WOW... see the Internet has weird ways of impacting your life.. i can semi relate to this story and its not because i was kidnapped or anything but i haven't spoken or seen my mom in like 13 years and then maybe about 2 yrs she found me on myspace and i had the same response.. i was content with my life and i know now that the father has been arrested its going to be even harder for the children to build a relationship with their mother.. read on to find out more about the article.


A San Bernardino mother whose children were kidnapped 15 years ago was able to finally track them down using Facebook.

San Bernardino’s Deputy District Attorney says it’s the first time his office has handled a case like this one. But in this digital age, it may not be the last.

Faustino Utrera, father of two toddlers, a boy and girl, vanished with them in 1995. Their mother reported them missing and 15 years passed. "At the time, they were 2 and 3 years old. So they’re now 17 and 16," said Kurt Rowley, San Bernardino Deputy District Attorney.

But in those years, the Internet exploded and social networking sites revolutionized the process of tracking people down.

"The mother got on to Facebook and typed in one of the children’s names and hit a Facebook page," said Rowley.

It was her daughter, and they started corresponding. The mother even sent the teenager a family photo, dating back to before the split. But the relationship stalled. "The teenager said, 'Not interested in a relationship. We just have a happy life. Leave us alone,'" said Rowley.

The teen’s Facebook page disappeared. The mother, who still lives in San Bernardino, contacted Rowley and his investigators. They tracked the Facebook profile and the girl to Orlando, Fla.

Utrera was then arrested and is now charged with two counts of kidnapping, and two counts of violating child custody orders.

As for the mother and her children, they will have to build a new relationship.

"There is no relationship there," said Carrie Hoeppner of the Florida Department of Children & Families. "You don't have that immediate joyful reunification. If in fact that is what will progress, it will take time. These children will have to build a relationship, and that is something that will not happen overnight."


original article.

Intel to Sell Version of Atom for Tablet Computers (Update2)

(Adds closing share price in the final paragraph.)

By Ian King

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, is producing a version of its Atom processor for tablet computers, trying to head off gains by mobile-phone chipmakers.

Intel will begin supplying the chips, which use half the power of other models, in early 2011, the Santa Clara, California-based company said. The new version of Atom, the most common processor in scaled-down notebook computers, or netbooks, is called Oak Trail.

Apple Inc.’s iPad, which went on sale in April, has stoked interest in touch-screen tablet computers, a category that had declined to less than 2 percent of overall PC sales. The iPad and other similar devices announced by Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. are based on chips more commonly found in mobile phones, using technology from ARM Holdings Plc.

“We’re very excited about the tablet segment,” Matthew Parker, a general manager of the company’s Atom division, said in a telephone interview. “We see it as an opportunity for Intel to extend its business.”

Oak Trail will support multiple operating systems including Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 7, Intel’s own Meego and Google Inc.’s Android. It will have components that let it handle high- definition video and connect with large displays.

Separately, Intel will introduce an update of Atom for netbooks that contains two processors built into one piece of silicon. So-called multiple-core chips are better at running software programs simultaneously. The company will showcase a version of the chip that has been adapted to fit into netbooks as narrow as 14 millimeters, Parker said.

Intel will give more details of the new products in speeches at the Computex show in Taipei this week.

The company’s shares fell 24 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $21.18 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They have gained 3.8 percent this year.

--Editors: Elizabeth Wollman, Margot Slade

To contact the reporter on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Julie Alnwick at jalnwick@bloomberg.net

original article.

Study shows why overhearing cell phone calls bugs us so much

Study shows why overhearing cell phone calls bugs us so much

A new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science purports to reveal just why overhearing cell phones calls, on the bus, on the subway, or wherever, apparently bother us so much.

The study, by Cornell University, suggests it's not because, as many have noted, many people on cell phones shout into their handsets as their is no sidetone. Rather, the study suggests that human brains simply don't like one-sided conversations.

The study tested 41 college students to see how their results on a series of cognitive tests on a computer were affected by either silence, a monologue, a conversation between two people, and half a conversation (called a "halfalogue," such as overhearing a cell phone call). It was the "halfalogue" which lowered participants' scores on the tests.

