Just What Is Facebook Sharing About You?

In case you haven't heard, Facebook has made some changes and it's got a lot of people worried about what information exactly is being shared about them, between Facebook and app developers through the new open-graph API? Thanks to a developer by the name of Ka-Ping Yee, there is now a simple tool that shows you everything that Facebook sends to any developer whose app plugs in to the new API. Simply feed the tool your user ID or user name, which can be found in your Facebook profile, Yee tells you how to find it, and you will be presented with the data that's collected and shared. It's worthy of a look...

Police Seize Gizmodo Editor's Computers

Gizmodo editor, Jason Chen, who blogged about the mysterious nextgen iPhone found in a bar has had his computers seized by a technology related police task force. The investigating officers as well as the San Mateo County’s chief deputy district attorney, Stephen Wagstaffe, have declined to comment on the matter. 

I would say it's looking less likely that this was an Apple publicity stunt... authorities acting on a court order apparently entered Chen's home and removed four computers and two servers. 

More at the NYTimes Bits Blog.

Adobe Will No Longer Support iPhone Development Tool

It would appear as though Adobe has given up it's fight with Apple over developer tools ,after Apple updated the terms and conditions of the license that software developers must sign to create and sell apps for the iPhone and iPad shortly before Adobe's release of Creative Suite 5 earlier this month. CS5 was Adobe's tool that would open up the path to iPhone and iPad for Flash developers, Apple however wants full control over it's platform and is playing rough.

Mike Chambers, Adobe's principal product manager for developer relations has written on his blog "...as developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time." 

It's as if Apple has a burly bouncer at the door to an exclusive club, and that's why I love my android powered phone! 

Sorce: BBC

Bad McAfee Update Takes Down PCs

An update to antivirus software for corporate customers of McAfee Inc., caused much difficulty for customers running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. The company has released a statement via it's blog saying:

In the past 24 hours, McAfee identified a new threat that impacts Windows PCs. Researchers worked diligently to address this threat that attacks critical Windows system executables and buries itself deep into a computer’s memory.

The research team created detection and removal to address this threat. The remediation passed our quality testing and was released with the 5958 virus definition file at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 21.

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. Corporations who kept a feature called “Scan Processes on Enable” in McAfee VirusScan Enterprise disabled, as it is by default, were not affected...

Guess it's damage control time! I'm amazed that this sort of thing doesn't happen more frequently considering the frequency of updates issued and the nature of the files that are potentially affected.

Gizmodo Asked To Return Nextgen iPhone Prototype To Apple

Whether they found the device as they claim, or they paid $5,000 for it as has been reported, Apple just want's their prototype next generation iPhone returned to them by Gizmodo. The popular tech blog had earlier posted photos and video of the device that some speculated was a knock off, but it would appear by Apple's reaction that it is the real deal. Gizmodo shared a letter received from Apple lawyers stating in part that "This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple," to which Jason Chen of Gizmodo writes "Now that we definitely know it's not some knockoff, and it really is Apple's, I'm happy to see it returned to its rightful owner,"

Perhaps a third scenario exists where this is a new tactic by Apple to generate hype about the new product!

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/04/20/tech-iphone-4-gizmodo.html?ref=rss#ixzz0ljNiNsqf

iPad Not Ready For Higher Education?

It seems that the iPad is attracting the wrong kind of attention from a number of high profile universities for reported issues with connectivity and degradation of the school's networks when a number of the devices are connected. The Wall Street Journal is reporting "The tablet, lauded by many as the next wave in education technology, is having difficulty being accepted at George Washington University and Princeton University because of network stability issues. Cornell University also says it is seeing connectivity problems with the device and is concerned about bandwidth overload."

In addition to the networking woes, some educators are also complaining about a lack educational content available via the iBookstore application. Regardless, I am sure that Apple will be working hard to solve the hardware issues and attract more content. Not to mention, too many consumers Apple products are simply irresistible!

Find Twitter Tweeps To Follow With Google's Help

Google seems to be paying some attention to Twitter these days, perhaps the Jaiku acquisition hasn't quite paid the dividends they were hoping for. Google has announced a couple of tools aimed at Twitter this week. First, they announced a replay feature that helps you search the public archive of updates from Twitter, and now from Google Labs, Google Follow Finder to help you identify tweeps to grow your Twitter network. The tool uses public following and follower lists to generate it's list of tweeps that you may wish to follow. It's not really ground breaking but it is interesting that these announcements come as Twitter announces it's plan for generating revenues through promoted tweets via it's search feature.

Twitter Takes A Shot At Revenue Generation

Well, Twitter has finally dipped it's toes in the advertising pool but they have done so ever so carefully. Twitter is taking things very slowly in an attempt to not affect the user experience, the ad must first be tweeted by the advertiser and then it will show up in search results as a featured tweet. However only tweets (ads) that are popular with users, in that they are retweeted or replied to, will be kept in the queue. “The one thing we are most excited about is these are simply tweets, not ads,” Chris Buzzo a Starbucks spokesman said. “There is one big difference between a promoted tweet and a regular tweet. promoted tweets must meet a higher bar — they must resonate with users. This means that if users don’t do the things with promoted tweets that would normally do with a regular tweet such as reply to it, favorite it, or retweet it and so on, the promoted tweet will disappear.”

I find it intriguing that they are only displaying the promoted tweets in the search results, only because I have recently discussed with a colleague my use of Twitter to discover relevant recent information via search, over even Google in some situations... 

Read More at Wired.

Google's Schmidt Tells Party Goers That Google Will Challenge The iPad

The NYTimes is reporting that Eric Schmidt of Google fame has eluded to a Google Android based tablet to rival the iPad. This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone but the interesting talk that revolves around the Google slate is that it is rumored to support Adobe Flash, something that Apple has refused to do and that will have many developers heaving deep sighs of relief.

Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.

 I, for one, am likely to want to give the iPad a try but will definitely be waiting to see what Google's offering is! I truly do love my HTC Dream and would not trade it for an iPhone, ever!

Google Docs Updated

This is a timely piece of news for me as my new employer extensively uses Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Calendar in day to day operations. If you've followed this blog for any length of time you'll know that I am a big Google fan boy and this discovery was a very pleasant surprise... not to mention the fact that my Android phone integrates very nicely with these Google offerings. The news... well Google Docs has just gotten better with new collaborative tools, reminiscent of Google Wave, and speed enhancements. Here's a video compliments of the Official Google Blog: