Techno-News Blog

By Deborah Netburn, LA Times

The days of ad-free Skyping are ending. On Wednesday, the company announced that it plans to insert display ads into what used to be ad-free Web conversations. In a chirpy post on Skype’s official blog, the company said it is “excited” to introduce a new ad service as a way for marketers to reach its hundreds of millions users in a place where they can have “a meaningful conversation about brands.” For now, the ads will display only on 1:1 Skype-to-Skype audio calls made with Skype for Windows. But that’s just the start: The release promises “additional commercial experiences in the future.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-skype-announces-conversation-ads-20120613,0,5956658.story

By ERIC PFANNER, NY Times

Bored with dot-com? Soon there may be dot-app for that. In the biggest expansion of Internet addresses, the organization that oversees the naming system said Wednesday that it had received 1,930 applications for new “top level domains,” the letters that follow the “dot.” The most sought-after extension is .app, with 13 applicants, ranging from Amazon to the .app Registry — though not Apple, the company that popularized the mobile application. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is expected to approve hundreds of these extensions for use, the first of which should be in use by next year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/technology/dot-app-is-most-sought-after-internet-address-extension.html?pagewanted=all

by Ayesha Khanna and Parag Khanna, Slate

Technology is granting us the ability to alter our perception of reality, construct multiple representations of ourselves like avatars, and have relationships with artificial agents like robots. All of these are simultaneously expanding and destabilizing our sense of self. Technology is a “second self,” as MIT professor Sherry Turkle has explained: a new interface between us and others. Debates over whether social technologies cause “detachment” from reality miss the point that we are entering a new hybrid reality in which assumptions about authenticity are fundamentally challenged: Who is real? What is the line between physical and virtual? Do we each get to live our own version of the truth?

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/06/hybrid_reality_avatars_robotics_and_the_coming_human_technology_civilization_.html

By Taylor Hatmaker, ReadWriteWeb

At their best, video games are bite-sized experiments. The virtual world of a game a miniaturized space where our imaginations can clash horns with psychology, culture and the technological horizon, often to addictively playable ends. We take a look at how five compelling trends from E3 2012 are pioneering a new future of play.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5-signposts-to-the-future-of-gaming.php

By David Talbot, Technology Review

A new cognitive radio demonstrates innovations that enable smarter use of wireless spectrum. This cognitive radio can sense and rapidly switch between the widest-ever range of frequencies, at record speeds, while sending the equivalent of 20 HD movies at once. With a rising tide of smart-phone data threatening to drown the airwaves, a White House advisory panel is poised to suggest that wireless carriers and research labs ramp up efforts to use computing to far more efficiently tap spectrum. This will require, among other things, so-called “cognitive” radios, which sense unused radio bands and can intelligently switch heavy data loads between different frequencies without any interruption.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428182/one-radio-to-rule-them-all/

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The company’s social scientists are hunting for insights about human behavior. What they find could give Facebook new ways to cash in on our data—and remake our view of society. Now that it’s a public company, Facebook needs to significantly boost its revenues to bring them in line with shareholders’ expectations. That means finding new uses for the endless amounts of personal data the company collects from its users—but this prospect concerns privacy advocates, who say Facebook has outgrown existing privacy laws. Although regulators around the globe are increasing their scrutiny of Facebook, it might be years before they catch up.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428181/few-privacy-regulations-inhibit-facebook/

By Antone Gonsalves, ReadWrite Mobile

Apple has lots of big iPhone news today, but last week’s announcement that Sprint Nextel and Leap Wireless will begin offering iPhones without a contract could actually be just as significant – starting a massive change in how Americans buy and use mobile phones. Up till now, if you wanted an iPhone, you signed a two-year service contract with a carrier like AT&T, Verizon Wireless or Sprint, and got a big discount on the price of the phone. But under this new model you would buy the phone at full price, but pay less for service and avoid getting locked into a contract. Over two years, the prepaid model comes out to be significantly cheaper.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/06/how-prepaid-iphones-will-remake-the-mobile-market-eventually.php

by DREW OLANOFF, The Next Web

Twitter has been hard at work trying to surface more of the people, places and things that you really care about. Trending topics has been a way to keep up with news, but they’re not necessarily things that you might be interested in. For the most part, goofy memes always rule the day unless there is some major breaking news happening. The company shared on its blog today that it is tweaking the algorithm to show you topics that are similar to your tastes, based on who you follow and where you are:

Trends help you discover the emerging topics people are talking about on Twitter. You can see these topics as a worldwide list, or select one of more than 150 locations. In order to show emerging topics that matter more to you, today we’re improving our algorithms to tailor Trends based on your location and who you follow on Twitter.

