Google is moving swiftly with its brand new social network that launched last week, and is pushing a large list of changes and improvements over the next week as an ongoing effort to improve the product. The speed at which this release has been announced is impressive, and the list is not disappointing by any means.

Geek.com reports that the following list was extracted from comments on Vic Gundotra's Google+ page, senior vice president of social at Google;

 

• Ability to modify circles a post is shared with after posting it
  
• Reading sparks and +1 comments in the Android app
  
• Lifting of the 5000 circle cap (really?)
  
• The ability to overlap circles
  
• Option of a circle that doesn’t show up in your stream
  
• Menu follows you down the stream as you scroll
  
• Easy private messaging option including to person who starts a thread
  
• Google+ app for other platforms (WP7)
  
• Blocking working 100% of the time
  
• Easy way to merge circles
  
• Sharing and refresh updates in the Android app
  
• Link to hide all comments again after you’ve clicked to show all
  
• Better integration of Google Chat with Google+
  
• Fix issues with instant upload for photos
  
• Ability to share with all circles, but with an “except” option
  
• Ability to share Google Docs and Calendar with circles
  
• Revamp Google Reader to make sharing easier
  
• File-sharing integration
  
• Nested comments
  
• Addition of hashtags to aid searching
  

Most interestingly, the new release that's being pushed in the next week means that Google+ will have an application on Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 in the near future, which covers off the main three phone operating systems. There's more on top of this list, but the company is yet to formally make the announcement.

On top of this, Neowin has found a form created by Google that has become available for businesses to submit their details for Google+ "Brand Testing," which will be similar to "Pages" for business on Facebook. We're told that the form must be filled out by 6PM, Friday 15th July PST to be eligible. The form can be found here, and it asks questions such as "what other social presence do you have" and "what would you use your page for?"

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has shown what might be the next version of high speed WiFi. Currently named 802.11ac, the new proposed standard is able to deliver 120Mbps throughput to three receivers at the same time.

802.11ac uses the same 5GHz bandwidth as is currently used now in home WiFi systems; to get it to carry more data, the signal is multiplexed (sent out as round-robin bits of data from several different sources) on one end, and then de-multiplexed on the other, all using multiple-user Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology that in this case has been developed by NTT. The object is to get 1 Gbps per system, a rate that will be needed as bandwidth hogging applications such as ever higher video resolution or 3D content creates demand for ever faster LAN systems able to deliver such huge amounts of data to always hungry-for-more, customers.

Also helpful is the fact that 802.11ac, whatever its final form, will offer full backwards compatibility with the current version, meaning early adopters won't do any worse than what they have now, and likely will do much better as new hardware comes available.

The heatsink market has been relatively unchanged for years: you have a static, thermally conductive block with an array of heatpipes and fins alongside a fan. Naturally, that configuration varies depending on the noise level or cooling capacity desired, but most heatsink manufacturers are essentially reinventing the wheel.

Hoping to shake things up a bit, Sandia National Laboratories has unveiled a new technology that promises to "dramatically alter the air-cooling landscape." Referred to as the "Sandia Cooler" or the "Air Bearing Heat Exchanger," the contraption relies on rotating fins instead of a fan to dispel heat. The organization says conventional heatsink and fan combinations have a ton of "dead air" against the fins where there isn't a lot of airflow, and Sandia's design solves this limitation.

"In a conventional CPU cooler, the heat transfer bottleneck is the boundary layer of 'dead air' that clings to the cooling fins. With the Sandia Cooler, heat is efficiently transferred across a narrow air gap from a stationary base to a rotating structure. The normally stagnant boundary layer of air enveloping the cooling fins is subjected to a powerful centrifugal pumping effect, causing the boundary layer thickness to be reduced to ten times thinner than normal," the company explains.

The Sandia Cooler is said to dramatically increase cooling performance while occupying up to ten times less space than current state-of-the-art CPU coolers. It's also quieter, immune to dust clogging, and more power efficient. In fact, Sandia claims its technology could cut US power consumption by up to 7% if widely adopted. The group believes its technology is suitable for most computers and electronics, as well as household appliances like air conditioners.

For more information visit official Sandia National Laboratories website.

The space shuttle Atlantis is set to launch on Friday, July 8 at 11:26 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This will not only be the final launch for the Atlantis, but also the final launch of the entire space shuttle program. After this mission, the shuttle fleet will be officially retired, and NASA will begin to focus on new ways to send humanity into space.

The launch of the shuttle is in question, as NASA weather officials give only a 30% chance for favorable weather on Friday. That hasn't stopped the pre-launch countdown, however, as astronauts continue their routines to prepare the shuttle for launch.

