Hot Interest in Image Sharing Website Pinterest

Jakarta Globe, Glenn Chapman, March 12, 2012

A newcomer in the social network field, Pinterest has made
itself popular among female American Internet users. (JG Photo) 

               

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Oakland. Christine Martinez spent the past week frolicking on the Caribbean island of St. Barth after becoming a star by sharing her sense of style at Pinterest. 

Pinterest has become the Web's hottest young website, particularly among women, by giving people virtual bulletin boards that they decorate with pictures showcasing interests in anything from food to sports, fashion or travel.

"Gawd I love Pinterest," fashion blogger Martinez said in a Twitter message fired off between flights on Friday as she made her way back to her home in the California city of Oakland.

Nearly a million people have signed up to follow Martinez at Pinterest where people "pin" pictures they have taken or, in most cases, plucked from elsewhere on the Internet.

"I have a penchant for pretty," Martinez said in her Pinterest profile, which had a picture of her with her cherished dog 'Miles.' As of Saturday, she had 43 Pinterest boards with more than 5,700 images reflecting her taste in jewelry, swimsuits, and more.

Pinterest is such an influential fashion venue that chic beachwear label Calypso St. Barth brought her to the French island territory for a week to "live pin" the label's swimsuit photo shoot.

"Pinterest is the latest procrastination tool of the masses," Avery Spofford of fashion website shefinds.com wrote in an online post citing Martinez's adventure as evidence of Pinterest's clout.

"Mostly, people just like to look at photos of puppies and cake and interior design," Spofford continued. "Us, too!"

Pinterest was launched in early 2010 and has growing at a dizzying rate in the past six months despite being invitation-only. The website reportedly has more than 13 million users.

Pinterest is driving more online traffic to retail websites than social networks LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined, according to a January report from Shareaholic.

"Pinterest's traffic charts aren't hockey sticks -- they're rocket ships," Internet tracker RJ Metrics said in an analysis released last month. "Pinterest is the hottest young site on the Internet."

Brands are leaping onto Pinterest, setting up pages to appeal to prime shopping demographics or forming collaborations such as the one between Martinez's MilestoStyle.com blog and Calypso.

"The amount of free advertising a brand gets on Pinterest is ridiculous," blogger Kerry Sauriol wrote at WomenInBizNetwork.com.

"Without even having their own Pinterest boards, clothing companies, furniture designers, tech companies, and on and on have their products pinned and adored," she continued. "Think of the marketing power of a brand that does have a board."

Other websites have begun adding "pin it" buttons inviting visitors to decorate Pinterest pages with images using a single click, according to co-founder Ben Silbermann.

"The last few months have been a whirlwind here at Pinterest," Silbermann said in a recent blog post. "It's humbling, and exciting."

The small Pinterest team works in box of an office in single-story building in downtown Palo Alto in Silicon Valley. About a dozen engineers were working at rows of desks in an undecorated room when an AFP correspondent visited. Pinterest said it was too swamped with attention from users and media for interviews.

Rampant pinning of images snagged from the Internet has raised concerns about copyright violations at Pinterest. The website follows procedures set out in US copyright law and has a form at the site for reporting violations, Silbermann explained. Each "pin" has a flag icon for marking pirated content.

"We care about respecting the rights of copyright holders," Silbermann said. "Copyright is a complicated and nuanced issue and we have knowledgeable people who are providing lots of guidance."

Pinterest fans include Dave Morin, a longtime member of the Facebook team who left the leading social network to start Path. Morin sees Pinterest as part of a trend for people in "the world's biggest club" Facebook to form sub-groups based on interests or close relationships.

"Now that the world understands how to be social through the Internet people want unique experiences in different contexts," Morin said, noting that Path lets people intimately share with family and close friends.

"Pinterest has a space where you can talk about your deep interests," he continued. "In my case, deep interests in ski gear or photography gear."

Agence France-Presse

Obama appoints new chief technology officer

English.news.cn   2012-03-10      

            

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday appointed Todd Park as the administration's chief technology officer (CTO), filling a vacancy created by last month' s departure of Aneesh Chopra.

 Todd Park 

Since August 2009, Park has served as CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"Todd Park has demonstrated a remarkable talent for enlisting innovative technologies to modernize government, reduce waste, and make government information more accessible to the public," Obama said in a statement. "In his new position he will bring those skills to the entire federal enterprise, ensuring that government will serve all Americans fairly, effectively, and efficiently."

