Google Gives Voice to Disconnected Egyptians

Google, Twitter, and SayNow have taken it upon themselves to give a voice to the masses in Egypt, who have been completely cut off from the Internet. Over the weekend, the team created "Speak2Tweet", a service that allows anyone to tweet a recorded message via telephone. Though the latest reports claim that cell networks will be shutdown in anticipation of tomorrow's "march of millions", landline phones can still be used. While most of the recordings are in Arabic, a few particularly heartwarming messages can be found in English on the speak2tweet Twitter account.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet. We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

(via Google) (title pic via Al Jazeera)

Canadian ISPs to Impose Usage-Based Billing

The Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has sanctioned "Usage-Based Billing" for Bell Canada, effectively killing all forms of competition in the ISP space. Telco goliath Bell leases their lines to smaller providers, such as TekSavvy, at a rate governed by the CRTC. As a reseller, TekSavvy previously offered high-bandwidth plans at a lower cost than Bell. With UBB in place, TekSavvy is forced to lower their $31.95 premium data caps from 200GB to a miserable 25GB per month (both download and upload combined), with overages costing users an additional CAN $1.90 per gigabyte.

Study: Circadian Rhythm Exists at the Red Blood Cell Level

It's no coincidence that you pop wide awake just moments before your daily alarm buzzes to life: Humans, and possibly all other living creatures, have an internal circadian clock that ticks along 24 hours a day. This clock controls everything from sleep cycles to migration patterns, and has even been found in life as basic as algae. Scientists previously assumed that these rhythms were connected to DNA and genes, but a new study from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge has pinpointed the origin of the circadian clock to red blood cells (which don't contain DNA). The study was conducted by isolating red blood cells and observing their peroxiredoxin protein levels, which were then discovered to be responsible for the 24 hour clock. Much like we need an internal clock to chaperone our bodies throughout the day, individual cells need a clock to plan out their own routine.

NASA Discovers Most Distant Galaxy

13.2 billion light-years away resides what could very well be the most distant object ever seen in the universe. Caught in Hubble's 2009 Ultra Deep Field snapshot, the infant galaxy appears red due to the stretching of photons caused by the universe's continuing expansion. The galaxy pictured was formed just 480 million years after the Big Bang, and is 100 times smaller than our own Milky Way.

Obama Wants High-Speed Wireless for 98 Percent of Americans by 2016

Yesterday's State of the Union address had a heavy dose of geek as President Obama expressed America's need for further technological innovation. There was a strong focus on "rebuilding for the 21st century" and making sure America keeps pace with other countries -- from both an industrial and scientific standpoint. Most excitingly was Obama's plan for 98 percent of Americans to be covered with wireless high-speed internet in the next five years.

We're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living. Within the next five years, we'll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans. This isn't just about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age. It's about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers and small business owners will be able to sell their products all over the world. It's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device; a student who can take classes with a digital textbook; or a patient who can have face-to-face video chats with her doctor.

The White House as a whole has become increasingly up-to-date: following the President's speech, government officials monitored Twitter and Facebook for a Q&A session with we the people, and on Thursday, Obama will be answering user-submitted questions live via YouTube (and we fully hope Obama responds in kind to YouTube's regular demographic).

Chrome, Firefox to Offer Ad Tracking Opt-Out Solutions

Internet advertisers are able to create personalized ads by tracking user's browsing habits with cookies (a term which has been subjected to far too many puns to warrant another), which is why you may see an advert for the next Twilight movie on your favorite website. While tailored ads are more relevant -- and generally more tolerable -- than their generic counterparts, they also raise privacy concerns: websites can sell personal information to 3rd party advertisement agencies without the user's knowledge. To protect their users' privacy, both Google and Mozilla have devised "Do Not Track" solutions for users to easily opt-out of personalized advertising. While the end goal is the same, the two companies have vastly different approaches.

LibreOffice Releases First Stable Version

Oracle's 2009 acquisition of Sun Microsystems threatened all that is good in the software world, so Sun's OpenOffice.org team decided to stand up against the man and fork off into a separate entity, aptly named "The Document Foundation". With fears of being buried gone, the developers have been able to work freely on creating "LibreOffice", a freshly revived variant of the premier open source productivity suite. Today marks the release of the first stable version of LibreOffice 3.3, a major milestone for the fledgling project -- which has grown considerably in the past four months. The developer community has accomplished a great deal in the short time frame, from both a developmental and logistical standpoint.

Verizon Experiencing State-Wide Outage in Virginia

Verizon is experiencing a state-wide outage in Virginia (and parts of North Carolina), leaving thousands of sexts unsent (and heinously, unread). There are reports of Verizon calling back ex-employees to work on the problem, which leads us to believe the issue is more than just a cut line.

Verizon Wireless is aware of the issue and our crews are addressing it. We’ll share more information as it becomes available.

[WTKR]

Internet to Reach Critical Mass “Within Weeks”

During the time when computers were still just a primordial ooze, even the greatest of minds couldn't comprehend how immensely vast the Internet would become. As famously said by (apparently no one) "640K is more memory than anyone will ever need". At the time, 640k was more than enough to store a bitmap or two, and likewise, filling 4.3 billion IP addresses would seem to be an unimaginably lofty goal. But, the end is nigh. "Within weeks", we will meet that limit, and the Internet will officially run out of address space, causing a major inconvenience as data attempts to find a buddy to packet-pool with. (Or, until the industry adopts IPv6, which is a much roomier protocol.) Vint Cerf, the creator of the IPv4 protocol, has already sacked up and accepted blame for the shortage, although the real culprit is likely those glittery GeoCities sites which devoured the '90s web like a black hole with yo mama at the center of it.

"I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion would be enough to do an experiment. Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?" -- Cerf

The move to IPv6 will create trillions of additional addresses, which should buy us another year or so until this whole "Internet fad" comes to a halt. (via SMH)

Apple Quietly Starts Tamper-Proofing Devices with Obscure Screws

Apple has always been known for their "Walled Garden" approach to software, locking out anything they don't see fit, but have now begun to prevent users from tampering with hardware as well. When visiting Japan for the release of the iPhone 4, the chaps at iFixit -- a company well known for their gadget tear-downs -- noticed that Apple had begun to replace the standard #00 Phillips screws with peculiar "Pentalobe" screws. That name sounds unfamiliar because the screws are one-of-a-kind, and (as far as anyone can tell) are only being used by Apple.