Facebook updates Messenger app to support voice messages

Facebook (FB) on Thursday released an update to its Messenger app on Android and iOS that will help the company further compete with services like Google Voice and Skype. The update allows users to send short voice messages, up to a minute in length, to one another using the application, similar to popular apps Voxer and HeyTell. Additionally, Facebook is allowing Canadian iOS users to make free...

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Why Some Facebook Users Constantly Update Status

Scientists have found what compels people to constantly update their Facebook status. College students who posted more status updates than they normally did felt less lonely over the course of a week, even if no one "Liked" or commented on their posts, researchers found."We got the idea to conduct this study during a coffee-break sharing random stories about what friends had posted on Facebook,"...

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Kris Jenner Facebook Page Calling Kim Kardashian Critics 'Hoes' A Fake!

Kris Jenner made headlines this week after being quoted as calling critics of daughter Kim Kardashian's pregnancy (with boyfriend Kanye West) "hoes" on her Facebook page.The problem is... it wasn't Kris' actual page!PLAY IT NOW: Rob Kardashian Reacts To Sister Kim Kardashian’s PregnancyIn an article published on Thursday, the UK's Daily Mail ran a story quoting Kris as posting, "Kim Kardashian is...

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Iran says defeats cyber attack on industrial sites

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Internet virus attacked computers at industrial sites in southern Iran, in an apparent extension of a covert cyber war that initially targeted the country's nuclear facilities, an Iranian official said.Iran, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, has tightened online security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes...

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Iran media report new cyberattack by Stuxnet worm

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian semi-official news agency says there has been another cyberattack by the sophisticated computer worm Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the country's south.Tuesday's report by ISNA quotes provincial civil defense chief Ali Akbar Akhavan as saying the virus targeted a power plant and some other industries in Hormozgan province in recent months.Akhavan says Iranian...

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Phablet wars heat up with ZTE’s quad-core Nubia Z5

2013 is shaping up to be the year of the “phablet” with virtually ever major handset maker preparing to challenge Samsung’s (005930) impressive Galaxy Note lineup. While there’s no clear definition on how large a phablet is, most tend to have screens that hover in the 5-inch range, though Huawei’s upcoming 6.1-inch smartphone will only push that boundary. ZTE’s newly announced Nubia Z5 packs a 5-inch...

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Hacker Fears Are Seriously Messing with the Oscars' Online Voting

So what happens if the Academy is too scared to cast Oscar ballots this year? It's not an entirely outlandish scenario, with the nominations less than two weeks away and reports screaming out of Hollywood that the awards' attempt at going digital may already be backfiring. Both the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline have semi-detailed accounts today of the surprising flaws within the Academy's new online...

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McAfee’s 2013 predictions: Mobile malware threats will grow, Anonymous will fade

Security firm McAfee Labs released its annual Threat Predictions report this week, highlighting the potential malware, viruses and other security concerns we may see in 2013. The firm says that with the rise of more advanced mobile devices, smartphones and tablets will become an even larger focus for cybercriminals. This past year we saw a number of high-profile attacks from the hacktivist group Anonymous...

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Volunteers track Santa's progress, answer calls

Most of the thousands of children who call the annual Santa-tracking operation at a Colorado Air Force Base on Christmas Eve ask the usual questions: "Where's Santa, and when will he get here?"So volunteer Sara Berghoff was caught off-guard Monday when a child called to see if Santa could be especially kind this year to the families affected by the Connecticut school shooting."I'm from Newtown, Connecticut,...

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Lawmakers play waiting game with 'fiscal cliff' deadline in sight

With only a week left before a deadline for the United States to go over a "fiscal cliff," lawmakers played a waiting game on Monday in the hope that someone will produce a plan to avoid harsh budget cuts and higher taxes for most Americans from New Year's Day.Though Republicans and Democrats have spent the better part of a year describing a plunge off the cliff as a looming catastrophe, the nation's...

