Skidzopedia » News

Homeland Security Digs Social Media

Musab Zain — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:57:59 +0000

Big Brother metaphors are well-worn territory in an age of advanced technology, ubiquitous camera surveillance, and expanded federal power, but there is even more evidence that Homeland Security monitors more web activity than previously thought. According to a “privacy compliance review,” HSD keeps track of online activity on forums, blogs, websites and message boards. For example, an innocuous comment related to a biological strain being researched by Huntingdon Life Sciences animal testing might land you under the watchful gaze of the federal government, simply because of the word ‘strain’ apparently.

While this isn’t particularly surprising news, what is a bit unusual is that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are listed right up next to controversial file-leaking sites like Wikileaks and Cryptome.

Other recent public disclosures have shown that the recent rise of political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa has prompted an increase in social media intelligence gathering. While guidelines limit how long domestic information gathered from social media can be stored, DHS Undersecretary Caryn Wagner acknowledged recently that contractors are tasked with investigating social media trends that could confirm certain pieces of intelligence related to national security. Other sites that are monitored include Hulu, Huffingtonpost, The Drudge Report, The ABC News blog “The Blotter,” and several Wired blogs. It is unclear who else besides the HSD will have access to this information and what other uses it’s being gathered for.

The monitoring is conducted by a special federally funded “Social Networking/Media capability” task force, which develops its own platforms for the searches and audits routers for outgoing IPs and URLs. The privacy compliance review asserts that this effort will provide “situational awareness” and will establish “a common operating picture.” The Homeland Security Department is billing the task force as a way to keep the federal government in the loop on trending public conversations that relate to national security. Whether this effort skirts certain constitutional provisions may come down to a protracted legal debate.

Privacy groups and consumer watchdogs like The Electronic Privacy Information Centre, however, claim that the HSD uses fake Twitter and Facebook profiles and flagged keywords like ‘virus’, ‘drill’, ‘strain’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ in order to identify users with private account info. Using one of the flagged keywords could cause all of your subsequent posts and web activities to be monitored. Privacy groups are attempting to use the Freedom of Information Act in order to assess how all this information is used—essentially monitoring the monitors—but have been unsuccessful so far.

Cheap Tablets are Soon to Be a Big Hit

Musab Zain — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:35:49 +0000

The technological gap between a device such as an Samsung Exhibit 4G Android phone and the iPad 2 is getting smaller and smaller by the day. It’s this space between smartphones and mainstream tablets that some technology leaders are seeing an opportunity to turn a profit. Starting with the Amazon Fire Kindle, companies are increasingly finding niches in the mobile tech market that are mostly dug out as a result of economical consumers, cheap hardware, and open source software.

Rumors that Apple is considering coming out with an “iPad mini” only cement suspicions that the market is going to soon be headed toward the gray area between phone and mainstream tablet.

Consider, for example, the fact that the Indian government has managed to manufacture a $50 tablet that they will sell to low-income students and families for $25-$35. Upon demonstration, it’s clear that this $50 tablet is no iPad or even a Fire Kindle. But it’s shockingly close considering the low ball price tag. Add an extra $100 worth of improved hardware and more sophisticated software, and you could conceivably manufacture a worthy competitor of anything on the market today for $50 cheaper than what the cheapest tablet is currently going for.

Companies such as Kobo are paying attention to the issue of size. While the iPad promotes itself as the ideal form of mobile computing, in reality the size of high-end tablets keeps them from being truly mobile. You can’t throw an iPad 2 into your average purse, for example. You have to carry it around in a folio, which isn’t suitable for everyone who otherwise find themselves attracted to the idea of a tablet. Creating tablets that sit in a sweet spot of size between the current iPad and the iPhone 4S, is a good framework for capturing an untapped market of tablet buyers.

