Facebook's new privacy settings.....will it make users happy??

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, after the spate of recent concerns and outcries, announced the social networking site’s latest privacy and security settings in Palo Alto yesterday. Acknowledging that a “lot of people are angry with us [Facebook]”, Zuckerberg announced a new, “simpler way to control your information”. This unfortunately amounts to nothing more than an opt-out feature, which allows users to choose who will see which content, whether it’s just friends, friends of friends, or everyone (including third parties or partner sites). Zuckerberg says this will give Facebook’s users “more control” over what they share, and optimistically, feels that this will make them “want to share more”.

While none of us are very happy going through a long list of controls to ‘configure’ our own privacy, many have unfortunately learnt from experience that one cannot trust their service providers implicitly. Security gaffes have been made by many parties in the recent past, with user ID and sensitive personal information leaking out, but we should remember that these companies do take the security and privacy of their users’ information seriously, and are making all efforts to close any holes, and provide something more solid than just an illusion of safety.

All that remains for one to question, is if relevant advertising and searches are really for you, with it comes the bludgeoning reminder that those sites you use daily are indeed not non-profit organisations, and that hiring the best engineers and marketing professionals in the world is definitely not cheap. Charles Nicholls, the founder of SeeWhy.com, blogged his views on Zuckerberg’s announcement and the recent controversies surrounding social networking sites, reminding us that sites like Google and Facebook (serving nearly half a billion people) aren’t free to run, and require some rather hefty resources.

So the motive behind sharing your tastes and preferences isn’t as sinister as you’d imagine, rather, it’s quite mundane: Money. Facebook would rather get paid more by increasing the odds of you succumbing to their ‘personalized advertising’, and so would Google. Before you take a lofty stance however, remember that you don’t get to decide how much profit is too much, or whether Google or Facebook should offer relevant advertising with Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or conventional impression-based advertising with Cost-Per-Mile (CPM).

All you can choose is if you want to use the “free” services of Facebook or Google or not. A day of platitudes, our latest truism is “to use or not to use”, or “choose to use”. Another question you have to ask yourself is if you really do get bothered by the advertisements, or are they actually quite unobtrusive. Want to do away with them altogether? Well, you will have to pay for that! Get a Premium account on Apps, and your Gmail will not have ads.

Back to Facebook’s new settings: an interesting feature will surely placate Facebook’s wary users, enabling them to apply these new settings “retroactively”. This allows them to protect the information that might still be visible in previous status updates and posts by them.

While this might be great, the reactions to the move are mixed. Many feel that the change has come a little too late, after people have already lost trust in the site and become somewhat paranoid about having to “plug the leak” every time new privacy settings are announced. Most however, are relieved, and thank Facebook for finally “listening”.

We on the other hand are disappointed that the only real change is in the interface, which is simpler, but limited, forcing you to change settings each time you want to share something with everyone, which you had previously shared only with a certain group. We would have liked to opt-in for sharing information each time, rather than opt-out or change our settings each time we post or upload content. This is idealistic though: we can’t expect Facebook to give up the ‘sharing with everyone’ option or the basic directory information and the extra money these bring the company, just so we, the end-users, don’t see ‘relevant’ ads. Unless of course, we paid to use the service. For absolute privacy, like everything else in the world, is not free.

Are you a designer or a programmer? HP Snapfish Publisher will enable you to sell your work to over 22 countries

We just got back from an HP press conference, bearing good news for the designers and developers out there. HP Snapfish is going to offer a personal publishing platform very soon. What does this mean for you? Before we delve into that, a little bit on Snapfish:

1. It's a 2.5 year old product in India (10 years old in the US) which allows you to print custom mugs, calendars, keychains, mousepads, and so on using your personal photos
2. These photos can either be stored online at Snapfish, uploaded from your camera/PC, or even sourced from your Flickr/Twitter/Facebook accounts
3. In India, Snapfish has a 900,000 registered userbase. It has more than 85 million registered users worldwide, across 22 countries
4. The main audience is women and young couples who would like to print photos of kids, parents, and loved ones on everyday objects
5. HP Snapfish will unveil what it terms its Snapfish Publisher program around June/July worldwide and a few months afterwards for India
6. Size of the paying market: HP wouldn't share revenue numbers apart from indicating that it's in the "hundreds of millions of dollar". They did share some ancillary stats: Snapfish has registered a 500% growth in prints sales and a 700% increase in photo merchandise since 2005

So what does this mean for you? Essentially, if you are a wiz at Photoshop or are a genius programmer, Snapfish Publisher will let you to leverage that potential 85 million registered base of customers and allow you to sell your creations and apps to this audience. Snapfish Publisher will take care of ensuring that the ordered product reaches the customer and will also offer after-sales support. You only need to worry about coming up with a killer concept and the actual creation.

