Well all know about the new lists feature that Twitter has released. Here at Crenk we thought we would add a few Twitter lists of our own and categories them so everyone can keep up to date with what is happening in the following areas:
Today I came across a very interesting new video news site, which aims to provide news from not just one source but as many as possible. Newsy is the video news service that introduces a topic and then goes through relevant sources to find the best opinions from around the web.
Newsy covers topics such as world news, business news, technology, environment and more. The format of each show is simple, the introduce a basic topic and then search the web for the leading views on that specific topic for the day. Thus, it is kind of a news video aggregator, as it provides the leading sources in one simple place.
Im sure Newsy will become quite a popular site, simply because of how easy it is to see the latest news from multiple sources in one place. However, most users want to see a large number of headings in one simple place and normally the easiest way to do this is text, because there is still a limitation to how much you can fit into a view.
Mozilla team is working really hard on brainstorming the idea and design of Firefox 3.7 (currently in 3.5, 3.6 it’s just around the corner). What’s the main idea? Hide the Menu bar and use a very similar look-n-feel of Office 2007/Office 2010 Ribbon.
They are using their Wiki to give us some of the advances made so far, the ideas floating in the air and of course receive feedback from most of the Mozilla lovers (and non-lovers as well, why not?). And here are the ideas that they have so far:
Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Raised translucent buttons that are slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D look to achieve tactile “feel”.
Neutral Tones: Overall neutral color scheme that can transition among platforms. Can remain attractive and slick without fighting for focus from web content.
Hiding the Menu Bar: Hiding the menubar by default (on Vista/7) allows us to use Glass, free up vertical space and retain platform consistency.
Page and Tools Buttons: Condense and trim existing menu structure into two buttons “Page” and “Tools”. Similar to Safari and Chrome.
Combine Stop/Reload: Combine Stop and Reload into one button. Reduces visual “clutter” and combines two buttons that have mutually exclusive functionality.
Home Button/Tab: Remove “Home” Button from default toolbar. Move functionality to a “Home Tab” containing your homepage.
Personally I think those are very nice and significant changes. Office, Vista and 7 seems that they are setting the standards of any UI (no surprise there, Windows will still be the world’s main OS for a few years more). But the good news is that Mozilla it is also trying to establish browsers standards, like the “Page and Tools Buttons” that is a common feature in Safari and Chrome.
And also the “Combine Stop/Reload” feature it is something that I’ve been waiting to see in Firefox for a long time. I know, it’s a very tiny thing, but don’t you love having the same functionality in different browsers?
And what are the other changes that you would include?
Reading a great article from NY Times about drivers and texting messages got me thinking about some of the obvious and wrong things that happens in our lives and we choose to ignore them. The article refers to what I think it’s an important news for Utah’s citizens: Texting behind the wheel can take up to 15 years of prison. Sounds too much for you? Too little?
Here’s an important part of the article: “The new law, which took effect in May, penalizes a texting driver who causes a fatality as harshly as a drunken driver who kills someone. In effect, a crash caused by such a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an “accident” like one caused by a driver who, say, runs into another car because he nodded off at the wheel. Instead, such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless.
“It’s a willful act,” said Lyle Hillyard, a Republican state senator and a big supporter of the new measure. “If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you’re assuming the same risk.”
I really like the last phrase, if you choose to text and drive you are assuming the risk. Isn’t that the real problem? People that do not take full responsibilities about their own acts? If you decide to text while you are driving, how can you be absolutely certain that you are not causing and accident? Are you decided to bet your life on it?
Also the NY Times posted a video about this topic, the distracted drivers and the common behaviors. That includes a small review for a research made by a Utah university, simulations about driving and texting and how and where do they focus while they are doing these tasks all together.
The law sounds great for me, but if you start thinking about it, you will find several legal holes in it, the most important one: You can easily detect drunken drivers with a breath analyzer, but how can you detect a texting driver? Also the law doesn’t say anything about calling during driving nor using other devices, like GPS.
What do you think? Do you think that these accidents should not be consider as such since you can prevent them?
Well I guess bad guys sometimes just get caught. That was the case for this Chinese guy that trying to attack a rival using a Denial-of-Service attack generated an Internet collapse in most of China (People = 1.300 millions, that’s right 1.3 billion people). The attack occurred last May,and the responsible of this attack: 23 year-old that owned private gaming servers and since he wasn’t doing so good in business decided attack his rivals, ending up taking down primary DNS servers in China.
To make a quick review about the story: A Chinese guy (with the surname of Bing) from a cotton factory offered online gaming with some private servers that he bought. So far, nothing out of the ordinary, there are thousands of these types of unlicensed gaming servers. And of course, this underground business usually involves some underground behaviors; Bing’s servers were being attacked by other gaming servers rivals, causing him to lose money. So he decided to strike back their rivals with some DDoS attacks.
Bing spent nearly u$s41.000 on these attacks, renting 81 servers only for this task, but they were ineffective. So they decided to ask for more help, that’s when the attacks collapsed DNSPod that not only served for Bing’s rivals servers, also serves several Internet companies in China.
Although police rarely have the jurisdiction or training needed to pursue such a case, officials confirmed the detention of four individuals, including Bing. Here’s the official report.
These attacks are not uncommon in these days, as we’ve said in this previous post. It is a good thing that authorities are tracking down these criminals.
