Author: Josh Wolford

Bill Gates and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen haven’t always been on the best of terms, but it looks the the relationship has been mended enough to recreate a classic photo at a recent event.

Allen tweeted out the pic featuring himself and Gates clothed appropriately, amidst old-school computers.

So much fun catching up w/ computing pioneers at the #LCMCelebration last night! Here I am with old friend @billgates twitter.com/PaulGAllen/sta…

— Paul Allen (@PaulGAllen) April 4, 2013

Here’s the iconic photo from 1981, for comparison.

The two were attending an event hosted by Allen at Allen’s Living Computer Museum in Seattle. The event was a reunion of sorts, with many early computing and tech pioneers in attendance. According to GeekWire, the staff worked to acquire the same old-school computer models to recreate the photo beforehand.

Pretty cool, huh?

If you’re looking to propose to your significant other, you’re going to need a ring. And there are three basic ways that you can go about picking out that perfect diamond.

First, you can do the searching yourself and pick out a ring that you think your partner would like. Second, you can propose with the promise of a ring – to be decided upon at a future date. Lastly, you can simply decide as a couple that the time has come and go about picking out the ring together.

If your inclinations lead you to option #2 or #3, online service Ocappi thinks you should be able to try that ring on at home.

Ocappi offers an exclusive home try-on service for engagement rings. Yep, you heard that right.

“With the creation of our exclusive One&Only Try-On Service, for the first time ever, you can try on rings from the luxury of home. This intimate experience gives you the unique opportunity to consider your favorite styles over a period of days. Our more personal approach will allow you to take your time, see how a ring fits in with your lifestyle, and be sure that it’s really the one.”

Ocappi says that this process “transforms the selection of an engagement ring into the intimate and joyous experience that it should be.”

The model is obviously based on the popularity of the Warby Parker model, which offers free home try-ons for eyewear.

All you have to do it pick out a maximum of 6 rings that you want to try, and Ocappi will ship them via UPA 2nd day shipping. When the rings arrive, you have 5 days to think it over. When you’re done, simply send them back with a pre-paid return label and make your purchase online.

Before you think about ordering up 6 rings, pawning them, and making your way to Mexico, you should know that the replica rings are set with cubic zirconium stones. What did you think they were? Stupid?

[via PSFK]

Apple has made a small change to its App Store app details pages that puts a new ratings box right at the top of the page, just under the app’s name and directly on top of the app’s rating.

Of course, Apple has always including its rating information in the details section of the app. There, you’ll not only find the rating but a detailed description of all the “offending” content that caused Apple to rate it as such. But of course, you have to scroll down to access this. The new ratings box is front and center at the top of the app screen.

This slight tweak is just another example of Apple doing what it can to highlight mature content in the apps contained in its App Store. Apple has always had a nudity phobia when it comes to apps. But that focus on Apple’s apps has intensified as of late, after the whole Vine controversy.

When Twitter’s six-second Vine video app first launched, it rather quickly became overrun by porn – which, on it’s own merits, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If that’s what people want, right? Vine doesn’t ban nudity in its terms (although they did make some moves to decrease its visibility inside the app). Some App Store users complained that Apple made the Vine app and editor’s pick, considering its association with adult content.

Apple eventually bumped Vine’s rating to 17+ in response.

AppleInsider, who first spotted the new ratings boxes, points out that this isn’t the first time that Apple has amended its App Store app details to make things more clear for users. Apple recently settled a lawsuit filed by angry parents whose kids were spending large amounts of cash in in-app purchases in freemium apps.

In response, Apple added a small bit of text inside freemium apps letting parents knows that they supported in-app purchasing.

After reports that Google had quietly killed the print line of Frommer’s Travel Guides, the guidebooks have been given a new life as their creator has decided to buy back the brand.

The AP reports that 83-year-old Arthur Frommer has reacquired the rights to his famed travel guidebooks from Google, and he plans to keep them alive in both print and ebook format.

“It’s a very happy time for me,” says Frommer. “We will be publishing the Frommer travel guides in ebook and print formats and will also be operating the travel site Frommers.com.”

Google bought Frommer’s back in August of 2012 from publisher John Wiley & Sons. The price of that deal was undisclosed, but reports indicate that it was somewhere around $22 million.

Just a couple of weeks ago, reportes emerged that Google was killing the print line of the guidebooks – the last one having bee published in December of 2012.

