Back-office positions like business process outsourcing and data processing are among the fastest-growing online jobs, according to a new report. With more than 5,000 new jobs in the past three months, business process outsourcing showed the highest growth of any category, according to Freelancer.com’s Fast 50. The rankings are based on jobs that have seen the most growth since the last quarter of 2011.

Overall, more than 170,000 jobs were posted in the first quarter of 2012, up from 130,000.

“We have seen a huge increase in outsourcing on the whole, with businesses rethinking their strategies moving into the new year,” Freelancer.com chief executive Matt Barrie said. “The huge growth in outsourcing is made up of a wide range of different types of projects being completed in countries all across the globe.”
The other jobs in the Fast 50′s top 10 include:

• PDF Converters and Editors
• Excel
• Data Processing
• Copy Typing
• Web Search
• Virtual Assistant
• Data Entry
• Article Submission
• Customer Support

The research also shows a significant increase in demand for mobile developers. App developing for both iPhone and Android devices rose more than 25%.  “In a difficult global economic climate, businesses are looking to optimize their cost base and are therefore looking to online freelancers as a profit driver,” Barrie said. SEO jobs, meanwhile, aren’t showing much growth; jobs in that field were up just 8% since the last quarter of 2011.

Google’s fight against low-quality link building has had a major impact on the SEO industry, causing significant pain for e-commerce and blog sites by delisting major link networks, according to the study. The study was based on data from 172,936 jobs posted on Freelancer.com in the first quarter of 2012.

Google Maps lovers, the object of your affection has just been further improved. Take a look at this video that shows you how Google has applied way-cool graphics magic to Google Maps, making landmarks and buildings look a whole lot more 3D.

Google‘s new parallax view, seen in the Google Maps rendered map view, brings landmarks to life, giving them a perspective they didn’t have before.

So as you wander around Google Maps on your virtual tourism adventures, take a look at famous landmarks and even buildings in your neighborhood from a variety of heretofore-unseen angles. To experience this coolness, on the Google Maps page click Map view and be sure to enable “Maps GL” on the left to get the full effect.

Samsung, Apple's chief competitor, gives only vague indications of how many it makes, which means industry watchers come up with widely diverging estimates. Apple Inc. reports its iPhone sales down to the thousands. In the January to March period, it shipped 35,064,000. South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. may have sold 32 million, 37.5 million or 44.5 million, depending which analyst you believe. The company itself refuses to say.

When it reported first-quarter results on Friday morning, Samsung said only that overall phone shipments (including "dumb" phones) were down more than 10 per cent from the fourth quarter, and that smartphone sales were about the same percentage of the company's overall sales as they have been before.  There's even a debate about what Samsung's few guideposts really mean. Jan Dawson, an analyst at Ovum, says the analyst community is split over the interpretation of Samsung's reported "300 per cent" increase in smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2011, over the third quarter of 2010. A 300 per cent increase means a quadrupling, but did Samsung really mean that? Or did sales triple, and they made the common mistake of calling that a "300 percent increase?"

A Google+ “Share” button.

The new button enables website operators to more easily encourage visitors to spread content among connections on Google’s social network. It’s the latest step in integrating the social network with content across the web. The Share button joins the already existing +1 button, which enables Google+ members to indicate that they — for lack of a better term — like a page or an article.

When visitors click the button, they have the option of sharing a page with specific people or Circles in their network. Like with the +1 feature, the new button switches from red font on a light background to light font on a red background after being clicked. Users can click the button multiple times, however, to share repeatedly or in different contexts with different segments of their network. The Share button is now available globally. How do you add it to your site? Visit the Google Developers’ site or get the code here.

It only takes half a second for Google to return a search based on keywords you type in, but there’s a whole lot more happening behind the scenes to give you the results you need. Google on Monday launched a video that explains the science behind how the massive search engine actually works.

