Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Jailbreak iOS 6.1



Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world.

Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories. Apple has released iOS 6.1, bringing several important updates, including a smarter Siri and additional LTE support. Google has added a detailed map of North Korea to its Google Maps service, and Twitter has started combating the flood of pornographic content uploaded to its video-sharing service Vine.


Released just yesterday, iOS 6.1 can be jailbroken via the program Redsn0w, but only in tethered mode and only for older iDevices.

As detailed by the Microsoft-focused tech site Redmond Pie, Redsn0w version 0.9.15b3 can jailbreak Apple's latest OS. The jailbreak requires that your device be tethered, meaning you'll have to connect it to your computer each time you restart it.

Further, the latest version of Redsn0w supports only older iDevices with an A4 chip or earlier. That means it'll work on devices like the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and 4th-gen iPod Touch but not on the iPhone 5 or the latest iPads or Touches.

However, an untethered jailbreak could kick off as soon as Super Bowl Sunday -- February 3 -- according to Redmond Pie. An iPhone Dev team known as evad3rs has been working on a full iOS 6.1 jailbreak.

The new jailbreak would be untethered, so there'd be no need to connect your iDevice to a PC. And it would support a host of newer devices, including the iPhone 5, the 4th-generation iPad, the iPad Mini, the latest iPod Touch models, and even the latest Apple TVs.

The evad3rs team has set up its own Twitter account and will likely offer up a tweet when the new jailbreak is ready for download.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Videos on Vine




Twitter's video sharing service, Vine, has instantly become the go-to place for memes and quirky, fun videos. One way to quickly check what's up on Vine is Just Vined, a simple but useful web service that displays the last 20 videos on Vine.

All of the videos are muted by default, but you can choose to un-mute any of them if you like.

The service is lacking any other options — we, for instance, would like to see an option for more or less videos displayed on the page — but it's still quite fun, and each refresh is guaranteed to net you at least one or two interesting clips.

Check it out over at justvined.com

Share Videos in Twitter




Twitter users may soon have a new way to share videos in their tweets.

Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter, tweeted on Wednesday morning about making steak tartare, but unlike the more than 5,000 other tweets Costolo has posted to date, this one featured something different: a short embedded video that was made with Vine, a small video-sharing startup that Twitter acquired in October.

If Costolo's tweet is any indication, it appears Twitter is planning to integrate Vine to allow users to embed short clips in their tweets in the same way that Twitter now lets users create and share Instagram-style photos in tweets.


The Financial Review reports hearing from sources that Twitter will add Vine integration in Australia in the "coming weeks," which will allow users to share 6-second videos in tweets.

Twitter declined to comment for this story at the moment.



Saturday, January 26, 2013

Clean Your Facebook Profile




We've all been there. Your grandmother just joined Facebook, your boss sent you a friend request or you're applying for that dream job. Suddenly, you're scrambling to purge your profile of last night's pictures plus everything else you wouldn't want Grams to see.

Painstakingly filtering through your Timeline isn't going to cut it, but FaceWash makes it easier. Three Kent State University undergrads created a web app that cleans your profile of incriminating content to give you a "fresh face."

The app allows users to search the profile with a "dirty word" list, a precompiled set of offensive or distasteful terms. You can also input your own words, and the returned results are displayed in categories such as "links that you have liked" or comments.

When taken to the questionable content, users have the option to either delete or change privacy settings. Check out the video, above, for more.


Like most Facebook-compatible web apps, FaceWash asks for access to your basic information, email address, profile info and photos. The free app is ideal for professionals in the making, creators Camden Fullmer, Daniel Gur and David Steinberg say on their page.

"You spent the last four years being a college kid. And that's wonderful. But a lot can happen in four years, and Facebook never forgets," the site describes.

The students hope to add more features, reports the Los Angeles Times, giving the app the ability to search in other languages.



Friday, January 25, 2013

Unlocking Cellphones Will Be Illegal by Saturday in the US




The clock to unlock a new mobile phone is running out.

In October 2012, the Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed. But the librarian provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it. That window closes on Jan. 26.

Unlocking a phone frees it from restrictions that keep the device from working on more than one carrier's network, allowing it run on other networks that use the same wireless standard. This can be useful to international travelers who need their phones to work on different networks. Other people just like the freedom of being able to switch carriers as they please.

The new rule against unlocking phones won't be a problem for everybody, though. For example, Verizon's iPhone 5 comes out of the box already unlocked, and AT&T will unlock a phone once it is out of contract.

