Sorry, Internet, SOPA had zero effect on election day results

Blockage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) may have served as the Web's defining political moment of the year, but the anti-SOPA movement appears to have had little to no effect on Congressional elections, with 21 out of 23 SOPA supporters hanging on to their seats.

Defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was easily the most important political event of the year for the Internet. But it didn’t make much of a difference on election day. Of the 23 House Members up for reelection who co-sponsored or otherwise supported the highly contentious anti-piracy legislation, all but two won reelection on Tuesday. This includes Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, of Texas, SOPA’s author and chief co-sponsor who became the Internet’s Enemy No. 1 after disparaging the SOPA opposition movement late last year.

Even the two Representatives defeated on November 6 – Reps. Joe Baca and Mary Bono Mack, both of California – appear to have lost for much more mainstream reasons: things like gun control and budgets. In short, there is little reason to believe that SOPA had any effect whatsoever on the 2012 election – something that seemed unthinkable among the millions Internet activists who helped push SOPA off the table. The backlash against SOPA became so feared in Washington that “getting SOPA’d” became synonymous with a public revolt against particular legislation.

“Nobody wants another SOPA moment,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Politico in March. “The nerds are more powerful than anyone thought, and the tech industry flexed its muscle like never before.”

If Tuesday’s election was any indication, all that nerd power is gone. Below is a complete list of how SOPA supporters in Congress fared on election day: 

California

• Rep. Brad Sherman – Reelected
• Rep. Adam Schiff – Reelected
• Rep. Judy Chu – Reelected
• Rep. Karen Bass – Reelected
• Rep. Joe Baca – Defeated
• Rep. Mary Bono Mack – Defeated

Connecticut

• Rep. John Larson – Reelected

Florida

• Rep. Dennis Ross – Reelected
• Rep. Ted Deutch – Reelected
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz – Reelected

Georgia

• Rep. John Barrow – Reelected

Massachusetts

• Rep. Ed Markey – Reelected

Michigan

• Rep. John Conyers Jr. – Reelected

Mississippi

• Rep. Alan Nunnelee – Reelected

North Carolina

• Rep. Mel Watt – Reelected

Nevada

• Rep. Mark Amodei – Reelected

New York

• Rep. Pete King – Reelected
• Rep. Bill Owens – Reelected

Ohio

• Rep. Steve Chabot – Reelected

Pennsylvania

• Rep. Tom Marino – Reelected

Tennessee

• Rep. Jim Cooper – Reelected

Texas

• Rep. Lamar Smith – Reelected

Virginia

• Rep. Bob Goodlatte – Reelected

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Skyfall movie review – Shaken, not stirred

After the mediocre and rather dull Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in his third Agent 007 movie called Skyfall.

But don’t think for a moment that 007 has lost his touch. In Skyfall you’re brought to a blood-fizzing action scene from the get-go, reminding you what Bond is capable of. Luckily, this isn’t the only brilliant Casino Royale-like action sequence, the director Sam Mendes (Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) treats us to in Skyfall.

And that’s exactly what Bond needs in his 23rd movie, celebrating the half-century anniversary of Agent 007.

Before we go on with the review, check out the official Skyfall trailer (if you have, rewatch it – it’s still awesome).

So, the lives of all NATO secret agents are at stake and MI-6 has been put to its knees by what looks to be a job of someone familiar with the system.

Meet Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) – the main villain in Skyfall, the mastermind behind all the horror and destruction brought to London. And all he is after is the woman in charge of MI-6 – M (played, as usual, by Judi Dench).

From the very first words coming out of his mouth, you and the standing hair on the back of your neck are convinced that this guy is both mental and is going to play the villain in Skyfall well. And he does – he is unstoppable, insane and ruthless in his pursuit of vengeance.

There’s a big but here though – it seemed to us that he tries a bit too hard to be a Joker (yes, the one created by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). A mental character who would prefer total destruction of his enemy over personal gains and driven by the dark moments in his past. Of course former agent Silva isn’t as chaotic as the Joker, but we still feel the similarities are just too many. And for all the effort Javier Bardem puts, he simply cannot come anywhere near the Heath Ledger standards.

