UNI TECH BLOG

SponsoredTweets.com is an online marketplace that allows you to connect directly with advertisers to engage in sponsored conversations through Twitter. Advertisers compensate you with cash in exchange for a sponsored tweet. Think of it like eBay for tweets.

How it Works

1. Set Your Price

All you need to get started is to set your price, add a category and some keywords then wait for offers to roll in from Advertisers.

2. Choose your offers

As offers come in you can accept or reject them.

3. Receive Payment

If you accept an offer, your account will be credited within 24 hours of your tweet. You can cash out once your account reaches $50.

Ethical Sponsored Tweeting

Everything within our platform is designed with ethics and safety in mind. Tweeters remain in complete control of their accounts at all times. We don’t auto-inject ads; every tweet must be manually reviewed and approved by each tweeter. In addition, we have a strict Code of Ethics, which includes:

• Mandatory Disclosure
• Freedom of Authenticity
• Freedom of Choice
• Transparency of Identity

SponsoredTweets.com is designed to force compliance of the FTC regulations, which state, “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.”

Safety and Trust

We realize that Twitter is a very personal medium and the safety of your account is important to you. IZEA, the parent company of Sponsored Tweets, is a venture backed company with ten million dollars invested by leading venture capitalists. We are a  Better Business Bureau Accredited Business and have been operating since 2006.

We’ve implemented the following to provide for your safety:

• We authenticate through Twitter’s OAuth process. We don’t collect or store your password.
• We are a whitelisted Twitter application and have gone through their API approval process.

SPIDEY’S SECRET OUT

Washington: It may soon be possible to walk on walls like Spiderman with American researchers claiming to have invented a device that could lead to development of shoes or gloves which would stick and unstuck to walls and also bear load.

Researchers at Cornell University have created a palm-sized device that uses water surface tension as an adhesive bond, journal proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported on Wednesday.

According to lead researcher Paul Steen, the device, using rapid adhesion mechanism, could lead to such development of the shoes or gloves that stick and unstick to walls, or post-it-like notes that can bear loads.

The team took inspiration from a beetle native to Florida, which can adhere to a leaf with a force 100 times its own weight, yet also instantly unstuck itself. The device consists of a flat plate patterned with holes, each on the order of a micron (one-millionth of a meter).

A bottom plate holds a liquid reservoir, and in the middle is another porous layer. An electric field applied by a common 9-volt battery pumps water through the device and causes droplets to squeeze through the top layer.

The surface tension of the exposed droplets makes the device grip another surface, in a manner similar to the way in which two wet glass slides stick together.

By their very purpose passwords are aimed to keep us safe. But, there are passwords that are hacker’s dream. So, for passwords to save us, we need to have safe passwords.

Internet security firm Imperva recently unveiled a list of most commonly used passwords on the Web, which it say are also the most `unsafe’ passwords. The list is based on Imperva’s analysis of 32 million passwords.

Read on to find out the 10 most easily hacked passwords.

123456, 12345

The study reveals that ‘123456′ is the most commonly used password. Imperva found that nearly 1% of the 32 million people it studied were using “123456″ as a password. The second most vulnerable password is 12345.

Amichai Shulman, of internet security firm Imperva, said, “With only minimal effort, a hacker can gain access to one new account every second — or 1000 accounts every 17 minutes. “Everyone needs to understand what poor passwords mean in today’s world of automated cyber attacks.

123456789, password

The next most dangerous password according to the study is again combination of digits — 123456789.

Security experts at Imperva suggest taking a sentence and transforming it into a non-existent word. For instance “This little piggy went to market” might become “tlpWENT2m”.

The fourth most vulnerable password is the word ‘Password’ itself.

iloveyou, princess

At No 5 on the list of easily hacked password is ‘iloveyou’. This is followed by ‘princess’ at No 6.

According to the study, nearly 50% of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords (consecutive digits, adjacent keyboard keys, and so on). Researchers advice mix upper and lower-case letters, numbers and even symbols such as %,* or $.

rockyou, 1234567

‘Rockyou’ is at No 7 on the list of easily hackable passwords. The study reveals that almost 60% of users chose their passwords from within a limited set of characters. About 40% of the users use only lowercase characters for their passwords and about another 16% use only digits. Less than 4% of the users use special characters.

Rockyou is followed by 1234567 at No 8.

