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Firefox 17 Released with Support of Facebook Messenger

Firefox 17 has been released officially for Windows, Linux and Mac users. The desktop browser which has struggled to grow consistently against rising Chrome. The new updated version is available today.

Facebook Messenger can also be directly used with Firefox 17. Just sign-in to your Facebook account and visit this page for Messenger for Firefox and click on Turn On.

It will show up with a sidebar of your Facebook chat friends

Other Updates on Firefox 17

  • Firefox 17 now is not supported on Mac OS X 10.5
  • Some old bugs regarding the New Tabs page, pointer lock for web apps and page scrolling on sites with fixed headers.
  • The new version will be useful for its Click-to-Play Plugin Blocks feature. The older versions of Flash, Adobe Reader or Silverlight bring up a prompt for users to update the plugins to newer versions.
  • Additionally if plugins are blocked by Firefox 17 on the current page you are viewing, then a icon on the address bar turns into a blue box.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Download Firefox 17

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86% of Removal Request by India to Google are without a Court Order

Google puts out transparency reports every few months. One disturbing trend came out in the previous report was that India has 49% increase in the number of removal requests made by government agencies. The latest report shows that 86% of the removal requests by India are without a court order.

Worrying trends of Internet Censorship?

Content removal requests are not really a big issue as such. Majority of them are for copyright infringement. But these are numbers collected about requests made only by government agencies (eg: Police, courts). Usually in such cases government agencies approach the courts to block a website or webpage before sending a removal notice to Google.

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The current trends shows that 86% of such requests are made without a court order. One would think that such urgency of getting items removed might be predominantly matters of national security or hate speech. That is not the case as 35 out of 64 of these requests which are without court order in the past 6 months are categorized under “Defamation” and not other more serious issues like hate speech, impersonation, privacy and security.

This is a major worrying sign as only countries with a high level of internet censorship actually try and remove content online requiring court orders.

What are your views on internet censorship in India? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google Transparency Report 2012

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Google Unveils $199 Acer Chromebooks in US and UK

Today Google has unveiled a new Chromebook. This one is from Acer and is priced at a competitive $199. It is available in the US and UK markets via Google Play or Best Buy.

Acer C7 Chromebooks Features and Specs

  • The notebook runs on Chrome OS, with 100 GB Google Drive Storage with 340 GB HDD.
  • The display screen is 11.6 “. It supports resolution of 1366 X 768.
  • It will have 3.5 hours of battery time.
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If you are living in the US or UK you can buy the Acer Chromebook from its landing page.

Last month, Google also had another Chromebook variant from Samsung. The price tag of that device was $249. I think Chromebooks are great if you are comfortable using Chrome OS. To be honest, I am still not very convinced about the a new type of laptop making a big dent in the computer market.

I also have realized that a lot of new updates on Google seems to be hardware related instead of web related. This post too falls in that category. Do you think Google should just stick web and Android instead of launching new phone, tablets and laptops? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Acer C7 Chromebook

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Microsoft introduces Excel Surveys in SkyDrive

Microsoft on its blog, today announced a new feature with SkyDrive. The new feature will allow users to create Excel based surveys which can be useful to plan events or projects.

How Excel Surveys work:

  • Simply login to your SkyDrive account online at https://skydrive.live.com/.
  • Click on create button at the top and select “Excel Survey” from the dropdown.

  • Name the survey and create a questionnaire.

  • The file can then be shared with anyone via a short URL. All the data entered and collected through the survey is neatly tabulated into a excel file.

Google Drive (previously Docs) also has a similar option of creating questionnaires and collecting information in a feature called ‘Forms’.

I have personally not been able to test out Excel Survey completely for all its features as Microsoft will be rolling it out over the day. If I find something, I will surely update it here or in a new post.

(via Windows Blog)

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Facebook Introduces New Look Friendship Pages

Facebook has started to roll out a new look Friendship pages for users. These Friendship pages are like aggregators of you and your friends posts on each others wall, photos on which both are tagged, common likes and events.

Though these friendship pages on Facebook are usually great to see your interaction with a friend on Facebook, Sauravjit had written about how it can be used to view friendship activity between any two users.

This update will be of more interest to people who have listed themselves are married or in a relationship with someone else on Facebook.

They will be able to see their friendship page at the URL https://facebook.com/us

Here is an example of the new look page for friendship activity. This example is of people listed as being in a relationship.

I am not sure how Facebook will leverage friendship pages as I personally find it more or less as another efficient Facebook feature to spy on people, but I guess couples who are planning events and sharing photos together could find it useful.

If you want to check the Friendship page your share with any of your friends, just visit their profile and click on the gear icon. Then select “See Friendship” from the dropdown.

(via Facebook)

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ASUS Nexus 7 debuts in India, Priced at Rs. 19,999

As expected ASUS has made its Nexus 7 tablet available in India. The tablet will be available in India from today. It was first launched in the US a few months ago with the new Android 4.1 (Jellybean) version. The Nexus 7 is being sold in the US for $199. In India, it will be sold almost at double the price at Rs. 19,999/- (US $ 369/-).

The tablet is not the latest Nexus 7 32-GB version, announced by Google a couple of weeks ago. This tablet is Wi-Fi only and runs on Android 4.1.

Though I do believe that upgrading to 4.2 should be easy, considering the device will be running a stock Android version and the manufacturer is not responsible for upgrades.

