The Era of Twitter Without Instagram Has Now Begun












We know everyone is a little bummed about all those filtered photos disappearing from your Twitter streams this weekend, but let’s not get all worked up about it: They are disappearing, and there is no scandal.


RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore












TechCrunch’s  Drew Olanoff got a little too excited on Friday and thought a single in-stream photo meant that Instagram was allowing its Twitter cards back on Twitter and thought the two services were planning a sudden reunion. You may have seen some, too, but a Facebook spokesperson assured users these Instagram photos on Twitter were the last holdouts in the switchover. ”What you are seeing now may be some sort of regression depending on the mobile client, but we’re checking in with the engineers,” read Facebook’s statement, via Talking Points Memo’s Carl Franzen.


RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos


Which means the end of this particular social-media marriage is upon us. Despite the immediate user backlash, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has made it pretty clear that the photo-sharing app doesn’t plan on making nice with Twitter. In case you hadn’t accepted the reality of Silicon Valley competition the first time around, this photo-friendly weekend might be the time to check out our handy three-step guide to getting over it. 


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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“Breaking Bad,” dominates Writers Guild TV nominations












LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Dark drug drama “Breaking Bad” dominated television nominations for the annual Writers Guild Awards on Thursday, with “Modern Family” leading the way in the comedy category.


A trio of HBO newcomers – Lena Dunham‘s “Girls,” Aaron Sorkin‘s “The Newsroom,” and political satire “Veep” – will compete in the new series category, along with network comedy “The Mindy Project” and country music drama “Nashville,” the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced.












“Girls,” the story of three 20-somethings navigating life and love in New York City, also won a nomination in the best comedy series slot, along with established shows “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Louie” and Emmy darling “Modern Family.”


The Writers Guild recognizes achievements in the writing of U.S. television, radio, news and animation, rather than actors or directors. The Guild will announce its nominations in the movie field in January.


“Breaking Bad,” starring Bryan Cranston as a teacher turned drug kingpin and now in its fifth and final season, picked up five nods on Wednesday, including best drama series and four for individual episodes.


The show is likely to face stiff competition from psychological thriller “Homeland,” which won the WGA’s award for best new drama last year and has since bagged an Emmy and Golden Globe.


“Mad Men,” lavish Prohibition-era show “Boardwalk Empire,” and fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” round out the competition for best drama series.


In longer form television, miniseries “Hatfields and McCoys” – about a 100 year-old family feud – was nominated along with TV film “Hemingway and Gelhorn” and “Political Animals.”


The WGA will hand out its awards in all categories on February 17 at simultaneous ceremonies in both New York and Los Angeles.


(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; editing by Andrew Hay)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Ghana election to test credentials of “model democracy”












ACCRA (Reuters) – Ghanaians choose on Friday who will run one of Africa‘s most stable democracies as a surge in oil revenues promises to boost development and economic growth.


Ghana has earned a reputation as an oasis of stability and progress in West Africa, a part of the world better known for civil wars, coups, entrenched poverty and corruption.












“These elections are important not just to Ghana, but for the growing number of states and actors seeking to benefit from increasing confidence in Africa,” said Alex Vines, Africa Research Director at Chatham House.


Incumbent leader John Dramani Mahama – who replaced the late John Atta Mills after his death from an illness in July – will face main opposition candidate Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and six others.


Opinion polls point to a tight race between the two main candidates, raising the prospect of a repeat of the near deadlock in 2008 elections, in which Mills defeated Akufo-Addo with a margin of less than one percent.


“We know it will be close, but the important thing is that Ghanaians will accept the results,” said John Mark, a shuttle bus driver in the sprawling capital Accra. “We must preserve our peace,” he said.


U.S. President Barack Obama has called Ghana a “model of democracy in Africa” for stepping back from the brink during the tight 2008 polls, when other countries in the region might have tipped into conflict.


Ivory Coast erupted into civil war last year after disputed elections in 2010, and other regional neighbors Mali and Guinea Bissau have been thrown into chaos by military coups.


“In all this, let us remember that Ghana is bigger and more important than any of us,” Mahama said late on Thursday in a radio address ahead of the poll. “The surest way to sustain and enhance our enviable image is to go to the polls tomorrow in an atmosphere of peace,” he said.


OIL REVENUES


The stakes are high this time around with rivals jousting for a chance to oversee a boom in oil revenues that has brought hopes of increased development in a country where the average person still makes less than $ 4 a day.