Matt Cutts, software engineer head of Google’s webspam team, details in a YouTube video how the search engine giant thoroughly scours the web on a daily basis to provide the most up-to-date results to users.
“There are three things you need to do to be the best search engine in the world. First, you need to crawl the web comprehensively and deeply, then you want to rank or serve those pages and return the most relevant ones first,” Cutts said. Although Google crawls the web on a daily basis, that wasn’t always the case.

But this method wasn’t optimized since a lot of the information would be out of date. In 2003, Google switched to crawling a significant amount of the Internet each day. By scouring the web each day for new content, it incrementally updated its index.

Google has a very interesting Doodle today – a giant zipper lets you “unzip” the logo and see the search results for Gideon Sundback, the inventor of the zipper.

Sundback was born on April 24, 1880 in Småland, Sweden; after he had finished his studies he moved to Germany, and in 1905 he emigrated to the U.S. Working as an engineer for the Universal Fastener Company in Hoboken New Jersey, Sundback perfected the old idea of a fastener based on interlocking teeth.

His “Hookless No. 2″ invention was essentially the modern metal zipper, with each tooth having a dimple on the bottom and a nib on the top, which made the zipper strong enough for everyday use. Sundback patented his invention in 1917.

Google Inc is poised to roll out a service to enable consumers store content online, reports said, citing sources. The move would pit the online search giant against other players such as Dropbox and Box. The service, to be called Google Drive, would offer consumers 5 gigabytes of storage for free, reports said, adding that it will charge for higher storage.

The service would let consumers store their personal information, from digital music to photos, on remote Internet servers and access the data any time with any device, such as smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

The BlackBerry Curve 9220 is now available in India for under Rs. 11,000. This is an entry level phone with an affordable price tag and running the latest BlackBerry OS 7.1. BlackBerry lovers, who always wanted to own the BB handset but kept away because of the price, can now own one. But before you fall in for the price tag let’s have a look at what the BlackBerry 9220 has got and if it’s worth the price. This handset sports the BB style QWERTY keypad with optical mouse and comes loaded with the 7.1 OS.


Display and Keypad

The screen is bright and big measuring 2.44 inches. The resolution supported is 320 by 240 pixels (qVGA) at 164 ppi. This is a TFT LCD screen not a touchscreen display. This handset comes with QWERTY keypad – the BlackBerry style with optical trackpad. The backlit keys are easy visible in the dark and over all it is easy to use.


Processor, RAM and Design

The 9220 comes with a modest 800 MHz Processor and 512 MB eMMC / 512 MB RAM. The BB handset weighs just 102 grams and is 12.7 mm thin. Not too slim and not too bulky, just right. This handset has got curvy edges just like the other BlackBerry models and the front side sports the LCD screen followed by control buttons and the QWERTY keypad. Hot swappable microSD card slot can house cards up to 32 GB.


Camera and Connectivity

This single SIM BlackBerry phone comes with a 2 MP rear facing camera with video recording supported. This is a fixed focus camera with 5x digital zoom. The resolution is decent enough for sharing on the net. There is no GPS which I guess will be okay with many users; however the 9220 also does not support 3G. Now that is something which might not go well with most users. The handset supports EDGE and GPRS which I think is more than sufficient but still a 3G option could have made a difference. Other options are Wi-Fi, micro USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP.


Multimedia

There is a built in FM so you can enjoy live music on the go. The Media player can play MP4, MP3, WAV, FLAC, WMV, H.264 and H.263 audio / video files. MP3 can be used as ringtones. Output can be via the built in loudspeaker or using the headset via the 3.5 mm audio jack or using Bluetooth headsets.
The Curve 9220


Other features

Digital Compass, Proximity and Accelerometer sensors are built in. BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) comes loaded with dedicated BBM key. Twitter and Facebook apps are pre-installed with BBM built in. You can download more apps from BlackBerry App World via the storefront app.


