Tech Blog

[#1]

Apple

Snow job on the slopes?
iPhone app lets skiers report 'faulty' condition reports by operators

The deceptive advertising has been decisively busted by the internet, where skeptical skiers can now check a skireport.com application on their iPhone to vet the resort-supplied snow tally against first-hand accounts from the slopes and lifts.

Google
Google's fabled Gdrive is a reality, sort of.

...over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to upload and access your files from any computer -- all you need is an Internet connection.

Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You'll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone. You might even be able to replace the USB drive you reserved for those files that are too big to send over email.

Updated Haiti image layer now available for Google Earth

We've worked closely with GeoEye throughout the afternoon to make their most recent satellite imagery of Haiti, taken at approximately 10:27am EST today, available as a KML overlay for Google Earth. You can download the KML here and open it in Google Earth, or look at it via the browser plug-in below. As you'll see, the imagery shows a powerful glimpse into the destruction in Haiti. Here are before-and-after screenshots of the Presidential Palace and an area of Port-au-Prince:

From the 'do we need this' department
New symbol launched to denote irony in text

The SarcMark, as it has been named, is designed to be used in the same way as an exclamation or question mark.

Anyone concerned that the irony of their email or text message might not be appreciated by its recipient can use the symbol to close their sentence, thereby avoiding awkward misunderstandings.

The symbol – a dot inside a single spiral line – can be installed onto any PC running Windows 7, XP or Vista, as well as Macs and Blackberry mobile devices.

Facebook
We're all doomed! And everyone will know it.
Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

350 million people signed up for Facebook under the belief their information could be shared just between trusted friends. Now the company says that's old news, that people are changing. I don't believe it.

Friend you, I don't know you.

now the company is testing out a feature to make friending a little more meaningful. Once you mark “ignore” on a friend request, you’ll see a new option in addition to being able to report the person for abuse or spam: “Mark that you don’t know” them.

Now you can reply to comments via threaded email

...we're launching the ability for you to participate in these conversations by replying directly to these email notifications. When you receive an email notification about comments, you can just click "Reply" and start typing a comment at the top of the email. Then hit "Send" from your email and your reply will automatically be added as a comment on Facebook without you having to even log in.

Facebook gets Retweets? I'm confused.

This evening Facebook began testing what appears to be their version of Twitter’s retweet feature: “via”. On any article shared by your friend, you can click on “Share” and when you post the article to your profile, Facebook will now automatically say who the article came from. While the “via” content only currently works on shared articles, I’d assume that this feature would be extended to other stream stories if initial user testing proves successful.

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Your Turn
So, did I miss anything? What online story really got you going this week? Link to it in the comments!