12345678, abc123

Next on the list is 12345678 followed by abc123 at No 10.

Researchers at security firm Imperva advice to use a different password for all sites. Also, the password should contain at least eight characters. The report reveals that just one half of the passwords contained seven or less characters. A staggering 30% of users chose passwords whose length was equal to or below six characters.

Indiatimes Infotech

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The much-awaited launch of the Tablet ‘iPad’ has got the online world into a tizzy, discussing and debating whether it’s the next game-changer or not. While the jury is still out on this one, here’s a look back at events leading to Apple’s latest craze…

January 27, 2009 – Apple had sent out an invite to media for an event on Jan 27, 2010 promising a surprise. ‘Come and see our latest creation,’ said the invite. This slight hint was enough to send the Internet into a frenzy.

Tech enthusiasts have christened the product iPad, iSlate or iBook even before the official name was announced. It’s no wonder that Apple, Apple Tablet, iSlate, iTablet were all on the hot trends online.

Apple is known for the secrecy but unlike previous launches of Apple products this time something passed through the net of secrecy. Terry McGraw – chief executive of US publishing company McGraw-Hill in an interview let slip how the Tablet would be based on the iPhone operating system.

Apple has held discussions with potential entertainment and publishing partners thus raising speculations about the product vehement attempt to take on the Kindle. Apple Tablet would surely and sorely challenge Amazon’s Kindle dominance, for it does what the kindle does, plus a lot more.

The iPad is aimed at browsing, emailing, photos, video, music, ebooks and gaming. No wonder game executives too were waiting with bated breadth for the iPad.

Thus with all the hype it’s no wonder that one tweet said, ‘The Apple Tablet comes out today! My technolust is tingling!!!’ while another read, ‘Lets get this thing going already… I’m on my fourth espresso and I can barely hold my credit card steady!’ Apple sure had all the eyes on the iPad.

January 9, 2007 – This time it was Apple’s iPhone that took everybody’s breathe away with its launch. Months prior to its launch the net was abuzz with rumours and speculations about iPhone. And it did live up to the hype. It challenged all existing competition with its innovative functions and sleek design.

23 October, 2001 – Apple launches the iPod, a portable music player which signaled the end of the walkman generation and grew to be the best-selling digital audio player series in history.

23 January, 1984 – Apple unveils the Macintosh, a computer that changed how personal computers looked and worked forever. This revolutionary product gradually transformed into the iMac of today, a sleek machine that dazzled every self confessed geek with its sheer power and capabilities.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/

New York: Internet search engine Google has reported a five-fold jump in net income at $1.97 billion in October-December quarter, driven  by robust sales figure due to rebound in advertising market.

In the year-ago period, the company had a net income of $382 million, Google said in a statement. Google’s sales clocked a double digit growth in the quarter under review as revenue rose by 17% to $6.67 billion. Google had a strong fourth quarter, with 17% year-over-year revenue growth .Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. The company’s sales boosted on the back of a rebound in advertising market. Advertisers paid 5% more per click on ads serve on Google’s website in fourth quarter compared to what they paid a year ago.

Google’s revenue from paid clicks on ads served on it’s wed sites went up 13% from last year .Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.42 billion,or 66% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to $3.81 billion in the year-ago period.

Google posted a net income of $6.52 billion for the year 2009 compared to $4.22 billion in 2008. our performance in 2009 underscored the strength of our management team, the resilience of our business model and the pace of innovation within our product and engineering teams, which continued unabated throughout the downturn,” Schmidt added.

HE further said that the company remains hugely optimistic about the Internet and would continue to invest heavily in technological innovation.

Gmail just got new. The search giant Google’s free email service has got a slew of new features. Numbering as many as nine, they promise more security, storage and simplicity.

Presently, third in global email marketshare, Gmail is striving hard to increase its turf. So here’s looking into all the new features that Gmail has added in the recent past in its endeavour to climb up the ranking ladder.

HTTPS by default

Google recently introduced a mandatory secure encryption for all users of its free email service Gmail, which will make it more difficult for hackers to break into the email accounts.

Gmail will now be accessible through what is known as the hypertext transfer protocol secure or HTTPS on internet, instead of the HTTP protocol which it was using earlier. Rival email service providers, including Yahoo and Hotmail, are expected to follow suit.

Under the new protocol, email data traveling between a user’s browser and Google computer server will be encrypted, making it tougher for the hackers sitting on unprotected Wi-Fi to break into the user’s accounts.

