Private picture of Mark Zuckerberg's family leaks

 Even Mark Zuckerberg's family can get tripped up by Facebook's privacy settings.A picture Zuckerberg's sister posted on her personal Facebook profile was seen by a marketing director, who then posted the picture to Twitter and her more than 40,000 followers Wednesday.That didn't sit well with Zuckerberg's sister, Randi, who tweeted at Callie Schweitzer that the picture was meant for friends...

Read More..

Foxconn's Big Improvements Include Chairs, Knitting Classes

The New York Times took a victory lap of sorts, when it published the latest installment of its iEconomy series explaining how Foxconn changed after global outrage over working conditions. In a way, a victory lap is warranted. The Times's series is partially responsible for raising awareness about how badly workers in Foxconn factories, elevating what had previously been rumors on fanboy blogs into...

Read More..

Amazon most satisfying website to shop: survey

 Amazon.com Inc remained the best website for shopping online while JC Penney Co Inc suffered the largest drop in customer satisfaction of any major online retailer this holiday season, according to a survey released on Thursday.Flash sale sites Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com were among the worst performers in online shopping satisfaction this season, according to ForeSee's Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction...

Read More..

Private picture of Mark Zuckerberg's family leaked

Even Mark Zuckerberg's family can get tripped up by Facebook's privacy settings.A picture that Zuckerberg's sister posted on her personal Facebook profile was seen by a marketing director, who then posted the picture to Twitter and her more than 40,000 followers Wednesday.That didn't sit well with Zuckerberg's sister, Randi, who tweeted at Callie Schweitzer that the picture was meant for friends only...

Read More..

China tightening controls on Internet

 China's new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.The measures suggest China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors' anxiety about the Internet's potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence...

Read More..

Prosecutor killed in Guatemala along with 6 others

 Guatemala's attorney general dispatched a special team Monday to investigate the slaying of a federal prosecutor and six other people in an attack near the Mexican border.Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz said she was sending prosecutors and investigators to the area of northern Guatemala where Irma Yolanda Olivares, who worked in one of the prosecutor's regional officers, was slain along with...

Read More..

Pardon for pope's butler who stole papers expected

The Vatican has summoned journalists for a briefing on what Italian news reports say is an expected pardon for Pope Benedict XVI'S former butler, who stole the pontiff's personal papers and leaked them in a bid to expose the "evil and corruption" in the Catholic Church.Paolo Gabriele was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found heaps of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted...

Read More..

Pope stresses family values as gay marriage gains

The pope pressed his opposition to gay marriage Friday, denouncing what he described as people eschewing their God-given gender identities to suit their sexual choices — and destroying the very "essence of the human creature" in the process.Benedict XVI made the comments in his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, one of his most important speeches of the year. He dedicated it this...

Read More..

Margaret Thatcher in UK hospital after operation

 Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is recuperating at a hospital after an operation to remove a bladder growth, a friend said Friday.The 87-year-old Thatcher went to see her doctor after experiencing some discomfort and subsequently had the growth removed, according to longtime adviser Tim Bell.The operation was "completely satisfactory," Bell said. He said he couldn't go into detail...

Read More..

Margaret Thatcher in hospital after operation

 Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the country's first woman elective leader, is in hospital recovering from surgery to remove a growth on her bladder, a source close to the family said on Friday.After experiencing pain in her bladder earlier in the week, he 87-year-old went to hospital where she underwent a minimally invasive operation, Tim Bell, a public relations executive who...

Read More..

Budget deficit worsens, credit rating at risk

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's budget deficit worsened in November, data showed on Friday, increasing the risk it will lose its top-notch credit rating and overshoot this year's borrowing forecast.The data - which showed public sector net borrowing, excluding financial sector interventions, hit 17.5 billion pounds last month - is gloomy news for Britain's coalition government.Deficit reduction and preserving...

Read More..

Instagram says no plans to put user photos in ads

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, said on Tuesday it has "no plans" to incorporate user photos into ads in response to a growing public outcry over new privacy policies unveiled this week. Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said in a blog post that users had incorrectly interpreted Instagram's revised terms of service, released on Monday, to mean that user photos...

Read More..