U.K.-based Tullow Oil, which operates Ghana’s only producing field, says it expects output to rise to 120,000 barrels per day in 2013 from between 60,000 and 90,000 bpd this year, while more big deposits have been found.


Ghana, also a major cocoa and gold producer, is expected to keep up growth of about 8 percent next year and is increasingly cited by investment bankers and fund managers as a growth gem, in contrast to the woes of Europe and the United States.


Across the capital Accra, evidence of the resource wealth abounds – brightly-lit multi-storey buildings, cranes looming over new construction sites, well-paved roads, and billboards advertising banks, cars, and mobile phones.


But many Ghanaians remain out in the cold. An influx of people from rural parts of the country, hoping for jobs in the capital, has yielded a sprawl of outlying shanty towns and many homeless on the city’s streets.


Akufo-Addo, a trained lawyer and son of a former Ghanaian president has criticized the ruling party for the slow pace of job creation and fighting poverty, and says he would use the expected uptick in oil wealth to pay for free primary and secondary education.


Mahama, meanwhile, says his party’s investments in infrastructure will bring increased prosperity over time. He said he aims to put Ghana on the path to a per capita annual income of $ 2,300 by 2017 – double that in 2009.


But in a country where campaign messages rarely influence voting choices, many believe more than half of the 14 million voters will cast their ballot based on ethnic and social affiliation, or regionalism.


Mahama is from the north, where he finds his strongest support, and Akufo-Addo, well-liked by fellow Ashanti people and favored in Ghana’s second-city Kumasi, is from the east.


On Friday, voters will also elect 275 legislators.


There are 45 more seats in parliament than during the 2008 election, in which Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) won a small majority.


(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Louise Ireland)


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Toronto mayor to stay in power pending appeal of ouster












TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford can stay in power pending an appeal of a conflict of interest ruling that ordered him out of his job as leader of Canada’s biggest city, a court ruled on Wednesday.


Madam Justice Gladys Pardu of the Ontario Divisional Court suspended a previous court ruling that said Ford should be ousted. Ford’s appeal of that ruling is set to be heard on January 7, but a decision on the appeal could take months.












Justice Pardu stressed that if she had not suspended the ruling, Ford would have been out of office by next week. “Significant uncertainty would result and needless expenses may be incurred if a by-election is called,” she said.


If Ford wins his appeal, he will get to keep his job until his term ends at the end of 2014. If he loses, the city council will either appoint a successor or call a special election, in which Ford is likely to run again.


“I can’t wait for the appeal, and I’m going to carry on doing what the people elected me to do,” Ford told reporters at City Hall following the decision.


Ford, a larger-than-life character who took power on a promise to “stop the gravy train” at City Hall, has argued that he did nothing wrong when he voted to overturn an order that he repay money that lobbyists had given to a charity he runs.


Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland disagreed, ruling last week that Ford acted with “willful blindness” in the case, and must leave office by December 10.


Ford was elected mayor in a landslide in 2010, but slashing costs without cutting services proved harder than he expected, and his popularity has fallen steeply.


He grabbed unwelcome headlines for reading while driving on a city expressway, for calling the police when a comedian tried to film part of a popular TV show outside his home, and after reports that city resources were used to help administer the high-school football team he coaches.


The conflict-of-interest drama began in 2010 when Ford, then a city councillor, used government letterhead to solicit donations for the football charity created in his name for underprivileged children.


Toronto’s integrity commissioner ordered Ford to repay the C$ 3,150 ($ 3,173) the charity received from lobbyists and companies that do business with the city.


Ford refused to repay the money, and in February 2012 he took part in a city council debate on the matter and then voted to remove the sanctions against him – despite being warned by the council speaker that voting would break the rules.


He pleaded not guilty in September, stating that he believed there was no conflict of interest as there was no financial benefit for the city. The judge dismissed that argument.


In a rare apology after last week’s court ruling, he said the matter began “because I love to help kids play football”.


Ford faces separate charges in a C$ 6 million libel case about remarks he made about corruption at City Hall, and is being audited for his campaign finances. The penalty in the audit case could also include removal from office.


(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Russ Blinch, Nick Zieminski; and Peter Galloway)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Zynga moves to enter US gambling market












NEW YORK (AP) — Online games company Zynga said it has asked Nevada gambling regulators for a decision that could pave the way for it to enter the U.S. gambling market.