Currently I could not see as a listed item on any Indian retail website except on Chroma website. Chroma mainly being a physical store, it is safe to expect these tablets showing up across stores in India. The timing is almost perfect as the festival season of Diwali happens next week. So expect a lot of Nexus 7 tablets to be sold over the weekend.

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Why is the Nexus 7 over-priced in India?

Nexus 7 has been rumored to be a highly subsidised device by Google. The idea was whatever profits Google makes on Nexus 7, it would do so by selling content and apps on Google Play.

Indians might not actually end up buying content and apps from Google Play. They would definitely spend a lot less per device on apps than some on the U.S or U.K.

So that is probably the single biggest reason for Google not to subsidise the tablet and hence ASUS is pricing it on the higher side.

Hopefully LG which is also expected to sell Nexus 4 in India soon, does not take a cue from ASUS and overprice it.

Will you be buying a Nexus 7 Tablet in India, priced at Rs. 19,999 ? Do drop in your comments.

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Historic Tweet "Four More Years" was not by Barack Obama

A few hours ago, I wrote about Barack Obama’s iconic “Four More Years” update which broke many records on Twitter and Facebook. The update itself was completely missing from Google+. But chances are that the historic tweet on Obama’s Twitter account were not really Obama’s words.

Now it is reasonable to expect that social media accounts by Presidents of countries are not managed by the actualy person and possible managed by staff members. On Obama’s Twitter account, it clearly states that the account is managed by

On Twitter, all the tweets by the U.S. President are tagged “–bo”. For instance check the tweet at this link.

The iconic Tweet which seems to also be “Promoted” on Twitter does not carry the “-bo” tag. A previous tweet as pointed out carries the “-bo” tag. 😉

So chances are, the person behind the tweet that broke Twitter and Facebook records was a staff member working for Obama.

Though it is well known that very famous politicians usually do not manage their own social media accounts and are usually run by social media experts. But the tagging on Obama’s accounts does mean that atleast his followers know which one is sent by the man himself and which one is not.

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Obama Victory Underlines Why Google+ is a Dead Place

A social network is a bit like a virtual party. People interact and discuss things mainly around current events. That is why Live sporting events like the Olympics are followed very actively on social media websites.

Today, when the US President Barack Obama got re-elected, he (probably his campaign team) showed exactly why Facebook and Twitter are social media champions and why Google+ is more or less a dead place.

On winning the elections Obama’s official account on Twitter shared the photo below. It quickly became the most retweeted Tweet in the history of micro-blogging platform.

Check Original Tweet

On Facebook too, Obama’s official account shared the same photo and it too broke the record for being the most “Liked” photo on the website’s history.

Check Original FB Share

In other words, the photo got an incredible 2.8 million Likes and over 600,000 retweets. Moving over to Obama’s official Google+ profile, it shows the latest update is over a day old. The iconic photo is missing and no one has even bothered to update it with today’s election news.

This clearly shows that when its about reaching out to people, Google+ simply resembles a empty room instead of a happening party. As someone who really likes Google+ for its privacy options, Hangouts feature and its beautiful design, I find it very disappointing to see so little activity on it even after more than a year after its launch. Even though Hangouts is popular, I float the idea of a hangout with friends first on Facebook. If I did so on Google+, I am sure no one would really notice it at all to respond.

What are your thoughts on Google+? Do let us know through your comments.

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Facebook Introduces Instagram-Like Photo Filter on iOS App

Facebook rolled out an updated yesterday to its iOS app. The updated app has a lot of features like sharing multiple photos, gifts and chat buddy list. The new update comes on the heels of Twitter planning to roll out a feature that allows sharing photos with filters.

Though apps allowing users to add filters on photos have been around for a long time, Instagram took it to a new level but becoming a social network.

It was finally purchased by Facebook at a very high price of almost a US $ 1 Billion. The high price tag was possibly because Twitter and Google might have been interested in getting something like Instagram.

What happens to Instagram?

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Facebook itself is not really winning on the mobile platform unlike Instagram. So it seems doubtful that Facebook will abandon Instagram but it does seem to be undermining it by copying the same filter features at the moment.

These changes are only for iOS users in the US, but these changes are expected outside the US and on other platforms soon. Facebook has previously released a native app for iOS users and is expected to soon release one for Android phones.

(via TechCrunch)

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Microsoft to Kill Live Messenger in Favour of Skype

Last year Microsoft ended up buying Skype at an approximate price tag of US $ 8.5 Billion. Many were left wondering what will be the fate of Windows Live Messenger which was also similar to Skype. The Verge, has reported that Windows Live Messenger will soon be killed off by Microsoft.

A couple of days ago, I already saw the first signs of Microsoft’s plan which allowed me to integrate my Skype account with my Live ID (Microsoft Account). I came across this feature, when I upgraded to Windows 8 and used the new Skype app on it. From now on, I have to simply use my Microsoft account details to sign in and use Skype.

Alternately current users can also integrate their Skype accounts with their Facebook accounts. The idea behind this all will be for Microsoft to leverage and support one single service instead of two. Also Live Messenger is most used for text based chatting while Skype is probably a more popular voice client.

Skype does have its premium options for making phone/ video calls and group video calling. It might also face competition from Google Voice and Google+ Hangouts which offer some great features.

I doubt Microsoft will kill off Live Messenger suddenly and will probably do this over a few months in a organised manner. But it won’t be a bad idea to move over to Skype as soon as possible.

Do you use Skype or Live Messenger? Which one do you use more? Do drop in your comments.