Facebook 'rape' page to stay

Facebook has been criticised for not removing a controversial page which victim support charities say trivialises and jokes about rape.

The group page, called "You know she's playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway", has 194,370 likes on the social networking site.

Victim support groups have called it "disgusting".

Companies that advertise on Facebook have demanded their adverts be removed from the page.

Orlagh, a 22-year-old student from Belfast who did not want to disclose her full name, saw the page and became concerned.

She said: "This is not just a joke. There are people on there who are advocating rape and there are people on there apparently confessing to rape.

"Facebook is a significant social force and it gives quite a worrying picture of how they view women if breastfeeding is considered obscene and rape is not."

On its terms and conditions Facebook said: "You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

Orlagh and many victim support charities argue that this group breaches these rules.

They have started a petition calling for the page to be removed.

Advertisers' concerns

When first contacted by the BBC in August, Facebook refused to remove the page saying the site wanted to allow freedom of expression.

"It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive another can find entertaining, just as telling a rude joke won't get you thrown out of your local pub, it won't get you thrown off Facebook," a statement said.

Facebook has previously barred pictures from breastfeeding mothers

Some of the big companies that pay Facebook to advertise on the social networking site have asked for their adverts to be removed from the group.

Sony, American Express and BlackBerry have had their demands answered and in the last few days all advertising has been removed on the group.

Despite this pressure Facebook has maintained its position.

A further statement said: "Groups or pages that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs - even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some - do not by themselves violate our policies.

"These online discussions are a reflection of those happening offline, where conversations happen freely in people's homes, in cafes and on the telephone."

It said that more than 800 million people around the world used Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that are important to them.

It states these can be about controversial topics but does not mean they violate its policies.

On the site many users defend the page.

Tinamarie Smith agrees with Facebook and said it was about freedom of speech.

She said: "This group has nothing to do with rape its only a bit of fun if u don't like it then don't read it... I'm not saying rape is a good thing its very bad but when ur stressing someone about a joke then u really need to get a life."

New Baby Panda iPHONE App Is Absolutely Irresistible

Baby Panda iPad App Features Photos, Videos Of Zhen Zhen's Life And Times

History was made today: an iPad app-based biography of a baby panda has debuted on Apple's App Store.

The $3.99 app called "Baby Panda's New Home" is an interactive e-book featuring photos and video that trace the life of Zhen Zhen the panda.

The app's creators said in a press release that the app "tells the remarkable story of Zhen Zhen’s birth and early years at the San Diego Zoo and her eventual journey to China to live at the Wolong Nature Reserve. The story includes everything from Zhen Zhen’s first doctor visit to her birthday parties (including giant cakes!), her airplane trip and eventual relocation into the wild."

Though "Baby Panda's New Home" is described as a children's book on iTunes, it's bound to be irresistible for panda-lovers of all ages: in addition to the 34-page story about Zhen Zhen, which a narrator will read aloud as the user navigates through the book, the app includes a gallery of panda photos, fun facts about pandas, and videos of Zhen Zhen's life in the zoo. Unfortunately, there's no live panda cam (we had high hopes) and only a few pictures of Zhen Zhen (though they include a photo of the panda doing a somersault).

The app underscores Zhen Zhen's celebrity status, as well as the insatiable interest in all things panda-related. The San Diego Zoo's announcement last year that pandas Zhen Zhen and Su Linwould be leaving for China received over 150 comments from the panda's fans.

"I can’t believe Su Lin and Zhen Zhen are leaving soon! It’s so sad! They’re both big bundles of joy and we all enjoy watching them on the panda cam!" wrote one user, "Annie Panda."

Thanks to "Baby Panda's New Home," fans have another chance to get up close and personal with the star panda.

Android app in Hotmail ???

When we heard Microsoft was holding a press event called "Give Hotmail a Second Look," we wondered if a full-on redesign was in store. The answer happens to be a resounding "no," but the software giant isrolling out a raft of new features to its 365 million-some-odd users. This includes an Android app with two-way email, contact and calendar syncing (!), along with a slew of updates to Hotmail's web interface. First up, you can now automatically categorize incoming mail as newsletters, and then either trash 'em or sweep them to a folder. 


Additionally, an "Unsubscribe" feature lets you do just that, with Hotmail handling the dirty work of blocking future newsletters from that sender, as well as asking the company to kindly stop spamming you. Moving along, flagged messages will now sit at the top of the inbox so that they don't get lost in the morass of incoming mail. If you like, you can program Hotmail to automatically flag messages with a particular subject line, from a certain sender, et cetera.
 Meanwhile, "Scheduled Cleanup" automatically deletes messages after a certain number of days have passed -- a good way to cut through that pile of unused Groupon alerts. Other updates include the ability to manage and edit folders and apply categories to individual emails -- all inline. 


And, last but not least, you'll now see so-called Instant Actions (e.g., "delete," "flag") when you hover over messages. We've got a few screenshots below, and you can also hit the source link for some extra details, straight from the horse's mouth.

Zune is dead, long live Zune

Like Zune's own Business Development Manager once said, all consumer electronics products have a lifespan, and today the (not so long) lineage of dedicated Zune hardware expires not with a roar, but with a promise to honor its warranties. Tucked away in the inner chambers of the Zune support site lies a page spelling out Microsoft's final words on the device, "Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy," it says, "we will no longer be producing Zune players." The Zune HD is survived by the Zune music service, which will continue to function with straggling standalone media players, as well as the Windows desktop, Windows Phone and Xbox platforms.

Joint-tech-family: Who are the world's biggest travel spenders?

Survey finds it is the Aussies and also lists the world's most popular countries to visit

Whether you're lost in Manchester or climbing a mountain in North Dakota, there will always be a friendly Australian nearby. Australians are some of the most well-traveled people on earth and they've got the bill to prove it.

Results from this year's Visa Global Travel Intentions Survey reveal that Australians were the highest spenders on travel, splashing out around US$3,636 on their last trip compared to the global average of US$1,895.

The United Kingdom was the top destination for Australians; around one third of respondents picked it as their most likely holiday destination in the next two years.

Competitive exchange rates may have secured the United States as an attractive destination globally; just over a quarter of Australian respondents ranked it their second most popular dream destination.

Despite natural disasters and economic downturns, the top three destinations around the world were the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. And Japan was Hong Kong’s prime destination, as a whopping 50 percent of Hong Kong travelers said they would like to visit Japan before 2014.

Saudi Arabian respondents were the next highest spenders, dishing out an average of US$3,129 on their last trip, favoring Egypt, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.

HTC security vulnerability said to leak phone numbers, GPS data, and more, HTC responds (video)

The folks at Android Police seem to have stumbled across a rather jarring security vulnerability in HTC handsets running Android, giving common apps with internet access a peek at the device's vital statistics, user information and more. Demonstrated in the above video, developer Trevor Eckheart found that a recent HTC update packed in a suite of logging tools that collects data on user accounts (including email addresses), recent GPS locations, SMS data and encoded text, phone numbers, system logs, running processes and more -- all of which can be accessed by common apps requesting access toandroid.permission.INTERNET.


HTC is already looking into the issue, stating, "HTC takes our customers' security very seriously, and we are working to investigate this claim as quickly as possible. We will provide an update as soon as we're able to determine the accuracy of the claim and what steps, if any, need to be taken." If you're too antsy to wait for HTC's update, head on over to the source link below -- Eckheart says the issue can be resolved by removing HTCloggers from a rooted device.

Yahoo getting SOLD? Alibaba 'interested' in buying all of Yahoo

Yahoo owns a big stake in Chinese Internet firm Alibaba Group. But Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, has said he is "interested" in buying all of Yahoo.

 Jack Ma, the CEO of Chinese Internet conglomerate Alibaba Group, said late Friday that his company would be "interested" in buying all of struggling online media firm Yahoo.

A spokesman for Alibaba confirmed that Ma made that comment in response to a question following Ma's keynote address at the China 2.0 conference at Stanford University.

Shares of Yahoo (YHOO,Fortune 500) rose 3% in after hours trading Friday. A spokesperson for Yahoo said the company had no comment about Ma's remarks.

Yahoo is holding a press conference in New York Monday. Ross Levinsohn, the executive vice president of Yahoo's Americas region, is speaking. But Yahoo has given no indication as to what the topic of the press conference will be.

Yahoo currently owns about a 40% stake in Alibaba, but the relationship between these two partners has been contentious as of late. A purchase of Yahoo would essentially allow Ma to buy back control of that stake.

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Ma had a dispute over ownership of Alipay, an online payment unit similar to eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500)-owned PayPal. In May, Yahoo disclosed that Alibaba shifted 100% ownership of Alipay to a new entity controlled by Ma.

Yahoo's only hope is to sell itself

That news caused a huge slide in shares of Yahoo since many investors had felt that a main reason to own Yahoo was the hope that it would be able to cash in on its stake in Alipay as well as other Alibaba-owned assets such as online commerce site Taobao.

Although Yahoo, Alibaba and Softbank, a Japanese Internet firm that is also an investor in Alibaba, reached a deal over Alipay ownership in July, Yahoo investors remained frustrated. Bartz was fired in September.

Bartz was widely credited for cutting costs at Yahoo in order to preserve profits. But she was never able to turn around the company's sagging sales.

Despite a search partnership with Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Yahoo continued to lose ground to search king Google (GOOG,Fortune 500). Social network Facebook has emerged as a fierce competitor for so-called online display (i.e. graphic and video) advertising as well.

Yahoo named chief financial officer Tim Morse as interim CEO. But there has been intense speculation in the past month that Yahoo may agree to sell itself instead of hiring a permanent successor for Bartz and remaining independent.

Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners has been often mentioned as a possible Yahoo suitor. So has online media firm AOL (AOL), even though it is facing massive challenges of its own. In addition, Yahoo's market value of about $16.6 billion is nearly 13 times greater than AOL's.

Microsoft, which offered to buy Yahoo for more than $47 billion in 2008 and was turned down, has also been named as a likely bidder for Yahoo.

The Alibaba spokesman said Ma indicated at the Stanford event Friday that private equity firms and strategic investors have approached him about the possibility of a deal. But the spokesman added that Ma said Alibaba may be willing to buy all of Yahoo on its own.