Category: News

Samsung introduced Animation Shot and Sound & Shot with the Galaxy S 4, which gives you more creativity with your photos. Animation Shot allows you to make an image that has movement in it. In other words, an animated GIF. The best part of it is that you can fine tune the duration as well as what parts of the image you want to actually show movement.

Sound & Shot is simply adding voice to a photo. Take a picture, but hold it for another eight seconds for an audio message such as, “We miss you Grammy” or “I love you Mommy.” Both are pretty cool, but with so many new features, it can be overwhelming sorting it all out. That’s why we created this hands on video showing you how to use both modes. In no time you will making some pretty cool animated GIFs and putting a smile on Grammy’s face.

Head on past the break to watch the video and don’t forget to check out all our Galaxy S 4 guides.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: How to make Animated GIFs and add sound to pictures on the Galaxy S 4

I find that having children is an excellent excuse for watching movies like Ice Age, Up, Cars and more. After all, I would feel a bit silly watching those flicks on my own, as I do with scary movies like Paranormal Activity, thanks to a wife and kids who would not sleep for a week if they joined me in front of the screen.

Now Ice Age, and all of its classic characters, like Sid, Manny, Ellie, and Diego, are coming to your phone — providing that you are using a Windows Phone 8 handset.

Today Microsoft’s Michael Stroh announces that Ice Age Village is arriving on the mobile platform. The game focuses on the characters attempt to build a new village for their friends. “Multiplayer options, side missions, and mini-games featuring Scrat, the nutter saber-toothed squirrel, keep things interesting” says Stroh.

If you are installing this for your kids (okay to admit it is for you) then you will need to be aware that the game allows for multi-player mode and is not subject to Xbox Live parental settings. With that said, the game is free from the Windows Phone Store. Install it. We will believe the game is for your kids who just happen to love sabertooth squirrels.

This year’s BlackBerry Live will give you our most mobile conference experience yet. We have some very exciting news: conference attendees will receive a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, courtesy of Brightstar, our premier mobile sponsor!

Your BlackBerry Z10 smartphone will be a valuable tool throughout BlackBerry Live. The Mobile Conference Guide application has been designed to leverage features unique to BlackBerry 10, making it easy for you to:

• Build and edit your conference schedule in the Session Catalog while on the go
• Scan into breakout sessions using NFC functionality
• Interact with sponsors
• Complete conference surveys
• Much more

Quantities are limited, so register for BlackBerry Live today! To learn more about Brightstar, head over to www.brightstarcorp.com.

Earlier today, T-Mobile revealed that its original Samsung Galaxy S4 launch date has been pushed back from April 24 to April 29. The carrier blamed “an unexpected delay with inventory deliveries” as the cause.

Now, it seems that T-Mobile’s supply difficulties were a sign of things to come.

Samsung has issued a statement to Bloomberg making it clear that supplies of its new flagship Android smartphone will be short for weeks after its release.

The statement:

“Due to overwhelming global demand of Galaxy S4, the initial supply may be limited. We expect to fulfill inventory to meet demands in the coming weeks.”

Pre-orders for the Galaxy S4 are already being taken by AT&T, Sprint, U.S. Cellular and some retail locations. (Consumers might want to steer clear of pre-ordering at Best Buy, though, as the store has a history of overbooking smartphone pre-orders.)

Over the past two years, the Galaxy S series has begun to dominate the Android landscape as the only Android smartphones that regularly put up sales numbers even in the ballpark of Apple’s iPhone sales. Being unable to meet high demand is a challenge that Apple has dealt with for years now, and one that Samsung will have to contend with now that it is Apple’s largest rival. Though Samsung is the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, even its prodigious manufacturing capabilities can’t keep up with demand for the next Galaxy-branded smartphone.

Are you pissed off about something that Apple’s doing? Want to get your iPhone 5 signed? Want to congratulate the head of a major tech company on a job well done?

