Sunday, October 28, 2012

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Anonymous Is Going After Zynga For Mistreating Employees, It Has Leaked Confidential Documents And Games Top
6250260580_4d03ff9f5c_zAs you know, gaming company Zynga laid off employees last week and shut down a few of its offices right before its quarterly earnings call. Well, Zynga has pissed off the online group Anonymous, and it's quite serious. Here's a video just released by them, discussing exactly what it plans to do and why. The offensive has been dubbed "#OP MaZynga":
 
Google Has Set Up A "Crisis Map" For Those Preparing For Hurricane Sandy Top
Snapshot 10:28:12 11:18 AMGoogle has a fantastic program that prepares the world for major events involving Mother Nature, and it has set up a crisis map for people on the East Coast preparing for Hurricane Sandy.
 
This Guy's Mom's Square Reader Is Cooler Than Your Mom's Square Reader Top
Square Reader + iPhone 3GIt's almost Halloween, which means that all of your grown up friends with kids will be crowding up your Facebook News Feed with ridiculous photos of 2-year-olds dressed as the Incredible Hulk. It also means that the inner-geek in all of us come out. Yes, it's a fun holiday, and we love it because it brings out our creativity. I mean, did you not see the awesome Path Pumpkins, which I've dubbed Pathkins?
 
Iterations: "It's Delicate, But Potent" Top
pocketwatchvery now and then, I'll get sucked into the distracting, immersive, emotional habit of flipping through pictures online. Rifling through albums can stop time. It's disorienting, like stumbling upon an old photograph in your drawer, the type of visually arresting trigger that takes you back through time. For me, I keep a small cigar box full of all my old photographs, dating back to childhood. They're all warped now, fading in color. I keep the box tucked away under the bed, forgetting about it because I know going through it would take me places, some good, and maybe some not so good. Maybe you've heard a song that triggered a memory locked up in the corner of your brain. Maybe you run into someone from your past in real life, and you just stop in place. Or, maybe you see a photograph that ties it all together, jarring and powerful. If you've watched Mad Men, you'll no doubt recall the famous carousel scene at final episode of the first season, a classic moment where Don Draper talks about a consumer product, based on photographs, that had the rare chance to create a sentimental bond with people.
 
Founders, ICE And The Rise Of The Entrepreneur Influencers Top
iceraelWatching the dawn come up with a bunch of European entrepreneurs on tour in Tel Aviv this week, and hanging out with many of them at the recent F.ounders conference in Dublin, made me realise one thing: these guys just don't care. They will do anything it takes to make it happen. Their attitude is in stark contrast some of the issues they face. Sometimes, when you look at the dire economies and the regulations European entrepreneurs have to deal with, you would forgive them for moving entirely to another part of the planet. Not only two they generally have to deal with less access to funding than their US counterparts, but also the EU commission looking over their shoulders with continual changes to Cookie and privacy laws. But increasingly they are waking up to the fact that they may just be at the start of a journey which sees them develop not just economic power but gradually, political influence.
 
The Sad State Of Video Apps Top
HollywoodEditor's Note: Armando Kirwin is a filmmaker and consultant whose previous work has included Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, several startups, thirteen feature films, and a handful of TV shows. Follow him on twitter: @armandokirwin. Most of us remember where we were the moment the world learned about the billion-dollar sale of Instagram, but amidst the pursuing flurry of tweets ("it's too high!,"It's too low!", "We need to integrate filters right now!"), if you happened to browse the AppStore that day you might have noticed that the now-infamous app was actually ranked third. Sitting in the number one spot was a video app. I honestly can't even remember which one it was, like everyone else, all I saw was a placeholder for a 1 followed by nine zeros.
 
Big Data Right Now: Five Trendy Open Source Technologies Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-26 at 11.53.10 PMBig Data is on every CIO's mind this quarter, and for good reason. Companies will have spent $4.3 billion on Big Data technologies by the end of 2012. But here's where it gets interesting. Those initial investments will in turn trigger a domino effect of upgrades and new initiatives that are valued at $34 billion for 2013, per Gartner. Over a 5 year period, spend is estimated at $232 billion.
 
Cinefy Lets You Add CGI Special Effects To Your Awful, Shaky iPhone Video Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 12.24.14 PMWelcome to the future, where you can essentially make a movie with believable special effects right on your smartphone. Cinefy, an app that just launched on the App Store, makes this possible.
 
Predicta's Co-Founder On Bridging The Startup Scenes In Brazil And Silicon Valley [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 10.40.39 AMSao Paolo, Brazil and the San Francisco Bay Area are many miles apart, both literally in terms of distance, and figuratively in terms of culture. But one tech startup called Predicta is taking on the challenge of bridging the gap.
 
Tablet First, Mobile Second. Top
heroDevelopers tend to think "mobile first, tablet second" because tablets seem like stretched out mobile devices, and mobiles tend to have much higher install bases. The devs reason that if they design for mobile first and then stretch to fit tablet then that's probably sufficient. Not so much.
 
