Outrageously stupid as it may sound, the Indian Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal has asked Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like to self-censor objectionable content right when they are uploaded by the users. This order was issued after Sibal found a Facebook page filled with hate-speech for Sonia Gandhi, a member of the ruling Congress party.

Soon after the news spread, people took to Twitter and Facebook to express outrage, mostly expressing concern about free-speech in a democratic country. Kapil Sibal was already a black-sheep due to his vile behaviour during the Jan lokpal revolution a few months ago and hence this was just fuel to the fire. Besides, I think that Mr. Sibal’s demand to put human watch over the constant hose of 250 million tweets per second, 48 hours of video per minute and 70 million statuses & updates is downright idiotic. Internet is practically the only place left where people can express their deepest thoughts with least hesitation or fear.

Here are some of the strong words of the Twitterers,

Thankfully, there’s no call-to-action from Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft. Google also denied to comment on the issue. However, 6-weeks ago, three representatives from these companies had a meeting with Sibal and stated that “If there’s a law and there’s a court order, we can follow up on it”.

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I am not a native English speaker but I am happily willing to go an extra mile to learn new phrases, definitions and idioms. Whenever I come across an unknown word, I look it up using Google‘s Definition feature using the ‘define:‘ keyword. Lately, to my surprise, I noticed that the definitions provided by Google are much more detailed and informative.

You will notice that apart from the definition, it clearly shows whether the word is an adjective, adverb or a noun and shows its meaning relative to each of them. What’s more awesome is that, Google even shows synonyms of the word. All this right within the search results, properly formatted! Also, if you are trying to figure out how to pronounce a word, simply click the small speaker icon or read the phonetic. Of course, links to popular online dictionaries are there as usual.

I am sure this feature is now available in other languages as well. It is one of those small features that makes our lives easy.

Youtube is the 3rd most visited site in the world as per Alexa rankings. YouTube is serves more than 89% of online video views and with other mind-boggling stats, it just keeps getting better. Unless you live a part of the world that still uses dial-up internet, you might be spending atleast a few hours per week to watch Youtube videos.

Today we have something that enhances your video viewing experience – Youtube Enhancer. This userscript does a lot of value addition to Youtube and makes it a perfect application for viewing online videos. Simply install Youtube Enhancer script (Firefox users will need Greasemonkey addon to install this script while Chrome users won’t require anything and get lots of useful options on Youtube.

Some of the nice features of Youtube Enhancer:

• Hover previews: Simply take your mouse over a video thumbnail and it shows more frames from the video.
• Download videos: While viewing a video, a blue download button appears to the top-right.
• Lights-off: Clicking on the small bulb icon in the top-right makes the screen go black Ento give you that ‘theater-feel’.
• More playback options: You will see some more controls like ‘loop the video’, ‘step forward/backward’, ‘kill stream’ and buttons to see videos in all quality and sizes.
• Autoplay on/off
• Better volume control
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts

There’s no reason you shouldn’t be using this free script. Download & install Youtube Enhancer now!

Skype app for iPhone has been around since December 2010 and owing to the increased demands, the king of video chat rolled out an app for iPad as well. The Skype app for iPad is optimized for larger screens and has all its regular features i.e. Video chat, IM and SMS.

Those who have the first version iPad might not be able to use the two-way video chat feature but still can receive video calls. With Skype credits, the app is as good as the desktop client for you can chat with users on multiple platforms. Check out the Skype App at the App Store.

If you keep up with the latest tech news, you’d know that Google has recently launched a new social networking service Google+ which emphasizes on privacy and bring about a new dimension to how we interact with our friends and acquaintances online.

Going by the looks of it, it has some serious potential to give a tough fight to the social behemoth – Facebook. Tons of blogs already compared the two services and Google+ is mostly being appreciated all over. In such conditions, you’d least expect Mark Zuckerberg to have a Google+ profile. But, he actually went ahead and created one.

When one of the Google+ users spotted Mark’s profile, it created a stir in the web community regarding whether or not it was an authentic account. To verify, Robert Scobble, asked Mark via a text message to which he replied, “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?”, revealed Robert in a tweet.

This may be Mark’s way of expressing his (ahem) generosity especially because Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were reluctant to create their profiles on Facebook in the past. I think the online world and services therein have intermingled with each other to an extent that it’s only foolish not to have a ‘Mark’ even on your competitors services. Good going Zuck.

Google is currently under a massive overhaul. With lots of iterative design changes, the internet giant has revamped Gmail too. You will have to activate the new ‘preview theme’ to experience the new avatar of Gmail, complementing heavily with the new design changes that Google brought about in search and other services. The flavor of the new theme goes along side with the likes of Google’s newest baby – Google+.

