Tag Archive for: afterdawn

Facebook CMO David Fischer has confirmed; auto-play video ads may be coming to your news feed soon.

While the exec admitted that the ads can be distracting, he says “I believe there are ways we could do it.”

Fischer, speaking at this week’s Future Of Media Keynote, says businesses have been asking for ways to include more “attention-grabbing” ads, moving beyond a simple sidebar or news feed text and picture ad.

When asked if the company admired how any other company worked with video ads, he surprisingly gave props to Facebook’s biggest competitor, Google. “You know I think YouTube has moved in the right direction by putting more control in the user’s hands, with the five-second TrueView thing.” TrueView are the ads on YouTube that allow the user to skip after 5 seconds. Businesses only get charged if viewers watch the whole ad.

Fischer was then asked how the ads could be incorporated to the News Feed: “I believe there are ways we could do it. There are ways that could be destructive and distracting to the user experience. But there are ways that could potentially balance user experience with advertiser experience. We haven’t put a product out yet because we haven’t had one we’re comfortable with. But if we could, then we would do it.”

Google has made the aptly named Nexus 4 Wireless Charger available to fans of the new flagship.

The device is available through the Google Play Store, and ships “within a week.”

For $60 (before tax and shipping), users receive the nice looking orb, which is Qi inductive. “Its angled surface provides easy visibility of your phone while charging. This elegant device was designed specifically for your Nexus 4 — no clunky add-ons or accessories needed,” says Google.

When docked, the phone will reveal the battery power, and weather, news and sports. Google says it takes a bit over 3 hours to fully charge the device with the charger.

Check it here: Nexus 4 Wireless Charger

President Obama to follow VP Joe Biden by hosting Google+ Hangout.

The President will deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people on Tuesday evening, continuing a 200 year tradition. Ex Presidents and their staff would typically then be grilled about the speech for a few days afterwards by the media, and the Obama administration will be no different.

On Thursday however, President Obama will subject himself to questions in a Google+ Hangout session at 4:50pm ET. Like VP Biden’s Hangout, the President will be joined by a group of people who regularly discuss important issues of the day online. Americans will also be able to submit questions or thoughts to the President by going to the White House YouTube channel and submitting a questions (text or video).

You have until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 13.

The President’s State of the Union address will also be broadcast live on YouTube, from 9pm ET, as will the response from the Republican Party via Senator Marco Rubio.

The Fireside handout with President Obama can be watched on the White House Google+ page or the White House YouTube channel.

Microsoft targets some critical flaws.

It will roll out fixes as it always does; on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of every month. The February 2013 bundle targets flaws in the Windows Operating Systems, Internet Explorer and Exchange. All in all, 57 security issues will be addressed on Patch Tuesday.

The company will push out at least 12 updates to address the flaws – five of which come with a rating of critical. Security updates with this rating suggest that the flaws could be exploited to run arbitrary code on a victims PC if they, for example, visit a specially crafted webpage to exploit them.

Every version of Internet Explorer from IE6 needs to be patched, while flaws in the Windows operating system are considered critical only for versions below Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.

Users should not procrastinate when it comes to Microsoft’s monthly patches. While the second Tuesday of every month has become known as “Patch Tuesday”, there is a lesser known monthly special day, known by some as “Exploit Wednesday”.

Malware writers and others dissect the updates pushed out on Patch Tuesday and develop exploits as quickly as they can against the vulnerabilities, hoping to catch out users who procrastinate when it comes to keeping updated.

Microsoft’s advisory for Feb 2013’s patches: technet.microsoft.com