-rumoured teaser trailer, to catchy chip-tune renditions of modern music. But in a project that has so far taken a whole 9 months to achieve, a few intrepid Minecraft players have done something truly incredible. Welcome to ‘Hyrulecraft’; an alarmingly faithful, to-scale reproduction of the world inhabited by Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
'Portrait of the Ghost Drummer.' Music turned into visual art
We look at a drummer, and see a more audible form of art. Sure the person operating the percussion instrument is present, in a storm of drum sticks and sweat; but it's the rythmic intonations, and the harder emphasis on key strikes of the drums that grab the attention.
That has now come to an end, as Polish artist Obaide developed a new form of digital art, which tracks the sticks of a drummer in motion and creates an intriguing line pattern, showing the aftermath of just how much movement the tempo keeping-percussionist actually makes.
'Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut.' A crowdsourced remake of A New Hope
The global project to recreate the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 15-second user-submitted segments has been uploaded and released for free viewing.
The individual scenes have been made available and live to view for quite a while; but the massive undertaking of curating all of these into 473 components of a greater whole has finally been completed, resulting in the 'Director's Cut.' We have to admit, it's fantastic.
Sega's return to the console business: urinal gaming makes a splash
The Dreamcast was awesome, and we were sad to see it disappear in the face of Sony's PS2. At this point, we thought that Sega was officially out of the business of making consoles: the flame had been extinguished...but no more. Introducing the "Toylet."
Remember the urinal gaming concept we found before? Turns out the guys at Sega fell in love with the concept, and created their own console to enter this clear market, full to the brim with credibility. Instructions are simple: pee to play the game.
Twitter Acquires News Service ‘Summify’
2012 is likely to be a huge year for Twitter. Having had a complete design overhaul at the end of last year, arguably only now is the social networking site beginning to truly find its feet as a more interactive, ‘stickier’ (referring to the time users stay on the site) and more enticing alternative to Facebook, Google+ and the like.
Lego has its own social network
Presenting ReBrick, a social network for an audience spanning from the Lego connoisseur to the individual remeniscing about their childhood bedroom floors full of colourful constructions. Quite literally, it's a Lego social network.
US Military planning to crowdsource military software testing via computer games
The US Department of Defense are looking to crowdsource their military software testing by developing computer games surrounding it, according to a DARPA proposal.
The implementation is going to be a steep initial cost, $32 million dollars specifically; but on the long haul, the plan (officially titled Crowd Sourced Formal Verification) is for it to dramatically reduce the cost of the software verification process.
MegaUpload Founder arrested. Anonymous takedown Justice Department and record label website in response
So Megaupload has been in and about the news, since the odd promotional music video, starring artists who said they have nothing to do with the video (making for a paradox of sorts). Things got more serious for the company and it's founder, Kim Dotcom, after the United States Justice Department filed charges against the site and had the man at Dotcom arrested.
Customers Demand Refunds For a Silent Film's ‘Lack Of Dialogue’
Michel Hazanavicius’ loving homage to 1920s-era cinema The Artist might well be attracting the attention of film purists round about now, as it welcomes numerous awards and garners nominations across the board, but that hasn’t stopped UK cinema-goers demanding refunds for the silent film after complaining about, hear us out, a distinct ‘lack of dialogue’. A silent movie with a lack of dialogue you say? Ludicrous!
Resident Evil 6 promoted via viral blog
So a rather basic looking blog titled NoHopeLeft.com has been growing in audience, displaying a series of inauspicious photographs, 'Blair witch' style videos, and a conspiracy theory about linked cities. But from all the Biohazard logos dotted across different pieces of media on the blog, we can't help but detect the viral marketing capability here, possibly for the next Resident Evil.