Battery

The battery life is very impressive. The 1450 mAh Li-ion battery (J-S1) gives a standby time of up to 18 days and 7 hours of talktime. RIM claims that one a full charge the music playback time is up to 28 hours with headset.


Should you buy the BlackBerry Curve 9220?

The BlackBerry Curve 9220 is selling for Rs. 10,990. You can now own the BlackBerry running on the latest 7.1 OS and the pricing seems quite affordable. But all this without 3G and GPS features. Well you can ignore the GPS but a missing 3G will keep most users away.

Maruti Suzuki India has redefined LUV for the Indian car buyer with its recently launched Ertiga. While Mahindras-owned Ssangyong Motor introduced its Actyon Sports model as a 'Leisure Utility Vehicle', Maruti Suzuki Ertiga stands for 'Life Utility Vehicle'.

India's largest carmaker has even gone ahead to promote the new car on huge billboards and adverts with the punchline "Live life with LUV".

Investors appear to have responded in kind too, with Maruti stocks having surged 9.3 per cent since the launch of Ertiga on April 12, versus a 2 per cent gain in the broader Nifty index, after analysts cited the competitive pricing for the model. Maruti Suzuki needed to find new avenues to keep its leadership position, especially considering the fact that its market share in the Indian passenger vehicles segment, which stood at 26.18 lakh units, went down to 38.44 per cent last financial year.

Finally Here We Go With Some Sleek, slim, stylish, the Dell XPS 13 is everything an ultrabook is meant to be. It is not the thinnest ultrabook, but it is certainly among the thinnest - also, pretty lightweight at just 1.1 kg.  Open the curved silver-grey metal lid and you stare at a lot of black.

The display is edge-to-edge bonded Corning Gorilla Glass, which when not powered on gives you the impression of looking into a tinted screen.  Thanks to the Intel Core i5 processor, the unit powered up under 10 seconds. The 13.3-inch HD display is stunning with hardly any reflection at the best viewing angles. Plus, the XPS 13 has superb sound, which is loud while not being jarring. Prices start Rs 79,900.

Six months after it was launched amid much fanfare, HRD minister Kapil Sibal's Aakash project has barely taken off as only 650 units have actually reached students. The computer tablet priced at $35 (Rs 2,250) - touted as the world's cheapest - has been hit by several disputes lately. But the intensity of the damage suffered by the project is now evident from the aforementioned figures provided by the HRD ministry in an answer to a Lok Sabha question during the budget session.

Aakash 2 set for launch in May
Aakash, which was unveiled on October 5, is the country's latest offering in a series of affordable technological innovations that includes the world's cheapest car, Tata Nano. The device was created specifically for students with the aim of bridging the "digital divide" between the rich and poor.

On Friday, a version of the popular music-recognition app was announced for the new iPad.
Shazam for iPad [iTunes link] is available now in the App Store — and it’s free.

The latest iPad app includes Retina display graphics and its LyricPlay feature that was released for the iPhone in January. With LyricPlay you can view the lyrics to songs on your iPad and follow along as the song plays. The app contains the lyrics of around 20,000 of the most popular songs on Shazam. It also gives you a list of artists’ upcoming tour dates and connects to relevant YouTube videos.

North Korea spent about $850 million on its failed April 13 satellite launch — it looks like they freed up that cash by skimping on their official national website.

Michael DiTanna, an undergraduate student at Fordham University, was researching North Korean media outlets when he made an interesting discovery tucked away in the source code of the country’s official website. What did he find? The site was based on a $15 “Blender” web template from IgniteThemes.
DiTanna told Wired‘s Danger Room blog, which was the first outlet to report the story. Later, Fox News tracked down the designer of the site, a California-based web designer named Robert Westmore.

There really should be an award for editing 1 million Wikipedia articles. But when former pizza delivery guy and Indiana resident Justin Knapp became the first person to break that milestone on April 18, all he got was a tiny announcement posted on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales discussion page.

