www.benm.at/wwdc (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apple Unveils New Offerings At WWDC

Apple uses the stage of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC for short, to showcase its latest offerings. This year's lineup includes new computers, a new operating system, and a new lineup of software.

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Vine Video Sharing App Now Available On Android

Vine, a video sharing app that has already won 13 million users on the Apple's App store is now available on Android. Sara Haider, an Android engineer for the company published a post on Vine's blog saying, "We've been looking forward to this day, and we're excited to get the app into your hands." Android users with version 4.0 and higher and 18 MBs of free space will be able to use the app.

Waze navigatiescherm (Photo credit: Henk-Jan van der Klis)

Facebook And Waze Talks Fall Apart

So far, all the talk of Waze, a free GPS navigation/traffic application, being acquired by Facebook, Google, or Apple has been premature.  The most recent talks between Facebook and Waze just fell through, though many thought the two companies were made for each other.  Speculation is running rampant about the reasons the acquisition fell through, but the actual circumstances are not clear.  Still, the Facebook/Waze connection made sense, and Facebook investors are undoubtedly disappointed.

The Waze application is a locally based one that helps members of specific communities shorten their morning commute by receiving the latest in road conditions, traffic flow, and even police presence. Users pool their information about local conditions, which results in a more complete and helpful picture of traffic in real time.  Ads for services also show users where the cheapest gas is located and where their morning coffee is on sale. 

English: The Entrance of Whitehouse Hotel at New York City, NY, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Airbnb Rentals No Longer Legal In New York City

The company Airbnb, which is short for AirBed & Breakfast made the news recently when a judge in New York City declared that the company was violating NYC rental laws and was promoting illegal rentals. The company which was founded in 2008 offers a place for homeowners and renters to rent their home or room for a few days at a time to out of town guests. Although an extremely popular company in over 30,000 cities spanning over 190 countries the company came under fire on May 20th for being in violation of rental laws.

The bitcoin logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Amazon Announces Virtual Currency, Amazon Coins

Earlier this week, Amazon announced their new service, Amazon Coins, which is a virtual currency used to buy apps, games and other in-app purchases. 

They kicked off the launch by giving all Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins, equal to 500 coins.  Users can buy more Coins, and they can save up to 10 percent for buying high quantities at a time. 

Español: Logo Vectorial de YouTube (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Google Set To Offer YouTube Subscriptions

Google, in its quest to be an omnipresent media overlord, is set to introduce paid YouTube video subscriptions in the coming week. It is currently highly dependent on its advertising revenue, so it is looking for new areas for bringing in money and offer a wide range of content as well. This also comes in the face of threat of original content from Netflix and Amazon.

Twitter (Photo credits: www.mysecuritysign.com)

Twitter Updates Vine With Two New Exciting Features

Vine has taken the social media world by storm, allowing you to bring more than just an image to friends, family or the internet. Now, through the Vine app you can create short six second videos that can be continuous footage or clips, with an easy to use system that allows you to touch and hold the screen while capturing videos.

Anonymous (Photo credit: Schuilr)

How Twitter Hacks Cause Big Problems

On Tuesday, April 23, 2013, the Twitter account for the Associated Press was hacked; whether the hack was the result of malicious intent or a practical joke gone sour, the impact was widespread and potentially dangerous. With the AP's Twitter hacked, someone got instant access to an audience of over 880,000 people. In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, the hackers chose to spread more terror.

The hackers tweeted about a fictional White House bombing and claimed that the President had been hurt. The Internet responded with an uproar as news organizations and homegrown Twitter journalists re-tweeted or investigated the claim. Although it was a single sentence in a myriad of Internet data, the tweet was enough to cause panic and reduce the stock market by over a hundred points.

Illustration of Facebook mobile interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook Home For Android

With one in three people across the globe connected to Facebook, it represents a huge market that every company is trying to hone in on in order to capitalize upon the popularity.  The Android smartphone OS is one of the most recent comers to this market, launching a Facebook Home app for Google smartphones that has been met with no small amount of criticism. 

The Facebook Home app is a reinvention of the standard layout of the website.  It completely fills up your phone screen, meaning that it is not possible to run concurrent apps at the same time unless you are constantly switching back and forth.  While there are ways to dial back the app on your operating system, it comes pre-loaded, meaning that users will either need to modify it or ignore it completely if it starts aggravating them. 

Bezos’ Iconic Laugh (Photo credit: jurvetson)

Jeffrey Bezos Invests In Business Insider

Although he is not investing in Business Insider on his own, there is no doubt that Jeffrey Bezos is the driving force behind the new group that is funding the business blog. According to the site, Bezos - who built the Amazon.com empire - has been thinking about investing in the company for roughly a year. In fact, he met with executives from Business Insider at that time and expressed interest, though he did not actually make his contribution until a few days ago. When he did, though, it was a significant amount of money. All told, the investment from the group should be right around the five million dollar mark.