Source : TechCrunch

There’s a new scam on Facebook promising to show you a video revealing the “truth” about Coca-Cola, but all it’s really after is your personal info.

The message reads: “I am part of the 98.0% of people that are NEVER gonna drink Coca Cola again after this HORRIFIC video,” followed by a link.

If you click on the link, you’ll be asked to share the video seven times. However, the counter doesn’t work, so eventually you’ll be tempted to click on a link that says “Cant Be Bothered To Wait? –> Click Here To Skip This.”

The second link takes you to a poll, which — you guessed it — is the central part of the scam. It asks you for personal information you should definitely not reveal to just anyone or any application.

As always, we advise you not to click on suspicious links, even if it comes from your Facebook friends who might have fallen for the scam. And under no circumstances should you give away your personal information, unless you’re absolutely sure why and who you’re giving it to.

[via Sophos]

Ethan Zuckerman is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

“The internet has not become the great leveller that it was once thought it could be,” according to Harvard academic Ethan Zuckerman.

Mr Zuckerman was speaking at the TED Global (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford.

He said that the web was now contrary to the original utopian vision and users focused on information from a handful of wealthy countries.

“It’s making us ‘imaginary cosmopolitans’,” he told delegates.

Social networks, he said, made the problem worse with the majority of people sharing information with folk who share their world-view.

“We think we’re getting a broad view of the world, because it’s possible that our television, newspapers and internet could be giving us a vastly wider picture than was available for our parents or grandparents,” he said.

“When we look at what’s actually happening, our world-view might actually be narrowing.”

Mr Zuckerman, an entrepreneur, blogger and researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said that it was his aim to change the situation and realise the original vision of the net.

Blinkered

He pointed to research that showed the focus of media organisations had also narrowed in recent years.

“When I was growing up in the US in the 1970s, 35-40% of an average nightly newscast focused on international stories,” he told the audience.

“The percentage of international news in an average newscast is now 12-15%.”

He said the internet – and its global reach and infrastructure – could address that gap, but many people chose not to engage.

“The promise of the internet – the idea that everything is just a click away – is that in Britain I can read newspapers from Australia, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Canada, at no cost and end up with a wider view of the world. The truth is that, on average, I won’t.”

On Twitter "oil spill" is a predominantly white topic.

And he saw the same pattern across the world.

For example, he said, most US news focused on North America and countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where its troops were based.

This problem is compounded by social networks, he said.

Tools like Twitter trap people in so-called “filter bubbles”, a phrase put forward by political activist Eli Pariser.

“The internet is too big to understand as a whole, so we get a picture of it that’s similar to what our friends see,” said Mr Zuckerman.

“If you turn to your friends, eventually you get the wisdom of the flock.”

True colours

He highlighted research done by Twitter, which found that almost a quarter of its US users were African-American

“That was pretty surprising to most American users, who assumed that Twitter was just used by nerdy white guys,” he said.

And research by scientists at tech giant IBM had shown that the popular topics of conversation between white users and African American users were very different, highlighting the fact that networks reinforced a certain world view.

For example, he said, cookout was a term mostly used by black twitter users, whilst oil spill was a predominantly white topic.

“The wider world is a click away, but whether we mean to or not, we’re usually filtering it out,” said Mr Zuckerman.

However, Mr Zuckerman said there were solutions that could realise the original vision of the internet and contribute to a greater understanding of the wider world.

Of particular help, he said, would be finding mechanisms to amplify the voices of thousands of bloggers, particularly those in countries under represented in mainstream media.

Crunch time

Mr Zuckerman admitted he had a particular interest in this, as he is one of the founders of a not-for profit network of bloggers called Global Voices, which aims to fill in the gaps in global media coverage.

The ongoing violence in Madagascar is not widely reported on.

These networks may be hidden from the wider world until times of crisis, he said.

For example, a network of Madagascan bloggers called Foko club, originally set up to teach high school students English suddenly rose to prominence in 2009 when the president of the country was overthrown and most media organisations were barred from the country.

“Foko were reporting breaking news with their blogs and cellphone cameras,” he said. “If we want a wider world, we’d find ways to raise voices in places we don’t often hear from, like Madagascar.”

He also highlighted a project in China called Yeeyan, which uses a network of 150,000 volunteers to translate and publish 50 to 100 articles each day from western publications, such as The New York Times

“Where’s the English-language version that’s giving us insights into what’s being said in Chinese media?” he asked.

