HootSuite hits 2 million users, doubles signups in seven months

Social sharing tool HootSuite today announced it had hit a new milestone, registering its 2 millionth signup just seven months after it had reached one million users in November 2010.

Signups are likely to have been helped by the companies decision to adopt a Freemium model, crafting package tiers to provide an extensive range of tools to both consumers and businesses ? keeping it free for 95% of its users. The company also has popular apps available on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and iPad which post to a range of social networks.

HootSuite details its plans for the future in its blog post:

Amidst all the consolidations, acquisitions and changes in the marketplace, we are proud to keep leading the way with unique features and thoughtful improvements. As the first social media dashboard, HootSuite has helped define new ways of understanding how social media tools and tactics can be applied to small and enterprise business, political campaigns, government management, civic revolutions, emergency response or just connecting with friends about hobbies you enjoy.

To celebrate its impressive milestone, the team created an infographic to document its growth. Did you know HootSuite reaches 3.3 billion users with messages sent from its tools? Neither did we. Read on to find out more impressive statistics.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/07/05/hootsuite-hits-2-million-users-doubles-signups-in-seven-months/

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On Main Street, Cheers for Bachmann

She came to a quick stop when she encountered Alexandra Wood, 7, who held a bullhorn nearly as big as she was and shouted, ?Michele Bachmann for president!?

The Independence Day parade in Clear Lake, a northern Iowa town that swells every year on the Fourth of July, is well accustomed to political visitors. But the excitement surrounding Mrs. Bachmann rivaled the attention paid to most candidates in recent years, including in 2007 when Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived with her husband in tow.

?We love you Iowa!? Mrs. Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, said again and again as she worked her way through the parade. ?We?ll be back soon!?

One week after Mrs. Bachmann declared her candidacy in Iowa, where she lived until age 12, her campaign has swept through New Hampshire and South Carolina, drawing bigger crowds than any of her Republican rivals. She returned here for a three-day weekend tour, a sign that she is placing her hopes on a strong showing in Iowa, whose caucuses open the nominating contest early next year.

She was trailed by a new blue tour bus, which has her name emblazoned on it 25 times. There were new Bachmann stickers. And new signs with hand-printed messages: ?Wake up, America. Vote Bachmann!? and ?Save Family and Country, Vote Bachmann!?

There was little time for policy discussions. But as Mrs. Bachmann made her way through the thriving business district, just beyond Ralphene?s Cards, Candles and Gifts and the Back Alley Wine shop, two women led a chant: ?Michele, Michele, Michele!?

?She?s blunt, and she says exactly what we need to hear,? said one of the women, Julie Danke, who added that it was too early to say who she would ultimately vote for.

The rousing reception for Mrs. Bachmann also highlighted a challenge in the coming weeks as candidates prepare to compete in their first unofficial showdown: the Iowa straw poll. With nearly every handshake she delivered, Mrs. Bachmann added a pitch: ?Come to the straw poll!?

Turning excitement along a parade route into committed support is her next test.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c81364358146df97bf8ccf88a412d9ed

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Gaming 28 - Revisiting the Village

A Futures Market for Computer Security

Information security researchers from academia, industry, and the U.S. intelligence community are collaborating to build a pilot "prediction market" capable of anticipating major information security events before they occur.

A prediction market is similar to a regular stock exchange, except the "stocks" are simple statements that the exchange's members are encouraged to evaluate. Traders will buy and sell "shares" of a stock based on the strength of their confidence about the future outcome?with an overall goal of increasing the value of their portfolios, which will in turn earn them some sort of financial reward. Traders may choose to buy or sell additional shares of a stock, and that buying and selling activity pushes the stock price up or down, just as in a real market.

Some of the stocks being considering cover a few months, such as: "The volume of spam e-mail will increase by 10 percent in the third quarter of 2011." Others will ask participants to gauge the likelihood of far-off events, such as the chance that the U.S. House of Representatives will pass a bill with "cyber" and "security" in its title in the first session of the 112th Congress, or whether broadly used encryption algorithms will be defeated within the next 24 months.

Greg Shannon, chief scientist of the CERT program at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, who is involved with the project, says the purpose is to provide actionable data.

