The popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia has reached the beautiful age of twelve yesterday, with this occasion Wikimedia Foundation has launched a new project, Wikivoyage.
   Wikivoyage is a free travel guide that offers various useful information to travelers that arrive in a new unknown place. Currently is available only in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and Dutch, it includes various information about countries, cities, sights or routes which couldn't be incorporated in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia.
   For example on a city page visitors can find informations about urban transport routes, museums, people, hotels, restaurants, temperatures and advice on personal safety in certain areas or vehicles.
At this time Wikivoyage contains around 50,000 articles maintained by 200 volunteer editors.

by byetech

   Facebook, has announced today, during a special event, the launch of Graph Search, the most interesting change of the popular service.
   Unlike a Web search engine that scans pages and provides results in the form of links, Graph Search is a semantic search engine within the giant Facebook's database.
   Based on the multitude of interconnections the Facebook internal search engine future will not provide links, it gives answers.
   Graph Search , currently in beta stage,  can be used for to perform searches which can be simple structures like "my friends who lived in X" or "my friends who visited Y" or complex searches such as "People called X wh are friends with Y and went to college  "or" the Z ethnic restaurants appreciated by my friends with the Z nationality".
   With a history not so favorable when it comes to protecting the personal information, the company wanted to clarify that these searches will take into account the user settings, the results are limited to the type of content made public.

by byetech

   After several months of development, the final stable version of WordPress 3.5, Elvin, is available for download.
   The most important updates brought to the latest version of WordPress are: a new media manager, a new responsive default theme, Twenty Twelve and a Streamlined UI with a Retina-ready dashboard.
   You can download WordPress 3.5 form the official page.

by byetech

   Kim Dotcom has posted three screenshots of MegaUpload's successor, Mega, on his Twitter account.
   The screenshots show the registration page, the file manager and the client-side encryption.
   The client-side encryption, with 2048-bit RSA encryption, will guarantee the security of your access to the files and the privacy of the stored files, no one besides you will know what you store, including the governments and Mega.
   Mega will have the option to share your files and it might be launched on January 19 next year.


by byetech

   Google continues the series of changes for YouTube, changing the interface to bring in front the list of subscribed channels.
   These changes are part of a larger project initiated to bring the collection of websites and applications that Google provides to a common design style, optimized for a clean look and the ease of use.
   The way you watch YouTube videos also suffered some changes. The new interface moves the content closer to the top of the screen and places the playlist next to the video, facilitating the access to the other YouTube videos from the  selected channel.

   Facebook has presented the 25 top-rated games of 2012, realized considering the involvement and the feedback coming from the users of the social networking throughout the year.
   The list was prepared following the same method used for the classification of the applications from Facebook App Center, taking into account the stars given by users, the positive or negative feedback and the level of involvement measured during January-November 2012.
   The ranking result include the games released in 2012 on Facebook.com, and the games for mobile phones and tablets that offers integration with Facebook's services. For maximum relevance were included in the list only games that enjoy at least 100,000 active users each month, members of the social network.

1. SongPop ( available on Facebook.com, iOS and Android , made by FreshPlanet )
2. Dragon City (available on Facebook.com, made by Social Point)
3. Bike Race  (available on iOS, made by Top Free Games)
4. Subway Surfers (available on iOS and Android, made by Kiloo)
5. Angry Birds Friends  (available on Facebook.com, made by Rovio)
6. FarmVille 2 (available on Facebook.com, made by Zynga)
7. Scramble with Friends  (available on iOS, made by Zynga)
8. Clash of Clans (available on iOS, made by Supercell)
9. Marvel: Avengers Alliance (available on Facebook.com, made by Playdom)
10. Draw Something  (on available iOS and Android, made by Zynga)
11. Hay Day  (available on iOS, made by Supercell)
12. Baseball Heroes (available on Facebook.com, made by Syntasia)
13. ChefVille  ( available on Facebook.com, made by Zynga)
14. CSR Racing (available on iOS, made by NaturalMotion Games)
15. Candy Crush Saga (available on Facebook.com and iOS, made by King.com)
16. Matching With Friends (available on Facebook.com, made by Zynga)
17. Legend Online (available on Facebook.com, made by Oasis Games)
18. Jurassic Park Builder (available on Facebook.com, made by Ludia)
19. Dungeon Rampage (available on Facebook.com, made by Rebel Entertainment)
20. Pockie Ninja II Social (available on Facebook.com, made by NGames Ltd.)
21. Jetpack Joyride (available on Facebook.com, made by Halfbrick)
22. Social Empires  (available on Facebook.com and iOS, made by Social Point)
23. Bil ve Fethet (available on Facebook.com, made by Peak Games)
24. Ruby Blast Adventures (available on Facebook.com and iOS, made by Zynga)
25. Pyramid Solitaire Saga  (available on Facebook.com, made by King.com)

