Feb

Expat Daily: Google Buzz, Chinese Hackers

admin Expat community, life abroad 2010-02-10

Catch the Buzz

Google is attempting to change the way expats communicate abroad. This week they announced Google Buzz which could directly affect how expats use their social networks. Will you give it a try? “On Tuesday, Google introduced a new service called Google Buzz, a way for users of its Gmail service to share updates, photos and videos. The service will compete with sites like Facebook and Twitter, which are capturing an increasing percentage of the time people spend online. The links shared on those social networks are also sending a growing amount of traffic to sites across the Web, potentially weakening Google’s position as the prime navigation tool on the Internet.”
Read more from NY Times

Hacker Culture

Hacking School Shut Down In China

The Chinese government has such down a large hacking school, in response to Google threat to leave the company. Although for some they do not see it as a dent into the hacking community, but as propaganda from the government. “Police in Hubei province announced to the Chinese media over the weekend that they had closed down the operation, which state media said was the largest training site for Chinese hackers, and arrested three of its ringleaders. Black Hawk is accused of collecting more than $1 million in tuition from 12,000 subscribers and 170,000 others who took its online courses, according to Chinese media. Police actually shut down the network in November, two months before Google made international headlines when it said it might leave China after it was hit by a series of cyber attacks originating there. To some, the announcement now suggests that the Chinese government could be getting more serious about cracking down.”