This follows Zynga’s October disclosure that it has signed a deal to offer online poker and casino games, played with real money, in the U.K. It plans to launch those games in the first half of 2013.












Zynga Inc. said in an email late Wednesday that it is seeking an “application for a preliminary finding of suitability” from the Nevada Gaming Control Board. This, the company says, is part of its plan to enter regulated “real-money gaming,” that is, gambling markets.


Zynga has not said what it plans to do with a gaming license. But the company, whose games are played primarily on Facebook, has faltered in recent months and is looking for additional revenue sources beyond online games such as “FarmVille 2″ and “Words With Friends.”


The San Francisco-based company says the process with Nevada regulators should take 12 to 18 months. If Zynga passes the first regulatory hurdle, it can then apply for a gaming license in the state. That, the company said, takes two to three months.


Zynga’s stock rose 17 cents, or 7.1 percent, to close Thursday at $ 2.49. The company went public about a year ago, when its stock priced at $ 10 per share.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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A Minute With: Scottish DJ Calvin Harris hits big time in U.S












LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Scottish DJ Calvin Harris may not be the most recognizable face in the U.S. music scene, but after writing Rihanna‘s biggest chart hit and with two other top 20 singles, Harris is fast becoming a chart staple.


Harris, 28, found success in the UK over the last five years before storming the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this year with “We Found Love,” a dance-infused dark love song featuring Rihanna’s vocals that became one of 2012′s biggest hits.












The DJ, who released album “18 Months” in November featuring other hits “Feels So Close” and “Let’s Go,” sat down with Reuters to talk about his U.S. breakthrough.


Q: Did you ever think “We Found Love” was going to be one of the biggest hits in the U.S. this year, and what do you think of the growing British presence in the U.S. music charts?


A: “I hoped that it would do really well, but you can’t predict writing Rihanna’s biggest-ever record, else you’re an egomaniac. Couldn’t have predicted that – that was a surprise. It’s nice that British music is getting played over here, it seems like everyone has a more even playing field than before.”


Q: Why do you think dance music is becoming such a big part of the U.S. scene?


A: “The people to thank are probably the Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga. They were the first two American mainstream acts to have that house beat in their songs, whereas before, it was all hip hop. I remember Ne-Yo, when ‘Closer’ came out … and it bombed here but in the UK it was number 1, it was massive … Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Got a Feeling’ and (Lady Gaga’s) ‘Poker Face’ that was pushed really hard, and once they were huge, huge hits … radio stations wanted more and there was plenty of it because it’s been going on for years.”


Q: There are a lot of DJs coming into the mainstream scene now. How do you make yourself stand out in a saturated market?


A: “I like making dance records with lyrical depth. I also like the music to sound rich and full and have real instruments, and not be that kind of synthetic sound, combined with lyrics about popping bottles, being in the club … I like them to be the sort of lyrics you can find in another genre because I think dance music historically, the lyrics have been banal and I’m not into that. I like making actual songs but also something that still works on the dance floor.”


Q: Your new album “18 Months” has songs that span different sounds within the dance-pop genre. Were any tracks challenging?


A: “The two most challenging mixes were the tracks with Example and Florence (Welch), because I think the key is to make it sound like there isn’t that much going on when actually there is … it was a more difficult mix because it was more dynamic.”


Q: Some critics say that you use well-known artists like Rihanna or Florence just so you can get hits. What do you say to people who think you’ve sold out?


A: “Critics don’t buy albums, they’re also almost 90 percent either failed musicians or they don’t know better than anyone else. Also, I don’t like them. What’s the point of a critic? … I ‘sold out’ when I signed a major record deal, which was in 2006. People didn’t say I sold out then … so don’t accuse me of selling out now. It’s very very late to do that.


“If Florence Welch wants to do a track with me, I’m going to say no and use someone unknown? … I want to do a track with people I like, not people I haven’t heard of before.”


Q: Some of your music videos have been provocative. “We Found Love” features domestic abuse and drug use, and Florence Welch’s “Sweet Nothing” has violence. Do you think music videos have to provoke to be noticed?