Well, here’s your chance. Charity auction site Charitybuzz is currently hosting an auction to buy a coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook. It is an auction, so there’s no telling how high the price will go, but it is tagged with an estimated value of $50,000. And if you think that there’s no way that goal will be reached – think again. With 20 days left to bid, the bid currently stands at $36,999.

The coffee date will take place at Apple HQ in Cupertino, and the prize is valid for up to 2 people. The coffee date will last between 30 minute and an hour. Travel and accommodations are not included.

It’s all for a good cause, of course. Proceeds will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

“We expect all winning bidders and their guests to conduct themselves appropriately when attending an experience won at Charitybuzz. Polite manners and respect for the generous donor and adherence to any rules or parameters are a must,” says Charitybuzz.

Well, there goes some possibilities. For $50,000, that coffee better be something.

[CharityBuzz via AppleInsider]

Browns linebacker Quentin Groves was arrested last week in Ohio for soliciting a prostitute during a police sting, officials say.

Groves made arrangements over the phone to spend time with an escort, unknowingly putting himself square in the sights of local law enforcement, who had set up an operation at a local hotel.

“[Groves] made arrangements for certain acts … and requested ‘full service’ and stated he would bring condoms,” read the police report.

The footballer showed up to Homestead Guest Studios in Beachwood with almost $200 cash and a box of condoms, which were confiscated as evidence. Groves was one of 15 people arrested in the sting.

Another ho-hum day in Cleveland: “@wfnyscott: NFL News: Browns LB Quentin Groves arrested in prostitution sting dlvr.it/3H5t2C”

— Brocyrus Crunkfoot (@_BW) April 24, 2013

Become a Cleveland Brown, immediately turn into a punch line: LB Quentin Groves arrested in prostitution sting. al.com/sports/index.s…

— Anthony Stalter (@AnthonyStalter) April 24, 2013

Will any reporters ask the real questions ab new #Browns LB Quentin Groves busted in a prostitution sting?…… How hot was the cop?

— Steve Guy (@TheSteveGuy) April 24, 2013

His Velvet Jones School of Technology Masters doesn’t matter?-LB Caught In Prostitution Sting: huff.to/14PSFbE via @huffpostsports

— Josh Wilcox (@realjoshwilcox) April 24, 2013

Samsung continues to enhance their camera functionality with the Galaxy S 4, and Drama Shot and the Eraser are just the tip of the iceberg. Drama Shot allows you to take consecutive shots of something moving and put multiple images in one picture. For example, you could take a picture of a motorcyclist going over a jump, and the finished product might include five or six images of the jump itself.

Then there is Eraser mode, which lets you erase unwanted subjects from a photo. Say you are in a crowded park and trying to take a picture of the family. It’s hard to get a shot in which there isn’t somebody walking into the picture. With Eraser mode, you can easily remove these people. Both are fairly easy to use, but we put together a hands on tutorial of how they work so you can use them more effectively.

Skip on past the break to see the video and don’t forget to check out all our Samsung Galaxy S 4 guides.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: How to take a Drama Shot and Erase unwanted objects with the Samsung Galaxy S 4 camera

Editor's Note: This blog post is cross-posted from the ONDCP Blog.

The President has outlined his vision of an America built to last—where an educated, skilled workforce has the knowledge, energy and expertise to compete in the global marketplace. Yet–for far too many Americans–that vision is limited by drug use, which not only diminishes the potential of the individual, but jeopardizes families, communities and neighborhoods.

The economic costs of drug use are enormous: In 2007 alone, illicit drug use cost taxpayers more than $193 billion in lost productivity, healthcare, and criminal justice costs. But the human costs are worse. Nationwide, drug-induced overdose deaths now surpass homicides and car crashes as the leading cause of injury death in America.

We are not powerless to address these challenges. And as recent data has shown, we are not unable to reverse these trends. Prescription drug abuse is beginning to decline. Cocaine use and related overdoses are dropping. And recent data show the nation’s prison and jail population dropping for the third straight year.