When Google bought the Frommer’s brand, they made it clear that they would incorporate its content into Zagat, and spread it among various Google services. The status of the print versions was always up in the air, and it appears that Google did exactly what they intended to do – grab the content and kill the rest.

But Arthur Frommer obviously didn’t want to see that part of the brand die.

Google confirmed that Frommer had reacquired the Frommer’s brand, and noted that the content had already been incorporated into many Google services, including Google+.

LinkedIn is currently testing user mentions, something that other networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have had for some time and that users rely on quite heavily. Simply put, user mentions in posts let the people you’re talking about know that you’re talking about them.

If you’re currently part of the test, you’ll see a new tip box on your status update box. It’ll say “Now you can type a name to mention a member of company.”

Typing a name of a person or a company prompts a drop-down menu with choices arranged with the most likely suggestions (your actual connections) at the top.

Like Facebook, the mentions simply appear as links to the users’ profile inside the status. When someone mentions you in a post, you’ll receive a notification.

Apart from the aforementioned ability to tip people off to your statuses, mentions give users browsing their feeds and easier way to check out other users.

A LinkedIn spokesperson told The Next Web:

“We are currently testing the ability for members to directly mention each other in professional conversations on LinkedIn. This test is part of our ongoing efforts to help members further engage with their networks in meaningful ways across the LinkedIn platform.”

Hello, Arrested Development fans. Today we’re learning the official release date for the 4th season, which will premiere on Netflix.

Set your calendars for May 26th at 12:01 am PT. That’s when you’ll be able to start streaming all 15 (yes, 15) new episodes of the show in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Latin America, Brazil, and Scandinavia.

“We are doing something very ambitious that can only be done with Netflix as partners and on their platform. Finally my simple wish for the show is coming true: that it be broadcast every second around the clock to every television, computer or mobile device in existence,” said series creator and executive producer Mitch Hurwitz.

We’ve made a huge mistake! There are actually 15 new episodes of @arresteddev on May 26. twitter.com/netflix/status…

— Netflix US (@netflix) April 4, 2013

“Arrested Development is now widely viewed as one of the top TV comedies of all time and Mitch Hurwitz is bringing it to Netflix in a brand new way, crafted for the on-demand generation that has come to discover the show in the years since it last appeared on TV,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix. “The highly anticipated return of this show is sure to make history all over again.”

History, indeed. I’m sure that there are plenty of Arrested Development fans out there that still can’t believe that it’s actually coming back with new episodes. There’s a lot of hype, so hopefully it doesn’t disappoint. Plus, this season (4) on Netflix may be all you get. A couple of months ago, we heard that Netflix is not planning on producing additional seasons of Arrested Development. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that it be a “one-off, non-repeatable” event.

Still, we have 15 (hopefully) glorious episodes to look forward to. Get excited, AD fans.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg dropped by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Wednesday night to promote her new book Lean In. The conversation mostly focused on her message in Lean In of equality in the workplace and changing how we think about successful women.

“The blunt truth: men still run the world…and I’m not sure that’s going that well,” said Sandberg of her desire to write the book.

She goes on to discuss the barriers women still have, and the “plateau” that exists near the top.

“We’re held back by sexism, discrimination, and terrible public policy..but we’re also held back by the stereotypes. You know, go to a playground this weekend and you’ll hear little girls called “bossy.” You won’t hear little boys called bossy, because we expect boys to be assertive. Lean In is trying to change that. Instead of calling our girls bossy we should say ‘my daughter has executive leadership skills.”

Check out part 1:

And part 2:

[via The Daily Show]

Google is shipping an update to Gmail that should make it easier to locate that email that you just searched for the other day.

Starting today, Google begins the global rollout of new autocomplete predictions for your past Gmail searches.

“If you’ve searched your email for ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ or other lengthy phrases, it just got easier to find what you’re looking for. Autocomplete predictions in Gmail may now include your past Gmail searches,” says Google.

Also rolling out – contact thumbnails in Gmail search:

Google says that the global rollout of both of these features will take a few days and it even includes Google Apps for Business customers.

We think that these updates will probably go over a little better than the last update to hit Gmail. Last week, Google began pushing the new compose box to all users and there was a audible groan from a good portion of the Gmail-usiing population.

