A Google search for ‘Define An English Person’ produces the C-Word – Germans are ‘Evil Nazis’

IF you type “Define an English person” into the Google search engine you get the result for the Wikipedia page for “C*NT”.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, February 2012 | In: Technology | Comments (2)

Facebook artists earns milllions – praise be Mark Zuckerberg

ARE we all about to hate Facebook, the 1% that aims to own information on the 100%? If a Government wanted to harvest data like Facebook does, there would a huge row. Yet we give it to Facebook and Google willingly.

Nell Jensen writes:

Facebook just released its first-ever official financial numbers as part of its filing to go public, and they’re very impressive. One billion dollars in annual profit impressive. Also: Much of humankind is hopelessly addicted to Facebook. Facebook tallied $1 billion in profit last year on $3.7 billion in revenue, revenue that has been roughly doubling for each of the past two years. The company ended 2011 with $3.9 billion in cash

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, February 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Breading is a meme – photos of wheat tolerant cats

BREADING is the newest internet meme. The idea is simple: you place a splice of bread around your cat’s next or ruff, take a photo and upload it on the web. It’s a good way to test if you cat is wheat intolerant. Look how much he loves it:

breading-1

Image 1 of 18

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, February 2012 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment

The Rosat satellite, World War 3 and Daily Mail plagiarism

DID you know that Beijing, China, was “seven minutes from destruction’ when a 2.5 ton satellite crashed to Earth at 300mph“?

Allan Hall and Katie Silver have facts in the Daily Mail:

Seven minutes saved huge areas of Beijing from destruction last year when a 2.5 ton satellite hurtled towards earth, it has been revealed.

The Roentgen Satellite (Rosat) re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere between 01:45 and 02:15 GMT on October 23, 2011.

The Chinese capital was directly in the flight path of Germany’s research satellite Rosat when it plunged into the Bay of Bengal last October, two decades after it’s launch. The consequences of chunks of the 2.5 ton satellite falling into the city would have been catastrophic; huge craters, shattered fuel lines, explosions, wrecked buildings and untold human casualties…

Anorak

Posted: 31st, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Goodnight Captcha – a bedtime story made from website register words

CAPTCHA – those words you need to work out that appear on website register forms –  has been turned into a story. It’s a nice idea…

Captcha from Gabrielle de Vietri on Vimeo.

Spotter: Gabrielle de Vietri

Anorak

Posted: 29th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comments (6)

Libel and censorship on t’Internet – 190 countries control your words

LIBEL and censorship on the internet is big news. This new move by Twitter tells us something that most people don’t realise about this lovely playground that is the internet:

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced on Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter’s commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or tweets, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Worstall

Posted: 27th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

European Commission gives Facebook and Google users ‘right to be forgotten’

THANKS to the European Commission, you can be non-person on the internet. You can force the like of Google and Facebook to delete all and any information they hold on you.

The European Commission says we all have the “right to be forgotten”.

You will also have the “right of data portability” — being able to move all info on social network to another network.

Thank to Sony’s six-day delay in telling customers on its PlayStation gaming network that hackers had stolen their personal data, all companies will have 24 hours to inform their punters of any security breach. Break those rules and risk being fined 2 per cent of a company’s turnover.

Anorak

Posted: 25th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Robot babies are coming to get you ( video)

ROBOT babies are coming to get you. He’s got his mother’s eye… his father left arm… grandma’s liver…

Sleep tight…

Spotter: mefi, the Daily What

Anorak

Posted: 24th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Anonyupload.com will not help Megaupload users get their ‘stolen’ property back

MEGAUPLOAD.Com, the file-sharing website registered in Hong Kong, is closed by the FBI and its multi-millionaire founder, Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Schmitz), arrested by the FBI and the Organised and Financial Crime Agency New Zealand in the panic room at his New Zealand mansion on his 38th birday.

Kim Dotcom is not a US citizen. He holds residency in New Zealand, Finland and Germany.

Kim Dotcom was honest with the Kiwi authorities and passed the good character and health requirements for New Zealand residency.

