WARNING: Facebook “Like” Worm Spreading Through Javascript Exploit

Thousands of Facebook users are being attacked by a nasty Facebook worm that forces you to “like” a Facebook page, which then automatically spreads it through a user’s wall.

According to SocialToo’s Jesse Stay, the scammers have figured out a way to exploit the “Like” button via Javascript and are using it to force users to like the page, thus spreading it inadvertently through postings on walls.< The result is thousands of wall posts for a page entitled “Shocking! This girl killed herself after her dad posted this photo.” Clicking the link enclosed spreads the worm further. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve heard of such an exploit, but according to Facebook Search, a lot of people have been affected by this one

Do not click any of these links or go to this Facebook page. It will force you to like the page and spread the worm further. As far as we can tell though, the exploit doesn’t compromise your account or steal your password. We’ve put an e-mail out to the Facebook team for more information.

[via mashable]

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Posted in: Facebook,Warning

A Few Questions About Touch-Screen iMacs

A couple of years ago, I took advantage of the Q&A session at an Apple press event to ask Steve Jobs if Apple might release touch-screen Macs [technologizer link]. (I did so on behalf of a Technologizer community member.) Jobs told me that the company had experimented with the idea and didn’t think it made sense just yet. At the time, I noted that this answer didn’t preclude the possibility of touch-screen Macs–it was pretty much the stock response that he always gives about potential Apple products, right up until the moment that the company releases the item in question.

Now DigiTimes is reporting apparent concrete evidence of a touch Mac that might not be all that far from release: Apple is supposedly testing touch-screen panels for new iMacs.

Sounds plausible to me. And it leads to a few intriguing questions:

How much would Apple change OS X for a touch-enabled Mac? Windows 7 proves that minor tweaks aren’t enough; HP’s TouchSmart interface shows that it’s possible to do interesting things if you make touch the primary mode of input. A touchable OS X could be either a slight reworking of Snow Leopard or a big deal on the level of the iPhone and iPad variants of iOS.

Would touch complement the keyboard and mouse or attempt to kill them? Or to put it another way, what percentage of the time would a typical user of one of these iMacs get stuff done by touching rather than typing and mousing–10%, 50%, 100%?

What impact would touch have on industrial design? HP has done a nice job with the TouchSmarts, but they’re pretty typical all-in-one computers, with some subtle adjustments that help make the touch capability work well. Would a touch iMac look a whole lot like today’s non-touch iMacs, or would it represent a radical rethinking of the desktop computer?

Would a touch iMac be a specialty product or the first step in the touchification of all Macs? The TouchSmarts seem to be popular, but I suspect HP has no plans to discontinue the manufacturing of non-touch computers any time soon. Apple, on the other hand, rarely releases niche products–when it introduces a new feature, it tends to roll it out across all its products.

Are we positive that a touch-screen desktop Apple computer would be a Mac as we know it? My guess is that Apple sees iOS, not OS X in its original form, as the future of the company, and that it envisions a future in which iOS is around long after old-school OS X goes away. I suspect that we’ll eventually see iOS-powered devices that look more like traditional computers than the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad do–and while it seems a tad early for an iOS desktop, you never know.

Any speculation on any of the above, or additional questions? Are you itching to buy a touchable iMac?

[via technologizer]

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Posted in: Apple

Goo.gl Goes Public

The phrase “Google it” is getting a whole new meaning today; the search giant has just released its goo.gl URL shortener to the public and created a standalone website so that anyone can use Google to shorten and track the URLs they share via social media sites and e-mail.

Goo.gl initially debuted last December as a feature integrated into other Google products. Google’s newly public URL shortener competes with a myriad of other popular services, Bit.ly being the most notable of the bunch.

The company claims that its shortener boasts stability, security and speed. The former two are especially important as several other services have been plagued by both downtime and malicious parties masking deceptive links. Goo.gl features automatic spam detection, and “near 100% uptime since our initial launch,” according to the company’s announcement.

The product also comes with expected URL-tracking features. As a goo.gl user, you can log in to your Google account to view URL history, traffic sources, referrers and visitor profiles for countries, browsers and platforms.