As if the internet deserved this monumental gifts, acclaimed science illustrators AsapSCIENCE have heard your requests and have just released a video of need-to-know cat facts. Yep, everything from catnip to landing on their feet to invitations to smell their asses. It’s all here.

[AsapSCIENCE, Image via Moyan_Brenn, Flickr]

Today, on its one-year anniversary, Instagram has announced that nearly half of all Instagram use comes from its Android app.

After some time as an iOS-only service, Instagram finally launched on Android in April of 2012 and quickly racked up over a million downloads in less than 24 hours.

Thus began the great, but short Instagram platform war that saw iOS users whine about their beloved service opening up to the Plebian droiders. In less than six months, Instagram for Android hit 50 million downloads.

And now, in just one year, Android users have risen to become almost half the user base. The photo-sharing network broke the 100 million monthly active user milestone about a month ago, so we can assume that almost 50 million active users are snapping, filtering, and uploading via Android.

In a celebratory blog post, Philip McAllister of Instagram’s Android team acknowledges that the the Android community has been vital to spreading the service around the world:

Instagram for Android has helped make this community more global than ever. Major events such as Brazil’s Círio de Nazaré festival, the 85th birthday of Thailand’s King Bhumibol, and a streak of severe thunderstorms throughout Malaysia have been captured by Android Instagrammers and shared to global audiences like never before. We’ve also seen Android Instagrammers contribute to the community in innovative and powerful ways, including @daveedgamboa’s incredible jumpstagrams around Southern California, photos of England’s beautiful Lancashire county from @adamgrayson and even a glimpse into the life of Kenya’s nomads from @grantsmind.

So, Android Instagram users: How’s your first year been?

The AP, apart from being a news organization, also publishes a highly influential stylebook used by schools and journalists across the country. And they have just made a pretty significant change to it.

Starting now, the AP Stylebook no longer supports the use of “illegal immigrant” to describe people living in the country illegally.

In fact, the AP Stylebook no longer allows for the use of the term “illegal” to describe any person. The word “illegal,” according to the AP, should only be used in reference to an illegal action – but not in reference to an actual person.

The AP had been using “illegal immigrant” for some time, after deciding that other popular terminology like “undocumented” failed to provide a credible alternative (they could have plenty of documents – just not the one that grants them citizenship).

Here’s what the Stylebook’s updated entry for “illegal immigration” says:

illegal immigration Entering or residing in a country in violation of civil or criminal law. Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.

Except in direct quotations, do not use the terms illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented.

Do not describe people as violating immigration laws without attribution.

Specify wherever possible how someone entered the country illegally and from where. Crossed the border? Overstayed a visa? What nationality?

People who were brought into the country as children should not be described as having immigrated illegally. For people granted a temporary right to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, use temporary resident status, with details on the program lower in the story.

So, according to the AP, people can enter the country illegally, but they are no longer to be referred to as illegal immigrants.

The move is already sparking political debate, with conservatives upset. The Media Research Council, who says their job is “exposing and combating the liberal media bias,” called the move “politically correct mumble.” Others claim the move had a purely political motivation.

On the other side, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called the decision a “great move forward.”

For their part, the AP says that it’s all about “ridding the Stylebook of labels.” For instance, another move nixed the term “schizophrenic” and replaced it with “diagnosed with schizophrenia.”

[Photo via Thomas Hawk, Flickr]

This is not a late April Fool’s Joke. Masters champ Bubba Watson has a hovercraft golf cart.

It’s called “Bubba’s Hover,” and it’s a project between Bubba and Oakley – based on a design from Neoteric Hovercraft.

I love playing golf, but if I had this thing there’s simply no way that I would ever get out of it to hit a shot. Come at me, gators.

Foursquare has just released an update to their Android app that brings better maps to the explore feature and lets users redefine the parameters of their location searching by zooming in on a specific portion of the map.

“We’ve updated the app to give you a better map experience. Now when you’re on the home screen looking at friends and interesting places nearby, or searching for “iced coffee” or “egg sandwich” in Explore, we’ll show you a map that you can expand, swipe, and zoom,” says Foursquare.

Probably the most useful effect of this update is that users will be able to make their searches more specific by zooming in on a specific portion of a map. Just zoom in to the smaller frame and tap “redo search” and only venues within that smaller radius will appear in your results.

