To help build upon an already thriving mobile ecosystem, today we’re excited to launch
new resources for mobile development, beginning with the Twitter framework for iOS. Since the launch of iOS 5, we have seen an incredible number of applications incorporate the Twitter framework, including the launch partners we highlight at http://ios.twitter.com.
The iOS integration enables simple mobile sharing, and reflects our commitment to mobile Twitter integrations.
Twitter, as everyone and their tweeting dog knows, limits your status updates to 140 characters. But Facebook? Facebook laughs in the face of such limitations. On Facebook, 140 characters is barely clearing your throat.
In a blog post Wednesday, Facebook’s Journalist Program Manager (and Mashable alum) Vadim Lavrusik announced that the limit of Facebook status updates has now been upped to “more than 60,000 characters.” When Mashable asked, Lavrusik explained what that meant, exactly: You can now post a status update measuring 63,206 characters.
But not one character more than that. Sorry, would-be Facebook novelists; you’ll have to split your prose into multiple updates. (As Lavrusik points out, an average novel will now require nine status updates.) This also goes for group messages and posts on your friends’ walls — so you can now annoy the heck out of them with unreasonably long catch-up messages.
Facebook update character limits have been expanding almost as rapidly as the social network itself. Until March 2009, the limit was barely bigger than Twitter’s, at 160 characters. Then 420 characters marked the end of your post’s potential. This summer, it jumped from 500 to 5,000, and now the limit has hit the stratosphere.
So much for social media keeping things short and sweet. At least one Facebook user has already attempted a status update with 60,000 characters of nonsense words, but he’ll need to add 3,206 more to hit the limit.
Below is Facebook’s visualization of the status update limits. Would you ever post a message this long? Let us know in the comments. But please, if you can, keep it short.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been having one heck of a week. Rumors about the next-generation console and Kinect peripheral are building serious buzz, and the console experienced its best sales week ever over Thanksgiving with more than 960,000 sold. Now, Verizon is announcing Microsoft’s little gaming console that could is getting FiOS TV as early as Dec. 1.
“FiOS customers who subscribe to both FiOS TV and FiOS Internet and are Xbox LIVE Gold members can use their Xbox consoles to watch select live FiOS TV channels. No extra hardware. Plus, for the first time, Kinect for Xbox 360 will be integrated into the TV experience, allowing customers to use voice and gesture commands to control their TV viewing.”
Verizon will be putting out a special FiOS TV app that will be available sometime in Dec. It will launch with 26 channels with more to be added. Verizon is loading its deck to ensure a good launch. It unveiled a bunch of deals, bundles and promotions such as a triple-play service for $89.99 per month, limited Xbox LIVE Gold membership and a sponsor spot for Machinima’s Gamers’ Choice Award.
The announcement and promotions seem to show Verizon is taking a much more active interest in video games for both distribution and new customers. Consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3 are branching out of their own gaming shells by incorporating video streaming from Netflix, music libraries and of course its built in DVD player. Sony is pushing the PS3 into 3D gaming and programing while Microsoft is incorporating its gesture-based Kinect peripheral into how users browse through all sorts of media content.
With video games now starting to rake in blockbuster-level money, television integration is the next logical addition to video game consoles. Does FiOS on your Xbox 360 sound like a good idea or a recipe for disaster? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
As promised, a Honeycomb compatible version of Time Warner Cable's tablet apphas arrived before the return of the NBA. Dubbed TWC TV in its Android iteration, v1.0 includes an integrated guide, the ability to act as a remote control, search TV listings, and schedule DVR recordings. So far it's only promised to operate on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Xoom tablets, but the notes indicate it should scale to whatever Honeycomb slate you happen to have handy at the moment. The marquee live TV streaming feature is still on hold waiting for the release of Ice Cream Sandwich, but if what you need is a couch companion instead of a kitchen / bathroom TV screen it's ready to go. Check out the Time Warner blog for more notes or just hit the Android Market link below to download it yourself.
Now that the Thanksgiving food coma has (almost) subsided, its time to fully embrace the holiday season. Sure, it may be easy to drive to Wal-mart for a fake plastic tree, but there’s something strangely satisfying about stomping through the wilderness with an ax to chop down your own live tree. This year, I challenge you to don your Timberlands, fill a canteen with hot cocoa and venture out into the rugged unknown to cut a fresh pine for your living room. Here are 12 locations in Massachusetts to cut your own Christmas tree this holiday season. We know these aren’t all of them, but capping it at 12 seemed like a fit – one for each of the 12 days of Christmas!
Bog Hollow Farm 80 Wapping Road (Route 106), Kingston, MA (781) 585-8414 Annual tree farm weekend, 12/3 – 12/4, open 9am – 3pm
Bristlecone Farm 779 Sodom Road, Westport, MA (508) 636-8433 Open 9am to dusk daily
Crane Hill Tree Farm 233 Johnson Hill Road, Washington, MA (413) 623-5865 Open Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays, 9am to sunset
Crane Neck Tree Farms 114 Crane Neck Street, West Newbury, MA (978) 363-1272 Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, Mon: 9am-4pm Tuesdays & Thursdays: 12pm-4pm
Fujifilm claims it's 'reinvented' the bridge camera with the latest in its X line of premium snappers. The XS-1 is affixed to a Fujinon lens that opens up to f/2.8 and stretches all the way from 24mm to 624mm (in 35mm parlance) in an effort "cater perfectly for every photographic need" and prevent you from ever longing for the flexibility of a DSLR. It even sports a Super Macro Mode for focusing down to a rather intimate single centimeter. Behind the lens sits the same 12-megapixel EXR CMOS found in the X10, which means you get an undersized 2/3-inch sensor instead of the superior APS-C format found in the X100 and many DSLRs. Read on for more specs in the press release plus a short promo clip, and expect to see this hit British shelves in February for £699 ($1090).
