Archive for February 13th, 2008

Facebook to add an easy way to permanently delete your account

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Hounded by the growing number of irate users about its absurd privacy policies, the social network drama queen Facebook said it will add a one-step option enabling users to easily and permanently delete their accounts.

Currently, many Facebook users are complaining about the deactivation option because it still retains personal information on the site’s servers. In defense, Facebook claims many users are quite fickle and they tend to come back to reactivate their accounts for various reasons.

Last Monday, the fast growing company has added an alternative wherein users must notify its Facebook staff via e-mail for deletion of their accounts. Unfortunately, there are some complaints that it failed to remove some accounts despite getting in touch with the company’s customers service. I suppose this is the main reason why the company is looking for another option to delete these accounts permanently.

Now, there is a Facebook group called “How to permanently delete your Facebook account” which acts as the unofficial guide for its 7,000 confused members on the proper account deletion process.

In the era where social networks represent our permanent records online, these companies must be more sensitive about privacy issues and devise ways to help users protect their rights. Otherwise, they will have to face a community of outspoken mob.

Read [New York Times]

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Dell to purchase MessageOne for $155 million

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Dell has announced their plans to purchase the business email services company MessageOne for a cash deal of $155 million. MessageOne was co-founded by Dell’s Michael Dell along with his brother Adam Dell and is owned in part by Impact Venture Partners and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund. The sale will put an approximate $12 million into a trust for Michael Dell, his wife and children with Adam Dell getting about $970,000 and their parents getting about $450,000.

MessageOne is a downloadable piece of software that lets companies manage and archive e-mail while minimizing outages and helping to prevent data loss. It is expected to compete against similar services that are offered from Google and Microsoft.

Read [Reuters]

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UK blames sat navs for damaging 2,000 bridges per year

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Posted Feb 13th 2008 12:12PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: GPSWe’ve already seen plenty of evidence of the potential damage that sat navs can cause, but the UK’s Network Rail has now put a figure on at least some of it, saying that the devices are responsible for damaging some 2,000 bridges per year and causing 5,000 hours of delays. That, thankfully, is not from the satellites falling from the sky, but rather from over drivers relying a little too heavily on GPS units (in particular those driving trucks too large for the bridges), a problem apparently so bad that some places in the UK have taken to putting up signs warning of the dangers. That’s apparently not quite enough to solve the problem, however, and now , in addition to warning people to use a little common sense, Network Rail is also reportedly attempting to map all of the UK’s low bridges and level crossings so that the information can be added to GPS software.

[Thanks, Charles H]

Sony Ericsson W580i Review - Mobile Choice

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Mobile Choice reviews the Sony Ericsson W580i and writes, “The W580i harbours a standard mid-range two-megapixel camera, woefully deprived of autofocus, Macro focus for close-ups and any type of flash. You can muck around with white balance, shoots modes and effects, but really it won’t mask the average picture quality blighted by soft focus around the fringes. Similarly video capture shoots in a judder-tastic but YouTube fit 176×144 pixel resolution.”

Read more about the Sony Ericsson W580.

BenQ’s MID gets official-er, can be shaken like a martini

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Posted Feb 13th 2008 10:37AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Handhelds
You might remember that little BenQ MID prototype which was doing the rounds at IDF and CES. Well, it looks like the folks at HQ have decided to get all official with the newly-repainted gadget — creatively dubbed the BenQ Mobile Internet Device — during another three letter party, MWC. According to the press release, the unit boasts a 4.8-inch touchscreen, 0.3-megapixel webcam, and “high-speed mobile internet access.” Interestingly, the company appears to be aiming for some fancy-shmancy gesture input, like sliding finger movements and the ability to shake the device to minimize windows — a feature which should notably increase the numbers of these which get thrown across a room. BenQ still hasn’t given any release date or expected price on the Menlow-based device, so don’t start any breath-holding competitions just yet. There’s one more press image after the break, if you haven’t seen enough (and we suspect you haven’t).

