Image Space Media Raises $1 Million For In-Image Ad Platform

TechCrunch50 demopit company Image Space Media (formerly Picad Media) has raised $1 million in new funding according to an SEC filing. ISM's ad network, which recently launched an analytics offering and a self service tool, helps publishers monetize images on their websites with ad overlays. Its proprietary technology allows for audience targeting and matches ads to the most appropriate images available.

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Mozilla slips up and posts old user database online, but you should be OK

On December 17, a partial database of addons.mozilla.org (AMO) user accounts was found on a public Mozilla server. Mozilla was quickly notified by a security researcher via the Bug Bounty program, and the database was quickly removed. Don't panic, though: you should be OK.

The file only contained inactive user accounts that were encrypted using older, no-longer-secure MD5 password hashes. All current AMO accounts are encrypted much more securely, and those accounts remain uncompromised. Mozilla is also fairly certain that they can account for every download of the database file, so there is likely little or no risk to the users involved -- but just in case, if you use your AMO password on other sites, you may want to change it. Incidentally, if you were one of the 44,000 people on the list, Mozilla should have sent you an email detailing the breach.

As always, it's vital that you use different passwords for every service you use; that way, if one database is breached, you are still relatively safe. KeePass is excellent, as is LastPass.

There's a little more information on the Sophos Naked Security blog, but really, there isn't much else to it. We're now left to wonder how a database of names and passwords was left on a public server...

Mozilla slips up and posts old user database online, but you should be OK originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VirtualBox 4 available for download, adds extension support, disk resizing

VirtualBox 4 has finally exited beta, and it comes bearing tons of updates, improvements, and new features. Among them are truly welcome additions like the ability to re-size both VHD and VDI virtual hard disks, a smoother and more thorough VM deletion process, and support for more than 2GB of memory on 32-bit hosts. There's also an updated set of virtual hardware including the Intel ICH9 chipset and Intel HD audio, and the new scaled display mode makes VMs play nice with your physical displays regardless of their respective resolutions.

The new option to create .vbox shortcuts is a real convenience, as it allows you double-click (or single, depending on your preferences) launching of your favorite VMs. Windows, Linux, and Solaris guests can also now auto-mount shared folders, which makes it easier to access files on your host system.

Oracle has also polished up the VirtualBox UI with improvements such as a sortable VM list. Hit up the changelog for full details about the new release.

Download VirtualBox 4

VirtualBox 4 available for download, adds extension support, disk resizing originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite strong start, iPad magazines not faring well over time

There's good news and bad news on the iPad publication front. First of all, lots of iPad magazines seem to be having respectable launches -- Wired's first iPad edition did a full 100,000 downloads earlier this year, and other magazines have seen similarly large numbers at launch, as customers download the app or content just to see what it's like. But that content doesn't seem to be holding anyone's attention, as most publications are seeing major drops over the rest of the year. Magazines like GQ, Vanity Fair, and Glamour have seen about a 20 percent user drop off per month from September to November, at a time when there were more iPads available than ever.

Reports say publishers are still hopeful -- they believe that solid holiday sales of Apple's tablet device could bring customers back after the new year. But numbers like these won't get anyone excited in publishing more iPad content, unfortunately. By the time there are enough iPad customers out there to make a digital publication on that platform worth it, publishers may have lost interest.

[via Engadget]

Despite strong start, iPad magazines not faring well over time originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The best iOS apps I used in 2010

After looking back over Mac and Mac/iOS hybrid apps, it's time to look at the best iOS apps of 2010. As before, this list comes from my particular experience over the past year with these apps.

1) iCab Mobile (US$1.99, universal) is a replacement for mobile Safari. While it is hindered by the fact that iOS doesn't have anywhere to set a "default browser," and therefore most URLs that you open from the Springboard or email/Twitter/etc... will open in Safari, iCab offers plenty of features that make it worth the effort. It is the first app on my dock, and I much prefer it over Safari. Although it uses the same rendering engine as Safari, it comes with a host of features that Safari doesn't have.

iCab Mobile will let you download files, which you can either offload to your computer later or upload to Dropbox from right within the app. Tap and hold an image, and you can save it right to your Dropbox. iCab on the iPad also does "real" tabs, with a visible tab present (it will auto-hide when not needed, if you want). You can set it to open links in new tabs, or open only links to different domains in new tabs. It has content filtering built-in, as well as module support for things like Instapaper, viewing HTML source or even downloading videos from YouTube. It also has a forms manager and a kiosk mode, and as Mike pointed out in November it supports VGA mirroring for presentation use. Web browsing is one of the primary uses of my iPad, and iCab Mobile is well worth the minimal asking price. Find out more at iCab Mobile's website.

See the rest of my choices below.

Continue reading The best iOS apps I used in 2010

The best iOS apps I used in 2010 originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More cold water on the idea that there's a huge issue in mobile app privacy.

More cold water on the idea that there's a huge issue in mobile app privacy.

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Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers

daveschroeder writes "The recent release of classified State Department cables has often been compared to the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has said he supports WikiLeaks, and sees the issues as similar. Floyd Abrams is the prominent First Amendment attorney and Constitutional law expert who represented the New York Times in the landmark New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713 (1971)) Supreme Court case, which allowed the media to publish the Pentagon Papers without fear of government censure. Today, Abrams explains why WikiLeaks is unlike the Pentagon Papers, and how WikiLeaks is negatively impacting journalism protections: "Mr. Ellsberg himself has recently denounced the 'myth' of the 'good' Pentagon Papers as opposed to the 'bad' WikiLeaks. But the real myth is that the two disclosures are the same.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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