Internet

Each day, millions of images and messages are sent through social media platforms. Now, those who have regretted transmitting personal information in this fashion will be relieved to find that a popular new app is making significant strides in ... changing the way people share private data on social networking sites. Snapchat doesn't store data -- including messages and photos -- for years on end. Instead, this information is wiped out, permanently, at a time set by the sending / posting user. It's a simple concept, but early indications reveal that Snapchat is becoming a popular alternative to ... (view more)

A recently-filed lawsuit claims some of Facebook's main features, including the "like" button, copy ideas patented 15 years ago. In fact, the lawsuit is being brought on behalf of a man who died just a few months after Facebook launched. The lawsuit ... has been filed by Rembrandt Social Media, a company set up to handle the intellectual property of Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, who died in 2004. At that time Facebook was only available to students in select colleges, though it had just become a corporation. 'Surfbook' the Facebook Framework? The patents at ... (view more)

A recent Facebook outage not only prevented logged-in users from accessing the social networking site, but other sites as well, including Gawker, CNN, Mashable, and The Washington Post. The glitch occurred Thursday, February 7, 2013. It lasted just ... a few minutes and only affected those people who were logged into Facebook at the time. However, the issue didn't just affect access to Facebook -- instead, users reported being unable to view many other sites. Facebook Users Unable to Access External Sites According to reports, when users tried to visit sites like ESPN, Gawker, and CNN, they were ... (view more)

Concerned about what your kids are doing on Facebook? You're probably not alone. One Massachusetts father decided it was worth $200 to keep his daughter off the social networking site for a five-month period. Surprisingly, the deal wasn't Paul ... Baier's idea. Instead, Baier says his 14-year-old daughter, Rachel, came up with the plan. "She approached me," the senior Baier said. "She has been frustrated she hasn't been able to find a babysitting job and she has been looking for ways to get cash ... So she asked, 'If I didn't use Facebook for so long would you pay me?'" Daughter's Facebook Usage ... (view more)

Do you feel stressed out and exhausted after using Facebook? You're not alone. According to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, most Facebook users have taken an extended break from Facebook after becoming tired of the ... site. Pew worked with Princeton Survey Research Associates International to carry out telephone interviews with just over 1,000 U.S. residents. Two-Thirds of US Facebook Users Take Extended Breaks The interviews revealed that six in every ten Facebook users admit to having taken breaks from Facebook that lasted several weeks. (Source: zdnet.com ) Why ... (view more)

Twitter has launched a video-sharing service similar to YouTube but designed for people with shorter attention spans. Unfortunately, questions over adult content could spell doom for the service. The service is called 'Vine' and is specifically ... designed for the Apple iPhone. It lets users upload and share a video clip of up to six seconds in length and then publish a link to the clip on Twitter. The idea of a short clip service isn't new: rival application 'Tout' does the same thing but offers users 15 second previews. In both cases, it appears the idea is to minimize the amount of storage ... (view more)

A court in Saudi Arabia has refused to try a blogger charged with insulting the Islamic religion. Raif Badawi would have faced the death penalty if convicted of his alleged "crimes," which included the simple act of "liking" a Christianity page on ... Facebook. Badawi runs a website called the "Liberal Saudi Network." He was arrested last year after proclaiming May 7 as a day for discussing social and religious matters. Badawi Charged for Allegedly Abandoning Islam A lower court originally concluded Badawi's offenses were so serious that his case should be passed on to a higher ... (view more)

A 30-year-old Michigan man who died in a shootout with police reportedly used Facebook to say goodbye to his friends and family moments before he was killed. While being pursued by police, Eric Ramsey, of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, took out his mobile ... phone and updated his Facebook timeline, saying: "Well folkes (sic) im about to get shot. Peace." Suspect Launches Vicious Crime Spree Ramsey had good reason to believe he was close to the end of his life. He had started his last night by abducting a female Central Michigan University student, taking the woman back to his house and assaulting her. ... (view more)

The U.S. Library of Congress has completed its archive of every Twitter post during the first four years following the site's launch. Unfortunately, making that archive useful has proven extremely difficult. Back in April 2010, the Library of ... Congress signed a deal to archive Twitter posts, known as 'tweets.' The Library's Gayle Osterberg says those tweets are an important and valid research source. "As society turns to social media as a primary method of communication and creative expression, social media is supplementing, and in some cases supplanting, letters, journals, serial publications ... (view more)

The French government has persuaded one of that country's major Internet providers to drop a plan that would have blocked all website advertising automatically. Government officials said the move could have placed the future of many successful ... websites in doubt. Free, a broadband provider to more than five million French subscribers, proposed to update software on its cable modems to, by default, block website advertisements. Its customers would see a blank space where advertisements appeared on websites delivered via its competitors' Internet services. (The firm's name -- Free -- reflects ... (view more)