Today we are releasing a science-driven plan for drug policy reform in America to build upon this progress. This 21st century drug policy outlines a series of evidence-based reforms that treat our nation’s drug problem as a public health issue, not just a criminal justice issue. This policy underscores what we all know to be true: we cannot arrest or incarcerate our way out of the drug problem.

read more

Some webmasters are afraid to link to their own content, for fear of Google penalizing them. Google’s Matt Cutts addresses the following question in today’s Webmaster Help video:

Suppose I have a site that covers fishing overall (A) & I make another fishing site that solely focuses on lure fishing (B). Does linking to A from B violate guidelines? I’ll make sure both have high quality content & disclose that they’re both owned by me.

“Just linking from A to B is not a violation of our quality guidelines,” says Cutts. “If you only have two sites, they’re thematically related, a person on A would be interested in B…then it makes perfect sense to link those two sites. The problem gets into [when] you don’t have two sites, but you have fifty sites, or eighty sites, or a hundred and fifty sites, and then suddenly linking all of those sites starts to look a lot more like a link network and something that’s really artificial, as opposed to something that’s organic.”

“So if you really do have just a small number of sites – you can count them on one hand – and they’re all very related to each other, it can make perfect sense to link those together,” he continues. “It’s when you start to get a lot more sites – you know, you don’t need 222 sites about car insurance. It looks a little weird if you have howdoigetmycarinsurance.net and wheresthecheapcarinsurance.com…I’m making these domain names up, so I’m not saying these particular site owners are bad – maybe they’re great. Who knows? But if you have 222 different copies of that, usually you’re not putting as much work into each individual site, and so as a result, you’ll end up with shallow or superficial sites, lower quality content, you’re more likely to see doorways…that sort of thing.”

This isn’t the first question Cutts has addressed regarding people linking to their own content in recent days. In another video, the user asked about internal links leading to lower rankings because of the Penguin update. See his response here.

These questions being addressed a year after the Penguin update came out shows that people are being really cautious, and perhaps fearful of Google when it comes to simply linking to their own stuff.

The to do app with the funny name, Remember The Milk received a major update to the Android app today taking it up to version 3.0. The overhaul, codenamed “Tik-Tok,” brings a completely redesigned interface to the app that utilizes a “card stack” concept. Remember The Milk developers indicate this is similar to their iPhone or iPad versions, but you will probably find it also has a strong Android Holo-esque look and feel to it. In adopting some Android design guidelines, they also optimized the app to run on tablet devices while redesigning task and note views to make it easier to view and edit using taps and swipes. Among the improvements to the basic workings of the app, Remember The Milk makes it much easier to edit multiple tasks at one time and task completion or postponement is now accomplished using a tap and hold.

If you have a device running Android 4.1 or higher, the redesigned app takes advantage of Android’s ability to perform actions from the notification shade. Users can now complete or postpone a task without opening the full app. If you have a reminder with tasks, the notification will list them on multiple lines. Users who upgrade to the Pro version get access to widgets that have been cleaned up and the list widgets can be placed on your lock screen for those really looking to streamline access to their tasks.

If you are looking for a task management app that takes advantage of some of the goodies available in Android, you may want to check out Remember The Milk. Below are some screenshots and a video showing some of the features, followed by Google Play download links.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Play Download Link

Come comment on this article: Remember The Milk gets major update to version 3.0, adds tablet support

Facebook for BlackBerry smartphone users, get excited. The Facebook app for BlackBerry smartphones has been updated to version 4.0 and brings some exciting new features that are designed to make it easier for you to stay connected to your friends and family. If you use a BlackBerry smartphone running BlackBerry OS 5 or above, here are some of the new features you can expect.