   Surprisingly, the first 5 games, except for the game Dragon City, created by Social Point,  don't belong to one of the producers present in the top 25 Facebook AppData leaderboard.
   The leader of this year is SongPop, the game produced by FreshPlanet, a company based in Ney York, thad  has won over many fans who enjoy the tests with musical themes.
by byetech 
image credits facebook.com/SongPopGame

   Apple has bought in the last six months 1024 technology patents from Rockstar Consortium.
   Most of the patents are related to communication technologies, including wireless technology, wireless 4G, data networking, optical fiber communications, voice, Internet and semiconductors.
   Rockstar Consortium Inc. is an organisation owned by EMC, Sony, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson and Apple and formed to negotiate Nortel's patents after its bankruptcy.
   The 6000 patents has bought at auction from Nortel by Rockstar Consortium that had cost $4.5 billion, Apple has participated with $2.5 billion.

   StumbleUpon has launched the biggest update in its history of 10 years. The service gets a facelift that combines new design elements with an  improved functionality, with more pronounced focus on social discovery.
   StumbleUpon's new design was launched in beta last month and attracted 100,000 users. The Beta version is over and now all users can the new function "Add to List", with special pages for the friends activity.
   With a combination of social elements from Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, StumbleUpon has a new homepage which provides a richer viewing experience.
   The changes include  "Activity" and "Recent Activity" pages, which allow a more intuitive exploration of news found by friends, with new types of activities added in StumbleUpon extensions for your browser.

   Google might exclude all French publications operating in the online environment from the list of Google Search results, if the French government will pass a law which the company describes as unacceptable.
   Once adopted, the new law would require Google to pay a fee to display content, specifically the links shown in Google Search results with reference to various French publications.
   In a letter sent to several ministerial offices in France, Google explains that such a law would threaten its existence as a company, forcing to pay huge sums for the approximately 4 billion clicks, on Google Search results which refer to French websites. As a result, the company might find itself obliged to exclude any reference lists of results that fall under the new law.
   Clearly, in addition to the users frustrations, who use Google Search engine to find the information, the 4 billion clicks down would have a disastrous impact on websites and will exclude a massive monthly traffic and reducing profits from advertising.

   Google Street View has refreshed the locations that can be explored with the Maps service and greatly expanded their coverage by adding new collections of panoramic images, from more regions of the world.
   The update practically doubled the collection of special sites, it offers a fresh and updated look for more than 400,000 km of roads and has extend the Street View places with  regions from Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, UK, Denmark Norway, Macau, the United States and Canada. In addition,  have been added  first special collections of  images from Japan, Spain and South Africa, containing panoramic scenes of famous locations and tourist destinations.
  The Google Maps improvements has made ​​the subject of a speech by Erich Schmidt, the Google CEO has not missed the opportunity to make comparisons with similar services offered by Apple. According to him, with the massive investments made ​​to bring Google Maps service to the highest quality standards, Street View is a key service for Google and one of the main advantages over the competition presented by Apple. Finally, Erich Schmidt suggested that Apple shouldn't have to drop out Google Maps.
by byetech

   The biggest names from the IT industry are involved in the launch of Webplatform.org, a project dedicated to creating a documentation platform for open web standards. This "Wikipedia" for Web Development is backed by by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and even Apple.
   The website based on a similar Wiki  engine will offer the latest information about HTML5, CSS4 standards and other web resources that can be modified and implemented for free.
   Web Platform Docs is also supported by Adobe, HP, Nokia, Mozilla, Opera and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
  Webplatform.org website will provide full functionality for users   interested in the development of web applications and includes scripts libraries, discussion forums, live chat and many tutorials, including resources for teachers.
by byetech

   Microsoft is getting back into the news business, three months after announcing the breakup of its 16-year online partnership with NBC. Microsoft will take the wraps off the new MSN.com when Windows 8 launches on Oct. 26.
   "We still have a relationship with MSNBC, but we're going to have our own news product called MSN News," Bob Visse, general manager of product management at MSN, said in an interview with Mashable.

