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Indian court tells Google and Facebook execs to stop by, have a chat
India and the various powers that be on the Internet have had a bit of a contentious relationship for the past year or so. The primary issue has been censorship, in that the Indian government wants more of it and the giants of the tech world want no part. After originally filing suit against Microsoft, Google and Facebook in December of 2011, the Delhi High Court let Redmond loose from its litigative snare. Unfortunately for the Big G and our pal Zuck, they're still on the hook for failing to block offensive content, particularly that of a religious nature. The Magistrate hearing the case will be issuing summons today, asking the global executives of Facebook and Google to come in and answer for their alleged crimes. So far there's been no reaction from either company, but with both actively working to have the case dismissed we wouldn't be surprised if any response amounted to a very diplomatic middle finger.
Facebook likes Karma app, buys the whole darn thing
What does one do after generating billions from an initial public stock offering? Go shopping, of course. After falling short of expectations following its somewhat helter-skelter IPO debut, Facebook simply shook off the whole thing and acquired itself some good Karma. No, we're not talking about that Karma. Instead, Facebook purchased the startup responsible for the Karma social gifting app. The move was apparently made to bolster Facebook's mobile chops -- an area the company considers ripe for opportunity. Just recently, Facebook also acquired mobile stalwart Instagram and the Lightbox team, for example. As for its newest purchase, Karma will be allowed to "continue to operate in full force" despite its recent status change, according to a blog post by co-founders Lee Linden and Ben Lewis. Details weren't disclosed about how much the deal was worth but judging from celebratory nature of their post, it doesn't look like Linden and Lewis will "Unlike" the agreement any time soon.
Instagram for Android updated with tilt-shift capabilities, all becomes well on Earth
Something tells us #teamiphone is going to adore this. Instagram has just updated its much-ballyhooed Android app, bringing the version to 1.1.0. What's new? Tilt-shift for "supported devices," enabling cameraphone shooters to add entirely too much blur to shots that could've used a tripod to begin with. We kid, we kid. But seriously, the download awaits in the source link.
YouTube ordered to filter video uploads by German court, could face hefty fines
A Hamburg court decision has ruled that YouTube is responsible for what its users upload to the site. This therefore could make the site liable for any copyright infringement associated with that. Furthermore, the court has asked the video sharing giant to put filters in place that detect clips that are protected by the German royalties agency Gema at the point of upload. Worst of all, this could saddle the website with a hefty tab. Although this particular case only pertains to 12 videos (and the ruling to seven of those,) future fines could be as much as €250,000 ($330,000) per case. YouTube maintained that it has no responsibility over what users upload, but that it did take action when notified about protected content. [Thanks, Guy]
Facebook to buy Instagram
How's this for some big news on an otherwise slow Monday? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has let slip that his company plans to buy popular photo-sharing app Instagram (pending all of the standard regulatory approvals, naturally). According to a report from All Things D's Kara Swisher, Facebook will pick up the social app, which got its own long-awaited Android version, for a cool $1 billion in cash and shares. Ole Zuck confirmed the news on his personal blog, adding that the deal won't affect Instagram's integration with competing social networks: We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed via his site's blog that the service, "is not going away," adding, "The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love." Check out some PR on the subject after the break.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Vendor filters make sorting items easier
The newest Mists of Pandaria beta patch has brought an unexpected new feature: vendor filters. Players are now able to set which items they would like to view on any vendor by selecting a filter near the top right of the window. You can set which items will appear based on spec or whether the item is bind on equip, making searching through heirloom or valor point vendors for items to send to your alts easier than ever. This is another great example of Blizzard's looking at the addon community, seeing an easy solution to a quality-of-life fix, and adding to the default user interface. Frankly, this type of interface creation and tinkering has kept WoW at an interface advance, even eight years down the line. I hope that Blizzard continues to add more filters to the new vendor filter system and maybe even gives us a way to set our own filters. Maybe we'll soon be searching by slot, class, affordable, level required, etc. There are plenty more filter options to include if Blizzard is so inclined. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Nokia Creative Studio brings panorama capture to Lumia handsets (hands-on)
Nokia recently launched a new photography app called Creative studio which is available in the Windows Phone Marketplace exclusively for its Lumia handsets. Part panorama stitcher, part photo filter and part image editor, the app lets you take new pictures or chose shots from existing albums and tweak them to your heart's content. It features ten Instagram-like effects (including vignette and auto-enhance) plus seven common adjustments (such as crop and sharpness). We took the app for a spin and the UI is pretty slick, with an optional side-by-side before and after view of the photo you are currently editing. Once done, you have the option to continue applying additional effects and making further adjustments, save the image or share it. Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are supported, but sadly there's no integration with Windows Phone's People Hub -- you'll have to login to each service in the app itself. Check out the screen shots in the gallery below and hit the break for more impressions and some samples.