However, he said, to truly realise the vision people needed curators to collect the content together and who bridged different cultures to put content into context.

These bridge figures and xenophiles could then act as “trusted guides” to unfamiliar content.

“My challenge is this: it’s not enough to make a personal decision that you want a wider world,” he said.

“We have to figure out how to rewire the systems we have. We have to fix our media, we have to fix the internet, we have to fix education.”

In addition, he said, the net needed new translation projects and tools along with new mechanisms for discovering content through serendipity.

“That’s what I am trying to do – I need your help,” he said.

TED Global runs from 13-16 July in Oxford, UK.

The iPhone4 was first released in early June

Apple has called a surprise news conference on 16 July at 1800 (BST) to talk about the iPhone 4 as the clamour for the company to resolve antenna problems with the new device intensified.

The company has refused to give details about whether the event will address reception problems that some users have reported with the phone, launched just last month.

Apple has faced mounting criticism from analysts and consumers over its handling of the issue.

Industry watchers said the firm was in danger of damaging its “rock star” reputation over how poorly it had dealt with what would normally be a minor problem.

“It seems there has been a real crisis of leadership here,” said Patrick Kereley, senior digital strategist for Levick Strategic Communications which deals in crisis managment and reputation protection.

“There are so many conflicting reports about this issue and a lot of confusion in the marketplace. They need a plan of attack. Today’s companies have to react quickly before chatter on Facebook or Twitter turns into news headlines as is the case here,” Mr Kereley told BBC News.

That was a view echoed by a number of other brand managers and industry analysts.

“They have not handled this well at all and they have turned this into a bigger problem than it needed to be,” said Van Baker, senior vice president of research at Gartner.

Escalating issue

Reports of problems with the iPhone 4′s antennas started surfacing shortly after the phone went on sale on June 24. At that time some users claimed the signal strength fell away and calls were dropped when they gripped the phone on the lower left side.

A number of videos were posted on the video sharing site YouTube complaining about the reception issue.

Days later an email that puported to have been sent by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs did the rounds after one user contacted him to find out if there was a fix for the problem.

BoyGeniusReport.com, an Apple blog, printed the transcript in which Mr Jobs emailed back “you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumours. Calm down”.

The authenticity of the exchange was never confirmed or denied by Apple but it lit a spark among critics and fans alike who marvelled at the tone.

“The arrogance of this email, true or not, escalated the problem for Apple when what they should have done was get out in front of the problem and said here is the deal,” said technology analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

On July 2, Apple issued a statement explaining that it was “surprised” by reports of reception problems and that an investigation found there was an error in the how the signals bars are displayed, rather than the signal itself.

The casing of Apple’s latest phone is made of stainless steel and also serves as its antenna.

Tests carried out this week by Consumer Reports confirmed a problem with the iPhone 4′s reception. In what was seen as a body blow to Apple, Consumer Reports said it could not recommend the phone to users.

Recall

In the last 48 hours the furore around the iPhone 4 antenna problem has snowballed.

There have been requests to have the phone recalled but that is seen as an very unlikely scenario given the damage that would cause to Apple’s bottom line and its reputation.

“Apple is probably one of the most important brands of the last 50 years,” said Olivier Blanchard, president of Brand Builder Marketing.

“They are rock stars in that sense and I believe that this fiasco with the iPhone 4 is an excuse to attack a company that is becoming such a giant. Five years ago when they were the underdog this would have been a non issue,” Mr Blanchard told BBC News.

Analysts have estimated a recall could cost as much as $1.5bn (£1bn) whereas the cost of issuing free rubber bumpers to aleviate the problem would be far cheaper at nearly $180m (£118m).

Despite the negative headlines, a number of analysts have reported that consumers are not turned off.

“So far, in our supply chain and industry checks, we have not seen any change in build plans or demand patterns and thus we are not changing our estimates looking for 7.5m iPhones in the June quarter and 40m in C2010,” said Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros.

“In fact, our sources indicate that Apple is still having difficulty keeping up with strong demand due to screen supply constraints. Should this antenna issue become a bigger deal, there could be a risk to iPhone estimates.”

10. Roku Player

We’ve been following along as TV is getting more social. Here’s one great device for tapping into that trend: the Roku Player taps into your queue from the increasingly socially-enabled Netflix, as well as from Amazon Video on Demand and MLB.com. It connects directly to your television set and delivers video content over the internet.

