Google has issued an official announcement stating that they are currently making attempts to fix a flaw in the security. The statement was made after a German research paper highlighted that Android phone owners were facing threats to security.

The research paper, published last week, stated that services such as Picassa, Contacts, and Google Calendar were at the risk of being leaked over Wi-Fi networks. Some of the Authentication tokens for these services are sent unencrypted. Therefore, users’ personal data has a high possibility to get stolen when these services are accessed over public Wi-Fi networks. At the moment, Google is attempting to fix this security flaw.

Experts believe that Google responded appropriately to the claim. Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman had stated earlier that the company was within the process of simplifying the mostly incomprehensible permission screen which appears while installing applications. According to Schmidt, the permissions are written by lawyers and are extremely complex descriptions of what the software will do. Users are pleased about the fact that Google is addressing to issues that create complications for them.

As for the security flaw, Google has admitted that certain circumstances could make personal information vulnerable to external parties. The official statement made by the Internet giant has acknowledged all Android users of the possibility of their personal information being accessible by third parties during certain situations. The security flaw is said to be effective for all Android devices except for those running on Gingerbread.

Google assures their users that the fixing of the security flaw will take effect globally within the next few days. As per the statement, user involvement will not be required for the fix to take effect. For the moment, users are advised to exercise care when sharing information across Wi-Fi networks.

The beta version of Firefox 5 was released a few days ago. Firefox 5 beta comes with plenty of new features for the benefit of users as well as web developers. The first beta version of Firefox 5 is currently available for download.

The release of Firefox 5 beta will only be the first step of a rapid development plan from the company. Firefox 5 beta was released right after Firefox 4.0 as a move to stick to this all new rapid development scheme. It is expected that newly released beta version will soon be followed by Firefox 6 and Firefox 7. A representative from Mozilla has confirmed the fact.

According to a statement made by the representative, the next version of Firefox will be released within five weeks of testing. Since a major Firefox version will be released every 6 weeks, users were advised not to expect a drastic change between the versions. As for the current release, it includes a Firefox channel switcher.

The channel switcher allows users to move between Aurora and Beta versions of Firefox. The objective of this feature is to test the different development stages as well as quality. Mozilla has taken a different approach by delivering fewer enhancements and features per version at a faster rate.

Apart from the ability to switch Firefox development channels, the many features of Firefox 5 beta include support for CSS animations, networking performance, memory, JavaScript andimproved canvas along with improved desktop environment integration for Linux users. In addition to that, the beta version will also offer improved standards support for HTML5, SMIL, MathML, and XHR.

As per the statement made by the representative from Mozilla, the new features, namely stability, performance enhancements, and CSS Animation support, will allow web developers to create more exciting web experiences. The Firefox 5 Final is expected to be released on 21^st June 2011.

Sony has launched a music application for Android handsets. The service, named Music Unlimited is expected to steal some of the spotlight of the much hyped about iCloud from rival Apple. However, Sony’s application is also a cloud based one.

Music Unlimited is similar to Apple’s iCloud in many ways. The much speculated upon service allows music streaming facilities with access to 7 million songs. In addition, Music Unlimited will also allow access to a user’s existing music collection through the data connection of their Android powered device.

The Music Unlimited application is said to be a combination of the best features of well received applications such as Spotify, Google Music and iCloud. Music Unlimited offers subscriptions to music that users are still not in possession of as well as the ability to stream music room their own music libraries.

The application is subscription based and will offer two tiers of service to its users. For a monthly fee of $4.99, users can gain access to an advertisement free radio application along with the chance to access their own libraries. This means that users will have the ability to play any song of their choice and to create their own playlists.

Apart from the services, the interface of the application was also well received. The interface was said to be a colourful and smooth one which offers easy access to the massive library from all the major record labels. Most experts preferred Music Unlimited to Google’s app.

Sony has pleased a lot of users by making the application available for all Android users instead of focusing on those who own Xperia handsets. As of now, Sony is offering a 30 day trial for the premium service. According to many experts, Music Unlimited has successfully pushed iCloud in to the shadows.

Since December last year, Facebook users have had access to Facebook’s facial recognition technology. The latest information released from Facebook has made it public that the facility has now been made available to users from all over the world.

The feature has been added to Facebook’s long list of default features. Whenever a new photo is uploaded, Facebook’s facial recognition technology kicks in to identify whether the people in the pictures are present in the uploader’s friend list. Then it will proceed to tag the images accordingly unless the user decides to opt out of the feature.

As Facebook users continue to add pictures on to the social media site, it will automatically scan them to determine if a particular user’s facial features match in different photos. Once a match has been located, it will request for the user’s permission to automatically tag all those photos.

The feature was welcomed by many users who found tagging images to be a chore. However, it was not met entirely with positive responses. For instance, some users complained about the fact that the service was integrated in to the default settings. Since the feature has to be ‘opted out’ of rather than ‘opted in’, most users were displeased with the inconvenience.

Since Facebook failed to officially make an announcement regarding the update as it was made, Facebook conspiracy theorists had plenty of things to say about the matter. The news that Facebook has made the feature available for users all across the world was unveiled by Sophos, a web security firm. Facebook has stated that the innovative feature will make sharing special moments over the social network without having to turn it in to a chore.

Although some users are genuinely pleased about the feature, others are convinced that there just might be something lurking beneath the surface.

Skype has made it official that their users will only be able to make HD quality video calls if they pay a premium for the service. According to the most recent reports, Skype has refused to certify other HD webcams that don’t come with their own built in CPU’s designed especially for HD video calls on Skype. However, the fact remains speculated that other HD webcams will not work.

