Ever heard of Grado Labs? Ever seen someone walking around with headphones that made them look like a time traveler from two decades ago? I am not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination (relatively compared), but I have been searching for a while for the best bang for the buck.
I was tired of listening to songs and knowing that there was a sound here or a subtlety there that I just couldn’t hear any longer. No, my hearing wasn’t going. Rather, the variety of speakers and headphones that I have used have allowed me to - over time - hear differing slices of music. One set of headphones may have emphasized a part of the song I hadn’t noticed before. But, on my car’s speakers, I couldn’t hear the nuances any longer. Further still, on my earphones, a completely different set of sounds emerged in prominence.
Facebook now supports encrypted web access for most parts of its service. Secure browsing (over HTTPS) ensures that web traffic between your computer and Facebook’s servers are encrypted for security. Eavesdropping on secure web traffic is much more difficult than clear text web traffic (which constitues most Internet traffic). This type of security is basic policy for the websites of financial institutions as well as other websites where sensitive information is transferred.
Sometimes email feels like a tired old habit that we just can’t shake. On the other hand, we’re often overwhelmed with the variety of communication options: Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and so on. Many mail services have popped up in recent history that bring new things to the table: first Google with its enormous (at the time) storage space, and now Facebook, who dares to blur the line between social networking and email. But what if we could rejuvenate the 30-year-old dinosaur on the desktop? What if email was hip and bearable?
Facebook is launching an @facebook.com email service today. In short: users who opt-in to the service will receive an @facebook.com email address based on their Facebook user name. Messages sent to that address will seamlessly integrate into Facebook chat, messages, etc. Facebook is also launching an updated iPhone app today alongside the product launch.
Andrew Bosworth from Facebook insists that this is not an email service. Rather, it seems that Facebook is attempting to integrate the various communication mediums that people use today (including email) through the existing framework within Facebook. This, combined with filtering technology, is being called the “social inbox” by Facebook.
Not too long ago Apple announced that the version of Java ported to Mac would now be deprecated. This brought into question the future of Java on Mac OS X.
The worries have subsided now that Apple has announced it is collaborating with Oracle for an implementation of Java SE 7 on Mac OS X. While Oracle will be providing the future versions of Java for Mac, Apple will be contributing a large portion of code, including a 32- and 64-bit Java virtual machine.