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MySpace is set to release on Thursday the application programming interface (API) for Data Availability, a developer project that the News Corp.-owned social network announced in early May. Through Data Availability, participating social sites can let users synchronize accounts with MySpace profiles, importing public profile data like photos, interests, and friend lists.

But MySpace’s project isn’t the only one of its kind: rival Facebook has extended its existing API to encompass data portability in the form of “Facebook Connect,” and Google has a new project called Friend Connect designed to bring social credentials to otherwise non-social Web sites.

“Our users spend hours updating and making changes to their profiles, uploading content, and building friend relationships,” a post on the MySpace developer blog explained. “With your help that data can now be available to MySpace users no matter where they go on the Internet.”

MySpace's Data Availability logo.

Data Availability’s formal launch partners are Yahoo, eBay, Twitter, and News Corp.’s Photobucket, but with the release of the API, any third-party site can have access to it. Authentication is handled through the OAUTH open standard, and controls have been configured so that a high level of coding expertise is not required.

The premise of the new series is that Sam King, an extremely low-level fictional employee of Universal Music, decides to found his own record label in the company mail room. Along the way, he encounters real-life Universal artists, and viewers will be able to submit opinions, send in material, and suggest which bands Sam should scout.

They weren’t the only ones who got that memo. Record label Universal Music Group’s Universal Music U.K. announced Monday that it’s partnered with social network Bebo to broadcast a series called The Secret World of Sam King: one part video blog, one part Choose Your Own Adventure, and one part Universal advertorial. It’s being produced by Globe Productions, a division of Universal.

At the many advertising conferences dotting Internet Week New York this week, speakers and panelists have been exhorting the ad industry to start thinking more creatively when it comes to tackling digital media–even creating elaborate branded series in lieu of traditional commercials.

For Bebo, which has its biggest audience in the U.K., and parent company AOL, its 42 million members get video content that will (ideally) be enjoyable and will keep them around. It’ll also be cross-promoted across other AOL video brands. For Universal, creating an (ideally) hip show geared toward Bebo’s young users could help recapture the attention of a generation that’s turned away from the major labels and in the direction of BitTorrent.

The show will also be fueled by product placement, with handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson signing on as the inaugural brand sponsor. Apparently this will lead to the protagonist “winding his boss up with mobile phone-related pranks.”

Bebo and Universal have not provided a concrete debut date.

Universal’s concept of a “brand show” is a bit similar to Back On Topps, a series created by former Disney exec Michael Eisner’s video start-up Vuguru, as a promotion for the trading card company (which Eisner himself owns). That series, premiering this week, also pits fictional company employees against the celebrities affiliated with it–in Topps’ case, famous athletes.

Of course, this won’t help much, if you’re unable to open Outlook at all, which was the predicament I faced. You could make a copy of your outlook.pst file and restore it after you delete the problematic account, but restoring the outlook.pst file may simply cause the glitch to resurface.

And last but not least, I knew it would take only a couple of minutes to delete the troublesome account and get Outlook to reopen, though downloading all my old e-mail from the server would take quite a bit longer than that
.

The How-To Outlook site offers step-by-step instructions for backing up and restoring your Outlook data. Once you get Outlook going again, you can automate the Outlook backup-and-restore process by using Microsoft’s free Outlook Personal Folders Backup utility.

Delete a troublesome Outlook profile to have the program re-create one from scratch the next time you open it.

To change this setting, click Tools > Account Settings, choose your account, click Change > More Settings > Advanced, and check “Leave a copy of messages on the server.” Then click OK > Next > Finish > Close.

A couple of weeks ago, the IT guy at my office added my company Exchange Server e-mail account to my notebook computer’s copy of Microsoft Outlook 2007. The first time I tried to open Outlook after I left the office, the program crashed because it was unable to connect to the server.

Set Outlook to leave a copy of your incoming messages on the server via this setting.

I don’t mind resetting my mail profile because I have Outlook set to keep messages on my ISP’s server until I choose to delete them. So after I delete my Outlook account, a new one will be created automatically the next time I open the program. Once I re-enter my ISP’s server settings, my old mail is downloaded again.

There’s one big caveat to this technique: you need to be ready to say “adios” to your outlook.pst file, which is the file that holds your Outlook e-mail and settings.