If there is a delay in the launch of the shuttle, we can expect it to last anywhere from a day to a week.

The best place to catch the shuttle launch online will be from NASA TV's home page. You can see the live stream of the shuttle's entire launch and even watch it later if you miss the launch. NASA also has a uStream page for NASA TV, which you can watch on your iPhone with the Ustream app.

In a press release today, Apple has announced that their iOS App Store has reached a total of 15 billion downloads.

The one billionth app, Bump created by Bump Technologies, was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, CT. As the grand prize winner of Apple’s one billion app countdown contest, Connor will receive a $10,000 iTunes® gift card, an iPod® touch, a Time Capsule® and a MacBook® Pro.

 

“The revolutionary App Store has been a phenomenal hit with iPhone and iPod touch users around the world, and we’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve the astonishing milestone of one billion apps downloaded,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “In nine months, the App Store has completely revolutionized the mobile industry and this is only the beginning.”

 

Today, the groundbreaking App Store has more than 35,000 applications available to consumers in 77 countries, allowing developers to reach tens of millions of iPhone™ and iPod touch users around the world. This summer the iPhone OS 3.0 software update will provide developers with over 1,000 new developer APIs enabling In-App Purchases, Peer-to-Peer connections, App control of accessories, and Push Notifications. The iPhone OS 3.0 release will also add over 100 customer features including cut, copy and paste; Spotlight™ search; landscape keyboard and view for all key iPhone apps; MMS* support; and expanded parental controls for apps, TV shows, and movies from the App Store.

 

*MMS messaging is available only on iPhone 3G; fees may apply. MMS may not be available in all areas.

 

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

The highly popular software and content delivery ecosystem opened on July 18, 2008 and, according to Apple, took nine months to reach its first billion downloads. Since then, things have accelerated. Last month at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference, Jobs announced that the App Store had achieved 14 billion downloads. That means one billion downloads were reached in just a month's time. This makes the App Store the single most successful mobile software distribution environment to date.

And it's easy to see why. According to today's press release, the 15 billion downloads have been spread across 200 million iDevice users all across the world. That translates into 75 app downloads per user. At present, there are over 425,000 apps available for iOS devices in the App Store, with 100,000 of these specifically designed for the company's extremely successful iPad tablet. Compare that to iOS's biggest competitor Android's estimated 4.5 billion downloads as of May 2011 which is the most recent official figure available. Google claims that over 100 million Android devices have been activated meaning 52 apps have been downloaded per user. At present, it's estimated there are over 200,000 apps available in the Android Market.

Source: Apple

Google will no longer allow users to have private Google profiles after July 31st, reports Search Engine Land. The company had previously allowed users to create and maintain profiles on its service without publicly disclosing their existence.

Google is making the change primarily to aid in the growth of its new Google+ social network. This change means that you must have at least your full name and gender shown publicly to join Google+.

Google updated its public profiles page some time ago, as we commented on, to notify users of this upcoming change, stating:

The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don’t allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

 

Keep in mind that your full name and gender are the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you’ll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don’t want to share.

 

If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.

This change makes sense in the context of Google+ being a network that defaults to a ‘public’ setting, somewhat like Twitter. Anything that you share can be moderated to only appear to a member of the exact circles that you choose, but by default, everyone sees everything.

There are still some controls that are available to users, regardless of the public status of their profile. Users of Google can still choose to have their profile not be included in search results pages by visiting their profile privacy settings and changing the ‘Search visibility’ option.

One nice feature that Google does give users is the ability to remove their profile from showing in Google search. By going to your account page, you can uncheck the “Help others find my profile in search results” button to be removed from the results pages.

Listening to A-Team tell the story, there is no love lost between this new hacking crew and whoever it is ends up being the real people behind now-disbanded group LulzSec (and related group gn0sis):

The problem with Lulzsec/gn0sis's "Hacktivist" mantra is that they lack the skills to keep it going. As such after SONY they couldn't get into anything. So they switched their focus to just releasing random crap that didn't mean anything. Then they started running out of things they could hack. So they put out requests for people to join them. That got them a few hits, and now they've switched their gears again to be "ANTI-SEC". Whether or not this was an attempt at bring other groups out of the shadows (el8, h0no, zf0, etc), you can only speculate. But as of this writing: 6/24/2011 Sabu and Topiary are the only two people updating the twitter and releasing shit. Kayla is MIA. The gn0sis kids are gone in hiding somewhere.

 

From what we've seen these lulzsec/gn0sis kids aren't really that good at hacking. They troll the internet and search for sqlinjection vulnerabilities as well as Remote File Include/Local File Include bugs. Once found they try to download databases or pull down usernames and passwords. Their releases have nothing to do with their goals or their lulz. It's purely based on whatever they find with their "google hacking" queries and then release it.

