Crenk » News

New Chrome OS Screenshots and Video

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:04:32 +0000

Yesterday, Google released public information about its new Chrome OS at the official press event. They showed videos of the OS and gave real-time demonstrations to reporters.

It looks a lot like the popular browser of the same name. It uses tabs like those in the browser instead of buttons in the task bar. The colour scheme is also very bright with a lack of colour. This may pose problems for laptop users in terms of battery life.

Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea:

I guess this would be the equivalent of the start menu in Windows. It’s called the applications panel and it’s where you launch programs from. May of these are affiliated with Google as you would expect such as YouTube, Google Reader and GMail however they also have others such as Facebook, Twitter and their old rival, Yahoo Mail.

The Chrome browser is integrated fully with the OS, as one would expect. Other Google services such as Google Talk also work seamlessly with it by launching discreet pop-ups and notifications when user interaction is needed.

Here is chess, an example of an app, running in a tab in the new OS. All apps can either run as a tab or can be viewed in full-screen.

Join Crenk on Facebook and Get The Latest News and Free Invites

Steven Finch — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:24:30 +0000

If you enjoy reading Crenk and have a Facebook account, be a fan of our Facebook page and join in on the fun! You’ll be rewarded with exclusives, invites and the latest reviews of web apps.

We will also use our fan page to occasionally inform you about premium software giveaways.

In addition to that, you’ll have the chance to participate in Crenk polls and discussions; and ask our Crenk writers technically-related questions or just tell everyone how much you love reading our site!

Orange to Offer MMS Photosharing on Twitter

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:30:16 +0000

Tweeting is now done mostly by third-party apps on mobile devices and on PCs It’s now becoming a rarity to tweet via the actual webpage. It’s becoming even more of a rarity to tweet via SMS as apps become more available even for the most basic of Java enabled mobile phones.

However, these apps for basic mobile phones don’t always offer the chance to tweet photos which is something we tweeters do quite a bit. So for the first time on Twitter ever, the ability to tweet via MMS is coming to the UK.

The service will allow those on the Orange network to send a snap to 86444 and have it appear on their Twitter timeline. It’s only available to Orange customers as the popular mobile network owns a photo sharing website called Snapshot which will host the pictures and tweet out a link.

The only alternative to this (and it’s what I do when I’m out and about) is to e-mail a picture from your mobile phone which can be done easily once you set up your e-mail right and have an account on a service such as twitpic.com.

Twitter Visits Decline – Are They Really?

Dean Sherwin — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:27:50 +0000

Today, reports have surfaced saying that Twitters visitor numbers are decreasing for the first time ever. Apparently, visitor numbers fell by 8% in October. However, in this writer’s opinion Twitter isn’t floundering. These numbers merely represent the differences between Twitter and the rest of the web.

It’s interesting that these numbers are recorded for October. October is a month where people are settling back into school and college, winter’s coming in and the summer social bubble on the Internet has truly popped as people head back tot their normal routine after holidays, time off school and plenty of sunshine and tweet-worthy activities.

I think people are simple more busy and are tweeting from their portable devices instead which easily make up half of Twitter tweets. Instead of taking out the laptop while relaxing in the sun they’re cramming themselves into the Subway and letting everyone know about it from their phones.

Twitter are also rolling out new features such as Lists and now their GeoLocation feature which we discussed here the other day. Suggestions that Twitter is floundering are just hype. Until Twitter’s influence and micro-culture starts to evaporate – don’t believe any of these kind of statements.

Danish Give up on Fighting Piracy

Dean Sherwin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:59:02 +0000

The fight against piracy has been ongoing in Europe since late last year when countries such as the Netherlands started to ban Pirate Bay. In Ireland, the main ISP Eircom, limited internet access to just 20 minutes per day for any of their customers found using the service and the owners of Pirate Bay were wanted men in the Scandinavian countries.

However, it appears as though the Danes are now “throwing in the towel”.

The main reason for this is the lack of adequate evidence which they can use to prosecute. Because, in terms of the law, the internet and the piracy associated with it are fairly new, there are no constraining laws which make it easy to prosecute. As it stands now, if the defendants don’t actually admit to having being organisers in piracy then they’re free to go.

To be honest, I’m still waiting to see if there will ever be a real prosecution and take down of a main service – anywhere.

Crenk Twitter Lists: Crenk Team, Top Technology News Sources, Tech Talk and Bittorrent News

Steven Finch — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:58:35 +0000

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:

Crenk Team – http://twitter.com/crenk/team

Top Technology News Sources – http://twitter.com/crenk/toptechnews

Tech Talk (Top Analysis from Leading Minds in Technology) – http://twitter.com/crenk/techtalk

Bittorrent News – http://twitter.com/crenk/bittorrent

New Mac Ads That Hate on Windows 7

Steven Finch — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Apple has released 3 new ads that take aim at Windows 7. What do you think of the ads?

