Alchemy Interactive News

Advertising Association submits recommendations for extended digital regulation

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:20:01 UTC

The Advertising Association (AA) has submitted the industry’s recommendations to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), for the extension of the non-broadcast Advertising Code in digital media, which will be administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Google adds Facebook updates to real-time search

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:08:50 UTC

Google search results will now include updates from Facebook pages as the social network is added to Google’s real-time search tool.

YouTube to kill IE6 support on March 13

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:24:57 UTC

Over six months ago, Google announced it would start phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 on Orkut and YouTube, and started pushing its users to modern browsers. The search giant has now given a specific kill date for old browser support on the video website via a page on Google.com titled Solve a Problem: Upgrading your browser:

Support stops on March 13th. Stopped support essentially means that some future features on YouTube will be rolled out that won't work in older browsers.

source: ars technica

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:02:25 UTC

People born in the Year of the Tiger are born leaders, who walk and talk assertively and inspire respect. They are courageous and energetic, love a challenge or competition and are prepared to take risks. They are hungry for excitement and crave attention. They can also be rebellious, short-tempered and outspoken, prefering to give orders rather than take them, which often leads to conflict. Tiger people may appear calm but there is often a hidden aggressiveness, but they can also be sensitive, humorous and capable of great generosity and love. There is never a dull moment with a Tiger.

source: V&A

Google launches Buzz to rein in social media overload

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:34:51 UTC

Today Google announced its latest social application, designed to bring the fire hose of social media and status updates down to a useful trickle of the most "interesting" bits. Dubbed Google Buzz, the service is designed to offer easier ways to share links, photos, and other information, corral all those things shared by friends and other connections, and integrate well with other services in an open way.

It's "a Google approach to sharing," according to Todd Jackson, product manager for Gmail and Google Buzz.

source: ars technica

If Google Wave Is The Future, Google Buzz Is The Present

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:21:19 UTC

Google has a problem. Despite having their hands in just about everything online, they’ve never been able to tackle what is a key part of the fabric of the web: social. Yes, they have Orkut and OpenSocial, but no one actually uses them. Okay, some people use them, but not in the meaningful social ways that people use Facebook or even Twitter. Today, Google may have just solved their social problem.

Google Buzz is easily the company’s boldest attempt yet to build a social network. Imagine taking elements of Twitter, Yammer, Foursquare, Yelp, and other social services, and shoving them together into one package. Now imagine covering that package in a layer that looks a lot like FriendFeed. Now imagine shoving that package inside of Gmail. That’s Buzz. If Google Wave is the future, Google Buzz is the present.

source: TechCrunch

Google turns to NSA for help in cyberattack defences

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:45:26 UTC

Google is detailing a new data-sharing agreement with the US National Security Agency in order to better protect itself against apparent attacks from China.

Back in 2006, Google claimed lots of positive press coverage for briefly resisting requests for its search data from the Department of Justice. The firm has generally considered only itself as a safe home for its users' private data.

But it is now finalising a new deal with the National Security Agency to share data without breaking either Google's Ts&Cs or US data protection laws.

source: The Register

IE6 users to be evicted from Gmail, Google Calendar

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:33:02 UTC

Late last week, Google announced it will phase out old browser support next month on Google Docs and Google Sites. The search giant also sent out an e-mail to Google Apps administrators to warn them of the date, as well as tell them something it did not disclose publicly last week: Gmail and Calendar are next on the IE6 support kill list. Here's the relevant snippet:

"We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar. Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above."

source: ars technica

Researchers penetrate last bastion of Windows security

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:36:53 UTC

Security researchers have defeated vulnerability protections baked into the latest versions of Internet Explorer, demonstrating that it's possible to poke holes in a safety net that's widely relied on to keep end users safe from drive-by exploits.

By exploiting weaknesses in Adobe Systems' Flash Player, researchers have devised two separate attacks that bypass mitigations Microsoft put into IE 7 and 8. Known as ASLR, or address space layout randomization, and DEP, or data execution prevention, the technologies are designed to lessen the severity of bugs by making it hard for them to cause the execution of malicious code.

source: The Register

Google to send Internet Explorer 6 users packing come March

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:11:04 UTC

Google is continuing to kill off support for Internet Explorer 6 in its services; the search giant has announced that two more of its Web properties will stop supporting IE6 as of March 1. "Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers," a blog post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog begins to explain. "We're also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won't work properly in older browsers." Older browsers, according to Google, include anything prior to IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0.

source: ars technica

Hands on: Extensions give Chrome a lift as version 4 arrives

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:07:18 UTC

Google has announced the official release on Windows of Chrome 4, an updated version of the company's Web browser. It offers a handful of significant improvements, including support for extensions and bookmark synchronization.

