Verizon is getting into the news business. What could go wrong? The second-richest telecommunications company is backing a new technology news site called SugarString.com. SugarString covers topics such as technology, culture, and entertainment. This new technology news site is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and The Verge, while bringing in potentially giant mainstream audience to beat these competitors at their own game. There is one catch: in exchange for Verizon's corporate backing, reporters at SugarString are forbidden from written about surveillence or net neutrality around the world, which are the two biggest issues in tech and politics... Continue reading

Vine is a mobile video sharing app. It allows its users to create and share six second videos. The videos loop continuously and are posted online. Vine is owned by Twitter. It can be used to show action and explain stories. Journalists use Vine to share videos of breaking news as it is happening. This platform gives journalists the ability to put the story they are covering in a visual way. Vine is a combination of Instragram, Twitter and GIF. Since Vine is tied to Twitter journalists won't have to worry about building up a new following on Vine. Vine... Continue reading

Upshot was created because of new opportunities being created for journalists due to the spread of digital data and the Internet. Upshot is a new data journalism site launched by The New York Times. It is the third new media site that focuses on explaining the news with lots of numbers. The site follows FiveThirtyEight and Vox. The Upshot site combines the analysis of the news with data analysis. Upshot's highest priority will be to unearth data sets and analyze existing ones in ways that clarify and explain the news. In written articles, Upshot seeks to present their data in... Continue reading

Twitter and IBM have announced a partnership. This partnership will transform businesses to understand their markets, customers, and customers. On Wednesday, Twitter and IBM announced a partnership. This partnership will help businesses make better decisions. Twitter is sharing its data with IBM for integration into IBM's company solutions, which include Watson. This partnership between Twitter and IBM will allow companies to combine Twitter data into their process of decision making through IBM tools. In an interview Mediabistro reporter Shea Bennett, VP of Business Development at Twitter Chris Moody in a blog post, “From a data perspective, Twitter represents an enormous... Continue reading

Apple Pay was to replace the consumer's wallet of credit cards with its mobile system. But this mobile system has hit a roadblock. CVS and Rite Aid have removed Apple Pay from their stores. The issue appears to be that CVS and Rite Aid are both involved with a competing payment platform CurrenC. The payment is being developed by a retail-owned mobile technology company called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) has been developing CurrenC since 2011. CurrenC is still in test mobile payment platform. CurrenC does not use an NFC chip unlike Apple Pay. It generates a... Continue reading

Journalists and news organizations are looking for different ways to connect with their readers. They are seeking to be involved in a more visual social media content. According to CNN, Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. The user can share and organize videos and images through "pins." Since Pinterest launched in 2010, Pinterest has become a popular social media platform. It is the thirdmost visited social networking site. Pinterest follows the ranks behind Twitter and Facebook. Pinterest has a system of virtual bookmarking that is used to organize and share news. Pinterest advantages are two-fold. It engages readers in a new... Continue reading

On Thursday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave permission to six television and film firms, which allows these firms to use drones are Astraeus Aerial, Aerial MOB, HeliVideo Productions, Pictorvision Inc., RC Pro Productions Consulting, and Snaproll Media. This approval has marked a major advance for the advance for the growing industry of drones. This ruling does reverse the restrictions that were previously placed on the commercial use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as drones. It was determined by the FAA that the drones do not need a FAA certificate of airworthiness. This is based upon the... Continue reading

A security flaw on eBay's website has been exposing eBay's customers to malicious websites. This has been happening on eBay's site since Feburary. It has been revealed that by clicking on some of the listings on the site will automatically redirect customers to harmful sites. eBay has failed to fix and inforem users about the security flaw, despite having known since Feburary. According to BBC News, an eBay user Paul Castle contacted eBay in order to report the problem in a chat log which outlined the problem in detail with eBay's staff. This is not the first time that eBay... Continue reading

Blackberry has bought a London-based mobile technology start up company Movirtu. The company allows the users to have multiple phone numbers on one device. Blackberry has made it easier to have one smartphone instead of two. One smartphone for work and personal use. The virtual SIM technology from Movirtu allows the users to have both a business and personal phone number on the same smartphone. The individual will have separate billing for voice, data and messaging usage on each phone number. This allows the corporate to switch between work and personal easily without having multiple devices. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468343,00.asp http://news.softpedia.com/news/BlackBerry-Buys-UK-Based-Company-Movirtu-Hopes-to-Boost-BYOD-Adoption-458580.shtml#sgal_0 "Clearly this... Continue reading

Google is the third company to be fined by the Federal Trade Commission. The other two companies are Apple and Amazon. These companies have to refund money to consumers because of the purchases by children unauthorized by the parents consent. The lax of security on mobile app purchases on smartphones, tablets or any other mobile devices has led to fines for Google. The Federal Trade Commission is holding Google responsible for not preventing children from making purchases which were not authorized by their parents. On Thursday, Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission that it charged consumers unfairly for unauthorized... Continue reading