With that said, cheapness will rely in part on access to economic platforms such as Android. In exchange for the inexpensive software, customers won’t have the optimized-to-the-max experience they’d otherwise be getting if they purchased an iPad. Instead, users of these discount tablets will have to settle for a more homelier interface and lowered expectations in terms of revolutionary capability.

But if makers of these new mini-tablets can manage to provide the basics: web-surfing, emailing, video watching, gameplay, and personal finance, then there’s no doubt they’ll have folks ready to buy their products

What are the most Significant Technology Trends in the World Today?

Musab Zain — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:29:10 +0000

A half-dozen prominent Australian Chief Information Officers are put on the spot to predict the future of tech as part of the Robert Half CIO Masters Series

These leading Australian technology professionals should know, as they are responsible for implementing cutting-edge technologies in the enterprise for some of the region’s leading corporations and institutions. For any young technology professionals, this advice is key to getting and edge in the fast paced technology industry.

Here to grapple with the cutting-edge questions are BlueScope Steel CIO Andrew Baker, Kevin Bloch, CTO of Cisco Systems and ex Seek CIO Carey Eaton.

Also chiming in are Axa Ltd. CTO Peter Mahler, Australian Government Information Management Office CIO Ann Steward and
John Wadeson, CIO of the Australian Government Department of Human Services.

Bloch is spreading his bets around the table. “I think there’s a few of them. Number one probably would be the world of mobility. What we’re seeing is people moving from their desktops to a mobile: get your information anywhere, any time.”

“The second one,” he continues, “that’s sort of sitting underneath that, is video, where we’re seeing the transition from text to pictures to video. Why? Because people want to see people, even if it’s virtual, they want to see it in the most immersive way.”

And there’s more. “I think the third one is cloud computing,” Bloch predicts, “the ability to provide IT services or IT as a service, software as a service. The fourth one I’d say is collaboration. You know, as we’ve gone through phases of the internet, what we’re seeing now is productivity in terms of technology has kind of reached as far as it can possibly go. So now businesses are looking at people, how do we make people more productive? And I think collaboration technology can and has been enabling people to be that much more productive.”

Steward believes the future is mobile portability. “It’s the opportunity for those who may not be able to get to physical sites to be able to be more strongly linked in their communities but to be global, not just part of the much smaller locations.”

Wadeson believes that whatever the final form cloud security takes for the masses, “that, undoubtedly, is going to change the whole dynamic.”

Baker agrees that cloud computing is the future, but believes that’s more a function of the internet itself. “I know it’s the buzzword at the moment, but really that’s just another means to virtualisation, and we’ve been pursuing virtualisation in one form or another for years. It’s fantastic, it gives us plenty of opportunities in the future. So I still think it’s the internet.”

Mahler sees it from a different angle. “I would say the web. Even though it’s been around so long already, companies are just now starting to really understand and appreciate the benefits. From a business point of view, it’s how to get into that one-to-one relationship with your customer.”

While “all of those things are moving very fast,” Eaton says, “all of those things will have an impact. It’s very hard to pick because there are so many of them. And I don’t think anyone can point to a single one.”

Mobility, video, cloud computing, collaboration, the internet, these are all key technology trends to remember when pursuing technology careers.

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Google PageRank Update June 2011

Musab Zain — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:46:21 +0000

A short post to let you guys know that Google did a page rank update this evening without a doubt and confirmed by Google Pagerank Update. Skidzopedia.com just went from PR4 to PR5, that’s a huge boost which I never anticipated.

Good luck to rest of you guys!

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Leaked: Exclusive Apple iPhone 3.0 Screenshots Featuring Video Recording

Musab Zain — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:32:15 +0000

Just got hold of some of the leaked images of a new video recording application feature that the iPhone fans are hoping to see in the final version of iPhone 3.0 which is expected to be released later this Summer.

The interface is just the same as the normal iPhone camera interface but with a switch on the bottom right which toggles between still camera photography and video recording. Other interesting capabilities found in the configuration files include “magnetometer“, “auto-focus camera” and “Voice Control“.