If you’re annoyed by the Facebook news ticker already, just you wait. Facebook confirmed that it has introduced sponsored stories, or ads, to the ticker.
“Sponsored Stories now appear in Ticker on the home page,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. “Sponsored Stories are an extension of News Feed, so we think it’s natural that they appear in Ticker.”
The ticker first appeared to mixed reviews when Facebook revamped News Feed in early September. It’s intended to be a repository for those quick, repetitive messages like “Jill Liked Flying Kites” or “Dave and Floyd are now friends,” leaving meatier status updates to the main feed.
At the same time, the different kinds of updates that could appear in the ticker expanded, with services like Spotify introducing the ability to automatically share what you’re listening to via the new feature.
The new approach, and the ticker specifically, received tepid reviews from Facebook users, and some reacted with outright anger. Among the more pointed criticisms: If the ticker updates weren’t important enough for the main feed, why have them at all?
It appears part of the answer may be for the ticker to serve Facebook’s growing advertising platform. After all, if users aren’t paying that much attention to it, they may be less inclined to complain about advertising occasionally appearing there. While there’s no way to opt-out of seeing the sponsored content, users will be able to click the “X” in the post to hide the updates, just like regular ticker items.
The inclusion of sponsored posts among regular ones will be familiar to any user of Twitter, Digg, and other networks. Sponsored content in various “feeds” is rapidly becoming the norm in social media, although most services clearly mark the content as such.
angry tapir writes with this excerpt from Tech World: "Researchers from German security firm Recurity Labs have released a JavaScript implementation of the OpenPGP specification that allows users to encrypt and decrypt webmail messages. Called GPG4Browsers, the tool functions as an extension for Google Chrome and now is capable of working with GMail."
A quick gander at the source leaves me with the impression that it should be more or less portable to other browsers. It's also built using a lot of off-the-shelf Javascript libraries. (Who knew Javascript had a bignum library and a number of cipher implementations?)
When we talk about how colleges and universities are embracing the Internet, we typically refer to their use of social media. From their various blogs, to the aggregated feeds streaming across their social media dashboards to the newest Facebook milestones they all hope to achieve, the institutions in and around Boston have been adapting to the times and using social media to engage with their students, staff, faculty and alumni outside of the classroom years after graduation.
But their use of the Internet goes far beyond Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. Schools like Boston University, Wellesley College and Wheelock College are helping connect students with tutors, and are launching new professional development courses in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, thanks to the World Wide Web.
At Boston University and Wellesley College, they’ve adopted TutorTrac, a web-based tutor and learning center management and tracking software. Hosted by the Redrock Software Corporation, TutorTrac allows schools to connect their registrar, IT department, learning center directors and other tutoring staff to a unified system that tracks course registration, records visits to the tutoring and learning centers, as well as reports on progress and grades earned in the various courses provided.
Students at Boston University no longer need to visit the Educational Resource Center to register for tutoring sessions. Instead, they can log on to the system with their computer, smartphone or tablet, and input the times they’re available. The software takes the stress out of scheduling and spares staff the administrative time spent pairing students with tutors and writing fellows, according to BU Today.
The University began using TutorTrac last fall, allowing students to sign up for tutoring in selected chemistry courses. Now, the Educational Resource Center offers every chemistry and physics course, along with writing assistance. Wellesley College’s Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center also makes tutoring sessions available through the TutorTrac software in various chemistry, math and neuroscience courses.
On Monday, Wheelock College also announced the launch of new online science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) courses. A part of the College’s STEM Teacher Enhancement Program (STEP), funded by NASA, the classes will provide in-service elementary teachers with the opportunity to improve their instruction methods within a schedule that fits their lives. There will be eight courses offered in total, each which will help educators who teach grades one through six.
Starting in January 2012, the program will offer, “Numbers and Operations” and “Teaching and Learning in Elementary Science.” Designed by Wheelock faculty and expert consultants, the courses will strengthen both teaching methods and knowledge in the math and science fields. All STEP classes are offered on a flexible schedule, but will occur over an eight-week period of time.
Although social media is crucial for an institution’s survival, colleges and universities need to continue embracing the Internet in other innovative ways. What could be next thanks to the World Wide Web?
Barnes & Noble is celebrating Black Friday with a white border. The bookstore chain is offering up a limited edition of its excellent Nook Simple Touch reader this Friday, November 25th. Slight aesthetic differences aside, the real news here is the price -- the company is knocking $20 off the already low-cost device, making it the same as Amazon's ad-supported, touchscreen-free fourth gen Kindle. The $79 deal will only last one day, so get 'em while the e-ink is hot. Press info after the jump.