Facebook v4.0 for BlackBerry smartphones highlights:

• • Stay connected with friends and discover content quicker with greater navigation tools and an enhanced photo experience.
• • Enhanced navigation – a brand new navigation list slides in from the left, allowing you to access your favorite tabs. For easier discovery and viewing, “Friends” and “Pages” now occupy separate tabs and unique notification drop downs including “Messages” and “Requests” replace the “Today” header.
• • Better photo experience – You now have more photo options with the update to give you a richer experience. Enjoy full screen photo browsing, add or view tags of photos, and make selections with the Comment and Like buttons.
• • Quicker access to updates – Get faster content updates by engaging the “pull down to refresh” option so you can check for the latest on “News Feed posts,” “Wall,” “Messages,” “Events,” and “Nearby” pages.

The latest Facebook for BlackBerry update can be downloaded now on BlackBerry World.
Download the app, give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Please note that it can take up to 24 hours for the new app versions to appear in BlackBerry World.

Congress, retailers and the tech community are buzzing about a so-called “Internet tax” that will pass the Senate any day now. The proposed law has made for strange allies (Amazon and conservative Republicans are both supporters) and confused consumers. Here’s a plain English explanation of the tax, the debate and how it could all turn out.

Is this a new tax on the internet?

No, the proposed Marketplace Fairness Act simply provides a practical way for states to collect sales tax for goods sold on the internet. Right now, if you live in Ohio and buy something online from a New York merchant, you ‘re the one who is supposed to tell Ohio and pay the tax . But few people actually does this — so the law makes the out-of-state merchant responsible instead for collecting the tax.

The law would only apply to businesses that sell more than $1 million a year (so don’t worry about those bobble-heads you sold on eBay). It also requires states to provide free software to merchants to help them collect tax from more than 9000 state, county and local taxing authorities.

How popular is the law?

Very popular, so far. The Senate voted 70-24 to pass an early version on Tuesday — a final version is expected to pass by the same margin this week.

Sounds like more taxes. Why is it so popular?

State governments say they are losing billions on taxes they would collected if people had gone to the store instead of shopping on the internet. Same for county and city governments who argue that “show-rooming” — where people go to stores just to look before buying online — is killing local communities.

Brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart say online retailers have an unfair advantage because they can charge lower prices since they don’t collect tax. Amazon an online retailer, is surprisingly on Wal-Mart’s side (likely because Amazon already has to collect tax if it has a physical presence in a state — and its warehouse are in more and more states.)

The White House, anxious for a win after blowing the gun control bill, is all in favor too.

Who’s opposed to it?

Senators from the few places that don’t have a sales tax (Oregon, Montana, Delaware and New Hampshire) say the law will force businesses in their states to set up an expensive tax-collection system for the benefit of other states. Oregon’s Sen. Ron Wyden is leading the opposition.

Anti-tax crusaders like Grover Norquist and a few Tea Party Republicans oppose on the grounds the law will lead to bigger government. The Wall Street Journal editorial board doesn’t like it either.

eBay says the law will hurt millions of people who have home-based businesses, and wants the exemption to be raised to $10 million a year. Tech lobbyists  like TechAmerica worry about the effect on e-commerce, although giants like Google, Apple and Facebook have stayed largely silent.

The financial industry is quietly opposing the bill too, worried that Wall Street haters in other states will start taxing securities transactions.

How will this end?

The bill appears to be a sure thing in the Senate but still faces a fight in the House. For now, the law’s supporters appear to have the upper hand but this could change as opponents build a coalition to shift momentum.

Ultimately, it will be about which narrative prevails: that the bill is a commonsense measure to create a level retail field and allow states to collect the money they’re owed (as supporters say); or, that it’s a burdensome new tax that will harm small businesses and ecommerce (as opponents say).

To read more, see the New York Times’ overview and this Bloomberg editorial.

(Image by Keith Bell via Shutterstock)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• How HR can make the case for workforce analytics
• The 2013 task management tools market

It appears that Apple has been right all along that Flash is not the future of the web. Unity this week announced that it will be phasing out support for Adobe Flash development.

