World’s leading mobile music discovery provider Shazam today announced the availability of its (SHAZAM)^RED Special Edition App on the App Store. Unlike the Shazam app which is free, the new app costs $4.99 like Shazam Encore app. Apart from updated content related to (RED)™, rest of features are mostly similar to that of Shazam Encore. Shazam will donate 20% of the proceeds to (RED). (RED) works towards eradication & awareness of HIV and AIDS in Africa.

“(RED) enables consumers to positively impact the lives of those living with AIDS in Africa through their purchases of products and we are incredibly honored to be the first mobile app company to partner with them,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “Given our popularity and that we already have more than 10 million iPhone and iPod touch users around the world, (SHAZAM)^RED is a powerful way for our audience to create real change in the world.”

Shazam has now become the first mobile app developer to link up with (RED). All new and existing Shazam users will have the option to upgrade to (SHAZAM)^RED .

According to Reuters, Twitter might go through acquisitions to bring in some of the talented developers from its ecosystem.

“That is something we are definitely interested in,” Stone told a news conference in Tel Aviv. “We made an acquisition last year that turned out to be an outstandingly good decision.”

Twitter acquired Summize last year and enhanced its real time search ability. So it is very much possible that new acquisitions would enhance the functionality of Twitter without any major change in its UI.

Security firm F-Secure is reporting that a new iPhone worm is targeting jailbroken ipnones in the Netherlands. Unlike the first worm, this one is malicious and steals bank login info. More specifically, customers of ING Direct are targeted in this round. If the jailbroken iPhone is SSH enabled with the default password (“alpine”) unchanged, the worm redirects the bank’s customers to a look-a-like site with a log-in screen. The hacker can then use the collected login data to steal money from the bank accounts at a later time. The new worm also has the ability to infect iPhones sharing the same WiFi hotspot. So it is imperative that jailbroken iPhone users should either disable SSH or change the default password to be secure.

A leading Indian blog reports that Google has discriminated Indian kids by awarding a paltry $2100 for the doodle4 google competition, when kids from USA  “will win a $15,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to the Google New York Office, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle. We’ll also award the winner’s school a $25,000 technology grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab.” A couple of other news sources from India are also reporting the story from the same perspective.

Was a bit surprised and started to poke around if this was true. Not only is this true but also is pretty darn nasty. The prizes announced for the doodle4google competition in Australia, USA, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Israel, England were either the same as the US prize or is much higher than the prize announced for Indian Kids. Mexican prizes are worse when compared to the Indian prize. Mexican winner will get a laptop and not a single peso is given to the school or the kid. Egyptian winner gets crayons and pencils. No laptop. No ipod. Chinese kids are better off in the third world with almost $7200 in cash prize. I could not comprehend the logic behind the prize formula. The prizes, in comparison are more peanut shells than the proverbial peanuts.

Unless these third world kids stole Larry or Sergey’s lunch money, they deserve a decent and equal treatment. So much for not being evil Google.

After almost three months, famous multi protocol chat client Trillian has been approved in the iPhone appstore. In the past couple of years Beejive, IM+, fring etc got pretty popular in the appstore with hundreds of downloads everyday. However, Trillian’s strength is its huge desktop install base of loyal users. Trilian is  one of the earliest desktop IM clients that supported multiple protocols like Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ etc.

It should be a bittersweet day for Trillian makers Cerulean Studios. The app has already been cracked/pirated and is distributed in leading pirate forums for download. The number of downloads prove that the pirated app is getting very popular among the jailbroken iphone community. iPhone appstore piracy is worse when compared to Windows desktop app piracy. Atleast in the case of Windows, pirates have the hassle of finding the right keygen or crack. In the case of jailbroken iPhones, it’s just download and run the app. So very sad for the developers of Trillian, they do not have the option to blacklist or kick the pirates from their servers thanks to the limitations imposed by Apple.

According to a Taiwanese news outlet, Apple may be delaying the launch of it iTablet till late 2010. Plans to launch a model using a 9.7-inch OLED panel from LG nd switching some of the components are touted as the major reasons for the delay. The delay kinda makes sense, as by the end of 2010, people would have forgotten about the recession and would be going on a mad holiday purchasing spree. However, some details from the source, like the tablets will cost $1,200-$1,500 to make and would be sold for $2,000 to consumers is outright implausible. Apple is greedy, but they are definitely not crazy.

Maybe if you look hard enough am sure there will be a provision to charge the battery by hand winding.. iPhone killer, my ass.