Google is known to hide bonus easter egg features in its products, and goo.gl is no different. Earlier today, Google engineer Matt Cutts tweeted one such easter egg — add .qr to a shortened goo.gl URL and you’ll create a QR code that, when scanned, will redirect to the original URL. It’s a quirky additive that makes goo.gl all the more friendly for brands and marketers experimenting with QR codes. A Twitter tipster also informed us that you can add .info to the goo.gl URL to check out analytics.

As for why Google is going public with goo.gl, it’s anybody’s guess. Initially, goo.gl was designed because the company didn’t want to rely on other URL shorteners for the same purpose. Our guess is that it’s another small part to the much speculated about social strategy. After all, Google is the business of URLs, and URLs are the fabric of the social web. What’s your take? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Posted in: Google

PayPal Submits New Check-Depositing iPhone App for Approval

Sometime very soon, you’re going to be able to deposit checks to your PayPal account just by taking pictures of them with your iPhone.

We’ve been informed that the new version of its iPhone app has just been submitted to the App Store, and the company expects it to be approved by Apple any minute. The update is significant because it delivers a major new feature: the ability to deposit checks just by taking a picture of the front and the back. Apple’s approval time varies, so you could see the app by tomorrow or it could take up to a week to get into the App Store.

We understand that it takes three or four days before the money appears in your PayPal account. PayPal suggests that you hold onto the check for two weeks or so before you destroy or throw away the original check.

Some banks already have this functionality in their mobile apps; JPMorgan Chase Bank is a well-known example. However, PayPal has far greater reach than any individual bank — it adds 1 million new accounts per month[mashable link].

While the app does come with some other minor bug fixes, the ability to deposit checks is the big feature of this update. We’ve been informed that there will be another big update to the iPhone app during PayPal’s Innovate Developer conference next month with a wave of new features.

[via mashable]

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Posted in: Apple

How the iPad Is Transforming Web Design

This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.

The iPad has only been on the market for six months, but already it has had an impact on the way content is created and consumed. Already we’re seeing more and more people at airports, coffee shops and on the train using their iPads to read books, browse the web and watch video.

We’re also seeing web designers transform their websites and web apps to look more like iPad apps. In the last few months, several high-profile websites have adjusted their designs to look and feel more like the iPad. We’re dubbing this, the “iPadification of the web.”

We think this is a trend that will only continue to gain momentum as the iPad continues to sell and subsequent tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the BlackBerry PlayBook hit the market.

Check out three areas where this is happening already.

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1. Me.com Mail and Calendar

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When Apple redesigned its Me.com webmail interface back in May, it was clear that the way apps were designed for the iPad was going to have a big impact on how Apple addressed its own web apps in the future.

MobileMe Mail is nearly identical to the Mail app built into the iPad, visually speaking.

The Mail app for the iPad

The new Me.com webmail interface

Likewise, the MobileMe Calendar beta, introduced back in July, is a near pixel-for-pixel recreation of Calendar for iPad.

The Calendar app on the iPad

These changes are interesting because of the high levels of consistency that now exist amongst the iOS and web app experience. It also makes us wonder how long it will be before the Mac OS X versions of these applications will be styled to match.

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2. New Twitter

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There are lots of interesting elements in the new Twitter redesign. In addition to adding in-line links and media support, the new design is very clearly associated with the iPad app the company released a few weeks before the new site.

As Mashable’s Jenn Van Grove commented in her assessment of the new design, the iPad-like nature of the new website makes it much easier to treat the website like a standalone client.

The multi-column layout and the way that inline media is displayed is very similar both on the native iPad app and on the new website. The big difference is that more columns can be displayed on the iPad app and their sizes adjusted by using your finger to slide back and forth.

The new Twitter.com homepage

This is an interesting point because it shows that even when regular websites are designed to look more like iPad applications, the way users are interacting with content — via touch or using a mouse or trackpad — is an important thing to keep in mind.

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3. The New York Times Editorial Page

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Last week, The New York Times rolled out a new version of its opinion section. The original design (which has sense been modified) was laid out in an extraordinarily iPad-friendly sort of way.

