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Friday
Jul292011

Barack Obama Spamming the Hell out of Twitter


With the deadline for raising the nation's debt ceiling closing in, President Barack Obama has flooded his @BarackObama stream this morning with tweets directed at voters in every state (in alphabetical order) to ask their Republican reps in Congress "support a bipartisan compromise to deficit reduction." Tweets include the handles for members in that state.

UPDATE: As of 2:30pm Pacific Time, @BarackObama had sent 109 tweets about the debt ceiling stand-off.

Dave Morin of Path.com tweeted that he loves this approach: "The future of political media is social. It just took a couple of years :)"

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Friday
Jul292011

Node.js Makes Backend of Web Apps More Efficient to Transform Internet as We Know It

WHAT: Server-side JavaScript -- the language of front-end developers that makes web pages interactive -- created to efficiently and quickly handle thousands of simultaneous requests, common in today's real-time applications (think stock tickers). Node.js uses an event loop rather than threads for requests; an event is a message from other applications or input from a user. This approach leaves a smaller footprint on a server.

Node.js is built into HP's webOS 2.1, meaning developers can build their entire webOS applications in JavaScript. Microsoft agreed in June to help port Node.js to Windows so that it can be used on Microsoft's newer servers, including its Windows Azure cloud platform.

Technical details: Built on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, uses the commonJS module system, written in C, is open source.

CREATOR: Ryan Dahl (shown above) has a master's degree in math from the University of Rochester. His open-source projects beyond Node are the Ebb web server and the "EY" load balancer module for Nginx. He has worked as a freelance programmer and lived in Germany.

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Thursday
Jul282011

Gmail Taking Email Hacking Seriously with New Forwarding Filter Notice


If you have set your Gmail account to forward some or all of your mail to another account, Gmail is temporarily notifying you with a prominent red box across the top of your Gmail window.

The explanation from Google says the notice will only be up for about a week and "will appear for a few minutes each time you sign in to your account."

Google's reasoning: "Displaying the notification in this way helps ensure that you have a chance to see the notice, rather than someone who might try to gain unauthorized access to your account and use this setting improperly."

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Thursday
Jul282011

Celebrities on Google+ after One Month (a Comprehensive List)


The celebrity presence on Google+ is continuing to grow after launching exactly one month ago. Google hasn’t established a celebrity verification system yet, but new celebrity members include former MySpace president Tom Anderson, who uses the same profile picture from the MySpace days, actress Alyssa Milano, who finally received her invitation since LAUNCH’s first assessment of celebrities on Google+, and pop sensation Britney Spears. Tech celebrities like Kevin Rose, however, generally have far more followers than mainstream personalities.

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Thursday
Jul282011

Airbnb Confirms Insurance (in Case Your Pad Gets Trashed)


In the wake of an Airbnb renter's home being trashed, the company mentioned insurance in its plans for improving safety and security. LAUNCH confirmed today that Airbnb has an insurance offering in the works but is not ready to disclose details.

Airbnb spoksesperson Emily Joffrion told LAUNCH by email that the company is "actively working with underwriters to develop a suitable policy for this collaborative consumption model."

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