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/06/12/twitter-tweaks-its-algorithm-to-better-tailor-trends-to-your-tastes/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Apple’s new Maps app will be part of the next operating system for iPhones and iPads. Users of Apple’s iPhone and iPad are getting a new mapping destination. Apple has used Google Maps since the release of the first iPhone in 2007, but today the company announced that its own mapping app will be available in the fall as part of the newest version of its mobile operating software. Apple’s senior vice president of iOS software, Scott Forstall, showed off the app, along with a slew of features new to iOS 6, during the keynote presentation that kicked off Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428173/apple-charts-a-new-course-on-mobile-maps/

by Chris Velazco, Tech Crunch

First up, Siri is much smarter than she used to be — she can now easily cull information from multiple new sources to provide (among other things) detailed sports, restaurant, and movie information.Apple has also partnered up with a handful of car manufacturers to deliver what they call “Eyes Free” functionality, which will see a a physical button integrated into forthcoming cars that will bring up Siri on a connected device when pushed. No word yet on exactly when the first Eyes Free cars will roll off the assembly line, but Apple says it should be within the next 12 months. Also part of the substantial new update is support for a handful for a handful of new languages, including Italian, Korea, Mandarin (for Taiwan), and Cantonese. With all these updates in tow, it’s a good thing that iPhone 4S users won’t be the only people who get to talk to Siri — Apple is bringing Siri to the new iPad.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/siri-finally-learns-how-to-launch-apps-gets-eyes-free-car-integration/

By Karen Weintraub, Technology Review

Diagnosing a particular strain of flu is normally a complicated business, requiring high-tech equipment and days of work. In a paper to be released today in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, researchers at Brown University describe a new biochip that promises to make that process much easier and faster. The researchers hope to eventually design a chip that could be used by public health officials to quickly track new outbreaks, and by health-care workers in the developing world to cheaply detect drug-resistant strains of HIV and tuberculosis.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428143/biochip-could-enable-fast-portable-flu-strain/

By Tom Simonite, Techology Review

Conventional security software is powerless against sophisticated attacks like Flame, but alternative approaches are only just getting started. Two weeks ago today, computer security labs in Iran, Russia, and Hungary announced the discovery of Flame, “the most complex malware ever found,” according to Hungary’s CrySyS Lab.For at least two years, Flame has been copying documents and recording audio, keystrokes, network traffic, and Skype calls, and taking screenshots from infected computers. That information was passed along to one of several command-and-control servers operated by its creators. In all that time, no security software raised the alarm. Flame is just the latest in a series of incidents that suggest that conventional antivirus software is an outmoded way of protecting computers against malware.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428166/the-antivirus-era-is-over/

by DREW OLANOFF, the Next Web

With over 900M users, there’s no shock that brands and marketers have turned their attention to setting up shop on Facebook. With the ability to interact with, target and market to people who are in a place prepared to be social, it’s an absolute no-brainer. However, I’ve noticed the trend of TV commercials mentioning “Follow us on Facebook” or “Visit us on Facebook” way more than mentioning a website. Remember when you couldn’t escape a 30-second commercial that ended with “Check out our website at www.”? Moving this focus to Facebook makes sense, but also leaves me with the question of “what will be next”?

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/06/10/now-that-follow-us-on-facebook-has-replaced-the-website-for-brands-what-will-be-next/

by ALEX WILHELM, the Next Web

The ‘speed bump’ versus search ad comparison is an interesting one. Back in time, in the age of black and white television, it was possible to book an ad across the three major broadcast networks, and hit, at once, a simply massive percentage of the US population. That was the ‘speed bump;’ it was there, and all families hit it. Later, Google. Google took not eyeballs, but intention, or at least potential intention, and monetized it. You are looking for that? Well here’s where to buy it, and a whole bundle of other links that also think that you are currently up their alley. Search marketing is comically effective, as every person that is advertised to self selects into the group. However, it’s only one leg of the larger advertising race.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/06/11/if-facebook-ads-dont-work-its-the-fault-of-advertisers/

by DREW OLANOFF, the Next Web

I’m a fan of using hashtags all over the web. I’ve been known to even use them in text messages and in real life conversations. Yes, it’s sad, but the emergence of the hashtag has helped us track conversations over multiple platforms on the web. This site, TagsInAction, allows you to search multiple social sites on the web for mentions of hashtags. It’s actually quite handy, especially if you’re trying to track them for a charitable or marketing campaign.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/06/11/tagsinaction-is-the-perfect-way-to-track-a-hashtag-all-over-the-web/