   Staffers in Redmond, Wash. and New York will be responsible for 24/7 news coverage, largely made up of short, 300 to 500-word "news bites," and supplemented by content from Reuters and AP. "We're going to look to take on other content partners as well," he added.
   In 1996, Microsoft and NBC launched a joint news venture at MSNBC.com. It was a successful news portal, one that married Microsoft's mid-'90s technical expertise with NBC's news-gathering experience. By the time of the breakup, it had an audience of 50 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore.
   Yet over time the operation became more difficult, especially after Microsoft divested its stake in the cable channel in 2005. As The New York Times detailed in July, NBC "came to feel handcuffed by the Web arrangement," as the company was unable to serve advertisers who wanted to buy ads both on TV and its websites because Microsoft was handling ad sales.
   Microsoft reportedly received $300 million for its 50% stake, and MSNBC.com now redirects visitors to NBCNews.com. The cable channel, however, will continue to be called MSNBC.
   The new operation will have a staff "roughly the same size" as what MSNBC.com used to be, says Visse. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to specify the number.
   MSN.com operates in 48 markets and 27 languages. It brings in approximately 480 million unique visitors worldwide each month, 123 million of which are based in the U.S., according to Visse. It is a profitable division within Microsoft, supported almost entirely by advertising revenue.
source(via) Lauren Indvik | Mashable

   The Joomla! Project has revealed the availability of Joomla 3.0.0. With this major release, the company announced the end of support for Joomla 1.5, which is currently maintained only for security issues.
   Joomla 3.0.0 comes with a number of interesting new features, including the incorporation of Twitter Bootstrap into a jui media package, a new front-end template, simplified installation process, new admin statistics module, and the PHP Memcached driver.
   Customers will be able to run Joomla using the PostgreSQL database, save blank articles, and install language packs from the extension manager.
   As far as the code is concerned, Joomla 3.0.0 comes with a feature which ensures that older unused code, files, and database fields and tables are constantly cleaned up.
   Joomla 2.5 customers can update to Joomla 3, but they’re advised to be aware of the fact that they will have to update their sites every six months until the 3.5 becomes available.
   Furthermore, they’re urged to consider the availability of third-party templates and extensions before deciding which version to utilize.
source(via)Softpedia

The case against MegaUpload may not be going as smooth as the media corporations hoped, but that's assuming Hollywood actually wants Kim Dotcom and company to go to jail.
Obviously, jail time would be a nice bonus, but one major goal has already been achieved, MegaUpload was nuked out of the web and it took several other sites with it.
In the wake of the MegaUpload raid, other cyberlockers felt the long, long and apparently international arm of the FBI stretching towards them and were quick to remove functionality or take down the site entirely.
The effects of the raid are still being felt, in fact it just now claimed its latest victim, FileSonic.
Falling from being one of the top 10 cyberlockers on the web half a year ago to, well, nothing, has been quite dramatic, but the damage has been self-inflicted. The site's admins didn't like what they saw with MegaUpload and quickly took steps to disable public sharing.
Users were only able to download their own files, making the site if not useless then a lot more limited. Now though, the site is disappearing from the web entirely.
Granted, it's not completely gone, unlike the way Demonoid vanished for example, but things are not looking good. Filesonic.com, the main domain name, no longer works.
TorrentFreak found that the domain has changed hands and is now owned by a company in the Seychelles, Renovatio Management Limited, not the Hong Kong-based Earnwell LDT which owns Filesonic.
The site's other domain names, Filesonic.net, Filesonic.fr and so on (the company seems to own quite a lot of ccTLDs), though are still registered to the original company and still work, in a way.
They still resolve to the site, but the site itself no longer works. Whether it's because the main domain name is down or because the entire site is dissolving is unclear for now.
source(via)Softpedia