When you restart Outlook, you’ll be prompted to set up an account as if it were the first time the program ever loaded on your system. Sometimes square one is the best place to be.

I also have the mail from my personal ISP account forwarded to my Gmail account.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

The easiest part of the process is deleting the buggy profile. In XP, open the Control Panel’s Mail applet by clicking Start > Control Panel (or Start > Settings > Control Panel) and choosing User Accounts > Mail (in Category View) or double-clicking Mail (in Classic View). In Vista, press the Windows key, type mail, scroll to Mail (not Windows Mail), and press Enter.

I couldn’t even open Outlook long enough to delete the new account. This wasn’t a big problem for me for a bunch of reasons. For one, I didn’t really need to access my company e-mail account from the version of Outlook on my notebook because I automatically forward messages from the most important senders (my boss, for example) to my Gmail account, which I use as my primary repository.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Show Profiles, choose the account (it may be the only one listed), and click Remove > Yes > OK.

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CBS Interactive)

The Where in the World game lets you guess where photos were taken. You're lucky if there's some sort of language or landmark…otherwise it's anyone's guess. (Click the image for a larger version.)

The featured photo section is also a great start but hardly the exploratory experience competitor Flickr has established for itself. There’s no way to sort by date, and Google has not made it clear how the photos have ended up on the front page by hiding how many people have viewed and bookmarked each shot.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

On Friday, Google’s Picasa Web Albums rolled out a new page that highlights community photography, with featured shots from its users, a stream of live updating uploads, and a game that makes use of media that’s been geotagged.

Of all the new features, the “Where in the World?” game is the most fun. It lets you guess where a photo was taken by clicking on a giant world map. You’re awarded points for how close you were, with closer guesses racking up massive points. It does this using shots that have been geotagged, although that doesn’t necessarily make it easier. Success in the game comes from shots that contain landmarks or language markers with local signage. If the shot doesn’t have any of that, which seems to happen more often than not, you’re playing with pure luck.

One thing missing from the equation is more ways to explore the actual users. You can still get to someone’s profile with all their public shots, but there’s not yet a community spotlight for interesting photographers.

Picasa's new Explore section outlines some of the newest and most interesting photographs from Picasa users. (Click the image for a larger version.)

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Motorola)

Rokr EM28

Inside the EM25 you’ll find the Rokr music player, an FM radio, a speakerphone, a 3.5mm headset jack, a microSD card slot, a 1.3-megapixel camera, full Bluetooth, USB mass storage, and Moto’s CrystalTalk feature. Of course, like its new siblings, the EM25 also makes calls.

Rokr EM25

(Credit:
Motorola)

In addition to the Rokr music player, the EM30 offers an FM radio, text-to-speech technology, an airplane mode, Moto’s CrystalTalk feature, a micorSD card slot, a 2-megapixel camera, an FM radio, a 3.5mm headset jack, full Bluetooth, a speakerphone, mass USB storage, and compatibility with Windows Media Player 11. The EM30 is a quadband GSM handset that supports GPRS and EDGE networks.

Availability details were slim at the time of this writing. The EM30 will go on sale first in Taiwan for an undisclosed price. It will expand to other markets later in the year along with the EM28 and EM25.

Motorola expanded its music phone lineup Tuesday with three new Rokr cell phones. The handsets offer a wide range of designs and features, though all put music squarely at the center.

Rokr EM30

(Credit:
Motorola)

The EM30 is the most high-end model of the trio. It offers a traditional candy bar design in an appealing black and red color scheme. The keypad offers the same ModeShift keypad that we saw on the Motorola Rokr E8. As you move between different functions, the backlighting on the keypad changes to illuminate only the relevant buttons.

For slider phone fans or callers who need only the basics, there’s the EM25. The handset has a slider design that’s vaguely Sony Ericsson in appearance. The phone includes support for just two bands (GSM 850/1900 and GSM 900/1800) with data speeds maxing out at GPRS.

The mid-range EM28 is a flip phone that comes in two triband versions (GSM 850/1800/1900 and GSM 900/1800/1900). Both models support GPRS and EDGE networks. The music player on the EM28 offers 3D sound effects, spatial audio with bass boost, and an equalizer. Other features include an FM radio, a 1.3-megapixel camera, text and multimedia messaging, Moto’s CrystalTalk feature, an airplane mode, external music controls, full Bluetooth, USB mass storage, a memory card slot, and a speakerphone.

