i3m Blog

Facebook scans chats and posts for criminal activity

Jul 162012

Facebook has added sleuthing to its array of data-mining capabilities, scanning your posts and chats for criminal activity. If the social-networking giant detects suspicious behavior, it flags the content and determines if further steps, such as informing the police, are required.

The new tidbit about the company’s monitoring system comes from a Reuters interview with Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan. Here’s the lead-in to the Reuters story:

A man in his early 30s was chatting about sex with a 13-year-old South Florida girl and planned to meet her after middle-school classes the next day. Facebook’s extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police. Officers took control of the teenager’s computer and arrested the man the next day.

Facebook’s software focuses on conversations between members who have a loose relationship on the social network. For example, if two users aren’t friends, only recently became friends, have no mutual friends, interact with each other very little, have a significant age difference, and/or are located far from each other, the tool pays particular attention.

via Facebook scans chats and posts for criminal activity

Googles Nexus 7 tablet already out of stock at key retailers

Tech News 637 Responses »

Jul 162012

Those of you looking to buy Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet may have a wait on your hands.

Unveiled late last month, the tablet has slowly trickled into the retail market. Google was naturally first in line, offering the Nexus 7 as a preorder in advance of its official mid-July launch. Other retailers, such as GameStop, Staples, and Sam’s Club, soon followed suit.

But a lot of eager customers apparently scooped up those pre-sales, since the tablet is playing hard to get at most outlets.
GameStop, which is selling the 16GB edition, is showing the tablet as backordered. Further details reveal that the gaming outlet has ordered more stock from the vendor, and blogging site ITProPortal says another shipment of tablets is expected to reach GameStop in August.

Staples, Office Depot, and Sam’s Club all show the Nexus 7 as currently out of stock with no further information as to its availability. Google’s own site is promising that the tablet will “ship soon,” meaning a 1-2 week delay.

via Googles Nexus 7 tablet already out of stock at key retailers

Tired of all those facebook app and game invites? Here’s how to block them.

interface, Internet News 655 Responses »

Jul 152012

Mafia Wars, Farmville, Poker, we all get those endless notifications from friends asking us to join games they’re playing. Some people don’t care that they are spamming you, some just don’t know. Many apps are sneaky abut sending requests to all your friends. So what do you do?

Facebook has several help posts involving privacy and app settings. The easiest way we’ve found is shown below, with some helpful links after that.

1. View your notifications. When you see an annoying invite you wish to block, click ‘see all notifications’ at the bottom of the list.

2. When you click ‘see all notifications’ you should get a page that looks something like this. Find the invite on the page. When you move the mouse pointer over the app notice, a small ‘x’ will appear to the right.

3. Click the ‘x’. When you do, it will say ‘turn off’. Click ‘turn off’, and a notice will appear telling you you’ve successfully blocked the game or app. That’s it!

There are other ways to do this through privacy settings and blocking all notices from a friend. Here are a couple of links that may also be helpful:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=202866049749634

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=121070141307903

Another 10 WebGL sites that will blow you away

interface, Internet News, Web Design 48 Responses »

Jul 112012

Creative coder and developer Paul Lewis rounds up 10 of the best new WebGL sites and provides some handy tips along the way, if you, too, want to join the 3D revolution

WebGL, then. It’s been around a while, and it looks like it’s here to stay. As you’ve hopefully seen it’s incredibly powerful, capable of pushing around thousands of polygons and particles all the while giving us tons of visual goodies. It’s fair to say I’m a big fan and, if Twitter reactions are anything to go by, so are a lot of other people!

Right now virtually all the major browser manufacturers support WebGL in their browser, although sometimes it needs to be enabled manually. So that’s Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera that will all let you see the wonder of WebGL. Still no word on Internet Explorer yet, although hope springs eternal!

About a year ago we ran a feature on 20 WebGL sites that will blow your mind. In internet terms a year is a phenomenally long time, so what we thought we’d do is take a look at what’s new. So once again sit back, crank up your latest browser and feast your eyes on these beauties!

MORE: Another 10 WebGL sites that will blow you away | Feature | .net magazine.

Facebook pages now show top related articles and videos based on users’ Open Graph activity

interface, Internet News 482 Responses »

Jul 112012

Page owners and fans can now view the most popular videos and news articles about a topic by visiting the brand or public figure’s Facebook page.

