socialrosiechen: June 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Facebook is testing a News Feed for loners

Friendless Facebook user 'hotlou' seems to have picked up on a new Facebook feature! Unfortunately, other than the picture above, I don't have much to report.

Facebook had a little to say to Business insider: "This is a test we're running to a small percentage of users who have very few friends on Facebook. This is simply to help them discover interesting content and create an instantly valuable experience for them."

We can see from the picture (helpfully annotated by 'hotlou') that these friendless Facebookers no longer have the option of 'Top news' or 'Most recent' -- instead, they will be presented with a News Feed showing the most-liked and most-commented items on Facebook. It's a bit like Twitter's trending topics even...

What I want to know is where the 'cut off' for this new feature lies. I have 150 friends (which I've always thought as quite low!), but I don't have the option of seeing this new feed. Is there anyone else out there that can see the new feed -- and if so, how many friends do you have?

Facebook is testing a News Feed for loners originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nikki Reed
Elisha Cuthbert

iPhone 4 Teardown – 512MB RAM and 1GHz CPU Revealed

iPhone 4 Teardown – 512MB RAM and 1GHz CPU Revealed
iFixit, a company renowned for publishing online do-it-yourself guides for opening high profile gadgets has lived up to its name yet again. The folks at iFixit managed to grab an iPhone 4 a couple of days before the official launch on June 24th and published the first iPhone 4 teardown analysis on the internet. The [...]

iFixit, a company renowned for publishing online do-it-yourself guides for opening high profile gadgets has lived up to its name yet again. The folks at iFixit managed to grab an iPhone 4 a couple of days before the official launch on June 24th and published the first iPhone 4 teardown analysis on the internet. The important findings of the teardown reveal that the new iPhone boasts 512 MB RAM, provides easy battery replacement and is designed to minimize dropped calls.

While the 26-step iPhone 4 teardown does not throw up any major surprises, it reaffirms that the iPhone 4 contains 512 MB RAM, double the memory of the iPad. The processor is the same as in the iPad – Apple’s A4 processor, which iFixit says uses a 1-GHz ARM Cortex A8 core. The 32GB iPhone 4 has 28.77GB of storage and the rest is reserved for the iOS 4.

IFixit describes the iPhone 4’s integrated UMTS, GSM, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas (all developed by Broadcom) as a “work of genius”. The teardown shows the 5-megapixel camera capable of 720p video capture, a display with 960�640 resolution in action. The iPhone 4 body is made from Corning’s Gorilla Glass and is amongst the toughest cellphone bodies developed till date. There’s an improved audio chamber and dual-mics for more efficient noise cancellation. The 3-axis gyroscope is designed and manufactured by ST Micro. All in all, the iPhone 4 is an effort of collective collaboration from several companies which have contributed in bits and pieces – Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Numonyx, Samsung, ST Micro, Skyworks, Texas Instruments and TriQuint and last but not the least, Apple Inc.

One of the obvious pitfalls of the iPhone 4 design is that the glass, digitizer, and LCD panel are all glued together at the bottom. If your iPhone 4 falls leading to broken glass, it will dig a deep hole in your pockets so be extra careful while handling your new iPhone. The teardown analysis is another testimony to the fabulous design and the remarkable engineering precision that went into building the iPhone 4.

Check out the iFixit iPhone 4 teardown slideshow video to find out for more interesting facts about the new iPhone 4.

Kim Kardashian
Charlize Theron
Anna Faris
Lily Allen
Nadine Velazquez

How To Check iPhone 3GS Bootrom Version

How To Check iPhone 3GS Bootrom Version
After I published the post about PwnageTool for iOS4 jailbreak, one frequently-asked question that has been raised by many readers is: How can I check the bootrom version of my iPhone 3GS? How does I know it’s an old or new bootrom? For those who do not read the article about PwnageTool, you may wonder why we [...]

After I published the post about PwnageTool for iOS4 jailbreak, one frequently-asked question that has been raised by many readers is:

How can I check the bootrom version of my iPhone 3GS? How does I know it’s an old or new bootrom?

