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Facebook will not support Google Friend Connnect

Marc Chacksfield — 1210947060

In quite a stinging – albeit back-handed – indictment of Google’s Friend Connect project, Facebook developer Charlie Cheever has posted an announcement on the Facebook Developers’ noticeboard that the social-networking website will not be joining up to Friend Connect just yet.

Not respecting privacy

In his statement, Cheever says: “Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology.

“We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.”

He continues to say: “We think MySpace’s Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect can be part of a great movement in the industry to give users a better and safer experience online, while respecting user privacy.

“We look forward to working with our developer community and everyone else in the industry to help all of our users take their information, and their privacy, with them wherever they go.”

Friends not-united

Considering the point of the Friend Connect, Data Availability, and Facebook Connect projects is about making the internet a more transparently social place – where you can share and share alike all your online information – it does seem that this bickering between three heavyweights of the web world is bringing about anti-social measures.

Instead of a unified social-network, the whole thing is becoming worryingly divided.

Fair And Square campaign: Apple responds

Marc Chacksfield — 1210945320

Following on from our Fair And Square interview and article yesterday, Apple has responded to the findings that the company's online UK store was contravening the ‘Distance Selling Regulations’.

Dropping the charges

Apple had previously been charging consumers with a fee for the ‘collecting and processing’ of goods. The money that had to be paid out was dependent on how expensive the bought item was. This fee has now been completely dropped.

The terms and conditions published on the Apple website will be changed within 10 days, and any purchases returned before then will not be subject to the fee.

Interview: Fair And Square campaign

Marc Chacksfield — 1210868280

Intrigued with Computeractive’s Fair And Square campaign, TechRadar spoke to Paul Allen, the editor of Computeractive about the magazine’s fight for online rights.

TechRadar: So, how has the campaign gone so far?

Paul Allen: It was only launched today, but we have already had one retailer contact us and say they are rewriting their terms and conditions, making them clearer for buyers which is great.

TR: Are you against online shopping?

PA: Not at all, online shopping is a brilliant, quick and easy way of buying goods, it’s just that we feel there needs to be more enforcement for people after they buy goods online.

The government has recently announced new legislation protecting people purchasing items, but we are focusing on what goes on after purchasing, when you want to send things back or get goods repaired. We need more education about this.

TR: What was the age range of the people polled.

PA: The magazine has a readership of over 200,000 and we polled 3,500. The age range was between 35 to 65.

TR: What would you like to see happen?

PA: We think online retailers have a responsibility and they should make the returning of goods a great deal easier. We are not saying that there is a big conspiracy on the internet about this; it’s more a series of little crimes with various online retailers failing to make it simple for online buyers to contact them when something goes wrong with a product.

TR: How can online retailers do this?

PA: It comes down really to simple things, like putting up postal addresses for the return of goods. Looking at the data we have gathered we found that reputable retailers like the O2 Store and Screwfix have failed to put their postal addresses up on their website. Or if they have, they are so tucked away that it’s impossible for your average buyer to find.

TR: How exactly is Apple contravening the ‘Distance Selling Regulations’?

PA: We are still waiting for a response from the company on this, but Computeractive found that, when it comes to sending stuff back, the company has two tiers of charges of collecting and processing – depending on the price of the product – and this simply isn’t allowed.

The Office of Fair Trading clearly states that the supplier has to give a full refund and cannot make any charge or deduction for restocking or handling.

TR: What would you like to see happen at the end of the campaign?

PA: In the end what we want to happen is simple: we want online retailers to communicate clearly with their customers. At the moment, this just isn’t happening.

Poll: Many online retailers are 'breaking the law'

Marc Chacksfield — 1210842720

A poll by Computeractive magazine has uncovered some interesting findings regarding consumers’ rights when shopping online.

Out of the 3,500 people asked, 55 per cent of consumers have been incorrectly told to return faulty goods, while 54 per cent did not understand their online rights.

Paul Allen, editor of Computeractive, says about the findings, “What this research reveals unequivocally is that UK shoppers need to be better informed of their online consumer rights. There are specific rules to protect online shoppers that some retailers abuse.”

Bad Apple

Among the companies that the Computeractive found to be in breach of online consumer protection laws was Apple. Research found that Apple’s online UK store was “contrary to the Distance Selling Regulations.”

In light of the results, Computeractive is encouraging consumers to sign up to its Fair and Square campaign.

The campaign has been set up to highlight the issues the poll has raised, and will hopefully encourage online retailers to sign up to the Consumer Confidence Charter. Companies that do this and meet the stringent criteria will be able to display the Fair and Square logo on their sites.

If you want more information on shopping safely online, then download this handy guide.

Vodafone extends HSDPA network

Gareth Beavis — 1210765800

Vodafone will extend its 3G High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) network to other cities in the UK in order to maintain its presence in the mobile broadband game.

Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading users will get access to its 7.2mbps 3G network by 2009 according to the network supplier.

You want a U with that D?

To add to the acronym pie, High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA, and yes there is a difference) will allow users to send files up to a theoretical maximum of 1.8mpbs, and will be rolled out at the same time.