The study showed that a one-sided conversation draws more attention and drains concentration from listeners. Researchers believe that we are unable to tune out a "halfalogue" because unlike a monologue to a two-sided conversation, listeners try to make sense out of the half they hear and predict what speakers will say next.

Lauren Emberson is a co-author of the study, along with Michael Goldstein. "When you hear half of a conversation, you get less information and you can't predict as well," she said. "It requires more attention."

The researchers noted that while talking on a cell phone is already known to distract drivers, listening to a passenger's cell phone conversation may also be distraction. Further study should be done, they indicated.

original article.

Facebook Fight Calls For Flight

Just as smokers are advised to select and work towards a quit date, the Web site QuitFacebookDay is encouraging frustrated Facebook users to cut the chord with the powerful social networking site on May 31.
Founded by technologist Joseph Dee and systems designer Matthew Milan, QuitFacebookDay is asking prospective ex-account-holders to sign their email or Twitter ID to a pledge list. Monday morning, there were 2,635 "committed Facebook quitters," according to the website, up about 70% from the May 15 count of 780.

For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues," wrote Milan and Dee. "The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can't see Facebook's current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we're leaving."
Dee and Milan are not alone in their efforts to organize a mass Facebook exodus. The "Quit Facebook Day" page on Facebook is liked by more than 1,500 people -- or less than 0.00375% of the site's more than 400 million users.

Numerous technologies including deduplication may have a role to play in managing burgeoning corporate storage requirements

Guide To Making The Right Data Deduplication Decisions

FacebookProtest.com -- which as 1,212 followers on Twitter -- plans a June 6 boycott of the Web site. "Be sure to log out of Facebook in all of your browsers no later than the evening of June 5th. On the 6th, be sure to not use Facebook connect or click any “Like” buttons: basically refrain from all Facebook related activity," the site said.

Facebook recently added two privacy tools, but account deactivations are gaining attention.

Some well-known industry names have made much-publicized cuts to their Facebook ties. Google's webspam chief Matt Cutts deactivated his Facebook ties on April 22, according to comments he made on Twitter. Peter Rojas, Gizmodo and Engadget founder also tweeted about his decision to cut his Facebook ties.

Changes to Facebook's privacy policies are spurring concerns about the site. In the last five years, Facebook's privacy policy has grown from about 1,000 words to today's 5,830 words, according to the New York Times.

The site's complementary FAQ is 45,000 words. It is now longer than the U.S. Constitution, the Huffington Post found. In fact, there are 4543 words in the original, unamended Constitution, including the signatures. The Declaration has 1458 words.

original article.

Followers vanish as Twitter squashes bug

Glitch allowed users to ‘force’ other users to follow
By Helen A.S. Popkin
updated 47 minutes ago
The Twitpocolypse is upon us! Earlier today, as the microblogging site attempted to fix an embarrassing bug, follower lists suddenly disappeared. As the Twitterverse panicked and "Follower 0" rose to the top of it's trending list, Twitter assured its users via the company's own Twitter feed that the issue would be rapidly remedied.

“Follow count display is set to 0 and follow/unfollow is temporarily offline while we fix a bug,” Twitter’s own Twitter account reported at 1:02 p.m., confirming that everyone, from Ashton Kutcher to Justin Bieber bloggers, was affected.

Earlier Monday, the microblogging network was beset by a bug that allowed anyone to force other Twitter users to follow his or her account. Social network news site Mashable reported that one alert reader e-mailed the details of the glitch Monday morning, writing “[tweet] accept [username]” then the [username] immediately starts following you.”

original article.

Facebook's new features raise privacy concerns

Those are three examples of how Facebook is moving quickly to make the Internet one big personalized social network, setting up the Palo Alto firm as the default communications platform for what some observers are already calling Web 3.0.

The possibilities are exciting to marketers and Web site operators - and alarming to digital privacy advocates.

"Facebook wants to be the center of the social Web," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst for the research firm eMarketer Inc. Whether the company succeeds, "we're going to have to wait and see," she said. "The biggest question to me is whether consumers and companies are going to want to cede the social Web to Facebook. And maybe some privacy concerns will come out that we haven't even thought about yet."