New Zealand’s Dominion Post newspaper reports that Kim Dotcom was given residency in 2010 under the investor plus category, which requires an investment of at least NZ$10million in New Zealand. Dotcom invested in Government bonds.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, January 2012 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment (1)

Anorak hit by DoS attack – Madonna fans go wild

ANORAK has been smashed about by today’s DoS attack. When it ended, we gelt good. We felt like Madonna had won two Golden Globes…

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment (1)

Kim Dotcom refused bail: Megaupload founder banned from bedroom swimming pool (photos)

MEGAUPLOAD.COM is dead. The owner of the Hong-Kong-based file-sharing website, Kim Dotcom ( formerly Kim Schmitz), is in a New Zealand jail. The FBI accuses the 38-year-old multi-millionaire of internet piracy, criminal copyright, infringement and conspiracy to commit racketeering money laundering. The FBI alleges Megaupload defrauded the entertainment industry of $500m. Kim Dotcom was arrested at his NZ$30 million (£15 million) 25,000-square-foot rented mansion in Auckland last Friday. He was hiding in a metal-cased panic room and had to be cut out.

The mansion boasts a heated pool just off the master ensuite filled with imported spring water. The place has about seven 60-inch television screens – each with its own X-box and luxury, recliner chair.

Police seized $4.8 million worth of cars at Doctom Mansion, with license plates like “GUILTY,” “MAFIA”, “POLICE” and “STONED.”

Anne Toohey, the New Zealand crown prosecutor, put it to the North Shore court in Auckland that Mr Dotcom represented a a flight risk “at the extreme end of the scale”. Given his access to big money, cars, boats, aircraft and multiple aliases (Schmitz, Vestor and Dotcom), the chance that he would abscond seems high. Kim Dotcom’s lawyer, Paul Davison, said his client was no risk. He noted that Kim Dotcom’s assets have been frozen and his passport confiscated.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, January 2012 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment

SOPA and PIPA: When lending is a thought crime and theft is ok

THE Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are not universally popular. Neither SOPA nor PIPA are all that close to be cemented in law. Right now they look like bad Bills that seek to turn us – the consumers – into thieves who need to prove our innocence.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are a response to lobbying by the entertainment industries upset at websites publishing their content for free. The Bills seek to kill file sharing sites that push content illegally. Offline this is called fencing stolen goods. Should the online world be different to the offline world? Is freedom of information on the internet something else, to cherish and foster? But can’t you pass on a book or magazine you bought or a DVD you rented to a friend? Can you download a song from a cousin’s collection? Is that theft?

One other thing: if you look at a photograph of a naked child in a book on a shelf have you downloaded it, like a paedophile? Are you a thief for downloading a song, or for listening to one on a friend’s player? Is the unique thing about the internt that it leaves an evidence trail? If you heard or saw what you did not pay for – what was shared – have you committed a thought crime? If you are a creator and some part of that shared song or book affected your thinking, are you a thief who needs to pay royalties to your inspiration?

But that is not all. The Bills would make it illegal for any US-based internet service providers, advertisers and payment processors from working with the outlawed sites – even if they are based abroad.

Wikipedia went dark in protest – but left the SOPA page remained live:

“The court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.”

Anorak

Posted: 19th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

How to read Wikipedia during the SOPA live blog blackout

WANT to read Wikipedia during the 24-hour online protest against the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)?

The BBC advises accessing non-English Wikipedia pages and using Google Translate to make your work easier to fake.

Anorak

Posted: 18th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Rupert Murdoch attacks morality of Stop Online Piracy Act

RUPERT Murdoch has used his new Twitter account to slam the White House and Google over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)  the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA?) and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). (Is the acronym decided upon before the words that explain it?)

Murdoch says Google of a friend to the film pirates, calling the web giant a “piracy leader”.

Murdoch tweeted about his online search for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol:

“Google great company doing many exciting things. Only one complaint, and it’s important. Just been to google search for mission impossible. Wow, several sites offering free links. I rest my case.”