As it happens, HBO encoded the program with DRM–a dated self-destruct mechanism and when Tivo ran it’s nightly update and the clock turned over the program was deleted without any interaction from Tivo.

HBO, like all DRM obsessed companies find it necessary to “control” the content. It’s especially odd in this case as HBO owns the content (meaning they wouldn’t be paying royalties) and I would think they would want us locked into their service and their content.

Last night I ordered the DVD overnight from Amazon so that the blessed child can go to sleep. I am pretty sure that I am going to cancel my HBO subscription but I’m not sure if I am taking this too personally.

And as far as I can tell the terms that one agrees to with HBO (or any other network) are outside the control of Tivo and Comcast, and there is no clear explanation of what might happen when, or under what circumstances when you sign up for HBO through a cable provider.

Was it wrong for me to rely on the program to be in the Tivo? I don’t think so. There was no warning, or meta-data or other information that said the program would be deleted. The whole thing is just rude and an effrontery to the consumer.

(Side note: Tivo support is really good and very nice. I can’t fault the company or the support team for any of this.)

My biggest realization is that I now realize that I need to continue to own physical media as I have no idea what these scumbag companies might try to pull over on consumers.

I was trying to think about this a bit and figure out what HBO had to gain by removing a kids show from my Tivo without telling me and making it difficult for my baby to go to sleep. The answer is really nothing.

It’s pathetic that as the software world opens up, the media world continues to be an evil dark overlord.

Mortiis, master of HBO DRM

(Credit: Mortiis) I sat on the phone with Tivo for a combined total of 30 minutes this morning (roughly 22 minutes on various stages of hold) to figure out what happened to my daughter’s favorite Goodnight Moon show that we Tivo’d off of HBO.

(Credit:
Apple, Dan Farber)

(Credit:
BMW)

In addition, about one-third of the survey’s respondents said they carry a second phone, presumably for some business purpose or a second phone number. Ten percent of those surveyed have a RIM BlackBerry alongside their iPhone. iPhone users also are about 40 percent above the U.S. median in household income.

(Credit:
Rubicon Consulting)

The iPhone, starting at $399, naturally appeals to an elite, hip, younger crowd with disposable income. In fact, iPhone goes together with BMW, an object of desire for those who can afford it.

So far, the secretive Jobs hasn’t shown how or whether Apple intends to change the world with the iPhone and follow-on products. The One Laptop Per Child initiative should provide some inspiration.

Rubicon Consulting’s survey of 460
iPhone users in the U.S. surfaced the obvious. iPhone users are are young (half under 30), tech savvy and, besides telephony, primarily use the device for e-mail, texting, and Web browsing.

Apple’s brilliant “Think Different” ad campaign, which ran from around 1997 to 2002 around the Macintosh, was about changing the world, highlighting well-known artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists. The ads for the iPhone are just a model’s hands and the object of desire, which is worthy of desire.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has established himself as the personification of “Think Different.” He and his team are changing the world of mobile computing, but they haven’t reached beyond the elite. This is typical for new consumer electronics products and Apple.

Internecine warfare in the executive branch has frequently broken out on Intellipedia, which hosts approximately 40,000 users and 35,000 articles, an estimated 50 of which discuss Iraq, terrorism, and national security. Google has a $350 million contract with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Intelligence Community Enterprise Services in Ft. Meade, Md., to provide servers and search services for Intellipedia, which has been cloaked in secrecy until now. (Access to articles requires Intelink, JWICS, or SIPRNet, the intelligence community’s secure networks.)

Another intelligence community project, A-Space, is known as a Facebook and MySpace for spies. Apart from a brief surge of interest when it launched in December, usage has dropped off significantly in the last few months.

WASHINGTON, D.C.–It turns out that the federal government’s Intellipedia, a classified Wikipedia just for spies and spooks, is as prone to altercations as is its public counterpart.

One of the most innovative Intellipedia features is its multimedia component. Popular entries include Windows Media videos of satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office depicting intimate encounters between Pamela Anderson and ex-husband Tommy Lee. Another top 10 entry features racy e-mail attachments exchanged between actress Jessica Alba and fiance Cash Warren–intercepted by the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Caption: This partially redacted screen snapshot of Intellipedia, a Wikipedia-like site used by the U.S. intelligence community, hints at the severity of edit wars between executive branch agencies.

