Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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Automattic's Spam Fighter Akismet Just Filtered Its 50 Billionth Piece Of Spam, Now Seeing 700 Spam Comments Per Second Top
akismet_greenWordPress just hit an impressive milestone today: it has now filtered its 50 billionth piece of spam. Akismet, the homegrown comment filtering system from WordPress maker Automattic is the tool responsible for all the spam fighting. And those spammers keep the system busy. In April, Akismet blocked 1.8 billion spam messages, or 60 million pieces of spam per day, 2.5 million per hour, or 700 per second. Whoa, that's a lot of spam.
 
RIM Halts Trading To Issue Business Update, Hires RBC And J.P. Morgan For "Strategic Review" Top
rimoneyCanadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has briefly ceased trading of their stock today in order to issue a "business update" from CEO Thorsten Heins to their stockholders. Though the release takes the time to outline some of the company's recent personnel changes, Heins also points out that the company has enlisted the services of both the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to help the company evaluate their financial strategies going forward.
 
Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Its Users Are Not Amused Top
bitly logoBitly launched a major update and redesign of its link shortening service today that, in the eyes of many of its users, de-emphasizes some of its core feature. Instead of being able to just copy and paste a link, users now have to go through a few extra steps to get their shortened links, for example. This extra complexity brings many new features to the service, but some of its users are anything but happy about the changes.
 
Facebook Has Lost About $35 Billion In Value Since IPO As Shares Dip Below $29 Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-29 at 12.51.12 PMPain, pain, and more pain for Facebook's stock. Facebook sunk into the $20s for the first time today, declining about 9 percent as options trading started. The decline also came a day after a third wave of reports came out about a Facebook phone, which would push the company into the risky and expensive world of building hardware. Shares hit a new low of $28.65 and are now trading at $28.84. That gives the company a market capitalization of $79.02 billion, down from $115 billion market cap Facebook opened at on the day of its IPO when it started trading at $42.05 a share.** (That said, if you're a glass-is-half-full kind of person, Facebook is now cheap, cheap, cheap!)
 
Game Closure Poaches Zynga's CTO Of Mobile To Lead HTML5 Game Development Top
l_desegur_game closureLast we heard from Game Closure, the young startup had just turned down offers from Zynga and Facebook on its way to a $12 million raise from Highland Capital, Greylock, Benchmark, General Catalyst, and more. Even in spite of $100 million-plus offers, Game Closure CEO Michael Carter tells us that the startup is not eager to sell -- not now, and not in the future. Yet, stealing high-placed executives at the big gaming companies? Not a problem. Today, Game Closure, which is building a game development environment and SDK that makes it easy for developers to create, host, and deploy HTML5, cross-platform, multiplayer games, is announcing that it has poached Laurent Desegur away from Zynga, making the engineer and executive VP of Mobile Engineering. Until recently, Desegur had been CTO of Zynga Mobile, on top of being a veteran of Netflix, Big Fish Games, Amazon, Apple, and EA -- to name a few.
 
Amazon Instant Video Comes to Xbox 360 Top
xbox_amazon)instantAmazon just announced that its Instant Video service is now available on Microsoft's Xbox 360. With the Amazon Instant Video app for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, Xbox users can now access the roughly 120,000 movies and TV episodes available for renting and purchasing on Amazon's streaming video service. The app also offers access to the more limited Prime Instant video selection, Amazon's video service for its $79/year Prime members.
 
Doing It Wrong: Irish Newspaper Licensing Organization Asks Women's Charity To Pay For Links Top
spanish_inquisitionAn Irish women's charity, Women's Aid, linked to some articles on the Irish Examiner (like this, this, and this) and thought that all was right with the world. Heck, that's how the Internet works, right? It turns out that according to the Irish Newspaper Licensing organization, you need to pay to link to the newspapers. And there the troubles begin.
 
HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: Initial Impressions (Hands-On Photos) Top
photo8Evo. It's one of the few HTC/Sprint models to make a splash in the mobile ocean, and after a brief stay at U.S. customs, the latest iteration should do the same. The Evo 4G LTE is the most powerful Evo to date, with a 4.7-inch 720p display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 1GB of RAM under the hood. But these specs are in no way novel, which means that quite a bit comes down to HTC's software offerings and design language.
 
Sprint's Aging iDEN Network Could Go Dark As Soon As June 2013 Top
Image (1) sprint-nextel-03.gif for post 73475Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been planning to kill off the carrier's aging iDEN network since 2010, but now Sprint has finally delivered a date for iDEN's demise. The carrier has just announced that they plan to pull the plug on their iDEN network as soon as June 30, 2013. Thankfully, from the ashes of the company's near-dead 2G network will rise enhanced 3G service and Sprint's new 4G LTE network.
 
Viddy Updates iOS App To Add Custom Cover Art, Faster Uploads, And Local Language Support Top
viddyMobile video sharing service Viddy has been busy adding new features to its iOS app, which will now provide more customization options for content that users upload. Along with the latest app update, Viddy has also rolled out a new web experience that makes more of the mobile features available to users who don't have the app installed. Viddy version 1.7, which goes live in the app store Tuesday, will let users designate Instagram-like cover art for their videos. The app will suggest a few still images from each video to use as thumbnails, or users can select to upload their own images from the iPhone's photo library. Once an image is chosen, users can then add one of 16 different custom effects to the thumbnail.
 
This Sassy Little Robot Lets Your Friends Follow You Around With Telepresence Top
mh2_4-1338278337573Although one could argue that Facetime and Skype are already nearly perfect telepresence systems, there's definitely some value in having a jolly little robot sit on your shoulder and transmit, in real time, everything you see and hear to a friend far away. Right? Please say I'm right? This experimental robot is called the Miniature Humanoid 2 or MH2 and was built in Japan by Yuichi Tsumaki, Fumiaki Ono, and Taisuke Tsukuda of Yamagata University in Japan. The robot requires a big honking backpack so it's a little bit cumbersome but essentially the MH2 can move around on your shoulder as you move around the world, creating a sort of Master/Blaster relationship or, more likely, a Kuato/host human situation.
 
iPhone App Downloads Dropped Again In April, As Apple's Bot Crackdown Continues Top
gtekna-botMobile app downloads continued to decline in April and the cost to acquire loyal users picked up, reports mobile marketing firm Fiksu in its latest report out today. This downward trend was expected, as no major events sparked app discovery during the month, explains Fiksu CEO Micah Adler. However, mobile app marketers were particularly aggressive in the social networking and games categories during April, both of which experienced volatility throughout the month. With the former (social networking), the reason had to do with the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, which drew increased attention to the category. There were also a number of new game releases in April, which led to increased interest and competition among the developer community in that category, as well.
 
More FB IPO Fallout? Russia's Leading Social Network Vkontakte's IPO 'Postponed Indefinitely' Top
Image1 for post Facebook Investor Bets On Two Horses As Vkontakte.ru Plans To Go GlobalIn the aftermath-analysis about what exactly happened in the Facebook IPO, and what it might mean for the future, here's one side-effect to the east of Nasdaq: Vkontake, the top social network in Russia, which shares a shareholder with Facebook, Mail.ru, has decided to delay its own IPO. The news was confirmed by the company's CEO  Pavel Durov on Twitter. In Russian, he tweeted, in answer to a Russian journalist's question about the planned IPO date, "It's not planned. The IPO of Facebook has destroyed the faith of a lot of private investors in social networks and the IPO of VK has now been postponed indefinitely."
 