Google adds spam explanation to Gmail, steers clear of enlightenment
Why is this message in spam? It's a question we find ourselves asking our Gmail boxes almost daily, when messages that really should have made it through to the inbox end up in electronic purgatory instead. So why does Google's algorithm choose to filter certain legitimate messages, while letting the vast majority arrive unscathed? The answer can now be found atop each message filed as spam, presented with the simplest of explanations, that generally fails to provide any actual insight as to the email's assigned delivery. Such worthless gems as "It's similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters," "It contains content that's typically used in spam messages" or "Many people marked similar messages as spam" now await you above each note -- seemingly assigned just as casually as the emails themselves.
Neato Robotics' XV-21 vacuum sucks up pet hair and allergens, looks like a new-age SNES
Sure, iRobot may have a strong presence in the impending robot apocolypse world of autonomous vacuum cleaners, but lest we forget about the others like Neato Robotics. The company's introducing the retro-futuristic XV-21 Pet and Allergy Vacuum for those of us wanting rid our domains of sniffle-inducing dust particles. Although the XV-21 looks similar to last year's XV-12, it features a new filter for improved airflow and suction, which Neato claims will catch three-times as many tiny bits around your domain as its normal kit. If that wasn't enough, the cleaner is also loaded with newly developed bristled brush to aid in sweeping up the likes of pet hair while keeping its noise levels to a minimum. If you're ready to leave the cleaning to the bots, this little guy is set to hit shelves in late April for $429 alongside a $60 Pet and Allergy kit packed with the filter (30 bucks on its own) and brush. Current Neato owners shouldn't fret either, as the add-ons are compatible with all of the company's vacuums, requiring only an upgrade to the latest firmware via USB. You'll find the full details in the press release after the break.
MMO Family: Why safe chat isn't so safe (and why that's OK)
One of the toughest issues that game developers have to treat when it comes to kid-friendly MMOs is chat. I touched on this in a past column, but it's worth further discussion. If you're making a game where lots of players are interacting and doing stuff together, you need to allow them to communicate, otherwise you're pretty much making a single-player game with the other players as background scenery. On the other hand, when it comes to kids MMOs, having open communication means other players can use it to harass each other. Worse is the scenario of the deranged adult abusing it to exploit young people. As a result, virtually every kid-friendly MMO has some sort of filter in place that restricts what players can say to each other. But are these chat filters really that effective? Are kids better off without them? Let's take a look in today's MMO Family.
XBL language filter prevents harmless words from being used in Quarrel
Microsoft's language filter on Xbox Live is strangling the linguistic skills of Quarrel players, banning such words as "help," "train," "balls" and "shaft" from being played. While we can understand the potential risque-ness of some of these words -- especially "help," which we're sure was added at the request of the XBL customer-service team -- without context we don't see the harm in them.These words are fair game in singleplayer (with the Family Setting turned off), but Microsoft adds an extra filter to Live play, developer Denki's Gary Penn told Edge: "Quarrel uses the Collins official Scrabble dictionary comprising over 110,000 words up to eight letters in length, including a huge collection of words deemed 'offensive' by Collins, such as 'arse', 'shit', 'wank' and 'fuck.'"Other banned words include "start," "skid," "poop," "hung," "dice" and "god." We're stumped on how to use "dice" in an offensive manner, but we've seen "fag" flung around Xbox Live chat with alarming, unfiltered regularity, so we're not going to try to figure out Microsoft's regulation process here.
