Yahoo, Microsoft scoff at Google Buzz

Google's fired another salvo in its quest to rule the Internet space. The company launched Google Buzz that brings social networking right into users mail boxes (Gmail) and takes on social networking giants Facebook and Twitter right on their turf.

Though the verdict is still not out if Google Buzz will be able to usurp users from Facebook and other social networks, Google's rival seem little impressed by Google's new launch.

Just minutes after Google unveiled Google Buzz, both Yahoo and Microsoft said that they have been running a similar service for years.

"Busy people don't want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation," Microsoft said in a statement. "We've done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008."

Yahoo tweeted a similar scoff.

"Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/"

Gmail adding features to rival Facebook

Google is gearing up to give serious competition to Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites. The search giant's free email service Gmail is reportedly planning to make Gmail more social by allowing users to exchange status updates with friends and share Web content links.

According to a report in Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the change will add a module to the Gmail screen that will display a stream of updates from individuals a user chooses to connect with.

These status updates are expected to eventually include content shared by a users' Google contacts through other Google properties, such as YouTube and Picasa.

Presently, Gmail users can only post a brief message about their status through its Chat system, which is linked to Gmail.

Last year, Yahoo too added a similar feature to its mail allowing users to see if their friends have uploaded a photo or put a new staus message.

Gmail has been trying to integrate social features in various ways. Google users can chat via Jabber or AIM, make video calls, and send SMS messages from Gmail's web interface.

A report in Financial Times says that Google will soon be holding a press conference at its Mountain View, California, office to show off the new features.

Google is still far and away the No. 1 most-visited website, with 173 million US visitors in December, according to measurement service ComScore Media Metrix, up 16% from the previous December. But Facebook is close behind. The social network was the fourth-most-visited site in December, with 111.8 million visitors, up 105% from the prior year.

Sun CEO's last tweet

In a tweeted goodbye, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems bowed out with a haiku.

Jonathan Schwartz's haiku on Twitter reads as follows: "Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more."

Within Twitter's 140-character limit, Schwartz tells his followers on Thursday that it's his last day at Sun. And that he'll miss it.

He had been expected to leave after Oracle Corp. closed its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. on Jan. 27.

Schwartz's following on Twitter swelled by at least 1,000 Thursday, to some 9,000, on the day of his post. Oracle declined to comment or confirm that Schwartz resigned.

Schwartz has been an avid blogger, and in 2006 asked federal regulators to allow companies to disclose significant financial information through blogs.

Twitter blocked in China?

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams today said he had been told that his microblogging service has been partially blocked in China but had no confirmation.

"That's what I've been told," he said, adding that he had "heard reports on that" but that the company did not have direct confirmation.

Williams said that China can use a firewall to block access to the service.

"There are ways for users to get around it, but I'm not an expert on that," he said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

When asked about media reports that Twitter was developing ways to get around the firewall, Williams said he had been "misquoted."

"We're not actively developing any way to get around it," he said, although he stressed that "we're for the free exchange of information."

Asked if his company had noticed any cyber attacks, such as those launched against search engine giant Google from China, he said that no such moves had been detected.

Astronaut sends first 'tweet' from space

An American astronaut sent the first "tweet" from space on Friday after getting a personal Web connection on the International Space Station.

Timothy "TJ" Creamer, a NASA flight engineer, sent the Twitter message from his @Astro_TJ account.

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send yours," Creamer wrote.

NASA said Creamer was the first astronaut to send an "unassisted" Twitter message from space.

Previous "tweets" from space were actually sent by astronauts by email to the ground and support personnel posted them to their Twitter account.

The US space agency said Creamer was able to use Twitter directly because a software upgrade this week gave astronauts aboard the space station personal access to the Internet via what NASA called the "ultimate wireless connection."

The new communication system gives astronauts access to the Web and will provide them with "direct private communications to enhance their quality of life during long-duration missions," NASA said.

Two other astronauts aboard the space station, commander Jeff Williams and Soichi Noguchi of Japan, also have a Twitter account at @NASA_Astronauts.

iPhone Worm Creator Hired as Developer

Just like Michael 'Mikeyy' Mooney, the Twitter Worm creator got lucky by getting hired, now first jailbroken iPhone worm creator Ashley Towns aka "ike_x" got a job as iPhone Developer. Recently, Towns had alarmed the jailbroken iPhone owners with first iPhone worm. The first worm created by exploiting the loop hole in iPhone OS surely grabbed attention of employers.

