Plans for the world’s tallest building were announced this week… and that record breaking build is going to be built in Saudi Arabia, by the Bin Laden family.

An affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Co., Jeddah Economic Co., has signed a deal worth roughly $1.23 billion with the Bin Laden Group, the Saudi construction company owned by the family of Usama bin Laden, to build the world’s tallest tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Called The Kingdom Tower, it will measure at least 3,280 feet high, and will be part of the $20 billion Kingdom City project that will be located just to the north of the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.

Once built, the tower will eclipse the world’s reigning tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Financing for the Jeddah project is already in place, with construction, which should take about 63 months, expected to begin shortly.

“We intend Kingdom Tower to become both an economic engine and a proud symbol of the Kingdom’s economic and cultural stature in the world community.  We envision Kingdom Tower as a new iconic marker of Jeddah’s historic importance as the traditional gateway to the holy city of Mecca,” said Prince Al Maiman, a board member of Kingdom Holding and the Jeddah Economic Co,

Under the deal, the Bin Laden Group will take a 16.63% stake in both the Jeddah Economic Co and the Kingdom Tower

Related articles

• World’s tallest building coming to Saudi Arabia (msnbc.msn.com)

8-1-11
By LGR Science and Tech News Staff

The Ohio State Highway Patrol say two men were killed Saturday when a replica of a 1910 Wright brothers “B” Flyer they were testing went down north of Dayton, Ohio.

According to reports, the fabric-covered aircraft went down in a farm field about four miles south of the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport, at about 10:45 a.m. local time, resulting in the deaths of the planes two pilots.

Dead are Don Gum, 73, of Beaver Creek, Ohio, and Mitchell Cary, 64, of Yellow Springs, Ohio.

The Ohio Highway Patrol, the FAA, and National Transportation Safety Board investigators are currently trying to determine what caused the experimental plane to crash but several  witness’ said the plane’s engine was sputtering just before the crash. Another witness said they heard the engine backfire and then a pop as it flew over their home.

Authorities also said they are not sure who was flying the plane at the time of the crash. However, authorities did say both men were experienced pilots.

The crash inquiry is expected to last six to eight months.

The men were flying a model known as “Silver Bird,” which was built by volunteers from a non-profit company called Wright “B” Flyer Inc, an organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of the Wright Brothers and their association with Dayton, Ohio.

The original Wright B, manufactured at the Wright Co. factory in Dayton from 1910-11, saw service in the U.S. Army and civilian operations.

Related articles

• 2 die in crash of Wright Brothers replica (cnn.com)
• Replica of Wright brothers 1910 plane crashes in Ohio, killing 2 – CNN (news.google.com)
• Wright Brothers model kills pilots (independent.co.uk)
• 2 Killed After Wright Bros Replica Plane Crashes (foxnews.com)

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

The Pew Research Center has just figured out what many of us have known for a couple of years now – Facebook and Twitter are important sources of real news. Well, duh.

Twenty-one of the Internet’s top 25 news sites say that Facebook is responsible for 3% of their traffic. Five of the sites get 6% to 8% of their hits from Facebook recommendations. As we all know, that happens when friends link a story to other friends. The critical factor with Facebook and Twitter is that they are interest-driven, not automated like Google. Google recommends related stories without consideration of demographics and is responsible for about 30% of the traffic on larger news sites.

But it is the recommendations of Facebook and Twitter users that drives traffic to smaller, demographic-specific sites like this one. It is also responsible for the explosion of traffic for English-language, on-site reporting on small blogs like Amina Abadallah’s and that guy who reported the raid the bin Laden’s house. Right now, the only reporting coming out of Syria is on sites like Amina’s that have gone from private ruminations on life to war corresponding in weeks. The major news sources like the Associated Press and Reuters are finding themselves totally dependent on these blogs from places like Syria and the besieged city of Misrata in Libya.

Pew did not track smaller sites, concentrating their research on the top mainstream on-line news sources like the New York Times and CBS News. They missed the real story – the way the exponential impact of Facebook and Twitter spreads stories from the small blogs that were founded to serve a specific readership. The second thing they missed is that Google provides ad links for sites (sometimes for things totally in opposition to the site’s editorial view), while Facebook and Twitter do not direct advertising to them. While Facebook and Twitter are driving traffic to sites, they are not helping support them by creating a bridge between sites and potential advertisers for those sites.