Unity is a multi-platform game engine that is capable of producing games for consoles, PCs, touch devices, and the web. In particular, the engine has been used to create some of the most popular mobile games in recent years, such as Rovio’s Bad Piggies.

David Helgason, CEO of Unity, announced in a blog post on Tuesday that the company has stopped selling Flash development licenses.

Unity will continue to support its existing Flash customers “throughout the 4.x cycle.” Bug fixes will be made in future Unity 4.x iterations, but further development for the Unity engine on the platform has ceased.

The decision was made, Helgason stated, because of Adobe. Helgason called recent versions of Flash unstable and stated that, “We don’t see Adobe being firmly committed to the future development of Flash.” He also pointed out that Adobe has cancelled the Flash Player Next project.

Instead of Flash, Unity will be concentrating its development on its own Unity Web Player. Helgason stated that the Unity Web Player is installed on over 200 million computers and is used by one-third of all “Facebook gamers.”

The Acer Liquid E2 is the follow up to the E1. The specs include, a 4.5-inch IPS display, Optional dual-SIM support, an 8MP rear camera with zero shutter lag, 2MP front camera, a microSD card slot, and the radios are WiFi Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, and a 42 Mbps HSPA+. The picture suggests that it is running Android, what we don’t know is which version it is. The E1 came with Jelly Bean 4.1, so it would be safe to assume that this would be running the same or later.

The device has been announced for many parts of Europe;  Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, France, Spain, the UK, Italy, Germany, and Russia. No word on a trip across the pond for us yet though. If you live in any of the areas I mentioned you can get the device around the middle of May for €229 ($297.40). Let us know if you plan on picking one of these up. Or maybe you plan on waiting for something better, either way we would love to hear about it.

Source: Unwired View

Come comment on this article: Acer adds the Liquid E2 to its smartphone lineup

Packaging Dynamics Corp. announced earlier this week that it had agreed to sell its Thilmany Papers business unit to KPS Capital Partners. Financial terms were not announced. Included in the deal are the Thilmany Papers’ Nicolet and Kaukauna mills and Wausau Paper’s Mosinee and Rhinelander mills, all of which are located in Wisconsin, as well as the output of Verso Paper’s number five paper machine in Jay, Maine, a release dated April 22 said.

PRESS RELEASE

Packaging Dynamics Corporation (“Packaging Dynamics”), a leader in
flexible packaging and specialty papers, today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell its
Thilmany Papers business unit to a new company to be formed and controlled by investment funds sponsored by
KPS Capital Partners L.P. (“KPS”).
Wausau Paper has previously announced that it had signed a non-binding Letter of Intent to sell its Specialty
Paper business to this new company being formed by KPS.
Following the closing of these transactions, the new company will include Thilmany Papers’ Nicolet and
Kaukauna mills and Wausau Paper’s Mosinee and Rhinelander mills, all of which are located in Wisconsin, as
well as the output of Verso Paper’s number five paper machine in Jay, Maine.
Roger Prevot, CEO of Packaging Dynamics, commented, “This is truly an extraordinary opportunity to contribute
our Thilmany Papers business to form a larger specialty papers company that will deliver lasting value to
customers, employees and to the communities in which it operates, and for us to focus exclusively on our
attractive downstream packaging and converting businesses.”
Seth Hollander, a partner at Kohlberg & Company, commented, “We are pleased that our efforts to transform
Thilmany’s mill operations and to build a world-class organization have positioned the paper business to make
this next step in its evolution.” Kohlberg & Company acquired Thilmany from International Paper and
subsequently combined it with Packaging Dynamics. Hollander added, “We look forward to operating Packaging
Dynamics as a focused leader in its food packaging and specialty laminations end markets and continuing to grow
those businesses organically and through additional acquisitions.”
Russ Wanke, Vice President and General Manager of Thilmany Papers, commented, “Our team here at Thilmany
is proud to be playing a critical role in the creation of a major new Wisconsin-based company. By combining
Thilmany and Wausau’s Specialty Paper Business, we and KPS are establishing one of the leading specialty paper
companies in North America. We believe the combination will result in a company with the product breadth and
customer reach to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for specialty papers.”
Closing of the Thilmany Papers transaction is conditioned upon the completion of the Wausau transaction,
ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement between the new company and the United Steel Workers,
required regulatory clearances, and certain other customary closing conditions. While Packaging Dynamics
expects to finalize the transaction in mid-2013, there can be no certainty or assurance about the timing, specific
elements or completion of a transaction.
About Packaging Dynamics
Packaging Dynamics is a leading flexible packaging and specialty papers company providing innovative solutions
to customers in each of its four business units – BagcraftPapercon, International Converter, De Luxe and
Thilmany Papers. Packaging Dynamics is a portfolio company