Plus, Roku has other partners planned for content delivery on its $99 set-top box. Social video site blip.tv has confirmed it’s working to get established as a channel on Roku, and a leaked screenshot provides strong evidence that YouTube is on the list of future partners as well. With at least 10 new partners planned before the end of this year, it will be exciting to see which services sign on for distribution via Roku.

9. Ooma Hub

Offering an interesting new business model for the home phone line, Ooma makes a hardware solution for voice over IP (VoIP) calling that you pay for once and then avoid monthly phone charges thereafter. Other VoIP services live Skype () and Vonage have stuck with the monthly subscription model, but Ooma essentially subsidizes your entire lifetime’s worth of calling through the purchase of the approximately $250 hardware.

Or at least, that portion of your lifetime during which Ooma is able to stay in business. Still, depending on how much you currently pay for home phone service you’re probably looking at breaking even in less than a year. On the flip side, as with other internet-based telephony solutions, you’re looking at downtime whenever your ISP is down. Ooma does offer integration service with an existing landline for just such emergencies, but then you’re still footing an extra bill for voice service.

As an alternative to other VoIP models, the Ooma is worth checking out. The reviews of the hardware itself have been generally favorable as well.

8. INQ Phones

UK-based INQ takes a unique approach to social networking integration on mobile devices. It offers several phones specifically designed to integrate with Facebook and Twitter .

Other phones let you access Facebook or Twitter of course, but the INQ phones are notable in part for not being smartphones — they’re designed more for the average user who doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of something like an iPhone, yet wants to be highly connected to their social networks on the go.

Some may decry the idea of a mobile phone being designed for such a singular purpose, but let’s remember that back in the day our phones were designed with truly one purpose in mind: to call people. In today’s world, “staying connected” involves more options than simply voice, and it makes sense that handset manufacturers would seek to cater to some of those methods without having to go whole hog and implement a full application platform on the device.

7. Squeezebox

Logitech has several offerings in their Squeezebox line of networked music players. In addition to your own music collection, you can listen to online music services like Rhapsody, Napster, Pandora , last.fm, Slacker and other internet radio.

What’s also cool about Squeezebox is you can link it with your last.fm account and scrobble the tracks you listen to. “Scrobbling” is last.fm’s lingo for sending the list of songs you play to your last.fm profile to be displayed and counted along with the rest of your music taste statistics.

6. Flip Mino

The Flip Mino line of pocket camcorders is designed with easy social video sharing in mind. The camera comes with pre-installed software called FlipShare that makes it dead easy to upload your videos to your favorite social video sites including YouTube , Myspace and AOL Video.

The Flip fits easily in the palm of your hand and connects to your computer via a retractable USB connector. There’s a standard and an HD version of the Flip, depending on what kind of quality level you desire for your video. If you’re interested in one-touch video uploads to the web, these little guys are definitely worth checking out.

]]> http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/top-10-gadgets-for-social-media-addicts/feed/ 1 Karanvir Singh Sangha roku ooma Skype inq-phone squeezebox-lastfm flip-mino http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/snow-leopard-whats-the-hurry-to-upgrade/ http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/snow-leopard-whats-the-hurry-to-upgrade/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:08:58 +0000 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://karansangha.wordpress.com/?p=322 ]]> With any systemwide upgrade, for some users, especially early adopters, things can and will go wrong. However, the new features and the chance for improved performance will always woo many to upgrade sooner rather than later. And Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard is no different than any other software upgrade.

Several recent posts show Snow Leopard’s promise and potential pitfalls.

Chuck Shotton, president of startup Concluent Systems, Monday morning sent out a pair of warning tweets:

Snow Leopard FAILS! Turned my MacBook Pro into Hellen Keller. No screen, mouse, keyboard, or audio. WTF!?!

Apparently MacBook Pro owners are victims of a cruel QA joke being played by Apple — “Psych! We never tested 10.6 with your machines!”

This doesn’t appear to be the widespread experience of upgraders. Still, it’s a good warning.

I always clone my system onto a bootable external drive just before installing any system update so that I can immediately restart holding down the Option key and select the older but more usable system from the Startup Manager. This is in addition to a Time Machine refresh. Depending on your system and applications and workflow, the older, wiser plain ol’ Leopard may be your friend.

On the other hand, Lloyd Chambers’ Macintosh Performance Guide for Digital Photographers & Performance Addicts blog offers the results of performance tests for Snow Leopard. The tested applications included Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Lightroom, Apple Aperture and D-studio’sHelicon Focus.