A: “I like videos to be seen by all and the guy who’s done my videos since ‘Bounce,’ Vince Haycock, I forever censor him … But recently, I’ve let him do whatever he wants and it’s more fun, I’ve discovered, to make whatever video he wants to make … I guess you’re more likely to get more views if someone is getting smacked in the face with a chair … ‘Sweet Nothing’ was great, but there was a lot that was cut out, like a brutal fight scene at the end … it got cut out because I couldn’t watch it, and the soundtrack was my music. There’s obviously a boundary. I’ve not had any naked people in my videos yet.”


Q: A lot of DJs are now collaborating with brand names in sponsorship deals. Are you doing anything similar?


A: “I’m genuinely just making music, I’m trying to make it good. I know these guys with their headphones and their logos and their gimmicks – you can take that route but I think it’s just added pressure to uphold something … Other people do it much better than me because they’re more like personalities.”


(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Nick Zieminski)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Lilly tests therapy to rid brain plaques in mice with Alzheimer’s












(Reuters) – Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co said it may have found a way to remove plaque from the brains of forgetful, old mice using an experimental therapy it hopes someday will be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease in humans.


Previous animal studies have demonstrated that it is possible to prevent the formation of brain plaques, which are thought to be a hallmark of the progressive memory-robbing disease. But until now, researchers have not been able to remove pre-existing plaques, made of amyloid beta protein, once they have deposited into the brain, Lilly said.












These deposited plaques are insoluble, whereas soluble forms of amyloid beta are free-floating around the brain and have been easier to target.


Lilly researchers developed a genetically engineered antibody that selectively targets insoluble plaques and was able to cross the blood-brain barrier. The antibody was then able to bind itself to the deposited amyloid beta, and clear roughly 50 percent of pre-existing plaques in the mice without causing damage to tiny vessels in the brain.


“We’re very enthused about understanding the mechanism and science behind it,” lead researcher Ronald DeMattos said in a telephone interview. “We don’t know how it translates in humans until we test human antibodies in clinical trials.”


Indeed, there have been scores of mice that were cured of cancer and other diseases with experimental drugs that did not work in humans.


But Lilly is excited about this study because, at least in mice, a new therapeutic approach for Alzheimer’s disease appears to be viable.


DeMattos said the drugmaker, which is developing other Alzheimer’s drugs, is already engineering a human antibody that will target insoluble plaques. He said he expects the company to begin clinical trials using this antibody within a year.


Results of the study, entirely funded by Lilly, were published in the journal Neuron on Wednesday.


Lilly’s best known Alzheimer’s disease drug is solanezumab, a medicine given by infusion that attacks amyloid beta protein. In data presented in August, the drug failed in large clinical trials to arrest cognitive and physical declines among patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. But it was shown to somewhat delay cognitive declines in patients with mild symptoms.


(Additional reporting Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Nick Zieminski)


(This story corrects timeline paragraph eight to start clinical trials to one year.)


Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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UK warned on debt ‘credibility’













The UK’s failure to meet a key public debt target “weakens the credibility” of its top AAA credit rating, the Fitch ratings agency has said.












Debt will now not fall as a proportion of the country’s output until 2016-17, a year later than Chancellor George Osborne had targeted.


Fitch said that the Autumn Statement confirmed the scale of the challenge facing the UK.


In March, it said the UK’s AAA rating was under threat.


A cut to the credit rating would mean that the country is perceived as more risky to lend to, thereby raising the cost of borrowing from international investors.


The Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent body that makes economic forecasts for the government, announced that the UK will miss its debt target and the economy will contract by 0.1% this year – a big revision from the time of the Budget in March, when it said that the economy would grow 0.8% this year.


Growth forecasts for the next five years were also cut.


“We forecast gross general government debt to peak at 97% in 2015-16, approaching the upper limit of the level consistent with the UK retaining its AAA status,” Fitch said.


Continue reading the main story

PDF download Autumn Statement 2012[2,800 k]


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“The government has chosen not to chase the supplementary target by deploying additional consolidation measures over the next two years. In our view, missing the target weakens the credibility of the UK’s fiscal framework, which is one of the factors supporting the [AAA] rating.”


It warned in March that it could downgrade the UK in the next few years if the government does not contain the level of public debt.


Fitch said it would formally review the UK’s rating after the next Budget in March 2013.


In February, rival agency Moody’s also warned that the UK’s credit rating may be cut in future, potentially increasing borrowing costs.


Confusion on borrowing


On borrowing figures, the chancellor said that debt would not begin to fall as a proportion of the country’s output until 2016-17, which is a year later than the government’s target.