There are also rumors that Apple could possibly be integrating voice dialing, too. For more details visit. Image Courtesy: BoyGeniusReport

Real or Rumour: Leaked Screenshots of Windows Mobile 7?

Musab Zain — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:25:11 +0000

Later today, images have been leaked that are being claimed to be the alleged leaked images of Windows Mobile 7. The important thing to note here is that Windows Mobile 7 is still a year away from its final official launch and the images have already started leaking.

This rumour has created a lot of buzz in blogosphere for the past several hours. First appeared on WMPowerUser, who reports that it was submitted to him by some tipster which appears to be the images of Windows Mobile 7.

Here are two images of that have been leaked. What appears in the leaked screen shots of Windows Mobile 7 shows a bar based UI and a carousel menus. We already know the update also includes multi-touch and motion-related features.

(Credit: WMPowerUser)

What still amazes me is that whether the acclaimed images are the original ones? I think its too early to make conclusion. We’ll just have to wait till 2010 for the full story to uncover. In the mean time what do you think about these rumours? Are these true or false? Share your views in the comment section below.

Wish You All a Very Happy New Year!

Musab Zain — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:00:22 +0000

The Year 2008 has finally ended and we have stepped in 2009. I would like to thank all my readers for their support and for their participation on my blog, surely I couldn’t have done this without you!

Me and my blog has come a long way since the day I started it. i.e. August 2008. In the second month of blogging skidzopedia received a PR 2 and then on 31 Dec. 2008 this was increased to PR 3. Not only this but my Alexa and Technorati Rank also increased substantially.

Alexa: 66,327

Technorati: 42,118

Authority: 110

Google PageRank: 3

Inbound Links: 3,200

Here is a short list of some of the most popular posts from the last 5 months.

1. 17 People Who Changed the Internet Forever! (207,391 Views)

2. Websites Back in 1998 (176,238 Views)

3. How Google Looks for the Colorblind (61,955 Views)

4. 30 Most Creative 404 Error pages (40,271Views)

5. Weird but Silly facts about Microsoft Windows (15,746 Views)

Got any Questions/suggestions or Complaints. Let me know, I encourage positive criticism.

Wish you a very Happy New Year 2009. Keep Smiling!

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iKnow! An Open learning Platfrom, makes Language Learning Social and Open to 188 Languages

Musab Zain — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:01:56 +0000

Do you want to interact with the world in their own language? If you are willing to gain knowledge of more than one language, then you should probably visit iKnow! launched by a company called Cerego, which gives you a new adaptive learning system for English speakers who want to learn a new language.

The iKnow! platform currently offers comprehensive tools and content for learning both English and Japanese, with support for other major language pairs to follow. These tools allow users to create learning modules in 188 languages of study and then collaborate with other users to make corrections, add additional items and discuss the process.

There are also courses, although right now they are limited to English and Japanese, that let you study terms but it’s not restricted to just those two – iKnow! can support any language. That’s because iKnow is an open learning platform, starting with languages and progressing to any content domain.

iKnow! platform is already very popular with its 340 thousand of registered users. These users are rather active on the platform as well: for example, last month they spent over 16 million minutes (or 270 thousand hours) learning on iKnow! and mastered over 20 million language learning items.

When a user creates a language item he or she wants to learn and remember, iKnow! will offer possible matches from its own data base as translations for these items. If iKnow fails to find a match in the existing data base, it will try to retrieve a meaning to suggest to the user from the Google’s Language API.

The service is still in its beta phase, but absolutely free. What it promises is really impressive. The idea of a social learning platform has possibilities beyond just language and it will be exciting to see where this type of technology leads us in the future.

StumbleUpon got a New Look

Musab Zain — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:07:58 +0000

In the recent past StumbleUpon team where putting all there efforts to make stumbling experience even more thrilling and exciting for their users. At first they removed the 200 friends limit and later on redesigned their interface and added extra features to it.