We’ve updated our Android app with sweet interactive maps! Swipe, zoom, and explore to your heart’s content. bit.ly/11iz1AP

— Foursquare (@foursquare) April 2, 2013

Just a couple weeks ago, Foursquare updated its Android app to show suggestions based on whether you’re a tourist or a local.

You can grab the update right now over on Google Play.

Facebook appears to be testing a new look for the search bar that more closely resembles the old white search box of old, as opposed to the box-less blue bar of the new Graph Search.

Those who have been switched over to Graph Search since Facebook launched the product back in January have probably recognized that the search box at the top of the page isn’t really a search box. It’s simply the words “search for people, places, and things” imposed on the blue bar.

This test puts the white search box back into the picture, while still maintaing the Graph Search functionality.

Like any Facebook test (and there are a lot going on at any given time), one can only speculate as to the company’s motivations behind it. Is Graph Search adoption falling short of Facebook’s expectations? Is it possible that the new Graph Search look isn’t prompting people to search – because it doesn’t really have a defined search box?

Maybe they’ve simply received some feedback that this new look is more aesthetically pleasing.

Either way, this appears to be a small test. We’ve reached out to Facebook for confirmation and will let you know when they get back to us.

And yes, we know that some people still don’t have Graph Search yet. These people still see the newer search bar, but without the Graph Search functionality. Graph Search, like the new news feed, and like the new Timeline, is being rolled out very slowly. Facebook says they want to get it right.

Back in January Amazon announced their new AutoRip service, which gives customers free digital copies of any and all physical music they buy on Amazon (at launch, that simply meant MP3s for CD purchases).

Today, they’ve announced that AutoRip is extending its reach to vinyl.

“Starting today, when customers purchase an AutoRip vinyl record, a digital copy of that music will be automatically added to their Cloud Player libraries where it will be available, free of charge, for immediate playback or download. Customers no longer need to go through the hassle of making a digital copy of a vinyl record,” says Amazon.

One of the cool things about AutoRip is that it’s retroactive. Meaning, any CD or vinyl record that you’ve purchased since 1998 (as long as its AutoRip compatible) is instantly added to your Cloud Player.

It’s currently available for over 50,000 albums.

“AutoRip has been wildly popular with customers since it launched earlier this year,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon. “It’s a fun experience to suddenly find CDs you purchased just today – or 15 years ago -added automatically and free of charge to your digital library. We’re thrilled to extend this experience to vinyl records. Many of our music customers are vinyl fans and it’s traditionally been very difficult to make digital versions of vinyl records – now customers can enjoy the albums they buy wherever they are, not just when they have access to a record player.”

Clearly, Amazon’s goal in providing this service is to incentivize physical music sales, while also promoting use of their Cloud Player. Having digital copies of the music may not be a must for all vinyl collectors, but I don’t think anyone is going to scoff at the idea of free, retroactive MP3 copies of everything they buy.

[Image via Nina, Flickr]

Reddit AMAs are fascinating in general, but when a Facebook product engineer submits to the free-form Q&A session, it’s right up our alley.

Facebook product engineer Bob Baldwin, who has worked on products like Groups, Events, Photos, and more, took some time to answer some questions yesterday. In that time, he discussed a wide range of Facebook-related topics including Android, Messages, Groups, and even that never-going-to-happen “dislike” button.

Here are some of the best questions and answers from the AMA:

Why did Facebook decide to put time-stamps for when messages are seen?

I didn’t build this feature, but I’m a big fan of it and started working on Messages just after it was introduced. Before read receipts were added, we’d often here from friends and other users that they didn’t feel like the person they were messaging actually got their message. By adding read receipts, it makes messaging through Facebook feel more reliable. It also aimed to decrease the time to it takes for friends to reply, making messages feel more like SMS than email.

Which product are you currently most proud of?

Groups. At launch, it became one of the fastest growing products we’d ever launched, and I was really proud to have worked on it. I think communicating with small groups of people you know in real life is really personal and directed in a way that public sharing cannot match. Over time, I believe more sharing will shift into private sharing (via groups, messages, and other products).

Will Facebook’s Android app ever not suck?

For this question, he referred to mobile guy Joel Seligstein:

Well, we’ve been pretty happy with our trajectory and our last few releases. We’re currently investing a ton in architecture and long-term planning for performance, data usage, stability, and reliability.

He also said…

Next release should have some battery work done in it, and its something we now have a couple people looking into fulltime.