So, after what seemed like an endless few weeks or fights, press releases, rumours and delays the Facebook 3.0 app is now officially released for the iPhone. I think a celebration is in order.
So, what are our first impressions here at Crenk? Well there good. Very good in fact. When I first started up the app I noticed a few things almost instantaneously that had changed from the previous app. For example, up the top left hand corner there is a button which when pressed it will give you a search bar and down the bottom the alerts feature which tells you what your friends are up to and if you need to respond to anything will pop up.
It is also more in touch with the actual web based Facebook. For example, you can RSVP to invitations rather than just being informed of their existence and you can also chat easier with friends.
Of course there are the new features that literally work with the iPhone. You can now call and send texts to your Facebook friends without having to leave the app. I think this is a cool feature and one that Facebook will not regret making as that’s what smart phones are all about – integration.
Finally, there is the web browser. At first I though this was a little unnecessary but then it became clear why they put it there. How many of your Facebook friends send you links or how many times do you decide to follow up a news story you heard from friends? Now you don’t have to exit the whole app and start up Safari just to follow a link!
I’m more of a Twitpic man myself. All my Twitpic pictures are of random things I saw such as a cool old train on Sunday or a weird seal chilling in a harbour. The URL which links to my pictures is of course a Twitpic one. But now, what about the millions of other people who upload photos or send links via YouTube to their Twitter. Because twitter allows a maximum of 140 characters per tweet you must make everything count.
Now, Bitly (or bit.ly as you may see it in tweets) is teaming up with Yfrog to provide an image uploading service on twitter. Bitly were given their first big break when their URL was officially built into twitter, replacing the well-known TinyURL. The new image service which will allow users to upload images via the Bitly website and automatically sync it with their twitter is due to be live by the end of the month.
Bitly is certainly getting big now with other companies such as Google (Google Reader) and Typepad now using the shortened URLs as standard. CBS is also using the service on its website.
So, from now on expect to see a lot more Bitly URLs on Twitter.
I’m all for protecting children online. There are a lot of unsuitable content, and indeed sick people out there. But I say most of that work should be placed the hands of companies who make content filtering software like Norton and of course the parents. It most certainly should not be the job of the search engines to censor results – in my opinion.
Recently, a search engine launched in Russia. It’s called, Gougle (ring any bells?). It filters our bad content such as porn and graphic or violent videos. But then it goes a step further and takes a leaf out of China’s book.
Gougle won’t let you access some of the accounts of horrible events in history such as genocide or evil people like Hitler. While I can see their thinking, I think they are making a huge mistake. If you hide history, what will future generations learn from?
If you use YouTube or just happen to have a pulse then you’ve probably heard of Fred (pictured). This is a popular mini-show on YouTube which features a troubled teenager named Fred talking about his teenage life and all the perils of it. For ages, the show held the No. 1 spot on Youtube. This was based on the amount of subscribers to the show which currently stands at 1.36 Million.
Now, Fred has been knocked down from number one after Nigahiga climbed to the top with over 1.9 million subscribers.
YouTube loves these miniseries as they are easy to monetize and to strike up deals with. Another popular miniseries that was on YouTube in the past was ‘Ask a Ninja’. This show again brought in tonnes of advertising revenue for YouTube and drove those who didn’t subscribe to the podcast to their website.
This recent change in the longstanding leader boards shows that the competition for online-only entertainment is heating up and may well begin to rival TV over the next few years.
Nokia has always been a company to diversify. They started out as a logging company for god’s sake and now they’re making the worlds greatest smart phones. Now, company bosses have confirmed that Nokia is currently looking into the netbook market to see if they can get a slice of the action.
The Nokia CEO said “the PC and the mobile will continue to come closer and merge.”
NetBooks are becoming increasingly popular over the past few years. People need more mobility than ever. When their smart phone doesn’t quite pack the punch they need they can take out their thin 11” netbook.
A netbook from Nokia might not be such a bad idea. I would imagine it would run windows XP given the limited computing power available on netbooks. If they were to release one, their very image as a mobile phone company would certainly rub off on a small, portable netbook.
However, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet until we hear back from Nokia. Many times companies have announced plans that have never bore fruit.
To be honest, I was utterly shocked when I heard the news. For months, Twitter and Facebook have been battling it out. Both have acknowledged the other as their main rival. Apps, schemes, plans and plots have come about but none have broken the stalemate between then. Now, Facebook are taking the stance of “well, if you can’t beat them, join them.” They’re launching a new app that will combine Twitter and Facebook.
Here is what they said on their blog:
“If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them.
If you have multiple Pages, you will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not your individual profile. It will soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter”
By coming out with this app, FaceBook are saying “yeah, we couldn’t beat twitter in a straight fight.” However, in my opinion this is great news. Undoubtedly, the two would have spent millions of dollars on plans to take down the other. Well if this app makes the market big enough for the both of them; even if only for six months then we could see some serious advancement in both of their services very soon.
So, after what seemed like an endless few weeks or fights, press releases, rumours and delays the 
I’m more of a 
I’m all for 
Nokia has always been a company to diversify. They started out as a logging company for god’s sake and now they’re making the worlds greatest smart phones. Now, company bosses have confirmed that Nokia is currently looking into the netbook market to see if they can get a slice of the action.
To be honest, I was utterly shocked when I heard the news. For months, 
