Daily Bits

Free Lonely Planet Euro cities iPhone guides, but watch those data charges

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Iceland’s volcanic eruption has caused a huge headache for those stranded away from home, and while the big problems of finding alternative transport are yet to be resolved, iPhone users could at least find a little joy with Lonely Planet’s free guides to European cities.

Stranded or not, you need to be quick to get hold of them, as the offer ends this coming Thursday, 22nd April.

Grab city guides for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Istanbul, London, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna.

Beware, though, because it might be cheaper to get a train, boat or taxi home than incur hideous roaming data charges. If you’re near a Wi-Fi hotspot, though (or are in your home country with free data), head over to the iTunes store and search for Lonely Planet City Guides.

Young Adults Care About Online Privacy After All

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Who says that young online people don’t care about their privacy? If you think that the younger members of social networking sites are too careless in sharing photos of their merry-making with college friends on various social sites, well we are all wrong. According to the report of a study conducted by the University of University of California, Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania, young adults care as much about their privacy as their older American counterparts.

The study is among the first quantitative studies looking at young people’s attitudes toward privacy. And according to Mary Madded, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, this will surely contradict many assumptions that have been made about young adults and their attitudes toward privacy.

The survey was conducted based on a 2009 telephone survey of 1,000 Americans aged 18 and older.  It also found out that among those who responded to the survey question, 69%  said that a company should be fined more than $2,500 if they violated privacy while 54% said that the fine to be imposed should be higher.

Key findings of the study are as follow:

  • Eighty-eight percent of people of all ages said they have refused to give out information to a business because they thought it was too personal or unnecessary. Among young adults, 82 percent have refused, compared with 85 percent of those over 65.
  • Most people — 86 percent — believe that anyone who posts a photo or video of them on the Internet should get their permission first, even if that photo was taken in public. Among young adults 18 to 24, 84 percent agreed — not far from the 90 percent among those 45 to 54.
  • Forty percent of adults ages 18 to 24 believe executives should face jail time if their company uses someone’s personal information illegally — the same as the response among those 35 to 44 years old.

via Yahoo News

Twitter Announces New Features – Annotations, Places and User Streams

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Twitter made quite some noise today at its Chirp conference for developers. Aside from announcing that all public tweets will be archived by the Library of Congress starting with those publish as early as 2006, Twitter has also announced three new interesting features – Places, Annotations and User Streams. In brief, here’s what these three features are about.

Places – This is a new location feature which Twitter will implement to give developers a database of places around the world that will easily be associated with tweets corresponding to the location of the Twitter member who posted the tweet. Somehow, it works like location-based social tools such as Gowalla and Foursquare, although Twitter would not rather call it as a “check-in” facility.

Annotations – This is quite an interesting new feature as it will allow developers to incorporate arbitrary metadata to any tweet in the Twitter public timeline. These metada include information such as which tweet was a specific tweet made in reply to, the location where the tweet was posted, as well as the app used for posting/creating that tweet.

User Stream API – This will provide developers access to feed of user actions such as mentions, favoriting, and friending done by users on their individual Twitter accounts.

In addition to those three new features, Twitter is also launching a new site which will host various Twitter development resources. The site, dev.witter.com will feature documentations, and other information useful to developers.

Google Buzz Gets An Official Share Button

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If you  liked Buzz since day one chances are you’ve probably clicked on those Google Buzz share buttons developed and implemented by top blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch. You may have also used some “unofficial” follow me on Google Buzz buttons in your blogs or websites. The thing is implementing those unofficial Google Buzz buttons maybe a tedius process and may require some codings and all.

But that was the case before, not until now. Google has just launch the official Google Buzz sharing buttons. Starting today, you’d be seeing more of those official Google Buzz share buttons on top sites which have partnered with Google. These include The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Glamour, YouTube and others. These buttons will make it easier for you to share interesting news items you find on the Internet and post it as updates to your Google Buzz accounts.

Likewise, those third-party share widgets/buttons such as Share This, Shareholic and other have also started implementing the Google Buzz button in their widgets.

Now, to post the Google Buzz button in your own blog/site, you can grab the Javascript code from this site and paste it to your site’s code.  You can also add the official follow me on Google Buzz button to your blogs/sites by also grabbing the code for it from the said site.

There you go, some new ways to spread the buzz and if you don’t like Google Buzz – add some more noise to the Buzz sphere.

Facebook Updates its Safety Center

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Facebook wants to tell the world that it is really serious about your safety as it strives to create an online environment where everyone can connect with anybody, share updates and stuff without getting bothered by possible phising, malware and privacy attacks. To reiterate its vow in protecting user privacy, Facebook just launched a completely redesigned Safety Center.

The Facebook Safety Center offers new safety resources for parents, educators, teens and members of the law enforcement community. Facebook has also created a cleaner and more navigable interfaces that would help you find answers to questions relating to your safety as you use Facebook.

It also contains multimedia contents culled from Facebook itself as well as from independent organizations which specializes in online safety and security. You can find safety-related content organized by audience type and by topics including “Addressing Personal Safety” and “Responding to Objectionable Content.” If you’re a parent you can easily find the “Safety for Parents” section where you’ll get advice from Facebook’s partners such as the Safety Advisory Board.

The Facebook Safety Advisory Board includes members such as the Childnet International, Common Sense Media, Connect Safely, The Family Online Safety Institute and WiredSafety.

And while you’re checking out the new Facebook Safety Center page, you might also want to read on other important Facebook rules, policies and guidelines. It’s located just below the page and include information on – Facebook Privacy FAQ, Privacy Policy, Guide to Privacy on Facebook and other relevant Facebook official documents.

Move Over iPad, Here Comes the WePad

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There you go. What was being touted as an iPad killer even before the iPad was officially released finally gets to come out of the closet and was finally and officially launched. We’re talking about the WePad. It’s definitely not the plural form of the iPad but rather a different product, created by the German company – Neofonie.

Some of the things that we don’t know yet about WePad are pretty interesting. For example, reports said that there will be two WePad models – a 16GB WiFi and 64GB HD-capable unit.  The rest of the WePad specs and features are pretty impressive, well of course if you’re looking at it from the perspective of what a tablet should be.

The WePad boasts of 11.6-inch touchscreen display, Intel Atom N450 CPU, two USB ports, onboard webcam, and of course something which has been much sought after from the iPad – Flash support.

And some of the major features that you can enjoy with the WePad include – browse the Internet, watch YouTube, check email, chat with friends on Facebook and more.

The WePad is also banking on the open-source dictum, having built the WePad’s platform on Android and Linux.  So, you can just imagine the possibility of more apps coming into the WePad’s way once it becomes publicly available.

WePad is also promising something about “WeMagazine.” This is an ePublishing Open Platform that provides publishers with tools necessary to develop their publication-specific applications for the WePad.

Could the WePad revolutionize the web magazine  publishing industry? Will it be able to steal the thunder away from the Apple iPad?  Are Flash support and Android or Linux OS enough to convince you to get the WePad?