In the “posts by others” view of Timeline, some pages have “news” and/or “video” modules that shows what users have been reading and watching in Open Graph-integrated apps like Socialcam, Washington Post Social Reader, ESPN, Hulu and others. It’s unclear when Facebook added these modules to pages’ Timelines, but with more media apps integrating Open Graph and more people using them, the data here is increasingly valuable.

MORE: Facebook pages now show top related articles and videos based on users’ Open Graph activity.

Facebook now allows pages to make ‘unpublished’ posts to test creative options

Internet News, Marketing 237 Responses »

Jul 112012

Facebook recently added an option for pages to make “unpublished” posts through the Pages API. Unpublished posts do not appear on a page’s Timeline or in fans’ News Feeds, but they can be promoted with ads.

Facebook ad and page management platforms can integrate this feature to help page owners test different creative options. Previously, page owners using the self-serve ad tool or Ads API could not run page-post ads without creating a post that would also show up in fans’ feeds. Now, for instance, a business can target non-fans with an ad that includes an intro video that might not be relevant to users who have already Liked the page.

MORE: Facebook now allows pages to make ‘unpublished’ posts to test creative options.

PayPal sets down stricter regulations for file-sharing sites

Internet News 522 Responses »

Jul 112012

After cutting ties to Wikileaks in 2010, and after this year’s raid against Megaupload, PayPal is now imposing increasingly stringent conditions on various online file-sharing sites. According to TorrentFreak, PayPal has recently changed its terms of service, making requirements for file-sharing and newsgroup services far tighter than before.

The payment service, owned by eBay, now requires that “merchants must prohibit users from uploading files involving illegal content and indicate that users involved in such file transfers will be permanently removed from their service,” and that “merchants must provide PayPal with free access to their service, so PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy department can monitor the content.”

Not surprisingly, locker sites are already grumbling about the changes.

MORE: PayPal sets down stricter regulations for file-sharing sites | Ars Technica.

How to Pick the Right Programming Language

Tech News, Web Design 350 Responses »

Jul 112012

During the course of every coding project, a software developer must make dozens of decisions. Sometimes this involves solving a problem unique to a particular domain space or a particular architectural issue. Other times it’s about which language is best for a job. That is actually one of the most critical pieces of getting a project right.

Too often, languages are applied to a problem space where another language would be better. Here’s a quick look at some of the major business sectors and the languages best suited for each.

MORE: How to Pick the Right Programming Language.

Firefox Developer: ‘Everybody Hates Firefox Updates’

interface, Internet News 487 Responses »

Jul 102012

Mozilla’s Jono DiCarlo has come out to say what many a Firefox user has long been thinking: the rapid release cycle is killing Firefox.

DiCarlo has a long and well-argued post on how and why Firefox’s attempts to ape Google Chrome have not only made the browser less usable, but done the very thing Mozilla was trying to prevent — driving people to switch to Chrome.

The problem, argues DiCarlo, isn’t just the rapid releases, but the way Mozilla has handled them:

Ironically, by doing rapid releases poorly, we just made Firefox look like an inferior version of Chrome. And by pushing a never-ending stream of updates on people who didn’t want them, we drove a lot of those people to Chrome; exactly what we were trying to prevent.

That squares with the user feedback Webmonkey has received over the last year or so of rapid Firefox updates — comment after comment of fed-up users tired of the endless updates and dialog boxes. Less anecdotally, Webmonkey traffic from Firefox has declined from roughly 34 percent to roughly 30 percent since Firefox 4 and the rapid release cycle debuted.

MORE: Firefox Developer: ‘Everybody Hates Firefox Updates’ | Webmonkey | Wired.com.

Is internet display advertising really dead?

interface, Internet News, Marketing 341 Responses »

Jul 092012

In a recent blog post, John Battelle writes, “Display advertising is dead. Or put more accurately, the world of ‘boxes and rectangles’ is dead. No one pays attention to banner ads, the reasoning goes, and the model never really worked in the first place (except for direct response). Brand marketers are demanding more for their money, and standard display is simply not delivering. After nearly 20 years, it’s time to bury the banner, and move on to…well something else.”

As a director of digital media at Rosetta, a focus of my role is on display and its role within our clients’ media mix, so reading John’s article raised some questions for me. If he’s right, and “display is dead,” what’s the next phase of digital marketing? I think the answer to that question depends largely on the advertiser’s business objective.

MORE: Is display really dead? – iMediaConnection.com.

Older Entries Newer Entries