Archive for May, 2011

Google Starts Adding Flight Schedules And Airline Routes In Search

Published by pratyushkp on May 30th, 2011 - in Social, Technology


We know that Google has big ambitions for flight search, as the search giant dropped $700 million on travel search software developer ITA Software. Today, the company just announced a few new flight search features that have been integrated into search (but do not use ITA’s technology….yet).

Now, when you search for a destination on Google, you can see which airlines serve that specific route and when they fly. For example, if you search for flights from ‘New York to Chicago,’ you’ll see schedules of all the non-stop flights that serve that route, which airlines fly, and times. You can access the full timetable by clicking on “Schedule of non-stop flights.”

You can also see all the destinations with non-stop flights from a particular airport. So if you are in Chicago, you can search for ‘flights from Chicago’ and Google will show you a number of routes from Chicago’s airports and which airlines fly from the airport. Similar to the schedule feature, if you click “Show all non-stop routes,” you can get the full list of destinations and from there, you can click to get more flight details.

In the post, Google software engineer Petter Wedum writes that the company is ‘eager to begin developing new flight search tools’ that are integrated with ITA’s software. Of course, the DOJ has mandated a number of conditions that Google has to abide by with regard to ITA’s presence and integration into the search company. It should be interesting to see what Google has up its sleeve for travel and flight search.

Source : – http://techcrunch.com

  • Google Starts Adding Flight Schedules And Airline Routes In Search (techcrunch.com)
  • Google starts adding flight schedules in search results (lookatvietnam.com)
  • Google Launches Flight Search Feature (Not Powered by ITA) (webpronews.com)
  • Google Adds Flight Schedules to Search Results [In Brief] (lifehacker.com)
  • Google Unveils New Travel Search Feature, Does Not Include ITA Features (nytimes.com)
Tags: , , , ita, , Non-stop flight, , , Travel website

Social Media Distractions Are Costing Businesses Major Money

Published by pratyushkp on May 30th, 2011 - in Social, Technology

How many times each day are you distracted by social media, email or instant messages?

According to a recent survey from social email software provider harmon.ie, you and other employees are blowing $10,375 in productivity each year, and all because we don’t disconnect from an online chat quickly enough, or we get sidetracked by a bulging email inbox, or we fall into a Facebook hole of photos, updates and messages.

In a survey of more than 500 employees in U.S. businesses of all sizes, harmon.ie found that at companies with more than 1,000 employees, these kinds of digital distractions can waste more than $10 million each year.

And in this social media-obsessed age, typical water cooler banter and pointless meetings are no longer the greatest time-wasters at work. Almost 60% of workplace distractions involve social networks, text messaging, IMs or email. In fact, navigating between multiple tabs and windows to keep an eye on a wide variety of apps is a huge distraction in itself.

In the end, almost half of the employees in this study said they worked just 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted or distracted. More than half said they wasted at least one hour every day day due to distraction.

Yaacov Cohen is a co-founder and the CEO of harmon.ie. In an email, he wrote that the survey results were particularly ironic.

“Information technology that was designed at least in part to save time is actually doing precisely the opposite. The very tools we rely on to do our jobs are also interfering with that mission. We’re clearly seeing what psychologists call ‘online compulsive disorder’ spill over from our personal lives to the work environment.”

Here are the greatest digital distractions noted in the survey:

  • Email processing: 23%
  • Switching windows to complete tasks: 10%
  • Personal online activities such as Facebook: 9%
  • Instant messaging: 6%
  • Texting: 5%
  • Web search: 3%

While these distractions are money-wasters for companies, they also negatively effect individuals’ ability to creatively solve problems, think deeply about work-related issues, efficiently process information and meet deadlines.

Does digital distraction have an impact on how you work? In the comments let us know how Facebook, IMs and email hamper or help you in the office — and what steps you might have taken to minimize distractions.