Today, when I opened my browser and just to give a glace, opened my StumbleUpon profile, I saw a new option to “Try out the new StumbleUpon“, I immediately clicked it and with in seconds my profile page was transformed into a very different and pleasant one. See image:

On further investigation I found out that they had completely changed their previous interface into a new one. They have also improved user profile pages and have optimized many other major parts, these changes should help make discovering and sharing great Web content easier than ever.

Major Enhancements include:

Stumble “before” you sign up

Now, you can experience the thrill of Stumbling with out having to worry about any toolbar. Stumble by using their new topic-based navigation to find what you’re looking for, then click links and images to Stumble.

Visitors can also save favorites in their personal profile, and come back again and again to Stumble the best of the web.

Fresh content on all category pages

Use the “Recently Popular,” “Most Shared” and “Recently Rated” tabs to locate quality sites submitted by others who share your interests.

Stumble on the go, save it to your profile

If you are a member of StumbleUpon, you can use the Web toolbar to Stumble, Rate and Share pages. Best of all, your ratings will now be stored with other content in your StumbleUpon Profile. With this change, you can use StumbleUpon from any computer, regardless of whether the toolbar has been installed.

Enhanced User Profiles

More Customization Options: Embed images, sites and videos directly in your blog. Add titles to your blog entries. Plus, more new themes to help you personalize the look of your profile.

Preferences: change your password from your profile or exert more control over who sees your content.

Delete Favorites and Liked sites: Now, you can remove Discovered sites from your profile!

Easier inbox management: Delete multiple messages easily to clean up your Inbox.

Mygazines Closed Down Due to Insufficient Funds

Musab Zain — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:01:38 +0000

As previously blogged about mygazines.com – a site that allows you to upload, share and read almost any magazines online is now closed due to insufficient funds, that’s a major sat back to all those who free magazine lovers.

If you happen to visit Mygazines.com, the team has put up a brief explanation and apology of the close down.

How do you react on this news? I, myself feels very sad and disappointed, since it always provided me with a very good source of information. Do you have any alternatives in mind. Lets us know.

Opera 9.60 Officially Released!

Musab Zain — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:01:19 +0000

Good news for the die heart fans of Opera, who had been waiting for several months of updated version of Opera. Today, after a number of beta builds, the Norwegian company Opera Software officially launched version 9.6 of its browser.

New and improved features in Opera 9.6 are as under:

Improved performance and stability.

Synchronization of custom searches and typed history with Opera Link,

New features in Opera Mail

Opera Scroll Marker

Preview page for feeds

Improved Graphical user interface (GUI)

Enhanced security

Tabbed browsing

Integrated searches

Ability to follow or ignore threads

They have also released a new video, in order to promote Opera 9.60:

The final version 9.60 of Opera is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux and can be downloaded from the link below:
Opera 9.60

Now Discover Sites from Anywhere with Stumbleupon

Musab Zain — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:02:52 +0000

People use StumbleUpon because it lets you discover and bookmark new websites and blogs from all over the world. If you like a particular post and want to let others read that post, you give it a “thumbs up” by using the toolbar already installed on your Firefox or Internet Explorer.

The staff members of StumbleUpon have been working quite hard to make Stumbling a better experience for its registered users by introducing new features into its system, including the removal of 200 friends limit.

In order to further enhance their system, they introduced another great feature yesterday, which will allow people to stumble new websites without having to install any toolbar and without going through the hassle of registration. It will also help those Stumblers who are using Google Chrome or other browsers.

With this new features anyone can stumble websites just by visiting StumbleUpon. It has also been reported that StumbleUpon is soon going to upgrade its profile pages, navigation, user reviews, ratings and comments.

Still in its embryonic stages, they have also announced new partner program with an integrated StumbleUpon toolbar that Stumbles content only within one site.

StumbleUpon Just got better!

