By Cynthia Herbert :: 8:06 PM
Facebook has announced that it will check all links posted to the social network by users. Facebook is partnering with Websense Security Labs to protect users from following links from the site that may direct them to malicious websites or viruses.
When a user clicks on a link in their news feed or on someone’s profile, Facebook will first check that link against Websense’s database to determine if it is harmful. If the link is identified as harmful, a message will appear that encourages the user not to follow the link. The message will also explain why that particular link was blocked by Websense. Users will have the option to continue on to the destination link, if they so desire.
“We’re excited about our partnership with Websense to provide industry leading tools to help our users protect themselves,” Dan Rubinstein, Facebook’s Site Integrity Product Manager said. “Facebook cares deeply about protecting users from potentially malicious content on the internet.”
By Gilbert Falso :: Last Updated, 11:40 AM PDT
11:40 That’s all she wrote – no iPhone 5 at today’s announcement! Only the iPhone 4S.
11:38 Here’s the rundown on the 4S – in stores on October 14th. Cost: 16GB for $199 & 64GB is $399. iPhone4 now sells for $99 and the iPhone 3GS is free. with a 2 year contract
11:17 When my iPhone can hop off my desk, go down to Starbucks, and get me my latte, I’ll be interested…
11:15 Voice-activated assistant feature called Siri
11:04 8MP camera in iPhone 4S
11:01 Battery life in iPhone 4S pegged at 8 hours talk time
10:56 – Finally – here we go. iPhone 4S announced – dual-core CPU, 2x as fast at CPU tasks. Dual-core graphics. Up to 7x faster than the previous iPhone.
10:42 New stalker-type app announced – Family and Friends. Seems ripe for a restraining order…
10:35 iOS 5 to launch as a free update on Oct. 12
10:33 Going through iOS 5 updates. A new card app that sends hardcopy printed cards through the mail. Upgrades to Camera, Twitter integration, Newsstand – all the stuff they went through a few months ago. Enough already, guys, bring out the iPhone 5!
10:25 Holding here until the iPhone 5 announcement – all this other content is just fluff to us!
10:22 95% of iPad owners are satisfied with their purchase
10:20 Despite huge sales numbers and growth, Apple only owns 5 percent of the global mobile phone market
10:18 70% of iPhone owners are satisfied with it. Compares to 49% of HTC owners and 38% of Motorola owners.
10:17 Huge iPhone growth – 125 percent growth year-over-year for sales
10:15 Apple has 70 percent of the portable music player market cornered with iPod.
10:12 User adoption – took 20 weeks to reach 10 percent of the Windows install base for Win 7 – took OS X Lion two weeks.
10:10 Apple currently has 357 stores across 11 countries
10:09 Sprint logo found on Apple’s servers [link] – Guess this just about confirms it!
10:07 Update on Apple Stores. At the Shanghai store, Apple’s largest store in Asia, 100,000 visitors stopped in on opening weekend.
10:05 Cook: “Today we’re going to be learning about innovations in software and hardware, and the integration of all of these into a powerful yet simple integrated experience.”
10:04 Tim Cook is out on stage
10:01 Gizmodo says “Under my Thumb” by the Rolling Stones currently playing as they wait for the announcement.
9:59 Apple’s online store is currently down – see graphic below. We assume it will come back sometime during the announcement.
9:55 Watch this space for our live blog updates as we follow some of the major media outlets and Twitter for Apple’s iPhone 5 launch!
By Gilbert Falso :: 12:18 AM
Recent reports circulating on the eve of Apple’s iPhone 5 launch are coming in fast and furious – but here’s one we didn’t see coming. The new iPhone 5, expected out on October 4th, may only be available from wireless carrier Sprint.
The blog BoyGeniusReport claims that a source (unnamed, of course) has told them the iPhone 5 will be a Sprint exclusive when it launches, and that it will run on their 4G WiMax network. The other two iPhone carriers, Verizon and AT&T, will have to wait until next year before they can offer the new hardware. They would be left holding only a new iPhone 4S (the current iPhone offering with new internal technology) on launch day.
There may be some truth to these wild rumors. One need only look at the Wall Street Journal from earlier today to see their article reporting that Sprint agreed to pay $20 billion to buy just over 30 million iPhones from Apple in a contract that spans the next four years. If those terms are correct, the Journal estimates that Sprint would not be able to turn a profit with the iPhone until at least 2014. No wonder they may get a couple months of a head-start over AT&T and Verizon.
By Paul Thomson :: 9:51 PM
Today in San Francisco, Microsoft announced a series of new features that will to help its Hotmail e-mail service users easily clean up their inboxes. The Redmond, Washington-based company’s Vice President, Chris Jones, said that the company recognizes that the Hotmail brand is not strong, and has been damaged recently by a number of issues, chiefly spam, storage and performance.
Microsoft has, said Jones, been proactively addressing these issues since 2006, and wants to provide users with a new set of tools that will improve performance, attack spam, allow for more storage, and offer better organizational features.
The hallmark of the new features is the Scheduled Inbox Cleanup. This will allow users to automatically keep the latest message from a specific sender. They can then choose to have additional messages from that sender moved to a folder or specify for older messages to be deleted after 3, 10, 30, or 60 days.
Another new feature is actually part of the Sweep Hotmail tool that has been in place for some time already. Enhancements to this tool will now allow users to set up a newsletter category that will automatically place regular news letters and offers into a folder, or delete them altogether, as they arrive in the inbox. Hotmail will also now automatically unsubscribe users from certain newsletters and prevent any further messages from senders that they have already unsubscribed from.
The next enhancement, called Instant Actions, will manifest as buttons that appear only when the mouse hovers over a message. Three options, delete, flag, or sweep will be offered by default, and users will be able to define up to five customizable actions that can be also be called up when hovering over a specific message.
According to ComScore, Hotmail is the world’s largest Web mail service, with 350 million users. In second place is Yahoo Mail, with 310 million users and third place belongs to Gmail with 260 million users.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:16 PM
Music subscription service Rhapsody had announced today that it will acquire Napster, currently owned by Best Buy. Rhapsody will take on Napster’s subscribers and assets and Best Buy will retain a minority stake.
Rhapsody’s music service, which started in 2001, allows subscribers to access more than 13 million songs on their computers, smartphones or any other Internet-enabled device. For monthly subscription fees ranging from $9.99 to $14.99 users have unlimited advertisement-free streaming of albums, radio stations, charts and more.
The stock-based deal will finalize at the end of November, for an undisclosed sum. Rhapsody has about 800,000 subscribers, double that of Napster.
Rhapsody’s president offered the following statement:
“This is a ‘go big or go home’ business, so our focus is on sustainably growing the company. We’re excited to welcome Napster music fans to the best on-demand music experience anywhere. Our new members will have more places to connect to the music they love and to discover new favorites; guided by Rhapsody’s rockstar editorial team and the tastes of other Rhapsody members via our innovative social features.”
Adding to its user base should help Rhapsody as the market for digital music increases, with competition from companies such as Spotify, Amazon’s Cloud Player, Google’s Music Beta, Sony’s Unlimited, and Pandora.