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By Alan, on January 27th, 2012
 Most consumers who sign up for an online service, subscribe to a website or even buy something on the internet will have been asked to confirm that they have read the company’s “Terms and Conditions”. Pages and pages of boring, incomprehensible legal language are usually disregarded in favour of ticking the “yes” box and quickly moving on.
One retail company even decided to see how many people would actually notice if they slipped a prank condition into their “Terms and Conditions” and subsequently ended up with over 7,000 customers promising to hand over their souls.
Now Google, which as the owner of dozens of online companies and has to deal with several different sets of Ts&Cs, has decided it wants to do something to make these legal promises easier to understand, by creating one, much shorter set which covers all of its internet enterprises.
Already concerns have been expressed about privacy issues, with some campaigners worried that if users are signed up to two or three Google companies under one universal legal agreement then that will allow the different services to share information such as address books and private data.
However, European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding is confident that Google’s plans to simplify their Ts&Cs will not cause any such problems and praised the company for its firm stance on internet privacy issues. Ms Reding is already planning new EU laws on internet data, but in the meantime, users themselves are responsible for making sure their information is kept safe and secure, even though few are likely to go as far as reading terms and conditions in great detail.
Google has also come under fire recently when it was revealed that results from its search engine were placing hits from its own Google+ social networking site at the top of the list. Many users don’t even realise this is happening or that the function can be turned off in order to carry out a more accurate and comprehensive search.
By Alan, on January 25th, 2012
 Last week, the file sharing service Megaupload was shut down and several arrests were made of its key people. Since the take down, another company offering a similar service, FileSonic has also stopped users from file sharing.
The website Reddit reported that the company had shut down its file sharing capabilities and deleted a large number of files stored on their servers. It has also been announced that they are looking at ways for blocking IP addresses located in the United States.
On the home page there is a banner that states, “File sharing on this website has been disabled. You are now only able to retrieve files that you have uploaded yourself.” The site is regarded as one of the biggest file sharing sites on the web and there are about 250 million page views of the website each month.
One of the best-known cyber locker services is RapidShare and they have commented that they will not be shutting down their service because file sharing is not against the law. The company stated that they are very careful to make sure that there is no material breaching copyright laws on their servers.
The idea behind all of these websites is that they are a way for people to share files that exceed the limits that can be experienced when sending attachments by e-mail. They are used regularly for legitimate purposes but they are also a way for people to download pirated material without the risk of being monitored by their ISP or the rights holders of the material.
By Alan, on January 18th, 2012
 The social networking site Facebook has broken the news that they will be putting adverts in the home news feeds of its users. These adverts will be quite surreptitious, as other than the two little words ‘featured content’ at the bottom of the post, they will look identical to regular posts on the feed.
So in addition to finding out what Alistair A and Becky B have been up to, users will get unsolicited adverts promoting products. It seems likely that people will unwittingly click on these adverts, not realizing what they are.
It seems highly likely that advertisers will be keen to buy up these slots to promote their goods and services, so it should be very lucrative for Facebook and the associated shareholders.
In order to ease the concerns of those outraged about privacy issues and general intrusion by the site, Facebook has said that only those adverts for products or services which one’s friend has already ‘liked’. In addition, only one ‘featured content’ post will be allowed per day, and there will not be any on the mobile version of the site.
It is not the first time that Facebook have had adverts in the news feed, as they did the same from 2006 to 2009, calling them ‘sponsored content’, but halted the action, possibly in response to criticism. However they have decided to bring the adverts back, but are changing the name.
The reason that Facebook give for calling the new adverts ‘featured content’ rather than the more transparent ‘sponsored’ was because they want people to see that they have chosen the content they are connected to. This may be inadvertent, but Facebook consider it good enough.
With pressure mounting from their rivals at Google, especially the social network Google+, Facebook need to be careful not to abuse its users. Having agreed to controls forced upon them by the Federal Trade Commission in the USA in response to issues regarding privacy, Facebook may need to spend more time focusing on the user experience. Otherwise they could again face charges of being ‘deceptive and unfair’ to their users.
It is not the only change to come to Facebook’s 800 million users. They have also introduced a Timeline feature that shows the history of the user’s activities on Facebook, as well as a constantly-updating ticker. Shortly after the latest update, a poll discovered that an overwhelming 86% of users that responded hate the update. Extrapolated, that figure means that almost 700 million people think Facebook should return to the old way.
If Facebook is to remain supreme in the social networking wars, then they may need to spend more time looking after their users rather than their advertisers. 91% of teenagers, arguably their biggest target audience, said that Facebook was worse after the site was updated. Not a good sign for one of the largest and biggest sites on the internet, but it is unlikely to be a fatal one.