Sberbank to buy Yandex online payments service: source

Sberbank, Russia's top lender, plans to buy Yandex.Dengi, an online payment service owned by Russian search engine Yandex, a source familiar with the matter said. Sberbank declined to comment. Yandex, which was not available to comment, was expected to hold a news conference on Wednesday. Sberbank, which accounts for a third of overall lending in Russia, has been expanding in the consumer credit...

Read More..

Tubular raises $2.5 million to serve burgeoning YouTube industry

Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository. YouTube was once known as Wild West of online video, but over the past two years Google has focused on raising the quality of YouTube content through a series...

Read More..

Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media. In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed...

Read More..

FTC tightens rules protecting children's online privacy

The government announced tighter rules on Wednesday to protect children's online privacy by restricting the collection of data, like the child's location, unless parents consent. The actions by the Federal Trade Commission mark an update to rules that were based on the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, developed when most computers were big beige boxes sitting under office desks instead...

Read More..

Pa. woman sues Google over Gmail privacy, ads

A Pennsylvania woman has accused Google Inc. of illegal wiretapping for "intercepting" emails she sent to Gmail accounts and publishing content-related ads.Her lawsuit echoes others filed around the country by class-action lawyers who say the practice violates wiretap laws in some states. They represent email users who do not have Gmail accounts and have therefore not signed the company's acceptance...

Read More..

Huawei to double staff in European expansion

Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies plans a hiring spree in Europe, seeking growth outside the United States where its prospects have been clouded by spying concerns.Huawei said on Monday it planned to double its workforce in Europe and would set up a research center to develop new smartphones in Finland, where former global leader Nokia Oyj is shedding thousands of workers."Europe...

Read More..

Cyber attacks on Gulf infrastructure seen rising

The former chief of the United Arab Emirates' air force said his country's advanced cyber infrastructure made it a favorite target for hackers, especially when tension heightened in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."The last war in Gaza led to a barrage of cyber attacks because UAE has advanced telecommunications infrastructure," retired Major General Khaled al-Buainnain said."The biggest attack was...

Read More..

Android 4.2′s built-in antivirus software only detects 15% of malware

The latest version of the Android operating system has been called one of the most bug-ridden releases since Honeycomb, although it has also been recognized as the safest version yet. With Android 4.2, Google (GOOG) integrated a unique and high-powered security feature into the platform that scans for malicious or potentially harmful codes in apps that are loaded onto a user’s device. According to...

Read More..

Russia backs down on proposals to regulate the Internet

A Russia-led coalition on Monday withdrew a proposal to give governments new powers over the Internet, a plan opposed by Western countries in talks on a new global telecom treaty.Negotiations on the treaty mark the most sustained effort so far by governments from around the world to agree on how - or whether - to regulate cyberspace.The United States, Europe, Canada and other advocates of a hands-off...

Read More..

UK prosecutors consider charges over royal hoax call

LONDON (Reuters) - British detectives investigating the death of a nurse found hanged after she took a prank phone call at a hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate have passed an evidence file to prosecutors, police said on Saturday.Public prosecutors must decide whether the case is strong enough to bring charges over a stunt that was condemned around the world and fuelled concerns...

Read More..

Prince William to spend Christmas with the in-laws

LONDON (AP) — Prince William will spend Christmas with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury, royal officials said Saturday.That means a family Christmas for the Duchess of Cambridge, who was recently hospitalized after suffering from severe morning sickness.A statement from St. James' Palace, William's official residence, didn't go into much detail,...

Read More..

Pope pardons ex-butler who stole, leaked documents

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking his private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The...

Read More..

Abducted German aid worker seen alive in video

BERLIN (AP) — A German aid worker abducted in Pakistan 11 months ago was seen alive in a video broadcast Saturday urging authorities to fully meet his captors' demands, warning that otherwise they could kill him within days.The undated video — probably recorded under duress by his captors — was broadcast Saturday by Pakistan's Dunya TV. The German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said it "knows the case"...

Read More..

Russia says it won't host Assad but others welcome

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's foreign minister says Moscow would welcome any country's offer of a safe haven to Syrian President Bashar Assad, but underlined that Moscow itself has no intention of giving him shelter if he steps down.Russia has repeatedly used its veto right along with China at the U.N. Security Council to protect its old ally from international sanctions, but it has increasingly sought to...

Read More..