For users, the new encryption would result in higher level of security, similar to an online banking transaction. Hackers would also find it more challenging to steal credit card and bank statements stored by Gmail users in their mailboxes. The connection will be routed through an encrypted route, which will make it difficult for hackers to decode it. Users who do not want their data to travel through the encryption because of slower speed, have the option of turning the HTTPS off.

More storage

For users who require more space space, Google has introduced 20 GB of storage for only $5 a year. Extra storage is shared between Google Mail and Picasa Web Albums and acts as an overflow if a users uses up his free storage.

Send sms from gmail

Google labs now enables users to send free SMSes to any mobile number. But, hold on, so far it is limited to US only

Presently, users can only send SMS to US numbers. Here’s hoping that Google soon takes the feature global.

“Got the wrong Bob?” and “Don’t forget Bob”

Google has added an embarrassment-avoidance tool that catches misdirected Gmail messages before they are fired off by users of the Google’s email service. Called “Got the wrong Bob?”, it is designed to warn people if it appears they may be about to send a Gmail message to an unintended recipient.

The feature identifies groups of people that a Gmail user most often sends messages to, and then alerts the sender when they deviate from patterns. Google engineers Ari Leichtberg and Yossi Matias wrote in a joint blog post, “Gmail will try to identify when you’ve accidentally included the wrong person, before it’s too late.”

The new feature from Google Labs can be turned on by enabling the respective feature in Gmail Settings. Similarly, it is not uncommon to realise that you have left someone important after having sent a email? Or to keep on thinking who all, from your long list of contacts need to be sent this email? Gmail Labs new feature termed ‘Suggest more recipients’ (recently renamed ‘Don’t forget Bob’) intends to help you do just that.

Once enabled, the Google labs feature suggests the user a list of recipients while composing a message. The recipient list suggested is based on contacts that a user might want to include based on the group of people they email often.

Four more themes

Make Gmail look like a calm patch of grass or an old school video game. Can’t decide? Choose “Random” and cycle through a different theme each day. Check out all available themes from the Themes tab under Settings.

Message translation

Turn on “Message translation” from the Labs tab under Settings, and whenever you receive an email in a language other than your own, Google Mail will automatically translate it into a language you can understand with just one click.

To-do list

Available in Google Mail, Google Calendar, iGoogle and on your mobile phone, Tasks is the simple to-do list that’s with you everywhere you go. Click “Tasks” above your chat list to get started.

Drag and drop labels

You can now drag labels onto messages and messages into labels, just like folders. The labels you use most often are easier to access right above your chat list. The rest are hidden but still accessible under “more”. Customise which labels you see from the Labels tab under Settings.

YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and Yelp previews

Instead of just links, see previews of photos, videos, and reviews right in your email. Turn on these and other experimental features from the Labs tab under Settings.

Tasks mobile

Take your to-do list everywhere you go. Just go to mail.google.com/tasks from your mobile browser.

Indiatimes Infotech

Indiatimes Infotech

Gossip mills are buzzing overtime over Apple launching a tablet Computer. Speculations are running high on everything, from Apple Tablet’s positioning to name to features to looks.

In fact, the recent slew of PC tablet or Slate launches at the just-concluded Consumer Electronic Show (CES) are said to be aimed at stealing Apple Tablet’s thunder (rumoured to be launched on January 27).

So, here’s over to how the much anticipated Apple device may look like and will offer.

Not a laptop

Mark Rolston, chief creative officer for Frog Design believes Apple won’t market a tablet as a replacement for a workhorse laptop. Instead, Apple will describe a limited set of uses for the device at first, Rolston believes, and later Apple may broaden how it advertises the tas.

He pointed to the way the iPhone evolved from easy-to-use phone to multipurpose pocket computer a year after its debut with the advent of the App Store, which sells add-on software of all sorts.

What it will be called

The Apple tablet is likely to be named iSlate. Apple purchased the domain name iSlate.com in 2007. Some other rumoured names for the device include iTablet, iTouch, MacBook Touch, iPad, Net tablet and Canvas.

Photo Courtesy: Tommaso Gecchelin

Looks

Widely speculated to be a 10-inch device, it is rumoured to have a virtual keyboard. Some speculate that users will be able to use their whole hand to open programs and flick through pictures on the device.