Last week at its developers conference in San Francisco, Facebook Inc. introduced an ambitious plan to export the Facebook experience to all Web sites, using "social plug-ins" like a new "Like" button to link news stories, restaurant reviews, movie data, product information and other content to a Facebook user's network.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg outlined his vision of linking the "social graphs" of the more than 400 million Facebook users to the rest of the Internet, creating an efficient, interconnected Web of social interactions.

Companies jump in
Numerous companies are already on board with the plan, including Yelp, CNN, the New York Times, IMDb, Time Inc., Fandango, the National Hockey League, USA Networks, Levi Strauss, Univision and ABC-TV.

They hope that tapping into a beehive of social activity yields a wealth of customer data that leads to more product sales or advertising opportunities. And combined with Facebook's growing reach into the Web, "marketers realized they needed to fish where the fish are," Willamson said.

Job searches
For job search firm Simply Hired Inc., integrating Facebook into its Web site with just a few lines of computer code will provide useful tools for job seekers, said Dion Lim, the Mountain View firm's president and chief operating officer.

original article.

RIM unveils rejigged BlackBerry models

TORONTO/VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Research in Motion is launching variations of two existing BlackBerry smartphones, the company said on Monday, and its co-chief executive hinted that much-anticipated announcements on a new operating system and browser are also on the way.

Technology | Media

But its stock fell as the news fell short of what many investors were hoping the company would announce to counter growing competition from rivals like Apple Inc and Motorola Inc, especially in the consumer market.

"RIM does not have a competing product for the retail space and that is very, very negative for anyone who's buying the stock today," said Barry Schwartz, vice-president and portfolio manager at Baskin Financial Services.

RIM unveiled the new versions of both devices on the eve of its annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium, a three-day event that officially runs from April 27-29 in Orlando, Florida.

A CDMA version of the high-end BlackBerry Bold device will ship in May to both Verizon and Sprint Nextel - two of North America's largest wireless carriers that run CDMA networks, the company said in a statement. The BlackBerry Bold is already available to carriers that operate GSM networks.

GSM and CDMA are the two main types of mobile technology used by wireless carriers across the world. CDMA lost the battle for global dominance but it still has a strong position in some markets.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company is also taking the wraps off a new 3G version of the Pearl, which is the smallest of its range of BlackBerry devices. The new GSM device will allow for faster data downloads on newer 3G networks.

But the market was hoping for early news about an improved BlackBerry operating system and browser for navigating the Internet, which even devout fans say is not as easy to use as Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid.

Co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie hinted that fellow co-CEO Mike Lazaridis could reveal more details in a presentation later on Monday as well as throughout the WES trade show.

"You are going to hear a lot about our web strategy this week," Balsillie said in the opening address at the event.

"I won't steal any of Mike's thunder," he said.

Analysts hope the software improvements will allow RIM to compete more effectively against the iPhone, Droid and a slew of other smartphone devices that have been nibbling away at RIM's market share.

A growing number of analysts argue that rival smartphones could keep taking market share from the BlackBerry, especially in North America, unless RIM delivers an improved operating system and browser.

Balsillie took a more optimistic view of the BlackBerry's outlook. "I think the North American market will continue to grow, and grow quickly for us," he said.

Consumer-friendly enhancements, such as more powerful in-phone cameras and an easier-to-navigate display, are also in the offing, he said.

"You are going to see very powerful extensions on our part. I don't think you have to be too patient either," he said.

RIM's apps store, which analysts say falls far short of Apple's applications' offering, is growing fast with downloads doubling in last 120 days, he said.

RIM on Monday also announced an upgraded version of its mobile voice system (MVS) technology, which allows for the seamless integration of a customer's office landline and BlackBerry device. The technology currently allows the two devices to work as one and a user can route all outgoing calls through his office landline device.

The latest upgrade to the MVS technology will allow users to make and receive phone calls from their BlackBerry devices over a Wi-Fi connection.

RIM's stock fell as much as 2.9 percent to C$68.50 on the Toronto Stock Exchange early on Monday. By late morning, the stock was off its lows at C$69.33, down C$1.23 or 1.7 percent.

On Nasdaq, it was down 1.8 percent at $69.37

original article.