Scientists-devise-first line of defence-against "Facebook-spying"

Penn State assistant professor of information sciences and technology Heng Xu pointed out that although each app must provide a link to its terms and conditions, the consequences for your privacy settings are obscure.

He said: ‘The only way to find out how the information is going to be used is to go to each app's website and review the terms of use. And many people won't do that.’

The sign-up screen currently is a general agreement that shows information third-party developers are requesting. If the member does not agree, the member cannot use the app.

The screen designed by the researchers allows members to decide what types of information they are comfortable sharing and with whom they want to share it.

The researchers, who presented their findings yesterday at the Association for Computer Machinery Symposium on Computer Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology, Boston, asked a group of Facebook members to try two app sign-up page designs.

One was a single-colour scheme and one used three colours - green, yellow and red - to designate critical information.

The design also features three boxes to offer members the option to share their app activity history with all the members of their network, just specific people, or keep all of the information private.

Privacy settings allow members to determine how much information the member wants to display or share with their members of their network and Facebook.

This data can include birthdate, hometown and current city, as well as pictures the members uploaded to their pages.

Members may not consider data like hometown or birthdates vital information, but Xu said that hackers can use such information to guess social security numbers.

Xu said that people may not even know that they may expose their friends' personal data if they use apps. A calendar app, for example, could allow developers to access the member's birthdate, as well as the birthdate of friends who are part of the member's network.

‘Some people may know that they are allowing these companies to access their data,’ Xu said. ‘However, they might not know that their info will be leaked through their friends, use of games and other applications on Facebook.’

Professor Xu’s research comes after it was revealed that Facebook has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out.

The social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.

It said the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers – data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.

The website’s practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and provoked a furious response across the internet.

Facebook claims to have 'fixed' the issue - and 'thanked' Mr Cubrilovic for pointing it out - while simultaneously claiming that it wasn't really an issue in the first place.

Features of new android version :gingerbread

This version of the Android mobile OS offers speed! Not only that though, as you’re soon to find out, there’s wild additions too! Nothing so big your eyeballs will explode, but close! There’s a new keyboard, a new text selection tool, gyroscope support, power management improvements, VoIP/SIP calling, improved copy and paste, support for NFC technology, and more!

Android OS was developed initially by a startup called Android that was involved in making software for mobiles and that Google bought in the summer of 2005. In 2007, Google announced the Android OS in association with the Open Handset Alliance, a large and open group of hardware, software and telecom companies that have been roped in by Google to participate in developing and distributing the Android operating system and applications.

New Keyboard

First of all, the thing that everyone uses every freaking day of the year, the Keyboard. This new keyboard has its keys reshaped for faster input and editing, bringing up word suggestions also depending on what letters you’re typing. Switching to voice mode allows you not to replace selections, multi-touch key-chording allowing you to type numbers and symbols with keyboard shortcut combos instead of flipping back and forth like you’ve got to now. Included deep inside the keyboard class “android.view.KeyEvent” is support for the following buttons – A,B,C, L1, L2, R1, R2, select, start, X, Y, and Z – aka PlayStation controls.

Copy/Paste

The copy and paste function has been improved to include pressing and holding to select words, stay in selection mode, and copy text for later pasting. Word Selection

Improvements to word selecting include the aforementioned press-hold, a function iPhone users are already used to using. Once pressed and held, a free-selection mode begins, a place where you can adjust the area you’re selecting by expanding bounding boxes.

Power Management

Improved next is your ability to manage your power usage. Inside your application settings, you’re able to see your battery in how it’s being used by various apps. See how much that Matrix screensaver really is sucking up all your juice! Hopefully soon those task killers will be rendered outdated.

Application Control (Task Killer Killer)

Along these same lines is a shortcut to “Manage Applications” which you can reach in your options menu. From here, you can indeed view all of your applications, how much power they’re using, and you’ve got the ability to stop any app instantly.

NFC Near Field Communication

This is the future of commerce as far as credit cards go. Use this to touch or swipe NFC tag embedded posters, advertisements, other weird junk, to be directed to a website (and more than likely other such actions). In the future, this functionality will work to send and receive money via your handheld device. Excellence.

Internet Calling

SIP Internet Calling addresses can be added to your contacts list and you can make internet calls via Quick Contact or Dialer. Hooray! Of course you’ll need a SIP account for this to work and these features will be turned off or on depending on what your manufacturer or carrier wants.

Downloads Management

A new download manager is in place to work from your browser, email, or other apps. This could be rather helpful I must say so myself.

