If you’ve ever sent a friend a video clip of your favorite show only to discover that “this video has been taken down due to a claim by MegaMedia Corp.”, you can thank the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that treats backing up your DVDs to your hard drive like you’re worse than a kid-toucher. But it turns out that the very people who got this law enacted, namely the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), now really, really hate it. Even The RIAA Hates The...

When you open up the site and click on an image of a blue lollipop, you’re prompted to allow Take This Lollipop to access your Facebook profile. This is standard stuff; for instance, if you want to use your Facebook profile to comment on a website—say, Slate—you agree to such access. But Take This Lollipop demonstrates exactly what you agree to when you hit “OK.” In a stunning display of interactivity, the site shows a creepy video, a couple of minutes long, showing a dirty, creepy man, his fingerstips caked with grime as he points his way to Facebook. There, he accesses … your profile. The site takes the information from your Facebook page and seamlessly weaves it into the video. You watch as the stalker looks at your photographs, your recent status updates, your list of friends. Then he pulls up Google Maps and finds directions to your home (geographic data contained in your profile). He hops into a car, your profile photograph taped to the dashboard. The scene ends as he gets out of the car, presumably to track down his target—you. As horror movies go, the plot’s pretty thin. But it’s still jolting to see yourself cast as the victim… Take This Lollipop: creepy site offers warning about giving away personal info on Facebook. I totally love this! It’s by the creator of my favorite holiday website Elf Yourself. It’s also timely in that it brings awareness to the type of permissions you give websites when you authorize applications. As I’ve said before, the Internet was not made for you, but was made to push the agenda of website creators. Take note of that and pay attention to the websites you visit and the terms you agree to! I also love...

ACTA is one more offensive against the sharing of culture on the Internet. ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is an agreement secretly negotiated by a small “club” of like-minded countries (39 countries, including the 27 of the European Union, the United States, Japan, etc). Negotiated instead of being democratically debated, ACTA bypasses parliaments and international organizations to dictate a repressive logic dictated by the entertainment industries. ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. It is thus a major threat to freedom of expression online and creates legal uncertainty for Internet companies. In the name of trademarks and patents, it would also hamper access to generic medicines in poor countries. Learn...

“Female version of designer/developer: Hair in ponytail, half-dressed in pajama bottoms & t-shirt, coffee cup with two sips of cold coffee left in the bottom, crossed eyes from focusing on two screens at the same time, alarm clock to remind her to eat, sleep & pay attention to family. Second alarm clock for when first alarm clock is ignored. Dark chocolate bars within arms reach at all times. Frequently says ‘Just let me transfer this one file real quick’…” This is so true. Something else these people have in common…a lack of social skills and a moderate to extreme sense of self importance. As someone who sits between the two extremes with a slight leaning toward designer, but only slightly, I can speak to this. The Internet creation crew are people who spend their entire lives in front of computers and face to face communication makes us uncomfortable. We also know that our skills are quite rare in the grand scheme of skilled workers, and want people to appreciate us as someone more than that “computer nerd”… To the topic though, I would say if you wish to hire someone to create a website for your organization or business, I would go after a Web Designer vs. a Web Developer. With “frameworks” like WordPress and Joomla, designers can quickly customize something for you based on your brand…and can even help you come up with one if you don’t have something yet. Best of all, they will hand the site over to you to update at your leisure as those frameworks were designed to be maintained by the technology unsavvy. One payment and you’re done! Web developers, on the other hand, are more concerned with how something works than with how it looks. Most don’t have a...

       Last August, Google asked us all to say good-bye to Google Wave. Some said Wave was ahead of its time, some said that the platform had enough features to sink the Titanic. However, Google today announced some significant updates to its social network, Google+. And one of the features launched today on Google+ seems a throwback to one now-defunct feature of Google Wave, called “Playback”.  Google+ Resurrects Playback Feature From Wave, Renames It “Ripples” |...

The handset itself is just a rectangle with a large screen (there’s no sight of a “crackberry” keyboard). Outside of the sleek and polished user interface that we’ve never seen before, the overall design looks a little too basic to be real. Perhaps it’s just to get the development wheels turning. In the videos, however, the unassuming device is doing pretty cool stuff like interacting seamlessly with computers, tablets, and a smart table. One woman even uses it to find her desk in a cubicle farm while her colleague uses it to gain access to a room. Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20126720-85/leaked-blackberry-videos-promise-big-changes/#ixzz1c3NBU4Ap Leaked BlackBerry videos promise big changes | Dialed In – CNET...

Gmail is implementing new subtle, but useful changes! +1 for team User...