By Alan, on January 10th, 2012
 Google TV is to get annual upgrades, with the latest version due at the end of this year. This yearly refresh will include recommendations for better access to more content, and the word is that is could also include voice search capabilities. Google have announced that they are to upgrade their TV software by the end of 2012, adding fresh content and maintaining its scheduled annual upgrade.
The director of product management for Google TV, Rishi Chandra, has told Business Week at the CES 2012 show in Las Vegas that the company doesn’t intend to stop iterating, and that customers would see cool interactive stuff, and there would be some great things happening on the discovery experience and the recommendation engine.
Google TV is a Web TV platform that is Android based and allows consumes to both channel and web search. The software comes ready installed in Internet television, Sony Blu-ray players, and also on the Revue companion box from Logitech. The platform’s first version failed to make an impact and sales were poor, so Logitech stopped making their Revue systems.
Their second version, which is based on Android’s 3.1 Honeycomb is greatly improved, and offers over 150 apps from the Android Market that are tailored for Google TV’s. Google have said that after last years refresh, the activation rate doubled. CES has proved to be a hotbed of activity for Google TV, with Sony, LG and Vizio all showing off new Google TV systems, which range from TV’s to streaming media boxes to blu-ray players.
Marvell have also shown off their new Armada 1500 chipset, specially designed for Google TV. This is a 1.2GHz chipset that loads the Google software a lot faster than that the slower Intel Atom chipset could. Samsung, who are Google strongest partner in Android, are also launching a Google TV System later this year.
By Alan, on January 10th, 2012
 As the search engine giant Google has expanded into new areas of business, critics of theUSfirm have started to accuse it of unfairly promoting its own services over those provided by rivals.
Those complaints are only likely to increase with the announcement that Google is launching a new function which seems to be promoting Google+ pages ahead of other social networking sites.
Experts who have been testing and assessing the social search facility are convinced that the search results give the Google+ pages that have been set up by individuals, companies and organisation a much more prominent position than they might deserve.
Danny Sullivan, a search engine expert and editor of the websiteSearchEngineLand, reported recently that a Google search is placing Google+ pages that correspond to the search term higher than similar sites on Facebook and other rival social media networks.
Sullivan added that Google’s sinister tactic is clearly designed to force business to use Google+ if they themselves want to compete, rather than just relying on the more widely-used Facebook. The article went on to display a number of examples of random searches that Sullivan carried out and the subsequent results that came back from Google; dominated by hits for Google+ pages.
He concluded that Google has made it impossible for businesses not to sign up for Google+ and maintain a presence on the site, given that most users of Google usually only click through to sites that make an appearance in the top five returned hits.
Despite the dominance of Facebook in the social media market, Google launched its own version in 2011 and was confident that it would be able to compete with its more-established rival. So far, Google+ has not enjoyed the kind of success that CEO Larry Page was predicting and critics are convinced that the technology company has started to play dirty in its bid to match Facebook’s 850 million worldwide members.
By Alan, on January 6th, 2012
 A Twitter account that was supposedly set up by the wife of Rupert Murdoch, Wendi Deng, was recently confirmed by the social network as being genuine but shortly afterwards it was revealed to be a fake and the social network removed its approval. There has been no comment by Twitter about why they verified the account, which remained falsely approved for two days.
News International has recently confirmed that while the Rupert Murdoch account is genuine, the account by his wife is not. In an interview with the Telegraph a spokesperson confirmed that there was some confusion but that the Wendi Deng account was not her own.
Within just a few hours, the verified Wendi Deng account attracted over 10,000 followers, and the person behind the account seems equally surprised that Twitter had confirmed it is real. The anonymous blogger stated that they did not tell Twitter simply because the company should be more careful about who they confirm is genuine.
Rupert Murdoch has been generally opposed to most things on the internet and has called it a place for hackers, thieves and pornography. His embracing of the micro-blogging site is seen as a great surprise by many people and his appearance on the site is incredibly unwelcome.
His first tweets were about a family holiday he was taking in the Caribbean and about the number of holidays people in the UK took on New Year’s Eve. Most of the reactions to his presence on the website are ones of horror and incredulity, especially as he has been under such fire from authorities and the media after the various moral corruption in News International were unearthed.
By Alan, on January 5th, 2012
 Increased fears around the future of internet censorship have led to a hacker group announcing that they want to launch their own series of satellites to create a truly free Internet. The group, which is based in Berlin, have said that they want to create a satellite communication network that can be utilised in case legislation allows the significant internet censorship.
Recent propositions in the United States, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act, has meant that many internet users are becoming concerned about the future of the free internet. The projects communication infrastructure is being developed by Armin Bauer who is based in Stuttgart and in an interview with the BBC he commented, “Currently we are working on low-cost ways to get satellites into space as this is an incredibly expensive process.
Once we have established these ground stations we will be able to send up low orbit satellites and these will be able to facilitate the transmission of data to Earth. It works in a way that is similar to GPS, but the other way round, GPS letters work out where we are and our system must let us work out where the satellites are.” Currently Mr Bauer works in aerospace research by using internet connected computers in a project called Constellation.
