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Impact of Twitter outages grows as stock traders go social

Twitter suffered its largest outage in some time Monday following an error in a "routine change" to the microblogging site.

In a statement, the company said the site was not available from 1:08 p.m. to 1:33 p.m. PT. A mere 25 minutes. For the 200 million Twitter users, that was a while, at least since the days of the regular "fail whale."

But now that Bloomberg terminals -- the computers that Wall Street analysts, financial types, and traders use -- have tweets flowing through them, there's a greater onus of responsibility … Read more

Where to find the zoom feature in Vine for Android

On Monday Twitter announced the release of Vine for Android. The short-video service, originally only available to iOS users has amassed over 13 million users since its launch.

One of the features touted in the announcement and release notes for the Android version of the app was the ability to zoom when recording a video.

With that in mind -- as most Android users testing Vine out presumably did -- I launched Vine, created a new video, and attempted to zoom with the familiar pinch-to-zoom method; it didn't work. I tried double-tapping; it didn't work. At this point … Read more

Parents lack bandwidth to monitor kids' online activity, says study

When the world's most famous companies are run by boys who seem to have only slight familiarity with shaving, it's easy for grown-ups to give up.

Somehow, this newfangled digital world has created an entirely new species of human -- one that ultimately wants to eradicate all species that are currently thought of as human.

Who can even lift an eyebrow, therefore, at new research that suggests parents are largely clueless about their kids' activities on laptops, phones, Facebook, and all the other places to which kids choose to disappear?

A new study from McAfee, touchingly called Digital Deceptions, … Read more

Turkish users sneak past censorship of Facebook, Twitter

Many Turkish Internet users are staying connected to Facebook and Twitter despite reported government censorship of the two sites.

To get past the blockade of the two popular social networks, Turkish citizens have been using VPN software such as Hotspot Shield, which opens a tunnel through the Internet so the connection can't be detected. This past weekend, more than 120,000 people in Turkey downloaded the software, according to the Guardian, a huge leap from the 10,000 new users seen on an average day.

On Saturday, blog site TechCrunch said a number of sources told it that both … Read more

The Turkish revolution won't be televised, but it will be tweeted

With protests ramping up across Turkey, tens of thousands people are getting on Twitter to broadcast alleged excessive police force against demonstrators. So many people have taken to the social network that the country's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has blamed Twitter for much of the dissent.

"There is now a menace which is called Twitter,'' Erdogan said in an interview, according to France 24. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.''

And, this is coming from a man who is on Twitter. Erdogan has … Read more

Twitter rolls out Vine app for Android

Twitter is bringing Vine, the popular 6-second looping video application, to Google's Android operating system, months after debuting it for Apple's iOS.

Vine launched on January 24 for people with iPhones and iPads and has climbed to 13 million users, but none for Android. That vacuum, on world's No. 1 mobile operating system platform, forced Android smartphone users into circumventions to view the snippets.

The Android version gets many of the same capabilities: easy video creation with automatic playback and sound; the Explore feature, for discovering popular posts and seeing what's trending; and Find Friends, to … Read more

The quickest way to share photos

Analog Camera is a simple photo editor from RealMac software, the same folks who made the to-do-list app Clear. Like Clear, the app is as bare bones as it gets, but the minimalist design and intuitive controls make photo sharing incredibly quick and easy.

Analog Camera is not a full-featured photo editor in the same vein as apps like KitCam or PhotoToaster. Instead, it offers only a couple of features in the interest of convenience and quick sharing. When you launch the app, you immediately see the viewfinder so you can take a picture right away. But at the top … Read more

Twitter platform director Ryan Sarver departing

After four incredible, indelible years at Twitter the time has come for me to fly the coop. My last day will be June 28. No plans but rest.

— Ryan Sarver (@rsarver) May 31, 2013

Twitter platform director Ryan Sarver said today that he is leaving the company. Twitter is already looking to fill his position.

In a tweet sent today, Sarver announced his departure, saying that after four years at the social-networking giant, he is leaving on June 28. He has "no plans but rest."

Sarver's soon-to-be-vacant position is a big one. In the job listing Twitter … Read more

Fan TV could be the ultimate set-top box

CNET Update is a fan:

In this episode of Update:

- See how Fan TV wants to fix the television experience as an all-in-one streaming and cable device.

- Go list crazy on Twitter with the ability to make up to 1,000 lists.

- Decipher Motorola's clues about the mysterious Moto X smartphone, arriving this year.

- Lose all Sense and go pure Android with Google's version of the HTC One.

CNET Update delivers the tech news you need in under three minutes. Watch Bridget Carey every afternoon for a breakdown of the big stories, hot devices, … Read more

Get Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on Android Home with SO.HO

SO.HO by Inq Mobile wants to be the first thing you see when picking up your Android smartphone by replacing your launcher -- TouchWiz, HTC Sense, stock, and so on. Instead of only offering access to Facebook updates from your connections, SO.HO lets you see updates from Twitter and Instagram as well.

To get started, you'll need to install the most recent version of SO.HO on your Android. Then, connect the social-media accounts you want to see updates from. Once finished, you can easily switch social-media accounts from the top left-hand corner menu.

The … Read more