iran

Report: State Dept. urged Twitter to reschedule maintenance

When Twitter rescheduled some planned downtime in order to stay accessible for Iranian users in the midst of political upheaval, it was at the request of the U.S. State Department, according to CNN.

This should not be taken to mean that the U.S. is attempting to get involved at this point, CNN added. The State Department is working with multiple social-networking and communication services to ensure that conversation and information channels stay active.

"By necessity, the U.S. is staying hands-off of the election drama playing out in Iran, and officials say they are not providing messages … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 998: Dot communism

Chinese filtering software has been criticized for having holes. The solution? Fix it. How communist. We also give you a hack for getting free tethering on the iPhone and we bemoan the fate of MySpace.

Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video) EPISODE 998

Opera Unite aims to reinvent the Web http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2009/06/hi-my-name-is-opera-and-ill-be-your-server-today.html

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/opera-unite/

AT&T won’t charge extra for MMS on iPhone http://www.applethoughts.com/news/show/94126/at-t-not-planning-on-charging-for-mms.html

…And here’s how … Read more

Twitterverse working to confuse Iranian censors

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from a reader who had seen my story about Twitter users slamming CNN for its initial absence on the post-Iranian election protests, urging me to remove an image in the story.

The rationale? The image was of Twitter results and included users' account IDs, and the reader was worried that the Iranian government might seek out and punish any users who were employing Twitter for potentially subversive purposes.

We decided not to remove the image, in part because it had been up for more than 24 hours, and also because we suspected that the Iranian … Read more

Less is more. The tweet(ed) revolution.

Looking at the many positive responses it received, Pico Iyer’s recent NY Times blog post on "The Joy of Less" appears to have struck a chord:

"But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes … Read more

Twitter downtime gets delayed for Iranian election news

Twitter's host NTT America is postponing the downtime that was scheduled to take place late Monday night in light of all of the Twitter activity surrounding the presidential elections in Iran.

A post by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on Twitter's blog says that the maintenance will instead take place on Tuesday from 2 to 3 p.m. PST, which will be in the early morning (1:30 a.m.) for Iranian users. Stone went on to say: "Our partners are taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide--we commend … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Iranian protests hit social networks

Following the controversial results of Iran's presidential elections, citizens turned to Twitter, Facebook, and other social-networking means to circumvent a government media clampdown and get supporters out to rallies. CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman has more.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Iran protesters using tech to skirt curbs

iPhone 3G S begins shipping to customers

Microsoft: No iPhone reimbursements for workers

Apple still wants to get Psystar into court

The day after the DTV transition

Does Microsoft's Bing have Google running scared?

Facebook username land grab: Yawn

NASA hopes for Wednesday shuttle launch

Iran protesters using tech to skirt curbs

The Iranian government is trying to control the flow of information among protesters of the supposed results of that nation's presidential election, and to and from news organizations.

But, reports CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg, Tehran is having difficulty stopping citizens from using technology to report what's happening, express outrage and get people out to opposition rallies.

There are reports citizens in Tehran have no access to text messaging via cell phones, and opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's Web site has been down.

But Sieberg combed Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and photo-sharing site Flickr, and … Read more

'#CNNFail': Twitterverse slams network's Iran absence

As the Iranian election aftermath unfolded in Tehran--thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at perceived electoral irregularities--an unexpected hashtag began to explode through the Twitterverse: "CNNFail."

Even as Twitter became the best source for rapid-fire news developments from the front lines of the riots in Tehran, a growing number of users of the microblogging service were incredulous at the near total lack of coverage of the story on CNN, a network that cut its teeth with on-the-spot reporting from the Middle East.

For most of Saturday, CNN.com had no stories about the … Read more

Congress to probe P2P sites over 'inadvertent sharing'

The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has reopened a probe of Lime Wire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing companies over the issue of "inadvertent sharing." The move comes nearly two months after it was alleged that Iran took advantage of a computer security breach to obtain information about President Barack Obama's helicopter.

CNET News has obtained copies of the letters written by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission asking them for help investigating the recent rash of security breaches caused when people … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 921: No one likes to be called a moral pygmy

Yahoo is trying to fight off being accused of low morals by protecting some user data from being subpoenaed in Europe. We also have a couple rants involving Amazon caving to the publishers over text to speech and Sony saying they made the PS3 hard to develop for on purpose. Even without Molly, it's a kind of ranty Monday.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 921

Amazon backs off text-to-speech feature in Kindle http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/amazon-backs-off-text-to-speech-feature-in-kindle/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10184974-23.html

Presidential helicopter details leaked to Iran by P2P http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10184785-60.htmlRead more