You can also pay full-price for a phone, not the discounted price that comes with a two-year service contract, to receive the device unlocked from the get-go. Apple sells an unlocked iPhone 5 starting at $649, and Google sells its Nexus 4 unlocked for $300.


Advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) questions whether the DMCA has the right to determine who can unlock a phone. In an email to TechNewsDaily, EFF attorney Mitch Stoltz said, "Arguably, locking phone users into one carrier is not at all what the DMCA was meant to do. It's up to the courts to decide."

If you do buy a new phone and want to unlock it before the deadline, you must first ask your carrier if the company will unlock your phone for you. The DMCA only permits you to unlock your phone yourself once you've asked your carrier first.

(Note that unlocking is different from "jailbreaking," which opens the phone up for running additional software and remains legal for smartphones.)

Christopher S. Reed from the U.S. Copyright Office noted in an email to TechNewsDaily that "only a consumer, who is also the owner of the copy of software on the handset under the law, may unlock the handset."

But come Saturday, you'll have to break the law to unlock your phone. If you want to get in under the gun, you can search the Internet for the code to enter to unlock the phone or find a tool that will help you accomplish the task.

The change could crimp the style of carriers like T-Mobile, which have pushed "bring your own device" as an incentive for switching service providers. Such carriers promise savings in exchange for using your existing phone on their network.

T-Mobile has promoted this notion for iPhones, in particular, since the company is the only one of the big four U.S. carriers that doesn't sell the iPhone. The carrier goes so far as to feature ads displaying an open padlock, with an iPhone replacing the body of the lock. T-Mobile declined to comment.



Friday, January 18, 2013

Lance Armstrong Admits to Doping




Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.


Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

Armstrong passed more than 500 drug tests during his career. In some cases, however, he was found to have used substances, including EPO, years after he retired when new tests could find previously untraceable drugs.

However, he denied a claim by former teammate Floyd Landis that he organized a cover-up and paid off officials when, in 2001, he allegedly failed a test prior to the Tour de Suisse.

Armstrong used his wealth and influence to go after any of his teammates or crew members who attempted to expose him. He sued a team masseuse and as well former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy Andreu, who claimed to have overheard Armstrong telling a doctor that he used multiple banned substances.

Armstrong said he believed he would not have been caught had he not come out of retirement in 2008, just after former teammate Floyd Landis was caught doping and stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title.

He said, however, that his "fate was sealed" when George Hincapie, the only teammate with whom he competed in all seven winning Tours de France, was forced to testify against him to USADA.

Also on Thursday, before the Winfrey interview aired, the International Olympic Committee stripped Armstrong of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal.







Facebook adds free calling for US iPhone




Facebook has added a feature in its mobile phone app that allows free calling for US iPhone users.

Users can now make calls to each other via the Facebook Messenger app anywhere they have a wi-fi or a cellular-data connection.

The feature could be a boon for heavy talkers as they would avoid carrier call charges.

Facebook said it was working on adding the feature to its Messenger app for Android and BlackBerry users.

Within the app, all a person needs to do is open a conversation with a partner, tap the "i" icon in the upper right hand corner and select "Free Call".

The calls, however, can only be made to another user who has Messenger installed on their iPhone. Users can neither call a Facebook friend who is logged in through the website or call a landline.

The latest mobile-to-mobile development was independent of the free video-calling software Skype, which was already integrated into Facebook's website, a spokesman said. The Messenger app is limited to voice calling.

The official said Facebook was expected to roll out the feature in its Messenger app for other operating systems and expand it overseas.

On Tuesday, Facebook unveiled a smart search engine - called Graph Search - that allows users to make "natural" searches of content shared by their friends.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Google Nexus 7 tops iPad in Japan




Google's Nexus 7 is gaining market share in Japan and topped Apple's iPad in one survey.

Japanese digital device consumers are some of the savviest in the world. So, a report Thursday showing that the Nexus 7 has bested the iPad in market share is worthy of attention.

Based on a survey of 2,400 consumer electronics stores in Japan, Google's Nexus 7 tablet had 44.4 percent of the market versus the iPad's 40.1 percent, according to Nikkei, Japan's largest business daily. The survey was done by market research firm BCN in December.

Not surprisingly, one of the big draws of the Nexus 7 -- which is co-branded with Asus, the manufacturer of the tablet -- is price, according to Nikkei. It's about a $100 less in Japan than Apple's least expensive tablet, the iPad Mini.