“Today Koavf became the first wikipedian with 1 Million edits,” wikpiedian TonyTheTiger posted on Wikipedia. There’s not really a comparable accomplishment in the online realm: maxwellhill, a user of social news site Reddit, snagged his one millionth karma point last year.

He’s 29 years old, Christian joined Wikipedia in March 2005, and has degrees in political science and philosophy from Indiana University. Most of his edits are on the topics of politics, philosophy and religion. He thinks his Wiki prose needs work, but he’s a solid editor and copyeditor.  The hardest working editor on the sixth most-popular website in the world is an under-employed former pizza delivery man. Something’s not right about that. “The search for truth is rich because of reciprocity between persons,” Knapp wrote on his user page.

The Galaxy Tab, branded the TrayVu Slim by Skycast, runs a customized version of Android, is combined with Skycast’s custom content-management software, and can be rented to passengers for watching the latest movies and TV programs. The slate is also fastened onto the back of the seat in front of the passenger, using a proprietary clip, thereby freeing up the flip-out tray table.

Skycast has not yet settled on a rental fee for the tablet, but says that it will be in the region of $10 to $15 per transcontinental trip. The in-flight entertainment tablets are due to be deployed to WestJet’s two new Boeing 737 planes from June, with the tablets coming to another two WestJet models by the end of the year.
Of course, this is not the first time tablets have been employed for in-flight entertainment, with big airlines like American Airlines active in deploying Android slates for watching TV programs and movies. Tablets are also being used by aircraft pilots and cabin crew members to aid with everything from taking off to carrying out passenger checks

Strong growth in display, video and mobile-based advertising prompted a banner year for U.S. online advertising as revenues topped $31 billion, a 22% jump over 2010 and a new record, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

In terms of spending, retail continued to be the top category, accounting for 22% of all Internet ad spending. Next on the list was telecom (12%) and leisure/travel (8%). Meanwhile, Internet advertising is the second-biggest ad category next to television, which accounted for $38.5 billion of ad spending on 2011.

Mobile grew the most of all categories — 149% — but still represents a puny share of the overall market — $1.6 billion — according to the report issued on Wednesday. Digital video also rose 29% to $1.8 billion, search was up about 27% to $11.7 billion and display advertising jumped 15% to $11.1 billion, or 35% of all revenues. Search is still the largest category with 47% share.

After the launch of HTC One X in india, Sony comes with his new smartphone Sony Xperia S. Today Sony launched his new Sony Xperia S officially in india for Rs 32,500.

The new Sony Xperia S ha slots of new feature, the phone has a AMOLED display and powered with 4.3-inch touchscreen with HD (1280×720) resolution, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 12-megapixel camera with Full HD video recording and 1.3-megapixel front camera with HD video recording, 16GB/32GB internal memory; no microSD slot and Google Android v2.3 Gingerbread (Upgradable to v4.0).

Positive Attributes

• Fantastic screen
• NFC capability
• High quality camera
• Premium build
• Large internal storage

Negative Attributes

• Easy to drop
• No microSD slot
• Slightly poor battery life
• Fat chassis
• Only Android 2.3

The next big thing is 4K, a video format that pumps up the number of pixels to 4,096 x 2,160 — or more than four times as many as in 1080p — and Canon has just announced a truckload of equipment that hits this next milestone in digital video. The centerpiece: a DSLR camera that shoots in 4K.

The Canon EOS-1D C, a variant of the current flagship 1D X, is the monster camera that can capture video in 4K. The camera’s full-frame CMOS sensor records 4K video at 24 frames per second. It can also record regular 1080p at either 24 or 60 fps. Canon says the EOS-1D C will arrive in 2012 and cost a whopping $15,000 (by comparison, the 1D X is $6,800).

Besides the EOS-1D, Canon also said it was developing two “digital cinematography” video cameras for shooting 4K — the EOS C500 and C500 PL — and those will be capable of capturing 4,096 x 2,160 footage at 60 fps. Canon is only at the prototype stage on these, and it predicts a list price of about $30,000 on the new cams.

