Who Are the Real Online Influencers? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Hands-On First Impressions of iOS 6 At WWDC 2012, Apple unveiled the next generation of iOS. iOS 6 sports more than 200 new features and upgrades — including the new Apple Maps, deep Facebook integration and improvements to Siri. Although iOS 6 won't be available on compatible devices until sometime this fall, the first beta build is currently available to developers. We've installed iOS 6 on our new iPad (64GB Verizon LTE model) and poked around with the new features. While it is clear that this is a beta — certain features aren't fully baked, and there is some crashing and inconsistency with a few existing apps — it's equally clear that this is a solid OS update. SEE ALSO: iOS 6: Everything You Need to Know Because we've tested iOS 6 on an iPad and not an iPhone, we can't explore all of the new iOS 6 features. Maps Apple's decision to eschew Google Maps in iOS 6 is a big deal. The 3D models from C3 Technologies are immediately evident in Apple's new mapping app — at least, in the areas that have already been rendered. Siri

Building Secure Web Applications: An Infographic Article by Nate Lord Neglecting to take proper security measures at the application layer is one of the most common causes of data breaches, yet many companies still leave their applications unprotected. Securing your applications begins with developer training on the risks applications face and the methods required for vulnerability prevention. This infographic focuses on defining these risks and combating common flaws. Cross-posted from Veracode The views expressed in this post are the opinions of the Infosec Island member that posted this content. Unauthorized reproduction of this article (in part or in whole) is prohibited without the express written permission of Infosec Island and the Infosec Island member that posted this content--this includes using our RSS feed for any purpose other than personal use.

Spun Out Of Evri With $3.5M From Paul Allen, SportStream Brings Its Social Sports Platform To The iPad The Web is noisier than ever before. Content is being produced en masse, in realtime, making it increasingly difficult to separate the signal from the noise. Evri, the realtime content discovery engine, aims to help you find the signal in the noise by indexing millions of news sources and turning that mess of unstructured data into topic-based channels. Last year, the startup really accelerated its shift to mobile, differentiating its own apps from the umpteen news-aggregating iPad ‘zines out there by not only by letting you follow your interests, but by using its engine to determine the relevance of a topic based on how much it’s been covered, the coverage’s velocity, and the rate of sharing on social networks. And what creates more noise, sharing, and inspires more loyalty than sports? General news aggregation is a crowded space, but sports? SportStream also offers Facebook authentication to let users quickly find the games their friends are watching and join them.

Revealed! The top five Android malware detected in the wild The release of a brand new version of Sophos's free anti-virus for Android (it actually does much more than just anti-virus, hence our marketroids call it Sophos Mobile Security) makes this an opportune time to update users on the Android malware landscape. SophosLabs has examined the stats produced by installations of Sophos Mobile Security, which is now being used on Android smartphones and tablets in 118 different countries around the world - and it's making for interesting reading about which malware is being most frequently encountered on the platform. 1. 2. These malicious apps can send and read SMS messages, potentially costing you money. 3. 4. 5. As I'm here writing this run-down, I might as well document some of the other most commonly-seen Android malware: Andr/DroidRt-A is a set of privilege escalation exploits that can allow someone to to obtain root access to an Android device. (Enjoy this video? Andr/Boxer-A. It's quite clear that Android malware is a growing problem.

Apple: Androids are much less likely to be running an up-to-date OS than iPhones and iPads Apple CEO Tim Cook, and his senior executives, took to the stage at WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) in San Francisco earlier today. As well as announcing upgrades to some of the firm’s laptop hardware, and discussing new features coming in Mountain Lion and iOS 6, they also found it impossible to resist taking the opportunity to crow about Apple’s success at getting users to run the latest version of its mobile operating system. Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS software, told the developers assembled at the conference that over 80% of iPhone and iPad users are running iOS 5. According to the stats that Forstall presented, most Android devices are still running version 2.3 (Gingerbread) of the operating system. I bought an Android smartphone a few years ago, but ultimately the thing which turned me off the experience was the sheer difficulty in keeping its operating system up-to-date.

Fundamental Science and the Big Machine : Annaka Harris interviews Lisa Randall Lisa Randall is one of today’s most influential theoretical physicists and a Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Her work has been featured in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, the Economist, Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, Science, Nature, and elsewhere. Randall is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Physical Society, and is the recipient of several honorary degrees. When not solving the problems of the universe, she can be found rock climbing, skiing, or contributing to art-science connections. Hypermusic Prologue, a small opera for which she wrote the libretto, premiered in the Pompidou Center in 2009, and Measure for Measure, an art exhibit she co-curated, opened in Los Angeles in 2010. Annaka Harris is a freelance editor of nonfiction books and a Co-founder of Project Reason. It’s funny.

Quantum Cryptography Outperformed By Classical Technique Quantum cryptography has had a bad couple of years. For a decade or so, we were promised the capability to send messages with absolute secrecy guaranteed by the laws of physics. At least in theory. In practice, however, things turned out a little differently. Then, earlier this year, a UK-based team showed that these kinds of practical limitations can never be overcome entirely since there is no way to prove beyond doubt that any machine is not compromised (unless it is used only once and then thrown away). So rather than being perfect, quantum cryptography turns out to be just ‘pretty good’, a standard that is perfectly acceptable for most people and one that very much looked as if it was the best we ever can hope for. Now quantum cryptography has a rival. Once again the secrecy is guaranteed by the laws of physics but instead of quantum mechanics, Kish and co say the second law of thermodynamics provides the necessary underwriting. The idea is straightforward.