The survey did note, however, that there was a shortage of the iPad Mini at stores and that this may have contributed to Apple's market share decline. But the gist of Nikkei's analysis is that the Nexus 7's price is a bigger factor.

Tablet sales in Japan were 3.6 million units in 2012 and this is expected to swell to 4.9 million in 2013, according to figures from IDC Japan that Nikkei cited.


Monday, January 14, 2013

Golden Globes 2013 Winners List




Ben Affleck has won best director for his film Argo at the Golden Globe awards.

Argo, set amidst the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, also won best drama.

Best actor in a drama went to Daniel Day-Lewis for his role in the biopic Lincoln, while Jessica Chastain won best actress in a drama for Zero Dark Thirty.

Earlier, British singer Adele won best song for the theme to the James Bond film Skyfall.

Collecting her trophy, she said: "Honestly, I've come out for a night out with my friend Ida - we're new mums - I have literally come for a night out. I was not expecting this."

Dame Maggie Smith won best supporting actress in a series for her role in Downton Abbey.

Homeland took best TV drama, with Damian Lewis winning best TV actor for his role in the series.

Quentin Tarantino, accepting the best screenplay award for his film Django Unchained, said: "This is a damn surprise, and I'm happy to be surprised."

Christoph Waltz took best supporting actor for his role in the film.

But the western lost out to Argo in the best drama category along with Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Life of Pi, Ang Lee's adaption of the Yann Martel novel, and Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Amour, directed by Austria's Michael Haneke, won best foreign film.

The Golden Globes gives a separate accolade for best film musical or comedy, which was won by Tom Hooper's film of stage hit Les Miserables.

Silver Linings Playbook, Moonrise Kingdom, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel were also shortlisted for this prize.

In the drama actor category, Day-Lewis was shortlisted alongside fellow Oscar candidates Denzel Washington and Joaquin Phoenix.

Les Miserables lead Hugh Jackman won best actor in a musical or comedy prize. Silver Linings Playbook star Bradley Cooper was also nominated for the award, with both men also nominated in the best actor category at the Oscars.

The best actress in a musical or comedy category was won by Cooper's co-star in Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence.

Comedy actresses Amy Poehler and Tina Fey took over presenter duties from Britain's Ricky Gervais, who had hosted the ceremony for the last three years.

The pair were both nominated for the best TV comedy actress prize for their work in 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation respectively.

"Tina, I just want to say that I very much hope that I win," said Poehler, as the ceremony began.

However, they were both pipped by Lena Dunham, creator and star of sitcom Girls, which also won best comedy TV series.

Assisting Poehler and Fey on stage were Mr and Miss Golden Globes, the recipients of honorary titles that are traditionally awarded annually to the children of celebrities with their own ambitions in the industry.

Sam Michael Fox, son of Michael J Fox, and Clint Eastwood's daughter Francesca were the two scions selected this year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HPFA), organisers of the awards.

Jodie Foster, a seven-time Globe nominee and two-time Oscar winner, received the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.






Saturday, January 12, 2013

Android challenges iPhone





For the past month, I have been using an HTC Droid DNA, which has similar specs to the rumored upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4. People approach me at grocery stores, airports, coffee shops, even on the street and ask me about the phone. The device is indeed quite compelling, even from a distance.
The HTC DNA has an amazingly bright 1080p HD display with a higher resolution than Apple's iPhone 5 Retina display. The operating system is modern with dynamic widgets that tell you at a glance what's going on. The apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and such are equivalent to those available to iOS, and Google Apps such as Google Now, voice recognition, and Google Maps are sleek and modern. This is hands down a better device than the iPhone 5, and people seem to intuitively recognize it.

What phone would I recommend for my mom? An iPhone. It's safe, predictable, and uniform. What would I recommend for anyone under 40? Definitely one of the new breeds of Android phones. Android might still be a bit quirkier than an iPhone, but it's definitely not confusing for people who interact daily with a variety of advanced technology. Samsung really nailed it in its commercial where a young woman is waiting in line for a new iPhone and it turns out she is holding the spot for her parents.
The new breed of Android devices exceed the iPhone 5 in every category -- hardware, operating system, and apps.


The spec is alive and well -- and killing Apple 

Hardware from Samsung, HTC, LG, and others has now caught up and eclipsed Apple's devices. Smartphones don't really have that many specs to evaluate, and each of the specs actually means something tangible to an average consumer. After five years of advanced smartphones, specs like screen size, screen density, screen brightness, camera speed, camera megapixels, physical dimensions, physical weight, amount of memory, and battery life are easily understandable and relevant to even the average smartphone consumer. Even specs like the number of processor cores and speed that are typically not easy to understand are easily understood when framed as "faster than the iPhone 5."

