DigitalOutbox Episode 129
DigitalOutbox Episode 129 – Dropbox, Twitter and Outlook
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0:59 – Google Updates
– Update – 16gb Nexus now available, 3-5 day wait – https://play.google.com/store?hl=en
– Q – suspended while Google make it even better…and send out free dev units to those that have pre-ordered. Wow.
2:29 – Dropbox Security Breach
– Users a few weeks ago said they were being spammed with their dropbox only e-mail address
– Ian received e-mail overnight – Recently, passwords have been stolen from some Internet services. This is a problem because many people use the same password on multiple services, which is unsafe. As a precaution, we’ve reset your password and you can create a new one here. We haven’t detected any suspicious activity in your Dropbox, but we’re proactively taking steps to keep users safe.
– A bit odd as I do use separate passwords for sites – another friend reported same mail and he uses unique passwords too
– Blog post states: Our investigation found that usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. We’ve contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts. A stolen password was also used to access an employee Dropbox account containing a project document with user email addresses. We believe this improper access is what led to the spam. We’re sorry about this, and have put additional controls in place to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.
– Keeping Dropbox secure is at the heart of what we do, and we’re taking steps to improve the safety of your Dropbox even if your password is stolen, including:
– Two-factor authentication, a way to optionally require two proofs of identity (such as your password and a temporary code sent to your phone) when signing in. (Coming in a few weeks)
– New automated mechanisms to help identify suspicious activity. We’ll continue to add more of these over time.
– A new page that lets you examine all active logins to your account.
– In some cases, we may require you to change your password. (For example, if it’s commonly used or hasn’t been changed in a long time)
– At the same time, we strongly recommend you improve your online safety by setting a unique password for each website you use.
– So – Dropbox gets hacked but I’ve to change my unique and secure password?
6:32 – Robin Hood Airport tweet bomb joke man wins case
– A man found guilty of sending a menacing tweet threatening to blow up an airport has won a challenge against his conviction.
– Paul Chambers, 28, of Northern Ireland, was found guilty in May 2010 of sending a “menacing electronic communication”.
– He was living in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, when he tweeted that he would blow up nearby Robin Hood Airport when it closed after heavy snow. After a hearing at the High Court in London his conviction was quashed.
– Mr Chambers said later: “I am relieved, vindicated – it is ridiculous it ever got this far. “I want to thank everyone who has helped, including everyone on Twitter.”
– Mr Chambers said he had sent the tweet, which contained swear words, to his 600 followers in a moment of frustration after Robin Hood Airport, near Doncaster, was closed by snow in January 2010.
– He said he had never thought anyone would take his “silly joke” seriously.
– The message Mr Chambers tweeted stated: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
– In their judgement, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Mr Justice Owen and Mr Justice Griffith Williams, said: “If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character.”
7:32 – While others need to watch what they say on Twitter
– The media is fuming over Twitter’s decision to suspend the account of a British journalist who used the micro-blogging site to toss barbs at NBC’s decision to time-delay its Olympic coverage over the weekend. The episode raises questions about free speech and corporate control of social media platforms.
– For anyone who missed it, the brouhaha began this morning when sports site Deadspin reported that Twitter had cut off Guy Adams, an LA-based reporter for The Independent. Adams has been a standard bearer for the new #nbcfail hashtag and used his account to rattle off a series of British-inflected tirades about NBC’s time delay: “‘Sneak peak’ my arse”; ”tosspot”; “Matt Lauer would do well to shut up, wouldn’t he?” and so on.
– Adams apparently crossed a line when he published the email address of NBC executive Gary Zenkel and told followers to “Tell him what u think.” NBC complained to Twitter and shortly after the micro-blog site suspended Adams’ account.
– Critics have since called attention to the fact that Twitter has partnered with NBC’s parent company to promote the games, and suggested that the companies decided to shut down Adams’ account as an act of reprisal.
– In an email message to Adams, Twitter explained the account had been suspended because he had violated terms of service that forbid disclosing private information like a person’s telephone number or private email address. Deadspin and others have noted that gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com is a corporate address.
– So who is right? Did Adams overstep a boundary or are Twitter and NBC wrongfully censoring a journalist? Well, from a legal point of view, Twitter is in the clear. The company’s terms of service make it plain that it can boot users off the site anytime and for any reason.
– Twitter’s moral position is a lot more shaky. Its reason for tossing Adams is flimsy (the email he printed was not private) and, worse, they simply caused him to disappear altogether. If you search @guyadams on Twitter, the company will suggest users with similar handles but the original Guy Adams has simply vanished in the same way that disgraced communists would vanish from Kremlin photographs.