1. Gmail Certificate FAIL

The most pathetic and irritating annoyance of Chrome is that it fails to validate its own SSL certificate. If you visit https://gmail.com, Chrome will suggest that you might be stupid enough to visit a wrong site. So much for developing a brand new browser for “enhancing” the user experience with Google’s services.

2. Atom feed FAIL

There is no feed icon in the address bar. All “modern” (Google’s favorite term) browsers, including IE, now allows users to subscribe to a site’s news feed from the browser. Blogs and websites have feed link icons all over the page and the browser should facilitate a streamlined subscription option.

Also, Chrome’s support for RSS feeds is pretty spotty like the AT&T 3G network. On the other hand, Atom support is all the way broken. Congrats Google.

3. Cookie FAIL

Another pathetic insult to Chrome is its inability to identify it’s OWN cookie when opening Google’s sites. I logged into my Gmail account and Google Reader accounts and then tried to open the Youtube link from the link at the top left hand corner.  Sadly, I was not logged into my Youtube account automatically. It is laughable that the “Cookie King” of the planet falls flat in its core competency. Firefox does this perfectly though.

The same kinda cookie snafu occurs when you try the Bookmark Sync option, even when logged into a Google account.

4. Links FAIL

Why is the order of the links at the top left hand corner of the Gmail/Reader/Google Accounts in total disarray in Chrome and Firefox for the SAME account?

Firefox

Chrome

5. Status bar FAIL

The tacky status bar overlaps at all the wrong places in the webpage. For example, it covers the Next item and Previous Item options in Google Reader rendering them unusable most of the time.

6. Scrolling FAIL

I use a lot browsers and software that involves scrolling up & down. Except for Chrome, NONE of them gave me the rubbing-on-the-skin-with-salt-paper type of scrolling.

7. Settings Import FAIL

When I tried to import settings from other browsers, Chrome asked me to close all my open Firefox Windows and those that are open in the entire office (Not really). But hey! Really need to close all open browser windows? Firefox imports settings with other browsers open.

8. UI FAIL

The stop button is on the omnibar, almost at the extreme right. Back, Forward and Refresh buttons are on extreme left. Users have to move the mouse from left to right like a typewriter’s head to stop and go back. What logic drove the Chrome team to do this?

9. Clear private data FAIL

There is no option to clear private data upon exiting the browser. Forget Firefox, even IE has that feature. Am not going to emphasise the need for this feature in a multiuser environment. That’s the job of the fat ass program manager/ lazy ass developers at Googleplex.

10. File Download FAIL

There is no notification when the file downloads are complete. FF pings you even when there is a movie playing in fullscreen mode. At this point it is pretty insulting to even compare Chrome with Firefox. They are yet to catch up with IE 6.

There is an old saying, “You are as strong as your weakest link”. So how strong is Google if Chrome is its weakest link in the chain?

[poll id="4"]

For beginners, WordPress themes are not just images, icons and logos; they are programming code written in php. So a developer can essentially insert javascript and other frameworks to introduce certain functionality. Sliders, widgets etc are some of the common javascript nuggets inserted in the theme’s code. Hackers and spammers distribute free themes that have malicious code hidden in the free themes to gain a backdoor entry into the WordPress site and at times the server itself. Once installed in the blog, the embedded malicious code can then be used serve spam or inappropriate ads, redirect traffic to another website and to steal user data. Such mishaps can be avoided by ensuring that you follow the four simple steps briefed below:

1. Download themes directly from the Developer’s website

The most important and imperative thing to do is to download themes from the developer’s website. Famous developers like Bustatheme, Woo themes etc. release free themes from time to time. Hackers and spammers have a network of sites to aggregate, showcase and distribute these free themes to lure users. One famous example is wpsphere.com. So its very safe to download the theme directly from the developer’s site rather than a shady site. It does not make sense to download a Firefox browser from a warez forum rather than from Mozilla’s official website. Right?

2. Always use the WordPress theme repository or the built in theme browser

WordPress has an exhaustive collection of free themes in it’s theme repository. WordPress has ensured that all the themes uploaded are clean and are GPL(General Public License) compliant. GPL ensures that the theme is absolutely free with no strings attached.

In addition to the repository, WordPress team has integrated a theme browser in its core. So once you have the WordPress blog installed on your server, you can choose to select and install themes in a single click. To access the theme browser, login to the admin control panel and select the “Add new themes” from under Appearance on the left hand toolbar.

From there themes of various columns and colors can be installed. Installing a new theme as easy as clicking on a thumbnail.