One of the things driving traffic to smaller sites is the manner in which a small blog can gather information from a variety of sources, distill it and condense it fit in two pages, making it faster and easier to read than conventional news sites. Speed is often an important factor for people who are using Facebook and Twitter to find their news. The smaller sites are becoming HNN to the larger sites’ CNN.

It has only taken Pew twenty years to figure out that Americans cannot be divided into pure Republican-Democratic-Independent groups (see Poll, Poll, Who’s Got The Poll). Hopefully, it won’t take them 20 years to figure out the real impact of Facebook and Twitter.

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• Our Girl In Damascus (lezgetreal.com)
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• 5 Reasons Why Twitter is Not a Fad (oneforty.com)
• Facebook’s role in news is growing, Pew study says (sfgate.com)
• Has Facebook Become The Master Key To Unlocking The Web? (searchengineland.com)

Opte Project internet routing map - not exactly "tubes"

While all of us were watching the looming government shutdown on Friday, the House of Representatives voted 240-179 to reject the Federal Communications Commission’s new rules which are designed to keep internet service providers from blocking certain websites, while allowing them to “reasonably” manage their networks and possibly charge consumers based on usage.

Republicans, who always chant about how they are all for freedom and liberty, felt that keeping internet providers from barring access was, in Rep. Eric Cantor’s words, “an important step to bring down the FCC’s harmful and partisan plan to regulate the Internet.” The Republicans want internet providers to choose what websites we can visit based on their perceptions of the value of the sites. In other words, if Rupert Murdoch bought an internet provider like Verizon, they would deny access to this site and any other liberal or progressive sites.

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman retorted that rejecting the FCC rules would “give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use. In most parts of the country, companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have a virtual monopoly over access to the Internet. Without regulation, they can choke off innovation by charging for the right to communicate with their customers.” Since many companies like these support Republican and conservative agendas, there is a certain validity to Cantor’s claim. We are fighting to save access for liberals and progressives to liberal and progressive sites and fight the creeping monopoly that the conservatives have over the political narrative in this country.

Related articles

• House votes to overturn net neutrality (capitolhillblue.com)
• U.S. House seeks repeal of ‘net neutrality’ rules (cbc.ca)
• FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules Rejected By House of Representatives (mashable.com)
• House Republicans Vote Against Open Internet (huffingtonpost.com)
• House Moves to Overturn Net-Neutrality Rules (online.wsj.com)
• New Net Neutrality Rules Rejected By House of Representatives (policyabcs.wordpress.com)

Apple is garnering attention and for once, it has nothing to do with the release of some overpriced Apple product. The company has recently come under fire for approving a controversial application that has brought up the never-ending lie that it is possible for homosexuals to become straight (if you allow Jesus to help).

Most surprising of all, is that Apple not only approved this application but gave it a rating of “4+”, which means that the company considers the app to contain “no objectionable material”.

Yet, the application description surely gives off explicit homophobic content to question the motives of the Apple worker who approved the applications release. Brought into being by Exodus International (a notorious ex-gay organization), whose mission is to “mobilize the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality,” the app was supposedly made in order to not help not only the sinner (the homosexual) but their parents, friends, and ministers.

Currently, the application seems to be targeting youths and those who are uncertain of their sexual orientation. Which, with the recent expose regarding gay teenage suicide, seems to be particularly chilling as it perpetuates the religious stereotype that being gay is both shameful to you and your family. The application boasts to cure you from being gay and employs the use of reparative therapy and scare tactics that have been denounced by all medical institutions as being effective.

Little has been said about Exodus International’s track record concerning their ability to “change” homosexuals. Yet, two of the founding members of the organization, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper ended up leaving the group in 1979 so that they could be together. Yes, together – not in the friendly way but in the “I love you more than a friend” way. Not only that, but the couple actually ended up having a commitment ceremony in 1982.

With those types of odds, it is hard to take the organizations claims seriously about being able to “pray the gay away”.  Truth Wins Out, an non-profit that fights anti-gay, religious extremism has started a petition to get this application removed from Apple.

As of this writing, the application is still available on the Apple website.