Camera

Multiple cameras can now be accessed from your one new camera app, just by clicking the “select camera” button.

UI Improvements

Simple changes in the user interface of this Gingerbread system make the whole situation faster, easier, and more power-efficient. One example is the changing of the background to BLACK in the areas that it’ll always be covered up such as the notification bar, menus, and etc. Changes in these menus are also in place to simplify.

NFC is another high-frequency, short-range wireless communication technology that enables exchange of data between devices in a secure mode. Schmidt said that because NFC is incorporated into Android Gingerbread, a device running the operating system will easily be able to make mobile payments.

Users will have to do as little as wave the phone at a payment terminal to carry out a financial transaction. Google benefits from this because buying often comes naturally at the end of a Google search (like buying a movie ticket or air ticket). This would replace the use of a credit card or some other payment method online. A phone with NFC technology can handle search as well as purchase functions in a single device.

Widespread implementation of mobile payment technology has been slowed down by the hardware requirement in phones as well as retail stores and other payment terminals.

Google+ Chrome Extension Lets You Easily See Who Is Hanging Out

Sometimes in Google+ its a little tricky to catch or know who is currently holding a Hangout. If you would like a little more control over the Hangouts you attend. You might be interested in a new Google chrome browser  extension which has been developed called, My Hangouts for Google+.

The new My Hangouts for Google+ Extension provides you with a quick view and captures of all the active hangouts in your stream, without sending any information to outside servers.

Its developer explain:

“Unlike other extensions, this extension does not send your information and hangouts to external servers. Nor it tracks everything hangout move. It uses Google+ Search API, making it safe, fast, simple, and secure! “

Massive 18 new planets discovered

Using twin telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered 18 new Jupiter-like planets orbiting massive stars.Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), surveyed about 300 stars, and focussed more than one and a half times more massive than the sun.

These stars are just past the main stage of their life hence, “retired”, and are now puffing up into what’s called a subgiant star.

“It’s the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission,” John Johnson, first author on the paper, said.

The Kepler mission is a space telescope that has so far identified more than 1,200 possible planets, though the majority of those have not yet been confirmed.

To look for planets, the astronomers searched for stars of this type that wobble, which could be caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. By searching the wobbly stars’ spectra for Doppler shifts, the lengthening and contracting of wavelengths due to motion away from and toward the observer, the team found 18 planets with masses similar to Jupiter’s.|

According to Johnson, this new bounty marks a 50 percent increase in the number of known planets orbiting massive stars and, provides an invaluable population of planetary systems for understanding how planets, and our own solar system, might form.

The researchers say that the findings also lend further support to the theory that planets grow from seed particles that accumulate gas and dust in a disk surrounding a newborn star.

According to this theory, tiny particles start to clump together, eventually snowballing into a planet. If this is the true sequence of events, the characteristics of the resulting planetary system like the number and size of the planets, or their orbital shapes will depend on the mass of the star.

In another theory, planets form when large amounts of gas and dust in the disk spontaneously collapse into big, dense clumps that then become planets. But in this picture, it turns out that the mass of the star doesn’t affect the kinds of planets that are produced.

So far, as the number of discovered planets has grown, astronomers are finding that stellar mass does seem to be important in determining the prevalence of giant planets.

The newly discovered planets further support this pattern, and are therefore consistent with the first theory, the one stating that planets are born from seed particles.

“It’s nice to see all these converging lines of evidence pointing toward one class of formation mechanisms,” Johnson added.

The End To Fingerprint-Tainted Touchscreens?

Having a phone that’s a fingerprint magnet may soon be a thing of the past. The solution, it seems, comes with the use of candle soot and silica using the right amount of temperature to put an end to fingerprint-tainted touchscreens.

A group of researchers from Germany have tested this combination and came out with impressive results: glass that was able to repel oil and grease.  Imagine a smartphone and tablet that retains its glorious grease-free screen no matter how much you use it. Sounds too good to be true, right?  These folks from Max Planck Institute for Polymer research  may have found the right tools and procedure to help ease our smudge-filled pain .

The test process involves holding a glass over a candle to produce the kind of soot the researchers wanted–sphere-shaped particles that measures around 30 to 40 nanometers. The tricky part involved removing the soot’s color and preventing it from being washed off. This is where a silica shell comes in handy and with the right amount of temperature, the soot’s color is gone leaving a pristine, clear screen.

But don’t throw your microfiber cloth just yet. While the new solution is a welcome development to making fingerprint-proof surfaces for touchscreens, it might take a while before the new procedure goes commercial.