Due to Chrome's rolling development model, these features have been widely used by testers for quite some time. The official release means that the new functionality will be rolled out to regular end users through the stable channel. In addition to the major feature enhancements, Chrome 4 also brings a performance boost. Its score in the Dromeo DOM benchmarks is a 45 percent improvement over the previous version.

source: ars technica

Bing rings 70% search rise for Microsoft sites

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:48:42 UTC

The global search market grew a sizeable 46 percent between December 2008 and December 2009, from 89.7 billion to 131.4 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home and work locations. These searches include the top properties where search activity is observed, not only the core search engines. Google of course took first place, but Microsoft managed to see the biggest percentage change, at least when looking at the top five search properties. When you represent the data visually, though, a larger percentage change isn't so formidable:

source: ars technica

New Google Chrome Release Adds Support For 1,500+ Extensions, Bookmark Sync

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:58:18 UTC

PC users, rejoice, for Google has just announced that there’s a fresh, stable release of Google Chrome for Windows, with added extensions and bookmark sync features.

You can check for the new version manually if you’re already using Google Chrome for Windows (go to Settings > About Google Chrome), or you can wait for the new release to be automatically updated within the next week.

source: TechCrunch

Five Journalists Picked To Live In A House And Report Based Only On Twitter And Facebook

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:29:06 UTC

Remember the DotComGuy? In 2000, Mitch Maddox, a man from Texas, legally changed his name to that as he decided to live for one year year without leaving his home, buying everything he needed online and having it delivered to him. He didn’t make it.

Fast forward to 2010; While not quite that extreme, five journalists have agreed to go stay in a farmhouse together to see what kind of stories they can get using only Twitter and Facebook as sources. They will be stripped of their cellphones, and will have no other contact with the outside world other than the social networks. I’m not kidding. MSN has the full story here.

source: TechCrunch

BBC looks to grab internet telly market

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:48:19 UTC

The BBC Trust has given the go-ahead for the corporation to push on with providing internet access to the TV, via a set-top box.

The project has already been heavily criticised by rival broadcasters like Sky, which of course has a decent-sized broadband internet access business of its own.

But it was further bolstered last week when Channel 4 and ISP Talk Talk joined up. The consortium of six firms is now looking for "expressions of interest" for other partners to join the platform.

source: The Register

The Facebook Privacy Fiasco Begins

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:16 UTC

Today Facebook finally started to roll out a new set of privacy controls. These tools, many months in the making, are designed to help simplify the site’s notoriously confusing privacy options. But alongside them Facebook is also rolling out a “Transition Tool” that promotes Everyone updates as the new default. In other words, Facebook is giving up its reputation as a ‘private’ social network — where the default is to restrict access to everything that is shared — in favor of something that can challenge Twitter head on. And, as I wrote last July, it may well be a disaster in the making.

Facebook is spinning the news as a win for users. They’re supposedly getting more control than ever over what they’re sharing, and it’s easier than ever to control it. But that’s not the real story. Marshall Kirkpatrick over at ReadWriteWeb has nailed it: this is Facebook’s move to push people to share with the public.

source: TechCrunch

Facebook To Roll Out New Privacy Controls To Its 350 Million Users, Kills Regional Networks

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:40:41 UTC

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has just written an open letter to Facebook users regarding a privacy overhaul that is due to hit the site in the next few weeks. Soon, users will be able to selectively choose, on a per-post basis, who can see the content they post to the site. Facebook is also going to remove regional networks entirely, largely because some of those networks (like China) consist of millions of users, which makes them useless from a privacy standpoint. If these changes sound familiar, it’s because Facebook actually announced them way back in July. Zuckerberg also notes that Facebook now has 350 million users — it has added a whopping 50 million of them in the last two and a half months.

source: TechCrunch

Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German government officials

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:46:08 UTC

[Germany] Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant’s free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts and search behavior of their visitors (and much more).

According to an article in today’s Zeit Online (poor Google translation here), multiple federal and state government officials charged with guarding over national data protection are convinced that Google Analytics is against the law in Germany and are mulling imposing fines on companies who use the service to gather detailed stats based on their website visitors’ usage patterns without the explicit consent of those visitors.

source: TechCrunch

Bing Tries To Buy The News

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:19:07 UTC

Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google’s head, and Microsoft is helping him pull back the trigger. For the past few weeks, Murdoch and his officers at News Corp. have been very vocal about their distaste for Google and their desire to lead other media companies in a boycott of sorts.

Murdoch keeps threatening to stop letting Google index the WSJ.com and his other media sites, and wants other news sites to join him in this self-imposed silence. The folks at Microsoft’s Bing think this is a great idea. Not only that, but the FTreports that Microsoft is in fact in discussions with News Corp. and other publishers about the possibility of paying them to remove their sites from Google’s search index. This report comes on the heels of a meeting in Europe where Bing dangled the prospect of premium spots in search results to publishers and outright money for search R&D.

source: TechCrunch

Chrome OS: Internet failing at PC > PC failing at Internet

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:43:51 UTC

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Unless you were hiding under a rock for most of the day yesterday, you're aware by now that Google held a press event at which the search giant pulled back the curtain on ChromeOS, the OS that's really a browser (and is based on the browser that's really an OS). The search giant announced that it is open-sourcing the OS, and described in detail much of its nature and function.

In this article, we'll recap only a few of the highlights of the announcement, because the news has been covered exhaustively elsewhere. Our main focus here is to provide some analysis and context, and to think about what ChromeOS means.

source: ars technica