For those who do not read the article about PwnageTool, you may wonder why we need to know the bootrom version. As of now, the PwnageTool is only applicable on previously jailbroken 3GS devices with the old bootrom. The old bootrom is indicated by a version number of iBoot-359.3, while the new bootrom is with iBoot-359.3.2. So if you are using iPhone 3GS, before jailbreaking iOS4 with PwnageTool, the very first step is to determine whether your iPhone is using the old or new bootrom.

To check the bootrom version, you can follow these step-by-step procedures:

For Windows User

1. First, put your iPhone in DFU mode.

(i) To put your iPhone into DFU mode, first connect your iPhone to computer (via USB cable)
(ii) Next, power off your iPhone.
(iii) Next, press and hold both POWER and HOME button for exactly 10 seconds.
(iv) Then release the POWER button and continue to hold the HOME button for 10 more seconds.
(v) At this point, your iPhone should remain blank and your computer should detect a device in DFU mode. If your iPhone shows “Connect to iTunes” screen, you have put it into recovery mode instead of DFU. Please go through the steps again.

2. After your iPhone is in DFU mode, open “Control Panel” -> “Hardware and Sound” -> “Device Manager”.

Control Panel - Hardware and Sound

3. Navigate to “Universal Serial Bus Controllers” and select “Apple Mobile Device USB Driver”.

4. Right click on “Apple Mobile Device USB Driver” and click “Properties”.

5. Click “Details” and select “Device Instance Path” for the “Property” field

You can reveal the bootrom version from the “Value” field. For the above screen, the bootrom version is iBoot-359.3. That means the iPhone 3GS uses an old bootrom.

For Mac OS User

1. First, put your iPhone in DFU mode.

2. After your iPhone is in DFU mode, open “Applications” -> “Utilities” -> “System Profiler” on your Mac.

3. In “Contents”, select “USB” under “Hardware” section.

4. Navigate the USB device tree, you should find “Apple Mobile Device (DFU mode)”. Click on it and you can find the bootrom version under “Serial number”.

For the above screen, the bootrom version is iBoot-359.3, which represents an old bootrom. In casae your iPhone uses a new bootrom, it should show iBoot-359.3.2.

After you check the bootrom version, you can simply press and hold both HOME & POWER button for a few second (until you see the Apple logo) to bring your iPhone back to normal.

Can you manage to check the bootrom version of your iPhone 3GS? If you have any questions, simply leave me comment below. I will try my best to help.

Update: For those using Windows XP, you may not be able to find the “Device Instance Path” property. In this case, you can download USBView to discover your bootrom version. After launching USBview, locate “Apple recovery (DFU) USB driver”. Then click on “Options” and select “Config Descriptors”. Next, click “File” -> “Refresh” and you should be able to view the bootrom version under “SerialNumber” field.

Hayden Panettiere
Cameron Diaz

We Are Hunted revamps, adds music discovery and social sections

Filed under: Audio, web 2.0

I covered We Are Hunted about a month ago, but they've just undergone a fairly major overhaul. In a nutshell, We Are Hunted trawls Twitter, Facebook, P2P networks, and a whole bunch of other sources in order to figure out what music is hot and interesting right now. It looks nice -- and it works.

And now, they've added a new music discovery option, which feels just as slick as the rest of the website. You basically go through a bunch of songs and rate them. Rating is easy; it's "thumbs up/thumbs down" style (not a point system). The tracks are full-length, but as soon as you rate a track, the site skips to the next one.

Once you're done rating (or even if you just stop in the middle, like I did), the site makes a custom playlist that features some of the music you said you liked and music similar to it. The interface looks and feels just like the rest of the site and there's a large, stylish thumbnail for each song.

They've also debuted a new Community feature that lets you listen to other users' charts, and they've added an apps section that ties the site into other services like Grooveshark, Tumblr, Spotify, Boxee, etc.

Another noteworthy section of the site, which might have been there before but I've only just noticed, is the Research branch. You can download incredibly detailed PDF reports about quite a few artists; I downloaded one about Jason Mraz, and I was blown away by 48 pages of extensive data and charts that documented everything We Are Hunted could find about Mraz's online popularity. It was intense.