MakeMyTrip, the leading travel web portal, has announced the launch of yet another social app - TripAlong. The application integrates social networks and maps travel itinerary to help connect with friends while travelling. Once a user enters the flight details, it notifies them about friends and acquaintance at the same airport or in the same flight and gives them a last minute opportunity to meet them.

Accessible from tripalong.in, a user first needs to register and then can link it to the Facebook and Linkedin accounts which will provide access to their friends already on Tripalong.

Several mobile operators don’t think Nokia’s Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphone is good enough to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Android smartphones, Reuters reports, citing sources in four major telecoms. These sources blame high price, poor marketing and recent software glitches for the lack of customer interest in the Lumias.

In our review of the Lumia 900, we’ve found the device to be the best Windows Phone we’ve encountered. With strong competition from Android and iOS, both of which offer more apps to consumers, one has to wonder whether that’s enough. Nokia put all its chips into the deal with Microsoft, so there isn’t much it can do about this except try its hardest to build the best possible devices and aggressively promote them.

A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center revealed that the majority of survey respondents believe swiping mobile phones could replace cash and credit cards both online and in stores by smartphone and tablet users within the next decade. The study was conducted among a non-random sample of 1,021 technology stakeholders and critics in the mobile payments industry, from executives and Google and Microsoft to professors at distinguished universities nationwide.

About 65% of respondents said they believe that by 2020 most consumers will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart-device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. They also agreed that people trust and rely on personal hardware and software for transactions, and cash and credit cards will have mostly disappeared from many of the transactions that occur in advanced countries. However, about 33% said they do not trust devices with Near Field Communications technology (NFC) that allow users to swipe their phones to make a payment at checkout and believe mobile payments will not gain a lot of traction by 2020.

But not all experts were optimistic about the progression: “As much as I’d like to see a money-free world, I’m afraid the opportunities for the hackers and pirates are too great,” said one respondent. “I’m happy to buy my $2 Starbucks using my Android but I don’t know that we will ever feel secure enough to make much larger purchases that way.”

The free Google email service now has 350 million users in 54 languages. So when it experienced an outage that affected a small subset of users for around half an hour Tuesday, the resulting cacophony on Twitter read like the end of the world. According to Google, the problem affected roughly 2% of all Gmail users. (Anecdotally, that sounds about right.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 was the first of the company’s tablets announced to arrive running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.  While we’ve had a good amount of technical data on both tablets, the picture of their eventual release has been a little less clear. First it looked like there might be an international launch late last month, but those plans fizzled. Today Samsung has some news for us about the tablets’ release plans, revealing just how they’ll be making their way to Android fans in the States.

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will be the first to arrive, with pre-orders opening in just a couple days, on April 12. Even then, the wait for the tablet to arrive won’t be long at all, and retail availability will start later this month on April 22. There’s a bit of a longer wait for the Tab 2 10.1, though it’s still going to get here relatively soon. Pre-orders for this model will kick-off on May 4, with the actual tablet showing-up on May 13.

The HTC Titan II is HTC's first LTE Windows Phone, and one of just two LTE Windows Phones currently on the market.  Debuting alongside the Nokia Lumia 900 on April 8th, the handset is HTC’s followup to the original Titan, a massive Windows Phone the company debuted in late 2011.

Under the hood, the Windows Phone Mango handset comes sporting a 1.5 GHz S2 Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 16GB of built-in storage. The phone has 800×480 Super LCD screen, and comes rocking a 1.3-megapixel froward-facing camera for video chatting as well as a massive 16-megapixel rear-facing cam.
However, it’s also $100 more with a new contract than the Lumia, its only LTE Windows Phone competition.

The new Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 looks strikingly similar to an Android smartphone, but the device is actually the latest media player to grace the growing category. The good news, however, is that it can even make calls and send text messages via Bluetooth.