Musab Zain — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:12:09 +0000

StumbleUpon has finally rolled out its new features, as planned. Not only StumbleUpon has removed its 200 friends limit, but also added some extra features to Stumblers profile, that would spice your experience even further!

People with sharp eyes, must have already observed that now, instead of fans, you would notice “Subscribers“.

You would also get an alert by StumbleUpon, when some one adds you to his friends-list. You would have the freedom to choose whether you like to add that person to your friends-list or to reject his/her invitation.

Another interesting thing that I noticed was that when you visit some one’s else profile, you would notice “How Similar are you” feature. This feature helps you make friends with common interests. It simply compares the interests that you have with that person’s interests, and displays then in percentage form, with a some what funny message next to it.

Have you say about the experience you got after these changes. Did you like it or not?

Advertise on Twitter With TwittAd

Musab Zain — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:36:46 +0000

As you all know Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates, which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

But have you ever wondered of advertising on Twitter? This is where TwittAd has jumped into the scene to provide Twitter users and advertisers with a chance to promote products and aptly place them upon the User’s Profile.

Before TwittAd

The basic idea behind TwittAd was to give Twitter users and advertisers the opportunity to promote their websites or products on a Twitter user’s profile. But I wouldn’t want my Twitter profile to be filled with odd ads, all the time. Surprisingly, TwittAd has a solution of making sure that they keep the integrity of Twitter background images.

After TwittAd

From my point of view, I don’t consider placing ads on my Twitter Profile. I mean whats the point of placing your ads, when no one or hardly a handful of visitors will visit the homepage and respond to Twits. Advertisers will soon lose interest if they found of that your profile is not generating much publicity to them.

What do you think? Would it be helpful in generating more income for you?

Try TwittAd

New iPods Coming – Says Kevin Rose

Musab Zain — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:58:28 +0000

According to Kevin Rose – Founder of Digg.com, he blogged that the lastest iPods and iTunes will get announced by Apple pretty soon.

Keven Rose, rumored this news, past week. Here is a list which he thinks will be released by Apple:

The iPod nano will take on a slimmer, more rounded look.
Revamp of entire iPod line.
iPod touch 2.1 software, will be updated very soon.
iTunes 8.0 will be a major new release with several additional features.
Further out Apple is planning to add Blu-ray support to Mac OS X.
Prices of iPods will drop to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
The above will be released in the next up coming days.

Skidzopedia » News

Homeland Security Digs Social Media

Related Posts:

Cheap Tablets are Soon to Be a Big Hit

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What are the most Significant Technology Trends in the World Today?

Random Posts

Google PageRank Update June 2011

Random Posts

Leaked: Exclusive Apple iPhone 3.0 Screenshots Featuring Video Recording

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Real or Rumour: Leaked Screenshots of Windows Mobile 7?

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Wish You All a Very Happy New Year!

1. 17 People Who Changed the Internet Forever! (207,391 Views)

2. Websites Back in 1998 (176,238 Views)

3. How Google Looks for the Colorblind (61,955 Views)

4. 30 Most Creative 404 Error pages (40,271Views)

5. Weird but Silly facts about Microsoft Windows (15,746 Views)

Wish you a very Happy New Year 2009. Keep Smiling!

Random Posts

iKnow! An Open learning Platfrom, makes Language Learning Social and Open to 188 Languages

Related Posts:

StumbleUpon got a New Look

Major Enhancements include:

Stumble “before” you sign up

Fresh content on all category pages

Stumble on the go, save it to your profile

Enhanced User Profiles

Related Posts:

Mygazines Closed Down Due to Insufficient Funds

Related Posts:

Opera 9.60 Officially Released!

Related Posts:

Now Discover Sites from Anywhere with Stumbleupon

Related Posts:

StumbleUpon Just got better!

Related Posts:

Advertise on Twitter With TwittAd

Related Posts:

New iPods Coming – Says Kevin Rose

Related Posts: