Facebroke?

So who broke Facebook? Come on, own up.

I’ve noticed recently that Facebook is having a whole bunch of problems that are quite serious isues with regard to users.

These include:

• Photo tag requests are not displayed correctly - when you click to view the tag request it appears people have tagged the search button, go home and then click the request again and all is ok.
• Videos that are uploaded run far faster than they should but keep the audio running normally. Makes for some interesting viewing.
• People tag you in some photos or video and Facebook notifies you, you click to view the photo and it takes you to a random photo - it appears the album does not exist.

I think it is possible that Facebook has become too big, with so many people adding hundreds of pointless applications it seems likely that it has put unexpected stress on their services. Imaging how much storage and processing power they need when you consider how many photos you upload and how much you pay for that. Its free, exactly.

I read recently that Facebook was broke and running out of storage space so were approaching a series of venture capitalists for funding to buy more servers.

So could all this mean the end for Facebook? Only about a quarter of my friends lists actually update it now compared to pretty much all of them 6 months ago.

Google… are you interested? They are building their own social networking applcation to run on 3rd party websites as a means of seeing what your friends are up to and collaboratively reading web pages. I can’t remember off-hand what that was called or exactly what it does but I am keeping my ears close to the ground to find out more. Would Facebook be a nice addition to this? After all Google did buy YouTube, why not Facebook?

Setup / User Testing @ Rave On Air

The setup for Rave On Air should have been very smooth today as the RC1 was prepared so all we had to do was boot up a computer, install the plugins and away… right? How wrong that is. After many problems with Macs, PC’s, connectors and lack of microphone input on G4s I finally booted up my laptop and it was running on that all day.

The good thing is we were able to watch people use the ShoutBox without saying “Do you want to try it out”. All day people were shouting out at the screen… sometimes there was a lull and only a few small balls were generated from ambient sounds, sometimes interference from other installations would generate too many large balls too quickly and crash the Max application, and sometimes people would re-engage with the installation and generate sounds. This would carry on for a surprisingly long time as louder sounds would be heard more and become more interesting to more people.

Here are a few images of the setup process. Click the images to view the full set in Flickr

Flash…! Ohhhhh…!

Flash is finally working with MaxMSP, for all the good it is going to do. The Macs in the interaction lab have yet to have Flash Server installed on them and the demo version of MaxMSP is runs out today on everyones laptops. This means that nobody can come in over the weekend and work, nor work at home.

The good news is that there is now some interactivity between sounds processed by Max and Flash generated balls. After some tinkering with settings and inputs, someone can now control the generation of balls with their voice but not the size and the shapes do not play back their sounds.

After many hours of frustration the prototype now has less functionality than earlier in the day as there has been so much manipulation of code and overwriting of files that the perfect working alpha has been lost.

There were some screenshots taken while it was operational as well as some of a side-lined problem. The problem involved the on/off switches that were triggered to start recording. They would be triggered when the buffer was [banged] but then they would stay open when they needed to close as soon as the next buffer was [banged] open.

Mac Hate

This is a great video that I recently re-found after being forced to work on a Mac and talking about various problems with a friend who owns a Mac. This video perfectly sums up my feelings towards Mac. Its a love / hate thing.

Is It A Bird, Is It A Plane… Yes It’s A Hydrogen Powered Plane

The BBC reported the successful flight of a manned hydrogen fuelled plane developed by those boffins over at Boeing. They say it is paving the way for a new generation of ‘greener’ planes as the only by-product is heat and water vapour. I am sceptical of such lofty claims by developers of such technologies however it is great to see that large companies who can actually have an impact on the global climate are trying to do something about it.

I guess I find it difficult to take heed of government campaigns on this small island about switching our TVs to standby, using a 30 degree wash and walking instead of driving. We are a major western power yes, and we contribute greenhouse gasses yes, but we are one of the smallest.

The government puts restrictions on emissions that factories have to comply with, so what do those companies do? They outsource to countries where the restrictions are more relaxed or don’t exist at all.

The fact is that in order to save the planet, the WHOLE planet needs to address the problem. Something I can’t see happening until its too late. Leading by example is just giving us the right to say “We told you so”.

It Must Be Bad If This Guy Says So!

If the creator of the web itself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, says he will change his ISP if they start to monitor his web activity then we are in a sorry state of affairs. In interview with the BBC he said “consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet”

Seriously, is nobody listening? Although it wouldn’t be the first time the creator of something has watched it turn into something terrible. Anyone remember the Atom Bomb?

The article from the BBC cites a company called Phorm to monitors user information etc but their site itself clearly states “Phorm technology dispels the argument that in order to make online advertising relevant for consumers you must use and keep consumer surfing behaviour or their personally identifiable information“

They also state they are “setting a new, higher standard on privacy and anonymity“.

So I fail to see what the company will do, and if it does will it violate it’s own set of guidelines?

I STILL feel this is a breach of our rights to have unmonitored communications. This is exactly what my contextual studies essay was about.

This would make me FURIOUS if this actually comes to fruition!

Microsoft Says No Way to Blu-Ray

Microsoft has confirmed that they will not incorporate Blu-Ray technology into the Xbox 360. They’re argument is that they can still deliver HD content through the ‘rental’ of media through their Marketplace.

Personally I think this is ridiculous. There were always rumors during the HD format war that Microsoft had deliberately invested in a failing format to draw out the battle so it could develop its online push for HD content. The news that this is now the ONLY way for Xbox 360 owners to watch HD content comes as no surprise to me. While I love the 360 I was (naively) hoping that Microsoft would be consumer focused for a change and release a Blu-Ray add on for it. They were even in talks with Sony about licensing their technology but nothing has come of it. Would be nice to see an instructable with a Blu-Ray PC drive connected to the 360. Even a 3rd party add-on would do VERY well. I know I’d buy it.

So love the 360, hate Microsoft.

‘Traffic Shaping’ Voilates FCC?

A planned meeting by the FCC has been announced to tackle the problem of ‘traffic shaping’ - the process of ISP’s dictating access to certain websites, services (such as peer-2-peer) and bandwidth - which is apparently in violation of the ‘net neutrality’ policy employed by the FCC.

“The issue of net neutrality has come to the fore mainly as a result of Comcast, which is under investigation by the FCC for sabotaging peer-to-peer traffic such as BitTorrent downloads.”

Original Article Here

Finally… They See Sense

I just read this article which says that ISPs have shot down the governement’s plans to have them block or rigorously monitor a subscriber’s data.

“surveillance and privacy laws explicitly forbid ISPs to inspect the contents of data…”

“P2P technology is legally utilised in a number of commercial services including [the] BBC…”

I am very happy about this, not only because I am an avid fan of P2P *whistles* but because it’s just ridiculous that the government is so quick to champion an obviously flawed scheme from a foreign government! - Peer pressure? I thought we were supposed to grow out of that?

ISPs PISS Me Off

Here’s one more reason not to go with ADSL. I thought Tiscali were a great ISP but it turns out they’re the same as all the rest.

The part I’m worried about is “…Tiscali has indicated it wants to place a full block on peer-to-peer applications…”

They say “…at peak times during the evening.” but if the infrastructure is there, undoubtedly they’ll use it regardless with excuses such as “we need to conserve bandwidth”.

Wise up guys… just be a grown up and go FIBRE yourselves!

P.S - Virgin planning to up their XL speed (which I’m on :D) to 50MB/S