It all feels a bit hipster-oriented, but the recommendations are nice, it's clean, and it works. It's definitely worth a spin; I should've mentioned it in my roundup of free ways to find music online.

We Are Hunted revamps, adds music discovery and social sections originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scarlett Johansson
Anna Kournikova

Farmville Now Available For iPad

Farmville Now Available For iPad
Zynga has released an iPad friendly version of FarmVille for the iPad. Oh no, is this is a good or bad thing? The possible scenario’s are running through my mind faster than Apple can sell their next million iPad’s. I’ll try and slow my racing mind for a moment just to give you an idea [...]

Zynga has released an iPad friendly version of FarmVille for the iPad. Oh no, is this is a good or bad thing? The possible scenario’s are running through my mind faster than Apple can sell their next million iPad’s. I’ll try and slow my racing mind for a moment just to give you an idea of what could happen.

Flight Attendant: “M’am, the plane has landed, please hand over your rented iPad, grab your belongings and exit the plane”

Airline Passenger: “Please, just a few more minutes, I’m playing Farmville and can’t afford to have my crops wither”

Flight Attendant: “I understand but everyone else has left the plane and we have a schedule to follow here”

Airline Passenger: “Well your schedule can’t be nearly as important as this, plus I was just asked to adopt a baby calf, you must understand I can’t just let the poor thing starve or go homeless! Don’t you have a heart?”

Flight Attendant: “Please m’am, just turn the game off and follow procedure like everyone else or I’ll have to call security”

Airline Passenger: “I’d rather be dragged off of this plane than let this poor baby calf go without food, plus I’m so close to reaching the next level so I can finally surpass my friend Andrea, she thinks she is the queen of Farmville but I’ll show her!!”

Flight Attendant: “Have it your way then, SECURITY!!”

As much as I support Adobe Flash technology, maybe Steve Jobs was thinking clearly regarding this topic afterall. Perhaps he was trying to save us all from a global pandemic known as Farmville addiction. Maybe he saw it coming, tons of homeless people with cardboard signs that read “Will work for Farmville cash”. Probably not part of his strategy, and either way it doesn’t matter now.

It’s always good to laugh but on a more serious note if you feel you have a problem with the amount of hours you spend playing Farmville, one of the world’s most highly addictive games, check out the link below.

How To Kick Your Farmville Addiction.

Hilary Duff
Ciara
Blake Lively

Universal Installer puts Linux live CDs on USB flash drives -- with persistent storage

Filed under: Utilities, Linux

I play around with a lot of Linux distributions and while I typically just virtualize them using an app like VirtualBox or VMware, sometimes it's nice to be able to test them on bare metal. A nice, pain-free way to do that is with Pendrive Linux's Universal USB Installer.

The tool's actually been around for a while, but you may not have heard of it -- it's not talked about as much as other options like UNetbootin or Fedora's LiveUSB Creator. Like Fedora's app, Universal Installer can create persistent storage on your flash drive. That means you'll actually have some permanent space to save things like files and preferences -- instead of just having a flash drive clone of your disc image.

A huge number of distributions are supported, including both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and sysadmin/technician favorites like Backtrack, GParted, DBAN, Clonezilla, OphCrack, and System Rescue CD.

The Pendrive Linux Universal USB Installer is well worth a download if you've thrown away as many scratched copies of those discs as I have over the years.

[via Lifehacker]

Universal Installer puts Linux live CDs on USB flash drives -- with persistent storage originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Danneel Harris
Zoe Saldana
Pen�lope Cruz

YouTube to launch skippable ads, which might actually help advertisers

Filed under: Business, Video, Web services

Hulu isn't the only online video service shaking things up with ads this week. The Wall Street Journal has YouTube on the record saying they're about to roll out the skippable ads they've been planning since November, so users can jump past an ad a few seconds after it starts. That can't make advertisers happy, right?

Well, it might actually be better for everyone. As Hulu is finding out, users totally hate ads in their Web video. Seeing advertising isn't expected, the way it is with TV. If ads are good enough, though, they'll watch. Hulu tries to take advantage of that by letting users rate ads. YouTube won't need to, because it has the power of Google's massive analytics database on its side. It'll eventually learn which ads users are skipping most, and show them less often.

