Of course, the domains could be a mix between possible move titles and video game titles, but they give subtle clues as to what the title will be about. Some of the more notable domain names that were registered include Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Wolf Pack, Star Wars Alliance, and our personal favorite: Wookiee Hunters.

Other domain names include Wolf Pack Adventures, Order 67, Bothan Spies, Gungan Frontier 2, Gungan Frontier 3, and Gungan Frontier 4. Of course, further details on these titles is far from unknown, but it at least tells us that Disney and EA are set to kick it into high gear with new Star Wars installments over these next few years.

Disney acquired Lucasfilm and LucasArts back in October, essentially getting full control over everything Star Wars. However, it came at a cost for the Mickey Mouse company, who paid just north of $4 billion for it all. It looks like that investment will come to good use, though, as Disney looks to milk the franchise for everything its worth.

[via Fusible]

The leak received by Droid Life isn’t a full functioning service, and from what is seen it is not ready for consumers. These things indicate that it could be real, although a Play Store leak isn’t exactly common, making it hard to decide what to think of the matter. If it is real, however, the prospect is exciting, as the user interface shows a complete overhaul.

Colors, fonts – everything is different, offering simplicity and a clean design. Headers are larger, icons are larger, the content is front-and-center, and as Android Community notes, the apps are presented in a manner similar to Google Now cards in the “My Apps” section. Both artwork and magazine covers are larger as well, making them both easier to see and more visually appealing.

Still, there’s no point in getting too excited about the leak yet, since there stands a chance this isn’t the real deal. If it is, Android users are in for a big change, however, and you can check out what some of those changes are over at Droid Life, where they give a run-down of alleged version 4. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

[via Android Community]

The only update to the Twitter Status page says that the issue causing the outages, which were happening for a three-hour block this morning, has been resolved. “We apologize to users who were affected by this, and we’re working to ensure that similar issues do not occur,” the update reads. Other than that, we don’t have any details on the cause behind the problems.

Looking at previous posts on the Status page, however, it becomes clear that being specific isn’t really Twitter’s way. The other two days Twitter experienced outages this month, updates said something similar to what we’re hearing today. It looks like the reason behind Twitter’s outage will remain a mystery, though it is good to hear that Twitter is trying to prevent this from happening moving forward.

While Twitter didn’t go down for everyone today, it did seem to go out on a significant number of people. We’ll be keeping an ear to the ground and listening for more details from Twitter, but at this point it seems that the company is ready to move on from today’s problems. Is Twitter still down for you, or is everything running normally on your end?

[via ComputerWorld]

Ticketmaster is now using software created by New York startup company Solve Media, which has developed a new system that’s similar to the CAPTCHA, but it asks for well-known phrases or provides simple multiple choice questions. For instance, the new system can display an image and the user inputs a word that describes the image.

Already, trials of the new system have shown positive results so far for Ticketmaster, and Kip Levin, who is the company’s executive vice president of e-commerce, says that customer satisfaction is growing thanks to the new system. Plus, he said that the company is happy with the system as far as security measures go.

As internet robots have become more sophisticated over the years, the CAPTCHA has also had to become more sophisticated in order to keep the bots out. However, as a result, it has become more difficult for users to use the CAPTCHA due to the warped text and added time it takes to fill on out. Hopefully more and more websites will migrate to using simpler systems in the near future.

[via BBC News]

Regarding the changes to navigation, Pinterest is keeping its description short. The company only says that it’s made navigation more “intuitive” and faster to boot, showing off a half-image of the new interface. We can see a new drop-down menu split into plenty of different categories on the left of the page, so look forward to that once this new design lands later on down the road.

Pins are also getting something of an overhaul in this redesign, with Pinterest making them bigger in general. Users will also see more information related to the pin they’re viewing, as the new site will show related pins as well as additional ones from the same board. In other words, expect to lose track of time while browsing Pinterest more often than you already do.

There’s no word on when these new features will roll out for everyone, but for now, Pinterest is only going to be testing it with a small group of users. If you want to join this elite few, you can submit your information to Pinterest to be considered as a tester. The company seems to be keeping most things under wraps for the time being, so hopefully we hear a bit more about this redesign soon. Keep it here at SlashGear for more.