“K.I.T.T.’s Tri-Helical Plasteel 1000 molecular bonded shell and hydrogen-fueled turbine engine could clearly kick the ass of a Ford Mustang that has only 540 HP,” the vice president wrote in a discussion accompanying one classified Intellipedia entry. “The new K.I.T.T. isn’t even a Trans Am. Sheesh.”

“The vice president abhors remakes,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the vice president’s taste in films. “You should have seen how he savaged the Transformers movie entry. We ended up locking that for weeks and blaming it on (former Attorney General) Al (Gonzales) after he quit.”

[Editor's note: Remember, today is April 1, a day reserved in the U.S. for some
levity.]

“Such tools enable experts from different disciplines to pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments,” J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate in September. “It’s true that we now are intercepting sex videos that Americans create in the privacy of their own home–9/11 really did mean that everything has changed.”

Other topics of editorial disagreement have included the long-running Osama vs. Usama spelling debate pitting the CIA against the Justice Department, which of the supernatural sisters (one played by Rose McGowan from 2001 to 2006, and the other by Shannen Doherty from 1998 to 2001) on the Charmed television show was hotter, and whether the new Knight Rider series could be “even half as cool” as the iconic original starring K.I.T.T. and David Hasselhoff.

Then, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Vice President Dick Cheney reverted the classified Intellipedia entry to the earlier version that listed the Buffy musical “Once More, With Feeling” as the top choice. “The juxtaposition of Buffy’s emotional dependence on her mentor and the interpretive dance number was deeply moving,” Cheney said. “Plus there was some serious blood and gore toward the end.”

“It was fine until Condoleezza Rice got on, and then started sending everyone A-Space ‘friend’ requests,” said Homeland Security assistant secretary Stewart Baker. “Like, what do you do, say ‘no’ to the secretary of state? Then you start getting all these status updates about ‘transnational diplomacy’ and Ferragamo pumps and your in-box is clogged pretty quickly.”

One source close to the intelligence community blamed Cheney for defacing the Intellipedia entry on the forthcoming Speed Racer film, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. The culprit, who was traced by Internet Protocol address to the Office of the Vice President, posted: “This is going to bomb like Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Any remake without the original Defensor mode is clearly inferior.”

The latest edit war on the top-secret Web site started with the “Best Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode” entry, which CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed would be the acclaimed episode in which a series of human heart-gathering demons cast a spell to steal everyone’s voices.

Facebook’s 200-plus million members will be able to customize the URLs to their profiles starting at midnight Eastern on Saturday, according to a post on the Facebook blog. Currently, users’ profile URLs have been structured as a string of numbers. At least for now, it doesn’t look like the switch is mandatory.

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Facebook)

Also: “We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook user name in the future,” DiPersia wrote. Presumably, this means that you’ll be able to use it for Facebook Connect log-ins on external sites, rather than your e-mail address.

This is a move that will help Facebook profiles get better traction in search engines, potentially upping traffic–and give people-search sites a run for their money in the process. For brands whose “fan pages” are a crucial part of Facebook’s marketing and advertising strategy, it’ll make their pages easier for people to access without needing to click around much.

But there’s fine print! “Think carefully about the user name you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it,” the post by Facebook’s Blaise DiPersia read. “If you signed up for a Facebook Page after May 31 or a user profile after today at 3 p.m. EDT, you may not be able to sign up for a user name immediately because of steps we’ve taken to prevent abuse or ’squatting’ on names.”

There’s something significant here: not being able to change or transfer your Facebook name means that it’s less likely there will be a big market for them on eBay, Craigslist, or elsewhere, something that could easily get out of hand otherwise.

Sophos has not yet seen versions that run on
Mac OS X, the Apple iPhone, or other mobile devices.

The Trojan has been identified as Troj/Agent-HNY, Sophos said.

Security firm Sophos warned on Thursday that e-mails being circulated on the Web that purport to offer a free
iPhone game instead are carrying a Trojan horse that can take control of infected Windows machines.

The e-mails have subject lines like “Virtual iPhone games!” and “Apple: The most popular game!” The attachment is called “Penguin.Panic.zip,” which refers to the iPhone game of the same name.