Even in the updated iteration (see below), the page is laid out much like an iPad app. Columns are clean and easier to select using a finger and stories are organized into a grid, which also makes it easier for touch users to access the page.

Of all the aspects of nytimes.com, the look and feel of the opinion section is closest to the clean and minimalist experience offered by the Times’ Editor’s Choice iPad app.

Have you noticed any other sites taking part in iPadification? If so, share your observations in the comments below.

[via mashable]

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Posted in: Apple

Google Docs Emulates Microsoft Word’s “Track Changes” Feature

At long last, Google Docs has made it easy to see changes made to documents with the announcement of a new revision history interface.

The addition of this interface is just one of a litany of changesGoogle Docs is announcing of late. Recent additions include a text highlighting feature that appears when a co-editor is making changes, six new fonts (Droid Serif, Droid Sans, Calibri, Cambria, Corsiva and Consolas), a bunch of tweaks to spreadsheets and more.

To locate said revision history, merely go to File > See revision history. There, you’ll be able to see — via a time stamp in the right-hand column — who changed what in the document (you can also restore revisions). Check out a screenshot below to see it in action.

Changes are color-coded, much like they are in Word’s “Track Changes” feature. And for those among you who want a blow-by-blow of edits, there’s the “Show more detailed revisions” option, which gives you a closer look at all those grammatical tweaks.

According to the Google Docs Blog, “This is just a first step for the new revision interface for Google Docs. We’re looking forward to more revision improvements in the future.”

Back in the day, I had a discussion with my Stuff Hipsters Hate and CNN co-blogger Andrea Bartz (featured in the screenshot below) about how it wasn’t possible to write a book in Google Docs because it lacked track changes. Now I’m guessing she’ll change her tune. With so many improvements being made to the service, it makes one wonder what’s in store for Microsoft Word.

Is writing in the cloud the future? Or will word processing software prevail? What do you think?

[via mashable]

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Posted in: Google,Microsoft

HP Names Former SAP Head Léo Apotheker New CEO

HP’s Board of Directors has announced that it has chosen Léo Apotheker, the former CEO of German enterprise software company SAP, as the company’s new CEO.

Léo Apotheker will replace interim CEO Cathie Lesjak and join the company’s Board of Directors on November 1. The Board also elected Ray Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as non-executive chairman of the board.

Early last month, HP ousted Mark Hurd as CEO [mashable link] following a sexual harassment scandal. The drama continued when his alleged victim spoke up[mashable link]. Tech circles debated whether HP’s board should have forced Hurd out before Oracle hired him as co-president [mashable link] of the company.

Netscape founder and HP board member Marc Andreessen was tapped to lead the search for HP’s new CEO. While there was a great deal of discussion of promoting someone internally in HP (particularly Todd Bradley, HP’s EVP of the personal systems group), the Board decided to bring in an outsider once again to lead the company.

Is Apotheker the right man to lead HP? Let us know what you think.

[via mashable]

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Posted in: HP

More People Watching Video on Facebook than Yahoo [STATS]

So not only are we whiling away our work days stalking high school sweethearts and playing FarmVille on Facebook, we’re now spending copious amounts of time watching video there as well. In fact, according to the comScore Video Metrix, Facebook was the second most popular online video content property last month.

In August, Facebook beat out Yahoo Sites (53.9 million viewers) to nab the number two spot (with 58.6 million viewers), after Googlesites (146.3 million unique viewers). On the whole, 178 million U.S.Internet users watched online video content in August for an average of 14.3 hours per viewer.

Of course, people aren’t heading to Facebook to watch those videos you can create in-site and then post to your wall (who does that, really?) — they’re watching embedded vids from sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Vevo. So although the site is a hot spot for watching content, it’s not exactly a hub for content creation.

Still, Facebook’s rise to number two when it comes to video viewage just goes to show how widespread the social network’s influence is; we already know people spend more time on Facebook than they do on Google.

However, given the fact that Google sites have more than twice the number of viewers than Facebook when it comes to video, it will probably be awhile before the networking site becomes the number one venue for videos.

[via mashable]

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Posted in: Facebook,Vimeo,Vivo,Yahoo