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Bush spokesman says former president will spend Christmas in hospital after developing fever

Former President George H.W. Bush will spend Christmas in a Texas hospital after developing a fever and weakness following a monthlong, bronchitis-like cough, his spokesman said Monday.A hospital spokesman had said the 88-year-old would be released in time to spend the holiday at home, but that changed after Bush developed a fever."He's had a few setbacks. Late last week, he had a few low-energy days...

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Venezuela's Chavez improving after surgery: officials

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is improving after a cancer operation in Cuba and has started exercising, officials said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.Vice President Nicolas Maduro said he had spoken by phone with Chavez, who was walking and doing exercises as part of his treatment."We've gotten the best present we could get...

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Netflix says video streaming service hit by outage

Families across the United States will have to rely on other sources of entertainment after Netflix's video streaming service was hit by a Christmas Eve outage.The company based in Los Gatos, Calif., apologized in a company tweet for the outage Monday night.The company says on its Twitter page that the outage was caused by "some of Amazon's cloud infrastructure." Netflix says it was working with Amazon...

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This subscriber loss may haunt RIM in coming months

RIM’s (RIMM) share price popped by 8% soon after it released its earnings, buoyed by positive sales and earnings surprises. The fact that RIM managed to beat expectations on both fronts is a real achievement. The company has been able to manage the 50% annualized decline in device volume a lot more gracefully than most investors expected. The adjusted EPS loss of $0.22 was much smaller than the $0.36...

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Distracted Pedestrian Crashes WABC Meteorologist's Live Weather Report

WABC-TV meteorologist Lee Goldberg was doing a live weather report on the sidewalk outside the station's studios on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan today when he was unceremoniously interrupted by a pedestrian who was distracted by his cell phone.Goldberg was doing the live report when the pedestrian, looking intently at his cell phone, walked up behind Goldberg. The pedestrian veered off to the side,...

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RIM loses BlackBerry subscribers for first time

 Research In Motion's stock plunged in after-hours trading Thursday after the BlackBerry maker said it plans to change the way it charges fees.RIM also announced that it lost subscribers for the first time in the latest quarter, as the global number of BlackBerry users dipped to 79 million.In a rare positive sign, the Canadian company added to its cash position during the quarter as it prepared...