As we said – it’s a good overall performance, but just pales in comparison (and we already explained why comparisons are inevitable). It’s just that at the end we were left feeling sorry that Bond didn’t get the villain he deserved.

Now is the time to say that the acting of just about everyone else in Skyfall was absolutely flawless. Daniel Craig does his job of a sophisticated bad ass agent as brilliantly as Judi Dench plays the role of an iron lady, who puts the national interests first. By the way M has far more screen time than usual this time and she really makes it count.

Even the bad taste that Olga Kurylenko’s acting left in Qunatum of Solace is washed away, thanks to the superb acting of both ladies that caught Bond’s attention in Skyfall – Bérénice Marlohe (Sévérine) and Naomie Harris (Eve).

Decent plot, mostly great acting and jaw-dropping action sequences – Skyfall seems to tick all the right boxes. Well, there’s actually one left – the soundtrack. For a movie of such caliber, the sound was just not up to scratch. In Skyfall, the classic Bond tunes are there to support the cool explosions and action scenes, but the villain introduction could’ve been further enhanced with a better music.

And don’t even get me started on the Adele’s song used in the Skyfall’s intro. Depending on your taste you might find it to be a decent song (we mostly agree it’s horrible) but it sounds out of place. It tries to be what Chris Cornell’s You Know My Name did for Casino Royale, but fails miserably. And to make matters worse it lasts for ages – the only good thing is that it’s at the start and once you are past that there are two hours of high-quality cinematic waiting for you.

Skyfall is a great movie that doesn’t have anything remotely common with the boring train wreck that was Quantum of Solace. It takes the viewer on a joyride of explosive action, drama and clever British humor with the expert guidance of Agent 007.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Obama’s DNC speech sets new political record on Twitter

President Obama helped set a new Twitter record Thursday night, with his DNC speech provoking the most tweets ever for a "political moment."

Twitter went into overdrive Thursday night as masses of its users fired off a ton of tweets during President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to the official Twitter blog, the speech set a new record for “political moments” on the microblogging site, with 52,756 tweets-per-minute being posted at the end of the president’s address.

Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of government, news, and social innovation, wrote in the post: “The Democratic National Convention has driven an incredible amount of Twitter conversation since the very first day. [At] the close of the official proceedings, we have seen more than 9.5 million tweets sent about the events in Charlotte.”

He added that Thursday alone saw 4 million tweets relating to the convention, a figure equal to the total number sent during the entire duration of last week’s Republican National Convention.

Sharp singled out the moments during Obama’s speech which really got Twitter users going:

- 43,646 tweets for “I’m no longer just the candidate, I’m the President.”

- 39,002 tweets for “I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.”

- 38,597 tweets during a discussion of Medicare

- 37,694 tweets for “We don’t think government can solve all our problems…”

- 34,572 tweets for quips about the Olympics and “Cold War mind warp.”

Sharp assured its users the Twitter blog would be following events closely between now and Election Day in November. “With the conversation about the 2012 election happening on Twitter, the road to Election Day 2012 will be paved in tweets,” he wrote.

It seems that wherever Obama goes, the connected world goes with him. Last week he did a 30-minute ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, setting a new record for visitors to the site in the process. In fact, so many people logged on to view Obama’s AMA that the site buckled under the weight of demand, causing it to crash several times over the course of the session.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Obama weathers site crashes and takes Reddit by storm in his AMA

In a spur-of-the-moment AMA, President Obama took to Reddit, weathered some site issues, and answered (10) of our questions.

President Obama announced on Twitter yesterday that he’d be partaking in a surprise question-and-answer session on Reddit.com. The President followed through with his promise, and took to the forum a few minutes earlier than his promised 4:30 EDT start time. Because of the understandably great demand for viewing the President’s forum, many users were met a message that the site was down due to a heavy load. Not to worry, a few refreshes and users were able to gain access to the site and the President’s answers to select questions.

The issues with bandwidth and access are part of a new set of concerns as more politicians and public figures begin to consider popular websites and social media an important way to reach their constituents. Obama is not new to the concept, having held Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Town Hall events in the past. But when you include Reddit in the mix, it appears one of these things is not like the others. Reddit, a trove of cat photos, block letter memes, and other mildly NSFW content, is also a destination for millions of Gen Yers and an opportunity for the President to interact with many of his potential voters.