 (image courtesy: Sophos Blog)

Ashley Towns aka ikeeex on Twitter tweeted that he got a job as iPhone Developer. Graham Cluley, security analyst at Sophos Labs, once again criticized this development just like he did in Mooney's case. Cluley pointed out, in the blog post, that the first iPhone worm lead to creation of a new dangerous worm that steals financial information from iPhones and iPod Touch.

Towns will be joining Mogeneration, an iPhone App development company based in Australia.

It is indeed surprising to see the overnight hiring of the worm creator whose prank must've bothered thousands. These young folks exploit the loopholes in the codes of websites or software and then grab attention. And now, with Town getting hired, several other teenagers may get into such nefarious activities to get money or to be hired by some development company.

Not always one can expect to be rewarded for pointing a loophole and high chances of getting behind bars always exist. Finding and reporting loopholes should be encouraged by companies of the affected product rather than letting some third party reap its benefits.

Naming the Coolest Technologies

Pentium

When Intel had developed the successor to the i486 and was getting ready for its launch, they had the name i586 in mind for the new processor. Intel wanted to trademark this name because of competitors using similar names with the numbers (such as Am486 from AMD), but US courts would not allow numbers as trademarks. Intel asked Lexicon Branding to create a brand that could be trademarked for their new processors. The name Pentium was suggested as it contained "Pente" meaning five in Greek and "ium" which is the Latin ending for neutral nouns.

Walkman

Who doesn't know about the Walkman? Ever since the first one was launched in 1979, the name has become synonymous to a personal stereo player. The device was designed by Sony audio division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his transatlantic plane trips. The name Walkman expresses the freedom to listen to music while walking down the street. Although it was marketed as Walkman only in Japan, it was known as Soundabout in many countries including US, Freestyle in Sweden and Stowaway in the UK. The name Walkman eventually was found to be more popular and hence the other two names were dropped.

iPod

While the development of Apple's MP3 player was in progress, Steve Jobs expressed his vision of the MP3 player as a hub to other gadgets. Freelancer copywriter Vinnie Chieco, whom Apple had hired to help arrive at a name, brainstormed hubs of all kinds and eventually decided to come up with something related to spaceships, where you can leave it for some time, but will have to eventually return to refuel. The plastic front of the prototype MP3 player inspired him with the word "pod", while the 'i' gives it the Mac connection. The MP3 player was thus christened iPod.

BlackBerry

In 2001, Canadian company Research In Mobile asked Lexicon Branding to give a name for its new e-mail device. Research suggests that the word "e-mail" can increase your blood pressure, so the consultancy asked RIMs founder to distance the name of this new device from that word. Rather, they tried to come up with a word for a name to evoke feelings of joy and peace. Just then, someone made a comment that the keys on the device looked like seeds, which got Lexicon team to search for words such as melon, strawberry and various other vegetables. Finally, they arrived at 'BlackBerry', which is a word that is both pleasing as well as brought up the black colour of the device.

Android

As you may already know, Android is Google's newest operating system for mobile devices with Open Handset Alliance supporting this platform. But do you know how it got its name? When work started on this project in 2005, Google quietly acquired a mysterious startup named Android Inc. According to the BusinessWeek, this startup had been working under "a cloak of secrecy" on "making software for mobile phones". Leaked news and internet hype combined with Google's secrecy resulted into the name "Android" getting stuck to this.

Firefox

Mozilla did have its share of problems naming its famous browser. An early version of Mozilla's browser was called Firebird, but since that name was already being used by another open-source project, the browser was named Firefox instead. Firefox is another name for red panda. When asked why this browser was named so, the reply of Mozilla elders was, "It's easy to remember. It sounds good. It's unique. We like it."

Twitter

The only thing that came to cofounder Biz Stone's mind when he saw the application created by Jack Dorsey in 2006 was the way birds communicate - "Short bursts of information...Everyone is chirping, having a good time." Stone responded by "twttr" and they eventually added a few vowels to come to "Twitter". Thus, what started as being described as merely trivial bursts of bird communication, has become one of the most popular and powerful means of social networking, news, etc. You can now find "Follow on Twitter" links on practically every website today.

ThinkPad

The highly reliable and respected lineup of notebook computers from IBM was launched in 1992. But before they could launch it, they just could not come up with a name to give it. While the pen-computing group of IBM wanted to keep it simple and thought about ThinkPad, the corporate naming committee didn't like it. IBM products always had a number in the name and they wanted to carry on that tradition with this new notebook range. Also, they wondered how the word ThinkPad would translate into other languages. "ThinkPad" eventually won due to the clout of the IBMer who unveiled it and went on to become a huge hit.

