london 7.18am 2.5C sunny (glorious day , opened the window and breathed in the air, so crisp, and not really that cold as the temperature would lead u to think). tuesday 2016
Tag Archives: facebook
facebook and no nudity
14 Feblondon 2.39pm 7.8C cloudy sunday 2016
the french court says facebook can be judged under french law, and can be sued for cancelling a french person’s facebook page, because it posted a woman’s private part which turned out to be a famous painting. well, ok it may have set a precedent that facebook can be sued under french law. but french law must accept an organisation can impose rules on its members, which should be applied indiscrimately to everyone of them.
facebook should argue that when u join u agree to its terms and conditions, and it specifically said no pictures of private parts allowed, in fact no nudity. so u want to join and be a member, u follow the rules. that seems to be the way isn’t it? any organisation can impose whatever rules it likes and when u sign up to join u agree to its rules. so it would be discriminatory if facebook allows this person to post a nude picture, whether it is a famous painting or his wife’s, it does not matter. he still cannot do it when everyone else can not do it.
i am neutral as to whether facebook is good or not, but i should have thought there is no case to answer in this instance.
facebook messenger allows
12 Feblondon 8.04am 6C sunny friday 2016
this article says messenger, in facebook, is making it possible to bring all your text messages ( presumably all your whatsapp messages i take it) into messenger, and allow many users to access messenger from one phone. it seems facebook had got message sending and receiving in messenger in 2013 but discontinued it because there was no demand. it was ahead of its time. facebook at that time was tied to laptops and computers. and it is difficult to do the messaging in a laptop. or rather there are so many web surfing u can do in a laptop, the messaging is a distraction. but with mobiles, web surfing is not that nice to do, such a small screen… so ‘chatting’ to friends is more the thing. from what i see on the picture accompanying the article, u can see the person calling or texting you. is that so? or is it just showing the photo of that person. seeing a person in real time is not that crucial actually. and how are u going to see that person calling u if u are holding the phone to your ear? that person would only see your ear too. haha.
then whatsapp came along and in mobile phones, and the time was ripe for free text sending and receiving via mobile. now facebook had integrated its function with the mobile smartphones,( most probably using whatsapp technology) rather than just laptops, and so it is now trying to establish messenger as the go to place for text messages. i hope they will extend it further and bring in voice … now that would be a killer app, in more ways than one, both literally and figuratively, in that it will kill off all those mobile companies selling calling plans. when voice is free as well, no one will bother to pay for those calling plans.
its interesting that skype never took off, i wonder why? yahoo owned skype, they could have make it the go to app and hugely popular. yahoo missed that opportunity.
added.8.50am, i read here about how whatsapp is big in india, but in the side note below it, it seems in america whatsapp is small. so it looks like facebookmessenger’s new functions which it is rolling out in america, may be targetted at americans.
tor app
25 Janlondon 7.55am 11.7C sunny monday 2016
saw this today. saying facebook can be accessed via tor app, which hides your location so that your internet provider do not block it. so for people in china, iran, which blocks facebook, u can access facebook. does it mean u can use tor app to access google, which is also banned in china?
i thought it might be useful even for those of us in uk, as it hides your location so stores wont be able to find you. but when i looked into the tor application, i think it does not do that. it is specifically to prevent your internet provider blocking you. though by hiding your location it might also prevent any others from finding you… on the other hand, u might want stores to find you so that they can give u special offers as u pass them. haha
i read here in a guardian article that stores can find out if u revisited them, even what u see. i think we all know that. we know that if we pass a store, it can send adverts to us or tell us of special offers. this applies for people with smartphones. it might sound scary to some, but maybe a lot of users will welcome it… say u are passing a macdonalds and u get a notification of half price big mac when u pass it… or 2 for 1 offer. u might be tempted to go there.
i think it is rather interesting, to be tracked by a store and given special offers tailored to what u like. but maybe other people might think it creepy.
whatsapp is now free for all
19 Janlondon 10.42am, 3.2C sunny tuesday 2016
before, it was $1 a year , after the first year, if u have the whatsapp in your smartphone. but it has been announced that it will be free to all. and no adverts either. how will it pay for itself? the answer, it will make money from businesses contacting individuals. how is that,i wonder? i dont quite see how that is done.
facebook bought it for £13.2billion in 2014. it found that the imposition of a $1 fee(small as it is) harmed its growth in developing countries, as it seems ‘many there dont have debit or credit cards so are afraid that after the first year’s free usage , they will lose contact with friends or family’. (or so that was how the whatsapp blog says it, but i think the reality means that after the first year free, they all discontinued the app , perhaps because they dont have credit or debit cards, who knows! and so cannot continue even if they want to; and facebook loses them).
it seems to me that facebook is willing to forego the revenue from whatsapp, rather than have people leave as it wont be able to mine them for data information of their usage of the web.
and maybe it can persuade businesses to pay to get access to their customers or anyone contacting them for queries or whatever. though what company want to get involved? it means they have to hire a person or persons solely to answer text queries? a waste of time really. unless it all boils down to they buy the phone numbers and so can text those people with adverts pretending to be friendly messages.
but whatever the reason, the end user now have a free whatsapp to play with . and if they bring in voice as well as text, it will threaten the mobile companies with their call plan and , it will threaten skype too, which is used for international calls (skype is owned by yahoo i think).
i have a call plan with talktalk mobile, it is free to me, for a year. and i find it difficult to use up the 250text i allowed free each month. but i daresay i shall get into the habit of texting people so i have a feeling that come the end of this free offer, even i will be tempted to get a smartphone and download whatsapp.
free internet suspended in egypt
31 Declondon 8.35am 8.9C sunny thursday 2015 new year eve.