Conversely, the spec is definitely irrelevant when purchasing Apple products. There are so few products to choose from that decision making is essentially boiled down to a Goldilocks-style small/medium/large decision mainly driven by cost rather than actual features. While this is great for my mom and MG Siegler, the lack of spec-based decision making is not necessarily a good thing in a world where consumers actually understand each of the specs and would like to choose how to balance them out relative to cost. Apple has been a follower on many specs, particularly in terms of form factors, trailing the market in both 4-inch phones and 7-inch tablets.

iPhones are definitely gorgeous devices, but they are relatively uniform and monotone. Aluminum is definitely great. I was surprised by how many women commented on the red accents on the HTC DNA, which are part of the DNA's crossbranding with Beats Audio. People like colors and variety, and they don't necessarily like having to completely cover a phone's shell and make it bulkier in order to express themselves.
Let's not forget that all of those Samsung Galaxy phones you see cost the same as an iPhone -- their owners are not bargain shoppers; they are spec and style shoppers.


The screen should actually show you something!

As mobile app developer Ralf Nottman recently noted, the new generation of Android 4 Jelly Bean is a fundamentally better operating system than iOS -- better rendering, better cross-app sharing, better app/OS integration, and more polished.

But the real standout for Android is the customizability of the display. Rather than iOS static icons with embedded notifications, with Android, apps are front and center, displaying the time in different time zones, the weather, appointments, emails, texts, whatever you want in numerous themes that can completely reinvent the user interface.

Windows Phone 8, the dark horse in this race, is actually even more integrated, with a unified messaging interface that consolidates emails, texts, and Facebook messages into a single thread, and a consistent tile interface with which apps can display information on the home screens.
The operating system is not as important as the apps, and this is where Android is beginning to shine.


The cloud behind the app is more important than the app 

In a world where the hardware and operating system have become commoditized, the apps are the differentiator, and more and more, the apps are a viewport into a cloud service driven by machine learning.
The vast majority of Internet users rely on Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Mail, and such, and spend more time in those apps than in the mobile operating system itself. As people are beginning to note, Google's apps are way better than Apple's. What good is Siri if it thinks "Hurricane Sandy" is a hockey team, when Google knows what's actually going on? Google Now is adding ambient awareness to Android devices, letting people know what's going on around them and what they need to do in a very personal way, with features like a notice that you need to leave for your next meeting because there is now traffic en route.

Perhaps, as is rumored off and on, Apple will start snapping up cloud services such as Waze. However, it is hard to buy and integrate a new type of product category into a large company that doesn't have it in its DNA. Competing with Google, an entrenched, dominant player in machine intelligence that recently added Ray Kurzweil to its roster is going to be a challenging affair. Microsoft actually had a better track record of delivering large-scale cloud services, such as mail, mapping, and storage, than Apple.

Beyond Google's apps, the reality of the app market is that all of the applications that matter are now on Android, and it actually will soon have more apps than iOS. Dan Lyons of ReadWrite is lambasting the Silicon Valley tech press for living in an iPhone echo chamber, and he does have a point. Pundits are lauding Google Maps features on their iPhones that have been available on Android devices for literally years. Bloggers breathlessly reveal new Facebook iPhone app features such as "Find Friends Nearby" that had been available for over a month on Android.

The feedback loop of the echo chamber is that developers initially develop apps on iOS, much like the recently popular Cinemagram. However, developers like Nottman like cool devices, and are starting to shift over to Android. In addition, developers are feeling limited by iOS user interface patterns and its skeuomorphic apps and are branching out. Like the Mac OS of the early '90s, the consistent UI across applications will likely splinter.

The numbers speak for themselves. Android has a 75 percent smartphone worldwide market share, as evidenced by the hordes of Samsung devices in use throughout Europe and Asia. While Apple is regaining market share in the U.S. with the iPhone 5, it is about to face an onslaught of 5-inch Android phones with specs that far exceed the iPhone 5's. Wall Street clearly sees a shift coming, and has hammered Apple's stock price over the past quarter.

The average consumer has moved past the days of pious, scruffy haired, unshaven, thick glasses-wearing dudes lecturing us on how Apple is so cool. Perhaps soon Silicon Valley will catch up. When you see someone in a cafe with a MacBook Air, iPad, and iPhone on the table in front of them, is "Think Different" really what comes to mind?