Source :- http://mashable.com

  • Social Media Distractions Are Costing Businesses Major Money [STUDY] (mashable.com)
  • Social Networks Distract at Work. Seriously. (pcworld.com)
  • How Much Do Workplace Distractions Cost Businesses? [Infographic] (readwriteweb.com)
  • Social Media Distraction costs (strategicallycommunicating.wordpress.com)
  • Does Twitter bring you Klout? (part 3) (globallytested.wordpress.com)
  • Social Media Set to Explode (hayhurstconsultancy.wordpress.com)
  • Social Networks Distract at Work. Seriously (textually.org)
Tags: Distraction, , , , Instant messaging, , , , ,

President Obama To Name Twitter CEO To Advisory Committee

Published by pratyushkp on May 28th, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image via CrunchBase

Once again signaling his close ties with Silicon Valley, President Barack Obama plans to draft Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

In a White House statement released Thursday evening, Obama named Costolo, along with Scott Charney, corporate VP of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group, McAfee President David G. DeWalt and three others, as potential appointees. The group oversees the availability and reliability of telecom services in the U.S.

Costolo became Twitter CEO last October after co-founder Evan Williams stepped down.

The move is Obama’s latest overture to Silicon Valley. In his January State of the Union address, the president name-checked Google and Facebook. The following month, Obama shared a dinner with Eric Schmidt, then-CEO of Google; Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among others, at the home of Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr.

Source :- http://mashable.com

  • President Obama To Name Twitter CEO To Advisory Committee (mashable.com)
  • Obama set to add Twitter CEO to Advisory Committee (holykaw.alltop.com)
  • Obama to name Twitter CEO to advisory committee (marketwatch.com)
  • Obama appointing Twitter CEO to advisory group (news.cnet.com)
  • Obama appointing Twitter CEO to advisory group (news.cnet.com)
  • This Day in Tech: Obama appoints Twitter CEO, plus Google foes (news.cnet.com)

Baby Born amazing effect? No, another Facebook likejacking scam

Published by pratyushkp on May 28th, 2011 - in Social, Technology

Image via CrunchBase

Messages are spreading rapidly across Facebook, as users get tricked into clicking on links claiming to show an amazing video of a big baby being born.

The messages are spreading with the assistance of a clickjacking scam (sometimes known as likejacking) which means that users do not realise that they are invisibly pressing a “Like” button to pass the message onto their online friends.

A typical message looks as follows:

Baby Born Amazing Effect - WebCamera
[LINK]
Big Baby Born !

(Note: Graham Cluley have obscured the thumbnail used in the messages, as some may find it offensive because of its err.. anatomical nature.)

The links we have seen so far all point to pages hosted on blogspot.com, and appear to contain a video player that you are urged to click on.

The pages are headlined: “Baby Born Video – Amazing Effects”.

See the message at the bottom of the page? It reads:

If Play Button don't work please click on the Like button and Confirm, then you can watch the Video.

It’s at this point that the clickjacking scam plays its part. If you try to play the video then you will be secretly and unwittingly saying that you “Like” the link, and sharing it with your friends. In this way the link spreads virally.

It’s a shame that Facebook’s own security measures don’t warn about this clickjacking attack.

If you were running anti-clickjacking protection, such as the NoScript add-on for Firefox, then you would see a warning message about the attempted clickjacking:

Unfortunately, thousands of Facebook users appear to have fallen for the scam – and are helping the links spread rapidly across the social network.

Here’s how you can clean-up your Facebook page.

Find the offending message on your Facebook page, and select “Remove post and unlike”.

Unfortunately that doesn’t completely remove the interloping link. You also need to go into your profile, choose Activities and Interests and remove any pages that you don’t want to “Like”.

If only folks were more careful about the links they clicked on when using Facebook.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

  • Baby Born amazing effect? No, another Facebook likejacking scam (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
  • Facebook comment-jacking? OMG! I Can’t believe JUSTIN Bieber did THIS to a girl (pratyushkp.wordpress.com)
  • Facebook announces new security features (blogoholic.in)
  • Hottest & Funniest Golf Course Video scam spreads virally on Facebook – beware! (blogoholic.in)
  • It’s a Facebook clickjack scam (eclectomania.wordpress.com)
  • Facebook announces new security features (pratyushkp.wordpress.com)
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