Newsy: News Aggregator But Shows The News from Multiple Sources in One Video

Steven Finch — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:58:27 +0000

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.

Firefox 3.7 with Office-like Ribbon?

Augusto Alvarez — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:52:03 +0000

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.

More info: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Sprints/Windows_Theme_Revamp/Direction_and_Feedback

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?

New Law for Texting Distracted Drivers

Augusto Alvarez — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:14:33 +0000

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?

Chinese Game Server Administrator Arrested for DDoS Attack

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:43:19 +0000

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.

Facebook 3.0 – New App Here…Finally

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:00:29 +0000

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!

Bit.ly Is Growing At a Rapid Pace

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:40:41 +0000

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.

Gogul to “Protect” Kids?

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:53:21 +0000

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?

Fred No Longer #1

Dean Sherwin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:38:03 +0000

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 to Build Netbook

Dean Sherwin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:16:34 +0000

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.

Facebook’s New Twitter App!

Dean Sherwin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:41:31 +0000

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.

FaceBook’s New Killer App

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:00:23 +0000

I really love Twitter. I tweet at least once or twice an hour from my phone when watching a movie, playing my xBox, out with friends our just about doing anything you can imagine; including writing for Crenk. I’d hate to see Twitter slip down that slope that few seem to be able to get back up. Kind of like MySpace is right now.

FaceBook’s new iPhone app may be just the thing that pushes it too. Over the past few months FaceBook have tried to match Twitter on all fronts. While FaceBook still markets itself as a social network they have become more twitterish and this is reflected in their new app.

You can have status updates similar to those on the new Windows Live Messenger. You can also blog and surf through your pages more easily. Furthermore, the app incorporates the ‘Pages’ idea which is to coax people to join FaceBook because of the celebrities on there – much like Twitter did…Hmmm.

This app is also really integrated with the iPhone’s call and text features. If you want to call or send a message to a friend you can do so right from your friends list on the FaceBook app rather than closing it and dialling from the phone’s interface.

As an app I think it’s really good but it’s obvious that Facebook are now trying to play Twitter’s game when it comes to status updates, celebrities, micro-blogging and the portability that comes with streamlined apps.

Meme will Challage Twitter in a World War

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:36:23 +0000

It appears as though Yahoo! may be the first real competitor to Twitter. Other companies such as Facebook have tried to draw people away from micro-blogging back to social networking. But there has been no real competition on the actual micro-blogging front.

A while back, Yahoo! stealthily rolled out Yahoo! Meme in the Portuguese language only. Nobody was all too sure why they did this because as business goes, you’re supposed to promote, promote, promote! Now their reasoning is clear.

It was a test. To see if it stood a chance without causing the company any embarrassment if it failed. They are now tackling Twitter on the global front by launching the micro-blogging platform in the second biggest language in the world; Spanish.

While people all over the world do use Twitter, studies have shown that services are received better by the public when they are tailored specifically to their needs – in this case their language.

While I can’t see Meme over running Twitter on the English servers I can see the new Yahoo! service picking up steam in South America, Mexico, West Africa and of course Spain.

I Can’t Believe it’s not Spotify!

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:52:52 +0000

Spotify is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing music and entertainment services on the internet today. And as with all good services they have decided that it’s time for more Apps. They recently announced that they would be releasing an App for android devices similar to those for the iPhones.

This would allow users to access their Spotify accounts easily from their android devices. However, they have a competitor.

“I can’t believe it’s not Spotify” has just launched and is taking on a lot of users as they wait for the official app to be released. It packs much of the same features as what we expect in the official version but lacks in one – offline playback. However, the developers say that this may come later if it continues to grow in popularity.

While I can’t see this app lasting as people tend to veer towards products with an official stamp on them, I can definitely see its use at the present. The developers deserve their time in the limelight because they plugged a gap in the market. But soon the official app will push them out with no really effort.

iLike – Soical Networking for Music Fans

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:53:07 +0000

We all like music. Rock, rap, R&B, metal, rave, trance. What ever your taste sometimes talking about music with other fans is really cool. Discussing favourite songs, artists, concerts or the industry news is what music fans do. iLike is a platform that allows you to do just that.

It’s is about to be purchased by the floundering MySpace – perhaps in some desperation to heal their wounds. Anyway, I’ll give you a quick run down on what iLike has to offer.

Firstly, it combines all of the great music facilities into one profile from across loads of different social networks such as Bebo, Hi5 and FaceBook. So instead of flying around all the different social networking sites to discuss music you can simply go to iLike.

They’re also in tune with the music scene with tons of news and song updates. iLike will also detect what city you’re in and inform you of upcoming concerts and festivals in your area.