Twitter to begin 'reactively' censoring tweets in specific countries, still no love for China
It's no secret that certain countries have different views over freedom of expression on the internet, but this hasn't stopped Twitter's attempt to keep its service running in as many places as possible. In its latest blog post, the microblogging service announced that it'll begin "to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country" when required, in order to keep said content available to all users elsewhere (as opposed to blocking it globally). The withheld tweets will be marked accordingly while their authors get notified with reasons where possible, and internet legal rights monitor Chilling Effects will also post the relevant take-down notices on a dedicated page.This may seem like some form of censorship taking over Twitter, but the company only mentioned those of "historical or cultural reasons" like the ban of pro-Nazi content in France and Germany; so it's not clear whether Twitter will also handle similarly with tweets that potentially lead to events such as the UK riots last year. Even though Twitter didn't elaborate further for Reuters, there is one reassuring line in the post: "Some [countries] differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there."One such country is most likely China, and back at AsiaD in October, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told us that there's simply no way for his company to work with the Chinese government (you can watch him answering us at 38:17 in the video -- courtesy of All Things D -- after the break): "The unfortunate fact is we're just not allowed to compete in this market, and that's not up to us to change. The person to ask is trade experts between both governments, but at the end of the day we can't compete. They (Chinese microblogging platforms) can compete in our markets, and we're certainly interested in what that means for us... We would love to have a strong Twitter in China, but we'd need to be allowed to do that."There are obviously many factors that add up to this sour relationship, but the contradiction between China's strict internet monitoring policy and Twitter's core values is most likely the biggest obstacle. And of course, the Chinese government would favor its home-grown tech properties, anyway. That said, several months ago, one of the country's largest microblogging services Sina Weibo was criticized by the authorities for not censoring fast enough, so it's obvious that it'd be even trickier to work with a foreign company that sees things differently. Things are unlikely to change any time soon, or ever, unless China relaxes its policy.
Android Market web store update adds user review filters, changes lives
It looks like Google has rolled out yet another update to its Android Market web store, bringing a slew of new filtering features for especially investigative users. In particular, the refresh allows consumers to filter user reviews by a handful of parameters, including star ratings, app version and device model. Best of all, you can use any or all of these filters simultaneously, thereby allowing you to isolate, for example, all five-star reviews of a specific app from users of a specific handset. It certainly sounds like a useful addition, and one you can check out for yourself, at the source link below.
Addon Spotlight: Hermes, Extra Button, and the mature language filter addon
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. One of the most often asked-about topics around these parts concerns the issue of raid cooldowns. A raid leader armed with sufficient knowledge and a knack for planning can orchestrate a cooldown rotation like no other. His excellence could only be improved by a cooldown monitor, allowing that intrepid leader to see what was at his disposal. Many players ask me where to find such a display. This week's Addon Spotlight pick is just the ticket. Allow me to introduce you to Hermes, a wonderful little addon that knows who has what raid cooldowns available. But first, we need to talk about a pressing issue, a dire matter that has threatened the very virtual world we inhabit. I am of course talking about the worst bug in the history of bugs: an eternal mature language filter. Let's fix that too, shall we?
How to fix that %$!@# mature language filter bug
With the release of patch 4.3, players have been plagued by one of the worst bugs in WoW history*. There you are, sitting in guild chat, when that guy shows up. You load up you chat input box with your customary "hello" to this person and, lo and behold, it looks like dialogue out of a comic book from the 1980s. I am, of course, refering to the mature language filter bug, which resets your mature language filter to "on" after every log in. Pain in the %!$, right? The addon community has graciously given us many fixes for the mature language filter bug, but the one I've been using is called Mature Language Filter Fix. You can grab it on Curse, slap it into your Interface directory in your WoW folder, and ta-da, no more mature language filter. Tell them how you really feel, every time, with this fix. There's also Force Mature Language Filter, which does the exact same thing. Two choices! Download Mature Language Filter Fix at [Curse]. Download ForceMatureLanguageFilter at [WowAce]. Don't forget to tune in to Addon Spotlight every Thursday on WoW Insider. *The Ice Stone has melted! Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wowinsider.com.
