In a stunning move, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire announced Thursday it was shutting down the News of the World tabloid, Britain’s bestselling Sunday newspaper, because of an alleged phone hacking scandal that has triggered a major public backlash here.
James Murdoch, a senior executive at his father’s News Corp., said Sunday’s edition of the News of the World would be its last. In a statement, he said the company accepted responsibility for the distress inflicted by the phone hacking allegations and the paper’s breach of journalistic ethics….
The statement acknowledged the gravity of allegations that the paper hacked into the cellphones of celebrities, politicians and even crime and military combat victims in its pursuit of scoops. Earlier this week, Britain was rocked by reports that a private investigator hired by the tabloid had illegally accessed – and deleted – voicemail messages on the phone of a 13-year-old girl who was kidnapped and later found murdered.-L
An acclaimed, new documentary, Page One: Inside the New York Times, chronicles the slow, painful demise of a news gladiator in a new world where new-media, citizen journalism rules.
Netflix, the Web’s top video rental service, is branching out into 43 new countries in Latin America and the Caribbean later this year….
News of the expansion sent Netflix’s stock soaring. In midday trading, shares of the company’s stock were up 6 percent, or up $16.95 to $284.89. That was good enough to top the company’s previous 52-week high of $283.50.
Subscribers will be able to access Netflix in Spanish, Portuguese, or English. Netflix said the streaming offer in Latin America and the Caribbean will work the same way it does in the United States. Customers will pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to the company’s streaming-video library.-C
Microsoft is barging its way into China, but faces image problems in Massachusetts and Switzerland.
Microsoft has partnered with Baidu. Bing search results will appear in English-language queries on the number-one Chinese search engine. The move vicariously thrusts Microsoft ahead of Google in the world’s most populated country.
Over in America, a Massachusetts man is calling Microsoft on its suggestions that it values customer input, Cnet reports. Chris Carlucci has shared a customer-service response to an idea he submitted to improve Windows: it says it does not accept consumers’ ideas for new products.
“We hope that you will understand our intention to avoid any potential misunderstandings or disputes,” the e-mail reads.
Microsoft launched an advertising and promotional campaign that touts Windows 7 as developed from users’ suggestions.
The company could stand to take a few suggestions to improve its image in Switzerland, where a political party has emerged devoted solely to ridding the nation of Powerpoint. The Anti-PowerPoint Party claims the software saps 2.1 billion Swiss francs ($2.5 billion U.S.) annually. Party president Matthias Poehm says its existence is a promotional mechanism for his book, “The PowerPoint Fallacy.”
Microsoft has released some of the source code for the software it uses to collect details of people’s Wi-Fi hotspots, so that it can be examined for privacy implications.
In a blog post on Friday, Reid Kuhn, partner group program manager for the Windows Phone engineering team, said the publication of the code should demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to privacy and ensuring the protection of people’s information.
Image: Nyuhuhuu
The code released by Microsoft is part of that used in an activity it dubs ‘managed driving’, whereby Microsoft uses cars to collect cell tower, Wi-Fi and GPS data. The idea behind the mapping is to be able to provide faster and better-targeted location-based services to Windows Phone users.-Z
Microsoft has pulled the plug on its Games for Windows Marketplace less than one year into the service’s life. But before you shed tears on your keyboard at the thought of no longer being able to purchase digital copies of PC titles, fear not: The store isn’t really going away. Microsoft’s just merging the Games for Windows marketplace into the one place that naturally comes to mind when you think about downloading PC titles: Xbox.com.
And we’re not being snarky just for snark’s sake. The general reaction of “huh?” is being echoed by a number of different commenters who remain a bit confused as to why Microsoft would sell PC games under its console brand. Especially after the bold claims issued by Microsoft executives last year just prior to Games for Windows Marketplace’s November 2010 launch.-P
A reported deadline for developers to comply with an Apple policy on in-app subscription content has passed, with some developers yet to modify their apps. But Macworld has learned that Apple is working with developers to bring their apps into compliance as the company will look to start enforcing its new rules.
First announced in February, the in-app content rules came as part of Apple’s subscription system, requiring that apps offer in-app content for the same price regardless of whether it was purchased via the app or outside of it. Apple later revised the rules, instead just requiring that developers remove any links to external sources for purchasing content accessible from within the app….
Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.-P
Gmail Redesigned: Google’s Email To Get A New Look Google’s popular email service will soon roll out updates to the Gmail interface that are designed to streamline the appearance of the tool to make it easier for users to manage their mail.
The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/01/gmail-redesigned-google-email_n_888539.html
Gayglers: Google’s LGBT Employee Resource Group
By raising awareness internally and externally, Gayglers work in a small way towards the fully equal treatment that we believe all LGBT peoples deserve.
Major legal battles in the technological sphere are criss-crossing the globe.
WikiLeaks and DataCell will take its grievance against European Visa, MasterCard and Teller to the European Union Commission unless those companies resume service for the whistle-blowing website. Visa, MasterCard and Teller have refused to serve WikiLeaks for more than six months making it difficult for the company to do business. The lawyer handling the case says the companies have until Thursday to step up.
Image: Toffehoff
Over in Korea, Samsung has dropped a key patent-infringement countersuit against Apple, which demanded access to unreleased Apple prototypes. The suit was a response to Apple’s charge that Samsung infringed on Apple’s patents. Samsung claims it only backed down to “streamline legal proceedings.” The Korean tech company still has other legal claims against its California competitor.
Apple appealed to an American District Court for a preliminary injunction against Samsung. It’s a sly legal move intended to muzzle the other side — and one that carries with it the connotation that Apple seems to believe Samsung has an unfair advantage. The effect of the injunction, if the court agrees to it, would be that four released Samsung smart phones must be taken off market: Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G, Droid Charge, and Galaxy Tab 10.1.
NEW MEDIA TRENDS will have developments as those disputes progress.
The parent company of GoDaddy.com, a top registrar of Internet domain names, has been sold to a group of private investment firms for $2.25 billion, a person familiar with the transaction told The Associated Press.
Go Daddy Group Inc.’s sale to KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures comes as the company expects to top $1.1 billion in revenue this year because expanding Internet use has fueled the creation of more websites and the “domains” needed to help find them. Go Daddy announced the sale late Friday.-A
The Anonymous-AntiSec-LulzSec hybrid is turning its attention to what it considers to be corrupt companies as well as governments, and that includes Viacom and Universal Music Group.
The group, ostensibly part of the Anonymous collective, posted a file that it says contains “internal mapping of Viacom and its servers,” as well as passwords and other data from UMG’s umusic.com. The file also includes information pulled from the government Web sites of Zimbabwe, Australia, and Brazil.
Anonymous did not elaborate on why it considers Viacom and UMG to be corrupt. But hacking groups have gone after major media and music companies in the past over what they say are overzealous copyright infringement crackdowns. Viacom declined to comment; Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.-P
Entrepreneur Answers Hackers With 1.3M E-mail Vault
Cyber security consultant and entrepreneur Daniel Grzelak has created what seems to be one of the most comprehensively searchable databases of email addresses compromised by hackers like LulzSec in the last few weeks.
More than 210,000 people have visited Shouldichangemypassword.com since it was launched two weeks ago. The site has a search box that indicates if your email address and password is among the 1.3 million he’s collected from those posted online by hackers. You could be in trouble if yours matches up, especially if its password was used elsewhere.
Grzelak doesn’t track how many visitors get bad news, and to prevent the data being misused, he only compiles one-way hashes of emails containing no personally-identifiable data.-F
