Posts Tagged ‘Application programming interface’

Twitter Gives Users More Control Over Third Party Apps

May 19th, 2011

Image via CrunchBase

Twitter has updated its permissions process in an effort to provide users with more transparency and control over what information can be accessed by third-party applications.

When a user first connects an app to her Twitter account, she will now be shown a permissions screen that details what information the app will be able to access, as well as what “activities” they can perform with her account, such as posting tweets, reading tweets, and viewing the accounts she follows. Twitter will also be limiting the access that third party apps have to direct messages.

“Apps that you use to access your direct messages will ask for your permission again. By the end of the month, applications that do not need access to your direct messages will no longer have it, and you can continue to use these apps as usual,” Twitter wrote in a blog post.

Take a look at the apps that you’ve approved to access your account by visiting the Applications page, what apps you’ve approved by visiting the “Applications” page under “Settings.”

Here’s what Twitter’s new permissions screen will look like:

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Related articles
  • Like Facebook, Twitter announces more detailed permissions for third party apps (thenextweb.com)
  • Twitter Offers Better Transparency About What Third-Party Apps Can Do With Your Account (readwriteweb.com)
  • Twitter introduces new restrictions for third-party apps (venturebeat.com)
  • Mission: Permission (twitter.com)
  • Can Twitter Apps Access Your DMs? New Permissions Screen Sheds Light (mashable.com)
  • Twitter Launches New Permissions Screen, Vows to Keep Your Direct Messages Safe (newsgrange.com)
  • Twitter Revokes Automatic 3rd Party DM Access, Gives Users More Details On App Permissions (techcrunch.com)
  • Twitter announces permissions change, frustrates app developers (macworld.com)
  • Twitter expands security controls for third-party apps (electronista.com)
  • ? Twitter’s Shit Sandwich (daringfireball.net)
  • Twitter Extends New OAuth Deadline For Apps Accessing Direct Messages (programmableweb.com)
Tweet

2 comments »

Posted in Social, Technology

Tags:

Google Chrome Warns Against Malicious Downloads

April 17th, 2011

The browser now alerts users if the file being downloaded is malicious

Google boasts about several security features in its Chrome web browser. Now, Google has added one more feature in Chrome web browser which will alert users against malicious file downloads. Now that’s something every browser should ideally have so that users don’t have to be dependent on anti-malware programs. This experimental feature is currently made available to Chrome Development Channel for testing and initially, it will alert against malicious Windows executables.

The Google Safe Browsing API comes into picture when the browser checks if the Windows executable being downloaded originates from a malicious code bearing site or not. Also, it has the same privacy policy as in the Safe Browsing feature which means Google will never know what URL you’ve visited to download that particular file.

This new alert against malicious file download could be too small to be noticed. At times, users are in such a hurry that they click on the ‘x’ (Close) on any pop-up message. So instead of showing an alert just above the status bar, something more attention drawing is required to make this feature actually useful.

Google Chrome has been offering features such as alerts the users against faulty websites that intend to inject malicious code in the user system. Google accumulates data about such websites and makes it available via Safe Browsing API. Several web browsers – Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari make use of Google’s Safe Browsing API to warn users if they happen to visit webpages that have been coded smartly to inject malware code in the system.
Google didn’t promise any date when the feature would be implemented and made available via a stable build of the Chrome browser.
Source -: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Google_Chrome_Warns_Against_Malicious_Downloads/551-115023-643.html

Related Articles
  • This File Appears To Be Malicious, Google Chrome Safe Browsing Protection (ghacks.net)
  • Rumor: Get Google Chrome Web Browser will login Soon ? (huangyu860810.wordpress.com)
  • Google’s Chrome Browser to Warn of Dangerous Downloads (pcworld.com)
  • Google Chrome Stable Security Update April 2011 (ghacks.net)
  • Google Chrome Browser Will Block Dangerous Downloads (pcworld.com)
  • Chrome’s New Security Feature Will Protect You From Malicious Downloads (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)
  • Google Chrome at 120 Million DAU, Chrome OS Set for Mid-Year (searchenginejournal.com)
  • Google Chrome to warn of malicious Windows executables (go.theregister.com)
  • Five Hot Features Coming to Google’s Chrome Browser (pcworld.com)
  • Google Chrome and Chromium add protection against malicious downloads (downloadsquad.switched.com)
Tweet

No comments »

Posted in Social, Technology

Tags: Browsing

Facebook Comments, Now On Over 50K Sites, Get More Social With Latest Upgrade

April 14th, 2011

Facebook Comments, which people either love or hate, have just been amped up by Facebook, to increase the ever elusive “user engagement,” which just means get more traffic. We’ve been using Facebook Comments for about a month, and I am personally thrilled at the improved quality of discussion, despite being bothered by annoyances like not being able to edit into comments.