The team has decided to start with investigating the use of GPS in reverse because it is much more reasonably priced than some of the other solutions. It is expected that the cost of a receiving ground station will be around $130. The project is in its very early stages and the hackers have said that they are dealing with problems as they come along and not focusing on the boundaries that they are going to face. They have said that they remain positive about the realisation of the idea.
By Alan, on December 30th, 2011
 Faster phone banking and internet payment systems are set to become the standard from January 1 2012, enabling many to pay both their credit card and tax bills for the first time on a same day basis.
The new maximum timescale for all electronic payments, known as D+1, means that all payments across the EU must reach the account of the recipient by the next working day.
In the UK, however, all one off payments, phone banking payments and standing orders will far exceed this requirement, and will be processed from end to end within just two hours due to the Faster Payments Service. The change to D+1, part of the Payment Service Regulations, is expected to bolster by 25% the amount of Faster Payments being made next year, thus creating an extra 15m phone, internet and standing orders every month of the year.
Thus far in 2011, over 500m Faster Payment transactions have been made with a value of over £2bn. To assist consumers in the change, the Payment Council’s education campaign for consumers; Payyourway.org.uk has produced an informative new factsheet.
Adrian Kamellard is the CE of the Payments Council, and he says that this great news for both consumers and businesses. He added that more bills could get paid quicker through the Faster Payment system and the change also meant more certainty as to when you would receive your money if you were the recipient.
It is important to realise that not all payments come under this regulation and it’s vital we all know which do and which don’t, hence the factsheet. If you want to find out more about these changes, or simply need advice on any aspect of internet banking, there is plenty of advice and lots of guides on payyourway.org.uk to help you on your way.
By Alan, on December 27th, 2011
 Google Buzz is disappearing Google has already had to accept the fact that they were still unable to beat Twitter despite their best efforts and with the announcement that Google Buzz is disappearing it seems they have. However, instead of giving up completely on social networking the company decided to focus on Google+, but it seems as if this is not working as well as Facebook is still reigning and Google + is like the ugly stepsister or the beets on the table at a holiday dinner. You know they are there, but have absolutely no urge to actually consume any.
Outside of the Android market which is the app you need to purchase new Android apps, the most popular app on the Google OS is Facebook which ought to be a little bit of a slap in the face for Google. The new data comes from a Nielsen study that took a close look at what Android apps are getting the most use. Last summer Facebook came in third behind Gmail and Google Maps, but it seems that Facebook is the place to be now which could be the result of a younger group of users.
The same survey suggests that about 80% of the young adult Android users all use Facebook with the next group of those in their late twenties almost all using Facebook as well. Also placing in the top ten were Pandora, Angry Birds, and YouTube especially for younger users as they were more likely to use the fun apps over the more serious apps such as Quickoffice and Yahoo email.
By Alan, on December 24th, 2011
 A new report from Ofcom says that more consumers are now online in the UK using the internet for purchases than in the other major developing countries. In addition, UK citizens are also more likely too be found using their mobiles to play games online or to simply watch TV when compared to other countries.
Of course, this may be due to the fact that Ofcom also found that UK consumers are paying much less for communications then fellow users across the globe making it easier to consider doing these things on a regular basis then in other countries.
This is the sixth international report to be published and took a close look at the global communications market in 17 different countries taking into account the usage, take-up, and availability of landlines, broadband, TV, radio, and mobiles. It showed that even though most countries in the report suffered from the global recession, the revenues of the global communication companies still continued to grow raising about 3.4% when compared to figures compiled in 2009 largely driven by growth in China, Brazil, Russia, and India where the recession was not felt so harshly.
Also discovered was the fact that eight out of every ten UK users had purchased some type of service or goods online during 2010 which is a much higher ratio than in any other country in Europe. The lowest purchase rates were found in Italy with only about 25% of those surveyed reporting they had made a purchase. In addition, not only are UK internet browsers making purchases, but they are more likely to head online to check out what retail websites have to offer with about 90% admitting that they regularly did so over the course of 2011.
Smartphone usage was also the highest in the UK compared with other countries in Europe with the number of smartphone users almost doubling over the last year. Not surprisingly given the above statistics, those in the UK were also more likely to use their mobiles to surf online with almost half of all phone users in the UK choosing to go online from their mobile at some point. They were also the most likely to play games online from their mobiles and to access news from their phones although the higher smartphone rate would be largely responsible for this fact.
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Most consumers who sign up for an online service, subscribe to a website or even buy something on the internet will have been asked to confirm that they have read the company’s “Terms and Conditions”. Pages and pages of boring, incomprehensible legal language are usually disregarded in favour of ticking the “yes” box and quickly moving on.
