Comments rss
Trackback
Whilst not a typical web hosting related story, several websites have gone crazy for the latest news regarding Leicester City Council. You’re probably thinking, ‘Leicester City Council? Hardly a newsworthy piece’, but throw zombies into the mix and what do you get? Breaking news.
Government authorities receive hundreds of requests today, but Leicester City Council received the strangest one of all when a letter was sent to their offices enquiring into a comprehensive emergency plan – in case the Midlands were ever threatened by a potential zombie attack.
The Freedom of Information enquiry read as follows:
Dear Leicester City Council.
Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion? Having watched several films it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for.
Please provide any information you may have.
Yours faithfully,
Concerned Citizen
Unfortunately, the council had to admit that they currently had no determined rescue initiative should they ever become attacked by the undead.
The council’s head of information governance, Lynn Wyeth, stated that due to publicity concerning MPs expenses, there was a lot more awareness centralling on the rights of FOI.
She also said that the council had implemented a number of emergency plans, and features of these could also be applied to any possible zombie invasion.
Comments rss Trackback
UK watchdog the Information Commissioners Office have been in discussions with Facebook concerning the ‘privacy implications’ of its facial recognition software.
Yet in spite of Bloomberg alleging that European regulators are investigation the social media company in relation to the matter, no such action by the European Union’s authority has been taken.
“It is misleading to say that the European Commission is investigating the issue,” said a Brussels spokeswoman.
“EU data protection rules establish criteria for processing personal details and transparency requirements about the use of such data. But it is for the national authorities in member states to monitor and enforce them.
“On the other hand, new technologies bring new challenges all the time and that is why the European Commission is currently reviewing the data protection rules.”
Regarding ICO’s plans to look into Facebook’s latest privacy palaver, a spokesman for the agency said: “As with any new technology, we would expect Facebook to be upfront about how people’s personal information is being used.
“The privacy issues that this new software might raise are obvious and users should be given as much information as possible to give them the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether they wish to use it.
“We are speaking to Facebook about the privacy implications of this technology.”
However, the regular has yet to confirm whether an investigation will be undertaken, instead choosing to state that talks are currently in place.
Comments rss Trackback
Renowned microblogging service Twitter recently issued an announcement that all links shared on the Twitter.com site are to be shortened automatically through their own t.co URL shortening system.
The links will be reduced to a much more concise length of 19 characters – with an ellipsis to show once the Tweet has been sent.
Whilst each individual link will be given their own unique t.co ID, the links shown on Twitter will appear as abbreviated versions of the originating sources so as to give the users an idea of where their click will lead them to. This in itself is an extremely clever approach, especially in cases where several URL-shortened scam links have redirected the users to the wrong location.
An example of the URL shortening:
However, several other URL shortening services will still be noted around Twitter, particularly that of Hootsuite which gives their users an insight regarding the analytics surrounding each link. Twitter users will not have to worry about using the social networking site’s shortening system as their sole source of abbreviations, as third-party applications will still be available on Twitter.com
Comments rss TrackbackRemember that time Rupert Murdoch bought social media site MySpace? Well forget about it – as the Fate of the networking arena will soon be decided within the next two weeks, according to technology sources.
The Australian MySpace office has since closed down, with many of the staff sent their separate ways late 2010. However, News Digital Media are currently locked in meetings regarding the ownership of the online advertising sales duties for the site. Rebekah Horne, NDM’s head of international, has reportedly said that a statement will be released within the next few weeks concerning the future of MySpace.
Although a current employee, Horne herself will be heading to pastures new in the form of DMG Radio, taking on the role of chief digital officer – where she will be rejoining Lachlan Murdoch, a shareholder with a 50 per cent stake in the broadcasting company.
Head of digital media for News Corp, Jonathon Miller, told US press last week that the business was “two weeks” away from being informed of the drawn-out conclusion of the relegated site.
Comments rss Trackback
A school in Canada has suspended one of its students after he posted sarcastic animations on YouTube, resulting in the police authorities siccing his movements.
Twelfth-grade student Jack Christie created the media outside of school hours away from the Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Ontario, developing cartoons as part of the Jack Christie Talks to Children series including “The Feheley 6900” (where his BlackBerry devastates a Secret Evil Military Base in which he ridicules smartphone advertising), “Corporate Whistleblowing” (travelling to the eighth dimension in order to overthrow the Mango King) as well as “Run for the White House” (poking fun at Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey by suggesting invasion to Sweden, and destroying a caterpillar).