Running Leopard (10.5) takes 3 percent longer on the test than Snow Leopard/32, and 6 percent longer than Snow Leopard/64. The surprise here is that booting 64-bit Snow Leopard is faster; after all Photoshop CS4 is a 32-bit program. The difference suggests that the 64-bit Snow Leopard kernel is more efficient in general.

A difference of 6 percent might not sound like much, but Apple charges $500 more for a 2.93GHz Mac Pro Nehalem over a 2.66GHz model for a 10 percent speed difference. Think of it like a $300 speed upgrade for $25.

He points out that Adobe Lightroom users may want to check its prefs and make sure that the Open in 32-bit Mode setting is unchecked.

Here are some of his conclusions:

Snow Leopard booted into the 32-bit kernel is always faster than Leopard, with fair to substantial gains, depending on the application.

But Snow Leopard booted into the 64-bit kernel shows a consistent performance advantage over Leopard, and even more advantage over 32-bit Snow Leopard as well. Performance gains of up to 30% were observed, making Snow Leopard by far the best value for the money in a long, long time. At about $25 , you won’t find a more compelling upgrade of any kind, anywhere.

Apple’s decision to default Snow Leopard into 32-bit-kernel mode is a losing proposition for most photography related applications: boot into 64-bit mode if you don’t have any hardware/software that precludes it.

]]> http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/snow-leopard-whats-the-hurry-to-upgrade/feed/ 0 Karanvir Singh Sangha Snow Leopard http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/google-cracks-down-on-slow-gadgets/ http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/google-cracks-down-on-slow-gadgets/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:10:11 +0000 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://karansangha.wordpress.com/?p=320 ]]> Google has seen success in large part because of their attention to speed, reliability and quality of their services. Loading up the Google homepage is usually instantaneous, and searching through their gigantic web index takes a fraction of a second.

Unfortunately for Google, they don’t have as much control over their own speed and user experience as they once did. The problem is that Google lets third party developers create applications (called Gadgets), which are often poorly programmed.

The solution: To pass out “badges” that identify slow gadgets — likely putting the brakes on people wanting to install them. Fast gadgets will continue to see business as usual, which Google hopes will be enough of an incentive for developers to create gadgets that meet their speed guidelines.

]]> http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/google-cracks-down-on-slow-gadgets/feed/ 0 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/wired-has-a-robot-that-serves-beer/ http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/wired-has-a-robot-that-serves-beer/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:29:47 +0000 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://karansangha.wordpress.com/?p=315 ]]> Free beer, and robots.

Think about those two concepts for more than a second, and you’re already asking when, where, and how many.

Imagine a kegerator that looks like an iPhone. And there is high-quality, San Francisco-brewed beer inside. And the Wired logo is on it. When Scott Beale announced this event, I knew I had to go and at least take pictures.

The representative from Wired said the robot will soon have live-video streaming abilities, along side a Twitter account that gives updates about how much beer is left in the keg.

Why would you not want to be friends with @beerrobot?

]]> http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/wired-has-a-robot-that-serves-beer/feed/ 1 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/spotify-redefines-streaming-music/ http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/spotify-redefines-streaming-music/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:22:24 +0000 Karanvir Singh Sangha http://karansangha.wordpress.com/?p=309 ]]> Listening to music online has proven to be pretty easy these days. Last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody, Slacker, the list goes on. There are tons of services, but they only give you a taste. You can’t really just search for artists, find the songs you want, and listen to them.

Last and Pandora discover music for you, but not every song is available. Rhapsody has the right idea, but I’m not a big fan of their interface.

Enter Spotify. It’s not web-based, it’s an app you download.

ou download it, search for an artist, and voila. You’re listening to your favorite songs before you know it. Spotify is fast, easy, fun. I think it’s from the future.

In fact, if you are in US, you don’t have access to Spotify yet. They still need to work out some licensing deals.

One of the features that separates Spotify from the other streaming music services is the ability to share assets with other users.

You can drag and drop any track, album, artist or playlist to your email or instant messenger which creates a link anyone with Spotify can click on. Each song has a unique URI in this format:

http://open.spotify.com/track/4675yUu8AUbE72T94BkLCD

Spotify also does collaborative playlists, so you and your friends can make the ultimate mix.

I love searching by genre. You can really narrow it down, even by era:

There really isn’t that much more to say about it besides that it’s awesome. I can’t stop using it. I can’t even remember the last time I opened iTunes.

]]> http://techkaran.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/spotify-redefines-streaming-music/feed/ 0 Karanvir Singh Sangha Spotify logo