Let's take a look at what Snapfish Publisher will offer each of these creators.

For the designers

1. You can register at Snapfish, download some templates and get creating. You don't have to pay HP anything at this point
2. You can create templates for every product that Snapfish offers (a little over 50 products) - the aforementioned mugs, mousepads, and so on
3. This template is then visible to every buyer
4. If the buyer uses your template you get a 70% cut (excluding taxes) of the sale
5. NOTE: You have to price your creation at par or above the base price that HP offers. You cannot undersell HP. So if HP sells a printed mug for Rs 229, then you can only sell your template that you have created for a mug at or above Rs 229. You get a 70% cut on the amount you charge above the base. So, if you sell your awesome print for a mug for Rs 300, then you will get a 70% cut on (Rs 300 - Rs 229) = (Rs 71), or about Rs 50 for a sale
6. HP claims that the base amount is the cost of manufacturing the product (in this case, the mug) and thus can't be waived off
7. If you sell it on par with HP's price, you get a 2% cut, instead of a 70% cut

How commissions work on Snapship Publisher

For the programmers

1. You can essentially create Open ID-compliant apps for the Snapfish platform
2. You register at Snapfish, and download the APIs to get started. Once again, you don't have to pay anything at this point
3. What kind of apps? Anything that leverages the user's photo content or even photos available elsewhere. For e.g.: your app could drill into the user's Flickr or Facebook account, gather his/her pics and create a cool collage that the buyer can order as a print or poster
4. Since the Snapfish platform uses OpenID, your app can access any OpenID-enabled platform
5. Once again, you pocket 70% of the sale amount
6. Since an app is a virtual product, you don't have a base price attached. It can even be sold free of charge

How you can make money off your app on Snapfish Publisher

Approval process and moderation

HP is taking a largely hands-off approach to moderation. Similar to YouTube, they provide tools using which the community can moderate itself. To start off with, however, there will be a moderation process for design submissions (to ensure quality at launch, we would guess). Over time, the moderation will be limited to deleting offensive or IP-violation apps/designs. For developers, though, there will be an approval process, similar in concept (not in execution, we were promised by HP) to the Apple App Store. App approval will be much more transparent, we were assured.

Pricing

Pricing is where things get a little murky and is perhaps a big part of why Snapfish Publisher is releasing a few months down the line: Snapfish wants to ensure that they get it right. From what we gathered, pricing will vary from country to country and you will be able to change prices on whim - tweaking for that sweet spot between affordable price and profitable price. Your creations will be visible all across the 22 countries and Snapfish will track who has brought your product and in which country. They will send across a report highlighting this, along with a monthly cheque in Rupees (or, the local currency).

US smartphone race : Android leaves Apple behind.

Based on unit sales in the first quarter of 2010, NPD Group’s Mobile Phone Track has revealed a major shift in the US smartphone market, when one collates the operating systems from the data. The Android OS has managed to edge out the Apple iPhone OS, to take number two spot in the US smartphone market. More accurately, more phones based on the Android OS were sold in this quarter, than phones on the iPhone OS. Figures are 28% of the market for Android, 21% for Apple, and 36% for RIM, the rest being split up over various other operating systems, such as webOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile.

While we all knew this would happen one day, it is welcome news nonetheless, a sign of how the smartphone market is ‘opening’ up, as numerous smaller companies begin to compete with Apple and BlackBerry (RIM) at a level footing, helped in no small part by their choice of operating system.

Methodology: The NPD Group compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month. Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically-representative sample, and results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers. Note: Sales figures do not include corporate/enterprise mobile phone sales.

Can Google Wave run on Nokia N900???

I was wondering how the Nokia N900 Maemo device would cope with Google Wave... would it work? Have Google created a custom version, as they have for iPhone and Android? How would it perform?

How to turn your ipad magically into notebook...???

