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Google+ is the place to be from what I have read. It has a cool 10-person video hangout feature and supposedly it is also free of any privacy issues. Here is another interesting thing about Google+, there is no friend request, and the users can create groups of friends called Circles in Google+. These circles can include users and nonusers of Google+. So you can actually take people out of your circle without them knowing or don’t have to worry about not accepting someone’s friend requests. So there is no worries about friends knowing or not knowing if they are in your circles, but my question really is if you are a non user, you can be sent status updates of people who have put you in your circle via email. I find this interesting because this could be a tool to get people on Google+. I mean if I bother a person who doesn’t want a Google+ account by let’s say spamming his email account with updates maybe that person will be more inclined to do so or maybe he will just block my email address. In any case I will hopefully be trying out Google+ for myself very shortly and will give you my full take on it as I wonder through all the lovely features.

An artist by the name of Kyle McDonald installed a program on the computers in two NY Apple stores that would automatically take a photo every minute. Well with all that fun in place the secret service has taken his PC.

McDonald’s project was to capture people’s expressions as they stare at computers, a subject he had first explored in a recording he made of his own computer time over two days using the same program.

“I thought maybe we could see ourselves doing this we would think more about our computers and how we’re using them,” he says.
Over the course of the project, McDonald set up roughly 100 Apple store computers to call his servers every minute. That’s a lot of network traffic, and he learned that Apple monitors traffic in its stores when he received a photo from a Cupertino computer of what appeared to be an Apple technician. The technician had apparently traced the traffic to the site McDonald used to upload the program to Apple Store computers — and installed it himself.

The secret services was said to have taken 2 of his PC’s an ipod and all of his flash drives and told him that Apple would be contacting him shortly. Now he is entangled in a possible computer fraud case however McDonald feels he did nothing wrong by doing this art experiment. I am sure the courts will let him know if he was in his rights to do this art work.

WSJ is reporting that the iPhone 5 will be lighter and smaller than any iPhone on the market to date. However this will not be the way for the iPhone 4S, as that design will seem to stay true to the iPhone 4. There is also reports that the iPhone 4S will have cheaper components in it to keep down on production costs. So it looks like iPhone 4S could be the cheapest iPhone to launch yet from what it looks like. There are not major development costs involved with this phone and with reports of using cheaper components you could be looking at saving tons of money just on that alone. Also with it being manufactured with the iPhone 5 and from the sounds of it being launched close to the date of the 5 launch Apple is playing a strategic game, the iPhone 5 will be for people who want the newer technology and will pay top dollar for it and the iPhone 4S will be those who want a nice iPhone but could never really afford it. Sound like a good theory?

It has been reported by the WSJ that Apple is working on releasing the iPAD HD. This fun new iPAD will have a reported resolution of 2048 x 1536 which is double that of the iPad 2. Also there will be what is called Pro level versions of apps such as Aperture and Final Cut Pro. No word yet on pricing for this wonderful new iPAD but I can’t wait to see it in action. A few months ago I watched a video of Adobe Photoshop for the iPAD in action and I was amazed. That was on the iPAD 2 so I could only imagine with a better resolution what the art work and designs that could be created on the iPAD. Most people who do design work use a touch pad instead of a mouse so to be able to use the screen as the touch pad will be a big plus for professional designers on a HD screen.

With Google Plus having its hangout feature where people can video chat through a browser. Well Facebook is not lying down. They are teaming up with Skype to do a similar things. It’s a feature that’s been rumored for quite a while, and it’s one that Facebook is putting a lot of weight behind. Now, whenever you browse to a friend’s profile, you’ll see a new button nestled between the ‘Message’ and ‘Poke’ buttons that says ‘Call’. Click that, the other user will see a popup asking if they want to accept a call, and you’ll be immediately connected (you’ll need to install a small plugin the first time you use the service). The project is suppose to be seamless just like Google Plus hangout feature. Looks like Skype and Facebook are ready to take on Google with a passion. Now let us see if Facebook can launch this before Google Plus goes from live beta to just plain old live!

With the wide spread news of Google Plus and all of its features one that stands out tremendously in the beta is the hangout feature. This allows you to video chat with a group of friends at the same time. The big thing about this video chat feature is one it is free and two you can use it in your browser. One of the companies this could really affect is Skype. Currently to group video chat you need a subscription and an application. Hangout is also looking to incorporate third party applications and if they do that then Skype could really be in trouble. Although with Microsoft acquiring Skype I am sure they will combat the hangout with something of their own making.

There have been reports that a Taiwan-based company Pegatron Technology is estimated to have gotten 15 million iPhone 5 orders from Apple. These phones are set to launch in September of 2011.
Due to its collaboration with Apple for iPhone 4, Pegatron, in 2010, considerably expanded its plants, human power and equipment aiming satisfy the orders for 10 million CDMA iPhone 4s; however, since the Apple’s CDMA iPhone 4 sales were lower than expected in the first quarter of 2011, Pegatron shipped less than four million CDMA iPhone 4s, causing the company’s operation rate to drop to only 50% with its gross margin also drop to 1.8% in the quarter.
So now Pegatron can start to utilize its assets again and hopefully the iPhone 5 will not be a bust.

Google+ is already available on Android and on the mobile web, but the search giant’s social network will soon make its debut on iPhone and iPad.

As Google technician Erica Joy revealed on Google+, “the Google+ iPhone app has been submitted to the App Store (no not today, sometime prior to today) and is awaiting approval.”

The iPhone app is coming soon, but surprisingly iOS app is already completed and submitted to Apple for approval. Look for Google+ on the iPad and iPhone in the coming weeks. However it is still an invite only beta at this time and no word yet on when it will officially go live!

So to finish off my Twitter weekend, why not post a blog about the fact that Twitter is under a federal investigation. So this is apparently about the Federal Trade Commission looking into how Twitter handles companies developing applications and services for its platform. It seems to have started due to a company called Tweetup created by Bill Gross and it was meant to be an ad network and later Gross started to buy Twitter apps. After some time Gross got some funding and all looked like he was ready to start a company to go head to head with Twitter. Then Twitter decided to shut down his app UberTwitter for a short period of time and started to buy TweetDeck. So now it looks like the FTC is looking into all of this and from what I have read no one at this time can comment on the issue, from Bill Gross to other App developers.

We are now half way through the 2011 calendar year and one thing that I have found interesting is how much Twitter has grown. Do you know on a daily basis users on Twitter send 200 million Tweets per day. The growth is substantial. Here are some numbers for you to chew on. In the beginning of 2009 users were sending out about 2 million tweets per day. And in the middle of 2010 people were sending out 65 million a day. I found this perspective on the Twitter blog, every day, the world writes the equivalent of a 10 million-page book in Tweets or 8,163 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Reading this much text would take more than 31 years and stacking this many copies of War and Peace would reach the height of about 1,470 feet, nearly the ground-to-roof height of Taiwan’s Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world. That is also for all of you math people out there, 1 billion tweets every 5 days. I guess people have a lot to say.