According to Skype, they are unable to guarantee that other webcams will work with the HD video calling service.Last year, Skype has refused to certify some HD webcams released by Logitech and Microsoft. Skype had declared that they will not be able to guarantee that users will be able to make successful HD quality video calls using these webcams. On the other hand, webcams created according to Skype’s specifications will even run on old computers without interfering with video quality. It is believed that if a user is in possession of a webcam sporting Skype’s specifications, the quality of the video call will then solely depend on the speed of the internet connection.

One such example that meets Skype’s requirements is the Creative Live! inPerson HD which comes with its own CPU. The built in CPU allows higher video quality and will create a much smoother video call experience than with a regular laptop camera. In addition, the inPerson boasts a ‘quad mike’, flexible autofocus and built in H.264 encoder.

All this is designed t allow glitch free video calls in HD.However, the inPerson is priced at £109.99 which puts it out of reach from most clients.Other manufacturers, such as Freetalk and FaceVision have also created HD cameras that fit Skype’s strict requirements.

According to some experts, Skype has made a little too much hassle on the matter.

Twitter has confirmed today that they are all set to launch their own photo service soon. The official service from Twitter.com will allow Tweeters to upload videos and pictures. In addition to that, it will also allow users to make use of the unproved search engine to be updated about what is happening via a hashtag.

According to a statement made by Jack Dorsey on Twitter’s official blog, the picture service will be released within the next several weeks. According to him, the feature will allow them the chance to attach users’ pictures on to their Tweets right from Twitter.com. As for mobile users, Dorsey has offered assurance that they won’t be left out and will also be offered the facility from all of their official mobile applications very soon.

According to Dorsey, the decision to offer a photo service was taken to make photo sharing easier for the millions of Twitter users. Experts believe that it is a good idea. The service, operating along the same principle as Flipboard, is offered in partnership with Photobucket. However, some believe that it is not comparable for services such as Twitpic or Yfrog. On the other hand, Photobucket has plenty of experience in the area of handling photos.

Some experts believe that the move will isolate Twitter and scare away third party developers. Twitter’s signing of a deal with Photobucket was received by many with surprise since sharing photos on the micro blogging site is not often associated with the company.

On a positive note towards users of Twitter on their mobile phones, Twitter is currently attempting to create a partnership with mobile carriers toallow users to send pictures to Twitter via text message. Twitter has also announced that their all new and improved version of Twitter search will deliver better search results.

Wikipedia does not need any introduction to World Wide Web users as it is the most popular online encyclopedia exist. It is free and easy to use. Most prominently, it is maintained by an open community where no financial matters are involved. Even you and I can be authors of Wikipedia articles contributing for the growth of Wikipedia.

If you need to read a Wikipedia article on a particular matter, then you need to access Wikipedia site through your computer’s web browser or mobile device’s web browser. For both the methods mentioned, you need to have a working internet connection. What if you do have a working internet connection in your possession when you need to access Wikipedia; especially if you are on the go and no mobile connection can be established? Here comes the solution; Wikipedia that can be stored in your mobile devices that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Sounds good? Yes it is. Pocket Wikipedia is a database of 14 million words including 24,000 pictures optimized for mobile devices. You can download Pocket Wikipedia on to your computer’s hard drive and then transfer it to your mobile device’s storage. The size of the installation is about 175MB and it is one of the best deals when it comes to the value and the storage cost.

There are three versions of Pocket Wikipedia; the version for Windows Mobile operating system based devices, Windows desktop operating systems and Linux operating systems. If you want to use Pocket Wikipedia in your Windows Mobile based devices, then you need to have .NET framework 2.0 redistributable (compact) version installed and the operating system should be Windows Mobile 5.0 or later.

You can carry Wikipedia in your laptop so you have most frequently accessed articles by the users on the go. The article selection has been done by Schools Wikipedia.

Have you heard tech savvy people talking about Web 2.0? What did you suddenly think after hearing it? You couldn’t believe there are versions for web, right? Yes, same as for any other software, web also has versioning. So, what’s new in web 2.0? Answer is; a lot!

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End-user controlled content for websites is one of the key features in Web 2.0. My Space, Face Book and Hi5 are some of the social networking sites with Web 2.0 features already being included. But using Web 2.0 features for knowledge sharing is some thing, that we all should recognize and appreciate. Wikipedia is all about sharing and developing knowledge.

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia collaboratively written by many of its readers. Wikipedia runs on a special kind of website called “Wiki” exclusively developed for Wikipedia by its developers. Most of the users who refer Wikipedia are active users who write new articles and improve existing articles frequently. Any one can freely register with Wikipedia and then, they can start adding new “knowledge” content to Wikipedia with no restrictions.

When Wikipedia articles are written, the authors will have to go through a short introduction on structuring the article and formatting it. This is a must for new article writers since Wikipedia articles should adhere to higher standards and should be genuine. Just to keep the genuineness of content, Wikipedia tracks the changes made by users with the content added or altered, user registration information and user’s IP address. This way, it is easy to track users if there is any dispute over the content added.

Not all your content will stay in Wikipedia forever. Some of your articles may be improved by other users with additional information and references. Sometimes, others can challenge your articles for facts and genuineness. When such a conflict arises, Wikipedia temporary locks the article until the debate is over in the “discussion” tab of the article. Wikipedia also has its reviewers who review the articles for their standards and facts. If you do not mention enough references for what you present in your article, there is a chance that your article or a part of the article is removed.