users

Pandora hits milestone with 200M users

Despite being hit by competitors from all sides, Pandora continues gain users at a steady rate.

The music streaming service announced today that it hit a major milestone by racking up 200 million registered users. It took the company six years to get 100 million users, but less than two years to double that number to 200 million.

"When we launched http://www.pandora.com in 2005, we hoped to create a new way to discover and enjoy music that was completely personalized for each and every listener," Pandora founder Tim Westergren wrote in a blog post today. &… Read more

New Firefox expands 'porn-mode' abilities

Along with an update to the infamous "porn mode" that turns off your browser's ability to record your browsing session, the new Firefox 20 includes usability and back-end changes.

Firefox 20 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) updates now allow you to run a private browsing session in a new window, alongside a standard Firefox browsing window. On Firefox 20 for Android (download), the browser now lets you run private mode tabs next to standard session tabs.

Private browsing on Firefox is analogous to Internet Explorer's InPrivate or Chrome's Incognito. It's a feature that turns … Read more

eBay sets ambitious goal for 2015: $300B in transactions

E-commerce site eBay looks to be moving into high gear.

CEO John Donahoe announced today that by 2015, he expects the company to be handling $300 billion in transactions per year, according to The Wall Street Journal, nearly twice what it did in 2012. That means, for 2015, between $21.5 billion and $23.5 billion in revenue from both eBay and its payments processing unit PayPal. In 2012, the company earned $14 billion in revenue.

According to the Journal, the company also plans to double the number of active users on its site over the next two years -- … Read more

Twitter hit with $50M suit over anti-Semitic tweeter data

The Union of Jewish French Students, UEJF, has doubled down in its battle with Twitter and said it filed a $50 million lawsuit against the social network yesterday.

The cause of the suit? User data for anti-Semitic tweets.

The fracas goes back to October when Twitter was awash in anti-Semitic French-language tweets tied to the hashtag "#unbonjuif" ("a good Jew"). This prompted the student union and other anti-racism groups to ask Twitter to remove both the tweets and the hashtag. The social network complied by deleting the tweets in France that it deemed racist.

While deleting … Read more

YouTube breaks records with 1 billion monthly users

What does 1 billion monthly YouTube users signify? It means that nearly one out of every two people on the Internet worldwide goes to YouTube.

That's a serious amount of people.

Google's video hosting service announced today that for the first time, it's driving these colossal numbers -- more than a billion unique users on the site, every month.

"If YouTube were a country, we'd be the third largest in the world after China and India," YouTube wrote in a blog post today. "Our monthly viewership is the equivalent of roughly 10 Super … Read more

How Samsung might actually get featuritis under control

Editor's note: This article was originally published January 9 during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It was updated March 15 with information about the Galaxy S4.

Samsung has a serious case of featuritis, but it's trying to get better.

The Korean electronics giant has long been known for its push to include more and more features in its products, whether it's new capabilities like NFC in smartphones or software like smart TV apps. Samsung uses such features as a way to differentiate its new gadgets from those of rivals and from its older products, and … Read more

Google's electronic eyewear gets 'OK Glass' voice commands

"OK Glass."

Those are the two words that Google showed today will initiate a variety of commands for its Glass computerized eyewear.

In the Google Glass "How it Feels" video, people speak the words "OK Glass" and then pick from a list of featured voice commands to send a message, record a video, take a photo, launch a video-chat hangout, conduct a search, check the weather, or get driving directions.

The demo is a concrete illustration of how Google is evolving its technology from a mere search engine to a constant personal companion that augments your mind. … Read more

Apple nabs 18 patents related to 'axis-based user interface technology'

Apple has acquired 18 patents related to "axis-based user interface technology," the intellectual property's former owner Maya-Systems announced yesterday.

According to Maya-Systems, which developers content-management technologies, the companies signed the deal in the third quarter of 2012. Apple acquired only a portion of the company's axis-based user interface technology.

Maya-Systems' axis-based technologies allows developers to group files around a given axis. In some cases, that can mean timelines. The technology is available in the company's IAmOrganized program, which provides file management and cloud storage.

That cloud-storage element is making some folks across the Web speculate … Read more

How to create a hot key to switch users in OS X

OS X is a multiuser operating system so each user can tailor the system for his or her own needs without interfering with another user's workflow. With this setup, not only can multiple people use a system, but an individual can also configure it to have multiple work environments.

For example, if you use your computer for two jobs and would like to keep all work for one completely separate from another, then one option is to use multiple user accounts for this. Alternatively you might like to have a separate user account for testing purposes if you've … Read more