News Corp Sells MySpace for $100 Million
News Corp paid $580 million for MySpace back in 2005. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Facebook has since taken the spotlight. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, News Corp. is seeking bids for no less that $100 million. Potential buyers include private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners, Redscout Ventures and Criterion Capital Partners LLC, owner of social networking site Bebo. MySpace attempted to reinvent themselves, but it looks like they just couldn’t turn things around.
Playstation Network Compromised
Between April 17th and 19th, Sony noticed there was an “illegal and unauthorized intrusion” on the Playstation Network. It was not until the 26th that users were finally alerted about the intrusion. Sony explains the delay on the Playstation Blog.
“There’s a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers’ data being compromised. We learned there was an intrusion 19th April and subsequently shut the services down. We then brought in outside experts to help us learn how the intrusion occurred and to conduct an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident. It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach. We then shared that information with our consumers and announced it publicly yesterday evening.”
For more details about the breach, there is a FAQ.
NOOK Color Gets Major Update
The Barnes & Noble NOOK Color has been considered to be a junior Android tablet since it’s launch. Many have already rooted the device to open up the possibilities for it’s use beyond an advanced ebook reader. Now, with the latest update, your average NOOK owner gains access to more than 100 select applications across a broad range of categories. Yes, Angry Birds is included, along with a few choice apps like my6sense and Pulse. The whole Android Market is not included, but this may be easier to manage for your average NOOK user while still making the device infinitely more usable.
via LouisGray.com
Twitter Changes OAuth Screen. Passes 200 Million Accounts.
You may have authorized an application to access your Twitter account before by hitting a “Sign in with Twitter” button. Usually, you get a simple screen telling you the name of the app that wants to access your Twitter account along with the Allow or Deny buttons. Now, Twitter is tweaking this exchange so that you get a better of idea of exactly what the site you’re authorizing will be able to do. On another Twitter note, they’ve now passed 200 Million registered users worldwide.
Official Google Docs App for Android
Google has finally launched an official Google Docs Android app. What you may want to know up front is that you can’t actually edit documents using the app. Whenever you open a document for editing from the app, it jumps to the web browser. So, why would you want this app? It’s the deep integration of your documents with your Android device, including the ability to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. I’m sold right there, but you can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three basic tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap.
The most exciting feature, though, is Optical Character Recognition. Take a picture of a document and the Docs App will convert the image into an actual, editable, document.
Using the app and your phone’s camera, you can turn photos with text into editable Google documents with the power of optical character recognition (OCR). Just create a new ‘Document from Photo’ or select the camera icon from the widget, and your converted document will appear in your documents list shortly after you snap the picture. You can also convert photos already stored on your phone by sharing them with the Google Docs app. OCR does a pretty good job capturing unformatted text in English but won’t recognize handwriting or some fonts – stay tuned, it will get better over time!