Related articles

• Exodus International Co-Founder Bussee Gives Emotional Response About Politicization Of Group (lezgetreal.com)
• “Ex-Gays” Launch iPhone App (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• “Curing” Gay People? There’s an App for That. (news.change.org)
• Exodus International’s iPhone App Is Available For ‘Those That Struggle With Same-Sex Attractions’ (queerty.com)

Image via CrunchBase

02/17/2011- by Natasia Langfelder

When Facebook first started up it allowed it’s users to come out without “coming out” by choosing which sex they were interested in. Now, they are taking the next step and expanding their relationship options to include “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership” for gays that live in places where same sex marriage isn’t legal….which unforch is basically everywhere.

Facebook is such a huge part of our society, it’s used for pleasure, it’s used for business. This is just one more step closer to normalizing same sex couples for everyone, but especially the youngest generation. Yay! Equality FB style!   

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• Bristol Palin Kind of Apologizes for Herself and Willow on Facebook(lezgetreal.com)

LezGetReal is about to roll into the next countdown to yet another mIllion page views-  a Newish News Magazine that is two years plus a bit -  for the first full year we hit under a million and in  the second full year we hit under 2 million – we are about to explode into 3,000,000.   For a fledgling, unfunded, non monetized endeavor we are indeed proud.

The site serves as a News-Mag-blog from “a gay gals view of the world” -  and as a popular and influential platform for LGBT activism, both globally and domestically; we have readers all over the world!  We are a small bunch of gals working and working and working for what we believe in and to share our perspective. The reward? You !Having you visit and appreciate and criticize and debate and pass on…. that is the reward – opening eyes and hearts — well that too!

We know our articles are read by Presidents and Senators and Members of Parliament- and ….. people …. and ..straight and LGBTQI  of course our  co-bloggers, and readers who fuel our fire with sourcing and comments and just the odd pat on the back that makes us feel it is all worth it.

So join us in celebrating and we do not make a habit of this – but if you feel so inclined I think we do have a paypal button for donations somewhere on this site – not that I have ever noticed it!!

Posted by Mel.

Lets Make it A  LezGetReal SuperBowl Sunday at 5.30 PM PST we need 613 Page Views to hot the 3 Million Mark

We Are Everywhere- Washington D.C. California, New York, Vermont…. and our Guests around the World…….

Here are All time top hits for LezGetReal-

Most  Viewed:

Number One:-    Woman-attacks-her-wife-with-turkey-baster-full-of-sperm

Number Two:-  Lesbian-corrective-rape-victim-has-her-day-in-court

Most Discussed

Hate-crimes-open-lesbian-gang-raped-in-california/#comments

Current Writers to Explore:

Dr. Paula Brooks 1273 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/author/paula-brooks/

Bridgette LaVictoire  2,853  – http://lezgetreal.com/author/sei/

Melanie Nathan 1186 Posts http://lezgetreal.com/author/melnathan/

Natasia Langfelder – 695 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/author/natasia-rose/

Rachel Wahba 12 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/?s=Rachel+Wahba

L. S. Carbonell – 115 Posts http://lezgetreal.com/author/bridgettepl/

Crusades: (Ahem…) – ur Amen…:
Catholic Church and Pedophiles
Anti- Hate and Right Wing Rhetoric
Religious Fundamentalism
So Called Corerctive Rape
Violence Against WOmen
Africa and Genocide of Gays and Lesbians and Transgender People
Equality and LGBTQI Civil Rights
Human Rights
US Progressive Politics
Exposing Hypocrisy
And…. Mainstream Mix…

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• Breaking: Swedish Lesbian Couple Receive Good News (lezgetreal.com)
• UPDATE: Ugandan Lesbian Brenda Namigadde’s Deportation is set for 9.20PM from London (lezgetreal.com)
• Jack and Linda Klenk Hosted David Bahati (lezgetreal.com)
• Castro Protest: No MILK for HRC – Harvey’s Legacy ‘Not for Rent’ - (lezgetreal.com)
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• Rep. Baldwin Calls For Responsibility For Words Used In Wake Of AZ Shooting, Violent Campaign Season (lezgetreal.com)
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Image by jimmy.walker via Flickr

2/2/2011- by Natasia Langfelder

Ladies, have you been jealous because gay men can find casual sex on their iphones with Grindr? Well now there is an app for you to find casual sex with strangers too! There is a new app in town developed for the sole purpose of finding you new beaver called “Wheretheladies.At”

Oh, Queerty actually informed me that the app was designed for straight guys. BUT if we all get on it and use it, then we can take it back right? Just like how we all got together and collectively took back the word “queer.” The app works by checking foursquare to see where women have checked in. So lesbians, check in often and we will all be on the road to finding each other. of course, there are only like three or four places we are going to check in anyway. Umm, let me guess, there are ladies at Cubbyhole, Henriettas, RF Lounge and Home Depo?