[Via jkkmobile]

Whale Shark gets black box flight recorders

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

The whale shark is the largest species of shark in the world, and its mysterious life will be available to all and sundry to see for the first time once they are equipped with the equivalent of “black box flight recorders” by researchers. This project came into being as a result of a collaboration between both Laureates of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise – Australian Brad Norman and Briton Rory Wilson. The former was the first in the world to set up a photo-ID system for identifying whale sharks while the latter successfully developed most sophisticated device for monitoring the activity of animals in the wild in the world.

According to Wilson, his logger weighs a mere 30 to 48 grams and is shaped after an aircraft’s black-box flight recorder, capable of monitoring changes in speed, altitude and heading. A tiny electronic device located right smack in the middle measures changes in the animal’s acceleration no matter where it goes - forward/back, up/down or sideways. It is capable of measuring motion along all three axes up to 32 times a second, and when combined with a compass, can determine the animal’s speed, direction and position. This goes one up on other popular animal tracking systems that rely on GPS since it is capable of working just fine in a dense forest, underground or in the ocean.

This unique animal tracker is smart enough to record the animals’ energy expenditure, where compiled data will be analyzed in order to help conservationists gain new insight into knowing what makes up a poor, average or optimum living condition, as well as other vital statistics such as the minimum area required for an individual or population of animals to survive and flourish. I guess this is a whole lot harder than those Sim games that I used to play in the past on the PC, where all my creatures’ comforts and needs are displayed for all and sundry to see. Keep up the good work, guys!

Source: Gizmag

Blackberry outage shows that RIM learned nothing in 2007

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:40AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: cellphones, WirelessAs with RIM’s April 2007 outage, the latest downtime has been officially blamed on a flawed software upgrade. According to RIM, the millions left without email can lift their kinked neck and point a crippled digit at an “internal data routing system within the blackberry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded.” This upgrade, like the one in 2007, was meant to boost capacity and speed message routing. Right, the same issue which RIM assured us had been resolved last April.

Acer prices themselves right out of “low-cost” laptop game

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:20AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: LaptopsAcer’s little low-cost laptop plans just emerged from the rumor closet. Chairman J.T. Wang says they’ll launch a cheap-o, 7- to 9-inch laptop in Q2 or Q3 of 2008. That puts the world’s number 3 computer maker in direct competition with the Eee PC and CloudBook in the burgeoning low-end laptop market. However, Acer should really re-think their expected price point of “around $470.” After all, Dell’s full, 15.4-inch laptops start at just $499.

Waffle hot dog on a stick

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

I’ve seen lots of food on sticks at county fairs and Renaissance festivals, including corn dogs, steaks, frozen cheesecake (did they eat cheesecake during the Renaissance?), and kebabs of all varieties, but never have I wished to prepare food on a stick in the comfort of my own kitchen. And of all the food combinations I’ve thought of, a hot dog on a waffle has never occurred to me (though I have seen fried chicken on waffles, something that still boggles my mind).

But now that I’ve seen this little appliance for making hot dogs surrounded by waffle on a stick (or crepe dogs, more traditional corn dogs, or just about anything that will cook on a grill and hold itself on a stick), I want to have a “food on a stick” party.

Not a cheap little machine, so you better be serious about wanting to eat things on a stick before you buy - $339 at Amazon.

Via Kitchen Contraptions.

OT Electric Light Shoes

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

It reminded me of that children’s shoe which lit up and squeaked as the child walked, but upon closer inspection, I realise it’s actually a work of art.

Designed by Freedom of Creation (concept by StrawberryFrog and created by Janne Kytannen and Mads Thomsen) as a suggestion for the Onitsuka Tiger (an ASICS Japan premium heritage brand) Eletric Tiger campaign, the OT Electric Shoe stops the show with its unconventional design.

Freedom of Creation created a 1 metre version for display purposes as well as 70cm and 40cm versions of the design for Onitsuka Tiger stores around the world. If you haven’t noticed yet, the designed was inspired by what a typical city in Japan might look like at night.

Impressive details, right? And this is how it looks like when not lit:

The Electric Light Shoe plays the key role in Onitsuka Tiger’s worldwide promotional strategy, “Made of Japan” (sic).

via

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