Granting Anonymity. A deliberately byzantine system of virtual tunnels that conceal the origins and destinations of data, and thus the identity of clients, Tor has been around since 2001, when programmers from and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory introduced it at a California security conference. In the past year, supported by grants from the U.S. government and other funders, the Tor Project has prolifically expanded its networks. The software has been downloaded more than 36 million times this year, and thousands of nameless volunteers — many of them Tor clients — now help to relay mind-bogglingly diverse Tor data in nearly every country on earth.
Peaceniks and human rights groups use Tor, as do journalists, private citizens and the military, and the heterogeneity and farflungness of its users — together with its elegant source code — keep it unbreachable. When a communication arrives from Tor, you can never know where or whom it’s from. And there was more. Points of Entry: This Week’s Recommendations. 40 New Social Media Resources You May Have Missed. Merry early Christmas from the Mashable team!
— wait, did you get your shopping done? The weeks before Christmas are notable for the beautiful store displays and the harried men and women desperately trying to buy that last perfect present; or any present at all. If you've been part of that crush, or just need a social media refresher, we've got a round up of tools and resources from the past week or so. The social media section can show you some creative Facebook profile hacks or why health experts are hopping online. Tech & mobile is jam packed with gadget guides, children's books on the iPad, and 10 top movies for the modern geek. Business has tips on starting a coworking space and the best apps for a mobile office. Looking for even more social media resources? Social Media HOW TO: Use Twitter’s Advanced Search [VIDEO]Twitter's advanced search functionality is a great way to find very specific real-time information. Tech & Mobile Business.
5 Tools for Online Journalism, Exploration and Visualization - ReadWriteCloud. In our last post on data journalism, we ran across a number of tools that would be helpful for anyone who is interested in how to make sense of data. The tools represent a renaissance in how we make sense of our information culture. They provide context and meaning to the often baffling world of big data. This is a snapshot of what is available. We are relying on the work done by Paul Bradshaw, whose blog is an excellent source about the new world of data journalism.
Factual Factual provides simple APIs for building Web and mobile apps. How To Create a Table With Factual on Howcast Socrata Socrata is one of a handful of companies and organizations that are shaping the open data movement in government. Google Fusion Tables Google Fusion Tables is a Google Labs project. Yahoo! Yahoo! OpenHeatMap OpenHeatMap is another example of how to turn data into maps. These are five tools that can be used for online journalism or any online research project. Two new social media tools to watch for use in Web journalism. Think about it. Two or three years ago most people had never heard of Facebook . Tweets still mainly were owned by birds, not limited to 140 characters. FourSquare was some vague game from elementary school. In general, most people had written off social media as some sort of high school fad. Well, you should know by now, Web-based social media is not a fad . If you still doubt this, temporarily remove your head from the sand and go talk to one of the more than half a billion people who spend hours and hours sharing news, photos or running a virtual farm.
In its constant evolution, though, technology routinely leapfrogs past itself as it innovates and disrupts the status quo. In other words, you ain’t seen nothing yet. What’s next? Those creating these new tools typically don’t have journalism as a possible application in mind. So, in that vein, here are two emerging tools I’ve came across that I think are worth keeping an eye on. Example: We’re celebrating your birthday at a bar.
Slideshow Maker. Diigo – your outboard brain. Livescribe, the Pen That Never Forgets. How to live stream events.