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When South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co announced last month it had overstated the fuel efficiency levels on around one million of its cars in the United States and Canada some investors were left fuming more than others. Some had already sold their shares before the announcement on November 2. The stock fell 4 percent on November 1 with about 2.2 million shares changing hands, the highest trading volume of the year at that point. "This smells pretty bad," said Robert Boxwell, director of consulting firm Opera Advisors in Kuala Lumpur who has studied insider dealing patterns. "It would have fallen into our suspect trading category," he added. Boxwell spots suspect trading by looking at how much the volume diverges from the average level in the days before a market moving announcement. In the Hyundai instance, the volume was more than five standard deviations, a measure of variation, away from the daily average of 598,741 shares over the past year. A Hyundai spokeswoman declined to comment. Research from the Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre (CMCRC), an academic centre in Sydney that studies financial market efficiency, found that 26 percent of price-sensitive announcements in Asia Pacific markets showed signs of leakage in the first quarter of this year, the most recent period for which data was available. That compared with 13 percent in North American markets. The CMCRC says it looks for suspected information leaks by examining abnormal price moves and trading volumes ahead of price-sensitive announcements. Investors say one reason for leaks in Asia has been low enforcement rates for insider trading and breaches of disclosure rules. Enforcement in some markets is virtually non-existent. There are also misconceptions about whether trading on non-public information is a crime. "The idea that insider trading is wrong rather than smart is only being ingrained in the current generation of Asian players, not the older generation who are often still in the driving seat," said Peter Douglas, founder of GFIA, a hedge fund consultancy in Singapore. LOSS OF CONFIDENCE Japan's largest investment bank Nomura Holdings was embarrassed this year after regulatory investigations found it leaked information to clients ahead of three public share offerings. Nomura has acknowledged that its employees leaked information on three share issues it underwrote in 2010. In June, it published the results of an internal investigation that found breaches of basic investment banking safeguards against leaking confidential information and announced a raft of measures to prevent recurrence. The bank was also fined 200 million yen ($2.37 million) by the Tokyo Stock Exchange and 300 million yen by the Japan Securities Dealers Association. Such leaks hurt companies' share prices in the long run because investors put in less money if they feel they are not on a level playing field. "It is very damaging. You may not know how much money you've lost but if there is not confidence that the regulators are prosecuting and enforcing the rules on this then it undermines investor confidence and liquidity," said Jamie Allen, secretary general of the Asian Corporate Governance Association. The issue isn't being ignored. Many Asian markets such as Hong Kong and China have tightened their rules on insider trading over the past decade. Indeed some investors feel that while leaks and insider dealing are unfair, regulators in the region have more serious issues they should be tackling. "I would like to see the regulators spend more resources on investigating and prosecuting fraud against listed companies, which severely damages shareholder value," said David Webb, a corporate governance activist in Hong Kong, arguing insider dealing as less of an impact on a company's long-term share price. HTC AND APPLE A week after Hyundai's announcement about its problems in the United States, there was an unexpected move on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Shares in smartphone maker HTC Corp jumped almost seven percent on Friday, November 9, hitting the daily upper trading limit. On Sunday came the surprise announcement that the company was ending its long-running patent dispute with Apple Inc , a move seen as a positive for the stock. The Taiwan bourse announced it was investigating the trading patterns to see if there was a possible leak. When asked for comment, HTC referred back to a November 13 statement in which the company said it had kept the Apple settlement process confidential and has strict controls on insider trading. Michael Lin, a spokesman for the Taiwan Exchange, told Reuters on Friday that the bourse is still working with the regulator on the case. 'ENORMOUS LOSSES' Michael Aitken, who oversees research at the CMCRC, said many other Asian markets lack tough enough rules to force information to be released as efficiently and timely as possible, a primary reason for the prevalence of leaks. "Poor regulation hampers enforcement efforts," he said pointing out that few markets have the "continuous disclosure" rules used in Australia which require listed companies to release material information as soon as possible. In Korea, when Hyundai shares started to fall, rumours began swirling that news about a problem with some of its cars was on its way, but investors say it took the company too long to disclose what exactly was happening. "Hyundai at that time did not confirm the rumours. We suffered enormous losses because of this," said one fund manager, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media. An official from Korea Exchange declined to comment on whether it was investigating this case, saying only that the exchange looks carefully into possible cases of insider trading. Across Asia, regulators concede that many company executives and insiders still do not appreciate that leaking or trading on material, non-public information is an offence. "People don't even know they are engaging in insider trading, for example if their friends are talking about it on the golf course," said Tong Daochi director-general for international affairs at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, during a regulation conference last month. "We try to tell society, what are the criminal issues, what are the insider trading issues? For example we have held 27 press conferences to tell the public what kind of activities are involved in insider trading and to let people know that this is an active crime." ($1 = 84.2600 Japanese yen) ($1 = 0.6147 British pounds)

Research In Motion shares tumbled more than 10 percent on Thursday after the company reported the first ever decline in its subscriber numbers and outlined plans to transform the way it charges for its BlackBerry services.RIM, which hopes to revive its fortunes and reinvent itself via the launch of a brand new line of BlackBerry 10 devices next month, caught investors off-guard on its quarterly conference...

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Insiders steal a march in leak prone Asian markets

When South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co announced last month it had overstated the fuel efficiency levels on around one million of its cars in the United States and Canada some investors were left fuming more than others.Some had already sold their shares before the announcement on November 2. The stock fell 4 percent on November 1 with about 2.2 million shares changing hands, the highest trading...

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