The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘services’

Google will roll out a number of security enhancements to Gmail this week, and perhaps as early as Tuesday, says a source with knowledge of the new features. The changes are specifically designed to cut down on phishing and hacking attacks on Gmail accounts.

There are two specific changes that we’ve heard Google is implementing. The first is a secondary line of defense when a user has lost his or her password. If a Gmail account is accessed from a new computer, the user will have the option of receiving a text message with a new one time use pass key. They then enter that pass key into Gmail to authenticate themselves and lock out any bad users with access to the account.

Google is also possibly implementing a different version of OAuth for its contacts exporter (something often used by other services to import Gmail contacts). It’s likely to be OAuth Wrap, an easier to implement version of OAuth. If developers can be convinced to use it instead of harvesting and storing user credentials, there’s less of a security hole.

These changes are likely in response to the Chinese security incident from earlier this year. A secondary line of security for users would have avoided the Twitter documents leak from last year, which originally started with a guessed Gmail password and spiraled out of control from there.

This isn’t confirmed and Google hasn’t responded yet to our email, but we’ll update with any further information.

Looks like Amazon has decided to go on holiday vacation early, and invited all of its customers to go along with it. Amazon and Amazon Web Services seem to be down, and people are noticing it.

This is bad news for any companies relying on Amazon’s cloud services. Many startups use Amazon Web Services to host files in the cloud including images and other key content. And it isn’t the first time this has happened (though its competition isn’t much better).

And, of course, those looking for extremely last minute holiday gifts are out of luck.

We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment, and we’ll update you on the status of Amazon.

Update: Amazon looks to be back up from here. Is it up for you?

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Truth be told, I have no idea why I’m about to write this post, other than the fact that it’s in my little writing queue. You can’t fight City Hall. Here’s the deal: the Federal Government of the United States spent a bunch of money investigating various online marketing scams .

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Something about Web scams, and the sites that still support them

Well, that was quick.

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Video Review: TwelveSouth BassJump

If we applied Moore’s law to the art of DJing, we would probably get something like Amidio’s Touch DJ app. Gone are the software DJ’s who replaced the original vinyl DJ’s. Now you can spin beats on your iPhone or iPod touch without listening to them.

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First DJ iPhone app lets you mix beats without listening to them.

In financial news, HP delivered something positive today. The fourth quarter has been a good one, with HP reporting a net income of $2.4 billion, in comparison to the $2.1 billion they reported last year. It’s nice to see some good news for a change

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HP announces 4Q profits, and the news is good

Today at the RealTime CrunchUp we saw the launch of VideoLobby, a new service founded by Peter Urban that’s looking to make it easier to create professional-looking webcasts, complete with custom branding. The service is an extension of Urban’s “sales software for real people” service Smibs.

Urban says that while some other services offer embeds, you’re generally responsible for building your own branded site to insert those in. That’s where VideoLobby comes in: the site helps you build your own custom video portal, and then allows you to include streams from services like Qik, Ustream and Justin.tv. The company calls itself the “Blogger for real-time video”.

The service doesn’t just make your page look nicer, though — it can automatically pull in comments from Twitter and Facebook, and also allows users to submit questions directly from the show’s page. Stream administrators can use a management system to heck off their questions as they answer them. And the service is completely free.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Rotten Tomatoes is a great site because it takes all the movie reviews from around the web and condenses them into an easy-to-understand aggregate score. But let’s be honest: Most movie reviewers suck. Why not instead rely on people in your social circle to recommend movies to you? That’s the idea behind FlixUp.

This new iPhone app unveiled at our Realtime CrunchUp event in San Francisco today essentially scans Twitter for what people are saying about a movie and shows you a rating based on that. It can return a general score from across Twitter, or the tweets about the movie from people you follow on Twitter.

But the key is the filtration. Plenty of people say things about movies on Twitter that are worthless, but FlixUp has what it believes to be the perfect algorithm to sort out the useful movie tweets from the not useful ones. They call it the “Twitter Noise Assassin.” And the results seem solid for how the collective views the film.

It’s been said that early buzz on services like Twitter can now make or break a movie, so a service like Flixup is the next logical step. They not only show if people are liking it or not liking it, but you can see how much people are talking about it.

The company behind FlixUp, Bazaarlabs, also has plans to extend this idea to other entertainment categories beyond movies. And eventually they plan to use more than Twitter as their data source, such as Facebook.

The app should be out in a couple of weeks.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

It’s the end of an era. MSN Direct has announced that their wireless data service will be shut off on January 1st, 2012

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This is the end, my only friend (for MSN Direct wireless data service)

Yes~! I’m rooting for the Phillies over the Yankees this World Season because I’m a Mets fan, and I’d sooner root for Team Mars in an Earth vs. Mars Loser Leaves The Galaxy Match than root for the Yankees

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MLB 09 The Show predicts a Phillies win in 7 games (take that, Yankees!)