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It used to be that the only time you'd notice a bar code was at a store, maybe when a cashier scanned your groceries. But lately bar codes are showing up in more places around town — and getting more sophisticated. You might have seen one cousin of the traditional bar code: Known as a QR code, this jumble of little squares randomly arranged within a larger square is popping up on everything from bus stop billboards to restaurant windows. If you spot one and snap it with your cell phone camera, the device can show you a website, photo or video related to the advertiser. For example, Google Inc. is giving businesses stickers with QR codes that passers-by can scan. That brings up a link to a mobile version of a Google page where the business can post coupons and information about themselves. Soon the codes could lead to other avenues for connecting with customers in ways businesses can measure and control. That could help them target advertisements to the people who are most likel...

Yahoo Inc.'s latest facelift will include a Facebook touchup. As part of changes rolling out this week, Yahoo will import personal updates from Facebook's social network for users who want a bridge between two of the world's most popular websites. The Facebook link will need to be turned on by each Yahoo user. The personal updates, known as a "news feed" in Facebook's parlance, will be available throughout Yahoo's website, including its front page and e-mail service. Other tools will empower people to automatically let their Facebook friends know what they are doing and saying on Yahoo services such as its photo-sharing site, Flickr. The additional tie-ins follow through on a makeover that Yahoo announced late last year in an effort to make its website more compelling.

Apple Store faced increasing criticism before for not being more open, Apple recently announced that there is a portion of its devices that is totally open:the Web. If developers do not like some of the restrictions of Apple store, they can build their new Web Apps. But, the critics think that this is the best interest of Apple so that people make native apps for their devices, not web apps that can be used anywhere. Apple's HTML 5 page on its site establishes the fact what you can do with the technology. There are seven unique things you can do using only HTML5: Video, Typography, Gallery, Transitions, Audio, 360, and VR. "Standards are not add-on to the web," says Apple. But, the odd is that you can only view those things using Apple's Safari Browser. You can not use other HTML5 compliant browser like Google Chrome. If you try to load the application in different browser, you will get error message "The demo was designed with the latest web standards sup...

Four idealistic students at New York University have raised $200,000 to fund a project building a more privacy-centric social network. Diaspora isn't likely to take Facebook down just yet, but after a very flattering introduction in the New York Times a few weeks back the group watched hundreds of small donations flood in - more than 6,400 donations have been pledged so far - and in less than one month. Zuckerberg himself is rumoured to have contributed. The four wrote on Monday that they had expected to scrape an initial $10,000 together through Kickstarter, the creative project funding site, from friends and family - but recognise they have "struck a chord with the world and identified a problem which needs to be solved". That 'problem' is the need for what they describe as a "privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network". "You may not hear too much from us in the coming months and we will try our best to pro...

DoubleClick Inc., an Internet ad service owned by Google Inc., said Thursday that it bought online ad technology startup Invite Media. Invite Media, which is based in New York and Philadelphia, makes tools to help marketers bid on online advertising space. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Google bought DoubleClick in March 2008 for $3.2 billion. More recently, the online search leader passed the final regulatory hurdle in its $750 million acquisition of mobile ad service AdMob in May when the Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved that purchase.

A teenage Bill Gates was such a problem child that he and his parents had to go through family therapy for two years, the Microsoft founder's dad has revealed. "Things obviously worked themselves out," the New York Daily News quoted Gates Sr., 84, as telling the crowd in the auditorium of the storied 92nd Street Y. He went on: "Our family was pretty typical as families go, with conflicts arising between parents and children at a certain age. "There's fighting against discipline, and that's the situation we had. In this particular case it was mostly between Bill and his mother." Gates Jr., nicknamed Trey at home, said: "Mom was on the front line. "But Dad was in reserve."

Jejaring sosial terbesar di dunia, Facebook, baru-baru ini digugat oleh penggunanya karena dituduh membocorkan data pribadi pengguna kepada para pengiklan. Salah seorang pengguna Facebook asal South Lake Tahoe California, David Gould, menuding Facebook telah mengingkari kebijakan privasinya. Yaitu dengan mengungkap data-data pengguna yang mengeklik iklan di Facebook, meliputi nama asli, kota tempat tinggal, asal sekolah, serta daftar teman-teman. Menurut Gould, kepada para pengiklan, Facebook mengirimkan referrer header setiap saat ada pengguna Facebook yang mengeklik iklan. Jadi setiap kali pengiklan menerima referrer header itu, para pengiklan bisa melihat profil pengguna spesifik yang telah mengeklik iklan itu. Apalagi, kata Gould, saat itu, kebijakan privasi yang lama memungkinkan pengiklan juga mengakses nama username maupun foto pengguna Facebook, mengingat banyak di antara mereka yang tidak mengutak-atik pengaturan privasi mereka.

Taqwa.me provides users one of the most powerful engines to educate, search and research. Users are given the ability to determine whether websites or content within a site is “haram” or “halal”, and are encouraged to discuss their views and opinions in a social manner, as content cannot be dictated on the basis of what one person solely believes. By interacting in this social forum, we are helping one another to understand and consider why certain things are halal or haram. About Taqwa Taqwa is the Islamic concept of constant awareness of Allah (God). In the Qur’an Taqwa is explained as “right conduct”, “piety”, “guarding oneself”, “guarding against evil”(Q 2:197 and 22:37), and “piety of hearts” (Q 22:32). Taqwa, therefore, is an attribute of a believer inspired by Allah.

Facebook has just won its court battle in Pakistan and reaffirmed its restoration in the country . The privacy issue continues to besiege the social networking ace. However, for all those Facebook -buffs who are in no mood to celebrate Quit Facebook Day, you can better tighten your privacy. A week ago, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckberg, while addressing the privacy issues , had announced that suggesting the plans would roll out simplified controls. The new tools will offer users one menu with three settings that determine who can see shared content - friends, friends of friends and everyone. To boost up your security you can surely get on with some cool tips by Symantec for on social network to protect their personal information . The foremost thing is never to share your password for facebook or any other social networking site with anyone not even your best friend or spouse. warned that photos, videos and comments posted on the web are often there forever. Never post anything you w...

The landscape of the community-engineered social web, the one based on open technologies, has changed dramatically over the past few months. If you took a year off and just came back, you would probably not recognize it at all. The movement that started with protocols such as OpenID, OAuth, and Activity Streams, is now mostly gone. All the cool kids got grownup jobs and the market is back again driven by a small number of corporations. In fact, it is so small it can be counted on two fingers. A year ago, a meeting with Chris Messina, David Recordon, Joseph Smarr, Monica Keller, Will Norris, Luke Shepard, and John Panzer represented 7 different organizations or communities – a well-balanced mix of big and small, corporate and independent. Today it’s just Facebook and Google and that has significant implications. But when examining how these two companies engage in the development of open technologies, the findings are quite surprising. On the product side, Google is famous for their...