This is actually a potential win for advertisers, because they get to find out which ads are working, and when they need to go back to the drawing board.

[via Mashable]

YouTube to launch skippable ads, which might actually help advertisers originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eva Mendes
Julianne Hough
Angelina Jolie
Vanessa Hudgens

USB Go, connettere due computer tramite porta USB

USB Go, connettere due computer tramite porta USB
In molte case odierne, vi sono più di due computer. Visto che il costo è diminuito notevolmente, e vista anche la diffusione dei NetBook, un computer può essere comprato anche da chi non ne abbisogna per lavoro. In questo modo, però, i computer entrano in possesso di utenti che spesso non sanno usare a pieno [...]

In molte case odierne, vi sono più di due computer. Visto che il costo è diminuito notevolmente, e vista anche la diffusione dei NetBook, un computer può essere comprato anche da chi non ne abbisogna per lavoro. In questo modo, però, i computer entrano in possesso di utenti che spesso non sanno usare a pieno tutte le sue funzionalità.

Ad esempio, non tutti sanno che è possibile creare una rete nell’abitazione, in modo da condividere file, e se lo sanno, non sanno come fare per crearne una. Per trasferire file da un computer all’altro, quindi, si preferisce usare una penna USB, con una inevitabile perdita di tempo.

(...)
Continua a leggere USB Go, connettere due computer tramite porta USB, su Geekissimo

USB Go, connettere due computer tramite porta USB, pubblicato su Geekissimo il 17/03/2010

© middleman90 per Geekissimo, 2010. | Permalink | 20 commenti | Aggiungi su del.icio.us
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Post tags: computer, condividere, pc, rete, trasferire

AnnaLynne McCord
Kate Beckinsale
Lindsay Lohan

MORIS: An iPhone App To Catch Crooks and Criminals

MORIS: An iPhone App To Catch Crooks and Criminals
Where there is a will, there is a way and there’s an iPhone app for that as well. In the past, we’ve showcased several interesting apps on this blog and the latest one to join the list is MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System) – an iPhone app that allows cops to use an iPhone to [...]

Where there is a will, there is a way and there’s an iPhone app for that as well. In the past, we’ve showcased several interesting apps on this blog and the latest one to join the list is MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System) – an iPhone app that allows cops to use an iPhone to take photos of suspects, which are then compared to a database of other criminal mugshots that the state is currently compiling. The app is currently being used by police officers in Brockton, Massachusetts. Criminal investigations surely don’t get any more futuristic than this!

So, how does it work? The app is installed on special iPhones (costing nearly worth $3,000 a piece) that are carried by police offers in Brockton and are well connected to a statewide database of offenders. The app lets police officers take pictures of suspects and the app instantaneously lets them know if the suspect has a criminal record or not. The MORIS app uses facial recognition technology to identify suspects within a matter of seconds. The data of the picture shot by the police officer is matched against a database at Brockton’s booking desk and the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department, which stores records of offenders’ eyes.

The app is developed by BI2 Technologies, with New Hampshire-based Animetrics contributing its facial recognition technology. The app will be enhanced to offer iris- and fingerprint-recognition abilities, as well. It is expected to be used statewide by cops in Massachusetts later this year. The use of iPhone applications for criminal investigations and law enforcement is steadily on the rise. Police officers in Australia use it to check cars and verify license registration information for vehicles on the move. The Campus police at the University of Illinois came up with another innovative use of the iPhone – to monitor campus security using cam footage taken via iPhones and iPads.

Here’s a video that shows the MORIS app in action at the Brockton police department.

Cat Power
Moon Bloodgood

Hands-on with the Verizon Fascinate

And here comes the Verizon version of the Samsung Galaxy S, which forever shall be known as the Fascinate. It's going to give the Motorola Droid X a run for its money, no doubt. It's also launching with Android 2.1 but will get a Froyo update sometime later. Hands-on pictures after the break.

Posted originally at Android Central

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