Rivio, the producers of the Angry Birds franchise , has announced that they have partnered with the rock band Green Day.
Thus, Rovio Entertainment will launch in this fall a special version of the game, on Facebook.
The new version of Angry Birds will be conducted on 10 levels and three new characters will appear in scene, Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool. Also, Green Day will provide the soundtrack, with their latest single, "Oh Love".
The american band will appear as green pigs and will have to face the fury of the birds.
Angry Birds manufacturers says that the project isn't the last one of this kind.
by byetech

Finally, when we delete an embarrassing image from our Facebook lives, it will be wiped from Facebook's servers in a "reasonable amount of time", Facebook told Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng, who has been following the saga since 2009. Before now, the photos sat on Facebook's servers, latent, yet still available, which is the exact opposite of what the action of deletion should mean.
Now, because of new servers the company has built, however, the term has taken back its true meaning. Following deletion, photos will exist for no longer than a month, according to a spokesperson. "As a result of work on our policies and infrastructure, we have instituted a 'max-age' of 30 days for our CDN links," Frederic Wolens told Cheng. "However, in some cases the content will expire on the CDN much more quickly, based on a number of factors." When Cheng tried it out herself, her photos were deleted from the Internet forever in two days, which isn't quite the immediacy we want when erasing an illicit image, but it is better than never.
Facebook has also extended this good policy to Instagram's images; it bought the company earlier this year. Deleted photos from the app will remain on the servers no longer than 24 hours. Though we rejoice this update, let us not forget that this is what the company should have been doing all along. When we say delete, we really mean it. At the same time, it's always good to be careful of what you're posting in the first place.
By Rebecca Greenfield | The Atlantic Wire

Following the recent update brought to its personal email service, which has become Outlook.com, Microsoft also performed a major interface change to SkyDrive.com, bringing it in line with the UI approach in Windows 8.
Starting today, SkyDrive.com has a new, modern look, similar with the one available for the dedicated application released for Windows 8, intended to make it easier for users to create, find and manage their documents.
The user interface for the web service has been modified almost entirely, meant to deliver a faster and more fluid experience to all people, regardless of the browser they use to access SkyDrive.
The home page of the service now features a tile-based layout for all folders and files, yet users are also offered the possibility to opt for the detailed view they enjoyed before.
The new design also comes with a series of new features, such as instant search, through which one can easily locate files on SkyDrive, and can find content in Office documents such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
Additionally, the service has got a contextual toolbar, which should make it easier to access common tasks and actions. The toolbar is located at the top of the page, so that creating folders and docs, sharing, and common file operations are easier to activate.
Other features now available on SkyDrive include selection of multiple items, drag and drop, and new sorting capabilities, to make it easier for users to find files they are looking for.
The SkyDrive applications for Windows and Mac OS X have been updated as well, to make the experience faster when it comes to a series of key scenarios, all based on the user feedback.
The photo upload capabilities of SkyDrive have been upgraded, now capable of delivering a faster bulk photo upload experience. The SkyDrive app will now use fewer resources when searching for file changes, while the syncing capabilities are faster than before.
All these changes are accompanied by the availability of a mobile application for devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, yet the software is not up for download at the moment. It should land in a matter of weeks.
“The Android app is similar to our mobile apps for Windows Phone and iOS and allows you to browse your SkyDrive, upload files to SkyDrive, as well as share SkyDrive files with ‘Send a link’,” Microsoft explains in a blog post.
“You'll also be able to open SkyDrive files from other apps, as well as upload, save, and share to SkyDrive from other apps.”
There are also a series of improvements that application developers will benefit from with the new SkyDrive, allowing them to integrate the service into mobile and desktop applications easier than before.
Some of the latest changes in this area include:
- No more file restrictions and full control over photo upload resolution - There are no longer any restrictions on the types of files that your application uploads to SkyDrive. Additionally, you can now upload images in their full resolution.
- Open and Save pickers - Our API now includes a SkyDrive file picker for opening and saving files to SkyDrive by adding a few lines of JavaScript to any website.
These changes are based on the feedback that Microsoft received from the developer community, and should result in new, innovative applications being launched with the functionality inside.
source(via) Softpedia