You might be thinking that how it is possible to turn a ipad into a more conventional notebook, but it is possible. Well this is done just by using a clam case. Clam case allows you to use its "all in one keyboard,case and stand for the ipad" to turn the most famous tablet yet into a lap-held or tabletop device.
Clam case keyboard,case,stand connects to ipad via bluetooth, it also gives connectivity to HID compatible devices such as Sony Playstation 3, Tivo. The ClamCase also offers a flip-back keyboard, which lets you enjoy the iPad as a tablet even when docked.

ChromeTouch makes Google Chrome web browser more tablet-friendly

chromeTouch options

With the easy availability of touchscreen monitors in the market today, it only made sense that someone would add touch functionality to Chrome, for tablets or personal computers. Though this functionality was previously available in many touch-sensitive Android smartphones, it is great to see how the new chromeTouch extension will make the browser touch-compatible across a wide range of devices and operating systems. It even has an option to maximize available screen size, by removing scrollbars from the display altogether. Also nifty is the toggle button for putting touch on or off. To be noted is that Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 Home, Professional, and Ultimate is the only browser that already has touch support built in.

Download the chromeTouch extension here. Check out a video of chromeTouch below:

Evidence of copy and paste found in Windows Phone 7

Microsoft had confirmed that copy and paste functionality would not be available in Windows Phone 7 at the time of first release. They did not give a timeline for its appearance. However, some developers at XDA have been going through the Windows Phone 7 developer tools, and have found some lines of code within 'officeres.dll' that seems to indicate the presence of copy&paste. This could mean that it will be present straight from the first release, or, that the code would be activated after certain updates.

Evidence of copy and paste code

The code seems to be within menu options, leaving people to believe it will be present in MSOffice or other native applications.

'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2' Release Date Confirmed

Starkiller, Darth Vader’s dark apprentice, is somehow back in his full corporeal form in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, even though he ended up either dead or a Vader-like cyborg in the last game.

LucasArts has announced that The Force Unleashed II will be available on October 26, 2010, and for now, story and gameplay details are scarce. Check out the new trailer in the meanwhile, which at least promises some insane dual light saber action.

Stanford's Robotic Audi to Brave Pikes Peak Without Driver

Stanford engineers have developed a third autonomous vehicle. Car named Shelley is scheduled to race up Pikes Peak without a driver at the end of the summer.

The Fundamental Limits of Privacy For Social Networks

Using social networks to make recommendations will always compromise privacy, according to a mathematical proof of the limits of privacy.

Recommendation engines are among the hottest properties on the web. These sites make make recommendations by mining the pattern of links that crop up in social networks.

Facebook recommends new contacts based on the pattern of connections between existing users, Amazon recommends books and other products based on purchase histories and Netflix recommends movies based historical ratings.

To be sure, these sites produce useful results for users which can dramatically increase sales for a merchant. But they can also compromise privacy. For example, a social network recommendation might reveal that one person has been in email contact with another or that an individual has bought a certain product or watched a specific film. It may even be a breach of privacy to discover that your friend doesn't trust your judgement in books.

In fact there's a long history of privacy controversies associated with social networks. In 2007, Facebook caused a storm by revealing people's purchase history to their friends. At about the same time, a team of researchers de-anonymised a dataset of movie recommendations released by Netflix by comparing it to a publicly available dataset of movie ratings on the Internet Movie Database. And more recently, Google drew a storm of criticism when launching its social network Buzz because it revealed details about people's email network to others.

Today, Aleksandra Korolova at Stanford University with Ashwin Machanavajjhala and Atish Das Sarmait, say that privacy breaches are inevitable when networks are exploited in this way. In fact, they've worked out a fundamental limit to the level of privacy that is possible when social networks are mined for recommendations.

That's quite a task given that there are various different approaches to making recommendations. However, Korolova, Machanavajjhala and Sarmait have come up with a general model that captures the essence of the problem.

Their approach is to consider a general graph consisting of various nodes and the links between them. This may be network in which the nodes are books, say, and a link between two nodes represents the purchase of one book by the owner of another. The team consider all these links to be private information.

Korolova, Machanavajjhala and Sarmait then consider an attacker who wants to work out the existence of a link in the graph from a particular recommendation. So given the knowledge that people who bought book x also bought book y, is it possible to determine a purchase decision made by a specific individual?