The U.S. CTO, a position that Obama created on his first day as president, is responsible for ensuring the adoption of innovative technologies to support administration priorities, including job creation, broader access to affordable health care, enhanced energy efficiency, a more open government, and national and homeland security, according to the White House.

In his work at HHS, Park led the creation of HealthCare.gov, which promotes the president's healthcare legislation and allows consumers to compare health insurance plans by zip code.

Editor: yan

Anonymous claims Vatican website shutdown

CNN News, by Amber Lyon, Eric Marrapodi and Hada Messia, March 7^th, 2012

Rome (CNN) - Hackers are claiming to have shut down the website for the Catholic Church Wednesday.  Vatican.va, the official website of the Holy See, was not operational Wednesday afternoon.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi confirmed to CNN the site was hacked, but said it would be "fully operational" again shortly.

Anonymous, a loosely-knit international hacking group, claimed responsibility for the church website shutdown.

"Anonymous has now decided to lay siege to your site in response to the doctrines, liturgies and the precepts, absurd and anachronistic, that your organization, (which) is for profit, propagates and spreads worldwide," a statement in Italian on the blog "ufficiale di Anonymous Italia" read.

"This is NOT intended to attack the Christian religion or against the faithful around the world, but to the corrupt Roman Apostolic Church and all its emanations," the statement added.

A longtime follower of Anonymous who is in touch with the hackers involved and who has knowledge of the plan told CNN that hackers within Anonymous Italy and AntiSec were responsible for shutdown of the church website. AntiSec Anons describe themselves as the "special forces" of the collective.

The source confirmed the statement on the Italian hacker's website.

"It's not a personal attack on Christians, just on the Vatican itself," said the source, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their identity from the group.

Anonymous Italy also cited the Catholic Church's teachings on birth control and abortion and the way it handled widespread sexual abuse scandals as other reasons for the hacking.

The U.S. arm of the Anonymous hacking group has targeted government agencies and corporations before but not religious organizations. The group claimed responsibility for hacking into an FBI phone call with their Irish counterparts and cyberstrikes between December 2010 and June 2011 that included denial of service attacks against the websites of Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

A denial of service (DoS) attack typically involves the use of a large number of computers to bombard websites with phony requests for information, causing the site to temporarily shut down.

On Tuesday, top members of the computer hacker group and its offshoots were arrested and charged after a wide-ranging investigation which was assisted by a group leader working as a secret government informant. The FBI informant, "Sabu," was a part of the elite AntiSec hackers.

CNN's Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.

Eric Marrapodi - CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

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(Religions – Zionism - March 1, 2012 - Matthew Channelled by Suzanne Ward)

9. It can be no other way—simply, this is the physics that governs life in this universe. As Earth continues apace into successively higher planes, nothing with low vibrations in any form—physical bodies, subversive plans, theft, dishonesty, unjust laws and imprisonment, bigotry, cruel customs and deeds—can survive.

10. Moving on, no, it will not be quite like religions being “totally discarded and replaced by universal laws in the Golden Age.” When the truths come forth that science and spirit are one and the same and that religious dogmas were originated by early leaders of church and state to control the masses, people whose consciousness has risen beyond the constraints of third density will adhere to the spiritual aspects of their respective religions and the devised, controlling aspects will fall by the wayside.

11. One of the truths to come forth is that Zionism, which by dark intent has been made synonymous with Judaism, actually is a bellicose political movement within the Illuminati, and its aim for more than six decades has been to create conflict and instability in the entire Middle East. Zionists, who have wielded powerful influence within and behind major governments and their military forces, do NOT represent the Jewish peoples in Israel or anywhere else. And, like all other Illuminati factions, they have been committed to that cabal’s goal of global domination.

12. Although Semites are of diverse national origins and religions, the Zionists have been successful in convincing many that “anti-Semitic” is exclusively prejudice against the Jewish peoples and opposition to Israel’s right to defend itself from its “enemies.” By means of that blatant distortion, they obtained not only world sympathy, but also massive defense funding from Israel’s allies, most especially the United States, all of which served to increase the Illuminati’s vast profits from their industrial-military machine.

13. In addition to controlling the masses through dogmatic teachings, religions have served the dark purpose of divisiveness to such an extent that it resulted in centuries of trauma and bloodshed. Witness the Crusades, wars between Catholics and Protestants, pogroms against Jews, executions of “blasphemous” individuals who refused to “recant.”  (Read More …)

"Matthew preparing us for the Golden Age." -  Jan 19, 2012 (Channelled by Suzy Ward)


"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience? 


"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Lose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Pedal wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.)  - New !  