For an 18 year old male, the animations are in line with the expectations of the average student imagination. But whilst it may seem humorous to those not offended by dead insects, it clearly leaves a certain distaste to those upholding a professional image – such as, being a representative for educational institutes.
Spokeswoman for Durham District School Board Andrea Pidwerbecki said: “If something is considered detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school, it doesn’t necessarily have to happen inside the school [for us to get involved].”
But for Christie, he believes he has freedom of speech – as well as humour: “They’ve unfairly judged me and judged my character based on something I made for entertainment,” he said. “I have the right to post videos on the Internet on my own time.”
Comments rss Trackback Comments rss Trackback
Security experts have issued a warning to Doctor Who fans researching alleged online extracts from the widely anticipated mid-season finale – those attempting to do so will find themselves victims of a sneaky scam.
Should you try to search the next episode of ‘A good man goes to war’ on video-sharing site YouTube, any results given will direct you to third party websites, using the excuse that the excerpt is too long to be uploaded.
Visitors of the sites are then asked to fill in a survey in order to access the so-called (non-existent) media, and in an attempt to get it over and done with, many users may end up rushing through it and sign up for unnecessary and expensive services, as well as impart personal information.
Experts have warned for fans to sit tight and to wait for the episode to air this Saturday on BBC One.
GFI Software security researcher Chris Boyd says that the recent scam is not the first time Doctor Who fans have been tricked.
“The same thing happened when the last series finale was due to air,” said Boyd. “There was also a bit of an issue with various Doctor Who games doing the rounds, too. As always: avoid.”
Whilst links to virus-ridden websites are yet to be seen, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“Everything we’ve seen so far is the usual fake video/survey nonsense, but there could well be malware in the offing between now and Saturday,” added Boyd.
Comments rss Trackback
MacBooks are one of the world’s most popular purchases, but in the case of Joshua Kaufman, is also a popular theft. During a burglary in Kaufman’s home, his beloved MacBook was stolen – and whilst Californian police did nothing about it, Kaufman decided to take on a more active approach.
The Oakland resident had previously installed an application known as ‘Hidden’, which is designed to track the whereabouts of the stolen property; and through taking images via the inbuilt webcam, Kaufman could see exactly what his new owner was doing.
Following the March 21 theft, Kaufman decided to collate numerous snapshots and location data courtesy of the spy software, which was then sorted and given to the police. However, after the police failed to take any action, Kaufman took matters into his own hands and created a blog called ‘This guy has my MacBook’; and began Tweeting photos of the thief which were then noticed and retweeted by thousands of other Twitter users.
Shortly after, Oakland police had taken 27-year-old taxi driver Muthanna Aldebashi into custody – and is now currently in jail awaiting trial.
A representative from the Oakland police authorities said that the reason no immediate action was taken after being issued with Kaufman’s evidence was due to three officers having to deal with 2,400 thefts monthly.
Comments rss Trackback
Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has served as a lifesaver for many a curious soul, and whilst it’s viewed in quite the controversial light, the website has finally received some well-deserved acknowledgment for helping students out in their darkest hour. A professor from Canada has said that using Wikipedia, despite its widespread criticism, has enabled pupils to deliver better standards of work.
However, this is done not through students looking up information on the inconsistently informative site, but by asking students to produce their own material for the service. Due to the fear of being potentially caught out for plagiarising published content, this has allegedly motivated students to create their own work.
Instructor at Douglas College in British Columbia, Brenna Gray, conducted an experiment by assessing “approximately 70” youngsters undertaking her first year Canadian literature programme. Given the role to create or update biographical facts on relatively unknown Canadian writers, the students amassed a range of academic data and references as their source of information.
Gray reported a significant increase in motivation after the students were warned that their work would be published on Wikipedia.
“They were way more careful about citations and about information being correct,” she announced. “The fact that Wikipedia is a public space where the information that they have researched is going to be read by other people…that made them take the assignment much more seriously.”
Whilst a revolutionary approach to teaching, this in effect puts a spin on hardworking teachers lecturing lazy students – and allows for hardworking students to lecture ‘lazy teaching’.
Comments rss Trackback