"If you're Verizon, and you're trying to pre-position resources, you might want to have some visibility over the horizon about the projected prevalence of mobile malware," Shannon said. "That's something they'd like to have an informed opinion about by leveraging the wisdom of the security community."

Predictions markets have effectively forecasted all manner of events and trends, from the success of sports teams to the sales of new products. The pilot project will rely on software and services provided by Consensus Point, a Nashville-based company that has helped to build employee-driven prediction markets for several major companies, including General Electric, Best Buy, and Qualcomm. Best Buy's prediction market?called "TagTrade"?is designed to give management an early indicator of which new products or ideas are likely to succeed, and whether specific new stores will open on time.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=633e954d5e00961b3706676023948b07

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Iran set to launch its own Internet

As if it weren?t enough that Iran has already figured out how to foil America?s ?Internet in a Suitcase? before it has even come into existence, Iranian Communications Minister Resza Taqipour has announced plans for Iran to get its own Internet by the end of August.

Monsters and Critics quoted the official Iranian News Agency, where the details were revealed, saying that Iranian Internet would be available at a speed of 8 megabits, eventually boosting it up to 20.

Of course all the speed in the world won?t help Iranians get onto some of the world?s most popular sites. Facebook and Twitter are, and will continue to be, blocked in the country, along with any opposition parties? websites, and anything that is deemed morally or politically inappropriate.

Not only is Iran getting its own Internet, it won?t have any need for Google anymore when it gets its own search engine by 2012. The search engine will be called ?Ya Haq,? meaning, ?Calling God.?

According to previous announcements by Taqipour, Iran?s Internet will be in beta testing in less than a week, in which some users will get the chance to try out the so-called Clean Web.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/me/2011/07/05/iran-set-to-launch-its-own-internet/

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Gaming 27 - The PlayStation Ryvita

Gaming 28 - Revisiting the Village

Hard Lines iPhone Review

Hard Lines iPhone Review

Posted on 26th Jun 2011 at 10:44 by David Hing with 9 comments

Back when mobile phones were still thought of as a new idea, Nokia's 3210 was highly sought after in many circles for its built in version of the highly addictive game Snake. Fast forward a decade, and Hard Lines is attempting to be a worthy successor to that classic title.

The mechanics of Hard Lines are simple. With simple directional strokes of your finger, you steer a line around the screen towards randomly spawning markers, accruing points while avoiding other lines that enter from the sides of the screen.

Slick and neatly designed, Hard Lines is clearly influenced by the Light Cycles from Tron, yet it doesn't limit itself to that one style of play; there are several variations. In some modes, you gain points by getting opposing lines to crash into you or the walls; in others you race against the clock, or just try to last for as long as possible. There are also some good bonuses, such as the occasional power up that enables you to crash through any other competing lines without killing yourself.


The gameplay is occasionally made overly complicated, however, via the addition of dialogue that bikes may utter in the middle of a match. This appears as a single line of text and, while it's often funny, it's usually just a distraction that obscures your view.

Aside from this, though, the balancing is beautiful and the game manages to be both punishing and forgiving at once. Each line is only a single pixel wide, for example, but you only need to pass near an item on the screen to collect it, avoiding any frustrating situations where you might end up circling it forever. Not only this, but the very narrow nature of your line means the game can afford to throw a lot of competing lines at you at any one time. In particular, the Gauntlet mode continually spawns large numbers of other lines rapidly, resulting in an intense session that's highly satisfying when it goes your way.

Verdict: Hard Lines is a well designed, easily controlled, multifaceted version of Snake with enough new material and creativity behind it to stop it being called a straightforward clone.

Hard Lines is available from the AppStore for 59p / 99c.

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Administration Offers Health Care Cuts as Part of Budget Negotiations

Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.

Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.

?Congress smells blood,? said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.

Mr. Minnix, the president of a trade group known as LeadingAge, is urging nursing homes to ?bombard your senators with the message that Medicaid cannot be cut by $100 billion? over 10 years, as President Obama and many Republican lawmakers have suggested.

A coalition of hospital lobbyists, worried about the direction of the budget talks, has begun a national advertising campaign to block further cuts in the two health care programs, which account for about 55 percent of hospital revenues. The hospitals have made a commitment to spend up to $1 million a week through August on television, print and online advertising.