This means all of you who just love to shoot a video then upload it to YouTube straight away so all your pals can see how funny you are can do so a little quicker. Yay!

Vodafone has been fairly aggressive in the mobile broadband market, not just with phones, but in the lucrative mobile broadband for laptops, via a dongle. Network Three is also a big player in this area, and already has a strong HSDPA network in place, so constant updating is needed from competitors.

Vodafone has also recently announced plans to scrap additional internet access charges for its pay monthly customers, and improved access to the high-speed network could help the company forge ahead in the mobile broadband stakes.

The US goes internet video crazy

Marc Chacksfield — 1210765080

Google’s rule over the goggle box seems to be tightening after a US study by comScore reveals that over 11 billion people watched internet video in the month of March, 64 per cent more than the same month just a year ago.

YouTube dominates

Not surprisingly, YouTube was the most-watched video site accounting for a massive 98 per cent of Google video traffic. The search engine itself garnered a total of 4.3 billion video views, 38 per cent of all video traffic.

This dominance shows in the rest of the study’s figures, with second place in the rankings Fox Interactive Media notching up just 4.2 per cent of the online video market share.

Three a day

Those who ‘tuned in’ to YouTube on average watched 83 videos a month, equating to around three a day. What’s surprising is that the average total length of daily video watched was just 2.8 minutes, showing what we already knew that online video watchers prefer their visual info in bite-size chunks.

Internet video to be subtitled?

Marc Chacksfield — 1210757160

Web video is on the rise in America. In fact, more than half of all US internet users watch it, and with broadband services getting faster the quality of the video is only going to get better.

That is why Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, is backing a bill he believes will “ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as technology changes.”

The bill would see a complete overhaul of internet video, with major TV networks made to add audio descriptive tracks and subtitles to the video they stream on the internet.

Caption contest

Even if the bill were to get passed, it would not count for amateur-upload sites like YouTube. It would be for the main television broadcasters who stream their TV content over the internet.

At the moment NBC is one of the only main US networks to subtitle its internet video streams.

It’s not just the internet, either that would be affected, but any video-streaming device such as mobile phones. Though with the screens being so small, the logistics of this is certain to cause the TV networks a few headaches.

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope now active

Marc Chacksfield — 1210680540

Pushing the possibilities of Web 2.0 to infinity and beyond, Microsoft Research has launched WWT, a visualisation software environment that changes your computer into a virtual telescope.

In essence, what the WorldWide Telescope allows you to do is explore space through different views and perspectives, while learning about various aspects of the night sky at the same time.

Space tours

The site also offers free guided tours by astronomers, or you can go off and explore ‘virtual’ space on your own, via the seamless panning and zooming options – providing your computer is up to it.

Microsoft is claiming to have terabytes of digitised information that makes up its virtual space; this has been taken from various sources over the internet.

The software is based on 16 years of work begun by the late computer scientist Jim Gray who was an integral part of Microsoft Research, right up until his death in January 2007. The WorldWide Telescope is dedicated to him.

Google Earth competitor

The WorldWide Telescope looks likely to be a direct competitor to Google Earth’s Sky application. At first glance it seems to have better imagery and interaction than Google’s star-gazer, but only time will tell if it becomes just as popular.

Twitter first to report on China's earthquake

Marc Chacksfield — 1210671240

Twitter, the super-quick communication service, was used to great effect on Monday, after China was hit with its worst earthquake for more than 30 years.

Users of Twitter broke the news that the province of Sichuan had been subject to an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. They sent information via text messages, updating on reports throughout the day.

This is not the first time that citizen journalism has taken such a role in newsgathering on a major incident – the 7 July bombings in London is another case in point – but there was a definite shift in how the internet helped with supplying information about the quake to the rest of the world.

Regular updates

It wasn’t just Twitter, either, that continuously documented what was happening. The Guardian opened up its blogs to any information about the incident, while Global Voice Online collated various videos and articles that had been uploaded to the web.

Video-upload site YouTube also saw an influx of user-generated videos taken of the aftermath of the devastation that has left over 20,000 people dead.

It was Shanghaaist, a website about Shanghaai, China, that was the most prolific of them all, however, according to the Telegraph. Its site was updated at least 90 times, as often as once a minute, informing readers constantly about the events.

Facebook asks for $100 million

Marc Chacksfield — 1210594440

In the space of four years, Facebook has grown from being a Harvard University web project to one of the biggest social-networks in the world. An explosive growth such as this is enough to give any CEO a nosebleed, especially when the cash coming in doesn’t quite cover the amount of servers needed to accommodate so much information.

That’s why, according to Business Week, Facebook has gone cap in hand to venture lenders and asked to borrow a hefty $100 million. That’s not counting the $370 million that the company has already raised in the last year.

Server space

It seems that more servers are needed as more people are signing up to the site. Current Facebook users are also eating away at vital server space by clicking yes on the various apps that are available, like the ones turning their online friends into vampires.

The cash will allow the company to buy a further 50,000 servers which is reportedly five times the amount it is using at the moment. Which is nothing compared to Google who reportedly houses a whopping 200,000 servers and still finds room for a gourmet restaurant on its grounds.