Invisible Mercedes

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EU agencies say Google breaking law: commissioner

Reuters, LONDON, Thu Mar 1, 2012

A man walks past a Google logo drawn with chalk on a wall at the 

Google  campus near Venice Beach, in Los Angeles, California,

January 13, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

(Reuters) - Data protection agencies in European countries have concluded Google Inc's new privacy policy is in breach of European law, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Thursday.

France's data protection watchdog, the CNIL, has also cast doubt on the legality of the policy and informed Google it would lead a European-wide investigation into this.

Reding told BBC Radio Four data control authorities in Europe asked French counterparts to analyze the new policy.

"And they have come to the conclusion that they are deeply concerned, and that the new rules are not in accordance with the European law, and that the transparency rules have not been applied," Reding said.

Google said in January it was simplifying its privacy policy, consolidating 60 guidelines into a single one that will apply to all its services including YouTube, Gmail and social network Google+.

Users cannot opt out of the new policy if they want to continue using Google's services.

Asked in what respects the policy could be breaking EU law, Reding said: "In numerous respects. One is that nobody had been consulted, it is not in accordance with the law on transparency and it utilizes the data of private persons in order to hand it over to third parties, which is not what the users have agreed to."

It would have been impossible for Google to instigate the policy under proposed legislation she laid out on January 25, Reding said.

"Protection of personal data is a basic rule of the European Union. It is inscribed in the treaties. It is not an if, it is a must," she said.

Google earlier posted a blog defending its policy after what it called "a fair amount of chatter and confusion."

"Our privacy policy is now much easier to understand," the company said.

"We've included the key parts from more than 60 product-specific notices into our main Google Privacy Policy -- so there's no longer any need to be your own mini search engine if you want to work out what's going on."

Reding argued most users were unaware of what they were signing up to when they used mainstream Internet services.

"Seventy percent of users rarely, or never, use terms and conditions which very often are written in small print, very complicated, not understandable for the normal user, and users are worried," she told the BBC.

"Eighty percent of British citizens say they're concerned about what is going on now."

She also said these issues affected many companies, not just Google.

"We know data is the bloodstream of these new industries ... but at the same time there are basic European rules ... which have to be applied, and unfortunately we always see that those rules are just not observed, and illegality is taking over."

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Paul Hoskins and David Hulmes)

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Websites told to block Dutch gamblers

RNW, 28 February 2012

Major international gambling concerns have been told they have to block Dutch players from their websites and telephone services, NOS reports. This is the ruling by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands in a case brought by De Lotto against British company Ladbrokes.

De Lotto is the only company in the Netherlands with a licence to run lotteries and games of chance in which the participants pick their own numbers. The court has ruled that De Lotto’s monopoly position is not in violation of European free trade agreements.

De Lotto saw Ladbrokes’ gambling sites and telephone betting services as unfair competition and decided to take the matter to court. The ruling means that hundreds of sites will now have to cease their activities in the Netherlands.

The ruling was ten years in coming, as the Supreme Court decided to wait for a judgement by the European Court of Justice. It remains unclear what action the Dutch authorities can take in cases where foreign gambling concerns fail to comply with the Dutch ruling. New policy on gambling is currently being drafted.

Anonymous joins forces with OWS against NDAA-supporting politicians

RT.com, 28 February, 2012

Photo from anonops.blogspot.com

America’s most powerful protest groups are joining forces to warn elected officials that they will be held accountable for their actions. The campaign is called Our Polls and its being launched with help from both Anonymous and the Occupy movement.

The AnonOps Communications website revealed details early Monday this week regarding the hacktivist collective’s latest campaign. Along with the nation-wide Occupy Wall Street movement, Anonymous says they are going after the politicians in America that supported legislation that both entities have largely advocated against.

“Elected officials serve one purpose — to represent their constituents, the people who voted them into office,” reads a statement posted to the website. “Last year, many of our elected officials let us down by giving in to deep-pocketed lobbyists and passing laws meant to boost corporate profits at the expense of individual liberty.”

The legislation in question include the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. In an act of retaliation aimed at those that supported these bills, the groups have released a roster of politicians that have not only expressed favor for the laws, but that are also up for reelection this year.

“You are one person. You have one vote. Use that vote on November 6 to hold your elected official accountable for supporting bills such as NDAA, SOPA and PIPA,” reads their statement.

Although both SOPA and PIPA have been halted in Congress, the NDAA was successfully signed into law by US President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, granting the commander-in-chief the power to authorize the military detainment of American citizens without ever bringing charges against them.