Anorak

Posted: 15th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

The Page Turner: Joseph Herscher’s machine makes reading easier

NEWSPAPERS and magazines are such hard work to read. Thankfully, Joseph Herscher has a machine that can turn your pages with no effort at all. Get me the Page Turner:

Anorak

Posted: 15th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

will.i.am introduces the Intel Ultrabook Project and the cool kids laugh

WILL.I .AM, of the Black Eyed Peas, is shilling for Intel. Will.i.am is “Intel’s director of creative innovation”. It’s the kind of corporate bollocks that will have the cool kids drooling – and the saps rushing out to buy what will.i.am’s got. Here’s will.i.am holding his “cool” Intel Ultrabook at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at The Venitian, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Anorak

Posted: 12th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

The suit that helps you play tennis like Nadal

Want to analyse your body movements so you can run as fast as Theo Walcott or play tennis like Roger Federer?

Over at the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas they have just the gadget for you. Designed by a company called STMicroelectronics NV is smart-suit prototype with motion sensors which is designed to help people recover from injuries quicker or improve their co-ordination if they are suffering from conditions like Parkinson’s Disease.

The other part though is that it will also enable athletes to closely study their movement and learn how to perform to higher standards.

Anorak

Posted: 10th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

When Julia Cross met ‘Martin’, Martin ran from twitter, Facebook and Ibiza

ARE you ‘Martin’, the man who snogged Julia Cross, a 33-year-old PR consultant from London? If you are the Martin who kissed Miss cross in Ibiza, we have one word of advice: run!

In what will be one of the most exscrutiating articles of 2012, the London Evening Standard writes:

Friends of a PR consultant have started a nationwide hunt to find her holiday love.

Martin from Tooting, who “works in Camden as a software developer“, is being hunted down by PRs from the Chandler Chicco agency. They’ve created an email called Finding Martin and campaigns on Facebook and Twitter.

Miss Cross, from Clapham, might be work of parody (see photo). Says she:

“It was a really brilliant holiday and I can’t believe it but am hugely flattered that my friends are going to such extreme measures with this campaign.”

Julia’s colleague Samina Deen adds:

“For the last three months Julia has been regaling us with this story of how she met Martin, and all the ‘what ifs?’ It started off as a bit of a joke. We Googled him, searched LinkedIn and even started drinking in pubs in Tooting hoping to spot him. But then we began talking about the fact that it is a small world and friends may be connected to other friends. We decided that if we really put our minds to it we could probably track him down.”

The best line is:

She said Ms Cross had given Martin her telephone number but believes she got the digits wrong.

Anorak

Posted: 6th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Ed Miliband look alike Shereef Abdallah upsets the twitter police

SHEREEF Abdallah is the pro Ed Miliband lookalike and scourge of twitter. The JC says Shaereef Abdallah once worked as a volunteer at Labour MP Glenda Jackson’s office and blogged for the Young Fabians, a Labour Party affiliate group.

Abdallah has been, allegedly, aiming his tweets at a British Israeli woman named “Rachel”. She had upbraided Shareef for his description of his online critics as “Nazis”.

Abdallah, or a tweeter using that name, wrote:

“I will hunt you down & fight you min by min. hr by hr. day by day. wk by wk. month by month. year by year for the rest of yr life.”

But will he make time to tweet?

He then made “a promise” to beat her up.

“I WILL BEAT YOU TO DEATH… R.I.P; THIS IS NOT A THREAT… THAT IS A PROMISE.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment

Floren Blake born five years after her win Reuben

FLOREN Blake was born five years after her twin brother Reuben. Floren and Reuben Blake were conceived from the same batch of five embryos created by their parents Simon and Jody Blake.

Reuben was born on December 9 2006.

The Blakes wanted another child, so they used the remaining three frozen embryos.

Floren was born on November 16 2011.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, January 2012 | In: Technology | Comment (1)

Teach your iPhone4 S to swear like John Terry

THE iPhone 4S has told Charlie Le Quesne: “Shut the f*ck up, you ugly t*at.”

Charlie Le Quesne is 12. He was playing with the iPhone 4s with its voice technology in a branch of TEsco in Coventry. He asked it: “How many people are there in the world?”