Windows 7

There was a whole lot of speculation as to what the newest iteration of Windows will be named as. Windows Vista has been disappointing for Microsoft, so they did not want to go with any similar naming convention. Meanwhile, Windows releases preceded by a numeral have done remarkably well. The reason can be anything, but the name became clear when Microsoft's Mike Nash announced, "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore 'Windows 7' just makes sense." As has been seen thus far, this is probably on its way to become the most successful OS from Microsoft since a long time.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle is arguably the device that revolutionized the way e-books are read. Kindle was named by a husband and wife team of designers from San Francisco, Michael Cronan and Karen Hibma. Cronan was asked by Lab126 - an Amazon.com company, to name this device. According to Hibma, Michael came up with the name through the usual practice of exploring the depths of what the potential of the new product could be and how the company would like to present it.

Hibma says, "We didn't want it to be 'techie' or trite, and we wanted it to be memorable, and meaningful in many ways of expression, from 'I love curling up with my Kindle to read a new book' to 'When I'm stuck in the airport or in line, I can Kindle my newspaper, favorite blogs or half a dozen books I'm reading." Kindle means to burn or set alight, to arouse or be aroused, or to make or become bright. It has its roots in the Old Norse word kyndill, meaning candle.

Hibma says, "From Voltaire: 'The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all'."

       

Hackers cripple popular social-networking sites Facebook and Twitter

Twitter and Facebook suffered service problems from hacker attacks on Thursday, raising speculation about a coordinated campaign against the world's most popular online social networks.

The attacks, which came a month after the White House website was targeted in a similar online assault, left millions unable to carry out daily routines that have assumed an increasingly central part of their lives.

The incidents also underscored the vulnerability of fast-growing Internet social networking sites that have been heralded as powerful new political tools to counter censorship and authoritarianism.

Twitter, which allows people to broadcast short, 140-character text messages over the Internet, became a key form of communication in Iran amid the protests and clampdown that followed the country's disputed June elections.

In a blog post on Thursday, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the company preferred not to speculate about the motivation of the malicious attack that knocked the site offline and made it inaccessible for several hours earlier in the day.

"Twitter has been working closely with other companies and services affected by what appears to be a single, massively coordinated attack," said Stone.

Members of Facebook, the world's largest Internet social network with more than 250 million active users, saw delays logging in and posting to their online profiles. Like Twitter, Facebook said the problems appeared to stem from a so-called denial of service attack, a technique in which hackers overwhelm a website's servers with communications requests.

Once access to Twitter had been restored, many of the site's users posted short messages lamenting the disturbance.

"now I know Im addicted to Twitter...I wasnt rite all day," Twitter user hotlilNINA posted.

Speculation swirled on the Internet that other sites, including Google, had also come under attack, after relatively lesser-known site LiveJournal said it, too, had been targeted by hackers on Thursday. But those rumors could not be confirmed.

Google said in an emailed statement that it was in contact with some non-Google sites that were impacted by Thursday's attacks to help investigate.

"Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services," the statement said.

Anti-social attacks
Motives for denial-of-service attacks range from political to rabble-rousing to extortion, with criminal groups increasingly threatening to hobble popular websites that don't pay demanded fees, according to security experts.

In July a wave of similar attacks disrupted access to several high-profile U.S. and South Korean websites, including the White House site. South Korea's spy agency said at the time that North Korea might have been behind the attacks.

Twitter's newfound fame makes it an easy target for hackers, said Steve Gibson, the president of Internet security research firm Gibson Research Corp.

The number of worldwide unique visitors to the Twitter website reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-over- year, according to comScore data.

Security experts said a single group could have been behind the problems on Twitter, Facebook and the other sites as hackers evolve their ability to attack multiple sites at once.

"History would tell us that it's probably the same attacker or group of attackers that is launching both attacks," said Kevin Prince, the chief technology officer of security services provider Perimeter eSecurity.

While there are ways for websites to protect themselves from denial of service attacks, Prince said the defenses were expensive, whereas mounting an attack was a relatively simple feat for hackers.

Twitter said in a blog post later on Thursday that its site was back up, though it said certain users would experience degraded service while it recovers completely.

Some Twitter users appeared to be taking the incident in stride.

"It's just an annoyance. Remember Twitter was down in 2007 and 2008 all the time," said Robert Scobble, a commentator on the technology industry who boasts 93,000 "followers" on Twitter, referring to a period when Twitter's rapid traffic growth occasionally led to several service disruptions.

For lawyer Zabi Nowald, it was just another day -- Twitter or no Twitter -- as he headed to work in downtown Los Angeles with a laptop in one hand and a Blackberry in the other.

"None of my friends do Twitter; none of my employers do," said Nowald, 27. "It affects my life zero. I lost something I never had."