This is what the new Preview theme in Gmail looks like:

To activate:

Go to Gmail Options (the small gear button on the top-right) > Mail Settings > Themes tab > Preview

Enjoy the new sleek theme. You can also select the Preview Dense version if you prefer less white-space. I personally loved the theme. It is clean and so much 2011. What do you guys have to say?

Google’s homepage has never seen substantial changes since years, excluding of course the occasional doodles. I am sure it must have been cited a countless times as an example of simple, minimalist yet effective web design.

However, Google’s been experimenting heavily on the design elements on many of its products lately. But recently, there has been a significant change in its homepage design. Google added a contrasting black navigation bar at the top to better highlight their services and reduced the size of the logo. According to Google, the new homepage was designed to increase user interactivity and uses HTML5 and WebGL.

I liked the new design. What about you?

Yes, as per the official schedule, Firefox 5 is going to be released on June 21 but it’s ready and you can download it from the ‘warehouse’, I mean, the unofficial repository.

Just so you know, Mozilla, and almost all browser developers, have now started following the ‘release often’ policy whereby you will see newer versions of your browsers every 3 months or so. The versioning numbers will also increment at a faster rate. After Firefox 4, a new version is now due. Firefox 5 brings in lot of bug fixes and new features like Do Not Track Header. Download Firefox 5 here:

Firefox 5 for Windows

Firefox 5 for Linux

Firefox 5 for Mac OSX

Today, Twitter launched the Follow button – making it easy to follow people directly from anywhere on the internet. The Follow button’s modus operendi is more or less like Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, allowing easy subscription to stuff you like.

The official announcement states that almost 50 sites have already implemented the ‘Follow button’ on the first day of its launch. The Follow button will make it easy for people to instantly subscribe to the Twitter updates of their favorite celebrity, athlete, product or brand. Also, you can preview the latest tweets and bio of the profiles by clicking the username beside the Follow button.

Follow @TechExplorerIn

To those unaware, Twitter had introduced @anywhere last year using which you could display context-aware hovercards on links pointing to a Twitter account. I guess, Twitter needed a much more direct and simple way to achieve similar functionality and hence the Follow buttons.

Adding a Twitter Follow button is very simple. Just head over to ‘http://twitter.com/followbutton’, enter your username, copy the code and paste it on your webpage.

This is a guest post by Paul from BroadbandExpert.com. If you too would like to send in your posts as guest, just shoot an email to techexplorer.in@gmail.com.

When fast internet is talked about, satellite broadband internet providers come next. The major problem about getting the best satellite provider does not only rest on the connection speed you will get from your satellite internet provider but there are more other things that you need to consider ahead of that. Get me right, I’m not trying to say the connection speed does not matter, it matters but the fact is that almost all satellite internet providers you will come across will offer you seemingly fast speed. What you rather need is the satellite internet provider that will give you a reliable and quality service. How then do you know the one that can satisfy your need?

The fact that the market is full of their demand which has subsequently given rise for the establishment of many of them with their different plans for private use and small and medium business use. There is the need for you to pay attention to some things while looking around for the satellite broadband internet provider of your choice.

List the broadband satellite providers in your area

Go around and garner the list of broadband internet satellite providers in your area. What your list should comprise of would be the price quotes and the plans available for business and home purpose. This list will enlighten you on the way you make your choice about the broadband internet satellite provider you will go for. When you must have gathered the list and have analyzed their price quotes together with their service plans, you will then compare them to each other to know whose plan will suit your need better. Then you can make a right choice between the many broadband internet satellite providers in your list. While making your comparison, you have to cross check you result for better accuracy.

Find out the reputation of the ISP you want to go for

Then the reputation of the broadband internet satellite provider you want to go for is very important. Check for their reputation and take a look at their past records. How has their service influenced people in the past? How viable are they presently? The truth is that if you go for a less reputable broadband internet satellite provider, you have a lot to lose. Try as much as possible to avoid newly established broadband internet satellite providers until they are well established. Don’t for the sake of price go for a broadband internet satellite provider that will not benefit you in any way.

Consider the speed

The speed is also very important to you because not every broadband internet satellite providers are truly what they call themselves. Many will advertise a different data speed as what you will get from their service but after subscribing for their service it’s a different thing entirely you will find. If you can’t get the desired speed from a particular broadband internet satellite provider, you can take another turn and consider other ones. The speed you will get from a broadband internet satellite provider is as important as the price and if you can’t get the desired speed you want from a particular ISP there is no point in going for their service.

Ask existing users to find out about the quality of their service.

Another way to know which broadband internet satellite provider will benefit you well is by asking existing customers about the quality of the services they offer. Users must have experiences to share to you about their broadband internet satellite provider. With the experience they are going to share with you about their broadband internet satellite providers you can make a better judgment about them and know which broadband internet satellite provider will suit you most.

This is a guest post by Paul on choosing the best satellite providers.

[Image courtesy: Geek.com]