Google's New Brain Could Have a Big Impact Late last month, Google’s search engine got significantly smarter. A store of information dubbed the “Knowledge Graph” now adds useful context and detail to the list of links that Google serves up. Searching for certain people, places, or things produces a box of facts alongside the regular results. “Search was mostly based on matching words and phrases, and not what they actually mean,” says Shashidar Thakur, the tech lead for the Knowledge Graph in Google’s search team. The Knowledge Graph can be thought of as a vast database that allows Google’s software to connect facts on people, places, and things to one another. Such a stock of knowledge about the world should have uses beyond just helping people who are searching for facts online. When a person searches on Google, the conventional results are based on algorithms that look for matches with the terms rather than the meaning of the information entered into the search box.

The next move for Facebook’s ad empire: real-time bidding With its stock value sinking, Facebook is looking to restore faith in its ad-based business model any way it can. It’s solution? A form of ad auctioning known as real-time bidding. With the new system, dubbed “Facebook Exchange”, advertisers will be able to display more targeted ads using the browsing history of individual Facebook users, Bloomberg reports. While real-time bidding is new to Facebook, it’s already in use by companies like Google, Yahoo, and Aol. “By bidding on a specific impression rather than a larger group, advertisers are able to show people more relevant ads while also running more efficient and effective campaigns,” Facebook said in a statement. Real-time bidding is a different sort of beast from the pre-paid ad model most people are familiar with. This is all done in real-time, which means that not only is the system swift and flexible, but it’s also potentially more powerful as well. The problem? Photo: People raise hand to be picked/ Shutterstock

Wordpress and Facebook are finally together, officially Facebook announced an official WordPress plugin today for cross-posting content, enabling tighter, cleaner, and simpler integration between millions of WordPress blogs and Facebook. All I can say is: finally! I’ve been using WordPress blogging software since before it was WordPress. Seriously. Before there was WordPress there was b2/cafelog, around 2001 (if you remember that, you’re among the proud and the few). In 2003, Matt Mullenweg released WordPress, which today has grown from a simple piece of blogging software to the most popular choice for a content management system on the planet. Facebook, you all know. Integrating Facebook and WordPress has always been a little tricky. So an actual plugin from Facebook itself is a big deal. What the Facebook for WordPress plugin does is cross-post content published on your blog to your Facebook timeline or Page. This is a simple, clean plugin that does what most WordPress users need. Image credit: ShutterStock

The Rise of Mobile Photography [INFOGRAPHIC] Many of the photo filters on Instagram evoke a sort of instant nostalgia. Pretty soon, though, mobile photos will be just about all we have to be nostalgic for. You've probably noticed the trend in your own photo streams and news feeds. SEE ALSO: 10 Inspiring Non-Profits on Instagram Here's a shocker: 3,500 photos are uploaded to Facebook each second, adding to its behemoth collection of 140 billion photos.

Facebook Asks Every User For Their Phone Number and Pins Security Link Atop Homepage To Prevent Disaster Every single Facebook user is or will soon be seeing a link at the top of their desktop news feed asking them to “Stay in control of your account by following these simple security tips”. The link leads to the the Facebook Security page where users are taught how to spot a scam, pick a unique password, and most interestingly, confirm their mobile phone number for account recovery. Facebook confirmed with me that the message will roll out to all desktop users over the next few days, and millions are seeing it right now. And while it might seem like a response to other recent security breaches on the web, Facebook tells me this security alert was planned before those happened. Here’s why having confirmed phone numbers could help Facebook avoid a LinkedIn-esque fiasco… If Facebook were to get hacked or an individual got their account stolen, having confirmed phone numbers lets Facebook wipe people’s passwords immediately and send them new ones via SMS.

5+ Ways Entrepreneurs are Different from Everyone Else Successful entrepreneurs are really smart. Just look at Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, guys who could get a lobotomy and still do your math homework. But intelligence is not the defining characteristic of successful entrepreneurship. Instead, the secret is a more prosaic quality: good old-fashioned stick-to-itiveness. That’s the conclusion reached by Carol Tice, author of How They Started: How 25 Good Ideas Became Great Companies. Not Fazed by Failure “When a normal person starts a business and it fails, they go get a job,” she explains. Successful startup founders are also able to figure out what they’re doing wrong while they’re doing it - and start doing something else fast. Take, Twitter, for example. “Great entrepreneurs think on the fly and shift on a dime,” says Tice, whose book includes case studies of tech companies including eBay, LinkedIn and Zynga, along with nontech businesses such as Chipotle, Whole Foods and Spanx. Confident, Brash and Cocky

Photovoltaic cells tap underwater solar energy | LifeSciencesWorld Contact: Daniel Parrydaniel.parry@nrl.navy.mil 202-767-2541Naval Research Laboratory WASHINGTON — Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Electronics Science and Technology Division, dive into underwater photovoltaic research to develop high bandgap solar cells capable of producing sufficient power to operate electronic sensor systems at depths of 9 meters. Underwater autonomous systems and sensor platforms are severely limited by the lack of long endurance power sources. “The use of autonomous systems to provide situational awareness and long-term environment monitoring underwater is increasing,” said Phillip Jenkins, head, NRL Imagers and Detectors Section. Even though the absolute intensity of solar radiation is lower underwater, the spectral content is narrow and thus lends itself to high conversion efficiency if the solar cell is well matched to the wavelength range. High-quality gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) cells are well suited for underwater operation.