Thursday, January 10, 2013

Cheap iPhone in 2013




Apple's rumored cheaper iPhone would cost anywhere from $99 to $149, according to a new report.

The device, which would debut in late 2013 "at the earliest," is part of an effort to attract more customers from developing markets, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed source. Among them, Apple is particularly eyeing China.

Last December, CEO Tim Cook said the country is "a very important market for us." At the time, Apple had sold more than 2 million units of the iPhone in China, setting a record for best first-weekend sales in the country.


A lower-cost version of the iPhone would also help Apple compete with Google's Android phones, which are available in a wide range of prices.

As one of the mobile market's pricier smartphones, the iPhone 5 starts at $199 for 16GB of storage with a two-year contract. There are also 32GB and 64GB models available for $299 and $399, respectively. In terms of its older phones, Apple now offers the 8GB iPhone 4 for free, while the 16GB iPhone 4S costs $99 (both requiring two-year contracts).

The company has been developing a more affordable phone since "at least" February 2011, Bloomberg said. It has spoken to one or more major U.S. wireless carriers about its plans, the newspaper added.

Earlier reports suggested that the lower-cost iPhone would look like a standard iPhone 5, but made with cheaper materials. Polycarbonate would replace the aluminum shell, and other components could be sourced from parts designed for older iPhones.





Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Great ways to make money online


The year 2013 is barely out of the starting gate, and some finance experts already predict that the U.S. economy will make a roaring comeback this year. Of course, other pundits warn that we should be very worried.

Whatever happens, you can resolve to improve your personal economy this year.
Digital technology, combined with your talent and passion, is a money-making opportunity waiting to happen. Whether you're looking to pocket a little extra cash or significant part-time income, these ideas could put you on the road to a prosperous new year.


1. Sell art, crafts or collectibles online


If you have a talent for making jewelry, pottery or other crafts -- or just a knack for finding vintage gems at garage and estate sales -- consider selling your objects through an online storefront.
Etsy is the largest and most popular marketplace for handmade and vintage goods. You can also try ArtFire and Zibbet.

Have you designed a killer line of iPad cases or Kids' tees? Take a look at up-and-coming Redbubble. Want to display traditional art? Artbreak is a fast-growing online gallery for traditional artists -- and it's commission-free.

If you have an e-book, song, template, computer wallpaper or other kind of digital file to sell, take a look at commission-free UploadNSell. Amazon-owned CreateSpace can help indie authors, musicians and filmmakers sell works to online buyers.


2. Cash in on your photos


Licensing your best photos to microstock agencies such as iStockphoto, Shutterstock and Dreamstime is a great way for above-average photographers to make money. Click here to learn how to get started selling your photos online.

There's a lot of competition, but Web designers and other electronic publishers buy tens of thousands of photos every day to illustrate stories and ads. Research top-selling images at microstock sites to get a feel for what buyers want, and then do whatever you do best, whether that's food, portraits, sports or landscapes.
Illustrators and videographers can find opportunities in microstock, too.

If you're a fine-art photographer, try selling through print-on-demand sites such as Imagekind or Fine Art America. You set your price for various sizes, and the sites take a cut for printing, matting, framing and shipping to the customer.


3. Take on microjobs and quick tasks


Many folks pick up pocket money every day by doing quick field work assignments for companies, or doing odd jobs for local businesses and homeowners.

Businesses big and small post micro-projects through a free iPhone app called Gigwalk (an Android version is in the works). A winemaker, for example, might need someone in your town to visit a retailer and take a smartphone picture of a product display.

Homeowners across the U.S. browse the TaskRabbit website if they need help assembling Ikea furniture or grocery shopping. Local businesses also call on TaskRabbits when they need on-demand workers, delivery drivers or event staff. You do need to ace a video interview and a thorough background check in order to become a TaskRabbit.

If your friends look to you for fashion and shopping advice, check into becoming an affiliate for the shopping site Beso. It works the same way as a traditional blog, except you don’t need to think up 500 fresh words every day. You make a few cents every time friends and followers click on links you share within brief posts to social network sites.


4. Tutor and teach

Put your experience as a tutor or teacher to work on the Internet. All you need is a fast broadband connection and a way to video chat.

Online tutoring is also a good way for starving college and grad students to put food on the table. Specialists in finance, math and science are always in high demand. Sites such as Smarthinking or Tutor can help get you started.