Happy vadge hunting ladies! Also, I know a few gay couples that have met on Grindr so feel free to use the app to find someone to U-haul with, not just sex-up.  

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It’s only one week until the much hyped “Quit Facebook Day” arrives. One website reports that up to 60 per cent of users could quit Facebook in the near future over privacy concerns. Proponents of quitting Facebook point to a veritable laundry list of privacy violations. And you know what? They’re right. Facebook’s privacy policy is a disgrace of epic proportions.

You know what’s not going to get you your privacy back? Quitting. And here’s why.

First, we all signed up voluntarily and nobody forced us to post the results of the “Favorite Sex Positions Quiz”, even if we regretted it later when we realised our great-aunt and our boss now know that reverse cowgirl is how we like it. It was more disturbing later, of course, when we discovered we had that in common with our great-aunt, and the less said about the boss’ preferences, the better.

We don’t need more proof that Facebook is part of how we run our lives now, so IF everyone quits Facebook, something will rise up in its place, and there’s no reason to believe that a new Facebook will be any more concerned with privacy than the old one, and Facebook are 100 per cent unconcerned about privacy.

In July 2009, Sara Kennedy deleted and purged her Facebook account. She had many reasons and those included privacy concerns. She didn’t think about Facebook again until late in February 2010 when she started receiving strange emails that appeared to be from Facebook but were in a foreign language. Worried these emails were a phishing scam, she wrote to the only Facebook email address she could find: privacy@facebook.com.

She received no direct response to her query, but the situation just got weirder and weirder. Although she never actually heard from a person at Facebook, she eventually discovered herself that someone had used her email address to sign up to Facebook and had managed to log in and post some rather risque photos without access to her email account. Then, Facebook started recommending those who had been her friends on Facebook to the person who was using her email address. Ultimately, she put a stop to it herself by logging in and changing the password.

Facebook may be the immediate problem but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. While it seems like everyone is using the internet, many users are completely unaware of basic privacy safeguards and have never thought through the implications of posting their more personal vital statistics on a website that is owned by somebody else.

However, if individual users are naive when it comes to the internet, our countries and legislative bodies are positively blind when it comes to appropriate regulation for social network providers who control such volumes of sensitive information.

Private companies are in business to make money and will work in the interests of their customers — the advertisers — not in the interests of their non-paying users. Unfortunately the only way forward with this is legislation that enforces the kind of freedoms over our own information that the EFF have laid out in their Bill of Privacy Rights for Social Network Users.

And before you all start shouting — I’m no fan of regulating the internet. I am a fan of regulating for-profit private businesses who make money by sharing sensitive information without our informed, clear and explicit consent.

So, instead of quitting Facebook on May 31st, which will accomplish exactly nothing other than making it a billion times harder to keep up with your friends and families (and remember birthdays), fire off an email to your elected representatives, attaching a copy of the EFF‘s Bill of Privacy Rights for good measure and share this post on Facebook so all your friends do the same.

Fight Facebook with Facebook. You know I’m right.

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The gadget Breastlight helps women detect any change in your breast regularly.

Using a red light against the breast, the device illuminates the skin so you can see details within the region. Should be used in dark conditions so that the light has more effect.

With its continued use, the woman will get used to seeing and knowing the appearance of her breasts, making the veins and blood and family. The important thing is to look for any change during the examination, as darker spots. If this is the case, the search for a doctor is advisable!

Even with the Breastlight, the manufacturer points out that mammography should never be discarded.

It can be purchased here for 84.99 pounds.

I’m Brazilian and best known as Menina Digital (Digital Girl!) I have a site about gadgets, techies and the web… the internet is my world and I try to use my site to show this!! Have a look at www.meninadigital.com.

Wherever you are super tight and a serpentine queue tells you have to wait…or when you are traveling by car, and you can’t find a gas station, or worse..you found one but the bathroom is worst than your true nightmares…well, I bet you wished you could pee standing huh?

A brave and good soul decided to help us and just invented a GoGirl gadget!!