Before the statement, many analysts had predicted that the budget deficit, which is the amount the government is having to borrow in the current year, would be higher than it was last year.


However, it is now forecast to fall from £121bn in 2011-12 to £108bn in 2012-13.


But there was some confusion about how that had been achieved, with shadow chancellor Ed Balls complaining about the full figures not being in the Mr Osborne’s statement.


BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders said that the deficit figure had fallen because the government had decided to use the proceeds from the sale of licences to run 4G mobile phone services to reduce this year’s borrowing.


Without that, she said, the deficit would have risen “maybe by a couple of billion pounds”.


There was also a reduction in the deficit of £11.5bn in the current year as a result of the Asset Purchase Facility.


As a result of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme, the central bank currently owns a lot of the government’s debt.


If anybody else had lent money to the government it would have had to pay interest on those loans.


The government has now decided it should not be paying interest to the Bank of England, and the benefit of that has reduced the deficit and will continue to do so for the next four years.


BBC News – Business


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Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300












NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.


Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.












At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.


Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.


About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.


“These were whole families among the registered missing,” Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. “Entire families may have been washed away.”


The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha’s ferocious winds.


Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging flood waters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.


A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. “I have three children,” she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.


Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.


Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.


“The water rose so fast,” she told AP. “It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end.”


In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns that were so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.


“We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs,” Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.


The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $ 4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.


The sun was shining brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.


But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day’s flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.


After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.


As of Wednesday evening, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.


The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III’s government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.


Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.


A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.


The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon’s devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.


___


Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.


Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Microsoft #DroidRage Tweet Shows How Malware Has Moved Past Windows












“Do you have an Android malware horror story?” Microsoft asks through its @windowsphone Twitter account, in what may be one of the most ironic tweets of the year.


After all, it wasn’t that long ago that “virus” and “worm” stories made headlines on a regular basis, all of them about “computer viruses” which were really Windows viruses. Just a few years ago, Apple advertised the fact that a Mac “Doesn’t get PC viruses” as a reason to buy one.












But this year, 600,000 Macs were infected by the Flashback trojan, an epidemic which exceeded the scale of history’s single largest Windows infection. And now ​Microsoft​ is implying that its phones don’t get malware, as a way to advertise them. How did things get to be this way, and what will malware and virus authors do next?


​When virii attack


For years, Microsoft’s DOS and Windows operating systems were the biggest targets for virus and malware authors simply because they were the least secure. Today’s PC security best practices had yet to be built into them, and trying to bolt features on to ancient programming code was a half-baked solution at best. HugeWindows malware epidemics spread as the malware programs were able to install themselves without explicit permission and operate without user intervention.


​Network effects


One reason Microsoft Windows dominated the computing world for years and years was simply because it was dominant. More people using Windows meant more profits for Windows app developers, which meant more games and apps for Windows, which meant more people buying Windows PCs so they could use Windows games and apps.


Like with apps, malware is a business that makes money for the people who write it. And while it was theoretically possible to infect a computer running a more secure operating system, like OS X (used on Macs) or Ubuntu (powered by Linux), it was considered impossible to get it to spread far enough to be profitable. Whereas on Windows it was (and still is) possible to infect vast numbers of PCs, even chaining them into zombified “botnets” which act as supercomputers-for-hire.


​How the mighty have fallen?


OS X’s more secure design makes it extremely hard to infect with malware — normally. The Flashback trojan sneaked in this year using the Java web browser plugin, which is bundled with the Mac’s Safari web browser and was poorly maintained.


Plugins like Java and Flash open up new ways to infect a computer, which was one reason why Apple stopped including the Flash plugin (already absent on its iPhone and iPad) by default. Apple created a fix for the problem, but not before over half a million Macs were infected.


​What about on smartphones?


Unlike Apple and Microsoft’s app stores, the Google Play store allows anyone to submit anything with no review. It’s up to Android smartphone and tablet users to look at the “permissions” each game or app requests, as well as the reputation of their developers, and decide whether or not to install them.


While some consider this approach more “trustworthy” and respectful of users, it’s also helped lead to a comparatively enormous number of malware infections on Android, including “The Mother of All Android Malware,” which completely took over tens of thousands of phones last year.


​Are you #DroidRage-ing yet?


Microsoft’s tweet says “we may have a get-well present” for people who send it their best or worst stories of Android malware. Even if all the apps in the Windows Store are virus-free, however, there are still far fewer of them than there are for Android.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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