Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any better when it comes to establishing an active online presence, the social networking giant also introduced a new look where, aside from a profile photo, a bigger space was created to give brands a chance to be more visible and creative—the cover photo. Companies big and small have taken advantage of the cover photo to display powerful images aimed at attracting a bigger clientele. In fact, many of them extra-glamorized their cover photos with chunks of texts in an attempt to catch their audience’s attention. And they did—sort of. The thing…

Let’s establish one thing immediately. Despite the shock journalism and uneducated claims out there saying that the internet attack was so severe that it almost break, the reality is this. It was a big hit that was felt by a lot of people. That’s it. It would be like saying that a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit a big city. Sure, there was probably a lot of damage depending on which city it was, but at no point during or after the earthquake was the entire planet about to explode. The DDoS attack that has been hitting Spamhaus, an anti-spam non-profit, has been nothing short of historic. At its peak it hit…

As we said when we first brought up the rumor, the Apple iWatch represents a much-needed infusion of fresh technology to help the mega-company get out of it’s creativity- and stock-rut. Shares have been falling. Sentiment has been waning. They need a winning idea and the iWatch is probably their next big one. As with all things Apple, many talented designers took to their computers to conceptualize the next Apple product. We’ve seen some entertaining renditions of iPhones and iPads over the years, but this is the first truly unique gadget that the company has worked on in a long time. Here are some…

When the NYTimes published a story last week claiming that a review drive of the Tesla Model S ended with a flatbed and a stranded journalist, CEO Elon Musk lashed out against the claims on Twitter. It seemed at the time to be the bitter response to a negative review that is often the knee-jerk reaction to bad press. Then, it turned interesting. NYTimes article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn’t actually charge to max & took a long detour. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2013   Juicy stuff coming – that was the promise. While we waited, the reporter…

There are four primary ways that a malevolent entity, whether it be terrorists or a foreign state, could go about attacking the United States or any country as a whole: military attack, medical epidemic, economic attack, or a cyberattack on the infrastructure. It’s the last on the list, the one that gets the least amount of attention from the people and the media, that was potentially launched in January when the US Department of Energy fell victim to hackers. Hundreds of employees and contractors may have had their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) accessed by the hackers. Many are…

When a headline such as “Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes” appears on the NY Times, my initial response is a skeptical one. I’ve long viewed the ways that the last two administrations have handled cybersecurity as failures to understand Golidilocks; they are too harsh when it isn’t warranted and lackadaisical in times of the greatest need. Many countries are growing more dangerous in the world of cyberterrorism with China leading the way. They are arguably more advanced than the United States in understanding the realities of cyberwarfare. To my pleasant surprise, the reported…

We reported earlier that the NY Times is finding success with its paywall model for generating revenues and increasing profits. On the other side of the fence is News Corp, which has walked along similar paths over the past couple of years but can’t seem to find the right mix and is now showing a loss of $2.1 billion in its recent SEC filing. According to Techcrunch: The non-cash loss is attributed to the closing of the News of the World as well as “a write-down of New News Corporation’s goodwill of approximately $1.3 billion and a write-down of the indefinite-lived intangible assets (primarily…

The transition from traditional newspapers to online viewing has had a tremendous impact on the newspaper publishing industry.  In an attempt to recoup some of its lost revenue, many U.S. newspapers have begun implementing paywalls.  Paywalls prevent a user from accessing certain web content without a paid subscription, but most print subscriptions include unlimited access to the pay site. Though certainly not the first to put up a paywall, The New York Times seemed to lead the revolution with 41 publications following suite in the third quarter of 2011.  The success of these paywalls…

The New York Times Company tried. They failed. Now, media group IAC plans on taking a crack at making About.com a profitable company. The source for user-generated guides was hit hard by the Google Panda Update in February, 2011. The “low quality bulk content” algorithm change in the search giant sent About.com and sites like it plummeting in the search rankings, their primary playing arena and the source of the majority of their traffic. The ads served on pages found in search generated a lot of revenue, but Panda changed things for the company. According to Techcrunch: Alexa ranks About.com…

It was probably pretty cool to you the first time you ever tried it on a smartphone or tablet, but the days of being impressed with such things are behind us. Today, if a phone doesn’t automatically adjust orientation when we turn it, the thing has to be broken, right? Remember back, for a moment, to the first few times you saw your iPhone or other device do it. Remember wondering how it worked? The technology behind it is extremely impressive and a lot more complex than we probably know. The technique required to mold the silicon combined with the precision it takes to work with something so small is mind-blowing….