The timing of this data dump and abrupt the Lulz Security "retirement" Saturday are indeed curious. I suppose if a number of high-profile arrests are made in the near future concerning teens and twenty-something computer experts we'll know if this list is legit or not, huh?

The full A-Team's message can be found here: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=iVujX4TR

Lulz Security, a group of hackers who have tormented corporations and government agencies, said Saturday that it would stop its spree, 50 days after it first started attacks.

In a statement posted on The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing Web site, the group said its six members had decided to "say bon voyage" as Lulz Security but did not cite a reason.

In addition, the group shared a number of files and documents it said were obtained in the course of its attacks. These files, which were available for download, included what appeared to be internal company documents from AT&T and user names and passwords from a number of other Web sites.

On its Twitter feed, the group's members encouraged other hackers to continue attacking Web sites and government agencies and said they planned to stay involved in the efforts through Anonymous, another collective of rogue hackers.

It is unclear why the group decided to stop hacking under its current name. In a recent interview with Adrian Chen of Gawker, one the group's members, who goes by the name "Topiary" online, said Lulz Security planned to continue its campaign for some time and said he had no fears of being apprehended by the authorities.

The full statement posted on The Pirate Bay by Lulz Security:

Friends around the globe,

 

We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. 50 days ago, we set sail with our humble ship on an uneasy and brutal ocean: the Internet. The hate machine, the love machine, the machine powered by many machines. We are all part of it, helping it grow, and helping it grow on us.

 

For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others — vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It's what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself.

 

While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you. Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn't that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did.

 

Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.

 

So with those last thoughts, it's time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind — we hope — inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere.

 

Thank you for sailing with us. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon.

 

Let it flow…

 

Lulz Security — our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011, and a shout-out to all of our battlefleet members and supporters across the globe.

Lookout Security Firm as identified a new Android Trojan named GGTracker that is downloaded to a user’s phone after visiting a malicious webpage that imitates the Android Market. The Trojan then proceeds to sign up the user to premium SMS services without their knowledge.

The Trojan targets only U.S. Smartphone users when they click on a malicious in-app advertisement. The website lures users to click-through to download and install an application one of which is a fake battery optimizer called "t4t.pwower.management", and another is a porn app called "com.space.sexypic".

After the application has been installed, GGTracker registers the user for premium subscription services. The Trojan carries out this task by contacting another server in the background where the malicious behavior intercepts crucial confirmation data to charge users without their consent or knowledge.

Lookout advises that users can protect themselves from malicious webpage’s by taking a few precautions:

• After clicking on an advertisement, make sure the page and URL matches the website the advertisement claims it’s sending you to.
  
• Download apps only from trusted sources. Also look at the developer’s name, reviews, and star ratings. If you are suppose to be on the Android Market, check the URL to make sure you are on the Market and not redirected to another site.
  
• Always monitor your phone for any unusual behavior like unusual SMS messages, strange charges on your phone bill or unusual network activity. Check all apps running in the background and investigate any that you think should not be running.
  
• Don’t download any third party apps by making sure "unknown sources" is not check off in "application settings" in your android system.
  
• Download a mobile security app for your phone that scans every app you download to ensure its safe.
  

More information: Lookout Blog

Our old favorite browser just got some updates, Firefox 5 is released on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

It's the first release of Firefox's new three-month rapid release development cycle, in which the user can get new features, updates, and bug fixes faster than ever before.

Although there are only small updates, and it looks like it cannot make any difference, well, think again. This small features really matters when combined together, they make a really significant change.

Some changes maybe useful for other users while some might not think so, for example, the adopted feature from Google Chrome in which the tabs stay the same size when closing them. Normally when you have a ton of tabs open and then you close one, the other tabs will expand to fill the space that the closed one had occupied. Now, it only does resize when your mouse leave the tab bar, so you can close consecutive tabs easily without moving your mouse.

Some great features added are:

 

• Support for CSS animation that lets page elements move around the screen. It's very useful to make web pages and web apps more dynamic.
  
• Do-Not-Track on Andriod, Mozilla created the Do-Not-Track feature to let users have control on how their browsing behavior is tracked and used on the web.
  
• Firefox new add-on SDK now lets developers build extensions with the use of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. This will make extensions easier to write and improve compatibility over the next versions of Firefox.
  
• Increased speed
  
• Improved stability
  
• Fixed security issues
  

The internet is changing in a fast paced cycle, so browsers need to catch up with the growing needs of the users. This update indicates that Firefox is not falling behind of the browser wars, it still got some trump cards under its sleeves.