flickr

Flickr wipes out wrong account--then reconstitutes it

Flickr accidentally deleted a member's account--comments, favorites, and thousands of photos--but now has given the photographer a 25-year Pro-level subscription and all his photos back.

And more importantly for others who fear the same might happen to them, Flickr is working to update its system to prevent such a mistake from happening again and to make such draconian moves easier to reverse.

Mirco Wilhelm described his dismay yesterday to find that 5 years of activity and about 4,000 photos were wiped out when his account vanished. Perplexed, he realized it might be connected to an abuse report he … Read more

The 404 749: Where we trust rodents more than meteorologists (podcast)

Every year the citizens of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania gather around a small hut in Gobbler's Knob (pause) to witness a 100-year old marmot predict the future, and this year it looks like Spring is on its way. Old Phil may be losing his eyesight, because we also happen to be in the middle of the largest storm in the last few decades, according to a less-credible operation called NASA.

Maybe we should shift our focus to a closer weather-predicting rodent at the Staten Island Zoo, Mr. Charles G. Hogg aka Staten Island Chuck, who has accurately predicted winter weather 23 out of the last 30 years.

Still don't trust him? What if we told you that Staten Island Chuck has a Facebook page AND lives in a wireless log cabin adorned with solar-powered weather station panels that allows him to make daily weather predictions using renewable energy from the sun? It's not a joke, this guy is legit.

We can make fun of Groundhog's Day for the next 364 days, but let's move onto our next story about an unfortunate photographer in Zurich who lost over 4,000 puppy photos thanks to a Flickr fumble that accidentally mixed up his account with another scheduled for deletion.

To make up for it, the Yahoo-owned photo uploading service generously offered four years of a Pro account for free, worth about a hundred bucks- sounds fair. Think about this story the next time you can't find the time to back up your data to a physical storage drive.

We also suggest backing up your back ups to a disaster-proof drive, but the truly paranoid should also load their precious data on hidden thumb drives around the office for extra security.

Finally, the big tech story of the day is News Corp. and Apple's latest publication generated specifically for the iPad called The Daily. It's a modern news brand that Apple and News Corp. call the first "all media product" and includes highly interactive and curated text articles, photos, and videos, not to mention text-to-speech audio clips of selected stories.

Unlike most of the news sites on the web , however, The Daily won't be available for free. The publication introduces a new pricing model that costs $0.99 a week or $39.99 for the year. The subscription also includes access to the Web version and users can share articles for free on Facebook and Twitter.

The 404 is truly the Paris Hilton of the Web, so we happen to know the Technology Editor at The Daily. We're hoping Peter Ha can join us on Friday's show to tell us more about the publication, so check our Twitter for the latest updates!

Episode 749 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

CES: A slicker Flickr coming to Windows 7

LAS VEGAS--On one charge across the show floor at CES 2011, I dropped by the Yahoo booth and got a tour of Flickr's new app for Windows 7 tablets and smartphones.

Like most media apps I've seen, Flickr lends itself beautifully to Microsoft's mobile OS. The photo service takes full advantage of Windows 7's side-scrolling interface, offering a smooth transition that takes you from recent content to tagged photos to a screen that lets you explore the larger Flickr library.* Clicking on any image takes you to a screen that offers the full array of features: … Read more

Windows Phone 7 apps

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Google pulls the plug on GOOG-411Facebook launches Friendship PagesAmazon announces a Kindle app for Windows Phone 7Twitter announces a Twitter app for Windows Phone 7T-Mobile will get a 4G MyTouch on November 3Flickr embraces OpenID and allows Google logins

Messenger for Zune HD released

Yesterday the Windows Live team at Microsoft announced the release of Messenger for the Zune HD.

I'm not much of a Messenger user, but one of the big things Microsoft added to the new version of the desktop app is Facebook integration, and that same functionality is built into the Zune version of Messenger. After connecting your Facebook and Windows Live accounts, you can see all Facebook updates and conduct Facebook chats from within the Messenger app. (There's already a standalone Facebook app for the Zune HD; this new app is best suited for users who straddle the … Read more

Flickr adds in-browser uploading for Android

Android users looking to upload photos and videos to Flickr now have a new way to do it. Today the company rolled out an enhanced version of its m.flickr.com mobile site that lets users upload within Android's browser.

This behavior should be familiar to desktop users of Flickr, though on mobile phones this process hasn't exactly been carried along for the ride. In this case, it's about as close as you can get to that same desktop experience, though you can only upload one photo or video at a time. Another big difference is that … Read more

Flickr tallies 5 billion photos

Flickr is now hosting more than 5 billion photos, the company announced on its blog yesterday.

According to the Yahoo-owned photo site, user "yeoaaron" uploaded the site's 5 billionth photo on Saturday. The image shows the Woodwards Collage in Vancouver, B.C.

Flickr says more than 3,000 images are uploaded to the site every minute. It reached 2 billion photos in 2007. It hit the 3 billion mark a year later in 2008.

Priority Inbox sorts Gmail

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded: Priority Inbox sorts Gmail MySpace gives into Facebook iTunes song previews double NASA signs up for Flickr 10-inch Android tablet arrives

Get a 4GB Eye-Fi Share Video card for $34.99

I've always liked the Eye-Fi memory cards, which wirelessly beam photos from your digital camera to your PC and/or an online service like Flickr or Facebook. But I always thought they were way, way overpriced.

Not anymore. Buy.com has the 4GB Eye-Fi Share Video SD card for $34.99 shipped--far and away the lowest price I've seen. (Current price on the Eye-Fi site: $64.)

In case you're not familiar with it, the Eye-Fi is a standard-size SDHC memory card (meaning it's compatible with most cameras) with a built-in Wi-Fi radio.

When it's … Read more