Everyone knows Twitter is public, right?! Actually I am often surprised at what people say on a Tweet; things can come back to haunt you if said in public. The proof is now upon us.
Twitter are partnering with data providers to make the last two years worth of Tweets available for market research purposes! Previously users could only see the last seven days, and companies could get the last 30 days.
Last week I blogged about my concerns over copyright issues with images and the Pinterest service.
Basically, when someone Pins an image to their board on Pinterest a copy of the image is taken and stored on the Pinterest servers. You are then not in control of this image!
It would appear Pinterest are listening and have come up with a solution
It is unusual for Apple to release beta products to the general public — such software is typically reserved for registered Developers, however Apple surprised everyone with the announcement of Messages Beta to all.
Perhaps this is Apple’s new strategy, to be more open — or devious?
Google have started to deliver on their promise of building Dart into Chrome with the announcement that Chromium (developer release of Chrome) now features Dart, their replacement to the web standard JavaScript language.
Where are Google going with Dart? How will it impact on the web?
Perhaps predictably, Apple have announced that iMessage chatting will be built in to the next release of the Mac OSX operating system, Mountain Lion.
iMessage is a communication tool available on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch allowing free texting and is seen as a serious competitor to the traditional text/SMS messaging used on mobile platforms. It does however have one drawback in that it only works between Apple mobile devices — until now.
If you use any Google product, or are an avid reader of blogs, it will not have escaped your notice that Google are updating their Privacy policy. From 1 March 2012 all users will be deemed to have accepted the new conditions.
I have so far avoided blogging on the topic as there has been ample chatter on it, however I am still amazed at just how much mis-information and mis-understanding there is.
There is huge fuss around newly launched web service Pinterest, the internet pin-board. As you surf the internet you can pin images to your Pinterest board and organise your collection, sharing it with others.
Pinterest is currently invite only however it’s easy to request an invitation, or get one from a friend already on the service. They have clearly went for the Google school of thought — launch a product in pseudo closed mode, generate hype and have everyone desperate for an invitation.
I do however have a big problem with Pinterest — they take a copy of the images and store them!
Question: How sensitive is the content of your mobile phone address book? Would you be happy for your data to be taken without your consent?
This is precisely what has been happening to users of Path — the Smart Journal launched November 2010
Dropbox is a great cloud storage tool — I’ve been a big fan since it launched in September 2008. I have considered defecting and tested several others but I always come back to Dropbox’s simplicity and reliability.
Currently a free account comes with 2Gb of space, but you can increase this by recommending others. Now Dropbox are offering up to another 5Gb free (for Android users only).
So how do you get the extra space?
Firstly, you need to agree to test their lastest beta software on an Andorid phone. They have developed a tool to automatically upload your photos to your Dropbox account and as an incentive to test this you will receive 500Mb of space. For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500MB space bonus, up to 5GB total.
If you are interested, see the Dropbox forum post for more details
UPDATE: A new offer is on the table for 3Gb of free Dropbox space