The GoGirl is made of flexible, medical-grade silicone and comes with its own underwear (optional) to help you take perfect aim during those absolute emergencies.

A single pack (one GoGirl, tissue and biodegradable bag) costs $6.99 while a pack of 3 costs $18.99. You can purchase the GoGirl from Amazon.com using this link here.

I’m Brazilian and best known as Menina Digital (Digital Girl!) I have a site about gadgets, techies and the web… the internet is my world and I try to use my site to show this!! Have a look at www.meninadigital.com.

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My Gay Go is “for gays on the go” and was “built by the LGBT community, for the LGBT community”.

You can buy the app  for your iPhone at the iTunes store.

Msnbc - MINNEAPOLIS – “The $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman accused of sharing 24 songs over the Internet could ratchet up the pressure on other defendants to settle with the recording industry — if the big fine can withstand an appeal.“Normally in our American legal system, we say the punishment should fit the crime,” said Ken Port, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.”

The Federal law states that the recording companies can get up to $750 to $30,000 per song. Like that isn’t bad enough, the law also allows the jury to arbitrairily raise that to as much as $150,000 each. This jury decided on $80,000 per song, which is probably more than I’ll make in my entire life.

Its all pretty strange. She downloaded such a small amount of songs, it doesn’t make sense that she’s the one who gets busted. How many users are on Kazaa? Millions probably, and I’m pretty sure the majority of them have about ten times as many downloads. All four major recording companies, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment were going after this woman for what wouldn’t have cost fifty bucks on Itunes. Why?

I mean, I can even understand a big faceless corporation suing someone for downloading. There’s been 36,000 people sued so far. What’s strange is that this MSNBC article also reports that the companies all said back in December that they weren’t going to go after individuals anymore. They said they were going to go after the P2P sites instead.

So why this woman for just 24 songs?

The Army’s New Surveillance Blimp

“Since the airship glory days of the early part of the century, blimps have certainly lost some of their cachet, relegated to hovering over sporting events and not much else. However, the Army is about to test launch an unmanned hybrid airship to be used for surveillance missions in Afghanistan.”

Meet your knew stalker: LEMV (Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle). I found out more about this crazy spy blimp (that I heard about I think last year, in a special about UFO‘s, but didn’t believe it then) at Aviation Week’s site:

“LEMV  has replaced the Persius (Persistent Elevated Reconnaissance Surveillance Intelligence Unmanned System), which was planned as a FY2009 joint capability technology demonstration. Persius was to be awarded to Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, to build a version of its P-791 proof-of-concept hybrid airship, which flew back in January 2006.

The Persius and LEMV specs look almost identical. Army Strategic Command is looking for a demonstrator that can carry a payload of at least 2,500lb to 20,000ft for three weeks. At 20,000ft, the payload line-of-sight would be 173 miles.

The hybrid airship is to be untethered and unmanned, but optionally manned for self-deployment, with the ability to fly a 2,500-mile roundtrip mission. The payload gondola and airship structure is to be capable of carrying a heaver, 5,000lb payload to lower, 10,000ft altitude.”

I haven’t been able to find video of LeMV, yet, but here’s the very simillar Lockheed-Martin “Skunk Works” P-791 LTA:

And this is the demo-model’s capabilities! Well, if the fact that google was already capable of getting detailed street views, imagine the detail this can get. Maybe the could just write BIG BROTHER down the side? What’s the point of being subtle with giant, unmanned spy balloons?

“This new generation of -user-friendly spy-phone software has become widely available in the last year—and it confers stunning powers. The latest programs can silently turn on handset microphones even when no call is being made, allowing a spy to listen to voices in a room halfway around the world. Targets are none the wiser: neither call logs nor phone bills show records of the secretly transmitted data.

More than 200 companies sell spy-phone software online, at prices as low as $50 (a few programs cost more than $300). Vendors are loath to release sales figures. But some experts—private investigators and consultants in counter-wiretapping, computer-security software and telecommunications market research—claim that a surprising number of people carry a mobile that has been compromised, usually by a spouse, lover, parent or co-worker. Many employees, experts say, hope to discover a supervisor’s dishonest dealings and tip off the top boss anonymously. Max Maiellaro, head of Agata Christie Investigation, a private-investigation firm in Milan, estimates that 3 percent of mobiles in France and Germany are tapped, and about 5 percent or so in Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain. James Atkinson, a spy-phone expert at Granite Island Group, a security consultancy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, puts the number of tapped phones in the U.S. at 3 percent. (These approximations do not take into account government wiretapping.) Even if these numbers are inflated, clearly many otherwise law-abiding citizens are willing to break wiretapping laws.”