Can you speak a foreign language fluently or have experience as a language tutor? Hang up a shingle at Verbalplanet. There's also a keen need to teach English as a second language to executives around the world.


5. Freelance


Freelancing is a time-honored way for writers and graphic designers to make money. It's not uncommon for administrative assistants, accountants, computer programmers and other professionals to also find freelance opportunities. Look at niche job sites such as Elance, Guru and FreelanceSwitch.

If you're a super-speedy typist, have a good ear and write well, you might be cut out for transcription work. Transcribers provide closed captioning for films and TV shows and written transcripts of academic presentations and focus groups. Visit Tigerfish to get started.


6. Telecommute


You don't have to be your own boss to work from home. You just need to find telecommuting opportunities. Regular job boards often list telecommuting work. Use "telecommuting" as a keyword. Also try Telework Recruiting or FlexJobs, which require small membership fees. The National Telecommuting Institute helps individuals with disabilities find telecommuting opportunities. It offers listings and advice.


Wednesday, January 2, 2013

iOS jailbreak app store Installous Shuts Down




Installous, a major portal for pirated paid apps from Apple's App Store, won't be around anymore.
Development team Hackulous today announced the closure of Installous on their official Web site. As of today, the pirated app store no longer works, and only shows these errors: "Outdated version. Installous will now terminate" or "API Error. API unavailable."


For many years, Installous offered complete access to thousands of paid iOS apps for free for anyone with a jailbroken iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Think of it as being able to walk into a fancy department store, steal anything you want, and never get caught.

Installous made it possible to download the latest iOS applications and games for free from a variety of sources in mere seconds. After downloading an app, users could then install it on their iDevice as if they had purchased it from Apple's App Store. Additionally, during Installous' prime, it wasn't unrealistic to expect expensive App Store apps to hit the pirated app store mere hours after their release.

Hackulous composed a short swan song on its Web site titled "Goodnight, sweet prince" about the closure of the pirate app store:

Regardless of Installous' shuttering, Apple can't breathe easy just yet -- hackers can still download pirated apps quite easily in a number of ways.






PSY Perform Gangnam Style At Times Square


PSY Performs Gangnam Style at Times Square in front of a million New Year's Eve revelers. Check out this video if you have missed out the live performance on abc network

Notable guest appearance: MC Hammer and Yoo Jae Suk (yellow shirt) from Running Man


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Resolution




First of all, Happy New Year to dear readers and welcome to a new year of 2013. At the beginning of a new year, we prepare -- or hope -- to become our better selves. Resolutions often focus on our diets and health, or balancing our families and careers, but you might want to consider adding some tech-focused resolutions to your New Year's to-do list.

Completing tasks like digitizing your photos and cleaning out your inbox will go a long way to make you more organized in 2013.

Check out some of these tech-related New Year's resolutions to accomplish in this New Year.

  • Clean your keyboard. After a year of eating at your desk, crumpling papers, opening boxes, who knows what junk and residue is in your keyboard? Use a duster to eliminate any nasty particles and buildup in your keyboard to make it look like new again.

  • Digitize your photos. There's really no need to keep shoeboxes filled with photos anymore. Clean out your closet and transfer your images to digital files. You can store your photos online or even print them out in a photo album, which at least keeps them neater looking.

  • Go through all your emails. This is a difficult one for many people. After signing up for sale alerts and being included in dozens of reply-all emails, perhaps your inbox seems unmanageable. Make a promise to yourself to take some time out each day to delete old emails.

  • Set privacy filters on your social networks. We've read (and at Mashable, we've written) dozens of stories about privacy changes happening at your most used social networks. Take some times to make sure the information you're publishing to the Interwebs is stuff you want people to see.

  • Clean up your digital trail. Remember that blog you started, wrote a few posts for, then never logged in again? Make sure if an employer Googles you, all content is appropriate and relevant. Deactivate any old accounts you no longer use, although keep in mind that information may not be gone forever.

  • Delete apps you're not using . Go through your phone and delete any apps you haven't used in a couple months, so they're not taking up space on your device. Same goes for files on your computer -- delete what you don't need.

  • Go paperless. This is the year! If you have a laptop, tablet and/or mobile device, you're well equipped to pay your bills and access important documents from anywhere. Scan old papers and convert your paper files into digital files for safe storage -- or at least, as a backup.

  • Get outside. As much as we love our gadgets, getting fresh air and human interaction should be a high priority. Don't stay glued to your laptop or tablet all the time.