Schroeder and Cohen were partners in 2007 and 2008 for a project called Rendezvoo and, later on, Skoopwire. Allegedly, Cohen deliberately put the kibosh on Pinterest-like ideas that were going to be implemented into Rendezvoo. Then, later on after the two had separated, Cohen invested in Pinterest, which is said to have utilized several of Schroeder’s ideas.

The primary ideas that have allegedly been stolen and used by Pinterest are boards for content and infinite scrolling. It is also being said that Rendezvoo deliberately targeted women, and that Pinterest’s high percentage of female users is another indication of its illicit use of another’s ideas. Pinterest has responded, stating that the lawsuit is baseless and will be “aggressively fought.”

Schroeder’s lawyer sent this comment to AllThingsD: “The bottom line is that it’s illegal to steal an idea for your own benefit without regard to the originator of that idea. Here, Mr. Cohen joined an existing enterprise in which Mr Schroeder had a majority interest, and then took without permission or right Mr. Schroeder’s ideas, concepts, web application and technology.”

[via AllThingsD]

While it’s an easy process overall, there’s still one more thing that you have to do in order to get the website up and running. Once you put all of your HTML files and assets into a public folder, you have to link to the files contained in the folder using the “webViewLink” code. The Google Developers site has more info about that if you’re confused about the code part.

The webViewLink code simplifies how each of your HTML files shows up in a URL. Without the code, individual files would have unique ID strings with a combination of numbers and letters, but with the code, files get recognizable paths such as “images/kittens.jpg.” Google also mentions that if you don’t have an index.html file, Google Drive will automatically just display a list of the folder’s contents.

This feature could come in handy quite a bit, especially if you’re not willing to pay for web hosting. With the Google Drive site publishing feature, you could make small websites like an online resume, a personal start page, or even a professional landing page. However, there’s no word on bandwidth limitations, but we’re pretty sure that most websites that would get a lot of hits would have their own dedicated web hosting.

The discovery was made after a hacker named ViruS_HimA posted a claim online that he had the log in info for 150,000 users. The attack was performed to make a point about Adobe’s slow process of correcting security issues, according to the hacker, who claims to be from Egypt. Out of the alleged compromised credentials, 664 records were released, which included emails.

In addition to the Adobe breach, the same hacker has threatened to publish stolen data from Yahoo, which declined comment. For Adobe’s part, the company will be resetting about 150,000 passwords on Connectusers.com, which accounts for most of its user base. In addition, Adobe’s Senior Manager of Corporate Communications Wiebke Lips offered a statement.

“As soon as we became aware of the hacker’s post, we launched our investigation, which led us to determine that the hacker appears to have compromised the Connectusers.com forum site. We are in the process of resetting the passwords of impacted Connectusers.com forum members and will reach out to those members with instructions on how to set up new passwords once the forum services are restored.” As of now, the website is still offline.

[via Reuters]

The domain has since been restored and is back up and working just fine now, but Dotcom took to Twitter earlier to inform his fans about what happened and that the website is already adding more servers to compensate for the overload. According to his tweets, he seems pretty ecstatic to the response that the website is already getting. He even claimed that FBI agents were purposely reloading the page in order to get it to overload.

Of course, that’s not too surprising considering Dotcom’s history with Megaupload. He’s currently fighting extradition to the United States, and is facing charges of internet piracy and fraud. Also, his house was raided earlier this year, and he even served a brief stint in jail. His extradition hearing is in January.

The new “Mega” website will be hosted outside of the US and it will use an encryption system that is said to rid Mega of any responsibility for hosting copyrighted material. The encryption system encrypts all files before they’re uploaded, and then an encryption key will be provided with each download that lets the user decrypt the file. Because it’s said that Mega will have no way to view the files uploaded to its servers, Dotcom claims it cannot be liable for any copyrighted files.

[via The New Zealand Herald]

The Gawker Media network consists of eight websites, such as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Kotaku, and all eight of them were taken down last night, and as of this writing, they’re still down. Buzzfeed also reported on Twitter last night that the website was experiencing some technical difficulties, but it seems to be back up and running as of this morning. The Huffington Post is partially back up, but the main website still seems to be down. The company has been tweeting the news, as well as posting on a temporary blog.

