General Computer Stuff

Instagram

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Instagram Permissions
Instagram Permissions

This is reportedly the fastest growing social app out there. On the Google Play Store it is described as: Share your photos and videos with friends and followers in a photo feed, or send posts directly to your friends.  Instagram is the clear leader in photos and video captured with mobile devices. There is more to it. But, that is the basic idea. It is a free service. Or is it?

Do you remember those apps that used to say free, just give us your email address? If you did, you suddenly found yourself inundated with email spam. How does Instagram pay for the servers and bandwidth to handle 150 million plus users? Why are the Facebook owners willing to pay US$1 billion to buy a company run by a dozen or so employees? (Reference)

For that matter how does Facebook make its money? There is the on-site advertising. Those ads along the right side of the page. Google does something similar. I have Google Ads on this site. They pay for the web site and most of my Internet connection cost. But, is Facebook/Instagram going to make $500+ million per year and up just displaying page ads?

In 2011 85% of their money came from selling advertising. 15% came from ‘payments’. (Reference) Some portion of those ‘payments’ come from phone service providers. AT&T and Verizon need something for you to burn up those data plans. But, how much money is there in those channels?

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Oculus Rift Update 2014-2

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It seems there is a new prototype of the Rift out. I saw the notice on Facebook. It leads to an article about the new features. See: Oculus unveils new Rift prototype. Also, see Engadget’s: Oculus Rift’s latest prototype.

The New Crystal Cover - Oculus Rift Prototype
The New Crystal Cover – Oculus Rift Prototype

In the picture you’ll notice a Kinect-like position tracking device camera. Not noticeable in the pictures is the change in the display ‘screen’. They have changed over to an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display for less persistence to reduce motion blur. 

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Second and Real Life Tidbits 2014

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It is early in the year and not much is happening at Linden Lab. I see the SL-blogosphere covering all sorts of things. Even the Subscrib-O-matic’s seem to be sending out old stuff. So, I’m skimming news and watching for anything interesting in between playing with Blender and Avastar. A few of the things I think are interesting:

Inara has a post up about Profile feeds direct messaging: Lab confirms “turned off”. If you have used the web site My.SecondLife.com  to send IM’s, you won’t be able to do that anymore. Peter Gray of Linden Lab confirmed to Inara the feature has been turned off due to spammers.

Honour Mcmillan has posted and article asking for volunteers to help with her primary focus in of creating and growing a corps of LEA Volunteers. For details and the type of volunteers needed see: Calling for Volunteers in Second Life. 

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Oculus Rift in the News

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There is nothing really new in the UK paper The Telegraph, but that the article appears in the Telegraph is interesting. It is a good article for the non-techies of the world well explaining why this is such an important step forward in computer technology.

 

Oculus Rift
Oculus Rift

Check out Tim Martins article: The Oculus Rift: virtual reality is no longer a joke.

One of the interesting points in the article is how game development is driving military technology. They point out that many military research budgets are nothing when compared to some the research budgets for game technology.

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Second Life’s GMAIL Problems

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Honour has an article up on her blog showing some great pictures of Atlantas. But, she titled it: Google Really, Really Hates Second Life. So, what’s with that? The title and writing is because of Google’s adding @im.agni.lindenlab.com to their spam filter. She points to Prim Perfect’s recent article on how to fix Google’s filtering of Linden email headed to you to via a GMAIL address.

The steps to fix the problem are easy but not intuitive. Nor is this a particularly noticeable problem. You may not notice the loss of these emails until you are looking for some specific email.

You can see if you are getting bit by this problem by looking in the left side menu of GMAIL. In the section of the menu with Inbox and Sent Mail you will find MORE. Click it and look for SPAM. Click SPAM and you’ll see the email going there. In SPAM, you will likely find email from: @im.agni.lindenlab.com. If so you need to fix your GMAIL.

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Google’s Plan for World Domination

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Google's Panoramic Camera in backpack form named: Trekker.
Google’s Panoramic Camera in backpack form named: Trekker.

This isn’t domination in the sense of the Brain’s (Pinky and the Brain) world domination. But, it is about the world and Google’s ongoing effort to dominate the market for ‘WHERE” type questions. I think this gives one an interesting view of where we are headed.

See: Google’s Road Map to Global Domination. A New York Times article via Drudge Report.