The questions, in true Reddit form, varied wildly. One example was a recent law graduate who had questions about his future and what Obama was doing to improve his prospects:

The President’s seemingly spur-of-the-moment AMA is an example of how close the Internet allows us to get to our politicians. The event runs parallel to FDR’s fireside chats as a way of reaching into our homes and our lives in a way that hasn’t been done before. Although the event is interactive, the President took his pick of thousands of questions and comments to respond to and ended the event with 10 responses. His freedom to be selective speaks to a weakness of the presidential AMA concept and the forum in general. For example, he chose to respond to a question about the forthcoming White House beer:

That said, the President took the event far more seriously than most of the Reddit users who asked questions or provided color commentary to the his responses.

The event and its setting also appeared to be a nod, not just to the Internet and a faithful generation, but to entrepreneurs and tech startups everywhere.  Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, tweeted during the event: “Fun-fact: POTUS doing @reddit AMA from C-Ville, VA — where 7 yrs ago Steve & I founded the company that would build @reddit.” Another indication of the focus on entrepreneurship was the president’s selection of and response to PartyInYourMouth’s question about small business policy:

Despite a few technical concerns, the unexpected event provided unique access to the president and provided him to speak to a major part of his constituency on their level. Of course, as amazing — and it was amazing — as this event was, hopefully a future AMA with the president includes more than six minutes of interaction and a bevy of softball questions. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Dropbox rolls out two-step verification to improve security

Dropbox has added two-step verification to its service to better protect its users against security breaches. The company is advising all of its users to take a moment to enable it.

We may be gradually moving away from hard drive storage toward keeping our files stored in the cloud, but for many such a transition is still a hard one to make. Fears of hackers finding a way into online accounts and stealing personal details, as well as stored data, continue to keep some from taking the plunge.

Dropbox is one such cloud-based file-sharing site that wants your custom. But to get it, it needs to convince you that all is well in the world of cloud-based storage. The process of allaying the fears of computer users takes a step back whenever a news story surfaces regarding the hack of a well-known web service. Dropbox didn’t help itself recently when it admitted earlier this month that its own service had suffered a security breach. Oops!

Two-step verification

In an effort to put things right, the site has just done something that may cause many to ask, “So why weren’t they doing that before?” We’re talking about two-step verification, meaning that instead of accessing your account solely through the usual email/password combo, you’ll be asked to enter a six-digit security number too.

The code, which is sent to your mobile phone in a text message, will also be required whenever you link a new phone, computer or tablet.

One of several apps can also be used to generate a code, which will come in handy when cellular service is unavailable.

Dropbox says you’ll need the latest version (1.15.12) of its desktop client installed before you can set-up the new layer of account security. Full instructions on how to enable it can be found on the Dropbox site here.

The feature is in the process of being rolled out, so if the option isn’t showing on your Dropbox security page now, it should be there in the coming days.

Take a moment to set it up and if you’re not convinced, keep in mind the words of Wired’s Mat Honan, who recently lost a whole load of data following a devastating hack attack: “Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it’s possible that none of this would have happened.”

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Guy switches from Android to a Lumia, Nokia decides to film and share the whole story

Oh, this is a “Dear Diary” moment! Christopher Taylor of Glasgow got fed up with his clumsy Motorola Atrix and decided to go down Windows Phone path via the Nokia Lumia 800.

Nokia, being in dire need of good publicity, decided to film the freshly-converted Chris and post the story on YouTube. The nerve, right, on Google’s own turf!

Christopher gives some argumentation on the OS shift he made. He says that the Atrix wasn’t really fast, the software was “clunky” and the smartphone didn’t have much built-in. He likes and uses Nokia Drive all the time.

In Christopher Taylor’s eyes the Lumia 800 looks and feels a lot better than the outdated Atrix. He even goes on to slap BlackBerry along the way saying his sister had one and it crashed all the time. She now too has a Lumia smartphone, just in case you were wondering.

We’re not saying the guy was paid or anything but it is a popular opinion in the comments of the YouTube video. What do you guys think? Should he have gone with a more up to date droid (One X, Galaxy S III), an iPhone, waited for WP 8 or is the Lumia 800 the all-round best choice?

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com