TechBlog

Last Friday, Google announced that its Street View cars had accidentally collected private data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks while making their rounds, and the international response began in full force. The same day, the Irish Data Protection Authority asked Google to delete all of that payload that was collected in Ireland. Yesterday, Google wrote, “We can confirm that all data identified as being from Ireland was deleted over the weekend in the presence of an independent third party. We are reaching out to Data Protection Authorities in the other relevant countries about how to dispose of the remaining data as quickly as possible.” ...

Thirty-two days ago, I purchased Apple’s iPad, after proclaiming that I wouldn’t. A gadget like this one should be tested if repeatedly blogged about. I would have used a for-reviews loaner, but I’m on the same fraked list as Gizmodo. I bought my own. A month-or-so usage later, I agree with Tumblr and Instapaper developer Marco Arment, who asked about iPad yesterday: “What’s it for, really? Logically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for most computer owners…most people will have trouble justifying the $500 entry price.” ...

Three words sum up Microsoft’s patent infringement suit against Salesforce.com: Competition by litigation. Microsoft knows plenty about competition by litigation, having been its victim through major antitrust cases on two continents. It’s simply shameful action from a company which executies rightly wagged accusing fingers at litigating competitors over the years. Microsoft’s “do unto them like they did unto us” approach cheapens the company. The proof is in the patents, which are hugely broad scope. ...

Hey Admins…. It’s that time again. The second Tuesday is upon us and May so far hasn’t been demanding as far as patching goes. So far …. this month Microsoft has only issued two security announcements. MS10-030 and MS10-031. Microsoft has rated both as critical – and both could result in remote code being executed. MS10-030 resolves an integer overflow in POP3 & IMAP mail responses to Outlook Express and Windows Mail…. MS10-031 addresses a stack memory corruption related to the way that “Visual Basic for Applications” searches for ActiveX components, when host applications provide specially crafted files to the Visual Basic runtime. ...

A variety of sources are reporting that blog hosting sites with WordPress-created sites and php-based management systems such as Zen Care eCommerce are being infected with malicious scripts. Websites hosted by ISP DreamHost, GoDaddy, Bluehost and Media Temple have been found with the malcode, according to H-Online.com. The malicious scripts download malcode and block Google’s Safe Browsing API from alerting users. Story here: “Large-scale attack on WordPress” The Sucuri Security blog has offered clean-up instructions for those with infected pages here.

With competition in the Web browser field having transitioned from cold to boiling in less than a year’s time, Mozilla suddenly finds itself playing catch-up against not only Apple and Google, but Microsoft as well. In March, the organization realized it needed to completely make over Firefox 4 if it wanted to remain feature competitive against a fast-rising Google Chrome. In a live presentation yesterday, Mozilla Firefox director Mike Beltzner admitted that his group’s March roadmap, which involved an interim release of Firefox 3.7, had too many steps. Now the group has decided to straighten out its path by grafting version 3.7’s main additions onto a point release Firefox 3.6.4, and shifting gears to focus on version 4.0. ...

A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that analyzing data from Twitter yields the same results as conducting a public opinion poll. We’re willing to bet it probably costs less, takes less time and annoys fewer people, as well. A CMU team from the computer science department looked at sentiments expressed in a billion Twitter messages between 2008 and 2009. The researchers then use simple text analysis methods to filter out updates about the economy and politics and determine if the overall sentiment of the update was positive or negative. The CMU team found that people’s attitudes on consumer confidence and presidential job approval were similar to the results generated by well-reputed, telephone-conducted public opinion polls, such as those conducted by Reuters, Gallup and pollster.com. ...

Despite ongoing questions about privacy, Facebook’s new social plugins continue to expand their footprint across the web, with the company announcing on Tuesday that more than 100,000 websites have now deployed them. The plugins –- which allow websites to add Facebook-powered social features without requiring users to log in –- were announced less than a month ago at Facebook’s developer conference, and attracted more than 50,000 publishers in the first week. ...

“What would people most like to see in 3D? Probably a naked lady.” Those are the words of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, whose magazine will soon include a centerfold playmate photographed naked and in 3D. The 3D centerfold will appear in the June issue, which hits newsstands this Friday with 3D glasses included. The subject of the photos is 51st Playmate of the Year Hope Dworaczyk. Consider this a grab for attention more than anything; Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jellinek was quoted by MSNBC saying, “In today’s print environment you have to create newsstand events.” The environment he’s talking about is one in which Playboy circulation has dropped almost 60% in just four years. ...

Foursquare is moving to make the list of “Places” one sees when one loads one’s mobile app of choice more relevant. The company announced this morning that it has recently made changes to improve its algorithms for serving up this data, taking into account things like time of day, proximity, and popularity of the venue in determining which places to show you. This should be a welcome change for users of Foursquare. As the service has taken off in popularity, it’s also seen an increase in venues that “you are very unlikely to check into” –- Foursquare’s words for the abundance of user-created venues popping up that are only relevant to a small number of people (if anyone, “Ostrow Castle” not withstanding). ...