The only way to make sure nothing funny is going on with your phone, from what I’ve read so far, is to take the battery out when its not in use. I’m seeing a lot of reports that say the phone can be shut off and activated without it alerting you. Isn’t this fun? I’m so happy we’re going to have a Cyber Czar, with the power to shut down the internet, and spy on all our phones and computers. This is great.

OH, and they still won’t say wether or not cell phones give you cancer:

“However, society “must not repeat the situation we had with the relationship between smoking and lung cancer where we … waited until every ‘i’ was dotted and ‘t’ was crossed before warnings were issued,” said David Carpenter, director of the Institute of Health and Environment at the University of Albany, in testimony before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform.

“Precaution is warranted even in the absence of absolutely final evidence concerning the magnitude of the risk” — especially for children, said Carpenter.”

Some scientists (including one of the worlds top neurosurgeons) do think the link may be akin to that of lung cancer and cigarettes. We should look into that soon, huh? Cell phones could be the new Cigarettes, only worse.

The Speakal iPig was recently released in a limited edition version which is in the color black.

As of today there are still some of these in stock and it looks like the price is $20 off of retail too. Some lesbians I know are really into electronics and the black iPig seems to be a coveted item right now. After the announcement on GayWired that they had debuted, I thought for sure they would be gone in a flash.

Although there are still some of them in stock, there is no count of what is in stock visible so I couldn’t say how close they are to actually being sold out.

The press release did mention that these were one-of-a kind and only available in limited quantities, so if you are a lesbian looking for a new toy to play with the iPig might be for you. It’s got a lot of features and boasts eco-friendly design. You can find the iPig only on Amazon.com, and only for a limited time so be sure to take a look at that one today.

Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her online by visiting her website at www.juliephineas.com.

On the 17th Apple Inc revealed the latest version of the iPhone operating system called “3.0″.

The upgrade is free and will be available sometime in the summer. This latest update will touch base on what some user’s wanted.

*All information below comes from the trusty site of cnet.com

Systemwide search

Apple has integrated its Spotlight search technology across the entire device. This will let users search for specific e-mail messages, applications, contacts, and any other data from within those applications in one place. Users get to it from a new menu that’s to the left of their first home screen. Swiping to the left brings up an open search box that brings in results as you type, similar to Spotlight search on Mac OS X.

Copy and paste for text, photos, and SMS
One of the most-wanted features, the ability to copy and paste text will be making its way to OS 3.0. Users will be able to select sections of text and take them to other applications. MMS You can now send and receive multimedia messages (MMS). This means text messages can be sent with photos and voice recordings, all without using the built-in mail application to do it. Missing, however, is any kind of video support, which is an MMS feature found on many other phones with built-in cameras.

Push notifications

The feature that was supposed to appear in September of last year will finally be making its way to phones in version 3.0. Scott Forstall, the head of iPhone software development, noted that Apple had been late on this, and blamed the delay on scaling, saying that the original system was too taxing on both the handset’s battery and its processing power. The new system works just like old one, but has been optimized for over-the-air data transfer. It still relies on Apple’s servers as a go-between to send audio alerts, text messages, and badge notifications. Users still have to fire up the application to get at the data though.

In-app micropayments

Apple has built in a new system for developers to charge users after they’ve purchased an application. Previously there was no way to do this, forcing developers to hike up the initial price, or use external payment systems, similar to what Amazon did with its Kindle application. Apps will now be able to charge you for additional levels or in-game items like this screen from the upcoming Sims game from EA. Apple’s new system, dubbed “In-App Purchase” lets developers create an application where extra content can be purchased from within it to expand what it can do. All the billing is handled by Apple, and goes through the user’s iTunes store account. This same system has been used in console games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero with extra music track purchases. On the iPhone this was demoed on the upcoming EA title The Sims 3, which will let users buy items for their virtual character using an in-game store interface. This payment system is only for paid apps, meaning free applications cannot be upgraded to a paid premium version. Apple is also using the same revenue model for per-app purchases, meaning developers can charge whatever they want, and keep 70 percent.