And, as expected you can get songs their (well, iTunes). On the homepage there are free Mp3 songs from lesser-known artists that you can download for free. They also have popular songs that you can buy.

iLike also has different arrangements with many different singers and bands. For example, at the time of writing this article they were promoting Creed’s upcoming tour. The smaller things include loads of applications for download and cool pictures and videos for your enjoyment.

A great service for the chatty music fan.

All new Flickr Search

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:22:35 +0000

Flickr, owned and run by Yahoo is the YouTube of photography. If I ever fancied a change in wallpaper I’d go to Flickr and enter in phrases such as ’forest’ or ’ocean’. I would get back loads of professional photographs taken all over the world that looked stunning on my desktop. However, in getting those results I would always be annoyed at the amount of page surfing through the results I would have to do in order to find the right one. Scrolling down through the lot got on my nerves too.

Now, Flicker must have read one of my five million angry e-mails and changed how your search results are displayed. Instead of having a long list of images with all the information about it to the side such as name, photographer, tags and a description, everything has been streamlined.

The updated search results show a load of small images right the way across and down the screen with just the users name under it in small writing. This is a much better way of searching for images and way less stressful given the sheer amount of images on Flicker.

I am also very impressed with the quality of the thumb nails shown. With other services such as ‘Image Search’ on Yahoo! or Google the images are fuzzy and have tons of useless information surrounding them.

Regator Launch Their New iPhone Application

Steven Finch — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:44:28 +0000

Regator is a very popular news directory which profiles some of the best blog posts from all over the world on a variety of topics. The directory only profiles the Crème de la crème of sites and then only the best articles on those sites.

Today Regator is announcing the launch of their iPhone application. Features include:

·     Browse posts from over 500 topics as diverse as beekeeping, geology, indie music, pop culture, job hunting, or basketball.
·     Search Regator’s extensive archive, returning results that users have described as being consistently more relevant and higher quality than those returned by Google Blog Search.
·     View the most popular blog posts across the blogosphere or in your favorite topic.
·     See trends to get an up-to-the-minute, spam-free look at exactly what bloggers in any niche are writing about right now.
·     Keep up with the newest blog posts, updated every few seconds.
·     Read the full text of posts on the original source blog.
·     Share posts via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
·     Find more information on a story with Regator’s related posts feature.

China Internet Camp Kills Kid

Dean — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:41:49 +0000

One look at my Twitter account will prove that I like the old inter-web. I Tweet, Google, chat, play, surf and download. Am I addicted? No. On average I’d say I spend around 4-5 hours a day at my computer which isn’t bad for someone who makes a living as a writer. However, imagine if you or I were addicted to the internet and were beaten to death for it.

Deng Senshan was shipped off to a paramilitary style boot camp by his parents to cure his computer/internet addiction. These camps are notorious for treating teens harshly with physical and mental abuse. They have even been known to shock their young clients with high amounts of electricity as a punishment.

Upon arriving at the camp, Deng was placed into solitary confinement as though being addicted to the internet was illegal. Then, just days after arriving at the camp, instructors beat him to death because “he ran too slow”.

His family, who paid £600 to have him sent to the camp for a month are calling for the immediate closing of the camp. Three instructors who are taught to have killed Deng are being held by local police.

Internet and gaming addictions are becoming widespread in countries such as the US, UK and France, but loosing your life for it is wrong. I guess this story goes to show what living in China on a day to day basis is like where instructors are allowed to beat, shock and mentally torture kids.

News Alert: Twitter Down and Under Attack

Dean — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:21:41 +0000

As I write this post my tweet is still trying its hardest to do just that – tweet. No I haven’t gone crazy but Twitter is down and wounded. I look down through the other tweets of the people I’m following and their all saying the same thing – barely getting tweets through.One of my followers commented “that was a fun little time without Twitter”, not knowing that it was all still going on. One blogger at AwakenedVoice.com had foreseen this and reckons it’s down to the amount of third party apps relying on the system. “I think it is very likely that the future will yield a Twitter crash. This crash could be caused by any number of factors.

The Twitter infrastructure may become increasingly unreliable due to the volume of third party requests on the system. The crash could end up being a result of an altered Twitter API due to a change in architecture. Twitter might end up altering their terms of service, possibly in an attempt to make some money, thereby making some of these services unauthorized users. Twitter might be purchased by an entity that makes wholesale changes to all of the above. Or Twitter might end up failing and close down.” This may well hold water as another one of my followers, Emmzy_138 mentioned that TwitPic is also acting up.

The Twitter blog today recognized the problem and gave us a reason : Twitter is under attack. Here is what they said in what was a very short but tense post. “On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.” I will update this post as I get more information. Subscribe to Crenk here to stay informed.