Though most agree that the easiest way of visualising tablet is to think of a big iPhone, Apple’s designers are likely to have come up with a new look and feel for the device.

Tablet’s camera is speculated to come with facial recognition features.

Photo Courtesy: Gizmodo

Gaming

Apple’s new device is speculated to have something for gamers too! For, the company has sent invitations for the January 27th event to gaming publications too.

The company is said to be working with Electronic Arts to show off the tablet’s game capabilities. Also, video games are a known to be a hotseller on the App Store.

Multimedia

Some think it will simply be an oversized iPod Touch, a music player that is also used to view movies, family photos and other content on the go.

Video and music have been predicted to be the key applications in tablet. Rumours say that tablet is the reason Apple developed iTunes LP in the first place.

Gossip mills also suggest that the device could even double as a home entertainment hub — streaming content from the internet to a television, or being used as a home games console.

Photo Courtesy: Jesus Diaz

Battery

Some believe that Apple may follow Microsoft, Samsung and HTC in using an AM OLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display in their 7-inch tablet because of its ability to reduce power consumption. This could extend the battery life anywhere from 40 percent to 75 percent, depending on your usage.

The tablet is expected to offer internet connectivity over Wi-Fi and 3G.

Photo Courtesy: Logan Lape

E-reader too!

Many believe that Apple is building the tablet with an eye to the burgeoning electronic book market (though Jobs said in 2008 that “people don’t read anymore.”)

There have been several reports of Apple approaching book, newspaper, and magazine publishers about their content. Apple is said to have held talks with NYT, WSJ, Conde Nast, Harper Collins, and others to create a library for online reading content just like the iTunes for music.

Photo Courtesy: Adam Benton

Touch me not?

This all-in-one offering from HP is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill PC. This sleek device is more a gadget than a PC and features a 22-inch touchscreen. This means you get to interact with it in more ways than just your mouse and keyboard. The piece we got had Window 7 and a set of touch applications that form part of the TouchPack.

While it gets full points for coolness, touch becomes cumbersome when used as your primary method of input. Issues such as arm fatigue and finger prints on the screen do creep up. The build quality is solid – the wireless key-board features pseudo isolated keys, while the mouse looks surprisingly like the magic mouse from Apple. It also comes with an MCE remote, so you can operate it from a few feet away. There is slot loading dual layer DVD writer optical drive on the side. Of course a hoard of ports lies underneath a removable panel at the back, including LAN, SPDIF and TVin. The audio quality of the speakers is quite decent, very suitable for personal listening.

As for the internals, it features Intel’s Core 2 Duo T6600 2.20 GHz processor with 4 GB RAM. The GeForce 9300M GS graphics solution is more than enough for running touch apps and playing HD video. However, serious gaming is out of the question. Our standard benchmarks for PCs revealed a decent performance. It’s overpriced but if you want a conversation piece you might want to opt for it.

http://www.hp.com/

In a move that will revolutionise motoring, a new generation of computerised dashboard devices that will bring Internet access to the driver’s seat are about to be unveiled.

The Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets, which are being developed by technology companies such as Intel and Google in conjunction with car manufacturers, will allow drivers to compose voice-activated e-mails on the move, call up restaurant reviews as they reach their destination and use 3D maps to navigate while their passengers watch movies.

The devices will go on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

However, motoring organisations have warned the so-called “infotainment” systems will distract drivers and increase the risk of accidents.

Duncan Vernon, from the road safety team at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, acknowledged that sat-nav systems could help motorists, but warned that too much gadgetry was dangerous.

“All drivers have to navigate when they are behind the wheel, and technology such as sat-navs can help drivers do this when used appropriately,” the Scotsman quoted Vernon as saying.

“But there is a serious potential for distraction, and related crashes, resulting from visual display entertainment systems unrelated to and unnecessary for driving. Most of us would be shocked if we saw a driver reading an encyclopaedia or texting behind the wheel, and rightly so. When behind the wheel, a driver’s primary task is to drive,” Vernon added.

Edmund King, AA president, said: “We must accept that technology is evolving and will not go away. But in general terms we think that the internet should be reserved for the cyber-highway rather than cause distractions for drivers on the real highway.”

Neil Greig, director of policy and research for the Institute of Advanced Motoring, said: “The impact of these devices on driving standards has not been sufficiently examined. Therefore it must be a basic requirement that the new interactive technology only works when cars are stationary.” (ANI)