LinkedIn And The Mutable Rules Of Social Networking Top
4174759451_0066a9d8ffWhen I started using LinkedIn (in 2008) the service put a lot of emphasis on only connecting with people you had indubitably 'done business with'. Which made it pretty straightforward to decide when to click 'accept' and when not to. But in recent years I've been getting increasing numbers of LinkedIn requests from strangers. So the old rules of interaction aren't working anymore.
 
Social Annotation Site Diigo.com Recovering After Domain Hijacking Nightmare Top
Tour_ Collaborate | DiigoDiigo, a social bookmarking and annotation site, is finally back online 50 hours after the domain was first hijacked. It's an incredible story that involves crisis management, blackmail, investigative research, payoffs, a clever thief, and points to potential problems with the domain name registry system that could affect anyone with a website. Diigo's co-founder called it a nightmare and crisis that he'd like to help other companies avoid.
 
Convergence Or Confusion: Comparing Apple's And Microsoft's Approaches To Post-PC Top
mountain-lion-windows-8In a lot of ways, with Windows 8, Microsoft got the jump on what Apple seems intent on doing with OS X and iOS: a convergence of desktop and mobile computing. But the approaches both companies are taking to changing consumer computing habits are very different, and both strategies have their merits and their pitfalls. So who will come out on top as the world figures out new digital paradigms?
 
The EFF Needs Help Keeping 3D Printing Free Top
674x501_736420_624472_1351266457The Electronic Frontier Foundation is planning for a future when 3D printing, thanks to "creative" patents, could no longer be free. Because the technology is so nascent, patenting parts of the process or renewing expiring patents could prevent incremental improvement of the technology out of fear or patent infringement. The EFF wants to head this off at the pass.
 
Lessons for Data Driven Businesses Top
250px-DataTNGRobert J. Moore is the co-founder of RJMetrics, a company whose software helps online businesses make smarter decisions using their own data. He also previously served on the Investment Team of Insight Venture Partners.  One of the fun things that happens when you start a company is that you get opportunities to share what you've learned with other technology leaders. In past year, I've been fortunate to present "best practices" sessions to a number of groups, including the portfolios of First Round Capital, Insight Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital.
 
Raincheck: Google Cancels NYC Android Event Planned For Monday Due To Hurricane Sandy Top
stormThere may be an app for almost everything, but there still isn't one for controlling Mother Nature. Google this morning officially canceled the Android event that was scheduled to occur on Monday, October 29 in New York City due to Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to hit the city on Sunday evening.
 
Yammer's Cindy Alvarez: Five Types of People I Should Have Fired Sooner Top
failconCindy Alvarez directs user experience at Yammer. At the Failcon conference this week she did an insightful if uncomfortable talk about the five types of people she should have fired sooner.
 
Gillmor Gang: Tommy Can You Hear Me Top
Gillmor Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — counted their pennies as Apple, Microsoft, and Google weighed in to the Tablet Sweepstakes with new entries. Apple's iPad Mini captured two of the Gang's wallet, while none seemed ready for the Surface or other Windows 8 entries. Google seems challenged to wrangle the carriers and Microsoft may be dividing its partners with the home-grown Surface.
 
How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid? Top
2438005410_6100c23246_zLast week Glassdoor published its most recent software engineering salary report. Short version: it pays to code. Google and Facebook employees earn a base salary of ~$125K, not counting benefits, 401k matching, stock options/grants, etc., and even Yahoo! developers pull in six figures. Everyone knows why: ask anyone in the Valley, or NYC, or, well, practically anywhere, and they'll tell you that good engineers are awfully hard to find. Demand has skyrocketed, supply has stagnated, prices have risen. Basic economics. But why has the supply of good engineers remained so strained? We're talking about work that can, in principle, be performed by anyone anywhere with a half-decent computer and a decent Internet connection. Development tools have never been more accessible than in this era of $100 Android phones, free-tier web services, and industry-standard open-source platforms. Distributed companies with employees scattered all around the world are increasingly normal and acceptable. (I work for one. We're hiring.) And everyone knows that software experts make big bucks. Basic economics would seem to dictate that more and more people will flood into the field, bringing salaries back down to Earth.
 
Arguments About Politics Are Like Arguments About Phones Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 1.23.43 AMWe've all been inundated with political back and forth over the past few weeks. Curse you, social networks! And you too, Internet! And yet, what's really frustrating isn't the political back and forth, but the content that is being volleyed back and forth. More specifically, the lack of content. Watch 9 seconds of any recent episode of the Daily Show and you'll see that networks, pundits, experts, you-name-its are all happily willing to spend their days blowing an out-of-context sentence completely out of proportion and make said sentence seem like the biggest offense to politics since Watergate.
 

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