Android 2.2 supports Flash , but if you hoped to watch Hulu on your brand new Android device, you’re out of luck, since Hulu doesn’t have arrangements with the content producers to cover mobile phones . However, there’s a nifty trick to make Hulu run on your Android 2.2 device; all you need to do is trick Hulu into thinking it’s running on a desktop browser. According to Absolutely Android , the procedure is as follows: open the web browser on your Android device, type about:debug into the address bar and press Go. Go to settings, scroll to the bottom and select UAString; now change the setting to Desktop, and enjoy Hulu on your Android device. This trick has been tested on Google’s Nexus One. Unfortunately, it comes with certain drawbacks; you get the desktop version of Hulu instead of one optimized for mobile devices; furthermore, it will likely get blocked by Hulu very soon. Still, it warms our hearts to see that watching Hulu on an Android, although through unofficial means, is indeed very possible. For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: android , Flash , hulu , video
Popular movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is now integrated with Apple’s iTunes Store, giving viewers the chance to instantly see the rating of a movie in the form of a popularity gauge called the Tomatometer. Rotten Tomatoes is a popular site that’s been around since 1998, and it’s been acquired by Flixster early this year. It takes the reviews of professional movie critics around the world, counts the positive (fresh) and the negative (rotten) reviews and turns them into a percentage-based grade. Now, you can see the Tomatometer in movie descriptions on iTunes, along with a couple of blurbs taken from some of the top critics’ reviews. It’s a great way to quickly check out whether a movie is worth watching; if you want more info, you can jump to Rotten Tomatoes for more reviews with a click. For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: itunes , Movies , rotten tomatoes
Hot on the heels of Pakistan’s blockade of Facebook due to caricatures of Prophet Muhammad comes the news that Pakistan has also blocked YouTube due to “sacrilegious” content. While the Facebook ban in Pakistan was a direct result of a group calling users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad, the YouTube blockade isn’t explained in detail. According to AP , Pakistan Telecommunications Authority simply cited “growing sacrilegious contents” as the reason for the ban. The ban of Facebook and YouTube is likely to continue until representatives from both sites contact the Pakistani government and resolve the dispute in a way that “ensures religious harmony and respect.” Facebook representative said the usual way to resolve such issues, if the group in question doesn’t break its terms of service but is illegal in another country, is to restrict the group from being shown in that country. However, the blockade seems to be much wider, as some of our readers, as well as reports on Twitter , point out that access to Flickr, Wikipedia and other sites has been restricted, too. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: censorship , Pakistan , youtube
We must admit we’ve predicted The Pirate Bay’s downfall ages ago, but it still hasn’t happened. Things were indeed looking grim for the file sharing service: first, there was the lawsuit from the entertainment industry that left the Pirate Bay’s team scattered and struggling to stay the course they’ve charted for themselves. Then the news that the entire service was to be sold (the sale never happened) to a Swedish Gaming Company seemed to have scattered the Pirate Bay’s fans, too. All these storms have come and went, and the service still stands, seemingly more resilient than ever. Yesterday, the Pirate Bay went down following the pressure from the RIAA, which threatened to slap TPB’s hosting provider with huge fines. But once again, it was only a matter of switching hosts, and the Pirate Bay is online again, this time hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party . “We got tired of Hollywood’s cat and mouse game with the Pirate Bay so we decided to offer the site bandwidth. It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity,” said the Pirate Party’s Rick Falkvinge in a statement. TPB itself was, as usual, in the mood for mocking the RIAA. Here’s the entire text of today’s message from The Pirate Bay’s blog : PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN LOL! A S U MITE HA S READ OR NOTICD, PEEP S ON C E AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WI L L NOT SUCCED, L O L. OURS RLY NICE W EBHOST WUZ THREATE N D WIF RLY HUGE FINE, S O WE DECIDD 2 MO OV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO T R OUBLE, LOL. TEH DEC I SHUN 2 MOOV WUZ T A KEN BY US, TEH PIRATE B A Y, LOL. TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX. TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003 We’ll leave it up to you to decipher the hidden message (;. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook , Twitter Tags: piracy , riaa , the pirate bay
Looking at all the major webmail players – Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail – we have a classic clash of old and new. If you compare the number of users, Hotmail is still the top dog – Hotmail has around 343 million users , while Gmail is still much smaller, with approximately 150 million users as of September 2009. But Gmail has been adding features relentlessly in the past couple of years, and the sleek integration with other Google’s services has made it the fastest growing webmail. And just like many other Google services, it also happens to generate the most buzz in the media. Now, Microsoft announced a huge slew of upgrades to Hotmail to make it more competitive with Gmail, and we have to admit the list is impressive. It starts off with a Hotmail Highlights, a quick overview of what’s new in your inbox, organized by source (such as email contacts or social contacts from Facebook or Twitter). Personally, this reminds me of the way Windows 7 “simplifies” the control panel and many other Windows features, and I prefer just skipping to the real thing. But this new view is definitely clean and simple, and I’m sure many users will get used to it quickly. The Sweep function is touted as a simpler alternative to email filtering, enabling you to quickly organize the emails which aren’t exactly spam, but you want to tuck them somewhere out of view. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s simpler than Gmail’s filtering options. The new Hotmail is also integrated with the Office Web Apps, meaning you can edit documents directly from your inbox. You can also store the documents and photos you send on Microsoft SkyDrive, which means you don’t have to worry about size constraints; your documents reside in the cloud. Microsoft also took it a step further with document integration when it comes to consuming content. If you receive a video from Hulu or YouTube, you can view it right there in the inbox. If you receive attached photos, you can see them in the form of a nifty slideshow (provided you have Silverlight installed). Finally, Microsoft mentions some other features it hasn’t discussed in details: enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple email accounts, subfolders, contact management, and ever-growing storage. All in all, you could say it’s catching-up, but we’ll give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and call it a complete overhaul. It’ll be hard to steal users away from Gmail, which still has a zillion minor features that Hotmail doesn’t (just check the Labs), but Hotmail will most likely be a worthy competitor after the new version is launched this summer. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: hotmail , microsoft