The device — which runs on Gingerbread 2.3.6 — is like many media players on the market today, with solid audio quality and a collection of apps. But what’s especially interesting about the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 is that it can be tethered to a phone with Bluetooth 3.0 to send and receive calls. This feature might be appealing for those that want to avoid paying for another phone and adding to monthly bills. To make use of this feature, you’ll have to turn to an alternative service such as Google Voice and be connected via Wi-Fi at the same time.

From a design perspective, the device boasts a plastic body, 3.6-inch screen, 480 x 320 resolution display and a single-core Cortex A8 1GHz processor. Weighing in at 3.9 ounces, it is 0.3 ounces heavier than a classic iPod Touch yet feels less sturdy. The $149 device is also less expensive than the iPod Touch ($199), but the plastic body — compared to the iPod Touch’s stainless steel casing — makes it not surprising that it’s listed at a lower price point.

However, the interface is easy to navigate and it’s also laid out intuitively. Sound quality is also crisp and clean. Other features include

• Rear-facing camera lens 
• Whole collection of apps 
• FM radio M
• Maps
• Gmail, Google search
• Social Hub.

Google’s social network got a redesign on Wednesday that makes it prettier and easier to navigate.
“It accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google,” Google Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra argued in a blog post announcing the redesign.

Some of the design elements included in the update echo Facebook Timeline, such as a cover photo that sprawls across the top of the profile and bigger photo and video displays. Others, like a customizable navigation ribbon that now runs along the left side of all pages, are new to mainstream social media.

In addition to prettying up its look and improving navigation features, Google made efforts to better highlight some of Plus’s pre-existing features. A new Hangouts page, for instance, shows Hangout invitations from people in your circles and makes it easier to browse upcoming hangouts. With a new Explore page, users can see the content that is trending across the network.

Reactions to the redesign itself have been largely positive. Forbes called it “simply more gorgeous than Facebook.”  Wired noted that “Overall, the new Google+ look is cleaner and seems to make better use of the real estate.”

Google may not be the new kid on the block anymore, but it’s still growing like one. As this infographic from Statista shows, the company continues its upward trajectory, at least if you go by revenues, stock price, net income and market share. As of the first-quarter of 2012, Google seems set to once again have its biggest year ever.

Though Google+ has dropped some impressive stats lately, the company has a track record of social media failures and a federal antitrust probe could also derail Google’s growth.

The free Kepler Explorer app for iPhone and iPad allows users to explore some 2,000 planetary systems discovered by NASA’s Kepler Mission. The Kepler Mission scans the Milky Way galaxy in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of the stars they orbit.

In short, it’s laying the groundwork for finding other life-hosting planets. So far, the mission has found about 2,300 alien planet candidates in about 1,800 distant planetary systems.

The Kepler Explorer app was developed by a team at the University of California, Santa Cruz and led by associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics Jonathan Fortney. Fortney says one goal of the app was too “keep information more on the lines of what we already know about planets,” rather than root it in hypothetical guesswork. The app begins with a drop-down menu that lists all the planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission. You can then move a slider to show planets’ orbits around their respective stars.

By zooming in and navigating a given system, you’re able to call up more information on specific planets. You can also show how a planet compares in size to its host star.
When viewing planets, you can also play with different possible compositions of their body and atmosphere, using elements such as iron, rock, water and hydrogen to try out combinations consistent with the Kepler Mission’s findings. Most of the planets found so far by the Kepler Mission are not hospitable to life.

Uranus. Much is different from our planet, including auroras, which were spotted by the Hubble telescope last November.

The space telescope, Earth’s workhorse of observational power, snagged images of a couple of auroras on the surface of Uranus months ago, but it took until now to process those images into these intriguing photos we see today.

Pinterest is now the number three most-popular social network in the U.S., behind Facebook and Twitter, according to Experian Hitwise. A new report from the researcher shows Pinterest got 21.5 million visits during the week ending Jan. 28, a nearly 30-fold increase over a comparable week in July. Not surprisingly, the site skews female with a 60/40 ration of women to men visitors.