“Our Senators and Representatives showed how little they cared about personal freedoms when they voted overwhelmingly to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),” reads Monday’s statement, which also calls the act “a prominent threat to the inalienable due process rights of every US citizen as laid out in the Constitution.”

“It allows the military to engage in civilian law enforcement, and to suspend due process, habeas corpus or other constitutional guarantees when desired. Our congressmen passed one of the greatest threats to civil liberties in the history of the United States.”

Similar legislation in the vein of the failed SOPA and PIPA acts have also been drafted since their defeat, which critics fear could cause the US government to implement a veil of censorship over the World Wide Web. Although activists with both Anonymous and Occupy have openly opposed such laws in the past, the latest campaign will at last bring both bodies together to protest any other damning legislation.

According to a statement released Monday, both groups aim to make sure that any lawmaker chosen by the American people will walks away Election Day a loser if they support any such acts.

“We are calling on voters, activists and keyboard warriors under all banners to unite as a single force to unseat the elected representatives who threaten our essential freedoms and who were so quick to minimize our individual constitutional rights for a quick corporate profit,” they write.

Although both Anonymous and OWS are described as leaderless movement with no formal organization, the AnonOps Communication website and its related Twitter accounts have served as an unofficial conduit of sorts in terms of relaying information pertaining to the hacktivist collective. The site has previously announced, confirmed and commented on hacks and other campaigns credited to Anonymous.

During last week’s installment of Anonymous’ #FuckFBIFriday campaign, the group tackled the website of GEO Group, Inc., a multi-national private prison management firm operated out of Florida. In a statement that accompanied that hack, operatives aligned with the Anon collective announced another plan put together in cooperation with the Occupy movement. In that instance, both groups intend to join forces on Tuesday this week to march in cities across America to demand an end to the suppression of the OWS movement. Hacktivists with Anonymous have also previously condemned law enforcement agencies across America for violently responding to the occupier's peaceful demonstrations which began last September in New York.

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Germans protest anti-piracy treaty

Anti-piracy ACTA treaty referred to EU high court

Germans protest anti-piracy treaty

Deutsche Welle, 27 Ferbruary 2012

Protesters have hit Germany's streets again to show their oppostion to the global anti-piracy treaty, ACTA. Several European governments, including Germany, have already postponed signing the controversial agreement.

Anti-ACTA Protesters marched in dozens of cities across Germany over the weekend, with the biggest demonstration of around 2,000 people taking place in Munich.

Rallies in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Mannheim and Leipzig attracted more than a 1,000 people each, while numerous smaller demonstrations took place across the country.

ACTA, as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is known, aims to fight the counterfeiting of goods like fake Gucci sunglasses and copied pharmaceutical drugs. It is also designed to reduce online piracy such as the illegal downloads of music, films and software, which the industry says is costing millions in lost revenue around the world.

Critics argue the measures to combat counterfeiting outlined in ACTA could force telecommunication companies to watch over and pass on customers' online movements to the government - which, in turn, could stifle free expression on the Internet.

Internet generation

Many of those against ACTA are in their teens and early 20s, which is hardly surprising considering that the anti-ACTA demonstrations are mainly about the Internet. 

Some protesters have donned Guy
Fawkes masks

One of those protesting on Saturday was Filip (who, like all of those at the rally, preferred not to reveal his last name). A clean-cut computer science student enrolled at the prestigious Karlsruhe University of Technology, Filip had never attended a protest before in his life.

"The Internet is important enough for me to come out in the cold weather and stand around and support everyone who is here to not pass the act," he said at the protest in the south-western town of Karlsruhe, which was attended by several hundred people.

"I don't want my Internet provider to be watching every more I make," he said, his voice almost drowned out by those around him cheering and clapping in support of the protest speakers.

Fourteen-year-old high school student Michael came to the rally to defend his right to download music.

"I can't afford the music I want to listen to and music should be available to everyone," he said, adding it was unjust for Germany to consider banning people from using the Internet who were repeatedly caught illegally downloading content like music and videos.

"Society today only takes place online, and if you don't have Internet access, then you can't be part of society anymore," he said.

The Federation of German Industries (BDI) has voiced support for ACTA. "It is not a right to use someone else's property for free," said BDI legal expert, Heiko Willems. "Copyright-holders have to decide for themselves if they will make their creations freely available or available on a commercial basis."

For 23-year-old student Shushu, the issue of illegal music and film downloads needs to be tackled in a different way.

Critics say copyright laws should be
 more thoroughly revamped, rather than
tightening Internet regulations

"The content industry needs to make us an offer of how we can legally do this, by accepting a cultural flat-rate fee or setting a monthly streaming fee without having to turn people into criminals," she said.