Now if you have a theme installed in a WordPress blog sometime ago and not sure if the theme does not contain any malicious code, there is a plugin for that. Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) plugin will scan all the theme files for potentially malicious or unwanted code and will let you know if there is any threat. The plugin can be downloaded from here. Alternatively,the TAC plugin can be installed directly from the built-in plugin browser in the WordPress control panel. Click on  “Add New” from under the Plugins section and search for TAC.

After installing the plugin, the TAC link can be found under Appearances section.

The result also shows the number of links that have been added in the theme’s code. To see what those links are, just click the details button and voila! we have all the external links.

Like themes, WordPress plugins are also available at all places. Steps 1 and 2 of this post also holds good for WordPress plugins. Always download the plugins from the author’s page or even better, download from the WordPress plugin repository.

After installing the plugin, the Exploit scanner option can be found under the Dashboard section.

Click on ‘Run the scan” to begin the exploit check.

If you find a compromised theme or plugin or a fake admin account, remove them and then please change the administrator password. In the long and short, whenever you plan to add a new theme or plugin, please follow the four tips, rinse and then repeat. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

And I thought the Governator is the one who has got the balls and style. Boy oh Boy! Was I so fricking wrong!

Coming back to the case in point, Google is promoting Verizon/Motorola Droid in its homepage. So how does a mobile phone ad on the world’s most trafficked page justify such an outrageous title?  The fact that this happens to be only the fourth time an ad has appeared there escaping the clutches of an Internet giant so crazy about the stingy <28 word limit.

Prior to this occasion, Google promoted Firefox at it’s infancy, then Chrome and Andorid both got the same privilege at their respective launches. Firefox has gone through three versions and has reached 330 million people with a Google Search box built right within browser. But they did not get a second chance. Google’s own scrawny assed baby, Chrome, has gone through four versions. Sadly, no more sweet lovin’ for it too.

The fact that Google has chosen to add a blotch to its Sistine Chapel for an above average phone running an above average version 2.0 of Android(more on that in a later post) is real diabolical. Droid, called the iphone killer by fanboys, by itself would not have even killed the Palm Pre. Now with Google’s heartfelt  endorsement, things are definitely looking up for the Motorola built handset. Droid is gonna witness one hell of a spike in sales, thanks to a non descript TEXT link.

Google is running the ad just for the fun of it. Its there because they can put it there. Now, what is gonna happen happen when the real iPhone killer mobile launches? Lets assume that Android 2.5 is capable of powering such a Jesus phone. With Google’ s homepage promotion, it will sell tens of millions of handsets. Now they will tweak the OS and will launch the polished Jesus phone with Android 2.6. The history will repeat itself with a Google homepage push. Where is Apple gonna promote iPhone 3GX? Yahoo, may be? Nah. Microsoft pwns it. Youtube? Microsoft.com? Facebook? Live.com? All sites are behind enemy lines. I don’t see any single outlet that could favor Apple in the top twenty sites. Apple has to understand that Google is no Microsoft. There are no blue screens of death when it comes to Google.

Apple just added social networking features to iTunes. A social network, friends and family, is our real strength. So who is in Apple’s social network? Do they have any friends? They love to step on everyone’s feet. They have scorned all old media giants (Warner, Paramount, Fox and the like) thanks to the arm twisting iTunes deals. Apple is the modern day equivalent of a high school bully in the consumer electronics market. They have alienated a lot of customers too. iPhone launches in two of the world’s largest & fastest growing telecom markets, China and India, sank like the Titanic. If Google chooses to promote an Android phone in India and China today, it will sell atleast a million handsets within a month. Apple has managed to sell 20,000 iphones in India. Yep. Twenty thousand phones by unofficial estimates. It was so bad an experience that both the Indian telecom partners chose not to launch iPhone 3GS. Inspite of the ad blitzkrieg, Apple has sold 5000 handsets since launch in China. There has been no real competitor for the past three years and still such nightmares are happening. How many phones can they sell in USA and Japan?

If Google endorses every single Android mobile or version, Apple can kiss that fat ass 40% margin good bye. Apple will be Apple as long as it has that fat ass margin. The day that starts to dip, it will just be another NASDAQ listed company. Transcending cultures, borders and time, history has taught the human race one important lesson: No one is invincible. Apple, if you are still arrogant with all the success and glory of the iPhone, just ask Sony what happened to the first consumer electronic device that sold 100 million units. Poof. It’s no more.

It’s time to kiss and make up with Google. An app store with 100,000 apps is no match to the billions of clicks at Google. When it comes to the power of reaching every single person in this world Google  is just one notch below the market leader. You can’t buy that kind of  marketing muscle even with all the 34 billion USD in the bank.

There is an alternate solution if Apple still does not want to make nice with Google. All Apple has to do is to suck it up and turn to the one who is above Google.  And the fastest way to reach him is by dusting off the good old Bible and saying a few million Hail Mary’s.