The post Packaging Dynamics to Sell Thilmany Papers appeared first on peHUB.

3scale said it raised $4.2 million of new funding in a round from Javelin Venture Partners and Costanoa Venture Capital. The new money will expand the API management company’s service offerings and help it reach a global audience.

PRESS RELEASE

3scale Raises $4.2 Million To Broaden API Adoption

3scale enables any company to easily distribute, manage and monetize their APIs via its Freemium API Management offering

SAN FRANCISO, CA – April 24, 2013 – 3scale (http://www.3scale.net), the San Francisco and Barcelona-based API Management solutions provider, today announced  $4.2 million of new funding in a round from Javelin Venture Partners and Costanoa Venture Capital.

APIs are a key infrastructure component for online businesses – powering mobile applications, partnership programs and innovation. Increasingly, as many businesses become more software driven, having a well-managed API available to customers and partners is becoming key to success in the marketplace. The growth of the number of APIs is exponential and forecasted to reach into the millions over the next 5 years.
In order to meet this need, during the past two years 3scale has grown into one of the leading solution providers in the sector. The company’s API Management solution provides infrastructure to manage the technical and business operations required to run a successful API program simply and at scale.

In contrast to other solutions, 3scale’s flexible platform is immediate, self-service and no cost to adopt, enabling any size business to run an API program and scale from free entry-level services all the way to Enterprise grade APIs on a single platform. The solution platform lets businesses build a solid foundation for their API program and scale confidently to serving 10’s and 100’s of Millions of API transactions per day.

The 3scale API Management solution already powers APIs for over 200 customers serving over 85,000 Application Developers, with API traffic monitored and managed by 3scale more than doubling in the last 6 months. Customers range from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and technology start-ups, including: Skype, FlightStats, Wine.com, 1WorldSync, SITA, PagesJaunes.fr(French YellowPages), FullContact and Yummly.

“As products and services we rely on for our daily lives—from travel info to e-commerce, thermostats to elevators—increasingly connect to internet applications through machine-to-machine interfaces, the need for robustly managed API’s becomes critical,” noted Noah Doyle, Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners.  “We are proud to lead this new round of funding for 3scale because it will bring high grade solutions to a wide market, which no provider has done before.”

The new investment will help broaden 3scale’s set of services and bring it to a global audience, enabling even more valuable APIs and API delivery by its customers.

More information about 3scale can be found at http://www.3scale.net/. The company is also looking to fill new positions in both its San Francisco and Barcelona offices.

About 3scale:
Founded in 2007, 3scale provides a Plug & Play SaaS API Management platform and infrastructure enabling developers and companies to securely open, control, manage, operate and monetize their API to 3rd parties (e.g. developers, business partners, etc). 3scale’s API Management solution is flexible, secure and web scalable enabling the distribution of a company’s data, content or services to multiple devices or mobile/web applications as well as the productization of its APIs. For more information visit www.3scale.net

About Javelin Venture Partners
With $200 million under management, Javelin Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm specializing in technology-based start-ups that leverage key innovations to create scalable, high-growth companies. Javelin Venture Partners’ investment professionals are proven new-technology entrepreneurs who focus on identifying exceptional businesses and management teams, and helping them achieve great success. The firm operates with the culture of a start-up and with an emphasis on being a true partner to entrepreneurs. Javelin Ventures Partners is located in San Francisco, CA., but invests in start-ups throughout the world. For a list of active portfolio companies, or to submit a business plan, visit Javelin’s website: http://www.javelinvp.com.

