Internet

Do you feel stressed out and exhausted after using Facebook? You're not alone. According to a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, most Facebook users have taken an extended break from Facebook after becoming tired of the ... site. Pew worked with Princeton Survey Research Associates International to carry out telephone interviews with just over 1,000 U.S. residents. Two-Thirds of US Facebook Users Take Extended Breaks The interviews revealed that six in every ten Facebook users admit to having taken breaks from Facebook that lasted several weeks. (Source: zdnet.com ) Why ... (view more)

Twitter has launched a video-sharing service similar to YouTube but designed for people with shorter attention spans. Unfortunately, questions over adult content could spell doom for the service. The service is called 'Vine' and is specifically ... designed for the Apple iPhone. It lets users upload and share a video clip of up to six seconds in length and then publish a link to the clip on Twitter. The idea of a short clip service isn't new: rival application 'Tout' does the same thing but offers users 15 second previews. In both cases, it appears the idea is to minimize the amount of storage ... (view more)

A court in Saudi Arabia has refused to try a blogger charged with insulting the Islamic religion. Raif Badawi would have faced the death penalty if convicted of his alleged "crimes," which included the simple act of "liking" a Christianity page on ... Facebook. Badawi runs a website called the "Liberal Saudi Network." He was arrested last year after proclaiming May 7 as a day for discussing social and religious matters. Badawi Charged for Allegedly Abandoning Islam A lower court originally concluded Badawi's offenses were so serious that his case should be passed on to a higher ... (view more)

A 30-year-old Michigan man who died in a shootout with police reportedly used Facebook to say goodbye to his friends and family moments before he was killed. While being pursued by police, Eric Ramsey, of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, took out his mobile ... phone and updated his Facebook timeline, saying: "Well folkes (sic) im about to get shot. Peace." Suspect Launches Vicious Crime Spree Ramsey had good reason to believe he was close to the end of his life. He had started his last night by abducting a female Central Michigan University student, taking the woman back to his house and assaulting her. ... (view more)

The U.S. Library of Congress has completed its archive of every Twitter post during the first four years following the site's launch. Unfortunately, making that archive useful has proven extremely difficult. Back in April 2010, the Library of ... Congress signed a deal to archive Twitter posts, known as 'tweets.' The Library's Gayle Osterberg says those tweets are an important and valid research source. "As society turns to social media as a primary method of communication and creative expression, social media is supplementing, and in some cases supplanting, letters, journals, serial publications ... (view more)

The French government has persuaded one of that country's major Internet providers to drop a plan that would have blocked all website advertising automatically. Government officials said the move could have placed the future of many successful ... websites in doubt. Free, a broadband provider to more than five million French subscribers, proposed to update software on its cable modems to, by default, block website advertisements. Its customers would see a blank space where advertisements appeared on websites delivered via its competitors' Internet services. (The firm's name -- Free -- reflects ... (view more)

Mozilla says the next edition of its popular Firefox browser, Firefox 18, will be the fastest version of the browser yet released. The company also says the new Firefox's security capabilities have been significantly improved over previous versions. ... In a recent blog post, Mozilla vice president of engineering Johnathan Nightingale took some time to outline improvements to the Firefox formula for version 18, which is currently available for free download and use. "The Firefox of today is significantly better than the Firefox of a year ago in every way," Nightingale said. (Source: pcmag.com ) ... (view more)

An Oregon teenager involved in a hit-and-run crash was recently arrested for the deed. His arrest appears to have resulted directly from him bragging about driving drunk on the popular social networking site Facebook. According to reports, on New ... Year's Eve 18-year-old Jacob Cox-Brown of Astoria, Oregon, posted this as his Facebook status: "Drivin drunk ... classic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P" Facebook Message Prompts Investigation A long and complex sequence of events then followed: First, someone on Cox-Brown's 'friends' list sent the "confession" to Astoria ... (view more)

Facebook was recently forced to temporarily switch off a New Year's Eve messaging feature after a report suggested that private messages could be easily accessed and read by strangers. The feature is called "Midnight Delivery." It allowed Facebook ... users to send a 'Happy New Year' message to a friend. Unlike a normal message, however, the New Year's message would be "delivered" at precisely midnight. Furthermore, the message wouldn't arrive in the usual Facebook inbox. Instead, the recipient would get a link taking them to a special website called "Facebook Stories," where ... (view more)

Michigan has joined several other US states in passing legislation that prevents employers and school officials from asking people for their social networking login data. Breaking this new law could bring a three-month jail term or a $1,000 fine. On ... Friday, December 28, 2012, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed the new law, House bill 5523, into effect. In part, the law says "potential employees and students should be judged on their skills and abilities, not private online activity," and blocks any employer from requesting login or password data for social networks like Facebook, Twitter, ... (view more)