Facebook once again finds itself at the center of a privacy debate , this time in the wake of the launch of the Open Graph API and so-called “instant personalization” features that leverage your profile information on third-party sites like Yelp and Pandora .
A new website called PleaseRobMe.com does nothing more than aggregate publicly shared check-ins, but its name and purpose attempt to shed more light on the dangerous side effects of location-sharing. It’s no secret that when you share your location via Google Buzz and Foursquare you’re exposing information that could put you at risk.
On Saturday, we reported on rumors that Verizon and Skype would be announcing a partnership deal at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Well, it’s official . The two companies are announcing what they call a “strategic relationship that will bring Skype to Verizon Wireless smartphones in March.” Here’s how the Skype mobile and Verizon Wireless partnership will work: – 3G smartphone users with a data plan can make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype user around the world
The Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator is held at SXSW to help foster startup development and innovation.
GMAIL USERS: You can now follow Mashable’s official Google Buzz profile here: http://www.google.com/profiles/mashable Google has just unveiled its latest attempt to become more relevant in the social media space: Google Buzz . The product is integrated within Gmail and will be rolled out gradually to all of the webmail service’s users over the next few days
It’s official. Twitter’s making a play for big business with features and services that distinguish select accounts from regular accounts
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here .
If you’re a Project Runway fan, you may have missed the legal battle that ultimately moved the show with no home to Lifetime. It’s been an ordeal ripe with Hollywood dirt, but the bottom line is that Project Runway season 6 will air on Lifetime tonight, not on Bravo, where it has developed a huge fan base over the past five seasons
There are Twitter apps for just about everything – managing your account from your desktop , finding local tweeters , tweeting on-the-go , and more. The one we just stumbled across though, Bet Your Followers , is unlike any app we’ve ever encountered before. Bet Your Followers is part social experiment and part Twitter game.
How would you like to be able to point your iPhone towards an object – the Eiffel Tower, for example – and instantly see the admission price, working hours, its height and other information? We’ve been hearing about such concepts for quite some time now – and we’ve been able to visualize it better since the movie Minority Report – but Apple’s latest iPhone related patents might make it a reality sooner than one would think. A patent called ID App does just that; it recognizes an object based on visuals (through the iPhone’s camera), a RFID reader or through GPS, and then fetches the data from related databases.