About Costanoa Venture Capital

Costanoa Venture Capital is an early stage investor focused on cloud-based services solving real problems for businesses and consumers by leveraging data and analytics. The firm’s name originates from the first inhabitants of Silicon Valley, the Costanoans, and harkens back to the origins of entrepreneurship and venture capital in Silicon Valley. Costanoa provides early stage entrepreneurs with a combination of “right-sized” amounts of capital and value-added support from a high-quality institutional partner.  Current investments include: Datalogix, DemandBase, Guardian Analytics, Inflection, Intacct, iSocket, Lex Machina, LinkSmart, Return Path, and Risk I/O.  The firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, Ca. For more information, visit http://costanoavc.com/
read our blog and follow us @costanoavc and @gsands.

The post 3scale Raises $4.2M From Javelin & Costanoa appeared first on peHUB.

Facebook is taking a page from the books of so many social networks before it and prompting users to complete their profiles upon logging in.

Here’s what you may see at the top of your homepage when you log in to Facebook (screenshot courtesy The Next Web). May see, because this is just a small test that Facebook is currently running:

As you can see, the prompt not only tells you how close you are to “completing your profile,” but it also allows you to answer the questions that Facebook asks right in the prompt, instead of taking you all the way to the information edit page on your Timeline.

Of course, Facebook isn’t the only social network that has asked users to make sure their profiles are as complete as possible. Google+ is still doing it on the right-hand side of the homepage:

LinkedIn has been doing it for years. They’ve just recently given you a cool little “Profile strength” meter inside your actual profile, though:

And ever since Twitter unveiled their new header photos, they’ve been pushing pretty hard for users to complete their profile by adding one of those.

The point is, this is a common thing among social networks. They want complete profiles. Complete profiles give them more information about their users, which can be used for a variety of tasks. Of course, that includes ad targeting.

But in the end, you want a complete profile, right? Otherwise, what’s the point of being on the network? Ok, so you don’t want to give Facebook your hometown. Fine. Just click the “x” on the prompt and forget about it.

The Houston campus for CyrusOne just grew significantly. The colocation provider has purchased 32 acres adjacent to its Houston West facility, increasing the size to a total of more than 45 acres. The campus targets the sizeable oil and gas industry, touting itself as the largest multi-tenant digital energy campus in the country for seismic exploration computing. CyrusOne has finely tuned high-density server environments catering specifically for the industry, accommodating up to 1,000 watts per square foot and higher for these compute-intensive jobs.

“Over the past decade, CyrusOne has created a geophysical center of excellence for seismic exploration computing at its Houston West data center,” said Gary Wojtaszek, president and CEO of CyrusOne. “Purchasing adjacent property presents an exciting opportunity for us to continue expanding and providing more of the innovative products and services that our customers are demanding from us.”

Oil and Gas Industry Continues to be Focus in Houston

The company is building on its strong market position with the oil and gas industry – it does business with nearly all super-major and major oil and gas firms worldwide. The company believes the campus will attract significant research and development investment to the Houston area as more companies and countries look to expand their exploration expertise, notably in the newer hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) procedures.

The company developed a high-performance computing (HPC) cloud solution specifically for the oil and gas industry. It’s been a whirlwind 2013 thus far for CyrusOne. In addition to this land grab, The data center service provider completed its IPO, opened two large data centers, upgraded power at another, and reported record sales and leasing in its first earnings report as public company. The company, which was spun off from parent Cincinnati Bell, is said to be looking at new markets and could expand through acquisition, according to executives earlier this year.