After a grand jury chose not to indict the white NYPD officer in the death of a black man, Eric Garner, social media exploded with the voices of those outraged around the country. Protests began and activists have been using social media, especially twitter, to spread their message. Demonstrations have been taking place in New York City and other cities across the country with marchers protesting the grand jury’s decision. While some protesters took to the streets, others who couldn’t physically participate turned to twitter and other social media platforms to join in. Meredith Clark, a professor at Frank W.... Continue reading

ABC has just launched a social media newscast on Facebook that will be hosted by anchor of “World News Tonight”, David Muir. The newscast is called Facecast: The One Thing and will be a daily, one-minute news roundup that will give users highlights of the day’s top stories and trending topics. Facecast will be found on the “World News Tonight” official Facebook page, and if a user has “liked” the page, then the newscast will show up in their newsfeed. “World News Tonight” executive producer, Almin Karamehmedovic, said “We’re very excited to launch a newscast that is exclusively for Facebook... Continue reading

The social magazine, Flipboard, has released the latest version of the app with “Flipboard 3.0”. The new version has design tweaks, better search and navigation interface and tools to help users have a greater personalization of their news feed than ever before. It is now better designed for smart phones. They have added 34,000 new topics along with a “topics” section to the menu so users can add their topics of interest and have magazines published to them that are based on those interests. It will also give you suggestions on content it thinks you might be interested in. This... Continue reading

The New York Times company and a German publisher, Axel Springer, are investing 3.8 million dollars into a startup from the Netherlands called Blendle. Calling itself “iTunes for Journalism”, Blendle allows users to read and browse content on an a per-article basis. Blendle was launched in the Netherlands six months ago and sells individual articles from a number of newspapers and magazines to internet users through its website and app. People pay only for the articles they read and an ask for a refund if they do not like the article. Blendle currently has 130,000 registered users and plans to... Continue reading

An app called FireChat, by the company Open Garden Inc., has seen a surge in popularity in Hong Kong during the recent protesting taking place there. FireChat is a messaging app that enables smartphones to communicate directly with one another even without working cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Instead, it uses through the small Bluetooth or Wi-Fi radios in the phones themselves, but users must be within 70 meters of one another to exchange messages The massive amounts of people in the protesting area have overwhelmed wireless carrier networks, making it difficult to communicate. Last week, FireChat was downloaded 200,000 times... Continue reading

There is a new possible radical shift in traditional journalism. A leading media company is venturing into 3D technology for reporting. The Garnett Company has released a feature on Dammann Farm with a presentation made especially for the Oculus Rift. The Oculus Rift is the leader in virtual reality technology and has recently been bought by Facebook for $2 billion in cash and stock. Through its digital division, Des Moines Register, the company has completed the virtual reality project called Harvest of Change. It uses today’s technology to explore an old-word place, a virtual tour of an Iowa farm. Oculus... Continue reading

Google is now looking for other ways to serve the internet. The company has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to test drones that can deliver wireless internet in New Mexico. The tests would begin in October and be scheduled to last six months. “Google recently acquired Titan Aerospace, a firm that specializes in developing solar and electric unmanned aerial systems for high altitude, long endurance flights,” Google said in its application. “These systems may eventually be used to provide Internet connections in remote areas or help monitor environmental damage, such as oil spills or deforestation.” These drones could... Continue reading

An extensive study was done by the Global Privacy Enforcement Act that looked at the privacy practices of app publishers. The study found that 75% of the 1,211 sampled apps seek permission to access Smartphone functions/user data and failed to communicate their privacy policy in a transparent and easily understandable way. Investigators couldn’t understand why nearly one-third of the apps (31 per cent) needed access to certain information on mobile devices — like the location or camera photos and metadata. Canadian privacy commissioner, Daniel Therrien, said in a release “We did find many apps were requesting permission to access potentially... Continue reading