Experian rep Matt Tatham says Pinterest beat its next-closest competitor, LinkedIn, in total visits in February. Tatham says the rankings by total visits for March is as follows:

• 1. Facebook >> 7 billion
• 2. Twitter >> 182 million
• 3. Pinterest >> 104 million
• 4. LinkedIn >> 86 million
• 5. Tagged >> 72 million
• 6. Google+ >> 61 million

 The report, which tracks visits rather than unique visitors, is based on web traffic and doesn’t factor in visits from mobile sites. According to Experian’s reckoning, Foursquare only got 2.9 million visits in March and Instagram got 10.2 million

In 2012, companies are projected to use social media to recruit for more than four out of five job openings. Some 95% of recruiters have already successfully hired candidates found through LinkedIn, while Twitter and Facebook help connect job-seekers with employers as well. Recruiters use social media for a variety of reasons — it saves them money, raises brand awareness and is a good way to target people with specific skill sets. But most of all, recruiters say it helps them find solid candidates who might otherwise never even get on their radar.

Google+ is a ghost town few actually visit, total visits to the social network actually grew to 61 million in March, up 27% from the previous month, according to Experian Hitwise. The following chart, which the researcher provided to Mashable, shows that Google+ has enjoyed relatively steady growth in monthly visits since it went live last June:

he data comes after Google CEO Larry Page claimed in a state-of-Google blog post on Thursday that Google+ now has 100 million active users, 10 million more than the figure he shared with analysts in January.
Page didn’t outline how he defined “active.” The level of activity fell under scrutiny after comScore released data showing that users spent just 3.3 minutes on Google+ in January compared to 7.5 hours for Facebook.
Google, which took issue with that data, asserted that 50 million users access “Google+-enhanced” products daily and that 100 million do so once per month. However, “Google+-enhanced” includes YouTube, Google Play and the company’s homepage.

Audi adds sound effects to its R8 e-tron electro-beast concept car, saving absent-minded pedestrians from an unfortunate encounter with this battery-powered road rocket.

Audi’s not the first manufacturer to cover its legal posterior with sound effects in its electric vehicles, and it certainly won’t be the last. Well, at least Audi’s interpretation sounds like a futuristic gas guzzler, rather than a tree full of chirping birds.

Take a look at (and a listen to) Audi’s interpretation of what an electric car should sound like, and let us know in the comments if you think this is entirely necessary.

Gunshots were fired at a Georgia Waffle House Friday morning over a Facebook post. The fight broke out at the late-night eatery around 5 a.m. local time. The source of the dispute: someone’s relationship status on Facebook. According to authorities, one group of women was inside the Augusta restaurant when another group of ladies approached. An argument ensued regarding someone’s relationship status on Facebook, and the fight was eventually taken outside where one of the women fired four shots in the air. That woman is now in police custody.

The other women involved fled the scene in three vehicles, all of which are thought to have contained firearms. No additional details about the incident have been released.

This is undoubtedly not the first debate that has ensued from someone changing their Facebook relationship status. Going from “Single” to “In a Relationship” on the site has become a common way to announce a new relationship.

Last month Microsoft announced plans to create a concept car to inspire developers to build apps and automotive technologies for the future. Now, with the help of a company called West Coast Customs, Microsoft made good on that promise with this 2012 Ford Mustang. The company took the vintage ride to the next level using all items available to anyone form their favorite electronics retailer, and a little code.

The inside of the Mustang sports two Windows 8 tablets –something not available to general public until later this year– on the dashboard. One tablet takes the place of your traditional gauges, and can be swiped across to be given a new look. A tablet mounted on the passenger side of the car can be used to send messages and surf the web, as well as create messages that are displayed on the rear window of the car for other drivers.