According to Facebook, Facebook Comments are now on over 50,000 websites including us, NBC and Hotels.com. Sure Hotels.com is a start, Facebook’s got a long way to go if it wants to dominate the commenting space. While it made some needed adjustments today, there’s still more work that needs to be done.

Here are the new features added in today’s upgrade:

Permalinking

Users can now access each comment by its permalink, allowing users to share and a respond to specific comments more easily. Comment notifications in the Facebook newsfeed also direct back to specific comments, which is awesome because the alternative is pretty disorienting.

Comments API

Facebook is also providing an API so site owners can search and rank their comments, like highlight interesting and popular comments, reward top commenters or segment comments around a specific topic, like Apple or startups.

More social context in the newsfeed

Developers now also have the option of adding meta-tags to include more information about a story in commenters Facebook newsfeeds, including any images involved, title and description. Facebook holds that this optimization will increase click through because users will feel more drawn to specific stories.

Darker color scheme

Facebook is also offering a darker color scheme for darker websites, so developers with darker sites don’t have to have mismatched commenting systems. I’m actually pretty surprised no one thought of this sooner.

For trolls people clamoring for alternate ways to log in, Hotmail accounts have been added as a third-party login option along with Aol and Yahoo, but more interestingly there’s no mention of adding Gmail and Twitter which were slated to also be options pre-launch and then somehow mysteriously disappeared.

Great. So those without a Facebook account are good to login if they’re planning on doing so from 1998. See what I mean about “more work that still needs to be done”?

Source -: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/facebook-comments-now-on-over-50k-sites-get-more-social-with-latest-upgrade/

Related Articles
  • Facebook Comments, Now On Over 50K Sites, Get More Social With Latest Upgrade (techcrunch.com)
  • Adding new features to Comments Box (developers.facebook.com)
  • With More Features & Login Options, is Facebook Comments a Disqus Killer? (lockergnome.com)
  • Facebook Comments Plugin Added to 50,000 Sites In a Month, Updates Launched (webpronews.com)
  • Facebook Comments Plugin Gets New Features and Support for Hotmail Logins (newsgrange.com)
  • Facebook Upgrades Its Commenting System (allfacebook.com)
  • Facebook Updates Comments Box Plugin With Comment Exporting and Larger News Feed Stories (insidefacebook.com)
  • Facebook: Our Comments Plugin Increases Publisher Traffic up to 45% [STATS] (readwriteweb.com)
  • Facebook: Our Comments Plugin Increases Publisher Traffic Up to 45% [STATS] (nytimes.com)
  • Facebook Comments update adds Hotmail login (thenextweb.com)
Tweet

No comments »

Posted in Social, Technology

Tags:

Chrome’s new “Speak to Search” option

April 9th, 2011

Google chrome earlier had developed a software that allowed the users to talk to the browser via HTML5 code. Now, a team has come up with an extension of this software that allows this software to be used in search boxes across the web.

The extension, called “Speechify”, was developed by the Dugley Labs. Now many of the search engines display a small microphone icon right next to their search boxes. This icon when clicked allows users to “speak” what u wanted to search. Google, Bing, Youtube, Hulu are some of the sites that support this.

It is working pretty well as of now and returns exact searches for songs or sites or videos. Though there are minor hitches and glitches, like in some sites the microphone feature doesn’t work although it shows and in others it is shown at weird places like the title bar but it still works. But it works the best with Google and the Instant as it allows the users to search without using the keyboard.

This kind of feature has been used in mobiles before but to see it work on the web is interesting. As of now Chrome 11 beta supports it bu tit is expected to soon move to other builds too.

Related Articles
  • That Was Fast: The Speak-To-Search Extension For Chrome (techcrunch.com)
  • Speechify for Google Chrome adds speech-to-text voice search (downloadsquad.switched.com)
  • Why Use Chrome’s Speech Input API When You Can Speechify? (thechromesource.com)
  • Google Chrome Gets Malware Download Alert (pcworld.com)
  • Google Chromes Personal Blocklist Extension (netlz1.wordpress.com)
  • Firefox 4 Review: Good Enough To Leave Google Chrome? (shegeeks.net)
  • Google Chrome Browser Will Block Dangerous Downloads (pcworld.com)
  • Google Experiments With Anti-Malware Warnings in Chrome (ostatic.com)
  • Update: Evernote Google Chrome Extension Gets New Features (evernote.com)
  • Google Tests a Search Option for Definitions (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
Tweet

No comments »

Posted in Social, Technology

Tags: Hulu