ACTA on ice

Several countries such as the United States, Canada, Japan and South Korea have already ratified ACTA. And up until a few months ago, ACTA seemed like a done deal in Europe as well.

In December last year, the European Council representing the European heads of government unanimously agreed to pass ACTA and the agreement was signed by 22 of the 27 European member states. ACTA can't be passed into European law, however, until every one of the European Union's member states agrees to it.

The problem for ACTA is that several European countries, including Germany, Poland the Netherlands, have postponed signing the agreement after a wave of Europe-wide protests over the past month.

In addition, the European Commission last week said it would refer ACTA to Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice, to determine whether it limited the "EU's fundamental rights and freedoms."

Back at the Karlsruhe rally, the crowd marched through the streets chanting, "ACTA, ad acta," a play on a Latin expression used in German to archive something.

"We will keep protesting until ACTA has not just been postponed but shelved for good," one of the protesters said.

Author: Kate Hairsine

Editor: Kate Bowen

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Samsung reveals 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 2, Galaxy Beam phone with built-in HD projector

Venture Beat, Devindra Hardawar, February 26, 2012

                                  

Samsung kicked off its Mobile World Congress presence by revealing two new devices this morning: a larger 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab 2 Android tablet, and the intriguing/baffling Galaxy Beam, an Android smartphone with a built-in projector.

Given Samsung’s propensity to delivering tablets of many different sizes, the larger Galaxy Tab 2 doesn’t come as much as a surprise. The Galaxy Beam, on the other hand, is a bit of a head scratcher.

The Beam is a traditional Android smartphone, aside from the projector aspect. It has a 4-inch display, a 1 gigahertz dual-core processor, and runs Android 2.3. Honestly, it sounds like a phone that would have been announced last year, not something that Samsung would save for the biggest mobile event of 2012.

But the Galaxy Beam’s real claim to fame is its powerful built-in projector, which Samsung says can project HD up to 50-inches wide at 15 lumens. You’ll be able to project photos, videos, and games using a special Samsung app. Like the Galaxy Note, the Beam appears to be a very niche device, but it’s the first step towards Samsung bringing projectors to its future mainstream devices (it’d certainly be a nice addition to next year’s Galaxy S lineup).

The 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab 2 is clearly Samsung’s volley to stay competitive with the iPad 3, which could be announced as soon as next week. It sports a 1280 by 800 10.1-inch display, Android 3.0, and 1 gigabyte of RAM. It’s only 9.7 millimeters thick and will come in 16 gigabyte and 32GB varieties.

Samsung is also expected to announce a 10-inch version of the Galaxy Note this week, so it’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the company’s tablet lineup. I found the Note to be iffy as a phone, but the S Pen stylus has a lot of potential in larger screens. It’s certainly one way for Samsung to stay a step ahead of the iPad 3.

Chinese 'netizens' inundate Obama's Google+ page

BBC News, 25 February 2012

Changing China 

• Middle-class farming
• Microblogs vs communism
• Guide to how China is ruled
• The Party's enduring popularity

Despite China's Great Firewall, internet
 users have been able to reach Barack
Obama's Google+ page

President Obama's page on Google's social network site has been inundated with messages in Chinese after restrictions in China were removed.

Every current topic on Mr Obama's Google+ page attracted hundreds of Chinese comments.

Some contributors made jokes; others said they were occupying the site in the style of western Occupy campaigns.

Google+ is normally blocked in China along with other social media that the authorities deem unacceptable.

Since Google+ was launched in 2011, software known informally as the Great Firewall had appeared to block it within China.

But on 20 February 2012 internet-users in many parts of China found they could gain access to the site - prompting some to suggest occupying it, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

On 24 and 25 February, to the consternation of American readers, every current topic on President Obama's 2012 election campaign page attracted hundreds of comments, apparently from China.

Their exact provenance cannot be verified, but the expressions contributors used were in the style of mainland China and in simplified Chinese.

A few appealed for the liberty of the civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who is under house arrest.

Others asked about a recent political intrigue in south-west China, in which one of the country's top policemen, Wang Lijun, spent a day in the US consulate in Chengdu for undisclosed reasons.

But many simply voiced delight at their freedom to speak: they talked about occupying the furniture and bringing snacks and soft drinks.

The White House in Washington has not commented on the upsurge of Chinese interest in President Obama's campaign site.

But it has prompted one poster to suggest that if China ever abandoned its internet restrictions, the United States would have to protect its social media with a Great Firewall of its own.

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