To do this, Korolova, Machanavajjhala and Sarmait define a privacy differential as the ratio of the likelihoods that the website makes such a recommendation with the using the private purchase decision in question and without it.

The question they then ask is to what extent can recommendaitons be made while preserving this privacy differential.

It turns out that there is a trade off between the accuracy of the recommendation and the privacy of the network. So a loss of privacy is inevitable for a good recommendation engine.

The group also look at ways of preserving privacy by anonymizing data, for example by adding noise to it. They even compare different privacy preserving algorithms using a dataset of voting patterns on Wikipedia.

The results are not entirely encouraging. the trade off between the accuracy of the recommendations and privacy is always apparent. "This finding throws into serious question the feasibility of developing social recommendation algorithms that are both accurate and privacy-preserving for many real-world settings," say the team.

That's a potentially explosive result. But it would be unfair to jump to conclusions too quickly. It's fair to say that this group's definition of privacy is enormously strict (as it should be). BUt that makes it all the more important to quantify exactly what privacy issues are at stake in each kind of social network before making a judgement.

That will be a tricky task but one that recommendation engines may be forced to pursue.

Internet Explorer usage hits all time low

The latest stats from NetApplications show some very interesting figures of browser market shares between the months of March and April. Most importantly, the fact that the world’s most popular browser Internet Explorer has fallen from its lofty perch to hit an all-time low of 59.95% in total market share by dropping 0.7%.

In the same period, Firefox’s share increased 0.07 % to 24.59 %, Chrome’s share increased 0.60 % to 6.73%, Safari’s share gained 0.07 % to 4.72 %, and Opera’s share dropped 0.07 % to 2.37 %. Also check out the below table showing the usage statistics of the various versions of Internet Explorer, where you will find a shockingly high percentage of people still using the dated v6.0.

google obtained 3D desktop technology from BumpTop

BumpTop, an OS overlay specialist company famous for its eponymous 3D desktop manager for Windows and Mac, has gone and got bought by the search giant, Google. Here is one example of the 3D desktop manager in action, which uses walls, floors, hangings and piles to organise your data on a 3D desktop:

we are all excited by the fact that we might be seeing a 3D desktop manager on Android and ChromeOS devices soon, truly giving touch an another dimension, which could get even more exciting once 3D display without headgear technology become more commonplace. Google’s upcoming tablet device will also really benefit from this interface.
The news broke officially on BumpTop’s site,: "Today, we have a big announcement to make: we're excited to announce that we've been acquired by Google!". A free version of the BumpTop 3D desktop manager is still available for the next week (download here), so if you have a touchscreen or intend to buy one in the near future, go for it! And for those of you who are BumpTop Pro users, you will still have end-of-life support, but that may possible change! Check out bumptop.com/pro for more information.

Rhonda a 3D drawing tool

This video shows how a designer creates a 3D drawing using Rhonda. To find out more about the project, visit http://rhondaforever.com/

How's a USB Flash Drive Made? Trip to the Kingston Production Plant

What's Behind Apple's Clash With Flash?

People who surf the Web with any of Apple's mobile devices including the iPad or the iPhone sometimes encounter large chunks of empty space where a video or an interactive game should appear.

That's because Apple's mobile products don't support Adobe Systems' Flash, the technology that powers those parts of the Web.

Apple chief Steve Jobs isn't a fan of Flash — and he released a letter Thursday explaining exactly why. He's even got some of the Internet's most popular destinations — The New York Times, Facebook, even NPR — working to strip Flash away from websites on the iPad.

So why doesn't Jobs like Flash?

Jobs says Adobe — not Apple — has a closed system because its products are 100 percent proprietary and this conflicts with Apple's desire to use open standards for the Web.

"It's purely technical. It's not a very good program for mobile devices," Leander Kahney, author of the biography Inside Steve's Brain, tells host Guy Raz. "It's a CPU hog and it drains battery life very quickly, so he doesn't want it on it."

Flash is the dominant multimedia technology in use right now.

"It has amazing penetration. Three-quarters of all the video on the Net is encoded in flash," says Kahney, who is also editor of cultofmac.com. "Almost all of the games, all the casual games — especially the really popular games like FarmVille on Facebook — they're all encoded in Flash. Almost all of the technology world is embedded in Flash."