– 2 days later twitter reinstate account
– NBC removed complaint
– Twitter post about guidelines – http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety-and.html
– As of earlier today, the account has been unsuspended, and we will actively work to ensure this does not happen again. Twitter while working with NBC on Olympic portal had encouraged NBC to raise complaint which was passed to Trust and Safety team who then acted….unaware that others in Twitter had encouraged the intial complaint
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/31/teenager-arrested-tweets-tom-daley
– Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy as part of an investigation into malicious Twitter messages sent to the Team GB diver Tom Daley after he and his team-mate, Pete Waterfield, missed out on a medal at the Olympics.
– The boy was held at a guesthouse in Weymouth, Dorset, hours after Daley, 18, retweeted messages he had been sent soon after finishing fourth in the 10m men’s synchronised platform diving event.
– A spokeswoman for Dorset police said: “A 17-year-old man was arrested by Dorset police officers in the early hours this morning at a guesthouse in the Weymouth area on suspicion of malicious communications. He is currently helping police with their inquiries.”
– Daley retweeted a message that said: “You let your dad down i hope you know that.” – There was much worse though – http://imgur.com/a/aHDr0
13:16 – Twitter users blamed for disrupting BBCs cycling coverage
– Olympic organisers have blamed spectators using Twitter for disrupting television coverage of the cycling road races. Viewers were left in the dark about timing and positions after electronic updates failed to reach commentators during both the men’s and women’s events.
– The BBC blamed the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS) for the lack of information which left commentator Chris Boardman using his own watch to estimate timings. But the International Olympic Committee said fans sending updates to Twitter while watching the race had in effect jammed transmissions of race information.
– Communications director Mark Adams said: “From my understanding, One network was oversubscribed, and OBS are trying to spread the load to other providers. We don’t want to stop people engaging in this by social media but perhaps they might consider only sending urgent updates.”
– The timings are sent to organisers via tiny GPS transmitters in competitors’ bikes but the messages were not being received during the races.
– Reality – O2 network couldn’t cope – “There was a capacity issue with Box Hill at the weekend,” an O2 spokesperson told The Register. “You can imagine that all of the people around that area were frantically using their phones so that was the reason for the over subscription.”
16:09 – Microsoft launch outlook.com
– The software giant is unveiling a brand new preview version of Hotmail today — Outlook.com. Although the old version of Hotmail will remain active, Outlook.com brings together all of its best features and more, accessible via the web, Exchange ActiveSync compatible clients, and POP3. Existing Hotmail users can upgrade to the preview version today — with options to rename an existing @hotmail.com address to @outlook.com or to add an additional alias to an account — and new Outlook.com users can pick an @outlook.com email address.
– Hotmail was much maligned so Microsoft had to go with a more trusted brand name – JOKER!!!!!
– Like Office 2013, Microsoft is describing its new email service as a “modern” one. Built with the same Metro design as Windows 8, Outlook.com brings together cloud connected accounts, data, and a familiar email service with a new look. Microsoft is also enabling threaded messaging by default and introducing Skype video web calling.
– Clean and fresh design
– Contact management has been greatly improved with an interface that’s nearly identical in looks and functionality to Windows 8. Outlook.com will import Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, and CSV contacts and attempt to merge them into single contact cards. This works well for the most part, but there’s also an option to clean up any rogue contacts and merge information easily.
– Is this just a reskin of hotmail, windows live?
– Between now and Christmas Microsoft are refreshing and launching so much. Will it work?
21:19 – Digg Relaunched
– Simpler, cleaner and more visual
– No comments
– Based on facebook likes and tweets
– Still aims to bring you the best of the web
– Fresh start as old site cost about 15-20 times what the new one does
22:24 – Apple buys AuthenTec
– Amid fierce smartphone competition between Samsung and Apple that has spilled into a multinational patent battle, it looks like Apple may have opened yet another front on the M&A side: it is buying mobile security company AuthenTec — which had only just signed a deal with Samsung for Android devices — for $356 million.
– AuthenTec, among other things, makes fingerprint sensor chips that are used for security and identification purposes; these are embedded in computing devices. The news was first reported by Reuters; the full announcement was filed with the SEC.
– Just earlier this month AuthenTec had inked a deal with Samsung to cover security and device management services to cater to the “BYOD” trend — that is, workers taking their own handsets into their enterprise environment. The AuthenTec service would let IT managers quickly secure and authenticate those devices.
– Reuters reported the deal as $356 million — $8 per share of the company. But that’s actually a pretty cheap price, considering that before the company went public it had raised some $600 million (yes, million) in funding.