Google introduces specific addresses for the social network profiles, available directly from Google.com. First, a few celebrities and companies have access to specific URLs, but is expected that the option to be extend for all the Google+ users.
Replacing numerical code associated with each profile with + sign followed by name, the celebrities and corporate accounts on Google + become more easy to access.
For example, to visit the Google Plus page of Britney Spears , the URL can be shortened to "google.com/+britneyspears". Besides celebrities like David Beckham and Hugh Jackman, the first companies to benefit from special URL include Hugo Boss and Toyota.
The users were delighted with the novelty of Google +, but company representatives have no estimated date for when the option will be available for a greater number of users.
(by byetech staff)

Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, announced that will launch a new service by the end of this year. Megabox will allow artists to sell music directly, without label, in the intermediary role, and to earn money when their music is downloaded for free.
The Investigation of Megaupload closing continues, but the founder of the site is working on a new project, Megabox.com, which promises to revolutionize the music industry.
Megabox site will give artists the chance to sell their music directly and keep 90% of profit,Kim Dotcom explained that hedeveloped a system, Megakey, already tested by a million users.
by byetech staff

Wikipedia, the public knowledge website, is more than a decade old and remains among the top 10 Internet sites in the world, but some say it is becoming old and dowdy. Others want to keep it that way.
At the "Wikimania" event held in Washington over the past week, several hundred members of the "wiki" community gathered for talks about the site and a two-day "hackathon," aimed at improving Wikipedia.
Some in attendance said Wikipedia, the free, open-source online encyclopedia which is largely unchanged from when it began in 2001, needs upgrading in an era where people are turning to social media like Facebook and Twitter.
"It looks like it's 10 years old," said Sebastian Wallroth, a software engineer from Germany.
Wallroth said it is difficult for people to collaborate and there are hurdles in uploading pictures and video, unlike more user-friendly sites like Facebook.
Semere Tazaz Sium, recent graduate of Virginia Tech in software engineering, agreed that Wikipedia "needs improvement from a user point of view."
"It's a very powerful tool but the user interface is a bit old," said the native of Eritrea who volunteers for Wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder who is still the public face of the project, said questions about the site's future direction will be worked out in the same manner the website operates -- collaboratively.
"I'm not the boss of Wikipedia, you are all the bosses," he told the opening session of Wikimania at George Washington University on Thursday.
Wales said that even forces are pushing Wikipedia in different directions, decisions won't be made in an "authoritarian" manner.
"We've always viewed ourselves as a community brought together for a particular mission. We have core value, like a free and open Internet," he said.
"The authoritarian model is not always the one that works."
Wales and others admit that Wikipedia needs to do more to encourage participation. Wikipedia has editions in 285 languages, including growing editions in Yoruba, Swahili and Afrikaans, over 22 million articles and 100,000 active contributors. In some cases, Wales says articles are produced by "bots," or computer programs that automatically generate or translate content.
But Wikipedians, the name for those who participate, see an urgent need to make Wikipedia more open to newcomers, to keep up with the vast amount of information it is trying to process.
"It isn't always the most polite or friendly place," said a participant who goes by his Wikipedia name, Kudpung.
"Wikipedia is the encyclopedia everyone can edit, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops, and there is no welcoming committee. So people will create new pages and edit pages only to find those pages or edits deleted, and they are not told about it in a nice way."
Kudpung, a British national living in Thailand and longtime Wikipedia editor, said the site needs new people.
"It has been going for over 10 years and the number of quality encyclopedia articles has flattened out," he said.
"The majority being submitted are autobiographical articles that people post about themselves because they think it's Facebook. On the other hand, there are people who have something to contribute but they don't know the rules."
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation which operates the site, said those involved in the project are aware of the slumping rate of participation and are taking to respond.
One initiative is a "visual" editor which will make it easier for people without special computer skills to contribute and edit Wikipedia articles.
"We want to make it as easy for people to edit Wikipedia as it is to update their status on Facebook," Gardner said.
She said devoted Wikipedians may want some changes but don't want it to become commercial.
"I think people really trust Wikipedia and one of the reasons they trust us is because we are honest about our mistakes. If we become slick and glossy I don't think that would become a source of trust."
Gardner said she and others are proud that the site has remained true to its ideals, and even "homely."
"Wikipedia is not flashy or splashy," she said. "It is not something designed by marketing people to keep you on to sell you something. So that is its charm."
By Rob Lever | AFP