Free software pioneer Richard Stallman spoke with us recently about the principles of free and open source programs, and what he had to say is as relevant and revolutionary as when he first started working in this field 30 years ago. Our community has been talking a lot lately about what it means to be open , about what makes software open, about what makes companies open. No matter what talk of “openness” you hear in the media, no major web company — not Facebook, not Google, not Adobe and certainly not Apple — is creating truly free and open applications. Some may make gestures toward this ideology with APIs or “open source” projects, but ultimately, the company controls the software and the users’ data. At the end of the day, if you want freedom and privacy, the only way to attain those goals is to abstain from proprietary software, including media players, social networks, operating systems, document storage, email services and any other program that is licensed, patented and locked down by a corporation. If you prefer convenience — well, best to stop complaining about your loss of freedom and/or privacy. Like many heroes of the digital era, Richard Stallman is largely unsung by the general populace. Yet when it comes to user privacy and technological freedom, he’s probably one of the most committed individuals in the world. By freedom, he means four things: The software should be freely accessible. The software should be free to modify. The software should be free to share with others. The software should be free to change and redistribute copies of the changed software. Stallman started the Free Software Foundation . He even worked to make an operating system ( GNU/Linux ) that could be entirely free. And he is deeply opposed to proprietary software, software with commercial licenses that fly in the face of everything he calls freedom. If you’ve ever downloaded music illegally, if you’ve ever complained about closed platforms, if you’ve ever gotten a serial number online for software you didn’t buy, if you’re worried about social networks controlling your data, you need to hear what Stallman has to say. We got the chance to interview Stallman extensively at WordCamp San Francisco, and we’ll be posting segments of that interview each week. Stay tuned for insights on music sharing, Apple versus Adobe and more. Note: Stallman asked that we use Ogg Theora , an open format, for encoding this video. To download the original video, go to its Wikimedia page . This video is published under a Creative Commons-No Derivatives license. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: free software , freedom , open source , rms , Stallman , video
New research from UK research firm BCS suggests that, on average, people around the world think that information technology (i.e. Internet access) increases their sense of freedom by 15% and improves their overall well-being. Altogether, our life satisfaction increases by 10% when we have IT access, the study concludes. BCS’s study set out to better understand the relationship between IT and well-being, and to determine if there is a link — positive or negative — between the two. The report, ”The Information Divident: Can IT make you happier?”, is based on data collected from more than 35,000 survey respondents across the globe. BCS’s primary finding — that, statistically speaking, IT has a positive impact on life satisfaction — is quite interesting, especially considering that some research shows that greater wealth doesn’t correlate to greater happiness (one would think money would make people happier than access to Twitter). And others believe that Internet addiction could become a chronic childhood illness. The results indicate that those who benefit most from IT access are women, individuals in lower income households and those with less education. The institute argues that this is because “IT helps to promote and enable empowerment and autonomy.” For women specifically it serves as an important “social and family network support tool.” You can read more about BCS’s findings in the full report embedded below. Info Dividend 1 [via Ars Technica ] [ img credit: One Laptop Per Child ] For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: internet , it , web
Don’t Tell Ashton is an interactive art project which lets any Twitter user participate simply by replying to @donttellashton . Depending on the number of followers, the user will be represented by a bigger avatar. Hence the name of the project, Don’t Tell Ashton: if Twitter’s most popular user, Ashton Kutcher , were to add himself, his avatar would be so big that it would cover the entire frame. When you move your mouse over the artwork, you can see how big individual users’ avatars are and the number of followers they have. Space seems quite limited, so you need to hurry if you want to be a part of the project. While the idea is interesting, it suffers from some obvious problems. First of all, what if someone tells Ashton? His enormous avatar in a picture frame wouldn’t make much of an artwork. Secondly, the entire thing is a bit…unsightly. It reminds us of the Million Dollar Homepage which was fun while it was being built, but it ended up being quite an eyesore. Still, the authors of the project, students from the Interactive Communication class at Berghs School of Communication, are quite serious about it, and the artwork will eventually be turned into a physical piece by Swedish artist Jon Holm. That’s ok, just don’t tell Ashton. Tags: art , ashton kutcher , social media , twitter
Did you know that the second most popular Facebook Page is that of Homer Simpson, right behind Michael Jackson? Or that the overall amount of time spent on Facebook each month is 8.3 billion hours? (We shudder to think how much of that time is spent on FarmVille ). If you ever want to impress anyone with your knowledge of Facebook miscellanea, below is the ultimate cheat sheet in the form of a very large infographic. Enjoy! EMBED THE IMAGE ABOVE ON YOUR SITE [Source: Online PhD Programs for Mashable.com] [via: Online PhD Programs for Mashable.com] For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook , Mashable , Twitter Tags: facebook , infographic , social networking
A group of employees at Google’s offices in London have taken their time (working at Google really seems the best job in the world when you’ve got time for stunts like this) to create a Google logo out of 884 individually printed 4