24:03 – The Lords look forward
– Broadband for all – an alternative vision is the result of a six month inquiry by the Lords communications committee which took in evidence from regulators, technicians and companies ranging from BT to tiny community projects such as Great Asby Broadband in Cumbria.
– And the conclusion is that the government is not being bold enough. The current target of getting speeds of 24Mbps to 90% of the country by 2015 or 2017 – the deadline date is unclear – may assure more bandwidth than most households need today.
– But the rate at which the internet has evolved in the past, with demand doubling every year or two, suggests the average home will need two or three times that speed come 2020.
– To deliver ever faster connections, the Lords committee has concluded that different technologies will be needed than the ones currently being paid for by the government and installed by BT. And it is worried about the final 10% of homes, the hardest to reach in the UK.
– It is far from certain that the government will achieve its target of giving these rural locations a minimum of 2Mbps. And that minimum only just meets the needs of the average household today.
– It will not be enough by 2015 for home workers, or for families raising teenagers doing their homework, watching video and calling friends on Skype.
– The 2Mbps figure was chosen because it is the minimum needed to deliver internet TV, but that is already changing. TalkTalk’s budget YouView internet TV service, launched towards the end of July, will require a minimum 3Mbps connection.
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jul/31/digital-television-internet-revolution
– The government should draw up plans to have every channel, including those from the BBC, broadcast over the internet, freeing up the spectrum for other uses such as mobile phones, the House of Lords suggested on Tuesday.
– “Eventually the case for transferring the carriage of broadcast content, including public service broadcasting, from spectrum to the internet altogether will become overwhelming,” the Lords communications committee said in its report on internet infrastructure.
– The recommendation comes months after most of the country’s 26m television households retuned their sets from analogue to digital, with two regions – the north-east and Northern Ireland – due to complete the process by the end of October. Digital switchover increased the number of terrestrial channels from five to 50, but the internet can transmit an unlimited amount of content, at a lower cost.
– However, Britain will need a better broadband network to cope with future technologies, the committee concluded after a wide-ranging, six-month investigation. It raises the alarm over the way Britain’s network is being built, describing government strategy as “flawed” and liable to widen the digital divide between those communities with fast internet access and those living in broadband blackspots.
– “If broadcast services move to be delivered via the internet,” said committee chair Lord Inglewood, “then key moments in national life such as the Olympics could be inaccessible to communities lacking a better communications infrastructure.”
– BT, TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin Media are moving rapidly to connect more television sets to the internet, so that they can offer video on demand as well as conventional TV channels.
– TalkTalk’s YouView box, unveiled last week, offers internet access to libraries of TV series and films for viewing on demand, as well as conventional channels broadcast over the internet rather than through an aerial. BT this summer spent £738m on acquiring Premier League football rights to boost its own internet TV service, BT Vision.
– The committee says the airwaves are better suited to mobile, and their use for TV could be considered “wasteful”. It says the date for a second switchover could be some years away, but recommends that the government, regulators and the industry start planning now.
– “People will perhaps feel fed up, but going from analogue to digital may not be the whole journey,” said Inglewood. “Now we are finding we may go from digital to internet.”
– A broadband connection could become a universal right, he said, as and when all channels including public service broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV are delivered over the web.
– However, services including YouView require a connection of at least 3 megabits per second. With an estimated 14% of UK homes unable to get even 2Mbps, according to telecoms watchdog Ofcom, swaths of the population could be left out of the next phase of the TV revolution. Government targets promise only that everyone will be able to get 2Mbps by 2015, with 90% getting 24Mbps.
– Steve Jobs – “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
27:20 – Nokias new product launch
– Digitaloutbox was wrong – we said Nokia was dead but here we go – a new product from out of nowhere
– Nokia is promoting its flagship Lumia with nail polish to match the new pink 900 model. The “Nokia Lumia Pink” polish, designed by Duality Cosmetics, looks to be even more limited than the AT&T-exclusive pink phone itself: it’s only available at one-day pop-up salons in Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles, where Nicki Minaj nail stylist Kandi Banks will offer pink, possibly phone-themed manicures and pedicures.
Picks
Ian
Mountain Tweaks
– Key features:
– Small app, but extremely powerfull!
– Brand new tweaks!
– Works with both Lion and Mountain Lion
– Free
– Enable Airdrop on old hardware
– Enable colours in the Finder sidebar
– Disable many animations
– Remove Spotlight icon
– Disable gatekeeper
– Highlight non-retina images
– Remove leather from Contacts (ML)
– Remove leather from Calendar (ML)