Bitly Launches New Bookmarking Features, Profiles, Search & iPhone App Top
bitly fishLink shortener Bitly today launched a major redesign and number of new features that all add up to what the company itself calls "a new bitly." Among these new features are 'bitmarks,' bitly's name for its new bookmarking features, the ability to search and find these bookmarks, a fast search functionality, as well as enhanced public profiles that give users more privacy control. Bitly is also rolling out new bookmarklets, a Chrome extension and its first iPhone app.
 
Think Of The Docks! Could The New iPhone Have A Micro USB Connector? Top
photo_2Now look: these are probably fake as all get-out, but bear with me. These handsomely watermarked photos are purported to represent a brand new iPhone design with a sort of two-tone brushed and chromed casing. Whether they are real or not (they're definitely going to get UBreakIFix plenty of SEO juice), there is still a bit more to this story than just some blurry-cam shots (and these nice shots on 9to5mac). The most important thing to note is the size of the dock connecter. That's right: it's a micro USB port (or, less likely, a Thunderbolt port).
 
Lockerz Acquires Fashion Community 'Chick Approved' Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-23 at 10.09.45 AMSocial commerce startup Lockerz just announced that it has acquired online fashion community Chick Approved. Lockerz allows its members to earn "PTZ" by sharing content and other activity on the site, which are then redeemed for discounts in the Lockerz store. Fashion, style, and beauty are the company's fastest growing categories, says founder and CEO Kathy Savitt, and she describes this acquisition as a way to "really double down" in that area.
 
Peer To Peer Lending Crosses $1 Billion In Loans Issued Top
moneyPeer to peer (p2p) lending was always an idea with great potential. It is a simple concept. Match people who want to borrow money with people who want to invest money. Cut the banks out of the equation and everybody wins. Of course, it hasn't been that simple. When the industry was just getting established the two leading players, Lending Club and Prosper, found themselves coming under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 2008, while still in their infancy, both companies had to go through the expensive and time-consuming SEC registration process. Even though many people were writing the industry obituary at this point both Lending Club and Prosper survived. Today, both companies are thriving as the industry is gaining widespread support from borrowers and investors alike. With greater than 100% year over year growth p2p lending is one of the fastest growing investments. Industry volume is now over $50 million in new loans a month and over the Memorial Day long weekend total loan volume passed the $1 billion mark since the industry began back in 2006.
 
Face.com Is Definitely Being Acquired By Facebook Say Sources Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-29 at 15.55.24The purchase of Face.com by Facebook is happening and is a done deal, say multiple TechCrunch sources. Those familiar with the matter have confirmed the price will be $100m, as per the media speculation in the last few days. So far Face.com itself has declined to comment. CEO Gil Hirsch told us via email today "I have nothing to announce." However, among our sources, one told us "Yes, the wheels are in motion on the deal". We understand lawyers are huddling over the details of the deal right now but the acquisition is agreed.
 
New iOS 6 Maps App Reportedly Caught On Film Ahead Of WWDC Top
Apple-Maps-iOS-Six-4Rumblings of a new, Google-free iOS Maps app have been winging their way around the web for a few weeks now, and just in time to whet our appetites before WWDC, an early version of the revamped app has apparently been caught on film. The folks at BGR managed to score a handful of (extremely blurry) photos depicting the new in-house Maps application that Apple will reportedly unveil alongside iOS 6 next month.
 
Dell Finally Does An All-In-One PC Right (By Cloning The iMac) Top
xpsone27Dell has sold various all-in-one computers for years. These systems were mostly insipid, humdrum computers not fit for anything other than being a family's portal to Facebook. Even with touchscreens, Dell's all-in-one systems failed to be serious contenders in the space. Enter the XPS One 27. Announced today and detailed by Engadget, this all-in-one-system is clone of the iMac. Even the 2560 x 1440 screen resolution is the same. To Dell's credit, the XPS One 27 ships with Intel's latest generation of processors while the Apple iMac is still stuck with the older chips -- something Apple will no doubt address in the next revision. But it's hard to ignore the similarities. Hell, even the computer's support tower has a large hole for cable management a la iMac.
 

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