Carrier IQ VP says software poses no threat to user privacy, backs up his argument with metaphor
The final chapter of the Carrier IQ saga has yet to be written, but at this juncture, even the rosiest of rose-tinted observers would be hard pressed to find a silver lining. The specter of federal investigation looms larger by the day. Implicated carriers and manufacturers are washing their hands with Macbethian fury. Al Franken is on the verge of going Al Franken. And at the epicenter of all this sits Carrier IQ -- a California-based analytics company that has already gone to great lengths to defend its innocence. First, it sought to discredit Trevor Eckhart's ostensibly damning research with a cease-and-desist letter. Then, CEO Larry Lenhart flatly denied Eckhart's findings with an impassioned YouTube address. In recent days, the company has markedly softened its stance, arguing that its apps are only designed to meet operator demands and to "make your phones better." Now, Carrier IQ has elaborated upon these arguments with a more detailed breakdown of how its software functions, and a more substantive defense of its practices. Head past the break to read more.
Flickr unveils Android app, introduces real-time Photo Session feature (video)
The Android community may be awaiting its very own Instagram app, but at least Flickr has now stepped up to fill the void. Yesterday, the photo-sharing service unveiled its very first Android app, along with a new social feature known as Photo Session. Available for free on the Android Market, the app allows users to snap, filter and upload their photos directly to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr, all from the comfort of their own handset. It also features an array of camera functions like flash, ratio selection, and shutter focus, along with ten high-quality filters. Photo Session, meanwhile, allows you to browse through images with your friends in real-time. All you have to do is round up your online comrades, start a session and begin flipping through a photostream. Every time you move on to the next image, your friends will, too, effectively turning any browsing affair into a collective, Don Draper-like slide show. For more details, check out the source links below, or trot past the break for a video run-down of Photo Session.
Facebook sets sights on Instagram users with photo filter integration
What now Instagram? You wouldn't sell to Facebook and now ol' Zucks is moving on without you. That's right, friends... the social network genius himself is scheming alongside his engineers to integrate photo filters within the company's mobile application. The CEO hopes to lure users away from the popular photography app and keep them tethered to his site via mobile handset. Apparently the tech has been ready for a bit, but the boss wants his team to add more editing options before the feature is released into the wild.
Sony stands behind its digital projectors, claims the only thing ruining movies is Russell Brand
In case you missed it over the weekend, the Boston Globe published an article stating that the misuse of 3D lenses on Sony 4K projectors is drastically reducing the amount of light and color in digitally projected 2D movies. Sony Digital Cinema has finally responded with a list of "The Facts" that reiterate information some readers have posted in our comments and that we've obtained from individuals working as projectionists. They claim that contrary to the Globe's information, the projector technology used as described isn't to blame for poor picture quality. Notable items on the list are that the Sony system does not alternate between two images rapidly, changing the lens takes less than 20 minutes, the RealD 3D filters only reduce light output by 20% (not 85%), and if the lens can't be changed, then it's still capable of playing back content at 14fl (foot lamberts) which is within the recommended specs for brightness. All of these go directly against information from the original "Deep Focus" source, although it still doesn't explain why they could see such a marked difference between films in the same theater being projected digitally or on film. However, simpler explanations like an old and weakened bulb, a film projector set outside the specs, or unintentional misconfiguration could account for all of that. Until this is sorted, all we can recommend for your summer movie viewing is that if you do see anything out of order, don't let that jumbo tub of popcorn and Icee slow you down -- complain to management loudly and quickly to get the picture fixed. Check after the break for Sony's claims, as well as more detailed information from a projectionist we spoke to that broke down just how the technology works.
Xerox's Business of Your Brain liberates your inbox from annoying coworkers
If you work in office, odds are your inbox is full of Oscar polls, baby pictures, fantasy football tips, and various other obstacles standing in the way of finishing up those TPS reports. Thanks to Xerox's Business of Your Brain, you can finally deal with the issue from the passive aggressive comfort of you own mailbox. The free Microsoft Outlook plugin lets you know who's sprinkling in the most exclamation marks and buzzwords per email, who sends the longest messages, and which senders are wasting your time with emails that just say "thank you." It's a nice start, but we think we'll hold out for the premium version that will detonate every Troll doll within a 50-foot radius. Now get back to work -- as soon as you're done checking out video and PR after the break.