By: Michelle Maisto, eWeek

Apple’s decision to reduce the iPad 2 to $399, following the introduction of the newest iPad majorly affected pricing in the market. During the first quarter, the average price was down to $386, from $488 a year ago. The average tablet price, during the first quarter of 2012, fell 21 percent to $386, compared with a year ago, IMS Research reported June 8, citing data from its quarterly tablet tracker. While low-end tablets with much in common are having to compete aggressively on pricing, the dramatic first-quarter drop is largely attributed to the dominating player on the high end of the market: Apple’s iPad. Apple’s decision to lower the price of the iPad 2 to $399, following the introduction of its third-generation iPad, “has meant greater price pressure on its rivals, forcing them also to reduce price to make their products competitive,” said the report.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/iPads-Are-Pushing-LowEnd-Tablet-Prices-Still-Lower-Report-382195/?kc=rss

by Cory Doctorow, Technology Review

Free services in exchange for personal information. That’s the “privacy bargain” we all strike on the Web. It could be the worst deal ever. The idea is that your private information is less valuable to you than it is to the firms that siphon it out of your browser as you navigate the Web. They know what to do with it to turn it into value—for them and for you. This story has taken on mythic proportions, and no wonder, since it has billions of dollars riding on it. ut if it’s a bargain, it’s a curious, one-sided arrangement. To understand the kind of deal you make with your privacy a hundred times a day, please read and agree with the following:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428045/the-curious-case-of-internet-privacy/

By: Nathan Eddy, eWeek

The debut release of Chrome in Metro mode will include integration with the basic Windows 8 system functionality. Google’s Web browser, Chrome, is headed to rival Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 8 Metro—sort of. Google began work on a Metro-style enabled desktop browser, a version of Chrome that will run in both the Metro and desktop environments of Windows 8 on x86, back in March. The company didn’t offer a specific release date for Chrome, only noting users will be able to test it out in the next Chrome Dev channel release by setting it as the default browser.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Chrome-Coming-to-Windows-8-Metro-535034/?kc=rss

By Brian Proffitt, Read, Write, Web

Conventional wisdom has it that kids and young adults now coming of age have been so steeped in everything from video games to social networking that they bring amazing new technology skills to the workforce. The truth may not be so rosy. Even as millennials (those born and raised around the turn of the century) enter college with far more exposure to computer and mobile technology than their parents ever did, professors are increasingly finding that their students’ comfort zone is often limited to social media and Internet apps that don’t do much in the way of productivity. One professor at the University of Notre Dame, for example, reports that many of his students don’t even know how to navigate menus in productivity applications.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/millennials-arent-so-tech-savvy-after-all.php

By Cormac Foster, Read, Write Web

For the second installment of ReadWriteWeb’s new DeathWatch series, we cast a beady eye on Hewlett Packard. Let’s be clear: Unlike our first DeathWatch victim, HP is not about to go out of business anytime soon. But momentous market changes – not to mention an epic series of fumbles, miscalculations and missed opportunities – presents the iconic company with serious long-term challenges that could eventually put an end to HP as we know it.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/readwriteweb-deathwatch-hewlett-packard.php

by FREAKONOMICS

An article in Chronicle of Higher Education explains how the increase in online courses has made cheating a lot easier. For example, Bob Smith (not his real name) successfully arranged a test-cheating scheme with several friends. The tests “pulled questions at random from a bank of possibilities” and could be taken anywhere, but had to be taken within a short window of time each week. Researchers who study cheating are urging cooperation. “Historically this kind of research has been a bit of a black box,” says Neal Kingston, an education professor at the University of Kansas and the director of the school’s Center for Educational Testing Evaluation. “It’s important that the research community improve perhaps as quickly as the cheating community is improving.”

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/06/08/how-to-cheat-in-online-courses/