The Mustang has Kinect sensors hooked up to the front of the vehicle which can also be used to look at pedestrians or objects surrounding the vehicle. The sensors also allow you to log in from a cell phone from wherever you are and see what’s going on in front of your ride. The car also has a projection screen hooked up to the rear which is hooked up to an Xbox for gaming. You can locate, unlock, and start your wheels all from the Viper SmartStart app for Windows Phone, and another Windows Phone application allows you to speak through the vehicles external audio PA system. Accent lighting, and the Mustangs horn sound can also be customized from an app.

Anonymous is claiming responsibility for a cyberattack against Chinese websites — one that may also be having an impact on Internet speeds across the world. Networks in North America, Europe and especially Asia were running at significantly lower speeds Thursday. Asia’s cyber backbone was especially hard hit, seeing packet loss of 33% or more, according to the monitoring website Internet Traffic Report. Anonymous, a loosely knit group of hackers, took credit for defacing up to 500 Chinese websites Thursday, according to ABC News.

“Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall,” reads a message left on the homepages of attacked sites. Other messages encouraged Chinese citizens to join a revolution against the Chinese government and left instructions for bypassing Internet filters installed by the Chinese government to prevent citizens from freely accessing the web.

There was no explicit connection between the site defacements and the Asian slowdown. But Anonymous’s attacks also often come in the form of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). Thousands of connections are made to a specific server causing it to crash from an overload of web traffic.

A new 3D-viewing option on YouTube‘s video player ensures classic movies like The Lion King and Titanic won’t be the only videos getting retroactive 3D treatment. The option allows viewers to watch short-form videos uploaded to YouTube in 1080p while wearing 3D glasses.

YouTube’s enhancement, which rolled out across the site on Thursday, is the latest iteration of a beta feature the site launched last September that gave video uploaders a one-click method for converting their 2D videos to 3D. YouTube said in a blog post that users have since applied the option to “hundreds of thousands” of their videos. Viewers can choose to watch 1080p videos with Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta, Blue/Yellow or interleaved 3D glasses through a new 3D button next to the gear option on the video player. YouTube is, of course, not producing 3D effects on par with video originally filmed in 3D. True 3D video requires two versions of the same scene filmed from two perspectives.

Here’s a simplified explanation of YouTube’s version works: YouTube estimates a depth map for each frame of a video using color, spatial layout, motion and other characteristics. It improves this generated map by applying what it has learned from actual 3D videos uploaded to its platform. The next thing YouTube will figure out is whether its users actually want to watch web video in 3D.

Google’s blog publishing platform, Blogger, rolled out a feature on Thursday that allows users to add webcam images into posts. “This is a fun and useful feature that allows people to capture moments with their webcam and easily reshare it,”. To post webcam photos, simply select “insert image,” click “from your webcam” and snap a few pics.

Blogger keeps the last three photos and lets you select your favorite to insert into the post.
Comments on the blog where the announcement was posted are mostly positive. Users have offered suggestions for Blogger, such as including the ability to post live webcam broadcasts (though that would undermine Google+ Hangouts).

Blogger was created by Pyra Labs (co-founded by Ev Williams, who went on to help launch Twitter) and acquired by Google in 2003. In March, it was discovered that Facebook required Blogger users to go through a Captcha check in order to filter spam. That may be a move on Facebook’s part to continue the digital cold war between the two companies.

Since Instagram’s iPhone app hit the App Store in October 2010, Android users have been patiently — and in some cases, not so patiently — awaiting a version for their phones. That day has finally come: Instagram for Android is now available for free download over at Google Play, Google’s store for apps, ebooks and other media.

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom announced at SXSW in March that the long-awaited Android version of Instagram was on the way. He teased the version on stage, but didn’t provide a demo. A signup page allowing Android users to be notified when the app went live was posted later in the month.

Download the app for yourself — it works with Android version 2.2 and higher and feel free to give your feedback to us and let us know that what do you think of this app.