P.S.: BTW am sorry for the family friendly title. This blog serves as a showcase to promote my freelance copy writing business. So am trying hard to keep it expletives free, which a very tough task given my foul mouth. For the clueless 2year olds’, please replace “Intercourse” with the magnetic “F” Word (No. Not frick. The word I have in mind has four letters).

Go Elmo go!

Update: Sorry guys! Due to sleep deprivation, I made a boo-boo. The picture is that of Cookie Monster and not that of Elmo. Thx for pointing out kahkah

Arrington is jumping with joy that his bitter enemy (one among the thousands) has been fired from the company she co founded. As I have stated earlier, Anu dug her own grave. Mike Arrington owes a lot to Anu as her stupidity has reinforced his position as the Warlord of the Internet World.

So now its almost official, TC is more powerful than NYT, CNN, Stephen Colbert, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Sandler, Hamid Kharzai and Barack Obama (Hope I got the order right ). There won’t be a single human being in this planet courageous enough to call Mike’s bluffs in the years to come. Somebody has his stars all aligned. Go figure.

[poll id="3"]

Bunch 1

Mike wrote a post last week explaining how the social game networks earn hundreds of million dollars in revenue. That was a very good read but was not supported by any specific evidences. Knowing Mike and TC, I knew they were investigating this and sooner or later the shit is going to hit the fan. Mike did a boo boo yesterday by going into the lion’s den (As far as I know, he was the first one in the blogosphere to bring this issue to light) and that too without any concrete evidence. He was beating around the bush and did not even name ONE scam that Offerpal clients were running. To add to that he brought up his theory that Netflix might suffer from cancelled subscriptions via Offerpal.

Bunch 2

Anu then used expletives to counter Mike’s case. She then picked his argument case by case and since there was no real evidence of a scam, she went on to legtimise the service by citing that Netflix (among some other big brands) has been a customer for over two years now. To top that all she went to say that NetFlix has better lead tracking mechanisms than a ‘journalist’. Ouch.

Offerpal does have some shady clients. Everyone knows that now.If only Mike had these facts yesterday.

Anu should have politely countered Mike with similar beating around the bush answers. She got her panties in a bunch and went on to insult Mike on a sheer adrenalin rush. Sure, her arguments were to the point and very comprehensive. She threw a stone from inside the glass house. If I were Offerpal, I would be expecting Mount Rushmore to come crash in, none the less. Now the hundred pound Gorilla that TechCrunch is, Offerpal’s client roster is going to be under the microscope and people will expect her to be eloquent in defending scamming clients like these. Every single time. All the time. Good luck with that.

Life is gonna suck for Anu, people at offerpal, their clients, shareholders and the like. If in doubt, ask Sam Sethi.

P.S. : Dean wrote the sensible piece in true VentureBeat fashion, reporting only the facts and not mocking the wounded competitor. Kudos.

Everyone knows this despicable incident. Also, being a longtime (actually pretty longtime) reader of TechCrunch I know what happened at a similar conference a few years back. Why would someone walk into the lion’s den one more time? The article was more a melancholy than an opinion piece.

The conference in itself had a pretty stupid premise. PR people impose embargoes. TechCrunch hates embargoes. VentureBeat respects embargoes.  That’s Valley Politics 101. So people really thought they could talk Mike (and others) into respecting embargoes? They would have a better chance talking Iran out of  its nuclear program.

When everyone knows everyone’s firm position on the topic, such a conference is pretty pointless to start with. Gathering at a set location to discuss ideas might be prudent for a church choir group. For the Silicon Valley stalwarts and Internet pioneers, not so much. VOIP and web conferencing anyone? At the end of the day the world got warmer by a bunch people who drove & flew in to gather in a hall.

Coming back to the article, I am pretty sure the writer had a secret grudge on his Editor in Chief.

At right, a Getty Images photo of Big Mike and leading media pundit Jeff Jarvis chatting at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich. By contrast, there’s not a single shot of VentureBeat chief Matt Marshall in Getty Images.

Now why would someone say such stuff? People are unique and it is impossible to compare them. Personally I hold the same respect and awe for both Mike and Matt. While I like Mike for his outspoken attitude, I like Matt for his clarity of thought and humbleness.

Secondly, the article seems to be a me-so-perfect piece to get a you-are-such-a-good-boy-yes-you-are cookie from the PR crowd.  Venturebeat’s strength is in its straight forward reporting and insightful content. Thats the reason I read VB. The article would have been perfect for Valleywag or any other Gawker network blog.