?This is white-knuckle time for a lot of people,? said Bryant Hall, a health care lobbyist whose clients include drug and biotechnology companies. ?Stakeholders and beneficiaries are anxiously watching the budget negotiations.?

They may have reason to be anxious.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said: ?We are very willing to entertain savings in Medicare. Medicare gives very good health care very inefficiently.?

In return, Mr. Schumer said, Republicans should be willing to consider some additional revenue.

Negotiators said they were seriously considering cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals for uncollectible patient debt and the training of doctors; steps to eliminate Medicare ?overpayments? to nursing homes; a reduction in the federal share of some Medicaid spending; and new restrictions on states? ability to finance Medicaid by imposing taxes on hospitals and other health care providers.

Medicare and Medicaid insure more than 100 million people, account for 23 percent of all federal spending and are likely to be an important part of any budget deal. Military spending, which accounts for about 20 percent of federal expenditures, is likely to be included as well.

Most Republicans have ruled out tax rate increases to reduce the deficit. Mr. Obama has rejected the idea of Medicare vouchers, Medicaid block grants or any rollback of the new health care law. But he and the Republicans say they still hope to find some common ground.

Mr. Obama has embraced the goal of reducing deficits by a total of $4 trillion over 12 years ? an ambitious goal that suggests the size of any grand bargain.

In a speech in April, Mr. Obama offered to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid without cutting benefits. He said his ideas would save $340 billion over 10 years and a total of nearly $500 billion in the two programs by 2023. His numbers quickly became a starting point in the negotiations.

As for Medicaid, administration officials have indicated that they could accept savings of $100 billion or more over 10 years, much to the dismay of many House Democrats. The lawmakers say the cuts would impair access to care for the poor and shift costs to the states, which are facing a huge expansion in Medicaid eligibility and enrollment, scheduled to start in 2014 under the new health care law.

While insisting on new revenue at his news conference last week, Mr. Obama also said, ?We?ll have to tackle entitlements,? adding that ?health care cuts? need to be part of any deal.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, described a fiscal and political imperative: ?We can?t balance the budget without dealing with mandatory spending programs like Medicare. We can?t save Medicare as we know it. We can save Medicare only if we change it.?

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5f0af239f95a5a5a11dff83118d71f48

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Hard Lines iPhone Review

Hard Lines iPhone Review

Posted on 26th Jun 2011 at 10:44 by David Hing with 9 comments

Back when mobile phones were still thought of as a new idea, Nokia's 3210 was highly sought after in many circles for its built in version of the highly addictive game Snake. Fast forward a decade, and Hard Lines is attempting to be a worthy successor to that classic title.

The mechanics of Hard Lines are simple. With simple directional strokes of your finger, you steer a line around the screen towards randomly spawning markers, accruing points while avoiding other lines that enter from the sides of the screen.

Slick and neatly designed, Hard Lines is clearly influenced by the Light Cycles from Tron, yet it doesn't limit itself to that one style of play; there are several variations. In some modes, you gain points by getting opposing lines to crash into you or the walls; in others you race against the clock, or just try to last for as long as possible. There are also some good bonuses, such as the occasional power up that enables you to crash through any other competing lines without killing yourself.


The gameplay is occasionally made overly complicated, however, via the addition of dialogue that bikes may utter in the middle of a match. This appears as a single line of text and, while it's often funny, it's usually just a distraction that obscures your view.

Aside from this, though, the balancing is beautiful and the game manages to be both punishing and forgiving at once. Each line is only a single pixel wide, for example, but you only need to pass near an item on the screen to collect it, avoiding any frustrating situations where you might end up circling it forever. Not only this, but the very narrow nature of your line means the game can afford to throw a lot of competing lines at you at any one time. In particular, the Gauntlet mode continually spawns large numbers of other lines rapidly, resulting in an intense session that's highly satisfying when it goes your way.

Verdict: Hard Lines is a well designed, easily controlled, multifaceted version of Snake with enough new material and creativity behind it to stop it being called a straightforward clone.

Hard Lines is available from the AppStore for 59p / 99c.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/AtnThqURR0c/

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