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We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.

If Google had a common DMCA takedown system, YouTube would face a threat with the forthcoming penalty. How much is uncertain. Since Google doesn’t seem to disclose the number of YouTube takedown requests it has acted upon (I have asked for a figure), there’s no way to assess YouTube against the other sites on the strikeout list above.

In particular, we worry about the false positives problem. For example, we’ve seen the government wrongly target sites that actually have a right to post the allegedly infringing material in question or otherwise legally display content. In short, without details on how Google’s process works, we have no reason to believe they won’t make similar, over-inclusive mistakes, dropping lawful, relevant speech lower in its search results without recourse for the speakers.

The Underground Economy of Buying Twitter Followers: Dealers, Abusers & Fake Accounts | |

A Dealer can earn as much as $800/day for 7 weeks of selling followings if they can control 20,000 fake accounts (estimated on several random fake accounts reaching 2000 followings in 7 weeks and assume each following involved a minimum $20 purchase)

As I write this, join.app.net just met our 500K goal, with 38 hours left.

We did it. by Dalton Caldwell | As I write this, just met our 500K goal, with 38 hours left. |

RT @Techmeme: The iPhone Has Passed a Key Security Threshold (Simson Garfinkel / Technology Review) ...

RT @Techmeme: The iPhone Has Passed a Key Security Threshold (Simson Garfinkel / Technology Review) ...

RT @Techmeme: Photos of alleged next-generation iPhone motherboard surface, point to new antennas, battery... http: ...

RT @Techmeme: Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system (RT)

RT @Techmeme: Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system (RT)

RT @gigaom: As touchscreens dominate, Nokia survey says keyboard phones preferred

RT @mashable: Olympics Generated 150 Million Tweets -

RT @TPMLiveWire: President Obama To Mars Curiosity Team: 'I Thought About Getting A Mohawk Myself' via @carlfranzen

RT @dbfarber: The ABCs of Apple v. Samsung via @CNET

RT @jowyang: RIM to layoff 3000 Motorola laying off 4000 Sign of times

RT @jowyang: RIM to layoff 3000 Motorola laying off 4000 Sign of times

Apple on Monday rested its case on that Samsung ripped off the design of the iPhone and iPad while building its own mobile products. Meanwhile, three of the Samsung phones that Apple labeled as infringing were tossed from the trial.

. A properly cited article, filled with hyperlinks to original source materials, should be extra-resistant to defamation claims—even if written with typical blogger snark. Readers can easily inspect the source materials themselves and make their own judgments about the article's veracity. Thus, either the citations provide proper factual support for the article's opinion, or the links should eliminate any problems with the author's knowledge (where that matters to the prima facie defamation claim, which would have been the situation here). Either way, the defamation claim should fail, as it did here.

A couple of weeks ago iMore reported that Apple would be holding their iPhone 5 event on September 12, 2012. We've since learned that iPhone 5 pre-orders are currently planned to begin that same day, at least in the U.S. Release is still planned for 9 days later, on September 21, 2012. We've also learned that the second wave of iPhone launches, the ones in international markets, will begin in the first week of October, likely October 5.

Google is buying the Frommer's line of travel guidebooks, the latest move to amass a trove of publishing content that could strengthen the No. 1 Internet search company's push to become a major online travel broker.

Two possible pyramid complexes might have been found in Egypt, according to a Google Earth satellite imagery survey.

According to a trusted AT&T (T) source, the carrier is currently planning to launch Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation iPhone during the third or fourth week of September, with an all-hands-on-deck policy in place for employees that will extend through to the middle of October. A second AT&T source confirms that a large training event for regional employees has been rescheduled from the first week of October due to a conflict with a “huge announcement.” Apple is expected to introduce the “iPhone 5″ alongside other new iOS devices at a press conference on September 12th.

We've started rolling out custom URLs to a limited set of verified profiles and pages on Google+. (In fact, now you can find us at google.com/+googleplus). While we're not quite ready for everyone to start claiming their own custom URLs, we plan to expand the availability over time, so stay tuned!

One afternoon we sketched out a screw in our 3D program, a very strange screw where the head was neither a star, tracks, pentalobe or whatever, but a unique form, also very impractical. We rendered the image, put it in an email, sent it to ourselves, took a picture of the screen with the mail and anonymously uploaded the image to the forum Reddit with the text ”A friend took a photo a while ago at that fruit company, they are obviously even creating their own screws ”.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Motorola Mobility, the ailing cellphone maker that Google bought in May, told employees Sunday that it would lay off 20 percent of its work force and close a third of its 94 offices worldwide.

On Monday, an Apple executive testified that the company had licensed prized design patents to Microsoft Corp but with an "anti-cloning agreement" to prevent copying of its iPhone and iPad.

Samsung on Monday mounted its defense in the ongoing Apple v. Samsung patent trial, with the pair of "fact witnesses" giving testimony regarding alleged prior art to Apple's "rubber-banding" and "pinch-to-zoom" patents.