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BetaNews.Com (4 non lus)

MySpace integrates with Facebook, ending social networking wars

Publié: novembre 18, 2010, 11:32pm CET par Ed Oswald

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

In what can be seen as final capitulation to its now much larger rival, MySpace and Facebook announced Thursday afternoon that MySpace would employ Facebook Connect across its site. The change effectively ends what had been a years-long battle for dominance between the two companies.
Called Mashup with Facebook, the partnership means that the recently announced entertainment personalization features would now be powered by publicly available information from the user's profile. Users will also be able to connect their status updates together, allowing Facebook statuses to show up on MySpace.
The Facebook "Like" button is also making an appearance: MySpace said it planned to populate the button across its entertainment pages. The functionality could indeed keep MySpace relevant -- tapping into Facebook's still growing userbase.
"We are thrilled to further our collaboration with Facebook through Mashup with Facebook," MySpace CEO Mike Jones said in a statement. "This new feature is a great illustration of our strategy around social entertainment and enabling the real-time stream."
Mashup functionality would be available worldwide immediately, the two sides said in an afternoon news conference.
While MySpace is widely credited with pioneering the social networking revolution, Facebook's meteoric rise to dominance has caused the company to lose much of its regular user base. Facebook claims about 500 million users worldwide, five times that of MySpace.
The cozying up of the two companies could also signal that parent company News Corp -- which purchased MySpace in 2005 -- may be looking to unload the company off onto a willing buyer. Facebook would certainly be the most logical, however giving the social networking side an overwhelming monopoly on the sector may give pause to regulators.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Dell Inspiron Duo, a first-of-its-kind netbook/tablet goes up for pre-order

Publié: novembre 18, 2010, 7:51pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At the grand opening of the Microsoft Store in Bellvue Square Thursday, Dell began accepting pre-orders for the Inspiron Duo, a convertible Windows tablet PC that takes a completely new approach to the form factor.
Though there have been a handful of different designs for convertible tablet PCs over the last decade, the design most manufacturers have settled upon involves a rotating joint where the screen meets the chassis. Dell's Inspiron Duo, first debuted at IDF earlier this year, mounts the touchscreen on a bezel so that it can be flipped on its horizontal axis like a spinning target in pinball. When facing one direction, the Duo is a touchable netbook, when facing the other, it's a multi-touch tablet.
The stock model Inspiron Duo is equipped with a 10" capacitive touchscreen, a 1.5 GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, 250 GB of storage, and a Broadcom Crystal HD graphics accelerator for a reported $549 with upgrade options available. In the Windows Team blog today, Ben Rudolph said the cold boot startup time for the Inspiron Duo is 36.5 seconds, and shutdown with no apps open takes 17.5 seconds.
Unlike HP's Slate 500 which has already proven to be a surprise hit, the Inspiron Duo uses Dell's Stage user interface when in tablet mode. Dell debuted Stage earlier this year on the One 23 all-in-one PC.
In addition to having hands-on access to the Inspiron Duo today, customers of the Microsoft Store also have advance access to pre-ordering. Dell has not yet listed the tablet on its site, but is expected to do so in the near future, with units shipping in December.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Sweden wants Wikileaks' founder Assange detained for rape charges

Publié: novembre 18, 2010, 6:24pm CET par Ed Oswald

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Julian Assange may have so far been able to escape any kind of serious prosecution for his disclosure of secret government documents, but accusations of rape have prompted a Swedish court to approve an arrest warrant for the Australian-born publisher.
Charges against Assange were initially dropped back in August, although two women involved in the accusations appealed that decision. The case was reopened in September, however Swedish authorities have yet been able to locate Assange to question him on the allegations.
The incidents were said to have happened while he was in Sweden giving presentations on Wikileaks' work to disclose US military documents on the war. In July, the organization disclosed more than 92,000 secret documents which seemed to indicate that the Afghan war was going much more poorly than the government had let on.
Assange is being accused of "rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion" according to a statement by the Åklagarmyndigheten, the Swedish prosecution authority. The District Court of Stockholm has decided to detain Mr. Assange in absentia, indicated its next step would be an international arrest warrant.
That would allow Sweden to ask other countries to also look for the Wikileaks founder, either through Interpol or Euopean Union cooperative agreements.
While he was not in court to answer to the charges, his lawyer Bjoern Hurtig said Assange denies all charges. He claimed the move to press for an arrest warrant by the prosecution was due to the failure of the two sides to settle on a date for Assange to appear for questioning.
Hurting refused to say whether his client was still in the country, although he said "sooner or later" Assange would be all but forced to appear in front of Swedish authorities.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Twitter faces growing international competition from Windows Live

Publié: novembre 18, 2010, 5:55pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At GSMA Mobile Asia Congress yesterday, Sina Mobile general manager Gaofei Wang said his company's 15-month old microblog Weibo is well on track to hit the 100 million user mark by the second quarter of 2011. The Twitter-like service launched in August 2009, and recently hit the 50 million registered user mark. It took popular microblog Twitter a little more than three years to hit the same milestone.
One week ago, Microsoft's Web services branch MSN announced it had partnered with Sina.com to team up and offer a comprehensive web services package to Chinese users.
A major component of that partnership is in traditional blogging. In September, Microsoft announced it was shutting down its Live Spaces blogging platform and migrating users over to Wordpress.com. But in mainland China, where Wordpress is censored by the government, users did not have an easy place where they could transfer their Live Spaces blogs. The partnership with Sina gives Chinese users a place to transfer their blogs.
The partnership also links Sina's properties to Windows Live. So users can log into Weibo with their Windows Live ID, and connect their accounts with Messenger Connect. With these connections in place, users' presence on Windows Live Messenger can be shown in their Sina blog or Weibo microblog, and they can engage in direct chats with users viewing their pages.
In his presentation at GSMA yesterday, Gaofei said Weibo is twice as popular as Twitter in Hong Kong, and even moreso in mainland China.
The partnership is significant for two reasons.
First, because it finally brings MSN China a reputable microblogging service. Last year, a serious controversy arose when MSN China launched a microblog called Juku, which was found to have been mostly plagiarized from a Canadian startup called Plurk.
MSN China cancelled the service after just two months, saying "A portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor's contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft's policies respecting intellectual property."
Secondly, Weibo's integration with Windows Live Messenger could help bolster the IM client's presence in the Chinese market. According to Analysys International, Windows Live Messenger has only a 4.3% market share in China, compared to Tencent QQ, which dominates with a 76.4% share.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010