Better GPS baked into apps

Apple announced that Core Location would now be available for developers to build into their applications, meaning they’ll be able to include turn-by-turn directions into their apps. However, they won’t be able to build it off the iPhone’s Google Maps application. Apple says this is due to licensing issues. However, map providers may step up and start selling mapping data to iPhone developers.

P2P networking and hardware communication

No longer will handsets exist as single entities. A new system, built off Apple’s Bonjour technology, will let devices talk to each other. This would let people play multiplayer games with one another, and potentially exchange data files—all without the need to be connected to a third-party server or a central Wi-Fi hub. To do this Apple is using the iPhone’s built-in Bluetooth antenna. Apple is also opening up how much control accessory makers can have over external hardware. Forstall showed how the iPhone would be able to hunt for FM radio signals using an attached dongle, and even read a patient’s blood pressure—putting the controls on the iPhone instead of the attached device. This is very similar to the partnership that Apple has with Nike and its Nike+ running attachment, which could be controlled using an iPod. This new system works both from the dock connector and over Bluetooth.

Other tidbits
• Original iPhone users will not be getting all the new features. Apple has already said that MMS and stereo Bluetooth music playback will not be available.
• Apple has sold 13.7 million iPhones through 2008, and 17 million iPhones total. This figure includes first generation hardware.
• There have been 800,000 downloads of the iPhone SDK.
• 62 percent of developers never done an Apple application before.
• Landscape (sideways) mode across all Apple native applications.
• Notes made in the Notes.app can now be synced to your computer.
• Shake to shuffle is coming to the iPhone.
• Safari browser is getting antiphishing and auto-fill.
• Parental controls will work on the App Store. This could mean a new explicit-content rating for applications, similar to what’s been done for music and films.
• No Adobe Flash for the iPhone, although the device will play HTML 5 video, and developers now have API access for streaming audio and video in their apps.

Kayla Tate is a 19 year old high school graduate looking to attend Winnipeg Technical for Carpentry. Kayla had a 19 year old mid-life crisis and decided that her voice needs to be heard, so she writes to help the LGBT community.

Photo by Glutnix

The government is proposing a law that will make all internet providers to filter out and block inappropriate content.

They want to ban items like terrorism and abusive images of kids on the internet. A list of websites that the government has drawn up includes a lot of gay sites.

What they did not realize when they were making the “black list” that YouTube links and some Wiki entries have been included in the “blacklist” as well along side gay and straight porn sites.

The blacklist is said to include over 2,395 websites the list it self was said to be obtained by Wikileaks a site that allows anonymous people to leak official documents.

Wikileaks plans to reveal the “blacklist” since they already revealed ones for other countries who have also”blacklisted” sites.The Sydney Herald gained the “blacklist” and went through only to find out that over half of the “banned websites” are not even associated with kids porn.

This list is said to include:

• Poker portals.
• Youtube links.
• Gay/straight porn.
• Wiki entries.
• Euthanasia pages.
• Homepages of private companies.
• Medical practitioners.

The creator of Wikileaks Julian Assange told the Sydney Herald that the secret censorship systems were “invariably corrupted”. He pointed out over 1,000 sites that criticized the Thai royal family which were already on the Thailand censorship list originally made to prevent child porn.

Wikileaks only got the blacklist because Wikileaks itself was added to it after Julian Assange decided to publish the blacklist. The Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating how the black list got leaked and debating on taking criminal action.

The communications minister said that leaking the blacklist would be “grossly irresponsible and undermine efforts to improve cyber safety”.

He goes on to say “Under existing laws ACMA blacklist includes URL’s relating to child sexual abuse, rape, incest, bestiality, sexual violence and detailed crimes. No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of the list. The black list itself is provide to the makers of internet filtering software that parents are able to install on there PC’s. However, if the government proceeds with its purposed internet filtering scheme, sites on the blacklist will be blocked for all the Australians.

Kayla Tate is a 19 year old high school graduate looking to attend Winnipeg Technical for Carpentry. Kayla had a 19 year old mid-life crisis and decided that her voice needs to be heard, so she writes to help the LGBT community.

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• Aussie Gov’t to Pilot Nationwide ‘Net Filter (marketingvox.com)
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• Aussie ISPs refuse to join government’s filtering test (arstechnica.com)
• Aussie internet-net will be drawn wider (theregister.co.uk)