Both New York City and New Jersey have been experiencing flooding, and approximately 6.5 million people across the northeast US are without power. There have been no reports of any major flooding, but New York City major Michael Bloomberg is urging residents to stop evacuating and stay inside until the storm passes.

Apple‘s 5th Avenue flagship store ended up preparing for potential flooding, and GameStop cancelled all of its midnight releases of Assassin’s Creed III because of the hurricane. And while Google still announced all of their new products and features, they had to end up canceling their Android event in New York City due to the storm.

[via PC Mag]

Apparently Hulu’s CEO woes are brought on by the buyout of one of its investors, Providence Equity Partners. That buyout is expected to close sometime next month, and when it does, Variety says that “any Hulu executive with a significant number of vested shares” will be able to cash out. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar obviously has a lot of shares, and stands to make as much as $100 million in the event that the Providence deal closes successfully. That significant sum has Hulu worried he may take his $100 million and resign from the company.

Despite the worries, sources say Hulu isn’t searching for a new CEO just yet. Apparently Hulu board members have been talking to Kilar about his future with the company first, but so far those talks have been “without resolution.” This Providence buyout could bring more problems aside from having to search for a new CEO, however, as the memo also signals an incoming change in Hulu’s licensing agreements. It may not be long before News Corp. and Disney pare back their next-day offerings in an attempt to bring more visitors to their own websites, for instance.

Also a possibility is the end of exclusive content on Hulu. It’s suggested that these upcoming changes – or at least the possibility of them – might help convince Kilar to exit the company, but at the moment, all we have is this memo and Variety’s sources to go on. We won’t know what sweeping changes this Providence buyout brings with it until the purchase is officially on the books, but if these rumors are true, get ready for a pretty big shakeup at Hulu’s offices.

“Investigators have copied all the information from the servers Demonoid and sealed them,” an anonymous ColoCall source tells Ukrainian newspaper Kommersant “Some equipment was not seized, but now it does not work, and we were forced to terminate the agreement with the site.” The source said that Demonoid’s owners – who remain unnamed and are thought to be operating out of Mexico – had backups stored with ColoCall, but the fact that they haven’t used any of them yet suggests that Demonoid has been closed for good.

This raid on Demonoid’s servers coincides with a US visit by Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky. In his first visit to the United States, Khoroshkovsky apparently discussed copyright infringement (among other topics), though USTR spokesperson Carol Guthrie tells Ars Technica that Demonoid wasn’t specifically mentioned during the meeting. Regardless of whether or not it was, the Ukrainian government seems happy to stand by the US as it attempts to bring file sharing sites down.

Demonoid did what it could to avoid prosecution in the Ukraine by denying access to anyone with a Ukrainian IP address, but that doesn’t seem like it was enough. It’s unclear if Demonoid will return eventually, but we have a feeling it will end up much like MegaUpload. To put it simply, don’t expect Demonoid to be up and running again anytime soon, if ever. Stay tuned, because this definitely isn’t the last we’ll hear of governments taking down file sharing sites.

Search autocomplete will appear to you in the main search bar at the top of Twitter – the same place the twitter search bar has been for some time. What you’ll see with this update is a list of results that pop up under the search bar whenever you type in several characters. You’ll be able to select from these results or disregard them altogether if you’d like.

Also included in those results that pop up downward is a set of the people that you follow on Twitter as their name results to the word you’re typing. After your search is entered, you’ll see a list of results that come from an improved search engine inside Twitter that will push the following, per Twitter:

• Spelling corrections: If you misspell a term, we’ll automatically show results for your intended query.

• Related suggestions: If you search for a topic for which people use multiple terms, we will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter.

• Results with real names and usernames: When you search for a name like ‘Jeremy Lin,’ you’ll see results mentioning that person’s real name and their Twitter account username.

• Results from people you follow: In addition to seeing ‘All’ or ‘Top’ Tweets for your search, you can also now see Tweets about a given topic from only the people you follow when you select the ‘People you follow’ view. Viewing Tweets about a topic from just the people you follow is a great way to find useful information and join the conversation.

Results for your searches should be more relevant and accessing your friends’ twitter accounts should be more of a snap than a click festival. Have a peek at our timeline below to keep up to date on all things Twitter as well – do it now!

