Security

Thirty-one years ago to the day, Tian'anmen Square (aka, Gate of Heavenly Peace) was the site that witnessed the massacre of thousands of student protesters. Each year on its anniversary, the Chinese attempt to eradicate all memory of the horrifying events that occurred on June 4, 1989.

The first rule about Skinbook is you "don't show any skin!" on Skinbook. While, Time Magazine described it as "Facebook for 21st Century Nudists," this is not a network for titillation or voyeurism. No pornographic images nor sleazy comments under users' photos are allowed. Even the headless body shots that are allowed on Twitter are verboten on Skinbook.ning.com...

As of June 1, with 'Alex' as the nom de plume of the first, the hurricane season is officially underway and will run its course from now until November 30, 2010. The clock is ticking away for the BP clean-up in the Gulf to ward off any possibility of a 'perfect storm' combining the oil spill calamity with the climatic forces of hurricane winds.

Butterflies, peacocks and even beetles have long been wearing colors far beyond the grasp of even the European fashion industry. With their iridescent wings, carapaces and feathers, these fashionistas of the insect and animal kingdom have long rubbed our noses in the fact that they're prettier than we are. Now, thanks to research done at the University of Cambridge, these colors can be duplicated, and may lead to advancements in bank note security, along with ever-more dramatic seasons of "Project Runway".

Microsoft has publicly released a tagging system that will allow users to leave a breadcrumb trail for the firm, its advertisers and just about anyone else to follow. Attaching QR barcodes to products, street scenes, magazines, business cards and such when viewed through smartphone camera can redirect users to programmed URLs that can contain content, photos or videos.

More than 30 days have passed since Mark Zuckerberg launched his first Open Graph salvo across the bow of the USS Facebook at the F8 Developers Conference. During that time over 30 million search topics relating to "facebook privacy concerns" are now registered on Google. 

Facebook has invited members of the House and Senate to attend a special privacy-centric briefing. Based on the ongoing backlash from its user-base and the blogosphere, Facebook will be facing off with perhaps its toughest critics, namely Senators Begich, Bennet, Franken and Schumer.

Tired of the endless debates about who voted for who and in what quantities, and burned out from watching endless hours of pre-election, election and finally post-election party coverage, researchers at the Universities of Surrey, Birmingham and Luxembourg have joined forced to create a Vote-o-Tron that can not only use paper ballots, but accurately count them.

What makes the cover of a Time Magazine have longed been a cherished tradition of speculation by readers the world over. Like the old refrain from the song "New York":  "if you can make it there - you can make it anywhere."  Of recent date, the two major social networks of the day have taken center stage on those covers -one lauded for how it changed the way we communicate, while the other critiqued for perhaps pushing that communication too far.

When the pilot version of the go.vn site (www.goonline) was launched this week, it caused a bit of an international dust-up with one major social network and the netizens of Vietnam. Seems like Facebook can't cut a break any where in the world these days!

The Semantic Web or Web 3.0 is coming. If we look at Web 2.0 as window dressing, the real shopping will come when Web 3.0 opens its doors for business. Some say Semantic Technology and Web 3.0 are two separate entities. They will co-exist but develop separately. While that debate will continue for some time, what we do know is our online lives are going to get a major assistance from artificial intelligence in the brave new world of the 'intelligent Web.'

With Facebook’s desire to outGoogle Google, its recent privacy issue infractions, phishing scams, exodus rumors, senatorial probes and the controversy surrounding instant personalization and advertising as its ulterior motive, the network appears to be on a downhill spiral. Today, however the last log might have been thrown on that fire!

It's often been said that "karma is a bitch" and "what goes around comes around." In Mark Zuckerberg's case, karma is not only a bitch, she's "hell on wheels" and this go-around, she's leaving a maelstrom of controversy in her wake. For a man who's only lived 26 short years, he's scaled heights in one lifetime many of us could only dream about. That is... if we didn't have to incur a subsequent fall - which also looks karmically imminent.

Taking a small child out in busy public areas can be terrifying at times.  There is a new child’s watch on the market that can help take some of the worry out of these precarious situations.

Curious if Mark Zuckerberg and his top-ranked consigliores actually strategized in advance of launching their Open Graph, as to how they would handle a potential backlash from their user-base? Did the thought even cross their minds as to the possible discontent that could be created in the Blogosphere? Was there a game plan in place to address political criticism from Senators and the Federal Trade Commission?

With Google Buzz and now Facebook's Open Graph attempting to redefine 'privacy' in the 21st Century, along comes services that are attempting to make your everyday credit card purchases social.

Perplexed, Bewildered? With Twitter reaching an all-time high milestone of 105 million users, all member of the Twitterati are beside themselves trying to figure out why their followers picked up and left. Presently the microblogging platform is showing no individual followers for anyone? While it takes some of us in Twitterville months to accumulate hundreds of followers, it only took one little bug to wipe all of our slates clean.

While the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" is more about adapting to "change" in the workplace, "Who Moved My Blog" could be about the "copy and paste" mentality that unfortunately taints the Blogosphere and those who attempt to make a living working in that very crowded space.

They both opened their doors on May 1, but culturally, they are worlds apart. While the Obama Club cost local Chinese club owners  $US15 million, the USA Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 received no governmental funding and was only completed as a result of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeking private financing to the tune of $US61 million. While the Pavilion will tell the story of the American spirit of perseverance and technological innovation, the Obama Club is oddly a 'capitalistic' venture to capitalize on the name of the 44th President of the United States.

Don't be surprised if the Case of the Missing 4G iPhone doesn't become a Game App in the very near future. It has all the components of an interactive mystery game including a large tech company kingpin, the press, a police raid, a 'deep throat' character and a hapless software engineer who doesn't have a shot in hell of ever becoming Apple's employee of the month any time soon.