Which product did you build that turned out to be the most difficult and why?

Questions. It was too hard to build a community around this on Facebook, so quality was never that great. It’s also difficult to compare usage of a specialized content type, like questions, to the types of content that can be posted everyday (status updates, photos, etc).

Facebook has done a lot of work making it easy to keep track of events. However, for the average person, they still need to maintain an external calendar (and potentially use some tool to sync Facebook events to it). Are there any plans to add the ability to use Facebook as a full personal calendar?

I don’t think our users currently think of Facebook as the place to store content that isn’t shared in someway, so I think it wouldn’t be used much. Facebook events are primarily about meeting up with friends. Though, I hope our events continue to have better integration with existing calendar systems. iOS integration is really nice, for example.

Will Facebook ever have a dislike button??

Actions on Facebook tend to focus on positive social interactions. Like is the lightest-weight way to express positive sentiment. I don’t think adding a light-weight way to express negative sentiment would be that valuable. I know there are times when it’d make sense, like when a friend is having a rough day, or got into a car accident like my sister yesterday (she’s okay!). For these times, a nice comment from a friend goes a long way.

Speaking of AMAs, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s name recently popped up on the AMA calendar – but disappeared as of Wednesday morning. We’ ve reaching out to find out what’s going on and will let you know when we hear anything.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has clarified its rules on Regulation Fair Disclosure, saying that public companies can use social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter to announce key company information – just so long as the investors are made aware which social media accounts may be posting such information beforehand.

“The SEC’s report of investigation confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites,” says the SEC.

The SEC didn’t recognize company websites as proper disclosure channels until 2008.

“One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information,” said George Canellos, Acting Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news.”

This ruling stems from an SEC investigation into the Facebook activities of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Back in December of 2012, Hastings ran afoul of the SEC when he made a post on Facebook announcing that the company had topped 1 billion hours of streaming per month.

The SEC claimed the post violated Regulation FD, as the disclosure didn’t appear in an official filing or a press release. Hastings had not disclosed to investors that he would be using his Facebook page to report important information.

Just a couple of months ago, Hastings made it clear that he wouldn’t be backing down on this, as he felt that he did nothing wrong.

“I wasn’t setting out to set an example. I was sharing something to these 200,000 people,” Hastings said. “I’m not going to back down and say it’s inappropriate. I think it’s perfectly fine. Sometimes you’re just the example that triggers the debate.”

In clarifying these rules the SEC has also cleared Hastings, saying that they recognize that there had been market uncertainly about Regulation FD and social media. Thus the need for the clarifications.

“The report of investigation explains that although every case must be evaluated on its own facts, disclosure of material, nonpublic information on the personal social media site of an individual corporate officer — without advance notice to investors that the site may be used for this purpose — is unlikely to qualify as an acceptable method of disclosure under the securities laws. Personal social media sites of individuals employed by a public company would not ordinarily be assumed to be channels through which the company would disclose material corporate information.”

So, Reed Hastings and others like him can avoid all the hoopla if they simply make it clear to investors that their Facebook or Twitter profiles will be used for divulging key information. As long as that fact is known, companies, CEOs, COOs, or whoever have the right to post investor relations materials on social sites.

According to reddit’s AMA schedule, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will be hosting one of reddit’s popular Q&A sessions next week.

Sandberg will begin to take questions at 2:30 pm, EST on April 10th. Presumably, one of the main focuses of the AMA session will be her new book Lean In, which was published last month. But knowing reddit AMAs, Sandberg is likely to receive plenty of questions outside of that scope.

We’ll just have to wait and find out which ones she chooses to answer.

Sandberg hasn’t yet made mention of the AMA on any of her social media channels – and she’s pretty active on Facebook. But reddit’s AMA schedule is usually pretty accurate in that the mods don’t officially add someone to it unless it’s been confirmed.

Since “Lean In” hit the shelves, Sandberg has been all over the place promoting her message. She recently hosted a Q&A session on Facebook (which wound up working a lot like a reddit AMA thanks to Facebook’s new tiered commenting system).

This should be an interesting AMA, and we’re looking forward to it for sure. Speaking of Facebook and reddit AMAs, product engineer Bob Baldwin has just wrapped up one of his own. You can check it out right now for some interesting tidbits on Facebook products, the “dislike” button, and more.

I’ve reached out to confirm the AMA and will update when I hear back.