ALSO NOTE: These changes won’t be immediate, but you will see them soon!

Akamai will provide content via its Aqua Mobile Accelerator system while Qualcomm will serve it up on its now famous Snapdragon processors. Pages should load faster as Akamai caches the newest content from various websites, with Qualcomm’s hardware optimizations helping to keep everything moving along.

The two companies say that consumers will start to see the benefits of the partnership in Android devices starting from the fourth quarter of this year. If you crave every ounce of performance out of your smartphone, you’ll just have to sit tight until then.

This situation is just one hiccup in a multi-million-dollar program which has taken in nearly 2,000 proposals for brand new domain suffixes such as .barefoot, .youtube, and .joy – and is part of one gigantic expansion of the way we’ll use the web. The internet address system has not been expanded at this scale in its entire history, with the birth of the web seeing limits that eventually lead to the most popular domain name suffix being .com, one the page you’re viewing now uses, incidentally.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see how ICANN has been commanding stories about this program for the past few weeks and months, and let us know if you’ve partaken. If you could have one domain name all to yourself, what would it be? And would you us it for your own personal gain, or would you go corporate with it? Speak up and grab the web by the behind!

[via Washington Post]

Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf wrote today that they’ll be picking up domains, or at least starting to apply for them, in four main categories. The first of these is Google domains such as “.google”. The second category includes items related to Google’s core business such as “.docs” which of course associates with Google Docs. After that, domains like “.youtube” will be picked up to “increase the ease with which YouTube channels and genres can be identified.”

Along with improving user experiences through brand-heavy domains, Google will be picking up names that they feel “have interesting and creative potential” such as the ubiquitous “.lol”. Google has made a promise along with this situation as well.

“We want to make the introduction of new generic TLDs a good experience for web users and site owners. So we will:

• Make security and abuse prevention a high priority
• Work with all ICANN-accredited registrars
• Work with brand owners to develop sensible rights protection mechanisms that build upon ICANN’s requirements” – Google

The group within Google responsible for picking these domains up has been reported by Ad Age as applying for more than 50 TLDs. Each of these TLDs carries a $185,000 USD application fee, this meaning Google has spend over $9,250,000 on applying to own domain names alone. We estimate the potential revenue Google will bring in from this purchase through projects in the future to be much, much greater than that.

Stay tuned as Google covers the web with their lovely new fancy domain name additions in the coming months and years.

Back in 2005, NBC purchased the majority of the Microsoft stake in the MSNBC television network and begin the transformation into a liberal alternative to Fox News according to Adweek. Today NBC owns the television network outright. However, the MSNBC.com website has remained a joint venture. According to the sources, NBCUniversal and Microsoft have progressed to the point in talks where NBCUniversal parent company Comcast is performing due diligence.

The MSNBC.com website gets significant traffic from prominent placement on the MSN portal. One of the sources claims the companies are expected to negotiate a deal that would secure MSNBC.com content on the MSN.com website. It remains unclear what would happen MSNBC.com employees if the deal goes through.

[via Adweek]

According to Reuters more attacks are on the way as the activist group pushes to highlight corruption and work towards human rights improvement. They mention one of the groups members told them this specifically. This comes just days after all the attacks last week that even had messages warning of the downfall of the Chinese government.

The tweets and information released to Reuters outlined 10-12 people that are a part of the Anonymous China group, and that they have multiple attacks coming soon — a few at a time. One comment even suggested that the censorship and walls blocking out Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be removed at some point. Stating they will take down the “Great Firewall of China.” Now that would be impressive, right?

Google also notes that a search delay of only 400ms is enough to cause users to search less, roughly the blink of an eye. This is pushing fierce competition among large websites and search engines to be the fastest. Pages laden with interactive content such as video also need to be very fast, 4 out of 5 users leave a page if the video stalls while loading.

It seems mobile web surfers are willing to wait longer, Google reports that the average webpage loads in about 9 seconds on mobile devices compared to about 6 seconds globally on computers. In the US, we need about 3.5 seconds on average to open a webpage. It’s clear that there is a big opportunity to win more users on the mobile web by offering faster sites.

“Subconsciously, you don’t like to wait,” said Arvind Jain, a Google engineer who is the company’s resident speed maestro. “Every millisecond matters.”

[via Economic Times]