The answer was unusual.

The story prompts two questions:

Was the iPhone S set in John Terry Mode and actually said, “Oi, Charlie, do you think I told you ‘Shut the fu*k up you ugly twat?“?

And was Charlie shocked or delighted?

Anorak

Posted: 31st, December 2011 | In: Technology | Comment

Illegal Things Are Illegal on Facebook and Twitter

THIS might come as a surprise to some or even many, but things that are illegal in the real world are also illegal on Facebook and other social media.

Yes, even Twitter.

More than half of Facebook and Twitter users could be routinely risking prosecution according to research exposing mass ignorance of basic legal dangers among internet enthusiasts.

It’s not just the two dingbats who got jailed for trying to organise riots on Facebook. One MP has been reprimanded (but as she’s a Labour MP she should of course have been jailed pour encourager….well, no, just becvause she’s a Lab MP really) for Twittering from an election count and I’m sure that more than one person has had an angry word or two with a judge as they are told off for doing so from inside a court room.

Tim Worstall

Posted: 28th, December 2011 | In: Technology | Comment

Stan Collymore, Emma West and the twitter narks

STAN Collymore, formerly of Liverpool, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and Southend United, has been receiving lots of abuse for his opinions on the Luis Suarez racism affair. Collymore has been re-tweeting racist abuse aimed at him and Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, the footballer racially abused by Suarez.

The tweets are sad, pathetic, weak and deranged. You can read a load of them over @StanCollymore.

Of course, anyone who has ever been on twitter knows that bitchiness, nastiness, vanity and threats are a big part of what twitter does. The same process that allows the right-minded tweeter to call for Emma West to be raped and murdered for behaving horribly and unusually on a London tram also allows Collymore to be called a ‘nigger’ and worse.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, December 2011 | In: Technology | Comment

Luluvise: Girls Just Wanna Have Their Own Social Networking Site?

ALL women really want to do is gossip, talk fashion and discuss boys – and they want to do so in a safe space, sheltered from men who can easily hurt their feelings.

Or at least that’s the premise of Britain’s latest start-up, social networking site Luluvise, which is a kind of girls-only Facebook. That this initiative is described as “empowering” for women shows what a skewed idea some ladies have of feminism these days. Because Luluvise promotes the most reductive, trite notion of womanhood: that females are sensitive creatures in need of protection, and that what they like most is talking about feelings, clothes and relationships.

It all started two years ago, when Luluvise founder Alexandra Chong, a former member of Jamaica’s Olympic tennis team, had a Valentine’s Day story she wanted to share with her girlfriends but didn’t feel comfortable posting on Facebook. Neither did she want to go through the hassle of contacting all her female friends individually. So she came up with the idea of creating a ladies-only social networking site.

Luluvise may be targeted at women aged 18 to 35, but the behaviour it encourages is hardly mature. Instead, the site comes across as a silly, wannabe combo of Sex and the City and High School Musical. Luluvise users first create an “Inner Circle”, which is accessible only to selected girlfriends – or, as Luluvise puts it, “BFFS”, Best Friends Forever. Users can then start sharing “news, gossip and scandals” with their BFFS, using four different tools: text scoop, photo scoop, poll scoop and the WikiDate scoop. The last one is a tool for rating men and the overall scores they receive are made public. Users can also flag up their scoops with an OMG tag (for juicy news) or an SOS tag (for urgent news).

Nathalie Rothschild

Posted: 14th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Technology | Comments (3)

Web Censor Stephen Conroy Swears On The Web: Ban The Bansturbator

SENATOR Senator Stephen Conroy, Australia’s British-born Minister for Communications, tells the country’s National Press Club in Canberra:

“I love the debate about sovereign risk,” he said. “If a tax goes up, God, that is sovereign risk. But if a tax goes down, f*cking fantastic.”

Conroy is the man who want to censor the web. As he said:

“Most Australians acknowledge that there is some internet material which is not acceptable in any civilised society. It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material.”

Anorak

Posted: 14th, December 2011 | In: Technology | Comment